It’s been nearly thirty-eight years, yet Roman Polanski’s Chinatown remains easily the best detective movie of all time. Not only because of its signature closing line, or the tour de force performance by Jack Nicholson, or Faye Dunaway and John Huston showing their acting chops, or the way Polanski uses the camera to give us Jake’s perspective, or the picture-perfect scenes of L.A. in the 1930s with the cars, clothes or, even that haunting opening saxophone solo, darkly sexy and still elegiac.
It’s all those highly visible qualities and more. The more being the hidden meanings that suddenly gleam, capturing our vision, much like the set of bifocal eyeglasses that Jake sees shining in the murky depths of the Mulwray’s salt water pool.
[I’m pretty sure the face of pure evil is John Huston in Chinatown . . .]
Don’t Ever Get Old by Daniel Friedman is a funny thriller featuring a feisty retiree who can still kick some serious butt (available May 22, 2012).
We told you about 
He’s a bad-tempered, foulmouthed redneck. He rides a hog, frequently has dead squirrels hanging from his belt, and isn’t afraid to get his hands bloody. And he happens to have a very vocal bunch of fans—most of them ladies.
The Dead of Summer by Mari Jungstedt is the 10th book of the Anders Knutas series of Swedish police procedural mysteries (available May 15, 2012).
The headline pretty much says it all: “Police Arrest Naked Man Riding Unicycle Over Texas Bridge.” But in case you were wondering, no, he wasn’t drunk. And no, he’s not a kid. That’s him at left in his mug shot (courtesy of 
“A 20-year-old disappearance. A monstrous hound. Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Caine disappears into the sunset?! Considering its crime shows, CBS has just announced that it’s pulling down the shades on Poppy Montgomery’s 
By March of 1967 things were falling apart. America was in the midst of massive cultural changes, and while the summer of love was fast approaching, beyond it waited the violent turbulence of 1968. In Hollywood, things had never been more uncertain. The old studio system had come crumbling down. Splintered into pieces by a Supreme Court anti-monopoly ruling, weakened by the emergence of television, and shaken by the deaths of many of its moguls, directors, and stars, the Dream Factory was a shell of its former self.
Memorial Day is a day to remember. This year, the History Channel wants you to remember one of bloodiest feuds in history, that between the Hatfield family and the McCoy family. Perhaps you don’t recall the exact details of the feud, in which case you may want to check out 
An excerpt of The Cryptos Conundrum, a speculative, time-slip thriller by Chase Brandon (available June 19, 2012).
“Listen to your mother.” Excellent words of advice, so today on the occasion of Mother’s Day, we are going to give some of our mothers the opportunity to make crime fiction book and TV recommendations. Of course, it just wouldn’t be right unless I started with my own lovely and talented mother whose favorite authors consistently deliver . . .
Recently, CrimeHQ’s own 
People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry is the true crime story of Lucie Blackman, who stepped out on the streets of Tokyo and disappeared in the summer of 2000 (available May 22, 2012).
Stolen Prey by John Sandford is the 22nd book of the Prey series, an edgy police procedural featuring Lucas Davenport (available May 15, 2012).
