B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 179

Mystery Melange

Naomi Alderman is this year's winner of the Baileys Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize. The award is considered the most prestigious for fiction written by a woman and was given to Alderman for her futuristic thriller, The Power.

The Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense is named for Daphne du Maurier, the author of Rebecca, a suspense novel with romantic and gothic overtones and a precursor to today's romantic suspense. Presented annually by the RWA Kiss of Death organization, this year's Daphne finalists were named in the category of Mainstream Mystery/Suspense and various Romantic Suspense categories. Finalists in the Mainstream Mystery/Suspense category include Notorious by Carey Baldwin; Death Among the Doilies (A Cora Crafts Mystery) by Mollie Cox Bryan; Elegy in Scarlet by BV Lawson; Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan; and In the Barren Ground by Loreth Anne White. For all the finalists (including those both unpublished and published divisions) follow this link.

David Schmid, Ph.D. received the 2017 George N. Dove Award for Contributions to the Study of Mystery and Crime Fiction. David Schmid, Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University at Buffalo (State University of New York), was selected to receive the 2017 Dove Award. The honor is bestowed for outstanding contributions to the serious study of mystery, detective, and crime fiction by the Mystery and Detective Fiction Area of the Popular Culture Association. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

The 2017 IndieReader Discovery Awards were announced recently at Book Con, part of the annual BEA conference. This year's First Place winner in the Fiction category was the suspense novel Darkroom by Mary Maddox. The Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category winner was Geoffrey Visgilio for his novel, Switch.

The English Bookshop in Stockholm, Sweden, will continue its Nordic Noir Talks series with authors Anita Shenoi and Gabriella Ullberg Westin on June 15. Other upcoming events include Johan Theorin on July 6 and Christoffer Carlsson on September 14.

Crime fiction authors Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, along with Deborah Levy, are among those who were made new for 2017. The RSL will host a ceremony honoring all the new fellows on June 19.

On July 9, the next Mystery Writers of America's MWA University moves to the Mid-Atlantic area in Bethesda, Maryland, with bestselling author Jeffery Deaver anchoring a day of classes to help you take your writing career to the next level. Deaver's will talk about "Writing Commerial Fiction' during the three-hour morning session. Alan Orloff will also be on hand to discuss "Writing the Dreaded Query Letter," and Clair Lamb will talk about "Managing Your Social Media Presence."

Criminal Element and Putnam Books are offering one winner a chance to win a complete set (to date, A-X) of Sue Grafton's Alphabet mystery series, featuring private eye Kinsey Millhone.

As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, HarperCollins India is coming up with 25 of the best Agatha Christie titles in a special and limited facsimile edition format. These limited hardback facsimile editions have been reproduced from the first editions published between the 1920s and 1970s with the jacket and text of each title presented exactly as they had originally appeared in hardback.

Atlas Obscura profiled the "Cheap Thrills, Private Dicks, and Desperate Dames From the Heyday of Pulp Fiction" from the late 1800s to the 1950s, with a focus on the covers and illustrators.

Every wonder what police departments do with all the guns they confiscate off the streets? This video will give you an idea.

Cool idea of the summer: the New York Public Library's second annual subway reading promotion is called Subway Library and offers commuters six weeks of free downloadable books from the city’s public libraries. The ten train cars have seats that resemble books on a shelf.

Copies of John Grisham's first book are worth more than $4,000 ... if you can find one.

Good police sketch artists can help make or break a case when it comes to locating suspects. But things don't always work out perfectly as this slightly tongue-in-cheek list of "21 Worst Police Sketches Of All Time" will attest.

You may need a microscope for these, but they might be worth it.

This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Trump as a Fire Without Light #266" by Darren C. Demaree.



In the Q&A roundup, Elizabeth Foxwell spoke with Joan Hess, who completed the last Amelia Peabody book begun by Hess' late friend Elizabeth Peters (the pen name of Barbara Mertz); Stuart Neville chatted with the Irish News about AC/DC, Genesis, and Tom Wolfe; WBUR chatted with Dennis Lehane about his latest thiller, Since We Fell; the Key West Bluepaper had a Q&A with Mystery Fest Key West special guest author Randy Rawls; Cara Black joined the Mystery People to speak and sign her latest Leduc investigation, Murder in Saint-Germain; and the Seattle PI featured a Q&A with both Megan Abbott and Alison Gaylin, co-authors of Normandy Gold.

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Media Murder for Monday

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



MOVIES



Steven Spielberg's latest project, The Papers, is lining up an all-star cast. The project is based on the Washington Post's publication of the classified Pentagon Papers in 1971 and will feature Meryl Streep as Post publisher Kay Graham, Tom Hanks as Post editor Ben Bradlee, Sarah Paulson (American Crime Story), Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul), Matthew Rhys (The Americans), and Jesse Plemons (Fargo). The movie will see a limited release on Dec. 22 and go wide on Jan. 12, 2018.



Nicolas Cage is set to star in the action thriller Mandy, directed by Beyond the Black Rainbow helmer Panos Cosmatos. The film is currently in pre-production, with plans to shoot this summer in Belgium. The story is set in the primal wilderness of 1983 where Red Miller, a broken and haunted man hunts an unhinged religious sect who slaughtered the love of his life.



Forest Whitaker is boarding David M. Rosenthal’s action-thriller How It Ends, which is set against a mysterious apocalyptic event that turns the roads into mayhem and follows a young father who will stop at nothing to get home to his pregnant wife on the other side of the country.



MPI Media Group has acquired all U.S. rights to Francesca Eastwood’s thriller M.F.A. for release this fall under its Dark Sky Films banner. The project is directed by Natalia Leite from a debut screenplay by actress Leah McKendrick (Bad Moms) who also co-stars along with Clifton Collins Jr. (Westworld). M.F.A. follows Eastwood’s art student character, who’s forced to take action to protect herself after being sexually assaulted by a fellow classmate. Attempting to cope with her trauma, she impulsively confronts her attacker, leading to a violent altercation that culminates in his accidental death.



Logan's director James Mangold is attached to helm Disorder, a remake of the 2015 French film from Sony and Escape Artists. The original film was directed by Alice Winocour and follows Matthias Schoenaerts as an ex-soldier with PTSD who’s hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman.



Universal has released the first trailer for the Doug Liman-directed film American Made, starring Tom Cruise in the real-life story of pilot Barry Seal, a hustler who is tapped by the CIA to to run one of the biggest covert operations in U.S. history. Set in the 1980s, the crime drama co-stars Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, E. Roger Mitchell, Jesse Plemons, Lola Kirke, Alejandro Edda, Benito Martinez, Caleb Landry Jones and Jayma Mays.



Couldn't make it to Cannes this year? Welcome to the club. Fortunately, Crime Fiction Lover has a roundup of "The top five crime films of Cannes 2017."



The San Rafael, California, Cinema & Psyche series will feature a NeoNoir Masterwork Festival on six nights beginning June 19. Organizations have lined up Klute, The Conversation, Body Heat, House of Games, The Grifters, and Miller’s Crossing, with each session including background info, film clips, a film viewed in full, and a lively discussion.



TELEVISION



Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro has signed on to star in Showtime's upcoming limited eight-part series Escape at Dannemora. It's based on the 2015 prison break that saw two convicted murderers escape from New York's Clinton Correctional Facility with the help of a female prison employee, leading to a massive manhunt. Benicio Del Toro will star as Richard Matt, the mastermind behind the escape, while Paul Dano will play Matt's partner in crime, David Sweat, and Patricia Arquette will play the accomplice.



Another Oscar-winner, Julia Roberts, is in talks to head to the small screen for Homecoming, from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. The limited series is a political thriller that centers on a caseworker at a secret government facility and is presented in a collage of telephone calls, therapy sessions, and overheard conversations. The project is based on the fictional podcast of the same name, which debuted last November and starred Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac, David Schwimmer, Amy Sedaris, and David Cross.



Fox has canceled 24: Legacy, although it's not giving up on the series. The network has plans to attempt another reboot of the franchise by developing a 24 anthology series, following new stories for each season with new cast members.



Season 3 of Fargo may be its last, according to show creator Noah Hawley, who said that "There's only a certain amount of storytelling you can tell in that vein...So watch the 10th hour [of season 3] because it might be the last."



NCIS is losing one of its stars when the new season premieres in the fall. Jennifer Esposito, who played NCIS Special Agent Alex Quinn on Season 14, is leaving the show after just one season. She remains in the CBS family via her ongoing recurring role on Showtime’s The Affair as Nina Solloway, Noah’s (Dominic West) sister. Additionally, Esposito has booked a co-starring role opposite John Travolta in the feature Speed Kills for Hannibal Classics.



Greg Plageman is the new executive producer and showrunner for Season 2 of NBC’s Taken. Plageman, who was previously the showrunner and EP on CBS’ Person of Interest, takes over the reins of the show that stars Clive Standen as Bryan Mills, a former Green Beret who becomes a deadly CIA operative. Taken is based on the film trilogy that starred Liam Neeson, with the TV series picking up Mills’ story 30 years earlier in life.



Julianne Nicholson has landed the role of defense attorney Jill Lansing in NBC’s Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, marking Nicholson’s fourth series with Law & Order franchise creator Dick Wolf. The Menendez Murders is an eight-episode series offering a dramatization of the real-life murder trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez that dominated headlines in the 1990s. Constance Marie (Switched At Birth) and Carlos Gomez (Madam Secretary) have also joined the cast.



The Acorn TV original crime series Loch Ness begins on Monday, June 19 and is described as an atmospheric murder mystery thriller starring Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad) and Siobhan Finneran (Downton Abbey). The haunting shores of Scotland’s most iconic loch is the stunning backdrop for the six-part drama written by Stephen Brady (Vera) and produced by ITV Studios for ITV in the UK. Shortly after its ITV broadcast, Loch Ness will premiere in the U.S. beginning on consecutive Mondays, starting June 19, 2017 through the finale on July 24. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)



Acorn TV also announced its summer slate of returning favorites Vera, Midsomer Murders, and Murdoch Mysteries.



A&E Network has pushed back the premiere dates for its documentary Biggie: The Life of Notorious B.I.G. and also its limited series Who Killed Tupac? Originally scheduled for June 28 and June 29, respectively, Biggie will now air September 4, while the six-part Shakur series will debut some time in the fourth quarter of 2017.



Netflix has unveiled the first full trailer for Gypsy, in which Oscar nominee Naomi Watts plays a therapist who crosses the line with her patients and gives in to her desires, throwing her family life into utter chaos.



Discovery provided a first look trailer for its eight-part limited series about Ted Kaczynski’s one-man war against modern society, Manhunt: Unabomber, which follows the FBI’s famed hunt for the deadliest serial bomber in history.



PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO



Film critic and bestselling author Stephen Hunter discussed G-Man, the 10th book in his Bob Lee Swagger family saga, on Big Blend Radio.



A Stab in the Dark, the podcast hosted by award-winning crime writer Mark Billingham, returned to the world of podcasts this week, hosting a new series investigating the worlds of crime fiction and TV crime drama. The second series of the show starts off with Rebus creator Ian Rankin talking about the 30th anniversary of his iconic detective, how the character has changed over the years, and his thoughts on the detective’s return to television later in 2017. Over the next two months, guests will include award-winning crime writers Lee Child, Belinda Bauer, Sarah Hilary, Bill Beverly, Karin Slaughter and Laura Lippman, as well as creator of The Wire David Simon and Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss.



Author John Lescroart stopped by Capital Public Radio to talk about his long career of 30 bestsellers and his latest novel, Fatal, which introduces a new character, Sergeant Beth Tully of the San Francisco PD.



Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed their special guest, author and screenwriter Jordan Harper, who's worked on The Mentalist and Gotham. His debut novel is She Rides Shotgun.



Beyond The Cover featured a round table discussion with authors Jon Land (Caitlin Strong series) and Allison Brennan (Lucy Kincaid series).



Read or Dead is a new mystery/thriller podcast From Book Riot that will appear twice monthly. Hosted by Rincey Abraham and Katie McLain, the show will discuss everything related to mysteries, thrillers, suspense books, and even some book-adjacent news and topics. The first episode features a discussion about some adaptations they are excited to see and upcoming releases they can't wait to read.



THEATER



Unbound Productions have taken their outdoor immersive theatre concept and expanded into the mystery genre, mounting their first major production under the moniker Mystery Lit with Holmes, Sherlock and the Consulting Detective. Written by Jonathan Josephson, the prodution combines three of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries into one epic whodunit set in the Los Angeles Arboretum's historic Santa Anita Train Depot that doubles as the dark and foggy night intrigue of Victorian England. The production runs through July 1.



GAMES



Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan is currently in the process of developing a virtual reality project based on his iconic series, and he's working with Sony to potentially make this a part of its PlayStation VR system. It's currently unknown if the new Breaking Bad experience will utilize an episodic storytelling format or if only one standalone story will be told.

            

Your Sunday Music Treat

Richard Strauss, born on June 11 in 1864, is best known for his operas and big orchestral works - one of which you have heard of - but he also wrote smaller works, like the Piano Sonata in B Minor. I'll have to ask Scott Drayco if he ever played that one, but here's the third movement, the Scherzo, featuring the legendary Glenn Gould:

 

 

As for that other "big" work you might have heard of, well, here's a snippet:

 

            

Quote of the Week

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FFB: Find the Innocent

English mystery writer William Edward Vickers (1889-1965) was best known under his pen name Roy Vickers, although he also wrote under the names David Durham, Sefton Kyle, and John Spencer. Biographical details are a bit sketchy, but Vickers worked as a salesman, court reporter and magazine editor in addition to penning nonfiction articles. He also found some success as a ghostwriter and as a crime reporter for a newspaper.



He found his literary stride when he published his short story, "The Rubber Trumpet," the first of over three dozen stories originally published in Pearson's Magazine and featuring the fictitious Department of Dead Ends division of Scotland Yard (a precursor to TV's Cold Case, if you will). Many of these are inverted mysteries, with the crime and perpetrators being known and the crime solved as much by luck and perseverance than brilliant detection. He also edited several anthologies for the Crime Writers' Association.



The central sleuth in Vickers' Department of Dead Ends stories started as being Superintendent Tarrant and in the later stories switched to Inspector Rason. However, Vickers also wrote eight novels in a more traditional procedural style featuring Detective-Inspector Peter Curwen. Find the Innocent was the final Curwen installment, published in 1959. He's described by one character as being "large, rotund and homely, looking like a successful local auctioneer who contemplates retirement."



Three scientists, Eddis, Stranack and Canvey, are all suspects in the murder of their employer, Mr. "WillyBee" Brengast, who had refused to grant them royalties on their inventions. The trio work and live together at WillyBee Products Ltd., yet they detest one another. Each man gives the same story to the police—each claims the same alibi, that he was the one to stay behind alone with the victim while the other two men went into town together. It's obvious to Inspector Curwen that one man must be guilty and the other two abetting, but which is which? Complicating matters are the victim's beautiful young widow whose one-night stand with one of the scientists plays a key role, and the victim's brainy niece who "helps" Inspector Curwen while falling for another of the suspects.



I've not read much of Vickers' output, but I came across one criticism that his novels paled in comparison to his stories, and I think I can understand why that might be the case. The premise of Find the Innocent is promising—three suspects who give the same story with little or no evidence to prove or disprove which one is guilty—but I think the novel (novella, actually, as it's on the short side) would have worked even better as a shorter story. 



Vickers ultimately wrote close to 70 novels under his various pseudonyms, as well as the dozens of stories published in Pearson's and in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He was inducted in Britain's famed The Detection Club in 1955. Unfortunately very few of his works are in print today. The Black Dagger Crime Series reprinted Find the Innocent in 2001, but it's hard to find a copy of the 1959 original, unless you're willing to fork over $275 or more for a first edition online.

            

Mystery Melange

Louise Penny and Trudy Nan Boyce are the recipients of the 2017 Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction, named to honor the memory of Diana Pinckley. Bestselling author Louise Penny, the first Canadian to receive the award, is the winner of the Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work. Trudy Nan Boyce was given the Pinckley Prize for Debut Novel for her book Out of the Blues.



The Private Eye Writers of America announced the finalists for this year's Shamus Awards. Best Private Eye Novel contendees include Reed Farrel Coleman, Where It Hurts; Lindsey Davis, The Graveyard of the Hesperides; Timothy Hallinan, Fields Where They Lay; Al Lamanda, With 6 You Get Wally; and Robert S. Levinson, The Stardom Affair. For all the nominees head on over to the PWA website.



The Audio Publishers Association named this year's winners of the annual Audie Awards for excellence in audiobook narration and presentation. Best Mystery went to The Crossing, by Michael Connelly, narrated by Titus Welliver, and best Thriller/Suspense was won by Cross Justice, by James Patterson, narrated by Ruben Santiago Hudson and Jefferson Mays. For all the various category finalists and winners, head on over to the APA's official page.



Craig Sisterson of the Ngaio Marsh awards for crime fiction announced a brand new literary award for Kiwi true-crime books. The Ngaio Marsh Awards have honored New Zealand’s crime fiction since 2010, but the long-term plan was always to expand the award categories to highlight excellence in other forms of local crime writing. And as Sisterson noted, with more than a dozen local true crime novels published in the last two years, now seems like the right time to start celebrating non-fiction crime writing with its own award.



Sponsored by the Writers’ Police Academy, the Golden Donut Short Story Contest is now accepting submissions. The contest requires authors to write a story that’s exactly 200 words, based on the photo posted on the website, with this year’s final judge Craig Johnson (author of the best-selling Walt Longmire mysteries and 2017 WPA Guest of Honor) deciding the winner. The Golden Donut winner earns a free 2018 registration to a Writers’ Police Academy.



This year, the crime festival Bloody Scotland' is producing its first ever book of fiction, an anthology of short stories published in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland. The anthology has Scotland’s crime writers using the "sinister side" of the country’s heritage in a series of "gripping, chilling and redemptive" stories. Contributors include Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Gordon Brown, Doug Johnstone, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride, with tales ranging from a murder in an ancient broch to a dark sychological thriller set in Edinburgh Castle to an ‘urbex’ rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin.



Down & Out Books is celebrating the sixth anniversary of the independent company that was founded to publish quality literary and crime fiction. Fifty-six titles are planned for release in 2017 and forty titles are already under contract for 2018 publication. Authors publishing with Down & Out Books have won a number of leading awards, including the Anthony Award, Shamus Award, the Macavity, and the IPPY Award. The trend continues this year with the news in May that six of its books have been nominated for a 2017 Anthony Award.



Meanwhile, Seventh Street Books, the mystery, thriller, and crime fiction imprint of Prometheus Books, is marking its fifth anniversary at Book Expo America. Jon Kurtz, In the short time since the publisher started, their books have been up for Edgar, Barry, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. This year, of the six Edgar Award finalists for Best Paperback Original, three were published by Seventh Street, and the winner was the press’ Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty.



On June 7-9, a conference on "Women Criminals : Iconic Characters in History, Media and Crime Fiction" heads to the University of Rouen-Normandy. You can follow this link for the full program. It's in French, but if you don't read/speak the language, Google Chrome will translate it for you.



Scotland's Dundee University announced it will offer a postgraduate degree in crime fiction. The MLitt in crime writing and forensic investigation course will not only explore crime fiction, but help teach writers about the history of forensic science and its applications in solving crimes and as evidence in court. The course will being in September this year and is being run as a collaboration between the university’s School of Humanities and its world-leading Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification.



The second issue of the new 'zine Occult Detective Quarterly is out, with nine original stories by Tim Waggoner, Steve Liskow, Tricia Owens, Edward M Erdelac, Brandon Barrows, Kelly A Harmon, Joshua M Reynolds, Mike Chinn, and Bruno Lombardi. (HT to Sandra Seamans)



Is the best crime fiction urban? John Banville (a/k/a Benjamin Black) thinks so.



Philip Rafferty stopped by the Crime Fiction Lover blog to list "The five books that got me hooked on crime fiction."



USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Jaynes took the Page 69 Test for her new stand-alone thriller The Stranger Inside.

Love steamy thrillers? The Strand Magazine has a list of ten of the "best."



This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Turn the Camera Off" by Oral Nussbaum.



In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's John Valeri interviewed novelist and screenwriter Sarah Lotz about her latest crime novel, The White Road; Valeri also interrogated music journalist, film critic, and author Jordan Harper about his debut novel, She Rides Shotgun; A.J. Hartley, the internationally bestselling author of the Steeplejack series set in a fantasy version of South Africa, also answered Crime HQ's queries about his writing; the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine blog welcomed guest interviewer Scott Loring Sanders in conversation with Lisa Unger; Mystery People contributor and blogger Scott Butki chatted with Andrew Pyper about his supernatural psychological thriller The Only Child; and Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis sat down with Sherry Harris to discuss the new book in her Sarah Winston Garage Sale Series, A Good Day To Buy.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES



Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D star Clark Gregg is set to appear in the Simon Kaijer-directed thriller Spinning Man, along with Guy Pearce, Pierce Brosnan, Minnie Driver, and Odeya Rush. The film is based on George Harrar’s novel, which Matthew Aldrich adapted. The story centers on Evan (Pearce), a philosophy professor and family man whose past reveals a number of illicit relations with his students. When a young woman is found murdered, he becomes the prime suspect. Gregg will play Paul, a lawyer who helps Evan sort out the legality of his relationship with his students.



Oscar-winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian has been attached to rewrite the Fox thriller Dark Web, updating previous drafts penned by Joel and Ethan Coen and Dennis Lehane. The project follows the true story of a 29-year-old idealist named Ross William Ulbricht (a/k/a Dread Pirate Roberts) who built an online illegal-drug marketplace called "The Silk Road," and along the way allegedly became a murderous kingpin.



Charlize Theron shows some of her badass assassin moves in an extended clip for the upcoming Atomic Blonde. The spy thriller is based on writer Antony Johnston and illustrator Sam Hart's graphic novel The Coldest City, which follows MI6’s most lethal assassin (Theron) sent to deliver a priceless dossier in Berlin with the help of embedded station chief David Percival (James McAvoy), only to get caught up in a web of international intrigue and deception.  



Fox studios released a trailer of Kenneth Branagh starring as the iconic Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Fox’s upcoming adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic Murder On The Orient Express. Branagh directs an ensemble cast including Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Judi Dench and Olivia Colman for a reboot of the much-loved whodunit.



The Edinburgh International Film Festival runs from June 21st until July 2nd with a total of 151 features from 46 countries and multiple special events. Among the crime dramas being screened are the action-packed crime thriller Operation Mekong; filmmaker Justin Edgar’s noir British thriller The Marker; the Toby Jones-starring psychological thriller Kaleidoscope; the Irish Medieval thriller Pilgrimage; the French cop comedy R.A.I.D Special Unit; the true-life thriller Hostages; the taut Icelandic thriller The Oath; the psychological horror-thriller The Dark Mile; and an International Premiere of Katarzyna Adamik’s thriller Amok. Author Ian Rankin will also be on hand to present the crime drama Reichenbach Falls.



TELEVISION



UK-based indie Eleventh Hour Films has optioned the screen rights to Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling Alex Rider novels. BAFTA winner Guy Burt is attached to script a large-scale family series based on the Horowitz's YA books that chart the adventures of a reluctant teenage super-spy on his missions to save the world. Eleventh Hour is currently developing the project with ITV.



AMC is developing three shows via the network’s "scripts-to-series" model that skips the pilot process and instead appoints groups of writers to develop a first season bible and write several episodes, after which AMC decides whether to grant a straight-to-series order. The shows include NOS4A2 (pronounced "Nosferatu"), which follows Victoria McQueen, a woman with a secret gift for finding things, who sets out to locate a superhuman kidnapper and rescue his victims. It's based on the novel by Joe Hill that was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. One of the other script-to-series projects is Pandora, a global mystery-thriller tracking three converging storylines about ordinary people piecing together dark secrets after advanced malware dismantles encryption across the Internet.



Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's father Stanley Johnson’s satirical thriller about political "skullduggery," Kompromat, is to be adapted for a Channel 4 TV series. The thriller imagines the behind-the-scenes shenanigans in the run-up to the European Union Referendum and the US presidential campaign. Kompromat is the Russian term for compromising materials about a politician or other public figure.  



Cinemax has canceled the crime series Quarry after one season. Co-creator Michael D. Fuller announced the news on Wednesday in a blog post entitled "Goodbye Cruel World." Fuller co-created the show (along with Graham Gordy) that's based on the novel series by Max Allan Collins and follows a Marine who returns home from Vietnam in 1972 and is drawn into a string of nefarious actions in his hometown of Memphis.



Dale Soules, a recurring guest since Season 2 as no-nonsense inmate Frieda Berlin, has been promoted to series regular for Season 6 of Orange is the New Black.  Frieda, who boasts neck tattoos and knows a lot about murder, acknowledged in a previous season that she committed a crime. Season 5 which takes place over three days, begins streaming Friday, June 9 and sees the inmates at Litchfield in control and empowered to fight for justice following Poussey’s (Samira Wiley) death that sparked the riot at the end of Season 4.



NBC has tweaked its fall schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders is now slotted for Tuesday at 10 pm, while Chicago Fire will be in the 10 pm slot on Thursdays. Meanwhile, the peacock network also announced it has cast the elder Menendez brother in the form of Young and the Restless actor Miles Gaston Villanueva.



HBO released the first trailer for its upcoming drama The Deuce, which stars James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal in the burgeoning NYC porn industry in the 1970s and '80s. The eight-episode drama, which debuts Sept. 10, was created by detective fiction novelist George Pelecanos and The Wire creator David Simon.



PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO



On a recent BBC podcast, Bridget Kendall explored the life and work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in a discussion with biographer Andrew Lycett and the scholars Catherine Wynne and Stefan Lampadius.



Kathleen McFall and Clark Hays and Kendra Elliott were the guests on Suspense Radio's Inside Edition yesterday. McFall and Hays are the authors of the book Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road, while Elliott is the creator of A Merciful Truth, her latest book featuring FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick.



Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed special guest Angela Clarke, the Sunday Times bestseller who spills all about social media, the fashion industry, and how to get into crime writing.



For a fun change of pace, the Writer Types podcast put a panel of crime writers including Christa Faust, Glen Erik Hamilton, and Danny Gardner to the test in the first Crime Quiz Live!  



THEATER



Beginning June 16, the Park Square Theater in Saint Paul, MN, is staging Might As Well Be Dead: A Nero Wolfe Mystery, adapted from the novel by Rex Stout. The world premiere commission by the theater's Mystery Writers Producers’ Club takes on Stout's story about a wealthy St. Paul businesswoman who hires to Wolfe to find her estranged son to make amends. But what if the young man doesn’t want to be found? And what if he’s the same Paul Herrold on trial for murder? The case draws the great detective and his devoted sidekick into a web of deceit – one that even the master sleuth may regret taking on.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Quote of the Week

            

FFB: Windy City

Hubert "Hugh" Holton grew up in Woodlawn, outside of Chicago, the only son of a police officer. In high school, he started reading detective novels from the school library—Mickey Spillane, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, Arthur Conan Doyle. He later said, "One of the things that I always noticed about the books was that police types were always portrayed as very stupid individuals. My father is now, as he was then, one of the smartest people I ever met. I was saying, 'How in the world are they doing this? Why are they making these officers look so stupid?'"



In July 1964, Holton himself joined the police department's cadet program, then spent a three-year tour of duty (including a seven-month stint in Vietnam) until returning to Chicago to sign up with the police academy in 1969. He was one of the first black officers to work in Wrigleyville, but after a district commander told him, "I don't need any colored tactical officers in my district," he transferred to Wentworth. Six months later, he'd moved up to plainclothes, and eventually was promoted up to commander of the Grand Crossing District.



But those early crime fiction novels continued to haunt him, and he enrolled in writing programs at Columbia College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1986, he attended a conference at Northwestern sponsored by the midwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and two years later took a course taught by mystery author Barbara D'Amato. Thanks to her encouragement, he subsequently published his first novel, Violent Crimes, featuring Larry Cole, a young black police officer at the start of his career, aided by an older and wiser Italian-American partner named Blackie Silvestri. Holton went on to write ten successful novels in the Cole series, but sadly, Holton died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 54.



The second installment in the thriller series featuring Chicago Police Commander Larry Cole is Windy City. While investigating the death of a fellow officer, Cole stumbles across a pattern of killings that leads him to discover that the alleged fun-loving, super rich couple Neil and Margo DeWitt have a gruesome hobby:  they murder women and children using methods from Chicago-area mystery novels. Cole enlists a group of mystery writers to help him figure out where the homicidal couple will strike next. But as the body count rises, the threat hits closer to home:  not only are the DeWitts responsible for killing Cole's best buddy, Margo DeWitt is setting her sights on Cole's young son as her ultimate target.



Kirkus Reviews noted, "It's the rare reader who'll put this one down as it hurtles—one chilling event after the next—to its over-the-top finale...a bravura performance."

            

Mystery Melange

Crime Writers of Canada announced the Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, including Best Novel to Donna Morrissey for The Fortunate Brother and Best First Novel to Elle Wild for Strange Things Done. You can check out all the winners and finalists via the CWC's official website.



The winner of the Bloody Words Light Mystery Award is Elizabeth J. Duncan for Murder on the Hour. The annual Canadian award is handed out to a "mystery book that makes us smile." (HT to Mystery Fanfare)



The longlists for Australia Sisters in Crime’s 17th Davitt Awards were announced, with a record 99 books in contention for adult, young adult, children's and nonfiction titles. A short list will be announced in mid to late July, with the winners presented at a gala dinner in Melbourne in late summer.



Mystery Readers NorCal is hosting an International Historical Mystery Literary Salon with Annamaria Alfieri and Michael Cooper in Berkeley, California, on May 31. Mystery Fanfare has more information and reservation details.  



Noir at the Bar travels to Edinburgh on May 31, with authors schedule to appear and read from their works including Vic Watson, May Rinaldi, C J Huntley, Sarah Sheridan, Neil Broadfoot, Ian Skewis, Doug Johnstone, Jake Steele, Mac Logan, Lucy Cameron, Claire McCleary, and Aly Monroe.



London's Heffers Bookshop and British Library Publications are sponsoring a discussion on June 6 of  Lois Austen-Leigh’s The Incredible Crime. This crime novel was written by a great, great niece of Jane Austen – supposedly on the very desk used by her illustrious ancestor – and was shrouded in mystery after it fell out of print. Now the British Library is re-issuing the book as part of the library’s Crime Classics series. (HT to Shots Magazine)



One day later on June 7, Goldsboro Books in London will be the site of a discussion titled "Agatha Christie’s Far-Reaching Influence." The panel will feature Sophie Hannah, author of the first new Hercule Poirot mysteries since Agatha Christie’s death; Ragnar Jónasson, bestselling author of the Snowblind crime series who has translated 14 of Agatha Christie’s titles into Icelandic; John Curran, Edgar-nominated author of Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks (2009) which won the 2011 Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards and his Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making (2011) was also nominated for all four awards; and Agatha Christie’s own great-grandson, James Prichard.



On June 8, the St. Louis, Missouri central library is hosting its annual Suspense Night, which brings together popular mystery writers from across the country for an evening of readings and a panel discussion on the craft of suspense writing. Featured authors this year include Reed Farrel Coleman, Blake Crouch, Hilary Davidson, and Peter Baluner.



The inaugural CrimeCom is headed to Indianpolis June 9-11. The various demonstrations, meet and greet sessions, and panels will feature such themes as the FBI Diving Team, blood spatter and crime scene reconstructions, and search and rescue dogs. Organizers describe it as "a true crime theme park for adults, minus the rides."  



On July 19, thriller writers Karin Slaughter and Lee Child will discuss their work in a panel hosted by bestselling author and journalist SJ Parris. The event is sponsored by the Sunday Times as an exclusive feature for members of The Times and The Sunday Times. For more information, follow this link.



Noireland is a new international crime fiction festival "with a distinctly Irish accent" in Belfast that will take place at the Europa Hotel from October 27 to 29 of this year. Details are a bit sketchy but organizers promise more info to come.  (HT to Crime Fiction Ireland.)



Profile Books is set to publish nine rediscovered short stories by Ruth Rendell that will be released as A Spot of Bother: New Tales of Murder and Mayhem this October. It is the first time the stories have been collected together under Rendell’s name, with seven out of the nine never before published in book form.



Writing for Radio Times, author Andrew Wilson makes the case for why Agatha Christie was cruel, not cozy - and how the beloved crime fiction writer was appalled by fluffy TV adaptations of her books.



If you're a fan of true crime and looking for good books to read in the genre, this list isn't a bad starting point. Or, if serial killer tales are more your "taste," (please, no fava bean or chianti jokes), this list of 100 books is a good overview on the topic.



If you're a bookstore fan (and if you aren't, you should be!), you might want to add these "12 bookstores every reader should visit in their lifetime" to your bucket list.



As if you didn't already know, literacy matters. And reading is healthy, too.



A castle in Virginia that Mary Roberts Rinehart once visited and inspired her to write the mystery novel The Circular Staircase in 1908, can be yours for $2,199,000.



John Farrow, the pen name of Trevor Ferguson, who writes crime novels featuring Émile Cinq-Mars, applied the Page 69 Test to Perish the Day, the newest novel in the Émile Cinq-Mars series.



This is a timely list of "10 Great Books of Washington Intrigue."



Is Robocop one step closer to reality?



This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Godwin" by Angel Zapata.



In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People were busy interview bees this week, chatting with Scottish author Denise Mina who often uses true crime and scandal as a basis for her stories; the MPs also welcomed Ace Atkins to discuss his latest book featuring Robert B Parker’s Spenser, Little White Lies; and Mystery People's Director of Suspense Molly Odintz spoke with Lori Rader-Day about her new crime novel, The Day I Died.

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