B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 221

Media Media for Monday

MOVIES

It's official: Sam Mendes is indeed returning for the next film in the James Bond franchise. After his successful stint directing the recent Skyfall, it appeared he might not be available for the next installment, but apparently Mendes and the producers have come to an agreement. The film, Bond 24, will also bring back Skyfall screenwriter John Logan and actor Daniel Craig as 007.

20th Century Fox has acquired CyberStorm, a self-published book by Matthew Mather, with Chernin Entertainment serving as producer. Described as "a frighteningly realistic depiction of what would happen after a global digital meltdown from an organized attack," the story centers on a New York man and his family as they try and survive isolated in Manhattan with millions of scared and confused people around them. Mather is a former cybersecurity expert turned author who started out his career working at the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines.

Ben Affleck is in final talks to star as the male lead in David Fincher's big screen adaptation of best-selling mystery novel Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. This is leading to rampant speculation about which "girl" will play the title role, and allegedly Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt are currently the frontrunners.

Johnny Depp is in negotiations to star in the adaptation of the 1970s comedy-thriller novel Mordecai by Kyril Bonfiglioli (finished after the author's death by Craig Brown). Depp would play the role of debonair art dealer and part-time rogue the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai who globehops while on the trail of a stolen painting that contains a code for a hidden bank account full of Nazi gold.

Here's your first look at Solace, an indie supernatural thriller starring Anthony Hopkins stars as a psychic crime analyst who comes out of retirement to help a veteran FBI agent (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) solve a series of bizarre murders. 

Swedish director Jesper Ganslandt has been signed to direct Mission: Blacklist, a thriller starring Robert Pattinson as a brilliant young military interrogator who spearheads the capture of Saddam Hussein. The story is based on the real life experiences of soldier-turned-intelligence agent Eric Maddox and his book, Mission: Black List #1 – The Inside Story Of The Search For Saddam Hussein – As Told By The Soldier Who Masterminded His Capture.

Alfred Hitchcock's silent films have been added to the UN organization's U.K. Memory of the World Register. Hitchcock's films are among 11 items chosen from U.K. libraries, archives and museums to represent British heritage.

TELEVISION

Brad Furman has signed on to direct a drama pilot based on James Patterson's book series Private about  former CIA agent-turned-private eye Jack Morgan. Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro of Tribeca Productions will serve as executive producers for the project.

Cote de Pablo, who plays former Mossad agent Ziva in NCIS, has said she is leaving the show in the upcoming Season 11 "after finishing Ziva's storyline."

Theresa Rebeck (Smash, NYPD Blue) is developing Fortune, a new drama series for Bravo that is inspired by Charles Dickens' Bleak House. The series is said to follow a similar plotline, although it will be set in the present and follow a prominent New York family and the battle over an inheritance after the patriarch dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances.

Former House star Lisa Edelstein has signed to guest star in several episodes on ABC's Castle, playing a federal investigator.

William Abadie (Ugly Betty, Samantha Who) will join Showtime's Homeland for a multi-episode arc, playing Alan Bernard, a seemingly charming international journalist.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

NPR's Jacki Lyden chatted with author Mukoma Wa Ngugi about Black Star Nairobi, the second in a series featuring Ishmael and O and their Black Star detective agency in Kenya.

Daniel Silva was a guest on NPR's Diane Rehm Show: to discuss his latest spy novel, The English Girl.

THEATER

Enigma is an interactive, migrating mystery theatre performance that leads audiences on a clue-laden journey throughout Brooklyn Heights in New York, with performances Fridays through Sundays through October. Audience members embark on a journey into the heart of Brooklyn Heights, armed with a map and tasked with searching for a celebrated esoteric mystery writer.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Murder is for Keeps

British author Dennis John Andrew Phillips (1924-2006) penned close to 60 novels between 1961 and 1992 under his own name and the pseudonyms Peter Chester, Simon Challis, Philip Daniels and Peter Chambers. It was under the last name he had his greatest successes, with 36 books in a series featuring Mark Preston, a private eye in the fictional town of Monkton, California, with its fill of sleazy night clubs, gangsters and racketeers.

Murder is for Keeps from 1961 is the first book in the Preston series. As the story unfolds, Preston is hired to chase a brilliant and amorous jazz musician away from teenage heiress Ellen Chase by her beautiful stepmother, Moira Chase, the young widow of a wealthy California politician. But soon after he's hired, Preston is beaten up and becomes the chief suspect in a murder case.

In trying to clear his name, he finds himself involved with the wealthy and sleazy casino owner Vic Toreno, dark figures and ghosts from the past, a serial sex-killer, drugs, extortion, and more murder. As if that wasn't enough, his main lead comes from a showgirl named Cuddles—who was supposedly found drowned in New York's East River several years ago.

Chambers' writing style is fast-paced and streamlined, with moments of atmospheric and minimalist word-painting:

Vic Toreno had known what he was doing when he installed the brassy music in the bar. The insistent four-four quick tempo was calculated to produce an effect of acceleration in the conversation. And the drinking. I could almost feel the excitement building up. Your gambler with a session in view begins, consciously or otherwise, to anticipate the pleasure to come. Perhaps pleasure is not the word I'm looking for. Stimulation might be better. I could feel it in the Braodway Bar. People were talking too loud, too fast, too much. Soon they would be at the tables, where the hard-eyed dealers waited.

Peter Chambers is also the name of a fictional detective created by the
better-known author Henry Kane, which is likely why the Mark Preston
series has been largely overlooked. Or, perhaps it was due to the fact
Chambers was a British author writing hard-boiled American detective
fiction that made his work seem less realistic. Then, too, by today's
standards, his writing may be considered a bit workmanlike, although
Preston is a likeable enough protagonist, and Chambers gives him with a
high moral code and a wry sense of humor.

An Awesome Array of Anthologies

Short fiction is perfect for bite-sized reading, whether you're taking a work break, waiting at the doctor's office, or just want a quick story fix. This summer brings some recent and upcoming crime fiction anthologies that you can seek out and maybe even take to the beach with you. They range from classic crime to dark horror to a book of essays about one of the most popular mystery conventions, and include many of the best writers working crime fiction today.


The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries volume 10, once again edited by Maxim Jakubowski, brings you the best in British crime fiction with 30 gripping stories from beloved bestselling authors and exciting new up-and coming talents.


In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Malice Domestic convention this past June comes the essay collection Not Everyone's Cup of Tea, available from Wildside Press. Elizabeth Foxwell, a cofounder of the convention, wrote a piece on the Malice anthologies, and there are photos and plenty of essays, speeches, program notes, and other contributions from distinguished authors such as Rhys Bowen, Charlaine Harris, Carolyn Hart, Peter Lovesey, and Peter Robinson.


Also released in June was Crime Square, an anthology of twenty top-flight mystery writers—including Max Allan Collins, John Lutz, Reed Farrel Coleman, Robert S. Levinson, Martin Meyers and Warren Murphy—who portray New York City's Times Square through a century of murder and mayhem as a place where danger lurked around every corner, and where characters walked its streets with the easy confidence of a con man.


Noir Carnival from Fox Spirit Books hit the bookshelves on July 4th. K.A. Laity collected and edited tales that reflect the spirit of a dark carnival, "whether you picture it as a traveling fair in the back roads of America or the hedonistic nights of the pre-Lenten festival where masks hide faces while the skin glories in its revelation, it’s about spectacle, artificiality and the things we hide behind the greasepaint or the tent flap." The nineteen stories range the gamut from "In the Mouth of the Beast" by Li Huijia to "She's My Witch" by Paul D. Brazill and everything inbetween.


Author/blogger Sarah Weinman serves as editor for Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense, due in bookstores August 27. As Weinman notes, where would bestselling authors like Gillian Flynn, Sue Grafton, or Tana French be without the women writers who came before them? The book includes fourteen hair-raising tales by women who—from the 1940s through the mid-1970s—who took a scalpel to contemporary society and sliced away to reveal its dark essence.


Akashic Books continues their "City Noir" series with the latest release in that line, Manila Noir (Philippines), offering fresh noir from one of the most intense, congested, and overpopulated cities in the world. As Publishers Weekly notes, the Filipino take on noir "includes a liberal dose of the gothic and supernatural, with disappearance and loss being constants." Jessica Hagedorn, a Filipino native, serves as editor and divides the book into three sections. Part One is called "Us Against Them;" Part Two is entitled "Black Pearl of the Orient" and Part Three is "They Live By Night."

A little farther into the future (possibly sometime in the Fall), Akashic Books is adding Belfast Noir to its "City Noir" series, with contributors to include Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Gerard Brennan, Ruth Dudley Edwards and many more, with editorial direction from Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville.

Although the pub date hasn't been announced yet, Criminal Element's inaugural Malfeasance Occasional anthology, titled Girl Trouble, is due sometime this summer with fourteen tales from the likes of Patricia Abbott, Hilary Davidson, Brendan DuBois, Robert Lopresti, and Chuck Wendig,

Mystery Melange

Book sculpture by Daniel Lai


Congrats to this year's Macavity Award nominees, which include Best Novel nods to:  Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl;
Peter May, The Black House; Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery; Hank Philippi Ryan, The Other Woman;
B.A. Shapiro, The Art Forger; and Ariel S. Winter, The Twenty Year Death.

Lee Lofland is seeking donations for the raffle and silent auction at the annual Writers' Police Academy. Profts from the WPA go to the criminal justice foundation at the host police academy to supplement the training budget for police officers and other first responders, many of whom volunteer their time and equipment to teaching workshops at the WPA. If you are a published author, send along signed copies of your books or TV and film scripts, and if you're not a published author, you can still help out - past donations have included chocolates, craft items, oil paintings, cell phones, DVD's, police items, hats, and a guitar signed by numerous country music stars. If you have an item to donate, contact Lee via his website.


The July issue of Suspense Magazine has exclusive interviews with authors about their latest releases, including: James Rollins about his novel The Eye of God; Tami Hoag and The 9th Girl; Brad Taylor and his new Pike Logan military thriller The Widow's Strike; Richard Godwin and One Lost Summer; and former British Intelligence bureau chief Matthew Dunn discusses his spy novel, Slingshot. Also, bestselling author Lisa Gardner talks about overcoming the dreaded synopsis headache, and there are many more articles and reviews.

Issue #5 of Pulp Modern, which blends literary and genre fiction, is now available via Amazon with new short stories by
Patti Abbott, A.A. Garrison, Ron Scheer, C.J. Edwards, Sam Graves,
Robert Helfst, Scotch Rutherford, Jason Darcy, Gene Hines, Luther
Jackson, and Stanley Rutgers. Edited by Alec Cizak.

There's a new criminally-good poem up at the 5-2, titled "On the First Hot Night in May" by Alison Morse.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Jeffery Deaver chatting with The Hollywood Reporter about his talks to "ripped-from-the-headlines, Hollywood-ready novels" on topics such as assassinations, intelligence, drones and twisty mysteries; and Ruth Jacobs is the latest "Short, Sharp Interview" subject at Paul D. Brazill's blog.


I recieved a note from a Los Angeles artist the other day. Loren Kantor makes original woodcut prints inspired by classic film noir movies. Check out some of his creations, including James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Marlon Brandon and even Edgar Allan Poe.

Need another reason to read books? A study published in the journal Neurology found that a lifetime of reading slows cognitive decline.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Producer Jonathan Sothcott is teaming up with J.K. Amalou to co-produce the London-set hitman thriller Assassin, starring Danny Dyer as as a professional contract killer who who realizes his latest victim is the estranged father of the girl he has fallen in love with.

U.K. musician and actor Martin Kemp will direct the upcoming British crime drama Top Dog, a movie adaptation of the cult novel by Dougie Brimson, Green Street. The story centers on London villain Billy Evans (played by Leo Gregory) who bites off more than he can chew when he crosses a more dangerous criminal gang.

The Mentalist executive producer Chris Long is putting together a documentary about the Great Train Robbery, based on interviews with one of the original gang members behind the infamous heist.

Here's your first look at Benicio Del Toro in character as Pablo Escobar in Paradise Lost, which also stars Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games, Detention) and Claudia Traisic. The film, from first time director Andrea Di Stefano, is scheduled for release next year.

If you have a few million dollars lying around, the submersible car called the Lotus Esprit (that actually works!) from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me is going up for auction on September 9th.

TELEVISION

BBC Two has ordered a TV movie project titled Legacy, based on the spy thriller novel by Alan Judd about a young spy who discovers the disturbing truth about his father’s complex past in Cold War London. The film project will be written by Paula Milne, directed by Pete Travis, and star Boardwalk Empire's Charlie Cox, The Hour's Romola Garai, Sherlock's Andrew Scott and My Week With Marilyn's Simon Russell Beale.

TNT added Louis Lombardi (24 and The Sopranos) to the cast of its upcoming period cop drama Lost Angels (previously known as L.A. Noir). The show is is based on the book by John Buntin about the battle between former Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker (Neal McDonough) and mobster/former boxer Mickey Cohen (Jeremy Luke).

Camryn Manheim (The Practice) will guest-star on the two-part Season 9 premiere of Criminal Minds.

To celebrate the final season of AMC‘s Breaking Bad, the network has partnered with The Film Society Of Lincoln Center for week-long celebration, starting July 26 and running until July 30, for a free Breaking Bad marathon.

TVLine took a First Impression look at Fox's new Almost Human series slated for the fall. The show is set in the year 2048 where human cops are each paired with an MX-43 android.

The Ion Network has picked up rights to broadcast reruns of USA dramas Burn Notice and White Collar, which join other recently picked-up shows including fellow USA dramas Psych and Monk and TNT's Leverage.

VIDEO

This Wednesday, the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles will launch a new webseries called CRIME: The Animated Series through its new contemporary art video initiative MOCA.tv. The series was created by Sam Chou of Toronto's Style5 and author/filmmaker Alix Lambert, whose book CRIME inspired the series. Each of CRIME's six parts are produced by a different animator/designer in their own personal style and feature interviews with law enforcement, criminals and the victims of crime. The free screening will be followed by a panel discussion.

Happy Fourth of July

Mystery Melange

 

Book sculpture by Robert The


The Harrogate Festival announced the short list for the 2013 Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year, including: Denise Mina for Gods and Beasts; Mark Billingham for A Rush of Blood; Stav Sherez, for A Dark Redemption; Stuart Neville for Stolen Souls; Chris Ewan for Safe House; and Peter May for The Lewis Man.

ThrillerFest starts a week from today, featuring 2013 ThrillerMaster, Anne Rice, and special guests Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker. The jam-packed schedule has a little something for every crime fiction fan, from an impressive array of panels to author signings, cocktail parties and more. Registration is still open for all-conference passes or day passes.

Thug Lit's latest issue for the Kindle, edited by Todd Robinson, includes eight tales from Kieran Shea, BH Shepherd, Rena Robinett, Scott Adlerberg, Jessica Adams, T Fox Dunham, Hugh Lessig and Aaron Fox-Lerner.

The latest issue of Yellow Mama has hit the digital shelves, featuring Part 2 of "The Flame Job" by Paul Dick. There are also some supernatural horror stories, noir and hardboiled goodies, flash fiction and poetry, to boot. 


If you want to get a jump on the titles coming out in the fall and winter, Publishers Lunch compiled excerpts from 40 top forthcoming fall/winter titles into a free ebook, published to coincide with Book Expo America. The list isn't exclusively crime fiction, but does include titles such as W Is for Wasted by Sue Grafton, and there are more books on the Commercial Fiction buzz list.

 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Director Christopher McQuarrie is spearheading a film adaptation of the ITV miniseries Unforgiven, about a woman who completes a prison stint for the murder of two policemen who'd come to evict her family from their farmhouse and soon unwittingly becomes a target for revenge.

Warner Bros. is in negotiations for movie rights to the Encyclopedia Brown children's book series by author Donald J. Sobo. The books followed the exploits of the son of a local police chief, who runs his own detective agency out of the family's garage. The studio and producers working with writers for ideas in hopes of turning the books into a film and potential franchise.

Philip Seymour Hoffman has joined the cast that includes Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace in the upcoming Soviet Union-based thriller Child 44, adapted from the bestselling novel by Tom Rob Smith.

Kate Walsh (Private Practice, Gray's Anatomy) will co-star opposite Joseph Morgan, Ron Perlman, Walton Goggins and Nicole Badaan in Dermaphoria, the psychological suspense film based on the novel by Craig Clevenger. 

The film adaptation of the novel Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon has added another member to its cast. Law & Order regular Peter McRobbie has signed on to play loan shark Adrian Prussia.

Ryan Reynolds has replaced Jake Gyllenhall in the lead role in Mississippi Grind. The story following a gambler on a losing streak (Ben Mendelsohn) who teams up with a younger gambling addict (Reynolds) to take a road trip through the South, hoping to rake in money and leave their bad luck behind.

20th Century Fox released a trailer for the crime thriller Runner Runner set for a September 2013 release. The film follows a grad student (Justin Timberlake) who gets caught between the FBI and a gambling tycoon in Costa Rica. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

TELEVISION

USA Network has greenlighted two additional episodes for Psych's upcoming eighth season, bringing the episode order up to 10. For one of the extra episodes, the network is letting fans choose from three episodic storylines, with the winning premise to be announced at the Psych Comic-Con panel on July 18 hosted by returning guest star Cary Elwes.

Hallmark Channel is producing a two-hour backdoor pilot titled The Mystery Cruise, based on the book The Santa Cruise by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark. The program will star Gail O'Grady (NYPD Blue, Boston Legal) and Michelle Harrison (Emily Owens M.D.) as two best friends and unlikely business partners who team up and use their talent for detection and unorthodox ways to solve crimes.

Sky Atlantic released a first-look teaser and stills from its upcoming drama Fleming. It's set against the backdrop of war-torn London and explores the early life of the charming, enigmatic creator of 007, Ian Fleming. Dominic Cooper plays James Bond's creator, and Lara Pulver stars as the author's future wife Ann O'Neill.

Via Omnimystery News comes word that Ineffable Pictures plans to adapt Declan Hill's bestselling non-fiction book The Fix into a crime drama for television. The book focuses on the multi-billion dollar illegal Asian gambling industry.

Fox not only announced its fall schedule—including its crime drama fixture Bones and the new show, Sleepy Hollow—it indicated it would be premiering its shows a week earlier than the other networks.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Former district attorney, Emmy-winning judge and debut author Jeanine Pirro appeared on The View to talk about her book, Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel.

THEATER

If you are lucky enough to be in London tonight, get tickets to the one-night-only performance of The Audience at the Apollo Theatre. Doctor Who's Matt Smith and Sherlock's Andrew Scott are to star in a new one-off play as the Doctor meets Professor Moriarty. Skyfall's Ben Whishaw will also appear as James Bond's gadget-master Q, while Helen Mirren will play the Queen.
The production is part of A Curious Night at the Theatre, a charity gala aiming to raise money for charities Ambitious about Autism and The National Autistic Society.

Tony winner Rupert Holmes' stage adaptation of John Grisham's best-selling novel A Time to Kill will begin previews September 28 at the John Golden Theatre in New York. This is the first-ever Grisham work to be adapted for the stage

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Moonshine War

Patti Abbott's Friday's "Forgotten" Books takes the occasional detour into a theme day focusing on one author. Today, it's Elmore Leonard's turn, and for all the books and entries, hop on over to Patti's blog for links. Elmore Leonard has penned dozens of novels and a large number of stories, garnered many awards and had his work adapted for film and television, including the series Justified, currently part of the FX Network lineup.


I chose Leonard's 1969 novel, The Moonshine War, not so much because it's one of Leonard's most popular or well-known books, but mostly due to the title and subject. Prejudice can take many forms, and I will never forget my trip to New York City some years ago when I was around 13, and a taxi driver, upon learning I was from Tennessee, sincerely wanted to know if I had a moonshine still in my back yard (and if we went barefoot a lot, but that's another story.) Moonshine holds a certain fascination with many people to this day, as evidenced by the recent Moonshiners reality-TV show on Discovery.

The "war" of the book's title refers to the days of Prohibition in the back hills of Kentucky that pits a hell-raising country boy named Son Martin against a gang of city slickers hoping to to steal thousands of dollars worth of homemade whiskey made by Son's father. The gang is hired by Martin's old war buddy, Frank Long, now a crooked prohibition agent, who was willing to look the other way in exchange for a percentage of Son's business. But when Son wouldn't play ball, Long called in the big guns in the form of Dr. Taulbee, who is not afraid to use violent methods such as busting up the stills of Son's neighbors. But after Taulbee and his goons go too far by committing a double murder, Long decides to help Son fend off the gang.

The Moonshire War is something of a crossbreed between Leonard's westerns and his crime fiction, but it has Leonard's trademark tough outlaws, sharp dialogue, twist ending, and he sets up the stakes in a concise, sharp way:

People did crazy things where whiskey was concerned. It being against the law to drink wasn't going to stop anybody. They'd fight and shoot each other and go to prison and die for it...

Like many of Leonard's books and stories, The Moonshire War was adapted to the screen in the form of a 1970 movie directed by Richard Quine and starring Alan Alda as Son Martin, Patrick McGoohan as Frank Long, and Richard Widmark as Dr. Taulbee.

Do You Subscribe to This (and Other) Blogs in Google Reader?

Google Reader has been the standard for blog subscriptions via RSS feeds for the past several years. It was my reader of choice, along with millions of other people. However, Google has decided to discontinue this service, leaving users to scurry around hunting for a replacement. Most of you who subscribe to this blog via a reader probably already know this, but just in case, I wanted to warn you that as of July 1st, Google Reader will no longer be available.

All is not lost, however, since there are dozens of other feed readers out there. I have migrated my feeds seamlessly over to the free service Feedly without any problems whatsoever. It's a fairly simple procedure: login to Feedly using your current Google Reader name/password. This web page has details for the various web browsers. It's important that you switch over before July 1st for Feedly and many other services so that you won't lose your feeds and settings (and have to manually re-subscribe to each separately).

If you'd rather use a different service, Gizmodo listed "10 Google Reader Alternatives That Will Ease Your RSS Pain." If you don't want to lose your reader details but haven't settled on an alternative, you can download your information from Google Takeout.

These are the links referenced in the Gizmodo article above (note that most are free; some are not):

Feedly
Digg Reader
AOL Reader
NewsBlur
The Old Reader
NetVibes
Pulse
Flipboard
Zite
Twitter (not a reader, but an alternative of sorts)