To the delight of readers and writers, March marks the beginning of the beginning of the spring mystery conference season. Kicking off this year is Sleuthfest in Boca Raton, Florida, March 15-17. Following soon after comes another Florida event, The Florida Connection, April 12-14 in Sarasota. May 1-3 ushers in Mystery Writers of America's annual Edgars week Symposium and Awards Banquet in New York City. From there it's a quick hop to Alexandria, Virginia, for Malice Domestic, May 3-5. All these conferences attract fans and authors, agents and editors from across the country. If you've always wanted to meet insiders of the publishing world, here's your chance.

It's common in the book or movie industry to pitch stories with imaginative comparisons. but this week Lady M came across one that will certainly make some readers frown in concentration as they try to conjure up a mental picture. "Larry Brown meets Salman Rushdie with a little Milan Kundera and extra ketchup!" Independent bookseller Kelly Justice of Carytown Books, Richmond, VA, said it about The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break, by Steven Sherill, which was a Book Sense 76 pick for July/August 2000 when it debuted.

The recently announced settlement regarding the Beardstown Ladies Books has stirred opinions on whether or not the case has any broader legal impact. First Amendment proponents think that higher courts would have extended First Amendment protection to the cover and dismissed the case the same way a New York judge did originally. Others argue this isn't a First Amendment issue, it's fraud for a publisher to falsely claim in cover copy higher returns (23%) on the group's stock investments in order to sell more books.

A columnist at the  Houston Chronicle was furious when a  copy editor changed his  usage of "waked up" to "woken up." The columnist, Leon Hale, says, "I'm told that 'woken' is a perfectly good word, that dictionaries show it as the past participle of the verb 'wake.' But if you ask me, that doesn't make it fit to use in a Texas newspaper."

Patricia Highsmith's work is enjoying a resurgence of interest, according to Variety. Knopf reissued her first three Ripley novels in hardcover, Norton has a selection of stories in print, and a new version of Strangers On A Train is underway at Warner Brothers after seven years of development.

After twelve books in four years, Grigory Chkhartishvili is a "literary lion" in Russia. His mysteries about a 19th century "gentleman-sleuth" are bestsellers—three million books sold last year. He's been translated into German, Japanese, French and Italian, and his first novel, Azazel, is being filmed by director Paul Verhoeven.

Lady M offers two reviews to tempt you to curl up with a good book  soon. Check Crime By Collins for reviews of Harvest of Murder, by Ann Ripley, and Fender Bender, by Bill  Fitzhugh. Also be sure to read the new short story,  Killer Chihuahua, by Marcia Kiser. It's guaranteed to chase away any March blues.

Happy reading.

Mysteriously,