David Simon of the Washington Post reports on the dying breed of the crime beat reporter.

The Crimespree Magazine blog is offering up free books in order to promote book sales in general. If you go to a store, buy a new book, and send along a picture of yourself in the store with the new book, and you'll be entered in a drawing for the freebies.

In one of Oline Cogdill's new columns for the Mystery Scene Magazine blog, she mentions that Bill Crider will also be starting a new column this month, titled Short and Sweet, which will place the spotlight on short stories.

Good news is hard to come by these days, but literary agent Nathan Bransford puts a positive spin on the future of books.

Web production company EQAL has joined forces with CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker to build a Web offshoot for Zuiker's crime novel Dark Chronicles, featuring original video contetnt as well as blogs and a social community.

Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), the best-selling children's author, has collaborated with composer Nathaniel Stookey on The Composer Is Dead, a classical-musical mystery for children. "It's like Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf meets Law & Order," says Handler

Actor and leading Tweep (Twitter person), Wil Wheaton, tried a new Twitter marketing gimmick that may portend the shape of things to come -- he offered up PDF copies of his book Sunken Treasure for $5.

The Telegraph's report on the Dubai Literary Festival included a writeup of a lively debate over bringing books to the screen, with thriller-writer and film producer Peter James (Roy Grace crime series) and Anthony Horowitz (Alex Rider novels).

Barry Forshaw defends Agatha Christie against all of her detractors in an article for The Independent, adding that "a great many of us are perfectly happy to immerse ourselves in the idyllic Albion of Christie's novels."

Borders Bookstores are featuring March Mystery month, and their online Crime Scene columns has some reviews and suggestions.

If you happen to be in the UK in early April, you can sign up for a 4-day crime fiction writing seminar featuring Mark Billingham and Laura Wilson.

Yesterday saw the first great Queryfall Day on Twitter. Agent Colleen Lindsay started it all, and many agents and editors joined in posted about their queries in real time. As Lindsay posted in her blog, "The idea is to educate people about what exactly it is in a query that made us stop reading and say 'Not for me.'" Some of the true query-bites included the following (hat tip to Publishers Marketplace):

• "Please be advised of my request that you consider reviewing a page-turning novel that I have recently completed."
• "I'M TYPING MY QUERY IN ALL CAPS SO YOU WILL BE SURE TO NOTICE IT."
• "Have you ever wondered what it's like to be pulled up a waterfall or to be flushed down a toilet?"
• "This is my first attempt at writing a fictional novel."
• "...this, the first book in a seven-book series..."
• "I've been working on this novel for twenty five years."
• "This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings."
• "It's a unique combination of memoir and novel."
• "My book is the first in an imagined autobiography of my tragedy."
• "This is groundbreaking work that will change the way we view everything!"
• "My book is differentiated from Twilight because the vampires have wings, and are half-breed angels."
• "I've been rejected by three other publishers who said my work was interesting."
• "I've queried more than 50 agents and have gotten nowhere and now I'm querying you."
• "I don't think you're the right agent for me, but could you pass my query along to some of your colleagues?"
• "I hope you don't mind that I found your personal email address..."
• "I know you don't represent children's literature, but I hope you'll make an exception in my case."

And speaking of social networking, Petrona posted this picture seen on a bus.