B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 153

Author R&R with J.J. Hensley

J.J. Hensley is a former police officer and former Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service. He's the author of the novels Resolve, Measure Twice, Chalk’s Outline, Bolt Action Remedy, and Record Scratch. He graduated from Penn State University with a B.S. in Administration of Justice and has a M.S. degree in Criminal Justice Administration from Columbia Southern University. Hensley’s first novel, Resolve, was named one of the Best Books of 2013 by Suspense Magazine and was named a Thriller Award finalist for Best First Novel.  



Record Scratch (due out this week) is the second installment of the series featuring private eye and former secret service agent Trevor Galloway and centers on a woman who wants to hire Galloway to not only solve her brother’s homicide, but recover a vinyl record she believes could ruin his reputation. He doesn't want or need the case, but when the potential client closes the meeting by putting a gun under her chin and pulling the trigger, his sense of obligation drags him down a path he may not be ready to travel. 



As Galloway pieces together the final days of rock and roll legend Jimmy Spartan, he struggles to sort through his own issues which include having the occasional hallucination. He’s not certain how bad his condition has deteriorated, but when Galloway is attacked in broad daylight by men he assumed were figments of his imagination, he realizes the threat is real and his condition is putting him and anyone nearby at risk. The stoic demeanor that earned Galloway the nickname The Tin Man is tested as he reunites with an old flame, becomes entangled in a Secret Service investigation, and does battle with old enemies.



Hensley stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R talking about "Research, Records, and Receipts":

 

I like Vince.

Vince is a nice guy. Vince runs Galaxie Electronics in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh and happens to be an encyclopedia of information about record players, turntables, and vinyl albums. Vince and I spoke at length with the understanding I might use both him and his shop as references in a novel I was planning to write. I did make it clear I couldn’t guarantee the safety of the semi-fictional character nor the store that I ended up naming Planetary Electronics. Vince was more that okay with that arraignment. Poor, sweet, innocent, Vince.

 

Hopefully, Vince will still speak with me and he’ll understand how incredibly valuable he was to the creation of Record Scratch. Vince is one of many people who have saved me from making horrible errors over the years and allowed me to plug in details readers find interesting. I’m often amazed when writers make basic mistakes that could have been avoided by not only conducting simple online research but by making a few phone calls or going out an interviewing people face-to-face. It’s amazing how many people are excited to help an author get the details right and most aren’t even offended, and sometimes may be flattered, if some thinly-veiled version of himself ends up getting massacred in chapter seven.

Over the past few years, I’ve researched blacksmithing, sniper rifles, the sport of biathlon, and several other specialized topics I wouldn’t have taken the time to learn about if it were not for writing. It’s fairly easy to get motivated to become educated on specialized material because it’s new and exciting. However, many errors are made in novels because of the presumption of knowledge. Much of this comes from television where we have spent decades hearing criminal suspects and lawyers claim that Miranda rights must always be administered to a suspect or watching cops chamber rounds into weapons that in real life would have already been ready to fire. Many authors assume this information is true and think certain “facts” aren’t worth researching. Unfortunately, that is when basic errors occur, especially in crime fiction. Thanks largely to the indoctrination we receive from Hollywood productions, writers have to be careful when making assumptions as to what constitutes reality. Even when we have experience in a certain area, the research never ends.

Case in point, I have an extensive background in law enforcement. However, methodologies and technologies change and many of the tools used on the job today weren’t available to me (garble garble) years ago. I narrowly avoided making an error in one of my books when I was writing a scene that involved pepper spray. I was going to have an officer carry a specific type of spray that I happened to know was extremely effective because not only had I carried it when I was a police officer, I’d been sprayed with it in the academy. Trust me. It was effective. Anyway, something made me think I should check with a friend who is still active in my former department to see if they still carried that brand of spray.

“Oh, no!” he told me.

I asked why not.

“It turns out it’s a bit flammable when used with Tasers.”

Good to know!

Well, back when I was a police officer in Virginia we didn’t have Tasers. The technology had changed and I nearly made a silly error in a novel. Now you might be thinking that nobody would have noticed that kind of mistake. Someone…always…notices. And although many writers have better luck getting organ donations rather than Amazon reviews, it will be THAT individual who will write multiple scathing online reviews pointing out the writer’s complete lack of knowledge and total abundance of laziness. That’s just the way it works.

These are some of the reasons I conducted so much research for Record Scratch. Vince was kind enough to help me with the mechanics surrounding equipment not many people understand or appreciate. My brother, who happens to work in the music business, gave me a crash course on recording studios, soundproofing, and an assortment of other items. The chief of a police department in Pennsylvania met with me to explain various training requirements in the state and the sharing of jurisdictional resources. And I may have purchased a turntable, speakers, and several vinyl albums in the process. Research. It’s all about the research. You hear me, IRS?

Note:  Always keep receipts for your research.

 

J.J. Hensley's Record Scratch is on sale this week via Down & Out Books and all major booksellers. You can learn more about Hensley and his books through his website and blog and follow him Facebook and Twitter.

            

Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again, which means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news on screens both big and small:

THE BIG SCREEN

Michael B. Jordan will star in and produce Lionsgate’s film adaptation of assassin story The Silver Bear. A director has not yet been attached to the project, announced last week. The film is based on the book series by Derek Haas (the screenwriter for Wanted and 3:10 to Yuma) and centers on an assassin named Columbus — called the Silver Bear by some — who tracks a powerful politician with presidential aspirations.

IFC Films has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to Out Of Blue. The crime drama, written and directed by Carol Morley, had its premiere at this year’s Toronto Film Festival and will be released in theaters sometime next year. Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile), Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom), James Caan (Misery), Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and Mamie Gummer (End Of Tour) star. Based on the novel by Martin Amis, the story follows a New Orleans homicide detective Mike Hoolihan (Clarkson) as she investigates the shooting of leading astrophysicist and black hole expert Jennifer Rockwell (Gummer). As she gets deeper into the case, her quest for the truth completely shakes her view of the universe, and ultimately herself.

Liam Hemsworth and Vince Vaughn are heading to Arkansas, Clark Duke’s feature directorial debut that Duke wrote and will also star in. Arkansas follows a pair of low level drug runners in the Dixie Mafia, Kyle (Hemsworth) and Swin (Duke), who live by the orders of an Arkansas-based drug kingpin Frog (Vaughn), whom they’ve never met. But when a deal goes horribly wrong, deadly consequences are soon to rattle the duo’s routine lives.

Eve, the upcoming crime drama starring Jessica Chastain, has added Joan Chen and Academy Award-winner Geena Davis to its cast. The plot for the film is being kept under wraps, but the production companies on the project, Voltage Pictures and Freckle Films, describe it as" a character-driven action-drama."

Don Johnson and Blade Runner 2049 actress Ana de Armas are set to join Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Lakeith Stanfield, and Michael Shannon in writer-director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. Shooting is due to begin next month on the modern-day murder mystery which will see Craig star as a detective, although the plot and character details are largely being kept under wraps.

After co-starring in last year’s successful Murder on the Orient Express, Tom Bateman is set to return as Bouc in the 20th Century Fox feature adaptation of Death on the Nile, which will now be released October 2, 2020, instead of December 20, 2019. The latest Agatha Christie film also will see the return of Kenneth Branagh as director and in the role of Hercule Poirot, and Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer also attached to star.

Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, and Henry Czerny have come aboard Fox Searchlight’s Ready or Not thriller, which is being directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, with Samara Weaving and Andie MacDowell previously announced to star in the film. The plot centers on a young bride (Weaving) as she joins her new husband’s (O’Brien) rich, eccentric family (Brody, Czerny, and MacDowell) in a time-honored tradition that turns into a lethal game with everyone fighting for their survival.

A trailer was released for Destroyer, starring an unrecognizable Nicole Kidman as LAPD detective Erin Bell who was placed undercover as a young cop with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has put in development the cop drama Ranger, inspired by James Patterson’s recently released best-selling novel, Texas Ranger. The project hails from American Sniper writer Jason Hall, and centers on a Texas Ranger and his cantankerous father move to South Florida where the Ranger becomes a homicide detective and searches for his brother’s killer.

ABC has landed Wolfe, a crime drama from former Bones producer Kathy Reichs and executive producer/co-showrunner Michael Peterson, who also serves as writer on the project. Wolfe centers on veterinarian Dr. Charles Wolfe, who has a unique perspective on homicide, believing murder is a primal, animalistic act, and killers are animals. After getting elected coroner of Boulder, CO, Wolfe partners with his mirror opposite, FBI profiler Kristin Faulk, who is confident Wolfe is dead wrong and that it is nurture, not nature, that leads a person to murder.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to an hour-long female-focused FBI drama from former Queen Sugar showrunner Monica Macer, Thruline and 20th Century Fox TV. Written by Macer, the Untitled FBI Women Project (aka The Tribe) is inspired by journalist and author Doug Stanton’s interviews of women in law enforcement. It is a character-driven drama set inside the New York City field office of the FBI featuring the stories of three female agents as they struggle to balance their professional and personal lives. 

NBC has given a put pilot commitment to Emergence, a mystery drama from Kevin (Probably) Saves The World creators/executive producers Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, director Paul McGuigan and ABC Studios. Written by Fazekas and Butters, Emergence centers around a sheriff who takes in a young child that she finds near the site of a mysterious accident who has no memory of what has happened. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined, and the child’s identity is at the center of it all.

Shades of Blues star/executive producer Jennifer Lopez has teamed with co-star Vincent Laresca for a new cop drama, which has been put in development by NBC. The project, Blood Ties, hails from former The Mentalist executive producer Tom Szentgyorgyi, who also serves as screenwriter. Blood Ties is a procedural crime show in the vein of NYPD Blue, in which convicted homicide detective Steve Horvath is exonerated and given his job back but finds he now has unconventional insight about the criminals he faces. Teaming up with an unexpected rookie who has a secret agenda of his own, Horvath must learn to adapt to life outside of prison while trying to figure out who framed him and why.

Shades of Blue creator Adi Hasak is teaming with Red Arrow Studios International and Universal Television to develop a U.S. version of popular German series The Last Cop (Der Letzte Bulle). The Last Cop tells the story of Mick Briggs, an alpha male detective, who wakes up from a 25-year coma and struggles to find his identity as a man, husband and father in a world he neither recognizes nor understands.

British producer Synchronicity Films is lining up the next project from The Cry author Helen FitzGerald, which the author is still writing and will be released in 2020. The BBC One drama is said to be a domestic disaster noir story set in a small town. The Broadchurch-style tale explores small-town secrets in an action-packed thriller format that features a devastating bush fire and its impact on a community. 

Another classic series is coming back to television without rebooting its entire universe—in fact, it's killing off a major character. NYPD Blue is getting a revival but the premise revolves around the death of original series protagonist Andy Sipowicz (played by Dennis Franz). The new show would be based on Theo Sipowicz, who followed in his father's footsteps and pursued law enforcement. His goal is to earn his shield as a detective and investigate crime out of his dad's old 15th precinct, including using his NYPD resources to investigate his dad's murder.

Doubt creators Joan Rater and Tony Phelan have sold two dramas to NBC including Trust, based on the French-language format Banking District, which is described as part thriller, part family drama. It follows psychology professor Michaela Murphy as she unexpectedly takes over her family’s banking business when her brother suspiciously falls into a coma. In order to save her brother’s life, the bank and her family’s legacy, Michaela must contend with her estranged family and in doing so begins to uncover a host of long-buried secrets.

Fox is developing the police drama Deputy from David Ayer and former LAPD detective Will Beall. The project is being made with the full cooperation of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and centers on Deputy Bill Hollister, a career lawman who’s very comfortable kicking down doors and utterly lost in a staff meeting. But when the LA County Sheriff drops dead, Bill becomes acting sheriff of Los Angeles County, in charge of 10,000 sworn deputies policing a modern Wild West.

Martin Freeman will star in the six-part drama, A Confession, for UK’s ITV. Written by Jeff Pope, the series tells the story of how Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, played by Freeman, deliberately breached police procedure and protocol to catch a killer, a decision that ultimately cost him his career and reputation. 

The Scorpion and X-Files star Robert Patrick is boarding Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix drama, The Laundromat, taking on the role of Captain Perry. He joins an ensemble cast of Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, David Schwimmer, and Will Forte in the story that centers around one of the largest money laundering schemes ever, "The Panama Papers," documents that linked money laundering to politicians and powerful higher-ups such as U.S. President Donald Trump.

Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno is set for a leading role opposite Sophia Bush in CBS’ drama pilot Surveillance. The project is described as a complex and timely spy thriller centered around the head of communications for the NSA (Bush), a charming operative who finds her loyalties torn between protecting the government’s secrets and her own. Sandino Moreno will play Natalie, who oversees all active operations at the NSA, the first woman to do so – and she’s excellent at her job. She is fiercely loyal to Maddy (Bush), her close colleague and longtime friend, and the two are like sisters.

Enrico Colantoni is set to join Kristen Bell in Hulu’s eight-episode Veronica Mars revival. He will reprise his series regular role from the original of Keith Mars, Veronica’s (Bell) father and head of Mars Investigations. The hour-long limited series, slated to premiere in 2019, hails from Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, who will pen the first episode. In the revival, spring breakers are getting murdered in Neptune, thereby decimating the seaside town’s lifeblood tourist industry. 

After finding huge success in the United Kingdom, Bodyguard will make its way stateside on October 24 when it debuts on Netflix. Bodyguard tells the story of David Budd (Richard Madden), a heroic, but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Branch (RasP) of London’s Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, could he become her biggest threat?

CBS has handed back-orders to three more freshman series, including Magnum P.I, the reboot starring Jay Hernandez. Although the show got off to a modest ratings start, it improved its programming block by fifty percent-plus over last season’s low-rated comedies.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest episode of Two Crime Writers and a Microphone is titled "Would a Crime Writer Lie to You!," and recorded in front of a live audience at the Bloody Scotland crime festival. The featured authors include Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Abir Mukherjee, Denise Mina, Sarah Pinborough, Will Dean, Mark Billingham, Stuart Neville, and Howard Linskey.

Suspense Radio Inside Edition welcomed Marnie Riches (The Girl Who Wouldn't Die) and Reavis Wortham (Gold Dust) to the show.

James Scott Bell, a winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for his novel, Romeo’s Way, and the #1 bestselling author of books on the craft of writing, was the latest featured guest on Meet the Thriller Writer podcast.

D.P. Lyle's podcast, Criminal Mischief: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction, focused on "Writing Modern Crime Fiction."

Kings River Life Magazine Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "The Mercy Killer," written by mystery author Merrilee Robson and read by Kingsburg actor Thomas Nance.

Self-Publishing Journeys spoke with UK indie thriller writer Nathan Burrows about his trilogy of dark comedy thrillers based in Norfolk.

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Sunday Music Treat

Last Sunday, I featured Franz Lizst's Totentanz, which features the iconic Dies Irae chant melody, as part of the "spooky music" theme for October. This week, here's another use of the same Dies Irae chant, this time in the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, the last movement which is titled "Witches Sabbath":

 

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Quote of the Week

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FFB: Fool's Gold

Edward John "Ted" Wood, was born in Sussex, England in 1931 and served in the RAF following the Second World War. In 1954 he emigrated to Canada and was a Toronto police officer for three years before switching to advertising and copyrighting. The dual law enforcement/writing experience prompted him to pen several published crime fiction (and non-genre) short stories and a teleplay.



His first novel was Dead in the Water in 1984, a police procedural that won the Scribner's Crime Novel Award and was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel. It was the first of what became a series featuring policeman Reid Bennett, an ex-marine and Vietnam vet, who relocated to the small fictional Canadian resort town of Murphy's Harbour after he took a bad rap for murdering two guys to prevent a rape. He's aided by his trusty German Shepherd, Sam, who serves as companion and protector.



In Fool's Gold, the fourth novel in the series (also nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award), gold found in the mountains of Canada prompts a sudden influx of prospectors, chopper pilots, construction workers and drifters, all hoping to get rich quick. It also brings the dead body of geologist Jim Prudhomme, who's found mauled beyond recognition presumably by a bear, even though bear attacks in that area are rare. But the mystery increases when a witness claims to have seen Prudhomme days after the murder, and then Prudhomme turns up dead for real. As Bennett digs deeper, he doesn't discover gold but rather a plot to defraud the gold mine. With the help of the local police chief out for one last big case and a beautiful motel keeper with secrets of her own, Bennett races to get to the bottom of the scheme, dodging blackmailers, vengeful miners, and a mounting body count.

 

A tendency to skirt the rules makes Bennett take chances that aren't always credible, but Woods' plots are known for their many twists and turns, and also witty dialogue and elements of suspense. Fans of the series are particularly fond of Sam, who Publisher's Weekly described as "…a multi-talented utility infielder who can 'keep,' 'track,' 'seek,' 'fight,' 'guard,' sniff out cocaine and corpses, save lives and generally pinch-hit for a dozen patrolmen."



Woods went on to write 10 Bennett novels in all (from 1984 to 1995) and three novels featuring private eye John Locke from 1986 to 1991 (written under the pen name Jack Barnao). Woods also also served as president of the Crime Writers of  Canada from 1987 to 1988.

            

Mystery Melange

The musical crime fiction 'supergroup', The Fun Lovin' Crime Writers, will perform in Belfast on November 2 as special guests of the NOIReland International Crime Fiction Festival. Group members, which include Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Christopher Brookmyre, Luca Veste, Doug Johnstone, and Stuart Neville, will perform a set of crime-themed hits at Oh Yeah preceded by a Q&A with Belfast author Steve Cavanagh, who will probe the players on their careers, musical passions and latest books.

Midnight Ink Acquisitions Editor Terri Bischoff posted on her Facebook page that the publisher will be shutting its doors after the Spring/Summer 2019 season. Since its launch in 2005, the company has released crime fiction in all subgenres by authors such as Jess Lourey, Brendan DuBois, G.M. Malliet, Steve Hockensmith, Catriona McPherson, E.J. Cooperman and Jeff Cohen, Sue Ann Jaffarian, Kellye Garrett, Keith Raffel, J.D. Allen, Gwen Florio, Leonard Goldberg, Patricia Smiley, and Bill Cameron. (HT to the Rap Sheet)

Mystery Fanfare has a list of Halloween-themed crime fiction to give you all the thrills and chills you want to celebrate the holiday.

The latest issue of Yellow Mama is up on the web, filled with gruesome tales, creepy poetry, and plenty of Halloween noir fitting for October.





Last week marked the passing of author Evelyn Anthony at the age of 92. A prolific author of more than 50 novels, including The Tamarind Seed, which was turned into a hit film in 1974, Anthony also wrote spy thrillers, having spotted a gap in the market for such books. She was aided by contacts made through her father, Lt Commander Henry Stephens, the inventor of a top-secret anti-aircraft gunnery simulator, who'd worked with British intelligence officers in the war. Among them was Desmond Bristow, who, with Kim Philby, had recruited one of the most important double agents of the war, and his stories inspired Anthony's books The Rendezvous (1967) and The Poellenberg Inheritance (1972).

We also lost writer Margaret Hinxman, who has died aged 94. She was one of the influential band of female critics who did much to encourage film in postwar Britain then turned her hand to crime novels at the age of 60. Between 1976 and 1991 she published, under the Collins Crime Club imprint, nine thrillers, including One-way Cemetery (1977), The Night They Murdered Chelsea (1984) and Nightmare in Dreamland (1991).

A group of murder-mystery enthusiasts in Canada's Charlottetown is inviting folks to retrace the steps taken by two men convicted for murdering an elderly shopkeeper in 1941. The group, calling themselves the Mystery Gang, has organized a walk based on the route taken by the two men the night of the murder of Peter Trainor. Earl Lund and Fred Phillips were charged and hanged at the Queens County Jail — also called the 1911 jail — for Trainor's murder. Both men went to the gallows denying they did it. The group will be doing two walks on Oct. 28, with money raised to go toward more research into Peter Trainor's murder and shedding light on other Island mysteries. 

 

As the New York Times reported, law enforcement has a new tool in the rapidly expanding use of DNA testing services like 23andMe and Ancestry.com, with data poured into a database called GEDmatch. Within two or three years, 90 percent of Americans of European descent will be identifiable from their DNA tied to relatives who have used the services even if the individual has not. While this revolution has led to the solving of fifteen murder and sexual assault cases, the privacy questions are numerous and troubling.

I don't think this is surprising at all, but parents take note: a new study reveals that growing up in a home filled with books makes kids smarter.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Nonbeliever, as the Dark of the Year Approaches" by Clarinda Harriss.

In the Q&A roundup, the Los Angeles Review of Books spoke with Sarah Schulman about her new crime novel, Maggie Terry, which follows Maggie, an addict, an alcoholic, and a former police officer who has lost custody of her daughter, as she moves through her first five days back on the job as a private investigator; the Mystery People chatted with Helen Currie Foster about her latest mystery to feature Texas lawyer Alice MacDonald Greer, Ghost Next Door; and the Houston Chronicle interviewed Walter Mosley about his writing, his latest novel, and neighborhood heroes.

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Media Murder for Monday

Welcome to a new Monday and a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Lawrence Kasdan (of Star Wars fame) is turning his attention next to the JFK assassination, acquiring the film rights to November Road, the new novel from Edgar Award-winning author Lou Berney. The story follows Frank Guidry, who is connected to the president's murder, and when other loose ends begin dying all around him, Frank knows he’s next. Hunted by a ruthless hitman hired by his ex-boss, Frank heads across the desert where he meets Charlotte Roy, who is running away from her small-town life and abusive alcoholic husband with two young daughters and an epileptic dog in tow. Guidry sees this instant family scenario as the perfect cover, and Charlotte sees him as her best chance at a new life—if they can escape before his past catches up to them.

Liam Neeson and Kate Walsh are set to star in Honest Thief, a film to be directed by Mark Williams, who co-created the hit Netflix series Ozark. Neeson plays a career bank robber who meets the love his life in Annie (Walsh), a clerk at 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. When the case is turned over to a crooked FBI agent, everything becomes far more dangerous and difficult.

Emmy winner Sarah Paulson (American Crime Story: The People v. O. J. Simpson) has been tapped as the lead in the Lionsgate thriller, Run, which will reunite the team behind the Sundance award-winning film, Searching, with its helmer Aneesh Chaganty attached to direct. The story follows a teenaged girl, raised in total isolation by her mother (Paulson), whose life begins to unravel as she discovers her mother’s sinister secret.

Freya Tingley (Hemlock Grove) and Paul Rae (True Grit) will star in the indie thriller Year Of The Detectives, which goes into production this month in LA. Tingley will play Nic O’Connell who inherits her grandfathers’ long-running private detective agency in the heart of Chinatown. She and her co-inheritor must put aside their differences to solve the final mystery of their grandparents’ deaths, with Rae playing the detective who reluctantly joins their effort as the bodies pile up. 

Golden Globe winner Rachel Brosnahan is set to co-star with Benedict Cumberbatch in the Cold War drama, Ironbark. Dominic Cooke is on board to direct the feature from a screenplay by The Hitman’s Bodyguard scribe Tom O’Connor. The project is based on the true story of Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch), a British businessman who helped the CIA penetrate the Soviet nuclear program during the Cold War. Wynne and his Russian source, Oleg Penkovsky, provided the crucial intelligence that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis. Brosnahan will play Emily Donovan, the brilliant, determined CIA agent who runs Wynne and Penkovsky’s espionage operation.

Matthew McConaughey is joining writer/director Guy Ritchie in a return to British crime dramas via Toff Guys. McConaughey will star alongside Kate Beckinsale and Crazy Rich Asians breakout star Henry Golding in the story that explores the collision between old money in Europe and the modern marijuana industrial complex with new gang entrants swarming.

The mystery drama Knives Out keeps filling out its all-star roster. Following the producers' announcement Daniel Craig and Chris Evans were set to co-star, comes news that Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water, The Little Drummer Girl) will also be joining the project, the plot of which is, well, mysterious thus far, but is described "as a modern-day murder mystery in the classic Agatha Christie whodunit style."

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Netflix has picked up The Laundromat, the Steven Soderbergh-directed drama about the Panama Papers scandal. David Schwimmer has just joined an all-star cast led by Oscar-winning Darkest Hour star Gary Oldman, The Post's Meryl Streep and Life Itself's Antonio Banderas. The film has a script by Scott Z. Burns, based on the Jake Bernstein book, Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite.

Writer-director Leslye Headland will adapt and direct the movie thriller Tell Me Everything for Netflix, which preemptively swooped on screen rights to the project earlier this year. It’s based on Cambria Brockman’s debut novel, which Ballantine acquired at auction for a June 2019 street date. Set at an elite college in small-town New England, it follows the shifting alliances and romantic entanglements of six tight-knit students — until one of them is murdered.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to Saturday Night Special, a police drama from Black List writer Robert Specland. Saturday Night Special is a grounded police soap exploring a tight-knit group of Washington D.C. cops with focus on "the wildest, most dangerous shift of the week, giving us an in-depth look at the police force from the top down, Lieutenant to rookies, and how a job like this affects each of their lives, and their lives affect the job."

Rob Lowe is set to star in the six-part British crime drama Wild Bill for ITV, playing the high-flying US cop, Bill Hixon, who is appointed Chief Constable of the East Lincolnshire Police Force. The story follows follow Lowe’s Hixon as he lands in Lincolnshire with his 14 year-old daughter Kelsey, hoping to flee their recent painful past. Whip-smart, acerbic and unstoppable, Bill is very good at what he does but from the outset Bill isn’t about making friends—until he soon discovers the people of Boston are just as smart-mouthed, cynical and difficult to impress as he is.

Tobias Lindholm, one of the writers behind the Danish TV hit Borgen, is to turn the murder of the Swedish journalist Kim Wall into a six-part TV series – but the killer, the self-taught rocket engineer Peter Madsen, will not feature. The project will instead primarily focus on the police investigation of Wall's murder when she went missing in August 2017 after boarding Madsen’s homemade submarine for a profile she was writing about him. Her dismembered body was found floating in the Copenhagen harbor shortly afterward. Madsen maintains that Wall died in an accident on the submarine, and that he “buried her at sea,” but he was found guilty of her murder in April.

Paris-based company About Premium Content is on board to co-finance The Murders, a gritty eight-part Canadian police thriller series. Gotham's Jessica Lucas stars as Kate Jameson, a rookie homicide detective who searches for redemption in her investigative work after indirectly causing the death of a fellow officer. Jameson is partnered with detective Mike Huntley (Lochlyn Munroe) with whom she navigates the case of a mysterious serial killer who uses music for destructive ends.

A Star is Born's Rafi Gavron is set as a series regular opposite Forest Whitaker and Vincent D’Onofrio in Godfather of Harlem, Epix’s straight-to-series crime drama. Written and executive produced by Chris Brancato (Narcos) and Paul Eckstein, Godfather of Harlem is inspired by the true story of infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson (Whitaker), who in the early 1960s returned from ten years in prison to find the neighborhood he once ruled in shambles. With the streets controlled by the Italian mob, Bumpy must take on the Genovese crime family to regain control and forms an alliance with radical preacher Malcolm X. Gavron plays Ernie Nunzi, a flashy young mobster with dreams of getting “made,” into the Genovese Family.

Katherine LaNasa (Imposters) has joined the cast of Are You Sleeping, the upcoming Apple thriller drama series starring Octavia Spencer and Lizzy Caplan, in a major recurring role. She'll play a new character that replaces the one previously played by Moon Bloodgood who was cast as a series regular on the show but exited after four of the eight Season 1 episodes were filmed. As part of the recasting, the role of Poppy’s right hand was re-conceived, and LaNasa will play Noa Havilland, Poppy’s (Spencer) producing partner. Are You Sleeping is based on the true-crime novel by Kathleen Barber and takes a look into America’s obsession with true-crime podcasts, challenging its viewers to consider the consequences when the pursuit of justice is placed on a public stage.

Ozark has been renewed for a third season of 10 episodes at Netflix. The crime drama stars Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Sofia Hublitz, Skylar Gaertner, Julia Garner, Jason Butler Harner, Peter Mullan, and Lisa Emery and focuses on the Byrde family, with patriarch Marty (Bateman) working as a financial adviser as well as a money launderer for a Mexican drug cartel.

The first trailer for AMC’s upcoming miniseries Little Drummer Girl was released, and it features Alexander Skarsgard, Michael Shannon and Florence Pugh in an international game of espionage. The 1970s-set thriller is based on John le Carré’s novel of the same name, and tells the story of young actress Charlie (Pugh), who gets caught up in Israeli intelligence officer Becker’s complex and high-stakes plot orchestrated by Spymaster Kurtz (Shannon).

Bravo released a trailer for Dirty John, its upcoming series based on the true-crime podcast of the same name. It follows the twisted story of Debra Newell Stewart, a divorceé in Los Angeles who meets the too-good-to-be-true John Meehan on a dating site. They hit it off and things move at warp speed, but something is amiss from the start.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Suspense Magazine's Story Blender podcast welcomed Karin Slaughter to discuss her passion for sharing empowering and honest stories of women including her latest novel, Pieces of Her.

The legendary Lawrence Block stopped by the Writer Types podcast. Hosts Eric Beetner and S.W. Lauden also asked five questions with Stephen Jay Schwartz, and Karen Olson sat down for a chat. Plus this week's Unpanel featured award winners Meg Gardiner, Attica Locke, and Kristen Lepionka.

The latest Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast Featuring the first Haunted Bookshop Mystery by Cleo Coyle, The Ghost and Mrs. McClure, with excerpts read by Max Debbas.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about some casting news, other exciting podcasts, lots of Tana French mentions, plus some book recommendations for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Lou Berney and his new novel November Road, where cataclysmic events, chance encounters, and unintended consequences collide.

THEATER

The Metropolitan Opera will premiere Nico Muhly's Marnie on October 19. The production is a re-imagining of Winston Graham’s thriller novel set in the 1950s about a beautiful, mysterious young woman who assumes multiple identities. Director Michael Mayer and his creative team have devised a fast-moving, cinematic world for the twisty story of denial and deceit, which also inspired a film by Alfred Hitchcock. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard sings the enigmatic Marnie, and baritone Christopher Maltman is the man who pursues her—with disastrous results

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Sunday Music Treat

'Tis the month of Halloween, so it seems appropriate to feature "spooky" music this month. What better than the Totentanz (literally "Dance of Death") by Franz Liszt. The work includes the iconic Gregorian chant "Dies Irae," used in my Scott Drayco novel, Dies Irae. Here's a performance with pianist Beatrice Berrut and the Berlin Philharmonic:

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Quote of the Week

            

Mystery Melange

The Wonderland Ballroom in Washington, D.C., will host an event as part of the "Chilled to the Marrow" Noir at the Bar series on October 27 from 5-6:30. Author Duane Swierczynski is a beloved member of the crime fiction community, and his daughter Evie is currently undergoing treatment for leukemia, which has taken a financial toll. So, Philadelphia crime writer Jon McGoran came up with an idea to have a series of Noir at the Bars as fundraisers, with all the proceeds going to the "Team Evie" GoFundMe. E.A. Aymar will host and wrangle a team of authors including Kathleen Barber, Tara Campbell, Aimee Hix, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Angie Kim, Adam Meyer, Deb Shutika, Erica Wright, and Jenny Yacovissi for readings and book signings. This event will be FREE to attend, but they are asking for donations for Team Evie throughout the night, and all of the book sales will go to that cause.

Also helping out the Swierczynski family is a charity auction thanks to the crime fiction festival Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee. This year's charity auction will raise money for The Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee and make a donation in honor of their daughter "who has been facing her health crisis like a superhero." They're looking for signed books, character names from authors willing to put winners in their next book or anything else you think people might want to bid on. For more information, check out this info from Crimespree Magazine.

Georgia Fancett has been awarded a £20,000 publishing contract with Century for her police procedural The Fifth Girl, her prize after winning the Daily Mail and Penguin Random House's First Novel Competition, now in its third year. The Fifth Girl is described as "a hard-hitting police procedural novel in which four girls have been found murdered in similarly gruesome circumstances" by the Daily Mail, featuring a gay detective, DI Alice Warnes, who is paired with "a lazy, Trump-loving bigot" for her fellow detective partner.

The inaugural Capital Crime festival in London, scheduled to take place September 26-28 of 2019, will begin selling a limited number of specially priced early bird weekend and day passes next week, on October 15. Founded by David Headley and Adam Hamdy, Capital Crime is a new festival dedicated to all things crime and thriller, from book to screen. (HT to Ayo Ontade at Shots)

A bit of sad news this week, as reported by Mystery Fanfare: MaryAlice Gorman, founder and longtime owner of the Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Pittsburgh, PA, has passed away. She was a great supporter of the mystery community, and she and her husband Richard Goldman were honored with the Raven Award, handed out annually by The Mystery Writers of America for outstanding achievements and leadership contributions to the mystery genre.

The Five Minute Library blog posted a list of 100 reasons libraries are better than Amazon or Starbucks.

Here are some sites to put on your bucket list: ten of the oldest libraries in the world. Or, maybe you'd prefer some of the "weirdest libraries around the world."

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Lesson Plan" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, UK Climbing magazine chatted with 94-year-old Gwen Moffat about her climbing- and mountain-themed crime novels, which are now being released in electronic form (I featured one of Moffat's books as an FFB); Tana French spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her latest novel, The Witch Elm, and why she loves writing mysteries; Tana French was also interviewed on Crimereads, where she made the case that "we're all unreliable narrators"; and the Mystery People spoke with Reavis Wortham about the latest in his Red River mystery series, Gold Dust, which heads off in different directions with plots involving a CIA experiment, modern cattle rustles, and a fake gold rush.

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