Classic Mysteries

Taking a Flying Leap

OK. This has NOTHING to do with mysteries. But today's the day to wish a "happy birthday" to Frederick. He celebrated his 21st birthday in 1940, so he has officially reached his 39th birthday today. Our best wishes to Mabel as well, to be sure.

Now, to get this into mystery format, WHAT (or who) AM I TALKING ABOUT HERE?

Again, it is NOT mystery related.

Here They Are: The Agatha Nominees

Malice Domestic has just announced the nominees for this year's Agatha Awards, which will be presented at the 24th Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, MD at the end of April. The nominees:

Best Novel:
The Real Macaw by Donna Andrews
The Diva Haunts the House by Krista Davis
Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet
Three Day Town by Margaret Maron
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

Best First Novel:
Dire Threads by Janet Bolin
Choke by Kaye George
Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry
Who Do, Voodoo? by Rochelle Staab
Tempest in the Tea Leaves by Kari Lee Townsend

Best Non-fiction:
Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure by Leslie Budewitz
Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets from Her Notebooks by John Curran
On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda
Wilkie Collins, Vera Caspary and the Evolution of the Casebook Novel by A. B. Emrys
The Sookie Stackhouse Companion by Charlaine Harris

Best Short Story:
"Disarming" by Dana Cameron, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - June 2011
"Dead Eye Gravy" by Krista Davis, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology
"Palace by the Lake" by Daryl Wood Gerber, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology
"Truth and Consequences" by Barb Goffman, Mystery Times Ten
"The Itinerary" by Roberta Isleib, WMA Presents the Rich and the Dead

Best Children's/Young Adult:
Shelter by Harlan Coben
The Black Heart Crypt by Chris Grabenstein
Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby
The Wizard of Dark Street by Shawn Thomas Odyssey
The Code Busters Club, Case #1: The Secret of the Skeleton Key by Penny Warner

Best Historical Novel:
Naughty in Nice by Rhys Bowen
Murder Your Darlings by J.J. Murphy
Mercury's Rise by Ann Parker
Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson
A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Quite a distinguished collection, to be sure. The Agatha Awards honor what we may broadly call "traditional" mysteries, typified by the works of Agatha Christie. Specifically, as the Malice news release puts it, these are mysteries with no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Stop SOPA

As I suspect most of my visitors today realize, a number of major web sites have shut down (Wikipedia) or otherwise altered their sites (Google) for the day to protest the so-called "Stop Online Piracy Act," or SOPA.

This site isn't a major web site (I wish!), but I do feel it necessary to go off-topic for this post just to say that I wholeheartedly agree with the critics who want to see a more reasoned, less entertainment-industry dictated bill.

Look, I'm a writer, and I both respect and (for many years) have lived by copyright. But there are ways to protect copyrights and fight offshore pirate websites without essentially destroying the Internet, which is what many critics warn will happen if SOPA (or its senate equivalent, PIPA) becomes law.

Please check out this excellent FAQ from CNET to find out what's at stake and how these proposed laws could affect you. And please join us in petitioning your senators and congressperson - respectfully - to throw out these disasters and come up with legislation that will protect copyrights while also preserving the rights of all Internet providers and users. Thank you.

R. I. P. Peter Falk

Sad news today of the death of actor Peter Falk, the actor who played Lieutenant Columbo on TV between 1971 and 1993. Falk's quiet, low-key delivery style, his rumpled trenchcoat, his signature line of "Just one more thing," as he prepared to trip up the villain - all combined beautifully to create a likeable, familiar police detective. He won five Emmy awards in his career - four of them for his role as Columbo.

Falk was 83 when he died at home in Beverly Hills. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's. You can learn more from a good obituary from USA Today.

The Cat Who...Lost An Author

We have lost an extremely popular mystery author - Lilian Jackson Braun, the author of the best-selling "The Cat Who..." series has died. She was 97 years old.

Lilian Jackson Braun began writing her "The Cat Who..." mysteries back in the mid-1960s, but the series stopped after three novels, because, she said, the publisher wanted her to put more sex and violence into the books, something she was unwilling to do. She didn't return to mystery writing until persuaded to do so by her second husband, Earl Bettinger, in the late 1980s, and all of her later books include a dedication to him as "The husband who..."

Her books featured a newspaperman named Jim Qwilleran, but they were really about his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, who played major roles in the novels, often by cryptically calling Qwilleran's attention to some object or book that might be construed as a clue. Most of the later books are set in the fictional town of Pickax, which was said to be modeled on the real town of Bad Axe, Michigan, where the Bettingers lived until the mid-1980s.

In all, Lilian Jackson Braun wrote 29 novels in the series. If you enjoy "cozies," you probably already have read some of her books - if not, you should do so. Personally, I can't recommend the last couple - I felt that - to me - they abandoned mystery and simply became loosely connected anecdotes. But most of her earlier books were quite good, surprisingly ingenious, entertaining and she certainly earned her place on the best-seller lists. The Washington Post had a pretty good obituary, and you might also enjoy this profile originally published by the Detroit Free Press in 1987, which the newspaper reprinted this week as a tribute to The Author Who...

R.I.P. Stephen J. Cannell

We've lost another classicist, a man responsible for some truly classic television mysteries. Stephen J. Cannell, the producer and creator of such hits as "The A-Team," "Wiseguy" and "The Rockford Files," has died. He was 69 years old. The AP (via Google) has details.

Cannell really was an innovator, bringing mysteries to a prime-time public. I'm not sure I buy the AP writer's line about "generally identified with action dramas full of squealing tires and tough guys trading punches" - I think there was more to it. As the Los Angeles Times notes, he was also a strong and influential voice speaking on behalf of independent producers. He will be missed. There's an appreciation at The Rap Sheet blog today.

R. I. P. Nero Wolfe

Actor Maury Chaykin, who played Nero Wolfe in the excellent A&E Television series of Nero Wolfe stories, died yesterday on his 61st birthday. The American-born actor lived much of his life in Canada, and he died in Toronto.

The Washington Post has the Associated Press obituary. Also, Examiner.com has a very good appreciation of Chaykin's life and work, written by Christopher Garcia.

Hat tip: The Rap Sheet blog.

R. I. P. Robert B. Parker

Sorry to hear about the passing of author Robert B. Parker, who died yesterday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 77. He's probably best known for his novels about his one-named detective, Spenser, but he wrote a great many other mysteries as well.

Sarah Weinman has a nice appreciation of Parker in the Los Angeles Times.

Oh THAT Peter Robinson

Life can be difficult at times if you share the name of someone who is prominent in the day's news.

Take the case of Peter Robinson.

As Ali Karim explains at the Rap Sheet blog, Peter Robinson is the First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Unfortunately, Mr. Robinson appears to be involved in something of a scandal, as his wife, Iris, also a politician, has resigned her post, following reports of an extramarital affair with a young man less than a third her age.

Unfortunate, to be sure. But apparently it is also unfortunate for another Peter Robinson - one more likely to be familiar to mystery readers, as he is the English-born Canadian author of a number of first-rate mysteries about Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. According to the BBC, the mystery author has been receiving a great deal of unwanted email - some offering condolences on "his wife's" behavior, others more rude and vulgar - which, as he isn't the politician Peter Robinson, is more than a little irritating.

I agree with Ali Karim: "This is what happens when you let some people near the Internet without adult supervision."

Donald Westlake

Well this is a lousy piece of news to hit us at the beginning of a new year: mystery author Donald Westlake died last night. Westlake wrote more than a hundred books, and five screenplays as well, and he won three Edgars and a variety of other honors, including a Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America. He'll be missed. The New York Times has a good obit.