If you’re in the Toronto area this weekend, come on out to the launch of the new Felix Renn novella, “Black-Eyed Kids,” taking place at the Word on the Street book and magazine festival.

I will be signing from noon to 1:00 p.m. at the Burning Effigy Press booth (FB18) located at Queen’s Park Crescent East, halfway between St. Joseph’s St. and Wellesley St.

Also, this arrived today…

The June 1946 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine featured the winners of the mag’s very first short story contest. Consequently it also marked the first appearance of Lew Archer, the private detective created by Ross Macdonald, and the one, along with Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, who provided the primary influence for Felix Renn.

The story in this issue is called “Find the Woman” (it came fourth in the contest), and it’s credited to Kenneth Millar, which is Ross Macdonald’s real name. Millar wouldn’t start calling himself Macdonald until the publication of the first Lew Archer novel, The Moving Target.

Macdonald wrote 18 Lew Archer novels in all. The final one, The Blue Hammer, was published in 1976, the year I was born.

In an amusing twist, Macdonald’s detective actually had a different name for his short story debut in “Find the Woman.”

His name?

Rogers.