Sports, crime, Neil Young, and everything

This blog has an eclectic group of sports fans-cum-readers: an Irish New York Yankees fan who lives in Australia, for one, and an ice hockey fan in New Zealand.

So, with a nod to the hard-working Craig Sisterson, here is a picture of your humble blogkeeper with the Stanley Cup.

***

And here's the evidence of Neil Young's influence on crime writing.

That's two crime novels with titles taken from Neil Young songs. What other rock and roll songs have lent their titles to crime novels?

(YHBK with Hilary Davidson, author of The Damage Done)

***

Speaking of sports, the protagonist of Peter Temple's An Iron Rose finds himself the de facto guardian of a aspiring teenage golfer. If memory serves, Peter Corris, the godfather of Australian crime writing, wrote a story in which a young aspiring tennis player figures.

Temple especially gets some nice drama out of this: The young man in question has dropped out of school, in part to work on his golf game, and the protagonist wants him to go back. And there you have it: suspense and generational conflict in one neat, subplot-size package.

Any other stories in which an aspiring athlete plays a role?

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

There is a town in south Ontario ...

1) Visited Sleuth of Baker Street to hear Hilary Davidson read from The Damage Done and, while browsing, found myself at nose level with a novel called Down by the River. Neil Young has a more powerful presence in Toronto than I thought.

You know those readings where three people show up, and one works for the store and another wandered in by mistake? This was not one of them. Davidson grew up in Toronto and, I think, worked here as well. To judge from the evening's attendance, she is much loved; the place was packed.

2) Saw a copy of Following the Detectives: Real Locations in Crime Fiction on display, the first time I'd seen my own work on sale in a bookshop. This was very cool. And the book makes an ideal holiday gift!

3) Overheard a customer refer to "someone who likes to read x, y and zed." It is a pleasure to be in a country that knows what the last letter of the alphabet is. (Canadians also know that an entrée is a small course preceding the main dish.)

4) Bought Peter Temple's An Iron Rose off a rack labelled with disarming honesty "Expensive British Imports." Would any American shop or any chain store have been that straightforward? Nah.

5) Got up in the middle of the night at my brother's house, took one step down from the guest room, and turned right toward the bathroom. Only the guest room has two steps, so I took a header onto the living-room floor, landed on my right knee, and only the saving grace of a benevolent god prevented the big-screen TV from shattering into a million pieces. The knee was a little tender today, but Nephew Beyond Borders #2, asleep on the couch, slumbered right through the ordeal of his precipitating uncle.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010