Poe and Conan Doyle exhibition.

The Hower House Museum at the University of Akron (OH) will be offering the exhibition "Poe & Doyle: Victorian Crime Fiction" in September and October 2022. It will explore Edgar Allan Poe's techniques that formed the basis for the detective narrative and ways that Arthur Conan Doyle applied these techniques to create Sherlock Holmes.

Even more on Simenon, Maigret, etc.

As I noted in 2019, a writer in the Budapest Times (now identified as Christopher Osterberg) has been working his way methodically through the large oeuvre of Georges Simenon and publishing reviews of these works. The latest entries:

• Betty 
• The Blue Room
  
• Death Threats and Other Stories 
• The Hand
  
• The Little Man from Archangel
• The Mahé Circle
  
• The People Opposite
• The Strangers in the House
  
• The Venice Train
• When I Was Old (featuring Simenon's thoughts on aging, justice, and other topics. Note that the Penguin edition was translated by mystery writer Helen Eustis)

Want to check out Osterberg's Simenon reviews published in 2020 and later? Go here. The reviews from earlier dates are no longer available on the Budapest Times website, but I've updated the links in my original post with archived links.

Remembering Larry Storch.

Larry Storch in "The Mystery of the Silent Scream"

Although Larry Storch, who passed away at age 99 on July 8, may be best remembered for his role as Corporal Agarn on F Troop (with his often repeated refrain, "Who says I'm dumb?"), he had some memorable mystery-related appearances such as the following:

• "An Out for Oscar" (1963) on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour 
• "The Jack Is High" (1964) on Kraft Suspense Theater (involving an armored car robbery investigated by an inspector played by Pat O'Brien)
• "Negative Reaction" (1974, featuring Dick Van Dyke) on Columbo
• "The Mystery of the Silent Scream" (1977) on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries

P.D. James as Christian novelist.

Over on Public Discourse, the journal of the nonprofit Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, Ralph Wood (former University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University) discusses P. D. James as a Christian novelist and even compares her to George Eliot in her "moral critique of society." He writes, "In our unsettled and uncertain times, James’s novels offer important insights that speak to our concerns about the morality and rationality of the universe, as well as the capacity of humans to solve problems and secure justice and peace."