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On April 29th, the MWA will launch its newest anthology, Ice Cold, edited by Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. The launch party will be held at The Mysterious Bookshop in New York, starting at 6:00 p.m. Many of the contributors (alas, not me) are scheduled to appear, as well as many of the 2014 Edgar® Award nominees. Ice Cold, a collection of Cold War-themed short stories, will be available on April 1, and it contains stories from Joseph Finder, John Lescroart, Laura Lippman, J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, Sara Paretsky, Katherine Neville, Gayle Lynds with John Sheldon—and me. My contribution is called “The Honey Trap.”
We watched another couple of episodes of Michael Palin’s Full Circle last night. Watching him trying to wrangle a camel in northern Australia was pretty funny, but I was especially intrigued by the journey up the coast of Chile. I hadn’t realized the extent of the desert there. According to Palin, in some spots it has never, ever rained.
It’s funny how Art and Raylan “resolved” their issue on Justified. Sort of like a dysfunctional father and son. Raylan showed up at a bar where Art was drowning his sorrows, and the next day Art has a bandaged hand and Raylan has a black eye. Plus Raylan is feeling penitent, taking on drudge work like a kid who agrees to mow the lawn after getting in trouble. Speaking of trouble, Raylan and Rachel probably thought the Crowes and the Crowders were going to take care of each other—instead they’ve joined forces, and that won’t be good for the peaceful people in Harlan County. The unpeaceable ones, either. Darryl, at least, is pretty smart as well as fearsome. Danny is, as Raylan puts it, a “world class dumbass” who looks and acts like a reject from Duck Dynasty, even when he’s having “a good hair day.” Not smart enough to know that poking Raylan is not a good idea, but at least swift enough to play along with Carl’s explanation for why he was duct-taped to a chair in a remote cabin. Safe word, indeed.
And the hapless Dewey’s luck continues to be bad. Trying to sell off his dream (his above ground swimming pool that Raylan ventilated a few weeks ago) so he can get away. Then he ends up on the wrong end of the worst ransom phone call ever and skitters off into the woods when the law arrives. “I went to get help, but I got lost in the woods.” Again. And how much worse luck can Ava have than when the woman who was supposed to be looking out for her in the penitentiary is the one who kicks her ass and cuts her hair? Hopefully that lawyer can pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Speaking of Rabbits, this weeks Banshee was their trippiest episode ever. Also unusual in that Sheriff Hood got through the whole thing without getting beaten up once. True, he did get shot at in the midst of an awesome scene in a wheat field. Filmed from above, you could see the sniper’s trail through the grain and then Hood and Carrie converging on him. There were several fantasy sequences, especially the ones when Hood picked Carrie up and they both thought about how they wanted to behave toward the other and then the rather cool greeting they ended up with. Lots of quick time shifts and locations shifts that were somewhat disorienting. Just when Hood was planning his exit strategy from Banshee, things get complicated. Again.
In preparation for the second season, I re-watched Orphan Black. If you haven’t seen this series, you should. It’s as original as they come. A woman sees another woman jump in front of a train. Thing is, the woman looks exactly like her, so she decides to steal the woman’s identity to evade some personal trouble. Problem is, the other woman is a cop under investigation for a civilian-involved shooting. And then she finds out that there are other people who look exactly like her, more than just a few of them. And someone is trying to kill them. And someone else is monitoring and performing experiments on them. And Matt Frewer is in it. Can’t wait to see where they go next with the concept.
