B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 75

Author R&R with Michael Landweber

Michael Landweber has worked as a copy editor at the Japan Times, as an editorial assistant at the Associated Press, and worked for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and for the State Department. He also served as Associate Director for a non-profit called Partnership for a Secure America, which promotes bipartisanship in foreign policy and national security. His short stories have appeared in literary magazines such as Gargoyle, Fourteen Hills, Fugue, Barrelhouse, and American Literary Review. He is an Associate Editor at Potomac Review and a contributor for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

His new novel from Crooked Lane Books is The Damage Done, set in an Earth where violence has suddenly and inexplicably become a thing of the past. Fists can’t hit, guns don’t kill, and bombs can’t destroy. The U.S. president must find a new way to wage war. The Pope ponders whether the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is still relevant. A dictator takes his own life after realizing that the violence he used to control his people is no longer an option.

In the first days after the change, seven people from different walks of life—who have all experienced violence—struggle to adapt to this radical new paradigm. As their fates intertwine, the promise and perils of this new world begin to take shape. Although violence is no longer possible, that doesn’t mean that some among us won’t keep trying. Mindless cruelty is still alive and well, and those bent on destruction will seek the most devious means to achieve it.

Michael Landweber stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:

My approach to research is low key and ad hoc. Of course, I think research is important. If you are writing a novel about 16th century France, you better study up. You weren’t there. Similarly, if your book is a military thriller that mainly takes place on a submarine, you’re going to need to learn a little something about submarines. But those are not the novels I write. So, in my own work, I believe research is important when necessary. The key is knowing when you don’t know what you need to know.

I often describe my books as literary fiction with a Twilight Zone twist. I start with a what-if question. What if you got trapped inside the brain of your younger self? What if time stopped and you were the only one not frozen? What if teleportation was a commercial means of transportation? And my most recent novel, The Damage Done, presents a world where violence is no longer possible. As you can see, most of my work hinges on ideas that are not particularly researchable.

Take my last book, The In Between, in which a couple loses their son while teleporting to Japan. When I started the book, I was very curious about whether anyone thought teleportation was even possible. (I would also note that good research is only successful if you are actually curious about the topic you are researching.) Turns out that subatomic particles may be able to teleport in quantum computing. That’s cool. But not that helpful for my story of losing a child somewhere between Omaha and Tokyo. So that was a research rabbit hole I didn’t go that far down.

And that maybe is my main thought about research. The assumption is that every effort is a deep dive. But for me research can be quite limited and still valid. The goal for me is not to become the expert in every aspect of every thing I write about. Most of what I need to research does not require an extensive bibliography or interview schedule. My goal is to immerse the reader in the story I’m telling. So for me, research tends to be a series of targeted jobs. In and out, find out what I need, no fuss.

That doesn’t mean I’m not obsessive about what I’m writing. I spend countless hours making sure that the rules I’ve created for my worlds are airtight. In The Damage Done that meant creating a mental catalogue of all the ways people commit violence against each other and countering each with a creative way to thwart it. The time that I might have been reading reference books or chatting up experts is instead wiled away in an internal debate over things like whether bumping into someone purposefully on a subway platform constitutes a minor act of violence. There was research to be done, things I needed to know like how to make a Molotov cocktail or where people cross the Rio Grande. But each time I discover one of those factual stumbling blocks, I find what I need with as much efficiency as I can muster. I don’t linger.

So maybe that’s my true mantra on research. No loitering.

But who knows? Maybe I’ve got a historical novel or a submarine thriller in me somewhere that will require a more methodical style of research. For now though, I’m sticking with my need to know approach.

 

You can learn more about Michael and The Damage Done via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Damage Done is available from Penguin Random House via all major booksellers in ebook, print, and audiobook formats.

         Related StoriesAuthor R&R with Tessa WegertAuthor R&R with Len JoyAuthor R&R with Emilya Naymark 

Author R&R with Tessa Wegert

Tessa Wegert is a journalist and former digital media strategist. Her business and marketing articles have appeared in such publications as Forbes, The Huffington Post, Adweek, and The Economist. She grew up in Quebec near the border of Vermont and now lives with her husband and children in Coastal Connecticut, where she writes while studying martial arts and dance. Tessa is also the author of the Shana Merchant series of mysteries, beginning with Death in the Family. The latest installment in that series is Dead Wind.

In Dead Wind, a body is discovered on Wolfe Island under the shadow of an enormous wind turbine. Senior Investigator, Shana Merchant, arriving on the scene with fellow investigator, Tim Wellington, can’t shake the feeling that she knows the victim—and the subsequent identification sends shockwaves through their community in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York.

Politics, power, passion...there are dark undercurrents in Shana’s new home, and finding the killer means dredging up her new friends and neighbors’ old grudges and long-kept secrets. That is, if the killer is from the community at all. For Shana’s keeping a terrible secret of her own: eighteen months ago she escaped from serial killer Bram Blake’s clutches. But has he followed her...to kill again?

Tessa stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing her books:

 

Like most authors, I have a folder of story ideas that I refer to – even if those “ideas” are nothing more than a few overheard words or abstract lines – but for me, the writing process often starts with setting. That was the case with Death in the Family, the first book in the Shana Merchant series. I knew I wanted to write a mystery that paid homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and the Golden Age detective fiction I had always loved. I’d been visiting the Thousand Islands in Upstate New York for years, and setting a mystery on one of those islands, in a grand historic home, just made sense.

Setting inspired my new crime novel, Dead Wind, as well. A few years ago, prior to starting the series, I visited Wolfe Island in Ontario, Canada. It’s a small, flat, sparsely-populated island that houses a wind farm, and the turbines are absolutely massive. I was there on a day when a storm was rolling in, and a story unfolded right in front of me: a body found at the base of one of those towering turbines, the local police rushing to collect evidence before the rain, and a female investigator wondering whether the crime could be linked to the serial murderer who’d been terrorizing the community for months. When I sat down to write the book, which is the third in my series, I returned to the photos and videos I had taken that day, and I was off to the races.

I think that for mysteries in particular, a strong sense of place helps to pull the reader into the story and keep them invested. Setting can also help to shape the plot. In the Thousand Islands, where Dead Wind is set, there’s a big class divide – you have the year-round locals, many of them in the hospitality and restaurant trades, living alongside tourists from cities across the Northeast and the uber-wealthy owners of the area’s many private islands. In reality, everyone gets along beautifully, but when it comes to writing crime fiction, there’s no limit to the number of stories an environment like that can produce.

 

You can find out more about Tessa and her books via her website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Dead Wind is available in ebook and print formats from all major booksellers.

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Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Emile Hirsch has signed on to star in the crime thriller, Gemini Lounge, the first feature from Rush Hour producer Arthur Sarkissian’s new media and entertainment company, Global Ascension Studios. In the film, directed by Danny A. Abeckaser (Mob Town), demoted detective Bobby Belucci (Hirsch) is given the opportunity to go undercover and take down the mob’s most ruthless killer, but his life and only chance at redemption spiral out of control as he loses himself in the role.

A trailer was released for All the Old Knives starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton. Directed by Janus Metz and based on the book by Olen Steinhauer (who also penned the script), All the Old Knives follows veteran operative Henry Pelham (Pine) who tries to find out which CIA agent from his former station in Vienna leaked information that led to a tragic plane hijacking. As he travels from Austria to England to California, he is forced to reunite with his former colleague and lover Celia Harrison (Newton) to figure out if she's innocent or guilty. The film, which also stars Laurence Fishburne and Jonathan Pryce, premieres in select theaters and on Prime Video on April 8.

Sony Pictures has released the official trailer for Bullet Train, a new action thriller directed by Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2 filmmaker David Leitch. Based on the novel, Maria Beetle, by Kotaro Isaka, Bullet Train stars Brad Pitt as Ladybug, an experienced assassin who boards a bullet train and encounters several other professional killers: Prince (Joey King), Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Hornet (Zazie Beetz). Also on the train is Kimura (Andrew Koji), a father seeking revenge after Prince put his son in a coma. The killers soon realize that their various targets are all interrelated, and their assignments quickly spiral out of control.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Rufus Sewell and Ali Ahn are set as leads opposite Keri Russell in The Diplomat, a political thriller drama created by Debora Cahn (Homeland; The West Wing). Additionally, Simon Cellan Jones (Arthur the King; Years and Years) will direct and executive produce the first two episodes of the series. In The Diplomat, during an international crisis, career diplomat Kate Wyler (Russell) lands in a high-profile job she’s unsuited for, with tectonic implications for her marriage and her political future. Sewell will play Hal Wyler and Ahn will portray Eidra Graham.

Shameless alumna, Shanola Hampton, has been tapped as the lead of the NBC pilot, Found. In any given year, more than 600,000 people are reported missing in the U.S. More than half that number are people of color that the country seems to forget about. In Found, public relations specialist Gabi Mosley (Hampton) — who was once herself one of those forgotten ones — and her crisis management team make sure there is always someone looking out for the forgotten missing people. But unbeknownst to anyone, this everyday hero is hiding a chilling secret of her own.

Milo Ventimiglia is to star in and exec produce The Company You Keep, a con-artist drama that has landed a pilot order at ABC. The project follows con man Charlie and undercover CIA officer, Emma. A night of passion leads to love between the pair, who are unknowingly on a collision course professionally. While Charlie ramps up the "family business" so he can get out for good, Emma’s closing in on the vengeful criminal who holds Charlie’s family debts — forcing them to reckon with the lies they’ve told so they can save themselves and their families from disastrous consequences.

William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti have been tapped to star in Peacock’s The Resort, a true-crime love story from Palm Springs writer Andy Siara, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, and UCP. Also added to the ensemble cast are Skyler Gisondo, Ben Sinclair, and Parvesh Cheena. The Resort is a multi-generational, coming-of-age love story disguised as a fast-paced mystery about the disappointment of time. An anniversary trip puts a marriage to the test when the couple (Harper and Milioti) finds themselves embroiled in one of the Mayan Riviera’s most bizarre unsolved mysteries that took place fifteen years prior.

Oscar and Emmy winner Barry Levinson has been tapped to direct David E. Kelley’s The Missing, Peacock’s eight-episode series based on Israeli crime writer Dror A. Mishani’s international bestselling novel, The Missing File. Levinson will direct multiple episodes, including the first. Written by Kelley, who also serves as showrunner and executive producer, The Missing tells the story of Detective Avraham (Jeff Wilbusch), whose belief in mankind is his superpower when it comes to uncovering the truth. Guided by a deep sense of spirituality and religious principles, Avraham is left to question his own humanity when a seemingly routine investigation turns upside down.

Dean Georgaris’s agent drama, Blank Slate, has found its pilot director, Richard Shepard. Shepard has directed pilots for series including Ugly Betty and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, and will helm and exec produce the pilot episode of the NBC project. Written by The Brave creator Georgaris, Blank Slate is a "high-concept procedural about a government agent who may not be what he seems."

Gary Oldman is a cranky MI5 agent saddled with "absolute losers" in the first trailer for the spy series, Slow Horses, which Apple TV+ released last week. The six-episode series is based on Mick Herron’s first novel in the "Slow Horses" series, with the first two episodes debuting globally on April 1, followed by one episode every Friday.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest episodes of Mysterious Journey, a podcast of short radio plays produced by the Artists' Ensemble Theater, Illinois, include productions of work by Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Jacques Futrelle. (HT to The Bunburyist blog.)

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed Meredith Jaeger to chat about her 1920s-set crime novel, The Pilot's Daughter.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Emilya Nawmark.

The Spybrary podcast featured Spywrite's Jeff Quest speaking with author Alma Katsu, formerly with the NSA and CIA. Katsu’s latest book, Red Widow, follows a CIA mole hunt and has been optioned for television.

My Favorite Detective Stories spoke with Karen Odden who's won awards for her historical mysteries and historical fiction. Her fourth mystery is Down a Dark River.

On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Dan Bronson told stories from his long career in the film industry and talked about his novel, Someone to Watch Over Me.

On Crime Time FM, Charlie Higson chatted with Paul Burke about his new adult novel, Whatever Gets You Through the Night; character; Pantocrator; comedy as the spice of life; and shaking up the Tupperware box.

On the latest Red Hot Chili Writers, Anna Mazzola discussed her new novel, The Clockwork Girl, set in 18th century Paris, and hosts Vas and Abir got serious about the war in Ukraine.

The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast featured William Burton McCormick, who read his story "Pompo's Disguise," set in ancient Rome.

THEATRE

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time returns to Dublin's Bord Gais Energy Theatre, with a run from April 26-30. Based on Mark Haddon's best-selling novel, the story centers on fifteen-year-old Christopher who has an extraordinary brain. He is exceptional at maths, while everyday life presents some barriers. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched, and he distrusts strangers. When he falls under suspicion for killing his neighbor’s dog, it takes him on a journey that upturns his world.

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Mystery Of The Hidden Room

Marion Harvey was allegedly (bio details are hard to find) a Brazilian-born American lawyer who wrote a number of detective novels and plays in the 1920s. A rather elusive figure, he practiced law in Ohio before moving to Los Angeles. A discovery of innovative New York publisher, Edward J. Clode, Harvey's 1922 debut novel, The Mystery of the Hidden Room, was very well received ("A gripping detective tale" said The Daily Mail) and introduced amateur sleuth, Graydon McKelvie. Five more novels and two plays followed, with performances of the latter recorded in New York, Alabama and Pennsylvania.
 
His works include:
 
The Mystery of the Hidden Room (E.J. Clode, 1922)

The Vengeance of the Ivory Skull  (E.J. Clode, 1923)

The House of Seclusion (Small & Maynard, 1925)

The Arden Mystery (Brentano's, 1925)

The Dragon of Lung Wang (E.J. Clode, 1928)

The Clue of the Clock (E.J. Clode, 1929)The Clue of the Clock (E.J. Clode, Inc., 1929)

The Inner Circle. A Mystery Thriller in Three Acts (New York 1930)

Footsteps: A Breath-taking Mystery Play by Marion Harvey & Nancy Bancroft Brosius (Fitzgerald Pub., 1931)



At least three of these works, Hidden Room, Ivory Skull, and Inner Circle, feature Graydon McKelvie, a Sherlock Holmes-worshipping detective. In addition to noting that the criminal device employed in Hidden Room is noteworthy,  SS Van Dine once noted (in The Great Detective Stories, 1927), "The deductive work done by Graydon McKelvie is at times extremely clever."



The Mystery Of The Hidden Room is told from the viewpoint of Carlton Davies, whose former fiancee Ruth Darwin was blackmailed into leaving him by the man she ultimately married, powerful banker Phillip Darwin. When the husband is murdered and Carlton finds Ruth standing over him with a gun in her hand one night, she is promptly arrested, tried, and packed off to prison.



Carlton never lost his love for Ruth and is steadfast in believing her innocent of the crime, but the New York City police don't share his convictions. He decides to do his own investigating, but since his butler happens to work with Graydon McKelvie, Carlton begs for McKelvie's help, and the chase is afoot. It doesn't take long for McKelvie to learn that practically no one involved with the case is being honest about their activities on the fatal night and several of the bit players are AWOL.



The hidden room of the title makes its appearance relatively early in the story, thus it's not much of a spoiler for it to be headlined in the title. The room in which Darwin was killed appears to be a locked room scenario, with burglar alarms on the windows, but even after the secret room is discovered, there remain many mysteries to solve, including a stoneless ring, a new Will naming a mystery woman as the beneficiary, Darwin's missing nephew, and puzzling sachets sprinkled along the investigative trail. McKelvie also has to solve the mystery of a second bullet that can't be found and a lamp that seems to turn on by itself.



Harvey's writing is de rigueur for her day, with dialog tags now considered passé and a bit comical ("'Well, I'll be hanged!' I ejaculated"), and hints of racism regarding a black servant and some "chink" goons. If you can muster past that, the story runs along at a relatively jaunty clip and, although the eventual culprit isn't a huge surprise if you've been paying attention, the journey to the unveiling is entertaining.
          

Mystery Melange

The Oxford Literary Festival, scheduled for March 21 through March 3, has introduced a Crime Fiction Program as part of the events. Some of the highlights are Whatever Gets You Through the Night - Charlie Higson being interviewed by Triona Adams; A thrilling life: the Slough House series. Mick Herron being interviewed by Triona Adams; The Past is Never Dead: Crime Fiction from Christopher Marlowe to 1979 : Val McDermid being interviewed by Emma Smith; Give Unto Others: Donna Leon talks about the 31st case involving her fictional Venetian detective Guido Brunetti. (HT to Shots Magazine)

The Manchester Libraries in the UK is hosting a ​Crime Festival March 16-18, hosted by Rob Parker.. There will be an Author Panel on March 16th with Karen Woods, Cath Staincliffe, and Joseph Knox, and another on March 17th with S J Watson, Alex Caan, Chris Simms, and Mandasue Heller. The featured event on the 18th is "An Invitation to Murder" Murder Mystery Night.

Harrogate International Festivals for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. Award-winning crime novelist Denise Mina will be acting as this year’s Festival Chair, following in the footsteps of Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, and Lee Child. Mina is known for the Tartan Noir Garnethill trilogy, as well as her Alex Morrow and Paddy Meehan series, the latter of which was adapted into a BBC television drama. Special guests on this year’s incredible line-up, curated by Mina, include crime fiction titans such as: Lynda La Plante, Paula Hawkins, Tess Gerritsen, Michael Connelly, Lucy Foley, Charlie Higson, John Connolly, CL Taylor and Kathy Reichs. Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival will return to Harrogate’s Old Swan Hotel from July 21–24 2022.

A conference on the theme of "Crones, Crime, and the Gothic" is scheduled at Falmouth University in the UK, June 10-11, 2022. This conference addresses the key real-world issue of how older women are spoken about and represented in different cultures and locations, with a focus on crime and Gothic narratives. Organizers are welcoming abstracts for papers, panels, and workshops.

Running through August 7, 2022, is the exhibition "Cowboys, Detectives, and Daredevils" at the New Britain, Connecticut Museum of American Art that features art from pulp genres such as crime and detective, western, science fiction, adventure, and aviation. Robert Lesser gifted his extraordinary collection of 200 pulp art illustrations to the museum, and today, the Robert Lesser Collection represents the greatest assemblage of pulp art in this country, preserving the history of this exclusively American art form. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

The pocket watch owned by Edgar Allan Poe while he was writing his famous short story "The Tell-Tale Heart"—in which the murderous narrator compares the thumping of his victim’s heart to the tick of a clock—has been donated to the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. Literary collector, Susan Jaffe Tane, gave the watch along with almost 60 other artifacts, including letters and rare first editions. Curator Chris Semtner said Poe’s timepiece was "especially important" because the author owned it while writing the story.

It appears that readers in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway are big fans of crime fiction, at least according to a recent study in Switzerland.

The Massachusetts State Police has a novel idea for solving cold cases. They released a playing card deck that features fifty-two cold cases from the Unresolved Cases Unit in hopes of generating new leads. In a video earlier this month, MSP’s Col. Christopher Mason debuted the cards, imploring the public to look through the deck and come forward with information pertaining to any of the cases.

This is positive news: a new CBS News poll found that 83 percent of Americans say books should never be banned for criticizing U.S. history; 85 percent oppose banning them for airing ideas you disagree with; and 87 percent oppose banning them for discussing race or depicting slavery.





This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Last Visit to the Taxidermy Collection" by Angelina Mitescu.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element featured Gregg Hurwitz (author of the Orphan X series) interviewing fellow thriller author, Alex Finlay (The Night Shift); Deborah Kalb spoke with Dean Jobb, author of The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer; and Writers Who Kill's Annette Dashofy chatted with Joyce St. Anthony about her World War II-era historical mystery series debut, Front Page Murder.

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Author R&R with Len Joy

Len Joy's short fiction has appeared in FWRICTION: Review, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Johnny America, Specter Magazine, Washington Pastime, Hobart, Annalemma, Boston Literary Magazine, and Pindeldyboz. He's also a nationally ranked triathlete and competes internationally representing the United States as part of TEAM USA. His first novel, American Past Time, was published in 2014 and was followed in 2018 by Better Days and in 2020 with Everyone Dies Famous.

In his latest work, Dry Heat, the day Arizonan All-American Joey Blade turns 18, he learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, he's betrayed by his new girlfriend, and he's arrested for the attempted murder of two police officers. Then things go from bad to even worse.

Len Joy stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching his work:

In my first novel, American Past Time, the main character, Dancer Stonemason, is a minor league baseball player in the 1950s who pitches a perfect game that ends up costing him his chance to make it to the major leagues. The novel covers the twenty years after the cheering stops as Dancer struggles to find his way in postwar America. My third novel, Everyone Dies Famous, picks up Dancer’s story thirty years later, with Dancer a grief-stricken old man, trying to come to grips with the death of his son. In my second novel, Better Days, the main character, Darwin Burr, has coasted through life on the fading memory of high school heroics. But when his boyhood vanishes, he risks everything to save him.

My new novel, Dry Heat, is the story of Joey Blade, All-American high school football player. On the day Joey turns 18, he learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, is betrayed by his new girlfriend, and is arrested for the attempted murder of two police officers.  

I was a good high school athlete in a small town back in the day when it was possible to play three sports. I have always been interested in the life lived after the crowds have all gone home. In my novels, Dancer struggled, Darwin coasted and Joey went to prison.

Put simply, I am following that adage, to “write what you know.” I understand athletes, the rush of having a crowd cheer for you, the wistfulness of no longer being able to do something that you loved, the challenge of moving on and growing up.

Dry Heat is set in Phoenix during the period from 1999 to 2014. Joey Blade, is an All-American high school football star, planning to attend the University of Arizona on a football scholarship in the fall. His family owns the largest engine rebuilder in the southwest.

In 1988 I bought a large engine rebuilder in Phoenix and for the next fifteen years I operated that business with my brother-in-law. On a summer evening in 1996, the son of one of my employees was riding in a car with two other boys and they were involved in a road rage incident with another vehicle. One of the boys fired a gun at the other car. It turned out that the driver of the other vehicle, who had instigated the confrontation, was an off-duty cop. They were all arrested, but the other two disappeared before their trial and my friend’s son was the only one prosecuted. He was looking at twenty years in prison if he lost at trial, so he took a plea deal for three years. One foolish mistake and his life was changed forever.

In my novel, on the day Joey Blade turns 18, he learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, is betrayed by his new girlfriend, and after a road rage incident where he is the innocent bystander, he is arrested for the attempted murder of two police officers.

It is not the story of my friend’s son. But that incident made me think about how easy it can be for any of us to have our lives turned upside-down in an instant. I imagined a character who had everything going for him and lost it. The challenge of the novel was not describing the incident or even the courtroom drama. The challenge was figuring out what Joey Blade does with the rest of his life.

I am a strong believer in what Robert Boswell’s describes as “The Half-Known World.” Boswell maintains that it is not necessary to know everything about your character. Let your imagine roam. Give your character the opportunity to surprise you. 

It is important, of course, to get the details right. It was easy for me to recreate the setting of Phoenix circa 2000, because I lived there. I didn’t have any experience with gangs or the criminal justice system, but I had good contacts. The mother of the boy who went to prison shared with me her son’s perspective as well as her own. One of my beta readers is a criminal attorney and he helped me with the trial procedures. I found numerous articles and blogs on gang activity.

It is easy to get caught up in the research, but it is important to have a light touch. The goal is not to show the reader how much you know. The goal is to tell a good story and keep the reader turning the page to find out what happens next.

You can find out more about Len Joy via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Dry Heat is now available via all major online booksellers.

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Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Steven Spielberg is attached to direct a new original story centered on Frank Bullitt, the iconic character played by Steve McQueen in the 1968 thriller, Bullitt. Spielberg will also produce the pic along with Kristie Macosko Krieger, with Josh Singer on board to pen the script. Apparently, this is not a remake of the original film but a new idea centered on the character. In the original, Frank Bullitt is a no-nonsense San Francisco cop on the hunt for the mob kingpin that killed his witness. Considered one of McQueen’s more iconic roles, the film delivers one of the most famous car-chase scenes in cinema history.

Sharon Stone has optioned the rights to Lisa Barr’s upcoming novel, Woman on Fire, inking a deal to produce and star in a film adaptation. In the novel, a savvy, young journalist gets embroiled in a major international art scandal centered around a Nazi-looted masterpiece, and must contemplate whether finding the painting and exposing its dark history is worth her life. The thriller—laced with sex, art, and history— forces readers to question where the line should be drawn between the pursuit of justice and the hunt for revenge.

Robert Downey Jr. will be reuniting with Iron Man 3 filmmaker, Shane Black, on a new film for Amazon Studios based on the character Parker, created by author Donald E. Westlake (writing under the pseudonym Richard Stark). The character of Parker first appeared in the 1962 novel, The Hunter, where he’s introduced as a professional thief who’s left for dead by a past associate and spends the rest of the novel trying to track down his former accomplice. The Parker novels have been adapted before, notably in 1967’s Point Blank starring Lee Marvin, 1999’s Payback starring Mel Gibson, and 2013's Parker with Jason Statham playing the title character.

Rob Kirkland, Nick Cassavetes, Dajana Gudić, Paul Johansson, and Lou Ferrigno Jr. have signed on to star in the feature thriller, Dyad, written by Will Hirschfeld and directed by Patrick Flaherty (Rule of Thirds). Dyad follows Sofia (Gudić), a journalist eager to make her mark but consumed by conspiracy theories and her struggles with dissociative identity disorder. As she connects a couple of seemingly isolated high-profile deaths, she is pulled into the orbit of Zane (Cassavetes), the mercurial leader of a global cabal that counts media moguls (Johansson), politicians (Kirkland), and Hollywood elites amongst its members. Once Sofia discovers how deep the ties of this shadow government run, she sets her sights on the impossible task of taking them down.

Frank Grillo has signed on to star opposite Harvey Keitel in Justin Price’s action-thriller, Hard Matter, for Wonderfilm Media, which is currently in production in Biloxi, Mississippi. The film is set in a new America divided by quadrants, in which a power-hungry corporation has taken over the conventional prison system and replaced it with a system of deadly vigilante watches. In this version of America, criminals are the new law enforcers that carry out all forms of capital punishment in order to regain their place in society.

Bollywood star Elnaaz Norouzi has been added to the cast of Kandahar, the action movie starring Gerard Butler that has been shooting in Saudi Arabia. Ric Roman Waugh is directing the film, which stars Butler as Tom Harris, an undercover CIA operative, stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan. He must fight his way out, alongside his Afghan translator, to an extraction point in Kandahar, all while avoiding the elite special forces tasked with hunting them down.





TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Dave E. Kelly has scored a straight-to-series order at ABC for Avalon, a drama based on Michael Connelly’s short story. Avalon, which is ABC’s first straight-to-series order for its 2022-23 programming slate, takes place in the city of Avalon on Catalina Island, where L.A. Sheriff’s Department Detective Nicole "Nic" Searcy heads up a small office. Catalina has a local population that serves more than 1 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.

Deadline reported that Quentin Tarantino is in early talks to direct one or two episodes of Justified: City Primeval, the FX limited series that has Timothy Olyphant reprising his role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Tarantino and Olyphant worked together on the director’s most recent film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The filmmaker is quite a fan of author Elmore Leonard, who created the Givens character, adapting the Leonard novel, Rum Punch. into Jackie Brown, as well as optioning several Leonard titles during his career.

In a competitive situation, John Wells Productions landed the rights to Danya Kukafka’s recently published suspense thriller, Notes on an Execution. The novel tells the story of a serial killer in his last hours on death row through the eyes of the women in his life. Per the description, Notes on an Execution "presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice, our cultural obsession with crime stories, and challenges audiences to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men."

The Blacklist has been handed an early renewal with NBC picking up the crime drama for Season 10 while Season 9 is still on the air. Star/executive producer James Spader is set to return for the 10th season, which will be the second following the departure of both its female lead Megan Boone, who exited at the end of Season 8, and its creator, Jon Bokenkamp. Also back for Season 10 as executive producer/showrunner is John Eisendrath, who has been on the series from the start, co-showrunning with Bokenkamp for the first eight seasons and serving as sole showrunner since the start of Season 9.

Emmy winner Michael Chiklis is set to headline the premiere episode of Fox’s straight-to-series crime anthology drama, Accused, with fellow Emmy winner, Michael Cuesta (Homeland) directing the premiere. Accused is based on the BBC’s BAFTA-winning crime anthology, with each episode opening in a courtroom on the accused, where viewers know nothing about their crime or how they ended up on trial. Told from the defendant’s point of view through flashbacks, Accused depicts how an ordinary person gets caught up in an extraordinary situation, ultimately revealing how one wrong turn leads to another, until it’s too late to turn back. Chiklis will play Dr. Scott Corbett, a successful brain surgeon who faces the limits of unconditional love when he discovers his teenage son may be planning a violent attack at school.

Ashley Reyes has been tapped as a lead opposite Jared Padalecki in the CW’s Walker. Reyes will first appear in the next episode, Nudge, slated to premiere March 3. She succeeds Lindsay Morgan who exited Walker earlier this season for personal reasons after playing Walker’s (Padalecki) partner, Micki Ramirez, since the pilot. Reyes will play a new character, Cassie, a "spirited, uncensored, strong Texas Ranger based in Dallas who served as a Texas state trooper for eight years before that." The CW’s reimagining of the popular CBS drama Walker, Texas Ranger centers on Cordell Walker (Padalecki), a widower and father of two with his own moral code who returns home to Austin after being undercover for two years.

Meanwhile, Matt Barr, who played 2020s Hoyt Rawlins on the CW’s Walker, will also play 1800s Hoyt Rawlins in the network’s spin-off pilot, Walker: Independence. Barr has been been tapped as the male lead in the project, executive produced by Walker's Jared Padalecki. Walker: Independence, a Walker origin story, is set in the late 1800s and follows Abby Walker, an affluent Bostonian whose husband is murdered before her eyes while on their journey out West. On her quest for revenge, Abby crosses paths with Hoyt Rawlins (Barr), a lovable rogue in search of purpose. Abby and Hoyt’s journey takes them to Independence, Texas, where they encounter diverse, eclectic residents running from their own troubled pasts and chasing their dreams. The CW also announced that Justin Johnson Cortez is set as a series regular.

Arrow's Juliana Harkavy has been cast as a lead in the ABC drama pilot, L.A. Law, a revival of the iconic Steven Bochco legal drama. She joins original cast members Blair Underwood and Corbin Bernsen, who are reprising their roles as Jonathan Rollins, and Arnie Becker, respectively, as well as fellow new series regulars Hari Nef, Toks Olagundoye, Ian Duff, and John Harlan Kim. In the pilot, the venerable law firm of McKenzie Brackman — now named Becker Rollins — reinvents itself as a litigation firm specializing in only the most high-profile, boundary-pushing and incendiary cases.

Anthony Boyle and Lovie Simone have joined the cast of AppleTV+’s upcoming limited series, Manhunt, which follows the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Boyle will star as Booth, while Simone will play Mary Simms, a former slave of the doctor who treated Booth’s injury and gave him safe harbor after his crime. The pair join series lead Tobias Menzies, playing Lincoln’s War Secretary, Edwin Stanton, who was nearly driven to madness by a desire to catch the president’s killer. The limited series is based on the book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James Swanson.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

In honor of Black History Month, It Was a Dark And Stormy Book Club featured three books by black female mystery authors.

Read or Dead also joined in the annual February celebration, as hosts Katie and Nusrah talked about mystery and suspense reads by Black authors.

Hannah King chatted with CrimeTime FM's Paul Burke about her debut novel, She and I; her characters Keeley and Jude; class; being post troubles generation; judging others; and how much is up to the reader to complete the novel.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story "Pisan Zapra," written by Josh Pachter and read by actor Amelia Ryan.

The Queer Writers of Crime podcast took a look at Joseph Hansen's landmark novel, Fadeout, which launched his twelve-book series featuring Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator and gay man. Crime and mystery fiction publisher Syndicate Books is republishing all twelve novels throughout 2022.

Spybrary Spy Book podcast chatted with Paul Vidich about his latest, The Matchmaker, a chilling Cold War spy story set in West Berlin where an American woman targeted by the Stasi must confront the truth behind her German husband's mysterious disappearance.

Wrong Place, Write Crime interviewed Bryan Collins about his books and his podcast.

My Favorite Detective Stories spoke with James Ziskin, author of the Anthony and Macavity Award-winning Ellie Stone Mysteries.

Listening to the Dead was joined by Pippa Gregory, one of only three criminal profilers working in the UK today, to discuss the infamous cases of Yvonne Killian and Rachel Nickell, two investigations where criminal profiling was tested and found wanting.

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Killer Thrillers

The International Thriller Writers organizations announced the finalists for the 2022 ITW Thriller Awards today. Winners will be presented at ThrillerFest XVII on Saturday, June 4, 2022 at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, New York City.

BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL

 

Megan Abbott – THE TURNOUT (Penguin/Putnam)

S. A. Cosby – RAZORBLADE TEARS (Flatiron Books)

Alice Feeney – ROCK PAPER SCISSORS (Flatiron Books)

Rachel Howzell Hall – THESE TOXIC THINGS (Thomas & Mercer)

Alma Katsu – RED WIDOW (Penguin/Putnam)

Eric Rickstad – I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM (Blackstone Publishing)



BEST AUDIOBOOK

 

S. A. Cosby – RAZORBLADE TEARS (Macmillan), Narrated by Adam Lazarre-White

Samantha Downing – SLEEPING DOG LIE (Audible Originals), Narrated by Melanie Nicholls-King and Lindsey Dorcus

Rachel Howzell Hall – HOW IT ENDS (Audible Originals), Narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Gregg Hurwitz – PRODIGAL SON (Macmillan), Narrated by Scott Brick

Nadine Matheson – THE JIGSAW MAN (HarperCollins), Narrated by Davine Henry



BEST FIRST NOVEL

 

Abigail Dean – GIRL A (HarperCollins)

Eloísa Díaz – REPENTANCE (Agora Books)

Amanda Jayatissa – MY SWEET GIRL (Berkley)

David McCloskey – DAMASCUS STATION (W.W. Norton & Company)

Eric Redman – BONES OF HILO (Crooked Lane Books)

 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL

 

Joy Castro – FLIGHT RISK (Lake Union)

Aaron Philip Clark – UNDER COLOR OF LAW (Thomas & Mercer)

C. J. Cooke – THE LIGHTHOUSE WITCHES (Berkley)

Jess Lourey – BLOODLINE (Thomas & Mercer)

Terry Roberts – MY MISTRESS' EYES ARE RAVEN BLACK (Turner Publishing Company)

 

BEST SHORT STORY

 

S.A. Cosby – "Not My Cross to Bear" (Down & Out Books)

William Burton McCormick – "Demon in the Depths" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Scott Loring Sanders – "The Lemonade Stand" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Jeff Soloway – "The Interpreter and the Killer" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

John Wimer – "Bad Chemistry" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)



BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

 

Maureen Johnson – THE BOX IN THE WOODS (HarperCollins)

Nova McBee – CALCULATED (Wolfpack Publishing LLC)

Ginny Myers Sain – DARK AND SHALLOW LIES (Penguin Young Readers)

Courtney Summers – THE PROJECT (Wednesday Books)

Krystal Sutherland – HOUSE OF HOLLOW (Penguin Young Readers)

 

BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL

 

Greig Beck – THE DARK SIDE: ALEX HUNTER 9 (Pan Macmillan)

John Connell – WHERE THE WICKED TREAD (John Connell)

Wendy Dranfield – LITTLE GIRL TAKEN (Bookouture)

E.J. Findorff – BLOOD PARISH (E.J. Findorff)

S. E. Green – MOTHER MAY I (S. E. Green)

Andrew Kaplan – BLUE MADAGASCAR (Andrew Kaplan)

Karin Nordin – LAST ONE ALIVE (HarperCollins)

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Crimson Blind

Frederick Merrick White (1859-1935) was an English author who wrote a number of novels and short stories under the name Fred M. White, including the six "Doom of London" science fiction stories about various catastrophes that afflict the British capital. Although he apparently didn't start publishing his work until the age of 43, over the next 30+ years, he wrote approxiately 90 novels and short-story collections and is considered by some to be a pioneer of spy stories.



In 1905's The Crimson Blind, set primarily in the coastal city of Brighton, bestselling detective novelist David Steel finds himself in dire financial straits. He's contacted by a mysterious young woman who tells him she will pay his debt in exchange for helping her concoct a plan to get out of a sticky situation. After a late-night meeting to seal the deal, with the woman's identity kept hidden from Steel, the author returns to his home to find it's been broken into, and a near-dead man has been left bleeding on the floor of his conservatory.



The police suspect Steel, thanks to an incriminating cigarette case that points to Steel as the culprit. As Steel battles to clear his name, he falls in with Dr. Hatherly Bell, "a small, misshapen figure, with the face of a Byron—Apollo on the bust of a Satyr," a man possessed of marvelous intellectual powers and a secret past, who also happens to have a personal connection to the mysterious woman and offers to help Steel.



The investigation soon leads to the benevolent millionaire philanthropist Gilead Gates and his right-hand man, the villainous Reginald Henson, who aspires to become a member of Parliament. The myriad subplots and plot twists involve a faked death, a missing ring, blackmail, dog attacks, a decaying country estate and a stolen Rembrandt. White pens some passages of evocative writing, such as the opening lines:

David Steel dropped his eyes from the mirror and shuddered as a man who sees his own soul bared for the first time. And yet the mirror was in itself a thing of artistic beauty—engraved Florentine glass in a frame of deep old Flemish oak. The novelist had purchased it in Bruges, and now it stood as a joy and a thing of beauty against the full red wall over the fireplace. And Steel had glanced at himself therein and seen murder in his eyes.



He dropped into a chair with a groan for his own helplessness. Men have done that kind of thing before when the cartridges are all gone and the bayonets are twisted and broken and the brown waves of the foe come snarling over the breastworks. And then they die doggedly with the stones in their hands, and cursing the tardy supports that brought this black shame upon them.

Overall, The Crimson Blind is a decent and entertaining Victorian mystery, which just happens to be available free via Project Gutenberg.

          

Mystery Melange

 

The Los Angeles Times announced the finalists of the 42nd annual Book Prizes. Honorees in the Mystery/Thriller category include The Turnout: A Novel by Megan Abbott; The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly; Razorblade Tears: A Novel by S.A. Cosby; The Collective: A Novel by Alison Gaylin; and Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Winners in the various categories will be announced at USC’s Bovard Auditorium on Friday, April 22, in a prologue to the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The festival, which is the nation’s largest in-person literary event, will return to the USC campus during the weekend of April 23-24.

Mystery Writers of America announced the first two recipients of the Barbara Neely Grants, Jonathan Brown and Necole Ryse. Barbara Neely was the author of the "Blanche" series, one of the first crime fiction series to feature a Black woman as the protagonist. Mystery Writers of America named her a Grand Master in November of 2019 to recognize her enormous contributions to the genre as well as her impact on the crime fiction community. After her passing, MWA created a scholarship program for Black crime fiction writers in her name; one for an already published author, and another for one just getting started in publishing. The grant comes with a $2,000 award to assist each recipient with any aspect of their career as they see fit.

More incredibly sad bookstore news: After 25 Years in South Florida, Murder on the Beach Mystery Bookstore will be going out of business as of April 15, 2022. As the owners posted, "Although we have tried our best to keep the store alive, Covid and its aftermath have done us in." In 2018, travel site Atlas Obscura declared it one of the World’s Best Independent Bookstores. James Patterson, Carl Hiaasen, Randy Wayne White, Michael Connelly, Stuart Woods, Tim Dorsey, and other nationally touring mystery-thriller-crime authors drew customers through special events at the store through the years.

Scotland's Granite Noir conference starts today, and if you can't make it in person, you're still covered via livestreaming. Following on from the 2021 digital Granite Noir, which saw audiences tune in from 52 countries including Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greece, Canada, Mexico, Bangladesh and the US, streamed events this year will include panels today through Sunday. Special guests for those online panels include authors Louise Welsh, Ann Cleves, Lin Anderson, Alex Gray, Oyinkan Braithwaite, LV Matthews, Lexie Elliot, Anders de la Motte, Kjell Ola Dahl, Silje Ulstein, Stuart MacBride, Alan Parks, and Marion Todd. For more details and ticket info, click on over here.

Crime Writers of Canada announced that 21 stories have been selected for inclusion in Cold Canadian Crime, the 40th anniversary anthology, scheduled for release in May 2022. The anthology will include crime stories in a variety of sub-genres, both fiction and true crime. In all, 46 stories were submitted for consideration, and all submissions were anonymously read and selected by three independent judges.

Over at CrimeReads, Valerie Wilson Wesley discussed "Crime Fiction's Pioneering Women of Color," and racism in publishing.

The Baltimore Sun reported on the Johns Hopkins curators who investigated a musical mystery linked to Edgar Allan Poe.

Mystery Scene Spring Issue #171 is here, with profiles of CJ Box, Kellye Garrett, Leslie Meier, and Candice Fox; a look at celebrities turned mystery writers; Fave Raves of the Past Year (2021); the Capitol Crimes column; essays by Lucy Burdette and Catherine Maiorisi, and the usual reviews sections.

Ever wonder how a print book was made? Although this is behind a paywall, if you have a New York Times subscription, you should check out this article to learn how vats of ink and 800-pound rolls of paper become a printed book.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "The Dating Game" by Peter Mladinic.

Rob Hart, author of the Ash McKenna crime series and The Warehouse (which sold in more than 20 languages and was optioned for film by Ron Howard), applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Paradox Hotel.

In the Q&A roundup, Terry Korth Fischer chatted with Lisa Haselton about her new novel, Gone Before, featuring Small-town detective, Rory Naysmith; Friday Magazine interviewed attorney-turned-bestselling-author David Baldacci about how thrillers are born, why writers should always be afraid, and what aspiring writers need to keep in mind when crafting a book; and CrimeReads chatted with David Lagercrantz about his new thriller, Dark Music, inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

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