B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 188
February 4, 2017
February 3, 2017
FFB: Voice Out of Darkness
Ursula Reilly Curtiss, born in 1923, came into the world with fairly impressive crime-fiction genes. Her mother, Helen Reilly, her sister, Mary McMullen, and her brother, James Kieran, all wrote mysteries. Curtis didn't start out that way, working first as a columnist for the Fairfield, Connecticut News in 1942, at age 19, followed by a stint as a fashion copy writer. She began writing mystery/suspense novels, full-time at that, when she married John Curtiss in 1947 (the marriage no doubt helping her financial circumstances enough to give her that opportunity). Her first book, Voice Out of Darkness, won the Red Badge Award for the best new mystery of 1948.
Rather than penning police procedurals like her mother, Curtiss focused on the type of story where an innocent bystander gets pulled reluctantly into becoming an amateur sleuth — against a backdrop of seeming domestic calm, with layers of evil hiding behind family secrets and familiar faces. Her protagonists were usually female, except for works like 1951's The Noonday Devil where the main character is a man who learns his brother's death as a Japanese POW was carefully planned by a fellow prisoner.
Voice Out of Darkness falls into the female-protagonist camp, where we find that thirteen years prior to the events of the book, Katy Meredith lost her foster-sister, Monica, in a skating accident. Although Katy tried to save Monica, Monica's last words were "Katy pushed me." Katy thought she'd escaped both her home town and the horrors of Monica's death by moving to New York, until she starts receiving threatening notes in the mail. At first she wonders if someone else near the ice that day overheard Monica's words and is trying to blackmail her, but when Katy returns to her childhood home, she finds evidence of a calculating killer whose sights are now set on her.
Curtiss has moments of crisp observations in her writing, such as the following character study:
She was disconcerted, in the midst of her apologies for lateness, by Lieutenant Hooper's mild and wren-like appearance; he looked, she thought, like a portrait of a suburban traveller. Rubbers. Plaid woollen muffler, an air of having been assembled, eyed critically, and finally dismissed on the 8:32 by a bustling, dutiful wife. Except for his eyes: shrewd, steady, impartial as jewellers' scales.
or this excerpt about Fenwick, Connecticut, Katy's home town:
[It] had its replicas all over the New England coast. It lay sheltered in a tumble of windy hills, its architecture a blend of pure old Colonial and the raw new bones of housing developments. Its chief prosperity came from the summer visitors who came to splash and play in its wide blue crescent of Sound and laugh delightedly at its ancient moviehouse. Its chief crop was gossip, sown and grown with zest...
Curtiss' strengths are in her characterizations, setting and pacing, the novel being a quick read, which helps make the slight thinness and predictability of the plot (at least by 21st-century eyes looking backward), not much of a distraction. Curtiss later had two of her books, made into movies, I Saw What You Did from 1965, based on Curtiss' novel Out of the Dark, starring Joan Crawford, and 1969's What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, based on the author's novel The Forbidden Garden, featuring Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon. Curtiss also wrote the screenplays for a couple of television episodes of Detective and Climax Mystery Theater.
February 1, 2017
Mystery Melange
The annual Malice Comestic conference Agatha Award nominations were announced last week, including Best Contemporary Novel category nods to Body on the Bayou by Ellen Byron; Quiet Neighbors by Catriona McPherson; A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny; Fogged Inn by Barbara Ross; and Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan. For all the various lists and nominees, click on over to the Malice Comestic official website. Mystery Fanfare also has links where you can read all the Agatha-nominated short stories.
Starting this evening and running through Friday, lectures at several San Francisco libraries will help put perspective on modern Sweden through today's popular crime thrillers. Dr. Jim Kaplan, professor emeritus at Minnesota State University-Moorhead, will discuss Jar City by Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason, Occupied by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, with film clips from internationally recognized main characters Lisbeth Salander, Kurt Wallander and Harry Hole. The programs are free and open to the public. For dates, times, and more information, check out this link.
Meanwhile, in New York City tonight at the Scandinavia House, Icelandic author Ragnar Jonasson and Danish author Sara Blædel delve into the world of Scandinavian crime fiction in a discussion of their latest novels, moderated by Icelandic author, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.
Join Mystery Readers NorCal for a Literary Salon on February 2 in Berkeley, California, with John Lescroart, who's written twenty novels in the San Francisco based Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series and three in the Wyatt Hunt series. The event is open to all, but you must RSVP to attend.
Top names in crime and thriller publishing will share their expertise at a Crime Club Masterclass on Monday, March 20 in the UK. The panel will include novelist and professor Henry Sutton; spy thriller author Charles Cummin; literary agent Jane Gregory; editor Julia Wisdom; and Sophie Hannah who writes the Agatha Christie estate's continuance Hercule Poirot series. (HT to Ayo Ontade at Shots Magazine.)
Author Graham Moore, the author of The Sherlockian, profiled Arthur and Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes by Michael Sims, taking at a look at how Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes and why the character has stayed with us.
Sadly, we lost Mary Tyler Moore last week at the age of 80. Although best known for her roles in the Dick Van Dyke Show and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I didn't know (or had forgotten) that she also starred as "Sam" in the 1959 series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, although it was more a heard-but-not-seen role, since Sam was the detective's sexy receptionist, whose face we never see and who minds the office while Diamond solves his cases.
We also two actors last week: Mike Connors, who died at the age of 91, and was perhaps best known for his role playing the good-guy titular private detective on the long-running 1970s action series Mannix on CBS (Connors received four Emmy nominations for the role from 1970-73 and six Golden Globe noms from 1970-75); and also Barbara Hale, known for playing Della Street on Perry Mason, who passed away at the age of 94.
The editors of Plots with Guns announced on Facebook that they are suspending publication as of now and thanked everyone "who has written for us, submitted to us, and read PwG." They left open the door, however, for the zine to continue if someone else is willing to take over the reins.
Washington, D.C., is going to be getting a new museum — Planet Word, an interactive museum of language. Led by philanthropist Ann B. Friedman (wife of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman), Planet Word will be an interactive center dedicated to language arts, in the same vein as the National Museum of Mathematics in New York.
Crimezine profiled "The big six books that made Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer" on his way to distilling hardboiled crime fiction into something new and addictive for the pulp crime market.
Fans of true crime stories (and the books and movies/television that were inspired by them) might be interested in a recent article in the Los Angeles Magazine titled "A Complete Guide to the 100 Most Unforgettable Crimes in L.A. History." These are crimes "both solved and unsolved, killers and victims both famous and unknown. They span more than a century and run the gamut from bank shootouts to insurance scams, gangsters on the lam to murderers so sadistic judges are devoid of words to describe their actions."
Cracked had some fun taking a look at "7 True Crimes Solved By Twists Too Ridiculous For Network TV." Although there is some of the usual "stupid criminal" aspect involved, the article also takes note of some fascinating forensics at work.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "War" by Thom Young.
In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People welcomed Patti Abbott to talk about her second novel, Shot in Detroit, which was recently named a finalist for an Edgar Award in the Best Paperback Original category; and author Deborah Kalb interviewed Peter Swanson (The Girl with a Clock for a Heart) about his new psychological thriller Her Every Fear.
Related StoriesMystery Melange
January 30, 2017
Media Murder for Monday
Another new week means another new wrap-up of the latest in crime drama news:
AWARDS
The Screen Actors Guild awards were handed out last night at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
The Academy Award nominations announced last week included a few nods to a few crime dramas, including To Hell or High Water (Best Picture), Best Actor (Jeff Bridges), and Original Screenplay (Taylor Sheridan); Isabelle Huppert was nominated in the Best Actress category for the psychological thriller Elle; and Michael Shannon was nominated for Best Actor for his role in the noir psychological thriller Nocturnal Animals. The biggest winners with the most nominations included the musical La La Land (14), the mystery-scifi film Arrival (8), and dramas Moonlight (8), Hacksaw Ridge (6), Manchester by the Sea (6), and Lion (6).
MOVIES
Paramount Pictures has acquired film rights to the Sonia Purnell book A Woman Of No Importance and attached Star Wars' Daisy Ridley to star. The story is based on real-life American heiress and super-spy Virginia Hall, who attempted to break into the ranks of the American Foreign Service in the years before World War II. Rejected because of gender and a disability — she lost part of her leg in a hunting accident — Hall worked during the war for the British intelligence unit SOE. She later joined the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA.
Samuel Goldwyn Films and AMBI Group will partner on the domestic release of the thriller Lavender starring Abbie Cornish. The project centers on a photographer (Cornish) who suffers severe memory loss after a traumatic accident, and strange clues amongst her photos suggest she may be responsible for the deaths of family members she never knew she had. A psychiatrist (Justin Long) helps her recover the lost memories. Diego Klattenhoff and Dermot Mulroney co-star.
Ethan Hawke and Noomi Rapace have signed on to star in Stockholm, a thriller written and to be directed by Robert Budreau. The story is based on the true story of a 1973 bank heist and hostage crisis in Stockholm that was documented in a 1974 New Yorker article "The Bank Drama" by Daniel Lang. The hostages bonded with their captors and turned against the authorities, and gave rise to the psychological phenomenon "Stockholm syndrome."
House Of Lies star Dawn Olivieri and Mo McRae have been cast in lead roles in the crime thriller Den of Thieves, which stars Gerard Butler. Directed by Christian Gudegast (who also co-wrote the script with Paul Sheuring), the story is based on true events and follows an elite crew of bank robbers who set out to pull off the ultimate heist and get to the money first, right under the noses of Los Angeles’ most feared division of law enforcement. Olivieri will play Debbie, the estranged wife of Butler’s corrupt cop character "Big Nick" Flanagan, and McRae will play a sheriff working under Big Nick. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Pablo Schreiber, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Meadow Williams are also in the cast.
A trailer was released for the thriller My Cousin Rachel, based on the Daphne du Maurier novel, which tells the story of a young Englishman (Sam Claflin) who plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin (Rachel Weisz), believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.
Fans of murder mystery themes in cinema should check out this listing of "20 Great Murder Mystery Movies That Are Worth Your Time."
TELEVISION
CBS has given pilot orders to two projects: the crime drama Killer Instinct, starring and executive produced by The Good Wife cast member Alan Cumming, and Perfect Citizen, a legal drama written and executive produced by former Good Wife executive producer Craig Turk. Killer Instinct (f/k/a Dr. Death) is based on the upcoming book by James Patterson and centers on a former CIA operative (Cumming) who has since built a "normal" life as a gifted professor and writer but is pulled back into his old life when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer on the loose. Perfect Citizen centers on the former general counsel for the NSA who, after his involvement as a whistleblower in an international scandal, embarks on a new career at a storied law firm in Boston.
ABC has ordered a female buddy cop comedy pilot from executive producer Elizabeth Banks. The pilot centers on a driven but stubborn detective who finds unlikely help from her precinct’s trustee, a larger-than-life ex-con finishing out her prison sentence doing menial tasks for the police department. Though these two have completely opposing views on crime and punishment, a "highly entertaining and successful partnership is born."
Paula Patton has been cast as the lead of ABC's supernatural thriller drama series Somewhere Between, which was given a 10-episode straight-to-series order for summer 2017. It follows superstar news producer Laura Price (Patton) who knows when, where, and how her daughter Serena is going to be murdered but doesn’t know who the murderer is. Despite this, all of her attempts to keep her daughter safe fail, and Serena’s fixed, unmovable, terrifying fate keeps her directly in the path of her killer.
UnReal alum Breeda Wool has landed a series regular role in AT&T Audience Network’s upcoming drama series Mr. Mercedes, based on Stephen King's 2014 book, set for premiere in the fall. Mr. Mercedes follows a demented killer who taunts a retired police detective 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. Wool joins previously announced fellow cast members Kelly Lynch and Justine Lupe.
Second Chance alumna Amanda Detmer has booked a series regular role on ABC’s Marc Cherry untitled southern drama pilot. The drama stars Reba McEntire as Ruby Adair, the sheriff of colorful small town Oxblood, KY, who finds her red state outlook challenged when a young FBI agent of Middle Eastern descent is sent to help her solve a horrific crime.
Transparent's Melora Hardin is heading to The Blacklist next month, playing Isabella Stone, described as "a socialite by day, character assassin by night." The show also announced that Brent Spiner, who played Star Trek's android, Data, will be featured on an upcoming February episode, playing a master criminal known as "the Architect" who offers his services for the right price.
IFC Midnight has acquired domestic rights to director Alexandre O. Philippe’s 78/52, the Sundance documentary that deconstructs the infamous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The title comes from the 78 setups and 52 cuts that were required to construct Hitchcock’s meticulously choreographed two-minute shower sequence in his 1960 iconic film. Philippe breaks down the scene shot for shot, enlisting the help of film buffs and filmmakers including Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis, Karyn Kusama, Eli Roth, and Peter Bogdanovich.
A trailer was released for the spin-off Better Call Saul, which returns to Netflix this spring.
A trailer was also released for The Blacklist spinoff, The Blacklist: Redemption, in which Tom Keen (Ryan Eggold) joins a team of highly trained black ops professionals led by his mother, Scottie Hargrave (Famke Janssen).
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Book TV airs on C-Span 2 featured Brad Ricca, author of Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation.
The Next Steps podcast with host Jenny Milchman welcomed the ITW present best-selling author Elizabeth Heiter and debut novelist KJ Howe.
The Thrill Seekers podcast featured E.A. Aymar and DJ Alkimist talking about their collaboration that fuses together music and storytelling.
The BBC's Sarah Brett and Nihal Arthanayake interviewed former journalist and crime fiction writer Peter May who talks about his new Enzo Macleod novel, Cast Iron.
Two Crime Writers And A Microphone chatted with guest Sarah Pinborough, the author of Behind Her Eyes, about her inspiration for the work.
Noir on the Radio host Greg Barth welcomed crime fiction author Tony Knighton, a Lieutenant in the Philadelphia Fire Department who's also published short fiction in Static Movement Online and Dark Reveries.
Dystopian crime fiction author A.R. Shaw stopped by Authors on the Air as they continued their Female Crime Fiction Writers Month theme.
Writer Types is a brand-new podcast hosted by Eric Beetner and S.W. Lauden that focuses on crime and mystery fiction. In the first episode, they interviewed authors Megan Abbott, Lou Berney, and Steph Post, looked at some of the best books from 2016 and coming up in 2017, and had a live reading of the short story "Whoops" by Nick Kolakowski. Beetner and Lauden explained their plans for the podcast over at the Do Some Damage blog.
The Story Blender podcast snagged author Andrew Gross to discuss his new historical thriller, The One Man, which is set in Auschwitz in 1944.
THEATER
The Cleveland Play House will present Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery from Jan. 21 through Feb. 12 in Playhouse Square’s Allen Theatre. Rafael Untalan takes on the role of Sherlock Holmes and Jacob James plays Doctor Watson, with three actors "playing everyone else in England."
Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday
January 28, 2017
January 27, 2017
FFB: Shroud of Canvas
Isobel Mary Lambot (1926-2001) was from a family of readers in Birmingham, England, but she didn't turn to writing until 1960. She served first in the Women's Royal Air Force then as a teacher before marrying in 1959 a Belgian engineer whose work took him to Third World countries. That was the launching point for Lambot's travels around the world, experiences that would later turn up in her writing—including her Russian-exile Commissaire Orloff who appeared in two novels and was inspired from a period spent in France. In fact, Lambot's very first crime novel was written in Jamaica, and although never published, it connected her with her literary agent.
In all, she published some 20 crime novels, including police procedurals, political thrillers and standalone detective stories based in such locations as Ceylon and the Congo, translated into German, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish under the Lambot name or the pseudonyms Daniel Ingham and Mary Turner. She also had a nonfiction book, How to Write Crime Novels, published in 1992, taught creative writing, lectured to writers' groups and presented "Whodunit" evenings.
She was definitely of her time and the social mores of the day, once saying, "My aim is to entertain, not to preach, but certain moral values underlie my work all the same. I prefer old-fashioned virtues, such as Crime Does Not Pay, while obviously in real life it does! I don't like the permissive society, and make sure my heroines get decently married at the end. If any of my characters leap into bed with each other, it is essential to the plot, and they usually regret it." But she also understood the writing process well, adding that "People write because they want to. It is an inner compulsion. Crime writers write to entertain, to give a little relaxation in a world of stress. It is very hard work."
Sadly, late in life as a widow she had rapid onset of Alzheimer's disease and after being moved to a nursing home, left one day and was last seen walking into the countryside. As a family member noted, the author's final mystery was like her novels, as a massive search operation was set up with police and volunteers until her body was found against a tree in Yeld Wood. But she probably would have appreciated the funeral—as the hearse drove from the Church in Kington to the Crematorium in Hereford, a lone buzzard flew over the coffin and screeched.
Her novels, such as the 1967 Shroud of Canvas, use a plain straightforward style to good effect, weaving character sketches and interpersonal relationships to help build suspense. The main POV protagonist in "Canvas" is Rosalind, a young widow with a daughter, who had cut all ties with her family during her first disastrous marriage and has recently married a man she's only known for six months, Geoffrey Lennard, founder of a plastics company.
When Rosalind receives a telephone call from Geoffrey's former fiancée whom Rosalind knew nothing about, it sets in motion a series of mysteries and deaths beginning with the murder of the ex-fiancée in the Lennard garden. As evidence and suspicion begins to mount against Geoffrey, Rosalind's newfound happiness is in jeopardy even as she unwaveringly believes in the innocence of her husband. With the help of a surprising ally, Detective Sergeant Barry Thornley, and his boss, Superintendent Longton, Rosaline pursues the truth, dodging the whispers and doubts from the local community admidst a backdrop of industrial espionage and power struggles.
And yet...Rosalind does wonder, as this excerpt indicates, although it also shows Lambot's effective sparse style and how she creates conflict:
There was a nightmare sense of repetition. Was she doomed to sit at the breakfast table each morning waiting for an explanation that never came?...She had wandered round the silent house all evening, waiting for the sound of Geoffrey's car, wishing one moment that Sally was not away for the night, glad at another that she was not there to witness her mother's anxiety.
In desperation, she had phoned the office but there was no reply. Not that it meant anything. Geoffrey could have told the switchboard not to leave him connected with an outside line, so that he could get on with his work in peace...
But the previous evening he had gone to meet Anne...
Shroud of Canvas may date from the late 60s, but it follows true British Golden Age tradition, filled with skillfully placed clues and red herrings alike and ending with a closed circle of suspects gathered together to hear the revelation of the murderer's identity. And of course, in the end, Crime Does Not Pay.
January 25, 2017
Mystery Melange
The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) announced that Ann Cleeves is to receive the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honor in British crime writing, which recognizes authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence. Ann Cleeves is internationally renowned as the author of the series on which the TV series Vera and Shetland are based, and she is also the author of other crime novels and short stories and is a tireless advocate for libraries.
The Mystery Writers of America announced this year's Edgar Award nominations. The Best Novel category includes The Ex by Alafair Burke; Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman; Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye; What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin; and Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. You can read all the nominees in the various categories via the MWA website, including a Best Paperback Original nod to fellow blogger and Friday's Forgotten Books originator, Patti Abbott (for Shot in Detroit).
The Deutscher Krimi Preis, which purports to be the oldest German mystery-book prize, announced the winners (and the two runners-up) in two categories. The best German mystery category was won by Die Mauer (The Wall), by Max Annas, while the international mystery category was won by a translation from the English, The Heavenly Table, by Donald Ray Pollock. Books by Liza Cody and Garry Disher came in second and third.
Thursday, January 26, is International Mystery Night at the Mystery Readers NorCal Literary Salon in Berkeley, California. Featured authors scheduled to appear include Jeff Siger (Greece), Cara Black (Paris), and Lisa Alber (Ireland). The event is open to all, but you must RSVP to attend, and space is limited.
A £20,000 literary prize is being launched by Amazon for new work by authors releasing their work on Kindle’s self-publishing platform in the UK. The Kindle Storyteller award is open to authors writing in English across any genre, fiction or non-fiction, for books launched on Kindle Direct Publishing between February 20 and May 19, 2017.
An eclectic batch of items from spy novelist Tom Clancy (Hunt for Red October) is being sold by an auction house in Alexandria, Virginia. Clancy was actually a native of Maryland, and when he died in 2013 at the age of 66, he was still living at his 80-acre estate on the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland, from which most of the auction items originate. The auction will take place January 31, but bidding is already underway online.
The Arthur Conan Doyle estate has debuted a new website with texts, correspondence, photos, memorabilia, and films about the creator of Sherlock Holmes and his many roles, including author, physician, advocate, and spiritualist. One interesting account is his less-than-enthusiastic attitude toward the knighthood offered to him in 1902. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell.)
John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) is considered one of the classic writers of the so-called "Golden Age" mysteries, perhaps best known for his locked-room tales. But his output is more than just that, and the Classic Mystery Blog lists ten books to get you started.
Interested in diving into some chilly noir but don't know where to start? Here's a list of "10 Scandinavian Crime Novels to Read While Getting Your 'Hygge' On." For those who don't know, "hygge" has been in the news lately after it made the Oxford Dictionaries’ 2016 word of the year shortlist and went viral. Pronounced hoo-guh, it's a Danish term loosely defined as "a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being." (Doesn't seem particularly well-suited for crime fiction, but there you go.)
For fans of legal thrillers, the ABA Journal asked ten lawyer-authors to choose the top 10 law novels in the past 10 years, with Alifair Burke starting off the list.
It appears that there are even astrophysical whodunnits on a galactic scale: across the universe, galaxies are being killed and the question scientists want answered is, what’s killing them?
The featured poem at the 5-2 this week is "Never See Morning" by Jennifer Lagier.
In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People chatted with Melissa Lenhardt about her new book The Fisher King, as well as nostalgia vs. progress in a small Texas Town; the MP also sat down with Terry Shames to discuss the latest installment in her Samuel Craddock series.
Related StoriesMystery Melange
January 23, 2017
Media Murder for Monday
Here's the latest wrap-up of crime drama news to start off the new week:
AWARDS
In the annual People's Choice Awards, The Girl on the Train was declared Favorite Thriller Movie; Priyanka Chopra won for Favorite Dramatic TV Actress (Quantico); the Favorite TV Crime Drama went to Criminal Minds, while Mark Harmon won for Favorite Male Actor in a TV Crime Drama (NCIS) and Jennifer Lopez for Favorite Female Actor in a TV Crime Drama (Shades of Blue); and The Favorite Premium TV Series nod went to Orange is the New Black.
Meanwhile, the Oscar Nominations are scheduled to be announced tomorrow - too late for today's blog, but I'll cover it next week. You can catch the updates via the official Oscars.org website as they happen.
MOVIES
After launching three franchises between Barbershop, Fantastic Four, and Ride Along, director Tim Story is set to tackle a fourth by signing on to helm New Line’s reboot of Shaft. Richard Roundtree starred in Gordon Parks’ original 1971 movie as John Shaft, a smooth-talking detective hired by a drug lord to find his kidnapped daughter, while Samuel L. Jackson picked up the mantle as Shaft’s nephew in John Singleton's 2000 remake.
Adam Brody and Sophie Nelisse (The Book Thief) are set to star in Evan Morgan’s The Kid Detective from Brightlight Pictures and Myriad Pictures. Written and directed by Morgan, the feature is described as "a darkly satirical murder mystery based on the demoralization of a wholesome American icon." A once-celebrated kid detective (Brody), now 29, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity until a naïve client (Nelisse) brings him his first "adult" case – to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.
Orange Is the New Black actor Pablo Schreiber has signed to star opposite Gerard Butler in STX's heist thriller Den of Thieves. Christian Gudegast is set to direct from the original screenplay he co-wrote with Paul Sheuring, which focuses on $120 million that is taken out of circulation on a daily basis by the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve and a notorious crew of robbers that plan the ultimate heist right under the noses of the city's best cops. Butler will play the head of a team of agents looking to stop the heist, while Schreiber will play the leader of the bank robbers. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and O'Shea Jackson are also in the cast.
The growing list of characters introduced into the Ocean's Eight ensemble cast has expanded further with the addition of British actor Richard Armitage (The Hobbit, Alice Through The Looking Glass), although details of his character are being kept under wraps.
A trailer was released for the indie thriller City of Tiny Lights, written by Patrick Neate and based on his own 2005 novel of same name. Riz Ahmed plays Londoner Tommy Akhtar, a private eye who gets caught up in a dangerous case surrounding a high-class prostitute.
A new trailer was released for the upcoming John Wick sequel with Keanu Reeves returning as legendary hitman John Wick, who is forced back out of retirement when a former associate plots to seize control of a shadowy international assassins' guild.
TELEVISION
Stephen Susco, the writer behind hit thrillers The Grudge and The Grudge 2, has been set to adapt Fiona Cummins’ upcoming debut novel Rattle for television as a six-part series. The story centers on a sinister bone collector who has a macabre obsession with his museum of medical oddities and when the time comes for a fresh harvest, it’s down to Detective Etta Fitzroy to hunt down the psychopath before he can add to his collection.
ABC has given a new pilot order to the prolific and successful Shondaland Productions. The untitled legal drama will be set in the Southern District of New York Federal Court (a/k/a "The Mother Court") and follow brand-new lawyers working for both the defense and the prosecution as they handle the most high profile and high stakes cases in the country – all as their personal lives intersect.
ABC has given pilot orders to two more drama projects, including Deception, an FBI crime drama procedural from Chuck co-creator Chris Fedak, magician David Kwong, Blindspot creator Martin Gero, and Berlanti TV. The drama centers on superstar magician Cameron Black, who has only one place to turn to practice his art of deception, illusion, and influence after his career is ruined—the FBI. He’ll become the world’s first consulting illusionist, helping the government solve crimes that defy explanation, and trap criminals and spies by using deception.
Jessica Biel will star in and executive produce a new anthology series titled The Sinner for USA Network that's based on Petra Hammesfahr’s book of the same name. The first season/installment of the close-ended series follows a young mother (Biel) who, when overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage, commits a startling act of violence and to her horror has no idea why. The event draws in an investigator (Bill Pullman) who finds himself obsessed with uncovering the woman’s buried motive. Together they travel a harrowing journey into the depths of her psyche and the violent secrets hidden in her past.
Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight) has joined the cast of David E. Kelley's Mr. Mercedes series, the adaptation of Stephen King's 2014 novel of the same name. The drama follows a demented killer (Penny Dreadful's Harry Treadaway) who taunts a retired police detective (Brendan 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. Jerome will play Jerome Robinson, a high school student who does yard work for the detective and helps with technical support.
Cold Case Files’ True Crime Series is getting a reboot on the A&E Network, which will premiere the 10-episode series beginning February 27, with Danny Glover as narrator.
TNT has given a sixth-season pickup to its popular crime-drama Major Crimes, although the order is for 13 episodes, down from recent years. The drama centers on a special squad within the LAPD that deals with high-profile or particularly sensitive crimes, led by Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell).
NBC will broadcast a preview of Dick Wolf’s Chicago Justice, the newest installment of the producer’s successful Chicago franchise, on Wednesday, March 1. The preview will immediately follow a crossover event between Chicago Fire at 8 p.m. and Chicago P.D. at 9 p.m. that is set to introduce a storyline that seamlessly flows into Chicago Justice.
For those Blacklist fans who are wondering how the spinoff show is going to work since one of the series' main characters, Tom Keen, will be making the transition between The Blacklist and The Blacklist: Redemption, worry no more. On February 23, NBC is giving the two shows a two-hour block so that one show will sign off and the next one will sign on afterward, and Tom Keen will simply walk from one episode into the next. The show also confirmed there are plans to keep Ryan Eggold's character Tom Keen on the flagship series, so even if The Blacklist: Redemption doesn't work out over the long haul, he will still be around.
The ratings for ABC's FBI series Quantico have been falling, and showrunner Joshua Safran has revealed the show is making a big change to cater to its viewers: Quantico is getting rid of its flashbacks because viewers weren't huge fans of the device during Season 1.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Thriller author Rebecca Forster was one of the latest to join in the Female Crime Fiction Writers Month celebration at Authors on the Air.
The Two Crime Writers And A Microphone podcast discussed Mark Billingham's forthcoming new Thorne novel, Martyn Waites's return to his usual name, and the crime genre. This week's special guest is debut novelist Joseph Knox.
THEATER
Murder, Margaret and Me is set to open at Norwich theatre in the UK with a run through January 28. It tells the story of an unlikely friendship that develops between crime writer Agatha Christie and actress Margaret Rutherford during the filming of the first Miss Marple film. "The play is about the process of creating and the conflicts of artistic creation. A question of ownership of character," said Phillip Meeks, the play’s writer. "But the play also pays homage to Margaret Rutherford. It’s half a biographical play."
Casting has been announced for the world premiere stage adaptation at Manchester's HOME theater of Paul Auster's City of Glass, marking the first time Auster's 1985 novel about a crime writer has been adapted for the stage. Mark Edel-Hunt and Chris New will play writer Daniel Quinn, who receives a mysterious phone call in the middle of the night. He is later hired by a strange woman called Virginia to protect her and her husband from her sociopath father-in-law. City of Glass will run from March 9-18 at HOME then move to Lyric Hammersmith from April 26 to 13 May.
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January 22, 2017
Your Sunday Music Treat
The output of John Philip Sousa, the American "March King," wasn't just "Stars and Stripes Forever." He also wrote works like "Hands Across the Sea," which the composer said was "addressed to no particular nation, but to all of America's friends abroad." Here it is performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra as conducted by John Williams:
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