B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 196
October 14, 2016
FFB: Spence at Marlby Manor
Born in 1939, English author Michael Derek Allen had a career in education, first as a teacher and then as a university administrator at the University of Bath, and also served a brief stint working for the New York Herald Tribune. When he retired from all his various day jobs, he started his own small press, Kingsfield Publications, and turned his hand to writing novels full-time under the pen names Michael Bradford, Anne Moore and Patrick Read.
Allen has penned mostly standalone novels and short stories, but he did write three books in a series featuring his police detective Superintendent Ben Spence. The third and final book in that series was Spence at Marlby Manor, dating from 1982, in which wealthy Lady Dinnister of Marlby Manor begins to suffer from "accidents" she suspects are actually attempts on her life. When Lady Dinnister's companion Emily Fosdyke dies from arsenic poisoning, it's only natural she thinks she herself was the intended victim.
Detective Ben Spence agrees with the Lady of the Manor after interviewing a houseful of servants and family members that are all-too-eager to sell off Marlby Manor and inherit Lady Dinnister's considerable fortune. Chief among them is an artist son-in-law; a handsome but unmotivated grandson in love with a secretary neither Lady Dinnister nor Emily Fosdyke deemed good enough for him; and a selfish, greedy granddaughter and her husband who tend to live well beyond their means. But, as Spence and his assistant, Inspector Laruel, take a closer look, they uncover undercurrents of malevolence coming from an unexpected source.
Although Publishers Weekly was a little critical of the book's "awfully implausible murderer-catching traps to snare the culprit," the publication's reviewer ultimately deemed it "comfortable, mildly beguiling entertainment in the traditional style." It deviates a bit from the traditional police procedural into more of the classic whodunit format. Michael Allen's last novel of any sort was in 2006, and his blog, the Grumpy Old Bookman, listed by The Guardian as one of the top 10 literary blogs worldwide in 2005.
October 12, 2016
Mystery Melange
Thanks to Altus Press, three of the most historic pulp fiction magazines of the Twentieth Century are set to return to magazine format. This November, Altus Press will relaunch full-length magazines of Argosy, Black Mask, and Famous Fantastic Mysteries in periodical format, with both classic fiction tales and new stories and articles. Each of these magazines enjoyed decades-long publications by a variety of publishers with several thousand total issues. Now owned by Steeger Properties, LLC, these titles will be published on a regular schedule and in print and e-magazine formats.
Three weeks remain to submit your work for consideration in the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant Program for Unpublished Writers. The grant is designed to foster quality literature in the Malice Domestic tradition and assist the next generation of traditional mystery writers on the road to publication. The grant includes a $2,500 cash award and a comprehensive registration to Malice Domestic 29, including 2 nights' lodging at the convention hotel. For submission information, check out the official website.
Libraries throughout the Aberdeenshire regions of Scotland are participating in a CrimeFest during the month of October. Authors Ann Cleeves and James Oswald offered up talks earlier in the month, but there are still plenty of events to come, including panels on crime writing, forensics, a talk on "Cosy Crime Noir" by journalist and author Sara Sheridan, and more.
Two crime fiction authors are being honored by their respective states: Margaret Maron is being inducted into the North Carolina Writers Hall of Fame, and Tod Goldberg is this year's recipient of the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
The New Yorker had a meaty profile of Scottish crime fiction author Philip Kerr, best known for his Berlin Noir trilogy of novels.
This year's volume of America's Best Mystery Stories has just been released. Edited by Elizabeth George and Otto Penzler, the roster of authors includes Megan Abbott, Steve Almond, Matt Bell, Bruce Robert Coffin, Lydia Fitzpatrick, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Evan Lewis, Robert Lopresti, Dennis McFadden, Michael Noll, Todd Robinson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Georgia Ruth, Jonathan Stone, Susan Thornton, Brian Tobin, and Saral Waldorf.
Novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz has been invited to write a second official James Bond novel by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd after the success of his 2015 bestseller, Trigger Mortis, published by Orion in September last year. As yet untitled, the setting will be "period Bond" and the story will again feature previously unpublished material by Fleming. Horowitz is the fourth author in recent years to be invited by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd to write an official Bond novel, following in the footsteps of William Boyd (2013's Solo), Jeffery Deaver (Carte Blanche in 2011), and Sebastian Faulks (Devil May Care, 2008).
If you can't get enough about Agatha Christie during her 12th anniversary, here are "126 remarkable Agatha Christie facts" (you get a bonus!) compiled by Christie expert John Curran.
Writing for The Guardian, John Mullan takes a look at "How we got to The Girl on the Train" and the rise of the psychological thriller, explaining that the themes of adultery, murder and secret identity in Paula Hawkin's book are rooted in the Victorian era.
In honor of the release the Girl on the Train movie, based on Paula Hawkin's novel, Signature Reads chose the "7 Best Train-set Thrillers."
The Seattle Times printed a report about a puzzling case of an identity thief that was solved, in part, thanks to the work of a forensic genealogist. (HT to Sisters in Crime).
Psychological crime novels are still "a thing," if you go by recent major advances handed out to books vying to the next Gone Girl, ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair.
The October issue of Plots With Guns is out, scaring up new stories from Jeff Kerr, Joe Kraus, Andrew Gibbons, Nick Kolakowski, James Pate, Steven Nester, David Rachels, and Donald McCarthy.
The September/October issue of Suspense Magazine includes interviews with authors Jonas Saul, Blake Crouch, Craig Johnson, Sophie Hannah, Sean McFate, Richard Chizmar, and Linda Castillo, plus Dennis Palumbo asks the question "Is your Psycho Killer...just Psycho?", and a look at the Sisters in Crime publishing summit report on diversity in the mystery community.
Something to pass along to your kids and other young folk: Barnes and Noble compiled a list of "7 Awesome Diverse YA Thrillers."
Think homo sapiens is a dangerous species? A new study found that we don't even crack the top thirty of the most murderous mammals.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Testimony" by Lida Bushloper.
In the Q&A roundup, Omnimystery News welcomed Don Bruns to introduce his New Orleans homicide detective Quentin Archer in Casting Bones and also Leslie Nagel to chat about her latest, The Book Club Murders; Australian Andrew Nette talked up heist novels and his latest, Gunshine State, with the Mystery People; My Central Jersey spoke with Otto Penzler, editor, publisher, bookstore owner, and one of the most influential proponents of crime fiction; and Declan Burke welcomed author Ruth Downie for some grilling.
Related StoriesMystery Melange
October 10, 2016
Media Murder for Monday
Monday greetings! Here's the latest wrap-up of crime drama news from stage and screen:
MOVIES
In a bid to be considered for the Oscar chase, Ben Affleck's latest directorial outing, Live by Night, will hit select theaters on Christmas Day before opening wide on Jan. 13. Based on Dennis Lehane's novel, the project stars Afflect, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana and Chris Cooper in the period piece that features the son of a Boston police captain who moves to Florida and becomes an infamous gangster.
Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures have set an opening date for the female-driven caper spinoff of Ocean’s Eleven, titled Ocean’s 8, on June 8, 2018. The all-star lineup includes Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina, and Sarah Paulson.
EuropaCorp has set an April 28 release date for the thriller The Circle, starring Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, and John Boyega. Based on the international best-seller by Dave Eggers, the story centers around the founder of the world’s largest tech and social media company (Hanks) who encourages Watson’s character, who’s rising through the company ranks, to live her life with complete transparency — but no one is really safe when everyone is watching.
A teaser trailer was released for the upcoming John Wick: Chapter Two. The sequel sees the eponymous protagonist being pulled out of retirement yet again and traveling to Rome to help an old friend take control of a "shadowy international assassins' guild." Along with Keanu Reeves, the returning cast includes Bridget Moynahan as Helen Wick, John's deceased wife; Ian McShane as the Continental Hotel owner Winston; and John Leguizamo as car chop-shop mogul Aurelio.
The new trailer for the the Sin City thriller, Sleepless, shows Jamie Foxx trapped between corrupt cops and the mob underground.
TELEVISION
Robin Hood is the latest literary figure to get the small-screen treatment, with CBS ordering the pilot A Burglar's Guide to the City. The project follows a team of modern-day Robin Hoods led by a brilliant architect with a troubled past who use their unique skills to steal from rich criminals and give to those that have been wronged by a corrupt system. Paul Grellong (Scorpion) will write the project, which is based on the book by Geoff Manaugh, with Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek: Discovery) and Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious) serving as executive producers.
In other thief-related TV plot news, NBC has put in development In Defense of Tom Parish, a drama that centers on the titular successful Manhattan defense attorney who was once a high-end art thief. After a stretch in a federal prison where he learned the law, he reinvented himself and quickly rose to the top of his new profession. But he has to deal with a mistrustful family and an overzealous FBI agent who doesn’t believe Tom’s truly changed and … steal the occasional priceless work of art.
ABC has put in development the timely project Protect & Serve, a drama from the team behind Secrets & Lies. Written by Barbie Kligman and her husband, actor Billy Malone (Murder in the First), Protect & Serve is set in the aftermath of a riot in an American city triggered by the shooting of an unarmed man by cops. The police department is dismantled and a newly appointed police chief is tasked with rebuilding from scratch.
A&E is also ripping from the headlines for its new docuseries called Live PD. The project offer viewers an unfettered and unfiltered live access inside the six of the country’s busiest police forces and the communities they patrol. The first season, which will run for eight, two-hour episodes, will show the work of both urban and rural police forces around the country on a typical Friday night via a combination of dash cams, handheld and fixed rig cameras.
In the first broadcast development season since the Pentagon allowed women to serve in front-line U.S. military combat units, ABC is tackling the subject with an untitled ensemble drama. It will center on an elite co-ed special forces team that will be forced to find a way to navigate both the treacherous waters of their external missions and the equally dangerous undercurrents of tensions — romantic and otherwise — within the unit.
NBC has given a put pilot commitment to Flight Risk, a woman-on-the-run thriller drama with comedic elements from Shameless executive producers Krista Vernoff and John Wells. Flight Risk centers on an attorney whose take no mercy approach towards the criminals she prosecutes has earned her the nickname The Shark. But when she loses her temper in a divorce mediation, comically threatens to have her soon-to-be-ex-husband killed, and he turns up dead the next day, she has to go on the run and turn to a criminal she's been prosecuting to help clear her name.
John Noble is returning for the fourth season of the Fox paranormal procedural Sleepy Hollow. Noble will reprise his role as the deceitful Henry Parrish, the son of Tom Mison's Ichabod Crane.
USA Network has set a new premiere date for its thriller drama series Shooter starring Ryan Phillippe. The series, based on Stephen Hunter’s novel Point of Impact and the 2007 Mark Wahlberg film Shooter, is now slated for debut on November 15, two months after its original premiere date was delayed due to sniper attacks on police officers. The cast of the series also includes Omar Epps, Shantel Vansanten, Eddie McClintock and Cynthia Addai-Robinson.
The CBS hit series The Mentalist is getting an adaptation for Russia and Ukraine. The 16-part series will be directed by Alexei Muradov and star Yehezkel Lazarov and Anastasiya Mikulchina and is tentatively scheduled to launch in late 2017. Shooting is to take place in Russia and Ukraine's port city of Odessa, making the project a rare Russian/Ukrainian collaboration since the relations between the two countries have soured over Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in East Ukraine.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
UKTV has commissioned and launched a new six episode crime podcast, A Stab in the Dark, hosted by noted novelist Mark Billingham, whose novels Rush Of Blood and In The Dark are currently being adapted by Matt Charman and Danny Brocklehurst for BBC One.
Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover podcast featured Matthew Dunn talking about his latest work, The Spy House, the fifth electrifying thriller featuring Will Cochrane.
Just in time for Halloween: "18 Creepy True Crime Podcasts That’ll Keep You Up At Night."
THEATER
Mystery at the Theatre in Village of Schaumburg, Illinois, is presenting Binge, a show that lets you see all 10 episodes of a murder mystery in 100 minutes — including an intermission. It's the 10th Mystery at the Theatre play Rob Pileckis has written since 1997 for the Prairie Center Arts Foundation as a benefit for the Prairie Center for the Arts.
Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday
October 9, 2016
Your Sunday Music Treat
Hurricane Matthew has gotten me (and many others) in a rather stormy frame of mind, so I thought it was appropriate to feature the "Storm" section from Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes (extracted from the opera Peter Grimes). I think it has to be the best musical representation of a storm in all of classical music. This performance is by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Paavo Järvi:
Related StoriesYour Sunday Music Treat
October 8, 2016
October 7, 2016
FFB: The Hand in the Glove
Viewed from a contemporary perspective, it's hard to recall a time when there weren't female detectives the likes of V.I. Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone, Tess Monaghan and Sharon McCone, but back in the 1930s they were almost nonexistent. As a child, I went through my fair share of Nero Wolfe stories by Rex Stout, among the many books read under the covers with a flashlight to circumvent the parental "go to bed" commandment. But at the time I never read or even knew of Stout's female detective Theodolinda "Dol" Bonner, who came to being in the standalone novel The Hand in the Glove in 1937, one of the very first female private eyes.
Although Stout only gave Bonner one solo outing, she also guest-starred in some of the Nero Wolfe stories, one of the few women Wolfe tolerated perhaps because she herself claimed to have been "inoculated against" men, even her suitor, the newspaperman Len Chisholm. Although The Hand in the Glove is a contemporary of the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin titles, it was written in the third person narrative, not Archie's sarcastic first-person. Even so, it still has some of the hallmark wit that graces the Wolfe/Goodwin novels. In the book, a religious charlatan has charmed the wife of wealthy industrialist, P.L. Storrs, who decides he needs a private investigator to look into the man and hires Bonner, even though he doesn't approve of female detectives. But when she arrives at Storrs' country estate, she instead finds the body of her client and a garden party filled with a bouquet of suspects.
Bonner isn't quite the fully realized, tough-as-nails P.I. of the 21st century, sending out mixed messages about her ability to do the job as a woman, perhaps mirroring the changing-but-still-traditional views of women in Stout's day. Bonner begins the novel as part of a two-woman firm, Bonner and Raffray, although the Raffray half soon dissolves, Bonner being disgusted about Raffray's submissiveness to her fiancée. Yet, Bonner concedes she herself decided to be a detective on flimsy grounds, adding, "I made a long list of all the activities I might undertake on my own. They all seemed monotonous or distasteful except two or three, and I flipped a coin to decide between detective and landscape design." Although she's a smart cookie and solves the crimes where the male detectives in the case don't, she's also squeamish about seeing corpses and faints after she shoots a criminal.
After Dol first appeared, Stout's New York editor wrote to her London counterpart, "The Hand in the Glove is doing almost as well as Nero, but whether or not there will be another Dol Bonner mystery we can't be sure." Turns out, it was twenty years later that she reappeared, as Wolfe's operative in the 1956 Too Many Detectives. Anthony Boucher noted of these later appearances, that while Bonner was Archie's age, it was Wolfe who made "sheep's eyes" at her, inviting her to breakfast and dinner and seating her at his right. The confused Archie, taken by Bonners' pretty assistant Sally Colt, wonders if "there might be some flaw in my attitude toward female dicks," and concludes, "If she hooks him and Sally hooks me, we can can all solve cases together and dominate the field."
The Thrilling Detective site noted that in 1992, NBC dusted off the rights to The Hand In The Glove and made a TV movie (under the title Lady Against the Odds) as a vehicle for actress Crystal Bernard (of the sitcom Wings), moving the setting up a few years to World War II. According to People Magazine, it was an "uninvolving and ludicrously unconvincing...turkey." Still, it did win an Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special for cinematographer Bradford May. So at least it looked marvelous.
October 5, 2016
Mystery Melange
A new major exhibition about Edgar Allan Poe opened this week at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Titled "Enigmatic Edgar A. Poe in Baltimore & Beyond," the exhibit features highlights from the Susan Jaffe Tane Collection of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the finest private collections of Poe materials in the world. Items include Poe's first published book of poems, one of only 12 known copies and "the most celebrated rarity in American literature; the story that launched Poe's career as an author, "MS. Found in a Bottle," published when he won a contest in The Baltimore Saturday Visiter; "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" as they first appeared to readers in magazines, and much more.
The biennial NoirCon is coming up very soon in Philadelphia, October 26-30 in fact, but it's not too late to register. This year's convention features David L. Goodis Award winner, Aurélien Masson (editorial director, Série Noire, Éditions Gallimard); the winners of The Jay and Deen Kogan Award for Excellence, Charles Ardai (author and publisher, Hard Case Crime) and Stona Fitch (author and publisher, Concord Free Press); and the recipient of The Anne Friedberg Award for Contributions to Noir and Its Preservation, Barry Gifford (author, screenwriter, and publisher, Black Lizard). There are also a plethora of fun panels, The Hammett Award luncheon, and a Noir at the Bar at the Pen & Pencil Club with 16 authors on hand, all corralled by crime fiction blogger, critic and reviewer Peter Rozovsky. Check out the full schedule here.
ITW online Thriller School is open for registration. In this seven-week program, beginning March 13th, 2017, the craft of thriller writing will be front and center with topics covering Storytelling, Voice, Character, Plot, Point of View, Dialogue and Setting, Mood, and Atmosphere. Instructors David Corbett, F. Paul Wilson, Lee Child, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Meg Gardiner, James Scott Bell, and Peter James will teach an aspect of craft through podcasts, an online Q&A, and written materials.
The Guardian profiled the new line of crime comics from Hard Case Crime and Titan Comics. The stellar lineup starts off today with the release of Triggerman, the tale of a convict in Prohibition-era Chicago on a mission to save the girl he left behind, from Walter Hill, director of 1979 cult classic gang movie The Warriors. That will be followed a week later by Peepland, written by crime authors Gary Phillips and Christa Faust (herself a former peep show employee) about the seedy goings-on at 1980s Times Square peep show booths.
Likewise, author James Robinson (Scarlet Witch, Starman) is stepping into the world of James Bond in an all-new graphic novel miniseries authorized by Ian Fleming Publications. The project centers around the famous spy's CIA ally and friend Felix Leiter, who first appeared alongside James Bond in Ian Fleming's very first novel, Casino Royale. In the new series, Leiter, now operating as an independent investigator, finds himself in Japan, tracking down a beautiful Russian spy from his past. But when the mission takes a turn for the worse, he will discover that there are more deadly schemes taking shape in Tokyo ... and beyond.
In Val McDermid's essay on PD James for The Guardian, she notes that James "faced the darkness head on" and subverted the coziness of golden-age crime fiction. James once wrote a fascinating monograph on the subject of Golden Age crime, Talking About Detective Fiction, and the same love for the work of her predecessors is evident in a new collection of James' short stories.
As the Hollywood Reporter noted, Hollywood Is getting back in the Agatha Christie business. While the work of the "Queen of Crime" has been made into dozens of film, TV and stage adaptations, there hasn't been a major theatrical feature in the past 30 years since the "lackluster" 1985 film Ordeal by Innocence, starring Donald Sutherland and Christopher Plummer. But that's all changing, thanks to the efforts of the Christie estate to introduce her stories to a new generation.
The Daily Mail looked at how Ian Fleming smuggled WWII Enigma secrets into James Bond’s adventures after the author became so interested in Bletchley Park, he left clues in the books in a "wild contravention" of the Official Secrets Act.
Writing for LitHub, Melissa Ginsburg takes a look at "10 Books Featuring Subversive Women," a reading list for defying society's expectations.
Jon Land, author of Strong Cold Dead, compiled a list of "The 12 Best Book to Film Adaptations," many of which are crime dramas.
In celebration of director Curtis Hanson's work, Gareme Ross lists "The ten greatest neo-noir films," with dark themes, crime and thrills, and morally ambiguous characters at their core.
This week, the featured crime poem over at the 5-2 is "Conscience," by Charles Rammelkamp.
In the Q&A roundup, Daniella Bernett stopped by Omnimystery News to talk about her Emmeline Kirby/Gregory Longdon mystery series; Val McDermid spoke with The Independent about how to be a best-selling crime writer, her writing process, and her latest book, Out of Bounds; and the New York Times snagged Tana French for a "By the Book" Q&A.
Related StoriesMystery Melange
October 2, 2016
Media Murder for Monday
Welcome to another Monday and another Media Murder wrap-up of crime drama news:
MOVIES
Reese Witherspoon is developing a movie for New Line Cinema based on Ruth Ware’s mystery novel In a Dark, Dark Wood. The story centers on a reclusive writer who receives an invitation to a bachelorette party of her best friend from high school. But the party leads to intrigue when the writer wakes up in a hospital bed afterward, injured but alive, with hazy memories and the conviction someone is dead, prompting her to uncover secrets, reveal motives, and find answers.
Scottish production company Synchronicity Films has secured the film and TV rights to Graeme Macrae Burnet’s period crime thriller His Bloody Project, which was shortlisted for the UK’s prestigious Man Booker Prize. The psychological thriller tells the story of a brutal triple murder in a remote Scottish farming community in 1869 that leads to the arrest of 17-year-old Roddy Macrae. There's no question of Roddy’s guilt, but his fate hangs on one key question: is he insane?
Fox 2000 is closing a deal for screen rights to The Woman In The Window, a new novel with a lot of buzz that was written by A.J. Finn (a pseudonym for a book editor at a major publishing house, allegedly). The story is said to have elements of The Girl On The Train and Hitchcock’s Rear Window and is centered on a housebound woman with agoraphobia who witnesses a shocking act of violence by a neighbor and must confront what she saw or whether she has become unhinged.
The Scarface remake took a major step forward with The Sopranos writer Terence Winter joining the project. Following the 1932 and 1983 theatrical tales, the reboot also has Training Day director Antoine Fuqua at the helm.
Gravitas Ventures acquired the feature Courier-X, a conspiracy thriller about the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, marking the directorial debut of Thomas Gulamerian and starring Udo Kier as a former member of the East German Police.
Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Michael Pena, and Judi Dench have joined the all-star lineup for director Kenneth Branagh in the Murder On The Orient Express remake. The film is based on one of Christie’s best-known books, first published in 1934, which has Hercule Poirot investigating the death of an American businessman who is murdered aboard the famed train.
Viola Davis has been cast in New Regency's Widows, the heist thriller being directed by 12 Years A Slave helmer Steve McQueen and co-penned by McQueen and Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn. Based on a British miniseries, the plot centers on the aftermath of four armed robbers killed during a failed heist and their surviving widows who join forces and resolve to pull off the raid themselves.
Mel Gibson is in early negotiations to star in French filmmaker Benjamin Rocher’s indie action adventure Every Other Weekend. The story centers on a father who convinces his son he’s an experienced CIA spy, but in reality works in the agency’s IT department. When family secrets are spilled during a father-son trip in Paris, the duo find themselves in an actual life-threatening adventure. Gibson would play the role of the son’s grandfather, who in actuality is a superspy.
Jim Carrey's upcoming dramatic turn is the psychological thriller True Crimes, which has landed a premiere date at the Warsaw Film Festival on October 12. The movie is a U.S. and Poland collaboration that also features Polish actors in the tale of a murder in a small town in the south-western end of Pland, far from civilization. The film is based on a 2008 New Yorker article by David Grann about a murder investigation of a slain business man that turns to clues found in a book about an eerily similar crime.
Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir," will host be in Key Largo October 12-16 to co-host this year's Humphrey Bogart Film Festival, along with Stephen Bogart, son of Bogie and Lauren Bacall. The festival will celebrate the 75th anniversary of John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941) and the 70th Anniversary of Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946), with both films screening during the event. (HT to Mystery Fanfare.)
And for fun, Pulp Curry takes a look at "10 of the best heist films you’ve never seen."
TELEVISION
The Italian Job is the latest in a series of movies being adapted for TV, after NBC landed a reboot of the 1969 Paramount film (and its subsequent 2003 remake). The story follows a make-shift family of expert criminals forced out of retirement when an opportunity arises to get their beloved "patriarch" out of jail. At the core of the dysfunctional family is Charlie Croker, a handsome and charming ex-con who tried to go straight, but like the rest of his crew, can’t resist the adrenaline rush of the high-stakes heist world.
CBS is developing Dr. Death, a drama series starring and executive produced by The Good Wife star Alan Cumming. The project is based on the upcoming book of the same name by James Patterson, which 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.
Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in Hollywood these days, with HBO rolling out its anticipated humanistic android drama Westworld. Fox is following the AI trend with a script commitment for the Jessica Alba-produced drama Girl 10, set in the very near future. The story revolves around Elle, one of only 10 synthetic humans in existence who is being investigated for murder while trying to stop an evil cabal from weaponizing the technology behind artificial intelligence.
NBC cancelled Aquarius, its summer Charles Manson drama starring David Duchovny as Detective Sam Hodiak who was tasked with investigating the disappearance of a teenaged girl (Emma Dumont), only to find out that she was with the Manson Family.
Mr. Robot's Gloria Reuben is teaming with Cathy Konrad’s Tree Line Film and Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Television to adapt Dean Koontz’s bestselling book Dark Rivers of the Heart for television. The psychological thriller centers on an ex-Marine, haunted by a tortured past, who is on the run with a mysterious, troubled woman who witnessed the murder of her husband and parents.
FX is moving ahead with Snowfall, giving a 10-episode series order to John Singleton’s drama inspired by the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles. The project has seen a revolving door of directors, producers, and cast members, but apparently the network is happy with the latest iteration. The story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course, including: a young street entrepreneur on a quest for power (Damson Idris); a Mexican wrestler caught up in a power struggle within a crime family (Sergio Peris-Mencheta); a CIA operative running from a dark past (Carter Hudson); and the self-possessed daughter of a Mexican crime lord (Emily Rios).
Universal Cable Productions signed a development deal with the Alfred Hitchcock estate to bring a re-imagining of his classic tales back to the small screen. In the works is Welcome to Hitchcock, described as "an inspired take on the master filmmaker’s unique brand of storytelling that encompassed such iconic stories as The Birds, Psycho and the popular television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
BBC Two has ordered the revenge thriller Paula from playwright/filmmaker Conor McPherson, with Denise Gough set to star alongside Tom Hughes in the three-part drama. Paula centers on the fallout in a young chemistry teacher’s life after her one-night stand with a handsome but dangerous man.
Television rights to LC Tyler’s comic crime Herring series have been bought by the producers of ITV’s Midsomer Murders. The books feature crime writer Ethelred Tressider and his agent, Elsie Thirkettle, and have twice won the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award for the best humorous crime novel of the year and have been shortlisted for other awards including the Edgars.
Criminal Minds’ Behavioral Analysis Unit is adding Damon Gupton (Empire) as a new series regular to help fill the void left by the abrupt departure of original star Thomas Gibson, though Gupton’s character will not be a direct replacement for Gibson’s Hotch, who led the BAU. Gupton will play Special Agent Stephen Walker from the Behavioral Analysis Program which is the counterintelligence division of the FBI. He’s a seasoned profiler who will bring his spy-hunting skill set to the BAU.
The USA Network thriller pilot The Sinner has signed Bill Pullman to star opposite the previously-cast Jessica Biel. The project is based on the best-selling book by Petra Hammesfahr and centers on a young mother who is overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage and commits a startling and very public act of violence for reasons she does not know. Pullman will play a sensitive, dogged detective who finds himself disturbed and uniquely fascinated by Biel’s Cora Tanner, an ordinary housewife who impulsively commits a violent crime.
Tiffany Hines (Bones) and Bailey Chase (Longmire) have joined the cast of Fox’s 24 franchise reboot 24: Legacy in recurring roles. The series, starring Straight Outta Compton's Corey Hawkins, chronicles a race against the clock to stop a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Chicago P.D. star Jon Seda, who plays Intelligence Unit detective Antonio Dawson, will be leaving the series to join the latest spinoff in the Chicago franchise, the upcoming Chicago Justice. On the legal series, Seda will reprise his character who will now be an investigator for the DA’s office and partnered with fellow investigator Lori Nagle, played by Joelle Carter.
The BBC released Sherlock series four official titles for the first two episodes, which offer up some hints and teasers for the next installments, set to air in 2017.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Sue Grafton was a guest on The Story Blend podcast discussing her "alphabet mystery series," writing insights, how to tap into your own well of darkness as you write, and why mystery writers are the “magicians of fiction.”
The latest Crime & Science Radio podcast featured Jeffrey Calandra talking about Iris, the FBI’s only electronic-sniffing dog.
Author Jenny Milchman, the host of the Next Steps podcast, spoke with Brian Panowich, the winner of this year's Thriller award for Best First novel, and debut author J Todd Scott to talk about their writing process and what sets apart an award-winning release from all the other great novels out there.
THEATER
Royal Shakespeare Company actor Miles Richardson and former EastEnders soap star James Alexandrou will lead the cast for Giles Croft's revival of Anthony Shaffer's thriller Sleuth at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leed. Richardson plays rich and successful mystery writer Andrew Wyke, whose obsession with playing games is in danger of losing him everything, especially when he lures his wife's lover (Alexandrou's Milo), to his country house to take part in a specially created challenge. The production runs through October 15.
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Your Sunday Music Treat
Yma Sumac (1922-2008) had a name as exotic as her voice and career. The Peruvian soprano became an international success based on her extreme vocal range, said to be well over five octaves at the height (pardon the pun) of her career. She had a bit of a resurgence in the 1990s, thanks to her song "Ataypura" being featured in the Coen Brothers film The Big Lebowski. Here's Yma singing "Gopher Mambo" (Capitol Records 1954):
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