B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 5

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Blue Octavo

Bibliomysteries are a subgenre of crime fiction in which manuscripts, books, libraries, bookstores, or publishing houses (or any employees thereof) play a large role. They date back at least to The Lost Library by Fredric Perkins in 1874, and many well-known authors have used the theme since, even Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939) with its rare book dealer who is fronting for something entirely different.



It's rarer to find an author of the genre who is a real-life book dealer, but John Blackburn is one example. Born in Northumberland in 1923, he was the brother of poet Thomas Blackburn, although the writing bug didn't bite John early. He served in the British merchant navy during World War II and then as a schoolmaster, before becoming director of Red Lion Books.



In 1958 he published his first work, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, which is a blend of science fiction and horror, themes that permeated many of his novels. He also penned several international espionage thrillers, including those with General Charles Kirk of British Intelligence and his sidekicks, scientist Sir Marcus Levin and his Russian wife Tania.



Blackburn's Blue Octavo (titled Bound to Kill in the U.S.), was published in 1963, and is a departure from most of his other books, but is likely the one most rooted in his own life and the biblio world. The hero is John Cain, a young bookseller who inherits the stock of a curmudgeonly antisocial dealer, James Roach, after he appears to have committed suicide. Or so the police soon conclude.



Cain is unconvinced, especially considering the alleged suicide followed the dead man's strange behavior at an auction where Roach had grossly overbid on a thin blue volume about mountain climbing. The book appeared to be as exciting as its title, Grey Boulders, but why had Roach been so obsessed with owning it and why is it now missing from Roach's collection?



As Cain digs deeper, he realizes Roach was murdered over that book, and in his bumbling attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery, he crosses paths with an unconventional young heiress, Julia Lent, and the noted author and mountaineer J. Moddon Mott. The three join forces in a hectic quest to uncover why a book with fewer than 50 remaining copies is worth three murders, attempted murder and blackmail. And where do a dying millionaire and a tortured clergyman with burned feet fit into the puzzle?



As you'd expect from a bookseller/author writing a bibliomystery, Blue Octavo is filled with details about  bookselling (at least as it was in Britain in the early 1960s). John Kennedy Melling notes, in his foreword to the Black Dagger reprint, that the novel gives "a revealing insight into the world of books, with a clear explanation of how the Ring works in bidding at public auctions, descriptions of bookseller's shops and stocks which immediately conjure up pictures of shops known to all book collectors, and some useful tips on collecting the editions—to say nothing of how to deal with auctioneers who won't cooperate."



Still, the thriller elements are enough to inspire author and Shots Magazine columnist Mike Ripley to include the work (along with Blackburn's A Ring of Roses) on his list of favorite thrillers. Maybe it has to do with the Hitchcockian climax in a factory tower...

         Related StoriesFriday's "Forgotten" Books: Trent's Own CaseFriday's "Forgotten" Books: Old Sleuth's Freaky Female DetectivesFriday's "Forgotten" Books - Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries 

Mystery Melange

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Book art by Long Bin Chen

Author S.A. Cosby has been presented with the Maltese Falcon Award for All the Sinners Bleed, after winning the award the previous year for his novel, Razorblade Tears. The award, presented by the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, celebrates the best hard-boiled or private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year. Previous recipients have included Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block, C.J. Box, Robert Crais, S.J. Rozan, Walter Mosley, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow, who was also a back-to-back winner in 2010 and 2011. (HT to the Gumshoe Site.)

The winners of the 2025 Colorado Book Awards were announced on July 26. Awards are presented in 16 categories by Colorado Humanities to celebrate the accomplishments of Colorado’s outstanding authors, editors, illustrators, and photographers. The Best Mystery finalists include Death Valley Duel by Scott Graham (Torrey House Press); A Dream in the Dark by Robert Justice (Crooked Lane Books); and Play of Shadows by Barbara Nickless (Thomas & Mercer). The Best Thriller nods are: Anyone But Her by Cynthia Swanson (Columbine York); The Father She Went to Find by Carter Wilson (Sourcebooks); and If You Lie by Caleb Stephens (Thrillserscape Press).

The finalists were revealed for the 37th Lambda Literary Awards, celebrating outstanding LGBTQ+ voices in literature and storytelling. In the category of Best LGBTQ+ Mystery, the finalists include: Charlotte Illes is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel (Kensington); One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole (William Morrow); Rough Pages by Lev AC Rosen (Tor Publishing Group); Rough Trade by Katrina Carrasco (MCD); and The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani (Soho Crime). Winners will be announced at a ceremony held virtually on Saturday, October 4th as part of "Lammys Day" — an afternoon of virtual readings and panels featuring this year's finalists and special prize winners.

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers announced this year's finalists and winners for the Scribe Awards, honoring excellence in the field of writing tie-in fiction for media franchises. Works can include novels, short stories, audio dramas, and graphic novels tied to licenses of movies, TV shows, video games, comics, songs, and book series. Some finalists of interest related to crime fiction readers include Star Cops – Blood Moon by James Swallow in the Audio Drama category; Alex Rider: Snakehead by Antony Johnston, which won the Graphic Novel category; plus A Bitter Taste: A Daidoji Shin Mystery by Josh Reynolds (winner) and Murder, She Wrote Murder Backstage by Terrie Farley Moran (finalist) in the category of Original Novel, General.

The Arthur Conan Doyle estate has struck a deal with the British production company Remarkable Entertainment to develop a reality competition show under the working title Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock: The Detective Academy. Not much it known about the project yet other than "it will "test players’ powers of deduction and logic as they attempt to solve puzzling crimes from the world of Sherlock Holmes." The move comes with big players tapping into well-known IP for the next generation of unscripted shows. Netflix, which made a hit game show based on its Squid Game smash, has also greenlit series based on the Monopoly game and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Janet Rudolph compiled a list of Summer Camp Crime Fiction for her Mystery Fanfare blog.

This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Orange Lies Matter" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, E. B. Davis chatted with Valerie Burns at the Writers Who Kill blog about her Baker Street Mystery series; and Crime Watch's 9mm Series featured an interview with Chris Hammer, author of the Martin Scarsden novels, including Scrublands and Silver (both recently adapted into hit BBC dramas), along with a book series starring Aussie cops Ivan Lucic and Nell Buchanan.

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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

Narcos series director and Good Girls filmmaker Alejandra Márquez Abella is set to helm an untitled Mennonite crime thriller for Amazon MGM Studios based on Steve Fisher’s Los Angeles Times article, "How a Mennonite Farmer Became a Drug Suspect." The article follows a Mennonite farmer who makes a deal with the Sinaloa Cartel to use his land as an airstrip to traffic cocaine after his wife becomes sick. This leads to him being excommunicated from his community while simultaneously becoming feared by the cartels for his ruthless business dealings. Márquez Abella and Manuel Alcala will write the script.

Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. has joined the cast of the thriller, Atlas King, written and directed by Nika Agiashvili (Daughter Of The Wolf). Gooding Jr. joins the previously announced Michael Bisping, George Finn, Sarah Wayne Callies, and Anne Winters. Atlas King follows a hardened ex-fighter, played by former MMA fighter Bisping, who returns from exile to bury his best friend and confront old rivalries. Reuniting with his godson (Finn), a streetwise enforcer entangled with a powerful crime syndicate, the two hatch a high-stakes heist in a desperate bid to escape the grip of a ruthless mob boss (Gooding Jr.).

Adria Arjona (Hit Man) has signed on as co-lead opposite Michael B. Jordan in Amazon MGM Studios' Jordan-directed reimagining of The Thomas Crown Affair. Arjona takes over the role from Taylor Russell, who exited the project last week due to creative differences, with production underway in London. The actress is set for the role of an insurance investigator who comes to suspect that an adventurous banking executive is pulling off ambitious heists, and develops a spark with him. It’s a version of the role played by Faye Dunaway opposite Steve McQueen in the original 1968 film, and by Rene Russo opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1999 version. Others in the cast of the new Thomas Crown Affair include Kenneth Branagh, Lily Gladstone, Danai Gurira, Pilou Asbaek, and Aiysha Hart.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Golden Age authors Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers (the Lord Peter Wimsey series), and G.K. Chesterton (the Father Brown series) are to be brought to life in a TV series titled The Detection Club from the BBC and BritBox International. Produced by BBC Studios Drama Productions, the show is understood to be taking a "mystery-of-the-week" style approach with fictional versions of Christie, Sayers, and Chesterton set as the main characters solving crimes each episode. Formed nearly 100 years ago, the elusive and exclusive Detection Club met regularly as its members dined and helped each other with technical aspects of their writing. As well as meeting, they also adhered to Knox’s Commandments, which instructed that a reader of their books must always be given a fair chance at guessing the guilty party. Casting is said to be underway.

Apple TV+ will premiere its upcoming limited thriller series The Savant on Friday, September 26, with the release of two episodes.The drama follows an undercover investigator known as "The Savant" (Jessica Chastain), who infiltrates online hate groups to stop domestic extremists before they act. The 8-episode TV series is inspired by the true story published by Cosmopolitan in 2019, written by Andrea Stanley. The story titled "Is It Possible to Stop a Mass Shooting Before It Happens?" profiles a woman who the interviewer calls "K," a former police officer and Marine who helps the FBI keep track of dangerous men online who are potential threats to national security.

Paramount+ has opted not to proceed with a second season of Robert and Michelle King’s crime drama series, Happy Face, starring Annaleigh Ashford and Dennis Quaid. The drama was inspired by the true-life story of Melissa Moore, the Happy Face podcast from iHeartPodcasts and Moore, and the autobiography Shattered Silence, written by Moore with M. Bridget Cook. Jumping off from Moore’s true-life story, Happy Face follows Melissa (Ashford) and her incarcerated father, known as the Happy Face Killer (Quaid). After decades of no contact, he finally finds a way to force himself back into his daughter’s life. In a race against the clock, Melissa must find out if an innocent man is going to be put to death for a crime her father committed. Throughout, she discovers the impact her father had on his victims’ families and must face a reckoning of her own identity. James Wolk, Tamera Tomakili, Khiyla Aynne, and Benjamin Mackey also starred in Season 1, whose finale provided a satisfying ending to the case but also left it open-ended for a potential second season with the characters.

Channel 5 in the UK has commissioned several new crime dramas for the 2025-2026 TV season: an adaptation of the best-selling Cooper & Fry mystery novels from Stephen Booth with Downton Abbey's Robert James-Collier as Cooper and Doctor Who's Mandip Gill as Fry; Number One Fan, about a Daytime Talk Show host named Lucy who is rescued from an attack by "her number one fan," a woman with ulterior motives that link her to the scandalous secret Lucy has spent her life trying to keep hidden; Death in Benidorm, featuring a pair of odd couple crime solvers, retired detective Dennis Crown and barmaid Rosa, who live in a seaside paradise; Missed Call, about a mother who receives a worrying late-night missed call from her daughter on an exchange program in France and races to find her when she goes missing; Imposter, starring Jackie Woodburne and Kym Marsh in a murder mystery set in Australia; and the gripping, psychological drama, The Family Secret.

PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

On Crime Time FM, Simon McCleave chatted with Paul Burke about his new novels, The Abersock Killings and Five Days in Provence; Anglesey and Snowdonia; and writing TV.

Debbi Mack's latest guest on the Crime Cafe was clinical psychotherapist and crime writer Harper Kincaid, discussing her Bookbinder Mystery series.

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Quote of the Week

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Trent's Own Case

Edmund Clerihew "E.C." Bentley (1875-1956) was an early 20th-century popular English novelist and humorist who's also credited with being the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics. His 1913 detective novel Trent's Last Case was well-received, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and its tricky plotting has led some to label it as the"first truly modern mystery." It was adapted as a film in 1920, 1929, and 1952.



Despite its title, Trent's Last Case was actually the first novel in which artist and gentleman sleuth Philip Trent appears, and after collecting all the evidence and coming to all the wrong conclusions, he vows he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection. That was not to be the case, however, followed by a book of short stories, Trent intervenes, and finally Trent's Own Case, a sequel of sorts that was published twenty-three years after the original in 1936 (co-written with H. Warner Allen).



When the first book appeared, Trent was a breath of fresh air in the early Edwardian era but by the time the sequel appeared, the Golden Age era of crime novels was in full swing with books from the likes of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Georgette Heyer, John Dickson Carr and many more. So, perhaps it was something to be expected that Trent's Own Case would begin to feel less path-breaking and more ordinary.



In this outing, the murder of a sadistic philanthropist sparks off an elaborate investigation led by Trent, who'd been painting the portrait of the man before he was killed. When a friend of Trent's confesses to the murder and tries to commit suicide, Trent comes out of retirement and offers to assist his police friend, Inspector Bligh. with the investigation. After a meandering investigation that finds Trent visiting France, two subsequent murders, and the disappearance of an actress, Trent finally solves the mystery and nails the guilty culprit.



Reviewer Mike Grost once said of the book, "This novel is full of many little subsidiary mysteries, each lasting a chapter or two, and each focusing on a new cast of characters. It gives the work as a whole the feel of a short story collection, or a loosely linked short story sequence à la The Arabian Nights." Bentley (and Allen) seem to have absorbed and "repurposed" bits from the new influencers of the genre such as Sayers and Freeman Wills Croft. [Content warning:  It is also a book of its time, containing references that are considered offensive to many modern audiences, including racism and sexism.]



As a side note, from 1936 until 1949 Bentley was president of the Detection Club and also contributed to two crime stories for the club's radio serials broadcast in 1930 and 1931 (later published in 1983 as The Scoop and Behind The Screen). In 1950 he contributed the introduction to a Constable & Co omnibus edition of Damon Runyon's "stories of the bandits of Broadway", which was republished by Penguin Books in 1990 as On Broadway.

         Related StoriesFriday's "Forgotten" Books: Old Sleuth's Freaky Female DetectivesFriday's "Forgotten" Books - Uncle Abner, Master of MysteriesFriday's "Forgotten" Books - I Start Counting 

Mystery Melange

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Hunted by Abir Mukherjee was announced as the winner of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2025. The award was presented at a special ceremony on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival this past weekend. Mukherjuee nudged out the other finalists: The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre; The Mercy Chair by M.W. Craven; The Last Word by Elly Griffiths; Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney; and All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. It was also revealed that David Goodman won the McDermid Debut Award for A Reluctant Spy. As previously announced, Elly Griffiths received the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her remarkable crime fiction writing career and "unwavering commitment to the genre."

Aspects of History's Spymasters podcast has established a book prize to honor the best in spy thrillers. The inaugural SpyMasters Book Prize is open to any spy novel, published in hardback or paperback, in 2024, including both historical and modern spy thrillers. The longlist of twenty titles will be whittled down to the shortlisted six titles to be announced on September 1, 2025, with the winner revealed later that month. (HT to Shots Magazine Blog)

On August 3rd, Sisters in Crime Los Angeles will present "The Ups & Downs of Publishing in Today's Marketplace," featuring Ellen Byron, Jeri Westerson, Terry Shames, and Daryl Wood Gerber at the Radford Studio in Culver City. Then, on August 13 at the Skirball Center, SinC LA will partner with Mystery Writers of America SoCal for "Inventing the Page," featuring S.J. Rozan, Charles Rice, and Robert Crais, with Gregg Hurwitz moderating.

St. Hilda's College in the UK hosts the 2025 Crime Fiction Weekend August 8 to 10 with this year's theme of "Detecting the Gothic: tales from the dark heart of crime fiction." The Guest of Honor is the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid, with other speakers to include Mick Herron, Stuart Neville, Stuart Turton, Ruth Ware, and more.

Mystery Readers Journal is seeking articles for their next issue on the topic of crime fiction set in Northern California. If you have a mystery that fits this theme, you can send along an Author! Author! essay: 500–1500 words, of a first person, up-close and personal nature about yourself, your books, and the theme connection. They're also looking for reviews and articles. The deadline is September 1, 2025.

Virtual Crime and Detection, a special issue of Crime Fiction Studies, has put out a call for papers on crime fiction and videogames. Crime and the many facts of its detection are major themes in many videogames, from cozy point-and-click games (such as the long-running Nancy Drew series) to multiple-path morality games (such as Wolf Among Us). This special issue will examine the intersections of the literary (narrative, text, dialogue, character) and the ludic (elements of play and game design), with an emphasis on reading videogames as crime fiction. Abstracts for the issue are due November 15, 2025, with full drafts (7,000–7,500 words) due February 15, 2026.

Throughout June and July, the Portsmouth Library and Archives hosted a series of four online talks related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Library and Archives are the home to The Conan Doyle Collection Lancelyn Green Bequest, an unrivaled collection of books, photographs, objects, documents, and memorabilia chronicling the life of Conan Doyle and beyond, coming from the estate of Richard Lancelyn Green. If you missed this year's lectures, you can now watch them online. (Ht to The Bunburyist)

This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Political Discourse" by Jerry House.

In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover chatted with defense attorney David Secular about his debut crime novel, A Hate Crime in Brooklyn; and Ayo Onatade spoke with Stuart Turton, the bestselling author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, about gothic fiction and his most recent novel, The Last Murder at the End of the World.

         Related StoriesMystery Melange 

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

Amazon MGM Studios' United Artists and Scott Stuber have acquired rights to one of the most iconic ’90s erotic thrillers, Basic Instinct. Writer Joe Eszterhas is returning to pen a not-yet-titled reboot of the Paul Verhoeven-helmed box office hit, which starred Michael Douglas as Detective Nick Curran and Sharon Stone as his case’s seductive prime suspect, Catherine Tramell, a manipulative crime novelist.

Actress Taylor Russell has exited The Thomas Crown Affair, the Michael B. Jordan-directed reimagining of the classic Steve McQueen film. Sources said the exit was due to creative differences, and the studio is recasting the role as production continues in London. Russell was set opposite Jordan in the role of an insurance investigator who suspects that an adventurous banking executive is pulling off ambitious heists, and they develop sparks between them. That role was played by Faye Dunaway opposite McQueen in the 1968 original, and by Rene Russo opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1999 version.

Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta’ Compton), Carlos Ponce (Couple’s Retreat), and rapper Lil Mama are starring in the action-thriller Mercy Mercy Me, written and directed by Wes Miller (A Day To Die). The crime thriller, set in 1985, sees two reformed outlaws, Mercy (Lil Mama) and Khaos (Mitchell), pulled back into the life they left behind. They’re forced to take on a dangerous job that pits them against mob bosses, a crooked detective (Ponce), and their own past sins.

Hood River Entertainment (A Day To Die) is in production on Jackrabbit, a mystery-comedy-thriller written and directed by Emmy and Peabody winner Ballard C. Boyd, a longtime producer and segment director on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The story follows investigative reporter George (Kuhoo Verma) who moves to New York but needs a roommate. Knowing no one else in the city except her childhood best friend Trish (Soojeong Son), George agrees to move in with Trish’s city bestie, Avery (Taylor Ortega), an aspiring actress and full-time mess. Due to a clash of personality and a series of mishaps, the two women quickly end up at each other’s throats and competing for Trish’s friendship—until Trish mysteriously vanishes. The women reluctantly team up to track down their friend, only to discover Trish’s disappearance is just the first of many secrets.

Norwegian actress, Thea Sofie Loch Næss (The Ugly Stepsister), is set to headline CRCL9, a psychological thriller from writer-director M. Axilleas and Chris Weitz's Depth of Field (Murderbot). Inspired by real events, the film has Loch Næss playing an American woman studying in Europe who has been targeted by an online stalking game. As the situation becomes increasingly dangerous, she starts playing the game herself in an attempt to outwit her stalker.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Slow Horses star Jack Lowden is reuniting with Apple for an untitled series based on Metropolis, from Philip Kerr’s globally bestselling Berlin Noir book series. BAFTA nominee Tom Shankland is said to be on board to direct. Peter Straughan, who won the Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Conclave, will serve as showrunner as well as adapt the script and co-executive produce. The Berlin Noir book series revolves around iconic detective Bernie Gunther, a police officer newly promoted to the intimidating and elite Berlin Murder Squad, who must investigate what seems to be a serial killer targeting victims on the fringes of society. His 1920s Berlin is a city of unprecedented freedom and dizzying turbulence, the Nazis just a distant nightmare waiting in the wings.

Chrissy Metz (This Is Us) is the latest to join the cast of the Apple and A+E Studios as-yet-untitled series based on the bestselling crime novels by Lars Kepler. Metz joins the previously announced series regular stars, Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz, Stephen Graham, Bill Camp, and Rory Culkin. The project tells the story of Jonah Lynn (Schreiber), an ex-soldier turned homicide detective who, tired of working the tough streets of Philadelphia, moves to a small town in Western Pennsylvania for a quiet life. But, as the town and his family come under attack from the diabolically cunning serial killer Jurek Walter (Graham), Jonah must protect all that he holds dear. When the desperate search for Jurek’s last missing victim forces Jonah to send his adopted daughter, FBI Agent Saga Bauer (Beetz), up against Jurek, how far will Jonah go?

FX has greenlit Ryan Murphy’s The Shards, a new drama series based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name. The story, which is set in the early 1980s and features some autobiographical elements from Ellis’s life, centers on Bret (Igby Rigney), a student at an elite L.A. prep school whose world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious new student, Robert Mallory (Homer Gere), which coincides with the murders of a serial killer. Graham Campbell will play Thom Wright, one of Bret’s close friends.

Kevin Rankin (Claws), Adelaide Clemens (Under The Banner of Heaven), and Bevin Bru (Batwoman) have been cast in ABC's one-hour drama pilot, RJ Decker, joining the previously announced Scott Speedman and Weruche Opia. Rob Doherty created the series based on Carl Hiaasen’s 1987 novel, Double Whammy. The project centers on RJ Decker (Speedman), disgraced newspaper photographer and ex-con, who starts over as a private investigator in the colorful-if-crime-filled world of South Florida, tackling cases that range from slightly odd to outright bizarre with the help of his journalist ex, her police detective wife, and a shadowy new benefactor—a woman from his past who could be his greatest ally or his one-way ticket back to prison.

Paramount+ has confirmed a series order to NOLA King, a spinoff from Taylor Sheridan’s hit drama, Tulsa King, which will star Samuel L. Jackson. NOLA King follows Russell Lee Washington Jr. (Jackson) who, after befriending Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) during a 10-year stint in federal prison, is sent to Tulsa by New York’s Renzetti crime family to take Dwight out once and for all. Inspired by what Dwight created in Tulsa and impressed with the possibilities of second chances, Washington returns to New Orleans, the home he abandoned 40 years ago, to rekindle his relationship with his family, friends, and to take control of the city he left behind. In so doing, he incurs the wrath of his former employers in New York, and makes himself vulnerable to old NOLA foes, both criminal and cop.

CBS's missing persons drama, Tracker, will see the departures of series regulars Eric Graise (computer expert Bobby Exley) and Abby McEnany (business handler Velma Bruin), leaving star Justin Hartley’s Colter Shaw and Fiona Rene’s lawyer Reenie Green as the sole stars/characters going into Season 3. (Fellow original cast member Robin Weigert, who portrayed Velma’s wife Teddi Bruin, as well as the backend of Colter’s operation, left the series after Season 1.) Based on the bestselling novel, The Never Game, by Jeffery Deaver, Tracker stars Hartley as Colter Shaw, "a lone-wolf survivalist who roams the country as a reward seeker, using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries while contending with his own fractured family."

PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest Crime Time FM focused on serial killers, with authors Asia Mackay (Killing it and A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage) and Sam Holland (The Echo Man and The Countdown Killer) chatting with Victoria Selman about writing the worst kinds of killers and having fun doing it; whether serial killers have a high IQ; and more.

Debbi Mack's guest on the latest Crime Cafe podcast was clinical psychotherapist and crime writer Harper Kincaid (the Bookbinder Mystery series), talking about the challenges and joys of the writing life, along with the inspiration for her books, and advice for anyone who wants to write.

Murder Junction welcomed crime writer Gordon Brown to discuss his new novel, The Cost (written as Morgan Cry) and delve into to his colorful employment history which includes finding a way to sell all sorts of things in all corners of the globe.

The Sunday Tea podcast chatted with Skye Alexander about her historical Lizzie Crane Mystery series, featuring ambitious and beautiful New York jazz performer Lizzie Crane and her troupe trying to make it in music in the roaring 1920s and navigating mysterious murders that take place along the way.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Perfect Partner," written by Vinnie Hansen and read by actor Shannon Muir.

Want to know why cocaine is used in the operating room? What toxin has been used in bombs, impregnated into clothing and sprayed on salad bars? What rat poison is treated with vitamins? The latest Pick Your Poison podcast investigated.

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Old Sleuth's Freaky Female Detectives

The dime novel detective "Old Sleuth" was the creation of Harlan Halsey, a former director of the Brooklyn Education Board, and said to be the first character to use the word "sleuth" to denote a detective. In fact, the owners of the "Old Sleuth" copyright sued over the use of the word "sleuth," claiming exclusive ownership of the term, but they lost (thankfully, for us today). Halsey's original detective, who first appeared in 1872 in the six-cent weekly Fireside Companion, wasn't elderly at all but a young man with almost superhuman abilities who liked to disguise himself as an older, bearded man.



In the 1880s and 1890s, the character Old Sleuth became popular enough to warrant a separate publication of his own, and George Munro began publishing Old Sleuth Library. These series of dime novels (actually they sold for five cents a copy) claimed to be "A Series of the Most Thrilling Detective Stories Ever Published," containing "twice as much reading materials as any other five-cent library." There were 101 issues before the series was bought by a succession of other companies. Several of these issues featured female detectives front and center.



In Old Sleuth's Freaky Female Detectives, published 1990 by Popular Press, the editors (Garyn G Roberts, Gary Hoppenstand and Ray B. Browne) explain the term "freaky" for these female dime novel detectives: freakish as in the usage of the day, as in someone who had unusual talents—knife throwers, trick gun marksmen—people who were both normal and abnormal. These women sleuths used an androgynous, masculine type of heroism in the stories, but at the end embrace their femininity and end their detective careers to get married. As the editors note, "So they [female detectives] were doubly talented; no man of the time could assume the double roles women played as detective hero—hero and weakling, masterful and subservient—or had to. Men did not have to be freaky—women did."



The stories included are:



1) Lady Kate, The Dashing Female Detective

2) The Great Bond Robbery or Tracked by a Female Detective

3) Madge The Society Detective: A Strange Guest Among The Four Hundred



Both the "Lady Kate" and "Robbery" works feature a protagonist named Kate who attempt to prove the innocence of a man wrongly accused of a crime. They use disguises and end up "physically clobbering male villains left and right," thereby saving the lives and reputations of the accused men before promptly marrying the men they rescued. In the third story, "Madge" more closely resembles modern female detectives and uses her powers of deduction. Madge is described as "one of the most brilliant and clever detectives in the great metropolis" and takes on work for the money as much as the thrill. These female detective stories were popular on their own for a time, but by the end of the Great Depression, the dime novel female sleuth had virtually disappeared.

         Related StoriesFriday's "Forgotten" Books - Uncle Abner, Master of MysteriesFriday's "Forgotten" Books - I Start CountingFriday's "Forgotten" Books: The Moving Toyshop 

Mystery Melange

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The longlist for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel in New Zealand has been announced, celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the honors. This year’s longlist includes a mix of past Ngaio Marsh Award winners and finalists, some first-time authors, and other fresh voices. You can view the fifteen longlisted titles via this link. The finalists for Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Non-Fiction will be announced in mid-August, with winners announced as part of a special event in conjunction with WORD Christchurch Literary Festival on Thursday, September 25.

Author Martin Cruz Smith has died at a senior-living community in San Rafael, California, at the age of 82, from Parkinson’s disease. He was best known for his series featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko, first introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park, which became a bestseller and won a Gold Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association. He was also a two-time winner of the Dashiell Hammett Award from the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers and was named Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 2019. Smith had just published Hotel Ukraine, the 11th and final installment in his Renko series, three days before he died. The novel featured his detective hero grappling with the usual concerns — official corruption, a brutal murder — as well as the same debilitating illness faced by Mr. Smith himself.

There's a North Carolina: NOIR AT THE BAR event tonight at the Yonder Bar in Hillsborough. Tracey Reynolds will emcee readings by SA Cosby (Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears), Jill McCorkle (Old Crimes), Eryk Pruitt (Townies), Katy Munger (Too Old To Die), KT Nguyen (You Know What You Did), plus Philip Kimbrough, Tonya Simpson, and Elizabeth Woodman.

A new Talking Volumes series in St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater, from MPR and the Star Tribune, has announced its fall schedule. Authors scheduled for discussion will include voting rights activist and mystery author Stacey Abrams On September 10, joining MPR's Kerri Miller to discuss Abrams's latest mystery centered on Avery Keene, a former Supreme Court clerk. On October 23, the featured guest is John Grisham, whose most recent book, The Widow, returns to the courtroom setting for some of his most famous novels, including The Firm, The Runaway Jury, and The Pelican Brief.

The deadline of July 31st is approaching for the Sisters in Crime Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers. Interested applicants should submit materials including an unpublished work of crime fiction, aimed at readers from children’s chapter books through adults, which may be a short story or first chapter(s) of a manuscript in-progress of 2,500 to 5,000 words. Writers submitting work should have published not more than ten pieces of short fiction or up to two self-published or traditionally published books. Follow this link for more information.

It's not too late to check out reading lists for your summer beach reads. Crime Reads has a Queer Crime Summer Reading List, and Book Riot has ten Japanese mystery and thriller series starters "you won't be able to put down."

From the life imitates fiction department, Arthur Brand, nicknamed the "Indiana Jones of the Art World" for his high-profile recovery of stolen masterpieces, has been able to return fantastic stolen art, from Picassos to a Van Gogh during his career—but he says his latest is one of the highlights. He recently recovered documents from the 15th to 19th centuries, including UNESCO-listed documents relating to the early days of the Dutch East India Company, which were stolen from the National Archives in The Hague in 2015.

This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Asylum" by Peter M. Gordon.

In the Q&A roundup, CrimeReads has some interviews of note: Gabriel Urza discussed his new novel, The Silver State, a legal thriller that is first and foremost about the experience of a being a public defender; Michael Robotham talked about why we love stories about gangsters and how mobsters came to represent the American Dream; and Elly Griffiths, best known for the Ruth Galloway series, chatted about Victorian London, time travel, and her new mystery, The Frozen People. Plus, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe interviewed Liza Tully about her new mystery, The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant.

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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

Sony has hired writers Kaz Firpo and Ryan Firpo to adapt Eruption, the New York Times bestseller from Michael Crichton and James Patterson. Eruption, which Crichton started writing before his death in 2008 and which was completed by Patterson, follows a history-making volcano explosion that is about to wipe away the big island of Hawaii. However, a secret held for decades by the U.S. military is far more terrifying than any volcano. Eruption is being produced by Sherri Crichton, Patterson, and Shane Salerno, and The Story Factory.

The Michael B. Jordan-directed reimagining of The Thomas Crown Affair for Amazon MGM Studios has added a pair of Oscar winners to its team: Kenneth Branagh (Belfast), who joins in an undisclosed - possibly villainous - role, and producer Charles Roven (Oppenheimer), who will produce the film via his Atlas Entertainment banner, alongside others. While plot details are being kept under wraps, both the original 1968 film from United Artists and the 1999 remake from MGM were heist stories revolving around a wealthy, thrill-seeking man who orchestrates a high-stakes robbery simply for the challenge, only to find himself entangled in a complex cat-and-mouse game with a brilliant investigator.

Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery will make its international premiere as the opening film of the 69th BFI London Film Festival, running from October 8 to 19. It marks a return to the festival for Johnson’s murder mystery franchise after the original movie played in a gala screening at the 63rd edition in 2019, and the second installment, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, closed the 66th edition in 2022. The third movie in the franchise sees Daniel Craig return in his role of famed private detective Benoit Blanc to solve his most dangerous case in an as-yet-undisclosed setting. The ensemble cast includes Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church.

Taylor Kitsch (Lone Survivor) is set to star in Eleven Days, an indie hostage film from filmmaker Peter Landesman (Parkland; Concussion) that begins shooting in September. The film, based on a true story is set in the sweltering heat of a Texas summer in 1974, as head of the Texas Department of Corrections Jim Estelle (Kitsch) plays a deadly game against the ruthless Federico Carrasco, a convicted heroin dealer who has taken over the Huntsville Penitentiary and is holding dozens hostage after his pre-planned escape has gone awry. Lines between captor and captive, justice and survival, begin to blur as the siege spirals for eleven terrifying days. Based on the book by William T. Harper, Eleven Days in Hell: The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege at Huntsville, Texas, the film was written by Kevin Sheridan with revisions by Landesman.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Actress Madison Lintz (Bosch) has signed on to star in and executive produce Eve Ronin, the television adaptation of Lee Goldberg’s series of crime novels from Thomas & Mercer/Amazon Publishing. The Eve Ronin series follows the youngest homicide detective in the history of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as she works to uncover the crimes behind the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Known for her tenacity and grit, Ronin tackles high-stakes cases around the city while "battling institutional resistance and her own personal demons."

Before its fifth season has even premiered, Apple TV+ has already renewed Slow Horses for Season 7, which will be six episodes long and follow Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and his band of Slow Horses as they are "on the hunt to find and neutralize a mole at the heart of British Government before they can bring down the state." The British spy thriller was previously renewed for Season 6 last year. The upcoming fifth and sixth seasons are expected to adapt Mick Herron’s novels London Rules, Joe Country, and Slough House. Season 5 is set to premiere on Apple TV+ on Sept. 24.

After more than a decade, Grantchester is coming to an end, with the upcoming Season 11 of the British period drama to be its last. Based on the James Runcie short stories, "The Grantchester Mysteries," the show launched in 2015 with James Norton in the lead role as vicar Sidney Chambers. Tom Brittney’s character, William Davenport, subsequently took over the top spot on the 1950s-set show and then Rishi Nair took the lead in Series 9, with Grantchester following a new mystery each season. In Season 11, Robson Green returns as Geordie Keating with Rishi Nair as Alphy Kottaram, Al Weaver as Leonard Finch, Tessa Peake-Jones as Mrs. C, Kacey Ainsworth as Cathy Keating, Oliver Dimsdale as Daniel Marlowe, Nick Brimble as Jack Chapman, Bradley Hall as DC Larry Peters, and Melissa Johns as Miss Scott. Season 10 is currently airing on Masterpiece Mystery! in the U.S.

Bad Robot’s 1970s crime drama, Duster, is coming to an end, as HBO Max is not proceeding with a second season of the series from J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan—news that comes less than a week after the Season 1 finale debuted on the platform. Duster follows Nina (Rachel Hilson), the first Black female FBI agent, who in 1972 heads to the Southwest and recruits a gutsy getaway driver (Josh Holloway), the first in a bold effort to take down a growing crime syndicate. Keith David, Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez, and Benjamin Charles Watson also starred.

The crime-drama, Rebus, from Eleventh Hour Films, will return for a second series, penned by Gregory Burke. Based on the popular books by Ian Rankin and filmed in and around Edinburgh and Glasgow, series two, commissioned by the BBC, will see Richard Rankin reprise the role of Detective Sergeant John Rebus and "will explore the links between violent criminals involved in the drug trade in Edinburgh and the professional bourgeois world of law and finance, where police sometimes fear to tread."

Weruche Opia (I May Destroy You) has been cast in ABC's drama pilot, RJ Decker, joining the previously announced Scott Speedman. Rob Doherty created the series based on the 1987 novel, Double Whammy, by Carl Hiaasen. RJ Decker (Speedman), disgraced newspaper photographer and ex-con, starts over as a private investigator in the colorful-if-crime-filled world of South Florida, tackling cases that range from slightly odd to outright bizarre with the help of his journalist ex, her police detective wife, and a shadowy new benefactor, a woman from his past who could be his greatest ally…or his one-way ticket back to prison. Opia will play Shay Bennett, the shrewd-if-unpredictable daughter of a very powerful, very corrupt state senator with ties to RJ’s past. If the pilot gets picked up to series, Opia is positioned for a series regular role.

CBS is shaking up its fall schedule. CIA, which stars Tom Ellis and was slated for a fall premiere, will now debut midseason, with sophomore series Watson, which was slotted for a midseason premiere, filling the fall time slot. The decision to push CIA to midseason was made to give the show, part of the FBI franchise, additional time to ensure its success. CIA will premiere alongside the new Yellowstone spinoff, Y: Marshals, and Harlan Coben’s Final Twist, which are all slated for the second half of the 2025-26 broadcast season. Watson will now debut its second season on Monday, Oct. 13, at 10 p.m., after the Season 8 premiere of FBI at 9 p.m. Like past seasons, CBS will launch new seasons of its biggest shows and new series DMV, Sheriff Country, and Boston Blue during a mid-October premiere week, using sneak peeks and momentum from Sunday football to propel the new series. Crime dramas Matlock and Elsbeth will debut a sneak peek of their new seasons on Sunday, Oct. 12, after an NFL doubleheader, before heading back to their typical Thursday time slots.

Netflix has unveiled a teaser trailer for Stefano Sollima’s four-part Italian crime drama, The Monster of Florence, and announced an October 22 launch date. Created by Leonardo Fasoli and Sollima, who previously collaborated on the organized crime drama, Gomorrah, the drama recounts one of Italy’s longest and most complex investigations into the first and most brutal serial killer in the country’s history, the so-called Monster of Florence. Active in the province of Florence between the late 1960s and 1985, the serial killer murdered sixteen people, often young couples attacked in secluded wooded areas. Tapping into ongoing legal proceedings and investigations, the story explores the many possible monsters investigated over time and also focuses on their point of view.

PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Debbi Mack's guest on the latest Crime Cafe podcast was journalist and crime writer, Jonathan Whitelaw, as they discussed how to treat a writing career like a business, Doctor Who, James Bond, and Terry Pratchett.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, welcomed Roy Lambert and Vincent Zandri to talk about their upcoming anthology, True Pulp: A Noir Anthology.

Authors on the Air spoke with E.C. Nevin about A Novel Murder, her new mystery that follows what happens when an author’s fictional crime scene mirrors a real-life murder, and the lines between imagination and investigation blur in dangerously delightful ways.

On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed their most anticipated books for the second half of 2025.

         Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday