The evening linkage

Since I won’t be posting anything tomorrow (seriously! I mean it) I’m providing some mystery-only fare to tide you over till the Big Sunday Wrap-up:

Roger L. Simon, who is about the only political blogger I read (and only because I love the Moses Wine novels) has achieved the distinct accomplishment of being profiled in Mother Jones and now, the National Review. Though his novelist cred is touched upon, the bulk of the piece is spent mostly on his metamorphosis from card-carrying leftist to an ardent Bush supporter (though whatever you do, don’t call Roger a conservative. Labels are so 20th Century.)

Eric Garcia’s latest book is quite the departure from his usual fare–but then, considering his backlist includes three dinosaur-PI books and a twisted con man caper, maybe the fact that he’s ventured into chick-lit territory with CASSANDRA FRENCH’S FINISHING SCHOOL FOR BOYS isn’t so weird after all. The Orlando Sentinel talks to him about his latest venture.

It’s a little odd to see a profile of Boris Akunin in the Moscow Times refer to the English-language titles, but there you go. Anyway, the paper examines the author-as-phenomenon in his home country and wonders if such success will translate in Western countries.

Laura Lippman has updated with her newest monthly column, this time focusing on a rather thoughtful speech she gave to the Maryland Library Association in honor of being the first genre writer to win the Maryland Author of the Year award.

I’ve been wondering for a while if any newspaper would bother covering Karin Slaughter’s star-studded anthology (well, the book calls it a “Novel in Voices” but the links are, alas, rather tenuous) LIKE A CHARM, because so far, no one’s taken the bait–that is, till Craig McDonald’s piece in Columbus This Week, which brings up some very good points about the hundred-year time skip between Emma Donoghue’s and Peter Robinson’s stories early on in the anthology, and how the book is essentially a “collector’s dream.” No doubt there will be certain folks who, around Bouchercon time, will be engaged in an unofficial contest for who can collect the most signatures.*

And finally, assigning Michiko to Helen Fielding’s attempt at a spy novel (OLIVIA JOULES AND THE OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION, which was smacked down here quite regularly when it was released in the UK last November) wasn’t exactly the best idea–or perhaps the assigning editor was in a perverse mood that day…

*The same went for TART NOIR a couple of years ago. Out of twenty stories, I think I still have about four or five signatures to get, though I’m not holding my breath I’ll complete the task….