Bullet Points: Random Finds Edition

• It seems that British comedy writer John Finnemore (Cabin Pressure), one of the few people known to have solved the literary puzzle Cain’s Jawbone, has penned “an official sequel” to that work. As The Guardian’s Sarah Shaffi explains, the Cain’s Jawbone murder mystery was originally published in 1934, and was created by Edward Powys Mathers (aka “Torquemada”), the “cryptic crossword compiler” for Britain’s Observer newspaper. Mathers’ puzzle “can only be solved if readers rearrange its 100 pages in the correct order,” says Shaffi. “It became a literary phenomenon after book fans on TikTok discovered it.” About the contents of Finnemore’s sequel—set for release next year—The Guardian provides the following:

A locked room mystery, Finnemore’s new whodunnit hinges on a person found stabbed to death in the study of a complete stranger. The room was securely locked from the inside, but no weapon—or murderer—has ever been found, and the police investigation discovered no credible suspects or likely motive.

The murderer keeps, safely locked in a drawer, a box of 100 picture postcards. If arranged in the correct order and properly understood, these postcards will explain the murder in the study, and nine others that took place the same year. Readers need to re-order the postcards, one side of which features text, the other an image which is also a clue, in sequence to correctly solve and explain the 10 murders.

For now, Finnemore’s book, due out from crowdfunding publisher Unbound, is listed only as Untitled Mystery. However, Shaffi reports that “the title will be revealed to those who pledge during the crowdfunding campaign.” As of this writing, that campaign has 1,061 supporters at various reward levels.

• Crime Fiction Lover reports that the popular ITV-TV crime drama Unforgotten will return to British airwaves on Monday, February 27. This fifth season of the show finds Irish actress Sinéad Keenan stepping into shoes vacated by Nicola Walker, whose character, Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart, was killed suddenly in a car crash at the end of Series 4. (Walker subsequently went on to headline the Alibi network’s Annika, which has been renewed for a second season.) Keenan has been cast as DCI Jessica James, who joins series regular DCI Sunil “Sunny” Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) in managing a team of London police detectives who specialize in solving cold cases. Their initial investigation together will, of course, be a “devilishly tricky one,” CFL explains. “During the renovation of a period property in [the West London district of] Hammersmith, a body is found bricked into the chimney. At first, Jessica is sceptical and warns that with its tight resources the team can only afford to investigate cases that have consequences in the here-and-now. After all, there’s the suggestion that the body could date as far back as the 1930s.” As usual, Season 5 will comprise six episodes. The UK blog What to Watch notes that “A U.S. release date has still to be announced.”

• Meanwhile, the ninth and concluding season of Endeavour—a prequel to the long-running Inspector Morse—is scheduled to begin its run on the same British network, ITV, come Sunday, February 26. There will be just three 90-minute episodes this time out, concluding on March 12. Although The Killing Times says Season 9 “plot details are currently embargoed,” Radio Times observes that the program’s “fans are bracing themselves for some sad scenes in the final three episodes, which will reveal how Morse (Shaun Evans) came to be estranged from his crime-solving partner, Fred Thursday (Roger Allam).” The PBS-TV Web site supplies nary a clue as to when this last season of Endeavour might become available to American viewers, but it does offer a brief video that recaps scenes from Evans’ decade spent in the role of Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse.

• Speaking of Shaun Evans, it appears he will star with Anna Maxwell Martin (Line of Duty) in a four-part ITV adaptation of Delia Balmer’s 2017 true-crime memoir, Living with a Serial Killer. The story, according to Deadline, will focus on Balmer, a nurse “who fell for murderer John Sweeney (Evans) and overcame a horrific attack to provide vital evidence in the prosecution against her former lover.” Using a script by Nick Stevens (The Pembrokeshire Murders), filming on this mini-series is expected to begin next month.

• Season 2 of the HBO-TV series Perry Mason, starring Matthew Rhys, is slated to premiere on Monday, March 6. I haven’t seen much information about what to expect from those eight new episodes, but the Web site FedRegsAdvisor states they’ll be set in 1933—the last year of America’s failed Prohibition experiment—“with the protagonist’s law company taking on civil issues as opposed to criminal justice cases.” After the offspring of a powerful oil company exec is slain cruelly, and Los Angeles’ Depression-era “Hoovervilles” are searched for “the most obvious suspects, … Perry, Della [Street], and Paul [Drake] find themselves at the center of a case that reveals vast conspiracies and forces them to consider what it means to be truly guilty.” A most promising trailer for Season 2 is available here.

• A final TV note: The UK channel BBC One has released early images from Wolf, an upcoming crime drama based on the late author Mo Hayder’s novels about Detective Inspector Jack Caffery. English actor Ukweli Roach will be portraying Caffery.

• Because I have committed myself to attending this year’s Bouchercon, I’ve been on alert for news about that event. Which is why I noticed this generous offer. From In Reference to Murder: “A new Bouchercon Scholarship Award Program has been established to help mystery fans and writers with a financial subsidy. This subsidy covers registration fees for the annual Bouchercon convention, scheduled to be held in San Diego in 2023, as well as travel and lodging costs, reimbursed up to $500.00 (for up to five awardees). Interested applicants will need to write a 300- to 500-word essay on the applicant’s interest in attending Bouchercon and in the mystery genre and be willing to volunteer for no less than four hours at the event. The deadline is May 1st, with scholarship winners announced June 1.” Click here to find applications specifics.

• Nero Wolfe fans will find something extra to like about this San Diego Bouchercon. A banquet in honor of their favorite fictional sleuth has been scheduled for Friday, September 1, at Morton’s Steakhouse on J Street, “a 2-minute walk from the convention hotel, with shuttle rides available.” The cost is $175 per person, and it looks as if attendance is limited to members of the Wolfe Pack literary society.

• Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor have been scoring plenty of favorable press coverage for their new, first-ever Mickey Spillane biography, Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction (Mysterious Press). That includes a joint interview with the Web site Bookreporter, from which we learn, for instance, why Spillane took a decade-long hiatus from writing after Kiss Me, Deadly was published in 1952. My humble contribution to these kudos is a short critique I posted earlier this week in January Magazine. Here it is in its entirety:

“The chewing gum of American literature” is how crime novelist Mickey Spillane described his books, which typically blended eye-for-an-eye justice with risqué innuendos and granite-chinned philosophizing (“Too many times naked women and death walked side by side”). And boy, did readers eat up his fiction, making his first Mike Hammer private-eye yarn, 1947’s I, the Jury, into a best-seller that spawned a dozen sequels and turned its protagonist into a radio, film, and TV fixture. Spillane developed his own media persona along the way, part-Hammer (he portrayed his Gotham gumshoe in a 1963 film, The Girl Hunters) and part-ham (he spoofed himself in a succession of Miller Lite beer commercials). In this enlightening biography, fellow writers Collins (his friend and posthumous collaborator) and Traylor make the most of their extraordinary access to Spillane’s personal archives, delivering incisive perspectives on his comic-book years, his multiple marriages, his pugnaciousness and wont to embellish the facts of his life, his surprising conversion by Jehovah’s Witnesses, his vexation with Hollywood, and his eventual recognition by peers who’d earlier condemned him as “a vulgar pulpmeister.” This book’s paramount success, though, is in casting Spillane as a trendsetting stylist, who recognized early the value of paperback publication and helped shape late-20th-century detective fiction.

• Until recently, I knew Mark Dawidziak mainly as the author of a fine 1989 TV retrospective, The Columbo Phile: A Casebook. But he is the man, too, behind a new biography that features prominently on my must-have list: A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe (St. Martin’s Press). In a CrimeReads extract from that book, Dawidziak recounts the “ongoing fascination” with Poe’s death, in Baltimore, at the tender age of 40—a subject that A Mystery of Mysteries addresses in some detail. Also posted recently in CrimeReads was Dean Jobb’s terrific look back at Poe’s 1843 horror story, “The Black Cat,” and the real-life murder that inspired it.

• Dammit! As I mentioned here last month, I have been looking forward to watching Marlowe, an adaptation of Benjamin Black’s 2014 Philip Marlowe continuation novel, The Black-Eyed Blonde, which debuted in theaters last week. Unfortunately, The A.V. Club’s Ray Greene is rather less than enthusiastic about this Liam Neeson film. As he remarks in a review, “Marlowe has seen it all—he’s a voyeur of the very worst human behaviors, and he’s world-weary to a fault. Liam is just plain weary—laconic, not iconic. Where Bogie and even a comparably aged Robert Mitchum were able to convey Marlowe as a man who at least remembers what caring felt like, Neeson is going through the motions of going through the motions. And the age thing doesn’t help. The only time Neeson’s Marlowe seems truly vulnerable is when he talks about the possibility of regaining his police pension. ‘I’m getting too old for this’ he moans after a fistfight, tempting audience agreement with the very phrase.” I’ll still plump for tickets to Marlowe, but go into it with lowered expectations.

• Thanks to the release of Poker Face on the Peacock streaming service, a 10-part “howcatchem” crime/comedy series that has garnered plenty of comparisons to Columbo, Peter Falk’s iconic L.A. police lieutenant has been enjoying a recent wave of reconsideration in critical circles. In this piece for the Web site of Boston’s WBUR-FM radio, Ed Siegel recalls an interview he had over dinner with Falk in the mid-’80s. In the meantime, Slate’s Cameron Gorman explains how the Internet turned Columbo “into a sex symbol and queer icon.”

• I am dearly hoping that this celebration of crime novelist Peter Robinson’s life and literary endeavors, to be held at England’s University of Leeds in early April, will be broadcast live via the Web. Robinson, you’ll recall, died last October at age 72.

• Tomorrow is Presidents’ Day here in the States—time to pour through Janet Rudolph’s extensive collection of mysteries that guest star or are built around American chief executives. You might also wish to revisit this article I wrote for CrimeReads about novels featuring authentic or imagined U.S. presidents.

• Subjects covered in Mike Ripley’s latest “Getting Away with Murder” column for Shots range from his long-ago stroke to the 1951 espionage film Decision Before Dawn and Steven Powell’s biography of James Ellroy, plus mentions of brand-new works by Stephen O’Shea, Kathleen Kent, David Brierley, Karen Smirnoff, and others.

• Worth checking out as well is the new, Winter 2013 issue of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, which is stuffed full of “best crime fiction” choices from the year that just was—selected both by DP critics and outside sources. Among this edition’s other contents are a wrap-up of Depression-era mysteries; reviews columns from such regulars as Ted Hertel, Meredith Anthony, and Kristopher Zgorski; and news that DP has added four contributors to its stable, all refugees from the recently closed Mystery Scene magazine: Kevin Burton Smith, Robin Agnew, Hank Wagner, and Craig Sisterson. Subscribe to this quarterly, or buy the Winter 2013 issue alone, by clicking here.

• And isn’t this interesting. Ramona Emerson’s 2022 crime/horror thriller, Shutter (Soho Crime), has moved up to the shortlist of titles vying for this year’s PEN America Literary Awards. It’s been nominated for both the PEN Open Book Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. Winners are to be announced on March 2 during an evening ceremony at The Town Hall in New York City.

Just a Few Things on Our Radar

• Although there’s no word yet on when the 10-episode second season of Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer will debut, we do now know—thanks to Deadline—about three actors who’ve won recurring roles. Lana Parrilla (Why Women Kill, Once Upon a Time) will play “a beloved chef and community advocate struggling to keep her restaurant afloat as a predatory real estate developer threatens the neighborhood around her.” Yaya DaCosta (Chicago Med, Our Kind of People) “will portray Andrea Freemann, a cut-throat prosecutor and Mickey Haller’s (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) undefeated courtroom rival, who is also a friend of his ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell).” And Matt Angel (Dave) is set to play Henry Dahl, “a cosmopolitan erudite with a hipster haircut and clothes. He is the host of a successful true crime podcast that acts the role of a good Samaritan. Distrustful of Henry’s motives, Mickey … warns him not to interfere with an ongoing case.” The sophomore season of The Lincoln Lawyer is said to be based on Michael Connelly’s 2011 novel The Fifth Witness.

• Mystery Fanfare draws our attention to a couple of British crime dramas set to debut soon in the United States. Season 12 of Vera, the series starring Brenda Blethyn and based on Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope mysteries, will show up this coming Sunday, January 29, on the BritBox streaming channel. Meanwhile, watch for the freshman season of DI Ray, a procedural starring Parminder Nagar as Detective Inspector Rachita Ray of the fictitious Birmingham, England, police force. (Birmingham actually falls under the purview of the West Midlands Police.) DI Ray’s four episodes will be available to those who subscribe to the PBS Passport on-demand service beginning on February 20, with the series’ PBS Masterpiece broadcast premiere coming on July 9. The Killing Times reports that DI Ray has already been renewed for a second season in the UK.

• Shots’ Mike Stotter charts the 20 most popular British TV detective shows, starting with Line of Duty and Unforgotten.

• Max Allan Collins’ latest blog post contains a fine half-hour interview he did with Titan editor Andrew Sumner about his 18th Nate Heller novel, The Big Bundle (Hard Case Crime), released this week.

• Peter May gives us the background on his own brand-new novel, a standalone titled A Winter’s Grave, in this piece for Shots.

• Moscow-born author Katja Ivar chats with Crime Fiction Lover’s Garrick Webster on the subject of her writing career and her third Cold War-era-set Hella Mauzer thriller, Trouble (Bitter Lemon Press), now on sale in Great Britain and due out in the States on February 21.

• And one more superior exchange to mention: Speaking of Mysteries host Nancie Clare’s discussion with debut crime novelist Iris Yamashita about the latter’s City Under One Roof (Berkley), a claustrophobic, Alaska-backdropped tale that Publishers Weekly says “heralds the arrival of a major new talent.”

• We’re going to be seeing less of Sarah Weinman in The New York Times. The January edition of her newsletter, The Crime Lady, includes mention of her “Crime & Mystery” column (which she took over from longtime critic Marilyn Stasio in early 2021) shifting from twice-a-month appearance to only monthly publication. “There are many reasons for this change,” she explains, “including scheduling and print space and making sure all the genre columns get equal play. But from my standpoint, it turns out reviewing eight books a month is hard! And having experienced column burnout in the past, I did not want it to repeat itself. A more sustainable schedule also means more time for other projects, some of which are already in the works.”

• What relationship is there between author John le Carré and serial-lying Republican U.S. congressman George Santos? From Vox:

Sean Wilentz, a Bancroft Prize-winning historian at Princeton University, told Vox that Santos was more a character out of American literature than American history, citing Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man. “This is nothing that a historian can be much help on,” he said. “There is no example like it.” It’s not that Santos was an entirely foreign object—the huckster is an American archetype, and nothing is more clichéd than a dishonest politician. As Wilentz put it, he’s “made of materials that one can identify.” But that such a shadowy figure and compulsive liar wound up on Capitol Hill is still remarkable. “Embellishing happens a fair amount that a lot of people get away with,” Wilentz said. “This is a different order because this is a made-up life.”

He noted that “it’s one thing to be Marjorie Taylor Greene and making up all of this crazy stuff, and here you just have a cipher.” Using another literary reference, Wilentz compared Santos to the “kind of nothing man that drips all through the novels” of John le Carré.

• There were plenty of “Best Crime Fiction of 2022” lists pouring in at the end of last year, but that doesn’t mean everyone had their say. Kevin Tipple, of Kevin’s Corner fame, today delivered a rundown of his 10 favorites in the blog Lesa’s Book Critiques. They include Rick Helms’ A Kind and Savage Place, Claire Booth’s Dangerous Consequences, Lee Goldberg’s Movieland, Terry Shames’s Murder at the Jubilee Rally, and Laurie Loewenstein’s Funeral Train.

• If only I could be in Britain on March 4 for Mystery Fest …

• There was an intriguing, if passing, mention in The New York Times’ obituary of veteran TV news correspondent Bernard Kalb earlier this month, having to do with his early journalism experience: “After graduating from the City College of New York in 1942, Mr. Kalb spent two years in the Army, mostly working on a newspaper published out of a Quonset hut in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. His editor was Sgt. Dashiell Hammett, the author of the detective novels ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘The Thin Man.’” More on The Adakian, that daily mimeographed paper Hammett created for the Adak Army Air Base, can be found here. (Hat tip to Mark Coggins.)

• For CrimeReads, Zack Budryk looks back at how the “rampant corruption and incompetency” of U.S. president Warren G. Harding’s 1920s administration “pave[d] the way for a new century of politics.”

• Other recent CrimeReads pieces I’ve enjoyed include this one by Mark Ellis (Dead in the Water), asking whether historical accuracy actually matters in historical fiction; this other one, by Janice Hallett (The Twyford Code), focused on crime yarns featuring “recently released or escaped prisoners”; Samuel Martin’s exploration of what he calls “North Atlantic noir”; and Elizabeth Held’s contemplation of why teenage detectives remain so appealing.

• Devoted Rockford Files fan Jim Suza tells the story of how “several hundred film images” from the photo shoot for that 1970s series’ memorable opening title sequence were lost, almost trashed, and eventually found their way into his possession.

• Finally, if the new Netflix historical film The Pale Blue Eye has left you curious to learn the facts about Edgar Allan Poe’s short, self-sabotaged career at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, click over to this piece from The Washington Post.

A Crossover in Poe Country

Edgar Allan Poe’s now-renowned Gothic short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” originally appeared in Burton's Gentleman’s Magazine back in 1839. It has since been adapted for the cinema and the theater, and is now to be brought our way again on television. This news comes from In Reference to Murder:

Frank Langella has been tapped to lead the cast of The Fall of the House of Usher, Mike Flanagan’s eight-part limited series for Netflix based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe. Also starring are Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell, Carl Lumbly, and Mark Hamill. Langella will play Roderick Usher, the towering patriarch of the Usher dynasty; McDonnell will play Roderick’s twin sister and the hidden hand of the Usher dynasty; Lumbly will take on Poe’s legendary investigator, C. Auguste Dupin; and Gugino and Hamill will portray yet-to-be disclosed characters. First published in 1839, Poe's story features themes of madness, family, isolation, and identity.

“Just hold on one darn minute here,” you may be saying, “Carl Lumly is to portray C. Auguste Dupin? I don’t even remember Dupin featuring in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.’” Indeed, Poe’s once-wealthy fictional French crime-solver starred in three tales, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842), and “The Purloined Letter” (1844), but he is nowhere in evidence in “Usher.” Nonetheless, the folks behind this Netflix mini-series have decided to recruit him into their production.

Poe, dead these last 172 years, has no say in the matter.

Death and the “Green Fairy”

Who knew that today, March 5, was National Absinthe Day in the United States? Or that this occasion would recall persistent rumors of writer-poet Edgar Allan Poe having been brought down by absinthe poisoning? Mystery Fanfare this morning dismisses the Poe myth, employing information from The Virtual Absinthe Museum.

Although the link Mystery Fanfare provides to that VAM story no longer seems to be working, you can still find the piece here.

Poe’s Predicament

This seems like good news! From In Reference to Murder:

Christian Bale and director Scott Cooper are set to make their third film together in Cooper’s scripted adaptation of the Louis Bayard novel, The Pale Blue Eye. The thriller revolves around the attempt to solve a series of murders that took place in 1830 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Bale will play a veteran detective who investigates the murders, helped by a detail-oriented young cadet who will later become a world-famous author, Edgar Allan Poe.

The Pale Blue Eye was one of my favorite crime/mystery novels of 2006. Here’s what I wrote about it in January Magazine:

Edgar Allan Poe has been a frequent presence in mystery and crime fiction—not just as an author (he created the detective protagonist C. Auguste Dupin for the 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”), but as a character. However, he’s rarely been interpreted as engagingly or eccentrically as Louis Bayard does in this year’s The Pale Blue Eye.

This historical whodunit is set at the West Point military academy in 1830. A young cadet has been found in the compound, hanged and mutilated, and the academy’s superintendent summons a lonely, retired and alcoholic New York City detective, Augustus “Gus” Landor, from his Hudson Valley home to investigate. Gus recognizes a cover-up when he sees one, but he doesn’t know how to get past the mutual self-protectiveness of the cadets—at least not until he takes on an assistant, the least likely military man I can imagine: the alternately poetic, macabre and romantic Poe, who has wound up at West Point in an effort to appease his foster father, John Allan. With Landor’s encouragement, the young and maverick future wordsmith tries to worm information from within the ranks, while the ex-cop works from the outside. Meanwhile, more corpses turn up, and Poe complicates the investigation by falling—fast and hard, and in a welter of purple prose—for the sister of Landor’s chief suspect in these atrocities.

Bayard, who may be most recognizable as the author of Mr. Timothy (2003), a novel in which Charles Dickens’ Timothy “Tiny Tim” Cratchit, from A Christmas Carol, was skillfully re-imagined as a reluctant sleuth in 1860 London, delivers in The Pale Blue Eye an essentially simple plot strongest on character, and with an ending guaranteed to surprise. Bayard’s writing is appealing throughout, but most memorable in the chapters told from Poe’s perspective—a task that requires Bayard to adopt an idiosyncratic lexicon, and maintain that style over long sections. No easy task.

Let’s Not Forget These Items

• Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin has been tapped as programming chair for the 2020 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which is to be held in Harrogate, England, from July 23 to 26. Helen Donkin, the Harrogate International Festivals literature festival manager, explains that “The Programme Chair, which changes each year, is responsible for the various themes the discussion panels debate, as well as which authors sit on them. And by having a different chair each year this helps keep the festival fresh and exciting.”

• Deadline is reporting that “Amazon Studios has greenlit Jack Reacher, a drama series based on the character from Lee Child’s international bestselling series of books. Produced by Amazon Studios, Skydance Television and Paramount Television Studios, the television series will be written by Nick Santora (Scorpion, Prison Break), who will also executive produce and serve as showrunner for the series. The first season will be based on the first Jack Reacher novel, The Killing Floor.” So who should be cast as Reacher for this forthcoming program? CrimeReads offers a few ideas.

• A calendar note from In Reference to Murder:

Coming up this weekend, Baltimore will celebrate the 211th birthday of the inventor of the detective novel and an early master of the horror genre, Edgar Allan Poe. Festivities include the free PoeZella Birthday Bash with food and a display of Poe-themed photographs (courtesy of the Baltimore Camera Club); a free Edgar Allan Poe House Literary Landmark Dedication; and the Edgar Allan Poe Birthday Celebration at Poe’s final resting place, Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, with the Poe Project’s “Poe-pourri!” staged adaptations of three of Poe’s works: “The Coliseum,” “Eldorado” and “The Raven.”

• News this week that 18-year-old singer Billie Eilish will perform the title song in this year’s 25th James Bond film, No Time to Die (set to premiere in April), provoked The Spy Command to research the ages of previous Bond vocalists. Not surprisingly, Eilish is the youngest among them. The next closest in age was Sheena Easton, who was only 22 years old when she recorded the title number for the 1981 Roger Moore 007 flick, For Your Eyes Only. Learn more here.

• I’ve added a new name to The Rap Sheet’s right-hand-column list of “Crime/Mystery Podcasts”: Doings of Doyle, which “celebrat[es] the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Professor Challenger, Brigadier Gerard and Sherlock Holmes.”

• No wonder American voters crave change: As Donald John Trump’s impeachment trial begins in the U.S. Senate, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley tells CNN that its impossible to measure Trump against previous Oval Office occupants. “We always are trying to compare presidents to each other,” he says, “but we haven’t had an outlaw president before, and that’s what you have with Donald Trump.”

• Thank you to The Stiletto Gumshoe. In its post about how stock photos have reduced the novelty of today’s book covers, the blog has some complimentary things to say about The Rap Sheet.

• And I forgot to mention this earlier: “The family of 20th-century killer Dr. Crippen—who gained a reputation as one of the most notorious murderers in British history—want his body to be returned to the United States where he was born,” reports the UK’s Daily Mail. “Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen murdered his opera singer wife Cora in their home in London in July 1910, and then told everyone she had gone to America before fleeing Britain with his mistress Ethel Le Neve. Now, nearly 110 years after he was hanged for the killing, Dr. Crippen's family want his body to be exhumed from the grounds of Pentonville Prison in Islington, north London and returned to Dayton, Ohio, in the U.S.” The newspaper adds: “In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and seen by The Daily Telegraph, a descendant of Dr. Crippen, retired marketing executive Patrick Crippen, writes that his ancestor is innocent and that he wants the body buried in the family plot.”

Poe Takes a Stand in Boston

From The Baltimore Sun’s Read Street blog:

Boston may be slipping ahead in the Edgar Allan Poe arms race--the city is preparing for a new bronze statue to honor the great author, even as Baltimore struggles to preserve his former home.

The Baltimore Sun’s Chris Kaltenbach reports that sculptor Stefanie Rocknak was selected for the $125,000 project in Boston, to be located at the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South. Her design shows an adult Poe as though he had just stepped off a train. ...

“The statue chosen for Poe Square is full of life and motion, and is sure to inspire residents and future writers for generations to come,” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said in a news release.

You’ll find the whole post here.

Best and Verse of Poe

This in a bit of interesting news:

Newly discovered Edgar Allan Poe manuscripts will be revealed in a major exhibit at Richmond, Virginia’s Edgar Allan Poe Museum from April 26 to July 11, 2012. Among the recently uncovered pieces are four letters and the only known manuscript for Poe’s important early poem “To Helen,” which was located last month in the album of one of Poe’s cousins. Opening April 26 in honor of the Poe Museum’s 90th anniversary, the exhibit From Poe’s Quill: The Letters and Manuscripts of Edgar Allan Poe will showcase these recent finds alongside dozens of rare Poe manuscripts gathered from seven different public and private collections across the country. According to the Poe Museum’s curator, Chris Semtner, “This is the kind of exhibit that comes around only once in a generation. Because Poe’s manuscripts were not highly valued during his brief life, many have been lost or dispersed over time, making them very rare today. Given that, it is remarkable that this show will feature such items as the only complete Poe short story in private hands, the earliest privately owned Poe manuscript, and even a letter from Poe to Washington Irving.”

You can find out more about this exhibit here.

John Cusack Resurrects Poe

Actor John Cusack is scheduled to bring the “godfather of goth” back to life in a film called The Raven, which will be released next March.

According to the Associated Press, at Comic-Con in San Diego last month, Cusack spoke to a group of some 6,500 fans about the upcoming picture, saying Poe’s “unflinching ability to delve into the abyss and come back, to play with the edge,” reminded him of Hunter S. Thompson.

The 45-year-old actor said he was eager to take on the role of the "godfather of Goth" in this fictionalized account of Poe's final days. In The Raven, the writer forms a reluctant partnership with a police detective to catch a murderer who kills his victims by following elements of Poe’s stories. Alice Eve plays Poe’s love interest, Alice, and Luke Evans plays the police detective. The film is directed by James McTeigue.

Cusack described the dark thriller as "an art movie and a popcorn movie at once."

The publicity machine has a bit more to say about The Raven’s plot:

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th-century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields ... makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper--part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story.

Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.

So, will any of this finally put to rest the question of which city has the greater right to Poe’s remains, Baltimore or Philadelphia? Probably not. But, even so, the film sounds fantastic. We can’t wait!

Enter Chevalier Dupin

As The Writers’ Almanac reminds us, it was on this date in 1841 that

the first detective story was published. In his story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” published in Graham’s Magazine, Edgar Allan Poe ... created mystery’s first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin. The story introduced many of the elements of mysteries that are still popular today: the genius detective, the not-so-smart sidekick, the plodding policeman, and the use of the red herring to lead readers off the track.

If, for some strange reason, you’ve never read “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” you are welcome to read it for free here.

What Happened to Edgar?

(Editor’s note: In 1998, while working for American History magazine, I reviewed a then new non-fiction book called Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe, written by John Evangelist Walsh. I also had the chance to speak briefly with Walsh about his longstanding interest in Poe. With today being the 160th anniversary of the American macabrist’s perishing, I’ve decided to republish both pieces here for your entertainment.)

Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe
by John Evangelist Walsh
(Rutgers University Press, 180 pages)

It seems only fitting that the demise of 19th-century writer, poet, and critic Edgar Allan Poe--the man who was so instrumental in creating mystery fiction as we know it today--should itself be shrouded in mystery.

The bare facts of the case are these: In the fall of 1849, Poe, then 40 years old, left Richmond, Virginia, bound for his home in New York City. He was in the midst of a lecture tour, designed to introduce audiences to his planned new literary magazine, The Stylus, but his Richmond stopover combined business with pleasure: While there, he had been visiting the widow Elmira Shelton, a childhood friend he was soon expected to marry. Only his need to complete a minor editorial commission and retrieve an elderly guest for the wedding had sent him from Elmira’s embrace back to New York. He was expected to be gone a couple of weeks, returning to Virginia in plenty of time to complete the nuptial preparations.

But he never made it back. In fact, after departing Richmond, he disappeared. Only a week later did he resurface in Baltimore, in “shocking condition”--dressed shabbily and suffering from severe inebriation. He died a few days later, after periods of “violent delirium,” never saying where he’d been since he started north ... or with whom.

For the last century and a half, it’s been thought that Poe perished from complications of an alcoholic debauch (despite his having just sworn to his fiancée that he would remain sober). Or, more incredibly, that he’d been drugged by political thugs and forced to vote at multiple Baltimore polling booths in a congressional election, before being abandoned to overexposure. However, literary sleuth John Evangelist Walsh, author of the award-winning Poe the Detective: The Curious Circumstances Behind the Mystery of Marie Roget (1968), makes thorough use of the scant evidence available to arrive at an unexpected--but well thought out and articulated--solution, one that blames both Poe and others for the writer’s fate. Midnight Dreary is a fine piece of scholarship, with twists and turns and hidden agendas enough to keep even veteran whodunit readers enthralled.

* * *

Although John Evangelist Walsh has written biographies of other historical figures, from Robert Frost to Emily Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln, Midnight Dreary is his third study of Edgar Allan Poe. Why does this 71-year-old Wisconsin resident find Poe so intriguing? “It’s hard to say exactly,” Walsh remarks. “I think I read my first Poe story when I was about 12 years old, and I’ve appreciated him ever since. I believe he was a great writer, and if he had lived even another 10 years, he might now be considered America’s greatest literary talent. He had that much potential.”

Walsh explains that he has been thinking for “at least 20, 30 years” of writing a book about the peculiar circumstances of Poe’s death in 1849. “But I didn’t start investigating the case way back then. The idea just sort of grew on me, and occasionally I would do a few weeks of study on the matter, then the project would fade into the background as I wrote other books. It’s remarkable that more people haven’t been interested in this subject before, considering that Poe is probably the most actively studied American literary figure.”

Even after all his years of research, though, Walsh admits that one question about Poe’s death still haunts him: “In the book, I say that alcohol was forced on him at the end, and that he died in part from a head injury, perhaps as a result of a fight. But I’ve often wondered if the men who made him drink didn’t also give him a beating. And did they realize that he might die from his injuries? In that case, it wasn’t just manslaughter. It was murder.”

Evermore, Mr. Poe, Evermore

Nine months ago we celebrated the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth in Boston, Massachusetts. Today marks 160 years since that author’s mysterious demise in Baltimore, Maryland.

In commemoration (and perhaps also to firm up Baltimore’s claim to Poe’s legacy, which has been disputed by Philadelphia in the recent past), the city has scheduled a series of appropriately eerie events honoring the great man’s passing. Today, from noon to 11 p.m., the public is invited to an open-casket viewing of “Poe’s body” at the Baltimore Poe House and Museum. At midnight begins an all-night vigil at downtown’s Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, where the author’s grave can be found. (A photograph of yours truly and January Magazine editor Linda L. Richards at the gravesite, taken during last year’s Bouchercon in Baltimore, is available here.) And this coming Sunday, October 11, beginning at approximately 11:30 a.m., a funeral procession will transport “Poe’s casket” through the city streets from the museum to the burial ground. “There,” reports The Baltimore Sun, “actor John Astin will serve as host for a memorial service featuring eulogies from a host of Poe fans.” While no big deal was made of Poe’s interment 160 years ago, this time multitudinous well-wishers--including performers dressed as Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, and Alfred Hitchcock--will be on hand to usher Poe off to the Great Beyond. Tickets for this event go for $35 in advance and $40 at the door; seating is limited.

On top of all this, the Baltimore Museum of Art has mounted a presentation titled “Edgar Allan Poe: A Baltimore Icon.” Explains the museum’s Web site: “This dramatic exhibition brings together 80 prints, drawings, and illustrated books drawn largely from the BMA’s distinguished collection. These rarely shown works of art explore the enduring legacy of Poe’s uniquely dark fiction through the themes of Love & Loss, Fear & Terror, and Madness & Obsession. See how ‘The Raven,’ ‘The Black Cat,’ ‘The Tell-tale Heart,’ ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ and other Poe classics inspired some of the greatest artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.”

For a complete listing of Baltimore’s Poe-related events, click here.

READ MORE: “Death of a Genius, Revised,” by Michele Emrath (Southern City Mysteries).

Giving Them the Bird

From Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac:

It was on this day in 1845 that Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” was first published in the New York Evening Mirror. It begins:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door--
Only this, and nothing more.”

Poe became famous almost immediately. Within a few years, “The Raven” had been reprinted in newspapers and magazines across the country, and included in poetry anthologies. Poe became a popular lecturer and dinner party performer, where his recitations of the poem were legendary.

It’s only appropriate, in this month when we’ve been celebrating Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday, that we should also note this milestone for his most famous poem.

Poor Edgar, We Knew Him Well

If you’re any kind of crime-fiction fan, you know that today is not only Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday in the United States, but also the 200th birthday of that “master of the macabre” and creator of the detective story, Edgar Allan Poe. The future poet, editor, and author was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on this date in 1809. He perished 40 years later in Baltimore, Maryland.

There have been plenty of tributes to Poe tumbling into the blogosphere in recent days. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal all dutifully published fine tributes to the man who gave us “The Raven,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and pre-Sherlock Holmes sleuth C. Auguste Dupin (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” and “The Purloined Letter”). The Baltimore Sun hosts several Poe-related posts in its Read Street blog, including one by mother-and-son novelists Caroline and Charles Todd, who, under the latter’s name, write the Ian Rutledge historical mystery series (A Matter of Justice). The Christian Science Monitor recalls the mysterious death of Poe and the yearly tributes placed upon his original Baltimore grave by the so-called Poe Toaster. In her latest “Dark Passages” column for the Los Angeles Times, Sarah Weinman addresses the continuing and often animated debate over which city--Baltimore or Philadelphia--has the stronger claim on Poe’s legacy. (More on that here.) BBC Radio 3 has been broadcasting a series of five 15-minute essays called “Loving the Raven,” written by Andrew Taylor, Joanne Harris, and others, which you ought to go listen to immediately, since they start disappearing from the Web today. Philadelphia public broadcaster WHYY has put together a short documentary about Edgar Allan Poe’s life, which you can watch here, while National Public Radio applauds the poet-author’s two centuries of building renown here. In the meantime, Dark Party Review has assembled a list of 12 signs that suggest you might, yourself, by Mr. Poe, and blogger Xavier Lechard has somehow captured a posthumous interview with the great writer, in which Poe talks about his contributions to the mystery genre and his objections to having literary awards christened in his honor.

Oh, and of course the U.S. Post Office has issued an attractive commemorative stamp in time for Poe’s birthday, featuring an illustration by artist Michael J. Deas (see above).

I thought long and hard on the question of how The Rap Sheet might best commemorate this 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth. I purchased and read through the new collection, In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, in which editor Michael Connelly presents not only some of the author’s most thrilling yarns, but also recollections by modern novelists (Stephen King, Tess Gerritsen, Laura Lippman, Peter Robinson, and the like) of their first or most significant experiences with Poe’s writings. And I thought back over my own visit to Poe’s grave in Baltimore during last October’s Bouchercon.

Finally, I decided that the most interesting and entertaining way to celebrate this ill-fated man’s lasting contributions to literature was to present once more that poem through which so many of us first became familiar with his work in high school English classes, “The Raven.” Below, I’ve embedded a video showing Baltimore-born actor John Astin--yes, the same guy who played Gomez Addams in television’s The Addams Family--reciting Poe’s suspenseful 1845 work, and looking an awful lot like the author himself:



If you would prefer to see the same piece read by Vincent Price, simply click here. Much more about Edgar Allan Poe can be found at the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore Web site.

READ MORE: “Edgar Allan Poe, Master of Horror,” by Joanne Harris (The Telegraph); “10 Places That Rejected Poe in Life but Celebrate Him in Death,” by Molly McBride Jacobson (Atlas Obscura); “More Bicentennial Tributes” and “Poe Roundup,” by Ed Pettit (The Bibliothecary); “Quoth the Ravens ‘Nevermore’: The Legendary Five NFL Highlights Poem Revived for Poe’s Bicentennial,” by Michael Carlson (... And Over Here).

Bullet Points: “Come Monday” Edition*

• We’ve spent a lot of space honoring the late Donald E. Westlake (see here and here). But there’s another Don’s death that draws my attention today, that of actor Don Galloway, who played Detective Sergeant Ed Brown on NBC-TV’s Ironside from 1967 to 1975. He succumbed to a heart attack last week at age 71. What I didn’t know until reading the Los Angeles Times obituary was that “As research for the role [of Brown], Galloway hung out with Los Angeles Police Department officers and often found himself wondering what it would be like to actually be a peace officer ... In 1993, he became a reserve deputy for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, but he left about a year later when he retired from show business--along with his agent--and they embarked on a lengthy cruise on a private yacht with their families.” Galloway also used to write a weekly column in the New Hampshire Union Leader, in which he expressed his Libertarian views. I heard about Galloway’s demise from TV Confidential co-host Ed Robertson, who reminds me that he talked about Galloway last year as part of a show about Ironside star Raymond Burr.

• From Ben Hunt’s Material Witness blog: “January 19 marks the bicentennial of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, and to mark the event BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting a series of essays on the great scribe read by five celebrated contemporary writers--Loving the Raven.” The series begins this evening at 11 p.m. in London, with an essay by Andrew Taylor (Bleeding Heart Square). Other contributors are Joanne Harris, Mark Lawson, Kim Newman, and Louise Welch. Episodes of the series should be available through the BBC Radio 3 site.

• The January 2009 update of Kevin Burton Smith’s indispensable Thrilling Detective Web Site is now up.

• Michael Wiley casts his Shamus Award-nominated first novel, The Last Striptease, for Hollywood. By the way, for what it’s worth, I say go with Salma Hayek as Lucinda. Someone with this much sex appeal, can do pretty much anything.

• For the Irish Independent, Declan Burke previews “the bumper crop of crime novels by Irish writers due in 2009.” I’m looking forward most to the Ken Bruen-Reed Farrel Coleman collaboration, Tower (“In the tradition of The Long Goodbye, Mystic River and The Departed, ... a powerful meditation on friendship, fate, and fatality”), Gene Kerrigan’s third novel, Dark Times in the City, and Brian McGilloway’s third Inspector Devlin novel, Bleed a River Deep. This might even be the year I finally read a novel by Alex Barclay, whose work I have somehow missed up to now.

• Maryland writer Kieran Shea (god, I hope I spelled his frickin’ name right this time) is the latest contributor to David Cranmer’s new Webzine, Beat to a Pulp. Shea’s short story, “Backing the Stakes,” can be found here.

• Oh no, another crime-fiction resource book I have to possess!

• In an interview with New York Magazine, talking about his new paperback mystery, Fifty-to-One, Hard Case Crime publisher Charles Ardai says that his story’s heroine, Trixie Heverstadt, was “loosely inspired by Queens-based noir novelist Megan Abbott ... Arriving in the city to find her wayward sister, Trixie survives on pluck and good legs, trading in the Dorothy Parker–esque wit that Ardai ascribes to Abbott.” Meanwhile, Scott D. Parker has posted his very own interview with Ardai, as well as notes on the author’s appearance at Houston’s Murder by the Book.

• How perfect a tribute is this? The city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is going to name a public library after the late mystery author Tony Hillerman. “It will be only the third of Albuquerque’s 17 libraries to be named after a resident,” explains the Native American Times. “Ernie Pyle and Erna Fergusson are the others.” (Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

• Who remembers Lana Wood (sister of Natalie Wood) as Bond girl Plenty O’Toole in Diamonds Are Forever (1971)? CinemaRetro certainly does. (Hat tip to Bish’s Beat.)

• Author and newspaper columnist Eddie Muller is this week’s contributor to Seth Harwood’s crime-fiction podcast, CrimeWAV, reading his short story “Last Call.”

• If you haven’t been paying attention, Sarah Weinman has just concluded an excellent four-part series about historical mysteries, written for The Barnes & Noble Review. Go to parts one, two, three, or four. It’s well worth your time, even though reading all of it might increase the height of your to-be-read pile.

• Mystery Readers Journal is out with its second-in-a-row issue devoted to San Francisco crime fiction. Several stories from this edition are available online, including Randal Brandt’s introductory essay, “The Birthplace of Modern Crime Fiction.”

• In a Bond vs. Bond contest, whose ego will concede first?

• Alexandra Sokoloff (The Price) expounds in her blog about “what makes a great villain.”

• Given the amazing dearth of decent crime shows on television these days, I find it amazing that the old UPN didn’t pick up Nikki & Nora, “a proposed series about a pair of lesbian cops in New Orleans played by Liz Vassey and Christina Cox.” Lee Goldberg shares a clip to show us what we missed. (More on the Nikki & Nora pilot here.)

• One of the few series that’s actually worth watching these days, Life on Mars (the American version, not the preceding British one) gets the pulp cover treatment.

• Speaking of Life on Mars, co-star Gretchen Mol was one of “the sexiest women on television in 2008,” according to the UK-based Dan’s Media Digest. Also making the list: Keeley Hawes (Ashes to Ashes), Mädchen Amick (My Own Worst Enemy), Julie Benz (Dexter), and Amanda Righetti (The Mentalist). But the No. 1 spot goes to Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck). And doubts of her status are dispelled by the video Mr. Dan offers at the conclusion of his rundown.

• The first episode of BBC Radio 7’s reading of Geoffrey Household’s famous tale, Rogue Male, can be heard here. Other episodes will be available throughout the week.

• The USA Network series Burn Notice returns on January 22.

• Chris Pimental’s Bad Things e-zine is live.

• Your Monday load of memorable Dashiell Hammett quotes.

• Janet Rudolph reports in Mystery Fanfare: “At last there’s some good news. The National Endowment for the Arts Report Found Fiction Reading on the Rise. Yahoo! Of course, if you read ONE book a year that counts as reading. But reading is reading, and hopefully this study and the attention it’s getting will send some kind of message to publishers. Hope springs eternal.”

• Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame have already lasted 14 minutes too long.

• And as if you don’t have enough weird things swimming around in your head, add this to the mix.

* Lest anyone miss the significance of that headline, click here.

Quoth the Postmaster

Edgar Allan Poe has been all over crime fiction news recently, starting with last month’s Bouchercon, held in his adopted hometown of Baltimore, and the location of his final resting place. Mystery fans from all over the world paid homage to the great master, while celebrating the genre for which he is best known.

We learned earlier this week that Baltimore’s Poe House and The Edgar Allan Poe Society will receive the 2009 Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America, commemorating not only their fine work, but Poe’s 200th birthday.

And even though this news was apparently released three weeks ago, we only learned today that the United States Postal Service will be issuing a stamp honoring Poe on January 16, in Richmond, Virginia, where the Boston-born Poe spent most of his youth.

The portrait for this new stamp was painted by Michael J. Deas, a veteran stamp designer.

Birth of the Detective Story

According to The Writer’s Almanac, the first detective story met the world on April 20, 1841, with the publication of a tale by the esteemed Mr. Poe:

In 1841, on this day, the first detective story was published. In his story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” published in Graham’s Magazine, Edgar Allan Poe created mystery’s first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin. The story introduced many of the elements of mysteries that are still popular today: the genius detective, the not-so-smart sidekick, the plodding policeman and the use of the red herring to lead readers off the track.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Almanac entry in question is here. Text and audio versions of Poe’s story are available here.

And Poe It Goes

Philadelphia lit-blogger Edward Pettit, who helped incite a war of verbiage last year over whether Philly or Baltimore has the better claim to Edgar Allan Poe’s corpse, announces that he’s launching a year-long American Poe exploration. A visit to his Web site, The Bibliothecary, finds the following message:

Come on by Monday, January 28, for the kick-off of the Ed and Edgar blog. I’ll be travelling throughout the year to all sites related to Poe and interviewing all sorts of Poe fanatics. I’ll also be spreading the Philly Poe gospel everywhere I go. The fun started in Baltimore on Poe’s birthday and will take me to Richmond, New York, Boston, West Point, back to Baltimore and finishing in October in Philadelphia for Poe’s death anniversary and his honorary holiday, Halloween.

I’ll also be speaking at various venues, which I’ll let you know about as they happen. (First up is the Manayunk Arts Center in Philly on Sun Feb 3.)

So come on by Monday and read all about my trip to Baltimore last weekend. Yes, I saw the Poe Toaster. But did I convert him to my cause? You’ll have to come back to find out.

And the first 10 readers to leave a comment on Monday’s first Ed and Edgar post will receive a Philly Poe souvenir (which I will mail to the winners free of charge).

Pettit’s new blog will be found here.

“No Body Snatcher from Philadelphia or Any Other City Is Going to Come Here in the Middle of the Night and Steal Away His Body”

The building dispute between Baltimore and Philadelphia over Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy and body has now gone national, with a report on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. Listen here.

The Matter of Poe’s Brain

As the rivalry continues to heat up between Philadelphia and Baltimore over who has the stronger claim to 19th-century novelist Edgar Allan Poe (see here, here, and here), Massachusetts author Matthew Pearl, whose latest book, The Poe Shadow, explores the “puzzling circumstances” of that poet and short-story writer’s death in October 1849, reveals to the New York Observer that “he has unearthed new information” suggesting that Poe “may have died of a brain tumor,” rather than heavy drink or rabies, both of which experts have blamed in the past.

You’ll find the full Observer article here.

(Hat tip to Sarah Weinman.)

READ MORE: “Nevermore: The Mystery Surrounding the Death of Edgar Allan Poe,” by Matthew Jones (The Retriever, University of Maryland).