Serious-Minded Sunday Smatterings

Marilyn Stasio looks at recent crime fiction by Ian Rankin, Belinda Bauer, James Thompson and Ian Sansom.

Hallie Ephron analyzes new mystery releases by Lori Armstrong, Leighton Gage and Michael Thomas Ford.

Tom Nolan also reviews Lori Armstrong’s new one, NO MERCY, in the Wall Street Journal.

Randy Michael Signor wants yet more Joe Pike novels after loving THE FIRST RULE by Robert Crais.The author gets the Q&A treatment from Carole Barrowman at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Still more Robert B. Parker tributes: in the Globe & Mail from crime columnist Margaret Cannon and Ian Brown, as well as from Kate Mattes, the longtime propreitor of Kate’s Mystery Books, Dennis Lehane, and David Montgomery in the Chicago Sun-Times.

And still more Nordic Noir considerations, one by Boris Johnson in the Telegraph and another by the Independent’s Boyd Tonkin.

Let’s not lose track of other award nominations that came out over the past week: the Dilys, Lefty, Bruce Alexander and Panik prizes, the winners which will be announced at Left Coast Crime in March.

In the Guardian, Laura Wilson has her say on new crime novels by Frank Tallis, Henry Sutton, Martin Edwards and Mark Sanderson.

Marcel Berlins examines new crime books by Catriona MacPherson, Tony Black and Eugenio Fuentes in the Times of London.

Carlo Wolff likes Lou Berney’s “highly entertaining caper novel” GUTSHOT STRAIGHT.

From earlier in the week, Patrick Anderson puzzles over Robert Crais’s decision to go in a more superheroic direction with THE FIRST RULE, but let’s face it: we want Joe Pike to be a little vulnerable, but not too vulnerable, because his ass-kicking abilities is catharsis all the way.

Also in the Washington Post, Richard Lipez raves about T. Jefferson’s third Charlie Hood novel, IRON RIVER.

Charlie Huston talks about SLEEPLESS further to the Dallas Morning News, while Ed Champion offers a well-considered take on the book and Huston’s whole career at the B&N Review.

Robin Burcell chats with the SF Chronicle about her career in law enforcement and her forensic artist crime novels, most recently THE BONE CHAMBER.

About to embark on another teaching turn at Writers in Paradise, Laura Lippman talks with the St. Petersburg Times about why she’ll only write about Baltimore (despite now spending more time in New Orleans) and offers a glimpse of the new novel, I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE.

Add another artistic endeavor to Walter Mosley’s arsenal: his first play, “The Fall of Heaven”, premieres this coming Thursday at Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park.

Both MJ Rose and Tess Gerritsen’s books are coming to a small screen near you. FOX will air PAST LIFE on Tuesdays at 9 PM starting February 9, and TNT picked up RIZZOLI AND ISLES to air starting this fall.

The London Review of Books is very, very, very much in the red, but I guess it doesn’t really matter to the owners.

R.I.P. Paul Quarrington, who lost his battle with cancer at the age of 56.

Yes, a surefire way to Kindle bestsellerdom is to give books away for free.

And finally, even swans get divorced.