July Is Crime Month: The Crime Blotter, Week 3

Since July Is Crime Month at the Chronicle, the ruffians and reprobates at this rag want to be sure you find as much trouble as possible before August shows up like a nosy cop asking all the wrong questions. So each week, we’ll fill you in on films, readings, book clubs, and more where crime does pay – for a while, anyway.

Here are the trouble spots from July 15-21.

Alison Gaylin: Never Look Back
Multiple Edgar nominee Alison Gaylin (Hide Your Eyes, What Remains of Me) imagines a Seventies-era thrill kill spree similar to the Starkweather murders and examines not only the terror it inspired at the time but the repercussions still being felt 40 years later. And when the possibility surfaces that one of the killers may still be alive and living under a new identity, it sends shock waves through the lives of everyone who knows her – especially her daughter.
Mon., July 15, 7pm, BookPeople, 603 N. Lamar. www.bookpeople.com

American Psycho
Eighties greed and obsession with the body beautiful get thoroughly dismembered in this satirical horror show adapted from Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel and starring pre-Batman Christian Bale as bloodthirsty Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman.
Fri., July 15, 8:50pm. Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress. www.austintheatre.org.

Hot Fuzz
In their follow-up to zom-com Shaun of the Dead, director Edgar Wright, screenwriter/co-star Simon Pegg, and co-star Nick Frost reinvent the buddy cop movie, with the heroes being a pair of village bobbies in rural England with painfully little to do. But wait a minute – turns out there are some truly nefarious doings in sleepy Sandford, and that guns this cherry little comedy into a hilariously inventive action film.
Mon., July 15, 9:30pm; Wed., July 17, 9:30pm, at Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz, 320 E. Sixth. www.drafthouse.com/austin/theater/ritz.

The Getaway
Peckinpah in his prime, with the helmer of The Wild Bunch directing Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw (who hooked up during filming) in the gritty tale of a bank robber on the lam across Texas, with a henchman who double-crossed him on the last job in his rearview. Adapted from the novel by Jim Thompson by action specialist Walter Hill (The Driver, The Warriors, 48 HRS.). This free screening is part of the AFS X the Line: Poolside Cinema series. Prior to the screening, music by DJ Japanster.
Tue., July 16, 8pm, at the Line Hotel Austin, 111 E. Cesar Chavez. www.austinfilm.org.

J. Todd Scott: This Side of Night
For his third crime novel set in the Big Bend, former DEA agent J. Todd Scott has his continuing cast of characters – Sheriff Chris Cherry and deputies America Reynosa and Danny Ford – caught between Mexican drug cartels and an El Paso DEA agent trying to bring them down.
Thu., July 18, 7pm
BookPeople, 603 N. Lamar
www.bookpeople.com.

Ghosts, Murder, and Mayhem Walking Tour
Take a stroll into Austin’s past and follow the trail of bodies that have littered Downtown through the years. See Guytown, the German District, and the sites of the Servant Girl Annihilator murders.
Thursdays, 8:30pm. Tour meets in the JW Marriott Hotel lobby, 110 W. Second. www.austinghosttours.com.

Murder Walk Austin
Walk in the footsteps of the Servant Girl Annihilator, who terrorized Austin in 1885 and was never captured. Dubbed “the midnight assassin,” he’s considered by some to be the country’s first serial killer. Storyteller Jim Miles, owner of Walking Tours of Austin, guides you to many of the spots Downtown where the killings occurred.
Fridays and Saturdays, 8pm. Tour starts at the corner of W. Sixth & Bowie. www.touratx.com.

Murder Mystery on Sixth Street
A Dallas socialite has been found dead in an alley off Austin’s party street, and you get to solve the crime in this interactive walking tour from Austin Detours. Complimentary cocktail included – because hard-drinking detective, right? (Not to mention Sixth Street.) Seventies street clothes encouraged.
Saturdays, 7-9pm. Tour starts behind the Susanna Dickinson House, 411 E. Fifth. www.austindetours.com.

Clueless Mysteries Book Club: Whistling Past the Graveyard
In this 2013 novel, award-winning author Susan Crandall pairs a spirited 9-year-old with an African American woman as they both try to break free of their restricted lives in 1963 Mississippi. It's discussed by a group of mystery fans who meet monthly at the Wells Branch Library.
Sun., July 21, 6:30pm
Wells Branch Community Library, 15001 Wells Port.
www.meetup.com