B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 130

FFB: Thorne in the Flesh

  Rhona Petrie (d. 2010) was the pen name of British author Eileen-Marie Duell Buchanan, who also wrote under the name Clare Curzon. Born in 1922, she didn't start her  literary career until the 1960s, with the publication of Death in Deakins Wood, the first installment in a series featuring Police Inspector Marcus Maclurg. She went on to publish over forty novels, and the most successful was her series focusing on Detective Superintendent Mike Yeadings of the Thames Valley Serious Crime Squad, some 24 books in all.



Her numerous books weren't just throw-away quickies, either. Guilty Knowledge (1999), the first book in the Stakerly Series set in 1900s London and featuring Lucy Sedgewick, was short-listed for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger in 2000. It actually won an award in that same year, the Herodotus Award for Best First International Historical Mystery.



Perhaps it was the author's studies in French and psychology at King's College, London, that culminated in the publication of Thorne in the Flesh in 1971, a standalone suspense/political thriller novel. Just about every page is heavily laced with the philosophical musings of the protagonist, and there's a strong Francophile-oriented angle, as well.



The titular protagonist of the book, Ellis Thorne, is a dedicated London schoolmaster living a fairly quiet life renting a single room whose entrance is crammed between Express Dairy and the launderette. One day, out of the blue the police arrive with word that a great uncle whom Thorne knows only by name, Sylveste Aury, has been seriously injured in a car crash that at first glance appears to be an accident. Thorne makes a promise to his dying relative who tells him "No accident—all yours now—you'll find—in the file—you'll take it over?"



As Thorne digs deeper into his great-uncle's business, he's pulled down into a seamy world of strippers, a squatter's siege, 1960s counterculture and anarchism, muggings, and the high-profile kidnapping of a politician that sets off riots. With pressure on all sides from thugs, the police and the intelligence service, he soon decides he's had enough and almost turns his back on the whole lot. But he can't seem to tear himself away from Tina, one of the night-club employees, and the responsibility he feels for the unlikely-named Katte Mandu, an African girl Aury was taking care of, as well as Millie, the oversized English sheepdog that came with Thorne's apartment.



The writing and subject matter is still relevent today, and Petrie manages to weave some fanciful turns of phrase and wit along with the dark atmosphere:

His mind, he'd prided himself, was a tidy one. Now it was ransacked, its contents churned and pawed over like a room that had been pillaged. He had thought he'd known what it contained and where everything was kept. Now he wasn't sure. Hidden prejudices were brought to light, the junk stuffed away behind furniture.

and

A girl took off her clothes and danced, and the audience watched serpents of light wriggle and coil over her limbs, saw stardust powder the upward curves of her pagoda body.  But from where Thorne had sat, without neophiliac needs, he had seen the mechanics, recognized not spangles but sweating flesh, seen on the nakedness the sad little marks of tight elastic, pubic stubble and bitten nails. Things that on a loved body would be endearing, but here were pathetic.

and

. . . before them the muffled sounds of people boxed up inside the building—water running, a child's fretful crying, voices raised in angry dipute, a woman suddenly screaming abuse from only a few yards distant; the sound of fist on flesh and a moment's silence, then moaning and sobs of something subhuman, pleading and hating and desperately needing.

Marie Buchanan's last novel, Devil in the Detail (part of the Yeadings series), was published as recently as 2010, but the author still isn't all that widely known, especially in the U.S. Fortunately, several of her books are available in paperback and hardcover, worth seeking out for a first, or second, look.

            

Mystery Melange

The longlist for the third annual Warwick Prize for Women in Translation was announced, including the literary murder mystery, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tocarczu, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

On Saturday, October 26, the Texas Book Festival is sponsoring a Lit Crawl Austin, which includes events such as a Noir at the Bar at Cheer Up Charlies. The MysteryPeople will present a "round of hip, hard-boiled, nitty-gritty noir readings" by crime fiction authors Steph Cha, May Cobb, Gabino Iglesias, Joe Lansdale, Craig Johnson, Mike McCrary, and Alex Segura. Scott Montgomery will be taking on hosting duties for the evening.

The annual mystery fan conference Boucheron is coming up later this month in Dallas, but If you missed the inaugural Capital Crime conference in London recently, Ali Karim has a wrap-up for The Rap Sheet. Capital Crime is a celebration of books, films, and TV with a line-up that focuses on a mix of world class talent, rising stars, and newcomers. This year's headliners included David Baldacci, John Connolly, Ian Rankin, Anne Cleeves, and Anthony Horowitz.

If you're going to Bouchercon, you won't want to miss The Ghost Town Mortuary, a radio play by Anthony Boucher, performed by members of Mystery Writers of America NorCal, Friday, November 1, 11 am, at the Landmark Ballroom in the Hyatt Regency. Authors scheduled to participate include Laurie R. King, David Corbett, Kelli Stanley, Reece Hirsch, Randal Brands, Dale Berry, Gigi Pandian, James L'Etoile, and Terry Shames.

The Left Coast Crime National Committee is offering five scholarships to Left Coast Crime #30 in San Diego, California, March 12-15, 2020. The LCC Scholarships include a free registration to the convention in San Diego (currently $215) plus $500 expense money. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Serpent's Tail senior commissioning editor, Miranda Jewess, will launch a new crime imprint, Viper, at a launch party in London on November 7th. The 20 titles planned for its inaugural year include the very first title, the "haunting police procedural" A Famished Heart by Irish author Nicola White (due February 2020). Others in the pipeline include The Plague Letters by NPR senior editor Vikki Valentine, writing under her pen name V L Valentine, and David Jackson's standalone thriller, The Resident. Jewess, the former acquisitions and managing editor at Titan Books, joined the company as senior commissioning editor for Serpent’s Tail Crime in February to commission titles across the crime, thriller, and suspense genres.

The British Library has just issued its catalogue for the first half of next year, half a dozen Crime Classics. Stand-out titles, according to editor Martin Edwards, will be The Woman in the Wardrobe by Peter Shaffer; John Dickson Carr's atmospheric Castle Skull, set in the Rhineland; Mary Kelly's The Spoilt Kill, which won her the CWA Gold Dagger when she was still in her early thirties, and many other upcoming mystery goodies.

The Fall/October issue of Flash Bang Mysteries, edited by B.J. and Brandon Bourg, is up and available online. I am thrilled and honored that my flash piece, "The Barbecue Pot" was chosen as the cover story and Editor's Choice, joining the talented company of authors Alan Orloff, Bruce Harris, and Herschel Cozine in the issue.

In a restored recording from 1954, Ngaio Marsh speaks about her first novel, A Man Lay Dead (1934); relates her "odd" (in her view) process of writing detective fiction; and provides her eyewitness account of the eventful inauguration of E. C. Bentley as Detection Club president in 1936 with Dorothy L. Sayers and John Rhode. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at the Bunburyist)

Georgia Public Broadcasting snagged Amaryllis Fox for a recent profile. Fox's book, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, is a memoir about the author's time as a spy and is especially helpful for those of you who write spy thrillers (tip: eateries are key to spycraft).

What makes reading a good mystery so satisfying? Vulture collected thoughts and tips from thirteen crime novelists.

Do you like a little bit of the supernatural with your crime fiction? Author John Connolly offered up a defense of cross-genre writing (which includes his own latest work, A Book of Bones) for CrimeReads. And he didn't have to look too far, since Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and even Arthur Conan Doyle had some supernatural literary connections.

In honor of the new Nancy Drew series on the CW network, Book Riot has a "Which Nancy Drew Sidekick are You?" quiz and a list of Nancy Drew computer games for "every mood."

I have to admit it: I'm a closeted pun fan. And apparently, I'm not the only one, as these grammar puns will attest. (I'm sorry, and you're welcome.)

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Nocturne" by John Oughton.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Scott Adlerberg chatted with Jake Hinkson about his new novel, Dry County, as well as the influences of film noir in Jake's books and thoughts about the origins of evil; GQ's Writer of the Year, James Ellroy, spoke with the magazine about his latest Los Angeles-based noir thriller, reconciling with his second ex-wife, how his mother's murder shaped his writing and finding the "happy gene" via the twin mediums of coffee and "scantily clad young women; spy thriller author John le Carré spoke with The Guardian about Britain, Boris and Brexit; Joy Kluver interviewed William Ryan about his latest novel, A House of Ghosts; and CrimeReads featured one interview with William Kent Krueger on "Writing a New American Epic for the Mississippi River" and another with Lee Child about "Mortality, Sales, Rivals, and Successors."

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Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Jason Statham is reuniting with Guy Ritchie for the fourth time on an untitled action thriller, a remake of the French 2004 movie, Le Convoyeur, starring Jean Dujardin and Albert Dupontel. The project is a revenge-thriller that will follow "H," a cold and mysterious man responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week. The film also shifts across timelines and between various character’s perspectives.

A female-fronted John Wick spinoff film titled Ballerina is in the works, with Len Wiseman set to direct the film. Ballerina follows a female assassin and will be developed as an extension to the John Wick universe. 

Taken director Pierre Morel is set to helm an action thriller based on the graphic novel, The Blacksmith, by Malik Evans and Richard Sparkman. The project tells the story of a go-to weapons expert who goes on the run after his lab is destroyed and his colleagues are murdered. He has to use his unique set of skills to keep him alive and journey through the heart of his own dark profession. 

Ben Foster (Hell Or High Water) and Gillian Jacobs (Community) have joined Chris Pine in the action-thriller, Violence Of Action, which has now begun principal photography in the U.S., Germany, and Romania. Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident) is directing from a script by J.P. Davis. The story centers on James Harper (Pine), who is involuntarily discharged from the Green Berets and joins a paramilitary organization in order to support his family. Harper travels to Berlin with his elite team on a black ops mission to investigate a mysterious threat, where he finds himself alone and hunted across Europe after he is betrayed.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

ABC has given a put pilot commitment to Homicide Special, a crime drama from The Resident co-creator/executive producers Amy Holden Jones and Andrew Chapman. Homicide Special is set inside the Homicide Special division of the Philadelphia PD and follows two young and recently promoted female detectives and a beat cop as they take on an entrenched and corrupt system at an inner city precinct.

Fox has given a script commitment to an FBI drama from The Resident supervising producer Jen Klein. The project is an untitled fast-paced, character-driven drama centering on four female FBI agents in the Manhattan field office, a storyline inspired by journalist and author Doug Stanton’s interviews of women in law enforcement. 

David Oyelowo has been tapped for the lead role in Showtime's The President Is Missing, based on the book of the same name by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. The project follows a powerless and politically aimless Vice President (Oyelowo) who unexpectedly becomes President halfway into his administration’s first term, despite his every wish to the contrary. He walks right into a secret, world-threatening crisis, both inside and outside the White House. 

HBO has picked up a series adaptation of the Maniac Cop film franchise from Nicolas Winding Reffn. Set in Los Angeles, Maniac Cop is told through "a kaleidoscope of characters, from cop to common criminal" when a killer in uniform unleashes mayhem upon the streets. Paranoia leads to social disorder as a city wrestles with the mystery of the exterminator in blue – is he mere mortal, or a supernatural force?

The creative team behind NBC’s 2018-19 drama series, The Village, have reteamed for another drama, which has landed at NBC for development. Titled Bad Blood, the crime drama centers on a murder investigation that leads an upstanding detective deep into the life of a criminal brother he never knew he had. While one brother struggles to go straight, the other increasingly finds himself with a foot in two worlds — cracking cases, harboring secrets, and treading the slippery moral slope of putting blood before blue.

Prodigal Son has been picked up for a full season at Fox, taking Season 1 up to 22 episodes total. The series premiere of Prodigal Son was the highest-rated new series on any network and helped lead Fox to its first victory on opening night of the broadcast season in 10 years. The Walking Dead's Tom Payne stars as Malcolm Bright, a criminal psychologist whose father, Dr. Martin Whitly (Michael Sheen), is a notorious serial killer known as "The Surgeon." Bright's relationship with his father gives him both the baggage and the expertise he needs to solve crimes as a consultant for the NYPD. The network also announced that Here and Now alum Raymond Lee is set for a recurring role in the series.

Last week I noted that the Bourne franchise is coming back very soon to USA with a spinoff series called Treadstone. The show, which is primarily set within the present day, follows a number of sleeper agents after the supposed shuttering of Treadstone years prior. Now, Amazon has picked up the global rights to the drama and will launch the series outside of the States in January 2020 following its debut on the NBCU-backed cable network on October 15. The series stars Jeremy Irvine, Tracy Ifeachor, Omar Metwally, Brian J. Smith, Hyo Joo Han, Gabrielle Scharnitzky, Emilia Schüle, and Michelle Forbes.

A+E networks' spy documentary series, Damien Lewis: Spy Wars, has been picked up in international markets including Canada and China shortly after the Smithsonian Channel snagged it for the U.S. market. The project is Homeland star Lewis's first foray into factual television, and is an eight-part documentary series telling the true stories behind some of the most important international spy operations of the past 40 years.

The Irishman’s Stephen Graham and Black ’47’s Freddie Fox are to star in the new ITV crime drama, White House Farm. Graham plays DCI "Taff" Jones and Fox plays Jeremy Bamber in the factual drama that tells the story of members of the same family who were murdered at an Essex farmhouse. Mark Addy, Gemma Whelan, Mark Stanley, Alexa Davies, Cressida Bonas, Alfie Allen, Amanda Burton, and Nicholas Farrell also star.

Clive Owen is joining Julianne Moore in the thriller, Lisey’s Story, the upcoming Apple+ limited series from Stephen King and J.J. Abrams. Based on King’s best-selling novel from 2006, the eight-episode follows Lisey (Moore) two years following the death of her husband when a series of events causes her to face realities about her husband she had repressed and forgotten.

The Expanse star Cas Anvar has booked a recurring role on the sixth and final season of ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. Anvar plays Robert Hsieh, an in-house lawyer of a popular dating app who works closely with Caplan & Gold on a discrimination suit. 

Game Of Thrones alum Michiel Huisman is set as the male lead opposite Kaley Cuoco in HBO Max’s thriller drama series, The Flight Attendant. The Flight Attendant follows Cassie (Cuoco), a flight attendant who wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man – and no idea what happened. Huisman will play Alex, a charming, wealthy businessman, who runs into some serious bad luck in Bangkok and ends up sticking with Cassie longer than expected. It was also announced that The Purge alum Colin Woodell is set for a key role as an out-of-work actor whose boozy charm is very attractive to Cassie.

Avan Jogia, Dane DeHaan, and Maika Monroe are set to star in the upcoming Quibi series, The Stranger. The thriller follows an unassuming young rideshare driver who is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious Hollywood Hills passenger enters her car. Her terrifying ride with the stranger unfolds over 12 hours as she navigates the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in a chilling game of cat and mouse. 

John Boyd has been upped to a series regular on FBI for the CBS drama’s current second season. His first episode as a series regular will air on October 22. Bones-alum Boyd plays Agent Stuart Scola, a silver-tongued, quick-witted former Wall Street type. 





PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Deon Meyer spoke with JustNje about expectations surrounding the M-net series adaptation of his acclaimed crime novel, Trackers.

In the latest Read or Dead podcast episode, regular host Katie McClean Horner was joined by guest host, Liberty Hardy, to talk about Knives Out, creepy mysteries, and more.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed author Deborah Crombie to chat about the latest in her series with Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James, Bitter Feast.

The latest episode of Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, "Mr. Borden Does Not Quite Remem…" written by Ana Brazil and read by actor Kelly Ventura; the story has to do with Lizzie Borden and is perfect for Halloween.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack welcomed journalist and crime writer Peter Eichstaedt. His nonfiction works include First Kill Your Family, his book on child soldiers in Uganda (the 2009 Colorado Book Award winner), and his latest thriller novel is Enemy of the People, the second installlment in his series featuring journalist Kyle Dawson.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club featured guests Lauren North, author of The Perfect Son, and former Toronto Police Officer tuned crime writer, Desmond Ryan, author of Man at the Door.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro chatted with Owen Mullen about his native Scotland and his new book, Deadly Harm.

Beyond The Cover welcomed special guest Casey Barrett to talk about his latest book, The Tower of Songs.

THEATER

The Portland Ballet will present Tales by Poe, October 18-19, at Westbrook Performing Arts Center. Inspired by the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Artistic Director Nell Shipman has transformed Poe’s "Berenice," "Tell Tale Heart" and "Masque of the Red Death" into ballets suitable for the most haunting time of the year.

The Lakewood Playhouse is presenting the return engagement of their popular one-man show, An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe. The play will be performed October 18-19 and features Tim Hoban as Edgar Allan Poe inviting you into his parlor to hear some of his most famous stories of the macabre and imagery-filled poetry. 

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Sunday Music Treat

When most people think of Leonard Bernstein's compositions, they inevitably think of West Side Story. But Bernstein wrote many other works, including several for solo piano. In honor of the 29th anniversary of Bernstein's passing on October 14, 1990, here's "Non Troppo Presto" from Music for the Dance I (Scott Drayco might have a hard time playing this one due to his arm injury, but it wouldn't be for lack of trying):

 

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Quotation of the Week

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FFB: Monkey Puzzle

Paula Gosling was born Paula Osius in 1939, the daughter of an inventor in Detroit, Michigan. She tried her hand at poetry at Wayne State University and later at a Detroit advertising agency, but wasn't happy. In 1964, she headed to England in search of romance, intrigue and adventure, eventually meeting her husband, Christopher Gosling, whom she married in 1968.



Although divorced after only nine years of marriage, she kept the Gosling surname as she started writing her books. Perhaps she felt she owed him her literary start, because it was loneliness when he was away working that led her to start writing to pass the time. The result was A Running Duck in 1974, which won the CWA's John Creasey Award for the best first novel of the year and was named in 1990 as one of the CWA's Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.



Many books followed, mostly standalones at first, including one paranormal book penned under the name Ainslie Skinner. Eventually she created her first series, with Detective Chief Inspector Luke Abbot, and another, the Blackwater Bay series, she set near the Great Lakes with Sheriff Matt Gabriel as protagonist. A third series, which she also set in the U.S., was launched in 1985 with Monkey Puzzle, a police procedural centered around homicide Lieutenant Jack Stryker, which won the 1985 CWA Gold Dagger Award.



Money Puzzle takes place primarily around Grantham University in Ohio, when one of the English professors, Aiken Adamson, is murdered and his tongue cut out. The professor was despised by all of his colleagues for collecting and hoarding secrets about them like the human equivalent of a thieving magpie. Hours before his death, all of the department members were with Adamson at a sherry reception, giving each of them opportunity for murder, in addition to the various motives they had—personal and professional rivalries, envy, sexual intrigue and blackmail.



As Detective Stryker digs deeper into the case, he realizes he has secret ties of his own to one of the professors, Kate Trevorne and starts to fall for her, despite the fact her boyfriend and fellow English prof is the prime suspect. Although at first, the murder is considered a crime of passion (the victim was a homosexual), the case soon takes a different turn when the Chairman of the Department is attacked and his ear cut off. Stryker, recovering from pneumonia, is doggedly determined to nail the culprit no matter what it takes, but when Kate is attacked and the murderer attempts to gouge out one of her eyes, the case becomes personal.



Gosling does a good job of portraying the sometimes cut-throat world of academia with its petty squabbles, jockeying for position and inter-departmental feuds. The characters are also relatively well drawn, although some might find a few cliches that date the book, i.e., the sleazy homosexual (complete with mirrors on the ceiling), an alcoholic Vietnam vet and a cop-hating young professor who participated in campus riots in the 70s. The writing carries you along at a suspenseful clip, but it can also show hints of Gosling's poetry background, like this excerpt following a snowfall that is appropriate for the recent winter weather we've been having:

He loved the city like this, hushed and briefly upended in it headlong run to destruction, mantled with a transient beauty that hid all the dirt and slowed all the hate. In two miles he passed only four cars, and the drivers smiled as they edged past one another in the rutted, twinkling streets. The snow made them momentary partners in adversity, witnesses of that fleeting moment in time when nobody had spoiled anything. Yet.

As a side note, Gosling's novel A Running Duck, written in 1974 (also published as Fair Game), was adapted into two separate films, one starring Sylvester Stallone, titled Cobra, and the second starring Cindy Crawford, titled Fair Game. Unfortunately, like a lot of books-to-film, the results were less than Oscar-worthy; the Stallone version was nominated for a Razzie in 1986 for worst screenplay and Metacritic listed the Cindy Crawford flick as one of its five worst movies based on a novel.



Not that Gosling was particularly worried. In a People interview, she noted she had optioned the film to Warner Bros, for a "mid-five-figure" sum and almost forgotten about it when a friend of her son's alerted her to the fact Gosling's name was in the Stallone film' credits. At the time, she said "I haven't really taken it in yet. It's all very exciting."

            

Mystery Melange

The Texas Book Festival tweeted this morning that the 2019 Texas Writer Award Winner is Attica Locke. Locke's latest novel, Heaven, My Home, is the sequel to the Edgar Award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird. Her third novel Pleasantville was the winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was also long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction. Locke will receive the award on Saturday, October 26, at the festival in Austin.

The Mystery Writers of America's Northern California chapter is sponsoring a weeklong celebration of crime and mystery fiction at various locations in California from October 19 through 26. The events kick off in San Francisco with a Noir at the Bar featuring Laurie R. King as emcee and authors David Corbett, Alan Jacobson, Claire Johnson, Eileen Rendahl, Kelli Stanley. All the events are free and open to the public.

This week saw the 170th anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe and the arrival of the first International Edgar Allan Poe Festival and Awards, held in Baltimore. At the Saturday evening banquet, the award for Best Adaptations of E.A. Poe’s Life or Works went to The Raven, by Damien Draven; The Tale Telling Heart, by Nicholas Schleif and A Midnight Visit, by Broad Encounters Productions. The Best Original Works Inspired by E.A. Poe’s Life and Writing were Bury Me Like Poe, by Kandy S. Alameda; The Raven Nutcracker, by Tracy Dentico; and The Assassination Of Edgar Allan Poe, by Devon Armstrong and John Armstrong. Also celebrating the Poe milestone in Richmond, Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch put together a montage of Poe-related articles and photos from their archives, and Richmond's WWBT-TV looked into the enduring mystery behind the author's death. And now might also be a good time to pay a visit to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum.





On Saturday, November 9 at 5:00 p.m., the Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Pasadena will host the panel ON THE RUN: Australian Crime Writers in America. Pasadena author Désirée Zamorano moderates this discussion with visiting authors Sulari Gentill (the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries); Robert Gott (historical crime novels); Jock Serong (Quota; Preservation), and Emma Viskic (Resurrection Bay). ON THE RUN is a group of four award-winning Australian crime writers, who recently received a grant by the Australia Council for the Arts to tour the United States.

The Beacon Society is sponsoring an essay contest for US and Canadian students in 4th to 12th grades that focuses on the Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League," "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," and "The Greek Interpreter." There are cash prizes for first to third place, and the submission deadline is February 1, 2020. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at The Bunburyist)

The Fall 2019 issue of Suspense Magazine is out, featuring interviews of Doug Preston and Lincoln Child; Karin Slaughter; Iris Johansen; David Baldacci; Adrian McKinty; Chris Bauer; Karen Katchur, and Leslie Meier. Daryl Wood Gerber has a feature "On Writing" and Dennis Palumbo has had "Enough" and lets you know why. There are also dozen of pages of reviews, short stories and much more.

Hodder & Stoughton has commissioned a major new book about Agatha Christie from historian and biographer Lucy Worsley, promising a new perspective on the crime master. Worsley said she wanted to place Christie as a female author in the wider context of "a troubled 20th century." The historian has previously written a history of the detective fiction genre, A Very British Murder, and a biography of another successful female author, Jane Austen.

Sarah Weinman penned a profile for Crimereads of "How Mary Roberts Rinehart, Queen of the Mystery Novel, Was Very Nearly Murdered."

For you authors out there: over at the Killzone blog, John Gilstrap talked about using guns in crime fiction, while Sue Coletta wondered if writers (and others) can lose their fingerprints.

In the "truth is often stranger than fiction" department, the FBI is calling Samuel Little America's "most prolific serial killer," confessing to 93 murders, of which 50 have been verified.





This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Shut-Off" by Wayne R. Burke. And the 5-2 editor, Gerald So, also made note of 5-2 "best" poems of the year that will be submitted to Sundress Publications' Best of the Net anthology.

In the Q&A roundup, the Daily journal spoke with J.A. Jance about her early setbacks and later successes; New Zealand's Stuff Magazine chatted with author Adrian McKinty on going from being an Uber driver to selling a crime novel to Hollywood; Star2 interviewed John Connolly about his Charlie Parker series and the settings involved in the latest installment, A Book of Bones; Canberra journalist and author, Chris Hammer, sat down with Riotact about how crime does pay with the publication of his second novel, Silver; and the Dark Phantom Review snagged true crime writer Caitlin Rother to discuss her research and writing, including her latest book about the murders of Tom and Jackie Hawks.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

The full cast was revealed for Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile just as the sequel to Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express begins filming in Egypt (with a target release of October 9, 2020). The Agatha Christie adaptation once again stars Branagh as Hercule Poirot, along with co-stars Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, and Letitia Wright. Michael Green, who adapted Murder on the Orient Express, is pulling down writing duties for Death on the Nile. Branagh also announced that he is going to shoot the project in 65mm.

Sony Pictures Classics has set a release date for Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor, which is the official entry from Italy for the International Feature Film Oscar. The film opened on May 23 in Italy and will now be released stateside in New York and Los Angeles on January 31, 2020. The Traitor is based on the true story of Tommaso Buscetta (played by Pierfrancesco Favino), the man who brought down the Cosa Nostra mafia in Sicily. During its Cannes premiere, The Traitor screened in competition and received a 13-minute standing ovation.

Christopher McQuarrie has apparently begun work on the next two Mission: Impossible movies. While the exact plan for the two films hasn't been revealed, they'll be released a year apart from each other which means the two films are set to be shot back-to-back.

A trailer was released for Guy Ritchie’s latest film, The Gentlemen, with Matthew McConaughey playing the sole American expat among an impressive cast of British tough guys. McConaughey’s character has built a profitable marijuana empire in London and is rumored to be cashing out of his business forever, leading every gangster in town to plot schemes, bribes and blackmail in an attempt to win his empire. The only problem is, he is not for sale. Also in the cast are Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has given a put pilot order to Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren’s one-hour drama, The International. Lundgren is set to star as Anders Soto, described as part negotiator, part international spy. He is a one-man covert black-ops team working for the U.N., called in to find asymmetrical solutions to the world’s most delicate and complex problems. Stallone is set to direct, while Ken Sanzel will write and executive produce.

The Bourne franchise is coming back soon to USA with a spinoff series called Treadstone. The show, which is primarily set within the present day, follows a number of sleeper agents after the supposed shuttering of Treadstone years prior. Treadstone will expand the lore of the franchise as well as playing into a new Bourne film, which is in the works.

CBS has put in development Drift, a drama from Black List writer Christopher Salmanpour. After the disappearance of her wife on a scuba trip, a renowned and fearless oceanographer forms an unorthodox but highly skilled team of specialists. They take on the unique challenge of solving crimes committed at sea where evidence and clues are as fickle as the tides, devoting themselves to bringing closure to victims who rarely get it.

AMC has given a series order to the courtroom drama, 61st Street, being described as a "two-season television event series," with eight episodes each. The drama centers on Moses Johnson, a "promising, black high school athlete who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system" when he is taken by the police as a supposed gang member and accused of the death of an officer during a drug bust gone wrong. Peter Moffat, who wrote the BBC drama which inspired HBO’s The Night Of, is showrunner and executive producer.

TBS has given a straight-to-series order to Obliterated, a 10-episode one-hour action drama. Obliterated is a serialized action dramedy focused on an elite special forces team tracking a deadly terrorist network, hell-bent on blowing up Las Vegas. After their raging end-of-mission party filled with alcohol and drug-fueled debauchery, the team discovers the bomb they deactivated was a decoy. With the clock ticking, the intoxicated team has to fight through their impairments, overcome their personal issues, deactivate the bomb, and save the world.

Sonoya Mizuno (Maniac) is set as a series regular opposite Kaley Cuoco in HBO Max’s thriller drama series, The Flight Attendant, based on the novel by New York Times bestselling author Chris Bohjalian. The project centers on Cassie (Cuoco), a flight attendant, who wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man – and no idea what happened. Mizuno will play Miranda, a savvy and potentially dangerous businesswoman who Cassie meets in Bangkok.

S.W.A.T. actress, Stephanie Sigman, confirmed her departure from the CBS drama on social media this week after fans noticed her absence from the show’s Season 3 premiere. One of the show’s original cast members alongside series star Shemar Moore, Sigman portrayed Jessica Cortez, commanding officer of the LAPD Metropolitan Division for two seasons. In the Season 2 finale, the character accepted an offer from the FBI to leave the LAPD and go undercover.

Once Upon a Time alumna Mekia Cox is returning to ABC with a series regular role on the upcoming second season of the cop drama, The Rookie, starring Nathan Fillion. Cox will play Detective Nyla Harper, who tries to reclaim a more normal law enforcement life after a four-year stint working undercover. Her character first appears in the upcoming fourth episode "Warriors and Guardians."

BBC One is set to premiere its Sarah Phelps-written crime drama, Dublin Murders, on October 14. The eight-episode series has been picked up by Starz in the U.S. and is adapted from Tana French’s first two novels in the Dublin Murder Squad crime series, In The Woods and The Likeness. Filmed in Belfast and Dublin, Dublin Murders stars Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful) as detectives dispatched to investigate a child’s murder, who find a community caught between old and new Ireland.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Laura Lippman joins WYNC's Greene Space to discuss her new book, Lady in the Lake, for the first installment of the book club, "Get Lit with All Of It."

Two Crime Writers and Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste presented a live recording from the Bloody Scotland crime festival as they were joined by an array of talent including Richard Osman, Mark Billingham, Caroline Kepnes, Chris Brookmyre, Helen FitzGerald, and Abir Mukherjee.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack interviewed retired police officer and detective with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Andy Caldwell. Caldwell's book, Room 1203, is the true crime story of the O.J. case, on which Caldwell served as an investigator.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro welcomed Dietrich Kalteis to talk about his new release, Call Down the Thunder.

The latest Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took a look at the topics of "Firearms Qualifications, Exceptional Means, and OODA Loops."

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Anna Lee Huber, the Daphne award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries, the Verity Kent Mysteries, the Gothic Myths series, and the forthcoming anthology, The Deadly Hours.

The latest podcast from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine features a reading of Macavity Award-nominated short story, "Race to Judgment," by author Craig Faustus Buck.

THEATER

The King's Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland, is staging English dramatist J. B. Priestley's play, An Inspector Calls, through October 12. When Inspector Goole arrives unexpectedly at the prosperous Birling family home, their peaceful dinner party is shattered by his investigations into the death of a young woman. His startling revelations shake the very foundations of their lives.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Quote of the Week

           Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

FFB: Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal

On the surface, Valentine's Day may appear to be all about love and relationships, chocolate and flowers, but I suspect there are equal amounts of angst, heartbreak and even violence underneath the crepe paper hearts and pink-ribboned candy boxes. Likewise, there's a lot of faux comaraderie and back-stabbing involved with another type of manufactured social event that's really all about shallow displays and profit-motives—namely, beauty pageants. Put the two together and you have Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal, by H.R.F. Keating.



In Keating's standalone police procedural from 1965, night club queen Fay Curtis seemingly commits suicide shortly after passing along a note to beauty pageant impresario Teddy Pariss, who's in the middle of rehearsing the Miss Valentine contest at the Star Bowl ballroom. When Pariss also winds up dead, with a golden-handled paper knife in the shape of a naked female sticking in his back, it's clear his death was anything but suicide.



Soho Police Constable Peter Lassington and CID Detective-Constable Jack Spratt are in on both cases from the outset. But when Scotland Yard Superintendent Ironside's right-hand man is knocked out of commission, Ironside corrals Lassington and Spratt into assisting his own investigation. The Miss Valentine contest provides a gaggle of beauty contestants and various other associates of the murdered Pariss as suspects, and also affords Keating literary bon mots like the following:

The overwhelming impression at the door was of a mass of bits of the feminine, at their most blatant. Mouths, lipstick-shaped in screaming red, unlikely pink, heavy  magenta, darted here, there and everywhere, pouting, smiling, sulking. Legs in shimmering nylon and tight-stretched ski pants waved and flaunted. Blouses and hugging jerseys, A cup, B cup, C cup, advanced and flirted. Fingernails in every shade and circumstance of red flickered, pointed, lured and beckoned. Guaranteed personal freshness from spray, bottle and tube clashed and mingled all around. From the chaos, Ironside brought order like a sedulous botanist in a wild garden.

 

Lassington may be the POV character, but Superintendent Ironside is the star of the show, stage-managing the suspects, clues and histrionics with his unflappable, disarming presence. He would have been an interesting choice for his own series, a la Keating's other popular protagonist, Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID, except for the fact this is Ironside's last case before retiring to the countryside to tend his domestic rabbits, far from the seamy Soho nightlife.



It's rather easy to guess the culprit due to a giant in-your-face clue toward the start of the book, but perhaps that was Keating's way of preventing the reader from feeling cheated or sucker-punched by the ultimate resolution. It might not be one of Keating's best, but contains his characteristic humor and, as he once said, the manner in which he tries "to convey character through dialogue and forward the story through descriptions of place and situation, but it can only be a snapshot of the particular moment I have reached in the story."