Mystery Melange

If you want a literary way to "read in the new year," check out Janet Rudolph's listing of New Year's Mysteries, Crime Fiction, Thrillers, and Movies.

Just in time for New Year's Eve parties, The Guardian's Henry Jeffreys also took a look at a history of booze in books, from from Brideshead Revisited to James Bond.

The 50th California International Antiquarian Book Fair will celebrate its 50th Anniversary February 10-12, 2017 at the Oakland Marriott City Center. The special exhibit for the anniversary year will highlight the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library genre fiction holdings, including items from the extensive collection of influential author, critic, and literary mentor Anthony Boucher; first editions by early members of the Northern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America; selections by popular western and adventure writer Kenneth Perkins; MWA Grand Master Ross Macdonald, and more.

A call for papers was announced on the topic of "Hardboiled History: A Noir Lens on America's Past," for an event at the University of Warwick in the UK on May 19, 2017. The main confirmed speaker is Warren Pleece, comic artist and graphic novelist, with more guests to be announced later.  (HT to Ayo Onatade at Shots Ezine.)

The Seattle Times' Adam Woog reviewed the new release from Hard Case Crime, the very first publication of a lost work by Erle Stanley Gardner. Although Gardner is best known today for his Perry Mason series, he also penned hardboiled detective team of Cool and Lam, stars of 29 novels (1939 -1970). It's one of the latter that has just been published, The Knife Slipped, meant to be the second book in the Cool and Lam series until the publisher shelved it for Bertha Cool’s tendency to "talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people."

The Rap Sheet’s "Favorite Crime Fiction of 2016" includes lists from seven of its frequent contributors, Jim Napier, Seven Nester, Kevin Burton Smith, Stephen Miller, Jacques Filippi, Ali Karim, and J. Kingston Pierce.

Editor Alec Cizak is considering resurrecting his Pulp Modern magazine in a new format and he's looking for some feedback. You can read about his thoughts on why the previous model didn't work and what he's thinking about doing via his blog. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.)

The new (and possibly last) Sherlock series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman premieres in just four days, but The Guardian recently posted an article that might tide you over. It takes a look at the global fascination with the show and offers a few teasers about the upcoming series. When Cumberbatch was asked, "Is it the darkest season yet?" He replied, “I would say it probably is."  Co-creator Mark Gattis, who also plays Mycroft Holmes in the show, says it's time for a slightly nicer Sherlock who is "less of the irritatingly smug know-it-all we saw in earlier episodes." Meanwhile, the New York Times had an article on how "Sherlock Opens Up the Old Boys Club to Women."

Amazon announced that crime and thrillers were Audible's most popular audiobooks in the UK in 2016, with more than half of the top 20 new releases downloaded in 2016 falling into that category.

After reading Debra H. Goldstein's post earlier this week about the Sisters in Crime "We Love Short Stories" Initiative, Peter DiChellis posted "Five Reasons To Love Reading Short Mystery Stories" on the Short Mystery Fiction Society blog.

David Talbot of the San Francisco Chronicle penned the essay, "Dashiell Hammett: a hero for our time," finding parallels "between Trumpism and McCarthyism" and noting that it’s a good time for us to recall Hammett’s heroism when he stood up to Eugene McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Hollywood blacklists.

Music journalist and author Chris Nickson (best known for his historical mystery Richard Nottingham series) takes the Page 69 test to the latest book in his Tom Harper mystery series, The Iron Water. For those unfamiliar with the test, the Canadian academic Marshall McLuhan developed a theory of how to choose a book: first of all, read page 69. If you like it, then chances are you'll like the rest of it too.

The Guardian reported on a wave of recent police memoirs and how officers are making crime pay with "a rich stew of corruption, villainy and remorse."

Another Guardian article compiled a list of the "Top 10 slangy crime novels," or those that provide the richest seam of words and phrases.

The What Culture website compiled a listing of "8 Female Action Films You Probably Haven't Seen," noting that "there have always been female-led action movies but before James Cameron introduced Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver to machine guns, they existed mainly at the fringes of cinema."

Fans of the film John Wick who are eagerly looking forward to the sequel will be happy to hear that Chapter Two will also coincide with the release of a John Wick comic book that will expand the franchise ever further.

The new issue of Flash Bang Mysteries is out, with editor BJ Bourg serving up new short fiction from Barbara Eliasson, Bruce Harris, Craig Faustus Buck, C.M. Saunders, John Frain, and John M. Floyd.

The featured crime poem at the 5-2 this week is "Who's There" by Charles Rammelkamp.
 
In the Q&A roundup, The Australian spoke with Patricia Cornwell about her new Dr. Kay Scarpetta novel, Chaos, and how the forensic world has changed since the first book in that series; and the Mystery People chatted with author Eric Beetner about muscle cars, 8-track tapes, and his new novel, Leadfoot.

Comments

[Peter DiChellis]

Thank you for the link to my post, Bonnie, and for all you do for mystery readers and writers with your superb blog.

Best wishes,
Peter

[BV Lawson]

And thanks to you for your writings, stories, and support of short mystery fiction!