Saturday, October 31, 2015
New EQMM Podcast
PodOmatic | Best Free Podcasts: A story from EQMM’s Passport to Crime series is featured this month. Belgium’s Bavo Dhooge is a winner of the Dutch Crime Writer’s Association’s Shadow Prize, the Flemish Crime Writer’s Association’s Diamond Bullet Award, and the Hercule Poirot Award. His story “Stinking Plaster” appeared in the September/October 2011 issue of EQMM. It is read for this podcast by Josh Pachter, who translated the story into English for its publication in EQMM.
Daylight Saving Time: Keep it year round
The second strong case for staying in Daylight Saving Time year round is that we can save lives. A recent study shows the switching of clocks in the spring causes a 25% jump in heart attacks in the few days following the switch, confirming earlier research that point out the shift in time can disrupt the quality of sleep and biological rhythms.
Here It Comes Again
Houston Chronicle: Daylight saving time will come to an end at 2 a.m. Sunday, but a pair of researchers say crime across the nation could drop and millions of dollars could be saved if everyone forgot to fall back and just made it permanent.
Happy Hallowe'en!
Friday, October 30, 2015
Al Molinaro, R. I. P.
Hollywood Reporter: Al Molinaro, who played Al Delvecchio, the owner of Arnold’s Drive-In, on the popular ABC sitcom Happy Days, died Thursday in a Wisconsin hospital, according to TMZ. He was 96.
Great Moments in Gothic Fiction
Gothic Fiction: A Timeline: Great Moments in Gothic Fiction: A History in 13 Books
4 Lost James Bond Movies
Variety: Why We Never Saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Bond, and Three More Lost 007 Movies
Gator Update (Taxidermy Edition)
The Charlotte Observer: Among one of the largest gun seizures in the Carolinas, investigators are finding oddities in the mountain of stuff taken from a Pageland man that range from an 1873 Springfield “trapdoor” rifle – the kind that George Custer’s troops used ineffectively at Little Bighorn – to a taxidermied alligator.
The only surprise here is that the gator wasn't alive. In other news, Taxidermied Alligators WBAGNFARB.
The only surprise here is that the gator wasn't alive. In other news, Taxidermied Alligators WBAGNFARB.
FFB: This Gun for Gloria -- Bernard Mara (Brian Moore)
Best known now as a writer of literary fiction, Brian Moore wrote paperback originals for both Dell (as Michael Bryan) and Gold Medal (as Bernard Mara). Back on 2007 Patti Abbott sent me a copy of Mara's A Bullet for My Lady, which I reported on here. I thought it might be time to read another of Mara's books, and this is the one I grabbed off the shelf.Mitch Cannon, and up-and-coming reporter in the U.S. falls for the wrong woman, and things go downhill. So he leaves the country, and now he's in Paris, living the freelancer's life. He's not doing well. He's just about flat broke and doesn't know how he's going to get any money. Sure enough, into his grubby little apartment comes Dorothy Gaye, an obviously wealthy woman who wants Cannon to find her daughter, Gloria, who's gone missing in Paris. Cannon would like the money, but he's not a detective. He turns down the offer. However, Mrs. Gaye leaves behind a pile of money. Mitch decides that he can use the money to get to Berlin and find a big story. All he has to do is find Gloria first.
It's not easy. Gloria's been hanging out with the wrong crowd, which is good for the reader if not for Cannon. In the two books I've read by Mara, local color is what he does best. I have a feeling that this book gives as good a picture of certain parts of Paris in the '50s as just about any other. The disaffected youth, the jazz clubs, the drug culture, the crooked cops -- it's all there and all vividly realized.
The plot is very complicated, and naturally there's romance in the offing for Cannon, as there often is in Gold Medal novels. The writing is a lot better than the plotting. As to what the title and the cover of the book have to do with the contents, your guess is as good as mine. There's no relationship that I can determine. But who cares? This Gun for Gloria moves fast and entertains. It's not Gold Medal fiction at its best, but it's still good enough.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
A Borrowed Man -- Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe is an honored SF writer. He's won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (1996) and been inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (2007). SFWA named him a Grand Master in 2012. If you're interested in SF, you know his name and have probably read his work. His latest book, A Borrowed Man, is an SF mystery novel.At some unspecified time in the future, when the population of Earth is only one billion (and some would like it to be less), you can go to the library and check out not a book but a "reclone," that is, a cloned human being who is the author of a book you want to discuss. The reclone in this case is Ern A. Smithe ("with an e," as he keeps telling people), originally an author of mystery novels. The person who comes to check him out is Colette Coldbrook, whose mother died long ago, whose father has died of an apparent heart attack, and whose brother has been recently murdered. Colette wants Ern because locked in a safe in her father's lab was one of his (or the original Ern's) books, Murder on Mars. Colette believes the book is a clue. Which it is, but not the kind she thinks.
Ern is happy to be checked out because when a library in his time is "weeded," the reclone who hasn't been checked out often enough or recently enough is burned. Reclones are apparently fully human, but they have no rights and aren't regarded as anything other than property. He's happy to help solve the mystery if he can, as he wants to be checked out.
He can solve the mystery, and he does, but to say much more about it would spoil a lot of things about the book, so I'll just say that Things Are Not What They Seem. Ern teams up with a man and a woman (who's a computer whiz, of course), tangles with the law, and even travels to . . . I can say no more. About the plot, anyway.
I can say a word about Ern's narration and character, however. As a clone, he has the memories of the original Ern, but he hasn't had the experiences that he remembers. It's an odd feeling. He is also forced to speak in the style of his novels, which his creators believed was his normal way of speech. It isn't, and he laments that throughout the book. The tone is therefore somewhat dry and flat, though the book is very readable. There's a lot of dialogue, which will either bother you or please you, depending on your inclinations.
And one other thing: I have this weird theory that a lot of readers, while they like the mystery in a mystery novel, read the books because of other things. In A Borrowed Man Wolfe slips in little bits and pieces about his future society throughout the story. This particular future seems sort of nice on the surface, but just below that, it's a terrifying place.
If you're a Gene Wolfe fan, you've already bought this. If you're not an SF reader but you'd like something a little different, this would be a good place to look.
Letters of Note: NEW FANGLED WRITING MACHINE
Letters of Note: NEW FANGLED WRITING MACHINE: Nine years after this letter was typed, Twain became the first author to deliver a typewritten manuscript to a publisher.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Now Available!
Haffner Press Murder Draws a Crowd: The Fredric Brown Mystery Library, Volume One: Work has been underway for nearly four years assembling the first two volumes of THE FREDRIC BROWN MYSTERY LIBRARY. Now is your chance to get in on the ground floor of what is hoped to be the definitive collection of Fredric Brown sans his science fiction works. Assembled in chronological order of publication, this set will contain all the short fiction (of all genres: mystery, horror, noir, western, detection, etc.) and all of Brown’s novels (again, excepting his sf works). You’ll be able to enjoy Fredric Brown at his longer lengths from The Fabulous Clipjoint and Night of the Jabberwock to The Lenient Beast and Mrs. Murphy’s Underpants.
Dick Maugg, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Iconic wine cooler pitchman Dick Maugg — known as the silent half of the Bartles & Jaymes duo from the brand’s 1980s commercials — has died. He was 83.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
I Found a Penny in the Walmart Parking Lot Last Week
Ancient warrior’s 3,500-year-old tomb and huge treasure hoard found in Greece: archaeologists in Greece have uncovered the skeleton of an ancient warrior that has lain undisturbed for more than 3,500 years along with a huge hoard of treasure, the Greek culture ministry announced Monday.
“Partners in Crime” (by Josh Pachter)
“Partners in Crime” (by Josh Pachter) | SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN: Josh Pachter hardly needs introduction to readers of this site. He has posted here several times, and his name is also seen frequently in the pages of EQMM, as both a translator for our Passport to Crime department and as an author of short stories (he has some four dozen stories in print). Today he talks about literary collaboration. EQMM has its roots in one of the most fruitful literary collaborations ever, that of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, so the topic is right on target for us. As Josh mentions in his post, his most recent book-length collaboration is Styx by Bavo Dhooge, to be released by Simon & Schuster next week.—Janet Hutchings
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
The Truth Always Kills -- Rick Ollerman
The other day I mentioned the sad condition of the Bouchercon dealers' room and the few small boxes of old paperbacks. One benefit of poking around in those boxes is that you might run into someone else who has an interest in that kind of thing, and I did. I met Rick Ollerman. I've enjoyed his introductions to any number of Stark House books, and I also blurbed his double novel from that publisher, Turnabout and Shallow Secrets, so it was great to meet him in person. In fact, he seemed to visit that area quite often. I think that every time I saw him after that, he had another armful of old paperbacks from those boxes. He should just have bought the entire stock.The introduction to Ollerman's new novel is provided by Ben Boulden, who notes that the book could be looked at as sort of a sequel to John D. MacDonald's The Executioners (filmed as Cape Fear). A newly released con named Roy Evans appears to be a menace to the family of a cop named Jeff Prentiss. Roy is the biological father of the daughter of Lori, Jeff's wife, and Roy is a stalker.
Jeff is responsible for the "suicide of [his] career over a moral high ground." If not for the union, he says, he'd be "refueling boats at a marina somewhere." But while he believes in morality, he also knows he has to do something about Roy. It's not going to put him on the moral high ground, but as Jeff says, "If we make our own happiness we should also be responsible for our own hells."
I'm tempted to call The Truth Always Kills a noir novel, but for me it's not quite there. It's certainly dark enough, though. It's also well written and well paced, and it gets a high recommendation from me.
13 Resurrections of Dracula
13 Resurrections of Dracula: The Essential TV and Movie Performances: While variations on the Dracula legend are among the most oft-told tales in cinema and television, some stand out from the pack.
PaperBack
William Fuller, The Pace that Kills, Dell, 1956
UPDATE: Read Bill Pronzini's comment below for more info on William Fuller.
Inside the Airtight Time Capsule Room sealed in 1940
Messy Nessy Chic: The “Crypt of Civilization”, is an airtight room at Oglethorpe University in Georgia, USA, that was sealed up in 1940, containing a wealth of artifacts from literary works to everyday items, not to be opened until the year 8113.
A Forgotten Book: The Google Book
The Google Book: Worth Searching For: Despite everything that fans of technology will tell you, the 'Google' has existed since 1913 when an English banker wrote and illustrated this beautiful but surreal children's book of verse about colorful creatures in a fantastical land.
Leon Bibb, R. I. P.
New York Times: Leon Bibb, an actor turned folk singer whose powerful, elegant baritone voice made him a prominent figure in the folk-music revival and a stirring performer at the landmark civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s, including the third march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, died on Friday in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was 93.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Overlooked Movies: Never Too Late
Judy and I saw this one in the theater shortly after we got married, and we both thought it was hilarious. Let's start with the cast: Paul Ford, Maureen O'Sullivan, Henry Jones, Lloyd Nolan, Jim Hutton, Connie Stevens, Jane Wyatt. How could you go wrong? According to me, you couldn't. Others might feel differently, but I really like everybody listed here, and how long has it been since you saw a movie with the great Paul Ford or Henry Jones? It's very dated, but I think you can overlook that.You'll notice on the poster that Hutton and Stevens are clearly being played up as the stars, but they're not, not really. I guess even in 1965, nobody could accept Paul Ford as a leading man.
The plot is pretty simple. Ford is 60 and O'Sullivan is 50 or more. And she's pregnant. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Ford is very embarrassed by this, and suddenly everyone in the small town is looking at him in an entirely different way. One of the best sight gags in the movie is Ford sitting in a room with other fathers-to-be.
Ford and O'Sullivan are Stevens' parents, and she and Hutton are living with them. Hutton has a lackadaisical approach to life, and Stevens doesn't really want to grow up. She's happy to be living at home, with her mother doing all the housework and cooking the meals. Hutton likes it, too, but now things will have to change. O'Sullivan will need some help. Not only will Stevens have to help, but she's jealous. She wants to be pregnant, too, but things aren't working out.
As you can imagine, lots of complications ensue, some of them quite unexpected, but everything works out in the end. I miss the old days.
Monday, October 26, 2015
Moving to Austin
Traveling in our 1963-1/2 Ford Galaxie 500 and Judy's parents' 1960 Plymouth Fury, we headed for Austin on August 2, 1966. Near the little town of Jarrell, famous now for the 1997 tornado, one of the fan belts came off the Plymouth. We didn't have phones or even a CB radio in those days, but when Judy pulled off the highway, I knew something was wrong. I even thought I knew what was wrong, since the Plymouth had a habit of losing fan belts. Luckily there was a small garage just off the service road, and the man there was happy to help us get back the Interstate again. We arrived Austin without further mishap.
Once we were there, we drove to our apartment. It was in a brand-new building, and we were glad we wouldn't have to clean it the way we did the one in Denton. Little did we know.
Let me pause here to repeat a story (slightly edited) that I told last year about how we got the apartment. One weekend we drove to Austin and met a friend of ours, a very strait-laced guy, who was going to help us look for a place to live. As we'd done in Denton, we got a paper and checked the classified ads. There were several possibilities. At the first place we looked, the apartment manager was a young woman, probably even younger than we were. She took us into a one-bedroom apartment about which I remember nothing at all except for the bedroom, and the reason I remember that is because of what the young woman said when she took us into it. She said, "It's a queen-size bed, and I'm sure it's big enough for all three of you."
For me, that moment marked the official beginning of that era known as "the '60s." I knew for sure that I'd come a long way from my little old hometown, and even a long way from North Texas State. I thought our friend was going to faint. I still remember how red his face was. I was laughing, and I think Judy was, too. We didn't rent that apartment, but I'll always remember that little episode fondly.
Now back to 104 East 32nd Street, the new apartment (it's still there and still looks the same; our apartment was the one on the top right). We parked and went upstairs. It was late, after dark, because of the delay in Jarrell. We already had a key, so we opened the door and went in.
Surprise, surprise, surprise! as Gomer Pyle would say. The apartment owner had forgotten when we were arriving, and he was letting some friends of his stay there. We opened the door and walked right in on them. There was much confusion and then much apologizing and then the owner was called. More apologizing. I think another rent reduction was involved, but not much of one, and that was a disappointment because the cost had jumped from $85 a month that we'd paid in Denton to $135 a month. Austin was an expensive place. Once again Judy had been the decider. She thought this place was just what we needed, but her pleasure in it was tempered considerably by the fact that it was occupied.
We got the squatters cleared out. They'd been there only since the afternoon, so everything was in pretty good order. We didn't have time to unload the cars, but we didn't have to go to a motel. That was good news for us.
We didn't take many pictures in that apartment, but here's one from Christmas 1966 or '67. I don't know why I'm wearing a suit, but I do know that the lamp on the dresser is on my nightstand now and that I still use it every night. My father made it.
We got settled in within a few days, and then it was time for me to check in at the English Department and for Judy to get another job.
Once we were there, we drove to our apartment. It was in a brand-new building, and we were glad we wouldn't have to clean it the way we did the one in Denton. Little did we know.
Let me pause here to repeat a story (slightly edited) that I told last year about how we got the apartment. One weekend we drove to Austin and met a friend of ours, a very strait-laced guy, who was going to help us look for a place to live. As we'd done in Denton, we got a paper and checked the classified ads. There were several possibilities. At the first place we looked, the apartment manager was a young woman, probably even younger than we were. She took us into a one-bedroom apartment about which I remember nothing at all except for the bedroom, and the reason I remember that is because of what the young woman said when she took us into it. She said, "It's a queen-size bed, and I'm sure it's big enough for all three of you."
For me, that moment marked the official beginning of that era known as "the '60s." I knew for sure that I'd come a long way from my little old hometown, and even a long way from North Texas State. I thought our friend was going to faint. I still remember how red his face was. I was laughing, and I think Judy was, too. We didn't rent that apartment, but I'll always remember that little episode fondly.
Now back to 104 East 32nd Street, the new apartment (it's still there and still looks the same; our apartment was the one on the top right). We parked and went upstairs. It was late, after dark, because of the delay in Jarrell. We already had a key, so we opened the door and went in.
Surprise, surprise, surprise! as Gomer Pyle would say. The apartment owner had forgotten when we were arriving, and he was letting some friends of his stay there. We opened the door and walked right in on them. There was much confusion and then much apologizing and then the owner was called. More apologizing. I think another rent reduction was involved, but not much of one, and that was a disappointment because the cost had jumped from $85 a month that we'd paid in Denton to $135 a month. Austin was an expensive place. Once again Judy had been the decider. She thought this place was just what we needed, but her pleasure in it was tempered considerably by the fact that it was occupied.
We got the squatters cleared out. They'd been there only since the afternoon, so everything was in pretty good order. We didn't have time to unload the cars, but we didn't have to go to a motel. That was good news for us.
We didn't take many pictures in that apartment, but here's one from Christmas 1966 or '67. I don't know why I'm wearing a suit, but I do know that the lamp on the dresser is on my nightstand now and that I still use it every night. My father made it.
We got settled in within a few days, and then it was time for me to check in at the English Department and for Judy to get another job.
Who Is Nancy Drew, Really?
Who Is Nancy Drew, Really?: Nancy Drew in Starlight by Isabel Ortiz. The instability of the girl detective.
Jerome Kass, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Jerome Kass, who wrote the Tony-nominated book for the 1978 Broadway musical “Ballroom,” which was adapted from his own Emmy-nominated teleplay about older people who salve their loneliness on the dance floor, died on Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 78.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
I'm Sure You'll All Agree
The Best Ape-Related Horror Films of All Time
You know it's a definitive list because Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is included.
You know it's a definitive list because Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is included.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg -- The Scam
There are a lot of things I like about the Fox and O'Hare series. Here are a few of them.The dialog is often hilarious and makes me laugh.
The over-the-top action hardly ever lets up.
The characters are amusing, right down the the most minor ones.
The plotting is excellent, with two or three major twists along the way. In The Scam, the whole story seems to veer suddenly in a new direction early on, but it's all a part of the whole, as we discover later.
The capers and cons are well conceived and described.
The local color in the exotic settings is excellent (surely Lee Goldberg must be loving his tax-deductible research trips).
The stories are pure escapism in the best sense, and they make for sock-o entertainment. I don't know why the movies haven't snapped these books up. Maybe they have.
Okay, that's enough of that. The caper this time involved taking down the owner of a couple of multi-million-dollar casinos, one in Las Vegas and one in Macau. Fox and O'Hare run up against a good many obstacles. Do they succeed? What do you think? I laughed, I sighed, I had a great time reading this.
Warning: There's a cliffhanger ending. Some people might object to that. If you're one of them, don't say I didn't tell you.
The Bouchercon Dealers' Room, Raleigh, 2015
I hadn't been to a Bouchercon in a few years, so I was surprised to see that the dealers' room in Raleigh had so few dealers. I can remember conventions when the room would be crowded with dealers and buyers and when the tables would have first editions of Hammett, Chandler, and Ross McDonald on display. Not to mention hundreds of old paperbacks, even rare classics like Reform School Girl.
It's not like that now. I didn't count the tables, but there couldn't have been more than five or six dealers represented. I saw no older books, not that I looked very hard. Everything looked shiny and new, and all the books appeared to be by writers attending the convention.
There was one exception. Mystery Mike had three or four small boxes of older paperbacks, the remnants of an estate he'd bought. There had been a thousand or so books originally, I was told, but the rest had already been sold.
I looked through the boxes several times in the hope of coming up with a great find, but I was disappointed. Either I had the books already or they were things I wasn't interested in having. There was an okay copy of the Dell 10 Cent Marijuana, and the price wasn't bad, but I already own a much nicer copy. I was tempted to buy it, anyway, but I resisted.
After looking things over a couple of times I bought two books, more out of a sense of obligation than anything. One was Dark Destiny, by Edward Ronns (Edward S. Aarons). I have a copy, but someone wrote on the cover. The one I bought wasn't in great condition, but the cover was unmarred. The other one was The Young Hoods, which appears to be unread. I couldn't resist a book about "the bitter poison of delinquency," even if I never planned to read it.
The Internet is to blame for the condition of the dealers' room, I'm sure. Why pack hundreds of books, haul or ship them to a distant city, unload and unpack them, sell what you can, then pack them, load them, and haul them home to unload and unpack, when instead you can just sell them out of your house via a website? I can understand why things are as they are, but I miss the old days.
It's not like that now. I didn't count the tables, but there couldn't have been more than five or six dealers represented. I saw no older books, not that I looked very hard. Everything looked shiny and new, and all the books appeared to be by writers attending the convention.
There was one exception. Mystery Mike had three or four small boxes of older paperbacks, the remnants of an estate he'd bought. There had been a thousand or so books originally, I was told, but the rest had already been sold. I looked through the boxes several times in the hope of coming up with a great find, but I was disappointed. Either I had the books already or they were things I wasn't interested in having. There was an okay copy of the Dell 10 Cent Marijuana, and the price wasn't bad, but I already own a much nicer copy. I was tempted to buy it, anyway, but I resisted.
After looking things over a couple of times I bought two books, more out of a sense of obligation than anything. One was Dark Destiny, by Edward Ronns (Edward S. Aarons). I have a copy, but someone wrote on the cover. The one I bought wasn't in great condition, but the cover was unmarred. The other one was The Young Hoods, which appears to be unread. I couldn't resist a book about "the bitter poison of delinquency," even if I never planned to read it.
The Internet is to blame for the condition of the dealers' room, I'm sure. Why pack hundreds of books, haul or ship them to a distant city, unload and unpack them, sell what you can, then pack them, load them, and haul them home to unload and unpack, when instead you can just sell them out of your house via a website? I can understand why things are as they are, but I miss the old days.
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