B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 226

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Four and Twenty Bloodhounds

It's hard to underestimate how much Anthony Boucher contributed to the world of crime fiction. In addition to being an author himself, he was a prolific reviewer and critic, a columnist for the New York Times Book Review (more than 850 weekly review columns under the heading "Criminals at Large"), a writer and producer of radio dramas, and president of the Mystery Writers of America. And of course, the mighty Bouchercon conference is named after him.

He also edited several anthologies, including Four and Twenty Bloodhounds, published in 1950. As the title suggests, the work features 24 stories of fictional sleuths, ranging from senator whose hobby is magic to a former cop whose address is Skid Row in San Francisco, to icons like Ellery Queen and Dr. Gideon Fell. Boucher contributed a preface and brief editorial introductions to each story, and each detective is given his only "biography" in he book. As Kirkus noted, it's "A sure entertainment bet which will be of special interest to the mystery market."

The stories were chosen by Boucher and feature members of the Mystery Writers of America. In addition to Boucher, the authors include Verne Chute; Joseph Commings; W T Brannon; John Dickson Carr; Ken Crossen; Matthew Head; Lillian De La Torre; Harold Q Masur; Frank Kane; Jerome & Harold Prince; James M Fox; Clayton Rawson; D B Olsen; Robert Arthur; Lawrence G Blochman; Stewart Sterling; August Derleth; Ellery Queen; Brett Halliday; Fredric Brown; George Harmon Coxe; Q Patrick; Kelley Roos; and Stuart Palmer.

Mystery Melange

Book sculpture by Stephen Doyle



Congratulations go to Peter Robinson, winner of this year's Dilys Award for Before the Poison. The award is handed out by the IMBA (Independent Mystery Booksellers Association) to the crime fiction book member booksellers most enjoyed selling, and is named in honor of Dilys Winn, the founder of the first specialty bookseller of mystery books in the United States

Congrats also to the winners of this year's "Lefty" Awards from the Left Coast Crime Conference. The Lefty for best humorous mystery novel went to Brad Parks, for The Girl Next Door; The Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award was given to Catriona McPherson for Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder; The Rocky for best mystery novel set in the Left Coast Crime Geographical Region went to Craig Johnson, As the Crow Flies; and The Watson for mystery novel with best sidekick was awarded to Rochelle Staab, Brouja Brouhaha.

News from the bookselling world continues to be volatile and sometimes contradictory. According to a new report from Bowker Market Research, U.S. chain bookstores lost 13 percent of their share of book purchases in 2012. Meanwhile, sales at independent bookstores are rising, established indies are expanding, and new ones are popping up across the country, according to an article in the Christian Science Monitor. And eBooks? The AAP released new figures for the U.S. eBook market, revealing it grew by 8% in the first 11 months of 2012, from $6.1 billion to $6.6 billion.

Ebook publisher Untreed Reads has put out a call for submissions for its upcoming anthology, Moon Shot:  Murder and Mayhem on the Edge of Space. Editor Jay Hartman is looking for stories between 1,500 to 5,000 words set in space or connected to the space program (past, present or future) but with a strong mystery/crime/suspense angle. The deadline is May 30th, and authors will receive a royalty split.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Alexandra Sokoloff over at the Female First blog talking about her novel The Unseen; and Cara Black joined Murderati to talk about her latest, Murder Below Montparnasse.

Archaeologists have found 13 black death skeletons beneath London and believe there could be 50,000 more victims, all buried in an emergency cemetery in the 14th century. The adult skeletons, laid out in two neat rows, were uncovered during excavation work for a £14.8 billion Crossrail project.

The Ordinary Grace of William Kent Krueger

Bestselling author William Kent Krueger's novels have won the Minnesota Book Award, Friends of America Writers Prize, Barry Award, Dilys Award and back-to-back Anthony Awards for best novel, among other honors. Although known primarily for his novels featuring part-Ojibwe, part-Irish Cork O'Connor, a former Chicago cop turned private investigator living in the backwoods of Minnesota, Krueger's latest novel, Ordinary Grace, is a departure for him.


Krueger notes it's a different story from any in the Cork O'Connor series, focused on creating a particular time (the summer of 1961) and a particular small town deep in the heart of the Minnesota River valley that allowed him to examine memories, emotions and themes arising from his own adolescence. 

Ordinary Grace has its official release today, and in honor of the book launch, Krueger stopped by In Reference to Murder for some Q&A:


IRTM: You've described Ordinary Grace as really the
story of what tragedy does to a man's faith, his family and ultimately, the
whole fabric of the small town in which he lives. You also noted it was
inspired in part by memories and emotions arising from your own adolescence and
uses themes important to you through the years. How much of this book is
fiction and how much is a window into your own soul?

WKK: “A window into my own soul” may be a bit strong, but it’s
certainly a story for which I mined a good deal of memories, emotions, and
experiences from my own adolescence.  One
of the initial seeds for Ordinary Grace was
the desire to recreate a time and place that I knew well.  I spent a lot of my formative years living
either on farms or in small towns, and I wanted to capture—for myself and, I’m
hoping, for readers—the essence of those years. 
For a boy, thirteen is an important age. 
It’s a threshold.  You stand with
one foot in childhood and the other poised to step into manhood, and because of
the confusion, the constant assessing of who you are and wonderment about who
you are becoming, what happens in that time stays with you in a dramatic way.  That’s what I wanted at the heart of the
story. 

IRTM:You've said the story for Ordinary Grace haunted you for a few years,
and it was the most amazing period of writing you've ever experienced. What was your favorite part of the book to write?

WKK: There are so many scenes I love in this book.  But maybe my absolute favorite is the
post-funeral scene in which the title—Ordinary
Grace—takes on a very specific and special meaning in the story.  Another favorite is the scene at the quarry
in which Frank, the story’s thirteen-year-old narrator, gets into it with an
older, bigger, meaner kid named Morris Engdahl. 
It’s a scene full of conflict and comedy and, because of the presence of
a stunning young woman in a revealing bathing suit, rife with sexual tension as
well.  I love the fact that Frank acts
from his gut, without particular regard for the consequences, and I love the
result.  Overall, perhaps, what I liked
best was creating the tight relationship between Frank and his younger brother
Jake.  A lot of love is exchanged there.

IRTM: Marilyn Stasio, writing for the New York Times, said that
"For someone who writes such muscular prose, Krueger has a light touch
that humanizes his characters." Muscular prose is a phrase often
associated with Hemingway, who happens to be one of your writing influences. Do
you feel that some of Hemingway's literary genes have become part of your writing
DNA?

WKK: In my early years, I used to try to write like Papa
Hemingway.  Eventually I realized how
pointless that was, turned away from struggling to write the great American
novel, and embraced the mystery genre.  I
hoped I might finally write something that a publisher would buy and readers
would enjoy.  Best decision ever.  But I didn’t abandon Hemingway
completely.  Trying to write like a
master taught me the power of language, and always, when I write, it’s with an
understanding that words, rhythm, cadence matter in a good piece of
writing.  Honestly, I’ve never been
certain what was meant by “muscular prose.”

IRTM: In researching your other books, you've studied the Ojibwe and Arapaho,
you've traveled to remote locations, interviewed various primary sources such
as people in involved with the Secret Service, hospitals, the military,
psychology, weapons technology. Was there anything new or unusual you had to
research for the writing of Ordinary Grace?

WKK: In my very early thinking, I considered having Frank’s
father, Nathan Drum, be a high school English teacher in a small town, because
that was my father.  But because I also wanted to deal with the
larger question of the spiritual journey, a minister seemed a better
choice.  Growing up, I knew a number of
PKs (preacher’s kids), but what it means to be a minister in a small community
was completely outside my own experience. 
I’m fortunate to know a couple of retired Methodist ministers, so I
spent a good long time talking to both of them about their own time as
ministers in rural Minnesota. 
Fascinating material, and I’m sure their insights helped breathe life
into Nathan Drum.

IRTM: What does your writing process look like? Do you aim for daily or weekly
word counts? And how are you and Cork and your other characters handling the
move from the St. Clair Broiler coffee shop? Any withdrawal symptoms?

WKK: Unless I have a deadline looming, I try to be relaxed in
what I expect from any writing session. 
That said, I’m very disciplined in my approach.  I write every day, twice.  The first round begins in a local coffee shop
about 6:00 A.M. and lasts for a couple of hours.  Then I return to the coffee shop in the
afternoon for another couple of hours. 
This used to take place at the St. Clair Broiler, a Saint Paul landmark
café.  I wrote there for a good twenty
years.  For reasons I won’t go into, we
parted ways a while back, but it was an amicable separation.  No withdrawal symptoms, but a lot of
wonderful memories of my time in booth #4.

IRTM: Have you written a book (or short story) you love that you haven't been able
to get published?

WKK: The manuscript that preceded Iron Lake (my first published novel and the first in the Cork
O’Connor series) was a horribly written piece of work.  It was called The Demon Hunter and was about the ultimate battle between good and
evil fought, I kid you not, in the cornfields of Nebraska.  I still like the story—go figure—and someday,
if I have the time, I might return to that piece to see if I can do it justice.

IRTM: Are there certain characters you'd like to revisit, or is there a new theme
or idea you'd love to work with?

WKK: I’m at work on a second novel set in southern Minnesota,
titled This Tender Land.  Although still in its infancy, the story,
when fleshed out, should deal with how we shape the land in which we live and
how the land, in turn, shapes us.  It’s
about those things we love enough to die for and love enough to kill for.  I like the fact that it’s another novel set
in the agrarian southern part of our state, which has a beauty very different
but no less remarkable than the great north woods I write about in the Cork
O’Connor series.

IRTM: Every writer has to deal with rejection at some point.
What was the toughest criticism you've been given as an author, and
alternatively, what was the best compliment?

WKK: The toughest criticism early on was from an agent who’d
asked to read that first manuscript of mine, The Demon Hunter.  She told me it was one of the worst
pieces of fiction she’d ever read. 
Though she tried to be gentle, her reaction devastated me.  Of course, she was right, and I learned a
great deal from the experience.  As for
compliments, one of the best I ever got came from my son.  He was pretty young when Iron Lake came out, and I wasn’t certain if he really understood
what all the hoopla was about.  Then one
day, as I was chauffeuring him somewhere, from the backseat of our car he said
simply, “Dad, I’m really proud of you.” 
Made me cry.

IRTM: Last year, you and three other authors (John Connolly, Liza Marklund, MJ
Rose) embarked on the Atria Great Mystery Bus Tour. What was the highlight and
"lowlight" of the tour and do you think you'd do it again?

WKK: Without a doubt, the highlight was the company on the
bus.  John and Liza and MJ and all the
folks who accompanied us were great, entertaining companions.  The low point was when the toilet on the bus
plugged up.  Don’t get me started on that
one.

IRTM: Although Ordinary Grace is a standalone novel, Cork O'Connor
fans will be thrilled to know the thirteenth book in the series, Tamarack
County, is scheduled for release in August 2013.
Can you tell us about that and the further adventures of the O'Connor clan?

WKK: Tamarack County was
inspired by a true event.  A couple of
years ago, I read a newspaper account of man who’d been convicted of murder and
sent to death row, where he spent nearly twenty years.  Then a group who takes on the cases of these
kinds of individuals to be certain that justice has been done began looking
into his situation.  In the course of
their investigation, they discovered that, at the time of this man’s trial, the
prosecution had in its possession information that basically proved his
innocence, but they never shared this information with the defense.  On being released from prison, the man said
he wasn’t bitter about all those years he’d spent behind bars.  His only wish was that those who’d put him
there knowing he was innocent would somehow have to pay for their trespass of
justice.

Which got me to thinking. 
What if an Ojibwe in Tamarack County, Minnesota, was convicted of murder
and spent many years in jail.  And what
if information eventually comes to light proving his innocence, information the
prosecution had at the time of trial but never shared.  And what if, as soon as this situation
becomes public, the people responsible for the man’s unjust incarceration—the
judge, the prosecutor, the law enforcement officers—begin to be murdered.  And what if it was Cork O’Connor who’d headed
up the investigation that put the man behind bars.  So Cork is in the cross hairs.

IRTM: And finally: lutefisk or Minnesota hotdish?

WKK: Although I consider myself Minnesotan, I’ve never tasted
lutefisk.  But top anything with tater tots and it becomes Minnesota hotdish, and what’s not
to love?

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Hugh Jackman is set to star in Six Years, a film based on thriller writer Harlan Coben's upcoming novel, which is currently being developed by Paramount. The novel tells of a man who watched the love of his life marry someone else, then six years later sees the husband's obituary, attends the funeral, and finds the widow is not his past love, throwing his memories into doubt.

It appears Tom Cruise just can't get enough of TV/book icons. After starring as Jack Reacher and in Mission Impossible, he now has his eye set on a film adaption of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  George Clooney was originally in line to take on the lead role of spy Napoleon Solo, with Steven Soderbergh directing, but both dropped out. Guy Ritchie was brought on board to direct and Cruise is likely to take over Clooney's slot.

Omnimystery News reports that Relativity Media has optioned the soon-to-be-published psychological thriller Scare Me by Richard Parker for a film project.

Robert Redford is in talks to join Captain American: Winter Soldier, likely playing an older member of secret government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. in a role similar to the one played by Ralph Fiennes as M’s replacement in last year's James Bond movie Skyfall.

Dreamworks has signed up Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) to direct Rebecca, a remake of the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film.

Director Antoine Fuqua is in early talks to re-team with his Training Day star Denzel Washington for the film adaptation of the TV series, The Equalizer.

Former British footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones has joined the thriller The Killer's List, playing a retired hit man and widower whose young son is kidnapped.

TV

HBO has picked up a thriller project from British filmmaker Ben Wheatley. Titled Silk Road, it's said to be in the same vein as the classic Patrick McGoohan TV series, The Prisoner

Actor-comedian Steve Coogan has landed the starring role in the David Shore drama pilot Doubt, centering on a former cop "who's now a cunning but charming low-rent lawyer who uses his street smarts to work the system for his clients while battling his own demons and wooing his ex-wife." Meanwhile, Mercedes Ruehl was also just added to the cast, playing a lawyer in the firm.

Terry O’Quinn (Lost) is set to replace the departing Tom Berenger as the lead opposite Ramon Rodriguez in Fox's drama pilot Gang Related. The concept centers on Ryan Lopez (Rodriguez), a gang member sent in to infiltrate the San Francisco Police Department, while O'Quinn will play a tough, dynamic police chief who oversees the Gang Task Force. 

NBC has acquired the US broadcast rights to the crime drama Crossing Lines, co-produced by German producer Tandem and Criminal Minds showrunner Ed Bernero. The show is about the International Criminal Court's special crime unit that investigates serialized crimes that cross over European borders. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Fans of CSI will be happy to hear that CBS has renewed the show for a 14th season, and apparently stars Ted Danson and Elisabeth Shue will return in their current roles.

TNT has set premiere dates for its summer lineup, including the new private eye drama King & Maxwell and the unscripted Cold Justice that follows two real-life female investigators. The network also plugged in broadcast dates for returning shows Rizzoli & Isles and Perception (June 18), and Franklin & Bash (July 24).

Meanwhile, ABC has also announced summer premiere dates, including Motive, which follows a single-mother detective and her partner, Detective Oscar Vega, in a format similar to Columbo, in which the killer and victim are identified at the beginning of each episode rather than at the end. Another new show is Whodunnit, from CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker that puts 13 contestants’ investigative skills to the test in a mystery reality competition.

Mamie Gummer (Emily Owens M.D.) has landed the female lead in the CBS pilot Backstrom, a show based on the Swedish book series by criminologist/novelist Leif G.W. Persson.

New cast changes are coming to TNT's Major Crimes for its second season. Nadine Velazquez (My Name Is Earl) is joining the show for the role of Deputy D.A. Emma Rios, and  Robert Gossett, who has played Assistant Chief Russell Taylor is being promoted to a regular role.

Karen Gillan (Dr. Who) is joining season 3 of Adult Swim‘s live-action spoof series NTSF:SD:SUV, playing Daisy, a ‘Q’ tech expert.

Sierra/Engine Television is bringing the 13-episode mystery drama series Siberia to global distribution. The show is set in the remote Siberian territory of Tunguska, location of the 1908 meteor impact, more than 100 years later as unsuspecting reality-show contestants are put in harm's way and have to band together to survive.

PODCASTS/VIDEO

Making the media rounds to promote his latest book, Six Years, Harlan Coben appeared on the Today Show last week and on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Author and Criminologist Jennifer Chase joined Book & Crime Talk on Blog Talk Radio.

THEATER

The opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith will make its U.S. debut next fall, presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and New York City Opera. With music composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage and libretto/staging/direction by Richard Thomas, the project follows the life of the former Playboy Playmate of the Year until her tragic death in 2007 at age 39 from a fatal drug combination.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Great Mill Street Mystery

Novelist Adeline Sergeant on the cover of Woman’s Herald, 1891

Adeline Sergeant (1851-1904) was one of the first women to attend university in her day, although it didn't translate into an interesting career, at first—she graduated and became a governess. However, when her novel Jacobi's Wife won a competition in 1882 sponsored by a newspaper, she was invited to become a staff writer, thus starting her lifelong writing career. Sergeant never married, making a living entirely by her writing  income, but her of-necessity prolific output came at a cost—a nervous breakdown in 1892.

She said of her writing, "My works seem to me to fall into two classes: the one of incident . . . and the one of character, with the minimum of story. I like to analyze a character ‘to death,’ so to speak, and I look on my stories of this sort as the best I have written." But she also recognized the need to sell books in popular genres like romances, horror, and thrillers, although it evidently wasn't always a comfortable arrangement, as she remarked: "Every now and then I feel the necessity of escaping from the trammels imposed by publishers, editors and the supposed taste of the public. I want to say my own say, to express what I really mean, and feel, to deliver my soul."


Her novel The Great Mill Street Mystery, from 1890, combines elements of character and psychological suspense, beginning with the prologue where a blind clergyman and a crippled boy stumble across a murder in the dilapidated Mill Street neighborhood of London, a "God-forsaken place." The boy led the clergyman there because the parson believed his old friend George Eastwood was involved in a vengeful love triangle with the boy's brother, Stephen Eyre. The prologue ends with the woman in the middle of the drama, Jess Armstrong, turning herself in as the murderer. But was she really guilty?

The rest of the novel unfolds in a flashback that tells the tale of Eastwood, Eyre and Armstrong and how the threads of obsession, jealousy, and religious fanatacism are woven together into a painful fabric of deception and misunderstandings that ultimately lead to tragedy. The theme of the status of women, or lack thereof, (the author was a firm believer in women's suffrage) and the honest depiction of callous class morés in 19th-century Britain is strong. Strong enough that one scandalized fussbudget reviewer in the London Table Talk wrote, "An East London Mystery by Adeline Sergeant, ran through the newspapers as The Great Mill Mystery. It is not a good sample of the author's work, being a sordid story of seduction, satiety, cruelty, and murder. The mystery scarcely deserves its name." 

Although Sargent's works are very difficult to find in reprints, save for a few of the public-domain book mills dumping thousands of older books into digital form, several are available via Project Gutenberg, and The Great Mill Street Mystery is free via Google Books.

Author R&R with Joshua Alan Parry

Joshua Alan Parry is a medical resident at the Mayo Clinic and and holds a B.S. in molecular and cellular biology from the
University of Texas at Austin. Over the years, he has worked as a guide for at-risk youth
in the Utah wilderness, a metal worker in Montreal, a salmon canner in
Alaska, and a molecular genetics intern.

Joshua puts that background to good use In his debut novel, Virus Thirteen, in which scientists James Logan and his wife, Linda, have their dream careers at the world's leading biotech company, GeneFirm, Inc. But their happiness is interrupted by a devastating bioterrorist attack: a deadly superflu that quickly becomes a global pandemic. Linda's research team is sent to underground labs to develop a vaccine, but security is soon breached and Linda is in danger. To save her, James must confront a desperate terrorist, armed government agents, and an invisible killer: Virus Thirteen.

Joshua stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R (Reference and Research)," although his research apples don't fall very far from the tree:

 

Little did I know at the time,
between my undergraduate degree in molecular and cellular biology and my
medical degree, I had spent the last eight years incidentally researching the
novel Virus Thirteen. I have spent an
extraordinary amount of time sitting in lecture halls, passively listening to
the drone of higher education. Even the best students, and I am not including
myself in this category, will have minds that eventually wonder in such a
setting. My own brain, always teetering on the precipice of full-blown
attention deficit hyper activity disorder (ADHD), has had plenty of
opportunities in these scenarios to dream of a future where all of this
wonderful science and potential technology has become established.

Immediately after I graduated
college I went on a personal journey, driving across the country by myself.
There in the silence of the individual, my mind did wander yet again, with its
newfound knowledge base and cathartic desire to vent itself. What would the
world be like in a future where scientists have the ability to tinker with
mankind’s genome as easily as an artist at a blank canvas? What would be the
repercussions of this science if completely unrestricted? Judging by history,
it would be only a matter of time before the less scrupulous among us took it
too far, and quite literally created a monster. Forget about humanoid
monstrosities though, when this technology is applied to man’s last great
predators, microscopic bacteria and viruses, you have the potential to create
the Frankenstein of the year 2200 A.D., a sinister creation whose miniscule
size is inversely proportion to its ability to do harm. At the end of my
journey, these questions had become the seeds of a story. In order to realize
their potential these seeds would need plentiful amounts of metaphorical water
and sunlight.

So in summary, education will build
the knowledge base needed to write coherently on a subject, this is no
different from anyone, intense mental isolation will provide the spark of
ideas, and most importantly, like a nurturing gardener, countless tedious hours
must be spent cultivating the story in order to develop it into a finished
product.

--Joshua Alan Perry

Virus Thirteen is officially launched next Tuesday by Tor, but available for pre-orders. You can find Joshua on the publisher website or via Facebook.

 

Mystery Melange

 

Book sculpture by anonymous artist



Congratulations go to this year's nominees for the Strand Critics Awards. They include:

Best Novel

 

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (Putnam)
Broken Harbor by Tana French (Viking)
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown)
Defending Jacob by William Landay (Delacorte Press)
Live by Night by Dennis Lehane (William Morrow)

Best Debut Novel


A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash (William Morrow)
The Yard by Alex Grecian (Putnam)
The Expats by Chris Pavone (Crown)
Disappeared by Anthony Quinn (Mysterious Press/Open Road)
The 500 by Matthew Quirk (Hachette)



The latest issue of Lit Noir, edited by Jack Lehma, includes stories by Paul D. Brazill, Allan Leverone, Jack Lehman and more, as well as poems, original art and articles.

The latest issue of the ezine Plots With Guns is also out and includes crime stories by Joseph D'Agnese, J. David Gonzalez, Ben Morris, Arthur Piper, and Tim L. Williams.

Early-bird registration has begun for the 2013 Deadly Ink Mystery Conference, to be held August 2-4. Following a two-year hiatus, the conference returns with a bang, including Guest of Honor, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Toastmaster, Rosemary Harris, and Fan Guest of Honor, Bob Daniher. The conference kicks off with a full day of Deadly Ink Writer’s Academy classes for aspiring writers, on Fri., Aug. 2. Hank Phillippi Ryan will present Writing Your Mystery—All You Need to Know Before You Start; Rosemary Harris will teach Characters and Setting; Jane Cleland discusses Red Herrings; and author/agent Lois Winston ends with "The Top 10 Reasons Your Novel is Rejected."

Fans of graphic novels and the late Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, including Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will be happy to hear that Larsson's estate has signed author Denise Mina to write the remaining two graphic novels in that trilogy.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Hilary Davidson, talking about her new book Evil in All Its Disguises with the Mystery People; Brian Lindenmuth chats up Snubnose Press author JA Kazimer; Barbara Fister pops over at the Hey Dead Guy blog to talk about libraries and mystery novels; and Paul D. Brazill continues his "Short, Sharp Interview" series with K.A. Laity, about her latest, It's a Curse.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Author Marcus Sakey's forthcoming novel Brilliance was picked up by Legendary Pictures, and will be produced by Joe Roth and Palak Patel, the team behind Oz the Great and Powerful. The book is set in Wyoming and centers on a group of people with rare abilities, including federal agent Nick Cooper, whose gifts make him exceptional at hunting terrorists.

Joel Kinnaman is in talks to join Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace in the film adaptation of Tom Rob Smith's Soviet-era thriller, Child 44. The project, which involves a Russian secret service office being framed by his government and forced to go on the run, will be directed by Ridley Scott.

Melbourne-based Jump Street Films has optioned New York writer Peter Cameron's novel Andorra, with the author writing the screenplay. The story follows Alexander Fox, an American who immigrates to the tiny nation of Andorra and becomes the main suspect when a dead body turns up in the harbor.

Fans of the defunct UPN-TV series Veronica Mars have raised $3.5 million in Kickstarter, enough for creator Rob Thomas and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution to fund and market the film, planned for release early next year. The original series featured Veronica moonlighting as a private investigator under the tutelage of her detective father; the plot of the film is said to be set a decade after the show's third season and have Veronica returning to Neptune, California after Logan (Jason Dohring) seeks her help in investigating the murder of his pop-star girlfriend.

Kate Beckinsale is in negotiations to star as the title character in Eliza Graves, a psychological thriller from Nu Image/Millennium. To be directed by rad Anderson, the project is loosely based on one of Edgar Allan Poe's early works, an 1845 short story titled "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether." Beckinsale will play a patient at a mental institution in which the inmates have taken over and are posing as doctors

Billy Bob Thornton is in talks to join the David Dobkin film The Judge. The story follows a hot-shot lawyer (Robert Downey Jr.) who returns to his hometown after being away for decades to attend his mother's funeral, but finds his estranged father (Robert Duvall) is suspected of killing her. Thornton would play a special prosecutor brought in to try Duvall’s character.

TV

Sara Gran's book series about Claire DeWitt, a tough female private eye in post-Katrina New Orleans, is heading to the small screen. TNT is developing a TV movie based on Gran's books, with the author serving as co-executive producer and writing the hour-long script. Gran is also partnering with Guillermo Del Toro on Nuttshell Studies, a Hitchcockian drama about a 1950s small-town housewife who becomes obsessed with solving brutal crimes.

Benedict Cumberbatch confirmed that there will be a fourth season of the BBC's Sherlock. The first of the three episodes that make up the third season starts filming this week (Hat tip Omnimystery News.)

Steven Bochco's pilot for TNT, Murder in the First, has landed Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson in the lead roles of two San Francisco PD homicide detectives investigating different crimes that may be related.

Amber Tamblyn's first gig after her stint on House will be the female lead in the CBS drama pilot Anatomy of Violence. The project is inspired by Adrian Raine's nonfiction book and centers on on a maverick FBI Criminal Psychiatrist
(played by Skeet Ulrich) with an expertise in sociopaths who partners with Abby (Tamblyn), a
young female FBI Agent with whom he shares a conflicted past.

Rainn Wilson and Kristopher Polaha have joined Dennis Haysbert in the CBS pilot Backstrom, based on the novels of Leif G.W. Persson. The series centers on Everett Backstrom, an overweight, offensive detective as he tries, and fails, to change his self-destructive behavior. Polaha will play Sgt. Peter Niedermayer, the unit's Forensics Liaison.

James Spader has signed on as the lead in NBC's drama pilot The Blacklist. Spader will play a man called Red, the world's most wanted criminal who mysteriously turns himself in and offers to give up everyone he has ever worked with, provided he's allowed to work with newly minted FBI agent, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone).

USA's Burn Notice is adding two regulars to the cast for the show's upcoming seventh and possibly final season. Jack Coleman (Heroes) will play a ranking CIA officer "who has seen it all," while Stephen Martines (The Closer) will play a swashbuckling bounty hunter and Fiona's (Gabrielle Anwar) charming new boyfriend. Actor Nick Tarabay will be featured in a two-episode arc playing a cold-blooded freelance operative.

Dallas Roberts (formerly of The Walking Dead) will appear in the second season of the CBS drama Unforgettable, playing Eliot, who is in charge of the Major Cases Section of the NYPD.

Christian Slater will star with Steve Zahn in the ABC drama pilot Influence, playing two brothers who head an agency that uses the science of human motivation and manipulation to solve its clients' problems.

Fans of the USA detective comedy Psych will get to vote on the ending to the show's 100th episode, which pays pay homage to the 1985 cult classic film Clue (in turn based on the whodunit board game).

As Omnimystery News reports, ABC Family has set its summer 2013 premiere dates, including: the Season Four premiere of Pretty Little Liars, based on the young adult series of books by Sara Shepard; and the premiere of Twisted, a murder mystery centered on a charismatic 16-year-old with a troubled past who reconnects with his two female best friends from childhood, but becomes the prime suspect when a fellow student is found dead in her home.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Murder at the Foul Line

Thanks to computer problems, I'm re-posting a "classic" FFB, which I thought might be appropriate considering it's "March Madness" time.

In 2006, Otto Penzler released the
anthology Murder at the Foul Line, with stories contributed by a
Who's Who of crime fiction: Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, Sue
DeNymme, Brendan DuBois, Parnell Hall, Laurie R. King, Mike Lupica,
Michael Malone, Joan H. Parker and Robert B. Parker, George Pelecanos,
R. D. Rosen, S. J. Rozan, Justin Scott and Stephen Solomita.

Michael
Malone's winningly deadpan "White Trash Noir," about domestic violence
from a former NCAA star that seemingly drives his wife to murder, was
nominated for the 2007 Edgar Award for best short story, but had to be
withdrawn because it had been previously published in a collection by
the author. There are other winners, though: Lawrence Block's hitman
character Keller takes in a Pacers game in "Keller's Double Dribble,"
but the assignment doesn't go as planned and we get glimpses into
Keller's past; "String Music" by George Pelecanos focuses on a
streetwise D.C. kid trying to escape his troubled life by playing pickup
basketball; Laurie R. King's "Cat's Paw" features the coach of a girl's
junior high basketball team who is haunted by repressed memories and
whose life is shaken up after she runs over a cat; and Jeffery Deaver's
"Nothing But Net" is filled with Deaver's trademark twists and turns,
featuring con men trying to swindle a naive NBA player.

Penzler
would probably argue there's plenty more fodder for murderous takes on
professional basketball. As he notes in his Introduction, "Perhaps the
biggest difference in the game is the level of criminal activity. One of
the big crime stories of the 1950s was when some Manhattan College,
CCNY, and Long Island University players conspired to fix games so that
certain gamblers could make a killing. The scandal rocked the sport for
years, and those teams, then national powers, never recovered. Today, of
course, that would be looked upon as kid stuff. Now we're really
talking. Stars are commonly arrested for drug abuse, drunk driving, wife
(and girlfriend) battering, barroom brawling, rape, and so many other
acts of violence and criminality that it is difficult to keep track."

Murder at the Foul Line is the fifth installment in Penzler's sports mystery anthology series, so if you're not a fan of basketball, instead try Murderer's Row (baseball), Murder on the Ropes (boxing), Murder is My Racquet (tennis) and Sudden Death
(football). I should point out that these books were published by the
defunct New Millennium publishing arm, and that Penzler successfully
sued the company claiming breach of contract. It's an unfortunate
conclusion to what was originally an intriguing collaboration, but that
doesn't change the fact the stories still stand on their own, with many
sparkling three-pointers among them.

Author R&R with Gay Hendricks & Tinker Lindsay

 

Gay Hendricks


Tinker Lindsay

 

Relationship expert Gay Hendricks and his wife (Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks) have written relationship bestsellers such as Conscious Loving and The Conscious Heart. When Gay Hendricks decided to turn to the mystery/thriller genre, he partnered with Hollywood screenwriter Tinker Lindsay for 2012's The First Rule Of Ten, which introduced a young Tibetan-Buddhist private detective in Los Angeles named Tenzing Norbu (he goes by the nickname "Ten"). This was also the first fiction title for Hay House, better known as a publisher of self-help, transformation and spirituality books. The second book in the Tenzing Norbu Mystery series, The Second Rule of Ten, was recently released.


In The Second Rule of Ten, Norbu investigates the unexplained death of his former client Hollywood mogul Marv Rudolph and searches for the sister, lost during World War II, of wizened Los Angeles philanthropist Julius Rosen. With two cases and an unforeseen family crisis that sends him back to Tibet, Ten finds himself on the outs with his best buddy and former partner, Bill, who is heading the official police investigation into Marv’s death. Cases and crises start to collide. When Ten mistakenly ignores his second rule, he becomes entangled in an unfortunate association with a Los Angeles drug cartel. As he fights to save those he loves, and himself, from the deadly gang, he also comes face to face with his own personal demons. Working through his anger at Bill, doubts about his latest lady love, and a challenging relationship with his father, Ten learns to see the world in a new light—and realizes that in every situation the truth is sometimes buried beneath illusion.

Both Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research):

 

Gay Hendricks

Research
is actually one of my favorite parts of writing the Tenzing Norbu
mysteries. Ever since I was a youngster I've been fascinated by Tibet,
eastern religion and other themes that play out in the books. Part of
the excitement of researching the books comes when I discover something
in an ancient Buddhist text that we can use or play off of in the
mysteries. Tinker recently uncovered a spectacular nugget in an ancient
text that we plan to use in the books, so I know she enjoys that aspect,
too.

Another part
of research that I find absolutely fascinating is having real-life
conversations with experts in unusual fields. For example, the amazingly
knowledgeable guys at the Far West gun shop in Santa Barbara always are
willing to take time to answer my most obscure gun-related questions.
Writing these mysteries has brought me into contact with a remarkable
range of interesting humans, from real-life Tibetan lamas to crime scene
techs to undercover border agents. 

I've lived
long enough now remember how difficult research used to be in those
pre-computer years. All of us should bow at least once a day in the
direction of Silicon Valley to give massive credit to the folks at
Google, Yahoo and other search sites for making so much information easy
to get to. I worked as a research psychologist at Stanford in the early
1970s, long before the computer age got underway. I remember sometimes
having to wait weeks, even months to get scientific journals and
essential books I needed shuttled from some distant university library.
Now, it only takes .3 seconds to find a lot of the things I need. 

Tinker Lindsay

My
mother bred bloodhounds. At any given time at our house, there would be
several bighearted hounds snuffling the edges of their outdoor
dog-runs, and at least one litter of pups in the basement, their tiny
wrinkles tightly packed around their miraculous snouts. The bloodhound’s
sense of smell is so finely tuned that its scent-identifications are
admissible as proof in a court of law, and I learned of their amazing
sniffing talent firsthand. On weekends, my family would pack up the
hounds in our Pontiac station wagon and drive to tracking meets. Once
there, I would provide a “scent” – sometimes an old sock, sometimes a
scrap of T-shirt – and off I would scamper, laying trails with my
sneakers across grassy meadows and groves until I found the perfect tree
to crouch behind. Soon the deep baying of hounds, noses lowered, on the
scent, filled the air, until one joyous scout, tongue lolling, ears
flapping, would find me. Placing giant paws on my chest, he’d
tongue-swipe my cheeks as I dug out the little packet of raw liver that
served as his reward.

So I learned
early the importance, not to mention joy, of following a scent to its
source. For me, every story idea holds within it many such old socks and
T-shirt scraps, begging to be tracked down. Sometimes they take the
form of a date in time or a particular location; sometimes a memory of
an article I once read, a story someone once told me, or an actual
experience from my own past; sometimes, it’s just a flicker of intuition
– “I wonder if it’s possible to…” or “It seems to me that there should
be a person that…” Then the hunt begins.

For The Second Rule of Ten, the
second in our detective mystery series about Tenzing Norbu, an
ex-Tibetan monk turned P.I. in Los Angeles, my tracking led me, in no
particular order, to: a what’s-wrong-with-this-picture visit to an
underground techno-rave at a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles; a series
of interviews about celebrity deaths with the media coordinator at the
L.A. County Coroner’s office; a daylong looping drive-by of one of Brad
Pitt’s homes, courtesy of a weary but willing paparazzo; a steep hike
into the cliffs of Malibu; and on and on it goes. For me, doing research
has the heady and delicious feel of those first days of falling in
love. I can’t get enough of my lover-story, or learn enough about every
detail of its world. The hard work of discernment and culling comes
after, but at first, everything is charged with my ardor for knowing
all.

What has been
most fascinating to me about working on this current detective series is
the ways in which my co-author, Gay Hendricks, and I not only share and
amplify each other’s research, but in some cases experience the
collaboration actually affecting the story at a deep, almost psychic
level of consciousness. On more than one occasion, I have followed up on
a “plot-trail” introduced by Gay, and found a stunningly rich vein of
truths and possibilities where we thought we had only one. His ability
to key into rich veins of reality, without having necessarily “known”
them on the level of fact, is thrilling to me, and unusual, to say the
least. This is especially helpful, given that our protagonist is himself
an intuitive investigator trying to live mindfully, and consciously, as
he solves crimes. (It also helps that Gay Hendricks seems to dwell in
the land of conscious-living pretty much 24-7!)

Which brings
me to my final thought on research. I believe that, like the brain, the
act of research ideally includes two hemispheres – left and right,
intellectual and intuitive, conscious and unconscious, material and
spiritual – you get the picture. Facts matter, but feelings matter at
least as much, if not more. When an event or choice starts to “feel”
true to me, and is also drawn from factual truth, when both hemispheres
are working in concert, real story-telling magic happens. Then my
writer-heart starts to bay with joy, for I know the little bag of liver
treats is soon to be mine.

 

The Second Rule of Ten and its predecessor, The First Rule of Ten, are both available via the Hay House website, as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online and indie bookstores. You can also follow Gay Hendricks on Twitter and Tinker Lindsay via her website.