• I mentioned on this page last month that Max Allan Collins would soon begin work on the first new novel he’s written about professional thief Nolan since 1999, when his series prequel, Mourn the Living, first saw print. Now we have a title for the forthcoming new Hard Case Crime publication: Skim Deep. In his latest blog post, Collins also provides a cover for that paperback—complete with a very Lee Van Cleef interpretation of its protagonist—plus covers for the Hard Case re-releases of all the Nolan yarns, which are to be published in a two-per-book format with art by British artist Mark Eastbrook.
• Meanwhile, Martin Edwards reveals that his next novel, a 416-page sequel to 2018’s acclaimed Gallows Court, is due out from UK publisher Head of Zeus in April 2020. Titled Mortmain Hall, its story will be set in 1930 and again star Fleet Street journalist Jacob Flint—this time, framed for murder. The cover artist is Edward Bettinson.
• Check out this piece I wrote for my other blog, Killer Covers, about Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre’s new book, Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980 (PM Press). It comes complete with a dozen fine selections from among that volume’s more than 350 vintage cover images.
• For those people who are keeping track, it was two years ago today that then 76-year-old Texas mystery novelist and raconteur Bill Crider, who had been writing a most entertaining blog ever since 2002, posted his final entry on that page, concluding: “It saddens me to think of all the great books by many writers that I’ll never read. But I’ve had a great life, and my readers have been a big part of it. Much love to you all.” Crider died two months later of prostate cancer.
• I was saddened to hear last week that 71-year-old mystery fiction historian Willetta Heising had died at her Dearborn, Michigan, home on April 25. (Yes, I know that was a while ago, but the news has apparently been very slow in spreading.) Jiro Kimura provides this short Heising bio in his blog, The Gumshoe Site:
The former financial planner was well-known in mysterydom as the mystery list-maker of Detecting Women: A Reader’s Guide and Checklist for Mystery Series Written by Women (1995) … and Detecting Men: A Reader’s Guide and Checklist for Mystery Series Written by Men (pocket edition, 1997; large-size trade paperback edition, 1998), an Agatha winner in the non-fiction category. [The updated] Detecting Women 2 (1996), an Edgar nominee, won the 1997 Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards, while Detecting Woman 3 (1999) won an Anthony.I can’t claim to have known Heising at all well, but we did engage in correspondence over the last decade, and I have copies of both Detecting Women and Detecting Men on my reference shelves. They were terrific resources at the time of their publication.
• In British TV news … The BBC One crime drama Shetland, which takes its inspiration from stories by Ann Cleeves and stars Douglas Henshall as Scottish Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, has been renewed for two more series. That same channel’s six-part presentation of The Trial of Christine Keeler, starring Sophie Cookson and Grantchester’s James Norton in a plot based on the infamous 1963 Profumo Affair, is set to begin broadcasting on Sunday, December 29. And we finally have a date on which Wisting, based on Norwegian author Jørn Lier Horst’s best-selling novels, will begin broadcasting: Saturday, December 28, on BBC Four. We can only hope all of these productions someday make their debuts across “the pond.”
• By the way, I recently stumbled across the only small-screen flick made from one of Jonathan Valin’s books starring Cincinnati, Ohio, private eye Harry Stoner: 1989’s Final Notice, headlined by former Buck Rogers star Gil Gerard. At least for the time being, you can watch that two-hour mystery here.
• And CrimeReads today posted a most entertaining essay about “the evolution of the femme fatale in film noir,” penned by Los Angeles writer Halley Sutton.
1 comment:
Oh, I hadn't heard that Willetta Heising had died! Thank you for passing on that news. Like you, I had corresponded with her in recent years. In my opinion, Detecting Men and Detecting Women were the forerunners of Stop You're Killing Me. Wonderful books.
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