Biblioholic's Bookshelf - Markham The Case of the Pornographic Photos by Lawrence Block

I've probably mentioned on this blog before that I read Lawrence Block's fiction writing column in Writer's Digest in my formative years. His blog today still gives a taste of what that used to be like. 

I segued to Evan Tanner, Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr from mentions in the column or in the "about" section at the bottom of the page. I also read his stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and picked up Ariel in hardcover from Arbor House. 

Some things were harder to find. He mentioned once how he'd come to write a novel about a private eye named Ed London because he'd been commissioned for a TV tie-in for a show called Markham with Ray Milland. 

He began with the detective being asked to solve the murder of a woman found on a friend's living room floor. The detective rolled the body in a Persian rug, moved it to a park then set off to solve the crime. There was even a John Caldwell cartoon to illustrate the stroll with the carpet over the shoulder in the WD column. 

Block and his agent ultimately decided the book was a better stand alone novel than a TV tie-in, so it became Death Pulls a Double Cross aka Coward's Kiss featuring a detective named Ed London. I eventually got to read that when a slim paperback was reissued while I was working at a library. 

Block still had to turn in a Markham novel, so he sat down and wrote another.  That became The Case of the Pornographic Photos (Belmont, 1961). Since then, it has been reissued as You Could Call it Murder.

The book was not to be found in The Book Nook used book store of my youth, but I picked it up for just a couple of bucks a few years ago in a pretty nice edition.

SEE ALSO: Biblioholic's Bookshelf - Ed Noon and The Flower-Covered Corpse

A few Ed London short stories, along with many more short tales can be found in Block's One Night Stands and Lost Weekends. You'll also find a more detailed account of the transformation of a Roy Markham novel into an Ed London novel via meetings with Knox Burger of Gold Medal Books. Burger is also the guy who talked John D. MacDonald into writing Travis McGee books. 

Biblioholic's Bookshelf - The Most Deadly Game Novelization - The Corpse in the Castle

When I was very, very young my mom discovered a series airing late on Saturday nights, and by late I mean probably 9 p.m. our time. That was of course, The Most Deadly Game.

It starred George Maharis and Yvette Mimieux. And my mom recognized Ralph Bellamy right away. 

The first episode she watched may have been the first broadcast. It involved the series team of criminologists investigating a string of murders with a strange murder weapon. (Spoiler warning, it was a sling shot.)

We watched after that until the show's brief run was over. "Murder is the most deadly game and these criminologists play it." 

I remember the witch-themed episode best because it scared me at the time.

Two novelizations were published, the second after the series went off, I believe. Surviving episodes can be found at Modcinema.  Sadly the witch and slingshot episodes don't seem to be around any more. 

SEE ALSO: NEW PEOPLE TV TIE IN NOVELIZATION 

Biblioholic's Bookshelf: New People TV-Tie-In Noveliazation

Long before Lost, ABC dropped another set of survivors onto an island. The series, from Aaron Spelling and Rod Serling, was called The New People. It would appear it ran 17 episodes in 1969 and had a hip and trendy style based on the tone of the back cover description.

I've read Damon Lindelof once said if he'd known about the show, he would have named Charlie Pace's band in "Lost" The New People instead of Driveshaft.

I learned about this series in one old TV book or another and picked up the novelization while browsing a used bookstore once upon a time. It's harder and harder to find lost gems like this just kicking around nowadays, though almost everything's available somewhere on the web, as evidenced by the TV promo below.