B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 23

Farewell to a Fine Crime Fiction Publication

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I just learned this morning of the closing of Mystery Magazine magazine (formerly known as Mystery Weekly). As their website notes:

 

Due to the subscription challenges we've faced following the closure of Kindle Newsstand, Mystery Magazine will cease publication with September 2024 being our final issue.



Since 2015, Mystery Magazine has published over one hundred issues, featuring nearly 800 original stories by over 700 authors. All issues are available in print and Kindle formats on Amazon and have never appeared online. Issue bundles are available through Amazon that serve as a veritable "who's who" of the mystery writing world, including both established and emerging authors.



It has been a privilege and an honor to share our love of short mystery stories over the years!



Kerry & Chuck

 

I was fortunate and honored to have three of my own short stories published in the magazine, and I join other authors of the genre both in mourning and in appreciation of all the work Kerry and Chuck have done through the years. Print magazines are a dying breed, it seems, and Amazon's decision to shut down Kindle Newsstand has led to the shuttering of several other publications in the past year or two. This also serves as a reminder: if you love crime fiction, consider subscribing to these magazines! It will help them, and you'll also benefit from the hours of reading pleasure they provide.

 

          

Media Murder for Monday

[image error]It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Stephen King’s The Running Man recently got the green light at Paramount Pictures and will start production in November. Set in a dystopian, 2025 America, the story centers on Ben Richards (Glen Powell), a desperate man who participates in violent reality show, "The Running Man," in order to win enough money to treat his gravely ill daughter. The show follows Richards being chased by numerous hunters sent to kill him. King first published the novel under his pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982, and five years later, it was adapted into a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Paul Michael Glaser. According to an insider with knowledge of the project, the new movie is "a more faithful adaptation" of King’s novel.

Liberty Hobbs, an actor who has appeared in The Syndicate and Grey’s Anatomy, has set up a production outfit and is planning an adaptation of J. A. Baker’s thriller novel, The Perfect Parents. The book depicts a seemingly perfect British family hiding a dark secret:  Jackson Hemsworth is an abusive and controlling patriarch, who dies in a joint suicide pact with his wife Lydia; but as the Hemsworth children return to their family home after their parents’ deaths, they must try to make sense of their last act and unravel the grim history of their home, Armett House.

Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel's crime thriller, The Order, based on the 1989 non-fiction book, The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival with a nine-minute ovation. The Order charts how a series of bank robberies and car heists frightened communities in the Pacific Northwest during the 1980s. It centers around a lone FBI agent (Jude Law) who believes the crimes were not the work of financially motivated criminals, but rather a group of dangerous domestic terrorists, namely the white supremacist gang known as "The Order" and its leader (Nicholas Hoult).

Leo Woodall (One Day) and Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) have signed on to star in Tuner, a new crime thriller directed by Oscar winner Daniel Roher (Navalny). Written by Roher and Robert Ramsey, the film tells the story of a talented piano tuner whose life is turned upside down when he discovers his meticulous skills for tuning pianos can equally be applied to cracking safes.

Grammy Award winner Bad Bunny is the latest to join Austin Butler in Darren Aronofsky’s crime thriller, Caught Stealing, for Sony Pictures. Aronofsky will direct the feature, which is based on the book by Charlie Huston, who is also writing the script. The film follows Hank Thompson (Butler), a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of '90s New York City. The cast also includes Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, and Will Brill.

Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) has joined the cast of Netflix’s highly anticipated Peaky Blinders feature, joining star Cillian Murphy in the Tom Harper-directed film. Netflix greenlighted the project in June with Oppenheimer Oscar winner Murphy returning to the iconic role of Tommy Shelby, leader of the eponymous Birmingham gangster family, a role he played on the BBC TV series from 2013-2022.

A silent Sherlock Holmes film starring Arthur Conan Doyle’s favorite impersonator of the famous sleuth, Eille Norwood, is to be screened for the first time since its release in 1922, following its extensive restoration by the BFI national archive. Titled The Golden Pince-Nez, it is a classic case of Holmes detection, based on a Conan Doyle short story that was first published in The Strand Magazine in 1904. The Golden Pince-Nez was among 45 episodes – each lasting up to 30 minutes – that Norwood made between 1921 and 1923, as well as two features. The restoration world premiere will be held on October 16 as part of the BFI London film festival.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

A TV series based on Kimberly Belle’s thriller novel, The Paris Widow, is in the works. The adaptation kicks off a first-look deal signed between producers Brittany A. Little and Larissa Bell and Little Bell Productions and Universal Television. The Paris Widow novel centers on a dream vacation that turns deadly when secrets from the past catch up to a married couple in Paris.

Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick franchise, has acquired rights to bestselling author Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger book series through his 87Eleven Entertainment production company to develop for television. The Joe Ledger thriller series consist of 10 novels and various offshoots. Its protagonist, Joe Ledger, is a psychologically fractured Baltimore detective secretly recruited by the government to lead a new task force called the Department of Military Sciences to face off against terrorists using bleeding-edge science weapons. Along with his combat dog Ghost, his team of tier-one special operators, and the resources of the mysterious Mr. Church, Joe faces off against the threats no other team is able to stop.

In a very competitive situation, Hulu has landed the drama, The Spot, starring and executive produced by Oscar and Emmy winner Kate Winslet (Mare of Eastown, Mildred Pierce), with a straight-to-series order. The project comes from Ed Solomon (Full Circle, Men in Black), A24, and 20th Television. Created and written by Solomon, who will serve as showrunner, The Spot follows a successful surgeon (Winslet) and her school teacher husband who suspect she might be responsible for a child’s hit-and-run death. While looking into the matter, dark secrets are revealed that will test their relationship as they confront the possibility of hidden guilt and betrayal.

Eight years after the end of The Good Wife, Robert King and Michelle King are developing another legal drama for CBS. Tentatively titled Cupertino, after the city in California known as the headquarters of Apple, the project is described as a "David vs. Goliath legal show set in Silicon Valley."

Acorn TV and Channel 5 have renewed The Madame Blanc Mysteries for a fourth season. The seven-part series, starring and created by Sally Lindsay, will kick off with a Christmas special at the end of the year. Lindsay returns as Jean White, an antiques expert who moved to France after suspicions arose of how her husband died, and uses her skills to become a PI aiding the local police and simultaneously bonding with the town's popular taxi driver. Steve Edge (Murder They Hope) also stars as Jean's sidekick and potential love interest.

Netflix has canceled Dead Boy Detectives after one season. Based on the comics of the same name by Neil Gaiman and part of The Sandman Universe, Dead Boy Detectives followed Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), "the brains" and "the brawn" behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends and ghosts…who solve mysteries.

Deadline posted a handy list of premiere dates for new and returning series on broadcast, cable, and streaming in U.S. markets, and Paul Hirons via The Killing Times had a preview of crime dramas coming up in the UK.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Meet the Thriller Writer chatted with Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado about their new collaboration, Fatal Intrusion, which pits a Homeland Security investigator and her former quarry against a ruthless ring of serial killers making their way through California.

On Speaking of Mysteries, renowned Sherlockian, Les Klinger, discussed Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell, with author Nicholas Meyer, whose latest novel features an "undiscovered manuscript" by Dr. John H. Watson. The novel follows Sherlock Holmes and Watson as they cross the Atlantic at the height of World War I in pursuit of a mysterious coded telegram.

The Red Hot Chili Writers welcomed mystery writer, Tom Mead, to talk about his latest book, Cabaret Macabre, and his fascination with locked room mysteries; and they also discussed diamond heists and the recently discovered 2,492-carat diamond in Botswana, the world's second largest diamond.

On Crime Time FM, Antonia Senior, a writer, critic, journalist, and podcaster, chatted with Paul Burke about Spymasters, the book and the podcast; the Cambridge Five; and historical fiction.

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer, Catherine Rymsha, about her debut crime novel, Stunning.

The Cops and Writers podcast welcomed Steve Stratton, award-winning author, Green Beret, and former Secret Service Agent, to discuss his newest book, Shadow Sanction.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up, featuring the first chapter of Going Home by Sharon Marchisello as read by actor Amelia Ryan.

The Pick Your Poison podcast covered an over-the-counter drug that is lethal to pets; an important toxicology tool that was plotted on a cocktail napkin; and the medical use of a barbiturate coma.

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Anthony Acclaim

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The winners of the 2024 Anthony Awards were revealed at the annual Bouchercon Conference held this year in Nashville. Anthony nominations are submitted online by people who registered for the previous year’s Bouchercon and/or are registered for the current year’s Bouchercon. Books are then voted on by the membership. Congrats to all this year's winners and finalists!

 

Best Hardcover Novel: All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

Also nominated:

Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
Time's Undoing by Cheryl A. Head
Face of Greed by James L'Etoile
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

Best Paperback Novel: Hide by Tracy Clark

Also nominated:

No Home for Killers by E.A. Aymar
Because the Night by James D.F. Hannah
The Taken Ones by Jess Lourey
Magic City Blues by Bobby Matthews
Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

Best First Novel: Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon

Also nominated:

The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry
Play the Fool by Lina Chern
Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy
City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita

Best Children's/YA: Enola Holmes and the Mark of the Mongoose by Nancy Springer

Also nominated:

Finney and the Secret Tunnel by Jamie Lane Barber
Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity by Elizabeth C. Bunch
The Sasquatch of Hawthorne Elementary by K.B. Jackson
The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle by Taryn Souders

Best Critical/Nonfiction: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan

Also nominated:

Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction by Anjili Babbar
Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak
Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Robert Morgan
Agatha Christie, She Watched: One Woman's Plot to Watch 201 Christie Adaptations Without Murdering the Director, Screenwriter, Cast, or Her Husband by Teresa Peschel
Love Me Fierce In Danger - The Life of James Ellroy by Steven Powell

Best Anthology/Collection: Killin’ Time in San Diego: Bouchercon Anthology 2023, edited by Holly West

Also nominated:

School of Hard Knox, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor
Here in the Dark: Stories by Meagan Luca
Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter
The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions by Art Taylor

Best Short Story: "Ticket to Ride" by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski

Also nominated:

"Real Courage" by Barb Goffman
"Knock" by James D.F. Hannah
"Green and California Bound" by Curtis Ippolito
"Tell Me No Lies" by Holly West

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Saluting the Sleuths

This year's winners of the 2024 Shamus Awards were handed out by the Private Eye Writers of America at the Bouchercon Opening Ceremonies in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday. (Note: PWA apparently decided not to award in the Best Debut Novel category this year.) Congrats to all the winners and finalists!

BEST PI HARDCOVER:  Heart of the Nile by Will Thomas (Minotaur Books)

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Also nominated:

Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen (Minotaur Books)

Go Find Daddy by Steve Goble (Oceanview Publishing)

The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

The Bell in the Fog by Lev AC Rosen (Forge Books)

BEST ORIGINAL PI PAPERBACK:  Liar’s Dice by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best Books)

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Also nominated:

Drums Guns ’N’ Money by Jonathan J. Brown (Down & Out Books)

Gillespie Field Groove by Corey Lynn Fayman (Konstellation Press)

The Truth We Hide by Liz Milliron (Level Best Books)

Bring the Night by J.R. Sanders (Level Best Books) 

BEST PI SHORT STORY: “Errand for a Neighbor” by Bill Bassman (January/February 2023, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

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Also nominated:

“Beyond Belief” by Libby Cudmore (May 2023, Tough)

“The Soiled Dove of Shallow Hollow” by Sean McCluskey (January/February 2023, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

“Imperfect Data” by Bob Tippee (January/February 2023, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

“Making the Bad Guys Nervous” by Joseph S. Walker (2023, Black Cat Weekly #102)

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Mystery Melange

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Book art by Emma Taylor

Gene Christie has been named the winner of the 2024 Munsey Award. The award was presented at PulpFest in Pittsburgh on August 3 and voted on by a committee made up of all the living Lamont, Munsey, and Rusty Award recipients. Named for Frank A. Munsey, publisher of the first pulp magazine, the award recognizes someone who has contributed to the betterment of the pulp community through disseminating knowledge, publishing, or other efforts to preserve and to foster interest pulp magazines. A researcher of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and adventure fiction for over thirty years, Gene Christie has extensively studied and indexed the magazines of the pulp era.

Some sad news this week, via Janet Rudolph at Mystery Fanfare: Victoria (Vicki) Thompson passed away last week due to complications of Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Thompson began her writing career as the author of 20 historical romance novels, then turned her hand to writing the bestselling historical Gaslight Mysteries series, which has been nominated for six Agatha Awards, an Edgar Award, and a Bruce Alexander Award. The Gaslight Mysteries follow midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy as they solve murder mysteries in turn-of-the-century New York City. Thompson also wrote the historical Counterfeit Lady series, which was nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award by Mystery Writers of America.

Via Elizabeth Foxwell's Bunburyist blog comes an unusual but interesting event; the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States will hold a Victorian gaslighting roundtable on Zoom on Thursday, September 5, at 11 a.m. Pacific time (2 p.m. Eastern time). Presenters will discuss various examples of gaslighting in Victorian literature and culture. The term "gaslighting" refers to a form of psychological manipulation stemming from Patrick Hamilton's play Angel Street, aka Gaslight, adapted as a 1944 film. Advance registration for the Zoom event is required.

Dean Street Press noted on Twitter that in December, it will be re-printing the mystery novels of British author Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd, better known under her pen name of Sara Woods (1922-1985). During World War II, Woods worked in a bank and as a solicitor's clerk in London, where she gained much of the information later used in her stories. Her main series of some forty-eight novels featured barrister Antony Maitland, but she also penned three other shorter series under various pen name. In 1957, she and her husband emigratedd to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Woods was also instrumental in forming Crime Writers of Canada, serving on its first executive committee.

During a recent trip to Scotland, Martin Edwards which crop up in Dorothy L. Sayers' 1931 novel, The Five Red Herrings, which are set in Galloway, a place I've always wanted to visit.

In the Q&A roundup, cozy mystery author Janice Hallett spoke with The Telegraph about how women dominate crime fiction "because we fear for our lives," as well as the life-saving potential of her novels, her love of Richard Osman, and why she won’t cancel Enid Blyton; and Steve Hamilton chatted with Writer's Digest about the process of continuing a series with his new thriller novel, An Honorable Assassin.

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Ngaio Marsh Award Winners

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The winners of the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards were announced last night as part of a special event held in association with the WORD Christchurch Festival in the hometown of Dame Ngaio. The awards were launched in 2010 by lawyer-turned-journalist Craig Sisterson, who wanted a way for excellence in New Zealand crime, mystery, and thriller writing to be celebrated, choosing to name the award after Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the four Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Congrats to all the winners and finalists!

 

Best Novel: Ritual of Fire, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)

Also nominated:



Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)

The Caretaker, by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins)

Pet, by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson (Black & White)

Going Zero, by Anthony McCarten (Macmillan)

Expectant. by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

Best First Novel:  Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)

Also nominated:

El Flamingo, by Nick Davies (YBK)

Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson (Black & White)

A Better Class of Criminal. by Cristian Kelly (Cristian Kelly)

Mama Suzuki: Private Eye, by Simon Rowe (Penguin)

Best Kids/YA:  Miracle, by Jennifer Lane (Cloud Ink Press)

Also nominated:



Caged, by Susan Brocker (Scholastic)

Katipo Joe: Wolf’s Lair, by Brian Falkner (Scholastic)

Nikolai’s Quest, by Diane Robinson (Rose & Fern)

Nor’east Swell, by Aaron Topp (One Tree House)

         Related StoriesMarsh MagicThe Kiss of Death's DelightsTheakston's Peculier Delights 

Media Murder for Monday

[image error]It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Blake Lively and Diablo Cody have teamed up for Lady Killer, a feature adaptation of a graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics. Lively will star and produce while Cody will pen the script. The comic was written by Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich, with Jones, who made a splash writing and drawing Catwoman for DC, supplying the art. Jones took inspiration from 1950s advertisements to craft a story set in that period, which focused on a picture-perfect housewife…who just happens to lead a secret life as a deadly killer for hire. The comic first hit shelves in 2015 and even won an Eisner Award for best limited series in 2016.

Universal Pictures has picked up the rights to adapt Reikon’s video game, Ruiner, with Wes Ball attached to direct Michael Arlen Ross’s screenplay. The videogame is an action shooter set in the year 2091 in the cyber metropolis Rengkok. The game follows a wired psychopath who fights against a corrupt system to uncover the truth and retrieve his kidnapped brother. Under the guidance of a mysterious hacker, he battles through a world of brutal violence and cutting-edge technology, inching closer to the dark secrets hidden within the city’s neon-lit streets.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

Anya Taylor-Joy (Furiosa: A Mad Max Story) is returning to screens on Netflix, playing the lead role of the murderous Grace Bernard in an adaptation of Bella Mackie’s novel, How to Kill Your Family. The novel follows the story of Grace, the illegitimate daughter of a millionaire who abandoned her and her mother, ignoring her mother’s pleas for help as she was close to dying. Grace vows revenge and decides to kill every member of her father’s family, leaving him for last.

In a competitive situation, Hulu has landed the hostage-recovery drama series, The Envoy, from The Rookie creator, Alexi Hawley, and Lionsgate Television. The Envoy is inspired by journalist and producer Adam Ciralsky’s June 2024 Vanity Fair story about Roger Carstens and his team at the State Department who have brought home 70 American hostages during the past four years.

Gina Rodriguez has come aboard Season 3 of ABC’s Will Trent, based on the novels of Karin Slaughter. The Jane the Virgin star will enter the Ramon Rodríguez-led series as assistant district attorney Marion Alba, who is new to Atlanta. She is described as "charismatic" and "confident," though after her first encounter with Will (Rodriguez) falls flat, the pair is surprised to learn that they must work together to investigate a crime in the world of Atlanta gangs.

Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) and Freddie Highmore (The Good Doctor) are set to star in The Assassin, a thriller series penned by Harry and Jack Williams for Prime Video. Secluded on a remote Greek island, retired assassin Julie (Hawes) has a somewhat thorny reunion with her estranged son, Edward (Highmore), visiting from England. Armed with questions around new information about his paternity, Edward battles to find the right time to speak to his frustratingly distant mother. But when the moment finally presents itself, things take a deadly turn as Julie’s dangerous past catches up with her and they are forced to flee the island and go on the run together in a fight for survival.

Netflix has set Thursday, October 17 for the Season 3 premiere of The Lincoln Lawyer. The new season sees the return of series stars Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Becki Newton, Jazz Raycole, Angus Sampson, and Yaya DaCosta, all reprising their roles. The 10-episode third season is based on the fifth book in Michael Connelly’s "Lincoln Lawyer" series, The Gods of Guilt, and will include a flashback sequence that gives us some insight into how Mickey Haller became Mickey Haller — not just the brilliant criminal defense lawyer but the husband, the father, and the man that he would come to be.

Peacock has given a straight-to-series order to the South Florida-set, female-led crime thriller, M.I.A., from Ozark co-creator Bill Dubuque. In M.I.A., running drugs is a family affair for Etta Tiger Jonze. But when her family is slaughtered before her eyes, Etta sets out to exact justice on those responsible – avenging her blood family. At the same time, she builds her chosen family, igniting her series journey from powerless orphan to South Florida’s most powerful criminal Queenpin.

Emmy Award winner Matthew Rhys (The Americans, Perry Mason) has joined the cast of Netflix's The Beast in Me, the mystery thriller project, created, written, and executive-produced by Gabe Rotter. He joins previously announced Claire Danes. Following the tragic death of her young son, acclaimed author Aggie Wiggs (Danes) has receded from public life, unable to write, a ghost of her former self. But she finds an unlikely subject for a new book when the house next door is bought by Nile Jarvis (Rhys), a famed and formidable real estate mogul who was once the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance. At once horrified and fascinated by this man, Aggie finds herself compulsively hunting for the truth – chasing his demons while fleeing her own – in a game of cat and mouse that might turn deadly.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Speaking of Mysteries chatted with Karin Slaughter about This Is Why We Lied, the 12th Will Trent mystery.

Ava Glass spoke with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about her new thriller, The Trap; Emma Makepeace; meeting her first spy; and the FBI novel to come.

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Anna Willett, author of several thriller novels, including five books in The Cold Case Mystery series.

On the latest Spybrary Spy Podcast, acclaimed spy authors Joseph Kanon and Paul Vidich sat down for an intriguing discussion that delved deep into the world of writing spy fiction.

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: A Private Inquiry

Jessica Mann (1937-2018) originally earned degrees in archaeology, Anglo-Saxon, and law and worked in various fields in the UK, including as a Planning Inspector. She later turned her hand to writing crime fiction, and her novel, A Charitable End, was published in 1971, with some 20 novels published up to 2013. She was also a well-known and respected radio and television broadcast, particularly her radio program, "Women of Mystery," and authored a treatise on women crime writers entitled Deadlier than the Male.



She wrote reviews for The Literary Review, and once published an essay that she would no longer review certain types of crime fiction due to the misogyny and violence against women, saying, "Authors must be free to write and publishers to publish. But critics must be free to say they have had enough. So however many more outpourings of sadistic misogyny are crammed on to the bandwagon, no more of them will be reviewed by me."



A Private Inquiry dates from 1996 and was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger that year. It's set mainly in St. Ives, in Cornwall, near where Mann herself lived for several years. At its heart, the novel is a tale of psychological suspense involving four women whose disparate lives intersect in a twisted scheme of blackmail, missing persons, double identity, a perverse game of victim and oppressor, a child's death, and ultimately, murder.



Mann deftly weaves complex psychological characterizations into the mix, such as the following comment from one of the main characters, a child psychologist:

Men showed themselves as they really were in bed. No doubt women did too, but Fidelis had been strictly heterosexual. Children, however, she could understand while keeping a proper and professional distance from them, observing and interacting across a desk, on the playing mat, at the zoo. But to know an adult, she had always needed intimacy. Fidelis's sexual life was over now and she was afraid she might have become a bad judge of character as a result.

The adroitly twisted plot provides plenty of social commentary and an intriguing look into how the losses and sins of youth shape the dysfunctional adults we become.

          

Mystery Melange

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Book art by Andrea Singer

The Joffe Books Prize is looking for a talented new crime fiction writer of color. The prize invites submissions from unagented UK residents and British citizens (including those living abroad) from Black, Asian, Indigenous and minority ethnic backgrounds writing in crime fiction genres such as psychological thrillers, cozy mysteries, police procedurals, twisty chillers, suspense mysteries, and domestic noirs. The winner will be offered a prize package, one of the UK’s largest literary prizes, consisting of a two-book publishing deal with Joffe books, a £1,000 cash prize, and a £25,000 audiobook offer from Audible for the first book. The submission period ends at midnight on September 30, 2024. This year the Joffe Books Prize judging panel includes A.A. Chaudhuri, bestselling author of She’s Mine, and literary agent Gyamfia Osei from Andrew Nurnberg Associates. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Mystery Writers of America University 2024's latest online class via Zoom is coming up on Wednesday, September 4th at 8pm EDT. Daniel Stashower, a three-time Edgar-winner whose books include Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle and The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, will talk about setting. Powerful settings have always been essential to the mystery story, from Poe’s "rank sedges, vacant eye-like windows and white trunks of decayed trees" to I.S. Berry’s "noncontiguous streets, noises without origin or purpose, and angles that didn’t quite fit together." MWA-U classes are free to current MWA members and offered to nonmembers for $20 a session. For more information and to register, follow this link.

Thanks to Elizabeth Foxwell, over at her Bunburyist blog, I learned about a series of maps published by Herb Lester Associates, essentially insider's guides to the cities certain crime authors knew (and used in their stories), which can still be visited today. The latest, due out in September, is Maigret's Paris, a map of locations from the Chief Inspector Maigret oeuvre of Georges Simenon. Previous releases include The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles; Agatha Christie's England; John le Carré's London; and The World of Patricia Highsmith.





In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton interviewed Lindy S. Hudis about her new crime thriller, Hollywood Underworld, and spoke with Tracey Lampley about her new mystery, All Money Ain’t Good Money; Luke Deckard talked with CrimeReads about his latest novel, Bad Blood, which is set in 1922 and follows Logan Bishop, an American PI in London, looking for a missing woman who is connected to his father’s murder; and William Kent Krueger spoke with CrimeTime about the twentieth novel in his Cork O’Connor mystery series, Spirit Crossing, and the truths that inspired it.

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Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES [image error]

New Regency and Maximum Effort are teaming on a feature adaptation of Peter Swanson's bestselling novel, Eight Perfect Murders, attaching Harry Bradbeer to direct. Eight Perfect Murders follows Malcolm Kershaw, a bookshop owner who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation when a clever killer begins to use his list of fiction’s most ingenious murders as inspiration. And the FBI agent isn’t the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. The killer is out there, watching his every move—a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal’s personal history, especially the secrets he’s never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife.

Matt Smith (House of the Dragon) and Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) are the newest additions to the cast of Caught Stealing, Darren Aronofsky’s new crime thriller for Sony Pictures. Details as to the roles they’re playing are currently unknown. Oscar nominee Austin Butler leads the ensemble, with Blink Twice director Zoë Kravitz and Academy Award winner Regina King also on board. Based on the books by Charlie Huston, who adapted the screenplay, Caught Stealing follows Hank Thompson (Butler), a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of 1990s New York City.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

In a recent interview, Titus Welliver, star and executive producer of Bosch: Legacy, updated the release date for season 3 as being sometime in 2025. A direct sequel to the police procedural, Bosch, Welliver reprises the role of Harry Bosch, who starts the show retired from the LAPD and working as a private detective. In the recent Bosch: Legacy season 2 finale, the relationship between Harry and his daughter gets complicated by a potential revelation.  

Lost alum Matthew Fox has signed on to star in The Assassin, a new drama series from writer-producer John Glenn (SEAL Team) in development at Max. Written by Glenn and based on the book series by British novelist Tom Wood, the project centers on a merciless assassin known only as Victor (Fox), who after being betrayed by an anonymous client, finds himself hunted across the globe by multiple enemies, including relentless CIA operatives and a contract killer equally as deadly. To stay alive, Victor must uncover the identity of his betrayer while grappling with a buried spark of humanity that begins to resurface within him and might just be the greatest threat to his survival.

John Slattery (Mad Men) has joined the cast of USA Network's drama series, The Rainmaker, based on the bestselling John Grisham novel and its film adaptation of the same name. In a series regular role, Slattery will portray one of Grisham’s most iconic characters, Leo F. Drummond, a legendary lion of the courtroom and senior partner at Tinley Britt, the powerful firm that Rudy Baylor is up against. Jon Voight played Leo in the Francis Ford Coppola film released in 1997. From writer and executive producer Michael Seitzman, the new series follows Baylor who, fresh out of law school, goes head-to-head with courtroom lion Drummond and his law school girlfriend. Baylor, along with his boss and her disheveled paralegal, uncover two connected conspiracies surrounding the mysterious death of their client’s son.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Wrong Place, Write Crime podcast with host, Frank Zafiro, featured micro-interviews with different authors attending the Public Safety Writers Association conference.

On Crime Time FM, Michael Robotham chatted with Craig Sisterson about his new thriller, Storm Child; Evie Cormac; writing away from home; the secret award; and German TV adaptations.

The latest episode of The Red Hot Chili Writers featured an interview with Rachel Abbott about her latest novel, The Last Time I Saw Him; restoring Italian monasteries; and poodle-clipping at the Olympics.

The Big Ideas podcast looked at why forensic science is nothing like CSI, as three forensic pathologists spilled the beans on what it's really like to work in the science of death.

The Pick Your Poison podcast looked at a toxicology problem the WHO calls a neglected tropical disease killing more than 100,000 people per year.

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