My newest Crimewave column appeared in the National Post this Easter Weekend, with an accidental focus on second books in series by Robert Rotenberg, Stephen Legault, and Owen Laukkanen. His thriller CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE, which brings back his duo of Minnesota state police detective Kirk Stevens and FBI special agent Carla Windermere, was the standout. (I also profiled Laukkanen for Maclean’s in advance of his debut a year or so ago.)

Speaking of Maclean’s, I reviewed three books for them in March: Becky Masterman’s first crime novel RAGE AGAINST THE DYING, and the memoirs WITH OR WITHOUT YOU by Domenica Ruta and WAVE by Sonali Deraniyagala. All of them are well worth reading for wildly divergent reasons.

Now that her novels SPEEDBOAT and PITCH DARK are set to be republished by NYRB Classics on Tuesday, interest around Renata Adler hasn’t been this high since her 1999 book GONE dropped a veritable nuclear bomb on the New Yorker and the city’s literary scene. At some point soon I’ll be writing about one of Adler’s more recent, lesser-known career chapters, but in the meantime, here is a rerun — with revisions — of part of a piece I wrote for (now-defunct) The Daily in March 2011 on the book Adler was supposed to produce next — but, for reasons that still remain murky — never got published.

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Renata Adler has been a silent figure for nearly a decade, and many believe it has to do with the vociferous reaction to her 1999 book Gone, the scorched-earth epic burn of The New Yorker, which employed her from 1963 until that year. What’s less known is that Adler had her next project set: an expose of the annual Bilderberg Conference, where the world’s elite meet in a manner so secret the location changes – and is kept undisclosed until after the fact. Adler even signed a contract with non-fiction publisher PublicAffairs, which planned a 2002 publication date, the catalog copy promising a book based on a “cache of Bilderberg archives, secretly turned over to the author by a few senior leaders of the Bilderberg, the book describes the organization, and discusses who has been involved and when.”

But Private Capacity was never published (though the Amazon.com page still exists). A spokesperson for the company said at the time that a “mutual agreement” between Adler and PublicAffairs led to the book’s cancellation, adding that “while both the author and the publisher agree that the subject matter of the proposed book is fascinating, both parties also agree that a full length book treatment of the subject is probably not necessary.” PublicAffairs remained stayed mum upon our inquiries.

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Two years later and no one really knows much more than that. I was, shall we say, surprised the Bilderberg business didn’t come up in Boris Kachka’s “Adler at a party” piece*, seeing as he was talking to her at Edward Jay Epstein’s book launch — and Epstein, of course, is well-versed in all things conspiracy, murky, and unsolved. Something tells me, though, there will be answers forthcoming in the next few weeks.

*and now I see some smart-ass commenter called Adler “the Lena Dunham of her day. (That’s not a compliment.)” to which I say…uh, way to miss the point entirely, by thousands of miles.

Abiding by my unofficial adage that “if it’s listed on Amazon, the book exists”, I can finally announce this: On October 8, Touchstone will publish INHERIT THE DEAD, a suspense novel written serially by a number of excellent crime writers. People like Mark Billingham, Lawrence Block, Ken Bruen, Alafair Burke, Marcia Clark, Mary Higgins Clark, Stephen L. Carter, Lee Child, Max Allan Collins, Linda Fairstein, James Grady, Heather Graham, Charlaine Harris, Bryan Gruley, Sara Paretsky, SJ Rozan, Dana Stabenow and Lisa Unger. And also, me.

When I got the email invite last summer from Jonathan Santlofer, who conceived of and edited the project, I had to stare at it a few times. You want me for this? To keep company with this great roster of writers? The apprehension probably lasted about six seconds before I said yes. And as it turns out, the chapter was a total, absolute blast to write. I can’t wait to read the rest of the book and see what everyone else involved did to start, move along, and end the story, which is a private detective tale very much in the hardboiled tradition. All royalties from INHERIT THE DEAD will be donated to Safe Horizons. And there will be much more information, including a launch party date, closer to publication time.

Needless to say, between the serial novel and the anthology, there’s a lot going on this fall…

The second year of my Crimewave column for the National Post began over the weekend, and it seemed fitting to spotlight ongoing series — fifth entries by Ian Hamilton and Alan Bradley — and the sophomore effort by Peggy Blair. (Interestingly, THE POISONED PAWN is published in Canada a month before her first book, THE BEGGAR’S OPERA, is released in the US through Penguin’s new Pintail imprint for worthy Canadian exports.)

Earlier in the week, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s blog Something Is Going to Happen featured an essay of mine, on spending an afternoon at the now-sadly-defunct Partners & Crime bookstore sifting through vintage EQMM issues to find worthy stories for my upcoming anthology.