Ed Gorman's Blog, page 233

To Kill A Mockingbird Under Attack

Ed here: Jesse Kornbluth is one of my favorite writers. Like him I've noticed of late a number of attacks on the novel and movie To Kill A Mockingbird. To be honest I didn't give any of them much thought--the writers seemed very angry and very political--but Jesse has and in his Huffington Post post he elaborates on his thoughts. These graphs are from the middle of the piece. He begins by talking about all the things that dismay him today, things he never thought would come to pass. Then he a...

Forgotten Books: No Way To Treat a Lady

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I remember picking up the first edition of No Way to Treat A Lady by one Harry Longbaugh. The year was 1968 and everybody I knew was pretty much booze-and-drug-addled. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were dead, LBJ was stepping down and Tricky Dick's star was once again rising. The much-overrated (to me) Bonnie & Clyde was filling theaters and Hair was the subject d'jour for the mass media.

And man, did William the writer behind the Longbaugh pen-name, ever do it.

All you had to do was sca...

Dave Zeltserman's Julius Katz

Ed here: I'm a big fan, along with many other people, of Dave Zeltserman's character Julius Katz. Here Dave's discusses Julius and how he plans to integrate him into his blog.


Tell us about Julius Katz the character.


I originally wrote 'Julius Katz' as a novella for the Black Orchid contest that's run jointly between The Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. As such 'Julius Katz' was meant as pastiche on one of my favorite series in the mystery genre, Nero Wolfe. Julius is a brill...

A great new Mystery Scene

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Summer 2010, Issue #115 Contents

Features

Michael Koryta: Take Me to the River
Koryta charts a new course with his supernatural thriller So Cold the River.
by Kevin Burton Smith

Stefanie Pintoff: In Old New York
Broadway lore comes to life in Pintoff's follow-up to her recent Edgar winner.
by Lynn Kaczmarek

Thriller Must Reads: Peter Straub's Koko
The horrors of the Vietnam War inform Straub's chilling novel, which helped usher in the era of serial killer as enigmatic antihero.
by Hank Wagner

Scott ...

From Dave Zeltserman - The e book debate

From Dave Zeltserman


I've been having this same discussion for months with a friend of mine from my old technology world. This guy is very bright, normally very insightful, and he does make some good points as he keeps trying to argue that ebook revolution is going to be a boon for writers--one of his points being that while we're very spoiled living in the Boston area and having access to so many great bookstores, a large part of this country doesn't have this kind of access and being able to...

"When anyone can be a published author" by Laura Miller

Ed here: My friend Dave Zeltserman sent me this link to Laura Miller's take on Salon about how "self-published books" are everywhere on the net these days. She also refers to the old-fashioned slush pile. I've read slush for two magazines and two book publishers and I agree with Laura's take. About 2% of slush has any chance of being published. A lot of it is flat out horrendous.

Who will be the gatekeepers in this self-indulgent new world? Are we throwing out all the rules just so people ca...

Forgotten Books: The Killer by Wade Miller

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Wade Miller was of course Bob Wade and Bill Miller. They collaborated on a few dozen novels until Miller died of a heart attack in the office they shared. He was forty-one.

Much of their finest work was done for Gold Medal. The Killer is a fine example. A rich man named Stennis owns a number of banks. His son works in one of them. During a robbery his son is killed. Stennis hires a big game hunter named Farrow to find the notorious bank robber Clel Bocock and his gang. When Farrow locates them...

Had to happen...Dc goes digital

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From The Wrap today:

DC Comics Goes Digital
By Daniel Frankel
Published: June 23, 2010


DC Comics is going digital.

The publisher of Superman, Batman and the Green Lantern has entered into several deals that will make its comics available on online and mobile platforms.

DC and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution jointly announced on Wednesday separate digital distribution deals with comiXology and Sony's PlayStation Networks. In addition, DC also touted new apps for Apples iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch ...

The Good Guys; Picnic canceled; Lady Gaga

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I'm not sure, under any kind of scrutiny, "The Good Guys" is much of a TV show. It sure ain't no "Burn Notice" which in some ways it clones, birthed, as it was, by the same guy who created "Burn.". I mean how many explosions can you have in a single episode? Last night they were pushing for the record apparently. That said I like it because it makes me laugh out loud, something few shows do. Bradley Whitford's hammy spoof of all Clint Eastwood cop movies is awkward but truly funny in a corny...

Joy Behar

We were watching Joy Behar when she was a stand-up in the eighties. She was on every small-time cable show there was, most notably Robert Kline's. She was very funny.

For that reason, bored and needing some tv, I tried her show a couple of times again last week and I'll tell you if you can get past some of the guests she's good. Very quick and funny. I heard a lot more than I cared to about the Miley Cyrus underwear photo "scandal." Who's the dude who linked to it and may be facing legal pro...