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.
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