B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 117

Author R&R with Lis Wiehl

Lis Wiehl is the former legal analyst for Fox News and the O’Reilly Factor, and has appeared regularly on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Lou Dobbs Tonight, and the Imus morning shows. The former co-host of WOR radio's WOR Tonight with Joe Concha and Lis Wiehl, she has served as legal analyst and reporter for NBC News and NPR’s All Things Considered, as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s office, and was a tenured professor of law at the University of Washington. She appears frequently on CNN as a legal analyst.

Hew new true-crime book is Hunting the Unabomber, which meticulously reconstructs the white-knuckle, tension-filled hunt to identify and capture the mysterious killer, Theodore Kaczynski. For two decades, Kaczynski had masterminded a campaign of random terror, killing and maiming innocent people through bombs sent in untraceable packages. The FBI task force charged with finding the perpetrator of these horrifying crimes grew to 150 people, yet his identity remained a maddening mystery. Then, in 1995, a "manifesto" from the Unabomber was published in the New York Times and Washington Post, resulting in a cascade of tips--including the one that cracked the case.

 

Lis Wiehl stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing the book:

 

Most people have heard of Ted Kaczynski, aka, the Unabomber, but few know the herculean effort that went on behind the scenes to identify, locate and apprehend this serial bomber responsible for 16 attacks perpetrated over nearly two decades. Before he was done, Ted Kaczynski had killed three and injured 23 others. And thousands had worked as part of the federal UNABOM Task Force to track him down and finally bring him to justice.

Over the years, there had been countless books, TV docuseries, magazine and newspaper articles done on the case, but many of them rang hollow to me. In all the accounts that I’d read and watched, I never got the sense that the media truly had a handle on what happened in the massive and unprecedented effort to track him down. I was determined to find a way to shed new light on the hunt for Ted Kaczynski. I just couldn’t rehash old and tired accounts. How could I tell the story of the more than 500 law enforcement officials aided by countless others that comprised the task force? After many months of research, I finally found a way in.

My quest to bring the story behind the Unabomber Task Force to life took me to the mountains of New Hampshire, where I found former supervisory special agent Patrick Webb, an FBI bomb technician and one of the longest serving members of the UNABOM Task Force. It was there, in his remote country home at the end of a muddy and rutted path, that I found someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the case—and a treasure trove of task force documents. Of all the law enforcement officials who’d worked on the case, Webb stood out because he’d been involved longer than most and knew the full breadth and scope of the task force’s efforts. I became convinced that Webb was my way into the story; he gave me not just the original research materials that I needed but the color and drama that accompanied those documents.

For days, I sat with Webb in a pair of overstuffed chairs by his fireplace, as he described the Task Force’s work and painted a picture of some of the key individuals he’d worked with. He also went out of his way to introduce me to other key players who shared their knowledge of the team’s work. Webb proved to be an unusual find because he’d spent more than a decade on the case. Even some of the most senior members of the UNABOM Task Force were surprised by some of the details Webb was able to offer.

As my research continued, II learned not just about their actions but about the tremendous stress that drove the agents forward day after day. Some of the stress came from senior leaders of the FBI and other federal agencies who were determined to find Kaczynski; but the worst stress came from the agents themselves as they continued to labor even as their investigations failed to turn up anything of use. Task force members plugged away week after week, month after month. They wrote countless reports and investigated thousands of leads. Finally, there was a breakthrough in the case that led them to the Unabomber in his nondescript cabin in the hills of Lincoln, Montana.

In writing Hunting the Unabomber, I sought to take the reader inside the investigation and make them observers of task force meetings where strategy was plotted out, and take them to crime scenes where Webb and other bomb technicians analyzed the devices that had been carefully handcrafted by Kaczynski from bits of pieces of wood and metal that he’d collected. As a former federal prosecutor, I also delve into some of the legal nuances of the case and the efforts that agents went to in creating the intricate case against Kaczynski.

What made the task force’s job all the more incredible to me was that almost all its work took place before the advent of modern computers, video surveillance and other contemporary law enforcement tools. Agents had no choice but to spend countless man hours investigating leads and writing reports. The bombings happened in jurisdictions across the country and involved law enforcement officers, agents and investigators from local, state and federal agencies. I was stunned at just how many leads were followed over the course of this nearly two decades long investigation.

The involvement of so many different investigative agencies made collecting, organizing and synthesizing crime scene evidence, thousands of witness interviews and paramount. It was the UNABOM Task Force that created the FBI’s first-ever unified database—used to identify, locate and capture this serial bomber.

We will forever be indebted to Patrick Webb and the other investigators for helping us to finally bring this story to life. And we firmly believe that even the most avid true crime followers will find something new in this painstakingly researched work.

 

For more information about Lis Wiehl and the book, check out her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Hunting the Unabomber is available via Thomas Nelson books and all major booksellers.

            

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

Florence Pugh, Shia LaBeouf, and Chris Pine will star in the psychological thriller, Don’t Worry Darling, set in an isolated, utopian community in the 1950s California desert. The project is being spearheaded by Olivia Wilde, who will produce and direct the feature for New Line Cinema, as well as star in a key supporting role. Katie Silberman, who co-wrote Booksmart and penned the Netflix rom-com, Set it Up, will rewrite the original script draft by Shane and Carey Van Dyke.

The next two Mission: Impossible installments have been pushed back on the release schedule. Originally, the plan was for Mission: Impossible 7 to be released in July of 2021, with Mission: Impossible 8 following in August of 2022. However, Paramount Pictures has announced that the seventh installment of the franchise will now come out on November 19, 2021, with entry #8 arriving on November 4, 2022.

RLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has acquired the North American rights to The Owners, a thriller starring Game of Thrones's Maisie Williams. The debut film of writer and director, Julius Berg, stars Williams as part of a group of friends who think they found the perfect, easy score – an empty house with a safe full of cash. But when the elderly couple that lives there comes home early, the tables are suddenly turned. As a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, the would-be thieves are left to fight to save themselves from a nightmare they could never have imagined.

LA-based producer Clear Horizon is lining up a historical drama about the Symbionese Liberation Army and its kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst. Mizmoon will tell the story of Patricia "Mizmoon" Soltisyk, the radicalized college co-ed who co-founded the terrorist group with her lesbian lover and an escaped convict with an obsession for guns and explosives. The group famously carried out bank robberies and murders in the 1970s and kidnapped heiress Hearst, the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Back in 2018, it was announced that a new film adaptation of The Saint was in the works with Chris Pratt in talks to star. Now it seems that another Chris, Chris Pine, is being eyed to take on the titular role. The Saint refers to Simon Templar, the literary character created by Leslie Charteris in 1928, a Robin Hood-like thief who holds many aliases and leaves a stick figure calling card at the sites of his crimes. Simon has been played by numerous actors over the decades, including Roger Moore in a 1960s TV series and Val Kilmer in a 1997 movie.

Netflix has acquired global rights to director Harry Bradbeer’s Enola Holmes from Legendary Entertainment. The film, based on author Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes mystery series, will star Millie Bobby Brown, Sam Claflin, Adeel Akhtar, Fiona Shaw, Louis Partridge, Burn Gorma, Susan Wokoma, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter. BAFTA and Tony Award winner Jack Thorne (The Aeronauts) wrote the screenplay that tells the story of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’s rebellious teen sister Enola who lands in the middle of a conspiracy that could change political history.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

IMDb TV, Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service, has ordered a reboot of Leverage, the cult 2008 crime drama series. The sequel is a described as a "fresh update of the original concept, about reformed crooks using their unique skills to right corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on common citizens." The series will introduce new characters, including one played by five-time Emmy nominee Noah Wylie, who also will direct two of the thirteen episodes. Original cast members will also return, including Beth Riesgraf, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, and Aldis Hodge. One original actor who will not be returning is Timothy Hutton, who recently faced sexual assault allegations (which the actor has denied).

AMC has put in development The Burying Place, a thriller drama series based on Brian Freeman’s novel, from writer Kelly Masterson (Killing Kennedy), director David Semel (Goliath), and producer Aaron Kaplan. The Burying Place is set in the haunting North Country of Minnesota, where a baby vanishes from her lakeside home the same night a rookie policewoman stumbles onto a serial killer. Against a ticking clock, Detective Jonathan Stride, haunted by demons of his own, leads fellow Detectives Serena Dial and Maggie Bei as they struggle to unravel the seemingly unrelated mysteries in a suspenseful game of cat and mouse.

HBO Max, the cable network's digital platform, is developing an adaptation of The Hellfire Club, the first novel by CNN’s Jake Tapper, with The Revenant co-writer Mark L. Smith. The book tells the story of Charlie Marder, a young freshman congressman who arrives in 1950s Washington D.C. after the mysterious death of his predecessor. Finding himself thrust into the dangerous waters of politics at the height of Joe McCarthy’s "Red Scare," he and his zoologist wife, Margaret, get drawn into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a plot that could change the course of history.

U.S. streamer BritBox has set a fall launch for the British crime drama Honour. The two-parter stars Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) in the real-life story of Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Goode’s passionate search to discover the fate of missing 20-year old Banaz, the young Londoner murdered by her own family for falling in love with the wrong man.

The Canadian legal drama series, Diggstown, has been added to BET+’s original programming lineup. The six-part series stars Vinessa Antoine as Marcie Diggs, a lawyer who leaves her high-powered corporate job to work for a legal aid clinic in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, after her aunt commits suicide. The team of lawyers that Marcie works with are a curious band of do-gooders, cynics, and scrappers – messy souls struggling to keep personal disappointment and demons out of their practice. The cast also includes Natasha Henstridge, C. David Johnson, Stacey Farber, Brandon Oakes, Shailene Garnett, Tim Rozon and Dwain Murphy.

The Irishman and Boardwalk Empire star, Stephen Graham, has landed a role in another gangster drama, joining the cast of Peaky Blinders.  Set in Birmingham, England, the series follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family in the direct aftermath of the First World War. The fictional family is loosely based on a real 19th century urban youth gang of the same name, who were active in the city from the 1890s to the early twentieth century.

Cinemax released a trailer for the South African crime drama, Trackers. An adaptation of Deon Meyer’s novel of the same name, the series stars Ed Stoppard, Sandi Schultz, Brendon Daniels, Trix Vivier, Thapelo Mokoena, and Sisanda Henna. Trackers interweaves three story strands into a sophisticated action-packed thriller set in Cape Town involving organized crime, smuggled diamonds, state security, black rhinos, the CIA, and an international terrorist plot.

Netflix has revealed the official trailer for a Spanish mystery thriller called The Silence of the Marsh, which is already available to watch on the streaming service this week. While researching corruption for his new book, a successful crime novelist blurs the line between fiction and reality, uncovering the corrupt ties between politicians and the local mafia in Valencia, Spain. This project stars Pedro Alonso, Nacho Fresneda, Carmina Barrios, José Ángel Egido, Àlex Monner, Raúl Prieto, and Maite Sandoval.

HBO released the first look at the thriller, The Head. The six-part series follows events at an international research station in Antarctica, after the long dark winter months, when the commander returns to find most of the crew of scientists murdered.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Writer Types host Eric Beetner spoke with authors Amy Engel (The Familiar Dark), Michael Ledwidge (Stop At Nothing) and ML Huie (Spitfire). 

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham decided to tackle some of the oldest mystery and true crime books on their TBR list while they are self-quarantining.

Marcia Clark, who has a new novel titled Final Judgment, featuring Clark's protagonist Samantha Brinkman, was the featured guest on Speaking of Mysteries and Meet the Thriller Author.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro chatted with author James L'Etoile about his novels and his long career in corrections.

Mugshots: My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Dr. Katherine Ramsland, who teaches Forensic Psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania and has written on the subjects of serial killers, crime scene investigations, forensic science, mass murder, and sex offenders.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured Ang Pompano and Shawn Reilly Simmons interviewing Agatha Award nominees.

Beyond the Cover spoke with Mark Greaney about his latest Grey Man novel, One Minute Out.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Mystery Melange

The Los Angeles Times unveiled the winners of its 40th Annual Book Prizes on Twitter rather than at the customary ceremony that usually launches the newspaper’s annual Festival of Books (due to the coronavirus). This year's winner in the Mystery/Thriller category was Steph Cha for Your House Will Pay. The other finalists included Michael Connelly, The Night Fire; Jane Harper, The Lost Man; Laura Lippman, Lady in the Lake; and Attica Locke Heaven, My Home.

Washington, D.C.'s 2nd Virtual Noir at the Bar will feature a fundraiser for Kramerbooks this Friday at 8 p.m. Authors scheduled to take part include Mark Bergin, Caroline Bock, Austin Camacho, Nik Korpon, Tara Laskowski, Greer Macallister, Sujata Massey, Adam Meyer, and David Stewart. E.A. Aymar takes on hosting duties, with music from Sara Jones.

Another Virtual Noir at the Bar will return to Boston on Wednesday, April 29, with a slate of crime fiction authors to include hosts, Edwin Hill and David Pezza, and readings from authors Tracy Clark, Daniel Ford, Kelly J. Ford, Vanessa Lillie, Hannah Mary McKinnon, and Gabriel Valjan.

Cara Black will be in a virtual conversation with Jacqueline Winspear as the two masters of crime fiction discuss the writing of fiction that takes place in World War Two Europe. They'll explore topics that closely parallel many of the issues of the day as well as discussing the challenge and complexities of placing one's writing in a dynamic historic period. Sponsored by San Francisco's City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, the event is scheduled for Tuesday, May 19 from 7-8:30 (PT), 10-11:30 pm (ET).

The Mystery Writers of America posted on social media that they will be announcing the 74th annual Edgar Allan Poe Award winners via the Twitter handle @EdgarAwards next Thursday, April 30th, beginning at 11 a.m. That's the same date the winners would have been announced at the honors banquet that was canceled due to the coronovirus.

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, sponsored by Sisters in Crime, is still taking submissions through June 8. The event provides an annual grant of $2,000 for an emerging writer of color. Online Cogdill, writing for Mystery Scene Magazine, profiled the awards program with input from previous winner Mia P. Manansala, whose Filipino American culinary cozy series set in a fictional Midwestern town was acquired by Berkley/Penguin Random House.

Due to the pandemic, SEMWA and SinC-Palmetto Chapter have changed the July 25th Mystery in the Midlands conference (normally held in Columbia, SC) to a virtual event and will make it free to all SEMWA and SinC members. The free event will feature Charlaine Harris as guest of honor and be moderated by Dana Kaye. Other panelists include John Floyd, Tara Laskowski, and Art Taylor (short stories), Alexia Gordon, Toni L.P. Kelner, and Gigi Pandian (paranormals), and Charlaine Harris, Dana Cameron, and Jeffery Deaver (novels to screenplays).

Writing for CrimeReads, Sarah Weinman profiled four women—Isabelle Taylor, Lee Wright, Marie Rodell, and Joan Kahn—who were at the center of the mystery world for four decades. These influential editors built careers, discovered legends, and shaped a genre.

Suspense Magazine published its spring issue, with profiles of authors Ang Pompano, DV Berkom, Betty Webb, Steven F. Havill, Jonathan Maberry, Joseph Finder, Brad Taylor, and Rhys Bowen; plus there are articles from Joseph Badal and Janet Rogers, pages of reviews, short stories, and much more

Noir City magazine's latest issue is the first under the helm of new Editor-in-Chief, Vince Keenan, with a a stem-to-stern redesign courtesy of colleague Michael Kronenberg. The issue includes Imogen Sara Smith’s two-part cover story on the extraordinary life and films of Jose Giovanni; a look at noir’s favorite cad, Zachary Scott; a look back at the overlap of film noir and advertising aimed at women in the 1940s; an interview with Motherless Brooklyn writer/producer/director/star, Edward Norton; Ray Banks on the many big-screen iterations of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley; a fun and inventive 5 Favorites from the gifted poet Chelsey Minnis; and more.

J. Kingston Pierce's Killer Covers blog wraps up its series saluting artist-illustrator Mitchell Hooks (1923-2013). The Detroit-born Hooks left an indelible mark on the look of crime fiction, and Killer Covers featured 57 paperback fronts and movie posters painted by Hooks including his 1970s line of covers for Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer novels.

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly continues its "Thirty Days of the Five-Two" this week. In addition to the usual Poems of the Week (this week: "Autobiography of Ursula" by Margot Douaihy), organizer Gerald So is still encouraging readers to link to any Five-Two poems you enjoy on your social media.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element continues its Book Series Binge with Tasha Alexander about her Lady Emily series; Author Interviews welcomed William Boyle, shortlisted for a Dagger Award and Hammett Prize, to chat about his newest novel, City of Margins; Shots Magazine had a Q&A with Craig Sisterson, author of Southern Cross Crime; and Max Allan Collins chatted with Criminal Element about Masquerade for Murder, his latest Mickey Spillane/Mike Hammer novel.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

2020 Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Canadian Crime Shortlists

The Crime Writers of Canada announced the shortlists for the 2020 Arthur Ellis Awards, which celebrate the best of Canadian crime fiction writing in several categories:

Best Crime Novel sponsored by Rakuten Kobo with a $1000 prize

Michael Christie, Greenwood, MacClelland & Stewart

Ian Hamilton, Fate, House of Anansi Press

Nicole Lundrigan, Hideaway, Penguin Random House Canada

Marissa Stapley, The Last Resort, Simon & Schuster Canada

Loreth Anne White, In the Dark, Montlake Romance

The Angela Harrison Memorial Award for Best Crime First Novel sponsored by Maureen Jennings with a $500 prize

Philip Elliott, Nobody Move, Into the Void Press

Denis Coupal, Blindshot, Linda Leith Publishing

Nicole Bross, Past Presence, Literary Wanderlust

Best Crime Novella sponsored by Mystery Weekly with a $200 prize

Barbara Fradkin, Blood Ties, Orca Book Publishers

Brenda Chapman, Too Close to Home, Grass Roots Press

Melodie Campbell, The Goddaughter Does Vegas, Orca Book Publishers

Devon Shepherd, The Woman in Apartment 615, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

Best Crime Short Story sponsored by Mystery Weekly with a $300 prize

Y.S. Lee, In Plain Sight, Life is Short and Then You Die, Macmillan Publishers

Peter Sellers, Closing Doors, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Zandra Renwick, The Dead Man's Dog, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

Best French Crime Book

Louis Carmain, Les offrandes, VLB Éditeur

Andrée Michaud, Tempêtes, Éditions Québec Amériques

Martin Michaud, Ghetto X, Libre Expression

Guillaume Morrissette, Le tribunal de la rue Quirion, Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur

Félix Ravenelle-Arcouette, Le cercle de cendres, Héliotrope

Best Juvenile or YA Crime Book sponsored by Shaftesbury with a $500 prize

Liam O'Donnell & Mike Dean, Tank & Fizz: The Case of the Tentacle Terror, Orca Book Publishers

Jo Treggiari, The Grey Sisters, Penguin Teen

Tom Ryan, Keep This to Yourself, Albert Whitman & Company

David A. Robertson, Ghosts, HighWater Press

Best Nonfiction Crime Book

Katie Daubs, The Missing Millionaire: The True Story of Ambrose Small and the City Obsessed with Finding Him, MacClelland & Stewart

Kevin Donovan, The Billionaire Murders, Penguin Random House

Debra Komar, The Court of Better Fiction, Dundurn Press

Vanessa Brown, The Forest City Killer: A Serial Murderer, a Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice, ECW Press

Charlotte Gray, Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

The Unhanged Arthur Award for Best Unpublished Crime Manuscript sponsored by Dundurn Press with a $500 prize

B.L. Smith, Bert Mintenko and the Serious Business

K.P. Bartlett, Henry's Bomb

Max Folsom, One Bad Day After Another

Liz Rachel Walker, The Dieppe Letters

Pam Barnsley, The River Cage

The Crime Writers of Canada also announced its 2020 Grand Master Award which will be presented to Peter Robinson. The Grand Master Award is presented biennially to recognize a Canadian crime writer with a substantial body of work who has garnered national and international recognition. 

            

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

Producer Ben Shields Catlin has teamed with screenwriters Evan Parter and Paul Hilborn to develop a feature adaptation of the memoir, I Escaped From Auschwitz, by Rudi Vrba. It details Vrba’s experience in a concentration camp as well as his harrowing escape and eventual return to his Slovakia home where he would write the first eyewitness accounts of the death camps.

Saban Films has acquired the Robin Pront-directed crime thriller, The Silencing, which was written by Micah Ranum and slated to debut at the now-canceled SXSW Festival. The Silencing follows a reformed hunter (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) living in isolation on a wildlife sanctuary who becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he and the local sheriff (Annabelle Wallis) set out to track a vicious killer who may have kidnapped his daughter years ago.

Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are encouraging people to donate to the All In Challenge to help those in need during the COVID-19 crisis. Those who donate will get a chance for a walk-on role in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming feature production, Killers of the Flower Moon, as well as meet the actors and the director and attend the world premiere. An adaptation of the nonfiction book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon tells the true crime story of multiple murders of members of the Osage Indian tribe in 1920s Oklahoma that occurred after they found oil on their lands.

Paris Jackson, the 22-year-old daughter of Michael Jackson, is set to star as Jesus Christ in a new crime film called Habit opposite Bella Thorne. The thriller stars Thorne as a street smart, party girl with a Jesus fetish who gets mixed up in a violent drug deal and finds a possible way out by masquerading as a nun. Jackson then appears several times throughout the film to Thorne’s character as Jesus. Janell Shirtcliff is directing the film, with a script written by Shirtcliff and Suki Kaiser.

The Handmaid Tale's Emmy-winning director, Reed Morano, is in talks to helm the Jennifer Lopez feature The Godmother. Lopez plays real-life notorious Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco a/k/a "The Godmother," who outsmarted and outhustled the men around her to rise from an impoverished childhood and become one of the world’s biggest drug lords.

A trailer was released for The Quarry, based on the novel by Damon Galgut. Michael Shannon stars as a small-town sheriff who grows suspicious of the town's new preacher, David Martin, who isn't what he appears to be.

A trailer also dropped for Made You Look, Barry Avrich’s documentary about the largest art fraud In American history where an unassuming couple flooded the art market with a collection of fake art sold for millions. The film opens the virtual Hot Docs at Home festival this week.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Filming is underway on a charitable, filmed-from-home pilot starring Brian Cox, Claes Bang, and Mariella Frostrup, among others. UK producer Maggie Monteith has enlisted an all-female, transatlantic team of writer-directors for the whodunnit, The Agoraphobics Detective Society, whose proceeds will go to UK and U.S. film and TV freelancers impacted by coronavirus. The pilot for the eight-episode show will see a distraught group of patients band together to find a renowned expert psychiatrist who disappears without explanation.

Amazon Studios has put in development The Star Chamber, a thriller drama inspired by the 1983 Michael Douglas film of the same name. The Star Chamber series gives the movie a gender twist and follows a revered female federal appellate court judge in San Francisco who leads a shadowy group of judges that decide to right the wrongs of the broken legal system.

J.J. Abrams has set his first three series at HBO Max, including the crime project Duster, to be co-written by Abrams and LaToya Morgan (The Walking Dead, Parenthood). The project is set in the 1970s Southwest and revolves around the life of a gutsy getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate who goes from awful to wildly, stupidly, dangerously awful.

Levantine Films has acquired small screen rights to Rodney Barnes’s and Jason Shawn Alexander’s best-selling graphic novel series Killadelphia: Sins of the Father. Done in crime horror noir style, the story follows a Baltimore street cop who returns to his home town of Philadelphia to bury his estranged father, a revered detective in his own right. In so doing, the son discovers his father’s journal, which details his last case about a series of mysterious murders possibly supernatural in nature—following the clues down a macabre rabbit hole filled with horror and mystery.

HBO dropped a trailer for its Perry Mason series and gave the series a premiere date of June 21. The trailer for the reboot of the classic courtroom drama sees Matthew Rhys taking on Raymond Burr's role from the long-running CBS drama in an origin story of the famed criminal defense attorney set amid the crosscurrents of 1931 Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

Fox Entertainment continues with its early renewals, picking up flagship drama series 9-1-1 for a fourth season and its breakout spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star for a second.

Director Josh Trank released the first look at Tom Hardy as the legendary gangster Al Capone in his film Capone, showing Hardy as an old man suffering from dementia but still dangerous and full of mystery.

A trailer was released for James Cameron’s documentary, Akashinga: The Brave Ones, set to premiere on National Geographic in honor of Earth Day. It sheds light on the all-female vigilante group trained to face down poachers and save wildlife at a moment’s notice, revolutionizing the way animals are protected and communities are empowered.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Simpsons’s Yeardley Smith is co-hosting a new true crime podcast, Small Town Dicks, which features identical-twin detectives Dan and Dave some of their investigations.

WFME's Intersection podcast featured Don Winslow talking about his new book, Broken, a collection of novellas. He also discusses what he’s reading and watching during the stay at home order and the impact of the pandemic on his creativity.

The podcast Seize the Yay chatted with author Harlan Coben about his novels, Netflix, and normalcy in New Jersey.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro spoke with Paul D. Marks about his books White Heat, Broken Windows, and the forthcoming, The Blues Don't Care.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze podcast features the first chapter of "Staging is Murder" by Grace Topping, read by actor Ariel Linn.

Writer's Detective Bureau podcast host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, tackled the topics of "Sex Registrants, Trust Issues, and Re-Interviewing a Witness."

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured two more Agatha Nominee interviews: Mo Moulton, nominated for Best non-fiction The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women; and Frances Schoonmaker, nominated for Best Middle Grade/Young Adult Mystery for the third installment of her Last Crystal Trilogy.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone featured a two hour retrospective of the "glorious acting history of bestselling authors Mark Billingham and Martyn Waites."

On the latest episode of Partners in Crime, hosts Bob Daws and Adam Croft discussed Quiz, Killing Eve, how coronavirus is changing fiction writing, lockdown with Lynda La Plante, what they’ve been reading, and the fallout of episode 100.

On the Tartan Noir Show, Douglas Skelton dropped by to chat with Theresa Talbot about his varied career, his second book in the Rebecca Connolly series, The Blood is Still, and his recommended book, The Devil Aspect, by Craig Russell.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

FFB: The President's Mystery Plot

Long before Elliott Roosevelt wrote murder mysteries featuring his mother Eleanor Roosevelt as a super sleuth, and even before first daughter Margaret Truman penned her crime fiction (despite rumblings of ghostwriting), President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came up with his own idea for a mystery novel. When he was Governor of New York he once said of detective stories, "Hundreds of such novels are published every year, but only a few are really worth the time and attention of intelligent readers. Even in the good ones there is often a sameness. Some one finds the corpse and then the detective tracks down the murderer. I do not believe that such stories have to follow an inevitable pattern or formula."



Apparently, even after he became President, FDR couldn't stop thinking about detective novels. He discussed with his friend, magazine editor Fulton Oursler, his thoughts that such stories appealed to the detective instinct in all of us and were a literary game, an intellectual recreation less purely intellectual than chess but more dramatic. He also told Oursler he'd been carrying around in his mind the plot for a mystery novel for years. His idea? "How can a man disappear with five million dollars in any negotiable form and not be traced?" Oursler suggested they ask the leading writers in the U.S. to collaborate on such a story, to which FDR replied, "Go ahead. See what you can all do with it."



Oursler did just that, contacting various authors and challenging them to take "the President's mystery plot" and contribute a chapter to the story by plonking the protagonist, Jim Blake, in a dire situation and then leaving him for the next author in line. The work of the first authors, Rupert Hughes, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Anthony Abbot, Rita Weiman, S. S. Van Dyne, and John Erskine, were serialized in Oursler's Liberty Magazine in 1935, and the book was published in 1936. However, poor Jim Blake was left hanging for thirty years until Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of Perry Mason) came along and tied everything up in a final chapter when the book was reprinted in 1967 and retitled The President's Mystery Plot.



More a literary curiosity than high literature, the book has a bit of camp and zaniness, and true mystery fans may be disappointed in the thin, zigzagging plot and weak characterizations that sometimes accompany collaborative ventures. Still, it was popular enough that a movie was made of the story in 1936, directed by Phil Rosen and starring Henry Wilcoxon as hapless Jim Blake (Marc Antony in Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra). It's an interesting period piece, if you can get past the first chapter. Writer Rupert Hughes gave Blake a scheming Russian wife and writes out her dialogue with "phoenetic precision," as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., aptly notes in his introduction ("Jeem, how you can't see it is beecose I loaf you so dear I cannot deevide your loaf with even some babies?").



More telling may be what the book reveals about Roosevelt himself. When he proposed the idea to Oursler, the hero was conceived as "hating the falsity of his existence, the meaninglessness of his career, the sameness of his middle-aged routine, the absence of purpose and the boredom with his marriage."

            

Mystery Melange

The International Thriller Writers organization announced the finalists for the 2020 Thriller Awards for Best Hardcover Novel, Best First Novel, Best Paperback Original, Best E-Book Original, Best Short Story, and Best Young Adult Novel. The winners are usually announced at the annual Thrillerfest in New York City, but unfortunately that conference has fallen to the coronavirus like so many other events this year. However, organizers plan on holding a virtual conference in July that you can enjoy from the safety of your own home, which will include PitchFest, ConsultFest, Master Class, the Debut Author Breakfast, and the awards presentation.

Sadly, another major crime fiction conference, Bouchercon, has had to cancel this year's event due to the coronavirus outbreak. Although scheduled for October 15-18, organizers decided that, with no way of knowing what the balance of this year holds for groups of people gathering or what the state of travel will be, they are canceling "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the health and safety of our community." The Anthony Awards will go on in some form, and there will be efforts to find other ways to present a traditional Bouchercon experience, possibly going online as other conferences have done.

Sales at Bookshop.org continue to grow, with founder Andy Hunter noting that the site is selling about 8,000 books a day and has more than 450 bookstores on the platform. Sales have risen 2,000% in a month, and Bookshop has raised more than $400,000 for distribution to independent bookstores. Hunter added that "We basically experienced two years' worth of normal growth in about three weeks."

In other indie book news, Independent Bookstore Day, which was originally scheduled for Saturday, April 25, and postponed until "late summer or early fall," has a new date: Saturday, August 29. And there are signs of life among stores outside the U.S., with Canadian bookstore chain Indigo Books & Music rehiring about 545 of its retail staff, two weeks after the government announced subsidies to help businesses pay wages amid the coronavirus crisis; and Italy announcing "a modest loosening, with bookstores, stationery stores and clothing stores for children allowed to reopen."

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly continues its "Thirty Days of the Five-Two" this week. In addition to the usual Poems of the Week (most recently, "Prom Queen" by Tom Barlow), organizer Gerald So is encouraging readers to link to any Five-Two poems you enjoy on your social media.

CrimeReads continues its series of entertaining articles with a look at "The New Wave of California Crime Fiction," which looks at the intersection of race, class, gender, and community; and "10 Must-Read Crime-Fighting Duos," from Sherlock and Watson to Rizzoli and Isles.

Featured at the Page 69 Test this week: Three Hours in Paris by Cara Black, the first standalone spy thriller from the bestselling author of the Aimée Leduc series. In June of 1940, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Hitler spent a total of three hours in the City of Light—abruptly leaving, never to return. To this day, no one knows why, but Black reimagines history in her pulse-pounding tale of one young woman with the temerity—and drive—to take on Hitler himself.

In the Q&A roundup, Gerald So (of the Five-Two Weekly crime poetry site and a former Short Mystery Fiction Society president) has been interviewing finalists for the Derringer Awards; Criminal Element's Book Series Binge continues with Kate Mosse on The Burning Chambers series; and over at the Writers Who Kill blog, E.B. Davis interviewed Edgar Award winner Art Taylor about his short stories and why he sets many of them in North Carolina.

           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

MGM has acquired the rights to director Ridley Scott’s drama, Gucci, based on the non-fiction book by Sara Gay Forden called The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. Lady Gaga is in negotiations to star as Patrizia Reggiani, who was convicted with ordering the killing of her husband, Maurizio Gucci, the grandson to Gucci founder and fashion magnate Guccio Gucci. The public trial led to her being called the "Black Widow" in the media, and she served 18 years in prison in connection to the murder.

Matt Orton (Operation Finale) has been tapped to adapt the screenplay for Universal Pictures’s remake of The Night of the Hunter, based on the novel by Davis Grubb. The 1955 film directed by actor Charles Laughton (and the only film he ever directed), starred Robert Mitchum as a sublimely sinister traveling preacher turned serial killer named Harry Powell, who had tattooed knuckles and nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow played by Shelley Winters.

Saban Films has acquired the rights to the crime-thriller Most Wanted, which stars Antoine Olivier Pilon, Jim Gaffigan, and Josh Hartnett. Most Wanted follows an investigative journalist (Hartnett) as he unravels a twisted case of entrapment in which Daniel (Pilon) is forced into a dangerous drug deal and is sentenced to 100 years in a Thai prison. As he endures torture and abuse, the journalist has to track down the shady cops and fight for Daniel’s freedom.

IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to The Rental, the thriller that marks the directorial debut of Dave Franco. The film stars Alison Brie, Dan Stevens, Jeremy Allen White, and Sheila Vand as two couples who embark on a weekend getaway to a seemingly perfect house they’ve booked online. What begins as a celebratory weekend for the quartet turns into something far more sinister, as secrets they’ve kept from each other are exposed. It also becomes clear they may not be alone in the house.

Rob Lowe is in very preliminary discussions with producer Ryan Murphy for a film about Joe Exotic, the central character from Netflix’s hugely popular docuseries, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. The project is based on the true story of Joe Maldonado-Passage, currently serving 22 years in prison after he was sentenced on multiple charges, including a murder-for-hire plot against Carole Baskin, the operator of Big Cat Rescue.

Universal is moving its Bob Odenkirk and Connie Nielsen action-thriller Nobody from August 14 of this year to Feb. 26, 2021. Nobody, directed by Ilya Naishuller and written by Derek Kolstad, follows a bystander who intervenes to help a woman being harassed by a group of men and then becomes the target of a vengeful drug lord.

The trailer was released for the upcoming WWII-set action-drama, The Spy, to be released on digital in June. Set in 1941 Stockholm, the story follows an actress who has been enlisted by the Swedish security service and tasked with the mission of infiltrating the Nazis in Oslo. But when she starts falling for a German officer she has been ordered to seduce, the murky field of love, double crossing and espionage becomes fatal.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Starz has given the green light to a new series from Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and Randy Huggins. Titled Black Mafia Family, the project is inspired by the true story of two brothers who rose from the decaying streets of southwest Detroit in the late 1980s and gave birth to one of the most influential crime families in this country.

Father-son duo, Craig T. Nelson and Noah Nelson, have partnered with Landmark Studio Group to develop the spy thriller, The Operative, loosely based on Harvey Gomberg’s book, Code Name Stinger. Noah Nelson, who has written on shows including Hawaii Five-0 and Secrets and Lies, has created the drama to be headlined by his father (star of Coach and Parenthood). The ten-part series follows retired intelligence operative John Straw, mysteriously forced to end his career following the Cold War, who re-emerges to warn of an upcoming attack on American soil.

Sundance Now has picked up the U.S. rights to the Australian drama, Bad Mothers, starring Treadstone’s Tess Haubrich. On May 7, the streaming service will launch the eight-part drama which explores the underbelly of modern motherhood through the prism of four very different women as they juggle life’s big issues: love, family, careers, infidelity and murder.

MGM-owned broadcaster Epix has ordered the six-part documentary series, Helter Skelter, a comprehensive re-telling of the story of how Manson and his cult terrorized California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It will chronicle the Manson Family history, featuring never-before-accessed interviews from former family members and journalists, archival footage, and newly-unearthed images.

Daredevil alumna Elodie Yung has joined the cast of Fox’s drama pilot, The Cleaning Lady, an adaptation of the Argentinean series of the same name. Yung will play the title character, Reyna Salona, and takes over for Shannyn Sossamon who was originally cast in the pilot earlier this year. The series is described as "a darkly aspirational character drama about a whip-smart doctor who comes to the U.S. for a medical treatment to save her ailing son. But when the system fails and pushes her into hiding, she refuses to be beaten down and marginalized. Instead, she becomes a cleaning lady for the mob and starts playing the game by her own rules."

Netflix dropped the trailer Tuesday for the new action-thriller, Extraction. Chris Hemsworth stars as a black market mercenary who takes a job to rescue a drug kingpin’s teenage son from a warring gang, only to get stuck in the crossfire and constantly on the run with the kid when the city goes on lockdown.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Authors on the Air featured authors Tim Maleeny (Cape Weathers Mystery series) and J.T. Ellison (Lieutenant Taylor Jackson series) in conversation.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone welcomed Ian Rankin to talk about lockdowns, moving to a smaller apartment just before it hit, how Rebus would deal with not being able to leave the house, reveals a secret about his upcoming novel, and much more.

Writer Types guest co-host Laura McHugh joined Eric Beetner to talk with authors Peter Swanson (Eight Perfect Murders) and Maxine Mei-Fung Chung (The Eighth Girl).

Read or Dead hosts, Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham, talked about some changing release dates, Tiger King, and the books they turn to when they need some comfort.

The special guest on Speaking of Mysteries was Cara Black to discuss Three Hours in Paris, her first stand-alone thriller

Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover chatted with Allison Brennan about her Lucy Kincaid series and her latest book, The Third To Die.

Author Lee Goldberg joined Meet the Thriller Author to chat about his latest release, Fake Truth (the third book in his Ian Ludlow series).

Dr. DP Lyle's Criminal Mischief podcast tackled the topic of identifying corpses, especially in remote or odd areas.

Listening to the Dead host Lynda La Plante discussed fiber analysis, one of the most important resources in forensic science.

Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, discussed COVID-19 philanthropy, the 50th anniversary of the Newhall Incident, reasons for undercover investigations, and whether homicide by a third party can be justifiable.

Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Hilary Davidson about her time as a travel writer, her short stories, and her new novel, Don't Look Down; Lance Wright also had some Down & Out release news, and there were book recommendations from Holly West, Warren Moore, JJ Hensley, and Sam Wiebe.

It Was a Dark & Stormy Book Club chatted with the husband-and-wife writing duo, Tara Laskowski and Art Taylor.

The second installment of the new Tartan Noir podcast welcomed award winning Scottish author and academic Liam McIlvanney

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for MondayMedia Murder for Monday - Coronavirus Edition 

FFB: Death of a Dutchman

Magdalen Nabb was born in Lancashire in 1947 but lived in Florence, Italy, from 1975 until her death in 2007. She wrote both children's fiction and crime fiction, the latter featuring her literary creation Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia. She modeled the Marshal on a real Florentine law officer who used to keep the author up to date on crimes in the city being investigated by the Carabinieri, the national Italian police force. Critic Susanna Yager of the Sunday Telegraph once noted that "The mystery for me is why Magdalen Nabb is not better known," certainly not as well as Michael Dibdin (Aurelia Zen) and Donna Leon (Commissario Guido Brunetti).



After the first book featuring Guarnaccia appeared in 1981, it impressed Georges Simenon so much that he wrote to congratulate Nabb. After the publication of the sequel, Death of a Dutchman, he said, "Your first novel was a coup de maitre, your second is a masterpiece." That second book (she wrote 14 Guarnaccia installments in all) opens as Marshal Guarnaccia finds a jeweler dying in an apparent suicide from slashed hands and a barbiturate overdose, uttering his last words, "It wasn't her." The only witnesses to the crime are a blind man and a notoriously untruthful 91-year-old woman.



Although the case seems to be a dead end, the Marshal refuses to let it go, fighting his way through bureaucratic red tape, hordes of tourists, the soggy July heat, the secret police known as Digos and the dead Dutchman's troubled past in order to reach the truth. The dead man is known as a "Dutchman" even though his father was Dutch and his mother Italian. This neither-here-nor-there sense of belonging echoes the life of the Marshal himself, a Sicilian stationed in Florence, living at the station barracks without his wife and sons, as they care for his invalid mother back home.



Marshal, lower down the police hierarchy than a Lieutenant or Magistrate, is nonetheless a dedicated, sensitive and caring officer, not particularly articulate but with a subtle humor who patiently helps the young and inexperienced officer in charge of the case. The city and culture that is Florence becomes another character, focusing on the importance of family, place and tradition. Or as the Washington Post added, "The richest scene here, however, is Florence itself, whose intricate politics and class structure Nabb parses with precision and wit."

            

Mystery Melange

The Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the finalists for this year's Derringer Awards for excellence in crime-themed short stories. Winners will be announced on May 1. For all the nominees in the Flash Story, Short Story, Long Story, and Novelette categories, head on over to the official SMFS website.

The shortlist for the International Booker Prize was announced in London today and features a couple of books of interest to crime fiction readers, including Hurricane Season by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor (translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes) about a series of tragedies and violence that follows the discovery of a corpse by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals; and The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder), a haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance.

Goldsboro Books announced the finalists for the Glass Bell Award, given annually to an outstanding work of contemporary fiction, rewarding quality storytelling in any genre. The list of twelve books includes crime titles My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite; The Second Sleep by Robert Harris; The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides; Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson; and Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver

Another Virtual Noir at the Bar is heading to your computer on April 13 straight from Boston area. Hosts Daniel Ford of Writers Bone and Edwin Hill will emcee a night of reading and conversation with Boston-area crime authors including Bruce Robert Coffin, Elisabeth Elo, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Joanna Schaffhausen, Sarah Smith, and Peter Swanson.

The U.K.'s World Book Night celebrations, scheduled for April 23, will go to a digital format due to Covid-19. The Bookseller noted that authors will broadcast excerpts from their books on social media, and there will be a reading hour, inviting the public to recommend or share a book with a friend using the hashtag #ReadingHour. Among the featured books for this year's event are the crime titles A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee; Death in the Dordogne by Martin Walker; Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie; Darkness Rising by A. A. Dhand; The Dead Ex by Jane Corry; and East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman.

Sadly, another major crime fiction conference has made the decision to cancel this year's event. The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which would have celebrated it’s 17th year in 2020 from July 23-26, will not be held this year. The event will launch the HIF Player to allow everyone a virtual festival experience at home. This free, online hub is packed with archive event recordings, digital book clubs, and learning resources and activities for children, and will be regularly updated with new content to keep audiences entertained.

Author James Patterson is spearheading a group that includes actress Reese Witherspoon, Reese’s Book Club, the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc), and the American Booksellers Association in an effort to raise millions of dollars to help save independent bookstores from closing permanently due to the pandemic. Money is being collected at the website www.saveindiebookstores.com and the campaign is expected to run at least through April 30, at which point Binc will distribute the total funds raised to eligible independent bookstores.

The Atlantic noted how America’s public libraries have led the ranks of “second responders,” stepping up for their communities in times of natural or manmade disasters, like hurricanes, floods, shootings, fires, and big downturns in individual lives.

Mystery Readers Journal is soliciting essays having to do with Italian mysteries for its next issue. Editor Janet Rudolph is looking for Reviews, Articles, and Author! Author! essays (first person, about yourself, your books, and your unique take on mysteries set in Italy connection). The deadline is April 20.

Kings River Life has some food & drink mysteries for your Easter feast, and Mystery Fanfare also has a list of Passover-themed crime novels.

Elle Marr applied the Page 69 Test to her new thriller novel, The Missing Sister, about a woman whose twin sister has vanished, leaving behind three chilling words: Trust no one.

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly is presenting its annual "Thirty Days of the Five-Two." In addition to the usual Poems of the Week (this week: "I Died a Thousand Times: Death #4" by Richie Narvaez), organizer Gerald So is encouraging readers to link to any Five-Two poems you enjoy on your social media.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Book Series Binge interviews continued with Julia Spencer-Fleming on the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series; Kelley Armstrong on the Casey Duncan novels; Leonard Goldberg on the Daughter of Sherlock Holmes series; and Eve Calder on her Cookie House Mystery series. Criminal Element also chatted with Donna VanLiere, author of The Time of Jacob's Trouble, and Crime Reads snagged Don Winslow to discuss socially-engaged crime fiction, surf stories, breakfast burritos, and returning to life on the coast.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange