New Story at BEAT to a PULP

BEAT to a PULP :: Hit Women: A Bo Fexler Short Story :: Clair Dickson

For George Kelley

Helena Bonham Carter to play Enid Blyton in new BBC biopic - Telegraph: "Helena Bonham Carter is to play Enid Blyton in a new BBC drama that will tell the life story of one of Britain's best loved children's authors."

Elmer Kelton, R. I. P.

Elmer Kelton dies at 83 : Local : gosanangelo.com: "Award-winning novelist Elmer Kelton of San Angelo died Saturday. He was 83. More details will follow."

I hardly know what to say. Elmer was one of the greats, not just as a writer but as a person. I first met him when I lived in Brownwood, nearly 30 years ago. What a tremendous loss to the writing community and the world.

UPDATE: Elmer Kelton dies at 83 : Local : gosanangelo.com: "SAN ANGELO — Elmer Stephen Kelton, 83, died Saturday. He was born April 29, 1926, at Horse Camp in Andrews County to Mr. and Mrs. R.W. “Buck” Kelton, and grew up on the McElroy Ranch in Upton and Crane counties. He completed his education at the University of Texas after serving in Europe during World War II.

Kelton married Anna Lipp of Ebensee, Austria in 1947 and began a career in agriculture journalism at the San Angelo Standard-Times in 1949. He became editor of the Sheep & Goat Raiser magazine in 1963 and associate editor of Livestock Weekly in 1968, retiring in 1990. Kelton maintained a parallel career as a freelance writer, beginning with short stories in the post-war pulp magazine trade, progressing to novels, non-fiction books and countless magazine articles. In all, he wrote more than 40 books, including “The Time it Never Rained,” “The Wolf and the Buffalo,” “The Day the Cowboys Quit,” and “The Good Old Boys,” which became a Turner Network movie directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones. Kelton was named the number-one Western writer of all time by the Western Writers of America. The WWA voted him seven Spur awards for best Western novel of the year and the career Saddleman Award, and he received four Western Heritage Wrangler awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame."

Sheriff Dan Rhodes Marches On

Today I signed the contract to write the 18th Sheriff Dan Rhodes novel. For a while there, I didn't think the sheriff was going to make it to #18, but now it's a go. All I have to do is write the book, but then that's the easy part, right?

The way things are going, I'm not at all sure there'll be a #19 in the series. Sales aren't increasing (some of you must not be buying), but at least they're holding their own. That might not be good enough for another sale, but if it's not, I won't be too sad. When I wrote the first book all those years ago, I never thought I'd still be writing about the sheriff. Heck, I never thought I'd sell a second book. As it turned out, I've sold dozens, under my own name and many others, so I've had a much better run than I ever dreamed of.

I even have a couple of other things going on, so there might be some other books if things work out. And assuming I'm not too lazy to write them. There's always that possibility. I'm getting lazier every day. Old age, I guess. It's a good thing the sheriff doesn't age. If he did, he'd be too lazy to solve all those crimes in Blacklin County.

I Even Do This In Walmart

Scientists reveal the real reason why we walk in circles when lost - Times Online: "It has long been a staple of adventure stories: the hero, lost in the wilderness, painstakingly tries to find his way back to civilisation only to stumble across his own tracks and discover that he has been walking in circles.

Now the popular belief that people in unfamiliar surroundings tend to walk round in circles has been confirmed by scientists."

Gator Update (Chicago Edition Update)

Young alligator caught in Chicago River -- chicagotribune.com: "Authorities say a young alligator captured in the unlikely waters of the Chicago River is now safe in the hands of animal experts.

The 3-foot alligator was spotted Thursday in the North Branch of the river, near Damen and Fullerton avenues. Attempts to capture it then failed, but the Chicago Animal Care and Control Department and a reptile expert from the Chicago Herpetological Society caught it early Friday morning."

The President's Analyst

Shamus Nominees

PRIVATE EYE WRITERS OF AMERICA ANNOUNCES
2009 NOMINEES FOR SHAMUS AWARDS

The Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) is proud to announce the nominees for the 28th annual Shamus Awards, given annually to recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. The 2009 awards cover works first published in the U.S. in 2008. The awards will be presented at the PWA banquet, to be held Friday evening Oct. 16, 2009, in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.

2009 Shamus Awards Nominees


Best Hardcover
Salvation Boulevard by Larry Beinhart (Nation Books), featuring Carl Vanderveer
Empty Ever After by Reed Farrel Coleman (Bleak House Books), featuring Moe Prager
The Blue Door by David Fulmer (Harcourt), featuring Eddie Cero
The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes (Wm. Morrow), featuring Ed Loy
The Ancient Rain by Domenic Stansberry (St. Martins Minotaur) featuring Dante Mancuso

Best First PI Novel
Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer (Doubleday), featuring Riley Spartz
Swann’s Last Song by Charles Salzberg (Five Star), featuring Henry Swann
The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang (Simon & Schuster), featuring Mei Wang
In the Heat by Ian Vasquez (St. Martins Minotaur), featuring Miles Young
Veil of Lies by Jeri Westerson (St Martins Minotaur), featuring Crispin Guest

Best Paperback Original
Snow Blind by Lori Armstrong (Medallion) featuring Julie Collins
Shot Girl by Karen Olson (Obsidian) featuring Annie Seymour
The Stolen by Jason Pinter (MIRA) featuring Henry Parker
The Black Hand by Will Thomas (Touchstone/Simon &Schuster) featuring Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn.
The Evil That Men Do by Dave White (Crown/Three Rivers Press) featuring Jackson Donne

Best Short Story
“Family Values” by Mitch Alderman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, June 2008), featuring Bubba Simms
“Last Island South” by John C. Boland. (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Sep/Oct 2008), featuring Meggie Trevor
“The Blonde Tigress” by Max Allan Collins (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, June 2008), featuring Nate Heller
“Discovery” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Nov 2008), featuring Pita Cárdenas
“Panic on Portage Path” by Dick Stodghill (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Jan/Feb 2008), featuring Jack Eddy and Bram Geary.

-30-

PWA was founded in 1981 by Robert J. Randisi to recognize the private eye genre and its writers. Previous Shamus winners include Lawrence Block, Ken Bruen, Harlan Coben, Max Allan Collins, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, O’Neil deNoux, Brendan DuBois, Loren D. Estleman, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Sue Grafton, James W. Hall, Steve Hamilton, Jeremiah Healy, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, John Lutz, Bill Pronzini, S.J. Rozan, Sandra Scoppettone and Don Winslow. P.I. Guy logo by Terry Beatty.

Uh-Oh

Movie Times Next to Disappear from Print Editions?: "KANSAS CITY, Mo. Filmgoers who have long turned to the local newspaper to find theaters and show times for movies may have to start looking elsewhere as theater chains rethink the value of paper and ink in a digital age.

The top two U.S. chains, Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Entertainment Inc., have begun in recent months to reduce or eliminate the small-type listings showing the start times for movies at individual theaters. Theaters typically must pay newspapers to print that information."

Flannery O'Connor Update

Flannery O'Connor: A 'contrary' woman's legacy - CNN.com: "Flannery O'Connor did not expect to become the subject of a biography. She thought the narrow borders of her life -- lived 'between the house and the chicken yard' -- wouldn't give a writer much to work with.

It would therefore come as a surprise (and probably secretly please her) to learn she is the focus of at least three."

I'm Sure They'll Re-Imagine This

WB, Singer to lift 'Excalibur' - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety: "Warner Bros. has closed a deal to remake the 1981 John Boorman-directed 'Excalibur,' with Bryan Singer producing and developing the picture as a potential directing vehicle."

Croc Update (School Trip to the Zoo Edition)

Link via Neatorama.

Once Again, Texas Leads the Way

Rice study: There's a rivalry between your nostrils | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle: "But what would happen if each nostril inhaled a different smell and sent varying signals to the brain? That's what Rice University psychologist Denise Chen wondered, so she set up a series of experiments to find out. The results were published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

In one experiment, 12 subjects took 20 sniffs from a specially designed bottle that carried a rose scent to one nostril and a marker pen to the other. For each participant, at times, the rose smell dominated, and other times the marker did.

Why? “The brain is conflicted,” Chen said."

Once Again, Texas Leads the Way

North Houston man dies watching movies in garage | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle: "A North Houston man with a habit of watching movies in his car appears to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning and sickened six other people in his home this morning, authorities said.

Damian Scott, 26, told his wife, Latrice, around 4:30 a.m. that he was headed out to the garage to watch movies on his car DVD player, said James Bonaby, a homicide investigator with the Houston Police Department. Scott's wife noticed the couple's 7-month-old baby seemed sick this morning and went out to the garage to tell her husband, whom she found dead and slumped over the steering wheel with the car engine still running, Bonaby said."

The Mysterious Muck Monster

Strange sea creature dubbed 'Muck Monster' |West Palm Beach News, South Florida Breaking News, Forecast, Video from WPTV: "There's something lurking just under the surface of the Lake Worth Lagoon.

Greg Reynolds of LagoonKeepers.org recalls, 'Channel marker ten is the first time we saw the unknown creature.' 'I hollered out...and said what is that? We followed it, started taking video.'

This mysterious creature was caught on tape by the LagoonKeepers."

Video at the link.

Here's the Plot of Your Next Novel

Extortionist Claims "Dr. Phil" Episode Sparked Sex-Slave Scam Plan -- Courant.com: "A extortion plot that targeted a Greenwich millionaire's secret online world in which women were his sex slaves was hatched after an Ohio couple watched an episode of 'Dr. Phil,' the Greenwich Time reported."

James Bond Was Never Like This

Police evict MI5 whistleblower Shayler from farmhouse | Mail Online: "Former MI5 whistleblower David Shayler was evicted today from the National Trust farmhouse where he had been squatting.
[. . . .]
Speaking after the eviction, cross-dressing Shayler said: 'I wonder if the council tax payers think it's a good idea to have police surrounding us, when we're a bunch of harmless hippies? 'This must have cost them a fortune.'

Last month, he unveiled his alter-ego 'Delores Kane' to reporters, posing at the farmhouse with false breasts, mini-skirt and ginger wig.

The troubled Shayler also revealed how he now often dresses in women's clothing and claimed it was 'part of the prophecy' because 'Jesus was a transvestite', adding: 'It was important to have feminine attributes and the people I live with don't mind at all.'"

Photo at the link.

Gator Update (Chicago Edition)

Was That an Alligator in the Chicago River? | NBC Chicago: "There’s ‘gator in these parts.

Not something you expect to hear in Chicago, but numerous reports flooded news and police stations this morning talking about an alligator in the north branch of the Chicago River, police said.

Observers saw the reptile, believed to be between two and four feet long, chillin’ on the rocks at Fullerton and Damen, Police News Affairs Officer Kevin Kilmer said."

A Little Test

Has your classical knowledge stood the test of time? - Telegraph: "As thousands of students receive their A-level results, how much do you remember from your school days? Take our Classical Education Quiz, and see if you can tell your Tantalus from your Tacitus."

Another List that Alvin, Texas, Isn't On

America's 10 Best Places to Grow Up - Yahoo! News: "If you could create the ideal community to raise a child in, what ingredients would you include? First off, you'd probably want a low crime rate. A strong school system would also be key. From there, you'd need lots of other children, expansive green spaces to play in, and plenty of nearby family events. Toss in an abundance of artistic and recreational activities, and all of a sudden you've got one heck of a place to grow up. At U.S. News, we wanted to find out if any communities like that already existed--and if so, where they were located. So we dug into our database of 2,000 different places all across the country and pinpointed the locales that met these criteria. We then examined these communities more closely to determine which places offered the best combination of safe neighborhoods, fun activities, and top-notch educators. Our selections appear below, in our list of America's 10 Best Places to Grow Up:"