B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 146
February 8, 2019
FFB: Murder Among Friends
Elizabeth Ferrars (1907-1995), born Morna Doris MacTaggart, was a British crime writer and founding member of the Crime Writers Association who received a special Silver Dagger for lifetime achievement in 1980. Her Golden Age books totaled over 70 in all, written over a period of six decades, from 1932-1995. Her first crime fiction novel, Give a Corpse a Bad Name, led to a successful career as a mystery author in both the U.K. and in the U.S., where her publishers issued her books under the name "E.X. Ferrars."
It's been argued that her popularity hasn't survived well into the late 20th and early 21st centuries due to the lack of a solid series character. Her first attempt was with freelance journalist Toby Dyke (a Lord Peter Wimsey type) and his companion, George, a former criminal whose surname is never revealed. She wrote five Toby Dyke novels over a two-year period, which may be why she suddenly ended the series, adding that she did so because she "got to hate him so much." In the 1970s and 1980s she created a series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer, and another with retired botanist, Andrew Basnett. She also penned short stories centering on an elderly detective called Jonas P. Jonas.
Her writing was in the "cozy mystery" vein, and as the Mysterious Bookshop noted, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine described her as the "writer who may be the closest of all to Agatha Christie in style, plotting and general milieu," while the Washington Post described her as "a consummate professional in clever plotting, characterization and atmosphere."
Murder Among Friends, from 1946 (published in the U.S. as Cheat the Hangman), is one of her 50 standalone novels, and was included by H.R.F. Keating on his 100 best crime fiction books list. The story begins with a party thrown by Cecily Lightwood for her literary and artistic friends, including guest of honor, playwright Aubrey Ritter, who lives in the flat above Cecily's. The group is determined to have a fun evening despite the ever-present danger of air raid wardens looking for blackout infringements in war-time London.
But where is the guest of honor? After he's found murdered upstairs and one of the party-goers arrested and later sentenced to murder, another guest, mousy Alice Church, finds herself so obsessed with the crime and doubting the verdict, that she sets about playing detective. With the help of Alice's scientist-husband Oliver, she puzzles her way through to discover the real murderer, thanks to her quiet, persistent insight and her husband's eye for detail.
By today's crime fiction (and even cozy) standards, Murder Among Friends seems to be a fairly genteel psychological study of complicated, intertwined relationships, which might be considered quaint in its depiction of sexual attractions. Yet, as Keating tells it, in 1946, Ferrars's regular publishers refused to publish the book because "detective stories couldn't be this steamy."
Although she's said to have based many characters and situations on people she knew and things she'd experienced in real life, it's not known to what degree that plays a role here. But with the long character portraits Alice extracts from her questioning of the key players, it wouldn't take much of a leap to guess that Ferrars emphasis on the emotional makeup of her characters was drawn from a keen eye of observation; or, as a character in her book The Small World of Murder puts it, "Murder's generally an intimate sort of thing. It happens in a small world, a little shut-in world of violent feelings."
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February 7, 2019
Mystery Melange
The Audio Publishers Association announced the Audie Award finalists for 2019.
The Mystery category includes:
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith, narrated by Robert Glenister
The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah, narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt
The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George, narrated by Simon Vance
The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen, narrated by Jonathan Keeble and Katy Sobey
Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves, narrated by Kenny Blyth.
The Thriller/Suspense nods include:
Crimson Lake by Candice Fox, narrated by Euan Morton
The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware, narrated by Imogen Church
Macbeth by Jo Nesbo, narrated by Euan Morton
The Outsider by Stephen King, narrated by Will Patton
The Terminal List by Jack Carr, narrated by Ray Porter
Their Lost Daughters by Joy Ellis, narrated by Richard Armitage.
University lecturer Claire Gradidge has won the Richard and Judy "Search for a Bestseller" competition for her World War Two crime novel The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox. The competition for first-time unpublished writers was launched in April 2018 by television stars Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan in association with WH Smith and Bonnier Zaffre.
Former police officer turned author and consultant Lee Lofland is also the founder of the annual Writers Police Academy conference. He recently announced that this year's event will be a special event titled MurderCon to be held at the Sirchie Compound in Raleigh, North Carolina, August 1-4. Special Guest Speaker is Graham Hetrick, the star and host of Investigation Discovery's hit television series, The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead. The Sirchie Compound instructors educate and advise investigators from state prison systems, airport security, FBI agents whose focus is on counter terrorism, Treasury and Secret Service agents, and other law enforcement personnel from around the world.
On February 19, join the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, at the KGB Bar for another thrilling night of chilling crime fiction read by talented members including include P.D. Halt, Mary Jo Robertiello, James Robertson, A.J. Sidransky, and Victoria Weisfel.
Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Magazine has a tribute to the late Brian Garfield; reviews of books by Douglas Lindsay, Dan Fesperman, C.J. Tudor, Jane Harper, and more; and a funny take on the mysteries of eBay.
Just who were the Pinkertons? A video game portraying the Wild West’s famous Pinkertons detective agency as violent enforcers of order by the modern-day company. The 167-year-old company, now owned by the Swedish security firm Securitas AB and called Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations Inc., disagrees with the game's description and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., owner of Rockstar Games, the creator of Red Dead 2.
Book Riot continued its lists of Sherlock Holmes film adaptations from around the world, with six more Sherlock Holmes adaptations with an international flavor.
Would you like to spend your vacation surrounded by books? Gladstone’s Library in Northern Wales, UK, is a 130-year-old library that also serves as a charming bed and breakfast. The library describes itself as a “residential library and meeting place which is dedicated to dialogue, debate and learning for open-minded individuals and groups, who are looking to explore pressing questions and to pursue study and research in an age of distraction and easy solutions.”
Do you have a literary tattoo? Then this convention is for you!
The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Island of Misfit Toys" by Peter M. Gordon.
In the Q&A roundup, Jane Harper, author of the award-winning crime novel, The Dry, spoke with the New York Times about her mysteries set in Australia, including her latest, The Lost Man; Criminal Element welcomed Laura Benedict, author of the new standalone thriller, The Stranger Inside; and mystery author and judge, Debra H. Goldstein, chatted with The Dark Phantom about One Taste Too Many, the first of Kensington’s new Sarah Blair cozy mystery series.
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February 4, 2019
Media Murder for Monday
AWARDS
The Directors Guild of America announced the winners of their annual awards over the weekend. Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series was won by Ben Stiller for his work on Escape at Dannemora. The film is based on the true-life tale of two prison inmates, Richard Matt and David Sweat, who become entangled in the life of a married female prison employee who aided their escape in 2015.
THE BIG SCREEN
Julius Onah’s psychological thriller, Luce, has sold to NEON and Topic Studios at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is based on JC Lee’s play and centers on Amy and Peter Edgar (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) who adopted their son Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) from war-torn Eritrea 10 years ago. Luce is now an all-star student athlete, beloved by everyone. After a series of encounters with his teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), questions about who Luce really is begin to emerge.
Angelina Jolie is set to star in Those Who Wish Me Dead, the second film directed by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Taylor Sheridan. The project is based on a book by Michael Koryta which follows a 14-year-old boy who witnesses a brutal murder. The boy is issued a false identity and hidden in a wilderness skills program for troubled teens while the killers are slaughtering anyone who gets in their way in a methodical quest to reach him.
Oscar winners Sam Rockwell, Octavia Spencer, and Allison Janney have been set to star in The Heart, from writer-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. The film centers on Joe (Rockwell) and Lucy (Spencer) who take the job of delivering a human heart from New York to Florida in 24 hours. When they realize their delivery is destined for a black-market buyer who illegally skipped the donor list, they attempt to reroute it to its rightful recipient, but they are soon hunted down by multiple insane criminals — including the greedy millionaire buyer, his scorned brother, and Lucy’s own drug-dealing ex-boss (Janney).
Mel Gibson and Ready Player One's Tye Sheridan are in final negotiations to star in the thriller, Black Flies, which is based on a novel by Shannon Burke. Black Flies tells the story of a young paramedic, Ollie Cross (Sheridan), navigating his first year on the job. He’s partnered with Rutkovsky (Gibson), an experienced medic who thrusts Ollie into the harsh realities of New York’s inner-city streets with high crime rates, homelessness, and widespread drug use.
Paramount has set release dates for the seventh and eighth installments of the “Mission: Impossible” series. The still-untitled “Mission: Impossible” 7 will hit theaters July 23, 2021, with part 8 coming just over a year later, on Aug. 5, 2022. The news comes just two weeks after the announcement that Christopher McQuarrie will return to write and direct the next two films in the Tom Cruise-starring action series.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
USA Network has picked up to series its drama pilot Dare Me, based on Megan Abbott's 2002 novel of the same name. Set in the world of competitive high school cheerleading, it follows the fraught relationship between two best friends (Herizen Guardiola and Mario Kelly) after a new coach (Willa Fitzgerald) arrives to bring their team to prominence. While the girls’ friendship is put to the test, their young lives are changed forever when a shocking crime rocks their quiet suburban world.
ABC handed out formal orders for a reboot of Dick Wolf's New York Undercover, a sequel that picks up 20 years after the end of the iconic series, which ran from 1994-98. It will follow detectives Nat Gilmore and Melissa Ortiz as they investigate the city's most dangerous criminals, from Harlem to Battery Park, and allows some cast members from the original show to reprise their roles.
Bryan Cranston has signed on to star in and executive produce Showtime’s limited legal series, Your Honor, based on the popular Israeli drama, Kvodo. It hails from the creators of two acclaimed legal drama series, including Peter Moffat, whose BAFTA-winning Criminal Justice was the basis for HBO’s Emmy-winning limited series The Night Of, and The Good Wife's Robert and Michelle King. The 10-episode series rips through all strata of New Orleans society and features Cranston as a respected judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run that leads to a high-stakes game of lies, deceit and impossible choices.
CBS has ordered the legal drama Courthouse from writer Greg Spottiswood (Remedy) and Warner Bros. TV. Courthouse pulls back the curtain on the court system and "follows the dedicated, chaotic, hopeful, and sometimes absurd lives of the judges, assistant district attorneys, and public defenders as they work with bailiffs, clerks, cops and jurors to bring justice to the people of Los Angeles."
CBS also ordered a pilot for Frankenstein, a police procedural show, which centers on a San Francisco homicide detective who’s mysteriously brought back to life after being killed in the line of duty. But as he resumes his old life, he and his wife realize he isn’t the same person he used to be and they zero in on the strange man behind his resurrection – Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
Amazon Studios has acquired The Report, the drama written and directed by Scott Z. Burns, which stars Adam Driver, Annette Benning, Jon Hamm, Ted Levin, Maura Tierney, and Michael C. Hall. It tells the true story of Daniel Jones’ exhaustive six-year investigation into the CIA’s use of torture on detainees suspected of terrorist activities.
Dick Wolf is expanding his CBS empire with a spinoff of his recently renewed freshman procedural FBI, a show to be titled FBI: Most Wanted. As that title would suggest, the spinoff follows the department of the FBI tasked with tracking and capturing the criminals on its Most Wanted list.
Fox has given a pilot order to one-hour police drama Prodigal Son, described as a "fresh take on a crime franchise with a provocative and outrageous lead character and darkly comedic tone." It centers on criminal psychologist Malcolm Bright, who knows how killers think because his father was a notorious serial killer called “The Surgeon.” He will use his twisted genius to help the NYPD solve crimes and stop killers, all while dealing with a manipulative mother, annoyingly normal sister, a homicidal father still looking to bond with his prodigal son, and his own constantly evolving neuroses.
Channel 4 is making the four-part crime drama Deadwater Fell (wt), which is from Broadchurch producer Kudos and Grantchester writer Daisy Coulam. It is a forensic examination of a tragedy and its effects after a seemingly perfect and happy family is murdered by someone they know and trust, and cracks appear on the surface of a supposedly idyllic Scottish community.
David Strathairn (McMafia) is set for a lead role opposite Peter Sarsgaard in CBS All Access’ straight-to-series true crime drama, Interrogation. The project 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, with the goal of turning the viewer into a detective.
ABC has ordered the drama pilot Stumptown, inspired by the graphic novels published by Oni Press. It follows Dex Parios, a strong, assertive, and unapologetically sharp-witted Army veteran working as a P.I. in Portland, Oregon. With a complicated personal history and only herself to rely on, she solves other people’s messes with a blind eye toward her own.
Richard Armitage has been tapped to star in The Stranger, an eight-episode Netflix series based on Harlan Coben’s novel. Armitage stars as Adam Price who has a good life, two wonderful sons, and a watertight marriage, until one night a stranger sits next to him in a bar and tells him a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne. Soon Adam finds himself tangled in something far darker than even Corinne’s deception, and realizes that if he doesn’t make exactly the right moves, the conspiracy he’s stumbled into will not only ruin lives—it will end them.
Netflix has hired Victoria Pedretti as the female lead opposite Penn Badgley on the upcoming second season of the breakout hit psychological thriller series You. In the Los Angeles-set Season 2, Pedretti will play Love Quinn, an aspiring chef working as a produce manager in a high-end grocery store. She is also tending to a deep grief — and when she meets Joe Goldberg (Badgley), she senses a shared knowledge of profound, life-changing loss.
In a competitive situation, Netflix has landed Indian anthology drama series Delhi Crime in a two-season order. The series (original title Delhi Crime Story) is inspired by and follows the notorious December 2012 investigation by the Delhi Police into the horrific gang rape of a young woman, which reverberated across India and the world.
American Vandal alum Tyler Alvarez is set for a recurring role opposite Kristen Bell in Hulu’s revival of Veronica Mars, from original series creator Rob Thomas. In the revival, spring breakers are getting murdered in Neptune, thereby decimating the seaside town’s lifeblood tourist industry. Alvarez will play Juan-Diego De La Cruz, a member of the Pacific Coast Highway biker gang that often find themselves in trouble with Veronica Mars (Bell).
AMC will simulcast season two of BBC America’s Killing Eve when the series returns in April. The series revolves around Eve (Oh), an MI6 operative, and psychopath assassin Villanelle (Comer). In the second season, the action picks up just 36 seconds after the end of last season’s finale, as Villanelle has disappeared and Eve having no idea if the woman she stabbed is alive or dead. With both of them in deep trouble, Eve has to find Villanelle before someone else does.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste chatted about Marie Kondo (the blogger who recently said you shouldn't own more than 30 books), ventriloquist dummies, reading in pubs, small pens from Argos, and the author photo Luca really wants.
The first episode of Michael Connelly's true-crime podcast Murder Book profiled the killing of Jade Clark in Hollywood, which was LAPD homicide detective Rick Jackson's longest case.
Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer Matt Coyle, Anthony Award-winning author of the Rick Cahill series, on the Crime Cafe.
Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham discussed the Agatha awards and Edgar Award nominees, more adaptation news, and some mysteries written by Black authors.
The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, focused on "APB Email, Human Trafficking, and Children of the Night."
High Plains Public Radio's Radio Readers Book Club featured an episode titled "Poe Started It All."
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February 2, 2019
February 1, 2019
FFB: Lonelyheart 4122
Colin Watson (1920-1983) was a British author who started out in life as a journalist, first as a reporter for the Boston Guardian and later as an editorial writer, theater critic and book reviewer. In 1958, while still working for newspapers, Watson published the first Flaxborough novel, Coffin, Scarcely Used, a book that Cecil Day-Lewis (who also wrote mysteries as Nicholas Blake) called "a great lark, full of preposterous situations and poker-faced wit."
Following the publication of the second book in the series, Watson retired to write full time and published a dozen mystery novels between 1958 and 1982. His mystery series came to known as The Flaxborough Chronicles, set as they were in Flaxborough, a fictional East Anglian city, population 15,000, loosely based on the Lincolnshire area of Boston where Watson worked as a journalist. The lead character in the series is Inspector Walter Purbright, assisted by his somewhat naive sidekick, Sergeant Sidney Love, and the Chief Constable, Harcourt Chubb. Watson's third book in the Chronicles, Hopjoy Was Here, won him a Silver Dagger from the British Crime Writers Association in 1962, and five years later he won a second Silver Dagger with Lonelyheart 4122.
Jeffery Ewener, a fan of Watson's work, wrote for the Mystery Magazine Web that in Watson's fictional world, "you find this...combination of superficial blandness deceptively concealing an uproar of animal spirits - like a hymn book hollowed-out to hold a hip flask. Watson gives us geriatric gentlemen patting bottoms, matronly housewives jumping into orgies, MI5 agents running up huge unpaid bar bills for reasons of National Security, austere solicitors blackmailing the local gentry."
As an example of what Ewener is referring to, take this excerpt from Lonelyheart 4122:
"Well, they didn't seem very pleased to see me, sir. Singleton wouldn't come out of the garden. He was going up and down with a lawn mower all the time. I had to ask each question as he went by one way, and try and catch the answer when he passed on the way back."
"Very trying for you, Sid."
"Not really. The answers were all very short. And him being so busy made it easier to get the writing samples. I just pinched three or four of the labels on his rose bushes. Of course," Love added, nodding at the file, "I trimmed them down a bit and mounted them properly."
"So I noticed. Most neat. Now I understand why I couldn't make much sense out of "Peace Mrs. Pettifer Brevvitt's Pride Lancashire Ascending."
Lonelyheart 4122 introduces us to the character of Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime, who subsequently appeared in all Flaxborough novels save one. In this outing, Inspector Purbright's investigation into the disappearance of two respectable middle-aged women leads him to a matrimonial bureau where he meets another client, Miss Teatime, whom Purbright fears may also be in danger. But Miss Teatime doesn't want anything to do with his protection, and neither Miss Teatime nor her shady beau, a retired naval officer, are what they appear to be.
Four of The Flaxborough Chronicles were filmed for the BBC's "Murder Most English" program, including Lonelyheart 4122.
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January 31, 2019
Mystery Melange
Otto Penzler, editor and founder of the mystery and crime house Penzler Publishing, is teaming with Pegasus Books to launch Scarlet, a joint publishing venture specializing in psychological suspense aimed at female readers. Scarlet has tabbed Luisa Smith (longtime buying director at Book Passage bookstore), to be Scarlet editor-in-chief for the imprint which will launch in winter 2020 with six to eight titles to be distributed by W.W. Norton. Penzler added that "Psychological suspense that features complex women is one of the most dynamic categories in popular fiction right now, so the time is right for an imprint dedicated to this genre."
The annual Super Bowl is coming up this Sunday, and Janet Rudolph has compiled a listing of crime fiction themed around the Super Bowl and American-style football.
On February 5 in the UK, there will be a Killer Women Panel on "The Unstoppable Appeal of Crime Fiction - What is it about crime that makes so many people choose to read and watch it?" A panel of authors including Alison Joseph, Mel McGrath, Kate Rhodes, and Laura Wilson, will discuss the huge, unstoppable appeal of crime fiction and the role that jeopardy so often plays in good storytelling.
The 2019 Eudora Welty Conference, hosted by the College of Charleston on February 21–23, will include the February 22 panel "Welty and Mystery," with presentations on "Eudora Welty's Career in Mystery Fiction"; "Chester Himes, Harper Lee, Eudora Welty: The Civil Rights Movement on a Crime Fiction Continuum"; "Murder, Mystery, and Motivation: Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter and Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library"; "Wanted Dead Or Alive: Last Years’ Dead Branches"; and "The Writer as Detective Hero”: Eudora Welty and Her Late Fiction." (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at The Bunburyist)
The 2019 St. Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend, to be held August 16-18, has announced the featured guests including Natasha Cooper as Chair and Denise Mina as Guest of Honor. The theme of the conference this year is "Gamechangers: writers who have transformed the genre," and will feature a host of presenters including Sarah Hilary, Val McDermid, Nicci French, Mick Herron, and more.There will also be a PD James Conference Dinner, with proceeds benefiting the PD James Fund to support the work of the English School and students at St Hilda’s College.
The Minnesota Book Award finalists were announced, including titles in the Genre Fiction category. Those nods include crime novels Leave No Trace by Mindy Mejia; The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens; and The Voice Inside by Brian Freeman.
The UK's New Readings announced a call for submissions on the topic of "Fictions of Organized Crime" and invites articles of between 7,000 and 10,000 words on the cultural representation of organized crime across a range of art forms (including, but not limited to, film, TV, literature, comics/graphic novels, popular music).
The Guardian reported on the death of Diana Athill, writer and editor, at the age of 101. During her fifty years in publishing, Athill helped found the publishing companies Allan Wingate and André Deutsch, where she worked closely with many Deutsch authors, including Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Mordecai Richler, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Rhys, Gitta Sereny, Brian Moore, V. S. Naipaul, Molly Keane, Stevie Smith, Jack Kerouac, Charles Gidley Wheeler, Margaret Atwood, and David Gurr. She also won acclaim for her own stories, novels, and memoirs.
HarperCollins has pledged £20,000 in grants for independent bookstores as part of its ongoing commitment to The Literacy Project. The grants will fund up to 10 Literacy Project initiatives around the UK and Ireland, devised and led locally by independent bookshops,
The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Orange Julius" by Jim George.
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January 28, 2019
Agatha Awards
The Malice Domestic conference announced the finalists for this year's Agatha Awards. The winners will be presented on May 4, 2019, during Malice Domestic 31. Congratulations to all of the nominees!
Best Contemporary Novel
Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
Beyond the Truth by Bruce Robert Coffin (Witness Impulse)
Cry Wolf by Annette Dashofy (Henery Press)
Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)
Best Historical Novel
Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding by Rhys Bowen (Berkley)
The Gold Pawn by LA Chandlar (Kensington)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
Turning the Tide by Edith Maxwell (Midnight Ink)
Murder on Union Square by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)
Best First Novel
A Ladies Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
Little Comfort by Edwin Hill (Kensington)
What Doesn't Kill You by Aimee Hix (Midnight Ink)
Deadly Solution by Keenan Powell (Level Best Books)
Curses Boiled Again by Shari Randall (St. Martin's)
Best Short Story
"All God's Sparrows" by Leslie Budewitz (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)
"A Postcard for the Dead" by Susanna Calkins in Florida Happens (Three Rooms Press)
"Bug Appetit" by Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)
"The Case of the Vanishing Professor" by Tara Laskowski (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)
"English 398: Fiction Workshop" by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)
Best Young Adult Mystery
Potion Problems (Just Add Magic) by Cindy Callaghan (Aladdin)
Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (Henry Holt)
A Side of Sabotage by C.M. Surrisi (Carolrhoda Books)
Best Nonfiction
Mastering Plot Twists by Jane Cleland (Writer's Digest Books)
Writing the Cozy Mystery by Nancy J Cohen (Orange Grove Press)
Conan Doyle for the Defense by Margalit Fox (Random House)
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)
Wicked Women of Ohio by Jane Ann Turzillo (History Press)
Media Murder for Monday
Welcome to Monday and a new list of the latest crime drama news:
AWARDS
The Screen Actors Guild Awards were handed out last night in Los Angeles with a few nods to crime dramas. Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (the SAG equivalent of Best Film) went to Black Panther. On the TV side, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series went to Darren Criss for his role in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story; Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series, Patricia Arquette for Escape at Dannemora; Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, Jason Bateman for his role in Ozark; and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, Sandra Oh for her role in Killing Eve.
THE BIG SCREEN
Rialto Pictures has acquired rights to Yardie, which will be the directorial debut of Idris Elba, who also serves as executive producer. Written by Brock Norman Brock and Martin Stellman and based on the Victor Headley novel of the same name, the crime drama involves the intertwined worlds of the Jamaican narcotics syndicates and the music industry during the 1970s and 1980s.
Another Fast and Furious spinoff is in the works, this time involving a female-driven cast. A trio of female writers has also been brought on board: Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy), Lindsey Beer (the adaptation of Patrick Rothfuss' The Kingkiller Chronicles), and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider). No details beyond the screenwriters were revealed including exactly who will star in the film, although it's likely the current women of the franchise will be involved including Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.
The son of James Gandolfini will take on the late actor’s iconic role by playing Tony Soprano in the film prequel to acclaimed series The Sopranos. Michael Gandolfini, 19, will appear as a younger version of the New Jersey mob boss in the film, The Many Saints of Newark, which is set in 1967 and recalls the race riots between Italian- and African-Americans in the city. James Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack in 2013 aged 51, found fame and critical acclaim with his portrait of mobster Tony Soprano, snagging three Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for his performance in the series, which aired from 1999 to 2007
Robert Davi is set to star in 8 Winds, described as a neo-noir thriller along the lines of Robert Altman’s The Long Good Bye and Chinatown. Written and directed by Daniel J. Coplan, the film centers on an over-the-hill filmmaker, a comedy club owner, and an eccentric and reclusive billionaire as they are drawn into an intrigue where a Russian Oligarch fights for control of California’s water.
District 9's Neill Blomkamp is currently working on a brand new RoboCop movie, although unlike the recent less-then-successful reboot, Blomkamp's verion is said to more closely resemble the '80s action classic. The new project is currently titled RoboCop Returns and looks to be using the same strategy as the recent Halloween film as a direct sequel to the original 1987 RoboCop. In order to do that properly, it would require getting Peter Weller to reprise his role although it's been reported Weller is not interested.
The Pokemon-based Detective Pikachu movie is still four months away from being released, but Legendary Pictures has already set a sequel in motion and tapped Oren Uziel to write Detective Pikachu 2. Detective Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, is a super smart crime solver and can communicate like a human, although only Justice Smith’s character, Tim Goodman, can understand him speaking English. The cast also includes Kathryn Newton as reporter Lucy Stevens, Ken Watanabe as Detective Yoshida, Paul Kitson as Harry Goodman, Karan Soni as Jack, and Omar Chapparro as Sebastian.
The Reed Morano-directed spy film Rhythm Section, starring Blake Lively as an assassin bent on revenge, has had its release date moved from February 22 to November 22, the Friday before Thanksgiving. Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Daniel Mays, and Raza Jaffrey also star.
The 17th annual San Francisco Film Noir Festival in underway at the Castro Theater there. Beginning with Trapped and The File on Thelma Jordan (both from 1950), the festival advances through the years all the way up to Underworld USA and Blast of Silence (both from 1961). This year's festival runs through February 3 with a "10-night feast of danger, desire, and despair."
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Kate Winslet is heading to the small screen for Mare of Easttown, an upcoming HBO limited series, with Brad Ingelsby serving as creator, showrunner, and screenwriter. Gavin O’Connor (The Accountant) has been hired to direct all of the episodes. Winslet will play a small-town Pennsylvania detective who investigates a local murder as her life crumbles around her.
CBS has ordered the drama pilot Nancy, penned by Paul Attanasio, which centers on a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles. She uses her "unflinching honesty and hardball tactics to navigate the social, political and national-security issues that converge with enforcing the law."
USA Network has picked up a new crime anthology series from writer-executive producer Andy Greenwald, executive producer Sam Esmail, Universal Cable Prods. and Paramount Television. The first season, titled Briarpatch, is based on the Ross Thomas novel of the same name and follows Allegra Dill (Rosario Dawson), a dogged investigator returning to her border-town Texas home after her sister is murdered.
The Crown producer Left Bank Pictures has scored another major series at Netflix, adapting Sarah Pinborough’s psychological thriller novel, Behind Her Eyes. The story centers on Louise, a single mother and secretary who is stuck in a modern-day rut and becomes obsessed with her boss and his wife—not knowing the terrible secrets they're both hiding and how far will they go to keep them.
Game of Thrones' Jamie Sives and Catastrophe's Mark Bonnar will star in a four-part dark crime caper, the first drama for BBC Scotland’s new digital channel (and will then air on BBC Two). Sives and Bonnar play two Scottish brothers who accidentally run over and kill an old man on a darkened street. After making the panicked decision to cover their tracks, the brothers seem to get away with their crime. However, as neighbors and relatives of the dead man begin to suspect his death wasn’t as innocent as it initially seemed, the brothers find their lives rapidly falling apart, as their actions begin to catch up with them.
CBS has given early renewals to crime dramas Magnum P.I. and FBI, which is a top 10 series and CBS’s #1 new show in total viewers. The fast-paced drama stars Missy Peregrym, Zeeko Zaki, Jeremy Sisto, Ebonee Noel and Sela Ward. Set in Hawaii, Magnum P.I. stars Jay Hernandez as former Navy SEAL Thomas Magnum, Perdita Weeks, Zachary Knighton, Stephen Hill, Tim Kang and Amy Hill.
NBC has released the official trailer for its new midseason series, The Enemy Within, ahead of the February 25 premiere. The psychological thriller centers around a brilliant former CIA operative turned traitor (Jennifer Carpenter) serving life in a Supermax prison, and the FBI agent (Morris Chestnut) who enlists her help to track down a fiercely dangerous and elusive criminal she knows all too well.
ITV and Amazon have released the first images of the thriller, The Widow. The eight-episode drama stars Kate Beckinsale as a woman who sees her supposedly-dead husband on TV and begins a search for the truth that leads her to danger in the African Congo.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The Story Blender podcast welcomed Edgar Award-winning novelist Meg Gardiner to chat about her latest thriller, Into The Black Nowhere featuring FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix, which was inspired by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy.
On the latest Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, Fresno actor Cyndle Cee read the mystery short story, "When Pigs Fly," by Lesley A. Diehl.
The new episode of the Debbi Mack's Crime Cafe featured the Philip Marlowe radio episode “Where There's a Will."
James Rollins was the featured guest on the latest Speaking of Mysteries podcast, discussing his book Crucible, which features a return of the Sigma Force and is a cautionary tale of modern witchcraft, i.e., advanced artificial intelligence, religious extremism, and quantum physics.
This week's Spybrary included a round table discussion on the novels of Helen MacInnes.
"Limb Pit and Infectious Diseases" was the topic of Dr. D.P. Lyle's Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction.
This week's topics on the Writer's Detective Bureau podcast, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, were "True Detective, Coffee with a Cop, and Testing Blood."
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FFB: Appleby's End
Michael Innes was the pseudonym of John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (1906-1994), an English professor and lecturer at various times in Leeds, Adelaide, Australia, Belfast, and Oxford. He also studied Freudian psychoanalysis for a year in Vienna. Although he wrote novels and books of criticism and essays under his own name, he's best known in the crime fiction community for his detective novels written under the Michael Innes name, primarily his 40 novels and numerous short stories featuring Detective Inspector John Appleby of Scotland Yard, a well-educated man from humble origins who eventually ends up as Commissioner and later Sir John, retired.
His Appleby novels are filled with humor, eccentricity and an air of the fantastic, with a little bit of detecting thrown in for good measure. You probably won't get Appleby confused with the more realistic PD James creation, Inspector Dalgleish, another literate Yard detective. If you happen to have a Ph.D in English literature and ancient mythology, you'll probably feel right at home with the many literary allusions Innes uses, although he himself once referred to these books as mere "entertainments," and "I would describe some of them as on the frontier between the detective story and the fantasy: they have a somewhat 'literary' flavor but their values remain those of melodrama and not of fiction proper."
The novel Appleby's End from 1945 is taken from the name of the train station where the Detective Inspector gets off the train, which sets off a string of coincidences, most based on stories by Ranulph Raven — the same Raven whose mysterious descendants were the ones who invited Appleby to spend the night at their house. One descendant in particular, Judith Raven, catches Appleby's eye and interest after he floats down an icy river on top of a carriage with her and spends part of the night with her in a haystack during a snowstorm. At first the Raven stories-come-to-life seem like pranks — from animals replaced by marble effigies, to someone received a tombstone telling him when he would die — until a servant is found dead buried up to his neck in snow.
Innes's humor is evident here with place names such as the old manorhouse called Dream and the nearby villages titled Abbot's Yatter, Boxer's Bottom, Linger, Sleeps Hill, Sneak and Snarl. Then there are the character names: Billy Bidewell, Gregory Grope, Hannah Hoobin. There are also touches of what became his almost cliched use of past-their-prime aristocrats in crumbling country manor homes. As for the obscure references, here are a couple of examples:
"A fleeting and hebdomadal mythology called into action by the obscurely working but infinitely potent creativity of the folk. In the green Arcadian valleys Pan is dead but still a numerous Panisci lurk and follow in the parks. ... The rape of Prosperpin - gathering flowers, herself a fairer flower - continues still, and Dis's wagon is a borrowed limousine."
and
"Ranulph's third brother, Adolphus, a person of some talent who had joined the Romish Communion and become a bishop in partibus, but who was later converted on his deathbed to the religious system of the Zend-Avesta"
and
"A companion piece [to the Rape of Europa], in which a bull and a glossy lady were yet more inextricably entangled both with each other and with two astoundingly contorted young men, Appleby identified provisionally as a Punishment of Dirce. He was looking round with some apprehension for a Pasaphae ... "
(There use to be an online annotated list online to help you keep things straightened out, but alas, that website appears to be no more.) The New York Herald Tribune paid Innes an appropriate compliment, to wit: "Mr. Innes is the most adeptly and allusively elephantine wit presently committed to the English language."
Appleby's End may not be the type of detective novel you turn to when you're in the mood for something gritty or true-to-life, but if you want some escapism in the vein of what Lewis Carroll might have penned had he turned his hand to crime fiction, then this is a nice trip down the rabbit hole.
One interesting publication note: In March 2010, Crippen & Landru released Appleby Talks About Crime, 18 previously uncollected stories, many told by Appleby himself to the fictional six-member Mystery Club.
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