B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 141

Mystery Melange

The Noir at the Bar series (begun in 2008 by crime fiction critic and blogger Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders) is going strong with new events popping up around the U.S. and the world. One of the latest events will take place May 2 at the Town Wall pub on Pink Lane in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northeast England. Organized by Vic Watson, the line-up includes Neil Broadfoot, Mik Brown, Nick Parker, Ashley Erwin, Derek Farrell, Jónína Leósdóttir, Gytha Lodge, Judith O’Reilly, Zoë Sharp, Lilja Sigurðardóttir, plus a wildcard chosen on the night.

An upcoming auction is offering the chance become a character in a Peter James novel. Famous for the Brighton-based Roy Grace series, the bestselling author will name a character after the top bidder at a one-off auction at Bellmans Auctioneers in Wisborough Green on Thursday May 9. The auction is raising money for the charity Care for Veterans which this year celebrates its 100th anniversary. One of the other fun auction items includes "A Reception at the Crime Scene of the Largest Burglary in English Legal History," the underground Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company. Also, For James Bond fans, you can sail on board the Fairey Huntsman vessel featured in the iconic James Bond boat chase in From Russia with Love. 

The annual Daily Mail's first novel competition is open for entries with a deadline of June 14. Submissions can be a contemporary story about families or relationships or a thriller or an historical adventure, as long as it hasn't been previously published in any form. Entrants are required to submit just the first 3,000 words plus a 600-word synopsis of the complete work: beginning, middle and end. The winner will receive £20,000 advance fee, the services of top literary agent Luigi Bonomi and guaranteed publication by Penguin Random House UK. Several of the runners-up have also been offered publishing deals in previous competitions.

The 6th Annual Conference of the International Crime Fiction Association will present "Captivating Criminality 6: Metamorphoses of Crime: Facts and Fictions, from June 12-15 at d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. The themed presentations will examine the ways in which Crime Fiction as a genre incorporates elements of real-life cases and, in turn, influences society by conveying thought-provoking ideas of deviance, criminal activity, investigation, and punishment.

As part of the Edgar Awards celebration season, Crimereads offered up a two-part roundtable discussion on "The State of the Mystery," featuring the 2019 Edgar Award Nominees addressing the genre's most pressing questions. Part One can be found via this link and Part Two by following this link.

A few other noteworthy Crimereads features recently included a "Beginner's Guide to Locked Room Mysteries" by Gigi Pandian; a look at T.S. Eliot as a crime fiction critic, by Curtis Evans; and Adi Tantimedh's list of "10 Crime Novels that Strike a Balance Between Humor and Noir."

Elizabeth Foxwell noted that a lawsuit regarding the sale of Elmore Leonard's papers to the University of South Carolina had been settled. Christine Leonard, Leonard's ex-wife, had sued alleging that Leonard's company, trust, and son had sold the archive in secret (stating that a stipulation in the divorce decree entitled her to a share of the proceeds). Tom McNally, dean of libraries at the University of South Carolina, said Leonard had visited the school and was impressed with collections of Ernest Hemingway and George V. Higgins, two of Leonard’s favorite writers. He added, "The collection is important because it will lead to the writing of books and articles about Elmore Leonard and his contributions to writing. And it will be here forever."

The CIA finally launched its Instagram, and its first post is an "eye spy" game.

Embattled UK Prime Minister Teresa May took time out from political woes to launch a book booth (the UK's version of a Little Free Library). Her choice of book to add to the library was Dissolution, a historical mystery novel by bestselling Scottish author CJ Sansom.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Lil' Redd" by Kenneth Pobo.

In the Q&A roundup, Denise Mina (whose latest book, Conviction, was just released) was interviewed by The Guardian and explained why she doesn't think "there’s any such thing as an apolitical writer"; the Irish Times chatted with Jane Casey about her Detective Maeve Kerrigan series and how she straddles the divide between Ireland and Britain, just like her creator; and the blog of the International Crime Fiction Research Group spoke with Ellen Dunne, an Austrian writer who currently lives in Dublin, about her Patsy Logan protagonist, as well as European crime fiction in general.

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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

Sony Pictures has signed a six-figure preemptive deal for I Heart Murder, a horror/crime spec script by Tom O’Donnell. The plot is being kept under wraps, but it’s said to be a female-driven thriller, and several actresses are already circling the lead roles.  

Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to star in Fox Searchlight's Nightmare Alley, a film based on the William Lindsay Gresham 1946 novel, with Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) serving as director and co-writer of the script (with Kim Morgan). Set in the dark, shadowy world of a second rate carnival filled with hustlers, scheming grifters, and Machiavellian femmes fatales, the story centers on a corrupt con-man who teams up with a female psychiatrist to trick people into giving them money.  

John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), Boyd Holbrook (Logan) and Vicky Krieps (The Phantom Thread) are set to lead the cast in Born To Be Murdered. The project is set in Athens and the Epirus region of Greece, where a vacationing couple, played by Washington and Vikander, fall prey to a violent conspiracy with tragic consequences. Ferdinando Cito Filomarino (Antonia) will direct from a screenplay by Kevin Rice.

The producers of the still-untitled Bond 25 revealed key cast and production details while Tweeting from Jamaica (the iconic location for previous Bond films Dr. No and Live And Let Die). Daniel Craig returns as Bond, and other cast members set to return include Ralph Fiennes as MI6 head M; Ben Whishaw as Q; Naomie Harris as Bond’s assistant Moneypenny; Lea Seydoeux as his former flame Dr. Madeleine Swann; Rory Kinnear as MI6 chief of staff Bill Tanner; and Jeffrey Wright as Bond’s CIA counterpart Felix Leiter. The plot begins with Bond not on active service but his peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter asks for help to rescue a kidnapped scientist - a mission that leads Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain (Rami Malek) armed with dangerous new technology.

Brian Geraghty (The Alienist), Bethany Joy Lenz (One Tree Hill), and Sharon Leal (Instinct) are set to star in Blindfire, a crime drama written and directed by Mike Nell. The film centers around a police officer (Geraghty) who, while responding to a violent hostage call, kills the African American suspect only to later learn of his innocence. Sensing this was a set-up, he must track down the person responsible while examining his own accountability and the ingrained racism which brought him to this point. Leal will play his partner, while Lenz has been cast as his wife.

Luke Evans (The Girl on the Train), Mia Kirshner (The Black Dahlia), Michael Aronov (The Americans) and Martin Donovan (Big Little Lies) are the latest to join Nicholas Jarecki‘s dramatic thriller, Dreamland. They’ll co-star opposite Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lily-Rose Depp in the opioid crisis pic, which is shooting in Montreal. The film follows three colliding stories: A drug trafficker (Hammer) arranges a multi-cartel Fentanyl smuggling operation between Canada and the U.S.; an architect (Lilly) recovering from an OxyContin addiction tracks down the truth behind her son’s involvement with narcotics; and a university professor (Oldman) battles unexpected revelations about his employer, a drug company with deep government influence bringing a new “non-addictive” painkiller to market.

Katherine Heigl, Harry Connick Jr., and Madison Iseman are set to star in I Saw a Man with Yellow Eyes, a psychological thriller written and directed by Castille Landon. The project follows a teenage girl living with schizophrenia who struggles with vivid and terrifying hallucinations as she begins to suspect her neighbor has kidnapped a child. Her parents try desperately to help her live a normal life, without exposing their own tragic secrets, and the only person who believes her is Caleb – a boy she isn’t even sure exists.

9-1-1's Angela Bassett has signed on to co-star in the action thriller, Gunpowder Milkshake. Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado are directing the film from a script they wrote with Ehud Lavski, which is said to be "a high-concept female-centric assassin thriller that spans multiple generations." Angela will play Anna May, one of the unassuming leaders of a massive armory.

Using advanced new de-aging technology, Will Smith goes face to face with his greatest enemy in the first trailer for Gemini Man — himself. In Ang Lee’s futuristic thriller, Smith plays a world-class assassin hunting a man who knows his every move, only to discover that the target is actually his younger clone (accomplished by using footage from Smith's 1990s Fresh Prince era).

A trailer was also unveiled for the Gothic mystery-thriller, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, based on a story by Shirley Jackson. The plot focuses on two sisters who live secluded in a large manor and care for their deranged Uncle Julian, after the rest of their family died five years before under suspicious circumstances. When a cousin arrives for a visit, family secrets and scandals unravel.

Lionsgate released a trailer and images for the upcoming mystery thriller, The Poison Rose, based on Richard Salvatore’s novel of the same name. John Travolta plays Carson Philips, a hard-drinking L.A. private eye who takes a case in his old hometown of Galveston, Texas. While searching for a missing woman, Philips must confront a crime boss (Morgan Freeman), a shady doctor (Brendan Fraser), a sexy club singer (Kat Graham), his former lover (Famke Janssen) — and his own dark, disturbing past.

STXfilms’ 21 Bridges also dropped its first trailer, focusing on an embattled NYPD detective (Chadwick Boseman) who is thrust into a citywide manhunt for a pair of cop killers after uncovering a massive and unexpected conspiracy. As the night unfolds, lines become blurred between who he is pursuing and who is in pursuit of him.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Code Black's Meg Steedle is set to recur on the upcoming third season of AT&T Audience Network’s critically praised drama series Mr. Mercedes, based on the Stephen King novels. Season 2 took place a year after Brady Hartsfield’s (Harry Treadaway) thwarted attempt to perpetrate a second mass murder in the community of Bridgton, Ohio. Since the incident, Hartsfield had been hospitalized in a vegetative state. Retired Detective Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) did his best to move on from his Brady obsession, teaming up with Holly Gibney (Justine Lupe) to open Finders Keepers, a private investigative agency.

One day after announcing it had found its Alex Rider star (Mrs. Wilson's Otto Farrant), Sony Pictures Television has rounded out the full cast for its adaptation of the teen superspy drama. Game of Thrones star Brenock O’Connor will play Alex Rider’s jovial best friend Tom; Stephen Dillane will play Alan Blunt, who commands The Department, a secret underworld offshoot of MI6; Andrew Buchan will take on the role of Alex's uncle and reluctant guardian, Ian Rider; and Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo will play Alex's housekeeper Jack Starbright. Unbeknownst to Alex, Ian has been relentlessly training him since childhood and preparing him for the threatening world of espionage, and Blunt entraps the unsuspecting Alex to work as an undercover agent at the Point Blanc academy.

In addition to NCIS, CBS has also renewed its two spin-offs, NCIS: Los Angeles, returning for its 11th season, and NCIS: New Orleans, which will return for a sixth. NCIS: Los Angeles centers on the counter-terrorist division of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and stars Chris O'Donnell, Daniela Ruah, LL Cool J, Barrett Foa, Linda Hunt, Eric Christian Olsen, Renee Felice Smith, and Nia Long. NCIS: New Orleans, meanwhile, centers on a satellite team in the bayou and stars Scott Bakula, Lucas Black, CCH Pounder, Daryl "Chill" Mitchell, Rob Kerkovich, Shalita Grant, and Vanessa Ferlito.

Netflix has set May 16 for the premiere of Good Sam, a feature based on the mystery book series of the same name by Dete Meserve. The film follows intrepid TV news reporter Kate Bradley (Tiya Sircar) who is assigned to uncover the identity of a mysterious Good Samaritan—Good Sam—who has been anonymously leaving $100,000 cash gifts on the doorsteps of seemingly random New Yorkers. As interest in the extraordinary gifts sweeps across the country, Kate seeks to unravel the identity of Good Sam and the powerful and unexpected reasons behind the extraordinary gifts.

NBC has put the on-the-bubble show, Blindspot, on a scheduling hiatus during the important May Sweeps ratings period through May 24, which doesn't bode well for a Season 5 renewal. The Blacklist will take over its Friday at 8/7c time slot through its Season 6 finale on May 17. Then Blindspot will return for three more episodes, one on May 24 and two on May 31, which will serve as the Season 4 and possible series finale. Blindspot's ratings are down 20% year-over-year.

Netflix has released the first trailer for its new original series What/If featuring Academy Award winning Renée Zellweger introducing her clients to an "Indecent Proposal-meets-Westworld scenario" where anything or anyone can be yours for the taking. The 10-episode first season will be devoted to the story of a pair of San Francisco newlyweds who become wrapped up in Zellweger's character's dubious scheme, which will earn them some much-needed cash but cause the couple to do "unacceptable things."

Netflix’s new action-comedy, Murder Mystery, also released a trailer with Adam Sandler playing a New York detective who, after 15 years of marriage, finally takes his wife (Jennifer Aniston) on a long-promised European trip. When Aniston's character meets a charming and wealthy British man (Luke Evans), he invites them to an intimate family gathering on an elderly billionaire's yacht, only to be present when the man is murdered and thus become the prime suspects in a modern-day whodunit.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham beat the drum to recruit people to the Sujata Massey fan club on the latest podcast episode (Massey just won the Mary Higgins Clark Award at the Edgars ceremony for The Widows of Malabar Hill). They also picked up books from some new-to-them authors.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Mariah Fredericks to discuss her Death of a New American, featuring ladies' maid Jane Prescott, and also sat down with Randy Overbeck to chat about his new title, Blood on the Chesapeake.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro spoke with Michael Pool about his new book, Rose City, in which protagonist Cole Quick has to solve an old friend’s murder while resisting powerful forces conspiring to pillage his inheritance.

The latest Mysteryrat’s Maze podcast featured the first chapter of the mystery novel, The Inn At Holiday Bay: Boxes in the Basement, by Kathi Daley, as read by actor Julia Reimer.

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Quote of the Week

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The Edgar Awards

The winners of the annual Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America were announced last night at the awards banquet in New York City. Here are the winners (marked in bold) as well as all the finalists in the various categories:

Best Novel 

Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley (Hachette Book Group – Mulholland)
The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard (Blackstone Publishing)
House Witness by Mike Lawson (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)
A Gambler’s Jury by Victor Methos (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne (Penguin Random House – Hogarth)
A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn (Penguin Random House – Berkley)

Best First Novel

Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (HarperCollins Publishers – Ecco)
A Knife in the Fog by Bradley Harper (Seventh Street Books)
The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut (HarperCollins Publishers – Ecco)
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs (Simon & Schuster – Touchstone)
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin Random House – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Best Paperback Original

If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
Hiroshima Boy by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park Books)
Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani (Penguin Random House – Penguin Books)
Under My Skin by Lisa Unger (Harlequin – Park Row Books)

Best Fact Crime

Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. Fieseler (W.W. Norton & Company – Liveright)
Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal by Jonathan Green (W.W. Norton & Company)
The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure by Carl Hoffman (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Penguin Random House – Viking)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper)
The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia by Alex Perry (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)

Best Critical/Biographical

Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s  by Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus Books)
The Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories and Other Detective Fiction by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland Publishing)
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession by Alice Bolin (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks)
Mark X: Who Killed Huck Finn's Father? by Yasuhiro Takeuchi (Taylor & Francis – Routledge)
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)

Best Short Story

“English 398: Fiction Workshop” – Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine by Art Taylor (Dell Magazines)
“Rabid – A Mike Bowditch Short Story” by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books)
“Paranoid Enough for Two” – The Honorable Traitors by John Lutz (Kensington Publishing)
“Ancient and Modern” – Bloody Scotland by Val McDermid (Pegasus Books)
“The Sleep Tight Motel” – Dark Corners Collection by Lisa Unger (Amazon Publishing)

Best Juvenile

Otherwood by Pete Hautman (Candlewick Press)
Denis Ever After by Tony Abbott (HarperCollins Children’s Books – Katherine Tegen Books)
Zap! by Martha Freeman (Simon & Schuster – Paula Wiseman Books)
Ra the Mighty: Cat Detective by A.B. Greenfield (Holiday House)
Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (Christy Ottaviano Books – Henry Holt BFYR)
Charlie & Frog: A Mystery by Karen Kane (Disney Publishing Worldwide – Disney Hyperion)
Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground by T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press

Young Adult

Sadie by Courtney Summers (Wednesday Books)
Contagion by Erin Bowman (HarperCollins Children’s Books – HarperCollins)
Blink by Sasha Dawn (Lerner Publishing Group – Carolrhoda Lab)
After the Fire by Will Hill (Sourcebooks – Sourcebooks Fire)
A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma (Algonquin Young Readers)

TV Episode Teleplay

The One That Holds Everything” – The Romanoffs, Teleplay by Matthew Weiner & Donald Joh (Amazon Prime Video)
“The Box” - Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Teleplay by Luke Del Tredici (NBC/Universal TV)
“Season 2, Episode 1” – Jack Irish, Teleplay by Andrew Knight (Acorn TV)
“Episode 1” – Mystery Road, Teleplay by Michaeley O’Brien (Acorn TV)
“My Aim is True” – Blue Bloods, Teleplay by Kevin Wade (CBS Eye Productions)

Robert L. Fish Memorial

“How Does He Die This Time?” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Nancy Novick (Dell Magazines)

Mary Higgins Clark Award

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Press – Soho Crime)
A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur Books)
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Publishing)
Bone on Bone by Julia Keller (Minotaur Books)
A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier (Minotaur Books)

The G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Awards

Sara Paretsky, Shell Game, HarperCollins – William Morrow
Lisa Black, Perish – Kensington
Victoria Thompson, City of Secrets, Penguin Random House – Berkley
Charles Todd, A Forgotten Place, HarperCollins – William Morrow
Jacqueline Winspear, To Die But Once, HarperCollins – Harper

Grand Master

Martin Cruz Smith

Raven Award

Marilyn Stasio, Mystery Book Reviewer for The New York Times 

Ellery Queen Award

Linda Landrigan, editor, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

            

FFB: A Country Kind of Death

Mary McMullen (1920-1986), a/k/a Mary Reilly Wilson, had an interesting writing pedigree. Her mother was the distinguished and prolific mystery writer, Helen Reilly, which brings up interesting comparisons between them and the  mother/daughter duo, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark, although I daresay the Clarks are more successful financially. Mary McMullen, however, also had a sister, Ursula Curtiss, who was a suspense author, and her uncle James Kieran wrote mystery fiction (yet another family member, John F. Kieran, was a sportswriter and long-time panelist on the1940s radio program Information Please).

McMullen had early success in 1952 when she received the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Stranglehold, but didn't publisher another novel for over two decades until 1974 and then, in a flurry of activity, cranked out 18 additional mysteries in just 12 years.

Her stories often drew on the advertising and fashion worlds she was familiar with and her settings included sleepy hamlets, but her writing was neither cozy nor noir, a hybrid which reviewer Steve Lewis called "domestic malice" with a lot of bite. A Country Kind of Death from 1975 starts out as an idyllic summer for the young daughters of the Keane family who pass the two months their mother is off in Europe inventing murder stories, not surprising since their father is a crime writer. But when the stories become all too real, everyone including the police wants to believe a mysterious death was an accident, since the alternative is an unthinkable crime committed by someone in their midst.

McMullen's writing is filled with details that evoke a distinctive sense of place and she also possessed a wry, ironic humor and enjoyed poking fun at pretentious people. The Keane family is a semi-Bohemian clan and neighbors to the unfortunate Mrs. Mint, who

"did not allow the Keanes or her stepchildren or any but the most honored visitors to use the front way, as the door opened directly into her living room, a perfect marvel of cleanliness, cretonne, tautly pinned-on antimacassars, rubber plants so dusted and oiled as to seem artificial, china figurines, tapestry-covered footstools, and fat hard upholstered furniture. There were no books, no magazines, newspapers, or ashtrays in the room and it was always kept dark, the cretonne curtains drawn, the shades down, so that the sun couldn't fade its splendors."

Patrick Keane, brother of the crime-writer father and a successful playwright, plays a crucial role in the denouement and has his own wry observations about the literary and entertainment circles the Keanes run in:

"The dinner party had gone predictably, from the shrimp dip to the cold sliced ham and turkey to Elaine Bonner attacking him fiercely with hot gray eyes and half-bared breasts whenever her husband's back was turned, to the local bon vivant who probably told the same long anecdotes at every Bedford party to the three women who told him they adored his plays to Johnny Coe, urged finally to the piano, and singing, 'Oh Oh Oriole' and 'Pray Forget Me,' this last bringing tears and a meaning look at Patrick to Elaine's eyes."

The strength of this particular novel by McMullen is less in the whodunnit and police procedural aspects which are minimized and more in the characterizations and how human failings and foibles knit closely together to create tragedy.

            

Mystery Melange

Author Vickey Delaney is to be honored with the Crime Writers of Canada's Derrick Murdoch Award, a special achievement nod for contributions to the crime genre. Delaney is the author of 34 published books, has been a strong supporter and advocate for Canadian crime writers, and also an advocate for literacy and libraries.

The shortlist for the 2019 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year was announced this morning:

The Ice Swimmer, by Kjell Ola Dahl, translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda Books; Norway)
The Whisperer, by Karin Fossum, translated by Kari Dickson (Harvill Secker; Norway)
The Katharina Code, by Jørn Lier Horst, translated by Anne Bruce (Michael Joseph; Norway)
The Darkness, by Ragnar Jónasson, translated by Victoria Cribb (Penguin Random House; Iceland)
Resin, by Ane Riel, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Doubleday; Denmark)
Big Sister, by Gunnar Staalesen, translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda Books; Norway)

The winning title will be announced at the Gala Dinner on May 11 during the annual international crime fiction convention CrimeFest.

There's a call for papers for Noir & Journalism: An international conference, to take place in in Chambéry, France, October 1st through the 4th. The theme is investigating the multiple relationships, influences and representations linking crime narratives with journalism.

Skyhorse Publishing is launching the crime imprint, Arcade CrimeWise, with plans to publish six to eight titles annually. Skyhorse noted that it has had success publishing genre fiction over the last several years in areas such as mysteries, noir, thrillers, and spy novels and wants to step up its presence in crime fiction. The launch list will feature Bart Paul’s See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, the third novel in the Tommy Smith High Mountain Noir series (September); Benson’s The Blues in the Dark, a crime drama that tackles racism, sexism, and murder in Hollywood in the 1940s (October); W.C. Ryan’s A House of Ghosts, a finalist for the NBA Irish Book Award set during World War I (October); and the second book in Lisa Preston’s feminist/western/mystery Horseshoer series, Dead Blow (November).

Law&Crime, the around-the-clock trial network backed by author, legal commentator, and attorney Dan Abrams and A&E Networks, is launching a book line that will feature true-crime and legal-based titles to be sold and distributed worldwide by Simon & Schuster. With an aim to publish two to four books a year, the focus will be criminal investigations, law enforcement, and trials. The imprint's first book, which should appear next year, will be by Tulsa, Okla., police Sergeant Sean "Sticks" Larkin, who is an analyst on the show Live PD and the host of A&E's PD Cam. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Penguin Random House has begun a Reader Rewards Loyalty Program that will enable customers to earn points toward a free book. Under the program, readers who buy PRH books across print, electronic, and audio formats will be able to collect points for purchases made at online or physical stores.

Alafair Burke, the New York Times bestselling author whose most recent novels include The Wife and The Ex, which was nominated for the Edgar Award, applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Better Sister.

A New York Times article reported that 150 men and women in American prisons were exonerated in 2018, according to a recent report by a registry that tracks wrongful convictions. Combined, these individuals spent more than 1,600 years in prison, a record for the database, which has data back to 1989. The leading culprit in convicting innocent people was official misconduct, but another was misleading forensic evidence such as hair analysis, bite marks, and DNA analysis used to bolster unscientific assertions.

Even though the first private mission to the moon (the Israeli-backed SpaceIL Beresheet Lander) unfortunately crashed, it means that there are now books on the moon. The Lander carried something named The Arch Lunar Library contained on "Nanofiche," which will last for thousands of years. The payload contained millions of images of pages of books: all sorts of books, fiction and non-fiction. (HT to Joe Hartlaub at the Killzone Blog)

In a real-life whodunnit (and even a bigger whydunnit), someone vandalized Agatha Christie's statue in Torquey, removing it from its plinth on the harbor. The sculpture, by Dutch artist Carol Van Den Boom-Cairns and unveiled by Christie's daughter Rosalind Hicks in 1990, has now been removed by Torbay Council for repairs.

Font geeks (and you know who you are) were abuzz with news that the iconic Helvetica font is getting its first redesign In 35 years.

In fun library news, The New York Public Library is bringing back bookmobiles. While the NYPL has employed bookmobiles for over 100 years, this is the first time they’ll be back on the road since the 1980s,

In more fun (make that, funny) news, Book Riot took at look at "Bacon Bookmarks and Cheeto Lures: The Funniest and Weirdest Stories Of Damaged Library Books."

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "For Want of a Dollar" by Nancy Scott.

In the Q&A roundup, the Irish Examiner chatted with thriller writer Jeffery Deaver about his new novel, The Never Game, the first outing for Colter Shaw, who hunts down missing persons using his guile as a tracker; the Irish Times sat down with John Connolly to talk about the publication of the 17th Charlie Parker novel, A Book of Bones; while in Turkey for the 11th Istanbul International Literature Festival, Ruth Ware spoke with The Daily Sabah about her psychological thrillers and why "It's a great time to be a female crime writer"; and Locus Magazine threw a spotlight on David Baldacci, who chatted about his fourth book in the Vega Jane series, The Stars Below.

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Gives Indies Some Love

This Saturday is the fifth annual Independent Bookstore Day, a one-day national party that takes place at indie bookstores across the country to celebrate these invaluable treasures, which are not only stores but also community centers and local anchors run by passionate readers. Almost 600 indie bookstores will take part with a mix of author appearances, live music, food, scavenger hunts, kids' events, art tables, readings, barbecues, contests, and exclusive books and literary items. You can follow along with Tayari Jones who is holding a Twitter party for Bookstore Day or check out IBD on Facebook using the hashtag #BookstoreDay.

Some of the mystery bookstores joining in the fun include:

Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, PA, with coffee and mimosas, donuts, children's activities and snacks all day, and author visits from Kathleen Shoop and Cameron Brookins
Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis, MN, is taking part in a city-wide indie event where you can pick up a passport at any participating bookstore and get it stamped for coupons and an entry for grand prizes
the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop in Mechanicsburg, PA, has coupons for a free used book
the Cloak & Dagger in Princeton, NJ, will have author chats with Jeff Markowitz, Kellye Garrett, Jane Kelly, and Albert Tucher, as well as giveaways, special discounts and contests, and a sidewalk book sale
Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego has planned several author events and is participating in a Bookstore Crawl where readers can collect stamps from each bookstore and get free bookish goodies like tote bags, enamel pins, and be eligible to win some great prizes
Murder by the Book in Houston, TX,will be hosting an encore presentation of Murder By The Book Recommends, where staff members share some of their favorite current and upcoming releases, with all featured titles 20% off, plus giveaways, cake, and wine
Centuries and Sleuths in Forest Park, IL, is celebrating the day with a Spring Wine Walk & Shop and are taking part in a multi-store passport challenge:  visit ten stores in one day and get 10% off at all bookstores listed below for an entire year or visit fifteen stores in one day and get 15% off at all bookstores listed below for an entire year 
and One More Page in Falls Church, VA (my local store), is holding a bookseller bake-off, book giveaways, hourly raffles, romance-themed drinks, and more.

To find out what your local bookstore has planned to join in the celebrations, check out this handy store locator or this Publishers Weekly article about more Book Crawls - and support your indies!

            

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

Alex Ross Perry is attached to write and direct Rest Stop, a feature adaptation of a Stephen King short story first published in Esquire in 2003. The project follows a novelist who pulls into a turnpike rest stop, where he witnesses a scene of domestic violence. The mystery writer, who publishes under a pseudonym, then assumes his alter ego and jumps into action. Perry's take on the story is described as “a propulsive cat-and-mouse thriller that follows the twisted journey of two women after a fateful encounter at a highway rest stop.”

Luther's Hermione Norris is set to star in the “high-concept” Australian thriller, Between Two Worlds. Norris will play Cate Walford, trapped in a tangled web of lies and manipulation with her vicious tycoon husband and their tempestuous home life. Through a shocking twist of fate, this dark and murky world collides with the seemingly warm and loving world of a widow and her two children—although nothing is quite as it first appears.  

Gunpowder & Sky has acquired the U.S. rights to Villains, a dark comedic thriller. The film stars Jeffrey Donovan and Kyra Sedgwick playing two sadistic homeowners who hold a pair of amateur criminals (Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe) hostage after the young criminals break into their suburban home and stumble upon their dark secret.

Wesley Snipes is set to star in and produce the casino heist thriller, Payline, playing the villain in the film. Described as a project in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven and Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire, Payline centers on a small-town casino that turns into a battleground after two groups of criminals attempt to rob it on the same night.  

Bumblebee director Travis Knight is set to tackle the Mark Wahlberg-starring Six Billion Dollar Man (after helmer and co-writer, Damian Szifron, stepped down in 2017). The long-awaited project stars Wahlberg as Col. Steve Austin, a downed pilot who is saved by an operation that makes him part machine. The project is a big-screen adaptation of the classic 1970s TV show that starred Lee Majors.

Shea Whigham, Bruce Dern, and Zach Avery have joined the neo-noir thriller, The Gateway, alongside previously announced Olivia Munn, with Michele Civetta attached to direct. The Gateway follows Parker (Whigham), a downtrodden social worker in the grips of alcoholism, assigned to care for the daughter of single mother Dahlia (Munn). When husband Mike (Avery) is released early from prison and sweeps his family back into a world of crime, Parker intervenes and blurs the lines between professional obligations and personal desires. Outmatched and outgunned, Parker must seek help from the father who abandoned him as a child (Dern) to find redemption and help protect the only family he’s ever known.

Dear White People star Marque Richardson has been cast opposite Simon Pegg, Lily Collins, Connie Nielsen, and Chace Crawford in the indie thriller, Inheritance, from director Vaughn Stein. The film explores what happens when the patriarch of a wealthy and powerful family suddenly passes away, leaving his wife and daughter with a shocking secret inheritance that threatens to unravel and destroy their lives.

A trailer was unveiled for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, starring Ryan Reynolds as the voice of the titular character in the live-action mystery-fantasy film. The storyline: when ace detective Harry Goodman goes mysteriously missing, his 21-year-old son Tim (played by Justice Smith) joins forces with Harry’s former Pokémon partner, Detective Pikachu. Finding that they are uniquely equipped to communicate with one another, Tim and Pikachu join forces on a thrilling adventure to unravel the tangled mystery

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The Peabody board has selected nine entertainment winners for its 78th edition of its Peabody Awards, which will be handed out May 18 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. The winners for programs released in 2018 include Showtime’s dramedy hitman series, Barry; BBC America’s serial killer drama, Killing Eve; and FX’s spy series, The Americans.

John Cusack just landed his first series regular role for television, joining Gillian Flynn's new Amazon project, Utopia (adapted from U.K.'s Channel 4 series of the same name). Utopia follows a group of young adults who meet online and are mercilessly hunted by a shadowy deep state organization after they come into possession of a near mythical cult underground graphic novel. When they discover the conspiracy theories in the comic's pages may be real, they're forced into the dangerous, unique and ironic position of saving the world. Cusack is set to play Dr. Kevin Christie, who altruistically wants to change the world through science.

In February, when NBC renewed all three Chicago series for next season, Chicago Fire was picked up for an eighth season without its stars, Jesse Spencer and Taylor Kinney, whose current contracts were up at the end of this season. But fans of the show can rejoice now that the duo have closed two-year deals to continue on the firefighter drama. The deals for the three other original cast members, Eamonn Walker, Monica Raymund, and David Eigenberg, expired at the end of Season 6 last spring. Raymund opted to move on (and has signed up for a new series, Starz’s Hightown), while Walker and Eigenberg entered new two-year contracts that go through the upcoming eighth season.

In other “Chicago” franchise news, Chicago P.D. star Jon Seda is exiting, along with departing Chicago Med co-stars Colin Donnell and Norma Kuhling. All three are leaving as series regulars but could return for guest appearances. According to sources, the cast departures stem from creative reasons related to the characters’ story evolution.

Vera Cherny (The Americans) is set for a recurring role on the fourth season of USA Network’s Queen of the South, which stars Alice Braga. Queen of the South is based on the bestselling book La Reina del Sur by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and tells the story of Teresa Mendoza (Braga), a woman forced to run from a Mexican cartel and seek refuge in America. Cherny will play Oksana Volkova, "a tough-as-nails, woman of big appetites and no apologies." She has close ties to the Russian mob in New York and controls the distribution of molly in Atlanta.

Netflix has released the official trailer for When They See Us, the four-part miniseries from Ava DuVernay that tells the story of the Central Park Five, five young black men wrongly convicted of rape and murder in New York City in 1989.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction, with host Dr. DP Lyle, featured “DNA and Twins” in its latest episode.

The final Season Four guest on the Crime Cafe podcast is Joe Lansdale, author of over thirty novels including the Hap and Leonard series that was made into a series for the Sundance Channel, as well as other thrillers adapted for TV and film.

BBC Radio's Thinking Allowed podcast took at look at “Detective fiction - homicide and social media.”

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts, Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste, chatted about pseudonyms, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year longlist, and more.

Beyond the Cover welcomed authors Robert Dugoni (The Eighth Sister) and Daniel Palmer (Saving Meghan).

The featured guests on Writer Types included David Swinson, talking about the conclusion of his Frank Marr series with the latest, Trigger; E.A. Aymar with his new novel, The Unrepentant; and Michele W. Miller with her novel, Widows-In-Law.

The Spybrary interviewed author Aly Monroe about her Peter Cotton novel, Black Bear, and also discussed other books in the spy lit landscape.

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Quote of the Week

           Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

FFB: Death on Remand

John Michael Evelyn (1916-1992) was born in Britain and privately educated before going to Oxford University. He was called to the Bar in 1939, but immediately joined the Army where he served during WWII until 1946, attaining the rank of Major. From there, he did go on to a career in law with the Department of Public Prosecutions, serving for some thirty years.



Adopting the pseudonym of Michael Underwood, he published his first mystery novel, Murder on Trial in 1954, which introduced one of his main protagonists, Inspector Simon Manton. The Inspector was featured in a dozen novels that stretched into the 1960s and included Lawful Pursuit, The Case Against Phillip Quest and The Crime of Colin Wise.



Underwood also supported his fellow crime authors as chairman of the Crime Writers Association in 1964-65 and was elected a member of the Detection Club in 1959. This was during the presidency of Dame Agatha Christie, who had agreed to take the position as a successor to Dorothy L. Sayers, but only on the condition she didn't have to speak at public meetings. Michael Underwood essentially served in her stead for that purpose during Christie's tenure.



Underwood frequently drew on his legal expertise in his plots, as you might imagine, although as in the case of novels like Death on Remand, the courtroom scenes are kept to a minimum and more in a Perry Mason style—with the investigation happening during the bulk of the book until the suspect is apprehended, followed by the final courtroom finale, sometimes with a twist.



Death on Remand starts off with the attempted car bombing of a small-time crook, Julian Prentice, who has just been released from prison for a car theft. The investigation falls upon the desk of Detective-Inspector Playford of the Wenley Borough Police C.I.D., who is as perplexed as other people in the community that Prentice had been defended by the father of the young woman whose car was stolen, the man known as "The Shady Solicitor," Augustus Jason. When the chief suspect in the bombing, Prentice's former boss, also meets with violence and Prentice himself disappears from the hospital, Playford is more than happy to let Scotland Yard step in, led by the efforts of Detective Superintendent Manton. Manton faces seemingly fool-proof alibis for everyone connected to the victims as well as general antagonism from the locals, but in his own quietly plodding, tenacious way, he manages to uncover the truth.



The central gist of the plot probably had more of an impact back in 1956 than it does now. Without giving too much away, suffice it to say that cultural mores and accepted standards have changed quite a bit in 54 years, although the basic human vices of lust, pride and greed probably haven't changed much in millennia. Criminal investigation methods have changed a bit since 1956, but in the book as is the case today, it's good old-fashioned legwork and evidence collection that saves the day As Inspector Manton observes after the suspect has been arrested, "Tactics play as important a part in forensic contests and their menoeuvres as in military battles."



Like most third-person omniscient narratives that hop back and forth between characters, it's a little difficult to develop characters fully. In this particular case, there really aren't any truly sympathetic characters to root for other than the detectives, but as legal/police procedurals go, Death on Remand is a fairly quick read and a pleasant enough way to spend a hour or two.

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