Riddle Me This

 What's the longest-running quiz show on TV? Go on—take a guess. No, it's not "Wheel of Fortune" or "Jeopardy." Give up? It's a program that's been running annually since 1961, begun at WRC in Washington, DC. Titled "IT'S ACADEMIC," the show was created by Sophie Altman who continued to produce the show until just three weeks ago, when she was admitted to Georgetown University Medical Center. Unfortunately, she succumbed to her illness and died May 24th at the age of 97.

Every year, 81 Washington area secondary schools (public, parochial, private, suburban, and inner-city) participate on the TV academic bowl competition, with schools rooting for their teams complete with banners, bands, cheerleaders (Sandra Bullock rooted for her team), and fans sporting school colors. Contestants have gone on to become famous in their respective fields, from New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton (who was an alternate—hmmm, that sounds familiar), to George Stephanopolus to Bruce Cohen (producer of American Beauty and Big Fish) to astronaut Timothy Creamer.

Also appearing:  Laura Lippman (captain of the Wilde Lake High School team) and Michael Chabon.

It's nice to hear there's at least one venue for academics in a world where high school sports get most of the attention. The Washington Post had a nice remembrance about Altman and the program, including this quotation from a Bethesda high school teacher, "Many of our past team members have come back to tell me that their participation in 'It's Academic' fundamentally changed their lives -- the stories range from poor students who became scholars, doctors and lawyers to (dozens of) students who had a hard time finding a fit socially until they found a home on the It's Ac team."

At its peak, the show was licensed to television stations in 24 cities and is still on the air in Washington, Baltimore, Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Phoenix, San Diego and Buffalo. Altman even instituted a series of "It's Academic" programs in federal and state prisons. If there is an afterlife, she's probably there right now, putting together an empyreal competition. Wouldn't it be fun to see a Golden Age gals crime fiction team (say Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingha) vs. a Golden Age guys team (maybe John Dickson Carr, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Rex Stout)?

Another Remembrance

On this date, May 27th, in 1894, Dashiell Hammett, creator of Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles, was born just up the road from here in St. Mary's County, Maryland. Since yesterday's posting was about Memorial Day and veterans who were also crime fiction authors, it's appropriate to mention that Hammett enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I and served in the Motor Ambulance Corps. Even though he contracted tuberculosis during the War and was considered disabled thereafter, he pulled strings so he could enlist in World War Two, where he spent most of his time as an Army Sergeant in the Aleutian Islands, editing an Army newspaper (and promptly retiring from the war with emphysema). Due to his years of service, upon his death in 1961, he was buried in Arlington Cemetery, Plot: Section 12, Lot 508, Grid Y/Z-23.

Requiescat in pace

  Last Veteran's Day, I posted some comments on mystery and crime fiction authors and protagonists who were military veterans. So in commemoration of Memorial Day today, I thought I'd post a list of crime fiction authors who served in the military but who have passed on since Memorial Day 2007. With one exception, these are all World War II vets, which isn't surprising considering their age range. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, an average of 1,800 veterans die each day, and 10 percent of them are buried in the country's 125 national cemeteries. An estimated 686,000 veterans died in 2007.

So in today's blog we celebrate the lives and service of these men who were willing to give their lives to the cause of democracy and who also gave us memorable contributions to the world of crime fiction:

Andrew Britton is the youngest of the list. He served as a combat engineer in the U.S. Army for three years, during which time he was assigned to the 1st Engineer Battalion at Fort Riley, Kansas. In the summer of 2001, he received orders for Korea, where he served with the 2ID, the famed 2nd Infantry Division. He was honorably discharged as a specialist in 2002. He died at the age of 27 on March 18, 2008, from a congenital heart condition. Despite his youth, he wrote three highly-regarded Ryan Kealey counterterrorist operative novels, The American, The Assassin, and The Invisible.

Arthur C. Clarke served in the Royal Air Force as a radar instructor and technician from 1941-1946. He was mostly known as a writer of science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey), but he also wrote some sci-fi/mystery short stories, such as "Crime on Mars" (published in the July 1960 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine) and several others. He died at the age of 90 on March 19, 2008. 

Clive Exton spent two years in the British Army, stationed in Germany. He was known for his TV scripts for the Agatha Christie Poirot series (1989-2001) starring David Suchet, and episodes of Rosemary & Thyme, the British series starrting  Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as gardening detectives Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme (2003-2006). He also dramatized Wolf to the Slaughter (based on Ruth Rendell's 1967 novel) in 1987 starring George Baker as Inspector Wexford.  He died at the age of 77 on August 16, 2007.

John Gardner volunteered for service in the Royal Marines during World War II. He also was a former priest and journalist who penned the first Boysie Oakes novel, The Liquidator (1964), as a parody of the spy novels popular in the 60's. He also wrote regular spy novels with protagonists Derek Torry and Herbie Kruger. He's probably best-known as the author of the renewed James Bond novels, the first of which was Licence Renewed in 1981. Most recently he had began a series featuring Suzie Mountford, a 1930's police detective, and the fifth in that series, No Human Enemy, will be published posthumously August 5, 2008. Gardner died at the age of 80 on August 3, 2007.

Oakley Maxwell Hall served in the Marines during World War II. He used the pseudonym Jason Manor to write several mysteries, including Too Dead to Run and The Read Jaguar featuring California private eye Steve Summers. He also authored Murder City, A Game for Eagles, and the Ambrose Bierce series. He dead at the age of 87 on May 12, 2008.

Joe L. Hensley served in the United States Navy during World War II a Pharmacist's Mate in the Navy Hospital Corp. He had a multi-faced career as a journalist, legislator, attorney, and judge, beforing publishing his first book THE COLOR OF HATE in 1960. He also wrote short stories published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine among others. He was probably best-known in crime fiction for the Donald Robak series, featuring a crusading defense attorney based on himself, including Deliver Us to Evil in 1971. His last novel, Snowbird's Walk, a standalone, was released posthumously by St. Martin's in 2008. He died at the age of 81 on August 27, 2007.

James Leasor was a British author who served in Burma with the Lincolnshire Regiment during World War II and became a correspondent for the Forces newspaper after being wounded in action. He wrote in many disciplines, including thrillers, historical novels, and non-fiction title. His crime fiction work included the Dr. Jason Love thrillers, the first of which was Passport to Oblivion in 1964 and a serie with the unnamed owner of Aristo Autos, which began in 1969 with They Don't Make Them Like That Any More. Under the pseydonym of Andrew MacAllan, he also wrote several standalone thrillers. He died at the age of 87 on September 10, 2007.

Robin Moore served in World War II as a nose gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying combat missions in the European Theater. For his outstanding service, he was awarded the Air Medal. He was most famous for his half fiction/half nonfiction work The Green Berets and the non-fiction book The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy. He died at the age of 82 on February 21, 2008.

If you know of other names to add to this listing, please do.

Surf Noir

   The Wall Street Journal printed an interview yesterday with Don Winslow, crime novelist and former private investigator, about his new book, a "surf noir" tale titled The Dawn Patrol, set in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego. Winslow has had previous successes with his book The Death and Life of Bobby Z, made into a movie featuring Laurence Fishburne, and The Winter of Frankie Machine, optioned by Robert DeNiro. Two secrets of his creative process include getting started at 5:30 in the morning, writing until 10 then hiking six or seven miles before going back to work, and writing two books at a time since "when one horse gets winded, you jump on the other."

In answer to the question "Why is crime fiction such a popular category?", he replied "I think it's a power thing. Criminals in fiction do things that most people would never dream about really doing. Why is The Godfather saga so fascinating? We all have fantasies of living in a make-it-thus world. Somebody comes in with a problem and you solve it by saying 'make it thus.' And the henchmen go out and do it.In a complicated society we get tired of restraints. Criminals cut through. Also, the crime story has a lot of inherent drama, a hyped sense of reality. We're all curious about the underworld. In these books you find a structure, created by a crime, and then you get a solution, which is unlike most of life. It's satisfying."

To Sir, With Love

 

On May 22, 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and 28 years later, Doyle brought forth Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet. So much has been written about Doyle and Holmes, I'm not sure there's anything I could add to shed new light on either subject, so I thought I'd compile a list of fun facts and tributes.

IT'S ELEMENTARY

There have been been numerous biographies and other reference books about Doyle and Holmes through the years, but here are some of the best and most recent:

• Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley (Malice and Edgar winner, 2008)
• The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Andrew Lycett 
• Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle by Daniel Stashower 
• The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by John Dickson Carr 

THE FACULTY OF DEDUCTION IS CERTAINLY CONTAGIOUS

There are also hundreds, if not thousands, of web sites that focus on, or prominently feature Doyle and/or Holmes, but the following have official, helpful, and just plain fun info:

• The Official Site of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate
• The Chronicles of Sir Athur Conan Doyle Holmes Links
• The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Society
• The Sherlock Holmes Society
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Online Exhibition

WE MUST LOOK FOR CONSISTENCY

If you check sites like the Internet Movie Database, you'll immediately notice the large number of portrayals on stage and screen (both large and small). Although my personal favorite will probably forever remain Jeremy Brett for the BBC, here are notables:

• John Barrymore played the role in a 1922 movie entitled Sherlock Holmes.
• Orson Welles played Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of one of William Gillette's plays, broadcast in September of 1938 as part of the "Mercury Theater on the Air" series on CBS Radio.
• Basil Rathbone's career as Holmes began with The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, released in 1939, followed by a series of 12 films produced by Universal from 1942 to 1946.
• John Gielgud played Holmes for BBC radio in the 1950s, with Ralph Richardson as Watson. Gielgud's brother, Val Gielgud, appeared in one of the episodes as Mycroft Holmes. Also appearing was Orson Welles as Professor Moriarty in The Adventure of the Final Problem.
• From 1984 to 1994, Granada TV produced The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett as Holmes and David Burke and subsequently Edward Hardwicke as Watson.  All but 19 of the Conan Doyle stories were filmed before the premature death of Jeremy Brett from a heart attack in 1995.
• The android Commander Data (Brent Spiner) from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) portrayed Sherlock Holmes in two episodes of the series, in plots featuring the holodeck.

I HAVE NO TIME FOR TRIFLES

• Doyle's first published story appeared in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal before he was 20.
• Conan Doyle was friends for a time with the American magician Harry Houdini, before a falling out over the subject of spiritualism (Doyle was a believer, Houdini was not).
• Doyle's first job in the field of medicine was as a ship's doctor on a voyage to West Africa.
• The first known film featuring Holmes is Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a one-reel film running less than a minute, made by the American Edison company in 1900.
• The famous deerstalker cap of Holmes was not ascribed to him by Doyle, but by the illustrator of the stories, Sidney Paget.
• Holmes' best friend and biographer is Dr. Watson. Watson has a bullet wound that was first described as being in the shoulder, but in another story the wound had moved to the leg.
• There were 17 steps up to Sherlock Holmes's second-floor apartment.
• Check out the Games and Puzzles here and here and here

THERE IS NOTHING LIKE FIRST-HAND EVIDENCE (Stories for online reading)

• Mystery Net has full-text versions of all 24 of the original Sherlock Holmes Adventures for download
• Thinks.com has "Scandal in Bohemia" on their site
• Project Gutenberg also has stories for download

Label-ous

There's an ongoing discussion about labels in mystery and crime fiction, which affects authors, agents, editors, publishers, booksellers and librarians. Do you classific a novel as a cozy? A thriller? Police procedural? P.I. novel (and if so, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, medium-boiled, noir)? Suspense? Romantic suspense?

It may seem like a relatively innocuous topic to some folks, especially those outside the industry, but it can make a world of difference to how a book is perceived and marketed, and even affect potential book sales. Librarians have been dealing with this problem for years by using appeal characteristics to help guide readers toward books they might like, elements like pacing (the pacing for a thriller should be different than the pacing for a historical, for instance), setting, language, emotion, character, idea, etc.

Librarian Barry Trott, who is Chair of the RUSA CODES Readers' Advisory Committee and develops read-alike lists for NoveList, wrote a book which was published in December of last year titled Read On...Crime Fiction: Reading Lists for Every Taste, in which he set out to classify crime fiction works using appeal characteristics. So instead of listing titles according to "normal" genres and subgenres, he categorizes hundreds of popular crime fiction titles according to five broad features: character, setting, story, language and mood--and then into thematic lists as "Reading the Bones," "Dynamic Duos," "Love you to Death," and "Bright Lights, Dead Bodies." For each title, he also offers bibliographic information and a brief description.

If you're going to use labels at all to describe crime fiction, I think this appeals to me more than the regular subgenre categories, as so many tend to straddle more than one type. After all, nowadays how would a publisher or bookseller categorize Sherlock Holmes? He's an amateur, so that must make those stories cozies, right? Or Nero wolf? Sure, Archie's a P.I., but Wolf himself is an "amateur," so thus another cozy, by today's yardstick. Ellery Queen? He's an amateur, but his Dad and cohorts are police officers, so it's part amateur, part police procedural. How would you market that one? Where would the bookseller place it on the shelves (if not just using alphabetical indexing)?

So what do you think? Should we adopt appeal characteristics a la the American Library Association to use instead of the more-familiar labels? Or would that make it even more confusing?

Taking a Bite Out of Crime

 

Time Magazine has a feature on new technology that could lead to a bite-mark database. Forensic odontology has been used in cases in the past, most notoriously with the prosecution of serial killer Ted Bundy, but since 2000, at least seven people in five states who were convicted largely on bite-mark identification have been exonerated. The breakthrough that Marquette University scientists think they've uncovered is a computer program which catalogs characteristics, including tooth widths, missing teeth and spaces between teeth. The program calculates how frequently or infrequently each characteristic appears. Team leader Dr. L. Thomas Johnson acknowledges that the software will probably never turn bite-mark analysis into a surefire identifier like DNA and he'd need tens of thousands of samples before his work would stand up in court.

If the thought of bite marks seems a bit macabre to you, then you probably won't want to read further. (Warning for the faint of heart -- turn back now.) There's a new trend afoot in mortuary science to dissolve bodies in lye as opposed to cremation or burial. The process, called alkaline hydrolysis, was developed in this country 16 years ago to get rid of animal carcasses and uses lye, 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch to destroy bodies in big stainless-steel cylinders that are similar to pressure cookers. The process leaves a dry bone residue similar in appearance and volume to cremated remains, which could be returned to the family, as well as a brownish, syrupy residue which is flushed down the drain--that may have a huge "ick" factor, but the residue is actually sterile and environmentally friendly.

Of course, to the mind of a crime fiction author, this stirs up all kinds of plot possibilities...

More Mystery Morsels

 

And now for some reviews, interviews, and picks:

Reviews

• The Washington Post recently reviewed two crime fiction novels, Careless in Red by Elizabeth George, which is the latest Inspector Lynley novel, and Quiver by Peter Leonard (best known right now, at least, as the son of bestselling author Elmore Leonard). Quiver is Leonard Jr.'s first published effort, and although the review is overall positive, it concludes that "the son's fictional skills, as demonstrated in his first novel, are not in the same ballpark as his father's. Of course, neither are those of just about anyone else who writes crime fiction." The paper was much kinder to Elizabeth George, however:  "Readers who value writing that is intelligent, surprising, sexy, funny, compassionate and wise should find Careless in Red a delight."
• The Seattle Times featured several new titles, including John Straley's The Big Both Ways ("a thrilling journey"); Donna Leon's new Venetian police commissario Guido Brunetti outing, The Girl of His Dreams ("she's brilliant at bringing to life the city, the people who live there, and their problems and joys"); High Hat by Greg Mandel; Peter Leonard's Quiver (this reviewer thought it was a "strong debut"), C.J. Box's Blood Trail, and Robert Goddard's Past Caring.

Interviews

• The Vacaville, California Reporter interviewed author David Corbett, a former private investigator and author of the Edgar-nominated Blood of Paradise (2007), set in El Salvador which he likens to Iraq (i.e. both countries where America's heavyhandedness has brought social and political turmoil).
• The Manchester UK Confidential "interrogated" crime writer Chris Simms, who is close to publishing his sixth novel, Hell's Fire, the fourth to feature Manchester-based Detective Inspector Jon Spicer and his Major Crime Incident Team. Simms sees his copywriting career, which he still pursues part-time, as being the perfect preparation for a crime writer: "You have to employ economy with words and the novel becomes a sort of elongated ad with an image and a headline that provides the momentum. No one can write crime fiction successfully unless you charge up that momentum."
• Shelf Awareness pinned down Tom Rob Smith, author of the hot new property Child 44 (pre-optioned before publication by Ridley Scott) as part of the site's Book Brahmins series. In answer to "What's on your nightstand right now," he replied, "Robert Conquest's The Great Terror. Conquest was the first historian I read when I decided to write Child 44. His The Harvest of Sorrow was pivotal in making me realize how much I wanted to write my story."

Picks

• The National Book Critics Circle recently chose their Spring Good Reads list, which included among others, Lush Life by Richard Price, an author Publishers Weekly called "one of the masters of American urban crime fiction," and Dangerous Laugher by Steven Millhauser, an anthology which the Washington Post Book World called "a collection of stories that explore these ideas with the mixture of dark suspense and good humor implied by the title."
  

A Little Murder for Mom

 

There have been several mystery series featuring mothers, although most of them are (a) cozies and (b) involve single mothers. If your mother might enjoy a Mom protagonist for Mother's Day, even if Mom doesn't happen to be an amateur sleuth on the side, here's a selected list. No doubt there are many more, and if you know of others, please chime in...

• Jennifer Apodaca -- Protagonist Samantha Shaw runs the Heart Mates Dating Service while raising two boys and keeping track of her ornery magician grandfather
• Jo Bannister -- Single mother Brodie Ferrell starts her own search service, "Looking for Something?" in Dimmock, England
• Lauren Berenson -- Melanie Travis is a special education teacher, divorced mother, and new owner of a standard poodle
• Jill Churchill -- Jane Jeffry, a Chicago housewife and single mother
• Diane Mott Davidson -- Goldy Bear series, featuring a caterer and single mother in Colorado
• Joan Hess -- Claire Malloy, bookstore owner and single mother 
• Jonnie Jacobs -- Kate Austen a recently-divorced young northern California mom
• Faye Kellerman -- L.A. homicide detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus, mother of a troubled teenage son
• Leslie Meier -- Lucy Stone, a Maine three-time mother and part-time mail-order business employee
• Anthony Oliver: Lizzie Thomas, Welsh mother-in-law in an English village who solves crimes with the help of retired Inspector Webber
• Elizabeth Peters -- Amelia Peabody, Victorian Egyptologist and mother of Walter, also known as Ramses 
• Phil Rickman -- Merrily Watkins, single mom and Anglican priest
• Sara Rosett -- Writes  the cozy Mom Zone mystery series
• Alexander McCall Smith -- Precious Ramotswe, #1 Ladies Detective Agency, mother to two adopted orphans
• Ayelet Waldman -- Juliet Applebaum, "mommy-track" mysteries
• Valerie Wolzien -- Josie Pigeon, single mother, carpenter, and owner of a contracting company

If granny gumshoes are more your thing, this link has some suggestions. There are also a few mysteries themed around Mother's Day:

• Mignon F. Ballard - Angel at Troublesome Creek
• Dorothy Cannell - How to Murder your Mother-in-Law
• Wensley Clarkson - Mother's Day Murder
• Nancy Fairbanks - Bon Bon Voyage (Culinary Msytery with Recipes)
• Jane Haddam -  Murder Superior
• Lee Harris - The Mother's Day Murder (Not-To-Miss Series)
• Patricia MacDonald  - Mother's Day
• Dennis McDougal -  Mother's Day 
• Nancy Pickard (Editor) - Mom, Apple Pie & Murder: A Collection of New Mysteries for Mother's Day
• Joshua Quittner, Michelle Slatalla  -  Mother's Day

Take a couple of books, throw in some flowers and chocolate, and you'll make your Mum one happy lady, just like my own mother, a self-proclaimed chocoloholic and mystery addict.  Must be in the genes.

Some Weekend Entertainment

It's raining here in the D.C. area and a bit chilly, perfect weather for indoor entertainment. If you like computer games, check out The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes, the first computer game officially licensed by the Conan Doyle Estate. The characters are all there—Holmes, Watson, Inspector Lestrade, Mycroft—woven into 16 cases the user gets to try and solve the case along with Holmes. There are also some bonus puzzles, anagrams, cryptograms, jigsaw, memory, etc.

James Patterson is extending his empire to include video games, as well, with Women's Murder Club: Death in Scarlet, a cross between his books and the CSI television series.

But if you're tired of sitting in front of a computer, you can sit in front of a movie screen instead. Desson Howe of the Washington Post reviewed Roman de Gare, a French film and a "user-friendly murder mystery" from Claude Lelouch, starring Fanny Ardant as Judith, a crime novelist accused of murder, and Zinedine Soualem as a Paris detective. Howe concludes that "The movie is more entertaining than it is logical; its narrative leaps are sometimes ahead of our ability to believe them. But as the compellingly enigmatic Pierre, Pinon keeps us rapt. And Lelouch keeps us caught up in the intrigue, the mystery and the fun of the film's murderous potential, rather than feeling edge-of-the-seat discomfort and worry on behalf of the characters."

Tried and True Crime

Was there a conspiracy in the infamous murder mystery of Andrew and Abby Borden? Apparently Lizze Borden continues to fascinate the public over 60 years after her death. There are web sites about her and even The Hatchett, Lizzie Borden's Journal of Murder, Mystery, and Victorian History, which recently ran an article (republished here) about one of the conspriracy theories surrounding the murder of her parents, involving a half-brother. And yes, I am guilty of participating in Lizzie Borden-abilia since during my former life as a singer, I actually sang an aria from Jack Beeson's opera on the subject.

If you want to go back even farther into the world of true crime, Tampa Bay's News10 site reported on a 350-year-old murder mystery in which a skull keeps coming back.

Fast forwarding to the present, 75 students at San Diego State University were arrested as part of a drug sting involving marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and Ecstasy. The arrestees include a young man who was just shy of finishing a master's degree in  homeland security and had worked with the campus police as a security officer and also a criminal justice major who asked officers if this would hurt his chances for a law enforcement career. Hmm...ya think?

The New York Times featured an article on NYPD detective fashions. No, not another calendar, but a look at what the well-dressed detective wears these days while on a case. As the article points out, "proper fit is a matter of survival rather than vanity for men who are more likely to subdue a suspect than to peer at a computer all day." Commander Vernon Geberth explained his philosophy about wearing a suit that would at home on Wall Street,  "It put me in a different mode. It slowed me down: 'Look at this guy. He is all dressed up and he is in an abandoned building.' I am here to put things back together." He added, "I was above the fray. My psychological armor."

I also left out one link from yesterday's media mayhem post, namely The Dana Pretzer Show On Scared Monkeys Radio which recently featured the ladies of the Women in Crime Ink blog who count among their members prosecutors, cops, and novelists.

More Media "Mayhem"

 

NPR has been busy with crime fiction coverage lately. For "In Character," the series exploring famous American fictional characters, NPR's Mike Shuster takes a look at the quintessential private eye, Philip Marlowe.

As part of NPR's On Point program, host Tom Ashbrook chats with Carl Hiaasen (Strip Tease, Nature Girl, Skinny Dip) about his new nonfiction book, The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport.

On Fresh Air,  Terry Gross interviews Charles Ardai, founder of the founder of the pulp-fiction publishing company Hard Case Crime and an Edgar Award-winning author in his own right under the pen name of Richard Aleas (Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence).

The LA Times profiled the "four-headed directing collective" known as Big Fantastic who have delivered 230 episodes of an Internet TV series in less than two years. Their upcoming title is "Foreign Body," a medical thriller based on the book by Robin Cook, in which all all 50 two-minute episodes were shot in 24 days in Delhi and Malibu.  The article adds that "high-volume nuance and relentless pacing are definitely two features of the series they've produced so far" which include "Prom Queen" and "Sam Has Seven Friends," both of which are basically sexy, soap-operatic murder-mysteries.

And HarperCollins formally announced their new in-house internet broadcast studio, which has been creating author videos from their offices for sales, marketing and promotional opportunities. Marisa Benedetto (formerly with the Wall Street Journal), runs the studio as executive producer. The company says their goal is to produce 500 videos a year.

Evidence Is Not Always Evident

 

Thumbster, our stalwart mascot, is getting a little nervous. First, CBS Sunday Morning has a story on "Weighing Fingerprints as Forensic Evidence," in which that most basic of crime scene evidence, first used in an American court to convict a killer in 1911, has been coming under fire lately, with some legal experts trying to get it barred from the courts. Last fall, in a decision that shocked lawyers across the country and which could jeopardize thousands of criminal investigations nationwide, a Maryland judge threw out the fingerprint evidence tying the defendant to murder, calling it "a subjective, untested, unverifiable identification procedure." The precedent for that decision may have been the notorious Brandon Mayfield case in which he was wrongfully charged with participation in the Madrid terrorist bombings based on the misidentification of a partial, distorted print.

As if that wasn't enough, DNA isn't exactly on firm ground, either. The LA Times published an article, "DNA Matches Aren't Always a Lock," which posited the idea that "prosecutors and crime labs across the country routinely use numbers that exaggerate the significance of DNA matches in 'cold hit' cases, in which a suspect is identified through a database search." Jurors are often told that the odds of a coincidental match are vastly more remote than they actually are, which led two national scientific committees (including the FBI's DNA advisory board) to recommend portraying the odds more conservatively. However, few DNA analysts have adopted that approach, leading some experts to fear the technology best known for freeing the innocent could be causing its own miscarriages of justice.

Want more tidbits about the miscarriage of justice? Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said he's considering a campaign to mandate disbarment of any prosecutor who doesn't reveal evidence that could help a defendant. Since 2001, Texas has paid compensation in 45 wrongful conviction cases, at least 22 of which involved prosecutors withholding evidence from the defense. The Innocence Project is going to push for a new law in Texas calling not just for disbarment, but criminal charges for prosecutors who intentionally withhold evidence.

It's enough to give Thumbster a swirl-ache.

Curtain Call

 

The International Mystery Writers' Festival has announced casting for two of its main productions coming up June 12-22. The "lost" Agatha Christie play, Chimneys will be directed by Tony Award winner Brian Bedford. Actors include Chris Sullivan (Goodman's The Ballad of Emmett Till),  Larry Yando (Scar in Disney's national tour of The Lion King), John Librizzi (who played detective Mickey Ryan in Ed McBain's Final Curtain during the 2007 International Mystery Writers' Festival), John Lister (The Crucible at Steppenwolf), Leslie Bevan (About Face Theatre's Winesburg, Ohio and Wedding Play) and (in the role of the "dashing hero and romantic lead") Tim Gregory (the founder of Provision Theater Company in Chicago).

The new Sherlock Holmes play The Final Toast by Stuart Kaminsky will be directed by Mark Bellamy, artistic director of the mystery theatre Vertigo Theatre, in Calgary, Alberta, with featured actors Raymond L. Chapman (a veteran of many Chicago and American regional productions) as Sherlock Holmes; Mick Weber (another respected Chicago veteran) as Mycroft; Chicagoan Sean Cooper as March; and regional actor Mark McCarthy as Dr. Watson. With such a strong Chicago connection, maybe the cast will be decked out in da Bears sweatshirts?

Also, Curtains, the comedy musical whodunit currently performing at New York's Al Hirschfeld Theatre is winding down its run, with final performances scheduled for the end of June. The cast is headlined by David Hyde Pierce as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi.

 

The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC-FM in New York recently featured Otto Penzler discussing "The Golden Age of American Crime Fiction" as collected in the book he edited, "The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps." At 1,150 pages, Kirkus Reviews called it "part reference work, part guilty pleasure, part doorstop."

WETA-TV's "Author Author" program held "A Conversation with Alexander McCall Smith," in which he admitted he'd agreed to write at least 11 books in the The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, but would probably end up penning several more beyond that. During his creative process, he says he hardly plans ahead at all, just sits down and writes, and it's "almost like being in a trance...I think it 's just a question of gaining access to the subconscious mind where fiction is created. The mind is always  asking questions about the world, exploring possibilities; it's doing that every moment, and I think the creation of fiction is just a particularly special aspect of that subconsious mind."

The Wisconsin State Journal wrote up Bleak House Books and how the small publishing company rose from its humble origins. Bleak House had three nominations for the 2008 Edgar Awards (Best Novel, Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman; Best First Novel, Head Games by Craig McDonald; Best Short Story, "Blue Note" - Chicago Blues by Stuart M. Kaminsky), almost unheard of for a publisher its size.

P.D. James gave a talk at the Palace of Westminster holding court on political correctness, describing Britain as "as a fractured society where communities are living in isolation."

The Vikings (the ones with the pointed metal helmets, not the football helmets) can breathe a sigh of relief. Norwegian forensic scientists solved an ancient murder mystery in determining that the bones of two Viking women found in a buried longboat were not that of a maid sacrificed to accompany her queen into the afterlife. 

And, if you happen to be in an area with good weather (particularly in more southern latitudes) on the morning of Sunday, May 4th, step outside to see if you can catch a glimpse of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which Sky and Telescope calls possibly "the best meteor shower that you've never heard of."