B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 155

Mystery Melange

Sisters in Crime NorCal is sponsoring a Mystery Writing Intensive Workshop, October 6, in Daly City, CA. The special guest authors and workshop leaders include Jessica Lourey, Catriona McPherson, Gene Brenek, and Marla Cooper. The one-day event includes craft workshops and discussions geared toward writers at any stage of their journey, a wine reception, and even door prizes.

Belfast’s NOIRELAND International Crime Festival is switching to spring (March 8-10) for the 2019 conference and will once again take place once again at Belfast’s iconic Europa Hotel. Although the full guest lineup won't be named until November, the weekend event will feature interviews and discussions with some of the greatest names from page and screen. The October 2017 included a Line of Duty event with its BAFTA-winning creator Jed Mercurio and star Adrian Dunbar, author panels with Robert Crais, Benjamin Black, Adrian McKinty, Arne Dahl and Liz Nugent, and a closing event with internationally renowned actor Aidan Gillen. 

Canongate is launching the crime fiction imprint Black Thorn in May 2019. The Bookseller reported that Black Thorn will publish a wide range of titles from Severn House, which Canongate acquired in 2017, in paperback for the first time. Two of the list's titles will be released each month, marking "the first time that many of these Severn House titles have been available to the trade." The 2019 lineup will launch with Catherine O'Connell's The Last Night Out and The Savage Shore by David Hewson. Publishing Coordinator Holly Domney said the variety of titles within Black Thorn's catalogue will "feed the hungriest of crime fiction readers who need to devour one mystery, then reach for the next one."

Oldcastle Books is launching a new digital-only genre imprint, Verve Books, which aims to publish "great, original, page-turning fiction." The imprint will launch with the spy thriller The Righteous Spy by Merle Nygate. (HT to the Bookseller)

The next issue of Mystery Readers Journal (Volume 34:3) will focus on mysteries that take place in the Far East, and editor Janet Rudolph is looking for Reviews, Articles, and Author! Author! essays. The deadline for submissions is October 10.

An army veteran and longtime detective-turned true crime writer who helped in the Ground Zero relief efforts has died following a long battle with a 9/11-related illness. Mark Gado would work his shift for the police department and then head to Ground Zero, where he’d spend the night volunteering before sleeping in his van. He was a proud Army combat veteran who also spent two years with the Drug Enforcement Agency, and became a true crime writer later in life. He authored several books, including Killer Priest: The Crimes, Trial, and Execution of Father Hans Schmid, about the only Catholic priest to be executed for murder in American history.

Writing for the Paris Review, Anne Diebel took a look at Dashiell Hammett's strange career path from messenger boy to Pinkerton National Detective Agency operative, to crime author.

Authors on the shortlist for this year's McIlvanney Prize For Crime Fiction offered up their respective takes on "the perfect crime."

The city of Wallingford in the UK may be getting its own Agatha Christie statue. The Queen of Crime lived in town, and the Wallingford Museum sponsors an annual Agatha Christie festival in the author's honor. Now, the same artist who created a memorial to Agatha Christie in London (a memorial in the form of a large bronze book, featuring the crime writer’s face) is being asked to complete a similar tribute in Wallingford which will likely take the form of the author seated on a bench reading a book.

Spy novelist Tom Clancy's 537-acre Chesapeake Bay estate could be yours for $6.2M

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Four More Years" by Robert Cooperman.

 

In the Q&A roundup, Lizzie Sirett chatted with Louise Penny on the eve of her appearnace at the Bloody Scotland festival coming up this weekend; it was the battle of the Pauls as Paul Heatley took the "Short Sharp Interview" challenge from Paul D. Brazill; and Sarah Weinman spoke with NPR's Scott Simon about her new book The Real Lolita, which makes the case that Vladimir Nokokov's inspiration for his classic Lolita novel was derived from a real-life kidnapping.

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Media Murder for Monday

Hope all those of you in the path of Florence and the storm's aftermath are safe this Monday morning (and it's always good to remind folks that the American Red Cross needs your help in times of disaster relief situations).

Meanwhile, here's the stormy Media Murder for Monday roundup of the latest crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

IIFC Films has acquired domestic rights to Judi Dench’s period spy thriller Red Joan for a 2019 theatrical release. Loosely inspired by the biography of British KGB agent Melita Norwood, the film is directed by Trevor Nunn and had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Written by Lindsay Shapero and based on Jennie Rooney’s best-selling novel of the same name, the story follows a retired scientist living in a London suburb who is arrested for crimes committed many years ago. 

Singer and actress Idina Menzel (Frozen) is joining Adam Sandler, Eric Bogosian, Lakeith Stanfield and Judd Hirsch in the cast of Uncut Gems. Set in the Diamond district of New York City, Sandler will star as a jewelry store owner with a gambling addiction who is juggling two relationships and escalating debts, with Menzel playing Sandler’s wife. 

Good news for James Bond fans who feared chaos after the departure of Danny Boyle from the upcoming Bond 25 film. Screenwriter Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who’ve been aboard the 007 franchise as story writers since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, are now turning their approved Bond 25 treatment into a script with elements from Boyle’s script and working them all into a new movie. A search is still underway by Eon and MGM for a new director and Deadline has heard that such names as Edgar Wright, Yann Demange, and David Mackenzie’s have been floated. 

Academy Award winner Melissa Leo and Bella Thorne have been tapped to star in Leave Not One Alive, an indie revenge thriller written and directed by Jordan Galland. The plot follows a theater actress, Lillian Cooper (Leo) whose son dies mysteriously. When the investigating officer (Michael Potts) rules the cause of death an accidental overdose, Lillian conducts her own investigation which leads her to an unlikely alliance with her son’s former drug dealer (Thorne). On her quest for answers, Lillian hallucinates some of the iconic characters she’s played on stage which serve as her inner voice, urging her to avenge her son’s death.

Pretty Little Liars alum Keegan Allen will star in an untitled social media thriller film along with Holland Roden, Ronen Rubinstein, Denzel Whitaker, hip hop recording artist Siya, social media star George Janko and Pasha Lychnikoff. The story centers on a social media personality who, along with his close friends and millions of online followers, travels to Moscow to capture new content for his successful vlog. Pushing the limits to excite and engage his growing audience, the group enters a cold world of mystery and excess at every turn, blurring the lines between game and danger until all of them must fight to survive. 

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) is set to star in and executive produce The Banker’s Wife, a high stakes international thriller drama series based on Cristina Alger’s book. The project (which has also snagged top TV writer-creator Meredith Stiehm and top TV director Lesli Linka Glatter) is inspired by the Panama Papers and set in the world of global finance from Geneva to Paris, London and New York, with two women racing for answers when a mysterious plane crash sets them off on parallel pursuits of truth. 

Grey Matter Productions and Topic Studios have set writer-director Oren Moverman to adapt The Good Girl, the debut thriller novel from Mary Kubica, into a thriller drama series. The story centers on the kidnapping-gone-wrong of Mia Dennett, the perfect daughter of a prominent Chicago judge. When she is abducted as part of a wild extortion plot, her kidnapper unexpectedly decides to hide her in a remote cabin for months, evading both the police and the criminals who want to use her to get to her father. The plot alternates timelines and the shifting points of view of Mia’s mother, her kidnapper, and the detective tasked with finding her in a quest to find out what really happened to Mia and how, even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems.

Fox has given put-pilot commitments to two high-profile cop drama projects, Connect and Prodigal Son. Connect described as "a high concept, adrenalized procedural" about a brash hero with a gift that he will use to assist his cop brother with whom he has a troubled relationship. Prodigal Son centers on Malcolm Bright who has the gift of knowing how killers think and how their minds work; his father was a notorious serial killer called “The Surgeon,” which led Bright to become the best criminal psychologist around since murder is the family business. 

Fans of the thriller Absentia can breathe a sigh of relief because Amazon has finally picked up a second season of the show starring and executive produced by Castle alumna Stana Katic.  New cast members joining season two — currently filming in Sofia, Bulgaria — include Matthew Le Nevez (The Widow) and Natasha Little (The Night Manager). Patrick Heusinger returns for season two as Emily’s (Katic) ex-husband and Special Agent Nick Durand. In season two, Emily's obsessive investigation into the questions that haunt her uncovers a serial killer and a spiraling conspiracy that threatens more than just her family. 

Oscar nominee Chloë Sevigny and The Carrie Diaries star AnnaSophia Robb are set to co-star opposite Patricia Arquette and Joey King in the first season of The Act, Hulu’s character-based anthology series that tells startling, stranger-than-fiction true crime stories. The first season is based on Dean’s 2016 Buzzfeed article “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered.” It follows Gypsy Blanchard (King), a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother, Dee Dee (Arquette). Her quest for independence opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, one that ultimately leads to murder.

The reboot of Charlie's Angels is going to have more than just three angels. Freshly-named Charlie's Angel Kristen Stewart explained in an interview with Variety that the reboot will feature a whole network of angels around the world who work together to get the job done. 

Amazon dropped a video trailer for the psychological thriller Homecoming starring Julia Roberts a caseworker at a secret government facility who works with a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed special guest Elly Griffiths, who talked about her Ruth Galloway series, her upcoming standalone novel, archaeology, her Italian roots and much more.

The Story Blender spoke with author KJ Howe about the follow-up to her exhilarating debut, The Freedom Broker.

Author Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer Elka Ray on the Crime Cafe podcast. Ray is the Canadian author of two novels, Saigon Dark and Hanoi Jane, a collection of short crime stories and has a romantic mystery coming out with Seventh Street Press in early 2019.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham discussed historical mysteries, Serial season 3 and more.

Speaking of Mysteries grilled Margaret Mizushima about her fourth Timber Creek K-9 mystery feauturing Officer Mattie Cobb and Robo, her German Shepherd partner.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Bob Mayer, the NY Times bestselling author of the series Area 51, The Green Berets, Atlantis and the Time Patrol.

Spybrary listeners voted overwhelmingly for Len Deighton's Berlin Game to be the first spy book to be discussed in the podcasts Spybrary book club edition, and a panel that includes Spybrary host Shane Whaley, Deighton expert Rob Mallows, and spy genre expert Peter Newman, take on the challenge.

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FFB: Home is the Prisoner

Jean Catherine Potts (1910-1999) started out writing mystery short stories, many of which appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Woman's Day. In 1954 she had her first novel published, Go, Lovely Rose, which won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. That was followed by 14 additional novels published in over seven foreign languages. One of those later novels,The Evil Wish, was an Edgar finalist in 1963 and optioned to be made into a movie starring Barbara Stanwyck and Sir Ralph Richardson, although that project apparently fell through.



Most of Potts' books are out of print now. Home is the Prisoner was released as part of the Black Dagger Crime Series by the Crime Writers' Association and their attempt to make hard-to-find exemplary works in various crime fiction subgenres available. It tells the story of Jim Singley, who spent six years in jail for manslaughter, as he returns to the small town and scene of the crime where almost no one—including his son, ex-wife, and former mistress—are glad to see him. Potts uses shifting third-person POVs, including Singley's friend Judge Mack McVey and thirteen-year-old Cleo, the daughter of the man Singley is supposed to have killed and whose testimony kept him from the death penalty. 

The late Edward D. Hoch, a prolific short-story writer himself, once said that Potts' ''characterization was perhaps her strongest suit, and she was especially good with her small-town, middle-American settings.'' This is certainly the case with Home is the Prisoner, where the shifting POV's allow the reader to see inside the minds and secrets of the various characters, allowing the story to slowly unfold as a rather poetic multi-layered psychological study. As one example, these thoughts from Cleo:

"Because Mother, for all her dependence, was not communicative. Or maybe just not articulate. Anyway, there was a lot of uncharted territory in her geography, great areas that Cleo knew absolutely nothing about. Had not wanted to know about. Jim Singley, for instance. They had both steered clear of him — Cleo out of a rich hash of emotions that included adolescent squeamishness, wrenched loyalties, shame and shock, not to mention her own privately owned nightmare. And Mother out of — what? Cleo discovered in herself a sudden, engulfing curiosity. It broke over her like a wave, carrying, as a wave carries shell fragments, seaweed and sand, its load of remembered gossip and prying, lip-licking questions."

In Potts' fictional world there are no true good or bad characters, just many shades of gray, but she writes them in a way that makes you care about them, warts and all.

            

Mystery Melange

With each annual Bouchercon convention comes news of a cornucopia of award winners, including the Anthony, Macavity, Shamus, and Barry Awards. This past weekend, the 2018 Anthonys were awarded to:

Best Novel: Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
Best First Novel: Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett
Best Paperback Original: The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day
Bill Crider Award for Best Novel in a Series: Y is for Yesterday (Kinsey Millhone #25) by Sue Grafton
Best Short Story: "My Side of the Matter" by Hilary Davidson from Killing Malmon
Best Anthology: The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, Gary Phillips, editor
Best Critical/Non-Fiction Book: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Best Online Content: Jungle Red Writers

This year's Macavity nods were as follows:

Best Mystery Novel: Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz
Best First Mystery Novel: The Lost Ones, by Sheena Kamal
Best Mystery-Related Nonfiction: The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, by Martin Edwards
Best Mystery Short Story: “Windward,” by Paul D. Marks, in Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea
Sue Feder Memorial Award: Best Historical Mystery: In Farleigh Field, by Rhys Bowen

The Shamus winners include:

Best Private Eye Novel: The Room of White Fire, by T. Jefferson Parker
Best First Private Eye Novel: The Last Place You Look, by Kristen Lepionka
Best Original Private Eye Paperback: Lights Out Summer, by Rich Zahradnik
Best P.I. Short Story: “Rosalie Marx is Missing,” by Robert S. Levinson (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

The Barry winners this year are:

Best Novel: The Marsh King's Daughter, by Karen Dionne
Best First Novel: The Dry by Jane Harper
Best Paperback Original: The Deep Dark Descending by Allen Eskens
Best Thriller: UNSUB, by Meg Gardiner

In honor of the Bouchercon conference, Crime Reads rounded up nominees for the Anthony Awards for their thoughts on the state of crime fiction today. You can read the first part here and the second part via this link.

Canongate is launching a new crime fiction imprint called Black Thorn in May 2019, following its acquisition of fiction publisher Severn House in 2017. Publishing a wide range of titles from Severn House’s list into paperback for the first time, Black Thorn will release two of the list's paperbacks each month, beginning with Catherine O’Connell’s The Last Night Out, and The Savage Shore by David Hewson, author of The Killing trilogy.

Penn State Professor of English Emeritus Richard Kopley was recently presented with the Lifetime Achievement and Service Award by the Poe Studies Association at the 2018 International Poe and Hawthorne Conference in Kyoto, Japan. Kopley is an internationally known author and literary scholar with expertise in classic American literature and one of the world’s foremost experts on Edgar Allan Poe. His published works include Edgar Allan Poe and the Dupin Mysteries, which takes an in-depth look at Poe’s detective stories that helped inspire the entire detective genre.

Internationally acclaimed thriller author Ken Follett has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire. More than 160 million copies of his 31 books have been sold in more than 80 countries and in 33 languages. In June this year, Follett was also made a CBE for services to literature and charity and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

From the truth is stranger than fiction department: Nancy L. Crampton Brophy, a romantic suspense author, was arrested for the murder of her culinary-instructor husband. Before her arrest, she had posted on Facebook about how devastated she was by his death and attended a candlelight vigil.

The New York Post reported on a political columnist, who also penned a spy novel, who was secretly a government spy.

Here's some happy bookseller news: Nearly one year after wildfires devastated communities in Northern California, bookstores have largely recovered, thanks to loyal customers, community support, and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc). The Ann Arbor-based nonprofit aids booksellers around the country in times of need, but the foundation faced what it called unprecedented demand last year due to wildfires, floods, and mudslides. In 2017, the foundation distributed more than $234,000 to support 94 booksellers and booksellers’ families in need—more than Binc had distributed the two previous years combined.

The Feedspot website has a listing of crime fiction blogs and I'm pleased In Reference to Murder is listed among them. If you check out the link, you might find some new blogs of interest to follow.

Some "fun" true crime, for a change; is this quite possibly the worst robber of all time?

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "The Good Old Days" by Etta Abrahams.

 

In the Q&A roundup, Alex Aster quizzed The Woman in Cabin 10 author Ruth Ware about her writing process, next novel, and advice to young writers; authors Dietrich Kalteis (Poughkeepsie Shuffle) and Alex Shaw (Cold East) took Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge; and Reed Farrel Coleman chatted with the Mystery People about his latest novel, Colorblind.

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Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings and welcome to the latest crime drama roundup:

THE BIG SCREEN

Media Rights Capital won a bidding war at the Toronto Film Festival for the world rights to Knives Out, a contemporary murder mystery that will star Daniel Craig as a detective assigned to solve the crime, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson directing from his own script. Johnson told Deadline he's been a long-time Agatha Christie nut and over the summer scripted his contemporary version of the locked door mansion murder mystery.

The screen rights for the thriller novel The Nowhere Child by Christian White have been snapped up by Australian production company Carver Films and US-based production company Anonymous Content. The Nowhere Child tells the story of a kidnapped child and according to the publisher, has broken the record for the fastest-selling Australian debut novel ever, with over 25,000 sales in its first eight weeks. The novel also won Australia’s Victorian Premier’s Award, awarded to an unpublished manuscript. Previous winners include Jane Harper’s The Dry and Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project.

UK's Bad Penny Productions has optioned British writer Lawrence Osborne’s well-reviewed Cambodia-set thriller Hunters In The Dark, with Osborne and Ben Cookson (Waiting For Anya) adapting the novel for the screen. The novel takes place in modern day Cambodia and sees an English teacher, Robert Grieve, win a satchel’s worth of money and decide to take a journey deeper into the wilder side of the country. Coming up against a scheming American, a crooked police officer and a darker side of Cambodia, Grieve follows his journey to a dramatic climax.

Animal Kingdom and Playtime are spearheading an English-language remake of the Austrian psychological chiller Goodnight Mommy, with Matt Sobel, director of 2015 Sundance drama Take Me To The River, attached to direct. The story follows Elias and his twin brother Lukas who arrive at their mother’s house to find her face covered in bandages - the result, she explains, of recent cosmetic surgery. Lukas delights in their mother’s uncharacteristically lax house rules, but n Elias’ mind, a dreadful thought takes root: the sinking suspicion that this woman beneath the gauze, who’s making their food and sleeping in the next room, isn’t really their mother.

Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, Chris Evans and Tracy Letts are in talks to star in The Devil All the Time, an adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s 2011 novel. Based on a script adaptation by Antonio Campos (who will also direct) and Paulo Campos, the story follows a man desperate to save his dying wife whose prayers turn to sacrifice, drawing in his vengeful son, a serial killer couple, a faith-testing preacher and a corrupt local sheriff in a story told across two decades.

An indie thriller is in the works about The Cuban Five, a group of Cuban agents sent to south Florida by the Castro government to spy on exile groups in the 1990s. The film will be directed by Clement Virgo from a Barrie Dunn screenplay, which is based on Stephen Kimber’s book What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of The Cuban Five. The agents were arrested by U.S. authorities in 1998, convicted and jailed, only to be released in 2014 as part of a spy exchange negotiated by then president Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro to improve relations between the two countries. In March 2015, Dunn and Kimber met in Havana with the five agents, who agreed to work with the Canadian film producers to make the film about their story.

Patrick Melrose Emmy nominee Edward Berger has been set to direct Rio, the Steven Knight-penned psychological thriller starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jake Gyllenhaal as two old friends who meet again in the titular city. One is a journalist, the other a hugely successful financier. Plot details are under wraps, although there is also a strong female lead character.

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger has signed on to the Giuseppe Capotondi-directed film The Burnt Orange Heresy, joining Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki. The neo-noir thriller is based on Charles Willeford’s novel, which was adapted for the screen by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Scott B. Smith. Set in present-day Italy, the pic follows an ambitious art dealer who is hired to steal a rare painting from one of most enigmatic painters of all time, but becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.

The trailer has arrived for Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman’s action thriller Hunter Killer, based on the novel Firing Point by George Wallace and Don Keith

The first clip has been released for Out of Blue, which is based on the Martin Amis's novel Night Train. Directed by Carol Morley (The Falling), the "neo-noir metaphysical mystery" stars Patricia Clarkson as a homicide detective called to investigate the shooting of leading astrophysicist and black hole expert, but once on the case, she’s affected in ways she struggles to comprehend. The cast also includes Jacki Weaver, James Caan, Toby Jones, Aaron Tveit, Mamie Gummer, Jonathan Majors, and Devyn A. Tyler.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The BBC is developing a detective drama series based on the classic 1938 mystery novel The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake, the nom de plume of poet Cecil Day-Lewis, father of Daniel Day-Lewis. The adaptation is being written by Gaby Chiappe, who has written on a number of British crime dramas, including ITV's Vera as well as BBC's Shetland. Nathaniel Parker, the actor who played the lead role in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, is an executive producer for the project, which is likely to be five or six episodes. Deadline added that the "series could turn into a long-running franchise for the BBC as Blake/Day Lewis wrote 15 books featuring the detective."

The CW is developing a drama inspired by the classic Nancy Drew mysteries, adapted by by Noga Landau (The Magicians). Launching a Nancy Drew TV series has been a priority for CBS TV Studios, which has the rights to the the classic YA mystery books and has developed two Nancy Drew series over the past three years, Drew at CBS during the 2015-16 development season, which went to pilot starring Sarah Shahi and got close to a series order, and Nancy Drew at NBC this past season. Both incarnations were conceived as sequels to the books, with an adult Nancy Drew at the center, whereas the CW version stays closer to the source material, with Nancy just out of high school.

Doctor Who's Alice Troughton has been set as lead director of Channel 4’s crime thriller Baghdad Central as filming kicks off in Morocco. The drama, written by The Last Kingdom scribe Stephen Butchard and based on the novel by Elliott Colla, is set in 2003 Baghdad after Saddam Hussein has fallen and the city lies at the center of the coalition’s efforts to secure the region. In the midst of this chaos, crime and paranoia, Iraqi ex-policeman Muhsin al-Khafaji (played by Waleed Zuaiter), has lost everything and is battling daily to keep himself and his sick daughter safe. But when he learns that his estranged elder daughter is missing, Khafaji is forced into a desperate search to find her.

The Voice judge Adam Levine's company, 222 Productions, and Universal TV have optioned the rights to the Thorn series of novels by James W. Hall, which will be developed for television. There are 14 books in the series, which began with Under Cover of Daylight in 1987. The series follows Thorn, a fishing guide in the Florida Keys with a dark past. When that past comes back around in the form of new violence that rips his world apart, Thorn has to take drastic steps to protect and avenge his chosen family. A writer and cast for the project will be announced later.

NBC is expanding the Law & Order franchise with a 13-episode order to Law & Order: Hate Crimes, based on New York’s actual Hate Crimes Task Force, the second oldest bias-based task force in the U.S. The unit, which pledges to uphold a zero tolerance policy against discrimination of any kind, works under the NYPD’s real Special Victims Unit and often borrows SVU’s detectives to assist in their investigations. The new Law & Order series will be introduced as a planted spinoff from SVU, with the first incarnation of the new unit appearing in the latter part of the upcoming season of the Mariska Hargitay-starring series.

Phoenix Pictures and Renaissance Literary & Talent are teaming to develop a television anthology based on a series of short stories by prolific mystery writer Cornell Woolrich. The Woolrich library has been a complicated rights issue with more than five owners controlling the nearly 300 properties in the Estate.  Woolrich is the most adapted crime author in the film noir era, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black as examples of his classics. His stories were also prominent on one of the Golden Age of radio’s classic shows, Suspense.

Oxygen Media has inked an overall development deal with Paul Holes, the hero detective who helped bring the Golden State Killer to justice. Holes said, "I’m retired now, and am looking forward to this next chapter of my career where I can help shine a light on cases that deserve national exposure.” 

Patricia Arquette will star in Hulu’s true-crime series, The Act, a seasonal anthology, with the first season based on Dean’s 2016 BuzzFeed article “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered.” It follows Gypsy Blanchard, a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother. Her quest for independence opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, one that ultimately leads to murder. 

Casting was announced for Acorn's adaptation of the British drama series Queens of Mystery, with Julie Graham, Siobhan Redmond, Sarah Woodward and Olivia Vinall in the leads as the eponymous Queens. Queens of Mystery follows a perennially single female detective (Matilda Stone) and her three aunts (Cat, Beth and Jane), who are well-known crime writers that help her solve whodunit style murders as well as set her up on blind dates.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Author Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author Jame DiBiasio on the Crime Cafe podcast, chatting about his latest novel, Bloody Paradise, a tropical noir set in Thailand.

Writer Types welcomed a trio of authors including Aaron Phillip Clark, Nick Kolakowski and Eva Montealegre.

Robert Olen Butler stopped by Speaking of Mysteries to discuss Paris in the Dark, Butler’s fourth Christopher Marlowe Cobb thriller.

In episode #3 of Criminal Mischief: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction, host D.P. Lyle talked about a medical examiner's three most important determinations: cause, manner, and time of death.

On the Crime Syndicate podcast, Canadian crime author Dietrich Kalteis stopped by to discuss his latest novel, Poughkeepsie Shuffle, with host Michael Pool.

The latest Mystery Rats Maze episode featured the mystery short story, "Doggy DNA", written by mystery author Neil Plakcy and read by actor Thomas Nance.

This is Criminal welcomed three of America’s most experienced trauma surgeons speak to talk about what happens when someone is shot.

THEATER

The full cast was recently announced for the world premiere UK Tour of Rebus: Long Shadows: Dani Heron (Angela), Eleanor House (Heather/Maggie) and Neil McKinven (Mordaunt) join Charles Lawson (John Rebus), John Stahl (Big Ger Cafferty) and Cathy Tyson (Siobhan Clarke). The play is directed by Robin Lefevre and opens at Birmingham Repertory Theatre on September 20 with a run through November 24.

The UK's Blackeyed Theatre is touring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, to venues including Worthing’s Connaught Theatre (Thursday-Saturday, September 20–22). In the play, when Mary Morstan arrives at Baker Street to request help following the mysterious disappearance of her father, Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson are plunged into a murky world of deception and a complex plot involving murder, corruption and stolen jewels.

The Lincoln, Nebraska area is having a mini Agatha Christie play cycle, with three works by Agatha Christie performed this fall beginning with the Southeast Community College theater students, instructors and community members present the radio play series "Murder in the Studio" this past weekend. Then, starting in October, the Lincoln Community Playhouse and Beatrice Community Players will tag-team stages to present Christie's Black Coffee and Murder is Announced.

Greensboro, North Carolina's Triad Stage is also presenting an Agatha Chrsitie classic, And Then There Were None, September 14 - October 7. In the classic tale, a group of characters stranded on an island realize that one of their number has to be the killer, and race to solve the crime before they become the murderer’s next victim.

Dame Agatha is also on stage at the Granite Theatre in Westerly, Rhode Island, with a production of the Miss Marple mystery A Murder is Announced through September 30.

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Quotation of the Week

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FFB: Gideon's Fire

Tell most authors they must write 10,000 words a day — in longhand —toward the goal of creating some 600 books in their lifetime, and they would likely say something along the lines of (in polite terms), "it can't be done." Tell most critics that the author of the book in your hand is indeed that prolific and they'd likely say (in polite terms), "then it must be crap."



John Creasey inspired such amazement and skepticism from other authors as well as critics, but when it came down to the readers, they voted with their wallets. By the time of Creasey's death in 1973, over 80 million copies of his books (written under 28 different pseudonyms) in 5,000 different editions in 28 languages had been sold around the world. It wasn't even as if the man sat chained to a desk all day — he also managed to establish the Crime Writers’ Association, create his very own mystery magazine, and still had time left over to found a political party in his native England. (One note about persistence: Creasey allegedly received 743 rejection slips before he sold his first book.)



When I was a child, I was introduced to Creasey's work through his series featuring The Honourable Richard Rollison (a/k/a The Toff), a nobleman and amateur crime solver aided by his manservant, Jolly. Creasey's most critically-acclaimed work, however, came via his police procedurals with protagonist Commander George Gideon of London's Scotland Yard, penned under the name J. J. Marric, which inspired a TV series and movie. According to an apocryphal story, one of Creasey's neighbors, a London police inspector, challenged the author with the words "Why don't you show us as we are?" and the next year Creasey published his first Inspector West police procedural book (the first of forty such novels), the success of which led to Gideon in the 1950s.



In 1955, writing for the New York Times Book Review, critic Anthony Boucher wrote,

''Nobody could make a regular career of presenting in some 75,000 words a half dozen or more plots, plus a technical study of Scotland Yard procedure, plus a realistic analysis of the characters of policemen and criminals. However, the incredible Mr. Creasey has calmly gone on presenting us with a Gideon novel each year, all of high quality." 

The book which finally won Creasey the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, however, was Gideon's Fire, in 1962. George Gideon, Commander of the C.I.D., is met at the office one morning with the beginnings of a very bad day: the news of a sex maniac who raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl, and an arson fire in an old tenement building which wiped out a family of seven. In a style which has since become commonplace for police procedurals, Creasey weaves these and other autonomous story lines throughout the book, including a case of stock fraud; a man who is suspected of killing two former mistresses; a bank robbery with the mastermind still at large, and an ugly family crisis building up in Gideon's own home, managing to tie up all plots by the end.



The book also exhibits the authentic earthy police procedural style Creasey used in this particular series, as well as his sympathetic treatment of many of his characters, culminating in the man Gideon, who feels a oneness with his city, London, and an abiding empathy with crime victims. Creasey once said,

"My characters live in my mind...I can see them and hear them much more clearly than most people whom I know in life...it never occurs to me that they don't exist."

            

Mystery Melange

The 2018 Ngaio Marsh Award winners were announced recently at the WORD Christchurch Festival in Christchurch, New Zealand. Best Crime Novel went to Marlborough Man by Alan Carter, and the Best First Novel was All Our Secrets by Jennifer Lane. The literary awards honor excellence in Kiwi crime fiction, mystery, and thriller writing and are named after Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the four "Queens of Crime" from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. (HT to awards founder, Craig Sisterson)

The longlists for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year have been whittled down to four finalists, including two previous winners, Chris Brookmyre (Places in the Darkness) and Charles Cumming (The Man Between) alongside newcomers Lin Anderson (Follow the Dead) and Liam McIlvanney (The Quaker). Winners will be announced at the Bloody Scotland conference later this month.

Sydney nightclub figure John Ibrahim was awarded the inaugural Danger Prize at the recent BAD Sydney Crime Festival, an honor which recognizes the best book, TV series, or film over the past year about crime and Sydney. He was given the prize for his memoir Last King of the Cross. The same event handed out the Danger Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously to Peter Corris, author of the iconic Cliff Hardy series of detective novels, who passed away the day before the conference.

The East Village Coffee Lounge in Monterey, California, will host a Noir at the Bar event October 26. Organized by crime fiction author Dietrich Kalteis, the evening of readings and signings will also feature Terry Shames, Kris Calvin, Tom Pitts, Rob Pierce, Susan C Shea, Mark Coggins, and Patrick Whitehurst, with Natalie Molina hosting. The event is free to the public but donations will be accepted at the door, benefitting a local charity.

As I noted above, we recently lost Peter Corris, the man dubbed the "godfather of Australian crime fiction," who died at his home in Sydney at the age of 76. He published his first novel, The Dying Trade, in 1980, introducing his best-known character, Cliff Hardy, a big drinker, fighter and womanizer. That was followed by 41 additional Hardy books including Corris's final book, Win, Lose or Draw, which was published early last year. Andrew Nette posted his thoughts on the passing of Corris over on the Pulp Curry blog. On the heels of Corris's passing, The Sydney Morning Herald's Linda Morris posted two articles discussing the state of Australian crime fiction today, which you can read here and here.

Janet Rudolph also posted on her Mystery Fanfare blog that mystery author Amanda Kyle Williams passed away last week following a long battle with cancer. Amanda burst on the thriller scene in 2010 with her first crime novel, The Stranger You Seek, which was hailed by Publishers Weekly as an “explosive, unpredictable and psychologically complex thriller that turns crime fiction clichés inside out.” She has been shortlisted for both the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Townsend Prize for Fiction.

Digital media company Open Road Integrated Media announced it has launched an immersive, interactive online mystery experience, titled The Murder Chronicles.The Murder Chronicles will provide a monthly episodic mystery as subscribers are guided through a new case file containing journal entries, newspaper clippings, old brochures, letters, and all the clues they need to solve the mystery. The idea to launch The Murder Chronicles came from editor Matthew Thompson, who noted that  "The Murder Chronicles is like gaming—an immersive, interactive, sprawl-it-out-on-your-kitchen-table-and-play-it experience."

A recent New York Times' "By the Book" interview featured critically-acclaimed crime fiction author George Pelecanos listing books that had influenced him or that he recommended to others. After it was pointed out by many readers and Sisters in Crime (which was formed in part to combat gender discrimination in the press) that all of the 26 or so books listed were by male authors, Craig Sisterson popped in on Twitter to recommend 26 outstanding female crime fiction authors. One of those award-winning authors he noted, Laura Lippman, also pointed out that how the New Yorker described her as a crime novelist in the same piece where Lehane and Pelecanos were listed as simply novelists, adding that "subtext seems to be to remind people that I'm 'lesser.'"

Not every author gets an alcoholic beverage inspired by their writing, but Shetland Distillery Company is releasing a special edition gin produced in conjunction with the launch of Ann Cleeves’ eighth and final book in the Shetland Island series, Wild Fire. Taking inspiration from the new mystery novel, Shetland Reel’s Wild Fire is described as “a balanced London Dry Gin with juniper and sweet spice notes that have a lingering and warming finish ... It has notes of cinnamon, orange and aromatic spice, and an added touch of heat from dried red chillies."

A vast theft of antiquarian books, one of the most expansive rare book thefts in history, has sent a shudder across the rare books industry after a prominent dealer was arrested.

Australia's Booktopia created a quick little quiz to test your crime fiction knowledge.

Mashable reported on the oddly calming combination of police radio and ambient music.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Punk" by Rusty Barnes.

In the Q&A roundup, Waterstones interviewed Laura Lippman about her latest thriller, Sunburn; Ben Macintyre, author of The Spy and the Traitor, was the latest "By the Book" interview for the New York Times (and he did pick a few women authors among his recommendations - see above); and Criminal Element chatted with Mindy Mejia, author of the new thriller, Leave No Trace.

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Media Murder for Monday - Labor Day Edition

Hard to believe another week has flown by, but it's Monday again and that means it's time for another edition of the latest crime drama roundup:

MOVIES

Quentin Tarantino has been adding a number of notable names to the cast of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood over the last few months, but he's finally cast his Charles Manson, Damon Herriman. Herriman joins a cast headlined by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, but also includes Dakota Fanning, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, James Marsden, Emile Hirsch, Lena Dunham, Mike Moh, Burt Reynolds, Damian Lewis, and more.

Emmy winner Michael Chiklis and Kyle Schmid are set to star opposite Bruce Willis in the crime thriller, 10 Minutes Gone, which Brian A. Miller will direct from a script by Kelvin Mao and Jeff Jingle. The plot follows a man who loses ten minutes of his memory due to being hit by a stray bullet during a bank heist gone wrong. He must put the pieces of his broken memory together in order to find out who sabotaged the job and took the money, all while being pursued by a powerful crime boss hellbent on recovering the cash.

Filmmaker Deon Taylor is set to direct Sony Screen Gems’ Exposure, from Peter A. Dowling’s spec script. Exposure follows a rookie Detroit African-American female cop who stumbles upon corrupt officers who are murdering a drug dealer, an incident captured by her body cam. They pursue her through the night in an attempt to destroy the footage, but to make matters worse, they’ve tipped off a criminal gang that she’s responsible for the dealer’s death.

Momentum Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to the Ron Perlman-starring crime drama Asher, and has set a December 7 theatrical release date. The project centers on Asher (Perlman), a Mossad-agent-turned-gun-for-hire near the end of his killing days, who breaks the hitman oath when he meets Sophie (Famke Janssen) on a job gone sideways. In order to live a real life before it’s too late, he must kill the man he was for one last chance at becoming the man he always wanted to be. Richard Dreyfuss and Peter Facinelli co-star.

TELEVISION

Lee Child is planning major television adaptations of his Jack Reacher books after fans complained to him about Tom Cruise’s portrayal of the larger-than-life hero in two Hollywood movies. Child hopes that a deal will be signed by November for productions that will devote between 10 and 12 hours to each book. Asked about the cast, he said: "That’s the great thing about television. It’s much less star-driven than feature films. So it doesn’t need to be a so-called A-list guy."

Harlan Coben inked an exclusive deal with Netflix to develop 14 existing titles and future projects, including his upcoming novel Run Away into English-language and foreign-language series as well as films that will premiere on Netflix worldwide. Coben will serve as an executive producer on all projects. He currently has two crime drama series on Netflix: Safe, starring Michael C. Hall, and the 2015 French series No Second Chance. 

Avengers producers Joe and Anthony Russo have firmed a deal with Netflix for an India and Thailand shoot for Dhaka, a kidnap extraction drama that will star Chris Hemsworth and marks the feature directorial debut of Sam Hargrave. Dhaka is an action film in which Hemsworth has to liberate a kidnapped Indian boy who is being hidden in Dhaka. Physically brave but an emotional coward, the man has to come to terms with his identity and sense of self.

NCIS veterans Michael Weatherly And Cote De Pablo are teaming up for a new CBS show, although fans of their "Tiva" romance and characters from the NCIS series may be disappointed. The duo will work together as executive producers on a developing drama, called MIA, and neither actor is attached to star in the series. The project follows a newly minted homicide detective who is assigned to an experienced, by-the-book partner to solve cases in Miami. She struggles to keep the personal entanglements of her final undercover assignment from jeopardizing her future.

British-Chinese rising star Jing Lusi, who appears in the Warner Bros. hit Crazy Rich Asians, has been cast in Amazon’s psychological thriller series The Feed, alongside Guy Burnet, Nina Toussaint White, David Thewlis and Michelle Fairley. The Feed, based on the novel by Nick Clark Windo, is set in London and centers on a technology implanted into people’s brains allowing them to share information and memories instantly. 

Epix has given a formal 10-episode series order to Our Lady, LTD, a modern noir drama starring Oscar winner Ben Kingsley, from Patriot creator Steve Conrad and Epix’s sister studio MGM Television. Production is slated to begin this fall in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with an eye toward a 2019 premiere. Written by Conrad and Patriot co-producer Bruce Terris, Our Lady, LTD follows James, a young grifter, as he attempts to prey upon Pastor Byron Brown (Kingsley), who turns out to be far more dangerous than he suspects.

The HBO Asia series Miss Sherlock will be available to HBO’s U.S. subscribers across all of the channel’s platforms as of September. Co-produced with Hulu in Japan, the eight-part series is HBO’s first Japanese original and re-envisions Arthur Conan Doyle iconic characters played by women. Yuko Takeuchi stars in the title role, while her crime-solving partner, Dr. Wato Tachibana, is played by Shihori Kanjiya.

Gwyneth Hughes, writer of the BBC and HBO’s The Girl, has created a feature-length drama about slavery in modern Britain for the BBC, titled Doing Money. The project will star Romanian actress Anca Dumitra and Downton Abbey’s Allen Leech and tells the story of Ana, a young Romanian woman snatched in broad daylight from a London street, trafficked to Ireland, and used as a sex slave in a series of "pop up" brothels. 

Mr. Robot's fourth season on USA will be its last and will feature an extended run of twelve episodes instead of eight before bowing out. The critically-acclaimed hacker drama starring Rami Malek debuted in 2015, with Malek's breakout performance earning him an Emmy. The fourth and final season of Mr. Robot will air in 2019.

Justified's Walton Goggins will headline and executive produce the upcoming eight-episode second season of the spy thriller Deep State. He'll take over for Mark Strong, who starred in the first season, and will play Nathan Miller, a former CIA operative who now works in the private sector as a "Michael Clayton-like" fixer for the deep state. Also joining the series as new cast members are Victoria Hamilton (The Crown) as Meaghan Sullivan, a Republican U.S. senator who is determined to bring the illicit activities of the deep state to light; Lily Banda as Aicha Konaté, a Malian aid worker intent on improving things for her country; and Shelley Conn, who plays Miller’s ex-wife. Returning cast members for the second season include Joe Dempsie, Karima McAdams, Alistair Petrie and Anastasia Griffiths.

Glee alum Blake Jenner has been set as the male lead in What/If, Netflix’s social thriller anthology drama series starring Renée Zellweger. What/If explores the ripple effects of what happens when acceptable people start doing unacceptable things. Each season will tackle a different morality tale inspired by culturally consequential source material, and the power of a single fateful decision to change the trajectory of an entire life. 

Paulina Singer is set for a recurring role in CBS All Access’ straight-to-series psychological thriller Tell Me a Story, from Kevin Williamson and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. Written by Williamson, Tell Me a Story, which co-stars Billy Magnussen and Kim Catrall, takes the world’s most beloved fairy tales and re-imagines them as a dark and twisted psychological thriller. 

HBO revealed that new episodes of True Detective Season 3 will drop January 2019 and released the first teaser for the season. The preview features Mahershala Ali as Detective Wayne Hays, a man tormented by an unsolved case involving two missing children in Arkansas near the Ozark mountain range. Not much is known about the plot other than that it will take place over three different time periods, and Hays' quest to solve the disappearances will uncover even more disturbing details about the case as time moves on.

NCIS: New Orleans is bringing in a brand new character to serve as a leader, with Necar Zadegan playing a special agent by the name of Hannah Khoury. She steps in to take a leadership position within the team following the assassination attempt that left Pride very seriously wounded in the Season 4 finale. She won't turn up in the first episode of the season, which focuses on the existing team scouring New Orleans to try and find the woman who tried to assassinate him. Her first appearance will be in the second episode of Season 5, airing on October 2. She may not take over for Pride on a permanent basis, but she'll likely carry at least part of the leadership load in the fourth season.

NYPD Blue alumna Jacqueline Obradors is set for a key recurring role on the upcoming fifth season of Amazon’s Bosch. Based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling novels, Bosch stars Titus Welliver as homicide Detective Harry Bosch, Jamie Hector as Jerry Edgar, Amy Aquino as Lt. Grace Billets, Madison Lintz as Maddie Bosch and Lance Reddick as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving. Obradors will play the fast learning and good at hiding her nerves, Detective Christina Vega, who’s been brought up to work in homicide. 

PODCASTS/VIDEOS/RADIO

DP Lyle has a new podcast series on Authors on the Air called Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction. Episode #1 focused on Murder and Motives, and Episode #2 discussed the Cause and Manner of Death.

Michigan Public Radio spoke with Michigan writer Steve Hamilton, who went from studying computers to penning award-winning mystery novels including his Alex McKnight mystery series

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed investigative journalist and award-winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan to the show to discuss Trust Me, her latest novel.

Authors on the Air's Pam Stack also spoke with author Dharma Kelleher, who writes gritty crime fiction from a transgender/queer perspective. She is the author of three thrillers including Chaser, the first book in her new Jinx Ballou bounty hunter series.

Host Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author Jame DiBiasio, author of the thrillers Gaijin Cowgirl and Cowgirl X, on the Crime Cafe podcast.

Suspense Radio's Story Blender podcast welcomed author Peter James to discuss psychopaths (both fictional and real), what makes for a great crime story, and the three aspects of emotionally engaging fiction.

Crime Friction was joined by Alex Segura, author of the Pete Fernandez series.

Writer Types had three great interviews from writers David Gordon (The Bouncer), Nikki Dolson (All Things Violent) and Terrence McCauley (The Fairfax Incident), pus a report from the San Diego Festival of Books.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about the Sharp Objects adaptation and also celebrated women in translation month with a look at some translated mystery books.

Speaking of Mysteries has added two new podcasts recently: an interview with Olen Steinhauer about his new novel, The Middle Man, about a left-wing resistance movement called Massive Brigade that causes the FBI, which had been monitoring the organization, to put the investigation into hyperdrive; and another with T. Jefferson Parker, to talk about his second novel featuring PI Roland Ford, in which homegrown terrorists are targeting the drone pilots who flew bombing missions in Middle East.

On the latest Crime Syndicate podcast, Canadian crime author Dietrich Kalteis stops by to discuss his latest novel, Poughkeepsie Shuffle, with host Michael Pool.

THEATER

A staging of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None is coming to the The Pyrle Theater in Greensboro, North Carolina, with a run from September 9 to October 7. The classic story follows ten strangers trapped on a dangerous island, each having a secret, until one by one, they begin to die under suspicious circumstances.

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Mystery Melange

The Australian Crime Writers Association announced the winners of the 2018 Ned Kelly Awards, which honor the finest crime writing in Australia. The Best Fiction nod went to Crossing the Lines by Sulari Gentill; Best First Fiction: The Dark Lane by Sarah Bailey; and Best True Crime: Unmaking a Murder: The Mysterious Death of Anna-Jane Cheney by Graham Archer.

The annual Killer Nashville Conference announced the winners of this year's Silver Falchion Awards in 12 categories, as well as the Claymore Awards for unpublished work. The Silver Falchion Award for Best Overall Novel went to The Devil's Bible by Dana Chamblee Carpenter. This year, editor, publisher, and bookstore proprietor Otto Penzler was also honored with the Killer Nashville 2018 John Seigenthaler Legends Award.

The National Book Festival returns to Washington, D.C., again this Saturday. Featured authors on the Genre Fiction Stage will include Brad Meltzer, Hank Phillippi Ryan, David Ignatius, Joseph Finder, Jeffery Deaver, and Louise Penny. For all the details and the complete lineup, head on over to the official Library of Congress Bookfest site.

The Poisoned Pen bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona, will host a combo Poisoned Pen Conference and RebusFest, celebrating Ian Rankin's 30th year of publishing in the U.S., September 2-3. Hank Phillippi Ryan, James Sallis and Dana Stabenow will host the two-day event, which includes book signings, panels, pitch sessions, and Sunday night concert with author James Sallis and his band, Three-Legged Dog. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Wallingford Museum is holding a special day of activities on Saturday, September 8 ahead of Agatha Christie Day 2018, which takes place seven days later. The crime writer lived with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan in Winterbrook House, Wallingford from 1934 until her death in 1976 and is buried in Cholsey churchyard. Fans of the author can join guided walks from the town hall throughout the day, while a self-guided trail to Dame Agatha's grave is also available. An exhibition dedicated to the writer, At home with the 'Queen of Crime', is also open at the museum, with stories from those who came into contact with the iconic writer, personal photographs and handwritten letters. More information is available online via the museum's website.

Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, has received another new lease on life. Tara Goldberg-DeLeo and Kristy Bodnar bought the bookstore from Natalie Sacco and Trevor Thomas, who put the store up for sale in May. They plan on expanding the children's literature section, increasing the store's online presence and reviving coffee service. Mary Alice Gorman and Richard Goldman opened Mystery Lovers Bookshop in 1990 and sold it in 2012 to Laurie Stephens, a librarian with bookstore experience. Stephens sold it to Sacco and Thomas in 2015. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

The Left Coast Crime national committee is offering five scholarships to Left Coast Crime in Vancouver, British Columbia, March 28-31, 2019. The LCC Scholarships include a free registration to the convention in Vancouver plus expense money. For more information, visit the conference "Whale of a Crime" website. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Lee Child's fan letters, notes, and manuscripts will become part of the British Archive for Contemporary Writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The archive boasts the literary holdings of Doris Lessing, Malcolm Bradbury and JD Salinger, among others, while the university has an international reputation for creative writing through its MA, with Ian McEwan among its alumni. Commenting on why he is giving the collection to the UEA, Child said: "It seems to me, from an author’s point of view, tremendously arrogant to imagine that anybody’s going to find it interesting … it wasn’t something I thought I would ever do. But East Anglia does have a reputation as a great university for writers and they … were convinced that it would be useful.”

 

A quirky 1950s-themed British double-decker bus has been turned into a 'hotel' of sorts in the Devon countryside. The project is a nod to one of the owner's favorite writers, Agatha Christie, and is full of Agatha Christie books and posters and is also called Bertram's Hotel after the Miss Marple novel which features a red bus on the cover.

From the true crime files:  Some criminals are a lot less "competent" than others.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Running From Cops" by Scott T. Hutchison.

In the Q&A roundup, Christopher Huang chatted with Crime Fiction Lover about his debut novel, A Gentleman’s Murder; and George Pelecanos took the New York Times "By the Book" mini-interview challenge.

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