This year marks the 70th anniversary of the release of John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon. How do you even begin to take the measure of a masterpiece like this? It isn’t simply one of the great film noirs, it is one of the great films. The movie, of course, follows detective Sam Spade as…
About my relationships with fake people: I have good friends and bad friends. And worse friends. They fill different needs in my life – people to encourage me, people I’m glad to know but even gladder not to be, and people I end up not liking whatsoever. These are all people I have some connection…
In about a week, thousands of nerds talented high school students will gather for Science Olympiad Nationals, annual team competitions in science and engineering from May 20th to 21st. One of the many events is “Crime Busters,” in which students must identify perpetrator of a crime through investigation of unknown powders, liquids, metals, footprints, fingerprints,…
A supervillain walks into a bar and orders a drink. When the bartender says to him, “We don’t serve your kind,” the villain and his brother are cornered by government agents, one dies, and the other is severely injured and placed in witness protection. Or something like that. In Incognito, the brainchild of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, there…
I was introduced to Christopher Whitman (later Donatti after taking his stepfather’s name) in Faye Kellerman’s 1995 book, Justice. I had picked up a few of her earlier Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus books and found them addictive. She wrote vivid characters and, even though I had absolutely nothing in common with her characters, I had no problems…
Can you imagine Don Draper, from AMC’s Mad Men, as a cold-blooded killer? No? Well, I can’t either, but Jon Hamm’s character and that of Darwyn Cooke’s Parker could come from the same family. When their respective stories open, they are, essentially, a blank slate. Nothing is known of their past, and the only conclusions you can…
