RVC author Lou Allin will be reading and signing at the Pacific Festival of Books on March 24. The reading will be at the open mike at 1:30 and the signing/selling at the Crime Writers of Canada booth from 2-4.

Address: Victoria Arts Connection Building, 2570 Quadra St., Victoria, BC

At the behest of a friend, Deadly Lessons author David Russell entered the Talk Show Idol contest on BC’s powerhouse radio station CKNW. Like the Canadian Idol phenomenon that inspired it, the contest seeks to find the next rising talk show host talent. Admittedly, having been a talk show host on local television for six and a half years in the 1990’s, Russell was mostly looking at it as an opportunity to plug his book on the province’s biggest radio station – which, of course, he duly did when he took to the airwaves for his segment on February 25th. But once he got behind the mic, the old juices kicked in and he had a lot of fun. Apparently the judges and listeners did too: later in the week CKNW called to say he’d been advanced to the quarterfinals that take place sometime in April. Stay tuned!

In mid-March, Russell will shoot an interview as part of a new Global TV documentary series called True Pulp Fiction. Each episode of the series will focus on a true crime with reenactments and interviews with police detectives who originally investigated the crime. Each episode will also feature a Canadian crime writer who will comment on parallels between the true crime and that which was featured in the author’s fiction. One of the crimes on True Pulp Murder has interesting parallels to the story in Russell’s Deadly Lessons. No word yet on when the series will air so again...stay tuned!

New dates for Joan Boswell:

Ottawa Launch, National Library of Canada, Wellington Street, Wednesday, May 23rd
Kingston Signing, As the Plot Thickens, Saturday, June 2, 2-4
Toronto Launch, Badminton and Racquet Club 25 St. Clair Ave W., Saturday June 9th 2-4
Book Expo Toronto Sunday, June 10th