7/17/2015 Greenfellas break in

July 17, 2015.  Today was the official publication date for Greenfellas, a novel by Robert Lopresti.  And here is the first review:

**** Robert Lopresti, GREENFELLAS, Oak Tree Press, $17.95. If Carl Hiassen and Al Gore had collaborated on RESERVOIR DOGS, it might have come out something like GREENFELLAS. Then again, it probably wouldn't. Robert Lopresti, whose stories have appeared in EQMM, AHMM, and THE STRAND, among others, has penned a comic crime novel in which a New Jersey mobster with a bad comb-over decides to use his resources to save the environment for future generations. The dialogue is crisp and the situations darkly funny. - Steve Steinbock, "The Jury Box," ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, August, 2015.

Kings River Life Magazine named it one of the best mysteries of the year.

6/30/2017 When Women Didn't Count is published

June 30, 2017.  This is the date of the release of a new book by award-winning mystery writer Robert Lopresti.  WHEN WOMEN DIDN'T COUNT (Praeger Publishing) is a nonfiction work about the way women have appeared and disappeared in federal documents over the last 230 years.

And that has nothing to do with mystery fiction, but this is Robert Lopresti's blog.  So there.

Here are a few of the facts from the four chapters on crime.

* During World War II the battle against prostitution in the United States was headed by Eliot Ness of the Untouchables.

* In the 1960's the number of women arrested for serious crimes increased at triple the rate for men.

* In 1880 there were 12 men in prison for every one woman.  A statistician explained that one reason was that "if a wicked woman wants a crime committed, it is easy for her to get a man to do it for her."

* The 1990 Census was the first to try to count the number of people in Shelters for Battered Women.  Forsecurity, shelter employees, rather than Census workers, did the count.

* In 2007 the government did its first study of alcohol as a weapon of rapists.  An estimated 2.6 million women had been raped while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

You can read more here.

5/5/2014 Shanks Holds the Line

May 5. 2014.  Trace Evidence, the Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine blog, puts up a free short story.  Robert Lopresti offered "Shanks Holds The Line" as a public service, to warn people about a certain scam. 

If you like it you can read 12 more stories about the character in  Shanks on Crime.

4/2/2012 Greenfellas begins

April 2, 2012.  On this date Sal Caetano orders the killing of a member of his New Jersey  mob family who had made a big mistake.  This decision will come back to bite him.

But Sal's life really gets interesting a few days later when he becomes a grandfather - and discovers that climate change might make his little granddaughter's future unlivable.  So Sal decides to use all his Mafia skills to save the environment.  Hey, how hard can it be?

Kings River Life Magazine called Greenfellas one of the best mysteries of 2015.

3/7/1963 Such A Killing Crime

March 7, 1963.  On this date the action begins in the novel Such A Killing Crime, set in Greenwich Village during the Great Folk Music Scare.  Joe Talley runs a coffee house in New York.  When one of his favorite singers is killed on his stage he hunts for the man's missing demo tape, which may lead him to a killer...

10/7/2014 Shanks on Crime on time

October 7, 2014.  On this day Shanks on Crime was published.  Leopold Longshanks is a curmudgeonly mystery writer who just wants to create his books in peace, but true crimes keep interfering...  Most of these stories appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, but four are new.

7/17/2015 Greenfellas arrive

July 17, 2015.  Today was the official publication date for Greenfellas, a novel by Robert Lopresti.  And here is the first review:

**** Robert Lopresti, GREENFELLAS, Oak Tree Press, $17.95. If Carl Hiassen and Al Gore had collaborated on RESERVOIR DOGS, it might have come out something like GREENFELLAS. Then again, it probably wouldn't. Robert Lopresti, whose stories have appeared in EQMM, AHMM, and THE STRAND, among others, has penned a comic crime novel in which a New Jersey mobster with a bad comb-over decides to use his resources to save the environment for future generations. The dialogue is crisp and the situations darkly funny. - Steve Steinbock, "The Jury Box," ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, August, 2015.

Kings River Life Magazine named it one of the best mysteries of the year.

7/1/2005 Such A Killing Crime

July 1, 2005.  Robert Lopresti's novel of murder during the folk music revival in Greenwich Village, 1963, is published, by Kearney Street Books.

Folksinger Tom Paxton said of the book: "Spooky. If I'd known he was watching us all so carefully,. I'd have behaved much better."

5/5/2014 Shanks Holds The Line.

May 5. 2014.  Trace Evidence, the Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine blog, puts up a free short story.  Robert Lopresti offered "Shanks Holds The Line" as a public service, to warn people about a certain scam.

4/2/2012 Greenfellas starts

April 2, 2012.  On this date Sal Caetano orders the killing of a member of his mob family who had made a big mistake.  But Sal's life really gets interesting a few days later when he becomes a grandfather - and discovers that climate change might make his little granddaughter's future unlivable.  So Sal decides to use all his Mafia skills to save the environment.  Hey, how hard can it be?

3/1/2016 TiMH takes a break

March 1, 2016. I have logged on this site every day for fourteen months, but it is time to take a hiatus.  (Hopefully not "suspending my campaign" as the candidates say.)  I have a deadline for a book and I need to concentrate on that.  Things will show up here occasionally, mostly ones that I set up long in advance for one reason or another.  If you have the site on your RSS feed it will show up there.

I will still be doing my thing at SleuthSayers and Little Big Crimes.

Otherwise, see ya around.  Thanks for reading.

Summing up the year

January 1 begins the second year of Today in MYSTERY HISTORY.  I hope you've enjoyed it and maybe learned something.  Just for fun, here is a list of all the authors who received at least two mentions here in 2015.   The usual suspects, mostly. 

And, hey, if you want to support this blog, you could go HERE and consider buying something.

Margaret Allingham
Lawrence Block
Jorge Luis Borges
John Buchan
John Dickson Carr
Raymond Chandler
Leslie Charteris
Agatha Christie
Arthur Conan Doyle
Dick Francis
Sue Grafton
Martha Grimes
Dashiell Hammett
Tony Hillerman

Chester Himes
Alfred Hitchcock
Roy Huggins
Shirley Jackson
Carolyn Keene
Stieg Larsson
Elmore Leonard
Robert Lopresti
John D. MacDonald
Ross Macdonald
Ross McBain
John Mortimer
Edgar Allan Poe
Ellery Queen
Rex Stout
Jim Thompson
Donald E. Westlake

10/7/2014 Shanks on Crime arrives

October 7, 2014.  Your humble calendar-keeper has written a bunch of short stories about mystery writer Leopold Longshanks.  This book contains nine that  Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine picked up and four that have never appeared in public before.  Shanks is a curmudgeon who just wants to be left in peace to write fiction, but true crime keeps interfering...

7/17/2015 Greenfellas is published

July 17, 2015.  Today is the official publication date for Greenfellas, the new novel by Robert Lopresti.  And here is the first review:

**** Robert Lopresti, GREENFELLAS, Oak Tree Press, $17.95. If Carl Hiassen and Al Gore had collaborated on RESERVOIR DOGS, it might have come out something like GREENFELLAS. Then again, it probably wouldn't. Robert Lopresti, whose stories have appeared in EQMM, AHMM, and THE STRAND, among others, has penned a comic crime novel in which a New Jersey mobster with a bad comb-over decides to use his resources to save the environment for future generations. The dialogue is crisp and the situations darkly funny. - Steve Steinbock, "The Jury Box," ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, August,2015.

7/1/2005 Lopresti's Such A Killing Crime published

July 1, 2005.  Robert Lopresti's novel of murder during the folk music revival in Greenwich Village, 1963, is published.

5/5/2014 Shanks Holds The Line

May 5. 2014.  Trace Evidence, the Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine blog, puts up a free short story.  Robert Lopresti offered "Shanks Holds The Line" as a public service, to warn people about a certain scam.

3/7/1963 Such A Killing Crime begins

March 7, 1963.  On this date the action begins in the novel Such A Killing Crime, set in Greenwich Village during the Great Folk Music Scare.  Joe Talley runs a coffee house in New York.  When one of his favorite singers is killed on his stage he hunts for the man's missing demo tape, which may lead him to a killer...

1/1/2015 Today in MYSTERY HISTORY begins

January 1, 2015

A new blog begins.  Today in MYSTERY HISTORY will report on some event related to mystery fiction every day.  It could be an author's birthdate, the anniversary of a book's publication or a movie's release, the date of some event in a crime novel, or much more.

If you have a suggestion for something you would like to see commemorated, leave it in the comments.  One warning: I don't list the birthdays of living individuals.

Enjoy!