Black Mask

The Paperback Fanatic: Issue 23

Scott — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:52:00 +0000

The Paperback Fanatic

Issue 23


Front Cover

Contents

The Marksman

The Lady From LUST

Werewolves

Fantastic Adventures

Dedicated to Ray Bradbury

(August 1920 - June 2012)


Back Cover

Printing History

August 2012

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Wrong Number

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:49:27 +0000

John L Benton

Ambition and envy stir up a seething cauldron of crime!

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Tags: Thrilling Detective

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Dennis Lehane to Write ‘Travis McGee’ for Fox

Ed Gorman — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:55:00 +0000

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Ed here:Last night Bill Crider headlined this story "Oh-Uh."I emailed him to see what he meant by that. His response is mine. (Though I'd add that DeCapiro would be among my last choices no matter who did the screenplay.)

Bill here: "I don't think McGee translates well to the screen, and good as Lehane is, I'm not sure he can make me believe Leo as McGee."

Dennis Lehane to Write ‘Travis McGee’ for Fox

MAY 21, 2013 | 02:14PM PT

Peter Chernin is on board to produc
e

Justin Kroll

@krolljvar

Fox has tapped “Shutter Island” author Dennis Lehane to pen the script for World War II drama “Travis McGee.”

Peter Chernin and Amy Robinson will produce. THR broke the news.

Leonardo DiCaprio was once attached and his involvement is still being worked out. Mark Boal and David James Kelly are some of the other writers to work on the script in recent years.

Based on the book “Deep Blue Good-by,” the novel was part of 21 book series focusing on Travis Magee who is the central character in a series of mysteries by John D. McDonald. They are classic sleuth novels, set it Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Though this is Lehane’s second time writing a script it is the first time he has penned one that isn’t based off his own material. He previously wrote the Fox Searchlight pic “Animal Rescue” which is based on a short story he wrote.

Lehane is repped Amy Schiffman at IPG
.

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THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

pattinase (abbott) — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:53:00 +0000

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Still Famous After All These Years

J. Kingston Pierce — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:39:00 +0000

I never have trouble remembering Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday, for it coincides with the anniversary of my founding The Rap Sheet (a subject about which I shall have more to say anon). Had that physician turned author not died in July 1930, he’d be celebrating his 154th birthday today, having been born in 1859.

On this occasion, let me direct you to a fairly good biography of Conan Doyle here, a video of the author talking about his life and career (which I’ve posted before on this page, but which many readers probably have not seen), and David Abrams’ review of the 2007 book Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley. Oh, and if you didn’t see it before, here is James McCreet’s Rap Sheet piece looking back at some of the more preposterous deductions made in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

(Hat tip to MysteryFanfare.)

READ MORE: “Sherlock Holmes Is on the Case,” by Margot Kinberg (Confessions of a Mystery Novelist ...).

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Making sense of place

Lynne Patrick — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:55:57 +0000

Lynne Patrick

We did get to Guernsey, for four delicious days. We walked on the cliff path, explored old haunts, found one or two new ones, watched a sunset, walked some more, ate far too many scrumptious things that weren’t at all good for us and came home yesterday feeling relaxed and recharged. I love Guernsey.

Something else I did was indulge in a long catch-up chat with a friend who lives there, and today’s post comes out of that conversation, albeit in an oblique kind of way.

She’s working on a project that relies heavily on her knowledge of Guernsey, which is encyclopaedic and all-enveloping. And talking about it with her made me think about the way so many TV crime dramas rely on evoking the place in which they’re set and the particular characteristics of the people who live there.

It became something of a cliché for British crime writers a decade or so ago: set your series in a beautiful place and selling it for TV serialization will be a doddle.
Midsomer Murders, based in a kind of generic Cotswold village location, is still going strong, even though it hasn’t had much to do with Caroline Graham’s novels since the first series. Wycliffe, set on the stunningly beautiful Cornish coast, pops up regularly on satellite channels, dated by the huge monitors on the computers and the brick-sized mobile phones. I’ve never seen one of W J Burley’s novels even in the library, but he gets a credit on every episode.

And of course there’s Morse and his spinoff Lewis, set among the ancient dreaming spires of Oxford with its conveniently ever-changing population of students and academics.
There’s even a Morse walking tour now, taking in the picturesque city centre locations the cameras lapped up.

I’ll probably be shot down in flames, or possibly sued, for saying this, but I do wonder if the books would have gained the fame and fortune they did without the TV adaptations. Moving pictures on the TV have a way of getting inside your head and making you come back for more, especially when they’re counterpointed by murder and mayhem in the plot.

That said, creating those pictures in words on the page is a talent some authors have in abundance. I’ve just finished reading a mystery set in the Dordogne (south-west France for the benefit of geographically challenged blog-followers), and I really felt as if I was there. And when I extrapolated on that thought, I began to wonder if one reason I can’t get along with Scandinavian crime fiction is that the authors are too damn good at getting it right; they make it feel so grey and depressing that I simply don’t want to know!

I’m conscious that, aside from the above para, I’ve focused on British crime writers and locations here. That’s because all the examples I could think of of novels turned into picturesque TV series happened to be British. And also because I know them better than their American equivalents: certainly not because America lacks beautiful places. Or writers who set crime novels in them; Tony Hillerman is well represented on my bookshelves, and a certain E J Copperman has introduced me to the Jersey Shore, which I plan to visit one of these fine years.

So now we come to the point I’ve been leading to. I may have said this before, so apologies if I’m repeating myself, but what worries me a little about gory crime set in beautiful places is the credibility factor. It was with a sharp intake of breath that I saw that Ann Cleeves, one of my favourite Brit crime writers, had been persuaded to write a fifth Shetland novel. I heard Ann speak about the Shetland Quartet several times, and she always said that crime in general and murder in particular is so rare in the Shetland islands that even four books pushed credibility a little far. And now there’s a fifth. Will there be a sixth, seventh and eighth? Do I hear the rattle of shekels in the counting house? Who said publishing was run by accountants?

Enough for now, lest I use my soapbox as a ladder to climb on my high horse.

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Do People Only Like Their Sports’ Movies Sympathetic?

pattinase (abbott) — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I noted that 42 despite tepid reviews did okay at the box office. MONEYBALL, an excellent but cynical look at baseball last year or the year before, did not do all that well despite the star power of Brad Pitt.

Are we especially nostalgic about sports movies and only embrace ones that show the sport the way we would hope it to be rather than how it is? My favorites take a more jaundiced look at sports. HOOP DREAMS, for instance.

Baseball movies seem the most nostalgic. What are your favorites? Which ones offer a full picture?

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Book Received: JOSEF HOFFMANN – Philosophies of Crime Fiction.

mysteryfile.com — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:00:05 +0000

JOSEF HOFFMANN – Philosophies of Crime Fiction. No Exit Press, UK, softcover, July 2013; US, softcover, October 2013. This is not a review, only a brief post to draw your attention to this upcoming book, authored by an occasional contributor to this blog, Josef Hoffmann. I’ve browsed through it well enough, however, to recommend it [...]

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Music I Like: Superstar – The Carpenters

James Reasoner — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

The purest singing voice I've ever heard. I liked every song Karen Carpenter ever sang.

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Homicide at the 5 and 10

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:52:49 +0000

Stewart Toland

The cost of Terry Grey’s Japanese dagger had come high in battlefield blood. But though Terry brought it back to a hometown dime store, the second fee that sinister souvenir demanded was equally deadly dear.

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Tags: Ten Detective Aces

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