Saturday, August 17, 2013
Collins takes a different approach to the hunt for the killer. A young woman who survived his attack on her family because he wanted her to tell his story hasn't spoken for many years and has been institutionalized. When she sees a story of murders similar to those of her family, she knows that the killer is still at work, and she's determined to find him. She breaks her silence and starts to work, with the help of the members of a Victims of Violent Crimes support group. At the same time, a young cop who knew her in high school is also investigating the crime. He believes he has evidence that a serial killer is at work, though it's not easy to convince his superiors that the evidence is valid.
This is a fast-moving story with attractive lead characters that you'll be rooting for all the way. The members of the support group are also a very likable crew, bound together by a common goal and their separate violent pasts. All this, and Collins has a real shocker in store for you at the end. Check it out.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
khou.com Houston: French Fry Heaven serves fries, a whole menu of fries, nothing but fries.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Archaeology Update
Discovery News: Small carved stones unearthed in a nearly 5,000-year-old burial could represent the earliest gaming tokens ever found, according to Turkish archaeologists who are excavating early Bronze Age graves.
Link via Boing Boing.
Link via Boing Boing.
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
Mentored in the hollows of hardscrabble Georgia by mysterious loner Old Man Winter, then in a Chicago orphanage by ex-fighter Father Tim Brophy, James ‘Barefoot Bones’ Mason has relied on his fists to make his mark. But it’s a long way from St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys to the battlefields of Korea where Bones’ fists may not be enough.
Entered in an inter-camp boxing tournament by his commanding officer, Bones finds himself in a war within a war. When a tenuous cease fire is explosively shattered, Bone’s is fighting against the highest odds of all – staying alive.
Can a skinny kid from the north Georgia mountains survive the hell of Korea and still have the guts to climb back into the ring one more time? The one constant in Bones’ life has been fighting – Lucky for him, he’s good at it.
Archaeology Update (Badger Edition)
NBC News.com: A badger living in the countryside near the town of Stolpe recently uncovered a remarkable site: the 12th-century burial ground of eight people, two of whom were apparently Slavic warlords.
Forgotten Books: Stranger at Home -- George Sanders (Leigh Brackett)
Although George Sanders is listed as the author, most sources credit it to Leigh Brackett. After reading the book, I believe them. (Sanders' other crime novel was supposedly written by Craig Rice; I haven't read that one.)
Micheal Vickers returns home after having been missing for four years. While on a trip with three of his buddies, he disappeared in Mexico. One of the three drugged his drink, slugged him in the head, and left him for dead. Vickers survived, and what happened in Mexico is only hinted at, though it was probably something like what happened to Lloyd Wescott in John D. MacDonald's The Empty Trap, which has a little in common with Stranger at Home. Whereas the MacDonald book concentrates on Wescott's time in Mexico, Vickers' experiences there are merely hinted at. The concern here is his unexpected return and his interest in finding out which of the three men tried to kill him. Another concern is how Vickers has changed. He's come to realize that he was a pretty terrible person. He's different now, but he's still ruthless.
Besides the three friends, there are questions about Vickers' wife. Was the loyal to him? All three of the friends were in love with her, and it's pretty certain that was one reason for the attempted murder. And then there's the wife's companion, Joan. She's hated Vickers ever since she met him.
There's not a lot of action in the book. It's all atmosphere and psychological suspense told in a terse, hardboiled style, with some great local color with Los Angeles in the late '40s, too. It all works very well. Check it out.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
The Treasury of the Fantastic: David Sandner, Jacob Weisman, Peter S. Beagle: 9781616960964: Amazon.com: Books: The fantastic, the supernatural, the poetic, and the macabre entwine in this incomparable culmination of storytelling. Imaginative stories of wit and intelligence weave through vivid landscapes that are alternately wondrous and terrifying. Bringing together major literary figures from the 19th and 20th centuries—from Alfred Lord Tennyson and Edith Wharton to Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde—these masters of English and American literature created unforgettable tales where goblins and imps comingle with humans from all walks of life. This deftly curated assemblage of notable classics and unexpected gems from the pre-Tolkien era will captivate and enchant readers. Forerunners of today's speculative fiction, these are the authors that changed the fantasy genre, forever.
Harlan Ellison Interviews Robert Silverberg
Harlan Ellison Interviews Robert Silverberg (1986 Audio Interview) (It takes a while to get to the interview, but it's all fun.)
Allen Lanier, R. I. P.
Blue Oyster Cult Founder Allen Lanier Dead at 66: Founding Blue Oyster Cult keyboardist and guitarist Allen Lanier has died at the age of 66 after being hospitalized with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, according to the band’s official Facebook page. “DFTR sweet man,” the post reads, in apparent reference to their hit ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper.’ “We love you and miss you.”
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
Roman Dalton - Werewolf PI is a short, sharp collection of vivid and violent noir horror stories.
Drunk On The Moon
The Missionary
Black Moon Rising
The Brain Salad Murders
She's My Witch
Before The Moon Falls
Don't Forget to Buy Your Copies
Tompall Glaser, R. I. P.
Tompall Glaser, outlaw country artist, dies at 79: Thomas Paul "Tompall" Glaser — a staunchly independent singer, songwriter, studio owner, publisher and recording artist and a central figure in country music's much-vaunted "Outlaw Movement" of the 1970s — died Tuesday at his Nashville home after a long illness. Glaser, who was featured on Wanted! The Outlaws, country music's first million-selling album, was 79.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Today's the Day! Buy a Copy and Make an Old Man Happy.
Rhodes discovers that Wellington and Ike had had a confrontation over a paper that Wellington insisted Ike plagiarized. Wellington also had had a confrontation with the dean and was generally disliked by the students. As the number of suspects increases, it’s up to Rhodes to solve the murder while also dealing with an amusing but frustrating staff, a professor who wants to be a cop, and all the other normal occurrences that can wreak havoc in a small town.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .
The Bellingham Herald: A Sudden Valley man must serve 20 days of jail time for threatening a pregnant woman because she was smoking a cigarette.
4 Insane Things People Just Found Underground
Why is everything on the Internet "insane" or "awesome"?
4 Insane Things People Just Found Underground
4 Insane Things People Just Found Underground
Douglas R. Mason, R. I. P.
Locus Online News: Douglas R. Mason, 94, who also wrote as John Rankine, died in early August 2013.
Mason was a prolific writer from 1964 until the early ’80s. His first story, as Rankine, was “Two’s Company” (1964). He published numerous SF books under that name, notably the Dag Fletcher space opera series, beginning with collection The Blockage of Sinitron: Four Adventures of Dag Fletcher (1966). He also wrote the Space Corporation series, several standalone space operas, and numerous Space: 1999 tie-in novels. As Mason he wrote nearly 20 novels, including From Carthage then I Came (1966; as Eight Against Utopia, 1967), Matrix (1970), The Phaeton Condition (1973), and Pitman’s Progress (1976). Some of his stories from the ’60s and ’70s were collected in Tuo Yaw (2003) and BAZOZZ ZZ DZZ: And Other Short Stories (2003), including some unpublished work.
ink via SF Signal.
Mason was a prolific writer from 1964 until the early ’80s. His first story, as Rankine, was “Two’s Company” (1964). He published numerous SF books under that name, notably the Dag Fletcher space opera series, beginning with collection The Blockage of Sinitron: Four Adventures of Dag Fletcher (1966). He also wrote the Space Corporation series, several standalone space operas, and numerous Space: 1999 tie-in novels. As Mason he wrote nearly 20 novels, including From Carthage then I Came (1966; as Eight Against Utopia, 1967), Matrix (1970), The Phaeton Condition (1973), and Pitman’s Progress (1976). Some of his stories from the ’60s and ’70s were collected in Tuo Yaw (2003) and BAZOZZ ZZ DZZ: And Other Short Stories (2003), including some unpublished work.
ink via SF Signal.
New York Leads the Way
Study: Best Cities to Make Friends: Top 10 Cities to Meet People and Make Friends
Overlooked Movies: Cocoon
Ancient astronauts had an earth outpost on the island of Atlantis, and when it was destroyed, twenty of the aliens had to stay behind. The aliens are on cocoons. The ones who return to pick them up can assume human form, and the water that gives the cocoons life force is in a swimming pool in a swanky house. Naturally some older human folks get into the pool and suddenly find their youthful vigor returning. This causes some problems, especially when the word gets out about the pool and an entire nursing home takes advantage.
This screws up the life force in the water, but the cocoons can survive in sea water. When the aliens leave, they offer the nursing home residents a ride to their home planet where they'll life happily forever, free of disease and pain. This has even more appeal to me now than it did in 1985. Not everyone takes advantage of the opportunity. One major character, played by Jack Guilford, chooses to remain here to age and die. I know what choice I'd make.
Great cast. Don Ameche, Hume Cronyn, Wilford Brimley, Brian Dennehy, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapelton, and, yes, Steve Gutenberg. All doing a swell job.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Hard Case Crime Update from Charles Ardai
Eight years ago, I reached out to Michael Crichton – author of JURASSIC PARK and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, scripter of WESTWORLD and TWISTER, creator of the TV show ER -- to see whether he might let us reprint some of the wonderful paperback thrillers he wrote under the top-secret pen name “John Lange” back when he was a student at Harvard Medical School.
I knew the odds weren’t good, since he hadn’t acknowledged those books publicly or let anyone reprint them (at least in this country – I think he may have given the nod to a foreign edition or two). But…nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I wrote to him. And to my delight and surprise he said yes – provided that we keep his secret. That is, he wanted our John Lange books to be published as by John Lange, sort of the way J.K. Rowling recently published her new crime novel as by “Robert Galbraith.” We weren’t to breathe a word of his real identity. Well, of course we said yes, and he and we had a lot of fun working together, first on a reissue of the Edgar Award-nominated GRAVE DESCEND and then on one of ZERO COOL (for which Michael even penned two new chapters set in the present day to open and close the book…the first new writing he’d done as John Lange in more than 30 years!). He enjoyed the new covers Greg Manchess painted for the books and the old-fashioned paperback feel, and we were talking with him about which Lange book to reissue next – ODDS ON or DRUG OF CHOICE? – when he was suddenly taken from us by cancer at the age of 66.
Working with Michael (even if we had to keep it secret) was one of the great pleasures and privileges of my career, and ever since, I’ve wished we could have completed what we began. I’ve also wondered whether Michael might eventually have given in to temptation and written a whole new Lange novel for us -- no less persuasive a figure than Stephen King was encouraging him to do so! Alas, a new Lange novel will never be…but we’re very pleased to announce that five years later we finally will get to finish what we started. We’re going to be bringing all eight John Lange novels back to bookstores for the first time in more than four decades – and with the blessing of Michael’s family, the first time ever under the his real name.
The books are terrific reads, really delicious examples of Michael experimenting with the genres he would become famous for in later life – you’ll find sinister consequences of bioengineering (on a secret island vacation resort, no less!), you’ll find a race-against-the-clock political thriller penned long before the TV series “24,” you’ll find an archaeology professor hunting for a lost tomb in the Egyptian desert decades before Harrison Ford ever donned a fedora…plus a heist of a luxury hotel planned with the aid of a computer, a case of mistaken identity that pits an innocent man against a league of assassins, and more, all presented behind the gorgeous painted cover art of Greg Manchess and Glen Orbik.
If you’re curious to learn more about the books, all eight of them are now up on our website, www.hardcasecrime.com, and you can see the attached announcement we’re issuing later this morning. You should also, of course, feel free to email or call me with questions. If you’d like images of the cover art, feel free to grab them from our site, or let me know if you want higher-resolution copies.
And please, if you think your readers might be excited by this news, share it with them. The first four Lange books hit stores at the end of October, the second four in early November – just in time to be a perfect holiday treat for a Crichton fan, a Hard Case Crime fan, or just a fan of great storytelling.
Hope you’ll help us spread the word.
I knew the odds weren’t good, since he hadn’t acknowledged those books publicly or let anyone reprint them (at least in this country – I think he may have given the nod to a foreign edition or two). But…nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I wrote to him. And to my delight and surprise he said yes – provided that we keep his secret. That is, he wanted our John Lange books to be published as by John Lange, sort of the way J.K. Rowling recently published her new crime novel as by “Robert Galbraith.” We weren’t to breathe a word of his real identity. Well, of course we said yes, and he and we had a lot of fun working together, first on a reissue of the Edgar Award-nominated GRAVE DESCEND and then on one of ZERO COOL (for which Michael even penned two new chapters set in the present day to open and close the book…the first new writing he’d done as John Lange in more than 30 years!). He enjoyed the new covers Greg Manchess painted for the books and the old-fashioned paperback feel, and we were talking with him about which Lange book to reissue next – ODDS ON or DRUG OF CHOICE? – when he was suddenly taken from us by cancer at the age of 66.
Working with Michael (even if we had to keep it secret) was one of the great pleasures and privileges of my career, and ever since, I’ve wished we could have completed what we began. I’ve also wondered whether Michael might eventually have given in to temptation and written a whole new Lange novel for us -- no less persuasive a figure than Stephen King was encouraging him to do so! Alas, a new Lange novel will never be…but we’re very pleased to announce that five years later we finally will get to finish what we started. We’re going to be bringing all eight John Lange novels back to bookstores for the first time in more than four decades – and with the blessing of Michael’s family, the first time ever under the his real name.
The books are terrific reads, really delicious examples of Michael experimenting with the genres he would become famous for in later life – you’ll find sinister consequences of bioengineering (on a secret island vacation resort, no less!), you’ll find a race-against-the-clock political thriller penned long before the TV series “24,” you’ll find an archaeology professor hunting for a lost tomb in the Egyptian desert decades before Harrison Ford ever donned a fedora…plus a heist of a luxury hotel planned with the aid of a computer, a case of mistaken identity that pits an innocent man against a league of assassins, and more, all presented behind the gorgeous painted cover art of Greg Manchess and Glen Orbik.
If you’re curious to learn more about the books, all eight of them are now up on our website, www.hardcasecrime.com, and you can see the attached announcement we’re issuing later this morning. You should also, of course, feel free to email or call me with questions. If you’d like images of the cover art, feel free to grab them from our site, or let me know if you want higher-resolution copies.
And please, if you think your readers might be excited by this news, share it with them. The first four Lange books hit stores at the end of October, the second four in early November – just in time to be a perfect holiday treat for a Crichton fan, a Hard Case Crime fan, or just a fan of great storytelling.
Hope you’ll help us spread the word.
Neanderthal Update
GlobalPost: Sophisticated leather-working equipment found in a cave in France offer the first evidence that Neanderthals had more advanced bone tools than early modern humans, researchers said Monday.
A Review of Interest (To Me, Anyway)
Compound Murder by Bill Crider: If you are not familiar with these books, I guarantee if you read one, you will be on the hunt for every Sheriff Dan Rhodes book and not be satisfied until you have completed the series.Read the whole thing. That might convince you to buy the book. August 13 is the release date.
Gator Update (A Capella Edition)
A Cappella Alligator would be a great name for a rock band, but it also works for a one-man harmony group.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Jody Payne, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Jody Payne, a guitarist who toured with Willie Nelson for more than three decades, has died. He was 77.
I Miss the Old Days
New York City, 1980 - How New Yorkers beat the heat: Summer in the Big Apple through the years
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Annoying slideshow alert.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Annoying slideshow alert.
Marilyn King, R. I. P.
Marilyn King, last and youngest of King Sisters, dies: Marilyn King, the youngest and last surviving member of the popular jazz-vocal group the King Sisters, has died at 82 after battling cancer.
The Rise and Fall of Katharine Hepburn's Fake Accent
The Atlantic: When Hollywood turned to talkies, it created a not-quite-British, not-quite-American style of speaking that has all but disappeared.
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