So you want some links, well here they are

And I must, absolutely must start off with the stabbing death of literary agent Rod Hall, who represented a whole host of people via his eponymous agency. The police have no leads as of yet.

And yet more bad news, alas: Helen DeWitt, the author of THE LAST SAMURAI, was reported missing yesterday by the landlord of her Staten Island home. She was last seen in the Saint George section. Thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones.

Now, to some less weighty matters: as Publishers Lunch reported yesterday, Random House seems to love reorganizing, so they’re doing it again. Jonathan Karp (who edits the likes of David Liss and Claire Berlinski) gets promoted to editor-in-chief of the Random House imprint, while Nancy Miller moves up to editorial director.

The New York Times profiles Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, the two authors responsible for what may turn out to be this year’s THE DA VINCI CODE (but better written, I hope, and so others tell me),THE RULE OF FOUR.

What on earth is going on at the Walrus, Canada’s allegedly leading literary magazine? A second editor has quit the mag after only 4 months on the job. Hello, stability?

Anneli Rufus rounds up the latest news with Bay Area authors like Leonard Chang, Dylan Shaffer, and Nichelle Tramble, whose long awaited second installment in the Maceo Redfield series, THE LAST KING, is out next month.

Jim Knipfel offers his summer reading list, but not surprisingly, it’s kind of geared towards the morose and depressing. I, too, cringe at the Pattersons and the Clancys and the Grisham, but dude, can’t you compromise a little bit?

Deryn Rees-Jones, who has written a “murder mystery poem” that’s getting some play in Northern England, is interviewed by the Liverpool Echo.

Rick Kleffel snags Tom Perrotta for an hour and interviews him about LITTLE CHILDREN, what’s really going on in the suburbs, and oh yeah, those goldfish….

It can’t be a trend yet, but first Irvine Welsh was seen boxing in San Francisco, and now women’s fiction writer Santa Montefiore has taken up the cause of pugilism. I guess the repetitive aspect is good for staying on course as a writer…?

And finally, Spike Milligan manages to have the last laugh after all after death–but only for those who understand Irish Gaelic….