B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 78

Mystery Melange

 

The deadline for the Crime Writers’ Association Margery Allingham Short Mystery competition is fast approaching. Authors have until February 26 to submit their short stories in the annual event, which attracts entries from around the globe. Entrants are asked to focus on specific elements to match Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery, namely, "The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it." The longlist for the prize will be revealed online and at the CWA conference on April 23, followed by the shortlist online in May, and the winner will be announced at this year’s international crime writing convention, CrimeFest, on May 13. The winner receives £500 and two passes for CrimeFest in 2023. (HT to Shots Magazine)

The Book & Film Globe has a nice tribute to the late crime writer, Andrew Vachss, who passed away late last year. Vachss was the author of 33 novels, including his best-selling "Burke" series, as well as three collections of short stories, and several graphic novels as well as poetry, plays, and song lyrics. But he was also a lawyer who specialized in child abuse and neglect cases, custody disputes, and other child-related cases, whose advocacy helped lead to the National Child Protection Act of 1993. Vachss was 79.

HT to Elizabeth Foxwell for noting the "Mapping Fiction" exhibition at Los Angeles' Huntington Library, featuring the role of maps in fiction, which will be on view until May 2. It includes Loren Latker's "Shamus Town" map of the Raymond Chandler Mystery Map of Los Angeles and an orange crate label from Tarzana Hills (originally named in honor of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan).

In case you're one of the few folks who have never read an Agatha Christie novel, you can find out where to start via crime novelist Janice Hallett, who kicks off The Guardian's new monthly guides to an author’s work, putting the spotlight on the creator of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.

As winter continues full force in the Northern Hemisphere, it seems like the perfect time to check out these "Five Great Blizzard Thrillers," courtesy of Heather Gudenkauf at CrimeReads.

James Bond fans, take note: A first edition of Diamonds Are Forever, in which Ian Fleming thanks his friend and fellow author Paul Gallico for "spread[ing] his wings over my first-born [Casino Royale]," is set to be auctioned on Friday as Gallico’s private library goes up for sale. Gallico, who died in 1976, worked with Fleming as a journalist on the Sunday Times. The James Bond author sent him the initial typescript of Casino Royale to see if it was publishable; Gallico told him it was a "knockout."

Ever wondered how the FBI's art theft crime team operates? Here's your chance to find out.

This is distburbing news, but it's also a cautionary tale to those who take libraries and librarians for granted - and to those who hate censorship and book banning.

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

In the Q&A roundup, Sarah Bonner chatted about her debut novel, Her Perfect Twin, new this month; and talked about his writing with The Argus, as well as discussing his animal menagerie (revealing that he's named his pets after serial killers).

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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

Universal Pictures is developing a new romantic thriller called Love and Theft, based on the 2020 novel by Stan Parish. The novel follows Alex Cassidy, a thief who has just pulled off a wild $22 million jewel heist in Las Vegas, and while hiding in New Jersey, falls in love with a party planning business owner named Diane. Alex is ready to leave his life of crime behind to start a new life with Diane, but when both of their grown children are kidnapped by a cartel, Alex is forced into one last job to win their freedom.

Paramount Pictures and Skydance have made the decision to move Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8 to 2023 and 2024, respectively. "After thoughtful consideration, Paramount Pictures and Skydance have decided to postpone the release dates for Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 in response to delays due to the ongoing pandemic," the companies said. "The new release dates will be July 14, 2023, and June 28, 2024, respectively. We look forward to providing moviegoers with an unparalleled theatrical experience."

The feature film adaptation of the 2017 Taylor Adams novel, No Exit, is now set to premiere directly on Hulu. The 20th Century Studios release will skip theaters altogether and will debut on the streaming service as a Hulu Original on Feb. 25 and also be released internationally on Disney+ and Star+ on the same day. The mystery-thriller stars Havana Rose Liu as Darby, a young woman on her way to a family emergency who gets stranded by a blizzard and finds shelter at a highway rest stop with a group of strangers. But when Darby comes across an abducted girl in a van in the parking lot, she must figure out which of these strangers is the kidnapper – before it’s too late. Damien Power directed the film from a screenplay by Ant-Man and the Wasp screenwriters, Andrea Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Fox has passed on The Last Police, a pilot that was based on Ben Winters’s sci-fi mystery novel, The Last Policeman. Written, directed, and exec produced by Kyle Killen (Lone Star), the story follows a small-town police detective (Blu Hunt), who, as an asteroid races toward an apocalyptic collision with Earth, believes she’s been chosen to save humanity, while her cynical partner (Reno Wilson) can’t decide what he’ll enjoy more: her delusional failure, or the end of the world itself. Maximiliano Hernandez, Dawnn Lewis, Derek Phillips, Courtney Dietz, and Troy Kotsur were cast as series regulars.

CBS is ending Bull after six seasons. The series, which starred NCIS alum Michael Weatherly as trial science expert Dr. Jason Bull, has been among the network’s best performers airing on Thursday nights. Its current season has averaged 7.4 million viewers and is ranked second among its 10 p.m. time slot against Thursday Night Football. The cast also includes Geneva Carr, Yara Martinez, Jaime Lee Kirchner, Christopher Jackson, and MacKenzie Meehan.

Joshua Jackson will co-lead the Fatal Attraction TV series currently in the works at Paramount+ opposite Lizzy Caplan. Jackson will star as Dan Gallagher, the object of his lover’s (Caplan) obsession after a brief affair. Described as a deep-dive reimagining of the classic psychosexual thriller and '80s culturally iconic film, the new series "will explore themes of marriage and infidelity through the lens of modern attitudes toward strong women, personality disorders and coercive control." As in the movie, Caplan’s Alex becomes obsessed with her lover after a brief affair. Jackson’s role was played by Michael Douglas in the original film, while Caplan’s role was memorably played by Glenn Close.

Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost) is set to recur on the CBS freshman drama series, FBI: International, in a key role. The series follows the elite operatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s International Fly Team, led by Scott Forrester (Luke Kleintank). Headquartered in Budapest, "they travel the world with the mission of tracking and neutralizing threats against American citizens wherever they may be, relying on intelligence, quick thinking and pure brawn as they put their lives on the line to protect the U.S. and its people." Mitchell, who will first appear in a February episode, will play Angela Cassidy, Scott Forrester’s long lost mother who worked for the U.S. government before selling information to the Russians. The series, which has received a full-season order, also stars Heida Reed, Carter Redwood, Vinessa Vidotto, and Christiane Paul.

Toks Olagundoye, Hari Nef, and Ian Duff have been cast as series regulars in the ABC drama reboot pilot, L.A. Law. They join original cast members Blair Underwood and Corbin Bernsen, who are reprising their roles as Jonathan Rollins and Arnie Becker, respectively, in the revival of the iconic Steven Bochco legal drama. Olagundoye, Nef, and Duff all play new characters. In the pilot, written by Marc Guggenheim and Ubah Mohamed and to be directed by Anthony Hemingway, 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. Olagundoye will play Assistant District Attorney Erika Jackson. "In keeping with the Assistant District Attorney role played in the original series by Susan Day, Cecil Hoffman, and the late John Spencer, Olagundoye’s Erika Jackson is a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom, but is confronted by the role she plays in a carceral system as a deft attorney and as a woman of color."

Netflix released a first look photo of Sofia Vergara as real-life drug queenpin, Griselda Blanco, from the upcoming limited series, Griselda. The streamer also revealed ten newly added cast members including Vanessa Ferlito and Juliana Aidén Martinez. The six-episode series chronicles the life of Colombian-born Blanco, who created one of the most profitable cartels in history. A devoted mother, Blanco’s lethal blend of charm and unsuspecting savagery helped her expertly navigate between family and business leading her to become widely known as the "Black Widow."

The first teaser for NBC’s revived of Law & Order is out, with Sam Waterston’s District Attorney Jack McCoy prominently featured. Along with Waterston, the teaser also offers views of new cast members Oldelya Halevi as ADA Samantha Maroun, Jeffrey Donovan as Det. Frank Cosgrove, and Hugh Dancy as senior prosecutorial assistant Nathan Price. The new installment of Law & Order, from Dick Wolf and writer-showrunner Rick Eid, will continue the classic bifurcated format and will once again examine "The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders."

Peacock’s Joe Exotic limited series with John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon has been given a new title (Joe vs. Carole), a premiere date (Thursday, March 3), and a teaser, which you can check out here. The show is based on the Wondery true-crime podcast, Joe Exotic, about a zookeeper, a fierce rivalry, and a murder-for-hire scheme.



PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Some of the latest authors on NBC Radio's House of Mystery included former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk, discussing her latest, The Marketville Mysteries; attorney-turned-author Ron Katz chatting about The Mystery of the Fatal Firing, which features Barb and Bernie Silver, a/k/a the Sleuthing Silvers, a Baby Boomer detective couple who specialize in cases where age is an edge; and Glen Erik Hamilton, whose debut novel, Past Crimes, won the Anthony, Macavity, and Strand Magazine Critics award for Best First Novel, discussing his novel, Island of Thieves.

Speaking of Mysteries spoke with P.J. Tracy about her new novel, Desolation Canyon, featuring LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up featuring an excerpt from The Whispered Word by Ellery Adams, read by actor Ariel Linn.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Nick Petrie, author of seven novels in the Peter Ash series. His debut, The Drifter, won both the ITW Thriller award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar and the Hammett Awards.

Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed Rhonda Armbrust to talk about her Remote Viewer series and her upcoming military thriller.

The latest guest on My Favorite Detective Stories was Judy Murray, whose debut novel, Murder in the Master, introduces Helen Morrisey, "a sharp-tongued, gutsy, and mature woman long on loyalty and short on romance."

On the Writers Detective Bureau, police detective Adam Richardson talked about how to link home invasion robberies across multiple jurisdictions; investigating environmental crimes; and the realities of computer forensic investigations.

On CrimeTime FM, Adam Lebor chatted with Paul Burke about Dohany Street; Balthazar Kovacs; Hungary; and how the world works.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with crime writers Craig Robertson and Amy McCulloch; and discussed cleaning up after dead bodies and climbing into mountain "death zones."

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club discussed "What We Are Reading January 2022."

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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: This Rough Magic

Mary Stewart (1916-2014) was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England and graduated from Durham University, later serving as a lecturer in English Language and Literature there. She turned to writing novels in the 1950s and is considered to be one of the founders of "romantic suspense." Her marriage to Sir Frederick Stewart, one-time chairman of the Geology Department of Edinburgh University, led to extensive travels that provided inspiration for the detailed exotic settings her novels are famous for.



One such novel heavily dependent upon a sense of place is 1964's This Rough Magic, a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel in 1965 (beaten out by John Le Carré's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold). Lucy Waring, a young British stage actress whose first big play folded abruptly, is having a hard time finding work, so she accepts an invitation to stay with her married sister on the idyllic Ionian island of Corfu. At least, it appears idyllic, but on her first morning there, someone shoots at a tame dolphin, a young Greek boy drowns off the coast of Albania, and soon afterward a smuggler washes up dead in a nearby cove. The prime suspect is one of their neighbors, the handsome, arrogant son of a famous British actor-turned-hermit, although he's not the only one with secrets to hide.



In the story, Corfu is the alleged locale for Shakespeare's The Tempest, which provides plenty of fodder for tie-ins to Shakespeare's play, including the character of Sir Julian Gale (who is a Lawrence Olivier clone), elements such as a deliberate take on Prospero's books, a girl named Miranda and a touch of Ariel's music and epigraphs from the play prefacing each chapter, along with plenty of other literary references.



Setting is another major aspect of the novel, not surprising since the author once said she was blessed with a very good visual memory, "almost like a movie camera. When I start describing something in a book, I find myself putting down things I didn't know I'd caught. I'm a sponge, a happy thing for a writer to be":

The alleys were deserted, save for the thin cats and the singing birds in cages on the walls. Here and there, where a gap in the homes had a blazing wedge of sunlight across the stones, dusty kittens baked themselves in patches of marigolds, or very old women peered from the black doorways. The smell of charcoal-cooking hung in the warm air. Our steps echoed up the hills while from the main streets the sound of talk and laughter surged back at us, muted like the roar of a river in a distant gorge.

Stewart is also solid in her characterizations for the most part, with Lucy, the typical plucky-and-feisty Stewart heroine, and the various supporting cast members fleshed out in vivid detail, particularly the aging hermit actor, Sir Julian. As this is "romantic suspense," there are a couple of love-story angles involved. However, they actually take a back seat to the suspense elements that start off slowly but build steadily until the end, which includes a bona fide deus ex machina (involving a young man, a motorcycle and the island's patron saint, Spiridion).



As for male readers hesitant to pick up a Stewart book, Anthony Boucher noted that "it would take a suspiciously over-male he-man to resist the charm and narrative vigor of Mary Stewart's adventure stories." Stewart's strong story-telling skills are indeed evident, something she once commented on:  "I've written stories since I was three and a half, and I think you're either born with the storyteller's flair or you're not. You can learn much about the craft of writing, but you either have the storyteller's flair or you don't. It's no virtue of mine. It's just there."

          

Mystery Melange

The Writers’ Police Academy announced the winners of the 2021 Golden Donut Short Story Contest. The contest rules were simple, write a complete story about a given photo using exactly 200 words. The top prize went to "Fortune Coveted" by Tiffany Seitz; Second Place to "The Homecoming" by Nana Herron; Third Place to "The Writ" by Michael Rigg; and Honorable Mention to "Farewell" by Bobbi Blake.

John Murray’s new literary crime and thriller imprint, Baskerville, is launching with a line-up of authors including Mick Herron, who will bring the Slough House series as well as his standalone writing under the genre-specific imprint. Comedian Frankie Boyle’s crime novel, Meantime, will also be published on the list in July, with other major notable 2022 titles to include Kaoru Takamura’s Japanese cult classic, Lady Joker, due in February. The imprint will also reissue American author Charlotte Carter’s 1990s mystery trilogy starring Nanette Hayes, a young Black American jazz musician with a lust for life and a talent for crime-solving, as well as international bestseller 1794: The City Between Bridges by Niklas Natt Och Dag, set in historic Stockholm.  

The Dark City Mystery Magazine is out with its first edition of 2022, featuring a campus playboy who meets two attractive young women wanting to play a game of cutthroat; an ex-Marine on a final mission; a Vietnam Veteran who explores the ins and outs of the drug trade; a drunken former cop who tries to get out of being charged with murder; and a former criminal who explains why crime didn't pay well enough for him. These stories and more from Joseph S. Walker, Tom Hallman Jr., Tom Larsen, Bill Connor, and Edgar Souse.

A cold case team believes it has solved the mystery of who may have betrayed Anne Frank. The team combed through evidence for five years in a bid to unravel one of World War II's enduring mysteries, reaching what they call the "most likely scenario" of who betrayed Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her family. However, some historians are not convinced.

Although one recent survey via Gallup showed that Americans are reading two or three fewer books per year than they did between 2001 and 2016, it's not all bad news. A new study by Pew Research shows that overall, 75% of U.S. adults say they have read a book in the past 12 months in any format, whether completely or part way through, a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2011. Although 65% of adults saying that they have read a print book in the past year, there's been a rise in ebook and audiobook consumers in the past two years. Plus, across the Atlantic, UK book sales in 2021 reached their highest in a decade, driven by booming appetites for crime, sc-fi, and romance.

Wondering what the basic mystery plots are? Bookriot's Jamie Canaves spells it out for you.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is is "Pre-cious" by Angela Griner.

In the Q&A roundup, CrimeReads posted a recent interview between Nancie Clare and author T. Jefferson Parker that included a discussion of his crime fiction writing in general and his latest novel, A Thousand Steps in particular; and the Kill Zone blog spoke with Blackstone Publishing’s Rick Bleiweiss about how the company lured heavy hitters Meg Gardiner, Steve Hamilton, and Reed Farrel Coleman away from Penguin Random House and also about Bleiweiss's own writing.

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Lefty Laurels

 

The Left Coast Crime conference announced the annual Lefty Award nominations this week. Left Coast Crime 2022 — Southwest Sleuths — will be presenting four Lefty Awards at the rescheduled convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Saturday, April 9, 2022, at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque.The nominees include:

The Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel



Ellen Byron, Cajun Kiss of Death 

Jennifer Chow, Mimi Lee Cracks the Code

Elle Cosimano, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It 

Cynthia Kuhn, How To Book a Murder 

Raquel V. Reyes, Mango, Mambo, and Murder

Wendall Thomas, Fogged Off 

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander Memorial)



Susanna Calkins, The Cry of the Hangman

John Copenhaver, The Savage Kind 

Naomi Hirahara, Clark and Division 

Sujata Massey, The Bombay Prince 

Catriona McPherson, The Mirror Dance

Lori Rader-Day, Death at Greenway 

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel



Alexandra Andrews, Who Is Maud Dixon

Marco Carocari, Blackout  

Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

Mia P. Manansala, Arsenic and Adobo 

Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel



Tracy Clark, Runner 

S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears

Matt Coyle, Last Redemption 

William Kent Krueger, Lightning Strike 

P.J. Vernon, Bath Haus

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Edgar Excellence

 

Mystery Writers of America announced the nominees for the 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2021. The 76th Annual Edgar Awards will be celebrated on April 28, 2022 at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square. Here are this year's honorees:

 

BEST NOVEL

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen 

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby 

Five Decembers by James Kestrel 

How Lucky by Will Leitch 

No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield 

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Deer Season by Erin Flanagan 

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian 

Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza 

What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins 

The Damage by Caitlin Wahrer 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Kill All Your Darlings by David Bell 

The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke 

The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory 

Starr Sign by C.S. O’Cinneide

Bobby March Will Live Forever by Alan Parks 

The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell 

BEST FACT CRIME

The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History by Margalit Fox   

Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green  

Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away by Ann Hagedorn

Two Truths and a Lie: A Murder, a Private Investigator, and Her Search for Justice by Ellen McGarrahan

The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade by Benjamin T. Smith

When Evil Lived in Laurel:  The "White Knights" and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer by Curtis Wilkie

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World by Mark Aldridge

The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene by Richard Greene

Tony Hillerman: A Life by James McGrath Morris

The Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science by John Tresch

The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock: An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense by Edward White  

BEST SHORT STORY

"Blindsided," Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Michael Bracken & James A. Hearn (Dell Magazines)

"The Vermeer Conspiracy," Midnight Hour by V.M. Burns (Crooked Lane Books)

"Lucky Thirteen," Midnight Hour by Tracy Clark (Crooked Lane Books)

“The Road to Hana,” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by R.T. Lawton (Dell Magazines)

“The Locked Room Library,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Gigi Pandian (Dell Magazines)

“The Dark Oblivion,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Cornell Woolrich (Dell Magazines)

BEST JUVENILE

Cold-Blooded Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce 

Concealed by Christina Diaz Gonzalez 

Aggie Morton Mystery Queen: The Dead Man in the Garden by Marthe Jocelyn


Kidnap on the California Comet: Adventures on Trains #2 by M.G. Leonard & Sam Sedgman 

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen 

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé 

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley 

When You Look Like Us by Pamela N. Harris 

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur 

The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe 

TV EPISODE/TELEPLAY

“Dog Day Morning” - The Brokenword Mysteries, Written by Tim Balme (Acorn TV)

“Episode 1” – The Beast Must Die, Written by Gaby Chiappe (AMC+)

“The Men Are Wretched Things” – The North Water Written by Andrew Haigh (AMC+)

“Happy Families” – Midsomer Murders, Written by Nicholas Hicks-Beach (Acorn TV)

“Boots on the Ground” – Narcos: Mexico, Written by Iturri Sosa (Netflix)

SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet by Katherine Cowley 


Ruby Red Herring by Tracy Gardner 

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara 

The Sign of Death by Callie Hutton 

Chapter and Curse by Elizabeth Penney

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD

Double Take by Elizabeth Breck

Runner by Tracy Clark

Shadow Hill by Thomas Kies

Sleep Well, My Lady by Kwei Quartey 

Family Business by S.J. Rozan 

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL

"Analogue,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Rob Osler (Dell Magazines)

GRAND MASTER

Laurie R. King

RAVEN AWARD

Lesa Holstine – Lesa’s Book Critiques; Library Journal Reviewer

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD

Juliet Grames – Soho Books

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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:

AWARDS

The Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) award nominations were announced this past week. Among the crime drama nods are House of Gucci (based on the true story of Patrizia Reggiani and the events leading up to her conviction for murdering her ex-husband), which was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (essentially, "Best Picture"); in the Best Actor category, Benedict Cumberbatch was nominated for his role in Power of the Dog, and Denzel Washington was nominated for The Tragedy of Macbeth; and in the Best Actress category, Lady Gaga was nominated for House of Gucci. On the TV side, Mare of Easttown received several acting nods, including Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series (Kate Winslet; Jean Smart) and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series (Evan Peters). You can check out all the SAG honorees via this link.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) also unveiled longlists that narrowed the field in 24 different categories at the British Academy Film Awards. Among the crime dramas in the Best Film category are House of Gucci; No Time to Die; The Power of the Dog; and The Tragedy of Macbeth. House of Gucci and No Time to Die were also nominated in the Best British Film category, along with The King’s Man. The Wrap has a wrap-up of all the categories and longlisted honorees.

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Gal Gadot is attached to star in and produce a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, To Catch a Thief, for Paramount Pictures, with Eileen Jones writing the script. Plot details about the remake are being kept under wraps, but the original 1955 film starred Cary Grant as a retired cat burglar who has to save his reformed reputation by catching an impostor preying on the wealthy tourists of the French Riviera. The film also starred Grace Kelly, who played the daughter of a wealthy widow.

Denzel Washington revealed he’s gearing up to return for The Equalizer 3, a sequel to his action franchise with director Antoine Fuqua, who is also in talks to return to direct the sequel. The Equalizer was first released in 2014 and starred Washington as a former marine named Robert McCall who tries to rescue a young girl from violent Russian mobsters. The original film and the follow-up were based loosely on the 1980s TV series, which has also been more recently adapted as a CBS series starring Queen Latifah.

Aaron Eckhart has been set as the lead in Renny Harlin’s action-thriller, The Bricklayer, which is due to get underway in March in Europe. Millennium Media is producing with Gerard Butler after both teamed up with Eckhart on the lucrative "Has Fallen" franchise. In The Bricklayer, someone is blackmailing the CIA by assassinating foreign journalists and making it look like the agency is responsible. As the world begins to unite against the U.S., the CIA must lure its most brilliant – and rebellious – operative out of retirement, forcing him to confront his checkered past while unraveling an international conspiracy.

Snake Eyes star Andrew Koji is set for the ensemble cast of the action-fantasy Boy Kills World, joining Bill Skarsgård, Samara Weaving, and Yayan Ruhian, with first-time feature director Moritz Mohr helming the project. Boy Kills World is described as a one-of-a-kind action spectacle set in a dystopian fever-dream reality and follows a boy who is a deaf mute with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, he escapes to the jungle and is trained by a mysterious shaman to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death.

A new take on the cult 2012 martial arts film, The Raid: Redemption, is coming to Netflix from producers Michael Bay and Gareth Evans, with Patrick Hughes (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) on board to direct. The original 2012 movie, written and directed by Evans, was heralded for its "hyper-kinetic and violent action sequences and unrelenting pacing." The film followed an Indonesian S.W.A.T. team trapped inside a tenement run by a mobster who sends his endless army of killers and thugs to stop them from climbing to the top of the building. The new film is set in Philadelphia’s drug-infested "Badlands"” and follows an elite undercover DEA task force as they climb a ladder of cartel informants to catch an elusive kingpin.

Netflix is planning to shoot back-to-back sequels for Red Notice in early 2023. Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, Red Notice stars Dwayne Johnson as an FBI agent who is forced to team up with a thief (played by Ryan Reynolds) in order to best another thief (Gal Gadot). Thurber is also writing both sequels, with production subject to the availability and deals of its three principal stars.

RLJE Films has unveiled the brand new poster and trailer for Last Looks. Previously titled Waldo, the comedy-crime film stars Charlie Hunnam as ex-LAPD superstar Charlie Waldo and Mel Gibson as Alastair Pinch, an eccentric actor who spends his days drunk on the set of his TV show. When Pinch’s wife is found dead, he is the prime suspect and Waldo is convinced to come out of retirement to investigate what happened. The case finds Waldo contending with gangsters, Hollywood executives, and pre-school teachers, all in pursuit of clearing Pinch’s name … or confirming his guilt.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Justified: City Primeval has been greenlighted at FX, with Timothy Olyphant reprising his role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens for the limited series. Seven years after the end of FX’s Justified, Sony Pictures Television and FX Productions are producing their latest Elmore Leonard adaptation, based on the author’s novel City Primeval: High Noon In Detroit. The show returns to Givens’s story eight years after he’s left Kentucky and now is based in Miami, balancing life as a marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl. A chance encounter on a Florida highway sends him to Detroit where he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent sociopath who’s already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once and wants to do so again.

HT to Crime Fiction Lover for reminding me that the new crime drama, The Responder, is coming to BBC One later this month. Best known to crime fiction lovers for his starring roles in the likes of Sherlock and Fargo, Martin Freeman stars in the series, taking on a very different role as Chris, who is described as "a crisis-stricken, morally compromised, unconventional urgent response officer tackling a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool."

Actor and filmmaker Mark O’Brien is set to star in season 2 of HBO’s Perry Mason in the recurring guest star role of Thomas Milligan. Thomas is Los Angeles’s ambitious Deputy District Attorney, described as "an aggressive attack dog in court as he strives to make his mark and ascend to greater heights, no matter whose blood he has to spill to get there." Season 2 will be eight episodes long with Matthew Rhys returning to the title role in the Emmy-nominated series.

Acclaimed author Daniel Woodrell’s The Bayou Trilogy crime novels are getting a TV series adaptation. The Bayou Trilogy novels—Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do—chronicle business-as-usual corruption in the fictitious Louisiana parish of St. Bruno. In the eye of the storm stands Detective Renee Shade, whose sense of duty collides with a violent underbelly of Dixie Mafia, ex-cons, dirty cops, and political grifters, along with pesky personal demons and a web of family entanglements.

Season 2 of The Flight Attendant has added Sharon Stone in a recurring role opposite Kaley Cuoco's Cassie Bowden. Stone will play Lisa Bowden, Cassie’s estranged mother who would prefer to stay estranged. The second-season storyline has Cassie living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time. But when an overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, she becomes entangled in another international intrigue.

Domhnall Gleeson has been tapped as the title character in FX’s 10-episode limited series, The Patient, playing a serial killer who holds a psychotherapist hostage and demands the doctor cure him of his homicidal urges. Steve Carell was previously announced to star as the therapist when the show was first ordered to series in October. Also joining the series are Linda Emond, Andrew Leeds, and Laura Niemi.

Zorro is headed to the CW as a gender-swapped reimagining of the classic masked vigilante character. Co-penned by Sean Tretta and the brother-sister team of Robert and Rebecca Rodriguez (Rebecca will also serve as director), Zorro centers on a young woman seeking vengeance for her father’s murder who joins a secret society and adopts the outlaw persona of Zorro.

A series adaptation of Hell or High Water is in the works at Fox. The one-hour drama is based on the 2016 western crime drama that starred Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster. In that film, Pine and Foster starred as two brothers who rob banks in order save their family ranch, with Bridges playing one of the Texas Rangers who was trying to hunt them down. Here’s the logline for the Fox version: "When a ruthless oil tycoon attempts to plunder a West Texas ranching community, two local brothers dodge a zealous Texas Ranger and fight to keep what’s theirs, one bank robbery at a time, come hell or high water."

Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali will star in and produce Onyx Collective’s limited series, The Plot, as a struggling author who finds success with an act of literary theft and finds himself playing a game of cat and mouse with someone who knows his secret. The series landed at Disney’s Onyx Collective after a bidding war across multiple streaming platforms. It will air on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in all other territories. The Plot is based on the 2021 best-selling novel of the same name by Jean Hanff Korelitz. Another Korelitz book, You Should Have Known, was adapted into HBO’s 2020 limited series, The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.

Lyndon Smith, Zuri Reed, Jake Austin Walker, Antonio Cipriano, and Jordan Rodrigues are set as series regulars opposite Lisette Alexis in National Treasure for Disney+. The project is an expansion of the National Treasure movie franchise told from the point of view of young heroine Jess (Alexis), a DREAMer in search of answers about her family who embarks on the adventure of a lifetime to uncover the truth about the past and save a lost Pan-American treasure. Smith will play FBI Agent Ross, while Reed, Cipriano, and Rodrigues play Jess's friends and cohorts. Walker takes on the role of a fellow treasure hunter who's magnetically drawn to Jess.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's Scott Simon talked to author Elizabeth George about her new mystery, Something to Hide, the 21st Inspector Lynley novel.

The Sopranos star, Michael Imperioli, is joining season two of true-crime podcast, Deep Cover, this time focusing on the Chicago mob. Deep Cover: Mob Land, which is narrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Halpern, centers around Chicago’s corruption in the 1970s and 1980s. The first season, which featured Walton Goggins, followed a Detroit FBI agent as he goes undercover in an outlaw motorcycle gang and his bizarre series of discoveries that inadvertently lead to the U.S. invasion of a foreign country. The ten-episode series premieres on January 24 and you can listen to the trailer via this link.

Aaron Philip Clark, author of Under Color of Law, was interviewed by Robert Justice for the Crime Writers of Color podcast.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with forensic pathologist and crime writer, Ellery Kane.

On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Frank Zafiro chatted with Vikki J. Carter about her role as The Author's Librarian; the importance of research; her books in progress; and her own podcast (Authors of the Pacific Northwest).

My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Jule Selbo, a screenwriter and playwright whose debut crime novel is 10 Days: A Dee Rommel Mystery.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with Lorie Lewis Ham about her debut novel, One of Us (Tower District Mystery #1).

The latest trio of featured authors on Crime Time FM included Jane Casey, Liz Nugent, and Jefferey Deaver.

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Quote of the Week

         Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Archer Files

Ross Macdonald (1915-1983), born Kenneth Millar in Los Gatos, California, spent most of his early life in Canada, where his father worked as a harbor pilot. His parents separated when he was three, and since his mother suffered from typhoid fever and couldn't support them, he moved around among various relatives, once counting "the number of rooms I had lived in during my first sixteen years, and got a total of fifty."



In 1938 he married Margaret Sturm, who as Margaret Millar would have her own career as an acclaimed mystery writer. Between 1938 and 1939 Kenneth Millar studied at the University of Michigan where he met W.H. Auden, who encouraged him to regard detective novels as a legitimate literary form.  Millar eventually settled on the pen name Ross Macdonald to avoid mixups with contemporary John D. MacDonald.  Ross first introduced the popular divorced former cop-turned-private-eye Lew Archer in the 1946 short story "Find the Woman." A full-length novel, The Moving Target, followed in 1949, the first in a series of 18 Archer novels.



Macdonald used spiral-bound notebooks, filling about three pages a day while sitting in the same bedroom chair where he wrote all of his books for three decades. He worked on several books at once, often finding ideas for plots by sitting in on local criminal trials. He was a dedicated conservationist, and he and his wife were active in the efforts to save the California condor from extinction. He died from Alzheimer's disease in 1983.



In 2007, Crippen & Landru released a new anthology of Macdonald's Lew Archer short stories, collected together in one volume for the first time. Titled The Archer Files, The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator Including Newly Discovered Case Notes, the volume includes previously published stories and several never-before-published fragments of unfinished Macdonald stories—case notes, so to speak, from the files of Lew Archer.



Novelist William Goldman declared the Archer canon as "the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American," and John Leonard of The New York Times stated Macdonald had transcended the genre to become "a major American novelist." His works have inspired countless mystery writers since, such as Sue Grafton, who even set her novels in the same Santa Barbara locale Macdonald had done (although both used the fictional name Santa Teresa for the town).



On a January Magazine tribute page via Jeff Pierce, you'll many fun anecdotes about Macdonald and his influence, such as the following from Michael Connelly:  "I came to him late. The first book of his I read was The Blue Hammer. Of course, it was a joy to realize when I was finished that I had a wealth of Lew Archer stories to go back and read. And I did. This was about the time I was thinking that I wanted to write for a living and Macdonald's books showed me the possibility that crime novels could be art. I still remember in the opening pages of The Blue Hammer how he described a woman's body as having been kept trim by tennis and anger. I read that and knew I was on to something. I was home."

          

Mystery Melange

Mystery Writers of America announced that the 2022 Grand Master will be Laurie R. King, bestselling author of 30 novels and other works, including the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories. MWA also announced that the Raven Award recipient, recognizing achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing, is librarian, blogger, and book reviewer, Lesa Holstine. The Ellery Queen Award recipient, which honors "outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry," is Juliet Grames, Associate Publisher at Soho Press, where she has curated the award-winning Soho Crime imprint since 2011. The honorees will accept their awards at the 76th Annual Edgar Awards Ceremony on April 28, 2022, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York City.

Aspiring crime novelists have until the end of February to enter the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Debut Dagger, sponsored by ProWritingAid. Shortlisted authors often get representation by literary agents, with a number going on to get publication deals. Budding authors are invited to submit the opening 3,000 words and a synopsis of the full novel of up to 1,500 words before the competition deadline of 6pm GMT on Monday, February 28, 2022. The competition is only open to writers who have never had a novel or novella published in any genre, or self-published one within the last 5 years. However authors of published short stories are eligible, as are authors of published non-fiction. For full rules, and to enter, go to Competitions on the CWA website.

The lists of crime fiction titles to look forward to in the new year continue to grow, including Jeff Pierce's annual tally over at The Rap Sheet blog, with new-release lists through February for both the U.S. and U.K.

As the Northern Hemisphere shivers in the throes of a January deep-freeze, it seems like the perfect time to take a look at Crime Fiction set in Antarctica, courtesy of CrimeReads.

In a previous Mystery Melange post, I noted that the exhibition "Sherlock Holmes in 221 Objects" opens at New York's Grolier Club on January 21, 2022. It features items from the collection of Cathy and Glen Miranker, including artwork, books, correspondence, and manuscripts about the iconic literary detective. As the New York Times added this week, there is one puzzling exhibit among the collection; why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—who famously denounced pirate publishers since they cranked out cheap editions and didn't pay him royalties—sign a pirated edition of The Sign of the Four (the second of the four Sherlock Holmes novels)? (Paywall for non-NYT subscribers, alas)

Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, a bronze statue of Agatha Christie is to go up in Wallingford town centre in a bid to attract fans of the author to her former hometown. Town councillors approved the use of Arts funding for the Agatha Christie Project Committee plan for the statue and town "mystery trail." Details of the trail are also yet to be confirmed, but it is hoped that it will take visitors around points of interest connected with the writer’s life, including her former home and her burial site.

The novel world of bibliotherapy: Studies over the past few years have indicated that reading improves empathy and encourages understanding and has a whole host of other positive benefits. Now, new research also shows how literature is helping people navigate mental health issues.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Unresolved Story on the Butt End of Avenue B" by Saira Viola.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews checked in with Alafair Burke, a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent novels include The Wife, optioned for a feature film by Amazon, and The Ex, which was nominated for the Edgar Award for best novel; Writers Who Kill welcomed Amy Pershing to chat about An Eggnog to Die For, the second book in Amy Pershing’s Cape Cod Foodie mystery series; and Murder Books spoke with novelist, short story author, and former newspaper editor Richard McGonegal about his writing and newest mystery novel, Ghoul Duty, the second in his Sheriff Francis Hood series.

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