May is Get Caught Reading Month, an annual event sponsored by the Association of American Publishers to encourage Americans to pick up a book and read. (Like we need encouragement.) Naturally, the best way to “get caught reading” is to engage in PDR (public displays of reading), which is something we do all the time and recommend highly.

Which brings us to CoverSpy, the Tumblr with a Twitter chaser that tracks the habits of people who read in public: on trains and buses, in restaurants and parks, in salons and Laundromats—wherever you can turn a page.

CoverSpy is the brainchild of Tricia Callahan and Amy Sly, who started the project in 2009. “Conversation about e-readers turned into conversation about seeing, or no longer seeing, what books were being read,” Callahan recalls. “We had the idea to chronicle the books we were seeing around town—before the book covers all became the backs of Kindles. Although, for the record, I don’t really think that will happen.”

With a network of more than a dozen spies operating in New York City (including a member of our Crime HQ crew!) and a recently opened operation in San Francisco, CoverSpy keeps track of who’s reading what, where and when. “A lot of people are still reading print books,” Callahan explains. “A lot of people are reading e-readers. A lot of people read, period. And, CoverSpy has taught me that so many people are just as interested in what others are reading: We have over 15,000 followers between Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook, and somewhere around 13,000 unique page views a month.”

So please, keep up those PDRs wherever you might be. You never know who’ll catch you reading!

Cassandra Cain is the forgotten Batgirl. She’s the least known among the general public and is currently gone from DC Comics stories. Worse, she’s unlikely to make a re-appearance, as requests to use her by several of DC comics writers, including Grant Morrison, have been turned down.

Yet Cassandra is important. She was the first Batgirl to headline her own series, a book that lasted for six years and seventy-three issues, one of the longest runs ever for a non-white character in mainstream comics.

Cassandra shares an origin unique among the Bat-Family. Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon, Kate Kane...all of them are trying to live up to their parents’ legacy in some form. Only Stephanie Brown, who succeeded Cassandra as Batgirl, shares one similarity: their fathers were super villains.

[Luckily in their case the apple falls far from the tree...sort of...]

No fewer than four Batgirls, two Batwomen, two Huntresses, and a female Question have called Gotham home in the DC Universe.

Barbara (Batgirl/Oracle) Gordon, daughter of Gotham’s police commissioner, is easily the most well-known. A one-time U.S. congresswoman; one of the smartest people in the DC Universe; and, in her identity as Oracle, an inspiration to disabled readers, and now a post-traumatic stress disorder survivor, Babs Gordon is one of DC’s most recognizable female characters, up there with Wonder Woman and Lois Lane.

Barbara’s superhero career began not in comics but with the 1960s Batman TV show. That’s where I first saw her, complete with her own motorcycle and theme song. I was hooked and went looking for any comics featuring her.

[With an awesome bike like that, who wouldn’t be addicted!]

Through the end of today, the Showtime Experience is taking over part of Grand Central Terminal and dedicating it to the sweet science behind Dexter and Homeland. Yesterday, some of us from CrimeHQ went to poke around. Cool stuff to do, great fan art, and plenty of baked carnage courtesy of Magnolia Bakery. Here's a “slide show”—you got that right, Dex fans:

About the collage: Using the first season scene in which Saul helps put together Carrie’s wall of evidence against Brody as inspiration, artist Ian Wright created this collage designed to take us inside Carrie’s mind and to present her MO.

Close-up really shows the construction:

[The Kill Table’s after the jump . . .]

When the creators of Elementary wanted to promote the show’s debut with a Sherlock-themed scavenger hunt, New York-based Watson Adventures (Yes, that’s their real name!) was the natural choice for the job. So if you happen to be in lower Manhattan this Saturday, September 22, and you run into a bunch of sleuths hunting for clues to solve a murder mystery, you’ll know they’re the lucky contestants competing for a grand prize visit to the Elementary set. (The show premieres September 27 on CBS. You might have seen us mention that before.)

Although the Elementary Scavenger Hunt was a one-of-a-kind free event—and dang it booked up quick!—Watson Adventures also runs Murder Mystery Scavenger Hunts open to the public at fourteen museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the DeYoung Museum and the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian. Choose your crime scene and bring your own Watson.

If you read on the subway, you may have unknowingly entered the Underground New York Public Library or UNYPL.

The website of street photographer Ourit Ben-Haim (who gave us permission to reproduce these photos) beautifully and simply documents people and their books.

The images are wonderful, and the range of readers and subjects reflects the variety of people taking the subways, which is to say, everyone in the city.

However, sometimes, it’s hard to make out the titles because of visibility or circumstances, and in those cases, the photo will be listed as Unsolved to invite a crowd-sourced solution.

We can’t stand the U word, so this is a super close-up of the only currently unsolved book at the UNYPL, which its founder frankly admits now haunts her dreams. (I think I saw that same palm in the movie Dune. The sleeper awakens.) Do you recognize this book cover?  Can you help crack this case?

Hat tip: CrimeHQ’s Social Media Maven, the fabulous Jen Forbus.

One Red Bastard by Ed Lin is a police procedural in 1976’s New York City, set against the backdrop of America’s relationship with Taiwan and Beijing, China (available April 24, 2012).

There’s a lot in a name.

Mao’s, for one, carries some weight, punching well beyond the grave. Even those unfamiliar with most Chinese history are not likely to say Mao who? In One Red Bastard, Ed Lin has Mao’s daughter’s Chinese representative murdered. Bad enough, but this is not in China. It is New York in 1976, and the finger of suspicion is pointed firmly at Lonnie, the girlfriend of detective-in-training Robert Chow.

“If a daughter turns out badly, she’ll go to another family anyway, but having a bad son is serious” reads the proverb on the opening page.

[And there’s more serious trouble ahead. . .]

You think holidays are about vacations or sales binges? Oh, but they’re so much more. Each offers its own opportunity to commit what on any other day would be a crime.  Consider St. Patrick’s Day. While public drunkenness could get you hauled to the hoosegow on, say, March 16, wait a day and you’re simply celebrating. 

That’s why, circa 1982, it was the worst day of the year for me to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum is on New York’s magnificent Fifth Avenue, the route of the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. Its broad steps create a popular spot from which to view the passing panoply of dignitaries, bagpipers, marching bands and such. 

Yet the museum’s immediate neighborhood isn’t the place to grab a celebratory green beer. Watering holes suited to hoisting a few pints to the old sod are few and far between. So parade goers well-primed to warble boozy renditions of “Danny Boy” have mostly traveled there after already drinking in other parts of Manhattan, the outer boroughs, or the suburbs.

With no thought about the parade when planning my visit for that day, I found myself threading past alcohol-fueled revelers on my way up the steps and into the museum. I was there to visit my friends at the Costume Institute, where I had served as in intern back in the mid-1970s. The space was a basement-level rabbit warren, but the institute’s workrooms included a band of huge windows about six feet off the ground. From them, plenty of light shone across a table where I recalled mending a gossamer gown once worn by Katharine Hepburn, preparing it for the show “Glamorous and Romantic Hollywood Design.”

While chatting with my former colleagues, the sounds of the parade bounced betewen the Museum and the Hotel Stanhope across the avenue, people’s voices and laughter filtering past the booming of drums and humming bagpipes. Several men hooted aloud, probably sharing a joke and, tapping on the large windows, waved to invite our attention.

Before we had time to do more than wonder why they’d bother inciting a quartet of museum workers to look up at them, they’d arrayed themselves in a line and, quick as leprechauns, unzipped their pants to unleash their synchronized streams—six arcs of greenish, steaming fluid splashing the windows.  This prolific display didn’t soon enough dissolve into a half-dozen erratic rivulets as they nearly fell to the ground laughing.

Public urination, on any other day a misdemeanor, on March 17, 1982 became a six-man salute to the man who chased the snakes out of Ireland.

Erin go gag.

Image via NJ.com

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye is a historical thriller (available March 15, 2012).

New York City of 1845 is a cacophany of competing lexicons. In The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye, the city’s political bosses, religious leaders, starving Irish immigrants, impoverished nativists, civil leaders, race-baiters, headline writers, popular novelists, street hawkers, sinners, lovers, and criminals each employ language as distinctive as a police report’s. But also whispering among the leaning hovels of babble in Five Points are secret loyalties, monstrous acts, and madness.

Forced by desperate necessity to become one of the city’s first “copper stars,” Sixth Ward roundsman Timothy Wilde knows ignorance is a deadly liability. It will be his unhappy fate to prove an apt linguist and to be transformed by his immersion in terrible new vocabularies. Every human’s first language is of the senses, and throughout the novel, Wilde comprehends his environment in heady detail:

The air was yeasty and wet as a bread oven by eleven, and you could taste the smell of it at the back of your throat. I was fighting not to notice the mix of fever-sweat and the deceased carthorse, half-pushed into the alley round the corner, as the beast seemed by degrees to be getting deader.

Whether caused or served by his love for drawing, Wilde is a constant observer, but not merely one. He needs to decipher the underlying significance of what he sees like he needs his next breath. Perhaps the result of having been destitute after his parents’ death and having instantly to adopt the art of shortcutting.

[You savvy. . ?]

Tonight, there’s a special event in NYC that should be fun (if we don’t embarrass ourselves). A scavenger hunt is being held through locations in the city, and the clues are coming out on Twitter under the hashtag #castlechase. Fortunately, there are 2 of us going which will make it more fun and spread any shame around.  If we manage to find any of the clues/items, we can turn them in at the Paley Center for prizes, but most importantly, later on, there’ll be a Castle/Fillion trivia contest, a live screening of a new episode, and a panel discussion (simulcast from LA). Here’s who’s on tap to talk:

• Andrew W. Marlowe, Creator/Executive Producer
• Rob Bowman, Executive Producer
• Nathan Fillion, “Richard Castle”
• Stana Katic, “Kate Beckett”
• Molly Quinn, “Alexis Castle”
• Susan Sullivan, “Martha Rodgers”
• Seamus Dever, “Kevin Ryan”
• Jon Huertas, “Javier Esposito”
• Penny Johnson Jerald, “Victoria Gates”
• Tamala Jones, “Lanie Parish”
• Moderator: Will Keck, TV Guide Magazine

We’ll be tweeting as we can @crimeHQ. Wish us luck!

It seems like forever ago when we heard about BBC America’s first original series Copper, set in New York City’s Five Points neighborhood in the late 1860’s, just after the Civil War.  Well, it’s currently in production on a giant soundstage in Toronto—Martin Scorcese built his version for Gangs of New York at an Italian studio lot, and that worked well enough. This is at least on the same continent as the original locale.

Frustratingly, however, we have yet to see any juicy production stills with sets or costumes.  So, to bide our time in virtue, we’ll remind you first of the show’s pedigree, as it’s being co-produced by Barry Levinson and is the creation of Tom Fontana (Oz) and Will Rokos (Southland).  Hmm, that didn’t take long, so let’s idle over the cast then, shall we?

Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones of MI-5, aka Spooks) is an Irish immigrant and cop assigned to one of the bawdiest, most depraved, perilous, and ramshackle neighborhoods ever to be built over a land-filled pond and adjacent fever swamps. Corcoran’s back from the Civil War. His wife is missing. His daughter is dead. He’s haunted, and therefore, perfect for this beat.

You’ll be shocked, I’m sure, to discover the showrunners have assembled an international cast with even a few more attractive faces to populate their poxy burg.

[More whores, slummers, disenfranchised, and unfortunates, please!]

Tonight, we will be reminded what conflicted, miserable lives we all led before DVR’s.  Tonight, a trio of toddling young crime shows, all Seasons 3 or 4, return simul-freaking-taneously at 10-danged-o’clock, so even with dual tuners, we may still have to ask a friend to babysit one on their tuner or even to watch one online later. (Oh, modern problems.) From the folks at Omnimystery News:

First up is one of our favorite shows, White Collar, on USA Network at 10 PM (ET/PT). When the series took its [3rd] mid-season break, Mrs. Suit — as Mozzie calls her — had been kidnapped. In an episode titled “Checkmate”, Neal is forced to come clean with Peter about the hidden cache of stolen art treasures in order to save Elizabeth. Or does Neal have another plan in mind?

Over on FX Networks, also at 10 PM (ET/PT) is the third season premiere of Justified. The arrival of a dangerous new player in Lexington puts Raylan on a collision course with a sadistic Dixie Mafia hitman in an episode titled “The Gunfighter”.
 

 

Finally, on TNT — you guessed it, at 10 PM (ET/PT) — is the fourth season premiere of Southland with an episode titled “Wednesday”. Officer John Cooper returns to duty after recovering from back surgery and meets his new partner, Officer Jessica Tang (special guest star Lucy Liu), a tough and disciplined cop with her own set of baggage from working the streets.

Why the heck does every network let its toddlers stay up so late these days? It’s no wonder they’ve all turned wicked, even if we do plan to enjoy every last bit of bad behavior.

Culminating the holiday season of crime for TNT Mystery Movie Night—though new bestsellers’ books have been picked up for next year already—is Deck the Halls, based upon Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark’s first co-authored Christmas mystery.

This story brings together two of their series characters, Alvirah Meegan (Kathy Najimy), who’s a former cleaning lady turned lottery winner turned private eye, and Detective Regan Reilly (Scottie Thompson), the respective creations of the mother and daughter novelists.

Naturally, everyone at the TNT Mystery Movie Night panel wanted to know how well this joint-writing thing actually works. Carol Higgins Clark, who was present, was happy to answer. Her replies might seem not only surprising, but even a little eerie.

[Oooh, does that mean naughty or nice?]

Thursday’s panel for TNT’s new Mystery Movie Night was a splashy event, and lots of fun for the attending crime fans like us, who got to hear from bestselling authors Scott Turow, Sandra Brown, Lisa Gardner, Richard North Patterson, April Smith, and Carol Higgins Clark, all of whom have novels being adapted for TNT’s new crop of TV crime movies. Actually, we even got backstage to the green room to accost meet with them while they were getting mic’d up. 

*Valuable lesson: If you’re planning on becoming a wildly successful female author who may appear at events with professional sound reinforcement, you’ve got to consider where they’ll have to attach the mic packs.  Most often to a bra strap, so if you’re in an uber-snug one-piece number without a back zipper, for example, getting the gear decorously attached under the garment might be awkward.  That did NOT happen to any of these authors, and that’s how you know they’re pros.  And further, they were so pleasant and poised that we were able to interview them while the techs worked their magic.

We’ll share more about what they actually said later, but now. . .

[Yay! Snapshots!]

I think I’ve missed one year of the last 5, and this year’s NYCC was the biggest ever.  I was not at the first, but I do recall when it was small enough to have to share Javits Center floor space (on only one level yet) with a travel show that was much larger and better-attended.  Then, there was some looking askance at the New York Comic Con attendees.  Now, the blazered travel agents would stick out, because NYCC sprawls across floors, tiers, pavilions, service closets. . . They say last year had over 90,000 attendees and this year will beat that, once the tallies are in.  It was huge and crowded and colorful, and here are some silly pictures and comments from my visit, should it be your kind of thing.

Enthusiasm and juxtaposition is what’s it’s all about. There was the car from Back to the Future parked right near this snappy Adam West-era Batmobile, which The Riddler’s showing to Princess Leia. 

[Yes, indeed, it is MY thing. . .]

Just as in real estate, in crime location is everything. And plenty of criminals choose hotels as the scenes of their felonious fun. Take Darius Guppy, for example. A gem merchant so well-bred and connected that if he were food, he would be Ossetra caviar, Guppy checked into Room 1208 of New York’s Halloran House Hotel with partner in crime Benedict Marsh and 1.8 million GBP worth of gems. Immediately, they went around to gem dealers like Tiffany’s, offering the stones for sale at vastly inflated prices. Which meant, of course, no-one was interested in buying them. This was vital as they wanted to be able to show that they had, in fact, engaged in the activity they had supposedly come to New York to undertake—the sale of precious gems.

[Clearly, these guys were diamonds of the first water.]

When I say “The City that Never Sleeps” what genre do you immediately think of? If you said “Noir,” then you agree with the current design team working with New York City in a large-scale redesign of historic Times Square.

Currently the city is investing 27 million dollars into the development of the pedestrian plazas between 42nd St. and 47th st. According to one of the architect’s on the design team The Big Apple  isn’t some pretty Euopean know-nothing kind of town, it’s a tough, gritty, hard-boiled Film Noir place that folks like Peggy Castle would be proud to frequent.

The plazas would be covered with large paving stones in two dark-colored shades placed in a pattern and studded with nickel-sized stainless-steel “pucks” that would reflect neon lights.

It’s not all about the monochromatic coloring though. The architects say that a lot of the work will be leveling out the area and making it more friendly to New Yorkers and tourists alike. (If they are hoping that this will lead to New Yorkers and tourists happily coexisting then they are in for a pretty big upset…)

What do you think? Is New York the type of town to go Noir, or can you think of somewhere else that might better fit the bill?

Hat Tip : New York Post

In the heat of summer, you might take your favorite summer reading to the beach – if you lived in California, Hawaii, or the south of France.  If you’re in the middle of New York City, though, beaches are hard to come by, even when the mercury climbs into the 90s. The solution? For some dedicated fans of pulp crime fiction, it’s carrying their favorite paperbacks to one of the city’s public parks and enjoying them as if they were in the south of France – the no-tan-lines way.

(Note from Crime HQ—We find these pictures more saucy than explicit—good, clean, literate fun among charming readers.  If your tastes are different, you’ll probably prefer later Pulp in the Wild posts.  We’ll happily feature pulp aficionados however they roam, whether in monks’ cowls, hazmat suits, or full Bigfoot costumes, so stay tuned! And submit your own location shots of where and how you’re reading your crime paperbacks to:
pulpinthewild [at] gmail-dot-com )

[I LIKE my Labor Day BBQ a little saucy!]