B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 120

Mystery Melange

The 32nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards, which celebrate LGBTQ books and authors, announced the shortlists in 24 categories. The finalists were selected by a panel of over 60 literary professionals from more than 1,000 book submissions representing 300+ publishers. Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony, hosted by Saturday Night Live’s Bowen Yang, the evening of Monday, June 8, 2020 in New York City. The crime fiction categories include:

Best Lesbian Mystery

The Blood Runs Cold, Catherine Maiorisi, Bella Books

Galileo, Ann McMan, Bywater Books

The Hound of Justice, Claire O’Dell, Harper Voyager

The Mirror of Muraro, Amelia Ellis, Newton Pryce Ingram

Twisted at the Root: A Jane Lawless Mystery, Ellen Hart, Minotaur Books

Best Gay Mystery

Carved in Bone: A Henry Rios Novel, Michael Nava, Persigo Press

ChoirMaster: A Mister Puss Mystery, Michael Craft, Questover Press

Death Takes a Bow, David S. Pederson, Bold Strokes Books

The Fourth Courier, Timothy Jay Smith, Arcade Publishing

The Nowhere, Chris Gill, PRNTD Publishing

The Quaker, Liam McIlvanney, Europa Editions/World Noir

Rewind, Marshall Thornton, Kenmore Books

Royal Street Reveillon, Greg Herren, Bold Strokes Books

 

The coronavirus scare is taking its toll on the publishing community. Most bookstore events are still moving forward, although a few in harder-hit areas like Seattle have been canceled. The 2020 Tucson Festival of Books, scheduled for March 14-15, has been canceled; the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, originally scheduled for April, has been rescheduled and will be presented October 3-4, and the Book Prizes awards ceremony, planned for April 17, will not be held this year; the 2020 Virginia Festival of the Book (including Crime Wave) scheduled for March 18-22 in Charlottesville, has also been canceled; however, the Malice Domestic conference schedule for May 1-3 in Maryland, sent out an email notice this morning that the conference is planning on moving forward but to keep checking back. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Sadly, we lost another member of the crime fiction community last week; Brash Books reported that Barbara Neely had passed away after a brief illness. Neely was best known as author of the Blanche White mystery series, the first black female series sleuth in mainstream American publishing, and Neely had been named the 2020 Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. In an official statement, MWA noted, "She was an inspiration, a trailblazer, and a remarkable talent and voice whose loss is deeply felt. We are grateful we had the opportunity to let her know how much she meant to the mystery community before she left us. Her talent and memory will live on forever in her wonderful books. She will be missed."

The New York Review of Books profiled crime writer James Ellroy and the forces from his childhood and early adult years—including his mother's murder—that shaped his writing, including his iconic LA Quartet series.

Jeff Pierce, over at the Rap Sheet blog, has published "A Spring Shower of Reading Choices," listing new crime fiction novels to look forward to from March through May, both in the U.S. and the U.K.

One of the "Big Five" publishers (Big Six, if you count Amazon's imprints) is up for sale after ViacomCBS announced it was going to find a buyer for Simon & Schuster. Although the publishing company’s CEO, Carolyn Reidy, told employees the impending sale will not disrupt business, the true impact still remains to be seen. Simon & Schuster has published such crime authors as James Lee Burke, Catherine Coulter, Jeffery Deaver, JA Jance, Stephen King, Kathy Reichs, and many more.

A couple of anniversaries of note: it's been sixty years since the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock psychological horror film, Psycho, which was based on the Wisconsin killer and graveyard robber, Ed Gein; and it's also the 50th anniversary of Tony Hillerman's The Blessing Way, the first book to introduce Navajo police officer Joe Leaphorn.

A manuscript by the infamous Marquis de Sade (for whom the word sadism was later coined) can be yours for around a hundred grand. It's actually a historical novel, Histoire secrète d'Isabelle de Bavière reine de France, which tells the story of Isabelle of Bavaria (1371-1435), the queen consort of Charles VI. Bonhams is auctioning the document, but you'd better hurry since bids are due today.

Can you really hire a hitman on the Dark Web? As the New York Times reports (free limited subscription required), several online stores offer murder for pay, but even though some researchers say they are scams, people who want someone dead aren’t listening.

If you are fortunate enough to live to celebrate your 100th birthday, as this woman did, you can always add to your bucket list to be arrested and taken to jail.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Cadillac Prey" by Rena J. Worley.

In the Q&A roundup, crime author Michael Koryta and suspense author Alma Katsu spoke with Crime Reads about "Horror, Craft, and Reinvention"; and Jason Pinter spoke with the Mystery People's Scott Montgomery about his new book and the start of a new series, Hide Away.

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Author R&R with Jessica Moor

Jessica Moor studied English at Cambridge before completing a Creative Writing MA at Manchester University where her dissertation was awarded the second Peters Fraser Dunlop-sponsored "Creative Writing Prize for Fiction." Prior to this, she spent a year working in the violence against women and girls sector and this experience inspired her first novel, The Keeper. She currently lives in Berlin.

In Moor's novel, The Keeper, Katie Straw’s body is pulled from the waters of the local suicide spot, and the police are ready to write it off as a standard-issue female suicide. But the residents of the domestic violence shelter where Katie worked disagree. These women have spent weeks or even years waiting for the men they’re running from to catch up with them. They know immediately: This was murder. Still, Detective Dan Whitworth and his team expect an open-and-shut case ... until they discover evidence that suggests Katie wasn’t who she appeared to be.



Jessica Moor stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing her debut novel:

 

THE KEEPER is set in and around a shelter for women fleeing domestic violence. The body of Katie Straw, a young woman who works in the shelter, is found washed up in the local river. The police are inclined to write it off as suicide, but the women in the shelter believe otherwise. The novel follows the investigation, through the eyes of both the investigating officer and the women living in the shelter. We also delve into Katie’s history through flashback, and discover the void between who she seemed to be, and who she was. Really it’s a novel about violence against women, and the social institutions that allow that violence to continue and go unpunished.

I mostly worked in the head office of a charity that supported victims of violence against women (I wasn’t a frontline worker) but I did visit quite a few shelters. A lot of what made it into the book was little details—the kids’ pictures on the walls, the way the heating was always turned way up. But also there’s this unique feeling of entering an underground railroad—a network of secret spaces that exist to keep women safe. You realize that women essentially have to go there because there are men who want to hurt or even kill them—and the police and the courts aren’t stopping them. I think that shook my faith in the social institutions of law and justice.

I found inspiration within anger. There’s a line from Adrienne Rich that I always come back to “my visionary anger cleanses my sight.” I’m interested in the idea that anger can help us to see clearly, rather than clouding our judgement. Anger is often represented as a force that destabilizes women, in particular. I don’t think that’s true. Rebecca Traister’s book Good and Mad expresses this argument beautifully.

I was also inspired by a lot of the true crime narratives that I saw. I started writing this book in 2016, and stories like Serial and Making a Murderer had been very popular in the couple of years preceding. I take issue with the way we deploy female bodies as a narrative hook—I’m sure we can all think of examples of that. So it was a reverse inspiration; I wanted to do the opposite of those lazy depictions of women as silenced victims. I wanted to center women.

I had to work damn hard on the structure—luckily structure is one of those technical things that you can educate yourself on and improve. I took a lot of feedback from the right people to get that balance. I believe that a great story can operate as a sort of Trojan horse; you can sneak whatever themes you like, as long as you get the story right.

I don’t think it was ever particularly difficult to keep the two timelines in balance because they were always informing each other. I wanted every part of Katie’s experience to be in dialogue with the experiences of the women in the refuge. I think they always stayed roughly in balance, because to me they were connected.

The parts that came easiest were the moments of emotion—maybe it’s that visionary anger thing. Those were the bits that had stored up inside me and were just waiting to come spilling out. The tough part was the mechanics of storytelling, particularly because story is essential to crime. There’s nothing more disappointing than a great setup and then a mediocre payoff. In order to subvert some of the crime novel elements, I needed to understand what those elements were and how they work. It was no hardship—I read and studied a bunch of great crime novels.

There was also the challenge of flipping between a number of different narrative voices. My practical solution to that was to assign a certain song to every narrative voice, and listen to that song whenever I was writing that character so I could get into the headspace more easily.

 

You can read more about Jessica and her writing via her website and also follow her on Twitter and Instagram. The Keeper, which The Observer included in its list of "10 Best Debut Novelists of 2020," is now available via all major booksellers.

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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

The coronavirus scare is also taking a toll on Hollywood, most notably the postponement of Daniel Craig's last James Bond outing, No Time to Die, from April 10 to November 25, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Several other industry events, festivals, film productions, and even movie theatre closings have already been announced, with more likely to come.

The forthcoming indie mystery-thriller, Awaken, has assembled an impressive slate of actors including Charles Agron, who also wrote the script that Don FauntLeRoy (Gates of Darkness) will direct. The story follows Oliver Cook (Agron), a wealthy businessman dealing with the loss of his only child and the mystery as to whether she was murdered or kidnapped. No one has a clue in this tale of murder and revenge that involves Oliver’s wife (Ford v Ferrari's Alyona Khmara), his lawyer (Saw star Tobin Bell), a person from the past (Aliens's Lance Henriksen), a stripper (Ad Astra's Kayla Adams), a recluse (Ed Asner) and a mysterious woman (Dane Hoffman). As Oliver begins to unravel the mystery, he learns that events of the deep past have a direct bearing on his family’s survival.

Grammy winner Busta Rhymes and Entourage alum Kevin Dillon will star in Red Money, an indie thriller which is being produced and directed by former NYPD officer-turned-filmmaker Steve Stanulis. The film follows Detective Brian Strictland (Dillon) and Detective Clark (Rhymes) as they track down people illegally trying to get rid of their green money after the President of the United States declares that all "green money" must be submitted to the government within one year to be turned into legal "red money." The demands of the President and government create a non-stop intense crime spree throughout the country.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS’s drama pilot, Out the Door, has been put on the back burner due to difficulties casting the lead in the short time frame allotted by the broadcast pilot season. The project, from 24 veteran Evan Katz and Jerry Bruckheimer Television evokes elements of Lethal Weapon, which means it has a larger-than-life character at the center that requires spot-on casting. The project's logline reads: "Upon learning that his impending retirement is being pushed off by several years, an LAPD detective who just wants his pension so he can go off and live the good life decides to do everything in his power to get fired, but his bad behavior only leads to surprising success at solving cases."

Former Pitch star Kylie Bunbury has been tapped as the lead in The Big Sky, ABC’s straight-to-series drama created and executive produced by David E. Kelley and based on The Highway, the first book in C.J. Box’s Cassie Dewell series of novels. In the procedural thriller, private detective Cassie Dewell (Bunbury) partners with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. When they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another victim is taken.

Succession star Ashley Zukerman is set to take on the title role in Langdon, NBC’s drama pilot based on Dan Brown’s best-selling thriller novel, The Lost Symbol. Zukerman takes on the character played by Tom Hanks in the movie trilogy The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and Inferno. Langdon follows the early adventures of famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Zukerman), who must solve a series of deadly puzzles to save his kidnapped mentor and thwart a chilling global conspiracy.

Following lengthy negotiations, Veep alum Reid Scott has closed a deal for the male lead opposite Janina Gavankar in the NBC drama pilot, Echo. The project is described as "a high-concept, genre procedural" revolving around a team of investigators who solve the highest-profile crimes by sending our heroes into the past — in the body of the victim. They assume the victim’s identity and must race against time to prevent the crime before it happens. Scott will play David, a member of the FBI who volunteers for the most dangerous undercover assignments. For The People alum Wesam Keesh is also set as a series regular.

Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Deuce) and Bill Heck (Locke & Key) are set as two of the leads alongside star Jeff Bridges in FX’s drama series The Old Man, based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Thomas Perry. It centers on the aforementioned Dan Chase (Bridges), the titular "old man," who absconded from the CIA decades ago and now lives off the grid. When an assassin (Akinnagbe) arrives and tries to take Chase out, the old operative learns that to ensure his future he now must reconcile his past. Heck will play Dan Chase thirty years prior to the events of the pilot and replaces Austin Stowell who had been originally tapped for the role.

Glee alumna Vanessa Lengies has been cast as a series regular opposite Josh Peck in Turner & Hooch, Disney+’s reboot of the classic 1989 buddy-cop comedy feature. She'll play Erica, the chief trainer at the US Marshal K-9 facility.

Netflix has rounded out series regulars for the forthcoming female-driven spy thriller series, In From The Cold, with Ivana Sakhno, Cillian O’Sullivan, Lydia Fleming, Charles Brice, and Alyona Khmelnitskaya. The actors join previously announced Margarita Levieva who is set to lead the eight-episode series. Levieva plays an American single mom whose life is turned upside down while on a European vacation when the CIA forces her to confront her long-buried past as a Russian spy—who was the product of a classified KGB experiment granting her special abilities.

Once Upon a Time alum Jeff Pierre is set as a series regular opposite Lindsey Morgan and Jared Padalecki in Walker, a reimagining of CBS’s long-running 1990s action/crime series Walker, Texas Ranger. Pierre will play Trey Barnett, an Army medic recently back from his deployment and doing his best to adjust.

The first trailer is out for the mystery series Home Before Dark, which will premiere Friday, April 3 on Apple TV+. The 10-episode series is inspired by the reporting of young investigative journalist Hilde Lysiak. It follows a young girl (Brooklynn Prince) who moves from Brooklyn to the small lakeside town her father (Jim Sturgess) left behind. While there, her dogged pursuit of the truth leads her to unearth a cold case that everyone in town, including her own father, tried hard to bury.

Showtime has found its missing President. Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale) has been cast in the key role opposite David Oyelowo in The President Is Missing, Showtime’s drama pilot based on the novel by President Bill Clinton and James Patterson. The story centers on a powerless and politically aimless vice president (Oyelowo) who unexpectedly becomes president when President Jillian Stroud (Dowd) goes missing. He walks right into a secret, world-threatening crisis, both inside and outside the White House.

Tory Kittles (Colony) is set to co-star opposite Queen Latifah in the CBS drama pilot The Equalizer, a re-imagining of the classic 1980s series. Queen Latifah stars as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic figure who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Kittles will play Detective Marcus Dante, a highly intelligent, soft-spoken yet powerful and shrewd NYPD detective, with a cultivated veneer.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Crime Cafe host, Debbi Mack, chatted with criminologist and true-crime writer, Judith Yates.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Jason Pinter to discuss his book, Hide Away, the first in a new series featuring vigilante Rachel Marin.

Suspense Magazine's Beyond the Cover spoke with Rhys Bowen, author of more than forty novels, including The Victory Garden, The Tuscan Child, and the World War II-based In Farleigh Field.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro grilled Holly West about her Mistress of Fortune series; her new novella, The Money Block; and conferences.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured special guest Bruce Goldfarb, executive assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland, in a discussion of his first book of popular nonfiction, 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast featured "One Too Many," by Edith Maxwell about a hyperpolyglot—someone with an extraordinary ability to quickly learn many different languages—who turns her talent to criminal purposes.

Listening to the Dead hosts, author Lynda La Plante and CSI Cass Sutherland, discussed "Fire Investigation Forensics" on the latest episode.

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Hammett's Heroes

The International Association of Crime Writers, North American Branch (IACW/NA) has announced this year's finalists for the Hammett Prize, awarded annually to a Canadian or US citizen or permanent resident for a book in English in the field of crime writing. It is named after crime writer Dashiell Hammett and was established in 1991. Congrats to all the finalists:

The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer (St. Martin’s Press)
Blood Relations by Jonathan Moore (Mariner Books)
Bluff by Jane Stanton Hitchcock (Poisoned Pen Press)
The Murals by William Bayer (Severn House)
Norco '80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History by Peter Houlahan (Counterpoint Press)

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FFB: The Singing Spider

Angus MacVicar (1908-2001) was a Scottish author of crime thrillers, juvenile science fiction and nonfiction. His first novel The Purple Rock was a bestseller, but his career was interrupted by an illness and then service in World War II with the Royal Scots Fusiliers.



He also later turned his hand to screenwriting, and his young-adult sci-fi novel series The Lost Planet was made into televsion and radio versions. (A side note: MacVicar's father was a Presbyterian minister in the Church of Scotland and the author's books often had snippets of Christianity in them, so it's interesting that The Lost Planet was the first science fiction series ever translated to Hebrew, and allegedly had considerable impact on the development of that genre in Israel.)



MacVicar's suspense novel The Singing Spider from 1938 was set against the backdrop of Mussolini and impending war with Italy. It follows young Archie Campbell, an intelligent, scrupulously honest and brave young man who is offered a job as a secret agent by Sir Robert Vanburgh, who is the Secretary for Diplomatic Affairs and also a friend of Archie's dead father. Archie's job is to visit the quiet little fishing port of Bennachie in order to uncover the secret that was discovered by another murdered agent, known as D7—who was also Sir Robert's son.



Archie takes the job hoping to find redemption following a scandalous love affair that left him a broken man and a drunkard, and soon finds himself immersed in the picturesque village of Bennachie playing the not-too-far-off role of a recovering invalid. Archie tries to uncover the identity of the Singing Spider—an Italian spy and master of disguise thought to be behind D7's murder—with the help of an American Professor, a local rogue who's also seeking redemption, and a lovely young minister's daughter. But first Archie has to find out how the Singing Spider is tied to a puzzling phrase that translates as "The Pit of Baal" and the mysterious red lights at the Bennachie stone, an artifact the Professor believes dates back to the ancient Phoenicians.



It's definitely a novel of its time, thematically and stylistically, but there's a good rendering of the Scottish setting that was so similiar to areas MacVicar knew well, and to its characters. There's also a bit of naive sweetness to it that you don't often find in spy-themed suspense novels, no doubt a nod to the author's Presbyterian roots and his young-adult writings. It's definitely a G- or PG+ type of plot. The Singing Spider was made into a radio program for BBC Scotland in 1950, although I doubt any traces of it exist.



Several of Angus MacVicar's books have been recently re-released by Lume Books (formerly Endeavour Media). The titles include his crime fiction books featuring Rev. P J. MacFarlane; MacVicar's two-book private investigator Bruce McLintock series; and several standalone suspense novels.

            

Author R&R with Paul Martin Midden

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Paul Martin Midden received his MA and Ph.D. from St. Louis University and practiced clinical psychology for over thirty years. While in practice, he worked in multiple intensive settings, including hospitals and residential care centers, and in 1992, he founded an independent treatment center that provided broad-based treatment for many psychological and behavioral disorders. Paul’s other interests include historic restoration, travel, fitness, and wine tasting. He and his wife Patricia reside in a renovated 1895 Romanesque home in St. Louis designed by Theodore Link.

 

In Riley, Midden's recently published psychological suspense thriller, writer Riley Cotswald gets way more than she bargained for when she finally leaves her husband and has a fling with the socially challenged Edward. After she rebuffs him, he begins to stalk Riley and then resorts to the Dark Web to find ways to retaliate against her, leading to events that are complicated, intense, and completely unforeseen.

 

Paul Martin Midden stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the novel:

 

My latest novel, Riley, has a lot of action; but for the most part the action takes place in the confines of the characters’ heads.

I am not sure I would call my preparation for this book ‘research’ as such. It was more like focused thinking. As with the characters in the book, the ‘research’ took place mostly in my head, in a way not dissimilar from how the action in the novel unfolds. Fortunately, after spending thirty years as a practicing psychologist, it’s a crowded field up there from which to select events.

On the many wonderful things about being a psychologist (‘shrink’ in common parlance, although I’ve never been fond of that appellation) is accompanying people in their personal journeys to enhance their lives. It involves a huge amount of listening as well as a substantial amount of patience. Both of these have most often been well-rewarded.

And then there is the inescapable fact that my own life and history were not exempt from the same rich field. 

None of this is person-specific: I have no idea where my own experience leaves off and that of my sometime patients picks up. There are obvious places in the novel where women do things that I cannot do as a man. But overall, I have learned that we humans are more similar than we are different one to another. And the broad base of commonality is both wide and deep.

All of this sounds like arm-chair research, and to a certain extent it is. But whoever said that sitting in an armchair thinking is a useless endeavor? While it may look easy from the outside, anyone who has undertaken it with any degree of seriousness knows it can be a treacherous activity indeed.

Treacherous? I am afraid so. Thinking poses often unexpected surprises: what if what I had been taught about religion, for instance, was wrong? What if what I thought about my spouse was inaccurate? What if I realize I was blind to the obvious depression/alcoholism/anxiety/ sociopathy of my partner? Thinking can change your life. And it can have major consequences.

And beyond that, thinking can lead to big screw-ups. We humans are hard-wired, it appears, to do unwise and often stupid things. It is unavoidable. And often when we are in the midst of some felonious ‘mistake’ (so called after the fact in most cases, depending on how mortifying the consequences might be) we are filled with powerful self-righteousness. We thought we were doing the right thing. Even when we were not.

Humans are so interesting.

But back to the action: Isn’t it the case that much of the time we spend on this planet is filled with activity that would justifiably be called ‘mental’? We think about things; we form opinions; we change our minds; we behold beauty with a sense of awe and wonder; we chase people who register as attractive in our minds. Sometimes, we let our fantasies override our good sense (if we are lucky). In short, we live inside our heads. 24/7. Even when we are asleep.

So while events outside the minds of my characters (charming phrase, that; as if I own them) do happen, they only make sense when framed against the backdrop of their interior, mental behavior. Just as it is for all of us.

 

You can learn more about author Paul Martin Midden and his books via his website. Riley and his previous novels are available via all major booksellers.

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Mystery Melange

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) announced the winners of the 25th annual Audie Awards competition, recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment.

In the Mystery category, the winner was The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup, narrated by Peter Noble. Other finalists included:

Along Came a Spider (25 anniversary edition) by James Patterson, narrated by Taye Diggs
The Boy by Tami Hoag, narrated by Hillary Huber
The Lost Man by Jane Harper, narrated by Stephen Shanahan
The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke, narrated by Will Patton

In the Thriller/Suspense category, the winner was The Institute by Stephen King, narrated by Santino Fontana. The other finalists included:

Blood in the Water by Jack Flynn, narrated by Dion Graham,
Freefall by Jessica Barry, narrated by Hillary Huber
Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman, narrated by Susan Bennett
Winter Dark by Alex Callister, narrated by Ell Potter

 

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival announced its 2020 Special Guests at one of the world’s largest and most prestigious crime fiction festivals. Crime writing royalty Martina Cole, Mark Billingham, Lisa Gardner, Kathy Reichs, Elly Griffiths, Mick Herron and Michael Connelly will be appearing as part of the killer line-up curated by this year’s Festival Programming Chair and Inspector Rebus author, Ian Rankin. The event is currently set to take place July 23-26 at Harrogate’s Old Swan Hotel – the legendary scene of Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance in 1926.

Heffers bookstore in Cambridge, UK is presenting Murder Will Out:  A Day of Crime, Thriller and Mystery Fiction on Saturday March 14th at The Old Library, Emmanuel College. There will be a series of panels on the craft of writing crime fiction and a pop-bookshop at the event for booksignings. Authors scheduled to appear include Stephanie Austin, Lesley Kara, Gytha Lodge, Alison Bruce, Elly Griffiths, Christina James, Carol Ramsay, Deepa Anappara, Mick Finlay, Sam Lloyd, Caro Ramsay, Christopher Fowler, Nicola Upson, Steve Cavanagh, and MW Craven.

Heffers Bookshop in Cambridge, UK, will also be hosting "Trace Elements: An evening with Donna Leon" on Thursday, April 2. Queen of crime fiction Donna Leon returns to Heffers with her latest book, the twenty-ninth installment in the highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling Commissario Guido Brunetti series. Donna Leon was named by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers and has won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction.

Crime Story, a series of events for crime fiction fans, will take place at Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle this spring. Celebrated writers AA Dhand, Oliver Harris, Jessica Moor, Judith O’Reilly, and Mim Skinner will be paired with experts including Dr. Nicci MacLeod, a forensic linguist; Professor Mike Rowe, a criminologist who specialises in policing culture and reforms; and Professor Lars Holmquist, an internationally-leading researcher in human-computer interaction. A podcast inspired by Crime Story is now being developed by BBC Newcastle and is due to launch on BBC Sounds in Summer 2020. (HT to Shots Magazine)



There's a call for papers from the journal Mai: Feminism and Visual Culture on "The Female Detective on TV," with plans for a publication date in the first half of 2021. Academic authors with expertise in television studies and other related disciplines are invited to contribute to the issue that editors hope will not only examine the figures and representations of women crime investigators on the screen, but also situate their work in related social, cultural and political contexts. The definition of the female detective is broad and inclusive and can include but doesn't have to be a private eye or a police professional, just as long as she pursues social justice or truth.  (HT to Ayo Ontade)

A sad note via Mystery Fanfare:  we lost author Laura Caldwell last week after a long bout with breast cancer. She was not only a novelist but also a former civil rights trial attorney, law professor, and the founding director of Life After Innocence, a project that works with wrongfully convicted individuals affected by the criminal justice system to get cases overturned, help with re-entry to society, and to reclaim their lives. Her crime fiction books, including the Izzy McNeil series, have been published in over 25 countries and her books have been translated into more than 13 languages.

Through April 19, 2020, the Postal Museum in London is presenting the exhibition "The Great Train Robbery: Crime and the Post," which provides a history of the Post Office Investigation Branch (established in 1683) and the notorious August 1963 robbery of a Royal Mail train, in which thieves made off with £2.6 million (approximately $71 million in today's dollars). "The Great Train Robbery: Crime and the Post" has been two years in the making and uncovers over 150 objects, recordings and films, some of which are displayed for the very first time.  (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

For the Smart Set, Benjamin Welton discusses Raymond Chandler's service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and short-lived time in the RAF in World War I in an article titled "From Trenches to Trenchcoats."



Care to live in the former apartment of another crime fiction icon? Dashiell Hammett's apartment is available for rent in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco where he spent 1926 to 1929 while writing his first three novels: Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), and The Maltese Falcon (1930). (He also modeled the apartment of The Maltese Falcon detective Sam Spade on it.) It's obviously been renovated, so the experience wouldn't quite be the same, but perhaps a little of Hammett's aura can still be found there.



This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Eyes the Color of Tobacco Smoke" by C.W. Blackwell.

In the Q&A roundup this week, John Simenon, son of famous Belgian novelist Georges Simenon and manager of his father's literary estate (as well as working in the film industry himself), participated in a Q&A with The Guardian; author Donna Leon spoke with the Boston Globe about why "Greek and Roman Tragedies are Still Relevant." (subscription required); Bookpage chatted with Peter Swanson about his thriller, Eight Perfect Murders, where a killer takes inspiration from classic mysteries; and the Mystery People spoke with Russ Thomas about his debut, Firewatching, featuring D.I. Adam Tyler.

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Author R&R with Michael McAuliffe

Michael McAuliffe has been a practicing lawyer for over 30 years. He was a federal prosecutor serving both as an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of Florida and an honors program trial attorney in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Michael and his wife Robin Rosenberg, a US district judge, have three children and live in Florida and Massachusetts. Aside from the law and writing, Michael is an alpine mountaineer, having climbed and reached the summits of Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro (with his eldest daughter), Island Peak in the Himalayas, and many other mountains in the Rockies, the Cascades, and the Andes.

 

In his debut novel, the legal thriller No Truth Left to Tell, flaming crosses light up the Louisiana town of Lynwood in 1994, terrorizing the town. The resurgent Klan wants a new race war, and they’ll start it here. As civil rights prosecutor, Adrien Rush is about to discover the ugly roots of the past run deep in Lynwood. Rush arrives from DC and investigates the crimes with Lee Mercer, a seasoned local FBI special agent. Their partnership is tested as they clash over how far to go to catch the racists before the violence escalates.

 

Michael McAuliffe stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about how he researched and wrote the book:

 

I wrote the novel No Truth Left To Tell in three years, but I researched it for thirty.

The novel’s young protagonist, Adrien Rush, is a federal civil rights prosecutor who is sent to the South to investigate a series of hate crimes. Decades ago, I, too, was a young federal civil rights prosecutor sent to the South to investigate hate crimes. During the time I worked as a trial lawyer at the Justice Department, and later as an assistant US attorney, I witnessed, participated in, and collected a great many stories that touch the subjects and characters in the novel. I did investigate and prosecute the leader of the Louisiana Ku Klux Klan. I also investigated and prosecuted a number of cases involving police brutality. One such police matter included torture similar to that depicted in the book. From early in my legal career, I believed the cases I and others prosecuted made for dramatic stories. So, the basic elements for the novel existed for decades before I typed the first word into a MacBook.

I, however, didn’t have the insight or maturity thirty years ago to translate the emotional truths of my experiences into an entertaining and compelling story. Luckily, the intervening years provided ample opportunity to humble, toughen, challenge, and ultimately reward my creative instincts. My varied (some might say disparate) career as a federal prosecutor, big firm law partner, law professor and global company general counsel, created fertile, tilled soil for me to better appreciate the inherent dramas of the law. After all, it’s the law that guides, bounds and protects us as a society, or is supposed to do so.

After I committed to write the novel, I revisited actual events, issues and cases, to ensure the fundamental aspects of the story were realistic, or at least plausible. I also wanted to pull notable traits or habits from individuals I had known as a young lawyer and mix them into the novel’s characters. That process was less an exercise of research than a mining of memory. I knew most of the procedural parts of the story from my professional work, but the creation of a compelling story and characters proved a more difficult endeavor.

After several jumbled starts, I realized that, as a writer of fiction, I had to nurture a world in which plausibility yielded to imagination in the service of entertainment. Once I grew more assertive imagining the characters and living with them in the story (and occasionally outside as I wondered how a character might handle a real-world issue), the path revealed itself. I didn’t recognize at the time that rewriting (and rewriting) and editing waited hidden around the corner!

Of course, for an author, it begins and ends with whether a reader enjoys the story and a connection is made, however brief. That’s a matter of the heart, not facts.

 

You can learn more about Michael McAuliffe via his website, or follow him on LinkedIn and Goodreads. No Truth Left to Tell is now available from all major booksellers.

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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

Warner Bros has given John Lee Hancock’s cop thriller, The Little Things, a premiere date of January 29, 2021. The movie, written by Hancock, centers around Deke (Denzel Washington), a burnt-out Kern County, CA deputy sheriff who teams with Baxter (Rami Malek), a crack LASD detective, to nab a serial killer. Deke’s nose for the "little things" proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent the rules embroils Baxter in a soul-shattering dilemma. Meanwhile, Deke must wrestle with a dark secret from his past.

Knives Out star Don Johnson has been cast alongside John Boyega in the Netflix film, Rebel Ridge, from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. Also joining the cast are Erin Doherty (The Crown), James Badge Dale (Hold The Dark), Zsane Jhe (Underground Railroad) and Oscar Nominee James Cromwell. The pic is described as "a deeply human yet high-velocity thriller that explores systemic American injustice in the context of bone-breaking action, ever-coiling suspense, and pitch-black humor."

Dove Cameron will co-star opposite RJ Mitte (Breaking Bad) in Issac, a psychological thriller which is currently shooting in Los Angeles. Josh Webber is directing from a script he co-wrote with Christopher Neil. The story follows Issac (Mitte), who meets a friendly waitress Cassi (Cameron) one night at a diner, and the pair set out to commit a revenge murder together in the name of love.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Hawaii Five-0 will end its run after 10 seasons on CBS, which has set a two-hour series finale for Friday, April 3. The series was a remake of Leonard Freeman’s 1970s-era series and starred Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan, along with Ian Anthony Dale, Meaghan Rath, Beulah Koale, Katrina Law, Taylor Wily, Dennis Chun, Kimee Balmilero, and Chi McBride. Recurring cast members James Marsters (Victor Hesse), William Sadler (John McGarrett) and Mark Dacascos (Wo Fat) will also return for the finale.

Nicole Kidman is set to produce for Amazon Studios, My Lovely Wife, based on the novel of the same name by author Samantha Downing. The story, described as a marital, psychological thriller with darkly comedic undertones (in the vein of Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith), follows a simple, suburban married couple of 15 years who spice up their marriage by engaging in a string of murders. But when one of the couple’s victims is discovered, the husband realizes that his wife may not be as trustworthy as he imagined.

ITV has ordered a mystery thriller from Sophie Petzal, creator of breakout Irish drama Blood. The British broadcaster has commissioned the four-part series, Hollington Drive, which focuses on the lives of two sisters, Theresa and her older head-teacher sibling, Helen, along with a missing child.

The BBC is adapting Imran Mahmood’s crime novel, You Don’t Know Me with The Crown writer Tom Edge and Mrs Wilson producer Snowed-In Productions. The four-part drama will center on a young man who stands accused of murder. The evidence is overwhelming, but at his trial, this man tells an extraordinary story about the woman he loves who got into terrible trouble and how he risked everything to save her. He swears he’s innocent, but in the end, all that matters is this: do you believe him?

The BBC has also commissioned The Responder, a police series starring Sherlock actor Martin Freeman as a night shift officer in the British city of Liverpool. The Responder is written by Tony Schumacher, a former police officer who is fulfilling a lifelong ambition to write for the screen and has been part of the BBC Writers Room emerging writers initiative. The six-part series features Freeman as cop Chris, who works night shifts with his new rookie partner, Rachel, policing Liverpool’s criminal underbelly.

The BBC and HBO are teaming up for documentary on the unsolved mystery of plane hijacker D.B. Cooper, nearly 50 years after he vanished without a trace in 1971. The film seeks to unravel the mystery surrounding Cooper, who boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines plane in November 1971 and hijacked the flight while it was still on the tarmac. He claimed to have a bomb in his briefcase and demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in exchange for sparing the 36 passengers on board.

NBC renewed Law & Order: SVU for three more seasons. The procedural, which already became the longest-running live-action drama this season, will be on the air through Season 24. NBC also gave three-season renewals to Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago P.D., which have been heavy-hitters for NBC, airing back-to-back on Wednesday nights and pulling in massive viewership for crossover episodes between the shows. 

Rebecca Breeds (Pretty Little Liars) has been cast as the lead in CBS’s crime drama pilot, Clarice, based on the famous Thomas Harris character, Clarice Starling. Clarice is set in 1993, a year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, and is a "deep dive into the untold personal story of FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Breeds), as she returns to the field to pursue serial murderers and sexual predators while navigating the high-stakes political world of Washington, D.C."

Bella Heathcote (The Man in the High Castle) is set to star opposite Toni Collette in Pieces of Her, Netflix’s dramatic thriller series based on the 2018 book by bestselling crime author Karin Slaughter. Pieces of Her is set in a sleepy Georgia town where a random act of violence sets off an unexpected chain of events for 30-year-old Andy Oliver (Heathcote) and her mother Laura (Collette). Desperate for answers, Andy embarks on a dangerous journey across America, drawing her toward the dark, hidden heart of her family.

Ryan Phillippe and Katheryn Winnick have been cast in lead roles in ABC's procedural thriller, The Big Sky, based on The Highway, the first book in C.J. Box’s Cassie Dewell series of novels. The story centers on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. Phillippe plays Cody Hoyt, a well-meaning ex-cop turned private investigator working in Helena, Montana, who's roped into the case by private eye Cassie Dewell (played by Dedee Pfeiffer) and Hoyt's estranged wife (Winnick), who's also an ex-cop. When they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another victim is taken.  

Hulu has tapped Veep alum Tony Hale to star in its adaptation of The Mysterious Benedict Society, based on the novel by Trenton Lee Stewart. The series follows four gifted orphans who are recruited by an eccentric benefactor to go on a secret mission. Placed undercover at a boarding school known as "The Institute," they must foil a nefarious plot with global ramifications while creating a new sort of family along the way. Hale will pull double-duty on the series, starring as both Mr. Benedict, the "rumpled, affable eccentric genius" and head of the titular society, and his "frustratingly sharp, well put-together (if villainous)" twin brother, Mr. Curtain.

Tyrone Marshall Brown is set as a lead opposite Tate Donovan and Melissa Leo in Blood Relative, a forensic genealogy-themed crime drama pilot on Fox. The project is based on James Renner’s 2018 article "Beyond the Jungle of Bad: The True Story of Two Women from California Who Are Solving All the Mysteries," about Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick and Dr. Margaret Press, who have combined their genealogy expertise to push the boundaries of forensic science and help law enforcement identify Joe and Jane Does and track down serial killers. Melissa Leo stars as Louise "Lou" Kelly, a brilliant but irascible expert in genetic genealogy who partners with her affable brother-cop, John (Tate Donovan). Brown is set to play Detective Brick Doughty, a homicide detective and John Kelly’s partner.

The CW Kung Fu pilot has found its star in Legacies' Olivia Liang. The reimagining (with a female lead) of the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series follows a young Chinese-American woman, Nicky Chen (Liang) who drops out of college and goes on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice — all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and is now targeting her.

Janina Gavankar has been cast as the female lead in Echo, NBC’s drama pilot from JJ Bailey. Echo is a high-concept, genre procedural revolving around a team of investigators who solve the highest-profile crimes by sending our heroes into the past — in the body of the victim. They assume the victim’s identity and must race against time to prevent the crime before it happens. Gavankar will play Mel Goodwin, a police officer who’s driven and eager to prove herself.

Lyndsy Fonseca (Nikita) and Carra Patterson (The Arrangement) have been cast as female leads opposite Josh Peck in Turner & Hooch, Disney+’s reboot of the classic 1989 buddy-cop comedy. Peck plays U.S. Marshal Scott Turner, a version of the character portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie. Like the film, the series revolves around Scott Turner, who is now an ambitious, buttoned-up U.S. marshal (vs. a police detective in the movie), and his K9 partner. Fonseca will play Laura, Scott’s sister, while Patterson takes on the role of Jessica, Scott’s human partner, and a sharp contrast to his spit-and-polish ways.

The Gifted alum Coby Bell is set as a series regular opposite Jared Padalecki in Walker, a reimagining of CBS’s long-running 1990s action/crime series, Walker, Texas Ranger. Bell will play Captain Larry James, the only African American man in the Austin headquarters and one of only a few in the entire Ranger division. Molly Hagan (Sully) has also been cast as a series regular playing Abeline Walker, Walker’s (Padalecki's) mother, an unstoppable force of nature. 

Lorraine Toussaint (The Village) is set to co-star opposite Queen Latifah in the CBS drama pilot, The Equalizer, a re-imagining of the classic 1980s series. The Equalizer stars Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic figure who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Toussaint will play Frieda "Aunt Fry" Lascombe, Robyn’s aunt and a truth-teller who tends to be a wary optimist.

Jazz Raycole is set as a series regular opposite Kiele Sanchez and Angus Sampson in the CBS drama, The Lincoln Lawyer, based on Michael Connelly’s series of bestselling novels about attorney Mickey Haller who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car. Raycole will play Izzy, Mickey’s client, a young former addict charged with grand larceny for stealing a necklace to support her habit. Izzy’s clean now – a fact that Mickey can relate to – and he not only gets her acquitted, but lets her pay off her bill by working as his driver.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The first episode of Listening to the Dead: Forensics Uncovered has host Lynda La Plante taking a look at "Forensic Botany and Ecology."

In another look at forensics, Raychelle Burks, a forensic chemist and a big fan of murder mysteries, discussed pop culture forensics and which shows do it well, on the Short Wave podcast.

Lynda La Plante was also a guest on the Partners in Crime podcast. Hosts Adam Croft and Adrian Hobart also discussed the death of Clive Cussler (and his knowledge of shipwrecks), Martin Edwards’s Diamond Dagger, 2020’s hottest TV genre, Jo Nesbø avoiding his fans, The Hurricane Tapes, and whether independent authors can make a living,

A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up, featuring the first chapter of The Five Manners of Death by Darden North, read by actor Ariel Linn.

In another dramatic presentation, the BBC Drama of the Week podcast featured "This Thing of Darkness," where forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Alex Bridges, charts the psychological impact of the murder of a young man on his family.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Jason Pinter about Hide Away, the first Rachel Marin novel.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, spoke with JJ Hensley about his background in law enforcement and the Secret Service, and about his books.

The Crime Fiction Lounge host Paul Stretton-Stephens chatted with Alan Orloff, author of I Know Where You Sleep.

Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover welcomed spy author Alan Furst to talk his latest book, Under Occupation.

Hilary Davidson was the special guest on Speaking of Mysteries to discuss Don't Look Down, the second book in her series with NYPD Homicide Detectives Sheryn Sterling and Rafael Mendoza.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham had a rundown about the discussion around My Dark Vanessa and Excavation and discussed mysteries written by Latinx authors.

Writers Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, tackled the subjects of "Experience is the Greatest Teacher, Prosecuting a Serial Killer, and Federal Supervised Release."

Writer Types guest co-host Alison Gaylin joined regular host Eric Beetner to talk with LC Shaw (The Network), Hilary Davidson (Don't Look Down) and Suzanne Redfearn (In An Instant)

THEATRE

A new opera exploring the murder of Alexander Litvinenko will see its debut in the UK this summer. Litvinenko, a former Russian secret service officer, tragically died in London in 2006 after being poisoned with the radioactive isotope, polonium-210. It is believed the plan to murder Litvinenko was formulated by two assassins sent by the Russian government, and a British public inquiry showed compelling evidence against the suspects.

The Cape Fear Regional Theatre is presenting Murder for Two beginning March 5. Everyone is a suspect in Murder for Two… One actor plays the investigator, the other plays all 13 suspects, and both play the piano!

The Indiana Repertory Theatre will Stage Agatha Christie's classic, Murder on the Orient Express, with opening night on March 6.

The Pittsburgh Public Theater is presenting American Son beginning March 5. The play is set in a Florida police station in the middle of the night with a mother searching for her missing teenage son.





Princess Theatre Torquay in the UK will stage The Woman in Black, March 3-7, a play that combines the power and intensity of live theatre with a cinematic quality inspired by the world of film noir.

Richmond Theatre, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is presenting The Cat and the Canary March 2-7. This is a new adaptation of the murderous mystery, which inspired three classic movies starring the likes of Bob Hope, Honor Blackman, and Olivia Hussey.

Theatre Royal Glasgow, Scotland, will stage Dial M for Murder, made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s world-renowned noir film of 1950.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

FFB: The Last Vanity

Leopold Horace Ognall (1908-1979) was a prolific author, with close to 90 novels under his two pseudonyms, Hartley Howard and Harry Carmichael. Thus it is rather surprising that it's so difficult to find anything about the author or his books.



He was born in Montreal, educated in Scotland, and worked as a journalist before starting his fiction career. His primary series characters under the Harry Carmichael name are insurance assessor John Piper and crime reporter Quinn. The main focus of his Hartley Howard line are Philip Scott, head of a successful toy company and secretly the head of a British spy unit, and the New York private eye Glenn Bowman. The author once declared thirty-eight year old Bowman to be "the toughest wise-cracking private eye in the business."



One of the earliest Bowman novels is The Last Vanity from 1952, the third in that series. The novel opens with Edwin Newsome, a man worried about the health of his brother, Harold, fearing he may be the victim of steady poisoning by his brother's new—and much younger—wife, Moira. Edwin hires P.I. Glenn Bowman to investigate, and Bowman poses as an ex-con to get himself hired as a second chauffeur in the Harold's household. He soon discovers many under-currents beneath the surface involving family and staff alike, much more than a scheming young wife after her husband's wealth.



Hartley Howard's style is solidly in the Golden Age era, with the British author trying valiantly to emulate the American hard-boiled detective writing of Raymond Chandler and the others who followed in Chandler's footsteps. There are a few British-isms that creep in here and there, although they're relatively minor. The novel doesn't rise to Chandler's level, perhaps, but it's still entertaining and Bowman's character is sympathetic and engaging.



Although Ognall/Howard's books were apparently never published in the States and weren't even all that easy to find in the U.K., the Thrilling Detective site notes that Howard at some point moved to Italy during the Sixties and his Glenn Bowman private eye books were very popular among Italian readers during that period. They apparently did well in Germany, where almost his entire output was translated.



Both Leopold Horace Ognall and his books appear to be largely forgotten (save perhaps his novel Assignment K, made into a movie starring Stephen Boyd as spy Philip Scott), but the author's son Harry became a high court judge and conducted the hearings regarding former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet.