B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 166

Quote of the Week

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FFB: The Plot Thickens

Collecting and publishing mystery short stories in anthologies to benefit a charity is pretty common these days, no doubt due to the rise of ebooks - prior to the new digital era, print short story anthologies were considered a hard sell.



One of the earliest such charitable enterprises I could find was The Plot Thickens, edited by Mary Higgins Clark back in 1997 to benefit the adult literacy organization Literacy Partners. Contributing authors include Lawrence Block, Edna Buchanan, Carol Higgins Clark, Mary Higgins Clark, Lauren and Nelson DeMille, Janet Evanovich, Linda Fairstein, Nancy Pickard, Ann Rule, Donald E. Westlake, and Walter Mosley. Each story had to include a tale that features a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak, although everything else was fair game. Here's the all-star lineup:

"How Far it Could Go" by Lawrence Block is a conversational story set in a restaurant where a woman is interviewing a man she want to hire to intimidate her ex-boyfriend who says she owes him money;
"Foolproof" by Edna Buchanan centers on the autopsy of an Egyptian mummy that reveals the supposedly thousand-year-old corpse was a murder victim with the same fingerprints as an infamous gang member;
"Too Many Cooks" by Carol Higgins Clark is about an aspiring young actress in a steak sauce commercial where a series of puzzling accidents start happening on the set around her;
"The Man Next Door" by Mary Higgins Clark finds a young woman kidnapped by her creepy neighbor, who happens to be a serial killer, via a shared basement;
In "Revenge and Rebellion" by Nelson & Lauren DeMille, a woman entrusts her prized autobiographical manuscript to an old college friend-turned literary agent, but doesn't take his criticism too well;
"The Last Peep" by Janet Evanovich is a story featuring the author's iconic bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum, who's on the trail of a peeping tom exhibitionist, only to have her discover the man's dead, naked body—which promptly disappears;
"Going Under" by Linda Fairstein focuses on an ambitious young policewoman who goes undercover as a dental patient to catch a molesting dentist;
In "Thick-Headed" by Walter Mosley, the author once again manages to pack a complicated mix of colorful characters like gangsters, pimps, prostitutes, and two friends in trouble into a tight tale;
"Love's Cottage" by Nancy Pickard is a fictionalized timeline of events surrounding the fatal fire and murders at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin studios in Wisconsin;
"The Road Trip" by Ann Rule follows a new divorcée on a road trip hoping to get away from her jealous ex-husband for awhile, only to find herself face to face with an infamous serial killer;
"Take it Away" by Donald E. Westlake is an example of the author's trademark humor and charm, in which a hapless FBI agent on a stakeout is sent to get food for the team from the local Burger Whopper and strikes up a conversation with the man next to him in line, which takes a strange turn.

Both "The Man Next Door" by Mary Higgins Clark and "Take it Away" by Donald E. Westlake were chosen to be in the Best American Mystery Stories 1998, edited by the late Sue Grafton.

            

Mystery Melange

Michael Connelly has been chosen by the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) to receive this year’s Diamond Dagger award for sustained excellence in the crime fiction-writing field and will be presented with the award during a ceremony in London on October 25. Connelly joins a distinguished list of previous Diamond Dagger recipients that includes Dick Francis, Ruth Rendell, Reginald Hill, P.D. James, Peter Lovesey, Sara Paretsky, Andrew Taylor, Ian Rankin, and last year’s recipient, Ann Cleeves.

The finalists for the Hammett Prize were just announced and include The Marsh King's Daughter by Karen Dionne; The Tragedy of Brady Sims by Ernest J. Gaines; August Snow, by Stephen Mack Jones; and Two Days Gone by Randall Silvis. The awards are handed out annually by the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers for a work of literary excellence in the field of crime writing by a US or Canadian author.

Finalists for the 30th annual Lambda Literary Awards that "identify and celebrate the best lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books of the year and affirm that LGBTQ stories are part of the literature of the world," have been chosen in 23 categories, including

Lesbian Mystery

A Quiet Death, Cari Hunter
Fever in the Dark, Ellen Hart
The Girl on the Edge of Summer, M. Redmann
Huntress, E. Radley
The Last First Time, Andrea Bramhall
Murder Under the Fig Tree: A Palestine Mystery, Kate Jessica Raphael
Odd Numbers, Anne Holt
Repercussions, Jessica L. Webb

Gay Mystery

Boystown 10: Gifts Given, Marshall Thornton
Long Shadows, Kate Sherwood
Love is Heartless, Kim Fielding
The Mystery of the Curiosities, C. S. Poe
Night Drop, Marshall Thornton
Ring of Silence, Mark Zubro
Street People, Michael Nava
Tramps and Thieves, Rhys Ford

Winners will be announced June 4 at the Lambda Literary Awards ceremony in New York City.

This month, Literary Hub is launching CrimeReads, a new website dedicated to showcasing the best writing from the worlds of crime, mystery, and thrillers, "a literary culture that’s more robust than ever, but diffuse." The site will publish a daily slate of features, excerpts, interviews, reading lists, critical essays, and news from around the crime fiction community, including articles from authors including Laura Lippman on the transgressive legacy of James M. Cain, Val McDermid on the birth and boom of Tartan Noir, and Jason Overstreet on spy fiction and the black American experience. CrimeReads is partnering with publishers, booksellers, journals, author organizations, festivals, librarians, and critics, and is advised by a board of distinguished authors, including Megan Abbott, Lee Child, Carl Hiaasen, Walter Mosley, Attica Locke, Ruth Ware, and Daniel Woodrell. The Masthead also includes Senior Editor: Dwyer Murphy; Associate Editor: Molly Odintz; and Contributing Editors: Lisa Levy and Sarah Weinman.

The selected stories for the 2018 Bouchercon conference anthology Sunny Places, Shady People were announced this week, with many familiar names on the list in what promises to be a fantastic lineup of short crime fiction. Editor Greg Herren added that "we had a record number of submissions, and choosing from this embarrassment of riches was a monumental task."

The new Scandi noir? Korea is reinventing the thriller, emerging as a surprising literary force when a novel by the ‘Korean Henning Mankell’ bags a six-figure deal and sparks a global bidding war.

The New Zealand Herald profiled author Stella Duffy, who was commissioned by the Ngaio Marsh estate to complete Marsh's unfinished 1940s manuscript Money in the Morgue, about how she went about approaching the task of maintaining Marsh's style while incorporating modern sensibilities. Less troublesome was Marsh's signature character gentleman detective Roderick Alleyn, who Duffy describes as a "really juicy interesting character" to write.

Author Brad Meltzer discovered a surprising - and rather touching - secret tied into the 9-11 attacks while researching his latest thriller.

Nancy Drew, the teenage detective who first entered American fiction in 1930, will return to the page in comic book form. Publisher Dynamite Entertainment will be releasing the book in June, with writer Kelly Thompson and artist Jenn St-Onge attached to the creative team, and in fact, the entire project is being led by an all-female creative team (with the exception of editor Nate Crosby). In the new take on the iconic character, Nancy hasn’t aged a day over seventeen and returns to her hometown to crack a case involving people from her past — her childhood friends and enemies. In true mystery-noir fashion, the story involves someone who is trying to end Nancy’s career as an amateur sleuth … as well as her life.

From the "forensics of the (near) future" department comes this news nugget: "Crime happens, and there is a witness. Instead of a sketch artist drawing a portrait of the suspect based on verbal descriptions, the police hook the witness up to EEG equipment. The witness is asked to picture the perpetrator, and from the EEG data, a face appears." New research from the University of Toronto Scarborough has brought that scenario one step closer to reality by using EEG data ("brainwaves") to reconstruct images of faces shown to subjects. In other words, they’re using EEG to tap into what a subject is seeing.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Alexander Berkman: Deported by God" by Charles Rammelkamp, and the latest story at Beat to a Pulp is "Cold Turkey" by Keith Rawson.

In the Q&A roundup, Omnimystery News welcomed Michael Niemann, whose third novel in his series of international thrillers featuring Valentin Vermeulen, Illegal Holdings, was just released; the Weekly Standard snagged an interview with 63-year-old first-time novelist Stephen Mack Jones to discuss second careers, Detroit, and his protagonist, August Snow; and the CBC had eight authors quiz fellow scribe Nathan Ripley about his debut thriller Find You in the Dark.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Author R&R with Patti Abbott

Patti Abbott is no stranger to this blog and its readers, since IRTM has been a participant in Patti's Friday's "Forgotten" Books features on her blog for some time. In addition to being a blogger, Patti is an outstanding author of short crime fiction and has published over 125 stories online and in print journals in various anthologies, winning a Derringer for her story "My Hero." She's also published two print novels, Concrete Angel (2015), nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award, and Shot in Detroit (2016), nominated for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award in 2017. She's also authored two ebooks, Monkey Justice and Home Invasion, and co-edited the anthology Discount Noir. 



Her latest literary endeavor is a collection of twenty-six of her stories, titled I Bring Sorrow: And Other Stories of Transgression, published by Polis Books, which Publishers Weekly called "A sparkling collection from Edgar-finalist Abbott...This brilliant collection is sure to boost the author’s reputation as a gifted storyteller." From a daughter who finds a way to save a mother who no longer knows her name, to a father who eases his grief through an act of kindness that few will judge kindly, to an uxorious husband who finds the limits of his love, the collection promises to take you "into the deepest, darkest corridors of the heart."



Patti stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about one of the stories in that collection and how it came to be:

 

"Um Peixe Grande"

From I BRING SORROW AND OTHER STORIES OF TRANSGRESSION

Early in my writing career, such as it is, I wrote a story for a specific challenge. The instructions were to choose a fairy tale or a myth and base a crime story on the tale. I chose Hansel and Gretel (along with half of the eventual entries) and wrote a story about two city kids whose mother is pretty much the witch. I had fun doing it and resolved to try my hand at it again.

So a few years later, I chose Grimm’s story "The Fisherman and His Wife" to update. And my first attempt pretty much followed the story’s structure. In the tale, a fisherman sets a caught flounder free and when he returns home his wife tells him he should have demanded a prize for his good deed. He returns to the water and demands a prize, which he gets, and the demands and the prizes escalate until it spins out of control.

I wasn’t happy with my story. It turned out to be too much about the harridan wife. It seemed like a cliché-filled short story when I was done. So my story eventually became more about the fisherman and the fish. The fish becomes a crime boss and the lakes of Maine a scene for certain sorts of crimes. I made the fisherman Portuguese, which felt authentic. His wife’s role is largely trying to persuade him to work for a fish farm. I was pretty happy with this story and happier still when PLAN B who published it had it read online by a fellow who perfectly got the voice that had only existed in my head. Incidentally, a certain B.V. Lawson has a story in the same collection. Thanks to Bonnie for hosting me.

 

You can follow Patti on her popular blog, or on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. I Bring Sorrow and Other Stories of Transgression is available now via Polis books and all major booksellers.

           Related StoriesRIP, Sue Grafton and Kinsey MillhoneRIP, Sue Grafton and Kinsey MilhoneFFB: Bill Crider 

Media Murder for Monday

Monday means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news, including some Oscar results:



AWARDS



Although the winners were fairly evenly spread out among the various films at the Academy Awards last evening, crime dramas made a showing via Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri for Best Actress (Frances McDormand) and Best Supporting Role (Sam Rockwell). For the full list of nominees and winners, head on over to the Academy's website.

 

MOVIES



Universal Pictures is developing a new take on Fear, the 1996 thriller that starred Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg, and has set Oscar-nominated Straight Outta Compton co-scribe Jonathan Herman to write the script. In the original film, Witherspoon met Wahlberg’s character in what seemed to be a perfect love match — until his darker side emerged and it all went off the rails. William Peterson and Alyssa Milano co-starred in the original, which was produced by Brian Grazer, who will return to produce again for Imagine Entertainment. Although the "new take" aspect of the pic is being kept under wraps, it will apparently be told from a female perspective.

Greg Silverman’s Stampede Ventures pre-empted the unpublished female-driven thriller This Red Fire from author Nicolina Torres (via Inkshares and The Launch Pad Competition). This Red Fire, which as been compared to Insomnia, is a story set in Calliope, Nebraska, and follows small-town sheriff Evie Hartley who arrives to find the entire town murdered—save for two children, missing young siblings. As federal authorities swoop in to search for the perpetrators, the sheriff—herself recently having lost a child—sets off after the missing kids. 

Tina Mabry, a writer-director-producer on OWN’s drama series Queen Sugar, has been set to adapt Code of Silence, a feature film in the works at MWM Studios. The project is based on a four-part 2016 article by Jamie Kalven in The Intercept and tells the true story of Chicago police officer Shannon Spaulding’s experience as a whistleblower and how she, along with her partner and the community, exposed corruption and a cover-up within the Chicago PD.

The Will Smith-starring action thriller Gemini Man has added Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange) to the cast as production has officially begun. Oscar-winning director Ang Lee is at the helm of the project, which follows Henry Brogan (Smith), an elite assassin who suddenly is targeted and pursued by a mysterious young operative who seemingly can predict his every move. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Clive Owen co-star in the film, which is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison.

Actors James Badge Dale (Only The Brave) and Brian Geraghty (The Alienist) have been tapped to star in the indie drama, The Incident At Sparrow Creek Lumber from writer-director Henry Dunham. The story is described as having a locked-room paranoia in a Reservoir Dogs vein with the gritty intrigue of classic espionage fiction. It follows reclusive ex-cop Gannon (Dale), who’s forced out of retirement after he realizes a mass shooting at a police funeral was committed by a member of the same militia he joined after quitting the force. Gannon quarantines his fellow militiamen in the remote lumber mill where he sets about a series of grueling interrogations, intent on ferreting out the killer.

Andrea Riseborough is eyeing a role in Sony’s remake of The Grudge with Nicolas Pesce aboard to direct and rewrite for Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. It’s a new take on the 2004 pic (itself based on the 2002 Japanese original Ju-on), which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar as a nurse in Tokyo who is afflicted by a curse that created uncontrollable homicidal rage. Riseborough is eyeing the role of a detective and young single mother.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Apple has ordered a 10-episode straight-to-series order for an untitled half-hour psychological thriller from M. Night Shyamalan and British TV writer Tony Basgallop. Plot details for the series are being kept under wraps for the project, which was created by Basgallop (24, To The Ends of the Earth).

Bobby Cannavale (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) and Dallas Roberts (Dallas Buyers Club) have joined the cast in key roles for the noir thriller Motherless Brooklyn, which is filming in New York City. Cannavale plays Tony Vermonte and Roberts plays Danny Fantl, both characters from the book by Jonathan Lethem. Edward Norton, who is directing the film, will also play the Tourette-stricken private eye protagonist Lionel Essrog, who tries to solve the murder of his only friend, Frank Minna. The pic is set in 1950s New York, and the case leads Essrog from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York’s power brokers.

The Originals star Joseph Morgan has landed the lead role in the TV adaptation of Gone Baby Gone, playing private eye Patrick Kenzie, the role played by Casey Affleck in the original 2007 film. Based on the book by Dennis Lehane and adapted for television by Black Sails co-creator Robert Levine, Gone Baby Gone follows Boston detectives Kenzie and Angela Gennaro who investigate a little girl's kidnapping, which ultimately turns into a crisis both professionally and personally. 

Toby Kebbell is heading to the small screen and has landed the lead role on Salvage, an ABC drama pilot that follows ex-cop Jimmy Hill (Kebbell), who just wants to be left alone after moving back home in rural Florida. But when a local murder is linked to the sunken treasure of a lost Spanish galleon, he’s drawn into the investigation by an idealistic deputy and pitted against the powerful town patriarch, outside criminal agents, and his own father. Kebbell joins the previously-cast Charity Wakefield, who plays Jimmy’s ex, Gwen.

Battlestar Galactica alum Michael Trucco is set as a series regular opposite Aunjanue Ellis and Alana De La Garza in the CBS drama pilot Chiefs, from David Hudgins and Carol Mendelsohn. Written by Hudgins and directed by Zetna Fuentes, Chiefs explores the professional and personal lives of three driven, successful but very different women, who are each Chiefs of Police of their own precincts in L.A. County. Trucco will play Detective Keele, who works closely with Chief of Police Kendra Downes (Ellis) and is sharp as a tack and devoted to the job. 

Dexter alumna Luna Lauren Velez and Pallavi Sharda (Pulse) have booked series-regular roles opposite Michael Chiklis and Teyonah Parris in CBS' drama pilot Murder, from Lin Pictures and Warner Bros. Written by Amanda Green and based on the British miniseries, this new take on the investigative drama explores crime through the unique and often-conflicting perspectives of cops and killers, witnesses and victims, friends and family. Shot like a true-crime documentary, the series centers on Detectives Mason Garrity (Chiklis) and Ayana Lake (Parris), with Velez playing Capt. Lili Alvarez, a trailblazing leader for women in the NYPD who is a strong and supportive squad boss, and Sharda portraying Dr. Parvati Agrawal, a meticulous forensic pathologist who sees herself as the final doctor for each homicide victim. 

Also boarding the Murder train are Leonard Roberts (Major Crimes) and Australian actress Andrea Demetriades (Pulse). Roberts takes on the role of Assistant District Attorney Malachi Sandel, a talented, charismatic homicide prosecutor whose persuasive skills and charm extend from the courtroom to his active social life, and Demetriades will play Raquel Bennett, a Legal Aid defense attorney, who’s both highly skilled and deeply passionate about advocating for her clients. 

Former Daytime Divas star Camille Guaty has been cast as a series regular opposite Kylie Bunbury in ABC’s Get Christie Love reboot drama pilot, an action-packed, music-driven drama that centers on Christie Love (Bunbury), an African-American CIA agent who leads an elite ops unit. She transforms into whomever she needs to be to get the job done, especially when it’s down to the wire and the stakes are life and death. Guaty will play Juana, Christie’s best friend and closest female confidante. Also joining the Get Christie Love reboot is Thomas Cocquerel (Table 19), who will play Adam, one the youngest team members of Christie’s counterintelligence unit who is young, smooth, and just a bit cocky.

In his first series regular role, Zeeko Zaki (Valor, Six) is set as the male lead in F.B.I., CBS’ upcoming 13-episode drama series from Dick Wolf, boss of the Law & Order and Chicago franchises. The series chronicles the inner workings of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Zaki will play FBI Special Agent OA, who made it from Bushwick to West Point, and has both the confidence – and the will – of someone who’s had to fight every step of the way. After spending two years undercover, the DEA abruptly ripped him out, and he was cherry-picked by the FBI. 

Andrea Riseborough is in talks to join the Amazon-Sky miniseries Zero, Zero, Zero, set to air on Canal Plus and Sky Network in the UK, Italy, Germany and other European regions. The project is based on a book by Gamorrah author Roberto Saviano set in the world of international cocaine trafficking. Riseborough would play Emma Landry, the no-nonsense operations manager of her family’s financial empire.

British actress Perdita Weeks is set as the female lead opposite Jay Hernandez in CBS’ Magnum P.I. pilot. The reboot of the classic 1980s Tom Selleck series will feature the same central quartet of characters as the original but, instead of four guys, it consists of three men and a woman, with Jonathan Higgins reconceived as Juliet Higgins (Weeks), the "majordomo"for the large Hawaiian estate of writer Robin Masters, for whom Magnum (Hernandez) ostensibly works security and lives in his guest house. She is commanding, confident, tough, uses sarcasm to deflect emotion and is hard to get to know – but it’s worth it in the end.

Former Fear the Walking Dead star Mercedes Mason has booked a series-regular role in ABC’s straight-to-series light crime drama The Rookie, starring and executive produced by Castle alum Nathan Fillion. Written by former Castle executive producer/co-showrunner Alexi Hawley and directed by Liz Friedlander, The Rookie stars Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie in the LAPD. At an age where most are at the peak of their career, Nolan cast aside his comfortable, small town life and moved to L.A. to pursue his dream of being a cop.

Alexander Sokovikov (House of Cards) has joined the series regular cast of ABC’s drama pilot Staties, from Matt Partney & Corey Evett, Maniac Productions and ABC Studios. Written by Partney and Evett and directed by Rob Bowman, Staties centers on Eliza Cortez (Annie Ilonzeh), a hard-charging NYPD detective who’s banished to the boonies after a high-profile mistake and is paired with a new partner, Oregon State Trooper Sam King (Andy Karl). Sokovikov will play Senior Trooper Yuri Kinbote, a gruff Russian trooper who’s skeptical of the new statie in town.

In her return to series television almost two decades after a breakout starring turn in Fox’s Dark Angel, Jessica Alba has been tapped as the co-lead opposite Gabrielle Union in NBC’s untitled Bad Boys spinoff drama pilot. The project centers on a free-spirited former DEA agent (Union) who has a fresh start in her new job as an LAPD detective. She’s partnered with Nancy McKenna (Alba), a working mom who can’t help but look at Syd’s freedom with some grass-is-greener envy. These two have totally different lifestyles and approaches, but they both are at the top of their fields in this action-packed, character-driven procedural. 

Paula Newsome (NCIS) is set as a series regular in the NBC drama pilot Suspicion, based on the book by Joseph Finder, which is described as a Hitchcockian thriller about how far one man will go to save the people he loves. After Danny Goldman accepts a handshake loan from his new friend and millionaire neighbor, he gets a visit from the FBI and learns that the decision is one he will regret for the rest of his life. Coerced to work as an informant for the FBI to earn back his freedom, Danny is forced to infiltrate a world of violence and corruption while trying to protect his family. Newsome will play Agent Peters. With a calm demeanor, Agent Peters still makes Danny uneasy despite her efforts to be honest and straightforward.

SundanceTV has given the green light to No One Saw A Thing (working title) a true crime docuseries from Blumhouse Television, with Israeli filmmaker Avi Belkin attached to direct and executive produce. The six-episode series examines an unsolved and mysterious death in the American Heartland and the corrosive effects of vigilantism in small town America. The case garnered international attention in the early 1980s after a resident was shot dead in front of almost 60 townspeople who deny having seen anything, to this very day. 

PBS announced it has acquired the North American distribution rights to Kimberly Reed’s documentary Dark Money which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, which won the Sundance Institute/Amazon Studios Producers Award, follows a Montana-based reporter’s investigation of one of the greatest present threats to American democracy—the influence of corrupt money on our elected officials. A century ago, secret money swamped Montana’s legislature, but citizens rose up to prohibit corporate campaign contributions. Today, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — which allows unlimited, anonymous money to pour into elections nationwide — Montana is once again fighting to preserve open and honest elections.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The new official Crime Syndicate Magazine podcast, hosted by Editor Michael Pool, plans to feature readings, interviews, and book reviews from crime fiction authors and other industry professionals. The debut episode featured a live interview with crime fiction author Eryk Pruitt, and the most recent installment welcomed Canadian crime fiction author Sam Wiebe to discuss the second in the PI Dave Wakeland series, Cut You Down.

Another new podcast that's near and dear to my heart since it features music mysteries (and my own Scott Drayco mystery series has a music component), is Classic FM's Case Notes that delves into the darkest mysteries and murkiest stories from the history of music. Topics will cover such unusual cases as Haydn’s missing head that was taken from his grave by one of his best friends and a composer who was so obsessed with black magic his friends feared for his life.

Episode 14 of Writer Types features guests Hilary Davidson, Andrew Nette, Ivy Pochoda, and Scott Adlerberg, with special visits from Hollie Overton and Tod Goldberg. Plus, the Malmons go to Planet ComicCon in Kansas City and the show's Unpanel this week is all about anthologies.

Debbi Mack welcomed mystery author Richard Helms on Crime Cafe to talk about the latest installment in his series with Police Chief Judd Wheeler set in tiny Prosperity, North Carolina.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone regular host Luca Veste was joined by guest host Stuart Neville. The duo tackled the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers, music, scary taxi drivers on US book tours, ebooks, and writing controversial articles around book publication dates.

2nd Sunday Crime with host Libby Fischer Hellman welcomed Melanie Benjamin to discuss her latest, The Girls in the Picture, set in 1914 Hollywood.

Read or Dead hosts Katie and Rincey chatted all about all things noir: what’s considered noir, classic noir and more modern noir books.

THEATER

The Queen's Theatre in Barnstaple in the UK is presenting a new production from Bill Kenwright’s Classic Thriller Theatre Company. Edgar Wallace’s The Case of the Frightened Lady, which opens with a week-long run on Monday, March 12, features a star-studded cast including TV favorites Gray O’Brien (Coronation Street); Rula Lenska (Doctor Who, EastEnders); Denis Lill (The Royal); Charlie Clements (EastEnders); Philip Lowrie (Coronation Street); April Pearson (Skins); Ben Nealon (Soldier Soldier); and Glenn Carter (Jesus Christ Superstar). The story follows Inspector Tanner as he's called in to investigate a ruthless murder at the grand ancestral home of the Lebanon family, quickly discovering that nothing is quite as it seems.

The Vertigo Theater of Calgary's Mystery Series will present The Lonely Diner beginning March 10 with a run through April 8. Written by Beverley Cooper and directed by Kelli Fox, the story is set in a quiet little rural Canadian diner where Lucy yearns for the glitz, glamour and excitement of America’s roaring cities. Prohibition has just been lifted in Ontario, but across the border mob bosses battle for the illicit trade of alcohol. Lucy’s husband, Ron, and her daughter, Sylvia, seem content to live their quiet life, but an infamous gangster - and his stolen whiskey - is about to bring Lucy’s far-off dreams into sharp, dangerous focus.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Quote of the Week

           Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

FFB: The Mystery Of The Hidden Room

It is rare that I can't dig up something on an author for a Friday's "Forgotten" Books feature. I came across a book online by Marion Harvey (quite possibly a pen name), who was reported to have been born in 1900. There aren't any biographies or obituaries as near as I can tell, but due to early publication information and some performance data, the author appears to be American and the author of several mystery novels and plays, including:



The Mystery of the Hidden Room (E.J. Clode, 1922)

The Vengeance of the Ivory Skull  (E.J. Clode, 1923)

The House of Seclusion (Small & Maynard, 1925)

The Arden Mystery (Brentano's, 1925)

The Dragon of Lung Wang (E.J. Clode, 1928)

The Clue of the Clock (E.J. Clode, 1929)The Clue of the Clock (E.J. Clode, Inc., 1929)

The Inner Circle. A Mystery Thriller in Three Acts (New York 1930)

Footsteps: A Breath-taking Mystery Play by Marion Harvey & Nancy Bancroft Brosius (Fitzgerald Pub., 1931)





At least three of these works, Hidden Room, Ivory Skull, and Inner Circle, feature Graydon McKelvie, a Sherlock Holmes-worshiping detective. In addition to noting that the criminal device employed in Hidden Room is noteworthy,  SS Van Dine once noted (in The Great Detective Stories, 1927), "The deductive work done by Graydon McKelvie is at times extremely clever."



The Mystery Of The Hidden Room is told from the viewpoint of Carlton Davies, whose former fiancee Ruth Darwin was blackmailed into leaving him by the man she ultimately married, powerful banker Phillip Darwin. When the husband is murdered and Carlton finds Ruth standing over him with a gun in her hand one night, she is promptly arrested, tried, and packed off to prison.



Carlton never lost his love for Ruth and is steadfast in believing her innocent of the crime, but the New York City police don't share his convictions. He decides to do his own investigating, but since his butler happens to work with Graydon McKelvie, Carlton begs for McKelvie's help, and the chase is afoot. It doesn't take long for McKelvie to learn that practically no one involved with the case is being honest about their activities on the fatal night and several of the bit players are AWOL.



The hidden room of the title makes its appearance relatively early in the story, thus it's not much of a spoiler for it to be headlined in the title. The room in which Darwin was killed appears to be a locked room scenario, with burglar alarms on the windows, but even after the secret room is discovered, there remain many mysteries to solve, including a stoneless ring, a new Will naming a mystery woman as the beneficiary, Darwin's missing nephew, and puzzling sachets sprinkled along the investigative trail. McKelvie also has to solve the mystery of a second bullet that can't be found and a lamp that seems to turn on by itself.



Harvey's writing is de rigueur for her day, with dialog tags now considered passe and a bit comical ("'Well, I'll be hanged!' I ejaculated"), and hints of racism regarding a black servant and some "chink" goons. But the story runs along at a relatively jaunty clip and, although the eventual culprit isn't a huge surprise if you've been paying attention, the journey to the unveiling is entertaining.



If anyone can find more biographical details about this mystery (and I mean that literally) author, please feel free to add them. I did find newspaper accounts of Harvey's plays being performed in New York, Alabama and Pennsylvania in the 1930s, but very little details beyond 1935. 

            

Mystery Melange

Walter Mosley will be the Central Keynote Speaker at the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference August 10-12 in New York City, it was announced yesterday. Mosley is best known among the crime fiction community for his popular historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Tickets are on sale for New Zealand's first ever crime fiction festival, Rotorua Noir, on the 26th and 27th of January 2019. Appearing as international guests of honor will be Alex Gray, Lilja Sigurðardóttir. Kati Hiekkapelto and Michael Robotham along with a host of Kiwi authors in panel discussions, interviews and an insight into the life of the criminal mind.

In honor of World Book Day, the UK's True CRIME Museum Hastings is sponsoring a book swap March 2-4. Anyone who arrives at the Museum with a crime-related book to donate can visit the museum for free. All the books collected from the event will be sold through the year and all proceeds go directly to the Museum’s supported charity, Victim Support.

Editor Janet Rudolph of Mystery Readers Journal says the next issue will focus on Gardening Mysteries, and she's seeking reviews, articles, and Author! Author! essays (first person, about yourself, your books, and the 'Gardening/Garden' connection). The deadline is April 1, and you can read more about the call here.

Some sad blogging news and some happy blogging news: First the sad, which is the news that Bernadette Bean, who had been writing the Reactions to Reading blog ever since 2008, has passed away suddenly. Fellow bloggers Jeff Pierce and Margot Kinberg have posted more details and remembrances. In happier news, congratulations go to the Type M 4 Murder blog, which is welcoming its one-millionth visitor this month. Rich Blechta has all the details.

Here's a little-known fact via the Paris Review: Of the ten thousand books in the library of Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, two thousand were detective novels. During the Sultan's reign (1876-1909), more than fifty mystery novels were translated into Turkish. Abdülhamid also went on to create the first secret service and sent spies across the empire to report to him.

Writing for The Guardian, Olivia Laing looked at "Sex, jealousy and gender: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca 80 years on," and how the author's bestselling novel reveals much about the author’s fluid sexuality – her ‘Venetian tendencies’ – and about being a boy stuck in the wrong body.

Hollywood Reporter noted that one of the projects in the works for the 100th anniversary in 2018 of the birth of crime writer Mickey Spillane is Titan Comics' comic book series featuring his signature creation, private eye Mike Hammer. The four-issue series is actually based on a story by Spillane himself, "The Night I Died," originally written in the 1950s as an unproduced screenplay.

If you're an aspiring crime fiction author but scared of rejection, take heart: Michael Bracken posted his submission history, and it turns out, he's been rejected 2,552 times. But, on the flip side, he's also had 1,582 acceptances, which is a ratio of one acceptance for every 1.61 rejections; not a bad record at all.

Chris Rhatigan picked "5 Crime Fiction Titles with a Strong Sense of Place" for the Criminal Element blog.

With the imminent premiere of the fourth season of Amazon's Bosch series, you can vote in a poll for your favorite Michael Connelly book, the author whose works inspired the Amazon series.

Ever find yourself hungry for some decadent fare from killer cookbooks? You're in luck.

Sometimes, crime does pay, as with this list of "10 Lifelong Criminals Who Became Successful Authors."

Want to train to be a spy?





This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Soulmate Mountain" by David S. Pointer.

In the Q&A roundup, the Sleuth Sayers' Brian Thornton chatted with Vancouver author Sam Wiebe about his new novel, Cut You Down, the second installment in his series featuring Vancouver PI Dave Wakeland; Criminal Element's John Valeri spoke with John Hart, the only person to win the Edgar Award for Best Novel consecutively, about his latest book, The Hush; Craig Sisterson welcomed London-based Karin Salvalaggio to discuss her Detective Macy Greeley series set in Montana; and Gregg Hurwitz was interviewed by Gulf Shore Life (ahead of an appearance at the Friends of the Library of Collier County’s Nick Linn Lecture Series) about his Orphan X books, recently picked up for film by Warner Brothers to star Bradley Cooper.

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Media Murder for Monday

Welcome to Monday and a roundup of the latest crime drama news: 



MOVIES

Anne Hathaway is in negotiations to star in director Dee Rees’ The Last Thing He Wanted, based on the Joan Didion political thriller. Marco Villalobos penned the screenplay, which centers on hardscrabble journalist Elena McMahon who quits her job at the Washington Post to care for her father. In doing so, she inherits his position as an arms dealer for covert government forces and soon finds herself in the crosshairs of political espionage.

French filmmaker Julien Seri has signed on to direct the father-son serial killer thriller Anderson Falls for Title Media and Lone Suspect. Starry Eyes executive producer Giles Daoust wrote the script, which follows a detective who becomes convinced that his wife’s suicide was staged, and that she was actually murdered. When he discovers that she may have been the victim of father-and-son serial killers, he’ll have to break all the rules to stop them from killing other women.

Now that we know Daniel Craig will reprise James Bond one last time, the next biggest question is who will direct the actor's last hurrah as 007, especially after Skyfall and Spectre director Sam Mendes announced he wouldn't be returning for Bond 25. Insiders say Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle is high on the list to helm the next James Bond installment, with MGM and Eon Productions, the companies behind the James Bond franchises, listing him as one of the frontrunners.

Idris Elba has released the first trailer for his directorial debut Yardie. Set in ’70s Kingston and ’80s Hackney, Yardie centers on the life of a young Jamaican man named D (Aml Ameen), who has never fully recovered from the murder committed during his childhood of his older brother Jerry Dread (Everaldo Creary). The film, which debuted in Sundance and is screening this week in Berlin, is adapted from the cult 1992 novel by Jamaican-born British writer Victor Headley. 

A reminder that the Noir on the Boulevard Film Series in San Diego cranked up this weekend. The series, which will last through December, will held at the Digital Gym Cinema and feature a classic noir one Sunday a month and a neo-noir on Mondays every other month.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

In a seven-figure deal, Amazon Studios has acquired the rights to the Alafair Burke novel The Wife, with the author set to write the feature script. Published in January by Harper, the novel center on Angela, a woman who suffered extreme trauma in her teen years and now learns that her celebrity husband may be a sexual predator. Jason Powell is a handsome NYU prof whose book on socially conscious investing called Equalonomics is a raging bestseller. He runs a successful consulting firm and hosts a top-rated podcast that has enabled Angela and her husband to live an idyllic life with their son in Greenwich Village. Then, his intern files a complaint at the NYPD Special Victims Unit claiming he made inappropriate sexual suggestions at the office. A second alleged victim surfaces and soon there is a murder and Angela has to confront past personal trauma she thought was far in the rear view mirror.

Anthony Hemingway is set to direct and executive produce CBS’ drama pilot Murder, from producer Dan Lin. Written by Amanda Green based on the BBC miniseries, this new take on the investigative drama explores crime through the unique and often-conflicting perspectives of cops and killers, witnesses and victims, friends and family. Shot like a true-crime documentary, the series invites the audience inside the emotional journey of an investigation, allowing them to discern the truth and judge the suspects’ guilt or innocence for themselves.

Jay Hernandez (Scandal) has been tapped to play Thomas Magnum, the lead in CBS’ drama reboot pilot Magnum P.I. CBS had been looking to add a twist to the classic character played by Tom Selleck in the original series, which had been conceived as diverse in the reboot, with the network setting out to find a non-white actor for the role. The reboot follows Thomas Magnum (Hernandez), a decorated ex-Navy SEAL who, upon returning home from Afghanistan, repurposes his military skills to become a private investigator. With help from fellow vets Theodore “TC” Calvin and Orville “Rick” Wright, as well as that of disavowed former MI:6 agent Juliet Higgins, Magnum takes on the cases no one else will, helping those who have no one else to turn to.

Julia Kelly will be a series regular opposite Kylie Bunbury in ABC’s Get Christie Love reboot drama pilot, inspired by the cult 1974 blaxploitation-themed TV movie and subsequent series. The new Get Christie Love is an action-packed, music-driven drama that centers on Christie Love (Bunbury), an African American female CIA agent who leads an elite ops unit. She transforms into whomever she needs to be to get the job done, especially when it’s down to the wire and the stakes are life and death. Kelly will play Val, the bookish and nerdy tech op for Christie’s (Bunbury) counter-intelligence field unit. 

Sense8 alum Brian J. Smith has been cast as the lead in CBS’ drama pilot L.A. Confidential, based on the classic noir novel by James Ellroy. Directed by Michael Dinner, the TV series follows three homicide detectives, a female reporter and a Hollywood actress whose paths intersect as the detectives pursue a serial killer among the gritty and glamorous 1950s Los Angeles. Smith is set to play Detective Ed Exley, the lead role played by Guy Pearce in 1997 that earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Cold, but not without a conscience, brilliant, fiercely ambitious, Ed Exley is an L.A. cop when the pilot story begins. Determined to make his mark and become a hero in his father’s eyes, Ed will do anything to prove himself. Smith joins Justified's Walton Goggins, who was recently cast as Detective Jack Vincennes.

Alyssa Diaz (Ray Donovan) has booked a series regular role in ABC’s straight-to-series light crime drama The Rookie, starring and executive produced by Castle alum Fillion. Written by former Castle executive producer/co-showrunner Alexi Hawley, The Rookie stars Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie in the LAPD. At an age where most are at the peak of their career, Nolan cast aside his comfortable, small town life and moved to L.A. to pursue his dream of being a cop. Diaz will play Angela, an LAPD Training Officer on the cusp of making detective-trainee. That all gets threatened when she gets assigned to Jackson West. Not only does she have to play the usual politics within her own station house, she now has her hands full with an entitled rookie whose father has a say in her career at the LAPD. 

In her American television debut, young Australian actress Harriet Dyer has landed the female lead in In Between Lives, NBC’s drama pilot from writer Moira Kirland, Heyday Television — the joint venture of Harry Potter and Paddington producer David Heyman and NBCUniversal International Studios — and Universal TV. Written by Kirland, In Between Lives centers on Cassie (Dyer), a mysterious young woman who reluctantly uses her gift of clairvoyance to help a veteran LAPD detective and a damaged ex-FBI outsider solve the most unnerving and challenging cases the city encounters. This eerie ability also opens the door for her to see and talk to the dead, who are seeking help for unresolved problems, whether she likes it or not.

Brandon Flynna nd Michael Graziadei are set to recur in the third season of Nic Pizzolatto’s HBO crime anthology series True Detective, starring Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Scoot McNairy, Mamie Gummer and Ray Fisher. The next installment tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. 

Dawson’s Creek alum Katie Holmes will star in and executive-produce a Fox drama pilot about a controversial FBI agent. The as-yet-untitled potential series centers on Special Agent Hazel Otis, who is in the middle of a terrorism investigation when her affair with a high-level general becomes public knowledge. As the world sees her as "the mistress," she fights to rebuild her personal and professional lives.

Hamilton's Phillipa Soo has signed as a series regular in CBS’ drama pilot The Code. Written by Limitless creator Craig Sweeny, the project features the military’s brightest minds as they take on our country’s toughest challenges inside the courtroom and out where each attorney is trained as a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, an investigator, and a Marine. Soo will play 2nd Lieutenant Harper, a hyper-organized 2nd lieutenant capable of sub-dividing any problem into color-coded action points.

David Zayas (Dexter) has been tapped for a series regular in ABC’s drama pilot Staties. The show centers on Eliza Cortez, a hard-charging NYPD detective who’s banished to the boonies after a high-profile mistake and is paired with a new partner, Oregon State Trooper Sam King, whose investigative techniques don’t exactly follow protocol. Zayas will play Sgt. Machado, the head of Eliza’s new Oregon State Police unit. 

Bosch's Titus Welliver will play meth dealer Ronald Booth in the 18th episode of Chicago P.D.'s fifth season. His character is described as charming and intelligent but also comes with a mean side. An unpredictable man, he can go from a cool charm to impassioned rage in an instant. 

Production has begun on Convicting a Murderer, described as a follow-up to Netflix’s Emmy-nominated docuseries Making a Murderer, from documentary filmmaker Shawn Rech (A Murder In The Park). Rech will direct the eight-episode series which investigates the controversial case built by the State of Wisconsin against Steven Avery for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, in which police were accused of tampering with crime scenes and planting evidence to manipulate the investigation and implicate Avery of the murder. Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey are currently serving life sentences.

Netflix has released the official trailer for their upcoming limited series Collateral, starring Carey Mulligan. Spanning the course of four days in London, the series explores the repercussions surrounding the fatal shooting of a pizza delivery man. Mulligan plays British detective Kip Glaspie, who refuses to accept that this is a random act of violence, and is determined to discover the darker truth

Telexist, the VR production studio behind the narrative film Dinner Party, and its parent company Good Deed Entertainment are teaming on Memory Palace, a 10-episode VR noir thriller series that will be designed to be part cinematic VR and part interactive. The series will center on Owen Knowles, a gifted young lawyer with the knack for seeing peoples’ lies. Disbarred after the mysterious death of his fiancée, he turns to legal depositions as a means to find the truth and seek revenge, and as a human polygraph, he is reminded daily that there is no truth…everyone lies, and everyone has a secret.

The first trailer For BBC America drama Killing Eve was released. The show is based on the novellas by Luke Jennings and stars Jodie Comer as a mercurial, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her, and Sandra Oh as a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade MI5 security officer whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy.

PODCASTS/VIDEOS/RADIO

WHUR welcomed mystery writer Walter Mosley to chat about his new novel, racial and social justice, and the state of black entertainment.

Mick Herron talked with the Spybrary Spy Podcast about London Rules, his Slough House spy series, and Jackson Lamb.

THEATER

A production of William Goldman's stage adaptation of the psychological horror thriller Misery, based on Stephen King's 1988 novel, runs through March 11 at the Hanna Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio. The story centers on successful romance novelist Paul Sheldon who awakes in a secluded home after a car crash and has to outwit the sociopathic bibliophile that seems bound and determined to keep him permanently bedridden.

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Quote of the Week

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