Weekend Update with Gray Skies

And it’s an abbreviated one this week, so bear with:

Marilyn Stasio gives the business on recent crime fiction by Reginald Hill, Christopher Fowler, Pablo De Santis and Jeffery Deaver, not to mention PARIS NOIR.

Maureen Corrigan rounds up recent noir and thrillers by Dave Zeltserman, Arnaldur Indridason, Ann Cleeves and Linwood Barclay for the Washington Post.

Tom & Enid Schantz have their say on new mysteries by Christopher Fowler, John Lawton and Serena Macksey at the Denver Post.

The Chicago Tribune’s Paul Goat Allen looks at recent crime offerings by J.T. Ellison, Ken Bruen & Jason Starr, Craig McDonald and Lori Andrews.

Andrew Pyper raves about Kate Atkinson in the G&M, which also includes Margaret Cannon’s latest crime fiction roundup of recent releases by Laura Joh Rowland, Marcia Muller, Ken Bruen, Ted Bell, Frank Tallis, James Doss and Sandra Ruttan.

Jack Batten is underwhelmed by recent offerings from P.D. James and Ian Rankin.

James gets the Q&A treatment from the WSJ’s Lauren Mechling. The paper also reviews Pablo De Santis’s excellent historical pastiche THE PARIS ENIGMA.

Dick Holland pays tribute to James Crumley in the Texas Observer.

Both Mark Athitakis and Ed Champion are in this weekend’s Chicago Sun-Times reviewing new books by Kirsten Menger-Anderson and Tony Vigorito, respectively.

I feel like the solution to Joe Queenan’s “dilemma” about over-enthusiastic book reviews is to stop reading them. And then to stop writing them.

R.I.P. Paco Ignacio Taibo I (father of crime writing legend Paco Ignacio Taibo II.)

Obama won’t have his Blackberry to be addicted to anymore, it looks like.

And finally, I know a number of people who will geek out over this. Enjoy.