B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 53

Mystery Melange

Anne Perry, a prolific author whose period thrillers have sold over 25 million copies worldwide, died this week at the age of 84. She is best known to most readers as the author of the Thomas Pitt and William Monk series of historical detective fiction. However, in 1954, Perry, then a 15-year-old called Juliet Hulme who was living in New Zealand at the time, helped to bludgeon to death the mother of her friend, Pauline Parker. Both were convicted of murder and sent to prison. (The grisly story was the subject of Peter Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures, in which Hulme was played by Kate Winslet.) Perry was released from prison in 1959 and set about reconstructing her life, noting, "I had to give up my past - the hardest thing imaginable - and begin life in my new identity as Anne Perry, knowing even a tiny slip could unravel everything," she said. She became a Mormon and moved to a small community in Scotland and turned to writing thrillers, although she died in Los Angeles, where she'd been living recently to promote film adaptations of her many works. Perry once told The Guardian, "Why can't I be judged for who I am now, not what I was then?" A statement from her published following her death noted that Perry would be remembered for her "memorable characters, historical accuracy, the quality of her detective stories, and also for her exploration of social issues."

The Independent Book Publishers Association revealed the finalists of their annual Ben Franklin Awards, including the titles in the Mystery & Thriller category: Heroes Ever Die by J.A. Crawford; The Registration: A Novel by Madison Lawson; and Running to Fall: A Novel by Kalisha Buckhanon. Judges determine one Gold and two Silver winners in each category, which will be announced at the 2023 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards ceremony on Friday, May 5, 2023 in San Diego, CA.

The judges of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction announced a shortlist of seven books for the 2023 prize. The shortlist includes the crime-themed novel, Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris, which imagines one of the greatest manhunts in history: the search for two Englishmen involved in the killing of King Charles I and the implacable foe on their trail. The winner will be announced at a special series of events in the Scottish Borders as part of the Borders Book Festival, June 15-16.

Sadly, this year's Writers’ Police Academy, June 8-11, will be its last. For the past fifteen years, the event has offered a unique opportunity for attendees to participate in many of the same hands-on training classes, basic and advanced, taught to Law Enforcement, Fire, EMS, and Corrections personnel, and the 2023 event will also feature a special homicide investigations tract. These cutting-edge sessions are typically reserved for investigators, first responders, and forensics professionals. Director Lee Lofland says the event is very near capacity and only a very few spots remain available, so if you're interested, you should grab your ticket now.

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) will mark its 70th Jubilee year in 2023 with a series of events, including an exhibition of memorabilia from its archives. Official archivist of the CWA, Martin Edwards, said the anniversary is a, "cause for celebration, not just among its members, but among crime genre fans everywhere." The exhibition will be part of the Alibis in the Archives crime writing weekend which runs June 9—11 at Gladstone’s Library in Wales, as well as other special events linked to National Crime Reading Month in June. There will also be a special Jubilee reception at the Mansion House, York, as part of the CWA’s conference. One of the UK’s most prominent writers’ societies, the CWA was founded by the prolific author John Creasey, who wrote over 600 books under various pseudonyms. The oldest awards in the genre, the CWA Daggers feature the highest honor in crime writing – the CWA Diamond Dagger – which recognizes careers marked by sustained excellence.

This week, Missouri Republicans voted to defund all state libraries, as well as costs for diversity initiatives, childcare and pre-kindergarten programs. The GOP passed a budget in MO that will not fund public libraries as retribution for an ACLU  lawsuit on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association seeking to declare Senate Bill 775 unconstitutional. That bill has resulted in over 300 books getting banned from school libraries, many of which include LGBTQ characters or racial justice themes.

KHOU had a nice profile of McKenna Jordan and his Houston store, Murder by the Book, the world’s largest crime fiction bookstore. Jordan notes that "All of my staff here are voracious readers and we consider ourselves walking encyclopedias on the genre. Everyone’s read mystery and crime fiction their whole lives."

A panel on the "Long Island Serial Killer," focusing on the Gilgo beach murders and organized as part of the first-ever "Hamptons Mystery & Crime Festival" (aka the "Hamptons Whodunit"), was pulled from the event schedule out of respect for the victims' families after sparking controversy and public outcry. Carrie Doyle, a co-founder of the event, said, "Although all of our true crime programming is meant to be educational, thoughtful and handled with sensitivity, we do not want to upset any members of the victims' families." The event, aimed at those who enjoy true crime books, thrillers, and mysteries, is slated to take place from April 13 to 16 and offers a full array of activities, including panels, graveyard tours, escape rooms, and more.

Fans of Angela Lansbury, the beloved star of Murder She Wrote, will have a chance to buy her home near Los Angeles for $4,495,000. Her daughter, Deidre, told The Wall Street Journal that it would be difficult to let go of their mother’s home, but it was something they needed to do to ‘move on’ from her death.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Murder Maybe" by Kenneth Pobo.

In the Q&A roundup, Harlan Coben spoke with Hot Press about not writing something that's dull, and also discussed cancel culture, censorship, and his latest book, I Will Find You; and the Cowboy Lifestyle Network chatted with Craig Johnson, bestselling author of the Sheriff Walt Longmire mysteries that were adapted into the Netflix original series, Longmire.

         Related StoriesMystery MelangeMedia Murder for Monday 

Author R&R with Matt Cost

Matt Cost started out as a history major at Trinity College and later went on to own a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing histories and mysteries. Cost has published four books in the Mainely Mystery series, with the fifth, Mainely Wicked, due out in August of 2023. He has also published four books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, with the fifth, Pirate Trap, due out in December of 2023. Cost combines his love of histories and mysteries into a new historical PI mystery set in 1923 Brooklyn, Velma Gone Awry.

Velma Gone Awry follows Hungarian private eye, "8" Ballo, whose mother was certain he was going to be born a girl, but when he comes out a boy, she writes down simply the number 8, as he has seven older siblings. Now, in his mid-thirties, 8 is a college educated man, a veteran of the Great War, jilted in love, and has his own private investigator business in Brooklyn, New York. When he is hired to find the young flapper daughter of a German businessman, life suddenly becomes much more complicated in a search that will lead him to cross paths with Dorothy Parker, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Bugsy Siegel, Babe Ruth, and many more.

Matt stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching the book:

 

I write histories and mysteries. The difference in research between the two genres varies, but in reality, is not all that different.  

The historical fiction that I write requires a great deal of preloading. I have written historical fiction novels about Joshua Chamberlain and the Civil War, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, and New Orleans during Reconstruction.

 The most important facet of doing the research for these books was visiting the place where they took place, getting in tune with the locale, and allowing that knowledge to make my writing more sincere. I visited countless American Civil War battlefields for At Every Hazard, and even spent so much time at Gettysburg where the defining moment of Joshua Chamberlain’s life and potentially the turning point of the Civil War occurred, that my son ended up going to Gettysburg College.

That same son went to Cuba with me as my translator for researching I am Cuba. I had worked with a company to develop a twelve-day journey across the island of Cuba following the revolutionary war path of Fidel Castro, getting guides as necessary, and gaining an appreciation for the terrain, the cities, and the people.

The most important thing that I learned on my travels through Cuba was how 300 bearded guerillas were able to defeat an army of 10,000 Cuban soldiers. This knowledge was gleaned by climbing the Sierra Maestra through dense jungle and stifling humidity to the camp of Fidel Castro (a historical site in Cuba that only the brave hike to). The soldiers simply didn’t have the desire or the mettle to flush them out of this jungle mountain hideout.

My wife and I had a grand time researching New Orleans for Love in a Time of Hate. Fascinating historical details by day, and by night, fabulous food, music, and drink. What’s not to like?

But on to the mysteries. I write two different mystery series with a third debuting in April. My Mainely Mysteries and Clay Wolfe/Port Essex books are fast-paced, action on every page, but also complex and twisting, with an underlying educational theme that has grabbed my attention and incorporated itself into my books. These themes include nuclear power, potent lobbyists, heroin smuggling through lobster traps, cults, genome editing, and unidentified aerial phenomena.

While the characters, or the good guys anyway, are set, as is the setting for these PI mysteries, the plot requires preloading by reading up on these topics, and then diverging into internet searches and documents. The rabbit hole is real. Through the course of writing the books, I am constantly dropping nuggets of information to family and friends regarding the fascinating thing that I learned that day. Some of this research comes before I put fingers to keyboard, but most of it occurs as I write. The subject, the topic, and the plot are constantly evolving, so the research must follow suit. I quite often will have ten or twelve tabs open at the top of my browser with such things as heroin laced with fentanyl, how to poison somebody, famous serial killers, and so on.

I am debuting a historical PI mystery set in 1923 Brooklyn, Velma Gone Awry, in April of this year. This is a combination of my love of histories and mysteries and also contains probably the most unique research tool that I have utilized. There is a site, www.newspapers.com, that has archived onto their site most of the newspapers in the history of the United States. Perhaps the world, I’m not sure, as I have not needed to cross outside the country since I found it.

This is a treasure trove of information. I can read a number of papers such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for the time period I’m research, in this case, 1923. The unique thing that I’ve come up with regarding research is I read this newspaper every morning before writing. Front to back for the days that I am currently writing about. From this I get a feel for the politics, the news of the day, what things are being advertised, and so on. It has been a fantastic tool and I’d highly recommend it to anyone writing historical fiction.

I love every part of the writing process, but delving into a topic that interests me and peeling away layer after layer is gratifying and fascinating and a part that I truly do love. But I equally like writing, editing, and marketing my books.

Write on.

 

You can find our more about Matt Cost via his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Velma Gone Awry: A Brooklyn 8 Ballo Mystery is now available via Encircle Publications and all major booksellers.

          

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

In his first star role since his Oscar-nominated turn as Elvis Presley, Austin Butler will lead the cast of City on Fire, an adaptation of Don Winslow’s novel, from Sony 3000 Pictures. Winslow's story takes elements of The Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid and Greek tragic dramas and places them in a world of contemporary crime, focusing on two criminal empires—one Irish, the other Italian—that control all of New England until a modern-day Helen of Troy event tears them apart and starts a brutal war.

Writer and director Michael Mann's Heat 2 is nearing development with Adam Driver set to star. The original 1995 crime film followed the conflict between an LAPD detective (played by Al Pacino) and a career criminal (played by Robert De Niro) while also depicting its effect on their professional relationships and personal lives. The new project will be an adaptation of Mann's original follow-up novel, Heat 2, which tells both a prequel and sequel story. Written with co-author Meg Gardiner, the book hit the market last August and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Driver is set to play a younger version of Neil McCauley (De Niro's role) in the movie.

Joseph Baena will star alongside Luke Hemsworth and Morgan Freeman in the action film, Gunner, directed by Dimitri Logothetis (Jiu Jitsu), which is now in production in Alabama. The film follows Special Forces veteran, Lee Gunner (Hemsworth), as he takes his two boys on a camping trip, where the boys stumble upon a fentanyl lab and are kidnapped by drug runners. Unfortunately for the drug runners, Lee will stop at nothing to get his boys back safely, going up against not only the criminal cartel, but the FBI and local police as well, using the full force of his deadly abilities to reunite his family. Baena will portray Wally, a young, wet-behind-the-ears Deputy Sheriff. It was also announced that Grant Feely, Connor DeWolfe, and Mykel Shannon Jenkins have joined the cast.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Robert De Niro is attached to star in a crime drama series penned by Billy Ray (Captain Phillips; Hunger Games). The two-time Oscar winner will lead Bobby Meritorious, an original series that comes from Paramount Television Studios, with Preet Bharara, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York between 2009 and 2017, as one of the exec producers. As part of the deal, the company has also optioned Bharara’s book, Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law. The series is set amid the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is a sovereign kingdom with seemingly unlimited power and scope. But now an informant in SDNY’s biggest case, Avery "The Sage" Accomando (De Niro), is poised to tear this storied institution apart. Only one man can stop him, a fabled ex-cop-turned-prosecutor affectionately known as Bobby Meritorious.

Netflix has officially ordered Tall Pines, an eight-episode limited series from Mae Martin, Ryan Scott, and Ben Farrell and his Objective Fiction and Sphere Media. Martin serves as creator, co-showrunner and executive producer, and also will play a lead role in the series. Tall Pines is a thriller set in a bucolic but sinister town that explores the insidious underbelly of the "troubled teen industry" and the eternal struggle between one generation and the next.

MGM+ continues to round out the lead cast for Hotel Cocaine, adding Mark Feuerstein as a series regular opposite Danny Pino. In addition to Pino, Feuerstein joins previously announced Michael Chiklis and Yul Vazquez in the streamer’s upcoming crime thriller from creator, Chris Brancato. Hotel Cocaine is the story of Roman Compte (Pino), a Cuban expatriate who fought against Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs invasion and re-made his life in Miami. He is general manager of the Mutiny Hotel, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene of late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Feuerstein will play Burton Greenberg, the owner of the hotel, the "Studio 54" of Miami.

This Is Us alums, Sterling K. Brown and Dan Fogelman, are reuniting for a drama that has been ordered to series at Hulu. Although Hulu is not commenting on exact plot details of the untitled series, Variety reported that the show is a thriller and Brown would star as the head of security for a former president.

Thad Luckinbill has been tapped for a recurring role opposite Zoe Saldaña in Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ original series, Lioness, headlined and executive produced by Saldaña and also starring Nicole Kidman and Laysla De Oliveira. Lioness is based on a real-life CIA program and follows Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a rough-around-the-edges but passionate young Marine recruited to join the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Team to help bring down a terrorist organization from within. Saldaña will play Joe, the station chief of the Lioness program tasked with training, managing, and leading her female undercover operatives. Thad will play Kyle, an old friend of Joe’s who oversees a trafficking contact.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's All Things Considered spoke with author Leta McCollough Seletzky about the father-daughter memoir, The Kneeling Man, highlighting the complex life of her father's role as a Black spy.

On the latest episode of Two Crime Writers and a Microphone, Luca Veste spoke with SJI (Susi) Holliday about her early years in a small town outside of Edinburgh; her life as the daughter of a newsagent, reading novels taken from the shelves of that shop; and going to university—studying science rather than English—then moving to Dublin and London before finding her calling as a writer of dark psychological thrillers.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club continued with part two of their series interviewing this year's Agatha Award Nominees, including Fleur Bradley, nominated for Best Children or Young Adult Novel for her book Daybreak on Raven Island, and Korina Moss, nominated for Best First Novel for her Cheddar Off Dead.

The latest Mystery Rats Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "Easter Spam" (Shotgun Honey, April 2022) by John Weagly, read by actor Sean Hopper.

Read or Dead continued with awards-themed podcasts as Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed novels nominated for the Edgar Awards.

Crime Time FM host, Paul Burke, featured a review of the latest crime titles for March and early April 2023.

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine's podcast featured Mary Angela Honerman reading her story, "Five Bullet Friday," which centers around the murder of Lucy Bell, an overachieving travel agency manager whose co-workers all have secrets that could drive them to kill. But did any of them do it, or did Lucy have some secrets of her own?

THEATRE

Perry Street Theatricals has announced plans for a new musical, To Catch a Thief, which hopes to arrive on the London or New York stage sometime in the 2026-27 season. The new musical will be composed by Kevin Purcell (Rebecca: The Musical and The Stranger of Seville), with a book and lyrics by Peter Sham (Lend Me A Tenor: The Musical and Sherlock Holmes and the Great Royal Goose Chase!). To Catch a Thief is David Dodge's most famous novel, adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into an Academy Award-winning film starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Set on the French Riviera, the story centers on John Robie, an American expatriate and skilled gymnast, who once upon a time was "Le Chat," the famous and elusive cat burglar who worked the South of France. Following the war, Robie retires to a quiet life in France and vows to leave his past behind. His retirement is shattered when a copycat burglar commits a string of robberies that puts the police on Le Chat's trail again, and Robie must catch the phony Le Chat before the police catch Robie.

         Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Mystery Melange

As part of the celebrations surrounding Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards season, MWA released a schedule for the 2023 Symposium Panels featuring the 2023 Edgar Nominees via ZOOM. All panels are live-streamed via the MWA YouTube channel and will be archived there, as well. You can also view the livestream of last year’s banquet on YouTube via this link.

Here's some awards fit for spring: the annual German Garden Book Prizes. The Best Garden Ebook honor went to the crime novel, Die Kirschen in Des Mörders Garten ("The Cherries in the Murderer's Garden"), by Inka Stein, while the award for Best Book on Gardening Poetry or Prose was won by the crime novel, Gärten, Gift und tote Mann ("Gardens, Poison, and a Dead Man") by poisonous plant expert Claudia Blasl, about two retired amateur gardeners who are on the hunt for mole crickets and assassins.

Coming up at the end of this month, the Anaheim Public Library Foundation will present the 26th Annual Mystery Authors Luncheon & Silent Auction featuring a panel of best-selling authors David Putnam, George Fong, and Rachel Howzell Hall, with award-winning author Sheila Lowe as moderator. For more information and tickets, click on over here.

Janet Rudolph has lists of Passover-themed and Easter-themed crime fiction over on her Mystery Fanfare website for your holiday reading pleasure.

You gotta love the Scandinavians: Iceland has the Christmas book flood or Yule book flood when readers celebrate the annual release of new books occurring in the months before Christmas, and Norway has its Easter tradition of Indulging on crime fiction, known as påskekrim. In the weeks leading up to Easter, bookshops promote their Easter crime compilations and offers, while newspapers will detail the TV shows and movies you can enjoy over the holiday, with British detective and police procedural shows perennial favorites.

Clover Press has published a new illustrated edition featuring Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op, which includes the stories "Arson Plus" (Oct. 1923), "Crooked Souls" (Oct. 1923), "Slippery Fingers" (Oct. 1923), "It" (Nov. 1923), and "Bodies Piled Up" (Dec. 1923), with illustrations by John K. Snyder III. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell and the Bunburyist blog)

The Rap Sheet makes note of the 25th anniversary this month of The Thrilling Detective website. The ever-expanding site run by Kevin Burton Smith keeps adding resources to one of the most comprehensive repositories of fictional private eyes. Specifically for this 25th anniversary, Smith has posted "The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder," an excerpted work of fiction by Lawrence Block.

The market town of Wallingford in Oxfordshire, UK, is marking the Murder Mystery Weekend on September 9-10, 2023 with an unveiling of a bronze statue celebrating its famous former resident, Dame Agatha Christie. The famed Queen of Crime and internationally acclaimed author lived in Wallingford for 42 years (1934-1976), and was a popular figure around town.

Amazon continues its cost-cutting measures apace. First it was laying off almost 30,000 staffers, then it was eliminating its newspaper/magazine subscription service, closing the textbook buyback service, shuttering all of its brick-and-mortar bookstores, and cutting off the publishing house, Westland, which published works of several bestselling authors in India. Now, Amazon is also shutting down the Book Depository online shop that it bought in 2011, and one has to wonder if other book services are under the gun, including Abe Books et al - especially since Kobo just announced it's opening its Kobo Plus subscription service to the U.S. market, making it a viable alternative to Kindle Unlimited and Audible.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Pale Walls: A Villanelle for a Villainess" by Hannah Mae Karau.

In the Q&A roundup, The Rap Sheet has an interview with Kate Stine, who has served for the past two decades as editor of Mystery Scene Magazine, which is sadly ceasing publication; Crime Fiction Lover chatted with Stona Fitch about his career and latest novel, Death Watch, which is set in the high stakes world of New York advertising; and Lisa Haselton spoke with suspense author Rhonda Parker Taylor about her new novel, Crossroads.

         Related StoriesMystery MelangeMedia Murder for Monday 

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

Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Cassel are set to lead the action thriller, Damaged, about a Chicago detective who goes to Scotland after an emerging serial killer’s crimes match those he investigated five years earlier—one of which was the crime scene of his murdered girlfriend. Also starring are Gianni Capaldi, Kate Dickie, and John Hannah, with Terry McDonagh (Killing Eve, Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad) taking on directing duties.

The Cannes Film Festival will give Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon its world premiere Saturday, May 20, in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. Based on David Grann’s best-selling book and written for the screen by Eric Roth and Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon is set in 1920s Oklahoma and depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the "Reign of Terror."

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Paramount+ has greenlit a UK original drama series based on Sarah Pinborough’s thriller novel, Insomnia. Pinborough will adapt Insomnia for the screen. The story follows successful career woman, Emma Averill, who fears she is losing her mind after suffering from sleep deprivation two weeks before turning 40. Her mother had a similar experience at the same age, suffering a violent psychotic breakdown on the night of her 40th birthday. But even as she relives the experience of her mother, Averill believes other forces may be at work. Her mother is hospitalized with a sudden injury, her estranged sister returns without warning, and she feels as if she is being watched. Only by investigating the truth of her painful past, can she find the answers to her present.

Netflix has found the main cast for its limited series adaptation of the Elin Hilderbrand novel, The Perfect Couple, with headliners Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber, and supporting cast Eve Hewson, Billy Howle, Dakota Fanning, Meghann Fahy, Ishaan Khattar, Jack Reynor, Sam Nivola, Mia Issac, Donna Lynne Champlin, and Isabelle Adjani. The story centers on the nuptials of Amelia Sacks (Hewson) who is about to marry into one of the wealthiest families on Nantucket. Her disapproving future mother-in-law, famous novelist Greer Garrison Winbury (Kidman), has spared no expense in planning what promises to be the premiere wedding of the season—until a body turns up on the beach. As secrets come to light, the stage is set for a real-life investigation that feels plucked from the pages of one of Greer’s novels, and suddenly, everyone is a suspect.

Jessica Chastain will star in the Apple eight-part series, The Savant, from Anatomy of a Scandal co-creator, Melissa James Gibson. Chastain plays a top-secret investigator known as the Savant, who infiltrates online hate groups to take down the most violent men in the country. The series is based on a true story published by Cosmopolitan, which was written by Andrea Stanley, who will consult on the series.

Corbin Bernsen is set for a key recurring role opposite Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson in J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan’s HBO Max period drama, Duster. The series is set in 1972, when the first Black female FBI agent (Hilson) heads to the Southwest and recruits a gutsy getaway driver (Holloway) in a bold effort to take down a growing crime syndicate. Bernsen will play Wade Ellis, the father of Holloway’s character. Keith David, Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez, and Benjamin Charles Watson also star.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Criminal Element interviewed author Diane Kelly, whose cozy House-Flipper Mystery series continues with her most recent book, Primer and Punishment.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone host Luca Vesta welcomed CL (Cally) Taylor to talk about her life and career in Newcastle, London, and Brighton, and her path toward becoming a writer of psychological thrillers.

On the Crime Cafe podcast, Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, podcaster, and Kings River Life Magazine publisher, Lorie Lewis Ham.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured the first of their series of podcasts dedicated to the nominees for Agatha Awards, beginning with Joan Long who is nominated for Best First Novel for her book, The Finalist, and M.A. (Mary) Monin, who is nominated for Best First Novel for her book, Death In The Aegean.

All About Agatha chatted with debut author Kitty Murphy about the first book in her "Dublin Drag Mysteries" series, Death in Heels.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast featured the Christmastime story of a woman, her cat, and revenge served with a dash of antifreeze, in Charlotte Hinger's "Lizzie Noel," from the November/December 2022 issue.

Crime Time FM host Paul Burke spoke with three authors about their latest novels, including Sarah Sultoon (Dirt); Ronnie Turner (So Pretty); and Vanda Symon (Expectant).

The latest episode of the Red Hot Chili Writers interviewed crime author Alis Hawkins; discussed Welsh Rebecca Riots, which took place between 1839 and 1843; chatted about Gwyl Crime Cymru, Wales's international crime fiction festival; and profiled some of history's most infamous poisoners.

         Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

Short and Sweet

Since 1998, the Short Mystery Fiction Society has awarded the annual Derringers—named after the popular pocket pistol—to outstanding published stories and people who've greatly advanced or supported the form. The 2023 finalists were announced this weekend, with winners to be voted on by the SMFS membership and announced on May 1. Congrats to all!

Best Flash (Up to 1,000 words)

Catch and Release, by April Kelly
Acknowledgments, by Karen Harrington
Easter Spam, by John Weagly
The Final Chapter, by James Blakey
Where Palms Sway and the Surf Pounds, by Curtis Ippolito

Best Short (1,001 to 4,000)

Double Trouble, by John Bowie
Hiding Out in Cedar Key, by Sharon Marchisello
The Shape of Australia, by Christine Poulson
My Two-Legs, by Melissa Yuan-Innes
Digging In, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Best Long (4,001 to 8,000)

The Vigil, by Toni Goodyear
Tethered, by Marcelle Dubé
The White Calf and the Wind, by Mike Adamson
The Donovan Gang, by John M. Floyd
Negative Tilt, by Bobby Mathews
Something Blue, by G.M. Malliet

Best Novelette (8,001 to 20,000)

The Wraith of Bunker Hill, by Paul D. Marks
Two Shrimp Tacos and a .22 Ruger, by Adam Meyer
Dead Men Tell No Tales, by Liz Filleul
The Refusal Camp, by James Benn
Ripen, by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier

         Related StoriesThrills GaloreAgatha AccoladesEdgar Royalty 

Friday's "Forgotten Books" - Murder at the Foul Line

In honor of the NCAA Final Four basketball championship coming up April 1st, here's a repeat of a Friday's "Forgotten" Books featuring Murder at the Foul Line:

In 2006, Otto Penzler released the anthology Murder at the Foul Line, with stories contributed by a Who's Who of crime fiction: Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, Sue DeNymme, Brendan DuBois, Parnell Hall, Laurie R. King, Mike Lupica, Michael Malone, Joan H. Parker and Robert B. Parker, George Pelecanos, R. D. Rosen, S. J. Rozan, Justin Scott and Stephen Solomita.



Michael Malone's winningly deadpan "White Trash Noir," about domestic violence from a former NCAA star that seemingly drives his wife to murder, was nominated for the 2007 Edgar Award for best short story, but had to be withdrawn because it had been previously published in a collection by the author. There are other winners, though: Lawrence Block's hitman character Keller takes in a Pacers game in "Keller's Double Dribble," but the assignment doesn't go as planned and we get glimpses into Keller's past; "String Music" by George Pelecanos focuses on a streetwise D.C. kid trying to escape his troubled life by playing pickup basketball; Laurie R. King's "Cat's Paw" features the coach of a girl's junior high basketball team who is haunted by repressed memories and whose life is shaken up after she runs over a cat; and Jeffery Deaver's "Nothing But Net" is filled with Deaver's trademark twists and turns, featuring con men trying to swindle a naive NBA player.



Penzler would probably argue there's plenty more fodder for murderous takes on professional basketball. As he notes in his Introduction, "Perhaps the biggest difference in the game is the level of criminal activity. One of the big crime stories of the 1950s was when some Manhattan College, CCNY, and Long Island University players conspired to fix games so that certain gamblers could make a killing. The scandal rocked the sport for years, and those teams, then national powers, never recovered. Today, of course, that would be looked upon as kid stuff. Now we're really talking. Stars are commonly arrested for drug abuse, drunk driving, wife (and girlfriend) battering, barroom brawling, rape, and so many other acts of violence and criminality that it is difficult to keep track."



Murder at the Foul Line is the fifth installment in Penzler's sports mystery anthology series, so if you're not a fan of basketball, instead try Murderer's Row (baseball), Murder on the Ropes (boxing), Murder is My Racquet (tennis) and Sudden Death (football). I should point out that these books were published by the defunct New Millennium publishing arm, and that Penzler successfully sued the company claiming breach of contract. It's an unfortunate conclusion to what was originally an intriguing collaboration, but that doesn't change the fact the stories still stand on their own, with many sparkling three-pointers among them.

          

Mystery Melange

The Audio Publishers Association announced the 2023 winners of the annual Audie Awards for excellent in audiobooks. The Mystery category winner was The Heron by Don Winslow, narrated by Ed Harris, and the finalists include:  The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra, narrated by Soneela Nankani; The Maid by Nita Prose narrated by Lauren Ambrose; The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray, narrated by Billie Fulford-Brown, and Suspect by Scott Turow narrated by Helen Laser. The Thriller/Suspense category winner was Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulknerm narrated by Laura Kirman. The finalists were The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham, narrated by Michael Beck; The Island by Adrian McKintyn Narrated by Mela Lee; The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley, narrated by Clare Corbett, Daphne Kouma, Julia Winwood, Sope Dirisu, Sofia Zervudachi, and Charlie Anson; Snowstorm in August by Marshall Karp, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla and Michael Manuel; and Where Secrets Live by S. C. Richards narrated by Jennifer Jill Araya.

Jeff Pierce over at The Rap Sheet blog reported the sad news of the passing of two mystery authors, Carl Constantine Kosak, better known to readers by his pseudonym, K.C. Constantine (the Mario Balzic series), and Rita Lakin, writer for several popular TV series and also author of mystery novels starring Gladdy Gold, a septuagenarian private eye in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

You can add Agatha Christie's works to the growing list of "udpated" literary properties that are being edited and re-released to remove insensitive language commonly used during their day. First it was Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factor, rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin, and then the James Bond novels, with the Ian Fleming Estate deleting racist tropes. This weekend, The Guardian noted that Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries (written between 1920 and 1976) have passages edited by sensitivity readers for the latest HarperCollins editions. Most of these instances were related to offensive language, including insults and references to ethnicity. Although this is the first time the content of Christie’s novels has been changed, her 1939 novel, And Then There Were None, was previously published under a different title that included a racist term, which was last used in 1977.

In honor of her birthday (Happy Birthday!), Janet Rudolph posted a list of birthday-themed crime fiction on her Mystery Fanfare blog.

A rare copy of 1655 edition of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello, shows a cast list that includes one actor who was involved in real-life murder drama - slain in an eerie echo of the play.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Vanquished" by Rena J. Worley.

In the Q&A roundup, The Hard Word interviewed Craig McDonald, author of the series with Hector Lassiter, a crime novelist who gets involved with major historical events, often with his friend Ernest Hemingway; Crime Reads spoke with Rhys Bowen, author of the long-running Molly Murphy series, set in turn-of-the-century New York City, about historical fiction and memorable heroines; and Writers Who Kill chatted with Ellen Byron (writing as Maria DiRico) about Four Parties and a Funeral, the fourth book in the Catering Hall mystery series.

         Related StoriesMedia Murder for MondayMystery Melange 

Author R&R with Gary Born

Gary Born is a renowned international lawyer and author. He has represented countries and businesses in nearly 1,000 international disputes around the world, including cases involving Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Yemen. Mr. Born has also published widely on international law, including the leading commentaries on international arbitration and litigation. He has taught at universities in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, including Harvard Law School, National University of Singapore, and St. Gallen University. He lives in London, with two Maine Coons, and travels widely. The File is his first novel

The File follows Sara West, a tenacious botany graduate student on a scientific expedition in the heart of the African jungle. During her research, she stumbles upon a cache of WWII Nazi files in the wreck of a German bomber hidden deep within the jungle. Those hidden files reveal the location of a multibillion-dollar war chest, secretly deposited by the Nazis in numbered Swiss bank accounts at the end of WWII. But Sara isn’t the only one interested in the war chest. Former KGB agent Ivan Petronov and Franklin Kerrington III, deputy director of the CIA, both have deeply personal reasons for acquiring the files Sara has found. With two dangerous men — and their teams of hit men — on her trail, will Sara be able to escape the jungle alive? 

Born stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching the book:

 

Author’s guest articles are sometimes about the author, so I’ll say a few things about me, and the book I wrote — but I want to start with someone else.

The File is about a young woman, Sara West. She doesn’t seem so different at first glance, and she certainly doesn’t think she’s different from most other people.  But she is.

Working with her father and friends on a research expedition in Uganda, Sara discovers the wreckage of a Nazi bomber from World War II. In the wreck, which has been hidden for 70 years, Sara finds a file of documents, which contain information on secret Nazi accounts in Swiss private banks, holding billions of dollars. They also have the names of the Nazis most important foreign spies, including in the United States. 

Two incredibly different, but equally evil, men almost immediately learn of Sara’s discovery: Ivan Petronov, a former KGB agent who has been hunting for the Nazi bank deposits for decades, and Franklin Kerrington III, the CIA’s deputy director, whose patrician family’s secret support for the Nazis would be revealed by the file. Petronov and Kerrington dispatch rival teams of mercenaries to Africa to retrieve the file — Petronov for the Nazi money and Kerrington to hide his family’s traitorous past.  

Petronov and his lover (a beautiful former Chinese spy) lead a Russian special forces team to Africa and slaughter Sara’s colleagues and father. Sara flees, with the Nazi file in her backpack, and Petronov’s team hunts her through the jungle. And it’s then the reader realizes why she’s so different. 

Using wilderness skills she learned on earlier research expeditions with her father, Sara escapes the Russians, eventually turning the tables and vanquishing many of her pursuers. The Russians nonetheless corner her in a remote African town but then are themselves attacked by Kerrington’s men. Jeb Fisher, a young, ex-CIA operative, is sent to kill Sara, but instead he both discovers Kerrington’s evil secrets and falls in love with Sara.

Sara and Fisher hijack a plane from a nearby U.N. airbase and fly north, before running out of fuel and parachuting into the Libyan desert. After nearly dying of thirst, Fisher commandeers a Libyan militia Jeep, and they make their way to the Mediterranean and board a ship smuggling refugees into Europe. Once in Italy, the two head north, with Sara determined to uncover the secrets of the Nazi file and avenge the killings of her father and friends. Still tracked by Kerrington and a new team of Petronov’s Russian mercenaries, Sara and Fisher make their way to Zurich, where they confront a corrupt Swiss bank director with the files detailing the Nazi bank accounts. Sara plans a bloody showdown on the premises of the Swiss bank and, well, you’ll have to read the book to find what happens — but it’s not necessarily what you would think. Because, well, Sara is different.

I wrote the book about Sara. She inspired me, like she inspired Jeb Fisher, and took me along with her. I think you will like her, too.

I also think that you will like the stories of Sara and Jeb, who start out not trusting each other and then take things from there. It helps — or maybe not — that they are thrown together in the world’s most exciting places: the Rwenzori Mountains (the so-called Mountains of the Moon), where the plants look like the Pandora universe in Avatar, only better; the Sahara Desert, which almost gets the better of Jeb; Italy, which is impossible not to love, especially Rome and Lucca; and finally, Switzerland, which needs no explanation.

This is a story about Sara. Who turns out to be very different. But it’s also about all of us, and the many different pieces that make us whole.

There’s a lot about Sara in The File. But it has pieces of me as well, mostly the places, but some of the people.

The jungle scenes, when Sara finds the wrecked Nazi bomber and then runs from the Russians who are hunting her, were inspired by the couple months that I spent in the jungles of Congo and Uganda some years ago. Hiking along jungle trails that nobody but hunters used, with local guides who never seemed to get lost, provided the raw material for many of the early chapters of the book. I tried to make those scenes, with the forbidden beauty of the jungle, as realistic as I could. 

The U.N. airbase came from Somalia, at the UN peacekeepers’ base outside Mogadishu – where the planes have to bank sharply in from the ocean to avoid missiles and small arms fire from the ground. I visited there for work a few years ago, and the airfield’s barbed-wire fences and security gates were the inspiration for the base where Jeb and Sara hijacked their plane back to Europe.

The scenes in the Libyan desert and along the coastline were drawn from the hitchhiking I did across the Sahara and the Sinai a few years ago. The emptiness of the desert, and the brutal heat of the day, came from the surroundings of Tamanraset and El Golea. The scenes of Jeb and Sara waiting alongside an empty desert road for most of a night and day were borrowed from those same destinations. 

And the scenes in Italy, from Calabria to Rome to Lucca, come from a dozen trips to one of the world’s most beautiful countries. Sara’s trip with Jeb up the Italian boot retraces trips I have done along the exact same roads.

As for the people, Kerrington and Petronov come, unsurprisingly, from Washington and Moscow, respectively. No single person combined all of the traits, evil and otherwise, of either man. But many in both places contributed to both Kerrington and Petronov.

Most important, though, is Sara. She too contains pieces from people I have met. But more than any other character, she is herself and unique — making her own choices, different from what I had started out intending or what others might have chosen. In those chapters, I was really just along for the ride.

 

You can learn more about Gary Born and his books via his Amazon profile and follow him on Goodreads. The File is available via Histria Books and all major bookstores.

          

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

Paramount Pictures has preemptively acquired a remake of the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock-directed psychological thriller, Vertigo, with Robert Downey Jr eyeing the James Stewart lead role of the former police detective forced to retire after a line of duty trauma that leaves him with fear of heights and vertigo. After he’s shelved by his affliction, the detective is hired by an acquaintance to shadow his wife, whom he feels is behaving erratically. The script will be written by Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders. Paramount was the home for the original film, and the Hitchcock Estate favored the studio as the landing spot for the remake. The original was scripted by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor from the Boileau-Narcejac novel, D’entre les morts (From Among the Dead).

First-look images were revealed for the psychological thriller, My Sister’s Bones, adapted from Nuala Ellwood’s novel of the same name. The film opens in a bleak police station where celebrated war correspondent Kate Rafter (Jenny Seagrove) faces questions from a psychiatrist, Dr. Shaw (Olga Kurylenko), as they work through the painful events of Rafter’s life. A horrific incident in war-torn Iraq and the death of her mother have brought a haunted Rafter home to Herne Bay, a place she believed she had escaped forever. Her resentful sister (Anna Friel) has not made her sister welcome and her forbearing husband Paul (Ben Miles) fails to broker peace. Whilst packing up her mother’s belongings from her childhood home, Rafter comes to believe there is something strange and terrifying happening in the house next door.

Michael Stuhlbarg is set to join Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in The Instigators for Apple Original Films, with Doug Liman aboard to direct. The film follows two thieves who go on the run with the help of one of their therapists after a robbery goes awry. The script was penned by Chuck MacLean and Casey Affleck and developed by Robinov, Graham, and Affleck. Also in the cast are Hong Chau and Paul Walter Hauser.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

James Patterson has inked an exclusive first-look deal with Skydance Television, which is already in production on an adaptation of his Alex Cross series starring Aldis Hodge. As part of the deal, Patterson will develop a slate of series based on his top-selling book series:  Women’s Murder Club, which follows a group of women from different professions who work together to solve murders, and also Michael Bennett, which follows NYPD Detective Michael Bennett as he solves crimes and raises his ten adopted children. Other projects in the pipeline will include Private, which centers on a high-end private investigation agency run by former CIA agent Jack Morgan; Jane Smith, a yet-to-be-published series that follows Jane, a brilliant defense attorney and private investigator who, on the eve of a major homicide trial, learns she has just 14 months to live; and Holmes, Miss Marple and Poe, which follows Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple and August Poe, who have formed the most in-demand private investigation firm in present-day New York City, with claims to be distantly related to three of the greatest mystery writers of all time—but who are they really?

The BBC is delving into the history of Soho’s criminal underworld for its a six-part drama series, Dope Girls, inspired by Marek Kohn’s non-fiction book Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground. The series will mix elements of the fact-based research of Kohn’s book with fictional characters and storylines, exploring all aspects of the criminal world of Soho in the early 20th Century. Deadline reported it’s partly based on the true story of conservative, god-fearing 42-year old single mother Kate Meyrick, who builds a nightclub empire and criminal family enterprise and becomes the most dangerous woman in London as well as a competitor to Brilliant Chang, the baron of Soho’s gritty underworld. Her nightclubs are fueled by drugs and alcohol that allow for a generation of World War I veterans and survivors to forget their trauma and break through the rigid patriarchal structures of the era to allow women to dance, have sex and do drugs with whomever they want.

Amazon is moving forward with its series adaptation of E. Lockhart’s novel, We Were Liars, a "tragic" love story and an amnesia thriller set on a privately owned island off the coast of Massachusetts. Focusing on the theme of consequences of one’s mistakes, the series follows the wealthy, seemingly perfect Sinclair family, who spend every summer sitting gathered on their private island. However, not every year is the same: When something happens to Cadence during the summer of her 15th year, she and the other three "Liars"— Johnny, Gat and Mirren — re-emerge two years later to prompt Cadence to remember the incident.

Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne will star in The Day of the Jackal series for Peacock and Sky, playing The Jackal, a professional assassin hired by a French paramilitary dissident to kill French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962. The series is based on the Frederick Forsyth novel and 1973 film adaptation from Universal Pictures. However, it has been reimagined as a contemporary story set amidst the current turbulent geo-political landscape and will delve deeper into the chameleon like "anti-hero." Top Boy creator and writer, Ronan Bennett, will pen the script and serve as showrunner.

CBS Studios is developing The Mysterious Mortons, a detective drama series for CBS from Charmed's Amy Rardin and George Northy and Castle's Laurie Zaks. The show follows a homicide detective who enlists his quirky family of mystery writers to assist him in cracking the cases that perplex the authorities.

Emmy winner Michael Chiklis is set to star alongside Danny Pino in Hotel Cocaine, MGM+’s upcoming crime thriller series from creator Chris Brancato. Hotel Cocaine is the story of Roman Compte (Pino), a Cuban expatriate who fought against Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs invasion and re-made his life in Miami. He is general manager of the Hotel Mutiny, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene of late ‘70s and early ‘80s. The Hotel Mutiny was Casablanca on cocaine, a glitzy nightclub, restaurant and hotel frequented by Florida businessmen and politicians, international narcos, CIA and FBI agents, models, sports stars and musicians. Chiklis will play Agent Zulio who will stop at nothing to shut down the drug trade, even if it means using innocent civilians to accomplish his ends.

Endeavour, the PBS Masterpiece detective drama that stars Shaun Evans and Roger Allam, will return for its ninth and final season June 18. Inspired by Inspector Morse and based on the novels of Colin Dexter, the spinoff set in the ’70s will wrap with Endeavour Morse (Evans) and his superior officer Fred Thursday (Allam) facing new crimes and an unsolved case from the past. Jack Bannon will return as Sam, while other characters from former seasons are expected to appear in the finale. The ensemble cast includes Anton Lesser as CS Reginald Bright, Sean Rigby as Jim Strange, and James Bradshaw as Dr. Max DeBryn. An hourlong documentary titled Morse and The Last Endeavour is planned for June 11.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On Book Riot's Read or Dead podcast, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed noir novels.

All About Agatha chatted with debut author Kitty Murphy about the first book in her "Dublin Drag Mysteries" series, Death in Heels.

Crime Time FM's Paul Burke spoke with Alis Hawkins about her new literary historical mystery, A Bitter Remedy; Welsh history; the Teifi Valley Coroner; the Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival; and a strange male affliction.

         Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday