B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 140

May 13, 2019

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

Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins, Anson Mount, and Abbie Cornish are set to star in The Virtuoso, a noir thriller directed by Nick Stagliano that will be presented to buyers at Cannes. The story follows a professional assassin (Mount) who must track down and kill his latest target to satisfy an outstanding debt to his mentor (Hopkins). Unlike his other “jobs,” he’s given no name or photo, only that his target will be in a rustic diner in a dying town at 5:00 PM. Bound by obligation, the Virtuoso embarks on a manhunt to find his prey and accomplish the mission. Any one of the patrons in the diner could be the mark, even the enigmatic waitress (Cornish) who, even if she’s not the prey, could prove to be a distraction that threatens to derail his task, and endanger his life.

Annette Bening and Michelle Pfeiffer are boarding director Gideon Raff’s thriller, Turn of Mind, a feature adaptation of Alice LaPlante's New York Times bestseller. Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Wright is adapting the psychological thriller, which centers on a retired orthopedic doctor (Bening) suffering from Alzheimer’s who is trying to figure out — in her moments of clarity — if she killed the person the police claim she did or if she’s being deceived.

Chris Pine has signed on to star in the thriller, Violence of Action. Tarik Saleh will direct from a script written by J.P. Davis. The story follows a man involuntarily discharged from the Marines who joins a paramilitary organization in order to support his family and travels to Poland with his elite team on a black ops mission to investigate a mysterious threat. Barely into his first assignment, he finds himself alone and hunted in Eastern Europe, where he must fight to stay alive long enough to get home and uncover the true motives of those who betrayed him.

Chris Hemsworth and Tiffany Haddish are teaming for a buddy cop comedy titled Down Under Cover. Hemsworth plays a detective who goes undercover to investigate a group of male, Australian erotic dancers who he suspects are involved in a series of casino heists. Haddish will play a lone wolf cop whom Hemsworth reluctantly accepts as a partner.

Sir Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce are teaming up for the thriller, Long Gone Heroes. Directed by Santiago Manes Moreno (Alfred Hitchcock’s Gun), the film tells the story of a special forces soldier-for-hire who must return to the field of battle with his military team to track down a female reporter entangled in a huge political scandal, while being hunted by the mercenaries’ former comrades.

Academy Award winner Russell Crowe will star in Unhinged, a psychological thriller which starts production July 15 in New Orleans. Unhinged takes an ordinary, everyday incident to its most terrifying conclusion in telling the story of a mother who leans on her horn at the wrong time, to the wrong guy (played by Crowe). “Road rage” doesn’t begin to describe what he’s about to do to her and everyone she knows.

STXinternational has locked up international rights to I Care A Lot, a thriller starring Rosamund Pike and directed by J Blakeson based on his original screenplay. Principal photography will get underway in July in Boston, with Pike playing Marla Grayson, a successful legal guardian with a knack for using the law to her benefit and her elderly clients’ detriment, living a life of luxury at their expense. But when her seemingly innocent next victim turns out to have dangerous secrets, Marla must use her wit and cunning to stay alive.

Jamie Bell is set to star in the World War II thriller, Dynamite Room, based on the novel by Jason Hewitt. Set during July 1940, the story opens with 12-year-old evacuee, Lydia, walking through a village in rural England on a baking hot day wearing a gas mask. When she arrives at her abandoned family home, she meets Heiden (Bell), a gun-wielding soldier heralding a full-blown German invasion. He won’t kill Lydia, but she cannot leave the house. What is he looking for? Why is he familiar and how does he already know her name?

Simon Pegg and Lulu Wilson are set to star in Becky, an action thriller directed by Bushwick duo Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion. The film centers on Becky (Wilson), a rebellious 13-year-old who is brought to a weekend getaway at a lake house by her father in an effort to reconnect after her mother’s death. The trip takes a turn for the worse when a group of convicts on the run, led by the merciless Dominick (Pegg), invades the lake house, and Becky decides to take matters into her own hands.

Guy Burnet and Nora Arnezeder are set to star in the psychological thriller, Glorious Empire, written and directed by Matt Szymanowski. The project begins as a love story that turns into a living nightmare as Jeremy (Burnet) suspects his girlfriend, Dagmara (Arnezeder), is gaslighting Jeremy and his family in order to cover up an affair with Jeremy’s brother. Even Jeremy’s concerned parents question his mental state, until it is revealed that Dagmara may have gotten away with the ultimate deception. The pic is described as a modern day homage to thrillers such as Play Misty for Me, Fatal Attraction and Single White Female.

Altitude will launch sales in Cannes for the ’80s homage thriller, Coming Soon, which follows a series of bizarre murders inspired by classic ’80s films that are discovered in the sleepy UK town of Cliff Valley. The inhabitants find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation and three movie-obsessed friends are caught up in the race to catch the killer.

Michelle Yeoh has committed to star in Gunpowder Milkshake, joining Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Angela Bassett, and Paul Giamatti. The project is a female driven high-concept assassin film that has a rich mythology and spans multiple generations.

Liam Neeson will star in The Minuteman, an action thriller to be directed by Robert Lorenz, who has three Oscar nominations as a producer for American Sniper, Letters From Iwo Jima, and Mystic River. The film is a fast-paced story of a retired Vietnam vet who finds himself responsible for the life of a young boy being hunted by a cartel (shades of the protector character Neeson nailed in his three Taken films).

Mel Gibson and Kate Bosworth are set to star in Force of Nature. The film centers on a cop who must protect the remaining residents of a building in the midst of a hurricane evacuation while violent criminals attempt to pull off a mysterious heist within the building. Gibson plays the stubborn retired detective who refuses to evacuate, and fights back when the thieves show up at his doorstep

The first trailer was released for Do Not Reply, a gruesome serial killer thriller starring Jackson Rathbone as a VR-obsessed killer and is a cautionary tale of the evils of social media.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

ABC has handed its first new drama series pickup to a graphic novel adaptation headlined by Avengers co-star Cobie Smulders. Based on the Stumptown graphic novel series, the project follows Dex Parios (Smulders) as a strong, assertive, and sharp-witted army veteran with a complicated love life, gambling debt, and a brother to take care of in Portland, Oregon. Her military intelligence skills make her a great P.I., but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and not quite in alliance with the police. The production also made the announcement that after the pilot aired, the role played by Mark Webber will be recast after the decision was made to take the character “in a different direction.”

ABC’s NYPD Blue sequel series will not air this fall but remains under consideration for midseason. The police drama will have to undergo some reshoots and retooling before ABC makes a final verdict on the project. Written and executive produced by original series writers Matt Olmstead and Nick Wootton, the new drama centers on Theo (played by Fabien Frankel), the son of Andy Sipowicz’s character (Dennis Franz in the original 1993 series) as he tries to earn his detective shield and work in the 15th squad while investigating his father’s murder.

Another classic show revival attempt, New York Undercover, a reboot of the 1990s Dick Wolf cop drama, will not be going forward at ABC. Wolf and the pilot’s leading studio, Universal TV, are still committed to the project and plan to shop it elsewhere. ABC also cancelled The Fix, the drama series from ex-O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark that centered on Maya Travis (Robin Tunney), an L.A. D.A. who suffers a devastating defeat when prosecuting an A-list actor for double murder.

Nathan Fillion fans will rejoice in news that ABC has renewed The Rookie for a second season. Fillion plays John Nolan, the oldest rookie in the LAPD, who cast aside his comfortable, small town life and moved to L.A. to pursue his dream of being a police officer. ABC also renewed How to Get Away with Murder and Station 19.

John Lithgow is set for a lead role opposite Matthew Rhys and Tatiana Maslany in Perry Mason, HBO’s limited-run series. The reimagined Perry Mason is set in 1932 Los Angeles, which is booming while the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression. It's an origin story for one of American fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyers, Perry Mason (Rhys), before he became the iconic attorney.

Kristin Scott Thomas has joined Rebecca, Ben Wheatley’s new adaptation for Netflix of the classic Daphne du Maurier novel. The project also stars Lily James playing the second Mrs. de Winter, who arrives at Manderley with new husband Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer). Kristin Scott Thomas will play Hammer’s longtime housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, who was played by Judith Anderson in the original 1940 film of the same name starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.

A day after the CW ordered the Nancy Drew pilot to series, producers announced a casting change, with Scott Wolf replacing Freddie Prinze Jr. as Nancy’s dad, Carson Drew. Carson Drew is described as a dynamic attorney who has become estranged from Nancy following the recent death of his beloved wife. But his attempts to reconnect with his daughter run aground when Nancy’s murder investigation reveals unsettling secrets from Carson’s own past.

Levy Tran will be promoted to series regular on the just-ordered fourth season of CBS’s action drama series, MacGyver. Tran was introduced as a recurring new character in the second half of the current third season designed to help fill the void left by the departure of series’ original co-lead George Eads. Tran plays Desiree Nguyen (Desi), who joins the Phoenix Foundation to protect MacGyver (Lucas Till) and his team on their global missions.

Oxygen Media announced nearly a dozen series projects that embrace the true-crime genre, greenlighting shows featuring the likes of Kim Kardashian, Nancy Grace, Kate Snow, Mark Wahlberg, Ice-T, Jason Blum, and others. The new series don’t have airdates just yet.

CBS has made its first drama series orders of the season, picking up Dick Wolf’s FBI: Most Wanted spinoff and the legal drama, All Rise (fka Courthouse) from writer Greg Spottiswood. Wolf currently has six drama series picked up for next season, the two FBI dramas at CBS, the three Chicago series on NBC and Law & Order: SVU, also on NBC, heading into a record-breaking 21st season. Another pickup recently announced is the police drama, Tommy, starring Edie Falco as the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles.

CBS announced it is renewing the police procedural Hawaii Five-0 for Season 10, with series' current regulars, Scott Caan, Alex O'Loughlin, Chi McBride, and Jorge Garcia, returning to fight crime in the Aloha State. Other crime dramas renewed include SEAL Team, S.W.A.T., and MacGyver. They join previously renewed procedurals NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, Magnum P.I., and FBI.

Although Bull was also renewed by CBS, the sexual harassment allegations against star Michael Weatherly has led Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television to walk away from the popular legal drama. A rep for Amblin confirmed to Deadline that Steven Spielberg, Amblin Television, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey are no longer attached to Bull, declining further comment.

There are a few other CBS crime dramas that are still on the bubble and yet to be renewed or canceled, including Instinct, based on the James Patterson novel and starring Alan Cumming as a former CIA operative who is lured back to his old life when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer; The Code, in which the military's brightest minds take on the United States' toughest legal challenges; The Red line, which follows the lives of three vastly different Chicago families whose stories of loss and tragedy intersect in the wake of the mistaken shooting of an African-American doctor by a white cop; and Ransom, centered on renowned crisis and hostage negotiator, Eric Beaumont, who employs insight into human behavior to deal with challenging kidnap and ransom cases.

Blindspot fans can breathe a sigh of relief for now. After being on the bubble, the mystery drama starring Sullivan Stapleton and Jaimie Alexander has been renewed for a fifth and final season by NBC. The pickup comes despite NBC’s recent decision to bench Blindspot for the May sweep. NBC also picked up the pilot Emergence to series; the multi-faceted mystery stars Allison Tolman as a police chief who takes in a child with no memory after an accident, which leads to a conspiracy larger than the chief ever imagined. And the peacock network also ordered a full series of Lincoln, the adaptation of the crime fiction novels of Jeffery Deaver about a a quadriplegic forensic criminalist.

ABC has canceled the Shondaland legal drama, For the People, after two seasons. Set in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (a.k.a. “The Mother Court”), the Shondaland series centered on six talented young lawyers working on opposite sides of the law. It first debuted as a midseason replacement last year, and has since struggled to gain a foothold in the ratings.

Fox announced its new series pickups, including Prodigal Son, which centers on Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), an acclaimed criminal psychologist, who knows how killers think because his father (Michael Sheen) was one of the worst; neXt, starring John Slattery as a brilliant but paranoid former tech CEO who joins a Homeland Cybersecurity Agent and her team to stop the world’s first artificial intelligence crisis; and the police drama, Deputy, headlined by Stephen Dorff.

Fans of Lethal Weapon won't be happy to hear that Fox has cancelled the show after three seasons. The program's fate was essentially sealed when Clayne Crawford was fired in the wake of multiple behind-the-scenes issues, and star Damon Wayans also announced he was leaving the show.

The spring season of show pickups and cancellations can be a bit dizzying, but Deadline has a handy photo gallery of all the cancelled shows (thus far), and TV Guide also has a list.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest episode of Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, “Liquor Store Holdup” by K.M. Rockwood, read by Sean Hopper. The story was first published in Jack Hardway’s Crime Magazine, v. 2 # 2, March/April 2015.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham discussed the Edgar Awards, the Agatha Awards, and infuriating cookie giving.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro chatted with Hanna Jameson about her new novel, The Last.

The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, focused on “Robbery vs. Burglary, Writer’s Intro to Guns, and Words of Wisdom.”

Spybrary featured the third in their series of commentaries on spy novels read by the students of Fiction and Espionage at the University of Edinburgh. This week, the students discussed The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming.

THEATRE

Dublin, Ireland's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre is presenting the adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ novel, The Girl on the Train, from June 3-8. Samantha Womack stars in the mystery psychological thriller about a divorcée who becomes entangled in a missing persons investigation that leads to bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.

GAMES

Bravo Media is expanding its slate with Spy Games, an espionage-inspired reality competition series hosted by model and martial artist Mia Kang. Spy Games follows ten contestants as they battle it out in the ultimate game of espionage for a $100,000 prize.

There's a John Wick game in the works, based on the film series about the legendary hitman, in what the publishers describe as “fight-choreographed chess brought to life in a video game.” It will be an interactive experience that will implement the “gun fu style” from the movies and expand the universe previously established on the big screen.

May 11, 2019

Quote of the Week

May 10, 2019

FFB: Suddenly at His Residence

Christianna Brand was born Mary Christianna Milne in 1907 in Malaya, spending her early years in India. When at age 17 she learned her father had lost all his money, she took on a series of jobs including governess, nightclub hostess, ballroom dancer, dress shop model and secretary. She didn't turn her hand to fiction until 1939, with her first novel making it to print after being rejected by fifteen publishers. Death in High Heels was the title of that book, and in an apocryphal story, she got the idea while working as a salesgirl fantasizing about killing a co-worker.

She went on to write several crime fiction novels and short stories, but achieved her peak with the series featuring Inspector Cockrill of the Kent County Police who was modeled on her father-in-law, William Lewis, a doctor. One Cockrill novel, Green for Danger, was hailed by H.R.F. Keating as "the last golden crown of the Golden Age detective story" and made into a movie in 1946 starring Alastair Sim. Unfortunately for crime fiction fans, she mostly dropped the genre, at least in novel form, in the 1950s and concentrated on children's books, most notably Nurse Matilda, which Emma Thompson adapted in 2005 for as the film Nanny McPhee.

Brand was nominated three times for Edgar Awards, twice for short stories and once for a nonfiction work about a true-crime Scottish murder case. She also served as Chair of the Crime Writers Association in 1972-73. She penned essays including some of the best accounts available form the early days of London's Detection Club including remembrances of members Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Berkely.

Brand has been called the "female John Dickson Carr" for her locked-room style mysteries, one of which was Suddenly at His Residence (a/k/a The Crooked Wreath, in the U.S.), from the Inspector Cockrill series. Cockrill is another in the long line of eccentric detectives, insightful yet shabby, often called "sparrow-like," or, as he was introduced in his first novel (Heads You Lose),

"He was a little brown man who seemed much older than he actually was, with deep-set eyes beneath a fine broad brow, an aquiline nose and a mop of fluffy white hair fringing a magnificent head. He wore his soft felt hat set sideways, as though he would at any moment break out into an amateur rendering of ‘Napoleon’s Farewell to his Troops’; and he was known to Torrington and in all its surrounding villages as Cockie. He was widely advertised as having a heart of gold beneath his irascible exterior; but there were those who said bitterly that the heart was so infinitesimal and you had to dig so deep down to get to it, that it was hardly worth the trouble. The fingers of his right hand were so stained with nicotine as to appear to be tipped with wood."

In Suddenly at His Residence, the plot starts off in a fairly traditional way, where patriarch Sir Richard March is found dead in a Grecian lodge on his estate and suspicion falls on the family members gathered who he was getting ready to disinherit. After Cockrill begins to investigate, another body turns up, and the Inspector will also learn just how far World War II can reach from the battlefield into the countryside. He's also faced with a double "impossible crime" scenario: no footprints or marks at one crime scene involving sand and in another involving dust. Brand's writing is wry and engaging, with plenty of twists and the traditional British Golden Age red herrings, and in fact, her intricate plotting is generally considered the greatest strength of her novels.

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Published on May 10, 2019 02:00

May 8, 2019

Mystery Melange

The Malice Domestic Conference handed out its annual Agatha Awards on Saturday. Congrats to all the winning titles this year (for all the finalists click here):

Best Contemporary Novel: Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
Best Historical Novel: The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
Best First Novel Tie: A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)

Curses Boiled Again by Shari Randall (St. Martin's)
Best Short Story Tie: "All God's Sparrows" by Leslie Budewitz (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

"The Case of the Vanishing Professor" by Tara Laskowski (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)
Best Children's/Young Adult Mystery: Potion Problems (Just Add Magic) by Cindy Callaghan (Aladdin)
Best Nonfiction: Mastering Plot Twists: How to Use Suspense, Targeted Storytelling Strategies, and Structure to Captivate Your Readers by Jane Cleland (Writer's Digest Books)

The Independent Book Publisher Award winners were also announced this past weekend. The crime fiction winners include:

Mystery

GOLD (tie): The Moving Blade, by Michael Pronko (Raked Gravel Press)

Shadowed by Death, by Mary Adler (Dancing Dog Books)
SILVER: Full Service Blonde, by Megan Edwards (Imbrifex Books)
BRONZE: The Sleeping Lady, by Bonnie C. Monte (She Writes Press)

Suspense/Thriller

GOLD: High Crimes: A Georgia Davis Novel of Suspense, by Libby Fischer Hellmann (The Red Herrings Press)
SILVER (tie): The Maw, by Taylor Zajonc (Skyhorse Publishing)

Big Woods, by May Cobb (Llewellyn Worldwide)
BRONZE: Death’s Echoes, by Penny Mickelbury (Bywater Books)

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's May/June 2019 issue included the announcement of the 2018 EQMM Readers Award. There were thirteen finalists from which the winning story, voted on by the magazine's readers, was Stacy Woodson's “Duty, Honor, Hammett.” Second Place went to “50” by writer, translator, editor, and instructor Josh Pacther; and Third Place was bestowed upon “Sofee,” by retired New Jersey Police Chief David Dean.

Booklist's May issue marks the beginning of their month-long celebration of mystery, including the Mystery Showcase issue. In honor of the event, Booklist rounded up the year’s best crime fiction (the year running from May 2018 to April 2019), and also offered up top ten lists in both books for youth and audiobooks.

A little late for the 'Zine Scene posting last week, but definitely worth checking out, is Mystery Readers Journal: Mystery in the American South II (Volume 35:1: Spring 2019), which is available now as a PDF and hardcopy. This is the second installment of this theme and features some three dozen Author! Author! essays plus reviews.

StoryADay.org proclaimed May International Short Story Month back in 2013, and to celebrate, the Short Mystery Fiction Society is highlighting one or more members' online stories per day.

What happened to Harper Lee’s unpublished true crime book? Author Casey Cep's new book, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, reconstructed years of investigative work Harper Lee devoted to a series of killings in the 1970s. CBS Sunday Morning's Rita Braver further reported on Lee's fascination with the case and spoke with Casey Cep; and The Guardian also chatted with Cep, who revealed the discovery of a "brimming" cache of research by the Lee into the Alabama preacher suspected of a string of murders.

The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers will play at Glastonbury, in what lead singer Val McDermid described as “a bit like a fairy story”. The rock ‘n’ roll band also includes features author Mark Billingham of the Tom Thorne series, Northern Irish writer Stuart Neville, Scottish crime writer Doug Johnstone, Luca Veste, author of the DI Murphy and DS Rossi series, and Scottish journalist-turned novelist Chris Brookmyre. The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers has headlined at various literary festivals across the country as well as music festivals, after forming at a writers’ convention in New Orleans in the US. As McDermid added, "Bestseller lists are all well and good, but this is a middle-aged wannabe rock star’s dream."

Venetian Vase profiled Sam Stiefel, the producer and conman who inspired James Ellroy.

Many of us grew up with the exploits of boy detective Encyclopedia Brown, the bestselling literary icon created by Donald J. Sobol. But who was Sobol? Craig PIttman, writing for Crimereads, tells us about the most popular mystery author you’ve probably never heard of.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Mother" by Sanjeev Sethi.

May 7, 2019

Author R&R with Laura Elliot

Irish author Laura Elliot was born in Dublin and worked as a journalist and magazine editor before turning her hand to fiction. Under the name June Considine she penned twelve books for children and young adults, with short stories appearing in a number of teenage anthologies and broadcast on the radio. In 2009, she switched gears to adult psychological suspense with The Prodigal Sister, which was followed by seven more titles including 2018's bestselling The Wife Before Me.

Elliot's novel Guilty starts off on a warm summer morning, when, after a fight with her parents, thirteen-year old school Constance Lawson is reported missing. A few days later, Constance’s uncle, Karl Lawson, finds himself swept up in a media frenzy created by journalist Amanda Bowe, who is strongly implying that he is the prime suspect.

Six years later… Karl’s life is in ruins. His marriage is over, his family destroyed. But the woman who took everything away from him is thriving. With a successful career, husband, and a gorgeous baby boy, Amanda’s built quite a life for herself. Until the day she receives a phone call and in a heartbeat, she is plunged into every mother’s worst nightmare.

Laura Elliot takes some Author R&R today here on In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing her novels:

The Brent geese had arrived on the Broadmeadow Estuary near my home and were combing the shoreline for sustenance when I drove past. My car radio was on and I was listening to an interview that had all the hallmarks of science fiction. Soon, the interviewee promised, my rushed visits to my local library and to the archives of newspapers would be a thing of the past. With the click of a mouse, I’d have access to a virtual global library. This was my introduction to the concept of the World Wide Web. I dismissed it, of course. Libraries, those hallowed, silent institutions were imbued with timeless knowledge and could never be replaced by such a new-fangled notion yet the Brent geese were barely on the wing again before it all came true.

Nowadays, I have ceased to be surprised by the diversity of information at my disposal and have almost forgotten what an index looks like. Undoubtably, research is easier these days but an overload of information can be as burdensome as too little. It stifles the spontaneity of the written word and I usually find it necessary to allow the research I’ve compiled over the internet to distil and almost vaporise before I can use it creatively.

Interviewing face to face is my favourite form of research. People are only too happy to help when I need specific details. Whether it is a mechanic demonstrating how the chassis of a car can be damaged in a certain type of road accident, a police inspector detailing the process involved in searching for a missing person, a homeless boy telling me what it’s like to exist on the rough side of the street, they give their time willingly. Later, when I check my notes or recordings, their information will not need distilling and my writing will dance to the tune of their voices.

I’ve ghost written a number of books. Some stories related to tragic incidents that received massive publicity at the time of their unfolding. Like the rest of the population, I’d watched the news, unaware that one day I’d be called upon to ghost write these experiences from the point of view of one of the participants. In such instances, especially when the authors had been through the courts or involved in a tribunal, the research I needed was at my disposal through newspapers and reports. The most difficult research I had to undertake was to probe into the minds of those who’d been traumatised, their lives turned upside down and changed forever by circumstances beyond their control.

Sometimes, they could not find the words to explain their trauma ―or their emotions were buried too deeply for me to disturb. In such cases, I had to dig deeply into my own psyche and try to imagine myself in their situations. To feel the fear, horror and bewilderment that can follow the brutal death of a loved one and all that must follow when such an event is played out in the glare of a public arena.

When writing fiction, which I now do full time, I use all the methods of research at my disposal. I was not familiar with the term ‘Fake News’ when I began to write my novel, Guilty, but I was interested in exploring the capacity of words to shape a narrative or reshape a truth. My office walls were covered with newspaper clippings that illustrated this power and I enjoyed the challenge of replicating reputable broadsheets and sensationally headlined tabloid reports throughout the narrative.

The power of a note book can never be underestimated. I travelled in a camper van across the South Island of New Zealand some years ago. While my husband drove, I filled my notebook with details I knew would be forgotten as one experience overtook another then another. Later, this notebook formed the background research for my novel, The Prodigal Sister, and I’ve had the pleasure of being congratulated by New Zealanders on my depiction of their country. That would never have happened without my trusty notebook.

With such a surfeit of information at our disposal, it’s easy to forget that, sometimes, the mystical tapping of one’s imagination can be as reliable as the most detailed data. I’ve created imaginary landscapes and, later, when the final words had been written, I’d been startled to discover places that were uncannily familiar to their fictitious settings. In one of my stories, I created a deserted cottage situated on a lake shore and shadowed by an enormous boulder. Months later, when I visited the mountainous region where I’d set my location, I drove over the crest of a hill and discovered an isolated cottage in the valley below me, its image mirrored in the stillness of a lake, its size dwarfed by a boulder that had been in the same position since the ice age.

The introduction of the World Wide Web changed forever our tried and trusted methods of gathering information yet I still love to use my local library. I enjoy soaking up the meditative atmosphere, the feeling that I am sitting in a space where generations before me have concentrated on acquiring knowledge and pursuing their love of books.

You can learn more about Laura and her books via her website and also follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Guilty, published by Grand Central, is available via all major booksellers in digital, print, and audio formats.

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Published on May 07, 2019 06:30

May 6, 2019

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

Moonage Pictures is adapting Lionel Davidson’s Russian spy thriller, Kolymsky Heights. The BBC Studios-backed firm optioned the novel, which was originally published in 1994 but was republished by Faber in 2015 after it became one of the most requested out-of-print titles at UK bookstores. Set just after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the story begins with a coded message smuggled out of Russia—a plea for help from a supersecret laboratory deep in the frozen wastes of Siberia. The note is addressed to Johnny Porter, a Canadian Indian of the Gitxsan tribe with a genius for languages and disguises, and he's reluctantly forced to slip across the border on a rescue mission, setting up a chain of events that will change the course of history.

Golden Globe-winners Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Jeremy Piven, along with Emile Hirsch and Paz Vega, are set to star in American Night, a neo-noir thriller helmed by first-time film director Alessio Jim Della Valle. Written by Della Valle, the plot follows Michael Rubino (Hirsch) who has just become the Don of the New York Mafia, but his greatest dream is to devote his life to painting and become a great artist. John Kaplan (Meyers), an art dealer, may feel like his life is in shambles, but he still has the best eye for spotting fakes in the world. Their paths, apparently distant, cross when Andy Warhol’s Pink Marilyn is stolen, setting off a series of unexpected events that upend their lives.

Nicholas Hoult will be joining Angelina Jolie in Taylor Sheridan's next feature, Those Who Wish Me Dead, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Michael Koryta. The thriller centers on a teen in witness protection hiding out from a pair of killers in a wilderness skills program in Montana while a fire rages. Sheridan, who penned the script for Hell or High Water, will adapt the book for the big screen.

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood will play in Cannes after all. The news comes after the feature was not included in the original batch of pictures unveiled last month. The film follows a faded TV actor and his stunt double (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt), trying to achieve success during the final years of Hollywood’s Golden Age, in a story that also intersects with the Charles Manson cult.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Stolen Pictures, the production company set up by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, will adapt Ben Aaronovitch's epic Rivers of London fantasy-crime book series. The project follows Peter Grant, “an ordinary police constable turned magician's apprentice as he solves crimes across the British capital with a blend of urban fantasy, mystery thriller and fantasy caper.”

Charles Roven’s Atlas Entertainment has acquired the rights to Joseph Finder’s thriller, Judgment, with plans to adapt the novel into a series. The novel centers on Juliana Brody, a formidable judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, who is blackmailed after a night of infidelity is captured on video. As the terrifying conspiracy unfolds, it becomes clear that personal humiliation, even the possible destruction of her career, are the least of her concerns and that turning the tables on her adversaries will require her to be as ruthless as they are.

Indie TV production company Drama Republic won a bidding rights war for the thriller, Seven Lies, written by Transworld editor Lizzy Goudsmit under the pen-name of Elizabeth Kay. The book is about the tangled, toxic friendships between women, the dark underbelly of obsessive love, and how lies can be dangerous, but the truth can be devastating.

In a return to television, Evangeline Lilly (Avengers: Endgame) is set to star in and executive produce the eight-episode mystery drama series, Albedo, that will be internationally distributed by eOne. Co-created and executive produced by writing duo Max and Adam Reid (Sneaky Pete), Albedo is set 150 years in the future and follows Detective Vivien Coleman (Lilly) who is dispatched to the edge of our solar system to investigate a scientist’s mysterious death on board an isolated space station.

Martin Compston, Laura Fraser, Molly Windsor, and Jennifer Spence are to star in UKTV’s six-part crime drama series, Traces, which is based on an original idea from crime writer Val McDermid. Traces explores the world of the Scottish Institute of Forensic Science and follows female characters who will use the rigors of forensics to uncover the truth about an unsolved murder case.

The British crime drama, The Bay, which has been dubbed the “Northern Broadchurch,” has been renewed for a second season by ITV. The series stars Morven Christie as police Family Liaison Officer DS Lisa Armstrong and Daniel Ryan, who plays DI Tony Manning.

Hulu just dropped a teaser video for the Veronica Mars revival during its upfront event in New York. The clip shows the return of Kristen Bell, as private eye Veronica Mars, and many other familiar faces to the fictional seaside town of Neptune, California.

A trailer was released for Showtime’s City On a Hill, the upcoming drama executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck that stars Kevin Bacon as a corrupt FBI veteran who forms an unlikely alliance with an assistant district attorney (played by Aldis Hodge).

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

WNYC studios posted a podcast with the title “Is True Crime Jinxed?” and spoke with documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger, co-creator of the Paradise Lost trilogy, about modern filmmaking, the responsibility of the artist, and different interpretations of “truth.”

The SPA Girls spent time with Adam Richardson, an American cop who helps authors and screenwriters with their crime-fiction questions through his website and podcast called the Writer’s Detective Bureau.

Speaking of the Writer's Detective Bureau, this week's episode focused on Steven Pressfield’s Resistance, the difference between robbery and burglary, how the elements of a crime guide dialogue, an introduction to handguns for writers, and some mantras related to police work and life in general.

Writer Types chatted with Angie Kim about her debut novel, Miracle Creek; there were interviews of Sophie Hannah and several more authors in Chicago at the Murder & Mayhem conference; plus this week's UnPanel segment featured Kellye Garrett, Frankie Bailey, Alex Segura, and Gigi Pandian of the Crime Writers of Color group.

In this week's episode of Two Crime Writers and a Microphone, hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste discussed the latest book from Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James and a new film about JRR Tolkien that angered his estate. The special guest was Neil Broadfoot, talking about his latest book, No Man's Land, haggis hunting, being a Gamekeeper, and more.

Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover podcast welcomed Kris Frieswick, author of The Ghost Manuscript. The book follows rare book authenticator Carys Jones who must track the clues hidden in a previously unknown journal, leading to a tomb that could rewrite the history of Western civilization.

Criminal Mischief: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction with Dr. D.P. Lyle focused on the various types of gunshot wounds to the chest, with relevant points for crime writers.

Crime Writers On ... True Crime Review was joined by special guest Sarah D. Bunting from the blog The Blotter Presents as they discussed the Maryland Court of Appeals' refusal to reconsider its recent decision reinstating Adnan Syed's conviction; a new six-part podcast series looking at the 2010 death of a blind woman from Halifax; and a look at the new eight-part series, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

THEATER

Vertigo Theater's Mystery Theatre Series in Calgary, Canada is presenting The Invisible Agents of Ugentlemanly Warfare, May 11-June 9. The story is set in 1939 when Canadian millionaire William Stephenson convinced Churchill and Roosevelt to combine forces in a joint covert effort against the Nazis. He assembled an elite team of spies, including the unlikeliest of agents: six irrepressible young women.

The Hayes Theater is presenting the Australian premiere of American Psycho, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, with a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and music and lyrics by Tony Award winning Duncan Sheik. This bold musical takes on the shocking depiction of excesses of the 1980s as told through the devious actions of Patrick Bateman, a young, handsome and wealthy investment banker who becomes a serial killer.

The Evolution Theatre Company in Columbus, Ohio, is presenting The Vultures, a modern, comedic, gay spin on the haunted house/mystery genre. The Vultures is a modern-day adaptation of two classic works, The Cat and the Canary by John Willard and The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. Performances take place May 22-June 1 at the Columbus Performing Arts Center's Van Fleet Theatre.

The Stages Repertory Theater in Houston will feature Murder for Two through June 16, 2019. Everyone is a suspect in Murder for Two, a hilarious murder mystery with a twist: one actor plays the investigator, the other plays all 13 suspects, and both play the piano throughout.

Witness for the Prosecution has extended its run in London through March 2020. Theatergoers step inside the magnificent surroundings of London County Hall and experience the intensity and drama of Agatha Christie’s gripping story of justice, passion, and betrayal in a unique courtroom setting. There are a limited number of VIP Jury seats available per performance, with patrons sitting in the Jury Box as the case unfolds before them.

May 4, 2019

Quote of the Week

May 3, 2019

FFB: Through a Glass Darkly

Helen McCloy (1904-1994) was the pseudonym of American Golden Age author Helen Clarkson, born in New York City. Her mother was writer Helen Worrell McCloy and her father, William McCloy, longtime managing editor of the New York Evening Sun. She was educated at a Quaker school before heading off to France in 1923 to study at the Sorbonne, then finally working in journalism for Hearst's Universal News Service and as a freelancer and art critic.

McCloy began to write mysteries in the 1930s, with her first novel, Dance of Death, published in 1938. In 1946 she married Davis Dresser, famous for his Mike Shayne novels written under the pseudonym Brett Halliday. The couple founded the Torquil Publishing Company and the literary agency Halliday and McCloy prior to their divorce in 1961. In 1950 she became the first woman to serve as president of Mystery Writers of America, and her contributions to the genre are recognized today by the annual Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship for Mystery Writing.

Her most famous series character, Dr. Basil Willing debuted in Dance of Death and appeared in 12 novels and several short stories. Willing became interested in psychiatry upon seeing the shell-shocked soldiers during his World War I service, then studied psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, followed by Paris and Vienna, where he acquired his knowledge of Freudian psychoanalysis and his belief that "every criminal leaves psychic fingerprints, and he can't wear gloves to hide them."

Willing's actual literary debut was in the short story "Through a Glass Darkly," published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in September 1948 and later expanded into the 1950 novel by the same title. It's a quasi-locked-room a la John Dickson Carr, with a seemingly supernatural twist involving a Doppelganger in which art teacher Faustina Crayle is fired from Brereton School for Girls mid-term but not given a reason why. Faustina's friend and fellow teacher, Gisela von Weber, also happens to be the fiancée of Basil Willing, who draws him into the case, fearing an injustice has been done.

Willing soon learns that students have seen Faustina appear in places she couldn't have been and when the drama catch has a fatal accident, Faustina is suspected—before Willing discovers that she was the only woman who could never have an alibi.

Author, editor and columnist Nicholas Fuller feels that Through a Glass Darkly, is among the top twenty best detective stories ever written, "both for the way in which its horror arises almost entirely from Jamesian understatement (suggestion and the incongruous presence of the normal create the feeling of something terribly wrong) and for the ambiguous solution."

McCloy spins the Doppleganger theme effectively through her characterizations and prose:

"You enter a room, a street, a country road. You see a figure ahead of you, solid, three-dimensional, brightly coloured. Moving and obeying all the laws of optics. Its clothing and posture is vaguely familiar. You hurry toward the figure for a closer view. It turns its head and - you are looking at yourself. Or rather a perfect mirror-image of yourself only - there is no mirror. So, you know it is your double. And that frightens you, for tradition tells you that he who sees his own double is about to die . . ."

In 1959, writer John Hopkins adapted the story into a teleplay as part of the Saturday Playhouse series that aired on the BBC from 1958 to 1961.

View more on B.V. Lawson's website »

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Published on May 03, 2019 02:00

May 2, 2019

The 'Zine Scene

The new May/June 2019 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine is out with sunny shores that contain dark secrets, including Edgar Award winner Art Taylor’s “Better Days”; the edge-of-your-seat ride “Hurricane Jonah” by T.J. MacGregor; Pat Black’s policemen on a bittersweet day, “The First Day of the School Holidays”; a private investigator in Mark Stevens’s “A Bitter Thing,” a story taking place in the world of hit rock musicians; the latest take from EQMM's Black Mask department, Dave Zeltserman's "Brother's Keeper" and much more.

Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine's May/June issue takes a look at the divide in mystery fiction between the professional investigator and the amateur sleuth and how the interplay between vocation and avocation can unfold in any number of interesting ways. Whether it’s the duly anointed law enforcement officers whose personal passions inform their work, or the accidental sleuth whose professional expertise sheds light on a knotty problem, this month’s stories reveal the complex feedback between the things people do for pay and for love. The cover story is “A Deadly Game of Flamingo Bingo” by Terrie Farley Moran, with other tales by Chris Muessig, Gigi Vernon, Elizabeth Zelvin, Melissa Fall, and more.

Soon after its founding in 2011, Noir Nation: International Crime Fiction became a globally recognized home of international crime fiction and, with this issue, it also includes noir poetry. Noir Nation #7 features fiction by Deborah Pintonelli, Nahary Hernandez, JJ Toner, Barbie Wilde, David James Keaton, Ava Black, Simon Rowe, D.V. Bennett, Frauke Schuster, Gerald Heys, and BV Lawson; poetry by Bianca Bellová, Adam Ward, Juleigh Howard-Hobson, Bonny Finberg, and Shawn Stibbards; nonfiction by Michael Gonzales; a staff interview with police detective and writer George Beck; plus the winners of the First Golden Fedora Poetry Prize: George Perreault, Michael Zimecki, Timothy Ryan, J.D. Smith, Craig Kenworthy, Frank De Blasé, James Gardner, Joe Cortinas, Barry Nathan, and Timothy Tarkelly.

Mystery Weekly Magazine's April issue features “The Persistence Of Illusion” by Bond Elam, in which Detective Harry Sturgis finds himself stuck with a twenty-five-year-old case and the last thing he expects is to get himself killed; “One Night At The Pine Lake Motel” by Blu Gilliand finds two pro wrestlers and one disbelieving spectator on a collision course with trouble on a hot summer night at a seedy Alabama motel; in “Tangerines And Wild Garlic” by Steve Toase, Sarah travels to Ben's hometown to meet his family, but then she finds herself in the midst of a town tradition where everything is not what it seems; PTSD is the focus of “Paper Soldier” by Al Onia; in “Andromeda Smiled” by C.W. Blackwell, retired detective Charlie Kane is lured from his solitude to reprise his role as a famous gumshoe; “Honey's Turn” by Michael Cahlin and Beth Slick is a twisted his-and-her love story and what happens when a good love goes really, really bad.

The spring Mystery Scene magazine features a profile of thriller author Steve Barry; there's also a look at the “Ten Commandments of Mystery Fiction" as laid out by author Father Ronald A. Knox; Oline Cogdill has rounded up a pack of canine sleuths; Jon L. Breen has a roundup of the latest legal thrillers; author Robert Dugoni tells how studying law taught him to think linearly and problem-solve; there's the always interesting “The Hook: Intriguing First Lines” feature, showcasing interesting openings from mystery novels, and much more.

Strand Magazine: Issue 57 includes an exclusive Walter Mosley short story about a bank teller’s impact on a huge corporation with “An Unlikely Serious of Conversations.” Noted author James Ziskin pens a story about a meek husband’s wonderful escape plan with “A Bed of Roses.” David Marcum has Holmes and Watson on the case with a “A Simple Solution.” Elizabeth Creith pens a story set during two times dealing with spells and the Spanish Armada with “The Spanish Entanglement.” And Jeffrey Alan Lockwood has a most unusual PI solve a murder case in “With a Little Help from my Friends.” There's also an exclusive interview with bestselling author Don Winslow who spoke about drug cartels, writing, and his latest novel, The Border, plus you'll find oodles of book reviews.

Mystery Tribune's second anniversary issue features a curated collection of short fiction including stories by Hester Young, Edgar Award Winner SJ Rozan, Hilary Davidson, Ryan David Jahn, Edgar Award Winner Gary Earl Ross, Jonathan Ferrini, Kevin R. Roller, and William R. Soldan; interviews and reviews by Charlaine Harris, Charles Perry and Nick Kolakowski; art and photography by Brittany Markert, Anka Zhuravleva and more. This issue also features a preview of the new Wrath Of Fantomas graphic novel by Olivier Bocquet and Julie Rocheleau.

Volume 31, no. 1 of Clues: A Journal of Detection includes articles on dementia in detective fiction; trauma and contemporary crime fiction; a Percy Bysshe Shelley poem viewed as a detective story; a look at “The Sign of Four" and the detective (Sherlock Holmes) as a disrupter of order; two new takes on the Nancy Drew series; and more.

The latest edition of Switchblade Magazine is out, with new noir fiction focusing on “the darkness and complexity of the human psyche” by Paul D. Marks, Jack Bates, Mark Slade, Richard Risemberg, J. Rohr, Willie Smith, A.F. Knott, John Kojak, Fred Rock, and Stefen Styrsky. Managing Editor Scotch Rutherford promises a heaping helping of vice including prostitution, racketeering, a new take on good old-fashioned mob fiction, and a little unorthodox religious intervention.

The new Flash Bang Mysteries offers up the Featured Cover Story, “Getting Ideas” by Amy Samin; The Editors' Choice story, “Conversation with the Murderer” by Heidi Hunter; and other new crime stories from Herschel Cozine (“Dead End”); Karen Cantwell (“Stupid is as Stupid Does”), John M. Floyd (“Grandpa's Watch”), and Stay Woodson (“The Final Course”).