B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 105

Mystery Melange

The 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards were announced at last weekend's virtual WORD Christchurch Spring Festival in New Zealand, with two debut novels coming up on top. Becky Manawatu won the award for best crime writing for her novel Aue, and R.W.R. McDonald has picked up the award for best new crime writing with his debut novel, The Nancy's. (HT to Shots Magazine)

The Capital Crime Festival announced the Amazon Publishing Readers' Awards for 2020. The winners include Crime Book of the year: Without A Trace by Mari Hannah; Mystery Book of the Year: The Mist by Ragnar Jónasson; Thriller Book of the Year: Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton; E-Book of the Year: Death in the East by Abir Mukherjee; Debut Book of the Year: Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi; and Independent Voice Book of the Year: Beast by Matt Wesolowski.

There's a new festival coming to the UK, the very first established crime fiction event in Wales. The Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival will take place from April 30th to May 2nd 2022 in the West Wales coastal resort and university town of Aberystwyth. In 2021, as a warm up to the event, there will also be a free, digital festival, and plans are also underway for the launch of the Crime Cymru First Crime Novel Competition. As part of what is planned as a biennial event, the festival plans to offer aspiring authors a pitch-the-agent session as well as potential workshops on writing thrillers. (HT to Alis Hawkins over at 7 Criminal Minds)

 

Ian Fleming fans, take note: Sotheby’s in London is currently hosting an online sale through November 11 that features “undoubtedly the most significant collection of Fleming ever to appear on the market.” Every Bond book is represented in the 114-lot sale, either in manuscript, proof, or first edition, several containing inscriptions to famous friends (Sir Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Raymond Chandler), plus a few from Fleming’s own legendary library.

Book Riot featured a selection of "8 Mysteries and Thrillers by Black Authors" to add to your to-be-read pile.

Crime writers take note: Spot, the robot dog from Boston Dynamics, is becoming a more common partner with law enforcement. In August 2019, the Massachusetts State Police was the first law enforcement agency to use the robot dog, as a “mobile remote observation device," and just recently, Spot was spotted at an active crime scene in New York City involving a shooting suspect.

From the true crime you-can't-make-this-up department comes this headline from BBC News, "Russian 'Sausage King' killed in sauna with a crossbow."

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Mouthpiece" by Peter M. Gordon.

In the Q&A roundup, Writer's Who Kill's Grace Topping chatted with Alexia Gordon, physician by day and author by night of the Gethsemane Brown mysteries; Author Interviews chatted with Matthew Hart, a veteran writer and journalist who just published his first novel, The Russian Pink; and John Wisniewski interviewed Tom Vater, author of the Detective Maier series set in Southeast Asia, for Punk Noir Magazine.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange - Halloween EditionMystery Melange 

FFB - Night & Fear

He's been called the "Edgar Allan Poe of the 20th century," the "father of noir fiction," "the Hitchcock of the written word," and "our poet of the shadows." It's quite possible more film noir screenplays were adapted from his works than any other crime novelist, including films by Hitchcock, Truffaut and Fassbinder, with many stories also adapted during the 1940s for radio.Yet, when the centennial of his birth rolled around in 2003, few of his works were available in stores in or print, and the date passed with mostly a collective yawn.

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich, who also wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley, was an eccentric, alcoholic, and a diabetic, who had a leg amputated due to an infection from a too-tight shoe. He was both shy and arrogant, but primarily a loner, who was said to have so few friends he rarely put dedications on his novels, and when he did, they were to things like his Remington Portable typewriter and a hotel room he hated. He was a conflicted homosexual who married briefly as a joke, and ended up living with his mother in a rat-infested Harlem tenement with pimps, prostitutes and criminals, even though they could have afforded better (upon his death, he left a bequest of one million dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for young writers).

He started out writing romantic fiction imitating F. Scott Fitzgerald, but turned to pulp fiction in 1934 and wrote for magazines like Black Mask, Detective Fiction Weekly and Dime Detective. His golden period came between the years of 1934 to 1948, although he continued to write off and on until his death in 1968. Both his earlier and many of his later works weren't on the same level as the middle output (although he wrote several good later stories for EQMM). Even Francis M. Nevins, Woolrich's literary executor who wrote a critical biography and edited three of the Woolrich short story collections, admitted that "purely on its merits as prose, it's dreadful."

Yet, those middle works included tales like the story "Rear Window" which later became a famous Alfred Hitchcock movie. In the introduction to the Woolrich story collection, Night and Fear, Nevins talks about Woolrich's first crime story, "Death Sits in the Dentist's Chair," which paints a vivid picture of New York City during the Depression, a bizarre murder method (cynanide in a temporary filing), and a race against the clock to save the poisoned protagonist, elements that would become Woolrich hallmarks. Nevins writes "in his tales of 1934-39, Woolrich created, almost from scratch, the builidng blocks of the literature we have come to call noir."

The 14 stories in Night and Fear, published by Otto Penzler in 2004, contain all the elements that came to be associated with Woolrich, including the intense, feverish, irrational nature of his world, and plots often filled with outlandish contrivances and coincidences. But Nevins concludes that "in his most powerful work these are not gaffes but functional elements," and that Woolrich believed "an incomprehensible universe is best reflected in an incomprehensible story." Thus, Woolrich's oft-quoted aphorism, "First you dream, then you die."

In Night and Fear, you'll find stories like "Endicott's Girl," which Woolrich once listed as his personal favorite, about a cop who begins to suspect his beloved teenage daughter is a murderer and covers up the evidence; "Cigarette" where a poison cigarette is passed from person to person; and "New York Blues," which is probably Woolrich's final story, involving the claustrophobic imaginings of a lonely man as he waits for the police in his secluded hotel room for a crime he's not sure he even committed:

It's a woman's scarf; that much I know about it. And that's about all. But whose? Hers? And how did I come by it? How did it get into the side pocket of my jacket, dangling on the outside, when I came in here early Wednesday morning in some sort of traumatic daze, looking for room walls to hide inside of as if they were a folding screen...
It's flimsy stuff, but it has a great tensile strength when pulled against its grain. The strength of the garrote. It's tinted in pastel colors that blend, graduate, into one another, all except one. it goes from a flamingo pink to a peach tone and then to a still paler flesh tint—and then suddenly an angry, jagged splash of blood colors comes in, not even like the other...
 
The blood isn't red anymore. It's rusty brown now. But it's still blood, all the same. Ten years from now, twenty, it'll still be blood; faded out, vanished, the pollen of, the dust of blood. What was one once warm and moving. And made blushes and rushed with anger and paled with fear. Like that night—

Fortunately you can find more Woolrich works available these days, including re-releases of some of his novels and short stories by Hard Case Crime, Pegasus Books. Random House, and others. Almost any one of his stories would make for fine Halloween-season fare, as you find yourself sucked down into the nihilistic noir world that Woolrich created.

            

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Mads Mikkelsen and Armie Hammer have been confirmed to star in writer-director Amma Asante’s The Billion Dollar Spy, which is based on the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, David E. Hoffman. The project is based on the true story of how Soviet engineer, Adolf Tolkachev (Mikkelsen), and his CIA handler, Brad Reid (Hammer), risked their lives to help bring an end to the Cold War.

Josh Duhamel, Abbie Cornish, Nick Nolte, and Omar Chaparro are set to star in the action thriller, Blackout, with filming underway in Mexico City. Blackout follows Cain (Duhamel), who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with no memory. After meeting Anna (Cornish), he discovers who he is but soon finds himself fighting for his life as several warring cartel factions attack him, each looking for something he has stolen. Cain looks towards co-worker and mentor, DEA Agent McCoy (Nolte), for answers.

Sydney Sweeney will take the lead role in the crime drama, Silver Star, which charts the story of an unlikely couple: Buddy, a 20-year-old fresh out of jail, and Franny (Sweeney), a pregnant 19-year-old. After Buddy's botched robbery attempt at the bank that foreclosed on his childhood home, he abducts Franny, triggering an unexpected journey together. Casting for the male lead is underway with filming scheduled for early 2021 in the U.S. 

The celebrated Thai martial arts star, Tony Jaa, will play the lead in an English-language action-thriller film (as yet untitled) that's hoped to be the first installment of a three-picture franchise. Jaa will play a legendary assassin who disappeared three years ago and becomes the target of criminal organizations and law enforcement agencies. According to producers, the story will unfold in an unconventional structure, and as the manhunt accelerates, the mystery of the assassin’s identity is slowly unraveled.

Matt Damon will be making an unbilled cameo in Steven Soderbergh’s latest HBO Max crime thriller, No Sudden Move. The project is set in 1955 Detroit and centers on a group of small-time criminals who are hired to steal what they think is a simple document. When their plan goes horribly wrong, their search for who hired them and why weaves them through all echelons of the race-torn, rapidly changing city.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Cush Jumbo, James Nesbitt, Richard Armitage, and Sarah Parish have been set as leads in the series adaptation of Harlan Coben’s bestselling novel, Stay Close, for Netflix. Coben is penning the eight-episode drama, which will be relocated from the U.S. to the UK. The story follows three people living comfortable lives who each conceal dark secrets that even the closest to them would never suspect. As the past comes back to haunt them, threatening to ruin their lives and the lives of those around them, what will be their next move?

CBS is taking a shot on adapting the German police procedural dramedy, Einstein, with major changes to the original concept. The 2017 German series was a police procedural about the unknown great-great-grandson of Albert Einstein, a theoretical physics professor, who helps the police in solving murder cases. The CBS take centers on a roguish, out-of-the-box-thinking physics professor who happens to be the secret, illegitimate great-granddaughter of Albert Einstein. She begrudgingly partners with a Boston homicide detective not only to help solve the most puzzling of crimes, but also to address the problems inside the institution of policing itself. 

CBS has put in development the drama, Tempest, from Jeff Buhler. The story centers around an ex-Army intelligence officer and her survivalist brother-in-law as they work together to solve the mysterious death of her husband. Their discovery that he was one of 127 test subjects in a top secret government mind control program leads them to try to track down and save the remaining test subjects before they commit the most heinous acts of terror.

Amazon Prime Video has acquired the psychological thriller drama series, Tell Me Your Secrets, starring Lily Rabe, Amy Brenneman, Hamish Linklater, and Enrique Murciano. The 10-episode drama revolves around a trio of characters who all have a mysterious and troubling past. As each of them is pushed to the edge, the truth about their pasts and motives grows ever murkier, blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator. 

Amazon is also in negotiations to pick up the action-thriller screenplay titled Ruby, which is about a female assassin. Plot details are sketchy, but the story is said to be in the spirit of the Geena Davis-Samuel L. Jackson 1996 cult action, Long Kiss Goodnight, which followed a schoolteacher suffering from amnesia who sets out on a journey to find out who she is with the help of a private detective until they uncover a dark conspiracy.

The CW has acquired additional seasons of the Canadian drama series, Coroner and Burden of Truth, along with a three-episode Bulletproof special event. Burden of Truth follows Joanna Chang (Kristin Kreuk), a ruthless, big-city lawyer who returns to her small hometown in Millwood for a case that will change her life forever; Coroner is based on the Jenny Cooper series of novels by M. R. Hall and stars Serinda Swan as a recently widowed coroner in Toronto who investigates suspicious deaths; Bulletproof follows NCA detectives and best friends, Aaron Bishop (Noel Clarke) and Ronnie Pike Jr. (Ashley Walters), who investigate some of the UK's most dangerous criminals.

Rachel Keller has been cast in a lead role opposite Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe in HBO Max’s upcoming drama series, Tokyo Vice, from executive produce Michael Mann, who is directing the pilot episode. Keller will play Samantha, a role recast after Odessa Young pulled out due to scheduling conflicts. Created and written by J.T. Rogers and based on Jake Adelstein’s nonfiction book, Tokyo Vice is a firsthand account of a young American journalist (Elgort) working the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat.

Netflix has ordered a third season of its drug-trafficking drama series, Narcos: Mexico. When it returns, it will be without series lead Diego Luna (who portrayed drug cartel leader Félix Gallardo), and with a new showrunner. Season 2 ended with Luna’s Gallardo sentenced to prison for his drug trafficking crimes and there had been speculation he would not return if the series was renewed for a third season. Series co-creator Carlo Bernard will be taking over day-to-day showrunning duties from Eric Newman, who is stepping back after five seasons.

Due to Covid-19, CBS has trimmed the orders for most of its scripted series from a full-season 22 episodes down to 16-18. The programs affected include the NCIS franchise, Blue Bloods, SEAL Team, Magnum P.I. and Bull.

The CW has announced premiere dates for its new season next January, including the returning series Nancy Drew (January 20), and new drama, Walker (January 21) starring Jared Padalecki, which is a reboot of the 1990s series, Walker, Texas Ranger.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On a recent episode of the podcast In GAD We Trust, James Scott Byrnside stopped by to discuss mystery tropes of the Golden Age such as "the dying message," "the false solution," and "the seance." Authors singled out for particular praise include Christianna Brand and Anthony Berkeley Cox, whereas G. K. Chesterton and Ellery Queen come in for some criticism. (HT to The Bunburyist blog)

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts, Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste, discussed horror novels in honor of Halloween, including their favorites; the differences between crime and horror; and much more.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime and suspense writer, A.C. Frieden, on the Crime Cafe podcast.

Dr. DP Lyle returned to My Favorite Detective Stories to chat about his award-winning books and also consulting with novelists and television shows.

Suspense Radio welcomed thriller author, Brad Parks, to talk about his latest book, Interference.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with author Dan Padavona about his Darkwater Cove Psychological Thrilles series, the latest of which, Don't Breathe, was published October 29th.

Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Drew Murray about his new novel, Broken Genius.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a "Halloween Cozy Roundup."

Doug Johnstone was the special guest on The Tartan Noir Show, chatting about the stroke he had at the beginning of lockdown and how he finished the first draft of a new novel while recovering. He's the author of a series that started with A Dark Matter, shortlisted for this year’s McIlvanney Prize.

The Gay Mystery Podcast spoke with Randy Boyd, whose four novels, including two mystery/thrillers, have been nominated for five Lambda Literary Awards and all feature main characters who are black, gay, and living with HIV/AIDS. 

Maxine Mei-Fung Chung was interviewed by Robert Justice for The Crime Writers of Color podcast. Maxine is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist who lectures on trauma, gender and sexuality, clinical dissociation, and attachment theory. The Eighth Girl, her debut novel, was published earlier this year and has been optioned for film by Netflix with Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan.

Tori Eldridge stopped by the Unlikeable Female Characters podcast to talk about her Lily Wong series, as well as her best self-defense tips, and her thoughts on violence and vengeance in crime fiction.

The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast featured prolific short story author, John M. Floyd, recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement, reading his story, "On the Road With Mary Jo," from the January/February 2019 issue of EQMM.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Mystery Melange - Halloween Edition

Looking for some great mystery reads? Janet Rudolph has a running list of "Halloween Crime Fiction" over at the Mystery Fanfare blog (look for the latest edition soon), and CBC offers up "13 spine-tingling Canadian reads to check out for Halloween."

This year's virtual Bloody Scotland conference is in the record books, but you still have a chance to join in the fun. Most of the panels and interviews, which streamed live from September 18-20, are available on YouTube until October 30.

Publishers Weekly is already out with its "best books of 2020" list, including those in the Mystery/Thriller category. The titles include And Now She’s Gone by Rachel Howzell Hall, Black Sun Rising by Matthew Carr, The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart, and ten others. You can check out the full listing here.

The annual Dead Good Books Reader Awards is on hiatus this year, but they asked readers to pick the 100 best crime and thriller books ever. From iconic classic mysteries to contemporary bestsellers, from Golden Age classics to modern detective novels and game-changing psychological thrillers, the list covers the gamut.

Meanwhile, the Goodreads Choice Awards are open for voting. The first round of the 12th annual Awards, which are decided by readers, runs now through November 8. Check out the 15 titles in the Best Mystery/Thriller category here and cast your vote for your favorite.

Suspense Magazine is also soliciting readers' favorite crime fiction books of the year as they begin the process of building the December "Best of" issue. Over the next two weeks, they'll be seeking readers to send a list of favorites for 2020 in various categories including Cozy, Thriller/Suspense, Debut Author, Romantic Suspense, Horror, Urban Fantasy/Paranormal, Historical Fiction, Anthology, YA/Teen, and True Crime. Votes should be returned to reviews@suspensemagazine.com by November 15th.

Congratulations to Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, which is celebrating its 30th birthday this Saturday. The store noted that "This year has been trying for everyone, including retailers. When we temporarily closed our doors in March we did not know what would happen. However, with you all by our side, we have been able to reopen. We plan to be here another 30 years and continue to be a destination for book lovers." As part of the celebration, the store is hosting a Zoom event tonight at 7:30 with Richard Goldman, who founded the store with his late wife, Mary Alice Gorman. (Tara Goldberg-DeLeo and Kristy Bodnar bought the store in 2018). Register for the free event here. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

NPR's Scott Simon spoke with historian Elizabeth Bradley about the 200th anniversary of the publication of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," featuring Washington Irving's iconic headless horseman and Ichabod Crane.

Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast from King's River Life Magazine has a bonus episode up just for Halloween. The mystery short story with a supernatural twist, titled "The Takeover," is written by Kaye George and read by actor Ariel Linn.

Kings River Life Magazine also has some free seasonal stories for you, including "The Caldera: A Halloween Ghost Story," by Margaret Mendel and "Liver Man: A Halloween Mystery Short Story" by Ang Pompano, as well as reviews of a few other mystery titles.

Tales from a Moonlit Path's Halloween issue also has some spooky stories to keep you up at night.

The Mystery Lovers Kitchen authors are back with some Halloween suggestions, including Cleo Coyle's Virgin Candy Appletini; Krista Davis's "Spooky Fun with Fruit"; Maddie Day's "Soul Cakes"; Mary Jane Maffini's Homemade Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits; Daryl Wood Gerber's Halloween Ghost Cupcakes; Leslie Budewitz's Puff Pastry Rattlers; and Leslie Karst's Sauteed Pumpkin with Garlic and Mint.

 

The Rap Sheet blog has a listing of many of the crime fiction books being released from publishers this fall through December, in both the U.S. and the UK., which means (as editor Jeff Pierce notes in his apt headline) that if you're "Trapped Inside with Books? No Problem!"

Have you somehow never read any Agatha Christie novels or just don't know where to start? The New York Times has an overview with a promise that "whether you want to be scared, shocked or stumped, we will help you pick your poison."

Radio Dramas were king of the airwaves prior to the advent of television and CrimeReads offers up some good suggestions for the Halloween season that you find through streaming apps or on YouTube.

Inspired by The Great British Baking Show, Book Riot's Annika Barranti Klein noted that horror baking books are actually a thing, and she rounded up eighteen horror-themed baking books just in time for Halloween.

Just because the coronavirus pandemic is keeping you home this year doesn't mean you can't have a little Halloween spirit with some "Bookish Halloween Shirts."

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "What Do You Know About Love?" by Stephen J. Golds.

In the Q&A roundup, Jeffery Deaver spoke with The Guardian about the influence of Ian Fleming, learning from Saul Bellow, and crying over Annie Proulx; the Los Angeles Times interviewed Rachel Howzell Hall and Attica Locke about how crime writers of color reconcile their fictional good cops with reality (subscription required); and Deborah Kahl chatted with Nicci French (the pen name for the wife-and-husband writing team of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) about their new novel, House of Correction.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Derek Kolstad, creator of the John Wick franchise, is teaming up with Swiss producer-distributor, Ascot Elite Entertainment, director Claudio Faeh, and producer Christopher Milburn on the action-thriller, Acolyte. The project centers on a rogue government agency that’s using blackmail to coerce everyday citizens into committing acts of domestic terror. The agency mistakenly kidnaps the wife of a retired operative who responds by recruiting a disbanded group of trained "associates" to exact revenge and rescue his wife. Casting is underway in London, and Ascot Elite is aiming for the film to become the first in a series of related features.

Taylor Kitsch has been set as the new male lead in Wash Me in the River, after Colson "Machine Gun Kelly" Baker dropped out due to scheduling. Kitsch joins Robert De Niro and John Malkovich in the drama that will be directed by Randall Emmett. The action-thriller, which shoots early next month in Georgia and Puerto Rico, is said to be in the vein of No Country for Old Men. Kitsch will play a recovering addict who starts a violent vendetta against the dealers responsible for selling the drugs that resulted in his fiancée’s death.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is set to join the ensemble cast of the Sony action-thriller, Bullet Train, also starring Brad Pitt and the recently added Joey King and Andrew Koji. The film is based on the Japanese novel, Maria Beetle, by best-selling author Kotaro Isaka. Plot details are vague though Taylor-Johnson is expected to play one of the four assassins in the film along with Pitt and King.

Toby Huss has joined the action-thriller, CopShop, in a supporting role. Gerard Butler, Frank Grillo, and Alexis Louder lead the cast in the film, which is being written and directed by Joe Carnahan. The plot centers on a small-town police station that becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Butler), a smart rookie female cop (Louder), and a double-crossing con man (Grillo) who, with no place left to run, seeks refuge behind bars.

Sony has given a new release date (November 20) and released a trailer for the crime drama, The Last Vermeer. Based on the book, The Man Who Made Vermeers, by Jonathan Lopez, the story follows Joseph Piller (played by Claes Bang), a Dutch Jew who fought in the Resistance during the Second World War. Following the war, Piller becomes an investigator assigned the task of identifying and redistributing stolen art. He zeroes in on the flamboyant Han van Meegeren (Guy Pearce) who hosted hedonistic soirées and allegedly sold Dutch art treasures to Hermann Goring and other top Nazis. Van Meegeren is arrested for collaboration, punishable by death, but, despite mounting evidence, Piller, with the aid of his assistant (Vicky Krieps), becomes increasingly convinced of Han’s innocence and finds himself in the unlikely position of fighting to save his life.

The first trailer was released for Dreamland, the Margot Robbie-led story of a fugitive bank robber during the Great Depression. Finn Cole (Peaky Blinders) also stars, playing a young man who dreams of escaping his small Texas town. When he encounters Robbie’s character, wounded and on the run, he is torn between claiming her bounty and his growing attraction to her. Vertical Entertainment will release the film in more than 100 theaters beginning November 13 before the film heads to video-on-demand starting November 17.





TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Dick Wolf’s groundbreaking 1990s cop drama, New York Undercover, is making a return. NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, Peacock, is in negotiations for a new incarnation of the project, which is expected to receive a series commitment. Written by Ayanna Floyd Davis, the new project is described as a re-examination of the original, reflecting the current times, and will pick up twenty years later. The original 1994 program starred Malik Yoba and Michael DeLorenzo as undercover detectives, marking the first police drama on U.S. television to feature two people of color in the lead roles. The reimagining is still in very early stages, and it's not known whether it would feature characters from the original series.

Jake Gyllenhaal will star in and executive produce the HBO crime series, The Son. Based on Jo Nesbø’s novel of the same name, the story follows an electrifying tale of vengeance set amid Oslo’s brutal hierarchy of corruption. Denis Villeneuve will direct, and writer Lenore Zion will serve as showrunner. (Nesbø himself will also serve as one of the executive producers.)

Actor Bertie Carvel (Dr. Foster) will take the lead in a six-episode UK series based on P.D. James’s stories featuring Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. The series will trace Dalgliesh’s crime-fighting career from 1970s England to the present day, with each story featuring him solving an unusual murder. Each case will offer its own unique setting and guest cast. The new series, titled Dalgliesh, will include adaptations of Shroud for a Nightingale, featuring the murder of a student nurse; Dorset-set The Black Tower, an investigation into a strange home for the disabled; and A Taste for Death, in which a homeless pensioner and a Minister of the Crown are found dead in a church. Roy Marsden played Dalgliesh across several series in the 1980s and 1990s.

David Gordon Green is developing a series adaptation of Smokey and the Bandit for the NBC-affiliated production company, UCP. The project, based on the 1977 film starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, is described as "an epic adventure of family, small-town crime, unlikely heroes, legend and legacy. Inspired by the genre of 70s and 80s drive-in double-features, the series explores the crossroads where humble realities meet those larger-than-life, all in a blast of tailpipe exhaust." Green will direct the pilot and co-write with Brian Sides, while Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins of Fuzzy Door will executive produce.

The short-form streaming series, Quibi, is shutting down as of December 1 after less than a year in operation. Launched in April in the early weeks of pandemic shutdowns, the subscription service targeting teenagers and young adults never gained any traction for shows told in under-10-minute "quick bites" meant to be consumed on smartphones — despite the involvement of big stars like Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, and Liam Hemsworth. The service raised nearly $2 billion and included such programs as the thrillers, Most Dangerous Game, Survive, The Fugitive, and Wireless; the crime drama, #FreeRayshawn; and the psychological thriller, The Stranger.

Netflix has put a third season of Mindhunter on "indefinite hold." Created by Joe Penhall, Mindhunter is based on the true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, and stars Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv.

James Cusati-Moyer has booked a recurring role on Netflix’s upcoming limited series, Inventing Anna. The ten-episode series from Scandal creator, Shonda Rhimes, adapts the New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler about Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey, the 28-year-old who faked being a German heiress to swindle New York elite out of more than $200,000. Cusati-Moyer will play Val, a stylist and fashion director who experiences firsthand the whiplash of a whirlwind friendship with Anna.

Maura Tierney (The Affair) is set to recur on Showtime's Your Honor, the limited legal drama. Bryan Cranston stars as Michael Desiato, a respected judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run in New Orleans that leads to a high-stakes game of lies, deceit, and impossible choices. Tierney plays Fiona McKee, a fearless prosecutor trying a major case in Desiato’s courtroom in four episodes of the show.

A trailer has been released for The Flight Attendant, based on Chris Bohjalian's novel. HBO Max will premiere the eight-episode limited series, starring and produced by Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory), November 26. The cast also includes Michiel Huisman, Rosie Perez, Zosia Mamet, Michelle Gomez, T.R. Knight, and Colin Woode.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Read or Dead hosts, Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham, mourned the ending of The President is Missing adaptation, celebrated some revivals and reboots, and talked about their love of audiobooks.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime and suspense writer, A.C. Frieden, on the Crime Cafe podcast. A native of Switzerland, he's earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in molecular biology, two law degrees, and got his pilot's certificate and scuba instructor license.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring part of the first chapter of the Halloween-appropriate, Lipstick, Lies & Dead Guys by Jennifer Fischetto, as read by actor Teya Juarez.

The latest edition of Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction, hosted by Dr. DP Lyle, tackled the subject of "Nasty Deadly Poisons."

Suspense Radio spoke with John Gilstrap about book twelve in the Jonathan Grave series, Hellfire.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Rick Mofina, a former journalist who has interviewed murderers on death row, flown over Los Angeles with the LAPD and patrolled with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. Rick’s novel, Missing Daughter, just won the 2020 Barry Award for Best Paperback Original Mystery/Crime Novel.

The Gay Mystery Podcast's featured guest was Frank W. Butterfield, the Amazon best-selling author of over sixty novels, novellas, and short stories, including the Nick Williams Mystery Series.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, spoke with Beau Johnson about his short story collection, All of Them to Burn.

The Tartan Noir Show's guest this week was Graeme Macrae Burnet, whose second novel, His Bloody Project, was shorted-listed for the Booker Prize.

Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about running partial license plates; manner/cause/mechanism of death; and using the Peter Principle in your character creation.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Michelle Cox, author of the multiple award-winning Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as "Novel Notes of Local Lore," a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago's forgotten residents.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Quote of the Week

            

Dagger Delights

This Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Awards, which celebrate the best in crime writing, were announced during a live virtual ceremony yesterday, hosted by writer and critic Barry Forshaw, and featuring Richard Osman. You can see all the winners below (click on the image to make it larger) and also check out the finalists via this link:

            

FFB: Good Cop, Bad Cop

Barbara D'Amato is the author of two Chicago-based series, one with freelance reporter, Cat Marsala, and the other being what she calls her "Chicago police series." The second title in the latter group was 1998's Good Cop, Bad Cop, based on the real-life notorious 1969 Chicago police raid on the Black Panthers, which killed Fred Hampton. D'Amato uses that as a jumping off point to tell a modern-day Cain and Abel story, featuring two sons of a bullying cop father:  Nick Bertolucci, who was part of the Black Panther raid and years later is now Chicago's superintendent of police, and his brother Aldo, the "bad cop" who hates his brother enough to try and sabotage his career after finding evidence that links Nick to one of the deaths in the assault. D'Amato throws in an interesting cast of supporting characters, including Suze Figueroa, the detective who's brought back from D'Amato's first Chicago Police Series novel, Killer.App (1996).

D'Amato has prided herself on her research, spending time with cops and walking her mysteries through Chicago's neighborhoods to figure out the timing of crimes. Although she says her favorite author is Agatha Christie ("no wasted words, and plots like steel traps"), she uses a punchy, staccato style better suited to the gritty day-to-day details from cops on the beat, and ratchets up the page-turning quotient with short sentences, paragraphs and chapters. She even adds some dark humor into the mix—not surprising she's worked as carpenter for stage magic illusions, assistant tiger handler, and written musical comedies—as with this scene after a body is found on the rail tracks:

 

Fiddleman got up the el stairs faster than Reilly, who was a fat, pink-colored white man of forty-five.

Fiddleman approached the stock-still el train, on which a few dazed night workers sat. He guessed there were maybe six people on the train, at what was now 1:17.

Three of the passengers, as well as the train's engineer, had got out. A middle-aged man in a camel hair jacket was throwing up at the far end of the station, which was only fifteen feet away, not nearly far enough.

An elderly woman, easily seventy-five, wearing carpet slippers with slits cut for her corns despite the cold weather, was looking down at the tracks. Fiddleman was about to take her gently by the shoulders and move her away from the horrible scene when she said, "Christ, and I just had liver for dinner."

Fiddleman hoped she was speaking from some sort of civilian shock. Then he thought in an instant's flash of remorse, who do I know what sort of life she's had, she's here on the el at this hour, this weather? At her age.

Then he looked down at the track and understood what she meant.

When asked once what Chicago has to offer mystery writers, she replied, "Chicago has absolutely everything. It's a beautiful city. It has architecture you'll never see anywhere else. And it has a lot of places to hide. There are a lot of old tunnels in Chicago—there are old freight tunnels, abandoned subway tunnels. You can hide here. You can also blend in. Chicago has every ethnic neighborhood known to man. There are so many neighborhoods where you can blend in, depending on how you dress."

Good Cop Bad Cop won the 1998 Carl Sandburg Award for Excellence in Fiction and the Readers Choice Award Lovey Award at the 1999 Love is Murder Conference. D'Amato is also is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and of Sisters in Crime International.

            

Mystery Melange

The finalists for the An Post Irish Book Awards were announced this week. Readers and fans will be able to vote online for their favorites through November 16, with the category winners to be announced in a virtual awards ceremony on November 25th. Those vying for Best Crime Fiction include The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard; The Cutting Place by Jane Casey; Our Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent; After the Silence by Louise O'Neill; The Guest List by Lucy Foley; and Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh.

Crime fiction authors Hank Phillippi Ryan and Karen Dionne are hosting a project called The Back Room, a series of online events that start with a short introduction to a panel of 4 authors. The audience is then divided into 4 breakout rooms where they remain for the rest of the program while the authors visit each room in turn. Everyone’s video is turned on and their mics are unmuted, allowing for informal, face-to-face discussion. The next event is October 29, 7 PM ET, with guest authors Brian Andrews, William Kent Krueger, Paula Munier, and Julia Spencer-Fleming.

Penguin Random House has announced its new partnership with PEN America, Out Of Print, and When We All Vote for a collaborative effort called Book the Vote, a joint effort to "help you feel empowered, get active, and make your voice heard." The site includes videos, featured topical books, and merchandise, with a portion of sales donated to PEN America and their Free Speech 2020 campaign.

The NYT featured an article on how indie bookstores are faring during the pandemic, and it isn't all that great. According to the American Booksellers Association, more than one independent bookstore has closed each week since the pandemic began. Many of those still standing are staring down the crucial holiday season and seeing a toxic mix of higher expenses, lower sales and enormous uncertainty. This is why it's important to remember to shop your local indie stores, many of which have online sales, curbside pickup, and even delivery in some areas. Or you can shop via BookShop for ebooks and prints and Libro.Fm for audiobooks, both of which share profits with local bookstores.

Sad news this week: Jill Paton Walsh passed away at the age of 83. Jill was an accomplished author in several fields, including her short series of novels set in Cambridge and featuring Imogen Quy. She also was tasked with completing the unfinished Dorothy L. Sayers novel, Thrones, Dominations, and went on to publish three more books featuring Sayers's iconic Lord Peter Wimsey. (HT )

Little, Brown has made changes to its Jimmy Patterson Books imprint, the children’s publishing unit created by the company and mega-selling author James Patterson five years ago. Under the reorganization, the imprint will focus almost exclusively on publishing Patterson’s children’s books as well as looking for collaborations and partnerships. No new outside authors will be acquired for the imprint.

Last week, I mentioned the auction of some of Otto Penzler's collection of rare crime fiction titles, and apparently it was a successful venture. Sales of those books helped push Heritage Auctions’ event past $2.2 million. A couple of the standouts included an inscribed first edition of Earl Derr Biggers' 1925 The House Without a Key – the very first entry in the Charlie Chan mystery series – which brought in $50,000, more than 12 times its pre-auction estimate; and signed first editions of Ellery Queen and Rex Stout mysteries that also brought in multiple times their original estimates. If you missed your chance, even more books from Penzler’s shelves will be made available during three online sessions to be held Dec. 5-7, including many titles seldom seen at auction.

In 1847, a financially struggling Edgar Allan Poe wrote a letter to former Philadelphia mayor, dramatist, magazine editor, and lawyer Robert Taylor Conrad asking for $40. The missive, noted as one of the highest quality Poe letters to-date, recently sold at an online auction for more than $125,000.

An arrest has been made in the stabbing death ten years ago of bookseller Sherry Black, owner of B&W Billiards & Books in South Salt Lake City, Utah. Deseret News reported that Adam Antonio Spencer Durborow was arrested Saturday for investigation of aggravated murder and aggravated burglary, but local police "have released few other details about what led them to Durborow or how they were able to crack the high-profile, decade-old cold case." That being said, in 2017, on the seventh anniversary of Black’s death, police announced they had put the DNA through a phenotyping process. Phenotyping predicts a person’s physical appearance and ancestry using genetic codes.

In another real-life mystery that is over a century old, seventy-two human bones uncovered in 2016 in an Ohio home have now been identified as belonging to Hallie Armstrong, an 18-year-old schoolteacher who died in 1881. Although the local police ruled out homicide, another mystery lingers: who really was Hallie Armstrong and how did her remains end up in a barn in New London, a hundred years after her death?

A new set of assessment tools shows promise in capturing how the COVID-19 pandemic affects patterns of criminal activity. Previous research has demonstrated how crime patterns can be affected by regular seasonal factors, such as holidays and hours of darkness. However, few studies have investigated how crime within a community responds to exceptional events that can significantly disrupt everyday life, such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, the Olympics, or the COVID-19 pandemic. Preliminary evidence has linked the pandemic to increased rates of domestic violence and steep declines in other forms of crime.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Policing" by Linda Lerner.

In the Q&A roundup, the creators of the Unlikeable Female Characters Podcast, Wendy Heard and Layne Fargo, discussed the tricky business of fictional murder; Mark Pryor chatted with The Mystery People about the latest Hugo Marston novel, The French Widow; Lisa Haselton spoke with thriller author, John Casey, about his psychological spy thriller trilogy, Devolution, Evolution, and Revelation; Cathi Unsworth stopped by the CrimeTime blog to talk about the re-release of Bad Penny Blues, a fictionalized investigation into the Jack the Stripper murders (1960s London’s biggest unsolved case); and Author Interviews welcomed Antony Johnston, award-winning graphic novelist, author, and games writer, whose graphic spy thriller, The Coldest City, was made into the multi-million-dollar blockbuster, Atomic Blonde, starring Charlize Theron, and James McAvoy.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

After years in development, a movie (still untitled) based on the '80s male strip club Chippendales scandal is getting closer to the big-screen treatment, with Craig Gillespie hired to direct and Dev Patel to star. The "American Dream gone wrong story" follows Steve Banerjee (Patel), who emigrated from India to Playa del Rey to chase the dream of fame and fortune, eventually presiding over a flesh empire including male exotic dancers that earned $8 million a year. Banerjee was later charged with plotting to murder former Chippendales dancers and choreographers he saw as business rivals and eventually pleaded guilty to attempted arson, racketeering, and murder for hire.

An inaugural screenwriting lab co-founded by Margot Robbie, designed to help women writers break into the action and franchise film market, has seen a stunning 100% sales return on six original pitches. Each of the six women writers marked their first major sale following the workshop, all in the action or genre arena and all with commitments for distribution. Projects include Sue Chung's Sanctuary, which has been acquired for distribution by Universal, a gritty action thriller with an immigration story at the center; Charmaine DeGraté's Protégé, a lethal spy games ensemble thriller; and Maria Sten's Legacy, a high-concept heist drama set in the criminal underbelly of New Orleans (which is being developed as a TV series).

Mindy Kaling, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Lucy Boynton have been added to the already-strong cast of Lockdown, the Doug Liman-directed heist thriller/romantic comedy scripted by Steven Knight. They join Anne Hathaway, Chewitel Eijofor, Ben Stiller, Stephen Merchant, Dulee Hill, Jazmyn Simons, and Mark Gatiss. Hathaway and Ejiofor play a sparring couple who call a truce to attempt a high-risk, high-stakes jewelry heist at one of the world’s most exclusive department stores, Harrods (and the iconic London landmark even granted its glamorous backdrop to the shoot).

Following stiff situation, The Safran Company and Hera Pictures have won the film and TV rights to a book about a notorious gang of female thieves who plied their trade on the streets of south London. Brian McDonald’s true crime story, Alice Diamond And The Forty Elephants, examines the travails of Alice Diamond’s all-female crime syndicate, based in the Elephant and Castle region of Britain’s capital city in the 1900s.

A trailer was released for I’m Your Woman, starring Rachel Brosnahan as a mom who finds herself on the lam, which will open the virtual AFI Fest October 22. The story follows suburban housewife Jean (Brosnahan) who lives a seemingly easy life, supported by husband Eddie’s (Bill Heck) career as a thief. But when Eddie betrays his partners, Jean and her baby are forced to go on the run, and Eddie’s old friend Cal (Arinzé Kene) is tasked with the job of keeping them safe. After Cal mysteriously disappears, Jean befriends Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake), and the two women set out on a perilous journey into the heart of Eddie’s criminal underworld.





TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Tomorrow Studios, the producer behind apocalyptic drama Snowpiercer, is working on a television adaptation of Dean Koontz’s latest thriller novel, Devoted. The book, which was published by Amazon Publishing in March 2020, tells the story of Woody Bookman, a boy who hasn’t spoken a word in his eleven years of life, and who believes a monstrous evil was behind his father’s death and now threatens him and his mother.

NBC has put in development Always Wright, a drama from For Life executive producer Sonay Hoffman and Sony Pictures TV. Written by Hoffman, Always Wright is set in Los Angeles and revolves around a young, wealthy, and jet-setting African-American couple who solve mysteries, run their own successful empires, and are completely head-over-heels in love with each other.

Amazon has ordered an adaptation based on the Italian original, Everybody Loves Diamonds, a heist series with a comedic twist. The project is inspired by the 2003 real-life "Antwerp Diamond Heist," and will follow a team of small-time Italian thieves who manage to deceive top-level security to steal millions of dollars’ worth of precious stones from the Antwerp Diamond Centre. Stefano Bises (Gomorrah), Michele Astori (The Mafia Only Kills In Summer), Giulio Carrieri, and Bernardo Pellegrini are writing the scripts, with Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa producing for Wildside Studios.

After a sojourn in the Pacific Northwest, serial killer Dexter is headed back to Showtime. The premium cable outlet has ordered a 10-episode Dexter limited series that will reunite star Michael C. Hall and original showrunner Clyde Phillips. The show will be a continuation of the original, eight-season series, which ended in 2013 with Hall's Dexter Morgan going on self-imposed exile as a lumberjack and living a solitary life. Production is scheduled to begin early next year for a planned fall 2021 premiere.

NCIS fans can rejoice now that CBS has announced the premiere date for Season 18. The network has slotted the opening episode on Tuesday, Nov. 17, with the milestone 400th episode (which is said to tell the origin story of how Gibbs and Ducky became such great friends and partners) airing not long after the Season 18 premiere.

Showtime is no longer making its drama pilot, The President Is Missing, an adaptation of the novel by President Bill Clinton and James Patterson, from Christopher McQuarrie and Anthony Peckham. The network had ordered the project to pilot, which was fully cast and ready to go when the coronavirus pandemic halted all production in mid-March. In light of the uncertainty surrounding production amid the pandemic, Showtime has opted not to move forward with the pilot.

Spectrum has canceled LA’s Finest after two seasons. A spinoff of the Bad Boys film series, L.A.’s Finest featured Gabrielle Union reprising her role as Syd Burnett from 2003’s Bad Boys II. Now an LAPD detective, Syd is paired with a new partner, Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba). The show’s second season was originally scheduled to premiere in June, but Spectrum postponed that to September in response to the wave of protests that erupted nationwide in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day.





PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Writer Types welcomed three doctor-authors, Dr. Ian K Smith, Dr. Joel Shulkin, and Dr. John Bishop, to talk about their latest novels, and also had a fall book preview featuring recommended books coming out later this year.

My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, chatted with Stephanie Kane, a lawyer and martial arts enthusiast, about her award-winning crime novels.

The special guest on Suspense Radio was Ruth Ware, the international bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, The Death of Mrs Westaway, and The Turn of the Key.

Kim Johnson stopped by the Crime Writers of Color podcast. Kim is the author of This is My America, her debut novel that explores racial injustice against innocent Black men and the families left behind to pick up the pieces.

The Gay Mystery Podcast welcomed Paris-based Dieter Moitzi, book reviewer and author of two short-story collections, three poetry collections, and two murder mystery novels in French, German, and English, the first of which won the French Gay Crime Fiction Award 2019.

Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Noelle Holten, an award-winning blogger at Crime Book Junkie, a PR & Social Media Manager for Bookouture (a leading digital publisher in the UK), and former Senior Probation Officer for eighteen years. Her debut novel is Dead Inside, the start of a new series featuring DC Maggie Jamieson.

The Tartan Noir Show welcomed Susi Holliday, "The Twisted Sister of the Psychological Thriller."

Wrong Place, Write Crime snagged Eric Van Lustbader to chat about his Nicholas Linnear series (The Ninja, etc.), his many Bourne continuation novels, his new novel, The Nemesis Manifesto (launching a new series), the movie biz, the publishing biz, Japanese wood blocks, graphic novels, and his time in music journalism and working for Elektra Records.

Writers Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about how police would handle a missing persons investigation during a blizzard with a serial killer on the loose; NTSB investigations and the use of Rapid DNA; and conducting sexual assault investigations.

Brian Freeman, a New York Times bestselling author of psychological thrillers including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series, was the latest guest on It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday