B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 172

FFB: Widow Cherry: or The Mystery of Roaring Meg

Benjamin Leopold Farjeon (1838–1903) was a British novelist, playwright, printer and journalist. He didn't have formal schooling but trained as a printer at a newspaper office at age 14. He immigrated to Australia in 1854 after a row with his father over religion and spent seven years on the goldfields. He settled in New Zealand, where he established his successful literary career and became assistant editor and part proprietor of the Otago Daily Times of Dunedin. Eventually he returned to England to devote himself to writing.



In a brief biography of Farjeon, Sir George Fenwick described him as being "The quick, alert, restless type, of rather short stature, with beady black eyes." His daughter, Eleanor, herself an author of children's books, once described her father as "Exuberant, impetuous and extravagant...His mood (when it wasn't irascible) was overflowingly generous."



His literary output was prodigious, writing nearly sixty novels in thirty-five years, most with mystery and adventure themes that drew on his colonial experiences in Australia and New Zealand. His books were bestsellers in their day (often illustrated by his long-time friend Nicholas Chevalier), with the novel Grif in its seventeenth edition as of 1898, but they were gradually forgotten. Widow Cherry: or, The Mystery of Roaring Meg, is short enough to be a novella and first appeared in Tinsley's magazine. It was eventually bound into a volume of three Farjeon Christmas-themed stories, although the Christmas element isn't very present in Widow Cherry.



The story is set in Australia in a mining town named after the river that flows nearby, Roaring Meg. Young Jack Thumbwood has come to town to stake his claim to a potential mine, but needs the help of an elderly Cornish miner nicknamed Star-by-night and a friend from the old country, Fred Mellon, who Jack convinces to join him. From there, the premise is a fairly straightforward tale of romantic suspense when Jack is arrested for the murder of his young love's sister, and Fred has to investigate and defend him, with the help of his own love interest, the "Widow Cherry."



The denouement, or turning point for the murderer, relies upon his guilty conscience as he sees a bottle of his favorite liquor, Red Rum, reflected backward in a window. I haven't seen any quotes from Stephen King that he had ever read this novel before writing The Shining, but it was a bit of fun to find it buried in an obscure book from 1878.

            

Author R&R with David Malcolm

David Malcolm was born in Aberdeen and educated in Ab­erdeen, Zürich, and London. He's lived and worked in Japan, the USA, and currently calls Sopot, Poland home, where he is professor at the Institute of English and American Studies at the University of Gdańsk. His collection of short fiction, Radio Moscow and Other Stories, was published by Blackwitch Press in 2015 and republished by Artizan in 2016.



His new novel, The German Messenger (Crime Wave Press) is set in late 1916 when Europe is tearing itself apart in the Great War. Harry Draffen, a part Greek and part Scottish British secret agent, becomes part of a daring attempt by British and German spies to stop the gratuitous bloodletting of WWI. Draffen journeys from the slums of East London to an Oxford college, from the trenches on the Western Front to an isolated house on the Scottish coast, and then on to a bloody showdown in the North of England, to chase a phantom and elusive German messenger.





David Malcolm stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing and researching the novel:

 

Most of the fiction that I write is set in the past. I find the past – places, people, events – much more interesting than the present. The German Messenger is set in late 1916 and early 1917. I’ve also written other crime stories that take place during the Great War or in the early 1950s.



The problem for me is not so much the grand historical events. They can be tricky however. For example, like many even moderately well-read people, I had heard very little of the Salonika campaign in which the British Army was involved, alongside Allied forces, between 1915 and 1918. It was complicated, bloody, not very successful – and largely forgotten. I realized as I was writing The German Messenger that my hero Draffen – because he is part-Greek – has to have been involved somehow in it. I may have to juggle with time-lines in sequels to the Messenger.



However, the grand events are not so much a problem. It’s the smaller details that a writer setting stories in the past  also needs to get right. Exactly how short were women’s skirts in 1917? Did British officers wear uniforms to civilian dinner parties in 1916? What did a Habsburg infantry unit look like in 1915? (The answer to that is: in field-grey, very tough, and very scary.) How were train carriages laid out in southern England in the winter of 1916 (with a corridor running the length of the carriage, or with doors opening directly on to the platform)? The problem is not just with the distant past. How much had Hamburg been rebuilt by 1951? What did that part of Warsaw look like in 1953? What was it like to be in that kind of bar in Tokyo in 1984?



But of course there are loads of books and magazines in libraries, and many that you can get to read at home if you haven’t got the British Library twenty minutes down the road. (I am very jealous of those who do.) For example, I have collections of wonderful pictures of the third arrondissement in Paris that give you a sense of the streets there from 1900 through 1940. A book that I looked at by chance in the British Library contains a railway map of the Baltic area in 1908, so I now know how my hero gets from Warsaw to Reval/Tallinn. Books, too, give you ideas for stories. Alex Butterworth’s splendid The World That Never Was  tells you more about the anarchists and the policemen of Europe between 1870 and 1914 than you probably ever wanted to know. (In fact, it’s a very depressing book – folly on all sides.) Do you need to write a novel about the Habsburg secret services? Have a look at Albert Pethö’s Agenten für den Doppeladler (Agents for the Double-Eagle). It has the kernels of more plots than you can shake a stick at. Museums, too, can be of assistance, and can inspire. A visit to the marvelous Nissim de Camondo museum in Paris gave me the background to a whole subplot for the next German Messenger novel.

Zoppot 1910 Plan

Then there’s the internet. Pictures everywhere. Snippets of stories. Maps. Street plans of Zoppot in 1902. Fashion pictures. Film of Hamburg streets in 1955. It’s almost like being there sometimes. It’s not cheating at all. If only it had all been there twenty years ago.



But sometimes, of course, you just invent. When I wrote a thriller set in Japan in the 1980s, I decided I might as well invent the bar where the hero meets an important female character. I had lived in Tokyo for two years, so I had lots of surrounding details right. But I’d never been to that kind of bar. I couldn’t do the local research, and – to be honest – I didn’t want to. I don’t care for that kind of place, and it’s wise to know your limitations. So I imagined it. European and American readers who’ve looked at the typescript say it’s completely authentic and believable. I haven’t dared show it to any Japanese ones. I did the same in The German Messenger with The Cherry Tree nightclub (do all my stories take place in bars, you ask). I made it up. When I read it again, I think to myself even – how authentic! But I believe the author should do that kind of invention very sparingly. All fictions are precisely that – fictions. But you owe, I believe, a debt to reality, to the past, to the people of the past, and you should do your best to get it right. I try. For readers, too, there has to be a certain density of historical detail to make the story feel real (not too much, not too little). The most accurate is usually the best.



Fortunately, I love libraries. My work has taken me to some of the best in the world. I’m very happy in them, even in indifferent ones. But the streets of London, Paris, Berlin, Boston, and Warsaw give you ideas, give you settings, make you imagine. They’re kinds of libraries too. Dusty second-hand bookstores in provincial cities, too, are still sources of ideas, atmosphere, details.

Photograph copyright Jennifer Zielinska

Then there is serendipity. I was in Łódź (Lodz in German, Russian, and Yiddish) a couple of years ago in a second-hand bookstore (also one of my favorite places, as you can guess). I bought a book about Łódż in the Great War, and the bookseller said to me, “Oh, my grandmother was a girl during the First War.” She remembered one of the first battles of the War that was fought around the city. The local bourgeoisie stood out on the roof of the Grand Hotel on the main street and watched as the Russians and Germans lobbed shells at each other from either side of the city. Who could invent that?

 

Find out more about David Malcolm and his books via the Crime Wave Press site and Amazon. The German Messenger is now available from all major booksellers.

           Related StoriesAuthor R&R with J.J. HensleyAuthor R&R with Rich ZahradnikAuthor R&R with Rebecca Marks 

Mystery Melange

The annual Bouchercon conference was held this past weekend in Toronto, with winners of several awards handed out during the event, including the Macavity, Anthony, and Barry Awards.

The Anthony Award winners included:

Best Novel, Louise Penny for A Great Reckoning

Best Paperback Original, James W. Ziskin for Heart of Stone

Best First Novel, IQ by Joe Ide

Best Anthology, Blood on the Bayou: Bouchercon Anthology 2016 - Greg Herren (editor)

Best Short Story, “Oxford Girl” by Megan Abbott, Mississippi Noir

Best Children’s/YA Novel, April Henry for The Girl I Used to Be

Best Novella, B.K. Stevens for The Last Blue Glass

Best Critical Nonfiction Work, Ruth Franklin for Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

 

The Macavity nods went to

Best Novel, A Great Reckoning, by Louise Penny

Best First Novel, IQ, by Joe Ide

Best Short Story, “Parallel Play,” by Art Taylor (Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Novel, Heart of Stone, by James W. Ziskin

Best Nonfiction, Sara Paretsky: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, Margaret Kinsman

The Barry Awards were handed out to:

Best Novel, A Great Reckoning, by Louise Penny

Best First Novel, The Drifter, by Nicholas Petrie

Best Paperback Original, Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty

Best Thriller, Guilty Minds, by Joseph Finder

Writing for Mental Floss, Meg Van Huygen profiled Elizebeth Friedman, America's unsung wartime codebreaker whose accomplishments have been (sometimes deliberately) kept from the spotlight.

Fancy some stellar Canadian crime ficttion? Quill and Quire has profiles of six women mystery writers to add to your reading list.

And here's a list for fans of forensic crime thrillers.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "When I Crossed Into Canada" by Robert Cooperman.

In the Q&A roundup, at the Guildford Book Festival, bestselling crime author Peter James talked about the school poetry prize that kick-started his career; the Mystery People Q&A with Joe Ide burst onto the mystery scene last year with his debut Isaiah Quintabe mystery, IQ, a Holmesian puzzler set in South Central LA; the MP's also sat down with Thomas Mullen, whose Darktown found critical acclaim when it came out last year, and Simon Maltman spoke with the Dorset Book Detective about crime writing and how it "gives you something dramatic to hang whatever else you want to write about on to."

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Author R&R with J.J. Hensley

J.J. Hensley graduated with a B.S. in Administration of Justice from Penn State University and a M.S. degree in Criminal Justice Administration from Columbia Southern University before working as a police officer then a Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service. He is the author of the novels Resolve, Measure Twice, and Chalk’s Outline, with Resolve named one of the Best Books of 2013 by Suspense Magazine and a Thriller Award finalist for Best First Novel.





Hensley's latest crime novel, Bolt Action Remedy (Down and Out Books), follows former Pittsburgh narcotics detective Trevor Galloway, who's been hired to look into the year-old homicide of a prominent businessman gunned down on his estate in Central Pennsylvania. When Galloway arrives, he determines the murder could have only been committed by someone extremely skilled in two areas: skiing and shooting. He believes the assailant should not be too difficult to identify given the great amount of skill and athleticism needed to pull off the attack. When he discovers the victim’s property is next door to a biathlon training camp, the situation becomes significantly more complicated.



Galloway makes plenty of enemies as he sifts through stories about lucrative land deals, possible drug connections, and uncovers evidence suggesting the homicide may have been elaborate suicide. As he attempts to navigate through an unfamiliar rural landscape, he does his best not to succumb to an old drug addiction, or become confused by one of his occasional hallucinations. Oh, and a Pittsburgh drug gang enforcer known as The Lithuanian—if he’s even real—is tracking Galloway and wants to take his eyes. Galloway would rather keep those. For Galloway, the problems keep piling up and somebody out there believes problems should be dealt with by employing the most permanent of remedies.



J.J. Hensley stops by In Reference to Murder today to offer up some of the background into writing and researching the novel:

 

The epiphany hit me like a shot. Ever since the publication of my first novel in 2013—which had been set against the backdrop of a marathon—I knew I wanted to write another mystery that was somehow tied to an endurance sport. However, with Resolve I had drawn upon my personal experiences with both distance running and law enforcement and the research I had to conduct was minimal. For my subsequent novels, I had to do research on addiction, sniper training, blacksmithing, and a variety of other topics, but most of the research could be conducted online and through short interviews with subject matter experts, without breaking much of a sweat. As my latest revelation settled into my mind and I decided I to integrate the sport of biathlon into a novel, I realized it would allow me to create characters who not only participated in an endurance sport but already carried guns! Perfect. A mystery in which nearly everyone has access to, and in trained in the use of, weaponry!

I thought things out and the plot for Bolt Action Remedy came into focus. Former Pittsburgh narcotics detective, Trevor Galloway, would be asked to look into a cold case in which a prominent businessman was murdered by someone who displayed great skill in two areas: skiing and shooting. Galloway would pull into the small town of Washaway Township, PA and initially conclude the suspect pool would be small, given the skills needed to pull off the crime. However, he would discover the crime scene was adjacent to a biathlon training camp, where everyone could ski and shoot, and his list of suspects would grow exponentially. Perfect.

Biathlon combines cross-country skiing and incredibly skillful shooting with highly-specialized biathlon rifles. I had first been exposed to biathlon when I was with the U.S. Secret Service and working protective operations for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. I knew from my years as a police officer and as a Special Agent with the Secret Service that shooting after running, controlling your breathing, and focusing on hitting a target when adrenaline is pummeling your physiology is beyond challenging. Needless to say, I was mesmerized by a sport in which people could ski at a breakneck pace and then fire a rifle with the goal of hitting small targets with incredible accuracy. Biathlon was perfect for what I had planned. Speed! Guns! Skill! No problem.

Well… small problem.

After my initial excitement ebbed, I realized the research I would have to conduct would be more extensive than anything I had done previously. In my previous books, I had at least a cursory knowledge of the subject matter. Bolt Action Remedy was going to present several challenges.

For one thing, I can’t ski. I don’t mean “I can’t ski” as in I am only mediocre and am somewhat uncomfortable on difficult courses. I’m not trying to be modest about my abilities. I mean “I can’t ski” as in “I CAN’T ski”. Not a bit. Also, although I have extensive experience with pistols, shotguns, and submachine guns, I have zero experience with shooting from a distance and certainly no expertise with specialized lightweight biathlon rifles.

My research for Bolt Action Remedy was going to require me to do a little more digging than I had done while writing my previous novels. I mean, this is the United States. It’s not like I can walk down to the local Biathlon store to chat about the latest ANSCHÜTZ rifle models. While biathlon is popular in certain parts of the world, it has yet to reach a wide audience in the U.S. and, while there are some online resources available to research the sport, those resources didn’t give me the depth of knowledge I was looking for to complete the book. To cover my knowledge gap, I contacted Curt Schreiner who competed in biathlon for the United States in three separate Olympic Games. Curt is with the Saratoga Biathlon Club and has forgotten more about biathlon than I could ever know. Through a series of conversations with Curt, I was able to get a feel for the sport, a sense of the camaraderie that exists among the competitors and the hard work and precision that goes into each event. I also learned that high-level biathletes have Ski Technicians who focus on things like waxing the skis to achieve the optimal result. I didn’t even know ski wax was a thing, so obviously I learned a lot from Curt. When I completed a very rough draft of Bolt Action Remedy, I sent it to him and he provided invaluable feedback that kept me from embarrassing myself in print.

Typically, I really enjoy conducting research for a book and this was no exception. I find it maddening when I’m reading a book and come across an error that could have been avoided easily if the author had conducted even minimal research. Even to this day, I conduct research on law enforcement matters even though policing is in my background. Technologies and methodologies change and crime novelists should do their best to provide an element of authenticity to their work. I’ve always believed that crime novelists can create better fiction by trying to be a bit more real. Hopefully, that is the result with Bolt Action Remedy.

 

You can learn more about Hensley and his books via his website and follow him on Twitter, Facebook and his blog. His books are available from Down and Out Books and all major booksellers.

           Related StoriesAuthor R&R with Rich ZahradnikAuthor R&R with Rebecca MarksAuthor R&R with Jack Getze 

Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings to all! Welcome to the latest roundup of crime drama news:



MOVIES

Keira Knigthley is set to produce and star in an untitled spy drama written by Camilla Blackett (The Newsroom and New Girl). The film will be produced by K Period Media’s Kimberly Steward and Josh Godfrey, along with Nora Grossman and Ido Ostrowsky from Bristol Automotive who co-produced The Imitation Game, which landed Knightley her second Oscar nomination.

Jay Roach has signed to direct 67 Shots, a film that recaptures the circumstances behind the fatal shootings at Kent State University in 1970 where guardsmen from the Ohio National Guard fired 67 shots into a crowd of students protesting the war in Vietnam, killing four students and injured nine others. Roach sparked to numerous parallels to the contemporary political landscape and specifically the collision between law and order and the fundamental right to protest.

Gal Gadot is in talks to co-star in Ruin, a Justin Kurzel-directed a gritty period revenge-thriller drama said to be "in the vein of Inglorious Basterds and Fury." The story follows a nameless ex-Nazi captain who navigates the ruins of post-WWII Germany, determined to atone for his crimes during the war, as he hunts down the surviving members of his former SS Death Squad. It's unclear what role Gadot would play in the movie or when it would shoot since the actress has the Wonder Woman sequel on her schedule for late 2018.

Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi, and Pêpê Rapazote have joined the cast of MGM’s thriller Operation Finale, which is currently filming in Argentina. Chris Weitz is directing the project that sees Oscar Isaac starring as legendary Mossad agent Peter Malkin and is based on a true story of the 1960 covert mission where Malkin infiltrates Argentina and captures Adolf Eichmann (Oscar winner Ben Kingsley), the Nazi officer who masterminded the transportation logistics that brought millions of innocent Jews to their deaths in concentration camps. 

Will Smith and Tom Holland will voice the lead characters in the animated film Spies in Disguise, based on Lucas Martell’s original short Pigeon: Impossible and set in the high-octane, globe-trotting world of international espionage. Smith will voice the super-killed spy Lance Sterling, and Holland is Walter, a scientific genius who invents the gadgets Lance uses on his missions. When events take an unexpected turn, Walter and Lance suddenly have to rely on each other in a whole new way. And if this odd couple can’t learn to work as a team, the whole world is in peril.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has bought a drama based on Edgar-winning Meg Gardiner’s novel UNSUB. The book follows a female detective on the trail of an infamous serial killer – inspired by the still-unsolved Zodiac case – who breaks his silence and begins killing again. The detective, who grew up watching her father destroy himself and his family as he chased the killer, now finds herself confronting the same monster her father never caught. 

Most of the team behind CBS/CBS TV Studios’ 2015 series Limitless have reunited for another crime drama with a sci-fi twist titled Recall. Written by Craig Sweeny, who also penned the Limitless pilot, the plot follows the NSA as it assembles a group of investigators to make use of the agency’s newest tool: a machine that allows the user direct access to the memories of witnesses, victims, and suspects – but the detectives must resist the temptation to use the device on themselves.

CBS has put in development the FBI crime drama Unthinkable from Jerry Bruckheimer The project is based on Chuck Wendig’s 2016 novel Invasive about a brilliant futurist, trained to see danger around every corner, who’s recruited by an uncharacteristically optimistic FBI Agent to identify the threats only she can see coming – and stop them before it’s too late.

A bomb squad drama written by Carol Mendelsohn and starring Morris Chestnut has landed at Fox with a big put pilot commitment. The project, The Long Walk, is based on the upcoming novel The Bomb Maker by Thomas Perry that deals with a killer with a deadly vendetta who sets a trap and blows up half of the LA Bomb Squad. Private security expert and retired bomb tech Dick Stahl (Chestnut) reluctantly returns to the team he left behind and must confront his past head-on as he trains, recruits and rebuilds the best bomb squad in the country – all while working to catch the killer, and responding to the diverse calls of an elite Bomb Squad. 

One day ahead of its Season 1 finale, Mr. Mercedes was renewed for a 10-episode second run next year on AT&T Audience Network. David E. Kelley again will write the script and Jack Bender direct the Stephen King adaptation starring Harry Treadaway and Brendan Gleeson. The series follows Brady Hartsfield (Treadaway), a demented killer who taunts a retired police detective Bill Hodges (Gleeson) with a series of lurid letters and emails, forcing the ex-cop to undertake a private, and potentially felonious, crusade to bring the killer to justice before he is able to strike again.

The internationally-produced hostage negotiator drama Ransom has been picked up for a second season on CBS, a surprising reversal since the series was canceled in May. The show stars Luke Roberts as expert hostage negotiator Eric Beaumont, whose team is brought in to save lives when no one else can, and is inspired by French crisis negotiator Laurent Combalbert. The 13-episode second season will be filmed in Hungary and will air in 2018.

David Boreanez and his new TV team are going to be suiting up for a few more episodes after CBS announced it's giving a full season order to SEAL Team, the military drama starring Boreanaz as Jason Hayes, the head of a Tier 1 operator military unit. The series follows Jason and the brave men and women he fights with into the deadliest missions on the planet and then tracks how they deal with maintaining their regular lives once they're back home.

There is good and bad news regarding Canadian TV crime dramas:  The CBC TV's espionage drama The Romeo Section, which follows Professor Wolfgang McGee (Andrew Airlie) as he secretly manages a number of Canadian spies involved in obtaining information about gangs and the drug trade, was cancelled after only two seasons; however, another crime drama, Blood and Water, starring Steph Song as detective Jo Bradley, was renewed for a third season.

TNT is rounding out the cast for its new six-episode drama series One Day She’ll Darken, hiring India Eisley and Jefferson Mays (Law & Order: SVU) to star opposite Chris Pine. The project tells the story of Fauna Hodel (Eisley), given away at birth, who investigates the secrets to her past and follows a sinister trail that swirls ever closer to an infamous Hollywood gynecologist, Dr. George Hodel (Mays), a man involved in the darkest Hollywood debauchery. Pine will play Jay Singletary, a former Marine-turned-hack reporter/paparazzo who was disgraced over his story about Hodel years ago, but now sees a glimmer of redemption.

Derek Morgan is returning to the BAU. Shemar Moore is set for a guest spot on CBS’ Criminal Minds to reprise his role as Morgan, appearing in the fifth episode which airs Wednesday, October 25. Moore was an original Criminal Minds cast member from 2005-2016 until his character survived a harrowing kidnapping and left the BAU to focus on life and family.

Paddy Considine, Bel Powley and Nabhaan Rizwan have been set to star in Neal Street Productions’ Informer for BBC One. The six-part contemporary thriller will air on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S., after the UK broadcast and centers on Raza (Rizwan), a young, second generation Pakistani man from East London who is coerced by Gabe (Considine), a Counter-Terrorism officer, to go undercover. Gabe, who has a past he is unwilling to expose, is joined by Holly (Powley), his ambitious and endlessly curious partner. As the investigation heats up, the stakes for all three get higher and higher. 

Fox released a trailer for the upcoming 11th season of the supernatural FBI procedural The X-Files, and show creator Chris Carter chatted with Deadline about the original series and bringing it back. However, fans shouldn't expect star Gillian Anderson to return for a potential 12th season, if there is one, since she recently announced the current 10-episode series would be the end of her participation in the project.

A new trailer was released for Mindhunter, the new Netfix project from David Fincher and Charlize Theron that's based on the book of the same name by famed FBI agent John Douglas and stars Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany as FBI agents on the trail of serial killers.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed TV/movie director and Anthony-nominated author John Shepphird to the show to discuss his crime fiction.

The It's a Mystery Podcast chatted with Edgar nominated mystery author Victoria Thompson, who has written twenty books in her Gaslight Mystery series set at the end of the 19th century in New York City.

Beyond the Cover spoke with special guest Linwood Barclay about his new, standalone blockbuster thriller, Parting Shot, which spins off from the events of the explosive Promise Falls trilogy.

Debbi Mack interviewed mystery author Daniella Bernett on the Crime Cafe podcast; Bernett has just released the third novel in her Emmeline Kirby/Gregory Longdon mystery series.

Book Riot's Read or Dead podcast discussed the upcoming Tana French BBC adaptation, which they used as an opportunity to "fawn over her books."

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

FFB: The Abandoned Room

Not a lot is known about Charles Wadsworth Camp (1879-1936). His most famous claim to fame may be as the father of author Madeline L'Engle, and most of the details of his life come from biographies about her. Camp moved to New York soon after his marriage to L'Engle's mother, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and wrote reviews of plays, concerts and operas. He also wrote plays of his own as well as at least eight novels of mystery and suspense, and his first novel, The Gray Mask was first published as a serial in Collier's magazine in 1915.



L'Engle described her father as a man who dressed elegantly every evening, whether he was eating dinner at home or taking the horse-drawn trolley a theater or concert hall to support many of his musician-friends. His niece recalled her uncle as a big, handsome man in a white linen suit smoking cigarettes on the porch and drinking whiskey. He served in World War I, and that is the source of some controversy about the author's cause of death. He died of pneumonia at age 57, and a common story was that Camp's lungs were weakened by mustard gas during the war that left him vulnerable to respiratory disease. However, one family member disputes that and attributes the pneumonia more to the smoking and drinking.



There's also not a lot about how successful his plays and novels were during his day, although The Gray Mask was made into a black and white silent film in 1915, with four more of his works adapted as silent films and two as black and white talkies. One of the silent films, from 1920, was released with the title Love Without Question, although it was based on Camp's novel The Abandoned Room: A Mystery Story, first serialized in Every Week and The Sunday Post magazine in 1917.



The Abandoned Room features "The Panamanian Sherlock Holmes," Carlos Paredes, who is confronted with a locked-room mystery. The murder of Silas Blackburn occurs in a room of The Cedars, a lonely, dilapidated country house—the same room with a history of people dying from head injuries, a room with both doors locked on the inside and the windows too high for anyone to have climbed up.



The main suspect is the victim's grandson, Bobby Blackburn, whose wastrel ways had angered his wealthy grandfather to the point he was threatening to cut him out of his Will and a rather princely amount (for 1917) of a million dollars. Making matters worse, Bobby was in New York the night of the murder but woke up in a daze in an even-more dilapidated house near The Cedars without any memory of the evening. Finding one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs under the victim's bed and a footprint under the window that fits his shoes doesn't help his case.



Despite Bobby's growing fears he may have somehow entered the locked room and murdered his grandfather in a drugged fog, there is more to meet the eye with strange happenings in the house—haunting cries; hints of ghosts; a woman in black wandering through the nearby woods; and secrets held by Bobby's cousin Katherine Perrine and the servants, allegedly the only ones with the victim the night of the murder, as well as the victim himself. Bobby's friend Carlos Paredes (tall and graceful, with jet-black hair parted in the middle and a carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard), invites himself to stay in The Cedars and eventually solves the crime, with a little twist at the end.

            

Author R&R with Rich Zahradnik

Rich Zahradnik was a journalist for 30-plus years working as a reporter and editor in all major news media, including online, newspaper, broadcast, magazine and wire services. He held editorial positions at CNN, Bloomberg News, Fox Business Network, AOL and The Hollywood Reporter. He's also the author of the Coleridge Taylor Mystery series (A Black Sail, Drop Dead Punk, Last Words). The first three books in the series were shortlisted or won awards in the three major competitions for books from independent publishers. A Black Sail was named best mystery in the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and a finalist in the 2016 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards. Drop Dead Punk collected the gold medal for mystery ebook in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards, while Last Words won the bronze medal for mystery/thriller ebook in the 2015 IPPYs and honorable mention for a mystery in the Foreword Reviews competition.



The latest series installment, Lights Out Summer (Camel Press), is set in March 1977, when ballistics link murders going back six months to the same Charter Arms Bulldog .44, and a serial killer, Son of Sam, is on the loose. But Coleridge Taylor can’t compete with the armies of reporters fighting New York’s tabloid war—only rewrite what they get. Constantly on the lookout for victims who need their stories told, he uncovers other killings being ignored because of the media circus. He goes after one, the story of a young Black woman gunned down in her apartment building the same night Son of Sam struck elsewhere in Queens. The story entangles Taylor with a wealthy Park Avenue family at war with itself. Just as he’s closing in on the killer and his scoop, the July 13-14 blackout sends New York into a 24-hour orgy of looting and destruction.

Rich stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing and research Lights Out Summer:

 

Researching the Coleridge Taylor Mysteries changed in a big way in 2014—in both interesting and embarrassing fashion. Sometime before then, I’d put on my gift list the massive “The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages 1851-2009.” The tome included three DVDs—remember those?—containing 54,693 front pages linking to complete articles.

Taylor is a reporter who always has an acute awareness of the other stories going on around him. He reacts to news and how it’s covered even when it’s not his story. The novels are set in the seventies. From a storytelling standpoint, a headline from a certain day can give readers a feel for the period—or remind them of a crime or political event or cultural incident they’d forgotten and perhaps echoes what’s happening today.

Right, so that’s why I needed the book. My wife gave it to me for Hanukkah. The cost of the giant thing was somewhere between $125 and $165. Within months, the New York Times announced online subscribers would have access to TimesMachine, an online archive of complete issues of the paper as they originally appeared going back to 1865. I never did put one of those DVDs into my computer. You can now buy the DVD/book package on Amazon for $8.27.

I am well past my embarrassment. (The Times could have given me some warning, though.) TimesMachine is indispensible. I can go deeper to see the stories beyond the front page. The ads, too. This helps for all the reasons I mentioned above. And others. My new mystery, Lights Out Summer, is set in 1977 and an important set piece in the plot is the New York blackout of July 13-14. No book was written about those terrible 25 hours when thousands of businesses were looted and destroyed. But I could read all of the articles the Times published during and in the aftermath of the stealing, fires and vandalism. (The Times itself pulled off a miracle by sending editors over to Jersey and getting the paper out.) I’ll admit, the TimesMachine is particularly helpful to me because my books are set in New York, so I can track local politics, cultural and crime. Tidbits are sprinkled throughout the novels.

Each of my books involves a major New York historical event in the plot: the city’s near bankruptcy, the Bicentennial celebrations, Son of Sam’s murder spree. And for each, I’ve found at least a couple of books to go deep on the subject even if the event—like the Bicentennial—serves as a backdrop to the crime story. For “Lights Out Summer,” I was greatly aided by “Son of Sam: Based on the Authorized Transcription of the Tapes, Official Documents and Diaries of David Berkowitz” by Lawrence D. Klausner and “Son of Sam: The .44 Caliber Killer” by George Carpozi Jr. I learned of an earlier New York serial killer, 3X, from the wonderful “Police Reporter: Forty Years One of New York’s Finest Reporters” by Ted Prager. That book also gave me insights into what Taylor’s job was like for one or two generations of reporters before him.

A collection of general histories, timelines and atlases of New York rounds out my library.

Oh, and one last reference is indispensible: “Billboard Top 10 Singles Charts, 1955 to 2000.” Music triggers memories in readers. The seventies were a period of massive change as disco, punk, hairband rock and the sixties survivors fought for listeners’ attention. I could easily pick out a song I remember from 1977 and drop it in. But the charts show me what tunes were hot in a particular week—adding a nice level of detail. They also remind me of songs and bands I’d forgotten.

Disco-Tex and the x-O-Lettes anyone?

You can learn more about Rich and his books via his website and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. Lights Out Summer is available via all major book retailers.

 

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Mystery Melange

This past weekend, the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers announced that The White Devil, by Domenic Stansberry, was the winner of the annual Hammett Prize for a work of literary excellence in the field of crime writing by a US or Canadian author. The other finalists included The Second Life of Nick Mason, by Steve Hamilton; The Drifter, by Nicholas Petrie; Revolver, by Duane Swierczynki; and The Big Nothing, by Bob Truluck.

Tonight at 7 p.m. at the Center for Fiction in New York City, Paul Vidich (An Honorable Man; The Good Assassin) and Joseph Kanon (Defectors; The Good German) will explore the literary spy novel, its trademarks, place in history, and interplay between fact and fiction.

It's rare that we have two posthumous works from legendary crime fiction authors being released at the same time, and even rarer still when those works are story collections. As The Guardian notes, collections from the late queens of crime fiction, P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, each spanning 40 years of publication, are not only terrific stories but " are ideal for long autumn evenings."

Sisters in Crime has been celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and Francine Paino had a brief retrospective of the national organization as well as one of the many chapters around the country that have formed during the group's three decades.

As someone who writes a music-related crime fiction series, I'm always interested in music-writing connections such as this piece from the New York Times which profiles Gregory Brown, the brother of author Dan Brown, and how Dan's latest novel features one of Gregory's works, "Missa Charles Darwin."

Did the deerstalker-wearing Dr William Neale inspire Sherlock Holmes? A photo from July 1880 may offer an important clue.

There are many subgenres of crime fiction, but some don't get quite as much attention as others - in fact, you may not be aware of the fantasy crime novel category, but Mulholland Books can get you started with a list of ten such titles work checking out.

Is there someone rotten in Denmark? If news reports are to be believed, the bizarre case of the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall aboard a submarine may end up leading police to a serial killer.

Writers, here's something for your next spy thriller project: In order to tempt nuclear scientists from countries such as Iran or North Korea to defect, US spy agencies routinely send agents to academic conferences – or even host their own fake ones.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "On the Road" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Mystery People Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott Montgomery chatted with Adam Sternberg about his novel, The Blinds, described as "if Sheriff Walt Longmire’s jurisdiction was Twin Peaks" and also sat down with J. M. Gulvin to discuss his new novel featuring Texas Ranger John Q; Tess Gerritsen, the author of the "Rizzoli & Isles" thriller series, spoke with WBUR public radio about writing crime fiction; and Mystery Lovers Kitchen welcomed Ellen Byron, author of the Cajun Country Mysteries.

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Author R&R with Rebecca Marks

An attorney, musician, and owner of dog-show champion Belgian Tervurens, Rebecca Marks is also the author of the Dana Cohen Mystery Series, which deal with a woman who has retired at age 42 from her post as detective with the NYPD and relocated to the North Fork of Long Island. She plans on helping her elderly father manage his winery but soon finds she can't stop solving mysteries. Following the first two installments, On the Rocks and Four Shots Neat, she's just released the third book in the series, Stone Cold Sober, from Black Opal Books.





In the novel, Dana's best friend, Marilyn, is directing a local musical theater production. Dana's estranged lover, Alex Frasier, the father of the child she's carrying, is a Morris dancer in the show, but Dana has no theatrical talent at all. So Marilyn cooks up a way to get the two former lovebirds together, hiring Dana to work security for the production. When Dana discovers a gruesome murder during one of the show's rehearsals, her "detective gene" overtakes her, and she can't resist the urge to throw herself into this case. But as she investigates, she uncovers some dark secrets and realizes, too late, how far someone will go to keep them hidden...



Rebecca stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing her books:

 

In our current culture, sophisticated readers have access to the most updated information about most everything, and they are not shy about finding the information and complaining about errors. So I’ve always felt that it’s very important to make sure that as an author, I do my homework and research all of the parts of the story that entail factual legal procedures. In a mystery, it’s common to talk about police work, legal process, and much of what happens between the crime and the solution.

Although I am a Massachusetts lawyer, I have never been licensed to practice in New York, and the rules and procedures can vary greatly from state to state. The Dana Cohen mystery series takes place entirely in New York. So I followed several different routes to ensure that I got the facts right.

First of all, Google has been a tremendously important tool for me. There is a great deal of information posted online by the state of New York, detailing police procedure, court process, medical examiner rules, and grand jury proceedings, to name a few. I read extensively about all of the following: 

Police conduct legal searches, but to do so, they need the proper warrants and implements to conduct their searches. The Consolidated Laws of New York’s CPL code provide all of the information about what property police can seize during a search, who and what are subject to such search, when the warrants are executable, and how they are obtained, to name a few of the procedures.
Because Dana operates mostly in Suffolk County, I consulted the Suffolk County Government Medical Examiner website. It provides extensive information about how the ME operates in Suffolk County, including timing, autopsy policy, and when the ME is called in.
Grand juries are convened by the county prosecutor to ascertain whether the perpetrator of a crime should be indicted. Although these procedures are similar from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, I researched how it works in Suffolk County, to make sure I didn’t write something that wasn’t true. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office provides complete information about criminal justice procedures, which were invaluable to me in writing Dana’s stories.
Finally, court cases also follow the procedure of the jurisdiction where the crime occurred, and New York publishes extensive articles about how criminal procedure works in that state. Luckily, my law background enabled me to understand the gist of the NYS CPL Law Code.

In addition to the rich availability of information on the Internet, there are other extremely useful tools out there for authors to use in the quest to do accurate research. There are several Yahoo groups that provide useful information volunteered by other authors who have already done the research. I have found that the Yahoo group “Crimescene Writer” is extremely useful. On that site, writers can ask questions about absolutely everything they might be planning to write about in their crime novels. Recently, someone asked about a gunshot wound, and how it would affect a victim. Many people answered this question and provided information about where to learn more. There are reports about how the FBI operates, what police do, what is legal and illegal for the police, warrants, and any other questions an author might have about their book.

I have asked several questions of this group in the course of my writing the Dana Cohen mystery series, and I always receive excellent information. Then I am able to refine that information even more carefully by digging into its accuracy.

Finally, there are several organizations that support mystery writers, and I am a member of two of those: Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and International Thriller Writers (ITW). These organizations provide not only a venue for writers to meet other writers, but also give members a place to seek relevant information. 

Research is not only interesting and fun, but doing it thoroughly gives me the confidence that although I am writing fiction, the procedures and actions of agencies involved in my mysteries are correct and believable. 

 

You can learn more about Rebecca and her books via her website, or follow her on Twitter or on Facebook.

 

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Media Murder for Monday

Happy Monday to all, and welcome to the weekly roundup of the latest crime drama news:

MOVIES

Nicole Kidman is set to star in Destroyer, a modern Los Angeles crime thriller directed by Girlfight helmer Karyn Kusama. The story follows the moral and existential odyssey of LAPD detective Erin Bell (Kidman) who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a cult-like gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

The Fast & Furious spin-off with Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw character has been given a July 26, 2019 release in advance of the ninth installment of Fast & The Furious which Universal has slated for Easter weekend 2020. The spinoff centers around once-upon-a-time villain Deckard Shaw teaming with U.S. Diplomatic Security Agent Luke Hobbs.

Amazon Studios has released the trailer for Woody Allen’s new mob drama Wonder Wheel, starring Kate Winslet, James Belushi, Juno Temple and Justin Timberlake. Set at Coney Island in the 1950s, Wonder Wheel stars Winslet as Ginny, a former actor whose life is turned upside down by the appearance of her carousel operator husband Humpty’s (Belushi) estranged daughter (Temple), who is on the run from the mob. Timberlake plays Mickey, a young lifeguard.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

ABC has put in development the crime drama Suspects, based on the critically praised British series Unforgotten. Written by The Blacklist executive producer Carla Kettner, Suspects blends a cop drama procedural and a multi-generational soap with a compassionate, intelligent female detective at the center.

Best-selling author Robert Harris is having another of his novels adapted for the screen, his latest book Munich, a spy-thriller set in the days leading up to WWII as the British government tried to negotiate peace with Germany. Munich features real-life characters — including Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Edouard Daladier — and "spins a story of treason and conscience, loyalty and betrayal, as the paths of two old friends cross again as the future of Europe hangs in the balance."

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to The Dime, a crime drama with a lesbian cop at the center that's based on bestselling author Kathleen Kent’s new novel, from Hell on Wheels creators Tony Gayton and Joe Gayton, feature director Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes) and 20th Century Fox TV. Written and executive produced by the Gayton brothers, The Dime follows Brooklyn cop Betty Rhyzyck, a tough-as-nails firebrand who moves with her girlfriend to Dallas to lead a group of detectives. Their more traditional sensibilities are a far cry from her blue-state mentality, and in order to survive, Betty and her team will have to put aside their differences.

Fox has given a second script commitment plus penalty to the legal drama Midnight Lawyer from Empire co-creator Danny Strong. The project is about a lawyer who gets his clients out of trouble they get into after dark. He used to live the NYC after-hours life and now he’s always striving to save people the way he saved himself— but this business comes with temptations. His clients are colorful night owls (often celebrities with paparazzi on their tails), thrill-seeking partiers, and mobsters who will prove time and time again that nothing good happens after 2 AM.

Busy-bee Fox also has given a script commitment plus penalty to Headshot, an hourlong drama executive produced by Empire executive producer/director Sanaa Hamri and Homeland's Howard Gordon. Written and executive produced by producer Sonny Postiglione (Bloodline), Headshot is described as "a fun, heartfelt, character-driven procedural centering on a tenacious, by-the- book FBI agent who puts his career on the line by hiring a mouthy yet charming struggling actress for the role of a lifetime: undercover operative." Together, this law enforcement odd couple join forces to take down the Bureau’s most dangerous and high-profile criminals.

Actress Maya Dunbar has come aboard an untitled legal drama that centers around the country’s most successful African American civil rights attorney and his family-run law firm. When tragedy strikes they’re forced to dive into their own dark pasts, walking the murky line between the law and self-preservation to save their future and the legacy of their powerful family name.

Anna Paquin is the latest big name to join the cast of Netflix’s The Irishman for director Martin Scorsese. The Oscar winner will play the daughter of Robert De Niro’s title character, Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, a reputed hitman suspected of involvement in the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

The upcoming sixth season of Major Crimes will be its last, after TNT announced the show's cancellation. TNT's crime drama will return on Halloween for a final run that will include its hundredth episode on Dec. 19th, with the two-part series finale airing on Jan. 16th. Major Crimes is a spin-off of TNT's hugely successful series The Closer, and stars Mary McDonnell as Sharon Rayder, commanding officer of the LAPD's Major Crimes Division.

One of the remaining original cast members of NCIS is leaving after the end of this season - after 15 seasons on the popular crime drama, fan favorite Pauley Perrette announced she is leaving the CBS series. Perrette plays the resident forensic specialist Abby Sciuto on the series about agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Fans will see more of Lenny Cohen in Season 2 of Bravo’s Imposters, with Uma Thurman returning in the role of Lenny, the ultimate fixer. When the reclusive ring-leader of a group of con artists needs to keep his employees in line, eliminate an enemy, or whip up a world class omelette, there is only one person for the job – the lethal, articulate and mysterious Lenny Cohen.

Lord of the Rings star Dominic Monaghan is set to star in Bite Club, a new miniseries from Sony Pictures TV and Channel Nine Australia, playing a troubled police officer and dog handler in the eight-part unconventional procedural that follows ex-lovers who survive a terrifying shark attack and are thrown together by fate to hunt down murderers.

The BBC revealed a first look at the upcoming period thriller The Woman in White, a new adaptation of the classic Wilkie Collins novel, starring Ben Hardy and also featuring Apple Tree Yard's Olivia Vinall as Laura Fairlie/The Woman in White.

The first footage has dropped for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan with John Krasinski as the titular character getting into full interrogation mode for the new Amazon series, which is set to debut on Prime Video in 2018.

The first footage from the Psych reunion movie has Shawn (James Roday) pissing off a high-end fence (Robert LaSardo) while working a case without Gus (Dule Hill) who's taken a full-time pharmaceutical job, and also introduces the film's main villain, Zachary Levi's Thin White Duke, who shows up with a bang - literally - when he and his assistants break into Juliet's (Maggie Lawson) partner's apartment and nearly kill him.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Denise Mina spoke to Australian Broadcasting's Kate Evans about her crime novels, true crime, and the role of the "shadow self' in Scottish fiction.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp's Michael Cathcart also discussed historical crime fiction Sulari Gentill and Stewart King.

The Murder Monday podcast welcomed bestselling crime and thriller writer Harlan Coben to discuss crime fiction that is explicitly about the past or imbedded in the past, and the show also "met" the protagonists of the novels of Scottish crime writer Denise Mina.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack spoke with Ellen Byrum, former reporter and author of the Crime of Fashion mysteries.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Vest welcomed Craig Sisterson with his latest book reviews as well as author Jenny Blackhurst who talked about her latest novel, psychology and its influence on her books.

Suspense Radio Inside Editon featured D.P. Lyle, back with some friends talking about their latest anthology, as well as bestselling authors Tasha Alexander and Michael Brandman.

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