B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 35
February 22, 2024
Mystery Melange
Organizers of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival have announced the Special Guests for the 2024 event. Curated by bestselling crime writer and 2024 Festival Programming Chair Ruth Ware, the headliners for this year’s program include Chris Carter, Jane Casey, Elly Griffiths, Erin Kelly, Vaseem Khan, Dorothy Koomson, Shari Lapena, Abir Mukherjee, Liz Nugent, and Richard Osman. Returning to Harrogate for its 21st year, July 18–21, the festival offers fans from around the world an opportunity to hear from the biggest stars of the genre, discover exciting new talent, and enjoy a lineup of panels, talks, and inspiring creative workshops. Tickets for the Classic Weekend Break Packages, Author Dinners, and Creative Thursday are on sale now.
CrimeFest, the UK’s biggest crime fiction convention, has announced a headline 2024 event with Murdle author, G.T. Karber. The Arkansas author has staged more than thirty immersive whodunits in the LA area as the General Secretary of the Hollywood Mystery Society, and will host a special Murdle event on CrimeFest’s opening night. Karber joins featured guests for 2024’s CrimeFest, authors Laura Lippman, Denise Mina, Lynda Plante, and James Lee Burke. Karber will also take part in a panel on Columbo, alongside fellow aficionados of the iconic TV show, including Lippman and Vaseem Khan, chair of the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). CrimeFest, sponsored by Specsavers, will take place May 9-12 at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel, with 150 authors appearing in over fifty panels. (HT to Crimespree)
Sisters in Crime is accepting applications for its 11th annual Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, a $2,000 grant given to an emerging writer of color. Candidates must apply by March 31, with the winner announced later this spring. Named for the late, pioneering African American crime fiction author, Eleanor Taylor Bland, the award is intended to support the recipient in crime fiction writing and career development activities. The winner may choose to use the grant for activities that include workshops, seminars, conferences, retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of their work. Past winners include Nicole Prewitt, Shizuka Otake, D. Ann Williams, Yasmin Angoe, Jessica Martinez, Mia P. Manansala, Jessica Ellis Laine, Stephane Dunn, Vera H-C Chan, and Maria Kelson. There is no fee to enter and submissions are open to any crime writer of color who has not published more than ten short works or two novels.
The Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction 2024 is also now open for entries. The Lindisfarne Prize recognizes outstanding writing in the genre of crime or thriller fiction and is sponsored by author L J Ross through her publishing imprint, Dark Skies Publishing. The Prize is open to all writers resident in the UK whose work celebrates the North East of England, and who have not previously had their submission published in any form (though they might have had other stories published before). The winning entry will be awarded a prize of £2,500 to support the completion of their work and funding towards a year’s membership of both the Society of Authors (SoA) and the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). The submission window will close on June 30th, with the winner being announced in September.
Writers Police Academy's Killer Con, a Homicide and Crime Scene Investigator Training Academy for Writers, will be held June 6-9, 2024, in Green Bay, WI. Now in its 15th year, the event includes four days of hands-on homicide and crime scene investigator instruction at a renowned law enforcement training academy. This year's event will focus on the crime of murder and will guide writers through the various stages of investigations to experience what it’s like to step into a crime scene as an investigator. In addition to the Special Guest of Honor, Charlaine Harris, several top-tier law enforcement instructors and forensics experts will be on hand as presenters. Organizer Lee Lofland has more about this year's highlights via a two-part link on his blog, here and here.
The crime fiction conference season is beginning to crank up again, but so, too, are smaller events such as Ireland's Ennis Book Club Festival on March 11, where Denise Mina, Andrea Mara and Doug Johnstone will discuss crime fiction with Andrea Carter. Sisters in Crime will present "Top Five Tips for Writing Mysteries," an online workshop on February 24, led by author Andrea J. Johnson, biologist Libby Hubscher, emergency physician and toxicologist Jen Prosser, ER doctor Melissa Yi, and SinC Executive Director, Julie Hennrikus. On March 21, Mystery Writers of America, New York, are presenting "Criminal Tendencies: What Makes a 'Good' Villain" at the Harlem Public Library, led by moderator Elizabeth Mannion and panelists Catherine Maiorisi, Charles Salzberg, and Cathi Stoler.
From March 23 through August 24, 2024, UK's Cambridge University Library will feature the exhibit, "Murder by the Book: A Celebration of 20th Century British Crime Fiction." Bringing together literature, culture and heritage, the exhibit, curated by award-winning crime novelist, Nicola Upson, challenges traditional distinctions between literary fiction and genre fiction and showcases rare books and audio-visual recordings looking at the genre from its origins in the works of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens to contemporary best-sellers Val McDermid and Ian Rankin. With first editions of The Moonstone and Bleak House, as well as Sherlock Holmes' debut appearance, the exhibition also looks at the Library’s remarkable collections and stylish dust jackets that represent more than a century of British book design.
Here's a couple of fun calls for papers for upcoming conferences: PopCRN (the Popular Culture Network) is holding a virtual symposium May 2-3, 2024, on the topic of "Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture," with chosen presenters given the opportunity to submit their presentations as articles to the inaugural edition of the International Journal of Popular Culture. And Bowling Green State University looks ahead to the fortieth anniversary of The Living Daylights in 2027 with a call for proposals for an edited collection of essays on any aspect of Timothy Dalton’s tenure as James Bond.
Although I'm not sure the networks are listening, it appears there is growing support on social media for a revival of the TV series based on Craig Johnson's Longmire novels. The original Longmire series starred Robert Taylor as the beloved Sheriff of Absoroka County and aired on A&E from 2012-2014 before moving to Netflix, where is was canceled after season six in 2017.
In the Q&A roundup, Crime Time interviewed Gregg Hurwitz, bestselling author of the Evan Smoak thrillers, about the latest installment, Lone Wolf, where the former government assassin is pitted against a cabal of dangerous billionaires and a female foe leaving a trail of dead bodies in her wake; and Jahmal Mayfield spoke with The Venetian Vase about his novel, Smoke Kings, which features Nate Evers, a black political activist who is sent down a path of retribution after his cousin his murdered, putting him in the crosshairs of white supremacists and a corrupt cop.
Related StoriesMystery Melange - Valentine's Day EditionMystery Melange
February 19, 2024
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
Oscar winner Will Smith is attached to star in Sugar Bandits, which follows a former Special Forces solider who joins an elite, vigilante squad aiming to wipe out the drug trade in Boston, but soon learns things are not what they seem. The action-crime project is based on the screenplay and novel Devils In Exile by Chuck Hogan. Smith won’t play the lead but will co-star in the movie in an as-yet undisclosed role.
Danielle Deadwyler (Till) and director Jaume Collet-Serra (Black Adam) are re-teaming for the thriller, The Woman in the Yard, based on a screenplay by Sam Stefanak. (Collet-Serra and Deadwyler had previously collaborated in the upcoming Netflix film, Carry On.) Although plot details have been scarce, the project allegedly revolves around a grieving widow who is compelled to confront her own past to safeguard her two children when she encounters a menacing stranger at her doorstep.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
The CW has ordered a new original scripted drama, Sherlock & Daughter, starring David Thewlis (Fargo). The mystery thriller puts Sherlock Holmes (Thewlis) out of his comfort zone, mysteriously unable to investigate a sinister case without risking the lives of his closest friends. Enter young American Amelia (The Originals). After her mother’s mysterious murder, she learns that her missing father might be the legendary detective. Despite wildly different backgrounds and attitudes, the pair must work together to solve a global conspiracy, crack her mother’s murder, and find out for sure if she really is Sherlock’s daughter.
FX has handed a pilot order to The Sensitive Kind, a high-profile drama project starring and executive produced by Ethan Hawke and created and executive produced by Sterlin Harjok, who was showrunner of the network’s acclaimed series, Reservation Dogs. The logline doesn't give away too many details other than the noir tale is set in Tulsa and centers on a guy (Hawke) who "knows too much."
Arrow star Stephen Amell is set as the lead in the NBC drama pilot, Suits L.A., a new extension of the Suits universe from Aaron Korsh, creator and writer of the original series. Suits L.A. centers on Ted Black (Amell), a former federal prosecutor from New York, who has reinvented himself representing the most powerful clients in Los Angeles. His firm is at a crisis point, and in order to survive he must embrace a role he held in contempt his entire career. Suits: L.A. is not be a reboot or revival but a brand extension in the vein of the CSI and NCIS franchises featuring new characters in a new location.
NBCUniversal is giving straight-to-series orders to three new original series including an untitled espionage techno-thriller series from James Wan (The Conjuring Universe, M3GAN), which stars Simu Liu, and two limited series, All Her Fault and Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy. The untitled Wan/Liu project is set five minutes in the future when first-generation American intelligence analyst Alexander Hale (Liu) realizes his brain has been hacked, giving the perpetrators access to everything he sees and hears. Caught between his shadowy agency and the unknown hackers, he must maintain a performance 24/7 to flush out who’s responsible and prove where his allegiance lies. All Her Fault is a suburban-thriller limited series based on the novel of the same name by Andrea Mara; and Devil In Disguise: John Wayne Gacy peels back the twisted layers of serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s life and the stories of his victims.
Leo Woodall is leading the Apple TV+ thriller, Prime Target, opposite Quintessa Swindell, with Ridley Scott among the exec producers. The show is created by Sherlock scribe Steve Thompson and follows a math graduate on the verge of succeeding in finding a pattern in prime numbers, which would hold the key to every computer in the world. Soon he begins to realize an unseen enemy is trying to destroy his idea before it’s even born, which throws him into the orbit of Taylah Sanders (Swindell), a female NSA agent, who’s been tasked with watching and reporting on various mathematicians’ behavior. Together they start to piece together the troubling conspiracy.
NBC has given a pilot order to Grosse Pointe Garden Society, a long-in-the-works drama that follows four members of a suburban garden club, all from different walks of life, who get caught up in murder and mischief as they struggle to make their conventional lives bloom.
HBO released a new trailer for the upcoming series, The Sympathizer, which will debut on HBO and Max on April 14. The limited series is an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of a communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War. Hoa Xuande plays the half-French, half-Vietnamese communist at the center of the story, while Robert Downey Jr. plays multiple roles, including that of the young man’s handler.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
On Crime Time FM, Tony Kent chatted with Paul Burke about his new thriller, The Shadow Network; Dempsey & Devlin; Chiltern Kills; working on TV true crime, and more.
The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with Canadian mystery writer Nita Prose; discussed the advent of dog poop DNA testing; and mused on the recent advances in cold fusion science.
Debbi Mack's guest on the latest episode of The Crime Cafe was author Leanne Kale Sparks, who writes a series of thrillers featuring FBI agent Kendall Beck, set in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Frank Zafiro spoke with NYT bestselling author, Meg Gardiner, about her time as a lawyer; her stint on Jeopardy; how Stephen King influenced her career; the three different thriller series she’s written, and her experience co-authoring Heat 2 with Michael Mann.
Meet the Thriller Author interviewed Lisa Regan, bestselling author of the Detective Josie Quinn series, as well as several other crime fiction titles.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze podcast episode featured the mystery short story, "Caught By the Last Star," written by Nikki Knight and read by actor Amelia Ryan.
The latest Pick Your Poison podcast investigated a class of drugs dangerous enough to have been used by a serial killer nurse but are also used in cough drops.
Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday
February 14, 2024
Mystery Melange - Valentine's Day Edition
Janet Rudolph has compiled a listing of Valentine's Day crime fiction, or those titles that take place on or around Valentine's Day, as well as an updated list of Sweetheart Sleuths. And if you're a chocoholic, check out her Dying for Chocolate blog for Valentine's Day chocolate reviews, recipes, and vintage chocolate ads.
As Janet notes in the above link, it's also International Book Giving Day, an annual event conceived by Amy Broadmoore, founder of Delightful Children’s Books and The Curious Kid’s Librarian in 2012. International Book Giving Day is all about getting new, used, and borrowed books into the hands of as many children as possible. Volunteers are encouraged to organize their own events or simply contribute however they can by giving at least one book to a child in need. International Book Giving Day is celebrated in over 44 countries, including France, Ukraine, South Africa, Japan, Nigeria, the U.S., UK, and Malaysia, among others. If you'd like to participate and want to include some mystery books for kids, here are some links from Book Riot, Imagination Soup, and Scholastic.
The authors at Mystery Lovers Kitchen have some recipes and reads for the holiday, including Leslie Karst's Seared Pork Chops with Apricot Brandy; also Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies, courtesy of Maddie Day; and Flourless Chocolate Whisky Cake from Molly MacRae.
For more than four decades, the people of Portland, Maine, have awakened on Valentine’s Day to find large and small red hearts adorning storefronts, statues, parking garages and some of the city’s biggest landmarks. But that tradition was imperiled by the death of the so-called Valentine’s Day Bandit last spring. But all was not lost when this year fans of the bandit plastered hundreds of the small paper decorations everywhere, including mailboxes and even trash bins, and hanging larger banners on a floating restaurant, construction scaffolding and the library.
If you're a Valentine's Scrooge, then you might prefer to check out this list of ten crime films where love doesn't conquer all.
The iconic 130-Year-Old Pasadena, California bookstore Vroman's is up for sale. Over the years, the bookstore has hosted bestselling authors including Naomi Hirahara and Walter Mosley, who put his handprints into fresh concrete in a Walk of Fame ceremony during the store's 125th anniversary celebrationn. The store was founded in 1894 by Adam Clark Vroman, who loved books and giving back to his community. He helped to rescue some of the old Franciscan missions from decay, and during World War II, Vroman's Bookstore donated and delivered books to Japanese Americans interned at nearby camps, such as the Manzanar camp in Owens Valley. When Mr. Vroman died in 1916, he left the bookstore to long-time employees, one of whom was the great grandfather of the current owner. In 2008, Vroman's was named Bookseller of the Year by Publishers Weekly.
In happier bookstore news, French President Macron now says that booksellers can stay put during the upcoming Olympic Games. The booksellers in question have operated near the Seine for centuries and become a fixture in the heart of Paris. So when the city’s police, citing security concerns, ordered them closed during this summer’s Olympic Games, an uproar ensued leading Macron to step in, deeming the booksellers "a living heritage of the capital."
U.S. publisher Soho Press is introducing a new horror-fiction imprint called Hell’s Hundred, named after the once bleak, now chic New York City neighborhood of SoHo. Publishers Weekly noted that the first two books from Hell’s Hundred will debut this summer, including youthjuice, by former beauty editor E.K. Sathue (aka Erin Mayer), which Soho associate editor Taz Urnov bills as "a horror satire about the beauty industry that really puts the gore in gorgeous," and Blood Like Mine from Stuart Neville, whose noir mysteries often incorporate supernatural elements and regularly border on horror. (HT to The Rap Sheet blog)
Writing for Public Domain Review, Daisy Sainsbury investigated the legend of Eugène-François Vidocq (1775–1857), the head of the Sûreté whose tumultuous life included a criminal past and work in law enforcement, forensics, private investigation, and prison reform. He also achieved literary fame as the author of wildly popular memoirs. According to those memoirs, Vidocq escaped from more than twenty prisons (sometimes dressed as a nun), and then, working on the other side of the law, apprehended some 4000 criminals with a team of plainclothes agents. He founded the first criminal investigation bureau — staffed mainly with convicts — and, when he was later fired, the first private detective agency. (HT to The Bunburyist)
In the Q&A roundup, New Zealand writer Tom Baragwanath spoke with Crime Time about his new novel, Paper Cage; and Swedish author Johan Theorin chatted with Options The Edge on his crime quartet set in the island of Öland, and how writing crime fiction is his way of dealing with the darker side of things that happen in his homeland.
Related StoriesMystery Melange
February 12, 2024
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
Scarlett Johansson is set to lead the true-crime thriller, Featherwood. Johansson will portray Carol Blevins, a heroin addict and "Aryan Princess featherwood" (property of a gang member) who became one of the FBI’s most important informants during a six-year investigation into the murderous, neo-Nazi crime and drug syndicate known as the Aryan Brotherhood Of Texas. Blevins, who lived with the gang, memorized details, pre-empted murders, and interrupted robberies, helping to convict thirteen members of the group. However, her harrowing journey left her with significant physical and mental scars and she lives under constant threat of reprisal by the ABT. The movie is based on the award-winning, six-part Dallas Morning News article by Pulitzer Prize finalist, Scott Farwell.
Luke Hemsworth has joined the cast of the Prime Video sequel series, The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, in a recurring role, joining the previously announced cast of Taylor Kitsch, Tom Hopper, and Chris Pratt. Co-created by The Terminal List author, Jack Carr, and Season 1 creator-showrunner, David DiGilio, the prequel, set five years before the mothership series, takes viewers on Ben Edwards’s journey from Navy SEAL to CIA paramilitary operator, exploring the darker side of warfare and the human cost that comes with it. The series focuses on enigmatic Special Operator Ben Edwards, portrayed by Kitsch. Hemsworth will portray Jules Landry, a self-obsessed CIA contractor who hides a dangerously volatile personality beneath his muscled veneer.
Joel Kinnaman (The Suicide Squad) and Cara Jade Myers (Killers of the Flower Moon) are set to star in the thriller, Ice Fall. Stefan Ruzowitzky, director of Oscar-winning crime-drama, The Counterfeiters, will helm the film which is written by George Mahaffey (Chief Of Station). The story follows a young Indigenous game warden who arrests an infamous poacher only to discover that the poacher knows the location of a plane carrying millions of dollars that has crashed in a frozen lake. When a group of criminals and dirty cops are alerted to the poacher’s whereabouts, the warden and the poacher team up to fight back and escape across the treacherous lake before the ice melts.
Dermot Mulroney and Tony Shalhoub are the newest additions to Amazon MGM Studios' crime thriller, Play Dirty, the first project based on Donald E. Westlake’s Parker crime fiction novels (written under the pseudonym Richard Stark) to emerge from a pact between the studio and Team Downey in 2022. Directed by Shane Black, Play Dirty centers on professional thief Parker (Mark Wahlberg), who after being double-crossed and left for dead, sees his hunt for revenge bring with it a shot at the biggest heist of his career. But even with the help of his partner, actor/con artist Grofield (LaKeith Stanfield), he’ll still need to outsmart a South American dictator, the New York mob, and the world’s richest man if he hopes to stay alive.
Chinese megastar Fan Bingbing has been tapped to star opposite Liam Neeson in Ice Road 2: Road to the Sky, the sequel to Jonathan Hensleigh’s 2021 action film, The Ice Road. The film sees Neeson return as big-rig ice road driver Mike McCann who, honoring his late brother’s last wish, travels to Nepal to scatter his ashes on Mt. Everest. While on a packed tour bus traversing the deadly 12,000 ft. terrain of the infamous Road to the Sky, McCann and his mountain guide encounter a group of Nepalese mercenaries and must fight not only to save themselves and the busload of innocent travelers, but also the local villagers’ homeland. Fan portrays Dhani, a veteran Mt. Everest guide with multiple ascents whose indigenous knowledge and extraordinary yet unlikely fighting skills add a unique bend to Mike’s survival and unexpected quest for justice.
Emmy Award winner Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) has re-teamed with Nobody writer Derek Kolstad (John Wick franchise) on a new action project titled Normal, with Ben Wheatley set as director. The script, written by Kolstad, follows Ulysses (Odenkirk), who is thrust into the temporary role of the sheriff for the small sleepy town Normal after the previous one’s untimely death. When the town’s bank is robbed by an out-of-town couple, Ulysses arrives on the scene to find that the town is hiding much more sinister deep-seated secrets under its surface and everyone—from the bartender to the priest—is in on it. And Ulysses, who has until now only focused on running away from the demons of his past, must uncover the full extent of this criminal conspiracy.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
Beau Bridges has been tapped for a major recurring role opposite Kathy Bates in Matlock, CBS‘s upcoming drama series inspired by the classic TV show of the same name. He will take over the role played by Jamey Sheridan in the pilot. Originally targeted for this midseason, Matlock will debut in 2024-25 due to strike-related delays. Matlock stars Bates as Madeline "Matty" Matlock, a brilliant septuagenarian who achieved success in her younger years and decides to rejoin the work force at a prestigious law firm where she uses her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases. Bridges plays Senior, the firm’s managing partner who has an indomitable presence that immediately alters the temperature of any room.
The BBC is keeping its Agatha Christie tradition alive by setting Towards Zero as its next adaptation of Dame Agatha's work, following on from 2023’s limited series Murder Is Easy. Towards Zero unfolds around the murder of an elderly widow at a clifftop seaside house—linking a failed suicide attempt, a schoolgirl wrongfully accused of theft, and the romantic life of a famous tennis player. The book will be adapted by Rachel Bennette, the writer behind BAFTA-nominated Zadie Smith adaptation, NW. She has also written for World on Fire and Ripper Street.
Acorn TV has partnered with Paramount’s British broadcaster Channel 5 on Ellis, a three-part detective drama series starring Sharon D. Clarke. The series follows DCI Ellis, a tenacious cop who is parachuted into failing investigations. Each two-hour episode sees Ellis—accompanied by her right-hand man DS Harper, played by Andrew Gower (Outlander)—arrive at a different police station, where she will have to win over the local detectives and immerse herself in the cases she has come to solve. As a black female cop, Ellis is used to being dismissed and overlooked, but she is a first-class murder detective, with a determination for justice and a deep well of compassion for those who need it.
A first look was revealed for the upcoming Netflix spy series, Black Doves. The drama follows Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), a quick-witted, down-to-earth, dedicated wife and mother—and professional spy. For ten years, she’s been passing on her politician husband’s secrets to the shadowy organization she works for: the Black Doves. When her secret lover Jason (Andrew Koji) is assassinated, her spymaster, the enigmatic Reed (Sarah Lancashire) calls in Helen’s old friend, Sam Young (Ben Whishaw) to keep her safe.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
NPR's Morning Edition chatted with George Pelecanos, who recalls the day police raided the author's home, and how fifteen years later, he's ready to write about it
NPR's Book of the Day focused on two novels where the characters are grappling with the natural elements—and with mysterious deaths. First, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Alex Michaelides about The Fury, a murder mystery in which a famous actress and her friends are trapped on a remote Greek island by the ferocious Mediterranean wind. Then, Scott Simon asked Sarah-Jane Collins about Radiant Heat, which follows a young woman who survives an Australian wildfire, only to emerge from her house and find a dead woman she's never met—clutching a piece of paper with her name and address.
NPR's Scott Simon also chatted with C. L. Miller about her debut mystery, The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder, set in the English countryside.
On Crime Writers of Color, Robert Justice interviewed Danielle Arceneaux, author of Glory Be.
Paul Vidich and Charles Cumming chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about their latest novels, Beirut Station and Kennedy 35, and the Cold War.
The latest episode of the Crime Cafe featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Melissa Yi, who is also an emergency physician, about her newest crime novel, White Lightning, featuring Dr. Hope Sze.
Read or Dead hosts Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed books with threatening titles.
Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday
February 9, 2024
Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Death Watch
[image error] Author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is a British writer born in 1948 in the Shepherd's Bush area of London. While studying English, history, and philosophy at the University College of London in 1972, she wrote her first novel which won the UK's Young Writers Award. She toiled away in the business world as her day job, but continued writing on the side which finally paid off in 1979 with what has become her best-selling series about the Morland Dynasty. She's written over 60 novels in three different genres since then.
She turned to crime fiction in 1991 with Orchestrated Death, the first in her series featuring Detective Inspector Bill Slider, which has grown into 24 novels thus far, with the latest published in 2023. Slider is middle-class, middle-aged and, according to his partner Jim Atherton, menopausal, or as reviewer Bill Ott said, "Slider is a beleaguered Everyman, immersed in the dailiness of life." Atherton, on the other hand, is out of place in the Met because he's a gourmand, fancy dresser, and womanizer. The give-and-take between the two men is one of the elements that anchors the series.
On the subject of how she came up with the idea for Slider, the author says
"When I originally embarked on ORCHESTRATED DEATH, the first of the Bill Slider books...I had no thought then of having it published. With no preconceived notions of how to write a detective novel, I started with a corpse; and, in order not to make it too easy, I made it a totally naked corpse in a completely empty flat – a clue-free zone! I didn’t have to invent a detective - Bill Slider walked into my head the first day, complete in every respect. Don’t ask me where he came from: he’s not like anyone I know, at least not consciously; but from the first moment I knew everything about him – how he looked, where he lived, where he’d been to school, what he liked and disliked. So Bill and I started investigating our first case. I had no more idea than he did who the corpse was, let alone who had murdered her or why, so we had to work it out as we went along – not the recommended method for writing a mystery..."
But Harrod-Eagles was apparently a quick-study, thanks to a lot of research spending time with police detectives, reading police in-house magazines, doing legal and forensic studies, as well as reading newspaper reports of real crimes. The result has been a series worthy enough that she's been likened to John Harvey and Ian Rankin.
[image error]The second book in the series, Death Watch from 1992, follows Slider and Atherton when they respond to an arson at the Master Baker Motor Lodge and that led to the death of a loudmouthed lothario salesman, Dick Neal, who leaves behind a bitter wife and a bevy of mistresses. Despite the fact that the victim had ligature marks around his neck and trusses on his genitals, Slider's superiors are hoping it's just a suicide, due to budget constraints—but then Slider uncovers a possible link between the death and what is happening to the members of the "Red Watch" who manned the Shaftesbury Street Fire Station in the 1970's.
As Slider digs deeper into the case, he at first loathes then envies the dead man his adulterous life, finding parallels between the victim and Slider's own extramarital affair with a concert violinist. When Slider notes the victim "Seems to me to have been a a sad, pathetic creature," it's as much an indictment of his own situation as it is Neal's. But lest one get the impression that Harrod-Eagles' books are more in the noir vein, she also peppers her writing with wit, a bevy of puns and intelligent dialogue, as well as effective pacing and clever plot twists.
February 8, 2024
Mystery Melange
With Simon & Schuster turning 100 years old this year, the company has planned a slate of activities and celebrations to mark the anniversary and unveiled the Simon & Schuster 100, a collection of 100 titles chosen to "represent the breadth and depth of the company's publishing program, across genres, imprints, and borders." I didn't see a lot of crime fiction titles in that list, although Mary HIggins Clark's Where are The Children made the cut. On April 8, S&S is hosting a celebration event called Author! Author! at the Town Hall auditorium in New York City where thirty-plus S&S authors will take part, including crime fiction authors William Kent Krueger, Jack Carr, Laura Dave, Brad Thor, and Ruth Ware. S&S will donate 20% of its net proceeds from ticket sales to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. The festivities will continue throughout the year, with more special events and content to be announced.
Mystery Fest 2024 will be held this year on February 24th at the University of Portsmouth's Eldon Building in Portsmouth, UK, from 10am-5pm. Guest of Honor is Simon Brett, who has published over a hundred books, including the Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter, Fethering, Blotto & Twinks, and Decluttering series. In 2014 he was presented with the Crime Writers’ Association’s highest award, the Diamond Dagger, and in 2016 he was made an O.B.E. "for services to literature." Another highlight will be expert witness Paul Smith and his team from the University of Portsmouth talking about the work of CSI. (HT to Promoting Crime)
The deadline is approaching to submit applications for the International Thriller Writers Scholarships. This year, the ITW is awarding two separate scholarships for ThrillerFest: the Fresh Perspectives Scholarship for any underrepresented author, published or unpublished, and the Undiscovered New Voices Scholarship for any unpublished author who is writing a mystery/thriller novel (80-100k words). Each scholarship recipient will receive a cash stipend and a free pass to attend ThrillerFest XIX, which takes place May 28–June 1, 2024 in New York City. Interested applicants have until February 23 to submit a form. For more information, head on over to this link.
Chapter proposals are invited for an edited collection exploring and evaluating the representation and navigation of war in writing set in, looking back to, and negotiating the parameters of the Golden Age of detective fiction. The group behind the project first co-edited the collection Agatha Christie Goes to War (Routledge 2019). The book will be edited by Dr. J.C. Bernthal (Visiting Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Suffolk) and Dr. Rebecca Mills (Senior Lecturer in Communication and English, Bournemouth University). Proposals are due March 31st, 2024. (HT to Shots Magazine blog)
In an excerpt on the New York Times from his upcoming book, The Essential Harlem Detectives, author S.A. Cosby offered up an appreciation of Chester Himes, "The Crime Novelist Who Was Also a Great American Novelist," with Cosby arguing he was on par with Ellison, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. Himes was best known for his series with police detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson but also inspired countless writers and was a touchstone for Black writers specifically. As Cosby added, "His ferocious tenacity in the face of racism and prejudice laid the foundation for the path many of us have walked in the years since he published his first novel."
Editor Elizabeth Foxwell noted the release from McFarland and Co. of James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, the latest volume in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series. Sallis—who might be best known for Drive (adapted into the film with Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan) and his series with PI Lew Griffin—has an intriguing, cross-genre career that encompasses poetry, mystery, and sci-fi, as well as a highly regarded book on author Chester Himes and long experience as a critic. He's even appeared in a film with fellow mystery author Lawrence Block.
In the Q&A roundup, Crime Time chatted with top Scottish author Louise Welsh about To the Dogs, her new standalone crime thriller; Crime Time also spoke with RL Graham about the new historical crime novel, Death on the Lusitania and with Jessica Bull about her debut novel, Miss Austen Investigates; and Writers Who Kill's EB White interviewed Heather Weidner about Twinkle Twinkle Au Revoir, the second book in the Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe mystery series.
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February 7, 2024
Author R&R with Gary Stuart
[image error]Gary Stuart is a Phoenix lawyer and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where he also serves as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Office of the Dean. He is a former member of the Arizona Board of Regents and is a member of the Maricopa Bar Association's Hall of Fame. He has published scores of law review articles, op-ed pieces, essays, magazine articles, short stories, CLE booklets, and eighteen books. He blogs about the ethics of writing at The Ethics of Writing. He's also written westerns and mystery novels, including his latest works, a duology featuring Dr. Lisbeth Socorro: Hide and Be and its immediate sequel My Brother, Myself.
[image error]Dr. Lisbeth Socorro is a prison shrink who specializes in twins. She's also an expert consultant for the FBI, who calls her in when there appears to be a serial killer on the loose targeting twins. Twin brothers Arthur and Martin suffered horrible abuse as children, forcing them to survive by seamlessly assuming each other’s identities. Living each other’s lives provides protection from the trauma of their past. But when tragedy strikes, one of the brothers plummets into a dissociative crisis that leads him down a murderous path. As the body count rises, two cases end up in the courtroom, where judges, lawyers, and psychiatrists try to piece together which twin is the suspect and which is the victim. Everyone in the courtroom strives to bring the victims to justice, but how can justice be served when no one is sure who the defendant truly is?
Gary Stuart stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R on researching and writing the books:
Let’s say you want to write a novel about a serial killer who murders his victims because they are identical twins who don’t love one another as much as he loved his dead twin brother. Your draft novel-in-progress is a thriller featuring made up characters existing only in your mind, with psychological flaws, trauma, and drama. You might start by understanding how the mirror of fiction works when an author tries to tell a made up story. Especially one that reflects life and the deeper selves that exist in made up characters. You can blend real life problems with deep seated fictional challenges. You might start that first draft by digging into The Emotional Wound Thesaurus—A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma.
Then, as you work your way through emotional wounds in singletons, you might dig into twins—monozygotic, mirror twins. They are rare. So is your idea about a book where the protagonist is an identical twin living his dead twin brothers’ life because he thinks he killed his twin. At the planning and plotting stage you might catch up on the basics of identical twins by checking out Science Direct, a highly reliable source for the medical world and the writing world.
Your book must be credible. You’re writing fiction, right? The twins in your book not only look the same, but they also think alike. Is that possible? Psychic twins are a common movie trope, but sometimes there is truth in fantasy. It’s a highly accepted scientific fact that the genes we inherit from our parents influence our psychological features – things like our intelligence and memory ability – and our chances of developing conditions that affect the way we think, such as autism and schizophrenia. Identical twins – who share all the same genes – think more alike than unrelated people or even non-identical twins and other siblings. Check this site out.
In your book, twins are both killer and victim. How could that be? Is there scientific research on crime by twins? Visual differences are often difficult to pinpoint in criminal cases. Identical twins are from the same fertilized egg. They have the same DNA. Many times, one twin will commit a crime and blame it on the other. Twins can commit crimes “because” they are twins. Check this site out to find out why.
Life is painful for some, especially twins who suffered emotional trauma that cannot be dispelled or forgotten. Your book could feature dialogue murmured in the dark of night and then only to themselves. Your story will develop slowly, as the characters discover trauma they tried unsuccessfully to forget. Characters, like real people, are products of their past. That means you have to tell a back story as you blend in the real story in a way that isn’t real. But your readers don’t know that at first, and are locked into it once they discover what they, at first, think, until you feint, then change direction. That happens as you expand your narrative arc out past suspicion, to bad memory, fear of recurrence, revelation and finally to retribution.
As you draft your emotional trauma novel, you might consider The Psychology Workbook For Writers. It will remind you that writing is a form of psychology because “Writers, the good ones anyway, are keen observers of human nature, and they capture it in their characters and storytelling. They show the behaviors, the thought processes, and the ways people make meaning out of their experiences and events and turn them into provoking entertainment.
Maybe your book is also about serial murderers. That’s a common crime fiction theme. The federal government defines “serial” murders. Generally , serial murders include one or more offenders, two or more murdered victims, the murders occur in separate events, at different times, and the period between murders separates serial murder from mass murder. There is a lot more to this that you get in media reports. So, check this site out. If the FBI is in your book, this site fits. It’s a way to show, not just tell.
My soon-to-be-released novels, Hide & Be, and My Brother, Myself, are about trauma wounds experienced by identical twin characters. Which twin is a killer? Which a victim? Both? Neither? One of them is charged in court but denies he’s the right twin—the one that committed a crime. The court of profoundly befuddled because there is no convincing evidence of identity. As a famous English barrister once said, “Ye gads, your honor, they have the wrong bloke in the dock.” My characters, traumatically wounded twin brothers suffer deep and relentless trauma following death of one and rejection by the survivor. Through both books, the characters refocus and reinvent their realities. In places, one or the other takes count of life’s worst days. They experience terror and loss no one else could ever understand. Moral codes haunt some characters, while others exhibit sociopathic behaviors that harm. The pace of the story stokes tension in a way I hope keeps readers hoping for the best while suspecting the worst. What’s gonna happen next is the tension that keeps readers turning pages.
Throughout both books, my readers will wonder about what motivates different characters to do unspeakable things in ways they deny and exist in places they never visited. Some of my characters live a lie. Others deny it. Two dig deeply into the lie, but miss the truth the lie hides. And still others sense the lie and eventually uncover it only to find psychological wounds that cannot be treated, especially not in courtrooms. I spent an earlier lifetime in courtrooms. I write crime fiction because I like making things up and explaining the law enforcement and judicial entanglements that grip an unexplainable world. My books find purchase in a world only the law could invent.
Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, The Emotional Wound Theasus, Writers Helping Writers (2017).
Darian Smith, The Psychology Workbook For Writers—Tools For Creating Realistic Characters and Conflict In Fiction. (2015).
Ibid at page 1.
You can learn more about Gary Stuart and his writing via his website and also follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Hide and Be and My Brother, Myself are now available via all major booksellers.
February 5, 2024
Agatha Accolades
The finalists for the 2024 Agatha Awards sponsored by the annual Malice Domestic Conference were announced today. Congrats to all!
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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
Actor and influential Hong Kong action filmmaker, Donnie Yen, is set to star in a feature adaptation of the classic ’70s TV series, Kung Fu, based on a screenplay by Stephen Chin. Stephen L’Hereaux will also produce, and Ed Spielman, creator of the original Kung Fu television series, will executive produce. The ABC drama starred David Carradine as a Shaolin monk and elite martial arts practitioner who fled China after his master was murdered. He wandered the Old West helping the downtrodden and weathering rampant racism while eluding assassins.
Sam Hargrave, having found his next high-octane action vehicle following Netflix's Extraction, is set to direct an adaptation of Kill Them All for Paramount Pictures. Based on the popular graphic novel by Kyle M. Starks, James Coyne will adapt the script for the big screen. The graphic novel follows an elite female assassin who finds out she is going to be "terminated" by the criminal syndicate she’s been loyal to and decides to take them out first. Joining forces with a hard-drinking ex-cop, she embarks on a relentless, action-packed assault through the fifteen floors of the syndicate’s headquarters. Her ultimate target: the Boss, with whom she has a complicated past.
Hanway Films will represent worldwide sales for Winter Of The Crow, a Cold War thriller starring Oscar-nominated actress Lesley Manville and currently shooting in Warsaw. Based on a short story by Nobel Prize and International Booker-winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, the film is set in what is described as "the surreal and cinematic world of 1981 Warsaw." When martial law is imposed overnight, shutting down the country, visiting British psychiatry professor Dr. Joan Andrews (Manville) arrives just as taxis have been replaced by tanks, and citizens are treated like criminals. But as chaos engulfs the city, she witnesses a brutal murder by the secret police. In mortal danger and trapped as Poland is closed down, Joan becomes a hunted fugitive.
Henry Cavill assembles The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare in a new trailer. Inspired by true events and based on declassified files of the British War Department, the Guy Ritchie-helmed film tells the tale of a top secret combat unit formed by Winston Churchill alongside some military folks and a certain James Bond author Ian Fleming, sent on a mission to fight the Nazis by unconventional means, and preceding the British SAS and Black Ops warfare. The film also stars Cary Elwes, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Babs Olusamokun, Henrique Zaga, Til Schweiger, and Henry Golding.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
Michael Shannon is set to play assassinated President Garfield with Matthew Macfadyen as his killer in a new series for Netflix, Death By Lightning, based on the book Destiny Of The Republic by Candice Millard. The series will bring to life the stranger-than-fiction true story of James Garfield, reluctant 20th president of the United States, who was inaugurated in 1881 and assassinated later that year by Charles Guiteau, who felt he had played a major role in Garfield’s election.
Amanda Seyfried will star in Peacock's limited series adaptation of the Liz Moore thriller novel, Long Bright River. Per the official logline, the show "tells the story of Mickey (Seyfried), a police officer who patrols a Philadelphia neighborhood hard-hit by the opioid crisis. When a series of murders begins in the neighborhood, Mickey realizes that her personal history might be related to the case." Moore is adapting her book for the screen alongside Nikki Toscano (The Offer, Hunters), with both also serving as executive producers and Toscano serving as showrunner.
HBO is developing a limited series based on the 2009 Gillian Flynn novel, Dark Places. The official logline description states: "Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in the famous 1985 ‘Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.’ She survived—and famously testified that her teenage brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, a pair of mother/daughter true crime ‘detectives’ locate a grownup Libby and pump her for details, believing that Ben is innocent. Libby, having spent her youth working the talk show circuit, hopes to once again turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings —for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist traps, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer."
It’s definitely the end of an era on NBC's Law & Order as Sam Waterston announced he's leaving the show after playing District Attorney Jack McCoy for more than 400 episodes. His last show will air on February 22. As Waterston exits, the cast will be joined by Tony Goldwyn (Oppenheimer, Scandal), who will portray the new district attorney. Waterston made his debut on the series in the Season 5 premiere (1994) and went on to snag a SAG Award and three Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1997, 1999 and 2000, for his portrayal of McCoy. He has also reprised the role in various other projects including spinoff shows: Law & Order Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
Although details aren’t available just yet, Apple TV+ has given the go-ahead for a second season of Hijack, one of the top dramas on the streamer after landing on the Nielsen Streaming Originals Top 10 list. Idris Elba starred alongside Max Beesley who played Sam Nelson, an accomplished business negotiator forced to use his guile to save the lives of passengers onboard a hijacked plane making its way to London. Archie Panjabi and Ben Miles were also featured in the cast.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with Anna O author Matthew Blake; discussed homicidal somnambulism; and then talked to Guy Kennaway, author of Good Scammer, while taking a look at some of the best books ever set in the Caribbean.
On Crime Time FM, former CIA analyst David McCloskey chatted with Paul Burke about his new exhilarating spy thriller Moscow X; Russia; Boyars; world views; and ubiquitous technological surveillance.
In the latest episode of the Spybrary spy book podcast, host Shane Whaley invited guest Jeff Circle, author, veteran, avid spy novel reader and the head honcho behind The Writers Dossier to embark on a clandestine mission behind the Iron Curtain. As part of the Dead Drop 5 series, Jeff Circle shares his top five best spy thriller books that he would take with him to East Berlin.
On Read or Dead, Kendra Winchester and special guest Liberty Hardy talked about old and new books, "Something old and something new, one host borrowed, the other dressed in blue."
The latest Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast featured the suspenseful tale of a nude model who finds herself posing for an eccentric and rather creepy artist, in "Rendering" by Sophia Lynch, one of the latest entries in EQMM's Department of First Stories.
The Pick Your Poison podcast took a look at a chemical used to make explosives that's also used for weight loss.
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February 2, 2024
Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Emily Dickinson is Dead
[image error] Author Jane Langton (1922-2018) didn't come to mystery novels in any traditional sort of way. She studied astronomy at Wellesley College and the University of Michigan and received graduate degrees in art history at the University of Michigan and Radcliffe College. But turn to writing, she did, in 1962, penning YA novels (her book The Fledgling is a Newbery Honor book) and 18 adult mysteries which won her Bouchercon's 2000 Lifetime Achievement Award.
All of her mysteries focus on the same two protagonists, Homer Kelly, a distinguished Thoreau scholar and ex-lieutenant detective for Middlesex County, and his wife Mary. As the author herself said, "Mary is the sensible one, but I confess I like Homer's rhapsodic flights of fancy." Most of the settings are in the author's own state of Massachusetts, although she's also sent them to more exotic places like Florence, Oxford and Venice.
Langton also illustrates many of her novels with her own drawings, explaining it this way:
One of the greatest pleasures has been illustrating my adult books with drawings of the real places where my fictional events happen. I've loved setting up my folding stool in Harvard Square, or standing on my own back porch trying to get down on paper the look of the pants and shirts on the laundry line, or leaning against cars in Florence with sketchbook in hand to draw some architectural wonder. Conditions have not always been salubrious, as when my feet were submerged while I sketched the house of Tintoretto in Venice during the season of high water.
[image error] Her 1984 Homer Kelly novel, Emily Dickinson is Dead was nominated for an Edgar Award and received a Nero Award that year. It was inspired, no doubt, by the author's own interest in Dickinson, having written a text about the poet for the collection Acts of Light. The action in Langton's novel takes place at a symposium celebrating the 100th anniversary of the death of poet Emily Dickinson, where one attendee disappears and another is found murdered in the poet's former bedroom.
Langton's trademarks are all here in the novel, her memorable and descriptive settings, eccentric characters, a sly humor that pokes fun at the pompous academics and Amherst townsfolk alike. As the New York Times Book Review added, "Miss Langton is a sensitive and even elegant writer, one who deals with literate, intelligent people..."
Homer Kelly is more of a peripheral figure in this particular novel, but he sums up the essence of his philosophy—and probably that of the author—and the book quite nicely:
Homer Kelly, too, was enchanted with the afternoon. It wasn't the justice of the women's cause that had diverted him; it was the everlasting melodrama of human souls in conflict. It was the handfuls of gritty sand that were forever being sprinkled into the machinery of daily life, grinding the ill-fitting cogs against each other, warping the sprockets, jamming the mismatched teeth. It was always so fascinating, the way people went right on being so outrageously themselves, and therefore so eternally interesting.
Although not so much a mystery as a wry study of human hubris and self-delusion, the book's character studies, snippets of poetry, Langton's illustrations, and even some details about the workings of dams and reservoirs, make Emily Dickinson is Dead is an entertaining read.
