Autumn Leaves and Sunday Smatterings

Oline Cogdill chimes in with her thoughts on Louise Penny’s newest neo-traditional mystery THE BRUTAL TELLING.

Adam Woog rounds up recent crime fiction by Michael Connelly,Patrick McManus, Martin Limon and Christopher Fowler for the Seattle Times.

Laura Wilson compiles reviews of new crime and thrillers by Alan Glynn, Cathi Unsworth, David Hewson and Arnaldur Indridason.

Lee Child puts on a different hat of interviewer for PARADE Magazine, talking to Robert De Niro about family life, giving credit to others, and his upcoming movie.

Ed Pettit writes of how much almost every writer for any medium owes a tip of the hat to Edgar Allan Poe.

More Stieg Larsson-related news, what with the latest battles between his longtime partner and his father & brother and Mark Lawson’s essay on the books as they reflect Sweden and the globe.

James Parker’s take on Stephen King’s UNDER THE DOME may have one of my favorite ledes of 2009.

Nicholson Baker, Richard Powers, Junot Diaz, Laura Lippman and Dan Chaon are among the major writers telling the Wall Street Journal how they write their novels.

Could someone alert Juan Williams that a novel that went to auction for half a million dollars and was bought – then published – by Knopf in 1996 doesn’t actually qualify as “ghetto lit”? Which also explains why his essay slamming this genre is fundamentally flawed.

And finally, this opening line is so going to be stolen by a novelist.