B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 62
October 29, 2022
October 28, 2022
Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Death Watch
Author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is a British writer born in 1948 in the Shepherd's Bush area of London. While studying English, history and philosophy at the University College of London in 1972, she wrote her first novel which won the UK’s Young Writers Award. She toiled away in the business world as her day job, but continued writing on the side which finally paid off in 1979 with what has become her best-selling series about the Morland Dynasty. She’s written over 60 novels in three different genres since then.
She turned to crime fiction in 1991 with Orchestrated Death, the first in her series featuring Detective Inspector Bill Slider, which has grown into 23 novels thus far. Slider is middle-class, middle-aged and, according to his partner Jim Atherton, menopausal, or as reviewer Bill Ott said, "Slider is a beleaguered Everyman, immersed in the dailiness of life.” Atherton, on the other hand, is out of place in the Met because he's a gourmand, fancy dresser and womanizer. The give-and-take between the two men is one of the elements that anchors the series.
On the subject of how she came up with the idea for Slider, the author says
"When I originally embarked on ORCHESTRATED DEATH, the first of the Bill Slider books...I had no thought then of having it published. With no preconceived notions of how to write a detective novel, I started with a corpse; and, in order not to make it too easy, I made it a totally naked corpse in a completely empty flat – a clue-free zone! I didn’t have to invent a detective - Bill Slider walked into my head the first day, complete in every respect. Don’t ask me where he came from: he’s not like anyone I know, at least not consciously; but from the first moment I knew everything about him – how he looked, where he lived, where he’d been to school, what he liked and disliked. So Bill and I started investigating our first case. I had no more idea than he did who the corpse was, let alone who had murdered her or why, so we had to work it out as we went along – not the recommended method for writing a mystery..."
But Harrod-Eagles was apparently a quick-study, thanks to a lot of research spending time with police detectives, reading police in-house magazines, doing legal and forensic studies, as well as reading newspaper reports of real crimes. The result has been a series worthy enough that she's been likened to John Harvey and Ian Rankin.
[image error]The second book in the series, Death Watch from 1992, follows Slider and Atherton when they respond to an arson at the Master Baker Motor Lodge and that led to the death of a loudmouthed lothario salesman, Dick Neal, who leaves behind a bitter wife and a bevy of mistresses. Despite the fact that the victim had ligature marks around his neck and trusses on his genitals, Slider's superiors are hoping it’s just a suicide, due to budget constraints—but then Slider uncovers a possible link between the death and what is happening to the members of the "Red Watch" who manned the Shaftesbury Street Fire Station in the 1970’s.
As Slider digs deeper into the case, he first loathes then envies the dead man his adulterous life, finding parallels between the victim and Slider’s own extramarital affair with a concert violinist. When Slider notes the victim "Seems to me to have been a a sad, pathetic creature," it's as much an indictment of his own situation as it is Neal’s. But lest one get the impression that Harrod-Eagles’ books are more in the noir vein, she also peppers her writing with wit, a bevy of puns, and intelligent dialogue, as well as effective pacing and clever plot twists.
October 27, 2022
Mystery Melange - Halloween Edition
Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka's acclaimed novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, has won the 2022 Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the English language. The book is a whodunit and a satire set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka's long-running civil war in the 1980s and '90s. The main character, Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems to be a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has "seven moons" to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.
Time is running out to apply for the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program for Unpublished Writers, sponsored by the Malice Domestic Conference. The Grant program is designed to foster quality Malice Domestic literature (think "Agatha Christie") and to assist mystery authors on the road to publication. The Grant may be used to offset registration, travel, or other expenses related to attendance at a writers’ conference or workshop within a year of the date of the award. In the case of nonfiction, the grant may be used to offset research expenses. The grant includes a $2,500 award plus a comprehensive registration for the upcoming convention and two nights’ lodging at the convention hotel, but does not include travel to the convention or meals. For more information and submission guidelines, follow this link, but hurry because the deadline is November 1.
BBC Maestro announced its latest course, Writing Popular Fiction, from multi-million bestselling author Lee Child. The course will cover a rare look into how Lee created his iconic Jack Reacher series, his unique creative process, and how he put as much thought into planning his career as an author as he did into his prose. Spanning over 6 hours and presented in Lee’s inimitable style, the 35 bespoke course lessons include: Ditch the Airs and Graces, Research is a Dish Best Served Cold, Don’t Fall in Love with Your Hero, How Not to Make Your Reader Seasick, If You Want to be a Writer, You Have to be a Reader First, and The Back End of a Big Machine.
Noir at the Bar LA is headed back to the Mandrake Bar November 6th at 7pm. Authors currently scheduled to read from their work include Rachel Howzell Hall, Sascha Rothchild, Adam Frost, August Norman, Jennifer J. Chow, Ashley Erwin, J. August Williams, Lawrence Allan, and Eric Beetner. There's something for everyone this time around, from hardboiled to cozy to suspense to grit lit.
Writing for The World of Chinese, writer Jesse Young investigated China’s long quest to produce a great crime novel.
We have to say good-bye to another mystery bookshop, it seems. The independent store, Number 10, in East Lancashire in the UK, closed its doors this past weekend. Owner, Zoë Channing, said it was a difficult decision to make. "Having survived the pandemic, illness, bereavement and Covid, this latest blow to indie retail is impossible to overcome." The book shop, which specializes in crime fiction, opened in 2019.
Author Ian Rankin (the Inspector Rebus series) as Beath High School has named its English faculty after the writer. Rankin attended Beath High as a youngster and following his knighthood this summer, the school decided to mark the achievement of its former pupil. Steve Ross, Rector, noted, "We already have the 'Sir James Black Science Faculty' in the school - it was a cause for real celebration when Sir Ian agreed to the naming of English after him." Rankin recently delivered a speech at Beath High's Senior Awards ceremony, where a plaque marking the Sir Ian Rankin English Faculty was unveiled.
Janet Rudolph updated her annual list of Halloween crime fiction for her Mystery Fanfare blog. The list includes mysteries that take place on or around Halloween. She also has a separate Day of the Dead list.
Kings River Life has some free online Halloween mystery stories to chill and thrill you, including "When a Prank Goes Bad" by John R. Clark; "Forever Yours" by James Patrick Focarile; and "Just Desserts" by S. Phillip Lenski.
Authors at the Mystery Lovers Kitchen blog offered up some Halloween recipes to spice up your holiday, including Butternut Squash Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake from Lucy Burdette; Red Lentil Soup with North African Spices courtesy of Molly MacRae; and Mini Pumpkin Pies by way of Terry Ambrose.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Aldebaran: Killer" by S.B. Watson.
In the Q&A roundup, this year's Noirwich 2022 featured Yelena Moskovich, an award-winning Soviet-Ukrainian American and French novelist of The Natashas, Virtuoso, and A Door Behind A Door, reflecting on the volatility and mutability of the written word and the world, and the question of what if crime wasn’t a story being told, but a language being spoken?; Author Interviews spoke with novelist, screenwriter, and TV creator, Jason Mosberg, about his new novel, Dirty California, in which a young man descends into the Los Angeles underworld to find his family’s killer—aided by a group of strangers with their own shadowy pasts; and E.B. Davis interviewed Carol J. Perry over at the Writers Who Kill blog about High Spirits, the second book in her Haunted Haven series.
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October 24, 2022
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
Picture Perfect Federation and Zurich Avenue have teamed to acquire Jeneva Rose’s bestselling psychological thriller debut novel, The Perfect Marriage. The film will be directed by Sigal Avin (Losing Alice), and the script is being penned by Oscar-nominated scribe William Broyles (Apollo 13 and Cast Away). The story follows Sarah Morgan, a successful defense attorney whose life gets flipped upside down when her husband is accused of murdering his mistress. She decides to take her husband’s case and at trial, the couple is pulled into a twisted game of cat and mouse as they re-examine their relationship while dealing with life-changing consequences.
George Gallo is teaming with Green Book Oscar winner Nick Vallelonga to produce The Accidental Gangster, a new thriller based on reformed gangster Orlando "Ori" Spado’s bestselling autobiography of the same name. The former will also direct from a script by the author’s son, Anthony Spado, and David Steenhoek. Prior to leaving the mob, Ori Spado was an associate of NYC Colombo Crime Family underboss Sonny Franzese, as well as Los Angeles Family underboss Jimmy Caci, and Joey Pyle, who led the London-based criminal organization known as The Firm. He worked as a fixer in both Hollywood and New York and went on to pull off numerous jobs and heists during his time with the mafia, after working for a time as an insurance salesman. In 1997, one particular FBI Agent told Spado, “I will see the day you are chained, shackled and put on Con Air and brought to Brooklyn” — and 11 years later, in 2008, he made it happen.
Ron Perlman (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), Yolonda Ross (The Chi), and Daniel Diemer (The Midnight Club) have signed on to star opposite Liam Neeson in the mob thriller, Thug. The film revolves around an aging Boston gangster (Neeson) who attempts to reconnect with his children and rectify the mistakes in his past, though the criminal underworld won’t loosen its grip willingly. Tony Gayton (Hell on Wheels) wrote the screenplay.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Showtime is developing All Her Little Secrets, a drama based on Wanda M. Morris’s bestselling novel, starring and executive produced by Emmy winner Uzo Aduba. The project hails from writer Aurin Squire (Evil) who penned the pilot. The limited series centers on Ellice Littlejohn (Aduba), a Black female lawyer rising to the top of the corporate ladder. When she gets caught up in an affair and a mysterious conspiracy that puts her at risk of being the primary suspect and the next target, Ellice’s perfect façade starts to crumble as she scrambles to hold onto all she has earned, protect her family, and stay alive. Timely themes of race, class, gender, and power are explored in this fast-paced, mystery thriller.
Jessica Fellowes’s Mitford Murders series, published by Sphere, has been optioned for television by Endor Productions. While following the fortunes of the real Mitford family over three decades, each installment in the novel series also focused on one of the six Mitford sisters, fusing their lives with crime fiction stories inspired by real events. The project will see Sherry Marsh (Vikings and Pose) serving as executive producer, with Bafta-nominated screenwriter Helen Black adapting the books for the screen.
CBS announced they were giving full-season orders to three shows including East New York, the No. 2 new series on any network, and Sunday’s No. 1 new program with 7.37 million viewers. Regina Haywood stars as the new boss of the 74th Precinct in East New York who uses creative methods to serve and protect during a time of social upheaval.
Hulu unveiled a trailer for Welcome To Chippendales, created by Robert Siegel and inspired by the book, Deadly Dance: The Chippendales Murders by K. Scot Macdonald and Patrick MontesDeOca. It stars Kumail Nanjiani as Somen "Steve" Banerjee, the founder of Chippendales, who rose to fame with his revolutionary adult business venture only to tank it all with shady practices behind the scenes involving not just money, but murder.
HBO took to Twitter to inform fans that the Perry Mason series – starring Matthew Rhys as the titular private eye – has begun filming and that it will return in February 2023. According to Collider, cast member Shea Wigham added that the series will move into 1933 and the end of prohibition. The Perry Mason series is based on the novels written by Erle Stanley Gardner and featured in another TV series (1957-1966) starring Raymond Burr in the title role.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
This past week, CBS Saturday featured Lee Child and Andrew Child, authors of No Plan B: A Jack Reacher Novel.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring a mystery short story perfect for your Halloween listening, "The Artists of Chartres Street" by Ellen Byron, as read by actor Amelia Ryan.
Connecticut Public Radio's Colin McEnroe Show featured a panel, including Martin Edwards, Gene Seymour, Alexandra Petri, and Nick Quah, discussing why we're drawn to crime fiction and crime television shows and podcasts.
On It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club, Bruce Robert Coffin stopped by to discuss his opinion of the accuracy of Police Procedurals. Coffin is a retired police detective sergeant and bestselling author of the Detective Byron Mysteries.
Writers Detective Bureau host, detective Adam Richardson, talked about the differences between UK and US Crime Scene Investigation; the ramifications of a detective lying about immunity to a witness; and how police might obtain Ring doorbell footage.
On the latest Read or Dead, Katie and Kendra discussed novels with villain POV characters.
Zoe Sharp stopped by Crime Time FM to discuss the why and how of self-publishing, the benefits and pitfalls, how to go about marketing your books, what works and what doesn't, snobbery in the publishing industry, Amazon, Ian Rankin, and advertising in a public toilet.
My Favorite Detective Stories chatted with Lori Duffy Foster, a former crime reporter who writes nonfiction and fiction, including her debut novel, A Dead Man’s Eyes, the first in the Lisa Jamison mystery/suspense series.
In the new episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine podcast, Yorkshire-based author and journalist, Pat Black, read the thrilling murder mystery set in Glasgow, "The Man in the Long Dark Coat," from the May/June 2022 issue.
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October 21, 2022
Some Irish Eyes Are Smiling
The shortlists were announced for this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards, which celebrates Irish writing in eighteen categories.The public are now being asked to cast their votes online for the best books of the year on the An Post Irish Book Awards website. Voters may cast their votes until voting closes on November 10. The winners will be announced at a live in-person ceremony, hosted by RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan, on November 23 in the Convention Centre in Dublin. Here are this year's nods for the Irish independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year:
Related StoriesKiller ThrillersCrimefest GarlandsCWA Dagger Shortlists Announced
Friday's "Forgotten" Books: A Private Inquiry
Jessica Mann (1937-2018) originally earned degrees in archaeology, Anglo-Saxon, and law and worked in various fields in the UK, including as a Planning Inspector. She later turned her hand to writing crime fiction, and her novel, A Charitable End, was published in 1971, with some 20 novels published up to 2013. She was also a well-known and respected radio and television broadcast, particularly her radio program, "Women of Mystery," and authored a treatise on women crime writers entitled Deadlier than the Male.
She wrote reviews for The Literary Review, and once published an essay that she would no longer review certain types of crime fiction due to the misogyny and violence against women, saying, "Authors must be free to write and publishers to publish. But critics must be free to say they have had enough. So however many more outpourings of sadistic misogyny are crammed on to the bandwagon, no more of them will be reviewed by me."
A Private Inquiry dates from 1996 and was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger that year. It's set mainly in St. Ives, in Cornwall, near where Mann herself has lived for several years. At its heart, the novel is a tale of psychological suspense involving four women whose disparate lives intersect in a twisted scheme of blackmail, missing persons, double identity, a perverse game of victim and oppressor, a child's death, and ultimately, murder.
Mann deftly weaves complex psychological characterizations into the mix, such as the following comment from one of the main characters, a child psychologist:
Men showed themselves as they really were in bed. No doubt women did too, but Fidelis had been strictly heterosexual. Children, however, she could understand while keeping a proper and professional distance from them, observing and interacting across a desk, on the playing mat, at the zoo. But to know an adult, she had always needed intimacy. Fidelis's sexual life was over now and she was afraid she might have become a bad judge of character as a result.
The adroitly twisted plot provides plenty of social commentary and an intriguing look into how the losses and sins of youth shape the dysfunctional adults we become.
October 20, 2022
Mystery Melange
The 2022 NoirCon returns this weekend, Friday, Oct. 21 through Sunday, Oct. 23, marking the first time the event has held a virtual conference. The three-day symposium celebrates noir in all its artistic incarnations with live and pre-recorded events, including panel discussions, award ceremonies, author talks, art exhibitions, movie screenings, and more. Registration includes access to the Accelevents platform for 30 days after the event, so attendees can re-watch events or catch up on panels they missed. The award winners this year include Megan Abbott, Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, and Sarah Weinman, and conference organizers will also be celebrating the 2018 award winners, Walter Mosley, Geoffrey O'Brien, Dana Polan, and Max Rudin after the biannual event was cancelled due to Covid.
Author and academic Preti Taneja has won the 2022 Gordon Burn prize for Aftermath, her "unflinching work of narrative non-fiction." The winning title is about the London Bridge stabbing in 2019, when 28-year-old terrorist, Usman Khan, attacked five people, two fatally. Taneja realized shortly afterwards that she had known Khan when he was a student in a creative writing class she had taught two years earlier in HMP Whitemoor, where he was incarcerated at the time. Guardian reviewer, Helen Pidd, praised Aftermath and the way the author "blends journalism, memoir, poetry and literary criticism in an attempt to process an event she will never truly understand." The genre-blurring book topped a six-strong shortlist that was judged by a jury chaired by crime writer, Denise Mina.
The ECPA announced the finalists for the Christy Awards for 2022. The award has been honoring and promoting excellence in Christian fiction since 1999. This year's finalists in the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category include Aftermath by Terri Blackstock; The Barrister and the Letter of Marque by Todd M. Johnson; and On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor by Jaime Jo Wright.
All About Agatha is a podcast I sometimes featured on my Media Murder for Monday blog posts. I had wondered why the podcast seemed to have stopped publishing new episodes in September, and I recently learned that one of the original co-host Catherine Brobeck, had passed away from a previously undetected genetic disorder just days after her 37th birthday. She and Kemper Donovan established the long-running podcast and set out to read and rank all of Christie's 66 mystery novels and discuss them in exhaustive detail. During their six-year odyssey, thousands of Agatha Christie enthuasists from around the world enjoyed what one listener described as a "joyfully geeky" take on the Queen of Crime's expansive canon. Donovan and Brobeck also lectured at the University of Cambridge on the collective catharsis of the denouement (when the detective gathers everyone in the drawing room to reveal the killer), gave media interviews on the steady stream of new Christie adaptations, and became beloved pillars of the close-knit community of devout Christie fans and scholars. At the time of Brobeck's death, she and Donovan had explored 60 novels. With just six left to review, Donovan decided to keep the podcast going. The final novel episode of "All About Agatha," released in September, was dedicated to Curtain, the last book published in Christie's lifetime.
The British Antique Museum in Kamakura City, Japan, includes a Sherlock Holmes Room that pays tribute to the Great Detective and features Victorian/Edwardian furnishings. It is modeled after the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, situated at 221B Baker Street, which, according to the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was where Holmes resided from 1881 to 1904. The rooms have been faithfully maintained to give visitors from all round the globe an insight into the life and stories of the world’s first consulting detective, and a memorable, authentic experience of Victorian London. The four-storey Georgian townhouse dates back to 1815 and once served for many decades as a lodging house, but is now listed to protect its architectural and cultural heritage, boasting a blue plaque to commemorate the period of Holmes’ residency. The Sherlock Holmes Museum opened its iconic front door in 1990, and now attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world making a pilgrimage to the home of their literary hero. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at the Bunburyist blog)
Here's a news item from the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department: apparently, Oakland Cops hope to arm robots with lethal shotguns. What could possibly go wrong?
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Heave Ho" by Rena J. Worley.
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October 17, 2022
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
Emmy and SAG winning actress, Debra Messing, is in advance talks to join the Warner Bros mob drama, Wise Guys, taking on the role of Bobbie, the faithful wife of Robert De Niro kingpin, Frank Costello. Wise Guys is a period piece that follows the story of Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, a pair of Italian Americans running two separate crime families during the mid-20th century. Genovese tried and failed to assassinate Costello in 1957, though the latter wound up taking his leave from the mob after being injured during the attempt on his life. De Niro is reportedly playing both roles.
20th Century Studios has announced the ensemble cast of A Haunting in Venice, director Kenneth Branagh’s third installment in his series of Hercule Poirot films based on Agatha Christie novels. Branagh will reprise his role as Poirot, with Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Michelle Yeoh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, and Riccardo Scamarico rounding out the cast. Inspired by Christie’s Hallowe’en Party, the story is set in post-WWII Venice on All Hallows’ Eve, where the now-retired Poirot, living in self-imposed exile, reluctantly attends a séance at a haunted palazzo—where one of the guests is murdered
Following a competitive bidding war, Universal Pictures has landed the rights to Marcus Kliewer’s short story, "The Caretaker," with Sydney Sweeney attached to star and produce and Karl Gajdusek adapting the script. Like Kliewer's previous short story, "We Used to Live Here," the new story was published on Reddit where it was snapped up in a huge deal. "The Caretaker" tells the story of a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist and quickly discovers her responsibilities have stakes far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined.
Gaia Scodellaro is set to join Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning in Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer 3 for Sony Pictures. Written by Richard Wenk, the film will be released in theaters on Sept. 1, 2023, and delves more into the mysterious past of Denzel Washington’s enigmatic avenging angel, all while taking him on a global adventure.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
A high-profile TV series project based on Herbert Asbury’s 1927 non-fiction book, The Gangs of New York, is headed for streaming on Miramax Television. Oscar winner, Martin Scorsese, who directed the 2002 feature adaptation of the book, is attached to executive produce the potential series and direct the first two episodes. Details about the drama, from playwright/TV writer Brett Leonard, are sketchy but Deadline reported this is a new take on the story with characters who weren't featured in the movie (that starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz). Asbury’s book details the confrontations between rival gangs in New York in the mid- to late-1800s, prior to the domination of the Italian-American Mafia during Prohibition in the 1920s. Scorsese was previously attached to a different TV series adaptation of The Gangs Of New York, whose development was also announced by rights holder Miramax in 2013. It was to follow organized gangs not only in New York but in other cities such as Chicago and New Orleans and chronicle the birth of organized crime in America.
Channel 4 has cast Harry Potter's Natalia Tena and BAFTA winner, Chanel Cresswell, as Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney in its upcoming "Wagatha Christie" courtroom drama, with Michael Sheen set to play high-profile barrister David Sherborne. Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama will recreate the high-stakes UK High Court defamation case between the two earlier this year, in which Rooney famously tried to call out Vardy for selling news stories about her to the tabloids using sleuth tactics, thus dubbed Wagatha Christie. The pair’s husbands, the England footballers Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy, will be played by Dion Lloyd and Marci Nagyszokolyai, while Simon Coury will play Rooney’s barrister, Hugh Tomlinson. There has been huge media interest in the case since it wrapped in July, with Vardy losing and having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds. Both Discovery+ and Disney+ have greenlit documentaries about the case.
Michael Beach (Dahmer: Monster), Joshua Colley (Senior Year), and Lindsey Gort (All Rise) have joined the cast of Dead Boy Detectives, HBO Max’s upcoming drama series based on the DC Comics characters created by Neil Gaiman, in key recurring roles. The trio will join series stars George Rexstrew, Jayden Revri, and Kassius Nelson in the eight-part series that explores loss, grief, and death through the lens of Edwin Payne (Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Revri), two dead British teenagers, and their very alive friend, Crystal Palace (Nelson). As Deadline describes it, it’s "a lot like a vintage detective series—only darker and on acid."
Hulu’s The Hardy Boys is coming to an end and will conclude with its third season on the streamer, set to air next year. The story will pick up after the cliffhanger of the Season 2 finale, as the Hardys continue piecing together their great-grandfather’s map to find a powerful relic and keep it away from evil. The third and final season will also welcome a guest star in Bailee Madison (Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin). She’ll play Drew Darrow, a "fun but often frustrating new ally with a brilliant mind and appetite for magic and mysteries." Madison joins returning cast members Rohan Campbell, Alexander Elliot, Keana Lyn, Adam Swain, Cristian Perry, Riley O’Donnell, and Krista Nazaire.
Hulu has ordered ten episodes of Interior Chinatown, a drama series from 20th Television and creator/exec producer Charles Yu, who wrote the 2020 bestseller of the same name. Jimmy O. Yang (Crazy Rich Asians) will star, and Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) will direct the pilot and executive produce. Yang will play Willis Wu, a background actor in a procedural cop show called Black & White. Relegated to the background, Willis goes through the motions of his on-screen job, waiting tables and dreaming about a whole world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, and in the process discovers what it feels like to be in the spotlight.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Speaking of Mysteries chatted with Susan Elia MacNeal about her just-published stand-alone thriller, Mother, Daughter, Traitor, Spy. Inspired by the true story of mother and daughter Grace and Sylvia Comfort—who risked their lives to infiltrate Nazi strongholds in Los Angeles during World War II—MacNeal spins their tale into a story of treason and sedition that is as chilling as it is prescient.
The Red Hot Chili Writers paid tribute to the late Booker-winning novelist Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall; discussed medieval medical cures involving baked owls; and examined the Declaration of Arbroath.
My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Ausma Zehanat Khan to the podcast. In addition to holding a Ph.D. in international human rights law, Khan practiced immigration law in Toronto and has taught at Northwestern University and York University. Her novel, The Unquiet Dead won the Barry, Arthur Ellis, and RT Reviewers Choice Awards for Best First Novel. In A Deadly Divide, the fifth and latest book in the series, Detectives Khattak and Getty investigate a mosque shooting in Quebec, and explore the after-effects of a rising tide of Islamophobia in both the province and the nation. Khan also has a new crime series forthcoming with Minotaur Books which features American-Muslim detective, Inaya Rahman.
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October 14, 2022
Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Port of London Murders
Josephine Bell, the pen name of Doris Collier Ball (1897-1987), was born in Manchester, educated at Cambridge, and became a University College Hospital of London physician. She married a fellow physician who died at a young age in 1936, which is when Bell turned her hand to writing, even as she maintained her medical practice.
She was a co-founder of the Crime Writers' Association, serving as its chair in 1959, and also became a member of the Detection Club. She eventually closed her medical practice at age 57 but continued to write full time until she was 85, creating numerous sleuths in her more than 40 crime novels (at the rate of two a year), such as AmyTupper, Dr. David Wintingham, Dr. Henry Frost, and Scotland Yard Inspector Steven Mitchell.
Not surprisingly, her novels often feature a strong medical component, not the least of which were two of her doctor-protagonists. She also featured poison and other unusual methods of murder prominently in her plots. Bell and her family were experienced sailors, and the author drew upon this knowledge, too, using many vivid passages in her books that relate to the water and to various nautical details.
Water is certainly at the heart of the setting in Bell's novel The Port of London Murders from 1938, specifically as the title suggests, the port area of London's River Thames. It's a tough neighborhood, but the death of one Mary Holland is still a bit of a shock, even though it appears at first to be a suicide by Lysol poisoning. Tell-tale needle marks on the victim's arm lead Detective Sergeant Chandler to suspect murder tied into a drug ring—which seems even more chillingly apparent when Chandler disappears shortly after he starts to investigate, right before he's due to testify at the inquest. It's up to Inspector Mitchell of Scotland Yard to unravel the layers of deception and addiction that are exploiting rich and poor alike in a way that hasn't changed much in the seventy years since the book was written.
Bell is particularly good with settings, even the squalid ones that pop up in the novel, no doubt witnessed first-hand in her role as a physician who saw people from every walk of life. Her take on the state of medicine in her day was often somewhat bleak, as in this passage from the book—again, as true today as it was in 1938:
For the great majority of these cases, too poor to have a doctor of their own, there was little he could do...Dr. Freeman could encourage them with a bottle of medicine and help them with a pint of milk a day, but it was not in his power nor that of anyone else to effect a lasting cure of their complaints. There were others, too, not old, but equally hopeless, who attended the dispensary as regular visitors; those struck down in youth or middle age by tuberculosis, rheumatism, heart trouble, and a number of more rare diseases. They had come to the end of their resources, their insurances, and their capacity for earning. The hospitals could do nothing more for them, but they still lived, in the worse possible surroundings, and the Public Assistance saw to it that they did not die too soon.
October 13, 2022
Mystery Melange
Along with many other fans, I was saddened to hear that Angela Lansbury had taken her final curtain call, passing away just weeks shy of her 97th birthday. As The New Yorker observed, Lansbury's career, like the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, spanned so many decades and cultural upheavals "that she seemed as constant and as comforting as the blue sky above." She wowed fans beginning with her breakout role as the saucy Cockney maid in 1944's Gaslight—she was seventeen at the time and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress—to her role as a witch-in-training in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, to creating the role of Mrs. Lovett, the rolling-pin-wielding serial killer’s accomplice in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She received three Oscar nominations total, including her chilling role in The Manchurian Candidate, and won six Tony Awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement. I suspect that most people in the crime fiction community will always remember her best for her iconic role as amateur sleuth, Jessica Fletcher, on Murder She Wrote. There have been countless tributes, including this one from The Guardian that called her "a national treasure," and many more touting her warmth, kindness, and generosity. She was also a devoted mother and once managed to save her daughter from being under the spell of notorious cult leader and killer, Charles Manson. She will be sorely missed by family, friends, and fans, but her legacy will certainly live on for many years to come.
We also lost author Peter Robinson this past week when he died at the age of 72 after a brief illness. The British-born novelist whose work included poetry and short stories as well as his bestselling thrillers, will be remembered as a master of plot and character. Robinson was best known for his novels featuring Inspector Banks, the first of which was published 35 years ago. The books were adapted into the TV drama series, DCI Banks, which ran between 2010 and 2016 and starred Stephen Tompkinson in the titular role. A total of 8.75 million copies of Robinson's books have been sold by his U.K. publishers Hodder & Stoughton and Pan Macmillan, and his books have been translated into 19 languages.
Amazon’s Kindle Storyteller Award 2022 shortlist was announced and includes a couple of crime fiction titles, Ann Girdharry's psychological thriller, The Woman in Room 19, and JD Kirk's City of Scars, the 14th book in his DCI Logan Scottish crime fiction series. The award was established in 2016 to celebrate exceptional writing, giving both bestselling and emerging authors the chance to win a literary prize of £20,000. This year's winner will be revealed at a ceremony in London on October 24 by guest judge and bestselling author, Adam Kay.
Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. announced it will begin publishing James Bond books under its own imprint in spring 2023, touting the move as one that "marks an exciting future for 007." Fleming’s original Bond novels and short story collections will be available starting April 13, exactly 70 years to the day after Ian Fleming first introduced special agent 007 to the world with the publication of Casino Royale. The family company that owns the literary copyright to his literary works had partnered with Random House and Penguin for many years, but the new enterprise's managing director, Corinne Turner, explained that they felt it was time for a change of direction and "we hope our new editions will reach as wide an audience as possible, attracting long-time readers as well those who have yet to discover the Bond novels.” (HT to The Rap Sheet)
CrimeReads explored the literary blood feud between Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. As the article's author, Curtis Evans, explained, "Ironically, Chandler and Macdonald may have been in more aesthetic agreement than they deigned to realize. (Certainly they both hated the novels of Mickey Spillane.)." Both Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald hoped to make the hard-boiled crime novel a vehicle for serious exploration of the human condition, yet neither author was able in this respect to see himself mirrored in the other.
Recently featured at the Page 69 Test was Secrets of the Nile: A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander. In this homage to Agatha Christie, author Tasha Alexander sends Lady Emily to Egypt during British colonial rule to investigate a crime that leads back to the era of the Pharaohs.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Dead to Rights" by Tony Dawson.
In the Q&A roundup, E.B. Davis interviewed Alicia Beckman about her new novel, Blind Faith, over at the Writers Who Kill blog; and the Irish Times asked, "What compels Irish female crime writers to tackle such nightmarish topics?" with insights from crime authors such as Arlene Hunt, Andrea Mara, Claire Allan, Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin (who writes as Sam Blake), Patricia Gibney, Sinead Crowley, Louise Phillips, and more. As Phillips noted, “If crime fiction acts as a mirror on society and its cultural norms, then, I guess, there are many reasons why my writing tends to explore darker issues, and why female voices are currently being heard loud and clear.”
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