Monday monday

And there are fresh Picks and links aplenty….

First, to Patrick Anderson, who presents a double dose of thriller in his weekly column for the WaPo. He gives a thumbs-up to Norman Green’s WAY PAST LEGAL but wonders if perhaps it would have been better to set things closer to home (i.e. New York) rather than rural Maine. Me, I liked the juxtaposition, but hey. Then Anderson looks at LIKE A CHARM, which he calls the crime-writing equivalent of the “Hey kids, let’s put on a show” ethos espoused by Mickey, Judy & co. Priceless–but true…

Lee Child’s newest Jack Reacher novel, THE ENEMY, has been burning up the charts both in the US and UK. He speaks to Linda Wertheimer at NPR’s All Things Considered about the genesis for the prequel, and just generally charms his way through the Q&A….

Craig McDonald returns with a couple of dynamite new interviews: Randy Wayne White, whose new book TAMPA BURN is climbing the NYT list, and Candace Bushnell, who actually talks about stuff like, well, writing. Find out how she almost became a published author at the age of 19–only to see the book cancelled at the last minute.

Let the vultures descend: now that Ronald Reagan is dead, publishers are scrambling to release new or reissue old books about the former president.

Rosemary Goring reflects on the arduous task of serving on a prize committee, namely Scotland’s Book of the Year Award, given to William Dalrymple’s WHITE MUGHALS.

Also in the Glasgow Herald is a stellar review of Val McDermid’s newest thriller THE TORMENT OF OTHERS, calling this book “the best to date.” Although I’m not exactly sure if calling Val “mild-mannered” is terribly accurate…

John Sutherland reflects on the reviewer that keeps dogging him, meting out bad review after bad review. One feels sympathy, except…he’s being paid by the parent paper of the one that gave out the pan. And wouldn’t we all like to be paid to gripe about our bad reviews, no?

Two of the happiest beneficiaries of Oprah’s latest Book Club selection are translators–that is, the two folks, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the husband-and-wife team that translated ANNA KARENINA.

I missed this yesterday but David Lazarus of the SF Chronicle rounded up some new mysteries by California-based writers like Jacqueline Winspear, Nichelle Tramble and Jonathan Nasaw.

I wouldn’t have missed these, but the Observer Review’s main page seems to have forgotten to list all the book-related stuff. Crime-wise, there’s a positive review of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s THE SHADOW AND THE WIND, and Tim Adams takes on Susan Hill’s foray into the genre and is impressed. Also, Peter Guttridge rounds up the latest and greatest in the genre, including Ken Bruen’s fourth Jack Taylor novel, THE RULE OF FOUR, Michael Marshall’s THE LONELY DEAD (aka THE UPRIGHT MAN) and perhaps the debut novel I most want to read that I still have not, Kerry Jamieson’s THE GOLDEN DOOR, set in 1930s New York. And why doesn’t this book have a US publisher yet? Beats the hell out of me…

And finally, oh, just kill her off already. Hell, kill off all of them. Because do we really need a Sex in the City movie of any stripe? Seems to me that Ms. Cattrall’s the smartest cookie of the bunch, honestly…