The contributions of Wilkie Collins.

Wilkie Collins. NYPL.

As we enter the bicentennial year of Wilkie Collins' birth, public historian Katherine Hobbs discusses in Smithsonian Magazine how Collins' legal background informed his novels dealing with the inequities of women's place in Victorian society and criticism that always seemed to put him behind Charles Dickens, his friend and sometime rival, despite Collins' ground-breaking contributions to detective and sensation fiction.

1950s thriller posters.

In the Ransom Center Magazine, Ash Kinney D'Harcourt looks at the design of some 1950s film posters, including for Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (with Cary Grant, 1959) and Ken Hughes's Case of the Red Monkey (aka Little Red Monkey, with Richard Conte, 1955).

The legend of Vidocq.

Eugène-François Vidocq. NYPL

Over on the Public Domain Review, Daisy Sainsbury delves into the legend of Eugène-François Vidocq (1775–1857), the head of the Sûreté whose tumultuous life included a criminal past and work in law enforcement, forensics, private investigation, and prison reform. He also achieved literary fame as the author of wildly popular memoirs.

Just published: James Sallis companion.

Just out from McFarland and Co. is James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, the latest volume in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series that I edit. The author is University of East Anglia's Nathan Ashman. Sallis—who might be best known for Drive (adapted into the film with Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan) and his series with PI Lew Griffin—has an intriguing, cross-genre career that encompasses poetry, mystery, and sci-fi, as well as a highly regarded book on author Chester Himes and long experience as a critic (here are some samples). He's even appeared in a film with fellow mystery author Lawrence Block.