Smatterings

Oh goody, someone went to Harrogate and came back with a hatchet job. Now, there’s no reason not to be critical of crime fiction and point out its flaws, but you think Paul Vallely could have been just a little bit biased going in? The whiff of snobbery, I tell you.

For more enjoyable Harrogate fun, BBC’s Front Row is still playing Harrogate highlights until tomorrow. Click on “listen again” for the Wednesday edition to check it out.

The Independent talks to Chelsea Cain on the eve of publication of her debut thriller, HEARTSICK.

The Boston Globe’s Sam Allis welcomes Charles McCarry’s new espionage novel while wondering how much life is left in Paul Christopher.

William Landay gives a sneak preview of his next novel to Esquire. If it’s half as good as MISSION FLATS and the STRANGLER, I am so there.

John Kenyon talks with Laura Lippman about WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, keeping privacy within a public persona and her daily work regimen. (via)

Also at the Globe, Vanessa Jones examines the growing number of black science fiction writers.

Patrick Anderson is very much entertained by SILENCE, Thomas Perry’s new chase thriller.

Yvonne Zipp at the Christian Science Monitor is swept away by Stef Penney’s THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES.

The New York Times wonders how Robert Ludlum can write so many books even though he’s dead. If it was good enough for V.C. Andrews, it’s good enough for the spy thriller king…

Tod Goldberg wishes Warren Ellis had taken more chances in his debut prose novel, CROOKED LITTLE VEIN.

Clayton Moore, on the other hand, digs the book, which he reviews alongside new SF-tinged thrillers by Richard Morgan, William Gibson, Kevin Anderson and Jesse Ball.

And finally, WTF? Bergman AND Antonioni dying within a day of each other? Bloody hell.