B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 160

Mystery Melange

The Colorado Book Awards were handed out recently, with Dead Stop by Barbara Nickless winning the Mystery category. The other finalists were Fractured Families: A Lottie Albright Mystery by Charlotte Hinger, and Hunting Hour: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima. The Thriller category was won by Trafficked: A Mex Anderson Novel by Peg Brantley, who edged out the other two finalists, Broken Slate: A Sean Coleman Thriller by John A. Daly and Red Sky: A Thriller by Chris Goff.

Harvill Secker is launching a competition in partnership with Bloody Scotland to find a debut crime writer from a BAME (black, Asian, minority ethnic) background. The contest will be judged by award-winning authors Abir Mukherjee and Ann Cleeves, as well as Sarah Shaffi (co-founder of BAME in Publishing), and Harvill Secker Editorial Director Jade Chandler. Entrants can enter the competition online by submitting the first 5,000 words of their crime novel and a full plot outline. Submissions are open from 9th July until 9th September 2018, with the winner, announced in November 2018, receiving a book deal with Harvill Secker and an advance of £5,000. 

The Belfast Book Festival's Crime at the Crescent on June 16 will feature a panel of Brian McGilloway, Anthony J Quinn, Claire Allan, Sharon Dempsey, Andrea Carter. They will discuss whether crime writing reflects society, explore issues of political, economic and moral weight, and how writing about traumatic events can be used to reflect and heal.

There is a new annual prize for the best TV series, book or film about crime and Sydney, Australia: The Danger Prize, which is an initiative of BAD: Sydney Crime Writers Festival. The Daily Telegraph is the major sponsor of the prize which will be presented by Laurie Oakes at this year’s festival launch at the Justice & Police Museum on August 31. Mark Morri, Daily Telegraph crime editor and chair of the judges’ panel, says, “A city with Sydney’s rich criminal history deserves a prize like this. You can’t understand the place if you don’t understand the part crime has played. It will help us make sense of ourselves.”

A new Call for Papers has been posted for a themed issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection on the topic of "Interwar Mysteries: The Golden Age and Beyond," to be guest edited by University of Leicester's Victoria Stewart. Although the period between the World Wars is known as the Golden Age of traditional mystery fiction, other literary forms such as the hard-boiled subgenre, true crime, and noir emerged that often reflected a grimmer reality. Articles of between 3,300 and 6,000 words are sought that examine this important crossroads in mystery, detective, and crime fiction, with a deadline of Oct 12, 2018. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell's Bunburyist blog)

Last week, noted chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain committed suicide, which was a great loss to his family, friends, and fans. But as Sarah Weinman noted, he was also a great crime novelist, publishing two novels and a story collection that was " funny, witty, and had zinging prose."

The Rap Sheet's Jeff Pierce has compiled a very detailed list of upcoming crime fiction titles this summer "Sunny Days Are Best with Dark Fiction"

Last week, I pointed out a list of cool Canadian crime titles, and this week, America Reads drops us much farther south for "Twelve of the Best Miami Crime Novels."

If you're more interested in a European tour, the Seattle Times will help with "If You Can't Get to France, Maybe these Set-in-France Crime Novels Will Tide You Over."

Audiobook sales are doing well these days as the Guardian notes in the article "Audio is publishing’s new star as sales soar across genres." In fact, thriller writer Brian Freeman has given up on print entirely for his 19th novel, out out next year, which will appear only as an audiobook. “We haven’t even thought about print,” he said. Just 15 years ago, hardly any of his readers chose audio versions of his books. “Now I hear about them all the time. It made sense to do something specifically for the audio market.”

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Sending Fido Home" by Zakariah Johnson.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element spoke with Lis Wiehl about her new collaborative book with Caitlin Rother titled Hunting Charles Manson, a painstaking reexamination of the notorious crimes and their cultural context; and Literary Rambles blog welcomed debut author Kit Frick to share news about her contemporary thriller See All the Stars.

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Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings to all and welcome to the latest roundup of crime drama news:

MOVIES

Universal has optioned the rights to Tamer Elnoury and Kevin Maurer’s book American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent that Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail will direct and his Emmy-winning star Rami Malek will headline. Elnoury is a longtime undercover agent and active Muslim who joined the elite counter-terrorism unit after Sept. 11. In his book, he reveals his experience about infiltrating and bringing down a terror cell stateside, running up against the clock to foil them, with worn techniques which still entail listening, recording, and proving terrorist intent.

Orion Pictures is setting up Songs of the Damned, which is a fictional account of Chicago inmates who escape prison through producing a musical play. Adam Hashemi will make his feature film directorial debut for the project, and award-winning music producer Mark Ronson will compose original music. Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta Compton) is in talks to join for a production that is eyeing a fall start. 

This week brought a trailer-load of, well, trailers. Here are some of the latest: 

A second and completely different trailer has arrived for The Girl In The Spider’s Web, the latest incarnation centering on the character Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy. The role this time is played by Claire Foy, who takes over the reins from Rooney Mara.

Fox released the first trailer for Widows, based on the Lynda La Plante novel that was previously adapted as a British miniseries. The film adaptation stars Viola Davis the leader of a group of four women whose husbands were killed during a bank robbery and now the widows must come together to try to deal with the debt left behind from the failed job. The film is directed by Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) from a script he co-wrote with Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), and the cast also includes Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Daniel Kaluuya, Lukas Haas and Brian Tyree Henry.

The first trailer was released for The Old Man and the Gun, writer-director David Lowery’s film based on the true story of the man who escaped from San Quentin at age 70 and embarked on an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public. Wrapped up in the pursuit are detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck), who becomes captivated with Tucker’s commitment to his craft, and a woman (Sissy Spacek) who loves him in spite of his chosen profession. Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter and Tom Waits co-star.

A trailer also dropped for Operation Finale, starring Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Joe Alwyn, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi and Pêpê Rapazote. The film is based on the true tale of the 1960 covert mission of legendary Mossad agent Peter Malkin as he infiltrates Argentina and captures Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who masterminded the transportation logistics that brought millions of innocent Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.

Rounding out trailer-ville is the first trailer for Bad Times at the El Royale, Fox’s period crime thriller set in majestic Lake Tahoe. Seven strangers, each with a secret to bury, meet at the rundown hotel with a dark past. Over the course of one fateful night, everyone will have a last shot at redemption — before everything goes to hell. The cast includes Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Nick Offerman and Chris Hemsworth.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Orphan Black and Queer As Folk‘s Temple Street Productions have acquired TV rights to prolific Canadian author Kelley Armstrong’s trio of Rockton mystery novels that include City Of The Lost, A Darkness Absolute and This Fallen Prey which have all been published in the past two years. Rockton is a Utopian commune and a survivalist outpost as well as an extreme adventure and a penal colony that takes in those seeking refuge from their lives. Homicide detective Casey Duncan takes refuge in Rockton to help her best friend escape a brutal ex-husband, but she also has something to hide. Before Casey was a cop, she killed a man. As she soon discovers, the town is in desperate need of a police detective, because the supposedly safe paradise has just had its first-ever murder.

Fox will explore the gruesome murders carried out by Charles Manson’s "family" in a new two-part Liev Schreiber-narrated documentary based on a vault of unseen footage of the cult. Inside The Manson Cult: The Lost Tapes is a retelling of the Manson story using original 16mm footage that was found in the archives of Robert Hendrickson, the filmmaker behind Oscar-nominated doc Manson who died in 2016. The series will look at how the members, who carried out a number of grisly murders, including the brutal attack on Sharon Tate, went from peace-loving hippies to mass murderers. 

ABC Studios International has picked up an eight-part crime series for the streaming service Stan. The division, which is run by former ABC casting chief Keli Lee, is producing crime drama The Gloaming with The Kettering Incident’s Victoria Madden and Boys In The Trees producer John Molloy. The drama, which will be shot in Tasmania, follows unorthodox, troubled cop Molly McGee, who leading an investigation into the murder of an unidentified woman. To solve the case, Molly has to team up with Alex O’Connell, a man she hasn’t spoken to in twenty years, and they discover that the murder has links to a cold case from the past. What begins as a routine investigation exposes something more insidious, and to catch the killer, Molly and Alex have to face the ghosts of their past.

Fox confirmed that Corinne Massiah and Marcanthonee Reis, who recurred on the freshman drama 9-1-1 last season, have been upped to series regulars. They play May and Harry, the respective daughter and son of LAPD Sgt. Athena Grant (Angela Bassett) and Michael Grant (Rockmond Dunbar) in the first-responders procedural. 

HBO has released a fresh look at the TV adaptation of Sharp Objects, based on Gillian Flynn's debut novel that sees five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams as reporter Camille Preaker returning to Wind Gap to investigate the murder of two young girls. The premiere of the eight-part miniseries will be simulcast on HBO and Sky Atlantic on Monday, July 9.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Blue Plate Special host Terri Lynn Coop served up award-winning mystery author Paul D. Marks to talk about his lates novel, White Heat, which is set in 1992 against the turmoil of the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of the police officers charged with assaulting motorist Rodney King.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste had a lot to chat about, including the changing face of non-fiction, and who they would want to write an autobiography with. Keith Nixon also reviewed The Chosen Ones by Howard Linskey and The Puppet Show by M.W. Craven, and the special guest was Doug Johnstone talking about writing psychological thrillers, nuclear physics, angry turtles, and getting the band back together. 

Kings River Life's Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast offered up its premiere episode by starting off with the mystery short story, "The Pub Crawl", written by mystery author Nancy Cole Silverman and read by Fresno actor Cyndle Cee. The Pub Crawl was previously published by Out of the Gutter. Each episode will feature mystery short stories and mystery novel first chapters read by actors from the San Joaquin Valley.

Suspense Radio Inside Edition welcomed author Jenny Milchman talking about her latest book Wicked River.

Preston Lang stopped by the Crime Syndicate podcast to chat about and read from his newest noir novel, Sunk Costs, out now from All Due Respect Books.

THEATER

The Hampstead Theatre, London is staging Fiona Doyle's The Strange Death of John Doe through July 7, extending its original run due to high demand. Inspired by real events and set in present-day London, the story surrounds the unidentified body of an anonymous young man with fatal head injuries who's found face down in a suburban street. Clinically named as "John Doe" by the pathologists working on the case, they must uncover the truth and piece his story – and body – back together. A breakthrough sends DC John Kavura into overdrive and as his investigation unravels, he uncovers a haunting story of our time.

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Quote of the Week

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FFB: I'll Sing You Two-O

Anthea Mary Fraser (born 1930) was inspired by her novelist-mother to be a writer, but her own first published novel had to wait until 1970. The 1974 paranormal novel Laura Possessed was her first break-through success, followed by six other books in a similar vein and some romantic suspense titles before she turned to crime fiction.



She created two series, the first with Detective Chief Inspector David Webb of the Shillingham police, totaling 16 novels in all from 1984 to 1999. The second is a series Fraser debuted in 2003 featuring biographer/freelance journalist Rona Parish, with the last of six books published in 2008. Fraser also served the crime fiction community as secretary of the Crime Writers' Association from 1986 to 1996.



The first twelve in the DCI Webb series all take their titles from the lyrics to the English folk song "Green Grow the Rushes-O," including I'll Sing you Two-O from 1991, the ninth entry in the Webb roster. The case is set in motion when clothing store owner and part-time town magistrate Monica Tovey finds a van abandoned outside her home. But when the van's gruesome contents—the bodies of the football-mad, window washing, petty-thief White twins—are discovered, unsettling events disturb the serenity of the English town of Shillingham, and Monica suddenly finds her own life in danger.



DCI Webb begins to suspect that recent town burglaries, near-riots among soccer fans, low-flying airplanes and mysterious phone calls may not be unrelated to the case. Webb is also an accomplished artist, and he frequently calls upon his skills to record his impressions and hone in on the murderer, as he does here.



Fraser has taken some heat in the past for creating unconvincing and/or unlikely killers but also collected frequent praise for her rendering of small-town settings, with Publishers Weekly noting that "Fraser's rendering of an English community is again impeccable, enabling a reader not only to take pleasure in the mystery itself...but also to feel part of the life of a small, worried town," and Kirkus adding that it's "a competent, civilized police procedural, enhanced by sensitive probing of snarled relationships and a nicely drawn small-town ambiance."



PW also once characterized Fraser's writing as "succinct," with "her plots developed quickly, her prose straight to the point, with neither narrative nor character suffering from this brevity." And the book does fly along at a fairly clipped pace, in a very dialogue-heavy manner, although the investigation and procedural elements often take a back seat to character interactions.



It's interesting to read words the author gave to one character that "We lead container lives nowadays, bound up in our own concerns. It doesn't make for neighborliness." Those words feel even truer today than in 1991, when thanks to technology, we likely know more about some distant celebrity than we do the people on our own street, and people are glued to cellphones even when out "socializing" with others.

            

Mystery Melange

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) has announced the winners of the 2018 Audie Awards. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz (read by Simon Vance) has won top honors in the Mystery category, and The Fourth Monkey by J.D. Barker (read by Edoardo Ballerini and Graham Wintonhas) won for the best Thriller/Suspense audiobook. Also, the AudioFile Earphones Award winner was the complete Sherlock Holmes works narrated by Stephen Fry.

Lambda Literary, the nation’s oldest and largest literary arts organization advancing LGBTQ literature, announced the winners of the 30th Annual Lambda Literary Awards – or the "Lammys." The honors were handed out at a gala ceremony in New York City and included Best Lesbian Mystery: Huntress by A, E. Radley; and Best Gay Mystery: Night Drop, Marshall Thornton.

Mystery Fest Key West organizers announced that E. E. King, of Salt Lake City, Utah, has been named First Place winner in an international competition to claim the 2018 Mystery Writers Whodunit Award. Sponsored by Absolutely Amazing eBooks, King’s winning entry The Hollywood Portal wins her a Whodunit Award trophy, book-publishing contract with Absolutely Amazing eBooks, complimentary Mystery Fest Key West 2018 registration to the annual conference June 22-24, airfare, and hotel accommodations.

Sisters in Crime Australia has announced the longlists for the 2018 Davitt Awards for the best crime books by Australian women. The list includes a total of 101 titles that include 71 adult novels, eight YA novels, 14 children’s novels and eight nonfiction titles. To see the longlists in each category, click here.

June 16-17, Suffolk in the UK will host the "Slaughter in Southwold" crime festival with a line-up of authors including Mark Billingham, Sophie Hannah, Stella Rimington, Robert Goddard and Peter Guttridge. Activities included a murder mystery evening with Elly Griffiths and a crime writing quiz plus crime film double bills.

Pickford's House in Derby, United Kingdom, is hosting the exhibition "Agatha Christie: Mysteries, Murder, and More" from June 2 to November 3, 2018. The exhibition will feature various books and objects related to Christie's life and work.

Meanwhile, Samuel French, the world's premier theatrical publishing and licensing company, announced the addition of thirteen new plays to the Agatha Christie Collection. Now including 25 titles, the Collection is a unique set of plays all written by or with the direct involvement of the Dame Agatha and were chosen after a two-year research project involving a review of all Christie plays in circulation, revisiting original manuscripts, and remastering existing plays "to make them performance ready for the 21st century whilst ensuring they stay as close as possible to Agatha Christie's original vision." 

A new UK company has launched a program offering aspiring novelists an alternative to the "traditional" routes to publication: a salary from £2,000 per month to write their novels. De Montfort Literature (DML), says it will pay writers a salary to write their novels, which DML will then design, print, publish and promote.

Looking for great summer reads? CBC Radio had some suggestions for "12 must-read Canadian mysteries, thrillers and books about crime."

If you're looking for a great bookstore and happen to be in New York City this summer, check out some of these indie booksellers who are managing to stay afloat in a changing publishing world.

Writing for LitReactor, Gabino Iglesias makes the case for why "crime authors need to stop pretending they're badasses."

Writing for The Guardian, James O'Sullivan analyzed the latest James Patterson collaboration, this time with President Bill Clinton. Sullivan had previously written a paper for Digital Humanities Quarterly in which he applied an analytical study to the James Patterson "collaborative" process to determine the amount of content generated by Patterson versus his collaborating authors and how it relates to stylistic patterns.

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

In the Q&A roundup, the Daily Mail spoke with author Mark Billingham, who has work as an actor, stand-up comic and screenwriter and recently added "rock star" to his CV; NPR's Scott Simon spoke with Anthony Horowitz about his new meta-mystery novel The Word Is Murder which sees the author jumping into the book to assist his protagonist in solving the crime; and the Mystery People's Scott Butki interviewed Ruth Ware (The Woman in Cabin 10) about her latest psychological thriller, The Death of Mrs. Westaway.

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Media Murder for Monday

Hope everyone had a decent weekend! Here's a roundup of the latest crime drama news to start your brand-new week:

MOVIES

Director Baltasar Kormakur and actor Hugh Jackman are circling The Good Spy, Kai Bird’s biography of CIA operative Robert Ames, with F. Scott Frazier adapting the script. The hope is for Jackman to play Ames, an operative in the Middle East who was a big proponent of breaking down barriers by forming strong relationships there. He was killed in the bombing outside the 1983 American Embassy in Beirut, and his grave at the Arlington National Cemetery is the only one that carries "CIA" in its inscription. 

Filmmaker Mike Smith’s B&E Productions has obtained the film and television rights to Big Law, a legal thriller novel from Ron Leibman. The book centers on a Carney Blake, a young lawyer at one of NY’s most prestigious law firms, and his discovery that things aren’t what they seem in the business of big New York City law. Smith has directed on a number of legal dramas like Law and Order SVU, Criminal Intent, Suits, and How To Get Away With Murder.

Kroll & Co. Entertainment, the recently launched production company of producer Sue Kroll, has acquired the rights to Jonathan Lethem’s new novel, The Feral Detective, through her exclusive deal at Warner Bros. Pictures. The novel, which will be published this November, is Lethem’s first detective story since his New York Times bestseller Motherless Brooklyn, which Edward Norton is directing for the big screen with Kroll as executive producer. The Feral Detective follows Phoebe Siegler, a sarcastic and garrulous woman who heads to California to try to find her best friend’s missing teenaged daughter. When a lead brings her to the stark and seedy desert towns just east of Los Angeles, Phoebe is put in contact with Charles Heist, a laconic, strange private eye with an uncanny ability to find those that don’t want to be found, who reluctantly agrees to help. 

Sterling K. Brown has joined the cast of Blake Lively’s spy thriller The Rhythm Section, although his role is being kept under wraps. Production is set to resume now that Lively has recovered from a hand injury sustained last year. Reed Morano is directing Rhythm Section (based on a series of spy novels by Mark Burnell), the first film in what’s intended to become a franchise with James Bond producers Wilson and Broccoli producing. Jude Law is also attached to the film. 

Johnathon Schaech (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, That Thing You Do!) has signed on for Michael Cristofer’s thriller, The Night Clerk, joining Tye Sheridan, Helen Hunt, Ana de Armas, and John Leguizamo in the cast. Sheridan, who is also a producer on the film, stars as hotel night clerk Bart Bromley, a highly intelligent young man on the Autism spectrum who becomes a prime suspect when a woman is murdered during his shift.

Actress Julie Gonzalo is set for a supporting role in the indie thriller, The Great Illusion, which stars Selma Blair and Graham Greene in the story of a tortured FBI agent suffering from an irrational fear of darkness, as he investigates a mysterious former prostitute in order to catch a vicious serial killer. Gonzalo will play Theresa, a tough single mother of two. Maria Gabriela Cardenas will serve as director and wrote the script with Oscar Cardenas, who also co-stars in the film.

Charlie Matthau and Denise O’Dell have optioned rights to Juste De Nin’s Spanish-language graphic novel Garbo: The Spy Who Fooled Hitler, which is set to become the latest directorial vehicle for Matthau. The film will be produced under the name Bodyguard of Lies, and tells the incredible true story of Juan Pujol Garcia, a failed Spanish chicken farmer who became one of the greatest, if not the most successful, spies of World War II, whose deceptive work saved what is estimated at about 14 million lives. Reuben Sack, Justin Parker, Bradley McManus and Matthau are writing the screenplay, with plans to film on location in Lisbon, Madrid and London.

The first trailer dropped for Peppermint, starring Jennifer Garner as a grieving mother-turned-urban guerilla after her husband and daughter are killed but their murderers set free. Costarring with Garner are John Ortiz, John Gallagher Jr., and Juan Pablo Raba. 

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Major Crimes alum Raymond Cruz has snagged a recurring role opposite Chris O’Dowd and Ray Romano in the second season of Epix’s Get Shorty. The dark comedy from MGM Television is based in part on the 1990 Elmore Leonard bestseller. In Season 2, Miles struggles to reconcile his ambitions as a filmmaker and a family man with his skill set as a career criminal. His progress in Hollywood is jeopardized when the washed-up producer (Romano) with whom he partnered in Season 1 agrees to wear a federal wire. Cruz will play Swayze, the brutal and murderous leader of a Latino prison gang who styles himself after Patrick Swayze, with long, flowing locks of hair and 80s-inspired dance moves.

Battlestar Galactica alum Jamie Bamber and Yasemin Allen (Water and Fire) have signed on to the cast of Cinemax’s Strike Back. Filming has begun on the 10-episode Season 6, which will be shot entirely in Malaysia. In the new season, when a Russian bomber crashes in the South China Sea, the covert special-ops soldiers of Section 20 — Thomas "Mac" McAllister (Warren Brown), Samuel Wyatt (Daniel MacPherson) and Gracie Novin (Alin Sumarwata) — are sent on a mission to investigate. There, they cross paths with Katrina Zarkova (Allen), a rogue Russian operative with questionable loyalties. Under orders of the new commanding officer, Col. Alexander Coltrane (Bamber), Section 20 pursues stolen contents of the Russian jet across Southeast Asia. 

Kelsey Grammer is set to co-star in Fox’s newly picked up legal drama series Proven Innocent, from Empire co-creator Danny Strong and writer David Elliott. Grammer will play Gore Bellows, a hard-as-nails and tough-on-crime state’s attorney, who goes up against an underdog legal team committed to reopening investigations to exonerate the innocent who were "proven" guilty. Grammer replaces Brian D’Arcy James who played the role in the pilot as the character is being tweaked. As for James, a versatile character actor and a three-time Tony nominee, the series’ producers and the network hope to cast him in a different role down the road.

Starz’s upcoming spy thriller series The Rook is having some leadership changes, with Lisa Zwerling (Betrayal) and Karyn Usher (Bones) coming onboard as showrunners. They join The Night Manager's Stephen Garrett who remains an executive producer. Originally, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer brought The Rook to Lionsgate, but she's stepping away due to differences in creative visions of the project. The Rook tells the story of Myfanwy Thomas, a woman who wakes up in London with no memory of who she is and no way to explain the circle of dead bodies around her. When she discovers she’s a high ranking official in the Checquy, Britain’s secret service for people with paranormal abilities, she’ll have to navigate the dangerous and complex world of the agency to uncover who wiped her memory and why she’s a target. The cast of the series includes Emma Greenwell, Joely Richardson, Olivia Munn, Adrian Lester, Ronan Raftery, Catherine Steadman, and Jon Fletcher.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Crime Friction hosted Kellye Garrett, of the Detective By Day mysteries, to talk about screenwriting, story structure, cozies, series characters, and diversity in publishing. Sam and Todd Robinson also stopped by to discuss The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste discussed choosing your own adventure, using your brain to make story decisions, the problem of factchecking in publishing, and how to pronounce "Ralph." The special guest was Liz Nugent talking about her route to publishing, working in theatres, and Riverdance.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Matthew Betley, author of the bestselling Logan West thrillers.

THEATER

St. Paul's Park Square Theatre is presenting Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, from June 15 – August 5. Directed by Theo Langason, the comedy/mystery features Sherlock’s most notorious case of wealthy Henry Baskerville who is threatened by the fable of a bloodthirsty hound on the moors. In this staging, the female duo of Holmes and Watson are on the case to sniff out the culprit as five actors play over 40 comical characters, filling the stage with suspects, allies and heirs.

King’s Theatre Edinburgh will stage Agatha Christe's Love From a Stranger (with adaptation help from Frank Vosper). Directed by Lucy Bailey, the play centers on Cecily Harrington and the whirlwind romance with a handsome and charming stranger who sweeps her off her feet. Her heart all a flutter and her head in the clouds, she recklessly abandons her old life to settle in the remote and blissful surroundings of a country cottage. However, her newfound love is not all that he seems. The production runs June 5-9 and will then go on tour throughout the UK.

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Quote of the Week

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FFB: The Hanging Doll Murder

It's amazing that Roger Ormerod (1920-2005), a native of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, managed to end up as writer, given his background. Born in 1920, he worked various jobs, including postal worker, shop loader in an engineering factory, clerk in county court, inspector for Department of Social Security, and listed his hobbies as amateur tailoring, wine making, stereo photography and high fidelity.



But somehow in the middle of that, he wrote some 22 standalone crime novels; four novels in a series featuring Philipa Lowe and Oliver Simpson; 16 books in a series featuring private detective David Mallin; and 11 in his Richard and Amelia Patton series, a total of 53 books, all penned between 1974 and 1998.



His interest in crime fiction began with Sherlock Holmes stories in Savoy magazines he discovered at his grandmother's house which started him on his path to writing, which went basically nowhere...until what he called a "freak acceptance" of his first TV play as his first sale, which landed an agent who said he wrote better novels. The first of those, Time to Kill, featuring P.I. David Mallin, was published when Ormerod was 54. He once said about his writing philosophy: "I am principally interested in human motivation in respect of crimes, rather than the mechanics of them. My main intention is to entertain rather than to instruct."



Ormerod's creation Detective Inspector Richard Patton is known as a maverick and a pain in the neck by his superiors, who flouts regulations and won't follow orders, which is why they're relieved when he decides to take early retirement. At the start of The Hanging Doll Murder (published in the UK as Face Value), Patton is due to retire in three days. But he's surprisingly ambivalent about the move, especially when the sadistic Clive Kendall, a child-rapist whom he'd jailed years before, is released from prison. Retirement seems even less likely when Patton faces yet another loose end relating to the Kendall case, the husband of Amelia Trowbridge, who's gone missing and whose burned-out car is discovered in a ravine. As Patton navigates around the clues, including a hanging doll with a goatee beard, the case becomes even more personal when he finds himself getting too close to the prime suspect—Amelia.



Trevor Royle, in the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, summarized Ormerod's writing style as having a "nonchalance . . . reminiscent at times of Raymond Chandler. As well as realism of background, Ormerod's writing is notable for its terse and natural dialogue and for an ability to switch the direction of the narrative." Ormerod has also received positive reviews for his characterizations and insights into complex human relationships and motivations, as in this excerpt, musings from Patton:

That Sunday had been my last rest-day in harness, so I'd decided to treat it as a trial run for all my glorious days of freedom ahead. I'd rolled out of bed. A new day. Tra-la! But it hadn't lasted long. After breakfast, the grey day had seemed insupportable indoors, and all I had to fall back on was the same old routine. It had therefore occurred to me to drive out into the country and dicker around with a couple of minor issues. But Brason had to go and upset the equilibrium by offering interest, and Ted Clayton had presented a clear line of action I wasn't going to be in a position to carry through. It left me tense, my mind racing, and staring out at the wind-blown drifts of heavier flakes past my window. Like my life, I thought in disgust, colourless and insubstantial, and blowing past.

One criticism of Ormerod's work may be what Reginald Hill of Books & Bookmen called an unnecessary twisting and twisting at the tail of Face Value "till the whole thing was bent out of shape." In fact, Ormerod is known for his labyrinthine plots and deep barrel of clues, and by the time he does wind down the denouement, there might be a touch of "it's about time," but all in all, The Hanging Doll Murder is a solid procedural with a pinch of psychological and suspense genres thrown in. Trevor Royle wasn't far off in calling Ormerod "one of Britain's best traditional crime writers."

            

Mystery Melange

The Crime Writers of Canada announced this year's winners of the Arthur Ellis Awards, which recognize the best in mystery, crime, and suspense writing in fiction and non-fiction by Canadian writers. The Best Crime Novel went to Sleeping in the Ground, by Peter Robinson, while the Best First Crime Novel was given to Full Curl, by Dave Butler. For all the honorees, follow this link.

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate announced the shortlist for the 14th annual Crime Novel of the Year, which celebrates the best crime writing from British and Irish authors. The six titles include A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee; The Long Drop by Denise Mina; Spook Street by Mick Herron; The Intrusions by Stav Sherez; Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner; and Insidious Intent by Val McDermid. The shortlist will feature in a six-week promotion in libraries and in WHSmith stores, with the overall winner to be decided by the panel of Judges, alongside a public vote.

The Private Eye Writers of America announced the 2018 Shamus Award nominees including Best Novel finalists Dark Water by Parker Bilal; Blood Truth by Matt Coyle; Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton; The Room of White Fire by T. Jefferson Parker, and Monument Road by Michael Wiley. For the full list, including nods for Best Paperback Original, Best First Private Eye Novel, and Best P.I. Short Story, head on over to the Writing PIs website. Winners in the various categories will be announced at the PWA Banquet at Bouchercon in September.

French crime writer Fred Vargas, the pen name of Frederique Audoin-Rouzeau, has won Spain's prestigious Asturias prize for literature. The award foundation said that Vargas, who is also a distinguished archaeologist, perceives society as "a mysterious and complex ecosystem" and her detective stories possess original plots and irony in their description of characters, as well as abundant imagination. Vargas has won three International Dagger Awards from the Crime Writers Association.

Down & Out Books announced that New Wave Crime will join its publishing family. Founded and edited by Chantelle Aimée Osman, New Wave Crime will focus on diversity of plot, culture, and character, and champion new voices in the crime genre. Osman is currently seeking submissions, which may be sent to newwavecrime@downandoutbooks.com, and expects the first titles to be published in early 2019.

Sadly, it appears that Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, is on the market yet again. Mystery Lovers was founded in 1990 by Richard Goldman and Mary Alice Gorman, who sold the store in 2012 to Laurie Stephens, a bookseller and former librarian. In 2015, Natalie Sacco and Trevor Thomas purchased the store from Stephens but have decided to sell the store due to "family circumstances and new plans for the future." Thomas and Sacco said that their only requirement for a successor is that they be "passionate about books and the Mystery Lovers community," and assured customers that while the search for a buyer is in progress events will go on as scheduled. If you're an interested buyer, contact Natalie Sacco at natalie@mysterylovers.com. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

In writing for the New York Times, Russian scholar Jennifer Wilson makes the case for Dostoyevsky predicting the current "true crime" craze.

In light of the upcoming mystery novel penned by President Bill Clinton and James Patterson, the New York Times took a look at the long tradition of chief executives devouring thrillers, mysteries and detective stories.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Not for Vegas" by Rachel Lynn McGuire.

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Jill Orr, who is the author of the new mystery novel The Bad Break, the second in her Riley Ellison series; the New York Times chatted with Louise Penny, author of the Inspector Gamache mystery series; and the Christian Science Monitor interviewed Anne Hillerman, daughter of author Tony Hillerman, about keeping her father's mysteries alive and putting the focus on a new female character.

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Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings to all! For those of you in the U.S. who are observing Memorial Day, I hope you are taking time to remember the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces, as well as enjoying some quality time together with family and friends.

And now, here's a roundup of the latest news of crime dramas, on the big and small screens, as well as podcasts and the stage:

MOVIES

MGM is re-launching Orion Classics, with a focus on multi-platform and specialized releases and acquisitions, and has named Mike P. Nelson’s thriller The Domestics as its first release. The Domestics is set in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world inhabited by murderous gangs divided into deadly factions, where Nina (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (Tyler Hoechlin) race desperately across the lawless countryside in search of safety. Rounding out the cast are Lance Reddick (The Wire), Sonoya Mizuno (Ex Machina), Dana Gourrier (The Hateful Eight), Thomas Francis Murphy (True Detective) and David Dastmalchian (The Belko Experiment). 

In the last John Wick installment, the retired hit man was declared officially excommunicado from the Continental and dealing with a global contract out on his head. The next installment, John Wick: Chapter 3 will pick up after the events of the last film and find Keanu Reeves' character facing countless threats with no sanctuary to turn to. Joining the action franchise this time around are Halle Berry and Anjelica Huston, who will work with returning members Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick.

It's been almost two years since the last James Bond outing, and during the time since, there's been a lot of talk around who would direct the next film (Danny Boyle), whether Daniel Craig would be returning to the role for a fifth installment (yes, he is), and if we'd be seeing it any time soon. Regarding the last question, the tentatively titled Bond 25 has officially been set for release on October 25th, 2019 in the UK and two weeks later on November 8th in the U.S.

Al Pacino’s Scarface will be re-released June 10-13 to mark the film's 35th anniversary. Brian De Palma’s movie, based on a screenplay by Oliver Stone, is a gangland classic that stars Pacino as a Cuban gangster who rises through the ranks of the drug trade in Miami in the 1980s. The re-release is being presented by Universal Pictures, which is also producing a new version of De Palma’s film, directed by Antoine Fuqua.

A trailer was released for City of Lies (based on the novel of the same name by journalist Randall Sullivan) starring Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker as they take on one of the most notorious unsolved cases in Los Angeles history: the murder of Biggie Smalls. Depp will play Russell Poole, a real-life detective who spent years trying to crack the mystery, who teams up with a desperate reporter (Forest Whitaker) to solve the mystery of Biggie Smalls’ death and the conspiracy to cover up the case.

The first trailer is out for Papillon, a remake of the classic 1973 film that was based on the memoirs of convicted felon and fugitive Henri Charrière. Directed by Michael Noer (Northwest) from a script by Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners), the film stars Charlie Hunnam, Rami Malek, Yorick Van Wageningen, Roland Moller, Tommy Flanagan and Eve Hewson, and opens in theaters August 24.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Ryan Reynolds and Michael Bay are heading to Netflix to star in Six Underground, a Bay-directed action picture that has Skydance Media partnering with the streaming giant. Reynolds will be reunited with his Deadpool and Deadpool 2 writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, who penned the script that centers on six billionaires who fake their own deaths and form an elite team to take down bad guys.

The next installment in BBC One’s collection of Agatha Christie stories, The ABC Murders, has signed John Malkovich to play Hercule Poirot and Rupert Grint to portray Inspector Crome. Filming is due to begin in June on the three-part drama that is set in the 1930s at a time when Britain is dangerously divided and suspicion and hatred are on the rise. The story sees Poirot face a serial killer known only as A.B.C. As the body count rises, the only clue is a copy of The ABC Railway Guide at each crime scene.

Season 9 has been confirmed for ITV's award-winning crime drama VERA, with Brenda Blethyn returning once again to play the unorthodox but brilliantly perceptive Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope. The four-part season centers on the death of Joanne Caswell a newly qualified HMP forensic psychologist working in Newcastle, who'd been looking into the crime of a former patient who had recently committed suicide. Kenny Doughty returns as Detective Sergeant Aiden Healy, who over the years has proved himself to be a strong and reliable partner to DCI Stanhope. Doctor Who’s Peter Davison, James Atherton (The Crown), Adrian Lukis (Little Boy Blue), and Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones) will lead the all-star guest cast.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced its fall slate including Coroner (winter 2019), an hourlong procedural series based on former barrister-turned-acclaimed crime writer M.R. Hall's bestselling Jenny Cooper novels, about a former ER doctor newly appointed as a coroner investigating suspicious deaths. The CBC also renewed the Frankie Drake Mysteries and the Murdoch Mysteries for an additional season each.

Independent drama producer Kudos has won the television adaptation rights to Diane Setterfield’s new suspense novel Once Upon a River. The story is a period mystery set in an inn on the River Thames where the regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child, although hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can it be explained by science? Setterfield’s debut 2006 novel The Thirteenth Tale was adapted into a BBC TV drama starring Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Coleman.

Only a short time after Syfy canceled The Expanse beyond its upcoming third season, Amazon announced it was picking up the critically praised series for Season 4. Co-created and written by Oscar-nominated screenwriting duo Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men), the series is based on the bestselling book series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (under the pen name James S. A. Corey). The project stars Steven Strait, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dominique Tipper, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham, Frankie Adams, and Thomas Jane in the police detective set in the asteroid belt where the first officer of an interplanetary ice freighter and an Earth-bound United Nations executive slowly uncover a vast conspiracy that threatens the Earth’s rebellious colony.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The New York Times profiled the podcast My Favorite Murder, which has legions of female fans who call themselves Murderinos and have turned the show’s hosts, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff, into global stars.

The Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste talked about Cocky Cowboys, trademark bullying, Ian McEwan's disappointing grades, and much more. Craig Sisterson also reviewed Dark Pines by Will Dean and Paper Ghosts by Julia Haeberlin, and special guest Simon Toyne chatted about the Solomon Creed novels, working in TV and the vagaries of that business, plus basing books on true crimes.

Suspense Radio's Inside Edition was joined by Sisters in Crime talking about the organization and also welcomed author Charlie Donlea to discuss his latest novel, Don't Believe It, in which a filmmaker helps clear a woman convicted of murder—only to find she may be a puppet in a sinister game.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime fiction author David Swinson on the Crime Cafe podcast. Swinson's new novel Crime Song is the follow up in his D.C.-set series featuring Frank Marr, a retired cop turned PI, who was a burglar in his former life.

Read or Dead discussed books by Asian and Asian American writers in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

THEATER

The Strand Theater in Marietta, Georgia, is presenting encore performance of Murder! at The Strand, an immersive theatrical whodunit that sold out during its initial run in April. The additional performances June 7-10 will once again allow the audience to identify the true story behind a nefarious crime and the criminal with the motive to commit it.

Chicago's Lifeline Theatre is mounting a revival of its 2010 hit adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel, Neverwhere, itself based on the 1996 BBC television series in which a man and woman find themselves trapped in a shadowy underworld beneath London’s streets where rogues and assassins roam. Robert Kauzlaric’s adaptation is directed by Ilesa Duncan with a run from May 25-July 15.

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