We pick up only hours from where we left off last week in Episode 2 “The Box”. A well-built exterminator is prepping his gear for the day like a warrior preparing for battle. As we’ve already est ablished that the vampires of The Strain are caused by parasitic worms, this is a dead giveaway that Vasiliy Fet (played by genre favorite and hulking Canadian Kevin Durand) is going to join our roster of heroes, soon to stand alongside Dr. Eph in the good fight—

Sorry. Kevin Durand started speaking Russian and my brain just sort of short-circuited.

Moving on, we watch as errand boy Gus delivers Mr. Master’s Coffin O’ Dirt to a conveniently underground, dimly lit garage. At least Gus has more common sense than your typical horror movie character: as soon as the coffin starts to shake and yowling shrieks fill the air, he promptly peaces out.

[Can you blame him?]

Rick Grimes and company might have left the prison last season on The Walking Dead, but one of the show's “walkers” won't be leaving anytime soon. Shannon Guess Richardson, 36, was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty of mailing ricin-tainted letters to President Obama, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Mark Glaze, the former executive director of Bloomberg’s gun-control group.

“I never intended for anybody to be hurt,” Richardson told the court on Wednesday. Her actions would say otherwise. Let this be a warning to everyone: leave the ricin to Walter White. 

Rocket Girl Volume 1: Times Square by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder is a time-traveling comic series where a girl must travel back to 1986 NYC to save the future from an evil corporation (available July 22, 2014).

Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder present us with a neat new twist on time-travel: a teenage cop from the New York City of 2013 travels back in time to 1986 to stop the invention of an engine that will allow a megacorporation to establish its near-totalitarian and wholly criminal grip on the city.

Dayoung Johansson works for the New York Teen Police Department, a body established due to people over the age of 20 no longer being considered trustworthy. When she and her partner, LeShawn O’Patrick, stumble across information proving that Quintum Mechanics has been manipulating the past in order to control the present, she determines to travel to the one point in time that begins Quintum’s domination and stop it in its tracks.

[Sounds simple enough...]

Well, here we are at the end, my friends, and look how far we’ve come. Orange Is the New Black wraps up Season 2by tying up most of its major plot threads: the rise and reign of Vee Parker, the war between Vee and Red, Piper’s attempts to bring down Fig, the upheaval between Taystee and Poussey, the transformation of Crazy Eyes into Vee’s enforcer, and Healy’s attempts to turn Pennsatucky into his sidekick. And more. Much more. The show does some of this well, but I have to be honest and report that this is, in many ways, the weakest episode of the season.

[It was still good, it's just been that strong of a season...]

“The theme of The Eye is the pursuit of an investigation which leads the protagonist through a hell of mirrors and ends in the merging of twin images.” That plot description is from Vladimir Nabokov’s own foreword to the 1965 English publication of The Eye. The protagonist Mr. Nabokov spoke of is a Russian émigré (a common theme in his body of work) living in Berlin and working as a tutor for two young boys in whose home he lodges. An attractive friend of the family, Matilda, visits, and he starts an illicit affair with the married woman. Her husband finds out and beats the tutor in front of the young pupils. Agonized from shame, the tutor packs his bags and leaves. He finds another room, then shoots himself in the heart with a revolver.

[But this only begins his adventures…]

From Shakespeare to Sherlock, Hercule Poirot to James Bond, London has always had a rich literary history. And now you can sit on it! Thanks to The National Literacy Trust, along with its public art promotor Wild in Art, 50 benches have been commissioned that will be painted to look like open books portraying scenes from famous books.

Some of the notable authors are listed below:

Douglas Adams—The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Jane Austen—Pride and Prejudice

Agatha Christie—Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly

Charles Dickens—Great Expectations

Ian Fleming—James Bond stories

Stephen Hawking—A Brief History of Time

Anthony Hurowitz—The Alex Rider Series

George Orwell—1984

Dr. Seuss—The Cat in the Hat

William Shakespeare—Various Works

Jules Verne—Around the World in 80 Days

H.G. Wells—The Time Machine.

For a complete list of benches, authors, and locations, complete with pictures, visit Books About Town.

Oh, and because I know you're wondering, yes you can own these benches. All benches will be opened up to auction, with the proceeds going to the National Literacy Trust. More information on the auctions can be found here.

Which bench is your favorite? Do you think any authors were forgotten? Join the conversation in the comments!

The Oleander Sisters by Elaine Hussey is an emotional story set in 1969 Mississippi that follows four sisters through the ups and down of the changing times (available July 29, 2014).

Let’s hear it for skeletons and Southern comfort.

I had a banner year in 1969. In January, I met my future husband on a blind date; in May, we became engaged; in June, I graduated from high school and began going to secretarial school; and in August, I had a wedding. Almost forty-five years later, we’re still celebrating anniversaries, and I just finished a book I absolutely loved that was set in 1969.

The Oleander Sisters by Elaine Hussey is like sitting down and devouring warm chocolate cake. It’s delicious to the last bite, and you hate when you have to put the empty plate in the sink.

[Make sure you rinse! (The plate, not the book!)]

Let’s talk about Red. When you think about it, the scarlet-haired Russian began this series as villain. Way back in the first episode of the show, Piper—unaware that Red ran the kitchen— accidently insulted her by pointing out, not incorrectly, that the food at Litchfield is atrocious crap. Red retaliated by nearly starving her to death. That was way back when. Now here we are in the penultimate episode of Season 2, and Red is the person we’re all counting on to destroy Vee.

This transformation owes a lot to the evolution of the character of Red, of course, but it also owes something to the fact that, of all the characters on Orange Is the New Black, Vee is the closest we’ve come to a full on bad guy. Even despicable characters like Pornstache and Fig have some admirable qualities.  Pornstache is ready to go to jail for (he thinks) knocking up Diaz, while Fig dreams of one day acquiring power to do great things. Now, these commendable traits don’t absolve Pornstache and Fig of their sins, but it does show that, at least in their own minds, they are operating from good intentions. Vee, though…Vee is a goddamn super villain. She has about as many good intentions as Professor Moriarty.

[It takes a special kind of evil to stand out in a prison...]

When Philip Seymour Hoffman died in February of this year, he had several films that were either filming or in post-production. One of those films—in addition to the mega film franchise The Hunger Games—was an adaptation of John LeCarré's A Most Wanted Man. Now, film buffs and lovers of the source material will have a chance to critique how the final product turned out.

A Most Wanted Man will be in theaters July 25, 2014, will you be seeing it?

I’m part of a group of friends who have been dazzling one another with movies for decades now. We’re all cinephiles and we have similar tastes in films, yet each of us has our own individual slant on flicks. We like to get together and watch movies, each of us taking turns at being the one to pick the titles. When you make a selection for viewing among this group, you’re of course hoping to show the others movies they haven’t yet seen. Beyond that, you just want your choices to be films that will be enjoyable and memorable. Sometimes you go for cinematic fare that’s just straight-up good, sometimes you shoot for weird and good, other times your aim is at so-bad-it’s-good camp. Just give them something that will engage them on some level during the watching and give all of us things to talk about after, and you’ve scored a winner.

I think I can say I have a fairly high success rate in picking films that work for this group. But there has been the occasional misstep. I once cleared a room with a showing of a moody early Wim Wenders title, and another time left everyone feeling deranged after presenting the bent 1973 drama The Baby. Another “mistake” on my part was when I offered the group Girly aka Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly (it went under the longer title upon its 1969 theatrical release and was shortened to the one-word name for the 2010 DVD issue – I’m going to use the shorter title from here on in). The problem was timing and setting.  This was during a beach vacation and maybe that isn’t the most ideal backdrop for a viewing of a twisted British horror/dark comedy film. But our annual beach weeks are generally the only time all of us are together these days, I had just recently happened on to Girly and was knocked out by it, and I couldn’t wait for my friends to see it. And it’s not like the idea of me championing weird movies was a new idea to this set of people.

[That should tell you how weird this one is...]

A man from Connecticut faces criminal charges after a woman told authorities he 'stabbed' a watermelon sitting on the counter in a “passive-aggressive” manner.

The woman in question told police on the 4th of July that she found many kinds of illegal drugs in the man’s tool box. She then later returned home to find a watermelon on the counter with a large butcher’s knife sticking out of it. The man then reportedly entered the kitchen and began carving the watermelon in a very “passive-aggressive and menacing” manner.

Carmine Cervellino, 49, was arraigned on Monday and was charged with disorderly conduct.

The woman said she felt Cervellino was resorting to “passive aggressive” tactics to intimidate her because he was mad at her.

Victoria “Vic” Moretti (Katee Sackhoff) and her husband Sean (Michael Mosley) on a get-away of hopeful rest and relaxation have anything but and before you can yell, “Watch out for that bear in the road!” their convertible is off the highway and totaled. Cell service in the remote pass is, as always, next to none, so Vic takes off on her own to find a house to call for help. But, unfortunately, Vic has stumbled onto a family home without a phone that, coincidentally, turns out to be some kind of separatist group who’ve been keeping tabs on the sheriff and crew. “Population 25” saw a major plotline come to an end but not before Vic goes through her own Deliverance kind of hell.

Sean climbs for higher ground to get cell service and calls Longmire to tell him he tried flagging down a car that swerved around him and sped away, but not before Sean noticed it was driven by Ed Gorski (Lee Tergesen), Vic’s ex-lover, and he suspects she had been kidnapped. When Longmire arrives Sean is missing, and Gorski, who’s now hiding in the woods, manages to get Longmire’s weapons away from him as he fills Longmire in on the situation.

It was a bit confusing here at first after learning a second car came through grabbing Sean and how this group managed to be seemingly following Vic and the chances of her unwittingly arriving at the door of the man named Chance (Peter Stormare) whose brother was killed by Longmire.

[Talk about an unlikely pairing...]

Everyone is wearing a poppy for remembrance, which should give you a clue that this episode will concern the past and the sins committed then. It also concerns a murderer who is very much present in the minds of Morse and his colleagues, and who plans to continue murdering in the future unless they can stop him.

Time is of the essence in “Sway.” The endlessness of time; mathematical infinity; ouroboros, the snake that devours its tail, symbolizing eternity...

Time; and possibly the Rolling Stones, although I’m not certain about the last part.

As the episode begins, a newspaper headline trumpets the case of the moment:  “Woman Strangled – Oxford housewife willingly opened door to killer.” This refers to the murder of Anne Curran Matthews.

At the office, Morse is typing up a report for Chief Superintendent Bright concerning the “amalgamation” of police stations. This might pose a problem for Morse in the future, but it’s certainly not enough to occupy all of his intellect right now. He’s turning over the Curran Matthews case in his mind and associating it with another open case. They’re not identical, but there are similarities.

Moments later, another victim is found. Vivienne Haldane, the wife of an Oxford professor, has been strangled with a silk stocking. (“Not hers,” says Dr. DeBryn.) Physical relations had taken place within an hour or two of death. (“Nothing to say ‘unwillingly,’” says Dr. DeBryn.) And the pieces begin to fall into place for Morse.

There are now three cases involving women who were strangled with silk stockings. More specifically, married women who spend most of their time apart from their husbands and who weren’t wearing their wedding rings when their bodies were found.

[So much for playing Happy Families...]

Thrillerfest IX finished up a long weekend of seminars and panels with its annual ITW Thriller Awards, with Andrew Pyper's The Demonologist winning Best Hardcover Novel. But Thrillerfest isn't about awards as much as it is about celebrating the art of writing (and scaring). 

Attendees of the event's first two days, called Craftfest and Pitchfest, receive a crash course in the entire pubishing process, from starting your book, to pitching it to an agent, to marketing the final version. And the attendees' newly learned tricks are put right to the test with Pitchfest, an intense 3-1/2 hour block where they can pitch their book to as many agents as possible.

In fact, one of the panels I attended on Friday (The Long Road to Publication) featured Glen Hamilton, a new author who found his agent at last year's Pitchfest.

All in all, the panels offered the rare chance to hear authors speak passionately about their work. And naturally, when you combine a handful of creative people and ask them to speak for an hour, you're bound to yield some motivational and funny moments. Here are a few of the standouts:

“We're all here because we have so many ways of killing people.” — James Hannibal

(On the perks of being an author) “[There's] less socially acceptable binge drinking than I thought there'd be.” — Justin Kramon

“If it sounds like writing, I try to do it over again.” — Douglas Preston quoting Elmore Leonard

“Simple plot can allow for a more complex story.” A. X. Ahmad

(On how he handles a less than successful book debut) “It's not a book, it's a career.” — Douglas Preston

All this is incredibly cool, but perhaps the coolest thing to come out of Thrillerfest IX is Faceoff. Organized by the ITW board, Faceoff features 22 famous characters facing off in 11 stories, each written by famous authors. Dennis Lehane against Michael Connelly. Lee Child versus Joseph Finder. Steve Berry and James Rollins. This book is a thriller fan's wet dream. And it could be yours!

This Sweepstakes has ended. Thank you for entering.  

To enter, make sure you're a registered member of the site and simply leave a comment below.

TIP: Since only comments from registered users will be tabulated, if your user name appears in red above your comment—STOP—go log in, then try commenting again. If your user name appears in black above your comment, You’re In!

FACEOFF Comment Sweepstakes: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.  A purchase does not improve your chances of winning.  Sweepstakes open to legal residents of 50 United States, D.C., and Canada (excluding Quebec), who are 18 years or older as of the date of entry.  To enter, complete the “Post a Comment” entry at www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2014/07/thrillerfest-ix-sights-sounds-and-sweepstakes beginning at 08:45 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) July 15, 2014. Sweepstakes ends 08:44 a.m. ET July 21, 2014. Void outside the United States and Canada and where prohibited by law.   Please see full details and official rules here. Sponsor: Macmillan, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.