Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

A Roundup on Your Lunch Break

The Detroit Free Press profiles Peter Leonard, son of Elmore and crime novelist in his own right.

Leonard the younger's debut novel QUIVER gets a mixed take from Patrick Anderson.

This, my friends, is how you write a negative review.  And as for this positive review, it's one thing to learn from Michiko, it's another thing to ape her tropes completely...

Britain discovers Stephenie Meyer.

Ed Park's wonderful and giddy novel PERSONAL DAYS arrives today. He talks about the book on BBC Radio 4's Open Book.

The Literary Saloon calls bullshit on Doris Lessing's post-Nobel complaints.

Will the scientific method invigorate literary scholarship and criticism? I see where Jonathan Gottschall is coming from, but to my mind, the answer is still no.

Also, nooooooo!

And finally, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. No, really.

The Posthumous Publication of a Murdered Officer's Novel

The NY Daily News remarks on a publication story that is both remarkable and heartbreaking:

Auxiliary cop Nicholas Pekearo was gunned down on a Greenwich Village street days after he finished his first novel about a supernatural crimefighter who can't be stopped by bullets.

"The Wolfman" will be published Tuesday by Tor Books. 

"I wish he was here to see this happening," says his mother, Iola Latman.

Pekearo, 28, and fellow auxiliary cop Eugene Marshalik, 19, were following gunman David Garvin on Sullivan St. after he shot a worker at a pizzeria in March 2007. The cops were unarmed; Pekearo was wearing a bulletproof vest he bought on eBay.

It couldn't save him when Garvin crossed the street and pumped five bullets into Pekearo as he crouched behind a car. He then shot Marshalik execution style in the head.

Pekearo's name was placed on the NYPD's Wall of Heroes last week. Newsday also has a short feature on Pekearo and his first - and last - novel.

Stay Tuned for the Weekend Update

..which has now arrived.

NYTBR: Rachel Donadio time-travels to 1958 and the raging war of intelligentsia; Jennifer Senior considers Masha Gessen's examination of genetics in contemporary settings; and David Orr looks at Helen Vendler's examination of William Butler Yeats.

Dark Passages: Charlotte, Oscar & Co.

My newest "Dark Passages" column for the LA Times Book Review - which now has a handy archive page for previous months, hurray! - blurs the line between life and art by looking at a slew of crime novels with real life writers as sleuths. Read on for my thoughts on Nicola Upson's AN EXPERT IN MURDER (starring Josephine Tey), and the self explanatory THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE (by Laura Joh Rowland) and OSCAR WILDE AND A DEATH OF NO IMPORTANCE (by Gyles Brandreth.)

A Swell Looking Babe

Referring, in this instance, to Evelyn Nesbit:  turn-of-the-20th-century starlet, objet de notoriété,and the subject of Paula Uruburu's fascinating new book AMERICAN EVE. My Q&A with Uruburu runs today at Vulture. 

Department of Twisted Logic

The Joseph Fritzl case in Austria is a horrifying train wreck that I can't stop reading about. But today's story takes the cake, what with Fritzl complaining about poor media coverage from jail:

His criticism of the international media's reporting was published in the German tabloid Bild Zeitung.

"I could have killed them all," reads the front page headline of today's Bild Zeitung. And Fritzl, dubbed a monster by the Austrian media, told his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, "I'm not a monster," according to today's report.

Fritzl is sharing his prison cell with another man who is serving time for taking part in a shooting incident. The men have a TV set and a radio available to them in their cell.

Ah, the delusions of psychopathic grandeur...

Thursday Smatterings

The Wall Street Journal has a big feature on the James Bond franchise, continuing with Sebastian Faulks' DEVIL MAY CARE at the end of the month. Also, the limited edition features a secret car.

The Seattle Times chats with Elizabeth George about her newest Inspector Lynley novel CARELESS IN RED.

Speaking of George, Patrick Anderson is astonished to discover how good the book is - and how much backlist reading he has to do to catch up.

NPR's Mike Shuster talks Philip Marlowe with Otto Penzler & Robert Crais. (via)

A happy Charlaine Harris talks about the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series with the East Valley Tribune.

The Hereford Times profiles Manda Scott and her new thriller THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

Jean Hannah Edelstein wonders where the female picaresque novels have gone to. Probably to the YA section, featuring paranormal elements, I reckon.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's retirement from writing novels turns out to have been greatly exaggerated after all. 

Much linked already, but Scott Timberg's Q&A with Mark Sarvas is worth checking out, as is Time Out New York's profile. 

And finally, go Ottawa!

Hard Case on Fresh Air

Charles Ardai was on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday to chat with Terry Gross about Hard Case Crime, pulp fiction old and new and his own pseudonymous work as Richard Aleas. (hat tip)

Tuesday's Child

My review of Tom Rob Smith's debut novel CHILD 44 runs today on the Barnes & Noble Review. And in a bid for transparency, I turned the piece in almost two months ago and long before the brick and mortar store designated the thriller as its latest store-wide recommendation, though still a few months after discussing the pre-publication hype.

Another big fan of the book is Vulture co-editor Dan Kois, who not only hyped it up at the end of last year but reviewed it for the News & Observer and conducted a Q&A with Smith for the print edition of New York. And Clayton Moore spills some ink about the book in his latest Mystery Strumpet column for Bookslut, while other raves come in via Newsweek, Otto Penzler, Barry Forshaw, and David Montgomery. I guess this means a contrarian take will show up soon enough, but what does it say that I still think about the book six months after my first read?

Elaine Dundy, R.I.P

The author of the fabulous, recently reissued THE DUD AVOCADO died on May 1 at the age of 81. The news comes by way of Terry Teachout, who wrote the introduction to the NYRB edition of the novel that introduced the one-of-a-kind American expat Sally Jay Gorce getting into heaps of adventure and mischief in Paris. The NYRB Classics' blog reports that Dundy's follow-up, THE OLD MAN AND ME, will be republished by them later this year. Dundy's 2006 essay on the gradual loss of sight is also well worth reading.