Ideas for novels can come from so many sources. Sometimes a newspaper clipping, a phrase in a novel or even a conversation overheard in an airport lounge can spark that imagination.

J.A. Jance, currently on tour for her latest Ali Reynolds’ novel Moving Target, has used conversations with friends, a cruise and an art exhibit about domestic abuse for her inspiration. Second Watch, her last novel about Seattle investigator J.P. Beaumont, was tribute to a high school friend.

James Grippando uses the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that affected the Gulf Coast a couple of years ago for his latest thrill Black Horizon.

Michael Connelly used a crime that took place on his first day as a reporter for the L.A. Times as a springboard for Black Echo, his first Harry Bosch.

Laura Lippman used a real incident in Baltimore history for latest stand-alone After I’m Gone.

In this enthralling novel, Baltimore gambler Felix Brewer’s disappearance forever affects the lives of the wife, three daughters, and mistress he leaves behind. In Lippman’s fictional version, a murder also happens.

Lippman’s novel has been garnering universally positive reviews, including from me.

After I’m Gone is based on a piece of Baltimore history. During the 1970s, Baltimore kingpin Julius Salsbury jumped bail while on appeal for a gambling conviction. Salsbury, who has never been captured, also left behind a wife, three daughters and a mistress.

Lippman will be the subject of a profile in the next issue of Mystery Scene.

Currently, she is on tour for After I’m Gone. She’ll be in South Florida this week—details here. And she will be one of the guests of honor at SleuthFest this week.

For several years now, mega-bestseller James Patterson has been an advocate of literacy, supplying schools and programs with books for young readers.

Now Patterson has announced that he will be giving $1 million to independent bookstores to help support them. He will be donating $267,000 to 55 bookstores as well as to California Bookstore Day on May 3.

The grants range from $2,000 to $15,000; the average donation is $4,750. The rest of the $1 million will be disbursed in stages during the rest of the year, according to his web site.

Patterson says that the only requirements were that stores be "viable" and have a children's section.

In a statement, Patterson said, “Every day, booksellers are out there saving our country's literature. The work they do to support schools and the rest of their communities leaves a lasting love of reading in children and adults. I believe their work is vital to our future as a country.”

Some of the stores submitted proposals for how they would use money; some were recommended by industry professionals. Nine stores were recommended by fellow authors Kate DiCamillo, Pam Munoz Ryan, Brian Selznick, R.L. Stine and Clare Vanderpool. (Booksellers and book lovers can continue to suggest favorite stores at JamesPatterson.com.)

Stores aren't required to report on how they use the money, but Patterson has said he hopes stores will share their experiences and how the money leads to change in the stores.

One store has state it will use the money to bring children's authors to local schools and the store. Another will put the grant toward buying a van for mobile author events and book fairs. Others will use the money for needed repairs such as damaged floors and worn carpeting.

Needless to say, the bookstore owners are thrilled and appreciative.

In a New York Times story, Elaine Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage in Corte Madera and San Francisco, Calif., said, "We can't have a business plan that says James Patterson is is going to come along and give us something every year, but these are things that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

“It wouldn't mean we'd go out of business, but it would mean that this particular dream would be put off for a few years,” added Petrocelli whose grant is going toward buying a van for mobile author events and book fairs.

The First Round of Stores

The following are the 55 stores (and California Bookstore Day) receiving the first round of James Patterson's grants of $1 million, ranging from $2,000 to $15,000, and what some of them are doing with them, as noted by the stores or media, according to Shelf Awareness. Not all stores disclosed the amount of their awards:

California Bookstore Day ($15,000 for marketing and publicity)

A Whale of a Tale, Irvine, Calif.

Alamosa Books, Albuquerque, N.M.

Anderson's, Naperville, Ill. (recommended by R.L. Stine)

Andover Bookstore, Andover, Mass.

Bank Street Bookstore, New York, N.Y.

Book Bin, Northbrook, Ill.

Book Culture, New York, N.Y.

Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif. (toward the purchase of a van for mobile author events and book fairs)

Book Revue, Huntington, N.Y. (keep employees, pay property tax, repair floor and roof)

The Bookies, Denver, Colo.

The BookLoft, Great Barrington, Mass.

BookPeople, Austin, Tex.

Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla.

Books & Greetings, Northvale, N.J.

Books of Wonder, New York, N.Y. (recommended by R.L. Stine)

Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Calif. ($4,500 to bring children's authors to schools and the store)

The Bookstore Plus, Lake Placid, N.Y.

Booktenders, Doylestown, Pa. (recommended by Brian Selznick, finish gallery)

Bookworks, Albuquerque, N.M.

Brazos Bookstore, Houston, Tex. ($5,000 for kids' programming)

Brewster Book Store, Brewster, Mass.

Broadside Book Shop, Northampton, Mass.

Browseabout Books, Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Children’s Book World, Los Angeles, Calif.

Children's Book World, Haverford, Pa. (recommended by Brian Selznick, $2,500 for authors visiting schools)

The Children's Bookstore, Baltimore, Md. (possibly add to program to help teachers buy books for use in classes)

Doylestown Bookshop, Doylestown, Pa. (creative space for older children)

Eighth Day Books, Wichita, Kan. (recommended by Clare Vanderpool)

Gallery Bookshop/Bookwinkle Children, Mendocino, Calif. ($5,000 for computer system upgrades)

Hicklebee's, San Jose, Calif. (new computer system and manager bonus)

Innisfree Bookshop, Lincoln, N.H.

Lake Forest BookStore, Lake Forest, Ill.

Little Shop of Stories, Decatur, Ga. (purchase of a bookmobile)

Malaprop's Bookstore and Café, Asheville, N.C. ($7,500 for floor restoration and new carpeting)

Mysterious Galaxy, Redondo Beach and San Diego, Calif.

Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, Vt. (kids' programming)

Oblong Books, Millerton, N.Y. ($7,500 for roof repairs)

Odyssey Book Shop, South Hadley, Mass.

Old Firehouse Books, Fort Collins, Colo. ($2,500 for a summer reading program)

Page & Palette, Fairhope, Ala.

Park Road Books, Charlotte, N.C. ($2,500 for new carpeting)

Parnassus Books, Nashville, Tenn.

Percy's Burrow, Topsham, Me. ($2,500)

Phoenix Books, Essex Junction, Vt. ($5,000 for community outreach)

Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass.

Reading Reptile, Kansas City, Mo. (recommended by Brian Selznick)

Red Balloon, St. Paul, Minn. (recommended by Kate DiCamillo)

Russo's Marketplace Books, Bakersfield, Calif.

Schuler Books and Music, Okemos, Mich. (books for children)

Subterranean Books, St. Louis, Mo.

Wellesley Books, Wellesley, Mass. (iPad to sell books at off-site events, a video camera and a small PA system)

Wild Rumpus, Minneapolis, Minn. (recommended by Kate DiCamillo)

Wonderland Books, Rockford, Ill.

The Yellow Brick Road, San Diego, Calif. (recommended by Pam Munoz

As a viewer since the early Masterpiece Theatre days (when the spelling of the second word in the title was a matter of controversy), I expected this memoir of the series producer from 1985 on to be more diverting. The autobiographical parts are unremarkable, and there’s an occasional sense of public-relations puffery. Contents range from superficial summary to revealing anecdotes. The sparse coverage of the mystery programming, possibly because Rebecca Eaton has no particular enthusiasm for mystery fiction generally, is especially disappointing. Though there are scattered references to the great roster of TV detectives (John Thaw as Morse, Roy Marsden as Dalgliesh, Jeremy Brett as Holmes, David Suchet as Poirot, Michael Kitchen as Foyle, Joan Hickson as Miss Marple), there isn’t much about those programs. Most criminous coverage is given to the adaptations of Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee novels (about four pages), mystery buff Kenneth Branagh’s appearance as Kurt Wallander (two pages), and the 21st-century Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch (three or four pages), compared to 40 pages plus for Downton Abbey.

The portrait of longtime host Alistair Cooke and description of his working methods (he wrote and quickly memorized his program introductions) is certainly enlightening, and in some ways surprising. Cooke admired John Mortimer’s Rumpole stories and was unhappy that series wound up not on Masterpiece proper but on the spinoff, Mystery!

In the years before his posthumous fame as the author of the Millennium Trilogy, beginning with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Larsson was a prominent left-wing journalist in Sweden, a tireless champion of women’s rights, and an implacable enemy of racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia. This collection of his articles begins with a 1995 piece on the Oklahoma City bombing and the possibility of a similar crime in Sweden, then goes on to cover neo-Nazi political movements, astrology and superstition, the far-right Sweden Democrats, Swedish nationalism, and violence toward women and homosexuals. Only on a single page of an article describing a trip from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway is the author’s knowledge of and affection for mystery fiction explicitly revealed, with references to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train, Dorothy L. Sayers’ Five Red Herrings, and Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest.

This latest, and possibly last, gathering of Dashiell Hammett’s uncollectables includes, according to the description on the audio box, a dozen never-before-published short stories, five “short-fiction narratives,” three screen treatments, and an unfinished Sam Spade story. Though this last may strike some as the most intriguing offering, there’s too little of it to do more than whet the appetite for another dip into The Maltese Falcon. But there are more than enough other fascinating finds to make the collection a must for fans of the great man. For example, the title story, one of several that reader Ray Chase effectively growls through, features a tough-as-nails lawman who may have been a prototype for Hammett’s most frequently recurring sleuth, the Continental Op. Chase also reads a rare example of the author in an antic mood, “Sign of Potent Pills,” a PI parody. Brian Holsopple delivers “Magic,” a fantasy yarn that demonstrates realist Hammett’s surprising fascination with the occult. “Seven Pages,” read in a straightforward, just-the-facts manner by Stephen Bowlby, is a string of autobiographical vignettes that range from the author’s Baltimore youth to a sort of love song to a mysterious redhead of his acquaintance. (There’s also a brief recorded memory of a moment in which he has a face-off with Fatty Arbuckle that may have been one of the inspirations for Ace Atkins’ Devil’s Garden, a fictional account of young Pinkerton detective Hammett’s actual work for the defense during the silent film comedian’s infamous rape-murder trial.) The film stories, also read by Chase, while not quite as well-crafted as Hammett’s draft for the previously published After the Thin Man, are nonetheless entertaining, especially “On the Make” the longest work in the collection. It was originally intended to be a Sam Spade movie, but for this draft the main character has been changed to a crooked private eye named Gene Richmond. The ending is almost as bleak as that of “The Glass Key.” Additionally, there is an introduction and commentaries by Hammett biographer Richard Layman and an afterword by the author’s granddaughter, Julie M. Rivett. As read with sincerity and a hint of playfulness by Donna Postel, all are packed with fascinating information about the stories and their legendary creator.