B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 245

Media Murder for a Memorial Day Monday

MOVIES

Bradley Cooper is developing American Sniper for Warner Bros, a project based on Navy SEAL Chris Kyle's book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History.

Gary Oldman has been added to the cast in the remake of RoboCop, playing the scientist responsible for transforming a brutally-murdered policeman into a cyborg (to be played by Joel Kinnaman).

And it looks like Anthony Hopkins may be joining the cast of Reds 2, following the further adventures of former special agents forced to return to the field from retirement.

Here's the first trailer for the upcoming new James Bond film, Skyfall.

TV

Pining away after the last installment of Sherlock on BBC/PBS? Omnimystery News reminds us of the upcoming Masterpiece Mystery! summer 2012 schedule, beginning with encore presentations of Zen beginning June 10, followed by the debut of Endeavour; the fifth season of Inspector Lewis; and third season of Wallander.

Lifetime is in the early stages of developing a drama based on Clarice Starling, the character from the books by Thomas Harris. The role earned Jodie Foster an Academy Award for best actress in The Silence of the Lambs.

ITV in the UK announced plans for a new daytime police procedural drama called True Crime, a 20-part series that focus on two police officers tackling cases inspired by real events.

New trailers for new series for the fall, including Vegas and Elementary.

Plus, the folks behind Homeland hinted at twists for season two of the Showtime series.

PODCASTS/WEBCASTS

Crime fiction author Peter James spoke via webcast at the 2012 Sydney Writers' Festival about his writing and latest book.

THEATER

Agatha Christie's less-frequently performed play, Hollow, is being staged at the Westminster Community Theater in Huntington Beach, California, through June 2.

One of the productions gracing the London Fringe Festival 2012 is Midnight at Mystery Point, based on the YA crime series with teen heartthrob detectives Hank and Mo Purdy.

Sacrifices

Memorial Day weekend has become synonymous with the start of summer, picnics, trips to the beach and parties galore. But, if there is a military cemetery or site near you, perhaps take a moment to stop by, plant a flag or wreath, give your thanks to those who made all those picnics and celebrations — free from tyranny and oppression — possible, thanks to the ultimate sacrifice they were willing to make for their country.

 

Friday's Forgotten Books - Murder in the Borough Library

It's rare that I find a book for FFB that really is forgotten. So much so, that I had to use the cover from a different book by the author, because I was unable to find any covers for the one I needed. (The Black Dagger version from the library is pretty much just a white background.) The author in question in John Austwick, a pseudonym for Austin Lee (1904-1965), who also used the pen name Julian Callender. Austwick served as a Royal Navy chaplain in the 1930s and later became a rector and vicar in rural England.

Reverend Lee was a "character" for his times, a socialist and a pacifiist who once said he was the "despair of Bishops," and in every Church job he held, he sooon found himself in the newspapers complaining about the paltry stipend, lack of challenges, and dictatorial nature of the church hierarchy. It's hardly surprising that he was relieved of his Navy chaplaincy. In-between church jobs, he worked as a bartender, journalist, chef, and writer of tourbooks for the Norwegian railways.

The author's first and primary series character (under his given name, Austin Lee) was schoolmistress turned detective Miss Hogg, who starred in nine novels, basically one a year from 1955 to 1963. Simultaneously with those books, he created a series featuring Detective Inspector Parker, with five installments including three that seem to indicate an obsession with libraries: Murder in the Borough Library (1959), The County Library Murders (1962) and The Mobile Library Murders (1964). Why? Perhaps it was because he wrote many of his novels in the Keighley Reference Library.

The book Murder in the Borough Library finds DI Parker (who is known to everyone in the division as "Nosey") with a puzzling case on his hands, an old tramp murdered in the public library of Airebridge, a small Yorkshire mill town. There doesn't seem to any reason to murder harmless old Joseph Hackett, but as Parker digs deeper, he realizes Hackett was anything but harmless. With a past as an unfrocked priest, blackmailer, pornographer and drunkard, the victim has crossed paths with many people who might want him dead.

It is tempting to wonder how much of this novel is autobiographical. One minister in the book says, "A clergyman is usually an educated man, and yet he may be placed in a position where there is no one with whom he can carry on an intellectual conversation, with whom he can discuss books, or the happenings of the world around him. This may be all very well for a married man, but it is wearying for a bachelor." One of the parishioners also remarks that the current reverend isn't very well liked. "It's always the same, they never like the one they've got, it's always the one before or the one before that."

As to Austwick's writing, it's fairly straightforward, with the best bits saved for the descriptions of settings. This is what makes it an entertaining book, as a historical look back to barographs used to measure the weather, lighting from an electrolier, a Benares brassware tabletop and a fire brigade using arc lamps. There's also humor, as when DI Parker sees a painting of an elderly lady with a forbidding expression, "dressed in a manner that reminded the inspector of his grandmother, an old matriarch who had played hell with the whole family until she had been mercifully carried off in a minor influenza epidemic in the thirties."

As to the plot, it would be a no-starter with today's sensibilities, but in 1950s rural England, as Robert Barnard says in his Foreword to the Black Dagger edition, "Then, public men acted within a framework of honesty and decency which they outraged at their peril." And Barnard draws a parallel to a snippet from George Eliot's Mill on the Floss, "We owe much to them for keeping up the sense of respectability, which was the only religion possible to the mass of English people."

Mystery Melange

It's voting season! Pop Culture Nerd celebrates Mystery Monthy with the second annual Stalker Awards. Vote for your favorite authors and novels (of books published in 2011), through 9 p.m. PST tonight. Fun categories include "Most Throat-Grabbing Opening Sentence" and "Most Criminally Underrated Author."

You can also vote for your favorite new Burn Notice opening titles on the USA Networks' fan site.

Get ready for Book Expo America that launches in a little over a week, as Publishing Trends reminds us. As you might imagine, this year's event is heavy on panels and discussions centered on digital publishing. One of the featured speakers at the Adult Book & Author Breakfasts is author Jo Nesbo, and one of the featured APA Author Tea speakers is Lee Child.

Mysterious Press just announced the release of new ebook editions of novels and stories written by classic crime writers Clayton Rawson (the Great Merlini series) and Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe). Hat tip to Omnimystery News.

Kristin Centorcelli at the Criminal Element Blog takes a look at the Women of Noir.

I missed this on Media Murder for Monday, but BBC is featuring a half-hour radio program called "Miles Jupp in a Locked Room" about locked room mysteries with comedian Miles Jupp interviewing a number of authors and scholars about the genre. But it's only available for listening online through this Sunday.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, MGM will release a Blu-ray box set — containing all 22 Bond flicks and over 130 hours of bonus material — on September 25th. 

The Q&A roundup this week features Will Carver, whose debut novel Girl 4 last year introduced the enigmatic and haunted detective, January David.

If you are on Twitter, The Boston Globe listed the top 50 creative writing professors who Tweet.

Everyone's Library

Which book(s) do you think shaped America?  Since this blog is primarily related to crime fiction, I could re-phrase the question, "Which crime fiction book do you think shaped America?" If you have any suggestions, the Library of Congress wants to know. The LOC is launching a "Celebration of the Book" with an exhibition June 25 through September 29, marking the beginning of an ongoing recognition of culturally significant books from all genres of writing. That's where you come in: members of the public are asked to nominate books for subsequent lists of "Books That Shaped America," and in 2013, the Library will also recognize "Books That Shaped the World."

Toward the end of the exhibition time frame on September 22 and 23, the LOC will host the annual Festival of the Book on the National Mall, with the author participants announced last week. Headliners include Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly and Charlaine Harris from the crime fiction community, and dozens of other authors of various fiction genres, nonfiction, poetry and children's/YA books. The Festival will be held rain or shine, and best of all, it's free.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Liam Neeson has signed on to play Matt Scudder in the film version of A Walk Among the Tombstones, based on the novel by Lawrence Block. Scudder is an ex-NYPD cop and unlicensed private detective (and recovering alcoholic) hired to find the kidnapped wife of a drug dealer.

A Good Day To Die Hard, the fifth installment of the "Die Hard" franchise starring Bruce Willis, has added Amaury Nolasco (Prison Break) and Megalyn Echikunwoke (CSI: Miami) to the cast. The latest installment finds hero Bruce Willis in Russia to get his son out of prison and uncovering a terrorist plot in the process.

Pierce Brosnan and Dominic Cooper are set to star in the spy thriller November Man, directed by Roger Donaldson. It's based on the book There Are No Spies by Bill Granger.

Philip Seymour Hoffman joined the cast of the John Le Carre spy thriller A Most Wanted Man, playing a roguish chief of a covert German spy unit.

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy are teaming up for a comedic buddy cop movie, with Bullock playing a "high-strung FBI agent" who has a strained relationship with McCarthy's character, an "unconventional Boston cop," as they team up to take down a Russian gangster.

Universal Studios bought the rights to a Mark Wahlberg film, The Disciple Program, described as "a Manchurian Candidate-style thriller in which a man's wife dies, and he discovers that it was no accident and investigates the murder."

Duncan Jones has been hired to direct a feature film biopic about the life of Ian Fleming. The project is based on Andrew Lycett's biography Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond.

Here's the first released clip from the upcoming movie Paperboy, directed by Lee Daniels and starring Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack and Zac Efron. The film is an adaptation of Pete Dexter's novel about an investigative journalist and his slacker younger brother who get embroiled in a four-year-old murder case along with a death row femme fatale.

Omnimystery News also notes that set photos have been relased from the upcoming Alex Cross film, based on the character and novels created by James Patterson.

TV

The police procedural Unforgettable was recently canceled by CBS, but it appears it may find a new home on TNT or Lifetime.

TNT announced the premiere dates for their summer season, including returning Rizzoli & Isles and Leverage, and new crime dramas Perception (about a neuroscientist and professor recruited to help the federal government) and Difficult Cases, starring Mary McDonald, formerly of Battlestar Galactica.

TNT also provided more details about new series currently in production (yet to be scheduled), including shows based on books by David Baldacci, Robert Littell, William Brinkley, Ross McDonald and Tom Clancy, as well as an untitled Steven Bochco murder mystery project.

A&E has canceled the crime drama Breakout Kings after two seasons. A&E had picked up the show after Fox took a pass, but ratings just weren't there.

The new thriller series on Fox starring Kevin Bacon won't debut until 2013, but the network already has a trailer. The plot follows an FBI agent who's brought out of retirement to track down an escaped serial killer.

Also not on the schedule until 2013: Zero Hour, starring Anthony Edwards as paranormal enthusiast whose wife is abducted, drawing him into a "Divinci Code-type suspense thriller, complete with conspiracies and life-or-death situations."

CBS has already released trailers for its new fall series Elementary, a contemporary take on Sherlock Holmes, and Vegas, a historical western-style crime drama.

PODCASTS/WEBCASTS

NPR reviewed and discussed Don't Cry, Tai Lake, the seventh novel in the politically charged Inspector Chen series written by Chinese expatriate and poet Qiu Xiaolong.

THEATER

Maryland's Olney Theatre Center is staging Anthony Shaffer's mystery thriller Sleuth from June 13 to July 8. The play won the Tony Award for Best Play and inspired two film versions.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - May You Die in Ireland

Author Michael Kenyon (1935-2005) was born in Yorkshire, England, educated at Quaker's Schools and served his National Service with the Royal Air Force. He spent time as a student and professor at schools in both the U.K. and the U.S., eventually becoming an American citizen in 1997 and teaching in the English Department of Southampton College in New York.

Kenyon was a regular contributor to publications like Gourmet Magazine, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, but he was best known for his series of three novels featuring Superintendent O'Malley and the series of eight books with Inspector Henry Peckover, known as "The Bard Of The Yard." His very first published novel, however, was 1965's May You Die in Ireland, establishing the author as one of the first in the crime fiction subgenre of the humorous spy parody.

May You Die in Ireland centers on William Foley, an easy-going math professor at a Midwestern university who finds himself off to Ireland, thanks to a castle bequeathed to him in a Will. It all seems so straightforward, until Foley becomes the unwitting courier of microfilm for a scientific scheme, with a dose of espionage perpetrated by secret agents—or are they double agents? After he crosses paths with spies, thugs and a bonny Irish lass named Mary, Foley enlists the help of his best friend Oscar Hensen, a former solder-turned chemistry professor.

The endearing Foley, an overweight, nearsighted couch potato with asthma, manages to get beaten up, turn the tables on a young punk and learns he has a knack for thinking on the fly, which includes lying through his teeth and even stealing a bike when he needs to. 

May You Die in Ireland was apparently an immediate success, filled with what was to become Kenyon's standard blend of action, wit and the absurd, including comedic chase scenes. It's a quick, entertaining read featuring a thoroughly unheroic hero and filled with charm and humor.

Time's Up!

Or almost up. The fourth annual Watery Grave Invitational Short Story Contest is seeking submissions. You must have a crime fiction story of no more than 3,000 words already published (in any format) between April 16, 2011 and April 15, 2012. Selected authors will have their names dropped into a hat and ten names drawn at random. The drawees will then compete in the contest to write a new original story. And there are prizes! E-mail your story link by 9 p.m. TONIGHT to be entered via the website above.

Time's also running out to submit your novella of 15,000 to 20,000 words in length for the sixth annual Black Orchid Novella Award. The sponsors are seeking original works of fiction in the tradition of the Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, which (1) emphasize the deductive skills of the sleuth; (2) contain no overt sex or violence; (3) don't include characters from the original series. First prize: $1,000 plus publication in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. But hurry: entries must be postmarked by May 31, 2012.

The Pulp Ink is Barely Dry

David Cranmer created the online zine Beat to a Pulp to fill a void of hardboiled fiction when other e-zines were folding. He and editor Scott D. Parker feature one pulp/hardboiled/noir story each week on the website, and the endeavor proved so popular the duo put together an anthology of stories from the website in October 2010 titled Beat to a Pulp: Round One. Now comes the good news that Beat to a Pulp: Round Two has just been released, and Cranmer promises you'll find "aliens, gangsters, drifters, mountain men, private dicks, gun molls, loners, misfits, drunks, thugs, booze-hounds, and more."

Stories include a Hemingway pastiche by mystery author Bill Pronzini (best known for his Nameless Detective series), a Raymond Chandler homage by Hard Case Crime publisher Charles Ardai, a post-war tale with a twist from James Reasoner, a zombie-horror nightmare by Bill Crider, and pulpy goodness from Glenn Gray, Patricia Abbott, Chris F. Holm, Vicki Hendricks, Sean Chercover, Vin Packer and more. You can buy a print copy through Createspace and soon, Amazon (both print and digital).

Here's something else to look forward to: Pulp Ink 2 from Snubnose Press. The first installment, Pulp Ink, was edited by Nigel Bird and Chris Rhatigan and featured 24 stories following on the tradition of the Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction by the likes of Reed Farrel Coleman, Hilary Davidson, Paul D. Brazill, Sandra Seamans, Patti Abbott, David Cranmer, Nigel Bird and Chris Rhatigan.

Anthony Neil Smith called it "a slice of the good stuff from those surviving the brutal sandbox of modern crime fiction and emerging, scraped and bruised, to turn around and spit in its eye," and Chuck Wendig added, "Tongue-piercings. Foot-fetishists. Murderous cinephiles. This gritty, grimy, giddy collection is as pulpy as they come, transcending the Tarantino reference material and stepping into its own." Pulp Ink 2 will take a little different turn and feature stories of crime and horror. I'm quite honored to be included in the company of 18 other terrific writers, the list of which you can find here. Look for Pulp Ink 2 later this summer.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Sean Bean has signed on to play the lead in the adaptation of Devil's Peak, the first book in a trilogy by author Deon Meyer. Bean will star as Detective Benny Griessel, a recovering alcoholic who is trying to win back the trust of his family as well as solve the case of a vigilante killer.

United Talent Agency has signed Elmore Leonard, the first time in the author's 60-year career that he has teamed up with a major Hollywood agency. It's not the first time Leonard's work has been adapted, of course; there have already been 20 films made from his over 40 novels and numerous short stories.

Speaking of Elmore Leonard, Jennifer Aniston and Dennis Quaid are set to star in a film adaptation of the authors's novel The Switch, about criminals who kidnap Aniston's character and hold her for ransom only to discover that her husband doesn't want her back.

Oscar winner Catherine Zeta-Jones and Byun-Hun Lee (G.I. Joe: Retaliation) have joined the cast of RED 2, the sequel to the hit action comedy about a group of retired contract killers drawn back into action. Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Mary-Louise Parker, actors who appeared in the first film, will all be back.

Jefferey Archer's spy thriller novel A Matter Of Honor is headed for the big screen.

Here's your first trailer for The Gangster Squad, starring Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn and Josh Brolin in the true story of mob boss Mickey Cohen and the cops who tried to take him down.

TV

It's fall TV upfront time again. First, the cancellations: Fox gave the axe to J.J. Abrams' Alcatraz and also the Bones spin-off, The Finder. ABC gave the boot to The River and Missing. NBC canceled the unusual (and therefore "risky") police drama, Awake and the legal drama, Harry's Law. The wait is over for nervous CSI fans, too: both CSI: Miami and CSI: New York were on the bubble, but it's ultimately the Miami version starring David Caruso that's been given the boot. Also gone are freshmen dramas NYC 22 and Unforgettable.

Now for the "new" renewals (many others had already been announced): Body of Proof, starring Dana Delany as a medical examiner, will get a third season on ABC; NBC renewed the long-running police procedural Law & Order: SVU for a 14th season. 

Finally, the additions: CBS has full series orders for seven shows, including the contemporary take on Sherlock Holmes with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as Sherlock and Watson, and the 1960s drama Vegas, starring Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis in the true story of Ralph Lamb, a cowboy turned sheriff in Las Vegas. NBC has given full-season orders to Dick Wolf's new drama Chicago Fire (an "action-driven drama exploring the complex and heroic men and women of the Chicago Fire Department"), and also the Jekyll-and-Hyde thriller Do No Harm, as well as the "soap opera detective story" Infamous.

But wait, there's more: TNT is adding a "docu-drama" (a/k/a unscripted reality show) to its lineup titled Boston Blue. The project is from executive producer Donnie Wahlberg (Blue Bloods, Boomtown) and follows the Boston Police Department's exclusive and highly decorated Gang Unit. The CW has added the new series Cult to its lineup. The drama revolves around a young production assistant (Jessica Lucas) on a popular television series and a journalist blogger (Matt Davis) investigating whether fans of the show are re-creating its crime scenes in real life.

For a complete scorecard of renewals, cancellations and new series, check this scorescard.

American Beauty director Sam Mendes has bought the rights to author Alan Bradley's bestselling Flavia de Luce mysteries. (Thanks to Janet Rudolph, at Mystery Fanfare.) The stories are set in a post-WWII rural English village and follow the adventures of a precocious 11-year-old sleuth named Flavia.

FX has picked up TV rights to the trio of best-selling thriller novels written by Chelsea Cain featuring her female serial killer Gretchen Lowell.

ABC Family is developing a teen-oriented mystery series titled The Keys, set at an exclusive, mysterious island resort where a young woman investigates the secrets of the place. Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical), a producer on the project, is the likely star. (Hat tip to Ominimystery News.)

BBC Scotland and ITV will adapt the Shetland Islands quartet by Ann Cleeves (the first novel, Raven Black, won a Dagger award for crime fiction), which features Detective Jimmy Perez, a native Shetlander who has returned home. Scottish actor Douglas Henshall has signed to play the lead. Cleeves already has had one series produced by ITV, Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn as Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope.

The CBC announced its fall 2012 lineup, which includes the series Murdoch Mysteries, recently dropped by Citytv. The detective series was set in 19th-century Toronto and starred Yannick Bisson as detective William Murdoch and Hélène Joy as pathologist Julia Ogden, but the reboot will see the characters move into the 20th century. The CBC is also including its first original police procedural, Cracked, (from the writer of Flashpoint and The Bridge), starring David Sutcliffe as a Toronto police officer suffering from PTSD assigned to the psych unit. 

PODCASTS/WEBCASTS

Yesterday on 60 Minutes, Henry A. Crumpton discussed his experiences that led to the book The Art of  Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service.

The guests on this week's Suspense Radio were authors Steve Berry, Nick Santora and Paul Kemprecos.

Crime fiction author Peter James picked his top 5 London crime spots for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.