"Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer."

S. J. Perelman, 1973,
by Jill Krementz. NYPL.

Cleo Zani of the Eventide Theatre Company (Dennis, MA) performs "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer," S. J. Perelman's 1944 spoof of hard-boiled detective fiction: "Her bosom was heaving and looked even better that way." Originally published in the New Yorker, it is included in this anthology.

"The father of Russian detective fiction."

Dostoevsky

In "E. A. Poe and A. A. Shklharevskij" in the Dec. 2020 SIC: Journal of Literature, Culture and Literary Translation, Maja Pandzic (University of Zadar, Croatia) discusses the connections among Edgar Allan Poe, Emile Gaboriau, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Aleksandr Andreevich Skljarevski (the last dubbed here "the father of Russian detective fiction").

Turkey's first detective TV series.

 Read more about Alef, Turkey's first detective TV series.

Journalist, socialite, spy.

On the Spycast podcast of DC's Spy Museum, museum historian and curator Andrew Hammond and author Elizabeth Atwood discuss the life of US journalist, socialite, and spy Marguerite Harrison.

An honor to California Detective Fiction Collection librarian.

Anthony Boucher, an author in the California Detective Fiction Collection

    

On December 10, Randal Brandt, curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library, received the Distinguished Librarian Award from the Librarians Association of the University of California’s Berkeley chapter. In this interview, he talks about his job, his favorite type of crime fiction, and the California Detective Fiction Collection (view a few collection highlights).

Situating Sherlock.

The Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute of Trinity College Dublin profiles faculty member Clare Clarke—guest editor of the upcoming Clues on domestic noir; author of the new British Detective Fiction, 1891–1901: The Successors to Sherlock Holmes; and leader of a new project that will map locations in the Sherlock Holmes canon.

Ray Bradbury's mystery fiction.

In the LA Review of Books, Cullen Gallagher reviews Killer, Come Back to Me, a new collection published by Hard Case Crime of Ray Bradbury's crime stories. Although Bradbury did not think much of his abilities as a mystery writer, Gallagher believes he was being too tough on himself.

Starrett spoofs Christie.

Vincent Starrett

On the Studies in Starrett blog, Ray Betzner discusses "The Other Woman," Vincent Starrett's 1927 parody of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. In it, Alexandre Dulau attempts to help Mrs. Hopewell Grange, whose husband is behaving oddly.  Says Dulau, "It is possible I have done Mr. Hopewell Grange a great disservice. On the other hand, it is possible that I have acted with my usual intelligence."

Erle Stanley Gardner and the wrongly convicted Native American.

Erle Stanley Gardner

In the December 2020 Smithsonian Magazine, Jack El-Hai discusses author Erle Stanley Gardner's taking up the case in the 1950s of Silas John Edwards, a member of the White Apache tribe who was convicted of killing his wife. It was consistent with the lawyer Gardner's concern with injustice (such as his Court of Last Resort).

Rex Stout and radio.

Rex Stout by Arnold Genthe, 1931.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Div.

Matt Barton, curator of the Library of Congress' Recorded Sound Section, discusses author Rex Stout's roles on the radio that are reflected in more than 40 LOC holdings. These encompass various incarnations of Stout's sleuth Nero Wolfe, Stout's appearances on Information Please, his hosting duties for Speaking of Liberty, and his participation in an episode about the detective story on the NBC program Conversation with critics Clifton Fadiman and Jacques Barzun. Said Stout in the Conversation program, "They're pretty bum stories, the Sherlock Holmes stories. . . . at least two thirds are pretty doggone silly." (It should be noted that Stout wrote the infamous essay "Watson Was a Woman.")

Penumbra debuts.

Gertrude Atherton, ca. 1906–12.
Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Div.

S. T. Joshi, known for his work on H. P. Lovecraft, recently announced the debut of Penumbra, a new annual journal on weird fiction that features fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The first issue includes a reprint of Gertrude Atherton's "The Caves of Death" (1886) and articles such as the following:

• "The Terror of Solitude": The Supernatural Fiction of Edith Wharton
by John C. Tibbetts

• Finding Sherlock Holmes in Weird Fiction by Nancy Holder

• "The Weird Dominions of the Infinite": Edgar Allan Poe and the Scientific Gothic by Sorina Higgins

The real-life Marie Roget.

"Mary Rogers, The Cigar Girl." NYPL

On Nov 7 at 4 pm, the Hoboken Historical Museum will host a virtual presentation by Montclair State University professor emerita Amy Gilman Srebnick on "The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers,” the case that inspired Edgar Allan Poe's "The Mystery of Marie Roget."

Mystery tropes of the Golden Age.

On the latest episode of the podcast In GAD We Trust, James Scott Byrnside and the podcast host discuss mystery tropes of the Golden Age such as "the dying message," "the false solution," and "the seance." Authors singled out for particular praise include Christianna Brand and Anthony Berkeley Cox, whereas G. K. Chesterton and Ellery Queen come in for some criticism.

Coming in January: Lupin.

On Gizmodo, Charles Pulliam-Moore discusses Lupin, the latest incarnation of Maurice Leblanc's legendary gentleman thief that will be aired on Netflix.

Recent radio production of Sorry, Wrong Number

 

Lucille Fletcher, ca. 1948

You can catch Bay Area Radio Drama's June production of Lucille Fletcher's Sorry, Wrong Number, here.

Notre Dame's London Book Club: "Hitchcock in London"

Oscar Homolka and Sylvia
Sidney in Hitchcock's Sabotage

The virtual London Book Club of the University of Notre Dame is currently covering "Hitchcock in London." The episodes include discussions of works adapted for Alfred Hitchcock films such as Marie Belloc Lowndes's The Lodger and Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Catch up with episodes here.

Oct 1 virtual reading of Glaspell's "Trifles."

A scene from Susan Glaspell's "Trifles," n.d. NYPL

Shadowpath Theatre and Newmarket Public Library in Ontario, Canada, will be offering a free virtual reading of Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" (which is the earlier play version of her famous 1917 short story "A Jury of Her Peers"). In the play, two women solve a murder that baffles male investigators. The reading will take place on October 1 at 7 pm EDT. Register here for the event.

Update, October 5, 2020. Watch the play reading below.

Hard-boiled detectives and libraries.

Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart)
meets a librarian from the Hollywood Public
Library (Carole Douglas) in the trailer to
The Big Sleep (1946)

Peter Igelström, librarian at Linköping University's Valla Library, takes an entertaining look at the relationship of hardboiled detectives to libraries and librarians. "One wonders why the library is a potential stigma to a hard-boiled detective," he states.

The challenges of mystery translations.

 

The podcast In GAD We Trust hosts translator Louise Heal Kawai, who worked on the 2019 translations of The Honjin Murders (1946) by eminent Japanese mystery author Seishi Yokomizo and Murder in the Crooked House (1982) by Soji Shimada. She describes the challenges of the translator such as trying to convey cultural facets that may not be familiar to the reader.

The Hesse crown jewels case.

Among the projects on which the National Archives is requesting volunteer transcribing assistance are court-martial case files of Army Colonel Jack W. Durant and his wife, Captain Kathleen Nash Durant, who were convicted (along with co-conspirator David Watson) of stealing the House of Hesse crown jewels after World War II (Countess Margaret of Hesse-Kassel was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and the Duke of Edinburgh's sister Sophie married into the family). For discussions of the case, see Geoffrey E. Duin's article on HistoryNet and Fred L. Borch III's article in The Army Lawyer.

For details on the Citizen Archivist projects at the National Archives, go here.