*** Hailey Lind: Arsenic and Old Paint, Perseverance, $14.95. San Francisco art restorer and reformed forger Annie Kincaid, with a nose for mystery and an increasingly complicated love life, is one of the funniest and most likable first-person sleuths in the current market. Her fourth case begins with the discovery of a bleeding corpse in a bathtub at an exclusive San Francisco club, the scene recalling David’s painting Death of Marat. This series deserves to continue.
*** Sasscer Hill: Full Mortality, Wildside, $13.95. Jockey Nikki Latrelle, compelled to visit her upcoming stakes mount Gilded Cage late one night at Laurel Park, finds the mare dead in her stall. Other equine and human deaths follow. First-time novelist Hill, herself a Maryland horse breeder, is a genuine find, writing smooth and vivid descriptive prose about racetrack characters and backstretch ambience that reek authenticity. Familiar plot elements are gracefully handled, including that old romantic-suspense conundrum: which of the attractive but mysterious males is the good guy and which the villain?
*** Al Roker and Dick Lochte: The Midnight Show Murders, Delacorte, $26. The second case for chef and TV personality Billy Blessing may be the first mystery signed by a celebrity collaborating with a pro that concerns in part a celebrity collaborating with a pro. Other inside jokes from the mystery and show-biz worlds abound, as Blessing reluctantly leaves his New York base for Los Angeles where he is all-too-close a witness to spectacular murder on live TV. A fairly clued puzzle adds to the fun of one of the best celebrity mystery series.
*** Randy Singer: Fatal Convictions, Tyndale, $13.99. In Virginia Beach, Alex Madison, pastor of a small church and in his day job an almost literally ambulance-chasing personal-injury lawyer, defends a Norfolk imam accused of the honor killing of a married Muslim woman and her Christian lover. The plot is satisfactorily complicated with a string of well-sprung surprises, the courtroom action authentic and plentiful, and the dramatic wind-up expertly managed. The author himself is an attorney and pastor.
Copyright ©2010 by Jon L. Breen
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REVIEWS
BLOG BYTES
by Bill Crider
Thriller ran on U.S. television for sixty-seven episodes back in 1961-62. Now that all the episodes have been released in a fourteen-DVD set, Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri decided to blog about them on a site they’ve named A Thriller a Day (http://athrilleraday.blogspot.com). Each day, Scoleri and Enfantino offer their sometimes barbed, always insightful and witty criticism of a single episode of the series. They rate each show on a scale of one to four Karloffs, and they’re really tough graders. They may have completed the series by the time you read this, but their remarks will remain available for a long time to come. So far they’ve had one guest commentator, David Schow, and even a podcast with exclusive audio commentary.
But that’s not all. As if one excellent blog weren’t enough, Enfantino and Scoleri have revived bare•bones, “the beloved (if erratic) print digest” and created the bare•bones e-zine (http://barebonesez.blogspot.com). So far, there have been long articles about Manhunt, one of the now-defunct crime digests that flourished in the middle of the last century; Richard Matheson’s short stories in Playboy; the AHMM stories of Robert Edmond Alter; and many others. I’ve particularly enjoyed Enfantino’s reviews of The Sharpshooter, one of the trashier men’s adventure series from long ago. This blog is a must-read for me every day.
Another site where I like to while away the hours is Spy Guys & Gals (http://spyguysandgals.com). Almost anything you want to know about series spy fiction published after WWII can be found here. Go to the proper page, click on a character’s name, and you can find out the series name, the character’s code name and nationality, the organization he or she works for, the author’s name, the number of books in the series, the publishing history, and much more. The “much more” includes reviews of the books and an overall grade for the series. A lot of work has gone into this site, and it’s a lot of fun to read. Be careful, or you might find an entire afternoon has gone missing.
If it’s general information you want, check out Omnimystery News (http://www.omnimysterynews.com). This site will keep you up to date on DVD releases and what’s coming up on television. There are book reviews, too. You might even want to solve the weekly Mystery Godoku Guzzle from Hidden Staircase Mystery Books. Unlike sudoku, this puzzle uses letters instead of numbers, which is always good news for someone like me.
Copyright © 2010 by Bill Crider
Two Birthdays
Each year, EQMM joins the Baker Street Irregulars, the world’s oldest Sherlockian organization, in celebrating the birthday of Sherlock Holmes. Since shortly after the BSI’s inception, in 1934, a birthday dinner for the great fictional sleuth has been an annual event. On Twelfth Night, 2011, according to the Irregulars, Holmes—alive and living in Sussex tending bees—will turn 157. At this year’s banquet in his honor, there will be copies of EQMM’s February issue at each place, as there have been for decades. But as this year also marks EQMM’s 70th birthday, we’d like to point out that the birth of this magazine is actually connected to that of Holmes.
Ellery Queen was, as nearly every reader of this magazine knows, the pseudonym of two collaborating cousins, Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay. It was Dannay who did most of the work of editing EQMM, while Lee took the lead in other Ellery Queen projects. That division of labor was significant for us, for Dannay might never have had a career in mystery writing or editing at all had it not been for a book he received when he was just twelve years old. The book was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Reflecting on that turning point in his life, Dannay once wrote: “I opened the book with no realization that I stood—rather, I sat—on the brink of my fate. I had no inkling, no premonition, that in another minute my life’s work, such as it is, would be born.” By his “life’s work,” Dannay meant more than the novels and stories of Ellery Queen, important as those are. He meant this magazine too, which was inspired by his love of the work of Doyle and other great detective writers and whose reprints, in the early years, included some of the cases of Sherlock Holmes.
Unlike the BSI, we can’t give EQMM’s birthday a specific date, (although it was in the autumn of 1941 that the first issue went on sale) but Twelfth Night seems as good a date as any for a party. Cheers to the BSI and all those readers whose lives, like our founder’s, were changed by Sherlock Holmes!
ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Vol. 137, No. 2, Whole No. 834, February 2011. ISSN 0013-6328, USPS 523-610. Dell GST# R123054108. Published monthly except for combined March/ April and September/ October double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. 1-year subscription $55.90 in U.S. and possessions, in all other countries $65.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. Subscription orders and mail regarding subscriptions should be sent to Ellery Queen, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855, or call 800-220-7443. Editorial Offices, 267 Broadway, 4th Fl. New York, NY 10007-2352. Executive Office, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855-1220. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. ©2010 Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention and the Pan American Copyright convention. ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE® is the registered trademark of Ellery Queen. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to Worldcolor St. Jean, 800 Blvd. Industrial, St. Jean, Quebec J3B 8G4. Printed in Canada.
Previous Article Ellery Queen: 70 Years
Ellery Queen: 70 Years
Two Birthdays
Each year, EQMM joins the Baker Street Irregulars, the world’s oldest Sherlockian organization, in celebrating the birthday of Sherlock Holmes. Since shortly after the BSI
’s inception, in 1934, a birthday dinner for the great fictional sleuth has been an annual event. On Twelfth Night, 2011,...
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REVIEWS
Ellery Queen: 70 Years
Two Birthdays
Each year, EQMM joins the Baker Street Irregulars, the world’s oldest Sherlockian organization, in celebrating the birthday of Sherlock Holmes. Since shortly after the BSI’s inception, in 1934, a birthday dinner for the great fictional sleuth has been an annual event. On Twelfth Night, 2011, according to the Irregulars, Holmes—alive and living in Sussex tending bees—will turn 157. At this year’s banquet in his honor, there will be copies of EQMM’s February issue at each place, as there have been for decades. But as this year also marks EQMM’s 70th birthday, we’d like to point out that the birth of this magazine is actually connected to that of Holmes.
Ellery Queen was, as nearly every reader of this magazine knows, the pseudonym of two collaborating cousins, Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay. It was Dannay who did most of the work of editing EQMM, while Lee took the lead in other Ellery Queen projects. That division of labor was significant for us, for Dannay might never have had a career in mystery writing or editing at all had it not been for a book he received when he was just twelve years old. The book was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Reflecting on that turning point in his life, Dannay once wrote: “I opened the book with no realization that I stood—rather, I sat—on the brink of my fate. I had no inkling, no premonition, that in another minute my life’s work, such as it is, would be born.” By his “life’s work,” Dannay meant more than the novels and stories of Ellery Queen, important as those are. He meant this magazine too, which was inspired by his love of the work of Doyle and other great detective writers and whose reprints, in the early years, included some of the cases of Sherlock Holmes.
Unlike the BSI, we can’t give EQMM’s birthday a specific date, (although it was in the autumn of 1941 that the first issue went on sale) but Twelfth Night seems as good a date as any for a party. Cheers to the BSI and all those readers whose lives, like our founder’s, were changed by Sherlock Holmes!
ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Vol. 137, No. 2, Whole No. 834, February 2011. ISSN 0013-6328, USPS 523-610. Dell GST# R123054108. Published monthly except for combined March/ April and September/ October double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. 1-year subscription $55.90 in U.S. and possessions, in all other countries $65.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. Subscription orders and mail regarding subscriptions should be sent to Ellery Queen, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855, or call 800-220-7443. Editorial Offices, 267 Broadway, 4th Fl. New York, NY 10007-2352. Executive Office, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855-1220. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. ©2010 Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention and the Pan American Copyright convention. ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE® is the registered trademark of Ellery Queen. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to Worldcolor St. Jean, 800 Blvd. Industrial, St. Jean, Quebec J3B 8G4. Printed in Canada.
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 02/01/11 Page 19
