Bullet Points: Hope and Hype Edition

• I first read about the possible shutting down of Mystery Scene magazine in Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare blog. Then came a bit more information in Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter’s post-Bouchercon round-up. There seems no escaping the truth of this matter: the Winter 2022 (mid-November) issue of Mystery Scene will be the last one produced by editor-in-chief Kate Stine (a veteran of the still-lamented Armchair Detective) and her husband, Brian Skupin, who acquired the publication in 2002 from previous owners Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg. That’s 20 years of success, marked in part by their winning an Anthony Award for Best Mystery Magazine in 2004 and, in 2006, an Ellery Queen Award for contributions to mystery publishing. But can this really be the end of Mystery Scene, a periodical so many of us have come to rely on for news, reviews, interviews, and features about the genre’s history? Stine tells me in an e-mail message that she and Skupin are definitely quitting as publishers. However, she adds, they are “putting the word out to anyone interested that the magazine is available [for sale]. We would be willing to work closely with new owners.” Anybody who could rescue this important asset to the mystery-fiction community is encouraged to contact Stine at katestine@mysteryscenemag.com. “So, we’ll have to wait and see if the magazine ends with us or carries on,” says Stine. “We’re planning on keeping the Web site and the monthly newsletter going through the end of the year.”

• Because I was a big fan of Louis Bayard’s 2006 historical whodunit, The Pale Blue Eye, I have been following closely news about that book’s adaptation as a forthcoming Netflix film. The streaming company recently released “a first-look image” of actor Christian Bale in the role of Augustus “Gus” Landor, a lonely, alcoholic New York City detective, who—with help from cadet Edgar Allan Poe—investigates the vicious murder of another cadet at the West Point military academy in 1830. In addition, it was announced that this version of The Pale Blue Eye “will arrive on Netflix on January 6, after a limited awards-qualifying theatrical run that begins on December 23.” Harry Melling (The Queen’s Gambit) will play the young Poe, with Gillian Anderson, Toby Jones, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and the ever-lovely Lucy Boynton (Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?) helping to round out the cast.

• Meanwhile, word has spread that Enola Holmes 2, the quite unimaginatively titled sequel to Millie Bobby Brown’s enjoyable 2020 Netflix movie, Enola Holmes, is being readied for its small-screen premiere on November 4. “Enola’s newest adventure,” says Entertainment Weekly, “begins after a young girl working in a match factory hires her to locate her missing sister. Before long, Enola finds herself drawn into a high-stakes chase across London, journeying from the city’s seedy industrial underbelly to the glitzy galas of high society. In other words, the game is most certainly afoot.” Henry Cavill will again portray Enola’s elder sibling, Sherlock Holmes, with Helena Bonham Carter returning as Eudoria Holmes, and Adeel Akhtar slipping into the shoes of Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Lestrade.

• The broadcast news source Radio Times reports that Professor T., the humorous ITV-TV crime drama based on a Belgian program of the same name, will return to UK boob tubes with fresh episodes, beginning tonight. “Starring [Ben] Miller as Jasper Tempest and Harry Potter star Frances de la Tour as his mother Adelaide,” the magazine’s Web site explains, “the story will once again be set in Cambridge as the Professor continues to help the police solve unusual crimes. Season 2 may finally see the Professor get the help he needs as he embarks on therapy, which unearths more secrets from his troubled childhood.” There’s no word on when Season 2 might reach U.S. screens.

• Having concluded its run in the UK, Season 7 of Shetland premiered this week on BritBox in the States, bringing viewers the first of six final episodes to star Douglas Henshall as Shetland Islands Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, a character created by Ann Cleeves. The plot line this time out finds Perez being cleared, after a year’s uneasy suspension, of any wrongdoing in the shocking suicide of terminally ill patient Donna Killick. He then moves on quickly to investigate the disappearance and subsequent demise of a “sensitive” young graphic novelist, Connor Cairns. The Killing Times offers recaps of this week’s episode, plus the five others to come, though you may wish to exercise caution in reading, as spoilers are on offer.

• The Killing Times also brings news that filming has begun on the third season of Grace, the ITV-TV series starring John Simm and based on Peter James’ novels about Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. Like Season 2 (which I watched only last week), that upcoming series will comprise three episodes. I only hope Zoë Tapper returns as forensic pathologist Cleo Moray, whose relationship with the DSU helped flesh out his character and soften his intensity.

• And with James’ 18th Grace novel, Picture You Dead, due for release on this side of the Atlantic in late September, it’s worth looking over an interview he did with The Guardian a while back. In it, the author talks about how he learned a few pointers on techniques of art forgery—a major component of this new book’s story.

• Nobody should be surprised by news that I’m a huge fan of newspaper book-review sections, so I was pleased to read this in The Complete Review: “The Washington Post’s old stand-alone Book World section was discontinued in 2009 but, as former editor Ron Charles now reports: ‘The Washington Post’s stand-alone print book section is coming back!’—on 25 September. This is certainly good to hear. With the Canadian The Globe & Mail apparently also re-making their Arts & Books section as a stand-alone (on 10 September), this almost looks like a trend … Who will be next?”

• At the end of last month, I mentioned on this page that the anonymous author of The Columbophile Blog would soon welcome into the world his new book, The Columbo Companion, 1968-78: Investigating Every Detail of All 45 ‘Classic Era’ Columbo Adventures (Bonaventure Press). Back then, there were no ordering links online, but now I see it’s at least available from Amazon.

• While we’re talking about The Columbophile Blog, let me draw your attention to a trio of posts there that deserve your notice. Two of them finally identify the mysterious actresses behind memorable minor characters in Peter Falk’s original series—the nude model from “Suitable for Framing” and the “snooty” Tricon Industries from “An Exercise in Fatality”—while the third explains the “gargantuan” task of casting Columbo. (Included are many performers who never quite made it onto that rotating NBC Mystery Movie drama.)

• From In Reference to Murder: “Writing for The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik profiled Georges Simenon and ‘The Mysterious Case of Inspector Maigret.’ He concluded that the Maigret books, seventy-five in all, seem more likely to be remembered than [Simenon’s] romans durs, the ‘hard books’ often set outside Paris and meant ‘as works of more self-conscious art.’” Time will tell. Andrew Nette looked back at those romans durs earlier this year in a fine CrimeReads piece.

• In its tweet touting “James Bond Day” on October 5, Ian Fleming Publications teased the coming of a major—though unspecified—announcement. Rumors are now rife that there will be a new Bond continuation novel, to follow the last three by Anthony Horowitz.

• Former James Bond portrayer George Lazenby may want to amend some of his moral positions before again seeking public attention.

• In a long, thoughtful piece for The Conversation, a news and analysis site, writers Stewart King, Alistair Rolls, and Jesper Gulddal consider “how crime fiction went global, embracing themes from decolonisation to climate change.”

• With two months or so yet to go before a winner is pronounced, Karen Meek writes in the Euro Crime blog that “31 of the 34 titles that were eligible for the 2022 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year have been entered by the publishers.” Among them are works by Anders de la Motte, Lilja Sigurðardóttir, Arnaldur Indridason, Antti Tuomainen, and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.

• Believe it or not, there’s a certifiable whodunit on this year’s longlist of 10 National Book Award nominees in the Fiction category. It’s Shutter, by Ramona Emerson, released in early August by Soho Crime. Here’s the plot synopsis from Amazon:

Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases—she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook.

As a lone portal back to the living for traumatized spirits, Rita is terrorized by nagging ghosts who won’t let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life. Her taboo and psychologically harrowing ability was what drove her away from the Navajo reservation, where she was raised by her grandmother. It has isolated her from friends and gotten her in trouble with the law.

And now it might be what gets her killed.

The competition for this annual prize is likely to be fierce, and Shutter may not triumph in the end. Still, it’s nice to see a work of crime fiction recognized for its literary excellence.

• I won’t argue with this assessment, in the blog Paperback Warrior, of Alistair MacLean’s already much-praised 1957 novel: “The Guns of Navarone is an absolute masterpiece of high-adventure, and I give it the highest recommendation. You won’t be disappointed with the story, plot development, or characters. MacLean deserved the heaps of praise his early and mid-career novels received. He was a master craftsman and you owe it to yourself to read one of his best. Whether this one is as good, or better, than Where Eagles Dare [1966] is up for debate. I love them both equally.”

• R.I.P., Elizabeth Gunn, “author of the Detective Jake Hines series and the Sarah Burke series,” and best-selling American horror writer Peter Straub (Ghost Story). Also gone is Williams Reynolds, who starred as Special Agent Tom Colby on 161 episodes of The F.B.I.

• Finally, the death last week of Queen Elizabeth II led publications worldwide to reflect not only on the real-life, 70-year career of that British monarch, but also on her numerous appearances—without her express permission, of course—in works of fiction. An Associated Press piece, for instance, recalled the queen’s role in the plots of various films and TV shows, and observed that author S.J. Bennett has turned her into a sleuth in two novels thus far, with another (Murder Most Royal) due out in November. The article might also have noted Canadian author Douglas Whiteway’s three novels, penned under the pseudonym C.C. Benison, about a fictional royal housemaid, one Jane Bee, who is infrequently called upon by Her Majesty to solve crimes at the Queen’s estates; that series’ opening installment was Death at Buckingham Palace (1996). And what of Susan Elia MacNeal’s 2021 mystery, Princess Elizabeth's Spy, in which MI5 agent-in-training Maggie Hope safeguards the young future soverign and her sister from possible Nazi provocateurs at Windsor Castle? Or William F. Buckley’s Saving the Queen (1976)? Although that first Blackford Oakes espionage novel, set in 1952, finds the undercover CIA agent in Britain protecting (and eventually bedding) a young “Queen Caroline,” that character is unquestionably based on Elizabeth, who ascended to the thrown in 1952 after the demise of her father, King George VI.

Bullet Points: Eve of Haunts Edition

• Online voting has begun in the contest for the 2014 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards. There are seven categories of nominees, but the one that may interest Rap Sheet readers most is the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year. Here are the contenders:

-- Unravelling Oliver, by Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)
-- The Kill, by Jane Casey (Ebury Publishing)
-- The Final Silence, by Stuart Neville (Harvill Secker)
-- Can Anybody Help Me?, by Sinead Crowley (Quercus)
-- The Secret Place, by Tana French (Hachette Books Ireland)
-- Last Kiss, by Louise Phillips (Hachette Books Ireland)

Choose your favorites here. I don’t see anything about this competition being restricted to Irish citizens, but note that the voting will close at midnight on November 21.

• Unbidden but nonetheless willing, John Harvey--whose recent Charlie Resnick novel, Darkness, Darkness, I appreciated so much--has put together a list of what he says are his 25 favorite crime novels. “It will immediately become clear there are exceptions: no Hammett, no Chandler nor other ‘classic’ crime--so obvious that to mention them was, to my mind, unnecessary; and some writers--Michael Connelly would serve as an example--are not there on the grounds that the stream of their work is so strong, I would find it impossible to lift one prime example from the rest.” Among the novels that did merit inclusion are Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything, Kent Anderson’s Night Dogs, George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle, and Daniel Woodrell’s Give Us a Kiss. You’ll find all of Harvey’s picks here.

• Who remembers the 1979 TV series A Man Called Sloane? My only recollection is that star Robert Conrad left another series, Stephen J. Cannell’s The Duke, after only a handful of episodes in order to play freelance spy Thomas R. Sloane III in this nearly as short-lived Quinn Martin production. Writer Christopher Mills, though, appreciated Sloane enough to compose an episode-by-episode series of posts in a blog called Spy-fi Channel. That blog is now defunct, but Mills is in the midst of revising those Sloane posts (“editing them a bit and adding a few new thoughts and observations”) for another of his blogs, Atomic Pulp and Other Meltdowns. Keep up with his series here.

• The latest update of The Thrilling Detective Web Site is now live. It includes editor Kevin Burton Smith’s “spontaneous tribute” to the late Rockford Files star, James Garner, and expanded entries on characters ranging from Stryker McBride and Joey Fly to Yakov Semenovich Stern and Steve Allen’s Los Angeles gumshoe, Roger Dale. Smith also brings the welcome news that Thrilling Detective finally has “a decent search engine,” which you can access here.

• I must admit, I envy author-educator Art Taylor for his recent opportunity to interview Otto Penzler on behalf of the Los Angeles Review of Books. They had a nice long talk about editor Penzler’s work on a couple of new short-story collections, The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century (which I reviewed here) and The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries. Penzler also clues Taylor in on what he’s been working on “since January”: another major compilation, The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories.

• Edward A. Grainger (aka David Cranmer) asks, in Criminal Element, why Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896) hasn’t received more attention over the years--why has it “slipped through the cracks of popular reading?” He suggests it’s “because nothing can live up to the Great American Novel--Huckleberry Finn--that preceded it. Ernest Hemingway famously said, ‘All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.’ No such praise met Tom Sawyer: Detective, with the British Guardian’s original review harshly noting, ‘The whole story is poorly conceived and badly put together.’”

• Although I’ve missed the actual anniversary, I still want to bring attention to the fact that last week the Paul Newman-Robert Redford picture Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid marked 45 years since its general release on October 24, 1969. I’ve watched that romantic adventure many times, and hope for multiple more viewings. It’s just a fantastic film, with one of the best knife-fight scenes ever!

• There are now only two weeks left before the start of Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach. In his BOLO Books blog, Kristopher Zgorski offers a selection of interesting “non-panel-related activities which will be happening during the conference.” Those include the “Author Speed Dating” event scheduled to be held at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, November 13, during which more than 100 authors will “pitch” their books to Bouchercon attendees, hoping to attract new readers.

• Haven’t registered for Bouchercon? You can still do it here.

• Apparently, author Max Allan Collins (for whom the adjective “prolific” seems to have been invented) composed the liner notes for a new eight-CD set called Jazz on Fillm: Crime Jazz. He describes the line-up of pieces as “astonishing”: “77 Sunset Strip,” “Hawaiian Eye,” “Checkmate,” “Shotgun Slade,” “The Naked City,” “Richard Diamond,” “Bourbon Street Beat,” “M-Squad,” “The Untouchables,” “Peter Gunn,” “Mr. Lucky,” “Staccato” and “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer”--“both the TV series soundtrack and the music from the rare Stan Purdy ‘Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer Story’ LP,” Collins explains. A list of the musicians represented in this CD set is here.

• Patricia Highsmith--comic book writer?

• One of my fellow Kirkus Reviews bloggers, John DeNardo, this week posted a list of “10 Things This Fan Was Surprised to Learn About Science Fiction.” I was no less taken aback by one of his factoids:

Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land is about a man named Valentine Michael Smith who was born and raised on Mars. The story concerns Smith’s trip to Earth and his first-ever interaction with Earth culture. The book is considered one of the most popular science-fiction novels of all time. What surprised me was learning that in 1968, the book inspired a man to found a Neopagan religious organization modeled after the religion founded by Smith in the novel, the beliefs of which include polyamory, social libertarianism and non-mainstream family structures.

You learn something new (and maybe weird) every day, I guess.

• I’m not convinced that we really need a new, American version of Wire in the Blood, the British ITV series that ran from 2002 to 2008 and was based on Val McDermid’s novels about a university clinical psychologist who works with police on serial-killer cases. Yet Crimespree Magazine brings word that ABC-TV is developing such a program with the help of a couple of veterans from the underappreciated Detroit 1-8-7. I know I’ve asked this before (and I shall probably ask it again in the future), but why can’t Hollywood come up with new ideas, rather than recycling old ones?

• This doesn’t sound good: In Reference to Murder reports that “CBS reduced the episode order for CSI to 18 episodes, down from 22. The show is in its 15th season, and this is the first time the drama will have produced less than a full season of episodes.”

• While looking back on the 1959 thriller Night Without End, Vintage Pop Fictions remarks that its author, Alistair MacLean, “does not deserve the relative oblivion into which he has fallen.” I made that same point last year in this piece for Kirkus Reviews.

• Brian Drake interviews Anonymous-9 (aka Elaine Ash) on the subject of Bite Harder, the sequel to her 2013 novel, Hard Bite.

• Finally, since tomorrow is Halloween, I’d be remiss in not linking you up with a few associated postings around the Web. TopTenz chooses the “Top 10 Most Haunted Cities in America,” while The Bowery Boys--an excellent New York City history blog--looks back at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stunning announcement, in April 1922, of “an extraordinary discovery--the existence of ectoplasm, the ghostly goo that emits from mediums possessed with the spirits of the dead.” Publishers Weekly tries to identify “The 10 Best Ghost Stories,” but both The Poisoned Martini and Too Much Horror Fiction have other suggestions. Terence Towles Canote rounds up his favorite horror film postings from A Shroud of Thoughts, while Vintage45’s Blog revisits Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), the 1969-1971 British TV program about a London private eye whose late partner is still helping him solve crimes--a show I previously wrote about here. And since this post can’t be completely serious, check out Cracked History’s eye-catching rundown of the “10 Sexiest Halloween Costumes.”

Acclaim for MacLean

This seems to be a day for reporting poll results. First, I brought you the findings from a new survey--conducted by the British Crime Writers’ Association--to choose the “best” authors and works available in this genre. Now I can provide the results of a survey we’ve been running over the last month in The Rap Sheet, intended to pick readers’ favorites from among Scottish writer Alistair MacLean’s 28 classic adventure-thriller novels.

With 487 votes having been cast, here are the 10 MacLean novels that received the most support from Rap Sheet readers:

• The Guns of Navarone (1957) -- 71 votes, or 14.58%
• Where Eagles Dare (1967) -- 65 votes, or 13.35%
• Ice Station Zebra (1963) -- 53 votes, or 10.88%
• Breakheart Pass (1974) -- 39 votes, or 8.01%
• Puppet on a Chain (1969) -- 36 votes, or 7.39%
• Fear Is the Key (1961) -- 29 votes, or 5.95%
• Night Without End (1959) -- 23 votes, or 4.72%
• Bear Island (1971) -- 22 votes, or 4.52%
• When Eight Bells Toll (1966) -- 20 votes, or 4.11%
• Circus (1975) -- 19 votes, or 3.9%

All of the big vote-getters were published during the first 20 years of MacLean’s fiction-writing career. None of the nine novels he penned during the final decade of his life received more than five votes in this survey. That supports a statement I made, in a recent column for Kirkus Reviews, that his later books “were of considerably less quality than their predecessors.”

The full results of this survey can be found here.

A MacLean Sweep

Once-bestselling author Alistair MacLean is the subject of my column this week for the Kirkus Reviews Web site. As I explain,

At the height of his renown, back in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Scottish adventure-thriller writer Alistair MacLean rivaled even Agatha Christie as a best-seller. I’ve seen it reported that by 1978, 21 million paperback copies of his books had been published, and by 1983, at least 16 of his works had sold upward of a million copies apiece. The scribblers of promotional blurbs were shameless in linking MacLean’s name to new fiction by other, lesser writers, and Hollywood couldn’t seem to capitalize fast enough on his popularity; more than a dozen motion pictures were adapted from MacLean’s yarns, including The Guns of Navarone (featuring Gregory Peck), Ice Station Zebra (with Rock Hudson), Where Eagles Dare (with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood) and Breakheart Pass (starring Charles Bronson).

Not bad for a guy whose debut novel was excoriated as “drivelling melodrama” by one of Scotland’s top-selling newspapers, the Daily Record.

You can find the full piece here. It’s a good one, I think, and well worth your time reading. Perhaps it will also stir some new interest in MacLean’s more than two dozen novels.

And click here to participate in The Rap Sheet’s poll asking readers to name their favorite works among MacLean’s classic oeuvre. If you have not already made your voice heard in this survey, you have until the beginning of November to do so.

UPDATE: Not being content merely to compose a lengthy column about MacLean’s contributions to contemporary thriller fiction, I’ve now posted dozens of fronts from his 28 novels in my other crime-fiction blog, Killer Covers. Check ’em out!

Where Readers Dare

I’m hoping that The Rap Sheet’s well-read visitors will help me out with a little project I have been working on lately, focusing on the once-acclaimed Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean.

Below is a poll asking you to choose your favorites from among MacLean’s more than two dozen novels (listed here in the order of their publication). Feel free to select one or more of these books. If you need to refresh your memory about MacLean’s works, click over to this site and then hold your cursor above the “Book Reviews” tab; a pop-up menu will lead you to concise plot summations.

And if you’d like to share your opinions--positive or negative--about MacLean’s oeuvre, please do so in the Comments section at the bottom of this post.

This survey will remain open until the beginning of November 2013.

The Book You Have to Read: “Breakheart Pass,” by Alistair MacLean

(This piece, which appeared originally in Patti Abbott’s blog, marks the 105th installment of The Rap Sheet’s continuing Friday series highlighting great but forgotten books. Click here to find more than 100 previous recommendations.)

My introduction to Scottish author Alistair MacLean came in high school, when one of my English teachers assigned us all to read The Guns of Navarone, a 1957 thriller centered around the efforts of a specialist team of Allied commandos, during World War II, to silence the notorious weaponry at a German fortress in the Aegean Sea. Most of the books we’d had to read that year were pretty quiet stuff, along the lines of Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories. Navarone was something else altogether, an adventure novel that read more like one of the high-stakes action tales in my grandfather’s Argosy magazines than it did a work that some earnest curriculum planner thought would be healthy grist for the minds of teenage boys. If this was what the future of English classes held in store, I thought, let me at it!

Predictably, though, Navarone was an aberration; afterward, we went right back to reading safe “classics.” But by then I had developed an appetite for MacLean’s lean, edge-of-the-seat yarns. Finished with Navarone, I dove into Puppet on a Chain, then Fear Is the Key, Ice Station Zebra, Bear Island, The Way to Dusty Death, and finally, during my sophomore year in college, Breakheart Pass.

That last novel, published in 1974, wove MacLean’s traditional, best-selling formula of manifold tight plot twists and a cynical protagonist facing long odds into the tapestry of the familiar American Western. Supposedly set in the 1870s, the story takes place primarily aboard an ill-fated Union Pacific train steaming east to west across northern Nevada in the midst of a daunting snowstorm. Among the passengers are the governor of Nevada, Charles Fairchild; his mid-20s, black-haired niece, Marica; a tough-shelled cavalry officer, Colonel Claremont, who’s accompanied by two train cars full of troops; Indian fighter-turned-U.S. marshal Nathan Pearce and his newly acquired prisoner, John Deakin, a taciturn ex-university lecturer wanted on multiple counts of arson and murder; and an expert on tropical diseases, Dr. Edward Molyneux. The doctor’s seemingly inappropriate presence is soon explained by word that the train’s next destination, Fort Humboldt--commanded by Marica’s father--is under epidemic assault by cholera. Molyneux is reportedly taking medicine to the fort, along with coffins.

Things start to go amiss from the first, though. A couple of Claremont’s men disappear even before the train sets off from its final remote town stop. Then the doctor is discovered dead, and the locomotive’s fireman tumbles from a high overpass into a yawning ravine. When the last three train wagons--“the troop-carrying coaches and the brake van”--come uncoupled from the rest of the cars, and careen off backward into a forested gorge, it’s plain that some wicked mind is behind all of these “accidents.” Suspicion naturally focuses on Pearce’s captive, Deakin, who appears unperturbed by the lethal calamities occurring around him. However, the fact that Deakin was shackled at the time of at least one passenger death seems to absolve him of blame. But if he isn’t responsible, then who is? And what do those disasters have to do with misemployed coffins in the train’s supply wagons, or Deakin’s nocturnal wanderings over the roof of the hustling express, or Paiute Indians being welcomed at Fort Humboldt?

Author MacLean was allegedly past his prime when he wrote Breakheart Pass. Yet pretty much everything one could want in a historical thriller is found in these pages: rampant deceptions, schemes designed to incite fear, prodigious greed, calculated homicides, unexpected heroics. (Well, everything except sex: MacLean thought such complications only hobbled the pace of storytelling.) And the whole adventure takes place within a winter that’s as unforgiving as the villains who hope to profit from the carnage. MacLean’s prose may have been more pedestrian than poetic, but he could definitely keep readers on the edge of their seats.

I am not the first reader, nor will I be the last, I’m sure, to remark on the author’s disordering of historical facts. While MacLean makes clear in the book that America’s Civil War has been fought and finished, and the United States Secret Service (founded in 1865) is active in bringing malefactors to justice, he confuses things by mentioning that “the Big Bonanza strike in [Nevada’s] Comstock Lode” occurred some months ago. Actually, that rich discovery took place in 1859, when Nevada was still part of the Utah Territory. Two more years would pass before Nevada broke away, and it wasn’t until 1864 that it became the 36th state in the Union. I can only imagine that MacLean decided that such discrepancies were OK if they contributed to his story’s intent.

And reading this book again now, I find myself more able than I was originally to overlook them. The building of tension, not the exposition of historical events, was the author’s purpose in these pages, and he succeeded marvelously. Even today, and knowing how it all ends, every time I sit down with Breakheart Pass or watch the 1975 Charles Bronson film adaptation of that tale, I feel anew the frisson of anticipation, wondering who will survive that dangerous train ride ... and how the men behind the crimes on board will be brought to justice. That’s great storytelling for you!

* * *

As one might expect, considerable liberties were taken with dialogue, action, and characterization to turn Breakheart Pass into the Jerry Gershwin/Elliott Kastner movie of that same name. For instance, Governor Fairchild became much younger in the personage of actor Richard Crenna, and Marica (played by Charles Bronson’s wife, Jill Ireland) morphed from being his daughter, to being his mistress. However, since MacLean apparently wrote the screenplay, the story remains faithful to the essence of the novel, and Ben Johnson turns in a wonderful performance as Marshal Pearce. It’s definitely worth watching. Below, I have embedded both the film’s trailer and its opening sequence. The theme was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, who also provided the scores for Chinatown, Planet of the Apes, and several Star Trek films.





READ MORE: “Alistair MacLean and the Human Cost of War,” by Barbara D’Amato (The Outfit); “Murder on the Literary Express: Top 10 Train Thrillers” (AbeBooks); “Fit to Thrill: Alistair MacLean Deserves to Be Read Again,” by J. Kingston Pierce (Kirkus Reviews).

Bullet Points: The Carnaval Edition

While the annual Carnaval celebration roars into being in Brazil, complete with its body-painted queen, the rest of us--pasty-white and in no shape to go parading about thoroughfares in our all-togethers--must content ourselves with watching the 81st annual Academy Awards presentation. And maybe ordering in a pizza. And nosing around the blogosphere for crime-fiction news. To wit:

• Bill Crider brings us the sad news that novelist John Alfred “Jack” Webb (no, not the same Jack Webb who brought us Dragnet) has died at age 92. During the 1950s and ’60s, Webb wrote mysteries featuring the crime-solving pair of Father Joseph Shanley and Sammy Golden. The former was a Catholic priest in Southern California, the latter a Jewish detective-sergeant working with what was apparently the Los Angeles Police Department’s Homicide Division. Among Webb’s titles: The Big Sin (1952), The Damned Lovely (1954), The Brass Halo (1957), and One for My Dame (1961).

• Notice of another death in the crime-fiction community comes from Jiro Kimura’s The Gumshoe Site. He reports that Charles “Chuck” Crayne, “one of the founders of Bouchercon and a co-chairman (with Bruce Pelz) of the first Bouchercon, which was held during Memorial Day weekend in 1970 at the Royal Inn in Santa Monica, California,” died on February 16 of cardiac arrest in Willits, California. Crayne was 71 years old.

• Oline H. Cogdill, who for many years has written about crime and mystery fiction for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, today begins penning twice-weekly posts for the Mystery Scene magazine blog. “As I do for the Sun-Sentinel, I’ll be writing about a variety of subjects, mystery fiction, for sure, but also movies, DVDs, publishing trends, etc.,” she told subscribers to the listserv DorothyL. “The plan is to update the Mystery Scene blog each Sunday and Wednesday, though I may add a bonus or two when the mood strikes.” This is good news indeed, since that particular blog has been updated with disappointing infrequency since its inception in the summer of 2007. Even sadder has been the moribund state of the magazine’s companion blog, Brian Skupin’s Bookflings, which hasn’t offered new material since June 17 of last year.

• How can you not read a story that’s headlined “James Patterson: Evil Genius?” Picking up on a news item, blogger and fictionist Declan Burke reports that “Best-selling crime author James Patterson will release a new kind of novel next month--one that’s been collaboratively written with the crowd. Called Airborne, the upcoming novel will feature 30 chapters, each written by a different author except the first and last--those will be written by Patterson himself. With the release of this book, it appears the Web 2.0 movement of collaborative writing is about to hit the mainstream.” Is this good news? It’s hard to know, really ...

• As somebody with a longtime fondness for the works of author Alistair MacLean, once one of the world’s biggest-selling thriller writers, I am delighted to see Gravetapping’s Ben Boulden having collected five trailers for films made from MacLean’s books: The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare, Breakheart Pass, and Bear Island. Watch these in between Oscar-night shots of Marisa Tomei, Frank Langella, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Brolin.

• Speaking of the Oscars, celebrity Joan Rivers and her co-author, Los Angeles mystery author Jerilyn Farmer (The Flaming Luau of Death), imagine those glitzy goings-on with more crime than camaraderie in Murder at the Academy Awards.

• Devil on Two Sticks. How is that not the perfect book title?

• Linda L. Richards imagines the casting choices for a movie version of her first Kitty Pangborn mystery, Death Was the Other Woman (2008). Although I might prefer How I Met Your Mother’s Alyson Hannigan in the redheaded Kitty role, I can definitely see Russell Crowe as the besotted but still able Los Angeles private eye, Dexter J. Theroux. Now, would somebody just please make this film?

• British blogger-critic Uriah Robinson (aka Norman Price) has been posting a multi-part interview with Hawaii resident Rebecca Cantrell, author of the historical crime novel A Trace of Smoke, which is due out from Forge Books in May. Cantrell answers Robinson’s questions about her book, which is set in Berlin in 1931, here, here, and here, with more of their exchange to come. Fine stuff. UPDATE: The fourth and final installment of Robinson’s discussion with Cantrell can be read here.

• Crimespree editors and Bouchercon organizers Jon and Ruth Jordan win star treatment in the Chicago Tribune.

• The Irish Times investigates the explosion in crime fiction turned out by its homeland’s resident novelists. “There was a time when Irish writers of the criminal persuasion were rarer than root canal work on a hen,” writes Arminta Wallace. “Over the past decade, however, Irish crime fiction has emerged as a self-assured genre whose practitioners are not just selling well at home, but are also gaining recognition on the murderously competitive international crime scene.” The full story can be found here.

• After his splendid post last week about the U.S. TV shows that debuted in the fall of 1971, Saskatchewan writer Brent McKee follows up with another post that addresses questions readers have raised, and even features a bonus double-shot of theme music from Henry Mancini. Personally, I’m looking forward to McKee’s future comments about the 1972-1973 TV season, which he says will include “some rather interesting thoughts on Hec Ramsey.”

• Thinking of Hec Ramsey brings back memories of other NBC Sunday Mystery Movie segments, including Dennis Weaver’s McCloud.

• And though it took longer to write than I had expected, I’m rather pleased with my latest post at the Killer Covers blog. It covers the work of Frank Kane, an alcohol-industry promoter and the creator of New York City private eye Johnny Liddell (Grave Danger, 1954). Check it out when you find a bit of free time.