Best-selling mystery author Michael Connelly has pulled together a collection of articles from his days as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and in Florida. Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers is to be released May 8 by Little, Brown, which calls the stories "stranger than fiction and every bit as gripping."

Speaking of new books: Publishers Marketplace reports that former game show producer Chuck Barris has sold The Big Question, "a satire set in the near-future, when a producer discovers the formula for the ultimate reality/game show, where contestants compete for millions of dollars -- and face on-camera execution if they lose."

Photo: Little, Brown