If you’re attending Bouchercon in San Francisky this coming weekend, you won’t see me there. Barb and I just had too much work and other conflicts to swing it. But if you’re a Bouchercon member, you can still say hi to me by voting for QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE as Best Paperback in the Anthony awards. The book is also up for a Barry.

Speaking of Quarry, later this month Perfect Crime will begin its trade paperback reprint series of the first five Quarry novels (PRIMARY TARGET has been renamed QUARRY’S VOTE for consistency sake). We will preview the wonderful new covers by Terry Beatty one-a-week here on my weekly updates. This week, of course, it’s the real first Quarry, QUARRY, as opposed to the other first Quarry, THE FIRST QUARRY. Got that?

A nice write-up on THE LAST LULLABY unfortunately reminds me that we don’t seem to have a distribution deal yet for that good movie. If haven’t already, go ahead and order the DVD from www.thelastlullaby.com. It’s a nice DVD, bare bones but a very solid transfer.

Over on the Violent World of Parker site, they’ve taken notice of the Ennis Willie SAND collection, but they mistakenly call Sand a Parker imitation when the two series were concurrent. I straighten ‘em out in comments below the write-up.

People seem to enjoy hearing what I like and don’t like of current stuff, so I’ll say that Barb and I are really digging Little Steven’s Underground Garage on XM – I hope to hear “Psychedelic Siren” there at some point! We are also loving Kim Wilde’s new CD, COME OUT AND PLAY, which is a German release although I got mine through Amazon UK – she is probably my favorite ‘80s recording artist, and I believe Barb agrees with that assessment, disco vibe but a genuine rocker (her father is Marty Wilde, Brit teen idol who back in the day covered Bobby Darin’s rock hits). Some artists lose their enthusiasm and start to sound, well…old. The ever-beautiful Kim’s pipes sound better than ever, and the songs (some written with her brother Ricky Wilde) are top-notch.

We are also really, really enjoying the ELLERY QUEEN boxed set with Jim Hutton and David Wayne, and scads of guests stars. It’s somehow incredibly cool that Jim Hutton did Queen and his gifted son Tim did Archie Goodwin…I would not want to have to say who is the better actor, and QUEEN and NERO WOLFE as TV shows are about a dead heat (okay, I’d give the nod to WOLFE but these mid-1970s QUEEN episodes, with their 1947 setting, are wonderful).

On the other hand, we walked out of SECRETARIAT, in part because the kids running the Muscatine Mall theater couldn’t figure out how to get it in focus. It’s the heartwarming story of a rich Republican woman who abandons her family to race horses (which she inherits, getting even richer). You see, she has to take over from her father (Scott Glenn) who has a disease, the chief symptom of which is sitting in the dark with a bad haircut. You will be shocked to learn that this Disney masterpiece includes a shamelessly hammy performance from the normally so very restrained John Malkovich…he wears funny hats and plaid shorts…and (surprise, surprise, as Gomer Pyle used to say) there’s also a comic-relief fat lady.

M.A.C.

Tags: Quarry, Quarry in the Middle, The First Quarry, The Last Lullaby