B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 203
July 4, 2016
Media Murder for Monday, Fourth of July Edition
Hope everyone in the U.S. enjoys a happy and safe Fourth of July holiday! Meanwhile, here's the latest news of crime dramas on air and screen:
MOVIES
If you're rained in on the Fourth holiday (as we will likely be here in the Mid-Atlantic) or if you're just in more of a stay-at-home frame of mind, grab some popcorn, fire up the TV/Roku/FireStick and check out Variety's list of "15 Patriotic Movies to Watch on Independence Day."
Daniel Craig is in talks to star opposite Halle Berry in Mustang director Deniz Gamze Erguven’s English-language debut Kings. The project, set against a backdrop of rising tensions in Los Angeles during the Rodney King trial in 1992, has Craig playing a loner who lives in South Central who befriends and falls in love with Berry’s character, a tough, protective mother who looks after a group of kids. When the riots explode in the city, Craig’s character helps Berry try and track down the kids from the worst of the violence.
The next Kingsman film, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, has added Vinnie Jones to its all-star cast. His role in Kingsman is being kept under wraps but he will join returning cast members Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Sophie Cookson, Colin Firth, and Edward Holcroft. The sequel also welcomes Kingsman rookies Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry, Elton John, Channing Tatum, and Pedro Pascal to the cast. The movie will continue Eggsy’s (Egerton) spy adventures as he and Merlin (Strong) head to the U.S. to team up with the "Statesman" after the destruction of Kingsman HQ at the hands of evil mastermind Poppy (Moore).
Lionsgate has released the trailer for The 9th Life of Louis Drax, the new thriller from Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes). Based on Liz Jensen‘s best-selling novel of the same title, the story follows a psychologist who finds himself drawn into a mystery of a young boy who has suffered a near-fatal fall. The film stars Jamie Dornan, Sarah Gadon, Aaron Paul and Aiden Longworth.
TELEVISION
Paulist Productions optioned James Reston Jr.’s book The Innocence of Joan Little: A Southern Mystery (originally an iUniverse title) published in 1977 by Time Books. The story centers on the landmark trial and acquittal of Joan Little, a young black woman who stabbed her white jailer/rapist and was tried for capital murder in 1974, drawing international attention regarding a woman’s right to kill a rapist in self-defense, civil rights, prisoners’ rights and capital punishment.
Sundance TV renewed Hap and Leonard for a second season. The series is based on the crime novel series by Joe Lansdale and centers on Hap Collins (James Purefoy), a former '60s idealist and an ex-con, and Leonard Pine (Michael K. Williams), a gay Vietnam vet. In the second season, when the buddy duo and sometime crime solvers discover the skeleton of an infant wrapped in child pornography under the floorboards of Leonard's deceased uncle's home, they go on a mission to clear his name.
Felicity Huffman has joined Regina King as the second cast member to sign on for the upcoming third installment of John Ridley’s praised ABC anthology series, American Crime.
This year's ComicCon, to be held in San Diego from July 21 to July 24, will feature cast and production members from shows including Bones, Blindspot, Lucifer, Gotham, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, 24: Legacy, and Prison Break, among many more.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
PBS' Tavis Smiley welcomed Walter Mosley to talk about his latest Easy Rawlins mystery, Charcoal Joe.
Authors on the Air host Pam Stack featured author Owen Luakkanen, whose 2012 debut, The Professionals, earned rave reviews from critics and readers alike.
The latest podcast fronm Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine features novelist and short-story writer Brendan DuBois, a contributor to the 'zine for twenty years, who reads his tale "The Lake Tenant" (EQMM November 2015), a finalist in EQMM's annual Readers Award competition.
July 3, 2016
Your Sunday Music Treat
In honor of the Fourth tomorrow, I thought it would be nice to showcase some American music. The NSO Pops recently held an all-Gershwin program, which made me go digging around for footage of the composer himself playing his own music.Thanks to the Youtube gods, I found this one of Gershwin playing "I Got Rhythm" in 1930:
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July 2, 2016
July 1, 2016
FFB: A Dram of Poison
American author Charlotte Armstrong Lewi (1905-1969) wrote poetry, plays, short stories and 28 novels under the name Charlotte Armstrong and the pen name Jo Valentine, as well as working in the worlds of fashion, advertising and accounting. Her first success as a novelist came in 1942 with the conventional detective offering Lay On, MacDuff! (featuring an early series character MacDougall Duff). Her stories were frequently adapted for TV, and she also penned the teleplays for several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
She won the Edgar Award in 1957 for her novel A Dram of Poison, sort of a Hitchcockian version of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. It all starts when 55-year-old Kenneth Gibson, a professor and confirmed bachelor, falls for a helpless and penniless woman twenty-three years younger. When his overbearing sister convinces him his wife only married him out of pity and is really in love with their young, handsome neighbor, Gibson decides suicide by poison is the only logical solution. But Gibson accidentally leaves the vial of poison, which looks like harmless bottle of olive oil, on a public bus. Terrified some innocent person could die due to his actions, a madcap search ensues, as more and more characters are brought into the hunt.
It's a difficult book to classify, less of a mystery and more of what can only be defined as "comic suspense," or perhaps a psychological portrait of a man discovering his true nature and seeing people around him as they really are for the first time. Anthony Boucher said it was one of his favorites and that "Reading it is an experience as delightful as it is unclassifiable" (I'm not the only one!), and called Armstrong a cross between Cornell Woolrich and Shirley Jackson. It's a short book, almost novella-length, filled with sly humor and quirky characters.
Other Armstrong books and stories are less whimsical and more noirish, often disguised as political allegories (e.g. commentaries on McCarthyism). Others were social commentaries or psychological studies, with the author herself once saying, "Maybe we are all potential murderers and reading stories about that crime releases us in some way."
Although Armstrong wrote a screenplay based on A Dram of Poison and got Spencer Tracy interested in it at one point, it was never made into a movie. She had much better luck with her novel The Unsuspected, made into a Claude Rains-starring vehicle in 1947.
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June 30, 2016
Happy 25th Birthday to Mystery Loves Company
Mystery Loves Company Booksellers in Oxford, Maryland, will celebrate its 25th birthday this year, which owner and co-founder Kathy Harig is commemorating with a party and book signing on July 4 reaturing author Fran White. The store, which opened in 1991 in Baltimore before moving to its present site in 2006, offers books on the Eastern Shore’s history, flora and fauna, and fiction for all ages, as well as an in-depth collection of mysteries, both new and gently used in hardback and paperback. The store also supports mystery authors throughout the mid-Atlantic with signings and by sponsoring special mystery events, as well as offering a monthly email newsletter of events, recommendations and new mystery titles. Even if you can't make it to the store in person, it recently added an online ordering system, so order a book today as a thank you and birthday tribute.
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June 29, 2016
Mystery Melange
The Bouchercon Board of Directors announced that Otto Penzler is the recipient of its 2016 David Thompson Special Service Award for "extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field." Penzler is the proprietor of New York City’s The Mysterious Bookshop, the founder of The Mysterious Press (1975), and has edited numerous anthologies. He also published The Armchair Detective, a quarterly journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction, in addition to many other contributions to the crime fiction genre. (HT to Mystery Fanfare.)
Foreword Reviews announced the IndieFab Award winners for 2016, including those in the Mystery and Thriller/Suspense categories. For both winners and finalists, check out the official IndieFab link.
The Ngaio Marsh Awards and Reykjavik City Library are offering booklovers a special Ngaio Marsh Awards edition on June 30 of the Library's popular "Dark Deeds" summer walking tours. The walks are centered on dark deeds of various kinds in Icelandic fiction, happening in or around Reykjavík, and give a taste of Icelandic crime fiction, ghost stories and history.
Crime Fiction Lover decided it was time to celebrate UK crime fiction rather than add to the Brexit debate with a listing of "12 Great British Cities, 12 Great British Novels."
Barry Forshaw penned an essay for The Independent adding more fuel to the literary fires that have burned lately for the feminine side of crime fiction. The piece, titled "Are we in a new Golden Age of women crime writers? The five new crime novels you must read," takes a closer look at novels by Ruth Ware, Megan Abbott, Sharon Bolton, Cecilia Ekbäck, and Helen Callaghan.
The New Yorker profiled James Renner’s book True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray and tackled the "serious problem" of internet sleuths, with a profile of amateur efforts at investigating crime, from Truman Capote to the podcast Serial. The essay noted that many such efforts are drawn to the most dramatic possibilities and ignore more tedious solutions.
Another New Yorker piece reviewed The Annals of Murder, a new reference work they called an "indispensable guide to early American murder," with its inventory of more than two hundred years of homicide. Reference lovers will appreciate "the bibliographies of all the pardon-seeking confessions, moralizing execution sermons, self-justifying stories crafted by law enforcement, tell-alls seeking pardons for the accused, and salacious trial transcripts revised and revisited by printers across multiple editions."
In a Q&A for Electric Literature, authors Emelie Schepp and Joakim Zander talked about what it means to be part of the "Nordic noir" literary legacy of Sjöwall, Mankell, and Larsson, about their writing influences, and about how they weave issues of immigration, refugees, ISIS, poverty and radicalization into the contemporary nordic landscape.
Barnes & Noble is betting on physical bookstores to improve profits and boost its bottom line, with a twist: it's opening new stores with cafés that serve beer and wine. Of the company’s four new prototype stores, the first will open in Eastchester, N.Y., in October with additional concept stores, whose footprint will be about 20%–25% smaller than a typical B&N superstore, planned for Edina, Minnesota, Folsom, California, and Loudon County in Virginia.
The Bookshy Books blog compiled "Six More Crime Novels by African Women Writers to Add to Your List."
Thomas O’Malley and Douglas Graham Purdy created a list of "Top Boston crime novels" for The Strand Magazine.
Apparently, a Taylor Swift-themed graphic novella mystery is in the works, thanks to a Kickstarter campaign. The story is being penned by Larissa Zageris, with illustrations by Kitty Curran, and is envisioned as a modern-day Nancy Drew project.
The new weekly crime poem at the 5-2 is "Big Brother is Still Watching You" by Tonia Kalouria, and the latest monthly story at Beat to a Pulp is "Neighbors" by Mel Odom.
In the Q&A roundup, Omnimystery News welcomed Andrez Bergen to talk about his new crime noir, Black Sails, Disco Inferno; Criminal Element held a Q&A with Spencer Kope, author of Collecting the Dead; and Catherine Bruns stopped by Writers Who Kill to discuss her series with real estate agent Cindy York.
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June 28, 2016
Blood on the Bayou
I was thrilled to learn one of my short stories was chosen for the upcoming Bouchercon Anthology. Here's the official press release for the book:
Bouchercon will be invading New Orleans for its annual world mystery convention this September where every year readers, writers, publishers, editors, agents, booksellers and other lovers of crime fiction gather for a weekend of education, entertainment, and fun! It is the world's premiere event bringing together all parts of the mystery and crime fiction community.
In conjunction with this year's event, Down & Out Books will be publishing BLOOD ON THE BAYOU: Bouchercon Anthology 2016 edited by Greg Herren.
"I am honored to have the opportunity to edit this outstanding collection of stories," said Herren, an award-winning author of mystery and suspense novels. "It demonstrates the deep appreciation each of the contributing authors has to their craft."
"This is the third year that we have had the privilege of publishing Bouchercon's official anthology," added Eric Campbell, publisher of Down & Out Books, "and I share in Greg's enthusiasm for these stories."
Nearly 100 authors blindly submitted a story for consideration by three industry professionals, who had the incredibly difficult task of narrowing the list down to just 22 stories. Kaye Wilkinson Barley, Eric Beetner, G. J. Brown, Sheila Connolly, O'Neil De Noux, Barbara Ferrer, John Floyd, Alison Gaylin, Greg Herren, BV Lawson, R. T. Lawton, Deborah Lacy, Edith Maxwell, Liz Milliron, Terrie Moran, David Morrell, Dino Parenti, Mike Penn, Gary Phillips, Thomas Pluck, Paula Pumphrey and Elaine Viets were chosen to have their stories included in the anthology. New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham will write the introduction.
Each of the selected authors contributed their stories to the anthology and the Bouchercon Committee and Down & Out Books have agreed that all proceeds from the sale of BLOOD ON THE BAYOU will go to support the New Orleans Public Library system and by extension readers and writers everywhere.
Founded in 2011, Down & Out Books (DownAndOutBooks.com) is an independent publisher of crime fiction based in Tampa, Florida.
June 27, 2016
Media Murder for Monday
Top o'the week means it's time once again for a quick look at news from the crime drama scene:
MOVIES
Two different movies based on the life of Agatha Christie are in the works, although they have to require approval from the Christie estate before going ahead. The Sony project is in talks with Alicia Vikanderto play a proto-feminist Christie uninterested in a traditional wife role (instead she intersects with the likes of Sherlock Holmes writer Arthur Conan Doyle and Winston Churchill). The Paramount version is eyeing Emma Stone to play the British literary icon, with the story postulating what happened to Christie during the 11 days she went missing in 1926.
Nordisk Film has acquired the remaining Danish language adaptation rights to Jussi Adler-Olsen’s bestselling "Department Q" book series. When finished, the series will comprise ten volumes, and Nordisk Film expects to produce up to six films from that lineup.
Eli Roth is set to direct Death Wish, the MGM/Paramount remake of the 1974 hit, with Bruce Willis playing the reluctant vigilante made famous by Charles Bronson. Roth takes the job after the exit early last month of Big Bad Wolves helmers Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, who left over creative differences when they wanted changes in a script Willis had signed off on.
Actor and Golden Globe nominee Michael Sheen is making his feature directorial debut with Green River Killer and will also star in the film. The movie is based on real-life serial killer Gary Ridgway (who was convicted of 49 murders in the Seattle area in the 1980s and 1990s) and the police detective Tom Jensen, who spent 20 years looking for the notorious killer. Sheen is adapting the project from the graphic novel Green River Killer: A True Detective Story by Jensen’s son Jeff Jensen and artist Jonathan Case.
John Boyega (Star Wars: Episode VIII and the Pacific Rim sequel), has been cast in Kathryn Bigelow’s next as-yet-untitled film, a crime drama written by Mark Boal for Annapurna. The picture that shoots this summer is set against the backdrop of Detroit in 1967 amid the city’s devastating riots that took place over five summer days.
Ben Affleck's next standalone Batman film is returning to its noir detective roots. According to the actor, "the world's greatest detective aspect of Batman is more present in this story (Justice League) than it was in the last one and it would probably be expanded upon further in the Batman movie that I direct. All great Batman stories are, at their heart, detective stories, almost noir movies in a way. It feels like The Maltese Falcon."
The new Inferno trailer was released, with Tom Hanks once again starring as the symbologist Robert Langdon from Dan Brown's novels who must solve a deadly puzzle to avert a global plague.
TELEVISION
Netflix and Canadian broadcaster CBC have teamed up to greenlight Alias Grace, a six-hour miniseries inspired by the true story of convicted murderer Grace Marks and based on Margaret Atwood’s titular novel.The story follows Grace Marks, a poor, young Irish immigrant and domestic servant in Upper Canada who, along with stable hand James McDermott, was convicted of the brutal murders of their employer and his housekeeper in 1843. James was hanged while Grace was sentenced to life imprisonment. Grace became one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of 1840s Canada for her supposed role in the sensational double murder, and was eventually exonerated after 30 years in jail.
BBC One announced they are adapting Agatha Christie's The Witness for the Prosecution, which was originally a short story before being adapted into a play and later a 1957 movie starring Marlene Dietrich. Set in 1920s London, the story focuses on the murder of an heiress and the main suspect, the man set to inherit the family fortune should she perish, who believes he can prove his innocence.
Hulu announced the premiere date of Hugh Laurie's new ten-part psychological thriller Chance, set for Wednesday, October 19. Laurie will star as forensic neuropsychiatrist Dr. Eldon Chance, who is dragged against his better wishes into an extremely dangerous world of corrupt cops, mistaken identities and mental illness. The cast also includes Gretchen Mol as Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused wife of a detective (Paul Adelstein) whose possible dissociative identity disorder causes big problems for the doc. Chance was created by Desperate Housewives and Bates Motel writer/director Alexandra Cunningham and author Kem Nunn, who wrote the novel that the show is based on.
Graceland alum Vanessa Ferlito has signed on to CBS’ NCIS: New Orleans as a new series regular for the upcoming third season. Ferlito will play a sexy, tough and acerbic FBI Special Agent who is sent down to New Orleans from DC to investigate the NCIS team. A by-the-book bureaucrat, she’ll bring a completely different way of doing things (as well as a mysterious past) to New Orleans, which will put her at odds with both the team and the town.
Regina King, who won an Emmy for the first season of ABC’s American Crime, is the first cast member to sign on for the upcoming third installment of John Ridley’s critically-acclaimed anthology series. In the first two seasons, the drama tackled such tough issues as race and class though the prism of crimes committed, although the story line for the third outing has yet to be announced. Fellow stars Felicity Huffman and Timothy Hutton have yet to sign, but they too are expected to return in new roles.
The Good Wife alumna Archie Panjabi has been tapped for a major recurring role in Season 2 of NBC’s thriller drama Blindspot. She will play the head of a secret division of the NSA that has been tracking the case of Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander), the tattoo-covered woman whose mysterious past forms the basis of the show.
NCIS co-stars Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, Rocky Carroll and David McCallum have all signed new two-year deals to continue on CBS’ flagship drama series, which returns for Season 14 in the fall. Harmon inked a new 2-year pact in February, triggering a two-year renewal for NCIS. The new contracts for Perrette, Murray, Carroll and McCallum assure that NCIS is set for Seasons 14 and 15 with its core cast on board. (The rest of the series’ cast members, Brian Dietzen and Emily Wickersham, are on a different contract cycle.)
USA announced that Mr. Robot will be getting some extra add-ons. Season 2 of the computer hacker drama, which premieres July 13, has had two episodes added to its running order, bringing its Season 2 total to 12. In addition to the expanded order, the season premiere will get a live special aftershow called "Hacking Robot" that will complement the documentary special called Mr. Robot_dec0d3d.doc, exploring the authenticity and social impact of the show.
Gracepoint vet Virginia Kull is set for a recurring role opposite Giovanni Ribisi on the upcoming Amazon drama series Sneaky Pete, which centers on Marius (Ribisi), a con man who after leaving prison takes cover from his past by assuming the identity of his cellmate, Pete. He moves in with Pete’s unsuspecting family and is roped into the family’s bail bond business. In order to keep the charade up, he plays the part of a skip tracer, taking down criminals worse than himself — and discovering a family life he’s never had. Kull will play Katie Boyd. who used to run cons with Marius until she went straight.
Hawaii Five-0's Catherine (Michelle Borth) didn't return for the season 6 finale, but according to showrunner Peter Lenkov, "She's still a part of our show. ... The idea is to push that story line until next year."
Dexter star Aimee Garcia has joined the cast of Fox’s comic book-themed drama Lucifer as a new series regular for Season 2, playing Ella Lopez, the department’s new forensic scientist. Her mutual belief in both faith and science proves a point of interest to Lucifer (and the rest of the department) as they get to know and love her quirky ways. The show recently added another key recurring actor, Tricia Helfer, as Lucifer’s mom.
After kicking off the 2015-16 TV season with the two-hour CSI movie/finale, CBS again is opting for event programming in September, scheduling its three-part, six-hour unscripted true-crime limited series Case Closed (which revisits the JonBenet Ramsey murder on its 20th anniversary), for the Sunday before the start of the season.
If you've got a little extra time on your hands, The Wrap has a slideshow of photos for "61 Fall TV Shows: Every New and Returning Series."
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Basketball star-turned writer Kareem Abdul-Jabaar and author Walter Mosley chatted at the flagship Shwartzman Building on Fifth Avenue in a conversation about writing, craft and music.
The It's a Mystery to Me podcast with Stacy Verdick Case welcomed Edgar Award winning author Lori Roy to discuss her latest release Let Me Die In His Footsteps.
Anthony nominee Brian Panowich (Bull Mountain) and his tour partner author J. Todd Scott (The Far Empty) stopped by Authors on the Air to discuss their latest work.
Noir on the Radio presented Dames in the Dark, a no-holds-barred flash fiction throw down, hosted by Greg Barth and featuring Vicki Hendricks, Dharma Kelleher, Amanda Gowin, and S.L.Coney.
If you're a fan of true crime stories, check out Mashable's list of "nine true-crime podcasts you should listen to now."
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FFB: First Come, First Kill
Richard Lockridge was born in Missouri in 1898 and became a journalist and drama critic for the New York Sun. In 1922, he married his wife Frances, a reporter and music critic for the Kansas City Post, and the duo eventually developed two comedic characters from newspaper vignettes and radio comedy that they modeled on themselves���the amateur detectives Mr. and Mrs. North. That particular series was so popular, it ultimately inspired 40 books in the North series, a movie starring George Burn...
