B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 142

Mystery Melange

The Los Angeles Times announced the 2019 Book Prize winners, including Best Mystery/Thriller which went to Oyinkan Braithwaite for My Sister, the Serial Killer. The other finalists were Megan Abbott, Give Me Your Hand; Kent Anderson, Green Sun; Lou Berney, November Road; and Leila Slimani, The Perfect Nanny.

Eighteen authors made it to this year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel longlist, which sees the return of previous shortlisted authors such as Val McDermid, Belinda Bauer, and Stuart Turton, as well as first-timers. The shortlist of six titles will be announced on May 19th, with the winner announced at an award ceremony on July 18th on the opening night of the festival at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. Celebrating its 15th year, the £3,000 prize was created to celebrate the very best in crime fiction and is open to UK and Irish crime authors whose novels were published in paperback from 1st May 2018 to 30th April 2019.

The Crime Writers of Canada released the shortlists for the annual Arthur Ellis Awards for excellence in Canadian crime fiction. The nods for Best Crime Novel include:  Ron Corbett, Cape Diamond; Anne Emery, Though the Heavens Fall; Lisa Gabriele, The Winters; Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind; and Loreth Anne White, The Girl in the Moss. For all of the shortlists, head on over to the official CWC website.

The Bloody Words Mini-Con 2019 announced the finalists for the Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award, an annual juried literary prize for a “book that makes us smile.” The contenders include Alan Bradley, The Grave’s a Fine and a Private Place; Vicki Delany; A Scandal in Scarlet; Elizabeth J. Duncan, The Marmalade Murders; Mike Martin, Darkest Before the Dawn; and Auralee Wallace, Haunted Hayride with Murder.

The Romance Writers of America released the list of finalists for this year’s RITA Awards including the Romantic Suspense category: The Bastard’s Bargain, by Katee Robert; Before We Were Strangers, by Brenda Novak; Consumed, by J.R. Ward; Cut and Run, by Mary Burton; Fearless, by Elizabeth Dyer; Reckless Honor, by Tonya Burrows; and Relentless, by Elizabeth Dyer.  

Also, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers announced this year's Scribe Awards finalists, celebrating excellence in licensed tie-in novels and audio dramas based on TV shows, movies, and games. Although most are related to science fiction, the Original Novel - General category includes Mike Hammer: Killing Town by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins; Narcos: The Jaguar’s Claw by Jeff Mariotte; and Tom Clancy Line of Sight by Mike Madden. The Young Adult category also includes The Lucy Wilson Mysteries: Curse of the Mirror Clowns by Chris Lynch.

Tomorrow night, Elizabeth Foxwell, Managing editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection, along with Kim Sherwood (University of the West of England and author of Testament), Elizabeth Cuddy (Hampton University), and Christine A. Jackson (Nova Southeastern University), will present the paper “A Necessary Clue: The Mysteries of Isaac Asimov” at the Popular Culture Association conference in Washington, DC. The panel attempts to refute the perception of Asimov as merely a purveyor of gimmicks in his mysteries and stumps for his neglected mainstream mystery debut, The Death Dealers (aka A Whiff of Death, 1958).

Elizabeth Foxwell also announced that “Genre Bending: Crime's Hybrid Forms” is a new call for papers for a themed issue of the crime fiction literary journal Clues that will be guest edited by Maurizio Ascari (University of Bologna). The submission deadline is October 1, 2019.

Scottish crime authors, take note: April 26 is the deadline for the McIlvanney Prize for Crime Fiction and the brand-new debut prize for crime fiction. The awards are part of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival which will take place September 20-22 in Sterling, Scotland. Click here for more information about submission guidelines. (HT to Ayo Onatade at Shots Magazine.)

J. Kingston Pierce is celebrating the 70th anniversary (which he explains here) of the publication of Ross Macdonald's original Lew Archer private eye novel, The Moving Target. Pierce penned two tributes at Crimereads, including interviewing Macdonald historian and biographer Tom Nolan, and taking a look at the many covers of The Moving Target through the years.

Writing for Crime Fiction Lover, Sonja van der Westhuizen offered up a list of “Twelve South African Crime Writers to Add to Your Reading List,” noting that “one of the biggest challenge South African crime writers face is finding a way to write for and engage with an audience desensitised by violence.”

The latest issue of the online 'zine Yellow Mama is out, bring readers the “ultimate noirfest,” with new stories, poetry, and illustrations.

Thriller author Robert Dugoni, creator of the Tracy Crosswhite series, was featured taking the Page 69 Test for his novel, The Eighth Sister.

The “Cozy Mystery Bundle for Charity” event is taking place again this year. If you love clean, fun mysteries, you can pre-order the 14-book set, Summer Snoops Unleashed, for 99¢ and help countless animals. Last year the same group raised nearly $7,000, and this year the bundle includes all-new stories and three new animal charities.

From the life is stranger than fiction department (take note, crime writers), police in Oregon received a call about a burglar. Instead, they found a rogue Roomba.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is “Dear Bully” by Erin Bryant.

In the Q&A roundup, Jacqueline Seewald interviewed Keith Steinbaum, who turn his hand from poetry and writing song lyrics to penning novels including The Poe Consequence, a modern day supernatural thriller/human drama, and a new Beatles-themed whodunit murder mystery; Gerald So is interviewing Derringer Award short story finalists on his blog, the latest being Travis Richardson; Sandra Ruttan chatted with Dea Poirier about her debut novel, Next Girl to Die; and Deborah Kalb spoke with Deborah Hopkinson about her new middle grade novel for kids, How I Became a Spy.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN

Aaron Eckhart (London Has Fallen) is set to star in the conspiracy thriller, Wander. The story centers on Arthur Bretnik (Eckhart), a mentally unstable private investigator, who, after being hired to probe a suspicious death in the small town of Wander, becomes convinced the case is linked to the same conspiracy cover-up that caused the death of his daughter.

A trailer was released for French filmmaker Luc Besson's thriller, Anna, which stars Sasha Luss as Moscow fashion model turned government assassin, Anna Poliatova. She’s assigned to a top secret case in Paris per her boss (played by Oscar winner Helen Mirren in an M-like role).

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Following the success of its Netflix original show, Young Wallander, Yellow Bird U.K. is set to produce its second drama, The Secret Woman, a series adaptation of the Danish book of the same name written by Anna Ekberg. The project is described a “luscious female-led murder mystery” that centers on Louise Andersen, a forty-something woman who lives in a secluded village on the Danish island of Bornholm with Joachim, who is 10 years older. Their routine is disrupted by the arrival of Edmund, a man convinced Louise is in fact Helene, his wife who mysteriously disappeared three years prior.

Jack Reacher author Lee Child has teamed up with Dancing Ledge Productions to develop a true crime anthology drama series described as “Black Mirror-meets-Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Lee Child: True Crime will dramatize the stories of real-life men and women from around the world driven to stand up and put their lives on the line, fighting for justice in the face of great danger (in other words, real-life “Jack Reachers”).

Fox has picked up the Dick Wolf-produced unscripted series First Responders Live. The show will look at first responders—paramedics, firefighters, police—as they answer emergency calls across the country, giving viewers a front-row seat.

Taylor Kitsch (True Detective), Michael C. Hall (Dexter), and Logan Marshall-Green are set to lead the cast of Shadowplay, a gritty dramatic thriller series from The Bridge co-creator Måns Mårlind, who has conceived the project as a 16-episode series told in two chapters. The story follows Kitsch's cop, who arrives in post-WWII Berlin to help set up a police force. Marshall-Green is a Nazi hunter in the aftermath of the War, while pieces of the coming Cold War are also being put in place.

The British broadcaster Alibi is producing its second original scripted drama, a six-part psychological thriller from Gaby Hull titled We Hunt Together. The cat-and-mouse story follows two detectives as they try to outsmart a pair of killers, one a former child soldier desperate to suppress his predisposition for violence and the other a magnetic and disarmingly charming free spirit. Described as both a psychological thriller and romance, the show explores the dangerous power of desire and questions who is really to blame when the damaged do damage.

Former Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany is set for a lead role opposite Matthew Rhys in the HBO limited series reboot of Perry Mason. Written and executive produced by Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald, who also will showrun, the re-imagined Perry Mason legal drama is set in 1932 Los Angeles.

Vincent D’Onofrio has been cast in CBS All Access’s upcoming true-crime drama, Interrogation, joining a cast that includes David Strathairn, Peter Sarsgaard, Kyle Gallner, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. D’Onofrio plays an Internal Affairs officer who ends up becoming Kyle Gallner’s character’s biggest ally, an experience that calls his faith in the criminal justice system into question. The show is based on a true story that spanned more than 30 years, in which a young man was charged and convicted of brutally murdering his mother. Each episode is structured around an interrogation taken directly from the real police case files.

CBS has renewed crime drama NCIS for a 17th season. Mark Harmon will return as Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and of this writing, it appears the other stars will return, including Sean Murray (Special Agent Timothy McGee), Emily Wickersham (Special Agent Eleanor “Ellie” Bishop), Wilmer Valderrama (Special Agent Nickolas “Nick” Torres), Maria Bello (Special Agent Jacqueline “Jack” Sloane), Brian Dietzen (Dr. Jimmy Palmer), Diona Reasonover (Forensic Scientist Kasie Hines), with Rocky Carroll (NCIS Director Leon Vance) and David McCallum (Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard).

CBS also renewed cop drama Blue Bloods for Season 10, with Tom Selleck set to return as Frank Reagan, New York Police Commissioner and patriarch of a multi-generational family of police officers. The elite crop of law enforcement officials includes eldest son Danny (Donnie Wahlberg), a war veteran and a hardened detective who likes to bend the rules to crack his toughest cases, and Erin (Bridget Moynahan), who, as the only woman in the group, developed a thick skin which that makes her an adept assistant district attorney.

HBO has renewed the hitman dramedy, Barry, for a third season. Barry stars Bill Hader in the title role as a depressed, low-rent hitman from the Midwest who finds himself drawn into a community of acting students while on a job in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, YouTube has cancelled several scripted shows, including Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television, where an LAPD task force partners actors with homicide detectives so they can use their acting skills to help solve murders.

The Veronica Mars revival has been given a premiere date on Hulu in July, and the streaming service also released a short teaser trailer for the show that once again stars Kristen Bell as the titular private eye.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

NPR's All Things Considered spoke with Angie Kim about her debut novel, Miracle Creek, a courtroom thriller that tackles heavy themes like immigration, parenting, and autism.

Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author Jamie Freveletti on the Crime Cafe podcast. Freveletti is the author of the Emma Caldridge series and winner of a Barry award and International Thriller Writers Best First Novel award.

Read or Dead host Katie McClean Horner was joined by guest host Vanessa Diaz to chat about book-to-movie adaptations, their mutual love for the movie Clue, and more.

Meet the Thriller Author podcast welcomed Robert Dugoni, bestselling author of The Tracy Crosswhite series, including My Sister’s Grave, which has been optioned for television series development.

The Spybrary podcast featured the first in its series of commentaries on spy novels read by the students of the Fiction and Espionage class at the University of Edinburgh. The first group tackled Free Agent, the debut novel in the Paul Dark series written by Jeremy Duns.

In the latest episode of Frank Zafiro's Wrong Place, Write Crime, Colin Campbell discussed his law enforcement career with the Yorkshire Metro Police, his Jim Grant thrillers, and the differences between the US and the UK, including how US cops carry guns.

THEATER

Heart of Darkness is getting a radical retelling at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, UK, in a production that fuses live performance with cutting-edge digital technology. The innovative production turns Joseph Conrad's classic on its head, retelling the story through the eyes of a female Congolese detective making the perilous journey into a war-torn Europe. The show will run from Wednesday May 8 through Saturday, May 11.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Quote of the Week

           Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

FFB: Blood Lines

Ruth Rendell (1930-2015) is an author who needs very little introduction, having created the popular Chief Inspector Reginald "Reg" Wexford series under her own name and many other books under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, as well as having been nominated numerous times for Dagger and Edgar Awards. But the very first Edgar she ever won was in 1975 for a short story, "The Fallen Curtain" from a book by the same name (she won another short-story Edgar in 1984). She eventually had nine short story collections published, the latest a compilation in 2008.





One of her anthologies, Blood Lines, dates from 1995 and includes 10 shorter stories and one novella. Most of the stories are familiar Rendell territory including the villages of Kingsmarkham and Stowerton, which are the stomping grounds of Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant Mike Burden, featured in the intial story. "Blood Lines" finds Wexford and Burden solving a bludgeoning death that Wexford doggedly pursues despite the fact everyone else thinks it's a mere robbery gone bad, in the end piecing together a picture of infidelity, spousal abuse and betrayal.



"Lizzie's Lover" takes a new and literal twist on a Browning poem that comes to life; "Burning End" explores the difficult relationships between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law and what it takes to push someone over the edge; the accidental discovery of a poisonous mushroom in a garden leads to a game of culinary Russian Roulette by a mad man in a supermarket, in "Shreds and Shivers"; "Clothes" is the only story not to deal with death but rather peers inside an unusual obsession that drives a woman to emotional collapse.



The longest story, the novella "The Strawberry Tree" was one of seventeen televised feature-length adaptations of Rendell's work which aired on ITV in the UK and on some PBS stations between 1987 and 2000, under the title Ruth Rendell Mysteries. It was apparently intended as a sketch for a Barbara Vine novel, a foreboding and atmospheric tale of lost innocence embedded in a lonely young woman's deep desire for love and friendship on the island of Majorca.



Rendell (and alter ego Vine) is known for her exploration of the darker human impulses forged out of society’s moral codes: passion, jealousy, anxiety, guilt, shame, rage are the colors she uses to paint psychological portraits as she allows the reader to delve into the minds of her characters. If you haven't read a Rendell novel, stories such as these make for a fine introduction.

            

Mystery Melange

The International Thriller Writers organization announced the finalists for this year's Thriller Awards. The nominees are:

Best Hardcover Novel

 

Lou Berney - November Road 

Julia Heaberlin - Paper Ghosts 

Jennifer Hillier - Jar Of Hearts 

Karin Slaughter - Pieces Of Her

Paul Tremblay - The Cabin At The End Of The World 

 

Best First Novel

 

Jack Carr - The Terminal List 

Karen Cleveland - Need To Know 

Ellison Cooper - Caged  

Catherine Steadman - Something In The Water

J. Tudor - The Chalk

 

Best Paperback Original Novel

 

Jane Harper - The Lost Man            

John Marrs - The Good Samaritan        

Andrew Mayne - The Naturalist 

Kirk Russell - Gone Dark    

Carter Wilson - Mister Tender's Girl 

 

Best Short Story

 

Jeffery Deaver - “The Victims’ Club” (Amazon Original Stories)

Emily Devenport - “10,432 Serial Killers (In Hell)” (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

Scott Loring Sanders - “Window to the Soul” (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) 

Helen Smith - “Nana” (Killer Women: Crime Club Anthology #2)    

Duane Swierczynski - “Tough Guy Ballet” (For The Sake Of The Game: Stories Inspired By The Sherlock Holmes Canon)

                       

Best Young Adult Novel

 

Teri Bailey Black - Girl At The Grave  

Gillian French - The Lies They Tell  

Marie Lu -  Dana Mele - People Like Us 

Peter Stone - The Perfect Candidate 

 

Best E-Book Original Novel

 

Clare Chase - Murder On The Marshes 

Gary Grossman - Executive Force 

Samantha Hayes - The Reunion    

T.S. Nichols - The Memory Detective

Alan Orloff - Pray For The Innocent    

 

The CrimeFest Awards shortlist was also announced, which this year features a mix of established names and new talent. You can read the full list of all the nominees here, which include categories for the Audible Sounds of Crime Award (audio books), the eDunnit Award (for ebooks), the H.R.F. Keating Award (nonfiction), Last Laugh Award (humor), Best Crime Novel for Children, and Best Crime Novel for Young Adults.

The Minnesota Book Award winners were handed out over the weekend, and five-time finalist and mystery author Brian Freeman picked up his first win in the Genre Fiction category for The Voice Inside.

The female crime writing group Killer Women is launching a program to support emerging authors from BAME and working-class backgrounds, endorsed by JK Rowling, Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid, and Martina Cole. The initiative will offer four women crime writers expert mentoring from synopsis to first draft manuscript, tickets to the Killer Women Festival of Crime Writing and Drama in March 2020, and input on their work from the Good Literary Agency.

Karen Finlay, a national account manager at Chronicle Books and veteran of the publishing industry for more than 15 years, has purchased Vallejo Bookstore in Vallejo, California, and on June 1 will reopen the store under the new name Alibi Bookshop. Finlay has created an Indiegogo campaign asking for $30,000 for startup costs, with plans on including both used and new books for all ages with an emphasis on mysteries and thrillers as well as children's books. Community and author events are also big parts of Finlay's plans. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Colleen Collins and her Writing PIs blog are giving away a box of mystery novels, mostly hardcover, for fans of private eye tales and amateur detective whodunits. For more information hop on over to the blog and enter through April 13th.

2019 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival announced the killer lineup for this year's event will include authors James Patterson, MC Beaton, Stuart MacBride, Jeffery Deaver, Belinda Bauer, Eva Dolan, Erin Kelly, Harlan Coben, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, who will be in conversation with Scotland’s First Minister and bookworm, Nicola Sturgeon. Jo Nesbo will also launch his new Harry Hole thriller, Knife, and a special TV panel will feature Jed Mercurio, author of BBC smash-hit, The Bodyguard. Now in its 17th year, the festival will take place at Agatha Christie’s old haunt, The Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, from July 18-21. (HT to Shots Magazine)

James Patterson's latest gift for literacy is a $1.25 million pledge to classroom libraries, giving $250 each to 4,000 teachers around the country to help purchase books. He is also distributing $500 grants each to 500 teachers with three years or less experience. Teachers can apply for grants through The Patterson/Scholastic partnership website . The deadline is July 31.

Here's a really great idea: the Netherlands made trains free on national book day for those who showed a book instead of a ticket.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is “The Fatal Wound” by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Harlan Coben answered the Daily Mail's question of which book he'd take to a desert island; the Yorkshire Post spoke with Mark Billingham about how he went from actor to stand-up comedian to bestselling crime novelist; Lesa Holstein of Lesa's Book Critiques interviewed Catriona McPherson about latest book, Scot & Soda, as well as her life and career; and Jasper Fforde spoke with Locus Magazine about his Thursday Next fantasy police procedural series and his thriller, Early Riser.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN

The Operative is headed to U.S. movie screens after Vertical Entertainment acquired North American rights to the spy thriller, looking to a third-quarter 2019 release. Written and directed by Yuval Adler and based on Yiftach Reicher Atir's novel, The English Teacher, the plot centers on Rachel (Diane Kruger), a rogue spy from Israel’s Mossad, who vanishes without a trace. The only clue to her whereabouts is a cryptic phone call she places to her former handler, Thomas (Martin Freeman), who must retrace her steps to determine what threats her knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program may pose to their operation, while also working to protect her.

Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger has signed on to direct the feature film, Slay the Dreamer, and he will also direct and produce a feature documentary on the same subject, the murder mystery surrounding the death of Martin Luther King. The projects are based on the life of Rev. James Lawson, friend and adviser to King and a civil rights icon in his own right, who tried to reopen the investigation of King’s murder when he discovered that Grace Walden — the only eyewitness to the man who shot King — had been involuntarily held in a mental institution outside Memphis since the assassination eight years earlier. 

Details have been sketchy concerning Rian Johnson's secretive upcoming mystery drama, Knives Out, but the director finally gave up some hints when he brought the first footage to CinemaCon. The film centers on a detective (Daniel Craig) investigating a murder when he comes across an eccentric, combative family. The film's star Jamie Lee Curtis was also on hand at CinemaCon and revealed that Don Johnson plays her husband and Chris Evans plays her son in a family gathering that turns bloody very quickly.

Avatar star Sam Worthington has boarded Nicholas Jarecki's opioid thriller, Dreamland, along with Game of Thrones actress Indira Varma and Grammy-winning recording artist and actor Kid Cudi (a.k.a Scott Mescudi). The new additions join a solid cast that includes Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lily-Rose Depp. Currently filming in Montreal, the project follows three colliding stories: a drug trafficker (Hammer) who arranges a multi-cartel Fentanyl smuggling operation between Canada and the U.S.; an architect (Lilly) recovering from an OxyContin addiction who tracks down the truth behind her son’s involvement with narcotics; and a university professor (Oldman) who battles unexpected revelations about his employer, a drug company with deep government influence bringing a new “non-addictive” painkiller to market.  

The first trailer was released for Trial by Fire, director Ed Zwick’s controversial film that focuses on the true-life Texas story of the unlikely bond between death row inmate Cameron Todd Willingham (Jack O’Connell) and a mother of two from Houston, Elizabeth Gilbert (Laura Dern) who, though facing staggering odds, fights mightily for his freedom. Geoffrey Fletcher wrote the pic based on The New Yorker article “Trial by Fire” by David Grann and the letters of Willingham.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Showtime has given a series commitment and opened a writers room for the spy thriller, Intelligence, from Oscar-winning filmmaker Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) in his first foray into television. The project is based on real stories from around the world and will explore the secret inner workings of power and how espionage intersects with politics, finance, media, and Silicon Valley. The first season will dramatize the behind-the-scenes history leading up to the 2016 U.S. election, with each subsequent season looking at a major world event through the lens of covert operations.

Netflix has unveiled a Spanish adaptation of a Harlan Coben story, The Innocent. Retitled El Inocente, the eight-part series tells the story of Mateo who interceded in a fight and ended up becoming a murderer. Now he’s an ex-convict who's about to get the house of his dreams with his pregnant wife, Olivia, until a shocking and inexplicable call from Olivia’s cell phone again destroys Mateo’s life for the second time.

The ten-part series Cannes Confidential is being developed for TV by Midsomer Murders writer Chris Murray. Using the iconic Cannes location as a backdrop, the series is described as “a romantic procedural series that blends comedy, mystery and crime detection with a heart-warming love story.” The story centers on the relationship between an idealistic and ambitious female cop and a Canadian ex-conman who’s on the run from both the police and the mob. The pair are forced into an unlikely crime-fighting partnership, which sees them solve a murder case in each close-ended episode.

The myCinema digital content distribution system has announced its full slate of films a year after the service's launch, including director Arto Halonen’s Murderous Trance. The psychological thriller stars Josh Lucas and is based on a real-life case in 1950s Danish crime lore where a man commits a horrific murder while supposedly under hypnosis.  

Jack O’Connell is to star in the BBC’s adaptation of The North Water, playing the lead role of Patrick Sumner, a disgraced ex-army surgeon who signs up as a ship’s doctor. Hoping to escape the horrors of his past, Sumner finds himself on an ill-fated journey with murderous psychopath Henry Drax (Colin Farrell). Sumner is in search of redemption, and his story becomes a harsh struggle for survival in the Arctic wasteland.

The CW’s Nancy Drew pilot is giving a nod to the TV history of the iconic character by hiring Pamela Sue Martin, who played the brilliant teen sleuth in the first TV series adaptation of the Nancy Drew books from 1977-79 on ABC. Newcomer Kennedy McMann takes on the title role of the amateur detective, while Martin will play a small-town psychic who offers her talents to help Nancy investigate a murder—and ends up delivering an otherworldly clue that neither of them bargained for.

Melanie Field (Heathers) and Magda Apanowicz (Continuum) are set for recurring roles on the upcoming second season of Netflix’s You, which follows bookstore manager and creepy stalker Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley). In the freshman season, based on Caroline Kepnes’s bestselling novel, Goldberg becomes obsessed with his customer, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), using social media and the Internet to stalk her.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Punisher) is set for a major recurring role opposite Kyle Gallner in CBS All Access’s straight-to-series drama, Interrogation. Co-created by Swedish writer-producer Anders Weidemann and John Mankiewicz, the project is an original concept based on a true story that spanned more than 30 years, in which a young man (Gallner) was charged with and convicted of brutally murdering his mother. Moss-Bachrach plays a close friend of Kyle Gallner’s character—a heavy drug user with a violent streak. With secrets of his own, he finds himself entangled in the murder investigation. 

Apple TV’s Defending Jacob, based on William Landay’s bestselling novel, has rounded out its series regular cast as production gets underway in Boston. Cherry Jones (24), Pablo Schreiber (American Gods), Betty Gabriel (Get Out), and Sakina Jaffrey (House of Cards) have been cast opposite Chris Evans, Michelle Dockery, and Jaeden Martell in the limited-run series about a father (Evans), dealing with the accusation that his son, Jacob (Martell), is a 14-year-old murderer.

Netflix has released the trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, the Joe Berlinger-directed pic about Ted Bundy that stars Zac Efron as the serial killer. The film, penned by Michael Werwie, takes on the Bundy story from the perspective of his girlfriend Liz Kendall (Lily Collins), who refused to believe the truth about him for years.

A trailer was also released for the Amazon series, Too Old to Die Young, starring Miles Teller as a police officer named Martin, as a grieving LAPD cop who just lost his partner. Nicolas Winding Refn, known for 2011’s Drive, writes and directs the series, with Ed Brubaker (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) also writing.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The PBS series, Between the Lines with host Barry Kibrick, welcomed Dennis Palumbo, a licensed psychotherapist, former screenwriter, and author of the bestselling crime series featuring Daniel Rinaldi, a psychologist and trauma expert. The topic was a recent article Palumbo wrote for the Poisoned Pen blog titled “A Dark Mirror,” about how good crime fiction both reflects and reveals the society in which it is set—from Conan Doyle to Raymond Chandler to Gillian Flynn and more. 

Cynthia Erivo is to lead the voice cast and co-produce the upcoming podcast, Carrier, from the LA audio firm QCode (which recently launched with the hit Rami Malek podcast, Blackout). Erivo stars in the scripted thriller as a long-haul truck driver who discovers she’s transporting a trailer with disturbing, mysterious contents. Also in the cast are Lamorne Morris (New Girl), Martin Starr (Silicon Valley), Lance Reddick (The Wire), Elliott Gould (Ocean’s Eight), Robert Longstreet (The Haunting Of Hill House), Dale Dickey (Hell Or High Water), and Chris Ellis (The Oath).

Frank Zafiro's Wrong Place, Write Crime featured author S.A. Cosby discussing his new novel, My Darkest Prayer, which features a former Marine and sheriff's deputy who dives into the murky waters of small town corruption even as dark secrets of his own threaten to come to the surface.

The new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is a short story titled “Evening Call,” written by Julia Buckley and read by actor Amelia Ryan.

The Writer's Routine podcast chatted with C.L. Taylor, who has just released her sixth thriller, Sleep, which is centered on a woman who takes a job on a remote Scottish island as a retreat from the world—a retreat which quickly turns into a deadly nightmare.

Rachel Howzell Hall was the featured guest on the latest Speaking of Mysteries podcast, talking about her new novel, They All Fall Down, which centers around seven sinners brought to a private island for a reckoning.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Quote of the Week

           Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

FFB: Picture Miss Seeton

Author Heron Carvic was a study in contrasts. Born Geoffrey Richard William Harris in 1917, his public persona took him into very visible roles as an actor, and yet he was such a private person that very little is known about him. He did reveal that he was a great-grandson of Sir Richard Mayne, one of the two original Commissioners of Police; an old Etonian; and happily married to Phyllis Neilson-Terry of the famous British theatrical family (including her parents and her cousin, John Gielgud).

Carvic's acting roles were mostly dramatic and often included crime or science fiction. One of his early parts was in The Bat, a stage adaptation of Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Circular Staircase, and later roles included Gandalf in a radio version of The Hobbit, Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace, and guest roles in the TV shows Police Surgeon, The Avengers, and Dr. Who.

Thus, it's curious that he chose to write a comedic mystery series featuring the slightly barmy English spinster, Miss Seeton. But it was a success from the start with the first book, Picture Miss Seeton, a finalist for the Edgar Award in 1969.

Cavic had first used Miss Emily Seeton in a short story, and fifteen years later said that "Miss Seeton upped and demanded a book," with Carvic deciding that if "she wanted to satirize detective novels in general and elderly lady detectives in particular, he would let her have her lead." Later, Carvic contributed a chapter to the book Murder Ink, edited by Dilys Winn, titled "Little Old Ladies."

Carver said at one point that the character of Miss Seeton was inspired by his friendship with an artist who turned in a commission for a mother-child portrait and then destroyed her canvas of the mother's face rather than use it again. Years later, the now-adult son from the painting was sent to the Broadmoor psychiatric hospital after cutting his mother to ribbons with a kitchen knife. The author had no logical explanation for her destruction of the canvas, but "clearly she must have somehow have seen rather more than she knew."

Emily Seeton is a recently-retired art teacher in the process of moving to the country town of Plummergen, population five hundred and one, but her plans get waylaid when, after a night at the opera, she sees what she thinks is a man insulting a young woman. In fact, what she actually witnessed was a notorious drug dealer knifing a prostitute. (Which brings up a typical Seeton-esque line when she learns from the police about the young woman's "profession":  "Oh, dear. A very hard life; such late hours—and then, of course, the weather. And so unrewarding one would imagine."). Aghast at the drug dealer's "bad manners," she pokes him in the back with her brolly (umbrella, to Yanks), which later makes her a darling of  the newspapers, which dub her "The Battling Brolly."

When she's questioned by Superintendent Delphick and Detective-Sergeant Ranger of Scotland Yard, they ask her to sketch her impressions of the crime. Even though it was dark, she's able to draw enough details, particularly an element that she only sees in her subconscious, that it helps the police track down the killer. Miss Seeton, as it turns out, is an "anti-psychic." She has a knack for innocently drawing clues (sometimes foretelling events, sometimes revealing important character traits) into her sketches that she's is totally unaware of, a talent that becomes invaluable to the police. Her innocence becomes one of the series' central devices, as she continues to attract crime and criminals even as she accidentally helps to foil them.

If your taste in mysteries runs toward the whimsical, then you'll be entertained by Miss Seeton, her brolly, her attempts at yoga, and snippets such as this one, about two denizens of Plummergen:

They were dedicated vegetarians, known collectively as The Nuts. Miss Nuttel, tall, angular, with the face of a dark horse, was generally referred to as Nutcracker. Mrs. Blaine, whose dumpy geniality was belied by the little blackcurrant eyes, was called by everyone Hot Cross Bun; this derived largely from Miss Nuttel's pet name for her of Bunny, but it may have been also a tacit acceptance of the shrewish temper which flared through the placid surface when she was thwarted. Their house, Lilikot, a modern innovation with large plate-glass windows screened by nylon net, was inevitably The Nut House.

Sadly, Carvic only completed five novels in the series before being killed in a car accident in 1980. The Miss Seeton series didn't die, however, continued under two other pseudonyms, Hampton Charles, the pen name of Roy Peter Martin, who wrote three novels all released in 1990, and Sarah J. Mason, writing under the name of Hamilton Crane, who took up the series after that point, writing 16 installments so far, the latest in February of 2019.

           Related StoriesFFB: The Habit of FearFFB: The Port of London MurdersFFB: A Private Inquiry 

Mystery Melange

Congratulations to the Lefty Award Winners announced at the recent Left Coast Crime conference in Vancouver:

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel: Catriona McPherson, Scot Free
Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander Memorial): Sujata Massey, The Widows of Malabar Hill
Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel: Dianne Freeman, A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder
Lefty for Best Mystery Novel: Lou Berney, November Road

For all the finalists, click on over to the official "Whale of a Crime" conference website.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society released the list of this year's finalists for the Derringer Awards in the categories of Flash Fiction, Short Story, Long Story, and Novelette:

Flash Stories

Listen Up Peter DiChellis

Don't Text and Drive Robert Petyo

The Bicycle Thief James Blakey

A Misunderstanding Travis Richardson

Sonny the Wonder Beast Nick Kolakowski




Short Stories

The Crucial Game Janice Law

Dying in Dokesville Alan Orloff

The Cabin in the Woods Sylvia Maultash Warsh

The Belle Hope Peter DiChellis

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Murder Josh Pachter




Long Stories

With My Eyes Leslie Budewitz

The Case of the Missing Pot Roast Barb Goffman

Mercy Find Me Diana Deverell

The Vanishing Volume Janet Raye Stevens

Till Murder Do Us Part Barb Goffman




Novelettes

Three-Star Sushi Barry Lancet

The Cambodian Curse Gigi Pandian

Oil Down Brian Silverman

The Adventure of the Manhunting Marshal Jim Doherty

I’ve Got To Get Me a Gun Vincent Zandri

 

Noir at the Bar comes to Hillsborough, North Carolina on April 11 at the King Street Bar. The event is hosted by Tracey Reynolds and will feature readings from authors S.A. Cosby, Grant Hetherton, Dolores Chandler, David Terrenoire, Scott Blackburn, Warren Moore, Eryk Pruitt, and J.D. Allen.

In a surprise deal that might signal a shift within the publishing industry, Blackstone Publishing — the largest independent publisher in the multi-billion dollar audiobook business — has set up a partnership with The Story Factory to expand in the print and e-book markets. The centerpiece is a three-author deal with New York Times and Edgar Award-winning authors Steve Hamilton, Reed Farrel Coleman, and Meg Gardiner. All three authors, who are Story Factory clients, are leaving Penguin Random House to join Blackstone. At a time when even well-established authors are seeing advances and promotional budgets slashed, the three authors will receive career best paydays in a deal in the seven figures as well as get creative and promotional approvals, and guaranteed publicity budget for each book launch.

Last week, we lost another crime fiction blogger when Margot Kinberg decided to close down her blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist after ten years. Unfortunately, even her archives will no longer be available, but fellow blogger Bill Selnes posted a tribute.

The new issue of the online crime 'zine Mysterical-E is out, with new eight new short stories, media columns by Anita Page and Gerald So, and a brand new feature edited by Kay George called, “What’s Your Process?” which asks writers to explain how they go about moving from an idea to a finished product.

Did you know there is a Pulp Magazine Archive? It's free and features over 11,000 digitized issues of classic detective, sci-fi, and fantasy 'zines from the late 1800s to the present.

The spring edition of Suspense Magazine is out and features interviews with Nancy Bilyeau, Lars Kepler Mark Shaw, Shaun Meeks, and Mike Lawson. There's also a profile of debut author Samantha Downing, as well as book excerpts, a Crime and Science Radio feature where D.P. Lyle and Jan Burke interview Marc Cameron, and new reviews and short stories.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Dying a Slow Death" by  J.H. Johns.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element spoke with Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, screenwriters and showrunners (best known for creating the iconic series Smallville), who are embarking on a new creative endeavor with the publication of their debut thriller, Double Exposure, which introduces "the Indiana Jones of film restoration"; CE also snagged Jane Stanton Hitchcock, whose latest novel Bluff, draws on her passion for poker; and the Mystery People chatted with Joe R. Lansdale about his latest Hap & Leonard novel, The Elephant of Surprise.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN

Alex Wolff is set to star in the thriller, The Line, to be directed by Ethan Berger in his feature narrative debut. John Malkovich, Scoot McNairy, Jessica Barden, and Lewis Pullman have also joined the cast. The film is being described as a coming-of-age thriller at a university "that encapsulates the wild excitement of being young and the dangers of living without fear of consequences" and how quickly one horrible accident can turn that world into a nightmare.

The Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints Of Newark, has cast its final major lead role. Michela De Rossi, the Italian-born actress who made her debut in Boys Cry, has been set to join Alessandro Nivola, Vera Farmiga, Ray Liotta, Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Billy Magnussen, John Magaro, Michael Gandolfini, and the just-cast Leslie Odom Jr. in the ensemble drama for New Line.

Celebrating its 21st year, Noir City: Hollywood returns to the Egyptian Theatre for "a 10-night feast of danger, desire and despair." Eddie Muller, host of TCM’s popular Noir Alley series, will join his Film Noir Foundation colleague Alan K. Rode to lead audiences on an excursion through "Hollywood's only organic artistic movement." This year’s program extends last year’s chronological pairings of "A" and "B" films from the 1940s, offering viewers a slate of films that tracks noir through the declining studio system and into a fresh cinematic landscape where noir was refashioned for a new generation. 

The Elizabeth Banks-directed reboot of Sony’s Charlie's Angels has bumped its release date from November 1 to November 15 to move it away from the 35-year-old Terminator franchise’s tentpole entry Terminator: Dark Fate. The female private eye project stars Banks, along with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Patrick Stewart, Sam Claflin, and Djimon Hounsou.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced this year's BAFTA award finalists for TV programs, with several crime-themed dramas honored, including in the Best Drama series category: Bodyguard, Killing Eve, Save Me, and Informer; and also the Best Miniseries category: A Very English Scandal and Mrs. Wilson. Best Actress nods included Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh for Killing Eve, Keeley Hawes for Bodyguard and Ruth Wilson for Mrs. Wilson, while Hugh Grant snagged a nomination for his role in A Very English Scandal. For all the nominees, check out The Guardian's roundup.

The History Channel is teaming with Sylvester Stallone to develop the turn-of-the-century police drama series, The Tenderloin (working title), based on the true story of Charles Becker. Becker led the Strong-Arm Squad, a group of dirty cops tasked with going to war with the Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs in a violent New York City neighborhood, which led to Becker becoming first and only policeman in U.S. history to be executed for murder.

Law & Order: SVU and its star Mariska Hargitay have cemented their places in television history as NBC has renewed Dick Wolf’s series for a record-setting 21st season, surpassing the previous mark (for a live action series) of 20 seasons set by mothership series Law & Order (1990-2010) and Gunsmoke (1955-75). The renewal also marks a milestone for Hargitay’s Lt. Benson as the longest-running character in a primetime live-action series, passing Gunsmoke's James Arness and Milburn Stone and also Kelsey Grammer. However, it was also announced that key cast member Philip Winchester, who portrays Asst. District Attorney Peter Stone, won’t be returning for the history-making season.

Fox has renewed its Monday procedural dramas including 9-1-1. The series stars Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, and Jennifer Love Hewitt and explores the high-pressure experiences of police officers, firefighters, and emergency operators "who are thrust into the most frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations."

Fans of the Epix spy drama, Berlin Station, weren't as lucky, with the network announcing it was cancelling the show after the end of its third season. The critically acclaimed series starred Ashley Judd, Richard Armitage, Rhys Ifans, Keke Palmer, Leland Orser, Michelle Forbes, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Mina Tander, and Richard Jenkins.

Hugh Dancy (Hannibal) is set for a multi-episode arc opposite Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin on the eighth and final season of Showtime’s Homeland. Dancy will recur as John Zabel, a savvy Washington consultant who joins the White House as a foreign-policy adviser to the president and a formidable opponent to Saul Berenson (Patinkin).

Pat Healy (The Post), Melinda McGraw (Outcast) and Michael Harney (Orange Is the New Black) are set for recurring roles opposite Peter Sarsgaard, Kyle Gallner, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and David Strathairn in CBS All Access’s true-crime drama, Interrogation. Co-created by Swedish writer-producer Anders Weidemann and John Mankiewicz, Interrogation is an original concept based on a true story that spanned more than 30 years, in which a young man (Gallner) was charged and convicted of brutally murdering his mother.

David James Elliott is set to reprise his JAG character, Navy Captain Harmon Rabb Jr. in a multi-episode arc on NCIS: Los Angeles, which brings him full circle since JAG (1995-2005) was the precursor of the original NCIS series. He will make his debut in the May 12 episode, "The Guardian," playing the XO Captain on the USS Intrepid. 

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace's Edgar Ramirez and American Horror Story's Lily Rabe have joined Nicole Kidman’s HBO limited series, The Undoing. The cast of the David E. Kelley-created show also includes Hugh Grant, Donald Sutherland, and Noah Jupe. The project centers on Grace Sachs (Nicole Kidman), a successful therapist with a devoted husband (Hugh Grant) and young son who attends an elite private school. Overnight a chasm opens in her life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The featured guest on this week’s Spectator Books podcast was Donna Leon who talked about her latest Commissario Brunetti novel, Unto Us A Son Is Given, as well as what Venice gives her as a setting, why she welcomes snobbery towards crime writers, and why she never lets her books be published in Italian.

On the latest Read or Dead, hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham examined mystery/thriller books featuring disabled protagonists and also looked forward to some new book adaptations.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro welcomed Gary Phillips to discuss his new release, The Movie Makers, the fourth novel in the Grifter's Song series.

Spybrary chatted with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang author Mike Ripley to find out what’s new in the paperback edition.

The latest guest on Meet the Thriller Author was Lauren Carr, author of several series including the Thorny Rose, Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Chris Matheson Cold Case mysteries.

THEATRE

After strong reviews in Chicago, Lizzie The Musical, a rock opera based on the infamous Lizzie Borden, will begin Off Broadway previews this summer at The Pershing Square Signature Center. Directed by Victoria Bussert (with music by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt, lyrics by Cheslik-DeMeyer and Tim Maner, and choreography by Jaclyn Miller), the cast includes Shannon O’Boyle (Kinky Boots) as the title character, Carrie Cimma as Bridget, Ciara Renée as Alice, and Eden Espinosa as Emma.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday