In Reference to Murder

Halloween Blog-O'-Lanterns

Kathleen Ryan, one of The Women of Mystery, posted several Halloween links for your seasonal and entertaining pleasure, although I'll emphasize a couple of them below.

The Stiletto Gang is holding a Hallopalooza starting October 30th. Included in a Halloween Blog Mystery Scavenger hunt, complete with prizes.

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare has a listing of Halloween mysteries, and if you start today and read 13 of them each day through Halloween, you'll get through all 52 on the list, with a daily short-story chaser.

The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City is hosting a special Halloween party celebrating the release of Otto Penzler's latest anthology, The Vampire Archives. The fun starts October 29th at 6pm with Mr. Penzler and bibliographer Daniel Seitler available to sign books. There'll be some munchies, too.

The bookstore Mystery Loves Company in Oxford, Maryland, is one of the featured participants in a city trick-or-treat event. Come with your best Halloween costume and join them for the party starting at 5:30 on October 31st.

Over at Laurie's Wild West blog, view the exhibit of Halloween-themed pulp fiction covers, with one addition courtesy of Davy Crocketts Almanack.

Sandra Seamans has a little paranormal activity to check out.

J.D. Rhoades at Murderati and Elaine Viets at The Lipstick Chronicles share their favorite ghost stories (with Elaine's having a personal connection).

Eric Cole is featuring 13 Days of Horror, featuring stories and poems by guest contributors.

Still struggling with an idea for your Jack-O-Lantern design? The Oakland Tribune held a pumpkin-carving contest and posted the winners in a slide show on their web site (with thanks to Bill Crider for the link).

Some Linkage

Shots Mag Confidential is reporting on a new serial thriller competition to be judged by Lee Child. The contest is run by ABC Tales and Shots, with entrants asked to write ten episodes of a serial thriller, each 1,800 words or ten-minutes when read aloud, and each episode must have a cliff-hanger ending. The winner will have their full story read by a professional actor and be published as a serialised podcast with an intro by Child.

Big Beat From Badsville has a reminder about the Manchester Literary Festival which runs October 15 - 25. Participants include Mark Billingham and Val McDermid on a panel together and also an appearance by Kate Atkinson.

CrimeTime has news about a "sumptuous" new edition of the Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes coming in early November in the UK. A special Christmas gift hardback edition, quarter-bound with black leather and linen, will be published alongside the gold-foiled paperback reissue. Both editions include a new foreword from Ruth Rendell. It's part of the commemoration of 2009 marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sandra Seamans notes that Keith Rawson at BookSpot Central has revived the Short Thoughts on Short Fiction Reviews posted every Tuesday.

Wednesday Wanderings

From around the blogosophere, here are some interesting tidbits which include a couple of book giveaways (proving sometimes there is a free lunch, or at least, a free book), interviews ranging far and wide, and essays on topics such as "why we don't need stupid characters" and "lady killers of the 1940s."

• Over at the Women of Mystery blog, Lois Karlin reviewed British crime writer Martina Cole’s Faces and has info on a chance to win a copy of the just-released American edition of the novel.

• Meanwhile, the Book Bitch has the lowdown on how to win a signed copy of Ridley Pearson's Killer Summer and two unsigned paperbacks from that same series.

• On the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel's blog, Oline Cogdill notes that Chauncey's Book Group on Facebook is hosting James O. Born in their online discussion of his book The Human Disguise, tomorrow at noon.

• The busy Cogdill also writes for the Mystery Scene Magazine blog, taking inspiration from a discussion on the Dorothy-L list as she opines about why we don't need stupid characters in mystery fiction.

• Ali Karim over at the Rap Sheet has a great interview with Joseph Finder, who switches from standalone thrillers to a series character, corporate investigator Nick Heller, in his novel, Vanished.

• Speaking of Joseph Finder, his latest column for the Daily Beast features Stephen L. Carter, Yale law professor and author of the new novel Jericho’s Fall, who reveals he wrote his latest novel in eight weeks.

• Martin Edwards of Do You Write Under Your Own Name? reviewed an episode of the Wallander series produced by Swedish television (not to be confused with Kenneth Brannagh's production) which was recently shown on BBC4. Starring Kirster Henriksson in the title role, Edwards pronounces it "first-rate viewing."

• Mysterious Matters looked back at some of the lady killers from the 1940s, including Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (The Innocent Mrs. Duff and The Blank Wall), former MWA Grand Master Dorothy B. Hughes, Margaret Millar (In a Lonely Place) and Celia Fremlin. 

• Mysterious People held a conversation with Scottish novelist Gillian Philip, who actually began her writing career while living in Barbados. 

• The Beatrice blog interviewed Rennie Airth about his series of police procedurals (Scotland Yard) set in England a few years after the First World War.

• Sandy Parshall interviewed Katy Munger for Poe's Deadly Daughters. Munger took a few years off from publishing but returns with two new novels, the debut of the Dead Detective series (written under the pseudonym Chaz McGee), and Bad Moon on the Rise, the latest in her Casey Jones series.
  

• The Guardian wrote an obit for Gordon Burn who died this past Friday, calling him "one of the greatest – and arguably underrated – British writers of his age" who influenced other writers like David Peace and turned northern England into as foreboding a backdrop as James Ellroy's Los Angeles or Ian Rankin's Edinburgh.