B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 233

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

George Clooney and Grant Heslov's production company Smoke House is teaming up with Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio on a crime thriller that takes place in the world of New York's crime syndicates. Paul Greengrass (Bourne movies, United 93) is in talks to direct the untitled project, while Clooney is attached to star.

Cross Creek Pictures optioned feature film rights to Lori Roy's Edgar Award-winning mystery novel Bent Road. The project, to be adapted by Mark Mallouk, centers on a man who left home in Kansas as a boy after the mysterious death of an older sister, then returns with his family 20 years later when another little girl goes missing. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Chris Meloni (Law & Order: SVU) has been added to the cast of White Bird in a Blizzard, from writer-director Gregg Araki. The film follows a young woman (Shailene Woodley) whose life is thrown into absolute chaos when her mother vanishes.

Screenwriter Todd Phillips (of the Hangover movies) is in talks to adapt Linwood Barclay's novel Trust Your Eyes, a hriller about a schizophrenic savant who witnesses a murder, but is not trusted by the authorities as a credible source.

TV

Orange is the New Black, the Netflix original drama based on based on a book by Piper Kerman, has added Taryn Manning (Hawaii 5-0, Sons of Anarchy) to the cast. The show follows Taylor Schilling as Piper, a Brooklyn woman who finds herself behind bars in a federal penitentiary as a result of her former college relationship with a drug runner, played by Laura Prepon. Manning will play another of the inmates, Tiffany Doggett, a born-again Christian with major anger problems who doesn't get along well with the other inmates.

Author Dennis Lehane is being added to the fourth season of HBO's Boardwalk Empire as a writer and creative consultant, joining fellow author George Pelecanos, who will executive produce the show. The duo have worked together before on HBO's The Wire.

ABC Family is developing a television series adaptation of Barry Lyga's young adult novel I Hunt Killers. The book follows the likeable teenage daughter of an imprisoned notorious serial killer, who herself becomes a suspect after a string of copy-cat murders.(Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Details are coming out about the characters (not yet the actors) for the spin-off of the spinoff, i.e., a new series to be launched on NCIS: Los Angeles.

AMC ordered a pilot for a scripted drama based on Alexander Rose's book, Washington's Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring.

AMC canceled the series The Killing, despite a passionate outcry from its devoted fans, and months later news came that Netflix was trying to work out a deal to revive the show for a third season. Now it appears that AMC may be changing its mind and *could* bring the show back to the network. Still, it's mostly rumors at this point.

MTV is developing the scifi-mystery drama Blackwood, based on a YA book of the same title by Gwenda Bond. DC Comic book and television writer Peter Calloway (Brothers & Sisters) will write the adaptation of the novel, which has a tie-in between mysterious contemporary disappearances on Roanoke Island and similar disappearances in the 16th-century "Lost Colony."

FX has scheduled the premiere date of season four of Justified, to begin on January 8th. (Hat tip to Crimespree.)

Sienna Guillory is joining the cast for the third series of BBC's procedural Luther, playing Luther's love interest.

Fox has cancelled its freshman drama, The Mob Doctor, scheduling its last episode for late December.

BBC America has a new trailer for its historical crime drama Ripper Street. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Think you're a rapid fan of the former, long-running Law & Order series? Well, one watcher helped put together a list and graphs of how all 456 episodes of Law & Order ended.

PODCASTS/VIDEO

NPR talks with Mathew Prichard, the grandson of Agatha Christie about his new book, The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery. In it, Prichard edited and published the letters the famous author wrote while on on a trip around the world in 1922

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - I Start Counting

British writer Audrey Erskine Lindop (1920–1986) joined a repertory company after leaving school, and by the age of 18 was a film scriptwriter. She went on to pen several additional movie scripts and married the British playwright Dudley Leslie. Lindop wrote the first of her eight suspense novels in 1953, with three of them later made into movies, including I Start Counting (featuring a teenage Jenny Agutter in her first big-screen starring role). The novel itself went on to win the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière - International Category in 1967.

I Start Counting centers on 14-year-old orphan Wynne Kinch, growing up in during the prosperous but tumultous 1960s Britain. Her working-class family—which includes her aunt by marriage who she calls Mum, her granddad, and her cousin—had been evicted from their Collins Wood home to make for a new development. But even after moving to a brand-spanking new high-rise council flat, Wynne sneaks back to the old beloved homestead, and it is there that a mystery begins to unfold.

Wynne has an intense crush on her 32-year-old stepbrother, George, and finds he's been in the old Collins Wood place recently and had lied about what he was doing. When she further spies on him, she sees scratches on his back and finds a bloody sweater he threw in the trash, making her suspect George is the serial strangler of several local teenage girls. Her loyalty to him and her attempts to protect him eventually draw the attention of the police, throw the members of her blended family into turmoil, and ultimately lead to tragedy.

The title I Start Counting refers to Wynne's philosophy of counting to "drown out the thought that was scaring you," yet the novel itself isn't a dark thriller, but rather a coming-of-age tale with warmth, humor, and an entertaining cast of characters that incluces Wynne's boy-crazy pal Corinne, Wynne's doom-laden sister Aunt Rene Tyndall, George's high-strung half-brother Len, Wynne's cousin Helene, and her north-country "Mum." But the story would fall apart if it weren't grounded in the POV of the intelligent, funny, passionate Wynne, who Lindop has painted with a wholly sympathetic brush.

Oh Bookmas Tree, Oh Bookmas Tree

If you're a tried-and-true booklover, then here are a few ideas for a "novel" Christmas tree that uses books in creative, fun ways. Plus, instead of sneezing your way through December over that pine tree, you'll perfume the air with the scent of well-loved book leaves instead. (If you prefer a new-book smell, try this.)

Regular box shelves with creative book stacking.

 

 

 

Gleeson library (San Francisco) staff used 3,000 catalog books to create this tree.

 

 

 

A stack of books, a string of lights, and you're good to go.

 

 

 

Use green books or books with green paper covers and voila! Instant tree.

 

Mystery Melange

 

aMAZEme by Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo



The Publishing Gives Back blog is hosting an auction this week to raise money for the American Red Cross and other Sandy relief charities, with various editors and agents offering up editorial and critique services to the highest bidder. The individual auction offerings will only be up for bids for one week, so hurry and put in your best offer.

Early bird pricing for ThrillerFest VIII (held July 10-13 in New York City) ends midnight on November 30th.  Special guests will include 2013 ThrillerMaster Anne Rice, 2011 ThrillerMaster R.L. Stine, T. Jefferson Parker, Michael Connelly, Michael Palmer, and Steve Berry.

The California Crime Writers Conference early registration is open for writers and would-be authors. Elizabeth George is the keynote speaker and will also lead a workshop on "Finding Your Process." Other workshops will offer information on contracts, writing tips, and the latest crime-fighting techniques, plus agents and editors will also be on hand for manuscript critiques. The conference takes place June 22-23, 2013, in Pasadena.

This Saturday, December 1, is the third annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day in close to 1,100 participating stores in all 50 states, Canada, England and Australia. For more information and an interactive map (that hopefully includes a store near you), check out the event's website.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Marshall Karp, author of the books NYPD Red and Bloodthirsty, who chatted with the Scene of the Crime blog; Chuck Wendig interviewed Chris Baty, author and the founder of NaNoWriMo, who talked about what goes into writing a good character, and more; and Sophie Littlefield was this week's "Five on Friday" guest over at Jen's Book Thoughts.

Congrats to some of the latest crime fiction award winners:




Broken Harbour by Tana French won the 2012 Irish Book Award in the Crime Novel category. (Runners Up: Slaughter's Hound Declan Burke; Vengeance by Benjamin Black; The Istanbul Puzzle by Laurence O’Bryan; Too Close for Comfort by Niamh O’Connor; and Red Ribbons by Louise Phillips);


Åsa Larsson's Till offer åt Molok won the Swedish Crime Academy's 2012 award for Best Swedish Crime Novel and Peter Robinson's Before the Poison won the Academy's Best Foreign Crime Novel prize;


And the Cat Writers' Association awards for mysteries featuring cats went to Carole Nelson Douglas, creator of the Midnight Louie series, who won a CoE for her short story "Butterfly Kiss" as well as her novel Cat in a Topaz Tango, while Shirley Rousseau Murphy, creator of the feline P.I. Joe Grey, won a CoE for her novel Cat Striking Back and the Muse Medallion for Cat Telling Tales.

 

Media Murder for Monday

Due to the Thanksgiving holidays, news from the crime-fiction media world is a bit light this week, but I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend.


MOVIES

Paramount is planning a remake of Young Sherlock Holmes, a series from 1985 that followed teenage versions of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Digital Spy also noted that a script for a third entry in Warner Bros' Robert Downey, Jr./Jude Law film version of Sherlock Holmes is currently in development.

Bryan Cranston is joining the cast of the indie drama Eye of Winter. He'll play a nearly blind crook who takes as hostages the owner of a floundering motel and her daughter, using them to help extract money from a dirty cop.

A trailer for writer-director Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly was released. The film is based on a novel by George V Higgins and features Brad Pitt playing an enforcer character who investigates a heist that occurs during a poker game played by mob bosses.

TV

CSI and CSI: New York are trying a personal take on upoming crossover episodes in February, with Detective Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) traveling to Las Vegas to meet his girlfriend, only to determine she has been kidnapped. Then, later that week, CSI’s D.B. Russell (Ted Danson) will briefly relocate to New York.

Omnimysery News reports that the BBC has several new crime dramas in development, including What Remains, Happy Valley, By Any Means, and Hinterland, a detective series based in the coastal Welsh town of Aberystwyth. The Beeb also renewed George Gently for a seventh season, and BBC Four will air the Italian crime drama Young Mantalbano, based on short stories by crime novelist Andrea Camilleri. 

House star Hugh Laurie is close to a deal to star as the famous pirate Blackbeard in in the NBC series Crossbones.

Law & Order: SVU has signed Jane Kaczmarek to play Suffolk County district attorney Pam James, as a foil for DA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza) when the two clash during a rape trial.

From Eurocrime: Erin Kelly's The Poison Tree has been made into two one-hour episodes, the first of which will be shown on 10 December at 9pm on ITV1.

GAMES

Legacy Games has released an interactive video game titled Return to Cabot Cove, based on the popular Murder, She Wrote television series starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.

Friday's Forgotten Books - Red Christmas

As I'm enjoying celebrating the holiday with family, I'm reminded of the days when the Christmas season semi-officially began the day after Thanksgiving, instead of the three-month-long season we have now. So in honor of the traditions of yesteryear, I'm reposting an FFB post from a few years ago—doing my part to kick off the Christmas season.

Most people know him as creator of the now-classic Yorkshire detective
duo Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe and for his Crime Writers'
Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement. But author
Reginald Hill is also known as Patrick Ruell, publishing eight novels
under that pen name beginning with The Castle of the Demon in
1971. Whereas most of his books, including the Dalziel and Pascoe
series, are police procedurals or P.I. novels, the Patrick Ruell stories
are what Mike Ripley of Shots Ezine calls "slightly surreal and very funny thrillers."

In 1972's Red Christmas, a group of strangers are on a
Christmas Eve trip for a Dickensian weekend at Dingley Dell. They have
seemingly nothing in common: Jules and Suzie Leclerc, a French couple;
Arabella Allen, a 23-year-old English lass; and Stephen Swinburne, a
"young many of great beauty." They're ensconced in the Dingley Dell
manor along with other guests, including a German couple dubbed "Herr
Bear" and "Frau Cow" and an American party-crasher, Robert E. Lee
Sawyer, all under the watchful eye of the hosts, Wardle and Boswell.

But
the festivities soon take a less cheery turn when one of the servants
has an accident near a quarry on the property and is taken to the
hospital. Arabella soon learns that behind the facade of
good-will-toward-men hides conspiracy and intrigue when she learns she's
being spied upon. Things take an even nastier turn when she stumbles
upon the dead body of the servant who was supposedly recuperating in the
hospital. Then the grinning face of yet another corpse is seen buried
beneath the ice in a skating pond just as a blizzard is blowing in — and
their only means of communication with the outside world, a radio, is
sabotaged. As Arabella delves deeper, aided by her growing reliance upon
Boswell, who is at the center of the mystery, she finds herself in the
thick of an international spy ring, with double-cross and murder all
part of the game.

I rather like Robert Barnard's foreword to the
Black Dagger reissue from 1995, where he says "The action is fast and
furious, the characterisation light but deft, the climax thrilling and
satisfying. It is, no doubt about it, a heady brew, such as might have
been served at the original Dingley Dell, and just as the Christmas
season. Take emergency rations and a bottle of your favorite tipple,
retreat to your study and lock out the family, then settle down to a
rollicking good read. With a bit of luck it will last you the whole of
Christmas Day."

The omniscient head-hopping is a bit dizzying at
times, but it serves its purpose of keeping you unsteady and wondering
just who is telling the truth and who is not. It's an anti-Christmas
romp, so to speak, although there's plenty of spiked punch and red and
green in the form of blood and forests and even a Christmas tree used as
a diversion. If you get your fill of overly-sweet desserts and watch It's a Wonderful Life too many times, then Red Christmas might just be the antidote.

CSI: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving-Eve Mystery Melange

"Freshly Found" book sculpture by Nicholas Jones



The Mystery Lovers Kitchen blog has posted several Thanksgiving recipes, in case you're still looking for something to fill out your menu. Check out Potato Bacon Soup with Parmesan Cheese from Daryl Avery; Green Bean Casserole from Peg Cochran; and three spoon-bread recipes from Cleo Coyle.

Looking for some unusual Thanksgiving decorating ideas? Here you go.


Janet Rudolph updated the Thanksgiving Crime Fictiion bibliography in her Mystery Fanfare blog (with a few recipe links thrown in for good measure).

In case you missed it, Richard Pangburn reviewed Michael Dibdin's crime novel Thanksgiving for Friday's Forgotten Books last week, a title he calls "one of the most intelligent literary murder mysteries in existence."

Publetariat reprinted part of a blog post from a few years ago, but the subject matter is relevant. The holidays are a great time to commit your memories—both past and present—to paper, as a memoir and/or as fodder for a short story. The key is to keep your stories personal, anchor your story in its era, and include sensory details.

The indie publisher West Pigeon Press has a new anthology of dark fiction titled For When the Veil Drops . I'm honored to have a story in that anthology, with fellow authors A.A. Garrison, Paul L. Bates, Bryan Brown, Robin Wyatt Dunn, J.R. Hamantaschen, Christian Larsen, Samuel Minier, Nick Medina, Doug Murano, Joshua Clark Orkin, Yarrow Paisley, Lydia Peever, Michael Trudeau, and Michael Wehunt. There is a free giveaway contest right now on Goodreads through November 23.

Untreed Reads has some new Thanksgiving-themed short stories in eBook form, including "The Pecan Pie Affair" from T. Lee Harris; the historical "Joseph's Captivity" from KB Inglee; "Calories" from Albert Tucher; "A Death in the Family" from George Seaton; and also the new anthology, The Killer Wore Cranberry: a Second Helping.

The Q&A roundup this week includes author and investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan talking about the release of her new book, The Other Woman, and juggling careers. Also, Stephen Blackmoore chatted with CrimeSpree about debut novel City of the Lost, a blend of hardboiled crime and supernatural pulp.

Blogger/reviewer Jen Forbus is thankful for her experiences at the recent Murder & Mayhem in Muskeo conference and listed the "Top Ten Things I Learned."

The Science Channel picked up the soon-to-be-ending Fringe sci-fi/crime drama and will celebrate with a Thanksgiving marathon that includes the complete first season, as well as a new series examining some real-life fringe science.

If Fringe isn't your taste, other Thanksgiving TV marathons include NCIS, Season 3 on USA November 21, an NCIS "Gibbs That Keeps On Giving" marathon November 22-23 and yet another NCIS marathon November 25; a Bond Movie Marathon November 22-24 on Syfy; a Castle marathon, November 22 on TNT; a Law & Order: Criminal Intent marathon, November 22-23 on Oxygen, and Law & Order: SVU marathon, November 24-25 on USA Network.

When you're out and about on Black Friday looking for early Christmas present ideas, you can't go wrong with a book. To give you an assist, the Wall Street Journal's Gift Guide 2012: Mysteries has some tips; Barnes and Noble offers a list of mysteries from their Gift Guide; and the New England Independent Booksellers Association also has a 2012 Holiday Catalog with ideas.

 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn is jumping into the action thriller genre in a movie called Prone Gunman. Adapted from Jean-Patrick Manchette's book, the film centers on Martin Terrier, an international operative betrayed by his own organization, who goes on the run in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. As Hollywood Reporter notes, Penn may be looking at this as a potential action-film franchise.

The Wrap reports (via Dark Horizons) that two James Bond actors are in talks to join a John le Carré adaptation. Casino Royale villain Mads Mikkelsen and Skyfall's Ralph Fiennes may come aboard Justin Kurzel's Our Kind of Traitor, adapted from le Carré's most recent novel. According to reports, Mikkelsen is up for the "potentially show-stealing role of larger-than-life Russian gangster Dima, and Fiennes for British spymaster Hector."

Dark Knight Rises actor Tom Hardy has signed on to play Sam Fisher in the film adaptation of a popular video game based on Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Hardy's character is a highly-trained special operative in a fictional black-ops operation called Echelon.

Liam Neeson is in talks to join the cast of The All Nighter, playing a hitman who turns on his boss to protect his wife and child, and then must go on the run from both the mob and the cops. The thriller is based on a script written by Brad Ingelsby (who also
wrote the upcoming Scott Cooper film Out of the Furnace). 

Cinemablend has a trailer for the upcoming female buddy-cop movie The Heat, featuring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.

TV

The good news just keeps coming for author Jo Nesbo. Several of his books have already been adapted for the big screen, and now House executive producer Katie Jacobs has teamed with Nesbo for a new NBC drama based on his book I Am Victor. The potential series centers on a maverick divorce attorney, with White Collar's Mark Goffman penning the pilot.

The CW is developing Jane Whitefield, a drama project based on the Vanishing Act book series by Thomas Perry about a quirky young woman in search of her biological parents and her own identity, who runs a private investigation/"eraser" company in Portland. The pilot is being produced by Carol Mendelsohn (CSI) and written by Natalie Chaidez. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News and Crimespree)

Fresh off its wildly successful miniseries The Hatfields and McCoys, the History Channel is developing Texas Rising, a miniseries about the formation and rise of the Texas Rangers, the oldest law enforcement organization in North America.

CBS is giving its freshman Sherlock Holmes drama Elementary two extra episodes for a 24-episode season, but is trimming Vegas' order by one, from 22 to 21 episodes.

Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot about a secret intelligence organization has added two agents, played by Elizabeth Henstridge and Iain De Caestecker.

Crimespree also notes that USA has signed Bryan Greenberg and Stephanie Sigman to star in its pilot for a series based on the Elmore Leonard story "When the Women Come Out to Dance."

The original Hawaii Five-0 series included an episode featuring Hookman, a character who loses his hands and goes after the police officers he feels are responsible for his misfortune. The series reboot will do another take on that story and character, with Peter Weller (Robocop) serving as both director and villain of the episode.

Scream star Matthew Lillard has joined FX pilot The Bridge, based on a Scandinavian crime drama. The American pilot stars Diane Kruger (Inglorious Bastards) and Demian Bichir (Savages) as two cops who team up to track down a killer operating in the U.S. and Mexico.

Investigation Discovery is bringing back Deadly Affairs for a second season. The docu-drama features Susan Lucci hosting the series based on true-crime stories about relationships, sex, revenge and murder.

Nip/Tuck star Dylan Walsh is joining the cast of Revenge in a multiple-episode arc playing a new rival for Conrad Grayson (Henry Czerny).

MTV is is developing a mystery drama adapted from the young adult romantic thriller Blackwood by Gwenda Bond. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

ABC has cancelled two of its new fall season series: the paranormal 666 Park Avenue and Last Resort, featuring the very talented Andre Braugher, who we hope will find a new TV home soon.

Law & Order: UK has added two new cast members. Paterson Joseph play DI Wes Leyton, the replacement for Harriet Walter's DI Natalie Chandler, and Georgia Taylor will protray a defense barrister-turned-Crown Prosecutor.

BBC One has cancelled its spy drama Hunted that starred Melissa George as the spy Sam Hunter, saying that "It hasn't found the mainstream audience it was hoped." However, Cinemax is working with series creator Frank Spotnitz on a new incarnation of the show.

PODCASTS/VIDEO

Elaine Viets spoke with St. Louis Public Radio about her former days as a columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and her mystery novels featuring St. Louis mystery shopper Josie Marcus.

Best-selling Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin joined Neil Mitchell on Melbourne, Australia's 3AW 693 News Talk for a chat about, among other things, the return of his iconic character Rebus.

Pulp Serenade posted a clip of a conversation between Lawrence Block and Duane Swierczynski during NoirCon 2012.

Mystery author Chris Redding will drop by Blog Talk Radio tomorrow to talk about her new book (and its timing with Hurricane Sandy), titled Any Port in a Storm, which is set in the New Jersey beaches.

THEATER

New York Stage and Film's Annual Winter Gala will be held Dec. 9 at The Plaza Hotel and will honor Tony Award-winning producer Roger Horchow (Annie) and Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner Tony Shalhoub (Monk).

Theresa Rebeck's dark comedy Dead Accounts about "famlies and felonies" began Broadway previews November 5th. It stars Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz, as a prodigal son and con man who returns home to his Ohio family, and Katie Holmes as the skeptical sister who awaits him.

Scooby-Doo Live! Musical Mysteries is a new touring musical theatre show based on the popular TV franchise from the 70s and still seen on Cartoon Network. The show features Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang, who lead the audience "on a hilarious hunt to find a sneaky ghost who enjoys haunting an old theater." The tour starts in January 2013 in York, Pennsylvania and winds its way through various states and Canada through June.

GAMES/COMICS

DC Comics previewed its adaptation of the Stieg Larsson novel Girl With the Dragon Tattoo via a 30-second TV spot. The comic features the artwork of Leonardo Marco and Andrea Mutti.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Mystery on the Queen Mary

Bruce Graeme (1900-1982) is one of the many pen names of British author Graham Montague Jeffries, who also wrote as Peter Bourne, David Graeme, Roderic Hastings, Fielding Hope and Jeffrey Montague. He was born in London and served in the Queen's Westminster Rifles in 1918, as well as working as a reporter and film producer and serving as a founding member of the Crime Writers Association. Along the way, Graeme wrote some 80 novels and several short stories, the most successful of which featured his "gentleman crook" a/k/a wealthy mystery novelist, Blackshirt.

Graeme also created several other series characters such as the team of C.I.D. Superintendent William Stevens and Inspector Pierre Allain of the Surete Nationale, beginning with A Murder of Some Importance in 1931. Twelve more Stevens/Allain novels followed until 1943, including Mystery on the Queen Mary from 1937.

Inspector Pierre Allain is described as a plump, bearded man with dark brown eyes. Although likeable, he possesses a mercurial temperament and claims to be the best detective (and the greatest lover) in France. He dislikes simple cases because they are "beneath" his prodigious talents and don't offer the chance to get his accustomed adulation after solving the affair. Superintendent William Stevens is tall, broad-shouldered and in good shape from exercise that has left his "flesh healthily tinted." Unlike his colleague, he's a family man and less egotistical, but not without his own flights of fancy and the occasional bout of flirting with the ladies.

Robby MacKay, a young shipyard worker who is one of many helping to prepare the Queen Mary get ready for her historic maiden voyage, overhears a scheme to hide something somewhere on the ship, masterminded by a man with a foreign voice. Robby later survives a violent attack and near-drowning to seek the help of the police. Inspector Stevens uses his influence to get Robby a job aboard the ship so he can mingle with passengers and hopefully ID the mystery voice. Meanwhile in France, a dying foreigner with ties to jewel thieves leads Inspector Allain to also snag a ticket aboard the Queen, and soon the detective duo realize the two mysteries are in some way connected.

As Leo Harris notes in his Foreword to a 1992 reprint, though presented as a detective thriller, this is "really a floating Grand Hotel replete with interlocking dramas, romances and comedies, with the msytery element almost secondary. You can enjoy it for its variety of incident and especially for an obliquely revealed view of life in the 30s."