B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 134

Mystery Melange

Another batch of titles from Otto Penzler's famous private collection is going up for auction today via Phillip Weiss Gallery, featuring Ross MacDonald, Walter Brown, Gaston Leroux, and many others. Browse the collection here and be sure to bid online at 5 pm (this is an internet and absentee bid auction only). The second Heritage sale of Otto’s amazing collection, mostly British authors, will be held on Thursday, September 5th, including copies of Christie, Sayers, several Haycraft-Queen titles, and rare Queen’s Quorum titles.

William Morrow Paperbacks will release The Last Seance next month, a brand new collection of supernatural tales from Agatha Christie, the Queen of Mystery. The book collects Christie’s "spookiest and most sinister stories," including one that has never before been published in the United States. The Last Séance gathers twenty stories, some featuring Christie’s beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in one haunting compendium that explores all things occult and paranormal, including one Christie story never before published in the USA, "The Wife of Kenite!"

The next Literary Salon in Berkeley, California, will feature author Hallie Ephron on August 21. Ephron is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven suspense novels that reviewers call "deliciously creepy" and "Hitchcockian," including her latest, Careful What You Wish For, about a professional organizer married to a man who can’t pass a yard sale without stopping. This is a free event but you must RSVP to attend, as space is limited.

Lee Child has received an invitation to join the judging panel for the 2020 Booker Prize. Andy Martin, who has written a book about his time with the author called With Child: Lee Child and the Readers of Jack Reacher, told the Sunday Times: "Lee received an invitation to be part of next year’s judging panel and he has said he would like to, as long as he could do most of it from his homes in New York and Wyoming." The Booker Prize for Fiction is awarded each year for the best original novel written in the English language and published in the United Kingdom.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will take to the stage with Ian Rankin to interview the author at Bloody Scotland next month. A self-confessed crime fiction fan, the First Minister was last seen at the Harrogate Crime Festival singing backing vocals with the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers following their appearance at Glastonbury. Other author special guests scheduled to appear at Bloody Scotland include Lin Anderson, Chris Brookmyre, Michael Robotham, Alexander McCall Smith, Denise Mina, Mark Billingham, and more.

Kary Antholis, who stepped down as President of HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming in June after more than 25 years, has launched his new venture, Crime Story, a news and storytelling website dedicated to crime and justice stories. The website will feature original reporting on headline-making and lesser known court cases, with a special section about Los Angeles crime stories; columns by contributors, starting with exoneree Amanda Knox with her co-writer Christopher Robinson; crime news aggregation; as well as an interview podcast by Antholis. 

Janet Rudolph posted a sad bit of news over at Mystery Fanfare:  Lea Wait, best-selling author of the Mainely Needlepoint Mysteries series, the Shadows Antique Print mysteries, and the Maine Murder Mystery series, has passed away after a bout with pancreatic cancer.

Jessamyn West, a librarian who lives in central Vermont and serves on the board of the Vermont Humanities Council, reported for CNN Online about the fight surrounding e-book lending rights for libraries - and how readers will be the ultimate losers.

Author and mystery correspondent for Kirkus, Radha Vatsa, penned an essay titled, "Yes, Crime Fiction is Literature (and Other Observations on the Genre)," using Argentinian writer Jorge Louis Borges's essays on detective fiction as a launching point. He concludes that "when crime fiction is at its best, the distinction between it and literature vanishes."

Dwyer Murphy shared his appreciation for the work of Dorothy B. Hughes, the "queen of noir," and how she conjured up a "terrible, ineffable sense of dread."

Crime Reads offered up a list of the best books, essays, and films about the Charles Manson murders on the fiftieth anniversary of the infamous killings.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Whitey on the Lam" by Etta Abrahams.

In the Q&A roundup, Tana French spoke with The New Yorker about unreliable narrators, real-world sources, and the breakdown of genre boundaries in her work; John Parker interviewed John Connolly, who's promoting the Spanish version of his novel, A Game of Ghosts (El Frio de la Muerte) at the Celsius 232 festival; Jason Beech over at Out of the Gutter Magazine chatted with Paul D. Brazill about launching Punk Noir Magazine, as well as some of his own stories including one featuring aging long-time violent hitman, Tommy Bennett, in the new anthology, A Time for Violence; Alex Segura talked up "Miami, Music, and Celebrating Contemporary Crime Fiction" for Crimereads; and authors Steve Cavanagh and Adrian McKinty told Salon how growing up during "the troubles" in Northern Ireland shaped them and their writing.

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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

Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn has nabbed the closing night slot at this year’s New York Film Festival. Inspired by Jonathan Lethem’s best-selling novel, the project has a neo-noir narrative set in 1950s New York and follows a private detective (Norton) with Tourette syndrome as he becomes entangled in a conspiracy involving a Robert Moses–like master builder (Alec Baldwin). The cast also includes Bruce Willis, Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Leslie Mann, and Cherry Jones. 

Universal Pictures has canceled plans to release the thriller, The Hunt, following the mass shootings last month in El Paso and Dayton. The statement posted on the studio's website added, "We stand by our filmmakers and will continue to distribute films in partnership with bold and visionary creators, like those associated with this satirical social thriller, but we understand that now is not the right time to release the film." The picture follows 12 people who discover they have been kidnapped and brought to The Manor, a hunting ground where billionaires pay top dollar to hunt them for sport.

James Jordan is set to join Angelina Jolie in the wilderness thriller, Those Who Wish Me Dead, based on Michael Koryta’s novel about a 14-year-old boy who witnesses a brutal murder and is hidden in a wilderness skills program. Jordan’s specific role in the Taylor Sheridan-directed film has not been released.

Patrick Schwarzenegger (Midnight Sun), Gilles Geary (The I-Land) and Hayley Law (Riverdale) are among cast members joining Michael Shannon and Alex Pettyfer in the feature crime-drama, Echo Boomers, which has started filming in Utah. Based on a true story, the film follows a group of disillusioned twentysomethings who break into and steal from the homes of the rich. Seth Savoy is making his directorial debut on the movie which he scripted with Kevin Bernhardt and Jason Miller.

David Zayas (Dexter) will play "John the Baptist" in the Michael Polish-directed action pic, Force of Nature, about a gang of thieves who plot a heist during a hurricane, only to have a cop complicate events. Zayas’s character is part of the bank heist crew, described as a ruthless, cold guy who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants, even if means sacrificing people on his team. He joins the previously announced Mel Gibson, Emile Hirsch, and Kate Bosworth in the cast.

The younger set may be happy to learn that Disney is planning on a live action/animation remake of The Great Mouse Detective. The original cartoon mystery film was released in 1986 to widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Based on the children’s book series Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus, the feature closely emulates Sherlock Holmes and centers on a heroic mouse named Basil who lives in Victorian London and is trying to solve a potentially deadly mystery.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Fox Entertainment has acquired the rights to The Spellman Files book series by Lisa Lutz, which revolves about a family of PIs, to develop as a drama series. The Spellman book series launched with Lutz’s debut novel, the 1997 The Spellman Files, and consists of six novels about the Spellmans, a close-knit family of private investigators who are intensely suspicious and spend much time investigating each other. At one point, the novels were in development as a feature at Paramount.

BET Networks is developing Sister Code, a one-hour family legal drama from writer Gregg McBride (A Heavenly Christmas) and Intrepid, the Emmy-winning banner of Blair Underwood (When They See Us, Quantico). Created by McBride, Sister Code focuses on the intense rivalry between two sisters, both high-powered lawyers, who are competing for managing partner of their father’s law firm. Their clash not only challenges their already difficult relationship and familial bonds but also the high-stakes cases they and their fellow female attorneys handle.

NBC has commissioned six additional scripts from new legal drama, Bluff City Law, starring Jimmy Smits. It's a good sign for the series since backup scripts are typically ordered around the premiere or after a few airings. Co-created by Georgaris and Michael Aguilar and written by Georgaris, Bluff City Law is a character-driven drama that follows the lawyers of an elite Memphis firm that specializes in the most controversial landmark civil rights cases. Led by legendary lawyer Elijah Strait (Smits) and his brilliant daughter, Sydney Keller (Caitlin McGee), they take on the toughest David-and-Goliath cases while navigating their complicated relationship.

In one of the biggest surprises this past pilot season, ABC’s NYPD Blue reboot did not go to series but was kept in midseason contention with a possibility for redevelopment. It now appears that particular iteration of NYPD Blue, a sequel to the original Emmy-winning series, is dead. However, it's not the end of NYPD Blue's comeback at the network, which aired the iconic 1990s cop drama series. According to ABC Entertainment president, Karey Burke, "There are conversations about continuing it but possibly in a different iteration." The recent NYPD Blue pilot starred newcomer Fabien Frankel and co-starred original cast members Kim Delaney and Bill Brochtrup. The sequel centers on Theo (Frankel), the son of Dennis Franz’s Detective Andy Sipowicz character from the original series, who tries to earn his detective shield and work in the 15th squad while investigating his father’s murder.

Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin, and Christian Slater are set to star in Dr. Death, a limited drama series from Universal Content Productions based on the Wondery podcast. Dr. Death tells the disturbing true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (Dornan), a rising star in the Dallas medical community. Young, charismatic and ostensibly brilliant, he was building a flourishing neurosurgery practice when everything suddenly changed: patients entered his operating room for complex but routine spinal surgeries and left permanently maimed or dead. As victims piled up, two fellow surgeons (Baldwin and Slater) and a young Assistant District Attorney set out to stop him. 

Although this may come from the "don't hold your breath" category, talks are apparently still ongoing about a possible new incarnation of the real-time drama, 24, on the Fox network.

Christi Daugherty’s YA thriller series, Night School, set in a British boarding school, has been optioned for TV. The series has been translated into 23 languages and made into a popular web series which has over a million views on YouTube. 

Simona Brown (The Night Manager), Tom Bateman (Murder on the Orient Express), Eve Hewson (The Knick), and Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones) are to star in the Netflix psychological thriller, Behind Her Eyes, an adaptation of Sarah Pinborough’s novel. The project tells the story of Louise, a single mother and secretary who is stuck in a modern-day rut. On a night out, she meets and kisses a successful young man, David, who turns out to be her new boss. To complicate matters, she meets Adele, a new friend in town, who turns out to be married to David. As she becomes obsessed with the couple and entangled in the web of their marriage, they each reach out to her. But only when she gets to know them both does she begin to see the cracks: Is David really the man she thought she knew and is Adele as vulnerable as she appears? 

Netflix has set the premiere date for its police interrogation drama, Criminal, due to launch on September 20. The series, which stars For Life’s Nicholas Pinnock, Doctor Who’s David Tennant and Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell, is set across four countries – France, Spain, Germany and the UK - and takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite in those countries. It is a stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question.

ABC has premiered a new trailer for the upcoming action-drama series, Stumptown, starring actress Cobie Smulders as private investigator Dex Parios. Based on the graphic novel series of the same name by Greg Rucka, the story follows sharp-witted army veteran, Dex, and her complicated love life, gambling debts, and a brother to take care of in Portland. 

USA Network just released a teaser trailer for Treadstone, the espionage thriller that premieres in October with a tale that is set within the sleek and brutal world of superspy Jason Bourne.

Time Magazine compiled a listing of "The 24 Most Anticipated TV Shows of Fall 2019" with trailers. There are several crime dramas on the list that are worth a look.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Authors on the Air featured guest host DP Lyle in an interview with fellow author, John Gilstrap, who's been contracted to write and co-produce the film adaptation of his book, Six Minutes to Freedom.

Authors on the Air regular host Pam Stack also welcomed prolific noir and fiction crime writer, Richie Narvaez, to the studio to discuss Hipster Death Rattle, a novel that plays out against a backdrop of rapid gentrification, skyrocketing rents, and class tension.

The two latest Speaking of Mysteries podcasts featured authors Hallie Ephron, talking about her new novel, Careful What You Wish For, and Alex Segura, talking about Miami Midnight, his fifth and final—or so he says—Pete Fernandez mystery.

The Writer's Detective Bureau podcast hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson took on the topics of "Physical Agility, Foreign Nationals, and Missing Children."

THEATER

The Duke of York's Theatre, London, is presenting the stage adaptation of Paula Hawkins's book, The Girl on the Train, from August 17-23. The story follows Rachel, who learns that the woman she’s been secretly watching from her commuter train window every day has suddenly disappeared. Rachel soon finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.

The Theatre Royal Nottingham in the UK will stage Brian Clemens and Dennis Spooner's Anybody for Murder, August 13-17. It centers on Max, who is planning to murder his wife Janet, collect her life insurance, and enjoy life with his girlfriend when Mary and George arrive on their Greek island with news: Mary and Janet are beneficiaries of a huge fortune. Plans and plots hatch, and soon everyone is hellbent on murder. All that stands in their way is the presence of a neighbor who knows a thing or two about murder⁠—crime writer Edgar Chambers.

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FFB: Blue Octavo

Bibliomysteries are a subgenre of crime fiction in which manuscripts, books, libraries, bookstores or publishing houses (or any employees thereof) play a large role. They date back at least to The Lost Library by Fredric Perkins in 1874, and many well-known authors have used the theme since, even Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939) with its rare book dealer who is fronting for something entirely different.



It's rarer to find an author of the genre who is a real-life book dealer, but John Blackburn is one example. Born in Northumberland in 1923, he was the brother of poet Thomas Blackburn, although the writing bug didn't bite John early. He served in the British merchant navy during World War II and then as a schoolmaster, before becoming director of Red Lion Books.



In 1958 he published his first work, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, which is a blend of science fiction and horror, themes that permeated many of his novels. He also penned several international espionage thrillers, including those with General Charles Kirk of British Intelligence and his sidekicks, scientist Sir Marcus Levin and his Russian wife Tania.



Blackburn's Blue Octavo (titled Bound to Kill in the U.S.), was published in 1963, and is a departure from most of his other books, but is likely the one most rooted in his own life and the biblio world. The hero is John Cain, a young bookseller who inherits the stock of a curmudgeonly antisocial dealer, James Roach, after he appears to have committed suicide. Or so the police soon conclude.



Cain is unconvinced, especially considering the alleged suicide followed the dead man's strange behavior at an auction where Roach had grossly overbid on a thin blue volume about mountain climbing. The book appeared to be as exciting as its title, Grey Boulders, but why had Roach been so obsessed with owning it and why is it now missing from Roach's collection?



As Cain digs deeper, he realizes Roach was murdered over that book, and in his bumbling attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery, he crosses paths with an unconventional young heiress, Julia Lent, and the noted author and mountaineer J. Moddon Mott. The three join forces in a hectic quest to uncover why a book with fewer than 50 remaining copies is worth three murders, attempted murder and blackmail. And where do a dying millionaire and a tortured clergyman with burned feet fit into the puzzle?



As you'd expect from a bookseller/author writing a bibliomystery, Blue Octavo is filled with details about  bookselling (at least as it was in Britain in the early 1960s). John Kennedy Melling notes, in his foreword to the Black Dagger reprint, that the novel gives "a revealing insight into the world of books, with a clear explanation of how the Ring works in bidding at public auctions, descriptions of bookseller's shops and stocks which immediately conjure up pictures of shops known to all book collectors, and some useful tips on collecting the editions—to say nothing of how to deal with auctioneers who won't cooperate."



Still, the thriller elements are enough to inspire author and Shots Magazine columnist Mike Ripley to include the work (along with Blackburn's A Ring of Roses) on his list of favorite thrillers. Maybe it has to do with the Hitchcockian climax in a factory tower...

            

Mystery Melange

 

The Deadly Ink Mystery Conference announced that the David Award Winner for the best mystery published in 2018 has been awarded to Yesterday's News by R.G. Belsky. The other finalists included Died in the Wool by Peggy Ehrhart; The Consultant by TJ O’Connor; Misty Treasure by Linda Rawlins; Second Story Man by Charles Salzberg; and Feral Attraction by Eileen Watkins. The award is named in memory of David G. Sasher, Sr., a great supporter of the mystery genre and a prime mover in the early days of Deadly Ink.

Women dominate the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award this year, making up five of the six-strong shortlist, which include three thrillers – the 2018 Man Booker longlisted Snap by Belinda Bauer; Our House by Louise Candlish, which won the British Book Award Crime & Thriller of the Year; and lone male author M W Craven’s CWA Gold Dagger-shortlisted The Puppet Show. The award celebrates the best storytelling across all genres of contemporary fiction, with the winner to be announced at the Goldboro bookshop on Monday, September 16.

Sisters in Crime (SinC) announced the 2019 winner of the annual Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award: Jessica Martinez of Orcutt, CA, for her novel-in-progress that features Teia Santiago, a police detective whose father-in-law blackmails her into kidnapping a textile manufacturing heiress—who also happens to be her sister-in-law.

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger Awards, which honor the very best in crime writing, has created a new Dagger category for the first time in over a decade. The new prestigious Dagger will be awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year, to be nominated by a representative group of leading book reviewers, booksellers, festival organizers, bloggers, literary agents and journalists.

Walter Mosley, whose new book on craft is titled Elements of Fiction, will be in conversation with fellow author Jonathan Santlofer for an event titled "Master Class — Walter Mosley on the Craft of Fiction, The event is scheduled for September 12 at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, NY. Walter Mosley is the author of more than fifty critically-acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins.

The Golden Age of Crime: A Re-Evaluation, a two-day international conference at the University of Chester April 3-4, 2020, has issued a call for papers. As well as interrogating the staples of "Golden Age" crime (the work of Agatha Christie and/or Ellery Queen, the puzzle format, comparisons to "the psychological turn"), this conference will look at under-explored elements of the publishing phenomenon. Organizers invite proposals for 20-minute papers or panel presentations of one hour, to be sent no later than December 15.  (HT to Shots Magazine)

Mystery Readers Journal: "Mystery Down Under" (Volume 35:2: Summer 2019) is available now as a PDF and hardcopy. This issue is also timely, as the Ngaio Marsh Award Nominees (New Zealand) and Ned Kelly Award Longlist have just been announced.

Mystery Readers Journal editor Janet Rudolph also shared some sad news about the passing of mystery author Orania Papzoglou aka Jane Haddam, who penned the Gregor Demarkian and Patience McKenna series.

Daily Beast editor Christopher Dickey wondered, "Did Novelist John Steinbeck Spy for the CIA in Paris?" During the same summer that he wrote The Amiable Fleas, now published in English for the first time, the American author also appears to have been gathering intel for the Agency.

An Agatha Christie-obsessed librarian helped solve a decades-old murder mystery:  four bodies of a woman and three young girls discovered in a New Hampshire park went unidentified for years, until Rebekah Heath looked into the case.

The ? According to figures released by UK public libraries, Night School by  Lee Child was the most borrowed library book of 2017/18, followed closely by John Grisham’s The Whistler. Michael Connelly had two books in the top five, with The Wrong Side of Goodbye at number three and The Late Show at number five, while James Patterson continued his overall domination as the most-borrowed author for the 12th year running.

Now this is what I call recycling! A retired Boeing 727 has been repurposed as a 21st-century library in Ciudad Hidalgo, Michoacán state, Mexico. Called Biblioteca en las Nubes, or Library in the Clouds, the plane's fuselage is equipped with high-speed internet, computers, and tablets so that students can conduct research. It also has a projector and screen to show educational films. The rear of the plane serves as a reading lounge, while in the cockpit students can try their hand at flying the plane using a virtual reality flight simulator.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Summer of '77" by John Kaprielian.

In the Q&A roundup, Ashley House chatted with Megan Goldin (author of The Escape Room); author Jo Nesbø discusssed what shapes Harry Hole mysteries, for the Indian Express; Rhys Bowen sat down with the E. B. Davis over at the Writers Who Kill blog to chat about Bowen's latest, Love and Death Among the Cheetahs, the thirteenth in the Royal Spyness mystery series; and S.J. Rozan spoke with The Mystery People about Paper Son, the latest outing for private eyes Lydia Chin and Bill Smith.

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Author R&R with Patricia Gibney

Irish author Patricia Gibney started out as an avid crime reader, so naturally she ended up writing in the crime genre. But it was a life-changing experience in 2009, the death of her forty-nine-year-old husband, which led to a change of careers and rekindled her love of art and writing. Initially Patricia wrote and illustrated a children's book, but her real ambition was to write a novel. In July 2016, Patricia signed with Bookouture for four DI Lottie Parker crime novels, the first of which, The Missing Ones, has been a USA Today bestseller and a 2018 Irish Book Award Nominee.

In The Missing Ones, Detective Lottie Parker is called in to lead the investigation when a woman’s body is discovered in a cathedral and hours later a young man is found hanging from a tree outside his home. Both bodies have the same distinctive tattoo clumsily inscribed on their legs, and it’s clear the pair are connected, but how?

The trail leads Lottie to St Angela’s, a former children’s home, with a dark connection to her own family history. As Lottie begins to link the current victims to unsolved murders decades old, two teenage boys go missing. She must close in on the killer before they strike again, but in doing so is she putting her own children in terrifying danger? Lottie is about to come face to face with a twisted soul who has a very warped idea of justice.

Patricia stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R and discuss her writing and researching process:

 

Writing crime novels is one of the most exciting things I could imagine doing. But  I’ve learned over the last few years, that it’s not easy to accomplish. Creating believable characters, threading in sub plots, adding suspense and tension, keeping it moving and maintaining pace, and above all holding the reader on tenterhooks as they wonder what’s going to happen next, are all part and parcel of the crime writer’s task. One would suspect I’d have to plot and plan meticulously to achieve all that. Not so. Unfortunately, I am of the writing family who avoids plotting and planning, whether chapter by chapter or scene by scene. I write organically. I like to surprise myself and therefore I hope I can surprise the reader.

That said, I usually have a general theme and main plot line worming around in my head. I write up character and location profiles. I have a notebook for each book where I scribble down ideas. It is a cliché at this stage but to a certain extent I allow my characters to dictate where they wish to go and that in turn dictates the twists and turns of the story. My characters are real to me, walking around in my shadow for the entire time I’m writing and I follow their lead. Each situation brings a what if or a what next question. I hope this feeds into readers’ minds so they in turn feel the reality of the situations in which the characters find themselves.

I love research but I have to be strict with myself because once I start, it swallows up writing time. It is so easy to get lost burrowing down the various rabbit holes of the internet and forget what I was initially looking for.

The Missing Ones refers to a time in recent Irish history and most of my research was based on online newspaper reports. The tragedy reflects on an awful time which unfortunately was repeated in many countries throughout the world. My novel is fiction, but fact is at times more horrifying. The Murphy Report was commissioned by the Irish Government into clerical abuse in Ireland. I read it after I wrote the Missing Ones, and for that I am glad. The truth is so much more horrific than anything my imagination conjured.

The town of Ragmullin is fictional but I have based it on a real town. I visited buildings and locations and then I fictionalised them. I’ve spent hours walking around old rambling hospitals, abandoned schools and ancient cemeteries, getting a feel for the places, letting the walls and headstones speak to me. If a writer has the opportunity to walk the cracked mosaic tiled corridors with high ceilings and rattling iron radiators, then it makes the job of bringing them alive on the page so much easier.

For the police procedural content, I try not to bamboozle the reader with facts and procedures. If issues need clarification, I have contact with a retired Irish detective who lets me know how far I can stretch the leash. I have his number on speed dial and am grateful to his replies to the most bizarre questions. It is fair to say that police procedures vary drastically from country to country. Therefore, I try not to get bogged down on detail. It also helps the pace of the story and allows it to flow.

One of my first jobs was in my local library and to this day I use library facilities. I believe libraries are special places. Places where, for the most obscure question, I can still find an answer. The act of the librarian looking up the catalogue, often finding the book in their archives, I know is a little old fashioned, but for me flicking through the pages of a book while sitting in a library, beats burrowing down a dark rabbit hole any day! And today’s libraries also have online facilities for research. Best of both worlds. 

 

Learn more about Patricia Gibney and her books via her website, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. The Missing Ones is available via all major book retailers.

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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

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas are in talks to star in Deep Water, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, with Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne set to helm the project. Zack Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) and Sam Levinson (Euphoria) are writing the adaptation of Highsmith's psychological thriller in which Affleck and de Armas would play Vic and Melinda Allen, a married couple whose loveless marriage is held together by an arrangement where she can to take as many lovers as she wishes - so long as she never abandons her family. But when the husband grows jealous, he concocts a murderous plot in which many of the lovers turn up dead.

Chris Pine is attached to Newsflash to play iconic CBS newsman Walter Cronkite. The Ben Jacoby-scripted drama takes place on November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Texas. The drama also focuses on Don Hewitt, who was Cronkite’s producer and helped navigate the chaos in the historically tragic day in America.

Cate Blanchett is in talks to star in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Nightmare Alley, joining Bradley Cooper as the headliners. Nightmare Alley is the story of a corrupt con man who teams up with a female psychiatrist to swindle people out of money, up until the point that they double cross one another. The story is based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham and was first adapted into a Fox film in 1947 directed by Edmund Golding and starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, and Coleen Gray. However, it is said that del Toro’s film will adhere more closely to the original novel.

John Swab’s crime thriller Body Brokers is lining up an impressive cast, including Academy Award-winning actress Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Emmy nominated actor Michael K. Williams (When They See Us, The Wire), Frank Grillo (Captain America: Winter Soldier) Alice Englert (Beautiful Creatures), and Jack Kilmer (The Stanford Prison Experiment). Written and directed by Swab, Body Brokers is the true and untold story of the multibillion-dollar drug and alcohol treatment scheme where former drug addicts and dealers become millionaires as fly-by-night "body brokers," recruiting other addicts to seek treatment and selling these patients off to facilities paying the highest price.

Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott, and Sarah Gadon are set to star in Black Bear, a suspenseful "meta-drama" written and directed by Lawrence Michael Levine. Currently shooting in the Adirondack Mountains in Long Lake, NY, the thriller centers on an expecting couple (Gadon and Abbott) who are confronted with an out-of-town guest Abigail (Plaza), a filmmaker suffering from writer’s block who soon finds herself at the center of a twisted love triangle.

Samuel Goldwyn has acquired the Goran Dukic-directed thriller Obsession about an out-of-work mechanic played by Mekhi Phifer who saves an older man (Brad Dourif) then promptly begins to falls for the man's wife (Elika Portnoy). Dourif’s George has plans to build a racetrack, and his wife forms a plot to murder him and rob him of his riches, drawing Phifer’s Sonny into the mix.

Jared Leto is in talks to join the cast of Warner Bros’ Little Things, a cop thriller starring fellow Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Rami Malek, with John Lee Hancock directing from his own script. Washington will play Deke, a burned-out Kern County sheriff who teams with an LA County Sheriff’s Department detective, Baxter (Malek), to reel in a wily serial killer, the role Leto is circling. Deke’s nose for the "little things" (hence the title of the movie) proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent the rules embroils Baxter in a soul-shattering dilemma. All the while, Deke wrestles with a dark secret from his past.

The first teaser trailer was released for The Irishman, the Martin Scorsese-directed film that stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Ray Romano, and Harvey Keitel. The film will open the New York Film Festival and get a theatrical release by Netflix this fall before it moves to the streaming service. The drama is an adaptation of Charles Brandt’s nonfiction book, I Heard You Paint Houses, and tells the true story of Frank Sheeran, who admitted killing 25 men for the mob, including his friend, the Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. Pesci plays Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino (who according to Sheeran’s testimony ordered the hit), Al Pacino plays Hoffa, and De Niro plays Sheeran. The film, first greenlit three years ago, uses digital technology to de-age seventy-something stars De Niro and Pacino, as well as co-star Joe Pesci. 

As Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese ready The Irishman for its premiere at the New York Film Festival, the duo are getting closer to teaming up yet again for the Paramount drama, Killers of the Flower Moon. De Niro is in early negotiations to join Scorsese's other most frequent actor collaborator, Leonardo DiCaprio, in the adaptation of the nonfiction book by David Grann. The project tells the true crime story of multiple murders of members of the Osage Indian tribe in 1920s Oklahoma that occurred after they found oil on their lands.

A trailer dropped for the thriller, The Hunt, which centers on a group of upper-class psychopaths who hunt regular folk for sport. The film stars Betty Gilpin, Ike Barinholtz, Hilary Swank, and Emma Roberts and opens September 27.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has given a series commitment to a Lincoln Lawyer adaptation from David E. Kelley, which CBS vice president, Thom Sherman, indicated is being targeted for the 2020-21 season. Based on Michael Connelly’s bestselling series of novels, The Lincoln Lawyer centers on Mickey Haller, who is described as "an iconoclastic idealist," who runs his law practice out of the back of his Lincoln Town Car as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles.

The Expendables and Rocky co-stars Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren have reunited for The International, an action drama series that's being actively pursued by several networks and streaming services. Written by drama veteran Ken Sanzel (Numbers), the series stars Lundgren as a covert operative at the Department of Safety and Security at the UN. He is described as the UN’s secret special agent, a one-man S.W.A.T. team and hostage negotiator.

ABC has put in development Fight Like A Girl, a legal drama from Bull co-executive producers Nichole Millard and Kathryn Price, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and CBS TV Studios. Written by Millard and Price, the series explores what "fight like a girl means" today through the lens of two female trial attorneys who fight with each other as much as they fight for their clients.

The cast has been set for Agatha Christie Limited’s The Pale Horse, the latest TV adaptation from Dame Agatha for the BBC. The Pale Horse centers on Mark Easterbrook (Rufus Sewell) as he tries to uncover the mystery of a list of names found in the shoe of a dead woman. His investigation leads him to the peculiar village of Much Deeping and also to The Pale Horse, the home of a trio of rumored witches. Word has it that the witches can do away with wealthy relatives by means of the dark arts, but as the bodies mount up, Easterbrook is certain there has to be a rational explanation.

Showtime has given a straight-to-series order to Rust, a drama based on Philipp Meyer’s debut novel, American Rust, starring and executive produced by Jeff Daniels (The Newsroom). Oscar nominee Dan Futterman (Capote) will write multiple episodes of the series. Rust is a compelling family drama that will explore the tattered American dream through the eyes of complicated and compromised chief of police Del Harris (Daniels) in a Rust Belt town in southwest Pennsylvania. When the woman he truly loves sees her son accused of murder, Harris is forced to decide what he’s willing to do to protect him.

Showtime also renewed its Kevin Bacon-led drama City on a Hill for a second season. The drama stars Bacon as a corrupt FBI agent who teams with Aldis Hodge’s assistant district attorney. The first season sees the two take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown in a case that grows to involve, and ultimately subvert, the entire criminal justice system of Boston. It also stars Jonathan Tucker, Mark O’Brien, Jill Hennessy, Lauren E. Banks, Amanda Clayton, Kevin Chapman, Jere Shea and guest star Sarah Shahi.

Aquaman star Jason Momoa has signed on to topline Sweet Girl, a revenge action film for Netflix, with Brian Andrew Mendoza taking on the project for his directorial debut. The story follows a devastated husband who vows to bring justice to the people responsible for his wife’s death while protecting the only family he has left, his daughter. The screenplay is by crime fiction author Gregg Hurwitz and Philip Eisner with current revisions by Will Staples.

Chris Messina (Sharp Objects) is headed for USA Network to star opposite Matt Bomer in the network's anthology series, The Sinner. In season three, announced back in March, star Bill Pullman reprises his role as Det. Harry Ambrose as he investigates a car crash and uncovers a crime that pulls him into the most dangerous and disturbing case of his career. White Collar alum Bomer stars as Jamie, a Dorchester resident and expectant father who looks to Ambrose for support in the wake of an accident. Messina will play Nick Haas, Jamie's college friend.

Lisseth Chavez (The Fosters) has booked a key recurring role on the upcoming seventh season of NBC’s Chicago P.D. She will play Vanessa Rojas, a street smart, gritty, resilient, fearless undercover cop. The role is reportedly a recurring one with an option to become a series regular.

Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me by Your Name) and Sofia Black-D’Elia (The Night Of) are set to star opposite Bryan Cranston in Your Honor, Showtime’s 10-part legal series based on the Israeli drama, Kvodo. Cranston stars as a respected judge whose son Adam (Hunter Doohan) is involved in a hit-and-run that leads to a high-stakes game of lies, deceit and impossible choices. Black-D’Elia will portray Frannie, Adam’s girlfriend, while Stuhlbarg will play Tommy, the much-feared head of a crime family.

Amazon will not be bringing back Too Old to Die Young, the series written by Nicolas Winding Refn and Ed Brubaker. It starred Miles Teller as a grieving police officer who, along with the man who shot his partner, finds himself in an underworld filled with working-class hit men, Yakuza soldiers, cartel assassins sent from Mexico, Russian mafia captains and gangs of teenage killers. Augusto Aguilera, Cristina Rodlo and Nell Tiger Free also starred in the series.

Fox has ordered six more episodes of its freshman series First Responders Live, which will move from its original Wednesday 9 p.m. time slot to Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Hosted by Emmy Award-winning television journalist Josh Elliott, First Responders Live provides a "raw, in-depth look at the brave American heroes, including firefighters, police officers, EMS technicians and first responders, who put their own lives on the line as they race into danger to save others."

Court TV, which came back on the air in May, has set a 37-part docuseries looking back on the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial, which will also mark Court TV’s first foray into the original programming space. The series, titled OJ25, will look back at the "Trial of the Century," with each episode focusing on every week of the 37-week trial. Exclusive new interviews with the key players in the case will take people behind-the-scenes of the trial, providing fresh perspective and insight on legal strategies and maneuverings, missteps, lost opportunities and more.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Laura Lippman was the guest on NPR's Fresh Air as host Terry Gross discussed Lippman's latest novel, Lady in the Lake.

This week's episode of Two Crime Writers and a Microphone featured a live recording from the Theakston's Crime Festival of the game show "Justice A Minute." The show included an amazing array of crime writers, with Mark Billingham captaining one team composed of Marnie Riches, Johnny Shaw, and Adrian McKinty, and Val McDermid captaining the opposition with Paul Finch, Stephanie Marland, and Mason Cross. Craig Robertson served as the independent adjudicator.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, featuring the fun mystery short story, "Cracking the Case of Humpty Dumpty" written by Chelle Martin and read by actor John Masier.

Writer Types came back from their summer hiatus with nine authors offering up what they've been reading this summer. The guests included Alison Gaylin, David Bell, Ellen LaCorte, Beau Johnson, David Gordon, Jen Conley, Jennifer Hillier, SC Perkins, and Richie Narvaez.

On the latest Read or Dead, hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about Dean Koontz's new Amazon book deal, Scottish mysteries, and more.

The two latest Speaking of Mysteries podcasts featured author Alafair Burke, talking her 18th novel, The Better Sister, and also Rea Frey, discussing her latest book, Because You’re Mine.

Bill Koenig, Chief of Staff at the "Spy Commands" revealed his favorite spy books and spy TV shows on the Spybrary podcast.

The new Criminal Mischief podcast from D.P. Lyle focused on "Common Writing Mistakes."

The Writer's Detective Bureau podcast, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took on the themes of "Undercover Part II, License Plate Records, and Drug Money" in its one-year anniversary show.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Bookclub welcomed Amy Stewart, author of Girl Waits with Gun and the rest of the Kopp Sisters series, which are based on the true story of one of America’s first female deputy sheriffs and her two rambunctious sisters. The books are in development with Amazon Studios for a television series.

THEATER

The Drury Lane Theatre in Chicago is staging a production of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. The iconic play centers around ten strangers who meet on a clandestine island, each hiding a murderous secret. Who will pay the ultimate price, as each is picked off one by one? The play runs through September 1.

In the UK, the Theatre Royal in Nottingham's production of Murder With Love begins August 6 with a run through the 10th. The Francis Durbridge play centers on Larry Campbell, a man hated by all, but none more so than David Ryder. Ryder pursues his wicked vendetta by obtaining a key to Campbell’s flat to kill him. Deceit, suspicion, blackmail and incrimination are woven into the web of crime culminating in a second killing and a tantalizing twist in the tail.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Quote of the Week

           Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

FFB: Miss Pink at the Edge of the World

Gwen Moffat, born in Brighton, Sussex in 1924, became the first professional female mountain guide in the UK. Her travels in the field provided settings for her crime novels set in the Alps, the Rockies and deserts of the U.S., and the Scottish Highlands and Hebrides. She has thrown that same pioneering gusto into her research in the past, working cattle on a Montana ranch for her novel Grizzly Trail or living in a house in the Mojave Desert for Last Chance Country.



In addition to her thirty-five novels, travel books and her autobiography, Space Below My Feet, Moffat has written short stories, such as the Holmes pastiche "The Adventure in Border County: Holmes and Watson visit Cumberland at Xmas." She's also been a broadcaster and written article for newspapers on mountain climbing, travel and camping, as well as crime fiction reviews for Shots Magazine.



Moffat's first-hand experiences with mountain climbing are put to obvious use in her novel Miss Pink at the Edge of the World. On a Scottish stack (i.e.a column of rock isolated from a shore by the action of waves) called the Old Man of Scamadale, two climbers die rather mysteriously. One of them, Trevor Stark, is a famous and much-hated TV celebrity who was scouting the area for a program, complete with boats and helicopters, against the wishes of the local laird (landowner) who avoided publicity and wanted to keep tourists away. The local police believe the deaths were accidents until the laird and his fellow climbers convince the police the two men were murdered—and promptly become the prime suspects since they alone had the expertise to pull off the crime.



Moffat got the idea for the plot from a conversation she overheard at Kyleakin Inn on Skye, overlooking Loch Alsh, where someone exclaimed, "The Killers is in!," showing a sharp grasp of ideas and their possibilities which the author also embued in her primary protagonist, Miss Melinda Pink. Miss Pink is politically incorrect, but at the same time feels herself drawn into cases of injustice and abuse, from trafficing in endangered species, to incest, to IRA terrorists. She's a middle-aged writer-magistrate-sleuth, a woman of  "imposing presence" who also possesses keen skills of observation and perceptions of human nature and life:

As she undressed she reflected that cannabis had similar effects to alcohol:  it was an intoxicant which prompted its dependents to unburden themselves. She wondered if the girl would regret her loquacity in the morning, but then there would be another cigarette to dull uneasy memories...She didn't think that it was a curious coincidence to find tragedy in a remote Highland inn; she was the kind of person people needed to talk to, and she knew only too well that horror was not a matter of place but of people.

Moffat is at her best with her descriptions of the solitary and atmospheric landscapes, as in this scene:

Westwards, she saw the bay that was called Calava demarcated by splendid headlands jutting into the pale and shining sea. The northern point was several hundred feet high, that to the south was dwarfed by another behind it which matched the neighbor across the bay. She stared in an enchantment that had nothing to do with climbing; she could admire a cliff for its lines unassociated with the quality of the rock. There were skerries and rocky islands, and in that brilliant but silent world the seascape had an air of unreality. It was like the coastline of Valhalla.

The author, now 95, currently lives in the Lake District of the UK and doesn't write much these days, her most recent novel being Gone Feral in 2007. Although many others are out of print, including Miss Pink at the Edge of the World (last reprinted by the Black Dagger series in 1975), Endeavour Media released this book and several of Moffatt's others in ebook form in 2018.

            

Marsh "Madness"

A little addendum for yesterday's Mystery Melange: The finalists for New Zealand’s 2019 Ngaio Marsh Awards were announced since that post, with authors in the three categories vying for the honor of best crime writing in New Zealand. The winners will be handed out on Saturday, September 14, as part of this year’s WORD Christchurch Festival. The nominees are:

Best Novel



This Mortal Boy, by Fiona Kidman (Penguin)

Money in the Morgue, by Ngaio Marsh and Stella Duffy (HarperCollins)

The Quaker, by Liam McIlvanney (HarperCollins)

Call Me Evie, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette)

The Vanishing Act, by Jen Shieff (Mary Egan)



Best First Novel



One for Another, by Andrea Jacka (Red River Pony)

Crystal Reign, by Kelly Lyndon (Remnant Press)

Call Me Evie, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette)



Best Non-fiction



The Great New Zealand Robbery, by Scott Bainbridge (Allen & Unwin)

The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Jane Furlong, by Kelly Dennett (Awa)

Behind Bars, by Anna Leask (Penguin)

The Cause of Death, by Cynric Temple-Camp (HarperCollins)

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Mystery Melange

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) announced the shortlists for the prestigious CWA Dagger awards. The ten Daggers awarded annually by the CWA are regarded by the publishing world as the foremost British awards for crime-writing. The winners will be announced at the Dagger Award ceremony at the Grange City Hotel, London, on October 24, when Robert Goddard will also be presented with the 2019 Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, the highest honour in British crime writing. Shots Magazine has a handy reference of all the finalists.

The International Association of Crime Writers, North America announced the winner of this year's Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing, this year dedicated to the late longtime Executive Director Mary A. Frisque. The winning novel was November Road by Lou Berney, with the other finalists including William Boyle's The Lonely Witness; Robert Olen Butler's Paris in the Dark; Lisa Unger's Under My Skin; Sam Wiebe's Cut You Down.

The finalists for the Macavity Awards, nominated by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal and friends of MRI, were announced with winners to be handed out at opening ceremonies at Bouchercon in Dallas, TX, October 31. For all the nominees for Best Novel, Best First Novel, Best Nonfiction, Best Short Story, and the Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery, head on over to the Mystery Fanfare website.

The Australian Crime Writers Association has released the longlist for the 2019 Ned Kelly Awards, with winners to be announced September 6 during the BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival. To see the nominated titles in all three categories (Best Fiction, Best First Novel, and Best True Crime), follow this link.

The finalists for the 2019 Library of Virginia Literary Award were announced, including Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin, which also won the Edgar Award for Best Debut Novel.

Romance Writers of America announced the winners of the 2019 RITA Awards, including the Romantic Suspense category. The winner was Fearless by Elizabeth Dyer, with the other finalists including The Bastard's Bargain by Katee Robert; Before We Were Strangers by Brenda Novak; Consumed by J. R. Ward; Cut and Run by Mary Burton; Reckless Honor by Tonya Burrows; and Relentless by Elizabeth Dyer.

The Capital Crime festival announced the Amazon Publishing Readers Awards Shortlist, including in the Best Mystery, Best Thriller, and Best Crime Novel categories. Capital Crime festival pass holders will be able to vote for the winner in each category through 19th September. The winners of the awards will be announced at the festival on Saturday 26th September at a gala reception that marks the close of the event.

Sad news from the crime fiction community this past weekend: mystery author Sarah Andrews, her husband, and her son were killed in a plane crash in Nebraska. Andrews was a geologist who wrote 11 mysteries about forensic geologist Em Hansen. She also lectured part-time in the Geology Department at Sonoma State University and at public events and geological symposia. Andrews was 68. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Three articles of note from the New York Times (subscription required): They asked 13 Novelists, From Lee Child to Ruth Ware, "What’s the Best Murder You Ever Wrote?" (Karin Slaughter killed a character with antifreeze; Peter Swanson used cashews and a missing EpiPen); also, "What if Hercule Poirot Went Sleuthing on the L Train?" where Ali Fitzgerald imagines Agatha Christie’s famous detective on a hunt for clues through the New York City subways; and a listing of true-crime stories and books from every state.

For fans of forensics and true crime comes a tale with a bittersweet ending: using DNA, genealogists finally confirmed the identity of the "Belle in the Well," a mysterious woman found strangled 38 years ago.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Intuders in Akumal" by Clarinda Harriss.

In the Q&A roundup, The Bookseller had "Seven Questions" for David Baldacci; and over at the Mystery People blog, Billy Kring interviewed Stephen Hunter about his latest Bob Lee Swagger book, Game Of Snipers; Matthew McBride also sat down for a chat about his latest book, The End Of The Ocean, which takes place in Bali with an American who falls for an island woman and gets recruited by a drug-smuggling ring—in a country where drug trafficking is punishable by death.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange