B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 3
September 1, 2025
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
Producer Mad Chance (American Sniper) has set Channing Tatum, Oscar Isaac, and Zazie Beetz to star in the New York crime story, Kockroach. The feature is an adaptation of the novel by William Lashner, writing as Tyler Knox, and will be directed by Matt Ross (Captain Fantastic) from a screenplay written by Jonathan Ames (You Were Never Really Here) with revisions by Ross. The story follows a mysterious stranger who takes on New York’s criminal elite, transforming himself into a larger-than-life crime boss in a city where power is everything.
Rhea Seehorn is the latest to join the ensemble cast of the indie hostage thriller, Eleven Days, starring Taylor Kitsch, Diego Luna, and Jason Isaacs, with Peter Landesman directing. The film takes place in the sweltering heat of a Texas summer in 1974 as ruthless prisoner Federico Carrasco (Luna) takes control of the Huntsville Penitentiary. The prison’s priest, Father Joseph O’Brien (Isaacs) joins forces with Jim Estelle (Kitsch), head of the Texas Department of Corrections, by entering the eye of the storm and offering himself as a hostage to out-game Carrasco and his men in an attempt to save the lives of the other hostages. The film is based on the book Eleven Days In Hell: The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege at Huntsville, Texas by William T. Harper.
Emma Roberts (We’re the Millers) has signed on to star in the mystery rom-com, A Murder Uncorked, with Ari Sandel (When We First Met) directing, and Vincent Newman (We’re the Millers) producing from a script by Karen McCullah (Legally Blonde). Roberts will play a struggling actress who loses her TV detective role and has to get her old waitressing gig back. It’s there where she meets the handsome Derek, owner of a prestigious winery, who offers her a dream job in beautiful Napa Valley. But when a murder rocks the vineyard, she must crack the case, protect the man she’s falling for, and outwit Napa’s hilariously high-maintenance elite before her dream job and budding romance go up in smoke. The project is based on the seven-book murder mystery romance series by author Michele Scott.
Netflix has released a trailer for its upcoming adaptation of Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10, which arrives on the streamer October 10. Keira Knightley stars as Lo Blacklock, a travel journalist on assignment writing about a luxury yacht where something sinister happens. After hearing muffled cries in the middle of the night, she witnesses a passenger thrown overboard, but the next day, the yacht’s captain says there was never a guest staying next door and that all passengers and crew are accounted for. Suspects include the boat’s other guests — Hannah Waddingham, Art Malik, Kaya Schodelario and more. The film’s ensemble cast also includes Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Morrissey, David Ajala Daniel Ings, Gitte Witt, Christopher Rygh, Pippa-Bennett-Warner, John MacMillan, Paul Kaye, Amanda Collin, and Lisa Loven Kongsli.
A trailer was released for Play Dirty, based on the "Parker" book series by Donald E. Westlake, under the pen name Richard Stark. In the gritty caper directed by Shane Black, Parker (Mark Wahlberg), along with Grofield (LaKeith Stanfield), Zen (Rosa Salazar), and a skilled crew, stumble onto a big score that pits them against the New York mob. Others in the cast include Keegan-Michael Key, Chukwudi Iwuji, Nat Wolff, Thomas Jane, and Tony Shalhoub.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Fox is developing Wine & Spirits, a one-hour mystery drama from Jessica Alba’s production company, Lady Metalmark Entertainment. It is based on real-life Manhattan Beach psychic medium Jennifer Shaffer who, in addition to her private clientele, consults with the FBI and LAPD to solve crimes. Written by Rob Sudduth (Acapulco), Wine & Spirits revolves around the fictional Jennifer Shepherd, a psychic who juggles two starkly different lives: one as a mom and divorcee and the other as a consultant solving crimes for the FBI.
Camryn Manheim (Law & Order), Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf), Jamie Chung (Lovecraft Country), Noah Reid (Schitt’s Creek), and Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries) are set for guest-starring roles in the upcoming second season of Fox's crime series, Murder in a Small Town. The drama follows Karl Alberg (Rossif Sutherland), who recently moved to the quiet coastal town of Gibsons to be the new police chief and quickly learns that this gentle paradise has more than its share of secrets. As a world-class detective, Karl calls upon all his skills to solve murders that, even in this seemingly idyllic setting, continue to wash up on his shore. Meanwhile, his deepening relationship with the town librarian Cassandra Lee (Kristin Kreuk) is challenged as her career and community involvement take her in new and unexpected directions.
Y: Marshals is bringing back some familiar faces for CBS’s Yellowstone spinoff. The crime procedural, which is led by Luke Grimes reprising his role as Kayce Dutton, has added fellow Yellowstone alumni Gil Birmingham, Mo Brings Plenty, and Brecken Merrill to its cast as series regulars, reprising their roles of Thomas Rainwater, Mo and Tate Dutton, respectively. With the Yellowstone Ranch behind him, Dutton joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals, combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, where he and his teammates must balance family, duty and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence. Other series regulars include star Arielle Kebbel (Rescue: HI-Surf) as Belle, Ash Santos (Pulse) as Andrea, and Tatanka Means (Reservation Dogs) as Miles.
Netflix will not be proceeding with a second season of Kevin Williamson‘s crime drama series, The Waterfront, starring Holt McCallany, Jake Weary, Melissa Benoist, and Maria Bello. The news comes two months after The Waterfront's June 19 release, and is surprising because the twisted tale about North Carolina’s influential Buckley family spent five weeks in Netflix’s global Top 10 for English-language series, including a rare three-peat at No.1. As Deadline noted, in their renewal decisions, Netflix executives typically lean into performance vs. cost, with other factors, like awards recognition, social media buzz, and the type of audience tuning in, also taken into account.
Prime Video released first-look images of Harlan Coben's Lazarus, Prime Video's new thriller series starring Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy, and revealed all six episodes will be released on Wednesday, October 22. Based on an original story idea and written by bestselling author Coben and BAFTA-winner Danny Brocklehurst, Harlan Coben’s Lazarus follows Joel Lazarus (Claflin) who returns home after his father Dr. Jonathan Lazarus (Nighy) dies by suicide and begins to have disturbing experiences that can’t be explained. He quickly becomes entangled in a series of cold-case murders as he grapples with the mystery of his father’s death and his sister’s murder 25 years ago. Additional cast includes Alexandra Roach as Jenna Lazarus, David Fynn as Seth McGovern, Karla Crome as Bella Catton, and Kate Ashfield as Detective Alison Brown.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
On the latest Spybrary, host Shane Whaley and author I.S. Berry (The Peacock and the Sparrow) welcomed spy thriller author Dan Fesperman to talk about his latest novel, Pariah, which centers on a disgraced stand-up comedian who becomes a CIA asset in a fictional Eastern European country.
On Crime Time FM, Jane Thynne chatted with Paul Burke about her new Clara Vine spy novel, The Judgement of Stars; Nazi Astrology; the German Film industry; Hedy Lamarr; and humor in the darkest moments.
Murder Junction welcomed clinical psychologist-turned-crime-writer Kingsley Pearson about his debut Flat 401, and discussed digital psychology and rubber plantations in Sri Lanka.
Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Dan Buzzetta, a litigation partner at a national law firm, about his debut novel, The Manipulator, which introduces readers to Thomas Berte, a brilliant Harvard-educated lawyer thrust into a deadly battle with a global crime syndicate while confronting corruption that hits dangerously close to home.
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August 30, 2025
August 29, 2025
Ngaio Marsh Magnificence
The finalists were revealed for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards. Now in their sixteenth season, the Awards celebrate excellence in mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense writing from New Zealand authors. Finalists will be celebrated and this year’s winners announced at a special event, "The Ngaio Marsh Awards and The Murderous Mystery," to be held in association with the WORD Christchurch Confrence at Tūranga on Thursday, September 25.
BEST NOVEL
Return To Blood by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)
A Divine Fury by DV Bishop (Macmillan)
Woman, Missing by Sherryl Clark (HarperCollins)
Home Truths by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
17 Years Later by JP Pomare (Hachette)
The Call by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
Prey by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books)
BEST FIRST NOVEL
Dark Sky by Marie Connolly (Quentin Wilson Publishing)
Lie Down With Dogs by Syd Knight (Rusty Hills)
A Fly Under The Radar by William McCartney
The Defiance Of Frances Dickinson by Wendy Parkins (Affirm Press)
The Call by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
Kiss Of Death by Stephen Tester (Heritage Press)
BEST NONFICTION
The Trials Of Nurse Kerr by Scott Bainbridge (Bateman Books)
The Survivors by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins)
The Crewe Murders by Kirsty Johnstone & James Hollings (Massey Uni Press)
The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin)
Gangster’s Paradise by Jared Savage (HarperCollins)
Far North by David White & Angus Gillies (Upstart Press)
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Friday's "Forgotten Books" - One Night's Mystery
May Agnes Fleming (1840-1880) was one of the first Canadians to pursue a highly successful career as a writer of popular fiction, reportedly earning $10,000 a year, a princely sum at the time. Her work became so popular that many of her novels were re-issued under different titles, often due to piracy. Her first book was published in her adopted state of New York in 1963, titled Erminie; or The gypsy's Vow: A Tale of Love and Vengeance. Using several pen names, including Cousin May Carleton and M.A. Earlie, she published several serial tales in the New York Mercury, the New York Weekly, the Boston Pilot and the London Journal (and set several of her books in England).
She wrote somewhere around 40 novels and would have written more if she hadn't died prematurely from Bright's Disease at the age of 39. Despite her literary success, she struggled in her personal life, separating from her alcoholic husband and ultimately excluding him from her will and the upbringing of their four children. This misfortune didn't break her but rather may have inspired the many strong female characters in her novels, both good and evil.
One Night's Mystery follows the lives and loves of three young women: Cyrilla Hendrick, the daughter of handsome, penniless, scoundrel; her best friend, Sydney Owenson, a naive heiress; and Dolly De Courcy, a spirited actress. Both Cyrilla and Sydney are engaged, although things aren't as they seem in either case. Sydney's gold-digging fiance is besotted with Dolly, while Cyrilla's is arranged through her aunt, whom Cyrilla calls "the crossest, spitefulest old woman on earth." The one night's mystery of the title refers to the disappearance of Sydney's fiance the day before her wedding, but did he run off with Dolly or was he murdered?
One Night's Mystery was first serialized in New York Weekly and the London Journal before being published in book form by G.W. Carleton in 1876, toward the end of Fleming's life. It is a prime example of the type of work Fleming wrote, romantic suspense with a few Gothic elements thrown in. Her writing style is direct, her characters simple but reasonably well fleshed out, and the complicated relationships between the characters thorny and entertaining, if a tad melodramatic.
Despite the melodrama, Fleming does insert moments of poetic descriptions that are especially effective with settings, such as this one about the grim street that houses the dull and respectable Demoiselles Chateauroy school for young ladies (where Cyrilla and Sydney met):
There were no shops, there were no people; the houses looked at you as you passed with a sad, settled, melancholy mildew upon them; the doors rarely opened, the blinds and curtains were never drawn; prim little gardens, with prim little gravel-paths, shut in these sad little houses from the street; now and then a pale, pensive face might gleam at you from some upper window, spectre-like, and vanish.
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August 28, 2025
Mystery Melange
IMPORTANT NOTE: Typepad is shutting down at the end of next month (alas, they only gave us one month's notice). I'm gradually moving this blog over to Blogger and will be posting on both sites at the same time. Please update your pointers to this new link and wish me luck as I try to import all the old blog posts which will be lost forever if I can't figure out how to port them over. And please be patient with me as I try to recreate the blog in its new home (and fingers crossed Google doesn't kill Blogger any time soon).
And now on to Mystery Melange news for the week:
The Washington Center for the Book announced the finalists for the 59th annual Washington State Book Awards on Tuesday. The awards honor outstanding books published by Washington authors in 2024. This year, there were 42 finalists in seven categories, with the winners in each to be announced Sept. 16. The Best Fiction category includes the crime novel, Rough Trade by Katrina Carrasco, which was also named a Best Crime Novel of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review.
Despite all the craziness in D.C. right now, the 2025 Library of Congress National Book Festival is full steam ahead for on Saturday, September 6, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Among the mystery and thriller events are a discussion about "Justice on Trial" with Ron Currie (The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne) and Scott Turow (Presumed Guilty); and Liz Moore (The God of the Woods) and Chris Whitaker (All the Colors of the Dark) in conversation about their blockbuster novels, which both are both set in the 1970s and feature missing people. There will also be book signings by these authors and many more.
Thirty-five years, ago, Jim Sanborn created a coded message within Kryptos, a sculpture stationed in a courtyard at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The piece, a meditation on secrets in a house of secrets, has fascinated and bedeviled professional and amateur cryptologists since its dedication, and over the years, the first three panels were cracked by code breakers within the C.I.A., a California computer scientist, and the National Security Agency. The fourth panel has remained unsolved—until now. In an auction on November 20, Sanborn will provide the answer to the remaining code to the highest bidder. Along with the original handwritten plain text of K4 and other papers related to the coding, Mr. Sanborn will also provide a 12-by-18-inch copper plate that has three lines of alphabetic characters cut through with a jigsaw, which he calls “my proof-of-concept piece." His ideal winning bidder is someone who will hold on to that secret.
Sad news to report: After 42 years, the always humorous Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, founded in 1982 at San Jose State University in California, has announced its retirement. It's the brainchild of Professor Scott Rice, who had to write a seminar paper on a minor Victorian novelist and chose Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the novel, Paul Clifford. That novel began with the famous "purple prose" opener that has been plagiarized repeatedly by the cartoon beagle, Snoopy, "It was a dark and stormy night." You can still read the contest archives online, which includes the winning entries for the Crime & Detective category through the years, as well as this entry, which won the Grand Panjandrum's Special Award last year: "Mrs. Higgins’ body was found in the pantry, bludgeoned with a potato ricer and lying atop a fifty-pound sack of Yukon golds, her favorite for making gnocchi, though some people consider them too moist for this purpose."
This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Give and Take" by Angela McClintock.
In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Towles was interviewed by the Writers Fun Zone about her technothrillers, with the latest, Switch (the third installment in the E&A Investigations Thriller Series), out next month; and Writers Who Kill's E. B. Davis spoke with with Alyssa Maxwell about Murder At Arleigh, the thirteenth book in the Gilded Newport Mystery series.
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August 25, 2025
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
In a highly competitive situation, New Regency has landed Fixation, an erotic thriller spec from Wednesday screenwriters Erika Vazquez and Siena Butterfield. The project will be produced alongside Emmy winner Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories production company. While not much is known about the film’s plot, it has been reported it centers on a couple’s therapist who is drawn into a dangerous triangle of lust, lies, and manipulation.
Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Ty Simpkins (The Whale), Julie Ann Emery (Better Call Saul), and Mel Rodriguez (The Last Man on Earth) have joined the cast of Busted, an indie revenge thriller from director Maria Bissell (How to Deter a Robber), who penned the script with cinematographer Stephen Tringali. Currently in production, the film follows naive college freshman Wendy (Fisher), who gets trapped in a vicious blackmail scheme by her own roommate, forced into a seedy strip club to pay off the debt. But when she uncovers the sick truth behind the setup, the tables turn — hard. Joining forces with the club’s outrageous misfit crew, Wendy launches a daring reverse con to take her tormentor down. Others in the cast include Michael Rose, Kathleen Wilhoite, Maria Zhang, and Ava Allan.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Glenn Close will star in the Channel 4 and Sony Pictures Television drama, Maud, playing Maud Oldcastle, an old killer with a tortured past. Determined to break from a lifetime spent caring for her sister, Maud sets out to claim a long-overdue second act, but a suspicious detective and an unrelenting world built for youth may soon discover just how far she’ll go to protect her freedom. Written by Nina Raine and Moses Raine (Donkey Heart) and produced by Wolf Hall maker Playground, the show is based on the short story collections, An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, by best-selling Swedish author Helene Tursten.
Oscar winner Nicolas Cage is in talks to headline the upcoming fifth season of HBO‘s Emmy-winning crime anthology series, True Detective, which marks the return of Season 4’s Issa Lopez as writer-showrunner. The new installment will be set in New York, in Jamaica Bay, per HBO’s Head of Drama Series and Film Francesca Orsi. Cage is in talks for the lead role of Henry Logan, a New York detective on the case at the center of the new season. The actor has been circling the part for a while, but it's unclear whether the deal will close. Another Oscar winner, Jodie Foster, also took a long time to make her deal for True Detective's Season 4, Night Country.
George Kay, the creator of Apple’s Hijack, is back with War, a new legal thriller starring Dominic West (The Crown) and Sienna Miller (Anatomy of a Scandal). West plays tech titan Morgan Henderson, and Miller stars as his estranged wife, international film star Carla Duval. The drama is set in the elite world of London law and kicks off with a "scandalous divorce case that sends shockwaves through boardrooms, bedrooms, and courtrooms alike." HBO and Sky have handed the show a two-season order, setting it up as an anthology series with a new case each season. Season one also stars Phoebe Fox, James McArdle, Nina Sosanya, Pip Torrens, and Archie Renaux.
Star Trek: The Next Generation star Marina Sirtis and Dynasty star Stephanie Beacham are returning to the small screen this fall in The Sunshine Murders, a new cozy crime drama premiering Thursday, September 4, on UPtv with a two-episode debut beginning at 8pm ET/PT. The series is about an unlikely crime fighting duo made up of two very different sisters: Shirley Rangi (played by Emily Corcoran), a farmer from New Zealand who travels to Athens in search of her father, and her half-sister and detective, Helen Moustakas (Dora Chrysikou). Shirley soon helps Helen solve crimes with her "bush" wisdom and wit while they try to find their missing father. Beacham will play Lady Gloria Whitten-Soames, and Sirtis is stepping into the role of Helen's mother, Alexa Moustakas.
Laura Donnelly (The Nevers) is set to star in the ITV serial killer drama, The Dark, playing Scottish Detective Monica Kennedy, the protagonist in the crime series. When the body of a young man is found eerily staged in the idyllic Scottish wilderness, she fears this is the beginning of a terrifying campaign that will strike at the heart of a rural community. The series is based on GR Halliday’s novel, From the Shadows, and there are hopes for more seasons with two more books already penned in the trilogy: Dark Waters and Under the Marsh.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
Science Friday welcomed chemist-turned-author Kathryn Harkup to discuss her new book, V is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death, and the science of poisons: why they’re so popular in whodunnits, and how to get away with murder (in fiction writing, of course).
On the latest episode of Spybrary, host Shane Whaley interviewed author Alex Gerlis about his latest novel, The Second Traitor, book 2 in a spy series which is set against the backdrop of World War II and the early Cold War. Gerlis also chatted with Crime Time FM host, Paul Burke, about the book; Operation Sea Lion; Hitler as military commander; German spies in England; and Alan Furst.
Debbi Mack's latest guest on the Crime Cafe podcast is thriller novelist, Howard Kaplan, author of the Jerusalem Spy Series, the latest of which is The Syrian Sunset.
The Cops and Writers podcast featured a playback of a Sisters in Crime panel, "Behind the Badge," with moderator Patrick J. O'Donnell, retired NYPD Detective Marique Bartoldus (Twenty and Out), retired Chicago PD Detective Lieutenant Richard Rybicki (Dead Line), and retired Milwaukee Fire Department Captain Greg Renz (Beyond the Flames).
On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed historical crime and horror novels.
The latest episode of featured the mystery short story, "A Funny Name" by Gregory Meece, read by actor MW Hoffman.
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August 23, 2025
August 22, 2025
Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Murder Among Friends
Elizabeth Ferrars (1907-1995), born Morna Doris MacTaggart, was a British crime writer and founding member of the Crime Writers Association who received a special Silver Dagger for lifetime achievement in 1980. Her Golden Age books totaled over seventy in all, written over a period of six decades, from 1932-1995. Her first crime novel, Give a Corpse a Bad Name, led to a successful career as a mystery author in both the U.K. and in the U.S., where her publishers issued her books under the name "E.X. Ferrars."
It's been argued that her popularity hasn't survived well into the late 20th and early 21st centuries due to the lack of a solid series character. Her first attempt was with freelance journalist Toby Dyke (a Lord Peter Wimsey type) and his companion, George, a former criminal whose surname is never revealed. She wrote five Toby Dyke novels over a two-year period, which may be why she suddenly ended the series, adding that she did so because she "got to hate him so much." In the 1970s and 1980s she created a series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer, and another with retired botanist, Andrew Basnett. She also penned short stories centering on an elderly detective called Jonas P. Jonas.
Her writing was in the "cozy mystery" vein, and as the Mysterious Bookshop noted, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine described her as the "writer who may be the closest of all to Agatha Christie in style, plotting and general milieu," while the Washington Post described her as "a consummate professional in clever plotting, characterization and atmosphere." 
Murder Among Friends, from 1946 (published in the U.S. as Cheat the Hangman), is one of her fifty standalone novels, and was included by H.R.F. Keating on his 100 best crime fiction books list. The story begins with a party thrown by Cecily Lightwood for her literary and artistic friends, including guest of honor, playwright Aubrey Ritter, who lives in the flat above Cecily's. The group is determined to have a fun evening despite the ever-present danger of air raid wardens looking for blackout infringements in war-time London.
But where is the guest of honor? After he's found murdered upstairs and one of the party-goers arrested and later sentenced to murder, another guest, mousy Alice Church, finds herself so obsessed with the crime and doubting the verdict, that she sets about playing detective. With the help of Alice's scientist-husband Oliver, she puzzles her way through to discover the real murderer, thanks to her quiet, persistent insight and her husband's eye for detail.
By today's crime fiction (and even cozy) standards, Murder Among Friends seems to be a fairly genteel psychological study of complicated, intertwined relationships, which might be considered quaint in its depiction of sexual attractions. Yet, as Keating tells it, in 1946, Ferrars's regular publishers refused to publish the book because "detective stories couldn't be this steamy."
Although she's said to have based many characters and situations on people she knew and things she'd experienced in real life, it's not known to what degree that plays a role here. But with the long character portraits Alice extracts from her questioning of the key players, it wouldn't take much of a leap to guess that Ferrars's emphasis on the emotional makeup of her characters was drawn from a keen eye of observation; or, as a character in her book The Small World of Murder puts it, "Murder's generally an intimate sort of thing. It happens in a small world, a little shut-in world of violent feelings."
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August 21, 2025
Mystery Melange
Vincent Van Gogh Book Art by Souverein
The inaugural Spymasters Book Prize 2025 revealed the titles that made the shortlist. The six finalists include: The Peacock and the Sparrow by IS Berry; Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd; Spy Hunter by HB Lyle; Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate; Midnight in Vienna by Jane Thynne; and Shadow of Poison by Peter Tonkin. The award is open to any spy novel published in hardback or paperback in 2024, including both historical and modern spy thrillers. The winner, who will receive a cash prize of £500, will be announced at a ceremony on September 3.
Friends of the Milton Public Library is hosting the panel, "Make Mine Murder: A Killer Panel of New England Crime Writers Reveal the Secrets Behind the Page," September 11 in Milton, Massachusetts. Lucy Burdette, Elise Hart Kipness, Sarah Stewart Taylor, and moderator Hallie Ephron will offer behind the scenes details of bestselling whodunits, edge-of-your-seat thrillers, and literary mysteries and how they craft suspense and plot twists, and bring their unforgettable characters to life.
Sisters in Crime's Desert Sleuths chapter is holding a Write NOW! virtual conference, September 19-20. Special guests include Rhys Bowen, Allison Brennan, Christina Estes, Robyn Gigl, Deborah J Ledford, Wendy H. Jones, Edith Maxwell, Catriona McPherson, Karen Odden, Raquel V. Reyes, D.M. Rowell, Alex Segura, and Lois Winston. In addition to panels, there will be one-on-one 10-minute pitch sessions with an acquiring agent and an opportunity for an editor manuscript review. You can register in advance through the organization's website.
The University of South Carolina's Fall Literary Festival will include a talk on September 10 by C. M. "Chad" Kushins, author of Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard, who made use of the Library's Elmore Leonard Archives for the work. The archives contain drafts, manuscripts, and typescripts of Leonard’s novels, short stories, and screen adaptations and the research and notes related to the writing and publication of these works (including unpublished works). Also included in the collection are personal and professional correspondence, legal documents, and biographical items related to Leonard’s writing career, including typewriters, director’s chairs and awards. During the festival, there will be an exhibit of many of these materials, titled "The bad guys are the fun guys: Celebrating 100 years of Elmore Leonard."
Newberry College will host the Newberry Crime Writing Workshop (NCWW), an intensive four-week writers' workshop for developing crime and mystery authors to take place July 6-31, 2026. Attendees will participate in daily sessions where they will develop and share their work with one another, led by the 2026 instructors, Joe R. Lansdale, Cheryl Head, Michael Bracken, and Dr. Warren Moore. Part class, part writers' colony, NCWW is adapting the model of other successful workshops (such as the famed Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop). Fifteen applicants will be selected based on samples of work and statements of purpose, and writers of any level of publishing experience are welcome to apply. The workshop's $4,000 tuition will cover instruction and room and board for the four-week term, and some financial aid may be available. For more information and to apply, check out the NCWW website.
There have been some interesting call for papers on crime fiction topics recently for upcoming conferences: "(Re)generating the Genre: Unlikely Detectives and Reconstructed Crime Fiction," exploring how both contemporary and classic detective fiction (re)generates the genre by centering characters who have traditionally existed at the margins of cultural authority, with a deadline for abstracts of September 30th; "Virtual Crime and Detection," a special issue of Crime Fiction Studies themed around crime fiction and video games, with abstracts due November 15; the next International Crime Genre Research Network conference has a theme of "Crime Fiction: Retrospection, Futurity, Reinvention," or where crime fiction stands now and in the context of its long histories and potential futures, with abstracts due November 30; and the International Crime Fiction Association is seeking abstracts on the topic of "Captivating Criminality 13: Crime Fiction, Conflict, and Representation," due January 15, 2026.
Some sad news to report: Greg Iles, the Mississippi author of the "Natchez Burning" trilogy and other works, has died at the age of 65. He'd suffered from a decades-long battle with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, and on his website had posted a medical update shortly before the release of his last novel, Southern Man, Penn Cage Book 7. Iles wrote his first novel in 1993, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, which became the first of seventeen New York Times bestsellers. Primarily set in the Deep South, his later novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide. Iles also performed with the musical group The Rock Bottom Remainders along with popular authors Stephen King, Amy Tan and others.
The Crime Fiction Lover website team are offering a chance to win a special signed 15th anniversary edition of Slow Horses by Mick Herron. They will detail the specifics of the competition and how to enter on their Facebook page this Saturday morning, August 23.
This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Cold Dish" by Gary D. Rhodes.
In the Q&A roundup, multiple award-winning author Karin Slaughter spoke with Maine Public Radio about her new book, We Are All Guilty Here; crime author Brian Brady chatted with Lisa Haselton about his new crime fiction novel, Greed; and Sulari Gentill, whose Rowland Sinclair mysteries have won and/or been shortlisted for the Davitt Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, took the Page 69 test to her new novel, Five Found Dead.
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August 18, 2025
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
NBCUniversal has acquired all rights, excluding publishing, to Robert Ludlum’s “Jason Bourne” and “Treadstone” book series, in perpetuity. The deal paves the way for new installments for Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, a CIA assassin suffering from amnesia. A source with knowledge of the deal indicated it was a highly competitive bidding situation that drew seven offers from both streamers and studios before a massive nine-figure proposal was brought back to Universal. With this new agreement, longtime Universal collaborator and producer Frank Marshall will continue to shepherd forthcoming installments of the film series, as he has from the beginning of the “Bourne” franchise, along with Captivate’s Jeffrey Weiner and Ben Smith. Captivate has managed the rights for the Ludlum estate since 2001.
Searchlight Pictures has won a heated bidding battle for Incidents, a psychological thriller from William Gillies, according to Deadline. The film is about a woman who escapes from an attempted abduction with no clear motive, vowing thereafter to find her kidnapper and discover why she’s been targeted. No word yet on other creative attachments, but sources said there were eleven offers on the material. Gillies is best known for his debut feature, Hallow Road, another psychological thriller that premiered to strong reviews at the South by Southwest Conference 2025.
Millennium Media has chosen Noah Centineo to star in John Rambo, the prequel to the Rambo movie series. Sisu director Jalmari Helander is set to direct from a screenplay by writing duo Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. The film’s plot is under wraps, but it will be the origin story of a young John Rambo during the Vietnam War. One of the most iconic action heroes in U.S. cinema, the character was created by David Morell in his novel First Blood. The original 1982 film saw Sylvester Stallone play the veteran Green Beret, who is forced by a cruel sheriff and his deputies to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Barry Eisler’s John Rain books are being adapted for Apple TV+ after the streamer and Tom Winchester’s Pure Fiction label scored the rights to the New York Times bestsellers. An earlier attempt to bring John Rain to TV, with Keanu Reeves toplining, faltered. But with a streamer in place this time around and an option that covers eighteen novels and four short stories, Apple TV+ is hoping it has a new franchise on its hands. Eisler’s bestselling thrillers follow ex-CIA operative John Rain, a half-Japanese, half-American assassin, who specializes in making his kills look like natural causes. Aside from Rain, other key figures in the books include Delilah, a conflicted Mossad seductress who is both Rain’s lover and his deadliest adversary, and Dox, a wisecracking Texan sniper. Nine of the novels focus on Rain directly, while the wider "Killer Collective" universe includes a spinoff series of stories led by characters including sex-crimes detective Livia Lone, closeted black-ops soldier Daniel Larison, and deaf contractor Marvin Manus. These interconnected worlds collide when characters unite to take down a rogue unit that is targeting government whistleblowers.
Hulu has ordered Count My Lies, a limited series starring Lindsay Lohan and Shailene Woodley, from former This Is Us executive producers/co-showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger. The project, based on the recently published novel by Sophie Stava, follows compulsive liar Sloane Caraway (Woodley) as she fibs her way into a nanny position for the gorgeous and charismatic Violet (Lohan) and Jay Lockhart. It seems she’s finally landed her dream job, but little does Sloane know, she’s just entered a household brimming with secrets that are about to explode — with potentially catastrophic consequences for all.
Michelle Keegan (Fool Me Once) and Douglas Booth (Worried About the Boy) are set to star in the ITV cop drama, The Blame, based on the debut novel of the same name by Charlotte Langley. Keegan will play DI Emma Crane and Booth a character named DI Tom Radley in the six-part series, which centers of the discovery of the body of a teenage figure skater, sending shockwaves through the town of Wakestead. Also in the cast are Nathan Mensah, Nigel Boyle, Joe Armstrong, Matilda Freeman, Gavin Spokes, Josh Bolt, Ian Hart, and Ceallach Spellman.
Paramount+ has set Sunday, October 26 for the Season 4 premiere of Mayor of Kingstown, starring Jeremy Renner and Edie Falco. In season four, Mike’s control over Kingstown is threatened as new players compete to fill the power vacuum left in the Russians’ wake, compelling him to confront the resulting gang war and stop them from swallowing the town. Meanwhile, with those he loves in more danger than ever before, Mike must contend with a headstrong new Warden to protect his own while grappling with demons from his past. In addition to Renner and Falco, the series also stars Lennie James, Laura Benanti, Hugh Dillon, Taylor Handley, Tobi Bamtefa, Derek Webster, Hamish Allan-Headley, and Nishi Munshi.
Boyd Holbrook (Narcos) has been cast in the new Netflix series, Extraction, starring opposite Omar Sy. The show is set in the world of the action thriller movie franchise of the same name, to be helmed by showrunner, writer, and executive producer, Glen Mazzara. In the eight-episode action-packed thriller, a mercenary (Sy) embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue hostages in Libya. Trapped between warring factions and ruthless killers, he must navigate life-or-death choices while confronting deep emotional wounds. Holbrook will play Extraction team leader David Ibarra in a series regular role.
A trailer was released for the all-new season of The Marlow Murder Club, returning August 24th at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE Mystery! on PBS, promising more murders, more suspects, and more friendship. The series stars Samantha Bond, who is joined by Jo Martin, Cara Horgan, and Natalie Dew.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
Karin Slaughter stopped by NPR's All Things Considered to talk about her 25th book, We are All Guilty Here, a small town murder mystery with twists and turns until the end.
The latest episode of the Murder Junction featured a chat with crime writer Heidi Amsinck about her Copenhagen-set crime novel, Out of the Dark, and life in the UK for a Danish-born journalist.
The latest Wrong Place, Write Crime with host Frank Zafiro featured a slew of interviews from the floor at the conference for the Public Safety Writers Association, including some award winners.
Authors on the Air chatted with Katie Bishop, the author of The Girls of Summer, about how true crime and TikTok sparked her new thriller, High Season.
Pick Your Poison podcast host Dr. Jen Prosser discussed which antidote is getting more attention on social media than the poison it treats; what happens if the doctor panics while giving it; and why people are drinking fish tank antifungal cleaner.
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