B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 65

Mystery Melange

Debut books in the crime and mystery genre won all six awards in the Australia Sisters in Crime’s 22nd Davitt Awards this past weekend. The annual awards for best Aussie women’s crime books were presented by award-winning journalist and true crime writer, Louise Milligan, at a gala dinner at South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel, the first live ceremony since 2019. The winners include:  Best Adult Novel: Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy; Best Young Adult Novel: The Gaps by Leanne Hall; Best Children's Novel: The Detective's Guide to Ocean Travel by Nicki Greenberg; Best Debut Book and Readers' Choice: Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz; and Best Non-Fiction Book: The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek by Kate Holden.

The shortlists for the inaugural Fingerprint Awards were announced. The awards, which recognize the best titles in the crime genre (and most of which are voted for by readers), are held as part of the Capital Crime Festival. The titles up for Crime Book of the Year include Val McDermid’s 1979, Mick Herron’s Slough House, Sarah Pearse's The Sanatorium; Eva Björg Ægisdóttir's Girls Who Lie; and Janice Hallett’s debut, The Appeal, which won the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger earlier this year. For all the shortlisted titles, including Thriller Book of the Year, Historical Crime Book of the Year 2021, Debut Book of the Year 2021, Genre-Busting Book of the Year 2021, and Audiobook of the Year 2021, follow this link. Readers can vote for their preferred winners through September 19, and winners will be announced September 29. (HT to Shots Magazine)

The finalists for the 2022 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel and Best First Novel were announced. The winners will be handed out at a special event in Christchurch, New Zealand, on September 19. The contenders for Best Novel include The Devils You Know by Ben Sanders; Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz; She's A Killer by Kirsten McDougall; Quiet In Her Bones by Nalini Singh; The Quiet People by Paul Cleave, and Nancy Business by Rwr McDonald. The finalists for Best Debut are Isobar Precinct by Angelique Kasmara; Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz; Waking The Tiger by Mark Wightman; Small Mouth Demon by Matt Zwartz; and Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham.

If you find yourself in Christchurch for the awards ceremony, you might want to check out a small house in the Cashmere Hills, one of Christchurch’s lesser known treasures. It's the former home of celebrated crime writer, theatre director, and artist Ngaio Marsh (for whom the above awards are named), preserved largely as it was when she died there in 1982 complete with many of her possessions. Inside the clapboard villa is a trove of artwork, furniture, and mementos that tell the story of an extraordinary life spent in the home from childhood to old age. Some of these objects will appear in a new exhibition at Tūranga, Christchurch’s central library, to mark the fortieth anniversary of Marsh’s death and bring fresh attention to the museum, which has been managed and preserved as a museum by a trust since 1996. 

The Guardian featured an article by Lucy Worsley, author of Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman. The book tries to puzzle through the real-life mystery of why the world’s bestselling author vanished for 11 days in 1926. Did she really go into hiding to frame her husband for murder as some sources speculated? Digging through letters and accounts, Worsley had found that Christie was "at the beginning of a nervous breakdown" and wrote a one point that she "just wanted my life to end."

Via The Conversation: "How crime fiction went global, embracing themes from decolonization to climate change." Once seen as the purview of British and American writers, crime fiction is very much a global phenomenon, with fictional investigators like Lisbeth Salander, Kurt Wallander and Jules Maigret perhaps as well known today as Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, and Philip Marlowe.

A batch of Charles Dickens’s letters that have remained unseen and unpublished are to go on display for the first time.The eleven letters include assorted invitation notes and offer insights into the author’s reading habits and writing projects as well as details about a trip to Switzerland written to a friend. The letters are among more than 300 items acquired by the Charles Dickens Museum from a US collector in 2020, including personal objects, portraits, sketches, playbills and books.

Nissen Richards Studio has designed an exhibition in The National Library of Norway in Oslo titled "Labyrinth: Tracing Harry Hole." The exhibit focuses on the main character from the popular Norwegian crime novel series by Jo Nesbø, and the idea is for the exhibition to become a "detective game for the visitor" by "mimicking clues that Harry Hole might find and weave together" in the books, according to the studio’s director, Pippa Nissen. The exhibition is open to the public and closes on November 5, 2022.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Orange Julius" by Amy Grech.

In the Q&A roundup, E.B. Davis interviewed Valerie Burns about her brand-new culinary cozy series that introduces Maddy Montgomery, a social media expert who’s starting over in small town Michigan after inheriting her great-aunt’s bakery and a 200-pound English Mastiff named Baby; and Deborah Kalb spoke with Martin Edwards about his new book, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators. 

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Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday, and you know what that means—it's the start of a new week and time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news and podcasts:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Sean Penn’s recently launched production company, Projected Picture Works, has signed on to produce the political thriller, Killers & Diplomats, partnering with Mill House Motion Pictures. The film is from writers Michael Nourse and John Tyler McClain and is based on an article by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Raymond Bonner. Based on a true story, it picks up after four American missionary women are raped and murdered in 1980 El Salvador, following a young U.S. diplomat who cracks the case by cultivating an improbable source—risking everything to gather the key evidence.

Oren Uziel, the co-screenwriter of Paramount’s spring hit, The Lost City, is reworking 20th Century Studios’ Clue movie reboot starring Ryan Reynolds. James Bobin is attached to direct the live-action pic, which is based on Hasbro’s popular whodunnit game that was first made into a 1985 cult classic film starring Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, and Lesley Ann Warren. With the screenplay being rewritten, it will be a while before viewers find out who will join Reynolds amongst the colorful cast of characters in this reboot. Clue, or Cluedo as it's known outside North America, was created in 1943 by British board game designer Anthony E. Pratt, with numerous games and books released as part of the Cluedo franchise, including a series of 18 children's books published in the 1990s.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the follow-up to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, will be released globally on Netflix December 23 and in select theaters on a date to be announced. Netflix released two first-look images this past week. In the new film, Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, reprising the role) travels to Greece "to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colorful suspects," according to the logline. In addition to Craig, Glass Onion stars Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Elin Hilderbrand's New York Times bestselling novel, The Perfect Couple, is being developed into a limited series at Netflix by 21 Laps (Stranger Things, Shadow and Bone) as part of their overall deal with the streamer. Jenna Lamia (Good Girls, Resident Alien) will serve as showrunner and executive producer. The murder mystery series follows Celeste Otis who, on the Fourth of July, is about to marry the perfect man, who just so happens to be from the wealthiest family on Nantucket. But when a body is discovered floating in the harbor on the morning of what was to be the wedding of the year, everyone at the party is suddenly a suspect.

Ewan McGregor has been cast as the lead in Paramount+’s upcoming UK drama series, A Gentleman in Moscow, replacing Kenneth Branagh. McGregor will play Count Alexander Rostov who finds that his gilded past places him on the wrong side of history in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. The project is an adaptation of the international best-selling novel by Amor Towles.

Envision Entertainment has optioned the Inspector Mislan crime thriller series written by Rozlan Mohd Noor. Set in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, the books follow the exploits of a tough street cop. Envison Entertainment’s chief content officer, said: "The Inspector Mislan character is perfect for television; he is a gritty, seemingly incorruptible Malay Muslim street cop who brooks no opposition, from the criminal mafia or his superiors. Thanks to the uniquely creative writing of Rozlan Mohd Noor, I am delighted we have the opportunity to bring Inspector Mislan to the television audience."

Britain's Channel 4 has picked up a new six-part drama currently titled The Gathering from the acclaimed writer and director, Helen Walsh. Set on Merseyside, the drama focuses on a group of teens from disparate backgrounds, each of whom could have committed a crime, along with their parents—who give equal cause for suspicion. As a novelist, Helen Walsh won the Betty Trask award for Brass and the Somerset Maugham award for Once Upon a Time In England. In 2016, she picked up the BAFTA Breakthrough Brit award for her directorial debut, The Violators, for which she also wrote the screenplay.

Roslyn Ruff (Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector) has been tapped as a lead opposite Neve Campbell in Avalon, ABC’s drama series based on Michael Connelly’s short story, from David E. Kelley, A+E Studios and 20th Television. Avalon, which received a straight-to-series order from ABC, takes place in the city of Avalon on Catalina Island, where L.A. Sheriff’s Department Detective Nicole "Nic" Searcy (Campbell) heads up a small office. Catalina has a local population that serves more than one million tourists a year, and each day when the ferries arrive, hundreds of potential new stories enter the island. Ruff will play Lena, a police administrative dispatcher, "gatekeeper and grand guardian of perspective." In addition to Campbell, she joins fellow regular and the series’ male lead, Steven Pasquale.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Colson Whitehead stopped by NPR's Fresh Air to talk about Harlem, hooligans, and race and class in the '60s. His novel Harlem Shuffle is about a furniture store owner in Harlem whose sideline is fencing stolen goods. 

MPR's Ask a Bookseller podcast featured Sarah Brown of Zenith Bookstore in Duluth recommending that fans of literary fiction, mystery, and noir seek out the work of Dorothy Hughes, whose crime novels were mostly published in the 1940s and early 50s.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the first chapter of Slightly Murderous Intent by Lida Sideris read by actor Casey Ballard.

Todd Mason pointed me toward a podcast I hadn't had on my radar before, Hollywood AWAC. In this pre-pandemic episode, host Bill Thill sat down with writer Joe R. Lansdale (of Hap and Leonard fame) and his daughter, Kasey Lansdale, to discuss writing their book, Terror Is Our Business, and to chat about the creative process and what it takes to build a life less ordinary while pursuing creative endeavors.

WSAZ News in Huntington, WV, welcomed thriller author, Karin Slaughter, to preview her latest novel, Girl, Forgotten.

On the BBC's Science Focus podcast, Professor David Gibson sat down to explain how forensic botany—the study of plants to help investigate crimes—has helped to solve real cases.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer, Lee Matthew Goldberg

On It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club, the gang took a breather and talked about a few articles they found that are interesting, such as "What Can Cooking School Teach a Mystery Writer?"

On Read or Dead, Katie and Nusrah discussed domestic suspense and its continuing appeal.

Neil Plakcy joined Queer Writers of Crime host, Brad Shreve, to discuss Neil's latest book, Being John Church. He typically writes novels with gay protagonists, but he also has his Golden Retriever Series, and in Being John Church, he brings both together with a gay protagonist and a golden retriever.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Catherine Coulter, author of a bestselling FBI Suspense Thriller Series, to chat about Reckoning, the 26th installment in that series that was just released last week.

UK author, Deborah Lucy, stopped by My Favorite Detective Stories to discuss her series featuring DI Temple.

All About Agatha spoke with Lucy Worsley, a historian, TV presenter, and author of Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman.

On Crime Time FM, Victoria Selman chatted with Dominic Nolan about novel endings; the importance of the twist in a crime novel; why first sentences stand out more than last—or do they?; and what makes a satisfying ending.

THEATRE



A revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd, starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, is headed to Broadway next spring, with the team behind Hamilton—producer Jeffrey Seller and director Thomas Kail—attached to the project. Groban would play the murderous Sweeney Todd title character, with Ashford as his pie-baking assistant, Mrs. Lovett. The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (alternatively titled The Sailor's Gift) was a fictional story first published as a penny dreadful serial from 1846–47. The main antagonist of the story is Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," and although the serial served as the character's first literary appearance, many other literary and theatrical adaptations soon followed.

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Friday's "Forgotten" Book: Final Proof

Marie R. Reno (1929-2008) was nominated in 1977 for an Edgar Award for her first novel, Final Proof. I was able to get my hands on a copy of the book at my local library, something of a remarkable accomplishment from a library that doesn't even have any S.S. Van Dine books. Yet, when I tried tracking down Ms. Reno, I found practically nothing available in the way of biography or career (possibly a pseudonym?). The dust jacket indicates Reno had a long and notable career in the book-club world, and was also an editor of This Week magazine. Her book-club connections are probably why she is listed as editor of A Treasury of Modern Mysteries, Volumes 1 and 2, from 1973 and later An International Treasury of Mystery and Suspense, from 1983. It also helps explains why she wrote this first novel, Final Proof, set in a New York book club publishing house.



At the beginning of the Final Proof, Marcia Richardson is found in her home office, shot twice through the head at close range by a .22 revolver and slumped over a set of galley proofs. Although her fingers had been wrapped around the gun in an attempt to make the death look like suicide, there's little doubt she's been murdered. Marcia was editorial director of the Readers' Circle, one of the Big Three book clubs along with Book-of-the-Month and the Literary Guild, and in the small, interconnected world of New York publishing, Marcia's death is talk of the town.



Marcia's friend and colleague, Karen Lindstrom, editor of the Mystery, Suspense and Intrigue line, finds herself working with, and at cross-purposes to, Lieutenant Jack Morrison of the NYPD. At first, he merely seems fascinated by Karen's endless fount of information about the publishing world and isn't particularly thrilled to have her assistance. As the case grinds on, Karen and the Lieutenant find themselves drawn to each other in personal ways that could jeopardize the investigation.



It's quite obvious from all the insider details and observations that the author was indeed employed with such a book club, which seems to be both the inspiration and raison d'etre for the book. I also suspect Reno is a pen name, one reason there isn't much in the way of biographical details—changing the names to avoid getting sued or incurring the wrath of fellow employees (if anyone out there knows his/her real name, feel free to add it in the comments).



As the publishing world seems to change almost daily in our current day, it's a bit of a throwback to read about a segment of the literary establishment that's shrinking, perhaps disappearing altogether. However, some of the author's observations (speaking through the likely-autobiographical character of Lindstrom) are timeless:

We're caught up in such a tide of manuscripts and galleys that we get sort of jaded. I mean, every once in a while something comes along that I really love, but six months later I'd have a hard time remembering it.



The tough thing is dealing with author. All those fragile egos.

There's a lot of sly humor and oblique poking fun at the industry, and if you want some light entertainment with a touch of publishing nostalgia and romance thrown in, then Final Proof is right up your galley. If you're wondering about who actually won the best first novel in 1977, it was a book titled The Thomas Berryman Number by someone you may have heard of. A fellow by the name of James Patterson.

          

Mystery Melange

 

The Killer Nashville conference handed out its annual awards this past weekend. The Silver Falchion Award for Best Book of 2021 was a tie between Girl Missing by Kate Gable and The Reunion by Kiersten Modglin. The Claymore Award for best unpublished novel went to Shaking by Jeffrey James Higgins. For all the runners-up plus the winners in dozens of individual categories such as Best Mystery and Best Thriller, follow this link.

The National Book Festival, sponsored by the Library of Congress, returns to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday, September. Events of interest to crime novel fiction fans include the in-person panels, "Memories, Maladies, Mysteries and Murders" with Rob Hart and Victor Manibo; "Truer Than True Crime: Novels About Swindlers and Murderers" with Kirstin Chen, Katie Gutierrez and Amanda Eyre Ward. Katie Gutierrez will also present an online talk via PBS Books on August 30th. Plus, the The Library of Congress Crime Classics Series will present a performance from The Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher, a groundbreaking American mystery, the first ever to feature a Black detective and all Black characters.

ITW's 9th Annual Online Thriller School begins September 13, 2022. The ten-week program covers various aspects of the craft of thriller writing during a live Zoom session, with written materials for further reading along with study suggestions, and an entire week of online Q&A with the registered students. Classes will be held every Tuesday at 2:00pm Eastern. The talented instructors will delve into the following topics: Red Herrings, Reversals, and Twists; Creating Compelling Characters; Setting: How to Create Your Story World; FBI Myths and Misconceptions; The Thriller Writer’s Toolbox; All About Dialogue; How to Nail Structure; Fundamentals of the Action Scene; First Pages: How to Hook Your Reader, and Pacing: How to Keep the Pages Turning! There's also a bonus panel: "Ask Me Anything" with Meg Gardiner, C.J. Box, Alex Segura, and Panel Master, Samuel Octavius. 2022 Instructors include Jeffery Deaver, Alex Finlay, Steven James, Mary Kubica, Tosca Lee, Clare Mackintosh, Isabella Maldonado, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Wendy Walker, and Jerri Williams.

The Desert Sleuths chapter of Sisters in Crime is holding its WriteNow! conference September 16-17. The event is staying virtual this year, after two Covid-related years of an online conference, with one exception, the Networking Social in Tempe, Arizona. In addition to the Keynote Speech by Sandra S.G. Wong, "Tropes Versus the Writer: How to Make Tropes Work for You," there will be craft panels such as "Writing Regional Voices and Settings" with Donis Casey, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and Betty Webb, and "Creating Compelling Protagonists" by Hallie Ephron. You can register for the event, which is open to the public, via this link.

In celebration of their 100th anniversary, Good Housekeeping is sponsoring a talk with crime authors Paula Hawkins, Clare Mackintosh, and Anthony Horowitz in partnership with Dyson, a two-day event at Carlton House Terrace, London, on Friday October 14 and Saturday October 15. Hawkins is best known as the author of million-copy hit The Girl On The Train, Mackintosh is the author of five bestselling thrillers, including her latest, The Last Party, and Horowitz has created many much-loved TV series such as Midsomer Murders and is the author of six murder mysteries.

Issue #173 of Mystery Scene Magazine marks a milestone for publisher-owners Kate Stine (who is also editor-in-chief) and Brian Skupin. The 2002 Fall Issue was their first and two decades later, they're still bringing readers the latest news and notes from the world of crime, mystery, and suspense. This issue also celebrates the 100th birthday of the hardboiled private eye with gumshoe expert Kevin Burton Smith offering a feature on this iconic figure. Oline Cogdill also has a profile of author Linda Castillo, whose series with police chief Kate Burkholder is set in the Ohio Amish community; Yasmin Angoe talks about winning the Eleanor Taylor Bland Award from Sisters in Crime; Craig Sisterson catches up with Emma Viskic, an Australian musician-turned-novelist who created a sleuth who can’t hear the music she so loves; and another milestone is noted as the publication bids a fond farewell to Jon L. Breen, their nonfiction review columnist, who is retiring after 20 years at Mystery Scene.

Mystery Readers Journal is seeking articles, reviews, and author essays about legal mysteries. Reviews are between 50 and 250 words; author essays, which are first person accounts about yourself, your books, and the "Legal Mystery" connection are 500-1000 words. The deadline is October 1, 2022: Send to: Janet Rudolph, Editor. 

Michael Malone, the novelist, TV writer and Edgar and Emmy winner, died on Friday, August 19, of pancreatic cancer. He was 79 or 80 (his date of birth was unclear). Many of his novels and short stories were set in South, particularly in North Carolina, where he was born and grew up, and his "Red Clay" won the 1997 Edgar for best short story. Malone was working on the fourth book in his Justin & Cuddy series when he died. (HT to Shelf Awareness.)

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Women, Girls, and Spinsters" by Stephen D. Rogers.

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Faye Kellerman about her new novel, The Hunt, the latest in the series featuring her characters Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker; Kalb also chatted with Nadine Matheson, a criminal defense attorney and author of the new novel, The Binding Room, a sequel to her novel, The Jigsaw Man, which also featured her character Detective Anjelica Henley; Lit Reactor interviewed crime fiction author Paul J. Garth about his noir debut novella, The Low White Plain, and editing at Shotgun Honey and Rock and A Hard Place magazines; and Anthony Horowitz spoke with The Independent about cancel culture and the fear of offending.

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Media Murder for Monday

I'm noticing a ramp up again of production news following the usual summer slow-down, including some reports to pass along about crime novel adaptations (and some tangential projects):

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Robert De Niro will re-team with his director Barry Levinson for a new crime drama called Wise Guys set at Warner Bros., which would have De Niro playing not one but two of the 20th Century’s biggest crime bosses. Nicholas Pileggi wrote the original crime script that would follow the stories of Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, the heads of two Italian-American mafia families that went to war in the 1950s, leading Genovese to attempt to assassinate Costello. De Niro would be slated to play the roles of both Genovese and Costello in the film. Pileggi is the author of a book called Wiseguys that served as the basis for Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas from 1990.

Mammoth Pictures has acquired film and TV rights to the bestselling novella, Diary of a Murderer, from award-winning Korean author Young-ha Kim, with Kourosh Ahari set to direct an English-language feature adaptation. Diary of a Murderer tells the story of a former serial killer stricken with Alzheimer’s disease and suffering from escalating memory loss. When his now peaceful life with his daughter is threatened by new killings mimicking his murders of decades past, he sets his sights on one final kill before he loses his memory completely: the new serial killer he suspects is stalking his daughter—all told in a series of notes the narrator writes to himself throughout his psychological descent into dementia. Kim’s novella was previously adapted by Korean director Shin-yeon Won as Memoir of a Murder.

Ryan Gosling is in talks to star opposite Margot Robbie in the new Ocean’s Eleven film, which four-time Emmy winner Jay Roach (Bombshell) will direct for Warner Bros. Deadline reported that the new Ocean’s version, penned by Carrie Solomon, will be set in Europe in the 1960s but further details about the plot are unknown. Both the original Rat Pack version from the 1960s and the 2001 reboot with George Clooney leading an all-star ensemble cast, are loosely based on a story by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell.

Britt Lower (Severance), Tom Mercier (We Are Who We Are), Jean Yoon (Kim’s Convenience) and Sook-Yin Lee (Shortbus) are set to star in the drama/thriller/romance, The Incident Report. The film is executive-produced by Academy Award-winning Charlie Kaufman (I’m Thinking of Ending Things), and written/directed by Naomi Jaye (The Pin). The story follows librarian Miriam Gordon (Lower) as she lives in a fog of grief while working amidst marginalized members of the public who populate her downtown public branch. When a burgeoning love-affair with Janko, a younger foreign cab driver (Mercier) coincides with her receiving a series of oddly threatening letters addressed to her, Miriam’s sheltered existence is cracked open. The Incident Report is Jaye’s adaptation of the novel written by Martha Baillie.

The ensemble for Jeff Nichols's next feature film is continuing to grow as Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, and Damon Herriman have joined The Bikeriders at New Regency. As previously announced, Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Tom Hardy were already on board. Nichols will direct the fictional story inspired by the photography of Danny Lyon and his 1967 book, The Bikeriders. The film is set in the 1960s following the rise of a fictional Midwestern motorcycle club. Seen through the lives of its members, the club evolves over the course of a decade from a gathering place for local outsiders into a more sinister gang, threatening the original group’s unique way of life.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Steven Pasquale has been tapped as the male lead opposite Neve Campbell in Avalon, ABC’s drama series based on Michael Connelly’s short story, from David E. Kelley, A+E Studios, and 20th Television. Avalon, which received a straight-to-series order from ABC, takes place in the city of Avalon on Catalina Island, where L.A. Sheriff’s Department Detective Nicole "Nic" Searcy (Campbell) heads up a small office. Catalina has a local population that serves more than one million tourists a year, and each day when the ferries arrive, hundreds of potential new stories enter the island. Detective Searcy is pulled into a career-defining mystery that will challenge everything she knows about herself and the island.

Irish writer Joe Murtagh, whose first feature, Calm With Horses (adapted from a short story of the same name by Colin Barrett and nominated for 5 BAFTA Awards), has a new project headed to the BBC and Showtime. The gothic thriller, The Woman in the Wall, is inspired by Ireland’s controversial Magdalene Laundries, which operated in Ireland for more than 200 years. But it wasn’t until 1993, when the unmarked graves of 155 women were uncovered in the convent grounds of one of the laundries, that media uncovered the operations of the secretive institution. Ruth Wilson (The Affair) will play Lorna, one of the former "fallen women" who were incarcerated at the Magdalene Laundries, who is now a suspect in a murder, and Daryl McCormack (Peaky Blinders) will play the ambitious but elusive Detective Colman Akande, who is hot on Lorna's trail while hiding his own dark secrets.

ITV announced the premiere date for The Suspect, based on Michael Robotham’s novel of the same name. The drama, starring Aidan Turner, has the Irish star playing Doctor Joe O’Loughlin who appears to have a perfect life with a devoted wife, a loving daughter, and a successful practice as a criminal psychologist complete with a high media profile and publishing deal. When a young woman is found dead he is only too willing to offer help with his profiling and expertise. But as the investigation into the woman’s death gathers pace, we start to ask, do we know the real Joe, or does he have a secret life?

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's Morning Edition tried to untangle the contradictions of crime novelist Patricia Highsmith.

Actor Jack Quaid is moving into scripted podcast audio dramas, leading the lineup of Echoverse’s Grim Death & Bill The Electrocuted Criminal series, which comes from Hellboy’s Mike Mignola and author Thomas Sniegoski. Quaid will star as Bentley Hawthorne, aka Grim Death, who works in the service of Death, avenging the wrongful deaths of those in need of justice. Helping him are an acerbic raven named Roderick, his wry and long-suffering butler Pym, headstrong and intelligent investigative journalist Gwendolyn, and the subject of the first season’s investigation, Bill, a strong but gentle man who has been wrongfully convicted of the murder of his trapeze-artist girlfriend Tianna.

The Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer, Joel Burcat, who writes a series of environmental thrillers.

On Queer Writers of Crime, Justene and Brad discussed the Christopher & Eric podcast and also profiled Christopher Rice, author of Decimate, in which a desperate family confronts the mysteries that lie between life and death.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured Kathy Reichs's latest Temperance Brennan novel, Cold Cold Bones.

Spybrary host Shane Whaley found out more about the traitor Robert Hanssen in an interview with author Lis Wiehl.

My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Cathi Stoler to discuss her urban thriller, Last Call, the second book in the Murder on the Rocks Mystery series featuring The Corner Lounge bar owner, Jude Dillane.

Crime Time FM's Mark Ellis chatted with Paul Burke about the latest Frank Merlin mystery, Dead in the Water; wartime London; the American army in the UK; what makes good historical writing; and the richest man on the planet during the Second World War, Calouste Gulbenkian.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with criminal defense lawyer turned crime writer Nadine Matheson; discussed the row over film "intimacy coordinators"; paid tribute to a pioneering hamster; and chatted about the iconic musical Grease.

THEATRE

Adrienne Kennedy's Ohio State Murders, starring Tony winner Audra McDonald, has announced its Broadway venue and dates. The previously announced production will be the first show to play the newly renamed and renovated James Earl Jones Theatre, formerly known as the Cort Theatre, when it begins performances on November 11 ahead of opening on December 8. Tony winner Kenny Leon will direct, and additional casting and the creative team will be announced later. Ohio State Murders is described as "an unusual look at the destructiveness of racism in the United States." When Suzanne Alexander, a fictional Black writer, returns to Ohio State University to talk about the violence in her writing, a dark mystery begins to unravel.

A site-specific production of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution is currently being staged in a unique courtroom setting inside London County Hall, adjacent to the London Eye on the South Bank of the Thames. Christie’s court classic sees Leonard Vole called to the stand after a murder. When his wife agrees to testify, can she be trusted? It’s up to the audience, as the jury, to decide whether Vole will walk free or spend a life in shackles. Developed with the support and involvement of the Christie family, the new production is directed by Lucy Bailey and will place the audience in the center of the action within the courtroom.

Murder on the Orient Express, adapted by Ken Ludwig from the story by Agatha Christie, will play at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia from September 3 through October 5. World-famous detective Hercule Poirot is headed to London aboard the luxurious Orient Express, a train packed with the most eccentric passengers ever seen. Trouble begins when a snowdrift stops the Express in its tracks, and the situation quickly spirals from bad to worse when one of the passengers is found murdered in his compartment. Can Poirot solve the crime before it’s too late?

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Friday's "Forgotten" Book - The Chink in the Armour

Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868–1947) was a prolific writer, with close to 70 novels and nonfiction works—as well as plays and short stories—published between 1898 and 1956. She came from a varied and eclectic background, with ancestors including the scientist Joseph Priestly; her mother, feminist Bessie Parkes Belloc; and her barrister father, himself the son of a well-known French painter. Marie and her family were surrounded by literary icons from early days, counting among them the Brownings, novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and George Eliot. Marie's brother, Hilaire Belloc, became one of the best known writers of his day, and Marie married Frederic Lowndes, the editor of The Times.



In her own writing, Marie Belloc Lowndes focused on psychological studies, character development and plots grounded in the ethical dilemmas of ordinary people. She was fascinated by contemporary crime, attended trials, and based several works on famous cases including Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper. The latter influenced The Lodger, about a Ripper-like killer named "The Avenger," first published as a short story in McClure's Magazine in 1911 and then a full-length novel in 1913. The Lodger was adapted as a play and later became the basis for Alfred Hitchock's first major film.



Although the suspense novels by Lowndes were mostly standalones, she did create a detective called Hercules Popeau, said to be the inspiration for Hercule Poirot. The Chink in the Armour, published in 1912, however, centers on beautiful blue-eyed Sylvia Bailey, who was married a 19 and a wealthy widow at 25. Sylvia is enjoying her solo life vacationing in a casino resort town near Paris with her friend Anna Wolsky and sporting an ever-present string of pearls as her badge of freedom.



Being superstitious and naive, she visits fortuneteller Madame Cagliostra, who tells Sylvia she may never return to her own country and that the pearls will do her harm and lead her to the "House of Peril" unless she gets rid of them. Sylvia ignores the strange warning and finds herself fascinated by the casino atmosphere, its eccentric denizens and the attentions of Comte Paul de Virieu—until her friend Anna disappears. The Chink in the Armour was also made into a film in 1922 (albeit a silent movie retitled The House of Peril), directed by Kenelm Foss and starring Fay Compton, Roy Travers, Flora le Breton and A.B. Imeson.

          

Mystery Melange

Hundreds of writers are to gather in New York this week to read from Salman Rushdie’s works, in a recreation of an event first held after the fatwa on the author was issued in 1989. The writers will gather on the steps of the New York Public Library on Friday morning, exactly a week after 75-year-old Rushdie was stabbed during an event at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. The International Thriller Writers Organization also denounced the attack, which, they noted, "goes beyond the ten to fifteen stab wounds Rushdie received. It is also an attack on two of our core values⁠—freedom of speech and freedom of artistic expression."

Author and blogger Martin Edward of the recent passing of two crime writers, June Thomson and Michael Pearce. Thomson was best known for her long series of novels featuring Chief Inspector Jack Finch (who was re-named Rudd in the US, to avoid confusion with another series detective called Finch), and who early books drew comparisons with P.D. James. Pearce was the author of the Mamur Zapt series of historical fiction police procedurals as well as a number of "A Dead Man in..." mysteries, set in the period preceding the First World War and featuring Sandor Seymour, an officer of Scotland Yard's Special Branch who is sent by the British Foreign Office to deal with various crimes involving members of the British diplomatic service.

President Biden's nominee for Archivist of the United States, Colleen Shogan, also happens to be a prolific author of a series of murder mystery whodunits (The Washington Whodunnit Series) starring congressional staffer Kit Marshall. Shogan previously worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative staffer in the United States Senate and as a senior executive at the Library of Congress. She is currently a Senior Vice President at the White House Historical Association.



I hope to increase the number of crime fiction reference book features on this blog, but in the meantime, Pietro De Palma takes a look at his favorite major crime criticism texts in English, French and Italian. It was good to see a couple of books represented by fellow bloggers who have regularly participated in the Friday's "Forgotten" Books series of blog posts that I join in on a weekly basis, including (The Golden Age of Murder) and Curtis Evans (Masters of the Humdrum' Mystery).

I've never needed a reason to read other than the pure enjoyment of it, but many studies have recently discussed the benefits reading has for stress relief, cognition, vocabulary, and even empathy. Or as Reader's Digest recently noted, "Why Reading 2 Books a Month Could Help You Get Ahead."

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews spoke with Ed Lin, journalist and author (of the Taipei Night Market series and the Robert Chow crime series set in 1970s Manhattan Chinatown), who is also the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards; Indie Crime Scene interviewed Jonathan Woods, whose novel Hog Wild has its debut on August 26; and cozy mystery author Ted Mulcahey joined Lisa Haselton to discuss his new novel, Juiced, about secret research and a band of bumbling criminals who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

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Media Murder for Monday

Summer is a bit of a slow season when it comes to movie and TV news, and it has given me a chance to review all of the various crime drama news items over the past year or two. In so doing, I realized that the sheer volume of such projects is pretty darn huge these days. That's partly due to the popularity of crime fiction, but also due to the proliferation of streaming services and new cable networks. And since my blog is more about promoting crime fiction books and authors (and writing and research), I'm going to focus a little more on book adaptations in the news recap.

So, without further ado, here's a roundup of crime book-related media and adaptation news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Bohemia Group has optioned film rights to Stephen King’s bestseller, The Regulators, tapping George Cowan to adapt the horror-thriller for the big screen. First published in 1996, The Regulators is the story of the peaceful suburban life on Poplar Street in Wentworth, Ohio that is shattered one day when four vans containing shotgun-wielding "regulators" terrorize the street’s residents, cold-bloodedly killing anyone foolish enough to venture outdoors. Houses mysteriously transform into log cabins and the street now ends in what looks like a child’s hand-drawn western landscape. Masterminding this sudden onslaught is an evil creature who has taken over the body of an autistic boy whose parents were killed in a drive-by shooting several months earlier.

Ryan Phillippe (The Locksmith) has signed on for a key role opposite Bella Thorne in Mitzi Peirone’s thriller, Saint Clare, based on Don Roff’s hit novel, Clare at 16. Rebecca De Mornay (Lucifer), Frank Whaley (Pulp Fiction), Bart Johnson (High School Musical) and Dylan Flashner (The Card Counter) will co-star in the film, slated for release in North American theaters in 2023. Saint Clare follows Clare Bleecker (Thorne), a quiet catholic college student with a divine vocation for killing. Phillippe will play the role of Timmons, a police officer investigating the latest murder in the small town, with Clare as his prime suspect. Whaley will portray Mailman Bob, a ghost from Clare’s past, with Johnson pulling double duty as twin brothers Joe and Randall, and Flashner set for the supporting role of Wade. Peirone adapted the film project with American Psycho's Guinevere Turner.

Emily Blunt is set to star opposite Ryan Gosling in The Fall Guy film adaptation for Universal, with Hobbs & Shaw filmmaker, David Leitch, attached to direct. Production for the film is set to begin in Australia this fall with a theatrical release date set for Friday, March 1, 2024. The feature film is inspired by the classic 1980s TV series of the same name that starred Lee Majors as a stuntman who did bounty hunter work on the side, utilizing his Hollywood skills. Drew Pearce, who co-wrote Hobbs & Shaw, will write the screenplay for The Fall Guy, though no other plot details were immediately available. The original series was created by Glen A. Larson, who was also responsible for many other crime dramas from the 1960s through the early 2000's, as well as being a co-writer on several tie-in novelizations.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

ABC has picked up the drama pilot, Will Trent (working title), to series for a mid-season launch. Based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling "Will Trent" book series, the project stars Ramón Rodriguez as Special Agent Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI), who was abandoned at birth and endured a harsh coming-of-age in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. But now, determined to use his unique point of view to make sure no one is abandoned like he was, Trent has the highest clearance rate in the GBI. Deadline also reported that the creators wanted to go for a more serialized storytelling, featuring plots that play out over multi-episode arcs, but ABC pushed for stand-alone episodes.

Apple TV+ is nearing a series order for Sinking Spring starring Brian Tyree Henry. The series is being written by Peter Craig (Top Gun: Maverick), marking his first move into television, and will be directed by Ridley Scott. Based on Dennis Tafoya’s book, Dope Thief, the series follows long-time Philadelphia friends and delinquents who pose as DEA agents to rob a house in the countryside, only to have their small-time grift become a life-and-death enterprise after they unwittingly reveal the biggest hidden narcotics corridor on the Eastern seaboard.

PBS Masterpiece and ITV have renewed Grantchester for an eighth season. Set in a small English village, the show stars Robson Green as DI Geordie Keating and Tom Brittney as Reverend Will Davenport. In season eight of the popular long-running series, Will starts off the happiest he’s ever been but his world is rocked by a terrible accident while Geordie’s happiness will be threatened by shocking accidents at work. Grantchester is based on The Grantchester Mysteries, a series of crime fiction short story collections by the British author James Runcie, set during the 1950s in Grantchester, a village near Cambridge.

Max Martini is set for a key recurring role opposite Titus Welliver on the upcoming second season of Bosch: Legacy, the spinoff of the long-running Amazon series based on Michael Connelly's novels. Legacy follows Welliver as retired homicide detective turned private investigator Harry Bosch, as he embarks on the next chapter of his career. He's aided by attorney Honey "Money" Chandler (Mimi Rogers), who struggles to maintain her faith in the justice system after surviving an attempted murder, and Harry's daughter, Maddie Bosch (Madison Lintz) who discovers the possibilities and challenges of being a rookie patrol cop on the streets of Los Angeles. Martini will play Detective Don Ellis, a hardened vice cop in the LAPD, who's not above getting down and dirty with the criminals he polices to get the job done.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Bubbles Baubles," written by Elaine Faber and read by actor Thomas Nance.

Regular Read or Dead host Nusrah and guest host, Kendra, discussed mystery and suspense works in translation in honor of Women in Translation Month.

Meet the Thriller Author interviewed Julie Clark, author of the bestselling The Last Flight. Her latest novel, The Lies I Tell, follows a brilliant con-artist with a long list of victims under her belt who returns home to Los Angeles to carry out her biggest job of all:  getting revenge on the man who ruined her childhood. 

Spybrary host, Shane Whaley, spoke with award-winning spy author, Dan Fesperman, who revealed more about the real-life espionage events that inspired his latest novel, Winter Work, set in Berlin in 1990.

On Queer Writers of Crime, Laury profiled a series that doesn't give her the blues, the Blue McCarron Mystery Series by Agatha Award-winning author, Abigal Padget, with the third installment due out this month.

My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Wendall Thomas, who teaches in the Graduate Film School at UCLA and has worked as an entertainment reporter, development executive, script consultant, and film and television writer. Her first Cyd Redondo novel, Lost Luggage, was nominated for the Lefty and Macavity Awards for Best Debut Mystery of 2017. Her second, Drowned Under, was nominated for a Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery of 2019 and an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. 

In the season two finale of Crime Time FM, Polly Phillips (The Reunion), Harriet Tyce (It Ends at Midnight), and TM Logan (The Curfew) discussed bringing out the worst in each other, long held resentments, trigger events, gaslighting, crabs in a bucket, and the "white sock incident."

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Slipper Point Mystery

Augusta Huiell Seaman (1879-1950) graduated from Normal College in New York City in 1900 and went on to teach elementary school. Following her marriage in 1906, she devoted her time to writing books for the children/YA age group, with a focus on mysteries. Between 1910 and 1949, she published 42 books as well as short stories, nonfiction pieces and serialized versions of her novels in popular magazines of the day.



She's considered one of the earliest writers of mystery stories for young girls, and her books remained popular and reprinted even in Scholastic press paperback editions as late as the 1970s. Bookseller Christine M. Volk called her "Nancy Drew for Smart Kids." Unlike the Nancy Drew series, Seaman's books didn't feature recurring characters per se, but typically revolved around two ordinary young girls solving a mystery they happened to stumble on in their hometown, inspired by their intelligence, curiosity and determination.



Also unlike Nancy Drew, who was a globe-trotter, the characters in Seaman's books mostly take place in rural New Jersey locations similar to where the author spent her youth. In fact, a New Jersey newspaper reporter once wrote for the Brick Communicator that he was able to trace the characters' route from The Slipper Point Mystery, matching Seaman's descriptions to area landmarks and buildings. The girls in the stories also reflect Seaman's life in other ways—the girls often have only one surviving parent (in Seaman's case, her father) are often sent to live with other relatives. It's not unusual to find characters who are in poor health (six of the author's eight siblings died young and Seaman's husband died from cancer in 1922).

Book illustrations by C.M. Relyea

The Slipper Point Mystery, which was published by Century Publishing Co. in 1919, was the author's ninth book. The central characters are country girl Sally, who likes to read neglected books of poetry, and big-city Doris, who also loves books and new experiences and is be delighted at the prospect of visiting a resort that is "wild, and different from the usual summer places." The resort Doris refers to is "The Bluffs," the sole exclusive and fashionable hotel on the river where Doris and her parents are staying for the summer. The resort isn't far from where the girls discover a mysterious tunnel from the river to a house at Slipper Point, a tunnel that was used by abolitionists to help fugitive slaves travelling on the Underground Railroad.



Although it can be said that the Nancy Drew series is mostly about solving the puzzle du jour, Seaman's books are equally about character development and relationships. As editor Mary Mark Ockerbloom noted about Sally and Doris, "I doubt that Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys would seriously discuss whether to abandon an inquiry out of concern for its possible impact on another person, as do Doris and Sally. Seaman's characters develop and change."



Although Seaman's books are difficult to track in print, with the exception of a few more recent reprints, there are various free digital versions online, including Google Books and Project Gutenberg.

          

Mystery Melange

 

The Private Eye Writers of America announced the Shamus Award Winners 2022. The Shamus Awards are for private eye fiction (i.e., a person paid to investigate crimes who is not employed by a government agency), both novels and short stories, first published in the United States. The winner of Best P.I. Hardcover was Family Business, by S.J. Rozan; Best Original P.I. Paperback: Every City Is Every Other City, by John McFetridge; Best First P.I. Novel: Lost Little Girl, by Gregory Stout; Best P.I. Short Story: "Sweeps Week," by Richard Helms (EQMM, July/August).

The International Agatha Christie Festival returns to Torqay September 10 to 17, and this year, it will celebrate the centenary of the world travels that inspired some of Agatha Christie’s greatest stories. As part of that celebration, Elly Griffiths, Dreda Say Mitchell, and Kate Mosse will speak about reinventing Miss Jane Marple as part of the new short story compilation Marple: 12 New Stories; renowned historian and biographer Lucy Worsley will also speak about her new authoritative biography, Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman, produced with exclusive access to many of Christie’s papers. Other festival highlights include Christie expert Dr. John Curran speaking on how Agatha Christie came to write her first crime novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and how it influenced her writing career. Plus, there will be walks on Dartmoor, cocktail-making workshops and even roller-skating on Torquay's Princess Pier, just as Dame Agatha once did.

As part of Shoreham Wordfest Festival (taking place between 3rd and 16th October 2022), a one-day crime writing event is being curated and hosted by William Shaw and Elly Griffiths on Saturday, October 15. There will be panels on various topics and a performance of Simon Brett’s one-man play, Lines of Enquiry.  (HT to Shots Magazine)

Mystery Readers International editor, Janet Rudolph, has a call for articles for an upcoming issue on Africa (for mysteries set in/themed around Africa). She's seeking articles, reviews, and Author! Author! essays, which are first person, about yourself, your books, and the "African Mystery" connection. Reviews are roughly 50-250 words and articles, 500-1000 words. The deadline is October 1, 2022. Send to: Janet Rudolph, Editor. 

The Daily Beast profiled Luci Zahray, a/k/a "The Poison Lady," who has been giving advice for over three decades to mystery novelists about the best way to poison fictional victims.

The Travel website had a profile of the Mysterious Bookshop In NYC with a reminder that if you're planning a visit to the Big Apple, you should add the iconic bookstore to your list of sights to see.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "The Conspiracy Buff (in the aftermath of roe v. Wade being overturned)" by David Cranmer.

In the Q&A roundup, J.B. Stevens interviewed author Bobby Matthews for Criminal Element about crime writing and his new book, Living the Gimmick, available now from Shotgun Honey; Lisa Holstine chatted with Zac Bissonnette, whose debut cozy mystery, A Killing in Costumes, is the first in his new Hollywood Treasures series; and the Belfast Telegraph spoke with police officer turned crime writer, Clare Mackintosh, about why reading is not a passive hobby and really interactive.

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