B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 169

Mystery Melange

Scottish crime fiction author Val McDermid is participating in an unusual New Year's project: A specially-commissioned short story by McDermid will be projected onto sites around Edinburgh from New Year’s Day until Burns’ Night (January 25), encouraging locals and visitors to take part in a walking tour through the city's historic streets. Scotland’s Queen of Crime also hopes her story, "New Year’s Resurrection," will resuscitate the popularity of a forgotten 19th Century Scottish novelist, Susan Ferrier, who once outsold Jane Austen and is a central part of Val's story.

Merle Nygate has won the inaugural Little, Brown Award for crime fiction at the University of East Anglia (UEA), receiving £3,000 for her unpublished espionage novel, A Righteous Spy. Henry Sutton, course director for the Crime MA at UEA, added: "The Crime MA seeks to push boundaries and grab attention for the excellence and ambition of the work being produced. We are hugely grateful for the support and recognition from Little, Brown." Nygate graduated this year as part of the university's first cohort on the two-year, part time MA, which launched in September 2015.

The seminar "Agatha Christie and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction" will be held at Chicago's Newberry Library on April 14, 2018. Taught by Northwestern University's Elzbieta Foeller-Pituch, it will "discuss representative works of the 1920s and '30s featuring [Christie's] major sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple" and ways that Christie handles the conventions of the mystery genre. The works listed for discussion are Murder on the Orient Express, Philomel Cottage, and The Thirteen Problems. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

Lee Child, author chair for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, revealed that "New York King of Crime" Don Winslow has been named the first headliner and "special guest" for the 2018 event, to be held July 19-22.

More end of the year "best book" lists have been announced, including Lithub's "Best Crime Books of 2017" and The Strand Magazine's "Top 25 Best Book of 2017."

The Pilot, in conjunction with WRAL-TV and the N.C. Humanities Council, will be hosting a special event Feb. 23 at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, featuring acclaimed authors John Grisham and John Hart. "Thrillers! An Evening with Authors John Grisham and John Hart" will be moderated by D.G. Martin, host of UNC-TV’s "North Carolina Bookwatch" with proceeds benefiting the nonprofit Friends of the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in support of dinosaur research and education at the museum.

We say farewell to two author group blogs: Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room, is shutting down after a decade in the business, and The Lady Killers, which has been around since 2006, is also bidding the blogosphere farewell.

Fortunately, there are sill several good crime fiction blogs out there as Feedspot recently noted - and I'm honored to be there on the list along with The Rap Sheet and many more (although this is hardly an exhaustive list as it exludes fine blogs like Mystery Fanfare and is tied only to those blogs using the service).

As I noted on a blog post the other day, crime fiction fans were devastated to hear of the news of autho Sue Grafton's passing. But in honor of her popular book series featuring Kinsey Millhone, Criminal Element has posted a poll where readers can vote on their favorite Grafton "Alphabet" mystery.



We also say farewell to author Marian Babson, who passed away at the age of 88 in December. She was born in Massachusetts but spent most of her life in the UK and published close to fifty humorous, cozy mysteries. In 1996 she was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library award for her body of work. (HT to the Femmes Fatales.)

Mystery Readers Journal, which is going into its 34th year of publication, has a special offer for you: Subscribe by January 15, 2018 and receive a bonus issue.

The Daily Mail profiled five female writers in the UK who are making a killing in the crime fiction world.

The Bangor Public Library posted a listing of its 10 most-checked-out books of 2017, and it turns all of them were crime fiction titles.

Much has been reported about the severe backlog in DNA testing and rape kits, and in Michigan's Wayne County, Prosecutor Kym Worthy has spent years processing 11,341 rape kits found forgotten in a police storage warehouse where they were routinely dumped without investigation. She's since found over 800 serial rapists, criminals who have struck 10-15 times without being stopped.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Why I Love Being a Cop" by Andrew Kuhn.

In the Q&A roundup, the LA Review of Books chatted with Nelson George, who has produced over 20 books and 15 films in addition to long stints with Billboard magazine and the Village Voice, about his three crime-fiction novels featuring D Hunter, a bodyguard turned investigator; Oline H. Cogdill interviewed Tom Straw for Mystery Scene Magazine - Straw is the author behind the Richard Castle tie-in books from the TV series; James Lee Burke spoke with the Tampa Bay Times about the return of Dave Robicheaux, with the first novel in that series to be published since 2012 due out in early January; and Alison Gaylin spoke with Mystery People contributor, Matthew Turbeville about Gaylin's writing process and her two recent books, What Remains of Me and If I Die Tonight.

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Media Murder

Welcome to the first Media Murder of the New Year:

MOVIES

Madtown, the drama thriller starring Milo Ventimiglia, has been given a January 5 limited release in theaters. The pic centers on Briggs (Ventimiglia), a troubled young man who flashes back to the demons of his past when his sister is released from her 20-year prison sentence for the murder of their parents. Briggs must confront his estranged sister and deal with the past, while fighting to protect his future and the new life he has rebuilt for himself.

The final trailer was released for Liam Neeson’s upcoming action thriller, The Commuter, which has Neeson returning for another adrenaline-pumping thrill ride as an insurance salesman, Michael, whose daily commute home quickly becomes anything but routine.

The first full trailer for the all-female cast reboot of Ocean's 8 has also arrived. The heist film stars Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson and Awkwafina.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Watergate is suddenly a hot topic again, and CBS Television Studios is getting in on the action by developing a series based on Thomas Mallon’s novel Watergate after optioning the rights and hiring Band of Brothers screenwriter John Orloff to adapt and write the project. Mallon’s Watergate follows seven characters from the private cabins of Camp David to the klieg lights of the Senate Caucus Room, the District of Columbia jail and the Dupont Circle mansion of Theodore Roosevelt’s sharp-tongued 90-year-old daughter. It aims to solve some of the scandal’s greatest mysteries such as who erased those 18 1/2 minutes of tape.

Fox has put in development two hourlong dramas from former Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria including a father-daughter police drama with writer Tracy McMillan (Ready for Love) and Fox’s 24:Legacy co-creator Evan Katz. Written by McMillan, Sidekicks is about ambitious young Detroit police detective Shay Kendricks who is forced to team up with a newly-paroled criminal informant, who also just happens to be her dad. While Benny Kendricks quickly becomes a secret weapon solving cases, he also shakes up Shay’s emotional life, pushing her to reconcile with the past — and the feelings — she’d rather avoid.

Amazon Prime announced its 2018 slate of original series and premiere dates. The crime dramas on the list include the FBI drama Absentia starring Castle's Stana Katic; the second season of the con man drama Sneaky Pete; Picnic at Hanging Rock, based on the real-life disappearances of three schoolgirls and one teacher on Valentine’s Day 1900; A Very English Scandal, starring Hugh Grant in the shocking true story of the first British politician to stand trial for conspiracy and incitement to murder; Goliath Season Two, featuring Billy Bob Thornton as defense lawyer Billy McBride; Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, reinvention with a modern sensibility of the famed and lauded Tom Clancy hero; season 2 of the espionage thriller Patriot; and the terrorist thriller Informer.

Netflix has picked up a second season of its praised German mystery thriller Dark, which bowed at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival. Created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, Dark is set in a German town in present day where the disappearance of two young children exposes the double lives and fractured relationships among four families. Told in 10 hourlong episodes, the story takes on a supernatural twist that ties back to the same town in 1986.

There will be no third season for BBC America’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The network has opted not to renew the series, which just wrapped Season 2. From creator Max Landis and showrunner Robert Cooper, the series was adapted from the popular novels by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and followed the bizarre adventures of eccentric “holistic” detective Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett) and his reluctant assistant Todd (Elijah Wood) as the two wound their way through one big, seemingly insane mystery a season, crossing unlikely paths with a bevy of wild and sometimes dangerous characters.

CBS has inked a deal with TNT for off-network cable rights to the first three seasons of the drama series NCIS: New Orleans starring Scott Bakula.

Michael Peña and Diego Luna have been cast in Season 4 of the drug-trafficking saga Narcos, which recently began production in Mexico City for a 2018 premiere. In Season 3, the bloody hunt for Pablo Escobar had ended, and the DEA and agent Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal) turned their attention to the powerful Cali Cartel and its four Kings: cartel leader Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela (Damian Alcazar); Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela (Francisco Denis), the brains behind the rise of the of Cali Cartel and Gilberto’s brother; Pacho Herrera (Alberto Ammann), the on-the-low hitman who runs the Mexican connection and international distribution; and Chepe Santacruz Londono (Pepe Rapazote), who runs the satellite NYC empire of the Colombian drug network.

Murder, She Wrote fans have a new opportunity to get their fix; WGN announced they are adding the iconic TV series featuring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher to their broadcast lineup. The plans are to air all 265 episodes throughout the 2018 year.

Last year brought the trial of the century back into the pop culture conversation with The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, and the second season of the anthology series will be The Assassination of Gianni Versace. The network has been slowly revealing more information about the show's sophomore season, and a new video revealed more about the story and ensemble cast of characters.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Thriller Seekers welcomed authors Louis Bayard and Alex Dolan for a 2017 wrap-up,

Inside Thrill's Season Finale included John Gilstrap, Jon Land, JD Barker, and Eva Natiello talking about their latest books, and how they've stayed alive — even thrived — in today's wild west of books.

Writer Types had a special episode featuring the Crime Quiz 3. Recorded live at Bouchercon in Toronto, this fast and funny crime quiz features panelists Jess Lourey, Jay Stringer and Owen Laukkanen.

THEATER

Two separate versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles are lighting up UK stages currently. Baskerville is at Liverpool Playhouse until January 13, while The Hound of the Baskervilles is at Jermyn Street theatre, London, until January 13. The former is from Ken Ludwig and is a comedic take on the Arthur Conan Doyle masterpiece, while the latter, directed by Lotte Wakeham, is a satirical play within a play centering on an actor, Shaun (Shaun Chambers), who is cast as both the victim Sir Charles and potential victim Sir Henry, leaving him so scared that he keeps fainting.

Calgary, Canada's Vertigo Theater continues its Mystery Series with Undercover, January 13-February 11. The show is described as a "spontaneous theatre creation" and involves recruting one intrepid audience member for an undercover ride into the criminal mind. When everyone is a suspect, will the rookie detective be able to discern clues and see that justice is served as the audience gets embroiled in a mystery they will never forget?

The Gazebo, a comedy thriller by Alec Coppel, arrives at the MainStage Irving-Las Colinas theater on January 19 with a run through February 3. After his wife falls victim to blackmail, a writer of TV whodunits himself commits a real do-it-yourself murder. The writer and his wife plot to plant the blackmailer's corpse in their new gazebo's fresh concrete foundation. Miraculously, he later discovers the body has reappeared on his living room floor and suddenly cops and gumshoes are on the scene, leaving the crime fiction author on the other side of the typewriter.

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Happy Book Year

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RIP, Sue Grafton and Kinsey Millhone

I was so sorry to hear about the death of Sue Grafton, best known for her private eye crime fiction series featuring Kinsey Millhone. Grafton passed away Thursday at the age of 77 after a two-year battle with cancer. Her "alphabet" books with Millhone (beginning with A is for Alibi) have been published in 28 countries and translated into 26 languages with a readership in the millions. The recipient of the first two Anthony Awards for Best Novel (1986, 1987), Grafton has also won three Shamus Awards, two more Anthonys, and also received the highest achievement in U.S. crime fiction, the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 2009. In addition, she was presented with Bouchercon's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.



Grafton's latest installment in her Millhone series was Y is for Yesterday, and she had plans for the final installment, to be titled Z is for Zero. However, her daughter Jamie wrote on Facebook that Kinsey's crime-solving days are over. "Sue always said that she would continue writing as long as she had the juice...Many of you also know that she was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows, and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name. Because of all of those things, and out of the deep abiding love and respect for our dear sweet Sue, as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y."



Here are some of the latest tributes from the New York Times, Mystery Fanfare, The Washington Post, and Ruth Jordan (Crimespree Magazine).

 

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Mystery Melange Christmas Edition

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare has the annual mammoth listing of Christmas-themed mysteries, broken down into Authors A-D; E-H; I-N; O-R; and S-Z.

The Library Journal also has a list of homicide for the holidays, along with a pack of dog stories and all kinds of delicious holiday treats. And even the New York Times' Marilyn Stasio jumped into the holiday fray with some picks.

Meanwhile, Criminal Element wants your vote for your "favorite" Christmas cozy mystery.

Crime fiction fans who enjoy a little mayhem with their merry will also appreciate The Usual Santas from Soho Crime, an anthology of eighteen crime stories that "contain laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season." Contributors include Helene Tursten, Mick Herron, Martin Limón, Timothy Hallinan, Teresa Dovalpage, Mette Ivie Harrison, Colin Cotterill, Ed Lin, Stuart Neville, Tod Goldberg, Henry Chang, James R. Benn, Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, Sujata Massey, Gary Corby, Cara Black, Stephanie Barron, and Peter Lovesey.

Mystery Lovers Kitchen has its usual roster of tempting (and not so homicidal) holiday treats such as this Christmas Stollen and some Peppermint Bark Candy. Criminal Element also has a "Ginger Schnapped" cocktail, inspired by Gail Oust's fifth Spice Shop Mystery, Ginger Snapped.

Archaeologists in Turkey believe they have discovered Santa Claus's tomb. They've unearthed what they say is likely the tomb of the original Santa Claus, or Saint Nicholas, beneath an ancient church in Demre, southern Turkey. Demre, previously known as Myra, in Antalya province, is believed to be the birthplace of the 4th century bishop.

From the north pole to Middle-earth: The Bodleian library will exhibit Tolkien's Christmas letters to his children, masquerading as Father Christmas.

Book Riot has some Bookish Holiday Traditions to consider, as well as "10 Super Luxe Christmas Gifts for Book Lovers."

If it’s not enough to read your favorite crime novels this Christmas, why not visit the places where they’re set? Starting with MC Beaton's Agatha Raisin series set in a picturesque village in the Cotswolds, The Australian adds nine other places to add to your literary bucket list.

The grisly world of Victorian crime is bought vividly to life in fascinating, but gruesome illustrations from "Penny Dreadfuls," highlighting the most notorious murders and executions of the day.

Bookriot celebrates "Noir is the New Black" and offers up nine great noir books to consider as possible gifts for fans of the genre or if you just want to get acquainted and need a good starting point.

Kings River Life Magazine offered up a free holiday mystery short story by Sylvia Maultash Walsh, "The Sun Sets in Key West."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "View, Interrupted" by Lucie Winborne.

The Rhode Island State House Christmas has died - now if officials can only discover who's responsible for its "murder." Farther south, Mrs. Claus says her phone was stolen at Santa House in Portsmouth, VA.

From the mouths of babes - a five-year-old boy called 9-1-1 to warn police that the Grinch was going to steal Christmas.

Are these the five worst Christmas songs of all time?

Ever wonder why we kiss under mistletoe and toast with eggnog?

Need some ideas for the writer or book lover on your gift list? Here are lists of suggestions from The Writer Life; Helping Writers Become Authors; Build Book Buzz; and Jami Gold's Ultimate Gift Guide.

And finally, in case you missed it, here's the Jimmy Kimmel show take on a more murderous version of Elf on the Shelf.

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Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again and time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:



AWARDS

The Screen Actors' Guild announced their picks for the "Best of 2017" performances on film, giving Fox Searchlight’s crime comedy-drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a leading four mentions including the Ensemble category, which is the closest thing the guild gets to a Best Picture designation. Frances McDormand also received a nomination for Best Actress for her work in Three Billboards, while Denzel Washington was honored in the Best Actor category for Roman J. Israel, Esq. On the TV side, Big Little Lies had four acting nods to Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman, Reece Witherspoon, and Alexander Skardsgard. Benedict Cumberbatch was also nominated for Sherlock and Robert DeNiro for his role as Bernie Madoff in The Wizard of Lies.

Likewise, the Writer Guilds of America released a list of its category nominees from the past year's best TV and radio shows (film nods to come), which include Best Drama honors to The Americans (written by Peter Ackerman, Hilary Bettis, Joshua Brand, Joel Fields, Stephen Schiff, Joe Weisberg, Tracey Scott Wilson) and Better Call Saul (written by Ann Cherkis, Vince Gilligan, Jonathan Glatzer, Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, Heather Marion, Thomas Schnauz, Gordon Smith). The New Series nominees also include American Vandal (written by Seth Cohen, Lauren Herstik, Dan Lagana, Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, Jessica Meyer, Dan Perrault, Amy Pocha, Mike Rosolio, Tony Yacenda); The Deuce (written by Megan Abbott, Marc Henry Johnson, Lisa Lutz, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, Will Ralston, David Simon, Chris Yakaitis); and Ozark (written by Whit Anderson, Bill Dubuque, Ryan Farley, Alyson Feltes, Paul Kolsby, David Manson, Chris Mundy, Mark Williams, Ning Zhou, Martin Zimmerman).

MOVIES

Benny and Josh Safdie, the brother filmmaking team behind the Robert Pattinson crime thriller Good Time, are taking on the remake of 48 Hrs. for Paramount.  48 Hrs. was one of the movies that helped launch the big-screen career of Eddie Murphy as well as the buddy-cop genre. Murphy and Nick Nolte starred as a convict and cop, respectively, who must team up to catch a pair of cop killers within 48 hours. 

Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence is attached to star in and produce the 19th century true-crime drama Burial Rites, which is being directed Luca Guadagnino (a front-runner in the Oscar race with his romance-drama Call Me by Your Name). Based on Hannah Kent’s debut novel and true events, the project tells the story of Agnes Magnusdottir (Lawrence), the last woman to be publicly executed in Iceland in 1830, after being sentenced to death for killing two men and setting fire to their home. The story takes place during the last winter of Agnes’ life while she awaits confirmation of her death sentence by the high court in Denmark. As she waits to die, she starts to live, reluctantly forging emotional and romantic attachments.

The Shaft reboot, Son of Shaft, has found another one of its headliner actors. Independence Day: Resurgence's Jessie Usher was already cast as the newest, youngest Shaft (the son of Samuel L. Jackson's returning character), but his mother was the last pivotal role to be decided on for this family affair, and the production has found her in the form of Regina Hall. The project centers on Usher's younger Shaft, who's not exactly the eye candy to all the chicks that his great uncle, or even his father were. However, he is a young and promising FBI agent, who is about to engage in the family business of detective work after a friend has died under mysterious circumstances.

Fox Searchlight released a new still from the upcoming Can You Ever Forgive Me? that sees Melissa McCarthy playing biographer and notorious faker Lee Israel. Israel was a successful biographer during her heyday in the ’70s and ’80s, writing tomes on cosmetics empress Estée Lauder and actress Tallulah Bankhead. Her career stagnated in the years following, with a resurgence in the ’90s after unearthing never-seen letters from icons like Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward. Except they weren’t from Parker or Coward - Israel forged them all. The lies led her to federal court in 1993 where she pled guilty to fraud. Israel outlined her criminal adventures in her final book, the 2008 memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me? on which the film is based. McCarthy steps into a role that previously had Julianne Moore attached. 

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Bridge of Spies writer Matt Charman has partnered with George Clooney and Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures partner Grant Heslov for Watergate, an eight-part limited series for Netflix. Each episode of Watergate would focus on an individual surrounding the 1970s scandal such as former Attorney General John Mitchell and Richard Nixon counsel John Ehrlichman. It is styled after famous Japanese period drama Rashomon.

Showtime’s Boston crime drama City on a Hill has added several new actors to join Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge. Jill Hennessy, Kevin Chapman, Jere Shea and Lauren E. Banks have signed on as series regulars, while Cathy Moriarty, Michael O’Keefe, Amanda Clayton and Rory Culkin will guest star in the pilot and have recurring roles if the project is ordered to series. City on a Hill is a fictional account of what was called the Boston Miracle and centers on Decourcy Ward (Hodge), an African-American District Attorney who comes in from Brooklyn advocating change and the unlikely alliance he forms with Jackie Rhodes (Bacon), a corrupt yet venerated FBI veteran who is invested in maintaining the status quo. Together they take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown in a case that grows to encompass and eventually upend Boston’s city-wide criminal justice system. 

Prison Break is a good bet to return for a Season 6, which would serve as a follow-up to this year's big revival season. Although nothing supremely official has been revealed by Fox, Prison Break star Dominic Purcell took to Instagram to make the announcement.

USA Network has passed on Olive Forever, its comedic crime drama pilot from Insurgent writer Brian Duffield, AwesomenessTV and its former CEO Brian Robbins, although Universal Cable Prods., which produced the pilot, plans to shop it elsewhere. Olive Forever follows the exploits of Olive (Emily Rudd), a high school student, con artist, cat burglar and chameleon who’s mature beyond her years. She is a savvy survivor who knows she can “get away with anything.” A foster kid, Olive knows how to work the system, her tough exterior protecting a girl who’s just looking for a home.

The techno-thriller Mr. Robot, starring Rami Malek, will return for another season. Show creator Sam Esmail shared the confirmation that the show would return to USA for Season 4 via social media.

The Sopranos' alum Vincent Pastore is set for a recurring role opposite Scott Caan and Alex O’Loughlin on CBS’ Hawaii Five-O. Pastore will play Vito, Danny’s (Caan) "uncle" from New Jersey, a contractor and general Mr. Fix-It. Danny grew up thinking Vito was "connected," something Vito played up to, despite having no mob ties to speak of. 

Hallmark released a a preview for Past Malice: An Emma Fielding Mystery starring Courtney Thorne-Smith and James Tupper. The show debuts in January and is based on the mystery novels by Dana Cameron.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The inaugural episode of the Crime Friction podcast featured hosts Chantelle and Jay with NYT bestselling author Reed Farrel Coleman as the special guest, to talk about pet peeves, craft, and meeting Elmore Leonard in an airport.

Beyond the Cover's special guest was physician-turned-author D.P. Lyle, chatting about his latest PI Jake Longly and Nicole Jamison installment, A-List, set in New Orleans amid a Hollywood scandal.

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FFB: Bill Crider

The legendary Bill Crider is the prolific author of several crime fiction series featuring Sheriff Dan Rhodes (the 24th of which was published this August); Professor Carl Burns; PI Truman Smith; and Sally Good, along with numerous short stories and works in other genres including YA, westerns, horror, and more. He's also had an influential blogging and social media presence and supported other authors and crime fiction in general through the years. Bill has been battling cancer for a while and sadly, had to move into hospice recently. In honor of his many contributions to Patti Abbott's "Friday's 'Forgotten' Books" feature, Patti asked that we focus on Bill's works for today's blog posts. We also wish him the best and hope that his journey, no matter where it leads, will be filled with peace and the knowledge he has entertained and helped so many people with his writing, wit, and class.



I first entered the crime fiction realm as a short story writer, and that format is still near and dear to my heart. Bill has certainly contributed his share of offerings to the genre such as those featured in several anthologies I've noted on the blog before, "The Santa Claus Caper" in Christmas Stalkings (ed. Charlotte MacLeod and Martin Greenberg), a story featuring Carl Burns; "The Werewolf’s Christmas” from The Gift of Murder (ed. John Floyd, with proceeds benefiting Toys for Tots); "A Visit to the One-Eyed Man" in Noir Riot (from the 2014 Noir Con); "Their Fancies Lightly Turned" in Discount Noir (ed. Patti Abbott and Steve Weddle); the "Adventure of the White City" from Sherlock Holmes in America (ed. Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower), and "Code Red: Terror on the Mall," originally in Cat Crimes IV and later in Danger in D.C. (both edited by Greenberg and Ed Gorman).



It's that last story that drew my attention today because the theme of the anthology was "cat crimes." If you've followed Bill on Facebook, then you'll know about his VBK's, the "very bad kittens." Following the death of Bill's wife, Judy, in 2014, Bill found a little bedraggled furball on his street and decided to rescue it. When he went outside the next morning (or shortly thereafter), he found two additional kittens that had apparently been abandoned. So, kind-hearted Bill kept all three kittens and has chronicled their lives and mischief ever since.



Bill's contribution to the Cat Crime IV/Danger in D.C. anthologies is a comedic turn titled "Code Red: Terror on the Mall," and features the "first cat" at the time (Bill Clinton's Socks), and a terrorist plot to blow up the President's cat and the Washington Monument. The terrorists in question call themselves the Bloody Swords of Allah and when they commandeer the Washington Monument, they also happen to snag the President's cat. The President, painted as a bit of a macho cowboy, insists on accompanying the FBI agents who climb to the top of the Monument (all 897 stairs) while toting an M16 rifle. After several Secret Service agents are shot by the bad guys, the President takes over and helps capture the criminals with a little help from the cat, who jumps on one of them.



You only have to read through a little bit of Bill's blog and his Facebook posts to get a picture of his pervasive sense of humor and love of all cultural whimsy and the bizarre. I think that's what is so present in this particular short story and makes it such a fitting symbol of Bill, namely cats + wry observations. Kirkus Reviews once referred to his "gently humorous series," Publishers Weekly extolled his "clear-eyed observations of human nature," and Reviewing the Evidence called him "an expert storyteller." If you haven't already picked up a Bill Crider short story or novel, you should rush out right now and do so. You can find a partial bibliography on his website and on Fantastic Fiction.

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Mystery Melange

The Nero Award, presented each year to an author for the best American mystery written in the tradition of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories, was announced at the recent Black Orchid Banquet in New York City. The "Nero," considered one of the premier awards granted to authors of crime fiction, this year goes to Al Lamanda for With 6 You Get Wally. The other finalists were Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon; Home by Harlen Coben; and Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr.

The 2017 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards included the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Novel of the Year, which went to The Therapy House, by Julie Parsons. The other finalists included Can You Keep A Secret? by Karen Perry; Here and Gone, by Haylen Beck; Let the Dead Speak, by Jane Casey; One Bad Turn, by Sinéad Crowley; and There Was a Crooked Man, by Cat Hogan. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

International bestseller Tess Gerritsen received the Robert B. Parker award this year at the sixth annual New England Mobile Book Fair Mystery Gala. The annual crime fiction party at the Newton, Massachusetts indie bookstore also hosted more than 30 other authors along with Gerritsen's honor, with additional seasonal festivities for book lovers.

ThrillerFest organizers announced the featured authors for the 2018 conference, held at the Grand Hyatt, New York City from July 10-14, including 2018 ThrillerMaster George R.R. Martin; 2018 Silver Bullet Award James Rollins; 2017 ThrillerMaster Lee Child; and 2017 Silver Bullet Award Lisa Gardner.

The Granite Noir crime festival will return to Aberdeen in 2018, with headliners including authors Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid. As well as Cleeves - who has had Shetland and Vera adapted for television - other big names for 2018 include Christopher Brookmyre, Hugh Fraser and Robert Daws. Chaired by BBC Scotland's Fiona Stalker, the three-day event will run from 23-25 February and include authors from Scandinavia to talk to audiences about their novels, as well as a slate of film screenings and workshops for children.

Crime Fiction Lover profiled new, strong female voices "that we expect to light the way in 2018."

The end of the year lists continue with this one from the Washington Post book editors and their choices of "The 10 best thrillers and mysteries of 2017." Also, Marilyn Stasio's list for the New York Times of "The Best Crime Novels of 2017" has ten additional featured titles, and as The Rap Sheet notes, Adam Woog of the Seattle Times has also been busy compiling his own top picks. Across The Pond, The Guardian posted its "Bests of 2017," The Telegraph celebrated "A criminally good year: the best thrillers and crime fiction of 2017," and Declan Burke and Declan Hughes, writing for the The Irish Times, featured "Deadly fiction: the 20 best crime books of 2017."

I missed this bit of sad news: mystery author Joan Hess passed away at the age of 68. Hess was the author of the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the Arly Hanks Mysteries, formally known as the Maggody Mysteries, and won the American Mystery Award, the Agatha Award (for which she had been nominated five times), and the Macavity Award.

Kid power! When third graders at Tomoka Elementary School in Florida learned the local Barnes & Noble would likely close at the end of the year, they wrote CEO Demos Parneros a letter "in colorful penmanship" on poster-sized paper, begging him not to close the store and suggesting other sites. They even invited him to visit their town to see alternative locations. Apparently, the letter did the trick, and B&N renewed the store's lease for another year. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Writing for the Irish Times, Declan Burke profiled the Irish spy novel as it "comes in from the cold."

Thrillers took the majority of the top spots on the 2017 Apple iBooks bestseller lists, including three psycholoogical thrillers that took the top spots, Michelle Frances’ The Girl Friend; Lies by T M Logan; and The Girl Before by J P Delaney.

As it turns out, Iceland’s new Prime Minister is an expert on crime thrillers.

Just in time for Christmas shopping, Book Riot has a list of good mystery books for teens.

Bad news for Barnes & Noble, but ultimately good news for book lovers: Barnes & Noble sales fell 7.9% in the second quarter that ended October 28, and B&N noted that half the decline was due to the lack of a bestseller (like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child which was selling well during that same period last year), but the rest of the decline was attributed to non-book products. CEO Demos Parneros noted that "book sales continued to strengthen, and as a result of the improving trends, we will continue to place a greater emphasis on books, while further narrowing our non-book assortment. We expect these improvements to continue as we head into the holiday season." (HT to Shelf Awareness)

They say no publicity is bad, even bad publicity (for authors, anyway), so "congrats" to American author Christopher Bollen whose thriller The Destroyers has generally won critical praise - but was also just awarded the dreaded Bad Sex in Fiction Prize for a passage comparing a male character’s genitalia to a billiard rack. The prize is a compliment in a way, as it's only given to an"outstandingly bad" sex scene "in an otherwise good novel." Books that are meant to be primarily erotic or pornographic aren't considered. And Bollen is hardly alone. Previous winners of the award, now in its 25th year, include such notaries as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and John Updike (who received a special "lifetime achievement award").

Forensic scientists behaving badly: Hannah Devlin and Vikram Dodd report that ten thousand criminal cases in England and Wales have to be reviewed following an alleged manipulation at a forensics lab in Manchester, UK.

But the forensic science news isn't all bad; an Australian team found that blowfly feces contains human DNA for two years – and could be even more vital evidence than previously thought. Plus, forensic technology developed at Loughborough University will make it “impossible” for criminals to destroy fingerprint evidence.

And yet more forensic good news: you might not have heard of Thomas Hargrove, but as The New Yorker notes in a recent profile they titled "The Serial Killer Detector," the unassuming former journalist, equipped with an algorithm and the largest collection of murder records in the country, finds patterns in crime.

If you live in an earthquake-prone area, you might consider this - a wall-to-wall bookshelf made to withstand temblors.

If you're not familiar with The Onion and its news parodies, this is a good time to take a look at a tongue-in-cheek bit of advice to stay mentally sharp as you age.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Broken Sky" by Carlton Johnson.

In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People chatted with Layton Green, author of their Pick Of The Month, Written in Blood, and also with Matt Coyle who "brings that classic trope of the tarnished knight/errant private eye" to his Rick Cahill series; the Criminal Element spoke with Joanna Schaffhausen about her debut thriller, The Vanishing Season; the Seattle PI sat down with Sheila Lowe, author of the Forensic Handwriting Mysteries; Crime by the Book welcomed Ragnar Jonasson for a discussion of the latest in his Dark Iceland series, Nightblind; Paul D. Brazill offered up two "Short, Sharp Interivews" with K.S. Hunter and Jack Strange; and Omnimystery News spoke with Mary Cunningham, who introduces travel agent and sometime amateur sleuth Andi Anna Jones in Margaritas, Mayhem & Murder.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange, Thanksgiving EditionMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday (on a Tuesday)

Media Murder for Monday (this week on a Tuesday) returns with some of the highlights from the latest crime drama news:



AWARDS

The Golden Globe Award nominations were announced yesterday and include a few crime-themed films, including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Post as Best Drama contenders; Best Actress nods to Jessica Chastain, for Molly's Game, Frances McDormand, for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Meryl Streep, for The Post, and Michelle Williams, for All the Money in the World; and Best Actor nominations for Tom Hanks, The Post, and Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq. On the TV side, Best Actor and Actress honors (in various drama categories) include Bob Odenkirk, (Better Call Saul); Liev Schreiber, (Ray Donovan); Jason Bateman, (Ozark); Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, (The Wizard of Lies); Kyle MacLachlan, (Twin Peaks); Jessica Biel (The Sinner); Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, and Alexander Skarsgard (Big Little Lies); Ewan McGregor and David Thewlis (Fargo), and Christian Slater (Mr. Robot). One other interesting nomination of note: Christopher Plummer was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for All the Money in the World, taking over Kevin Spacey's part that was cut out of the film following his recent sexual harassment controversy.

The Writers Guild of America also announced their nominations for the year's best TV projects. Best Drama Series nods include The Americans and Better Call Saul; Best New Series nominations include American Vandal, The Deuce, and Ozark; and the Long Form Adapted category is headlined by Big Little Lies, (teleplay by David E. Kelley and based on the Novel by Liane Moriarty), Fargo, and The Wizard of Lies (based on the Bernie Madoff book by Diane B. Henriques).

The International Emmy Awards were announced and include a Best Performance by an Actor nod to Kenneth Branagh for his portrayal of Wallander, from the series based on the crime fiction of Henning Mankell, and a Best Performance by an Actress win by Anna Friel for her work in the British crime noir detective series Marcella. The Best Series Award went to the thriller Mammon 2 for its episode, "Nothing is Just Politics," in which freedom of speech is under attack as a well-known commentator and journalist in Norway's biggest newspaper is brutally murdered.





MOVIES

Anonymous Content is going all in on the series of thriller novels by Lars Kepler, the pseudonym for the married Swedish authors Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, after optioning both a film adaptation of The Sandman and a TV series adaptation of The Hypnotist. The Sandman tells the chilling story of a manipulative serial killer and the two cops who try to beat him at his own game, while The Hypnotist takes place in the frigid climes of Tumba, Sweden, where a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna in the sole surviving witness—the boy whose family was killed before his eyes.

Narcos director Jose Padilha is coming on board to develop Master Thieves as a possible feature film at Sony. The project is based on the true story of the 1990 Isabel Gardner Museum Heist in Boston, the single biggest property theft in the history of the United States. Over $500M worth of art was stolen and it remains one of the more celebrated unsolved mysteries, with the art never recovered and the identities of the thieves never discovered.

Even while Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express is still in its first run in theaters, there are already plans afoot for a sequel adaptation of another Agatha Christie novel, Death on the Nile. Twentieth Century Fox has hired Orient Express screenwriter Michael Green to return for the project, and although Branagh hasn't yet signed on, he's expected to return to the director’s chair and reprise his role of the mustachioed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

Lit management/producer Sentient has acquired Tony Mosher’s survival thriller spec script Sirius in competitive bidding, with Taken helmer Pierre Morel set to direct. The film tells the story of two members of a Danish special forces dog sled team — one a sage veteran and the other a bold new recruit — who become ensnared in an international incident while on a mission to one of the coldest and deadliest places on Earth, facing off not only against highly trained adversaries but also cruel forces of nature.

Kyla Drew (Prisoners) and Annie Ilonzeh (All Eyez on Me) have been cast in Peppermint, the Jennifer Garner-starring action thriller that also has John Ortiz, Richard Cabral, Juan Pablo Raba and John Gallagher Jr. in the cast. Garner plays Riley North, a young mother who awakens from a coma after her husband and daughter are killed in a brutal attack on the family. When the system shields the murderers from justice, Riley sets out to transform herself from citizen to urban guerrilla to methodically deliver her personal brand of justice. Drew will play Maria, a homeless street kid whom Riley takes un under her protective wing, while Ilonzeh is FBI agent Lisa Inman, who tracks Riley down.

Ryan Reynolds is set to join the world of Pokemon in the forthcoming live-action Detective Pikachu film from Legendary. The project was originally announced in summer 2016 during the Pokemon Go mobile game craze and will be directed by Rob Letterman with a script by Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch.

James Mangold is set to direct the untitled Patty Hearst drama for Fox, with Elle Fanning in talks to star as the heiress. The film will be an adaptation of Jeffrey Toobin’s best-selling American Heiress, and is set to delve into Toobin’s reporting on Hearst’s kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 and her subsequent run from the FBI after turning into an SLA sympathizer.

The new trailer for Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here features Joaquin Phoenix as a PTSD-ridden vet who slowly unravels as he attempts to bust a senator’s daughter out of a sex-trafficking ring.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Ruth Ware’s New York Times-bestselling psychological thriller The Lying Game is being turned into a television series by Entertainment One (eOne) and The Gotham Group. The novel starts after a woman walking her dog in an idyllic coastal village finds something sinister in the local estuary before three young women in London receive a mysterious text message from one of their friends. The women had been at boarding school together and were known for playing the "lying game," telling lies to fellow boarders and teachers, before they were expelled following the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher.

The John Le Carré spy drama The Night Manager is moving closer towards a second series after signing British writer Matthew Orton to pen The Ink Factory-produced series. Night Manager director Susanne Bier also said in March that a follow-up was "slowly being developed" but that the creators were taking their time to make sure series two lives up to the first series. The original series featured Tom Hiddleston as enigmatic Jonathan Pine, who goes undercover to expose billionaire arms dealer Richard Roper, played by Hugh Laurie, and Hiddleston has said he would consider featuring in a second series.

CBS has given a 13-episode straight-to-series order to Blood & Treasure, an hourlong serialized action-adventure series for premiere in summer 2019. Written by Matt Federman and Stephen Scaia, Blood & Treasure centers on a brilliant antiquities expert and a cunning art thief who team up to catch a ruthless terrorist who funds his attacks through stolen treasure. As they crisscross the globe hunting their target, they unexpectedly find themselves in the center of a 2,000-year-old battle for the cradle of civilization.

CBS' live-streaming service All Access is moving from space to storybooks with Tell Me a Story, which takes the world’s most beloved fairy tales and reimagines them as a dark and twisted psychological thriller. The show is set in modern-day New York City, with the first season of the drama interweaving the stories "The Three Little Pigs," "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" into "an epic and subversive tale of love, loss, greed, revenge and murder."

NBC has put in development drama Spirit of the Law, based on the life of California pastor Kalvin Cressel, who was a federal special agent for 30 years. The series would follow Cressel as he works on dangerous cases during the week, including going undercover, coming back to his flock on Sunday at what used to be the toughest church in all of Compton when the city was torn by gang violence.

Showtime has put in development Kilroy County, a drama based on the Dutch series Holland’s Hoop. It centers on Simon, a forensic psychiatrist struggling to treat the criminally insane at a high security facility near Chicago. When his estranged father dies, Simon hopes the ensuing visit to the family farm will allow him to confront issues in his marriage and with his own children. But the more pressing problem is that one of his former patients, Dennis, a dangerous but extremely charming psychopath, has followed them there.

John Stamos is set for a key recurring role opposite Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail in Lifetime’s straight-to-series psychological thriller drama You. Written by Berlanti and Gamble based on Caroline Kepnes’ best-selling novel, You is described as a 21st century love story that asks, "What would you do for love?" When a brilliant bookstore manager Joe (Badgley) crosses paths with an aspiring writer, Beck (Lail), his answer becomes clear: anything. Stamos will play Dr, Nicky, who becomes a fixture in Beck’s (Lail) life, much to the dismay of Joe (Badgley). Shay Mitchell also stars.

Netflix is set to launch the Chinese detective drama Day and Night, a 32-part series that follows a detective who attempts to clear his twin brother from a murder charge. After recusing himself from the case, he is hired as a secret consultant by the new investigator.

Just days after Berlin Station had its Season 2 finale, Epix gave the Olen Steinhauer-created spy series a third season. Season 3 of Berlin Station looks set to start streaming on Epix in late 2018 or early 2019, although it's not yet clear who is returning from the series that includes a cast composed of Richard Armitage, Michelle Forbes, Leland Orser, Ashley Judd, Richard Jenkins and Rhys Ifans.

Another series getting "more" is CBS' Sherlock Holmes program, Elementary, which was just given eight additional episodes for Season 6 of the crime procedural, bringing the total to 21 episodes.

As CBS has firmed up its midseason schedule and ordered two additional episodes of its freshman Shemar Moore-starring drama series S.W.A.T., bringing it up to a full 22 episodes.

Netflix has formally ordered a second season of Mindhunter, its crime drama series executive produced by David Fincher and Charlize Theron and starring Jonathan Groff and and Holt McCallany as FBI agents and profilers Holden Ford and Bill Tench.

Costa Ronin is set for a recurring role on the upcoming seventh season of Showtime’s Emmy-winning drama Homeland. Russia native Ronin has played KGB agent Oleg Burov on all five seasons of FX’s 1980-set spy drama The Americans.

Ryan Kwanten, a regular fixture on HBO's True Blood, will headline the upcoming Crackle series The Oath, which stars Kwanten as a dirty cop operating in a department filled with organized gangs.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

On BBC Radio 4, journalist Jonathan Guyer examined the different forms of noir fiction addressing the failed revolutions, jihadism, and chaos in Egypt and "the strange case of the Arab whodunnit."

Authors on the Air's Crime Corner podcast with host Matt Coyle welcomed Nadine Nettmann to chat about her Sommelier Mystery Series, with the debut novel, Decanting a Murder, nominated for the Anthony, Agatha, and Lefty awards.

The latest Crime Cafe podcast with host Debbi Mack featured an interview with crime fiction author Vincent Zandri.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Vest returned for a new season of brand new episodes. First up was a report on the Bad Sex award (won by a thriller author), celebrating the best examples of bad sex scenes in fiction for the past year, as voted for by the Literary Review.

THEATER

Calgary Canada's Vertigo Theatre continues their Mystery Series productions with The 39 Steps, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the movie by Alfred Hitchcock. The story centers on a beautiful spy who is murdered and how the main suspect, Richard Hannay, must stay one step ahead of the killers, the police, and a jealous husband in a quest to prove his innocence. This two-time Tony Award-winning treat features a talented cast of four playing over 150 zany characters, an on-stage plane crash, handcuffs, missing fingers and some good old-fashioned romance. The production runs through Dec. 16.

Rising star Thom Southerland is directing a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony and Olivier-Award nominated musical, The Woman in White for a strictly limited 12-week season at the UK's Charing Cross Theatre. The tempestuous tale of love, betrayal and greed, adapted from Wilkie Collins’ haunting Victorian thriller, sees Walter Hartright’s life changed forever after a chance encounter with a mysterious woman, dressed in white, desperate to reveal her chilling secret. The production will run through February 10, 2018.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

FFB: The Mynns' Mystery

George Manville Fenn (1831-1909) was an English novelist, journalist and editor. Although primarily self-taught, he went on to become a schoolmaster and magazine publisher, attracting the attention of none other than Charles Dickens. He was rather prodigious in his literary output, with numerous articles, short stories, a few plays, some nonfiction books, and something like 140 novels, although several of those were YA stories for boys.



The title setting of The Mynns' Mystery, published in 1891, is an Old English manor home owned by a elderly rich man, who is dying. He adopted a young woman named Gertie, and the elderly man fears that an opportunistic suitor, Saul Harrington, will marry the girl for her inheritance and treat her no better than a slave. So he decides to leave the bulk of his estate to his long-estranged grandson George, whose parents emigrated to America, in hopes that he'll marry Gertie. But as the story progresses, the question arises as to who is the greater villain, the opportunistic Saul or George?



After the old man dies and leaves a codicil in his will that if George dies, Saul inherits everything, you know that murder won't be far behind. But in one twist, the hunter becomes the hunted, and the chase is on. As one might expect from the era the book was written, and the fact that the author specialized in children's stories, the writing is a bit facile and overly melodramatic. But it has a credible plot (for its day), some decent characterization, and a great dog named Bruno.