B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 150

Mystery Melange

August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones is the winner of the 2018 Nero Award from the Wolfe Pack. The honor, bestowed upon the best crime novel in the style of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series, was handed out Saturday at the 41st Black Orchid Weekend. Past winners of the award have included Fred Harris, Martha Grimes, Dennis Lehane, and Sharyn McCrumb. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

The winners of the Goodreads Choice Awards, voted on by readers and fans on the book recommendation website, were announced in several categories. The top nod in the mystery/thriller category goes to Stephen King's The Outsider. For all of the other nineteen finalists, click on over to this link.

The "best" lists keep coming, with NPR picking a list of 24 titles for its choices for "Best mysteries and thrillers" of 2018, and Oline Cogdill of the South Florida Times choosing her "best mystery novels of 2018," which includes her top 16 plus 8 noteworthy debuts.

Polis Books is launching Agora Books, a diversity-focused imprint devoted to crime and noir fiction. The new imprint will be headed by Chantelle Aimée Osmanand will launch with three titles in fall 2019 and eventually publish six to 10 titles a year. Those first three titles include Three-Fifths by John Vercher, the story of a biracial man who discovers a childhood friend has become a neo-nazi; Remember by Patricia Smith, about a woman forced to reconcile with a painful past; and The Ninja Daughter by Tori Eldridge, the tale of a woman who dedicates herself to becoming a modern day ninja after the murder of her sister.

The next issue of Mystery Readers Journal will focus on mysteries featuring crime fiction set in the American South. Editor Janet Rudolph is seeking reviews, articles, and Author! Author! essays, with a deadline of December 30.

Mike Ripley's latest Getting Away with Murder column for Shots Magazine has news of the new paperback crime imprint, Blackthorn; reviews of Ripley's best of the month and best of the year crime titles; a look at international crime fiction from Laplan, South Korea, and New Zealand; and much more.

Crime writer Ian Rankin, who penned the best-selling Inspector Rebus novels, is auctioning two bottles of whisky created in tribute to the detective. Rankin will sell a 20-year-old bottle and a 30-year-old bottle at auction, to raise cash for a charity which helps Edinburgh’s homeless population, Streetwork.

Has the mystery of Agatha Christie's disappearace for eleven days in 1926 finally been solved? A new theory that's part of a Channel 5 drama, Agatha And The Truth of Murder, suggests the crime writer was investigating a real-life murder in 92-year-old mystery that could have leapt from the pages of one of her novels.

I'm always in the mood for good literacy news, and this report caught my eye. According to studies by the UK's National Literacy Trust, the gender gap in the number of children who say they enjoy reading has narrowed, with boys aged 11 lagging only 9 percentage points behind girls of the same age.

It's time once again for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction awards. The list, which is compiled by the Literary Review, features an all-male roster this year, including Haruki Murakami, for passages from his latest novel Killing Commendatore, and also controversial US novelist James Frey for a scene in his novel Katerina described by judges as “almost like wish fulfilment”. But ultimately, it was Frey who prevailed as the worst of the worst.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Ballad of Annie Crudup" by Roger Netzer.

In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover chatted with former journalist John Marrs, who has enjoyed an interesting journey as an author of standalone psychological thrillers, including The One, which is now being adapted for the small screen by Netflix; and Criminal Element spoke with Bryan Gruley, a journalist who shared in the Pulitzer Prize awarded to the Wall Street Journal in 2002, and is also the author of the popular Starvation Lake trilogy

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Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again, which means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Eric Bana (star of the Bravo series Dirty John) will star in an adaptation of Jane Harper's bestselling novel The Dry. Robert Connolly will direct the Australian production from a script he wrote with Harry Cripps. The Dry won the Ned Kelly Award for best first crime fiction in 2017 and was voted best crime and thriller at the 2018 British Book Awards. The story centers on a policeman who returns to the country town he grew up in to investigate a murder-suicide.

Saban Films has obtained the U.S. distribution rights to Nomis, the David Raymond directorial debut that stars Henry Cavill and Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley. The psychological thriller, which has its world premiere as the closing night film at the LA Film Festival, also stars Alexandra Daddario, Stanley Tucci, Minka Kelly, and Nathan Fillion. The plot follows Marshall (Cavill), a weathered Lieutenant, and his police force as they investigate a string of female abductions and murders linked to an online predator. When new leads emerge and the case unravels, Marshall teams with local vigilante (Kingsley) in pursuit of vengeance.

Robert Patrick is in talks to join Liam Neeson and Kate Walsh in the action thriller, Honest Thief. In the film, written by Steve Allrich and Ozark co-creator Mark Williams, career bank robber Tom Carter (Neeson) meets the love of his life in Annie (Kate Walsh), who works at the front desk of a storage facility where he hid $7 million in stolen loot. They fall head over heels, and he resolves to wipe the slate clean by turning himself in but when the case is turned over to a crooked FBI agent, everything becomes far more dangerous and difficult. Patrick will play the FBI agent who sets up the story.

Lionsgate announced that the third installment of Gerard Butler’s "Fallen" series, Angel Has Fallen, will be released on August 23, 2019. The film sees Butler return as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, who finds himself framed for an assassination attempt on U.S. President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). Pursued by his own agency and the FBI, he must find the real threat to the president’s life, uncovering a plot to hijack Air Force One.

A retrospective of filmmaker Jacques Tourneur is heading to New York City December 14 - January 3. His notable works in the horror and mystery genre include the espionage thriller Berlin Express, starring Robert Ryan and Merle Oberon; Night of the Demon, a slow-burning chiller about witchcraft in contemporary England; the brooding, menace-edged Circle of Danger, starring Ray Milland; and the psychological mystery Experiment Perilous, starring Hedy Lamarr as the disturbed wife of a wealthy man who may—or may not—be going mad.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NBC has put in development Prism, a Rashomon-inspired drama. Written by Daniel Barnz, who also directs, Prism is a provocative exploration of a murder trial in which every episode is told through the perspective of a different person involved. Driven by an ensemble of complicated and original characters, the show will explore bias in the criminal justice system and let the audience ask if truth matters less than who can tell the most compelling story.

The BBC is developing a drama based on David Burke’s book The Spy Who Came In From The Co-Op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage. It follows one of the most important Soviet spies of the 20th century, Melita Norwood, a member of one of a communist spy networks in Britain who helped shorten the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb project by up to five years.

Netflix continues to roll out international scripted projects and has ordered a prequel series based on Henning Mankell's best-selling Kurt Wallander novels from Yellow Bird UK. The six-part series will feature a British and Swedish cast and will go into production in 2019. The project will tell the story of the young Detective Kurt Wallander's first case.

Netflix has also commissioned the 12-part series Criminal, from Killing Eve writer George Kay. The show is set across four countries, France, Spain, Germany and the UK, with three episodes per country. Criminal takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite, and is described as "a stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question."

Acorn TV has acquired the true crime drama Manhunt from ITV, which stars Martin Clunes (of Doc Martin fame) as Detective Colin Sutton, the police officer who tenaciously pursued British serial killer Levi Bellfield.

YouTube has given a pilot order to drama Dark Cargo, written by Adam and Max Reid (Sneaky Pete). Dark Cargo is described as a "high-octane, cliffhanger-driven, neo-noir thriller set in the big rig cab of Joe Dobbs as he traverses the darkest nights of his life. What begins as a random encounter with a disturbed stranger turns into a race against time, the police, and even more malevolent forces. All the while, Joe just wants to get back to his family."

Donald Sutherland has joined Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant in HBO’s upcoming drama series The Undoing. Based on the book You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, the six-episode series stars Kidman as Grace Sachs, a successful therapist with a devoted husband (Grant) and young son who attends an elite private school in New York City. 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. Sutherland will play Franklin Renner, Grace’s father, a retired financier and loving grandfather, who is tasked with protecting his family when the turbulent revelations come to light.

George Eads will be leaving the CBS drama MacGyver, where he's co-starred since the pilot. According to Deadline, although his character, Jack Dalton, is being written out, he is not being killed off, with the door left open for Eads to possibly return as a guest star. The official reason for his departure is that he wanted to spend more time with his daughter in Los Angeles, especially after production on the show moved to Atlanta.

Alona Tal (SEAL Team) is the first actor cast in ABC’s pilot NYPD Blue, a new iteration of the iconic cop drama. Tal will play Detective Nicole Lazarus in the sequel, which revolves around Theo, the son of Dennis Franz’s Detective Andy Sipowicz character from the original series, who tries to earn his detective shield and work in the 15th squad while investigating his father’s murder. 





A trailer was released for the TNT limited series, I Am the Night, starring Chris Pine as a reporter who seeks redemption for a failing career with a new look into the murder of Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. the "Black Dahlia.

A trailer was also released for the indie thriller, Perfume. The six-episode season is based on the same Patrick Süskind novel that led to the 2006 film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

BBC One has dropped the first trailer for Season 5 of Luther, starring Idris Elba. As the season synopsis begins, "When the moonless shadows of London give birth to a new nightmare, DCI John Luther is once more called to immerse himself in the deepest depths of human depravity."

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Spectator Books Podcast welcomed Lee Child to chat about Reacher, revenge, and writing without a plan.

Tell The Damn Story interviewed mystery author, professor, and book critic, Art Taylor, whose short crime fiction has won Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Derringer Awards.

The latest Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, "What a Little Cinnamon Can Do," written by L.D. Barnes and read by actor Julia Reimer. The story involves baking, with a little spice for the holiday season.

Criminal Mischief Episode #09 focused on "The Mysterious Human Brain," with Dr. D.P. Lyle noting that understanding a bit about how it works can help you craft your fictional crime stories.

Writer Types had a chat with Ian Rankin from Bouchercon including a listen to his band, Best Picture, and their first single Isabelle. Other guests included true crime writer Nancy Rommelmann, and Tom Pitts, Marietta Miles and JJ Hensley, who offered up Crime Writing 101 tips.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed police officer Gavin Reese, who is the author of the Alex Landon thrillers and the Saint Thomas thriller series.

Speaking of Mysteries was joined by Val McDermid to talk about DCI Karen Pirie of Police Scotland, back in Val McDermid’s new crime fiction novel, Broken Ground.

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Your Sunday Music Treat

As the Christmas season gets into full swing, I thought I'd feature some lesser-known Christmas music for December. First up, an excerpt from The Christmas Tree Suite by Franz Liszt, which I think Scott Drayco has played a time or two. Although better known for his youthful pyrotechnics, Liszt wrote this piece at the age of 70 when he'd mellowed quite a bit. The soloists here are duo pianists Pinuccia Giarmana and Anessandro Lucchetti:

 

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Quote of the Week

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FFB: A Different Kind of Summer

Gwendoline Butler (1922-2013) had limited success as a writer before she began a police procedural series featuring a young Scotland Yard Inspector, John Coffin, penning eight Coffin novels between 1956 and 1962. When Butler's husband took a job teaching in St. Andrews, Scotland, the author decided she wanted a change from Coffin and found her inspiration one day when she saw a young red-haired Scottish policewoman. She later asked the local police chief about the young officer and was told she was a recent graduate on a rapid promotion track. Thus was born the character of Detective Charmian Daniels of the fictional Deerham Hill CID and, as some have given credit to the author (written under her pen name of Jennie Melville), the birth also of the woman's police procedural.

Melville also dipped her pen into the romantic suspense well for a time, evening receiving a Romantic Novelists Association Major Award in 1981, but eventually returned to both Inspector Coffin and Detective Daniels. She went on to write over 70 novels and was a recipient of the Crime Writers Association Silver Dagger in 1973 and shortlisted for the Golden Dagger for another novel.

One critic elevated Melville/Butler to a status equal to the Four Great Founding Mothers: Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh, not only due to their writing, but in light of how many other elements they had in common: all well-educated (Butler lectured at Oxford), all prolific writers, all wrote on subjects other than detective fiction, and four of the group had supportive husbands. If she is not as well remembered as the others, it may be due to the fact that writers who she helped paved the way for, such as P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, eventually eclipsed her in acclaim.

Melville's writing of her female detective, Charmian Daniels, shows elements of early feminism and as the character grew through the years, Detective Daniels also reflected the changing roles of women and attitudes toward them, particularly in a traditional man's field, law enforcement. Daniels grows in her career through time and is eventually promoted to Chief Superintendent with a move to Windsor. In an interview with Clues: A Journal of Detection in 2000, Butler said, "I was determined she [Daniels] should be a success and I suppose in a sense I was basing her on what would have happened to me if I'd remained in academic life when on the whole in my day, even more so now, women do climb the ladder. I was in the generation that was expecting to be successful as a woman in whatever field they ventured."  

In Melville's A Different Kind of Summer, dating from 1967, the fifth outing for Detective Daniels, Daniels is still a sergeant when an unidentified body arrives on a train into town in a coffin minus head or hands. It's up to Daniels to figure out which of many missing women this could be, including an increasing number of young girls vanishing in London. As she gets deeper into the case, she tries to stay objective and focused even as she starts receiving menacing phone calls and has to deal with a new young assistant, Christine Quinn, and a hysterical troublemaker who claims she's lost her sister.

There's been a lot of hue and cry lately about the amount of violence against women in crime fiction novels, and a mutilated female corpse would fall into that category, but in a commentary included in the original publication of A Different Kind of Summer, Melville said that she was interested in people committing crimes and why some people, usually women, form the victim syndrome, in that the bad guys sense these victims are afraid (a reason why policewomen acting as decoys often fail to lure attackers, because their sense of confidence is too obvious).

Melville has a low-key writing style, blending social commentary with quirky characters, detailed plotting and thoughtful writing for the most part, although in general, it's her novels with Inspector John Coffin where she's had her greatest success. One wonders if writing from a woman's point of view was too close to home to provide the inspirational distance required or if perhaps the fact the author's brother was Warden of the Toynbee Settlement in London gave her more of a first-hand experience with male protagonists. In either case, with Melvill's Daniels or Butler's Coffin, there's a lot of good material there, enough to show that grouping her with the "Four Great Founding Mothers" isn't that much of a stretch. If you're a fan of the "Golden Age" of detective fiction, then you'll enjoy this series.

            

Mystery Melange

Mystery Writers of America has chosen its annual Grand Master, Raven, and Ellery Queen awards. Linda Fairstein and Martin Cruz Smith will be the 2019 Grand Masters, an award that acknowledges important contributions to this genre and a body of work. The Raven Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement outside the realm of creative writing, goes to Marilyn Stasio, the mystery critic for the New York Times Book Review (and other magazines). The Ellery Queen Award, honoring people in the mystery-publishing industry, goes to Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. There is one bit of controvery this year, however; Edgar Award winner Attica Locke has taken exception (as Danny Gardner explains) to the selection of Linda Fairstein as Grand Master due to her involvement with the notorious Central Park Five case. In reply, the Mystery Writers of America Board of Directors posted on Facebook that "We are taking seriously the issues raised by Attica Locke. Our Board is going to discuss these concerns as soon as possible and make a further statement soon."

The winners of the annual Irish Book Awards were announced, including Crime Fiction Book of the Year which was won by Skin Deep from author Liz Nugent.

The inaugural Staunch Prize for crime fiction works that don't feature violence against women has been won by Australian author Jock Serong for his novel On the Java Ridge, in which a group of surfers tries to rescue a refugee boat from a storm.

The Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter is holding its annual Mystery Author Extravaganza in Virginia on December 1. Some 27 chapter authors will be on hand to talk about their new mystery/crime books and short stories published this year. Participating authors include William Ade, Donna Andrews, E.A. Aymar, Karen Cantwell, Maya Corrigan, Barb Goffman, Sherry Harris, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Libby Klein, Maureen Klovers, Tara Laskowski, Eileen McIntire, Adam Meyer, Melinda Mullett, Alan Orloff, Josh Pachter, Shari Randall, Susan Reiss, Verena Rose, Harriette Sackler, Colleen Shogan, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Lane Stone, Art Taylor, Robin Templeton, Cathy Wiley, and Stacy Woodson. Booksellers from Mystery Loves Company will be there to sell these authors’ works, and the authors will be happy to sign them.

Noir at the Bar returns to the Shade Bar in New York City on December 2. Authors scheduled to be on hand for readings and signings include Kellye Garrett, Kelby Losack, Albert Tucher, Michael J. Seidlinger, Jason Starr, Casey Barrett, and hosts Scott Adlerberg and Jen Conley.

London’s new crime and thriller festival, Capital Crime, is launching a new year-round digital crime and thriller festival, Capital Crime Digital. The online festival will feature interviews, profiles and discussions with authors and other crime and thriller creatives, with a planned launch in September 2019, to coincide with Capital Crime, which takes place in London September 26th to 28th. (HT to Ayo Onatade at Shots Magazine)

The Financial Times added its contribution to the end-of-the-year lists with its choice of "The Year's Best Crime Fiction." You have to be a subscriber to read the article, but Crimetime UK has a recap.

The LA Review of Books featured a roundtable discussion with crime writers of color hosted by Gar Anthony Haywood. The participants, including Walter Mosley, Kellye Garrett, Barbara Neely, Rachel Howzell Hall, and Kyra Davis joined in an enlightening and inside look at what it’s like to be a black mystery writer today.

The latest issue of Noir City, published by the Film Noir Foundation, focuses on international noir, including the long history of Mexican noir, the crime dramas of Japan’s Yoshitarô Nomura, Iranian genre films, the Canadian noir The Silent Partner, and much more.

Buzzfeed contributor Kristen Evans took at look at novels that prove women make fascinating fictional killers, too.

The third issue of Mystery Readers Journal: Mystery in Asia (Volume 34: 3) is available now as a PDF and will be shortly available in hardcopy. Online articles also include "Digging into the Thai Underbelly" by Colin Cotterill and "Darkness in the Land of Smiles" by Timothy Hallinan.

Another mystery bookstore may be in jeopardy of closing. Once Upon a Time, an independent mystery bookstore in Minneapolis for 31 years, has launched a Go Fund Me page after suffering financial difficulties. For more details and to make a contribution, head on over to this link.

Criminal Element posted a holiday sweepstakes for mass market copies of each of Sue Grafton's "alphabet mystery series" books (U.S. only). The deadline for entries is December 8th.

Over at the Passing Tramp blog, Curtis Evans profiled the unexpected convergence of violent criminal Whitey Bulger and cozy author Charlotte Macleod.

Writing for The Guardian, Sarah Crompton explored why a new generation is falling for Agatha Christie.

For all you authors, a New York Times article profiled the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBN) and how its database of more than three million detailed images of spent shell casings from firearms, which have unique sets of scratches, grooves and dents, to help solve crimes.





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

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element chatted with Ben Aaronovitch, author of Lies Sleeping; and Brooke Hunter interviewed Australian Emily Webb, a journalist and author specializing in true crime, about her collection of shocking cases each of which has occurred in suburban Australia, titled Suburban Nightmare.

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Media Murder for Monday

I hope everyone in the U.S. enjoyed a happy, healthy, holiday weekend. But it's Monday again, which means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Tom Shepherd, who scripted Robert Downey Jr.’s forthcoming The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, has been signed to write Paramount's Matt Helm project, based on Donald Hamilton’s long-running book series of spy thrillers. Bradley Cooper is set to star as the title character, with George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci all serving as executive producers. Four of the books were made into films in the 1960s starring Dean Martin, but they were more spoofs of the source material. Hamilton’s Helm was a U.S. special agent/assassin during World War II who left the life to raise a family in Santa Fe but is forced to return to his former life.

The Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark, has found its lead in Alessandro Nivola, who is in final talks to play Dicky Moltisanti, Tony's (James Gandolfini) mentor and Christopher's (Michael Imperioli) father. The Many Saints of Newark takes place in the 1960s, more than 30 years before the HBO series, when Italians and African-Americans were essentially at war in New Jersey. Moltisanti is described as a "charismatic but violent man" who falls in love with his own father's extremely young bride. He's the mentor to a teenage Tony Soprano, who is under Moltisanti's tutelage after Tony's father goes to prison. Other Sopranos fan-favorite characters are also expected to appear in the film.

The latest and final Department Q film The Purity Of Vengeance has become the highest-grossing Danish film at the local box office. The latest installment, based on the fourth book in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s book series about crime unit Department Q, charts how a series of mysterious disappearances in 1987 are all eerily connected to the same person.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NCIS star and executive producer Mark Harmon is behind a new crime drama project at CBS, based on author John Sandford's best-selling Prey novels. The show would focus on Minneapolis homicide detective Lucas Davenport and his best friend and profiler, psychology professor and nun Elle Krueger. The two were brought together by a shared tragedy and now work together to hunt the most dangerous criminals in Minnesota.

Netflix has ordered the new docuseries The Innocent Man, based on John Grisham’s best-selling book, with a December 14 premiere. Innocent Man is a story that gained national attention thanks to Grisham’s nonfiction work, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. The Netflix six-part documentary series blends new footage with archival video and photos and focuses on two murders that shook the small town of Ada, Oklahoma, in the 1980s and the controversial chain of events that followed.

The Crown star Kate Phillips will take the lead role in Miss Scarlet and The Duke, a British crime drama that marks A+E Networks International’s first moves into international scripted co-productions.The series was created by the writer of Grantchester and The Mallorca Files, Rachael New, and follows the first ever-female detective in 19th century London.

AT&T Audience Network has ordered a third season of the drama Mr. Mercedes, based on the Stephen King novels, with 10 hour-long episodes. Brendan Gleeson will return to star as retired Detective Bill Hodges, who becomes obsessed with the psychopath Brady Hartsfield, a/k/a Mr. Mercedes (played by Harry Treadaway). Also returning is Holly Gibney (Justine Lupe), who became Detective Hodges' partner in a private investigative agency during the second season.

Chaske Spencer is joining the Season 4 cast of NBC’s Blindspot in a recurring role. Although details are mainly being kept under wraps, it is known that he'll be playing Dominic Masters, someone who works for Madeline Burke (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). In Season 4, Jane Doe/Remi (Jaime Alexander) continues to fight the effects of the ZIP poisoning she received in Season 3, which has destroyed her recent memory. This, as the FBI team hunts a dangerous enemy operative, and a deadly new foe emerges.

ABC’s summer procedural drama series Take Two was cancelled after it wrapped its 13-episode first-season run. The straight-to-series drama starred Rachel Bilson as Sam, the former star of a hit cop series who’s fresh out of rehab following a bender of epic proportions. Desperate to restart her career, she talks her way into shadowing rough-and-tumble private investigator Eddie (Eddie Cibrian) as research for a potential comeback role.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed law enforcement officer and author of authentic hard-boiled crime fiction, Gavin Reese.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe featured the Philip Marlowe radio episode “The Persian Slippers.”

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about Tom Cruise being too short for Jack Reacher, how boring the Goodreads Choice Awards are, and do a spoiler-filled discussion of the new Tana French book, The Witch Elm.

The latest Crime Files podcast was recorded live at the Rooftop Book Club event and featured authors Rachel Abbott, Elly Griffiths and Sabine Durrant, and was chaired by editor, Claire Frost.

The new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "What A Little Cinnamon Can Do," written by mystery author L. D. Barnes and read by Fresno actor Julia Reimer.

BBC Radio's Open Book podcast chatted with Lee Child, author of the phenomenally successful Jack Reacher series, who told host Mariella Frostrup why his famous creation continues to fascinate him.

THEATER

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time returns to the UK's National Theatre for a strictly limited season beginning November 29th. The play centers on the the young autistic Christopher, whose detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

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Indies First

Today is one of the busier shopping days of the year, and it's also time for the annual Small Business Saturday, a day to celebrate and support small businesses and all they do for their communities. As part of that, bookstores are celebrating the sixth annual Indies First program, which now includes more than 500 indie bookstores around the U.S. To find the closest bookseller near you, check out Indiebound's Indie Bookstore Finder.

            

FFB: Murder at the Villa Rose

British author Alfred Edward Woodley (A.E.W.) Mason, born in 1865, spent much of his career serving in Parliament and in World War I where he worked in naval intelligence. Although his first novel was A Romance at Wastdale, Mason is credited with one of the earliest fictional police detective protagonists, Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté. The novel in which Hanaud made his debut was Murder at the Villa Rose, published in 1910.



Mason created Hanaud as an anti-Sherlock Holmes, at least in appearance, a short, broad man who resembles a "prosperous comedian." Hanaud's Watson-esque sidekick is Julius Ricardo, a fussy English dilettante. It's quite possible that Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings (or possibly Christie's Mr. Satterthwaite) were modeled on the characters of French-speaking Hanaud and Englishman Ricardo.

The plot is based loosely on real cases (a wealthy French widow found murdered in her villa and an English shopkeeper murdered for jewels), and Mason also drew on procedural details from the memoirs of French policemen. Basically, when the elderly and eccentric Mme. D'Auvray is murdered in her home, the Villa Rose, and suspicion falls on her young companion, Celia Harland who's gone missing, Hanaud is called onto the case. But Hanaud solves the crime midway through the book, with the latter half told in flashback as the readers are left to piece together what exactly happened and are challenged to guess the solution to the murder mystery from the clues provided.

Several of Mason's works were later adapted for the silver screen, including four versions of Murder at the Villa Rose, a silent film in 1920 and two "talkies" from 1930 (one in English, one in French), and another in 1940. Mason went on to write four other books featuring Inspector Hanaud, but he's perhaps best known for his novel The Four Feathers (not a crime fiction novel per se), which is one of the most-filmed novels of the 20th century, including the latest incarnation from 2002 with Heath Ledger in the role of Harry Feversham.

A few interesting trivia bits about Mason: England's King George V was a friend and one of his most avid readers; although Mason penned little in the way of spy stories, he was a successful agent for years in Spain and Northern Mexico (it's said he may have foiled a German plot to move anthrax infected livestock into France during WWI); Mason was a failed actor, although he appeared in a small number of works on the London stage during the late 1880s; his story "The Crystal Trench" was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, one of the few episodes directed by Hitchcock himself; and Mason was offered a knighthood for his literary work, but declined it, saying such honors meant nothing to a childless man.

            

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for each and every one of you, my blog readers, followers, and subscribers, and also to the readers and fans of my novels and stories. Hope all of you in the U.S. have a joyful holiday and wishing everyone everywhere peace and prosperity.

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