Mystery Melange

I'm very happy to point you over to this week's story at Beat to a Pulp, which is from the pen of Patti Abbott and titled "The Big Lug." Patti is a terrific story writer and also hosts the weekly Friday's Forgotten books feature that I'm happy to be a part of.

Shindig will host video chats with fifty authors live from Book Expo America, Thursday, May 30th through Saturday, June 1st. Featured authors will include Mary Higgins Clark, Andrew Gross, C.J. Lyons and many more. (Hat tip to Galley Cat)

This, via Austin S. Camacho: If you're an author who registered for the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity conference, they have moved the deadline to June 15 to submit a short story to be included in the collector's anthology that every attendee will receive in a goody bag when you arrive. Don't miss your chance to have everyone read your story alongside the likes of NY Times bestseller John Gilstrap. If haven't registered yet, it's not too late for you to be included in that special volume – but you have to be registered before you can submit your story. Visit the conference website for more details.

Jeff Pierce, over at The Rap Sheet blog and via his column for Kirkus, lists eight crime, mystery, and thriller works due for release
between now and September 1 that he thinks would be particularly worth
investing your time to read. He also has a long list of other crime fiction books being published this summer that should keep you busy at the beach.

Speaking of Jeff and The Rap Sheet, somehow I missed the blog's recent seventh anniversary celebration. If you aren't familiar with The Rap Sheet (and you should be), hop on over and check out one of the most consistently entertaining and informative crime fiction blogs out there.

Omnimystery News has its monthly list of new hardcover mysteries being published. June's roster ranges from the eighth Cotton Malone novel by Steve Berry to the tenth Lincoln Rhyme book by Jeffery Deaver to the ninth Walt Longmire installment from Craig Johnson. Other authors like Alafair Burke, Meg Gardiner, and Carl Hiaasen introduce new standalone novels this month.

Kobo announced a rise in e-reader sales of 145% in the first quarter of
2013. Its user base grew to 14.5m, with 15% of its new user base coming
from the US. The top-selling e-books (in the UK) included Gillian
Flynn's Gone Girl, Karin Slaughter's The Unremarkable Heart and James
Patterson's Bloody Valentine.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Crime journalist Steve Lillebuen talking with GalleyCat about digital tools for crime writers; Declan Burke grills Chris Allen about his Alex Morgan series; and Mark Pryor joins the Mystery People.

Book Riot lists the best 15 movies starring bookstores.

Which Shakespeare character are you? Try this interactive PBS feature to find your inner Hamlet or Rosalind.

From the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department, "10 Craziest Disguises Used To Commit a Crime."

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Dennis Lehane has signed on to write the screenplay for 20th Century Fox's adaptation of John D. MacDonald's 1964 mystery novel The Deep Blue Good-by. The film will reteam Lehane and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who also starred in the film version of Lehane's novel Shutter Island and is developing Lehane's short story "Running Out of Dog."

Deadline calls it a shocker, and that's an apt description of the news that Tom Cruise has exited as the star of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the remake of the classic TV series that Guy Ritchie is directing for Warner Bros. The official reason is that Cruise had a schedule conflict with the filming of Mission Impossible:5.

Paddy Considine (Tyrannosaur, The World’s End) and Swedish actor Fares Fares (Zero Dark Thirty) have been added to the cast of director Daniel Espinosa's adaptation of the Soviet-era novel Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and Gary Oldman were already on board.

Magnolia pictures picked up Erik Skjoldbaerg's thriller Pioneer at the recent Cannes film festival. The film stars Aksel Hennie (who also played the lead in the film Headhunters based on Jo Nesbo's novel) as a professional diver working for the oil companies in the 1980s who gets involved in a perilous deep-sea journey.

Universal is developing a remake of Timecop, the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme time travel action movie set in the near future where time travel is regulated by a police force.

TV

As Omnimystery News reminds us, the new seasons of Longmire and The Glades premiere tonight back to back on the A&E network, beginning at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

The new King & Maxwell series based on David Baldacci's novels is set to premiere June 10 on TNT. The show was developed by Shane Brennan (NCIS: Los Angeles) with a cast that includes Jon Tenney (The Closer) and Rebecca Romijn (X-Men) as private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.

FX Networks announced that the premiere of The Bridge will be Wednesday, July 10th. The show is based on the Scandinavian crime drama (but moved to the US/Mexico border) and follows two detectives, one from the United States (Diane Kruger) and one from Mexico (Demián Bichir), who must work together to hunt down a serial killer operating on both sides of the border. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News, which also has a trailer.)

Logan Marshall-Green has been signed to star in the Cinemax pilot Quarry, based on the novel by Max Allan Collins. It follows a Marine sniper who returns home from Vietnam to find that he's been shunned by people he cares about and is recruited into a network of contract killers and corruption along the Mississippi River.

Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours, the miniseries Carlos) has ben tapped to direct the film Hubris, which is inspired by a true story and based on an article by Hillel Levin. It follows a crew of thieves who rob a pawn shop and discover it is a front for the most brutal crime boss in Chicago history.

Detective Olivia Benson fans can breathe easier: actress Mariska Hargitay says she is returning to Law & Order: SVU for Season 15.

CMT has picked up an additional 11 episodes of the reality series Dog And Beth: On The Hunt, starring bounty hunters "Dog" and Beth Chapman.

Mystery Melange

The International Thriller Writers has added a special FBI pre-conference workshop titled, "Today's FBI: Crime Essentials For Writers." Participants will hear from FBI experts in cyber crime, international terrorism, criminal investigations, and more. The event is scheduled for July 8th and capacity is limited, so contact ThrillerFest Executive Director at kimberleyhowe@me.com if you're interested.

Finalists for the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Awards in the Mystery/Suspense category were announced and include Ripped – A Jack the Ripper Time-Travel Thriller, by Shelly Dickson Carr (New Book Partners); Run To Ground, by D.P. Lyle (Oceanview Publishing); and The Unkindness of Strangers, by Peter S. Fischer (The Grove Point Press). The annual award recognizes excellence in independent publishing.

Pop Culture Nerd is sponsoring the third annual Stalker Awards, in honor of May being Mystery Month and June being International Crime Month. The awards are handed out to crime novels you're obsessed with and the authors who write them. Categories range from Novel You Shoved Most Often in People's Faces to Most Scene-Stealing Supporting Character. Anyone can vote, via the website form.

The annual Crimefest Convention held at Bristol in the UK is coming up next week, from May 30 through June 2. Dozens of bestselling authors will attend including Toastmaster Robert Goddard, Lindsey Davis, Jeffery Deaver, Sophie Hannah, David Hewson, Peter James, Simon Kernick, Denise Mina and Dana Stabenow. Although the event is sold out, you can still take advantage of Non-Attending Registration, which will snag you the delegate goodie bag and conference program sent via mail.

This week's featured story at Beat to a Pulp is "Bid Time Return" by Nik Morton.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Ali Karim at the Rap Sheet chatting with private eye thriller writer Thomas Kaufman about his novels and recently released eBook collection Erased and Other Stories; Declan Burke quizzes Chris Allen; and Mark Pryor joins The Mystery People to talk about his new release, The Crypt Thief.

Mystery Melange

Four independent publishers—Grove Atlantic, Akashic Books, Melville House, and Europa Editions—have joined forces to create what they're calling "International Crime Month." It's actually a little longer than a month, since events start in late May and continue through June. The initiative kicks off in New York with events at Bookcourt and Mysterious Bookshop during the final week of May and a panel discussion at Book Expo America on Friday May 31.

More award news to report: this time, it's nominations for the Anthony Awards, handed out each year at the Boucheron crime fiction festival, which were recently announced. They include nods for Best Novel to Dare Me by Megan Abbott; The Trinity Game by Sean Chercover; Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn; The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny; and The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan. For all the nominees, check out the Bouchercon 2013 website.

Speaking of Bouchercon, if you're an unpublished author, the conference has a great opportunity in the form of a short story contest. There are three categories including high school students, college
students and general attendees, with submissions capped at 200 per category. To submit, send along your mystery story of 8,000 words or less by June 15.

Noir at the Bar is returning to the Philadelphia area, Thursday, May 23 at John & Peter's at 96 South Main St. in New Hope, PA. Special guests are authors Wallace Stroby, Dennis Tafoya and a few more TBA.

Madison, Wisconsin's Booked for Murder indie bookstore, which was put up for sale in February, has found a new owner. Joanne Berg, a former vice-provost at the University of Wisconsin, Madison is moving the former store's inventory to Berg's new bookshop, Mystery to Me, scheduled to open on June 15.

Lukcy Issue #13 of Crime Factory is out, with a cover design by Eric Beetner, a interview with Dwayne Epstein, author of the new Lee Marvin biography, a chat with creators of the new anthology, Black Pulp, and more interviews and reviews. There is a Kindle version for only 99 cents, although there are print and free PDF versions also available.

There's a new market for short crime fiction, The Hard-Boiled Dimension, with a mission of being "a place for speculative fiction and gritty crime stories." They are seeking stories in either or both genres, with a word limit of 2,500. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans via her blog.)

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The film remake of the 1960s TV spy show The Man From Uncle (originally starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) has filled out its main cast. Tom Cruise is taking on the role of older spy Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer (The Social Network and Lone Ranger) will play Russian secret agent Ilya Kuryakin. Swedish actress Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair) is also in talks to play the female lead. 

Speaking of Tom Cruise, Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions have signed up the actor to star in and produce a fifth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) is adapting Len Deighton’s classic Cold War novels featuring iconic spy Bernard Samson for an 18-episode television series. The novels followed the exploits of an ex-MI6 field agent drawn back into active duty in a quest to uncover the truth about his wife’s defection to the KGB.

Benicio Del Toro is in talks to star in the upcoming film adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's noir novel Inherent Vice.

Pre-production has started on Ben Affleck’s adaptation of Dennis Lehane's 2013 Edgar Award-winning novel Live By Night with an eye to an August or September filming start date. 

TV

Downton Abbey producer Carnival Films and BBC Two are to produce the final two TV movies in writer/director David Hare's The Worricker Trilogy. The first installment, Page Eight,
starred Bill Nighy as MI5 officer Johnny Worricker, with an all-star
supporting cast. Some of those actors are also due to return in the next
two projects, including Ralph Fiennes and Ewan Bremner, with the
additions of Christopher Walken, Winona Ryder, Helena Bonham Carter and
more.

Criminal Minds is being renewed, although it was close for two of the stars, Kirsten Vangsness and A.J. Cook. They were holding out on initial contract offers due to the poor treatment of female cast members and the fact the show's female stars are paid less than half of what their male co-workers receive.

Upfront season is upon us, wherein the networks announce their fall schedules and the pilots they've picked up for full series orders. Fox picked up four new dramas including the legal drama Rake starring Greg Kinnear; Gang Related, starring Ramon Rodriguez as a rising star in the Los Angeles elite Gang Task Force; Sleepy Hollow, a modern retelling of the Washington Irving story; and Almost Human, from the Fringe/Star Trek team of J.H. Wyman and J.J Wyman and starring Karl Urban, Michael Ealy and Lili Taylor in a police drama set 35 years in the future.

Fox is looking to bring back its popular drama 24 as a limited series, with Kiefer Sutherland in talks to reprise his Emmy-winning role as Agent Jack Bauer.

TNT has ordered a second season of the unscripted police-centric docudrama Boston's Finest, which joined the schedule in March. CNN (owned by the parent company of TNT) also announced plans to encore the eight-episode freshman run of the show.

TNT has also ordered 10 episodes of the drama Legends, starring Game of Thrones actor Sean Bean. The project is based on the a book by the same name by Robert Littell, and follows an undercover agent named Martin Odum who works for the FBI's Deep Cover Operations division

A&E picked up news shows, including the serial killer drama Those Who Kill, based on a Danish series and produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. It stars Chloe Sevigny and James D'Arcy and will premiere in 2014.

NBC has placed a full series order for the reboot of Ironside, starring Blair Underwood as wheelchair-bound Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside, played in the original NBC series by Raymond Burr. The network also gave the go-ahead to the Chicago Fire spinoff, Chicago PD, about — you guessed it — the Chicago police department.

USA announced that the seventh season of Burn Notice, which premieres June 6, will be its last. Creator Matt Nix is developing a new medical drama for the network titled Complications, about an emergency room doctor whose life drastically changes following a traumatic experience

NBC cancelled Deception, the series starring Megan Good as a detective who goes undercover in a wealthy family to solve a murder.

Everyone has been expecting ABC to pick up its popular quirky procedural Castle starring Nathan Fillion for another season, but it appears the network may actually be working on a two-year pickup.

Omnimystery News reported that ITV has renewed The Bletchley Circle for a second season. The show, which is based on the lives of four brilliant women who worked at top-secret HQ Bletchley Park during World War II, airs on PBS stations in the U.S.

Speaking of Omnimystery News, check out the site's scoresheet on all the mystery and suspense TV renewals and cancellations, including some of the latest shows to get the axe: Body of Proof, CSI New York, Vegas and Southland. The Hollywood Reporter also as an updated "who's winning and losing" look at the upfront season so far, including CBS's surprising rejection of the Beverly Hills Cop reboot.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Mary Higgins Clark, author of Daddy's Gone A Hunting, was a guest on CBS This Morning.

Margaret Atwood, winner of the Innovator's ward in this year's Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, joined KCRW's Bookworm to talk about her exploration of digital literary innovations

Mystery Melange

There was a lot of award news during this past week:

• First, congratulations to all the recent Edgar Award winners, including Best Novel, Live by Night by Dennis Lehane; Best First Novel, The Expats by Chris Pavone; Best Paperback Original, The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters; and the Mary Higgins Clark Award, The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan. For all the winners and nominees, check out the Mystery Writers of America website.

• The Agatha Awards handed out at the annual Malice Domestic Convention included Best Novel for The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny and Best First Novel to Lowcountry Boil by Susan M. Boyer. (Hat tip Crimespree Magazine.)

• Spinetingler Magazine also announced its awards last week, including Best Novel: Rising Star/Legends to The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty; and Best Novel: New Voice to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn; also the 2013 IPPY Awards, recognizing outstanding books from independent authors and publishers announced winners in the Mystery and Suspense categories.

• Booklist announced its ten Best Crime Novels and ten Best Debut Crime Novels (which span publication dates from May 2012 to April 2013).

• The Crimefest Award nominees were announced last weekend, with winners to be presented at the CrimeFest Gala Dinner on June 1. They include the categories Audible Sounds of Crime Award,  Goldsboro Last Laugh Award for humorous mysteries, eDunnit Award for digital books, and the H.R.F. Keating Award for best biography or critical book related to crime fiction. (Hat tip to Janet Rudolph.)

• The long-list for the 2013 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award was also announced, with the 18 nominees to be featured in a four-week voting campaign through early June at WHSmith stores and 1,645 library branches. The longlist will be whittled down to a shortlist of six titles to be announced on July 4.

It's time again for what has become the annual Brenda Novak charity auction to benefit diabetes research. This year the monthly and daily literary items up for auction include manuscript critiques, a scholarship to the Salt Cay Writers Retreat, manuscript formatting, website design, publicity and marketing and much more. There are hundreds of terrific items to bid on.

The latest Thuglit Issue, edited by Todd Robinson, is out and available for the Kindle. It includes original stories by Chris Mattix, Justin Porter, Ed Kurtz, Rob W. Hart, Edward Hagelstein, Shannon Barber, Chris Murphy and Brian Leopold.

The May issue of Suspense Magazine includes exclusive interviews with David Morrell, Lisa Scottoline and M.J. Rose, all talking about their latest novel and writing styles. There also looks at new authors Thomas M. Malafarina and Lisa Mannetti; Lisa Gardner's writing toolbox has tips for authors; and Anthony J. Franze interviews Heather Graham for his next installment of his "On Writing" section.

New story up at Shotgun Honey, titled "Hell's Belle – Pell Mell" by Jim Wilsky, and a new story at Beat to a Pulp from Josh Stallings, "The Blow Jobs."

We've lost a great many indie bookstores over the past few years, so it's alway good news to welcome a new addition. Last year, co-owners Jason and Stacey Harris opened Books & Boos of Colchester, Connecticut, to "cater to those of us who enjoy a good book, a good time, and a good scare." They feature mysteries, thrillers, romance, non-fiction and, of course, horror.

Omnimystery News published its monthly list of Firsts on the 1st, introducing readers to new series characters who will make their mysterious American debut in print during May.

The latest "Getting Away with Murder" column by Mike Ripley for Shots eZine is out with news and reviews from across the Pond.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Todd Robinson visiting Grift Magazine to discuss The Hard Bounce, recently published by Tyrus Books; and Kate Atkinson chats with Omnivoracious her lates novel Life After Life and her writing in general.

Good news for book fans: the Association of American Publishers released 2012 sales figures, showing a substantial increase in overall book sale totals, a net gain of 7.4 percent over the previous year. The figures also showed that eBook sales are about are holding steady at about 20-25 percent of the total market.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Millennium Trilogy producer Yellow Bird is developing a 10-part original series based on an idea by bestselling Norwegian crime novelist Jo Nesbø. The political thriller will be titled Occupied and is described as a political thriller set in a not so distant future where Russia has staged a "silk-glove" invasion of Norway to officially secure the oil import for the rest of the world.

Steven Spielberg has signed on to direct American Sniper, an adaptation of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle's autobiography that will star Bradley Cooper in the title role.

Colin Firth is in talks to star in The Secret Service, Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of a comic he co-created. The story follows a young man from the rough neighborhoods of London who gets recruited by his uncle (the role Firth would play) into a British spy school of the sort that churns out suave, sophisticated gentlemen-agent types in the 007 mold.

Stephen King's next thriller, Joyland, due to be published next month by Hard Case Crime, has been optioned for film, with Tate Taylor adapting the book and also directing. The project deals with a murder in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Daniel Radcliffe has been signed to star as American investigative reporter Jake Adelstein in the upcoming film adaptation of Adelstein's 2009 memoir Tokyo Vice. The plot follows the reporter's time working at the Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper in Tokyo covering the crime beat and gangsters, including the “John Gotti of Japan."

Film4 has landed a script from Jacob Kostoff and Todd Louiso that adapts the classic Shakespeare play Macbeth about the ambitious Scotttish lord who seizes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and three witches. Michael Fassbender is in talks to star in the project.

Joe Carnahan (The Grey, The A-Team) has signed on to direct the film adaptation of Chuck Hogan's 2010 crime thriller Devils in Exile. Hogan's previous book Prince of Thieves (released as The Town) was made into a movie in 2010 starring Ben Affleck. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

TV

Former X-Files star Gillian Anderson's brand new crime series The Fall will launch on the BBC and Netflix this month. The show is set in Northern Ireland and follows a police officer investigating a string of murders.

BBC America has renewed the thriller Orphan Black for a second season. The show stars Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, a woman who adopts the identity of a woman whom she witnesses committing suicide, and then learns that they are actually clones of each other.

Tom Berenger is joining Season 2 of TNT's successful Closer spin-off, Major Crimes, playing the estranged spouse of Mary McDonnell's Capt. Sharon Raydor.

Former NCIS regular Mike Franks (Muse Watson) will make his second posthumous appearance as an otherworldly sounding board for Gibbs (Mark Harmon) in the season finale the show. Also guest-starring on the episode is John M. Jackson, who was a regular on JAG when that series launched NCIS as a spinoff 10 years ago.

NBC's supernatural police procedural Grimm saw its ratings climb in its new time slot of Tuesday evenings at 9 pm ET.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

In honor of this weekend's Edgar Awards, the Mystery Writers of America posted a video with Edgar winners and nominees such as Lawrence Block, Ruth Rendell, David Handler and Caroline B. Cooney discussing their craft and sharing their thoughts about the genre’s highest accolade and mystery’s biggest night of the year.

Adrian Raine, author of The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime, chatted with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air.

THEATER

This year's Tony Award nominations include nods to The Mystery of Edwin Drood for Best Revival of a Musical and Stephanie J. Block as Best Lead Actress in the play.

Ian Rankin (author of the Inspector Rebus series), is joining Mark Thomson, artistic director of Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum, in writing the stage play Dark Road, which will premiere at the theatre during its 2013-14 season. The play explores the disturbing world of serial killers and marks Rankin's first foray into the playwriting realm.

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time, based on the 2003 mystery novel by British writer Mark Haddon, was the big winner at the Olivier Awards, the British theater's highest honor. It won for best new play, best actor for Luke Treadaway, best supporting actress for Nicola Walker and best director for Marianne Elliott.

Mystery Melange

The conference season is heating up, including the RT Booklovers Convention that starts today in Kansas City. Guest authors in the mystery/thriller track include Ethan Cross, Heather Graham, Bob Mayer, Cherry Adair, Robin Perini, Caridad Piñeiro, Evonne Wareham, Genita Low, R. Scott Pearson and James Rollins. Coming up this weekend in Bethesda, Maryland, it's the annual Malice Domestic Convention, with Guest of Honor: Laurie R. King; Toastmaster: Laura Lippman; Lifetime Achievement: Aaron Elkins; Malice Remembers: Dick Francis; International Guest of Honor: Peter Robinson; Amelia Award: Carolyn Hart; Fan Guest of Honor: Cindy Silberblatt.

There's a new press setting up for neo-noir, speculative, and literary fiction called The Dark House Press. The new venture is an imprint of Curbside Splendor Publishing and will be headed up by editor-in-chief Richard Thomas. DHP's first book will be The New Black, an anthology featuring the best of "new noir," edited by Thomas, coming out Spring 2014 (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans via her blog.)

Mystery Scene's Spring Issue #129 features a cover story on the novels of C.J. Box. Other goodies include Kevin Burton Smith's ode to the "Hot Rides of Private Eyes Past"; Martin Edward's examination of Dorothy L. Sayers' real-life detective skills; a talk with former journalist-turned-novelist Brad Parks; Lynn Kaczmarek chatting with Erin Hart about her atmospheric mysteries set in Ireland; Brian Skupin catching up with Linda Barnes, who is making a welcome return to crime writing after ending her Carlotta Carlyle series a few years ago; and for Old Time Radio fans, a tribute to the Inner Sanctum Mystery program from Michael Mallory.

Blood and Tacos, edited by Johnny Shaw, recently published Issue #4 on Amazon, which is also a celebration of the 'zine's first anniversary. Check out stories from  Brad Mengel, Bart Lessard, Nick Slosser, Thomas Pluck and Oren Brimer.

This week's featured story at Beat to a Pulp is "Howling," by Jen Conley, and the featured short fiction at Shotgun Honey is "Last Bit of Dirt" by John L. Thompson.

Also, last month, Thrillers, Killers, 'n' Chillers ezine announced it was closing the door to submissions, but editor David Barber softened the blow by announcing he was creating a new site called Thrills, Kills, 'n' Chaos for flash fiction up to 1000 words. The first two stories on the site are now up, including "Green Green Grass" by Matt Hilton and "Hand In Mine" by Erin Cole.

In 2012, Penguin Group USA launched Read Humane to fight animal cruelty and support the Humane Society. It was a tie-in with National Pet Month in May, and the publisher is holding the drive again this year. Six animal-themed Penguin titles will highlight the campaign with Read Humane seals on their covers, including mysteries Hounds Abound by Linda O. Johnston; Till Death Do Us Bark by Judi McCoy; The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon by Leann Sweeney; File M for Murder by Miranda James; Double Booked for Death by Ali Brandon; and the romance Rescue My Heart by Jill Shalvis.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Alexander Soderberg, stopping by Declan Burke's blog for the latest of his fun interviews titled "Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?"; and Duane Swierczynski spoke with Boing Boing about his new book, Point & Shoot.

Everyone loves librarians (and if you don't, you should!), and here are "25 Vintage Photos of Librarians Being Awesome." (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)