The game's afoot

Sherlockians of every stripe will want to attend Sherlock Holmes: The Man and His Words, a

conference held on the Bennington College campus in Bennington, Vermont June 24-27.

The conference serves as the 20th anniversary of the

Baker Street Breakfast Club and will also celebrate 100th anniversary of the first appearance Sherlock Holmes on stage in The Speckled Band at London's Adelphi Theatre.

The conference will feature exhibits, talks, panels, dinners, theater, films, tea and croquet, and vendors, among other events. There is a registration fee and admission/reservations required for some special events.

For more information, go to: www.bakerstreetbreakfastclub.com

and click on "conference information."

Another Summer of Masterpiece Mystery

We are nearly half way into the Masterpiece Mystery season this year, so I guess it's time I got to it before the 2010 series is history.

This year kicked off with three new episode's Foyle's War, which means we've now covered May 1940 through August 1945 and, it would appear, the war is over...along with the series. If so, Michael Kitchen will be greatly missed.

Next came Miss Marple: The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side (really very good indeed) and two reruns (encore performances?): A Pocket Full of Rye and Murder Is Easy. In the weeks ahead, Miss Marple will find mystery in The Secret of Chimneys (June 20) and in The Blue Geranium (June 27), which features Sharon Small of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

In July, David Suchet returns as Hercule Poirot (shown above left). He will take us on a homicide-free railway ride in David Suchet on the Orient Express (July 7), and in following weeks will appear as Poirot in Murer on the Orient Express (July 11), Third Girl (July 18), Appointment with Death (July 25) and as well as a rerun of Cat Among the Pigeons (Aug. 1).

The summer season is rounded out with eight Inspector Lewis stories beginning Aug. 8, with three repeats from last season: Allegory of Love (Aug. 8), The Quality of Mercy (Aug. 15) and The Point of Vanishing (Aug. 22). Joanna Lumley, who played Miss Marple's confidante in The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, plays an aging rock star in the first new entry, Counter Culture Blues (airing Aug. 29). Inspector Lewis runs through Sept. 26 (show titles and dates to be announced), so have a happy and murderous summer.

A funny thing happened on the way to the e-reader

When it comes to e-readers, what do John Grisham, Janet Evanovich and James Patterson have in common? Yes, they are all top sellers...and, according to recent reports, they are the top three ripped-off authors when it comes to digital book theft.

J.K. Rowling, who has refused to release her Harry Potter series digitally, is also finding that "fans" are ripping her off by scanning her books and making pdf's to share with other "fans." Just like the music and film industries before them, publishers are quickly learning that they are losing control of their bread-and-butter authors.

Of course, publishers are now scrambling to safekeep their books but as long as they encourage e-reading, they will find that people will always opt for getting something for nothing instead of paying for it. And once people with digital book readers discover that the $9 they've been paying for a book will increase (a recent struggle between Kindle and MacMillan makes it inevitable), publishers can expect more electronic pilfering on the horizon.

'Steam' heat

What with World Cup Soccer kicking off today in South Africa, it seemed like the right time to sing the praises of Soho Press, which just reissued The Steam Pig, James McClure's 1971 debut.

McClure, a native of Johannesburg, South Africa, became a British journalist. His first crime novel, The Steam Pig, changed everything for him; it won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger and, by 1974, McClure was writing mysteries full time. He returned to journalism in 1994 and kept at that until his death in 2006, but his eight South African mysteries featuring Afrikaner Lieutenant Tromp Kramer and Zulu Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi hold a place in every mystery readers heart.

Speaking of hearts, in The Steam Pig a beautiful blonde is believed to have died from cardiac arrest. But nothing is ever simple in a murder mystery and it is soon discovered that she has been killed by a bicycle spoke puncture to the heart, a Bantu gangster murder method. And while the crime is intriguing, now after the dismantling of apartheid, the partnership of Kramer and Zondi proves to be even more fascinating; their relationship develops over the eight books and their two-different-worlds knowledge blends to make a strong team working in a society of twisted politics and racial separation.

The crime takes place in Trekkersburg and is based on McClure's hometown of Pietermaritzburg. The town is a "laager" or defensive encampment surrounded by armoured vehicles; the blacks are called "kaffirs” (an offensive word, not dissimilar to our n-word); and, among the Afrikaners, the English are hated. This is a town of Dutch descent and Lieutenant Kramer is a member of murder and robbery squad. He's a Boer and a believer in the supremacy of the white race. Zondi is a sergeant and is committed to his job, but faces the perils of apartheid as well as the danger his profession brings him.

South Africa has change, the world that McClure knew is gone but not forgotten; The Steam Pig offers a chilling look into apartheid. In a world where attempting to pass for white is a crime, there are few safe places to hide. The Steam Pig immerses you in that world and offers a thrilling story besides. As the New York Times Book Review said of it , “James McClure's first novel arrives like a slam in the kidneys . . ." Four decades later, that punch remains strong.

Next month, Soho will reissue the second in the Kramer and Zondi series, The Caterpillar Cop. Each is available in paperback at $14.

New imprint worth knowing about

While I have to admit that I haven't read every title from Tyrus Books, those that I have read were impressive indeed.

Last fall Tyrus kicked off its publishing venture with Peter Gadol's Silver Lake (a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award) and Between the Dark and the Daylight, a massive short story collection with pieces by Michael Connelly, Joyce Carol Oates and Charlaine Harris, among many more. Came the spring and we got the hilarious serial killer thriller Hello Kitty Must Die, the short story collection Delta Blues (with works by John Grisham, James Lee Burke, Ace Atkins and other) and now another winner in Stein, Stoned (set for release July 1).

Stein, Stoned by screenwriter and UCLA professor Hal Ackerman mixes marijuana and murder in a giddy mystery of a dead fashion model, stolen shampoo bottles and disappearing cannabis. As the aging, divorced, pot-deprived Harry Stein stumbles into one seemingly unrelated situation after another, we get insight into the muddled mind of this aging hippie at the end of the last millenium. Stein, Stoned introduces a winning cast of characters and is the beginning of what may be a winning series of reefer-riffing, "soft-boiled" murder mysteries.

Other writers of note in Tyrus' writing stable include Victor Gischler, Michael Lister, Mary Logue and Lynn Kostoff. Of interest to many here in the Northeast will be the August 2010 publication of Randal Peffer's Listen to the Dead, the fifth installment in the Cape Islands series. This tale of drugs, sex and murder is inspired by the unsolved 1988 serial killings in New Bedford, Mass. Fans of Bangkok Dragons, Cape Cod Tears won't want to miss that one.

In the fall, Moe Prager returns in a new novel from Reed Farrel Coleman, titled Innocent Monster (Note: Come September, Busted Flush will bring us Coleman's Soul Patch and Empty Ever After in paperback), and Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection, offering 600-plus pages of Loren D. Estleman's Detroit detectve.

I can't wait.

No Country for Old Men

Sure, you might think that the above title refers to the great Cormac McCarthy novel, but you would be wrong.

The Interwebs with its series of tubes, it appears to me, is no country for old men...or at least not for me. After months of trying to sign on to this website...off and on as my patience allowed...I am finally back. Simple questions like password and account name eluded me, like a feathery morning mist fading in a Connecticut Valley sunrise. Each time I tried to log on, I was lumbered.

Finally, my wife (who calmly bears with me ... and, it should be noted, with nary a complaint) asked if she could help. I, in great frustration and suffering admitted defeat, said, "Please."

Zip-zap, a few strokes of the keyboard...and I'm back. So, beginning tomorrow we will return to the discussion of books and publishing and anything else that comes to a mind that scarcely functions at the best of times.

Writer Dick Francis dies

It was announced today that author Dick Francis died in the Cayman Islands; he was 89. Francis, who had written 40 bestselling mysteries and won a host of awards, including two Edgars, was a champion jockey before he began writing his mysteries with a racing background.

For more information, go to:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7026693.ece