B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 51

Dagger Delights

The 2023 shortlists for the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger awards were announced, honoring the very best in the crime-writing genre. This year also marks the CWA’s 70th Platinum Jubilee Year, making the Daggers the oldest awards in the genre. The Diamond Dagger, which recognizes authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre, was previous announced in February as being awarded to Walter Mosley. The other category winners will be revealed at the Daggers awards night on Thursday, July 6, at the Leonardo City hotel in London with guest speaker, author Charlie Higson. Congrats to all!

Diamond Dagger

Walter Mosley

Gold Dagger 

The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green (Headline Publishing Group)
The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)
A Killing in November by Simon Mason (Quercus)
The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola (Orion)
The Winter Guest by W C Ryan (Bonnier Books UK)
The Silent Brother by Simon Van der Velde (Northodox Press)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 

Take Your Breath Away by Linwood Barclay (HQ)
Seventeen by John Brownlow (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Botanist by M W Craven (Constable)
The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (Sphere)
Alias Emma by Ava Glass (Century)
May God Forgive by Alan Parks (Canongate)

ILP John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 

Breaking by Amanda Cassidy (Canelo)
The Local by Joey Hartstone (Pushkin Vertigo)
London in Black by Jack Lutz (Pushkin Vertigo)
Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor (Macmillan)
No Country for Girls by Emma Styles (Sphere)
Outback by Patricia Wolf (Embla)

Historical Dagger

The Darkest Sin by D V Bishop (Macmillan)
The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola (Orion)
The Homes by J B Mylet (Viper)
The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra (Constable)
Blue Water by Leonora Nattrass (Viper)
Hear No Evil by Sarah Smith (Two Roads)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger 

Good Reasons to Die by Morgan Audic, translated by Sam Taylor (Mountain Leopard Press)
The Red Notebook by Michel Bussi, translated by Vineet Lal (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Even the Darkest Night by Javier Cercas, translated by Anne McLean (MacLehose Press)
Bad Kids by Zijin Chen, translated by Michelle Deeter (Pushkin Vertigo)
The Bleeding by Johana Gustawsson, translated by David Warriner (Orenda Books)
The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter (Penguin Michael Joseph)

Short Story Dagger 

‘The Disappearance’ by Leigh Bardugo, in Marple (HarperCollins)
‘The Tears of Venus’ by Victoria Dowd & Delilah Dowd, in Unlocked (The D20 Authors)
‘The Beautiful Game’ by Sanjida Kay in The Perfect Crime, edited by Vaseem Khan and Maxim Jakubowski (HarperCollins)
‘Paradise Lost’ by Abir Mukherjee in The Perfect Crime, edited by Vaseem Khan and Maxim Jakubowski (HarperCollins)
‘Runaway Blues’ by C J Tudor, in A Sliver of Darkness (Penguin Random House)
‘Cast A Long Shadow’ by Hazell Ward, in Cast a Long Shadow, edited by Katherine Stansfield and Caroline Oakley (Honno Press)

ALCS Gold Dagger for non-fiction 

The Poisonous Solicitor by Stephen Bates (Icon Books)
The Life of Crime by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins)
Unlawful Killings: Life by Love and Murder: Trials at the Old Bailey by Wendy Joseph (Transworld)
Tremors in the Blood: Murder by Obsession and the Birth of the Lie Detector by Amit Katwala (HarperCollins)
To Hunt a Killer by Julie Mackay and Robert Murphy (HarperCollins)
About a Son by David Whitehouse (Orion Publishing Group)

Dagger in the Library 

Ben Aaronovitch
Sophie Hannah
Mick Herron

Publishers’ Dagger

Harper Fiction (HarperCollins)
Mantle (PanMacmillan)
Michael Joseph (Penguin Random House)
Pushkin Vertigo (Pushkin Press)
Quercus (Hachette)
Viper (Profile Books)

Début Dagger 

Bulldog Murphy by Chris Corbett
Male, Unknown by Chris Griffiths
Sideways by Jeff Marsick
Heist by James Pierson
The Line of Least Resistance by Jeff Richards
Cradle of Storms by Margaret Winslow

         Related StoriesAnthony AccoladesDerringer DistinctionAgatha Praise for 2023 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - She Shall Have Murder

Delano Ames (1906-1987) was born in Ohio to a newspaperman father. In 1929 Ames married Maysie Grieg, who later became a highly successful author of lighthearted romances, and the duo settled in Greenwich Village where Ames published his first novel, a philosophical look at the Greek gods entitled A Double Bed on Olympus. When the couple divorced, Ames moved to England where he remarried and worked for British intelligence during the second World War.



After the war, according to his tongue-in-cheek autobiography, he "translated an erudite history of keyboard instruments from the French, and believes that at least 100 copies were sold." Fortunately, his later efforts were more successful, beginning with in 1948 with She Shall Have Murder, the first in what was to become a 12-book series featuring the British husband-and-wife sleuthing team of Jane and Dagobert Brown. Ames produced a Brown book every year until 1959 when he moved to Spain and switched to writing a four-book

series featuring Juan Llorca of the Spanish Civil Guard.



She Shall Have Murder, made into a movie on British television in 1950, introduces Jane Hamish, a pretty young executive in the law firm Daniel Playfair and Son, and Dagobert Brown, Jane's lover and a researcher/writer who is so absorbed in the thriller he and Jane are concocting around the law firm's staff, that he is astonished when the wrong victim dies. Said victim is Mrs. Robjohn, the least favorite client of the firm, thanks to her frequent calls, letters and visits and unwavering paranoid belief that the mysterious "they" are out to get her.



She Shall Have Murder was labeled as "Detection with Wit" when first published in 1948, an apt description of the characters of Jane, always the common-sense, down-to-earth narrator, and her other half Dagobert, whose eccentricities and passing fads often leave Jane alternatively delighted and driven to despair ("Dagobert is my hero, but he persistently refuses to behave like one.") One of Dagobert's primary pursuits is amateur sleuthing that he puts to good use as he resorts to bluffs, disguises, charm and insightful detection in his efforts to prove Mrs. Robjohn was murdered.



Jane makes a delightful narrator, as in this bit about her thoughts on her potential novel-writing career at the start of the story:

"On the other hand, thrillers have nowadays become an accepted art-forom; bishops and minor poets read practically nothing else, and the New Statesman reviews them....The beginning of a book is always the tricky part. It should arrest. A shot should ring out in the night, or if you prefer, a rod should cough or a Roscoe belch forth destruction. Personally, I like to meeet my corpse on page one, and I like him (or her) to be very dead."

In Peter Walker's foreword to the Black Dagger edition of She Shall Have Murder, he notes that the novel is a time capsule of post-World War II life, with utility clothing, conscription, rationing, listening to the wireless, putting lavender in the clothes closet, feeding gas meters with shillings and girls who resemble Rita Hayworth. But the writing sparkles over sixty years later and is far from dated in its ability to entertain.

          

Mystery Melange

The 2023 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded this week, including the Biography category, which was won by G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, by Beverly Gage (Viking). The committee deemed the work "a deeply researched and nuanced look at one of the most polarizing figures in U.S. history that depicts the longtime FBI director in all his complexity, with monumental achievements and crippling flaws." (HT to NPR)

The 35th annual Benjamin Franklin Awards from the Independent Book Publishers Association were announced this week. The Gold Medal Winner was Heroes Ever Die by J.A. Crawford (CamCat Books); the Silver Medal Winner was The Registration: A Novel by Madison Lawson (CamCat Books); and the Bronze Winner was Running to Fall: A Novel by Kalisha Buckhanon (AALBC Aspire).

Friends of Mystery, a fan group based in Portland, Oregon, announced that Robert Dugoni's The Silent Sisters was the winner of this year's Spotted Owl Award, which highlights the "best mystery written by an author whose primary residence is in the Pacific Northwest." The other finalists included books by Elizabeth George, Tyrell Johnson, Marc Cameron, Phillip Margolin, Sam Wiebe, Marc Cameron, J.A. Jance, and Danya Kukafka. (HT to the Rap Sheet)

On Thursday, June 8, leading crime writers Ian Rankin, Louise Penny, and Michael Connelly will pay tribute to Peter Robinson’s life and body of work in a free online event to mark the publication day of the twenty-eighth and final book in the Banks series, Standing in the Shadows. Robinson's career spanned over three decades, and his critically acclaimed crime novels have won numerous awards in Britain, the US, Canada and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world. His books were also made into the major ITV drama series DCI Banks. (HT to SHOTS Magazine)

As part of the upcoming National Crime Reading Month in the UK, run by the Crime Writers’ Association in partnership with national charity The Reading Agency, Karin Slaughter, Janice Hallett and Abir Mukherjee are among those scheduled to take part in various events and celebrations. Maxim Jakubowski, chair of the CWA, said: "National Crime Reading Month is all about bringing new books to readers and new readers to this richly varied genre. We want everyone to #PickUpAPageTurner this June."

Here's a conference that flew under my radar (several of these did during peak Covid, alas) but Alibis in the Archive is headed to Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden in North Wales, June 9-11. Authors scheduled to appear include Martin Edwards, Christine Poulson, Len Tyler, Bonnie MacBird, Peter Guttridge, Dolores Gordon-Smith, Tim Sullivan and Felix Francis.

Mystery Readers Journal has extended its submission deadlines for contributions to the upcoming "Animals in Mysteries" issues. Editor Janet Rudolph is seeking articles (500-1,000 words), reviews (50-250 words), and author essays (500-1,000 words) using the theme of animals (as a topic, protagonist, partner, etc). The new deadline is July 5th. For more information, head on over to the Mystery Fanfare blog.

Writing for CrimeReads, Nick Kolakowski profiled "The Finest Noir Poet You’ve Never Heard Of," Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976), who spent much of his life toiling in literary obscurity.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "The Worm in the Rose" by Tony Dawson.

In the Q&A roundup, SHOTS Magazine spoke with Dennis Lehane, who answered a few questions following their recent review of his novel, Small Mercies; and Deborah Kalb chatted with Patrick H. Moore, a private investigator and sentencing mitigation specialist, who is also the author of the new novel, 27 Days.

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Anthony Accolades

The annual Bouchercon conference, which is scheduled to take place August 30 to September 3 in San Diego, California, announced the finalists for the 2023 Anthony Awards today. Winners will be revealed during a banquet at the convention on Saturday, September 2. Best of luck to all!

Best Hardcover:

Like a Sister, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland)
The Devil Takes You Home, by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland)
The Bullet That Missed, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)
Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)

Best Paperback/E-book/Audiobook:

Real Bad Things, by Kelly J. Ford (Thomas & Mercer)
Dead Drop, by James L’Etoile (Level Best)
The Quarry Girls, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer)
Hush Hush, by Gabriel Valjan (Historia)
In the Dark We Forget, by Sandra S.G. Wong (HarperCollins)

Best First Novel:

Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
The Bangalore Detectives Club, by Harini Nagendra (Pegasus)
Devil’s Chew Toy, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane)
The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)

Best Historical:

The Lindbergh Nanny, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
In Place of Fear, by Catriona McPherson (Mobius)
Anywhere You Run, by Wanda M. Morris (Morrow)
Danger on the Atlantic, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington)
Under a Veiled Moon, by Karen Odden (Crooked Lane)
Lavender House, by Lev A.C. Rosen (Forge)

Best Humorous:

Bayou Book Thief, by Ellen Byron (Berkley)
Death by Bubble Tea, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley)
A Streetcar Named Murder, by T.G. Herren (Crooked Lane)
Scot in a Trap, by Catriona McPherson (Severn House)
Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking, by Raquel V. Reyes (Crooked Lane)

Best Short Story:

“Still Crazy After All These Years,” by E.A Aymar (from Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, edited by Josh Pachter; Down & Out)
“The Impediment,” by Bruce Robert Coffin (from Deadly Nightshade: Best New England Crime Stories 2022, edited by Christine Bagley, Susan Oleksiw, and Leslie Wheeler; Crime Spell)
“Beauty and the Beyotch,” by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Magazine, February 2022)
“The Estate Sale,” by Curtis Ippolito (Vautrin Magazine, Summer 2022)
“C.O.D.,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Low Down Dirty Vote, Volume 3: The Color of My Vote, edited by Mysti Berry; Berry Contest)

Best Critical/Non-fiction:

The Alaska Blonde: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story That Shocked America, by James T. Bartlett (Terrirory)
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators, by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)
American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper, by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur)
Promophobia: Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Crime Fiction, edited by Diane Vallere (Sisters in Crime)
Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free, by Sarah Weinman (Ecco)
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Crime)

Best Children’s/Young Adult:

In Myrtle Peril, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers)
Daybreak on Raven Island, by Fleur Bradley (Viking Books for Young Readers)
#Shedeservedit, by Greg Herren (Bold Strokes Press)
The New Girl, by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Sourcebooks Fire)
Vanish Me, by Lee Matthew Goldberg (Wise Wolf)
Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade, by Nancy Springer (Wednesday)

Best Anthology:

Low Down Dirty Vote, Volume 3: The Color of My Vote, edited by Mysti Berry (Berry Contest)
Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon, edited by Libby Cudmore and Art Taylor (Down & Out)
Land of 1,000 Thrills: Bouchercon Anthology 2022, edited by Greg Herren (Down & Out)
Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, edited by Josh Pachter (Down & Out)
Crime Hits Home: A Collection of Short Stories from Crime Fiction’s Top Authors, edited by S.J. Rozan (Hanover Square Press)

         Related StoriesDerringer DistinctionAgatha Praise for 2023Edgar Excellence for 2023 

Media Murder for Monday

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

Guy Ritchie’s next project is a big-budget, untitled action movie (that he wrote in addition to taking on directing duties), which will star Henry Cavill (Man Of Steel), Oscar nominee Jake Gyllenhaal (Spider-Man: Far From Home) and Eiza González (Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw). Plot details and title are mostly unknown at this time, but it will allegedly revolve around two extraction specialists who must plan an escape path for a high-level female negotiator. The new project is due to begin filming in Spain this summer.

New Regency is adapting Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian as a feature film, with John Hillcoat set to direct. McCarthy and his son, John Francis McCarthy, will serve as executive producers. Published in 1985, the novel is an epic tale of the violence and depravity that attended America’s westward expansion. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a 14-year-old Tennessean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

Sylvester Stallone is set to return for a sequel to the 1993 action thriller, Cliffhanger, which Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen) will direct from a script by Mark Bianculli (Hunters). Although the plot is unknown, Stallone will reprise his character of Ranger Gabriel "Gabe" Walker from the original film, where he looked to help rescue a band of stranded hikers, only to discover they were actually a gang of violent criminals looking to recover their missing $100M following a plane crash.

Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) has signed on to lead the psychological thriller, Reckoner, written and directed by Nissar Modi (Z for Zachariah) in his feature directorial debut. The project is based on a short story by American author Rachel Ingalls about an affluent woman whose carefully constructed life is disrupted by a young man connected to a tightly-held secret from her past.

Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) is in negotiations for the lead role in the action-thriller, The Guns Of Christmas Past, which will be directed by Xavier Gens (Gangs Of London). In the genre mash-up, described as "A Christmas Carol meets John Wick," Ebb is a former hitman for the mob, brought out from hiding when his former best friend and partner is killed. Ebb penetrates the compound of his enemy to exact revenge but the ghosts of past, present, and future all arrive to thwart his plans.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Ahead of the Season 2 premiere this fall, Bosch: Legacy, the spinoff of the longrunning Amazon crime series based on Michael Connelly's novels, has been renewed for a third season on Amazon Freevee. Bosch: Legacy follows Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), a retired homicide detective turned private investigator, as he embarks on the next chapter of his career; attorney Honey "Money" Chandler (Mimi Rogers), who struggles to maintain her faith in the justice system after surviving an attempted murder; and Maddie Bosch (Madison Lintz), as she discovers the possibilities and challenges of being a rookie patrol cop on the streets of Los Angeles.

Paramount+ is producing a new series titled The Castaways, which follows sisters Lori (Sheridan Smith) and Erin (Celine Buckens) on the holiday of a lifetime in Fiji. After a huge fight, Erin never boards the island-hopping flight to their tropical resort – and the plane, with Lori on board, never arrives at its destination. Months later, no wreckage has been found, no survivors discovered. Suddenly, Lori’s credit card is used in a corner shop in a remote village in Fiji. On the CCTV, Erin recognizes the plane’s pilot, back from the dead. She immediately sets out from the UK to find him and discover the mystery of her sister’s fate. As dark secrets are revealed both in the past and present day, each shocking twist and turn slowly reveals the truth about what happened to Lori and her fellow passengers – a truth that someone on the island will kill to keep secret.

Robert Patrick (The Night Agent) is playing a major role opposite lead Alan Ritchson in the upcoming second season of Prime Video’s Reacher, based on the books by Lee Child. He took over the series regular role of Shane Langston from Rory Cochrane, who was originally cast in September before exiting at the end of last year due to scheduling conflicts as the production schedule changed. Cochrane had not filmed any scenes, so the recasting did not require re-shoots. Langston is a streetwise former NYPD detective with a questionable track record who is now head of security for a private defense contractor.

Paramount+ also ordered the six-part documentary series, Mafia Spies, adapted from the book, Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro by Thomas Maier. Based on never-before-released JFK files, the series tells the shocking connections between the CIA, the mob, and Sinatra’s Rat Pack from Vegas to Miami to Havana. It explores America’s most remarkable espionage plots ever—with CIA agents, mob hitmen, "kompromat" sex, presidential indiscretion, and James Bond-like killing devices together in a top-secret mystery full of surprise twists and deadly intrigue.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the fun mystery short story, "The Rabbi's Wife Stayed Home," written by Debra Goldstein and read by actor Donna Beavers.

The Who’s Here in the Hamptons podcast chatted with Carrie Doyle, author of multiple novels and screenplays that span many genres, ranging from cozy mysteries to chick lit to comedies to young adult.

The Spybrary Spy Book Podcast welcomed Andy Onyx, the author of the cold war espionage novel, Like Dolphins.

On Crime Time FM, Ashley Kalagian Blunt chatted with Paul Burke about her latest novel, Dark Mode; the Armenian Genocide; screaming plants; the dark web; stalking; and living in Australia.

The latest episode of It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured Cynthia Surrisi, a successful middle school novel author, talking about her latest book, The Bones of Birka: Unraveling the Mystery of A Female Viking Warrior.

Read or Dead hosts, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester, talked about books perfect for reading on road trips.

On the Writer's Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardson discussed what happens when a federal inmate escapes from prison; a body in Hawaiian waters; who handles the investigation if a murder victim is found in a visiting world leader’s hotel room.

The Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast included a reading of "Rise" by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier:  Alana's grandmother Mavis was a fantastic cook whose johnnycakes may have been the best in the Virgin Islands. But did an old family housekeeper steal Grandma Mavis's recipe?

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Find the Innocent

English mystery writer William Edward Vickers (1889-1965) was best known under his pen name Roy Vickers, although he also wrote under the names David Durham, Sefton Kyle, and John Spencer. Biographical details are a bit sketchy, but Vickers worked as a salesman, court reporter, and magazine editor in addition to penning nonfiction articles. He also found some success as a ghostwriter and as a crime reporter for a newspaper.



He found his literary stride when he published his short story, "The Rubber Trumpet," the first of over three dozen stories originally published in Pearson's Magazine and featuring the fictitious Department of Dead Ends division of Scotland Yard (a precursor to TV's Cold Case, if you will). Many of these are inverted mysteries, with the crime and perpetrators being known and the crime solved as much by luck and perseverance than brilliant detection. He also edited several anthologies for the Crime Writers' Association.



The central sleuth in Vickers' Department of Dead Ends stories started as being Superintendent Tarrant and in the later stories switched to Inspector Rason. However, Vickers also wrote eight novels in a more traditional procedural style featuring Detective-Inspector Peter Curwen. Find the Innocent was the final Curwen installment, published in 1959. He's described by one character as being "large, rotund and homely, looking like a successful local auctioneer who contemplates retirement."



Three scientists, Eddis, Stranack and Canvey, are all suspects in the murder of their employer, Mr. "WillyBee" Brengast, who had refused to grant them royalties on their inventions. The trio work and live together at WillyBee Products Ltd., yet they detest one another. Each man gives the same story to the police—each claims the same alibi, that he was the one to stay behind alone with the victim while the other two men went into town together. It's obvious to Inspector Curwen that one man must be guilty and the other two abetting, but which is which? Complicating matters are the victim's beautiful young widow whose one-night stand with one of the scientists plays a key role, and the victim's brainy niece who "helps" Inspector Curwen while falling for another of the suspects.



I've not read much of Vickers' output, but I came across one criticism that his novels paled in comparison to his stories, and I think I can understand why that might be the case. The premise of Find the Innocent is promising—three suspects who give the same story with little or no evidence to prove or disprove which one is guilty—but I think the novel (novella, actually, as it's on the short side) would have worked even better as a shorter story. 



Vickers ultimately wrote close to 70 novels under his various pseudonyms, as well as the dozens of stories published in Pearson's and in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He was inducted in Britain's famed The Detection Club in 1955. Unfortunately very few of his works are in print today. The Black Dagger Crime Series reprinted Find the Innocent in 2001, but it's hard to find a copy of the 1959 original, unless you're willing to fork over $275 or more for a first edition online. Vickers's work has also been adapted for film and TV, including Girl in the News (1940), Violent Moment (1959), and three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Season 3: 1957–58).

          

Friday's "Forgotten" Books -

English mystery writer William Edward Vickers (1889-1965) was best known under his pen name Roy Vickers, although he also wrote under the names David Durham, Sefton Kyle, and John Spencer. Biographical details are a bit sketchy, but Vickers worked as a salesman, court reporter, and magazine editor in addition to penning nonfiction articles. He also found some success as a ghostwriter and as a crime reporter for a newspaper.



He found his literary stride when he published his short story, "The Rubber Trumpet," the first of over three dozen stories originally published in Pearson's Magazine and featuring the fictitious Department of Dead Ends division of Scotland Yard (a precursor to TV's Cold Case, if you will). Many of these are inverted mysteries, with the crime and perpetrators being known and the crime solved as much by luck and perseverance than brilliant detection. He also edited several anthologies for the Crime Writers' Association.



The central sleuth in Vickers' Department of Dead Ends stories started as being Superintendent Tarrant and in the later stories switched to Inspector Rason. However, Vickers also wrote eight novels in a more traditional procedural style featuring Detective-Inspector Peter Curwen. Find the Innocent was the final Curwen installment, published in 1959. He's described by one character as being "large, rotund and homely, looking like a successful local auctioneer who contemplates retirement."



Three scientists, Eddis, Stranack and Canvey, are all suspects in the murder of their employer, Mr. "WillyBee" Brengast, who had refused to grant them royalties on their inventions. The trio work and live together at WillyBee Products Ltd., yet they detest one another. Each man gives the same story to the police—each claims the same alibi, that he was the one to stay behind alone with the victim while the other two men went into town together. It's obvious to Inspector Curwen that one man must be guilty and the other two abetting, but which is which? Complicating matters are the victim's beautiful young widow whose one-night stand with one of the scientists plays a key role, and the victim's brainy niece who "helps" Inspector Curwen while falling for another of the suspects.



I've not read much of Vickers' output, but I came across one criticism that his novels paled in comparison to his stories, and I think I can understand why that might be the case. The premise of Find the Innocent is promising—three suspects who give the same story with little or no evidence to prove or disprove which one is guilty—but I think the novel (novella, actually, as it's on the short side) would have worked even better as a shorter story. 



Vickers ultimately wrote close to 70 novels under his various pseudonyms, as well as the dozens of stories published in Pearson's and in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He was inducted in Britain's famed The Detection Club in 1955. Unfortunately very few of his works are in print today. The Black Dagger Crime Series reprinted Find the Innocent in 2001, but it's hard to find a copy of the 1959 original, unless you're willing to fork over $275 or more for a first edition online. Vickers's work has also been adapted for film and TV, including Girl in the News (1940), Violent Moment (1959), and three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Season 3: 1957–58).

          

Mystery Melange

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA), one of the world’s leading awards dedicated to Arabic literature and culture, organized by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Center (part of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism) has revealed the winners of its 17th edition in six award categories. This year the prize in the Young Author category, traditionally dominated by academic works, has been awarded to a fiction writer, Algerian author Said Khatibi for Nehayat Al Sahra’a (The End of the Desert), published by Hachette Antoine / Nofal in 2022, a work of crime fiction depicting the lasting effects of the Algerian war on future generations.

Noir At The Bar comes to Berkeley this Saturday, May 6 at 5:30 pm, with back-to-back readings from Rina Ayuyang, Margot Douaihy, Mary Robinette Kowal, T. Jefferson Parker, Kwei Quartey, and Marcie R. Rerrdon, emceed by Randal Brandt. This is part of the Bay Book Fest, which will also include a panel with those same authors on May 7th titled "Mysteries and Thrillers: Dangerous Destinations," to be held at The Berkeley Residence Inn, Ballroom 1, at 3:30pm.

Some of BC’s best Mystery & Crime writers read from their work at an upcoming Noir at the Bar May 19th in Victoria, Canada in the Argyle Attic above Smith’s Pub. To be hosted by Magnus Skallagrimsson, the event starts at 7:30, and there will be a bookseller on site for purchase of books.

The UK Crime Book Club will present their first live, in-person event at The Carriageworks Theatre in Leeds on the 3rd of June 2023. The day of author talks and panels and book signings will be topped off with Ben Bruce’s popular Pub Quiz. Authors scheduled to participate include Elly Griffiths, William Shaw, Lesley Thomson, Rob Parker, Jonathan Whitelaw, Chris McDonald, Sean Coleman, and more.

CrimeReads hosted nominees for this year's Edgar Awards to weigh in on the state of the genre prior to the mystery community’s most prestigious award ceremony. Thirty-eight authors including Martin Edwards, Max Allan Collins, Nita Prose, Danya Kukafka, and more contributed answers to the discussion on topics such as genre, purpose, community, and the growing problem of book bans. You can read part one here and part two here.

In a case of life imitates art, one crime fiction author is in legal hot water thanks to the release of the Paradise Papers.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Hate Crime" by Jennifer Lagier.

In the Q&A roundup, ALLi's Inspirational Author Interviews welcomed Alfred O'Neill, an author who took a rather unconventional childhood filled with contradictions and turned them into self-published thrillers. Alfred's father was a low-level mobster who nevertheless sent him to Quaker schools where they emphasized morality and love, and Alfred delves into these dual ideas in his "Love and Murder" series of books. Deborah Kalb chatted with David Unger, a psychologist who has taught at the California School of Professional Psychology and at Antioch University in Los Angeles, and is the author of the new mystery novel, A Lesson in Woo-Woo and Murder, the latest in his "A Lesson In" series. 

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Derringer Distinction

Since 1998, the Short Mystery Fiction Society has awarded the annual Derringers—after the popular pocket pistol—to outstanding published stories. The awards recognize outstanding stories published during 2022. The results of membership voting have been tallied, and congrats to all the winners and finalists!

 

Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement - Martin Edwards

Best Flash - “Acknowledgments” by Karen Harrington (Guilty Crime Story Magazine online flash fiction, April 2022)

Also nominated:

“Catch and Release” by April Kelly (Mystery Magazine, May 2022)
“Easter Spam” by John Weagly (Shotgun Honey online flash fiction)
“The Final Chapter” by James Blakey (Yellow Mama, October 2022)
“Where Palms Sway and the Surf Pounds” by Curtis Ippolito (Shotgun Honey online flash fiction)

 

Best Short - “My Two-Legs” by Melissa Yi  (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September/October 2022)

Also nominated:

“Double Trouble” by M.E. Proctor (Bristol Noir online, March 2022)
“Hiding Out in Cedar Key” by Sharon Marchisello (White Cat Publications online, April 2022)
“The Shape of Australia” by Christine Poulson (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2022)
“Digging In” by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Black Cat Weekly #40)

 

Best Long - “Negative Tilt” by Bobby Mathews (Rock and a Hard Place issue 7)

Also nominated:

“The Vigil” by Toni Goodyear (Carolina Crimes: Rock, Roll and Ruin anthology)
“Tethered” by Marcelle Dubé (Crime Wave: Women of a Certain Age anthology)
“The White Calf and the Wind” by Mike Adamson (Black Cat Mystery Magazine #11)
“The Donovan Gang” by John M. Floyd (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2022)
“Something Blue” by G.M. Malliet (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November/December 2022)

 

Best Novelette - “Two Shrimp Tacos and a .22 Ruger” by Adam Meyer (Guns & Tacos, Down & Out Books)

Also nominated:

“The Wraith of Bunker Hill” by Paul D. Marks (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2022)
“Dead Men Tell No Tales” by Liz Filleul (The People’s Friend Special, issue 225)
“The Refusal Camp” by James Benn (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2022)
“Ripen” by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier (Black Cat Weekly #48)

 

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Media Murder for Monday

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

QC Entertainment, the production company behind recent Best Picture Oscar contenders BlacKkKlansman and Get Out, has snapped up rights to J.D. Barker’s forthcoming erotic thriller novel, Behind a Closed Door, with plans to adapt it for film. Billed as "50 Shades of Grey meets David Fincher’s The Game," Behind a Closed Door introduces readers to Sugar & Spice, the latest app craze taking the world by storm, which leads downloaders Abby and Brendan Hollander into a dangerous game of life and death. When the app assigns the pair a series of increasingly taboo tasks, they soon find themselves caught up in a twisted web of seduction and violence.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is set for a movie comeback, after a four-year hiatus, in the action-thriller, Breakout, directed by The Expendables 4 filmmaker, Scott Waugh. Schwarzenegger plays Terry Reynolds, whose stepson is framed and sentenced to 25 years in prison in a foreign country. Reynolds makes a daring jailbreak to save him and must overcome an overzealous prison warden in a race against time to avoid capture and flee the country. Richard D’Ovidio wrote the screenplay based on a story he co-created with Nicole D’Ovidio.

James McAvoy is set to star in Control, a high-concept action thriller that will be directed by Red helmer, Robert Schwentke. Control is adapted from the award-winning podcast, Shipworm by Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, and is described as "a tense ticking-clock thriller revolving around a doctor who awakens one morning with an untraceable device planted in his head. He must follow a mysterious voice’s instructions or devastating consequences will unfold." The script was written by Akers, with the latest revision by Andrew Baldwin.

Signature Entertainment has acquired UK and Irish rights to the J.K. Simmons thriller, You Can’t Run Forever, from Voltage Pictures. The movie follows a teenage girl (Isabelle Anaya) struggling with a tragic past who is hunted through the woods by a sociopath (Oscar winner Simmons) on a murderous rampage. The project is directed by Michelle Schumacher (I’m Not Here) from a script co-written with Carolyn Carpenter, and also stars Allen Leech and Fernanda Urrejola

TELEVISION/STREAMING

MGM+ is moving forward with its series adaptation of the suspense thriller, Emperor of Ocean Park, based on Stephen L. Carter’s best-selling novel. The 10-episode series is set in the worlds of politics, Ivy League academia, and the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard, and centers on Talcott Garland, an Ivy League law professor whose quiet life is shattered when his father, Judge Oliver Garland, dies of an apparent heart attack. The nature of the judge’s death is questioned by Tal’s sister, Mariah, a former journalist and inveterate conspiracy theorist, who believes that the judge, a failed Black nominee to the Supreme Court, met with foul play.

Hallmark Movies & Mysteries has cancelled the Mystery 101 TV movie series. The films, which debuted in January 2019, were created by Robin Bernheim and Lee Goldberg and starred Kristoffer Polaha, Jill Wagner, and Robin Thomas. Wagner plays Amy Winslow, a professor of English literature at Elmstead College, in the fictional small coastal town of Garrison, Washington, specializing in mystery and crime fiction. Amy assists Travis Burke, a big city police detective who has recently moved to Garrison, abetted by Amy's widower father, Graham Winslow, himself the author of a bestselling series of detective novels. Unlike most Hallmark movies, the seventh Mystery 101 film ended on a large cliffhanger with an 11-month time jump that will apparently go unresolved, to the dismay of fans.

Netflix has acquired the rights to adapt the Danish novel series Department Q, which it plans to turn into a series adaptation, with one twist: it's going to be filmed in Edinburgh, Scotland, not Denmark. Department Q is based on a best-selling series of crime novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen and centers on guilt-wracked Copenhagen detective Carl Mørck, demoted to a cold case unit after a botched raid in which his partner is paralyzed and another police officer killed. Scott Frank, whose adaptation of The Queen’s Gambit was a smash hit for Netflix in 2020, will direct. The script is by Chandni Lakhani, who worked on The Dublin Murders and the BBC Scotland hit, Vigil.

Netflix has put Bandidos, a thriller series about an underwater heist, into production. The drama follows the story of Miguel (Alfonso Dosal) and accomplice Lilí (Ester Expósito), who are joined by a group of bandits as they attempt to retrieve treasure from the underwater grave of a Spanish galleon that sank in the Gulf of Mexico during the War of Independence. However, they’re not the only ones after the bounty. The series is set to launch in 2024 and marks one of Netflix’s biggest bets out of Mexico since it shot drug drama, Narcos: Mexico, in the country.

The crime heist drama series, Vanda, is headed to Hulu. Created by Patricia Müller (Madre Paula) and written by Muller and Carmen Jimenez (Adiós), Vanda is based on the true story of a hair stylist in Lisbon, who, in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis—after finding herself alone, broke, and with two children to raise—embarks on a string of bank heists using a blonde wig and a toy gun. When Vanda was finally caught, she was sentenced to seven years in prison and had stolen a grand total of €17,000. Gabriela Barros stars as the title character with João Baptista, Pedro Casablanc, Raúl Prieto, and Joana de Verona rounding out the cast.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon spoke with crime fiction author S.A. Cosby and musician Questlove, who teamed up for the Y.A. time-travel thriller, The Rhythm of Time

The Red Hot Chili Writers chatted with Sophie Hannah about her new Hercule Poirot novel, and also talked about other authors whose iconic characters have been taken up after their death.

Crime Time FM, the official podcast of the Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival in Wales, offered up the second installment of their series interviewing writers taking part in the event's crime fiction conference panels.

         Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday