IN SITE 20 – SLUGLINE: AUGUST -SEPTEMBER, 2007

THEY GOT ME COVERED for  my seventh book and third stand-alone thriller, scheduled for publication in March ‘08 by Five Star/Thomson/Gale. IN THE KEY OF DEATH’s cover features a striking detail from an oil and mixed-media painting by Arthur Secunda, whose work is in important museum and private collections throughout the world, as well as a pair of early knock-out—well, they knocked me out—cover quotes from an estimable pair of perennial international best-sellers, T. Jefferson Parker and James Rollins...From me to all three: thank you, thank you, thank you...

THE SHORT OF IT—New from Pegasus Books is HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME: ORIGINAL CRIME STORIES SET DURING THE HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD, edited by Robert Randisi, with my contribution among four singled out in a Publishers Weekly review, (quote): “Robert S. Levinson delivers a wicked portrait of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in ‘And the Winner Is…,”which turns on her lackey’s efforts to stop a Nazi sharpshooter at the 1960 Academy Awards.” (unquote)…And a big-big smile here when word arrived that the next edition of the year’s finest crime and mystery stories edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Ed Gorman will include my story from the July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, A PRISONER OF MEMORY, and <drum roll> that’ll be the cover title…A happy statistic for sharing: This is the fourth consecutive time one of my stories has been chosen for a year’s best anthology…

ENCORE—My first one-act play, “Transcript,” premiered in June at the first International Mystery Writers’ Festival at RiverPark Center in Owensboro, KY , out of competition as a “special event,” had three SRO performances and, I figured, the story ended there, but—nope.  RiverPark has now exercised its option to distribute radio type versions of the recorded performance worldwide and has future production possibilities in mind, so stay tuned…(My take on the weeklong Fest, a joy from beginning to end, appears in the summer issue of Reflections in a Private Eye, official publication of the Private Eye Writers of America…)

THE THRILLER AWARDS SHOW was a lot of fun to write, produce and emcee for a second time at the 2nd Annual ThrillerFest of the International Thriller Writers in New York in July, where I had the welcome opportunity to reunite with Killer Thriller Band members, as well as hang out with fans and the usual suspects among writers and pub world types...It also served as a lead-in to participation in Heather Graham’s annual “Writers for New Orleans” workshop (Aug. 31-Sept. 2, in the shadow of  the French Quarter), where I was set for panels dealing with writing thrillers and developing characters...

FUTURES: Come September 23, I’m  moderating a panel about “Amateur Detectives” at the monthly meeting of the So Cal chapter of MWA...I’m in HOW I GOT PUBLISHED—FAMOUS AUTHORS TELL YOU HOW IN THEIR OWN WORDS by Ray White and Duane Lindsay, set for September publication by Writers Digest Books… Until our next “Affair,” take care and be well

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Cheers!