B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 82

Happy Thanksgiving

          

Mystery Melange - Thanksgiving Edition

 

The Irish books of the year were announced yesterday, including Crime Fiction Book of the Year, which was awarded to 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard. The other finalists in that category include All Her Fault by Andrea Mara; April in Spain by John Banville; The Dark Room by Sam Blake; The Devil’s Advocate by Steve Cavanagh; and The Killing Kind by Jane Casey.

Another award, however, doesn't have similar good news to share as word comes that the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction has been put on indefinite hold. The honor, sponsored by the University of Alabama School of Law, was created in 2010 and had been "awarded annually to a published work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change." (HT to The Rap Sheet)

D.C. Noir at the Bar returns on December 5 in a virtual event online hosted by E.A. Aymar. Authors scheduled to participate with readings from their books include Yasin Angoe, Amy Grech, Silvio Moreno-Garcia, Glen Erik Hamilton, Eliza Nellums, with music via Sara Jones and a custom cocktail from Chantal Tseng. The event is in support of partner store, One More Page Books.

Due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, the National Centre for the Written Word in South Shields, England, is offering an online version of its exhibition, "Investigating Detectives," (which will be on display until March 2022). The virtual exhibit investigates the greatest fictional detectives and their authors, profiles the best known on-screen detectives, studies crime-busting techniques, and examines the enduring appeal of literary and on-screen detective stories. Some of the sleuths included are Inspector Bucket, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple. Also included are children's mysteries, subgenres such as hardboiled and Nordic noir, and forensic history. (HT to The Bunburyist)

The Winter Issue #170 of Mystery Scene Magazine is out with Kevin Burton Smith's annual "Mystery Scene Gift Guide"; a cover feature of Patricia Cornwell, whose debut Postmortem first appeared in 1990; Craig Sisterson makes the case that the origins of the current gritty Golden Age of television started before The Sopranos with NYPD Blue; John B. Valeri talks to Rhys Bowen about her historical mysteries; Jon L. Breen takes a look at an unlikely sleuth: Edna Ferber, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Showboat and Giant among other works, who's been reimagined by author Ed Ifkovic as solver of mysteries; and Oline Cogdill interviews writer-director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and many more).

The Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast has a bonus Thanksgiving mystery short story, "The Chicken Pot Pie Fiasco," written by Sandra Murphy and read by actor Duncan Hoge.

Kings River Life has some food mysteries for your Thanksgiving feast and a chance to enter to win a copy of all 5 books.





Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog has an updated list of crime fiction with a Thanksgiving theme.

The writers over at the Mystery Lovers Kitchen blog have shared some Thanksgiving recipe ideas for you including No-Churn Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream, courtesy of Peg Cochran; Libby Dodd's Fresh Cranberry Relish; Cornish Hen via Maya Corrigan; and much more.

This is something law enforcement are probably thankful about this year: a hire-a-hitman website that isn't exactly what it seems.

And I would be personally astonished, if not grateful, to discover a secret passageway in a 500-year-old house, like Freddy Goodall of Brighton, England did recently.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "The Devil Has Gone Home" by Sharon Waller Knutson.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews spoke with Joy Castro, the award-winning author of the post-Katrina New Orleans literary thriller, Hell or High Water, which received the Nebraska Book Award; Indie Crime Scene interviewed Bobby Nash, author of the SNOW series and more; and NPR's Fresh Air spoke with Ryan Busse, a former gun industry insider who explains why he left to fight for the other side, in his new book, Gunfight.

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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

Searchlight Pictures has optioned E. Nicholas Mariani’s script, The Defender, which George Tillman Jr. will direct with three-time Emmy-winning actor, Sterling K. Brown, set to star as heroic lawyer Scipio Africanus Jones. Jones was a courageous attorney who risked his life and career to defend 87 men wrongfully accused of murder in the wake of the Elaine, AR massacre of 1919, when a group of Black sharecroppers meeting in a church about unionization were attacked by a posse organized by white landowners.

Mel Gibson, who starred in the first four Lethal Weapon movies, is in talks to star in and direct the fifth installment. Gibson played cop Martin Riggs in all four films since 1987 (the last was released in 1998). Gibson would be stepping in for the late Richard Donner, director of the first four films in the franchise, who was developing the fifth movie prior to his passing in July. Richard Wenk, best known for writing Denzel Washington’s The Equalizer, penned the latest draft of the script.

Amber Sealey has signed on to direct McFarland Entertainment’s Nod If You Understand. The thriller will tell the true story of heroic stewardess, Tina Mucklow, and the mysterious hijacker known as DB Cooper, perpetrator of the only unsolved case of air piracy in the history of commercial aviation. When Cooper boards NWA Flight 305 with a bomb on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, Mucklow must cleverly negotiate his demands and the conflicting objectives of the FBI and airline, to save 42 lives. After extorting $200,000 in ransom and demanding the crew return him to the stormy skies with a series of very specific and life-threatening flying instructions, Cooper does the unthinkable, parachuting out of the aircraft with the money. Despite an extensive manhunt and FBI investigation, Cooper has never been located or conclusively identified.

A reboot of the 1992 hit Steven Seagal action movie, Under Siege, is underway at Warner Bros. with Timo Tjahjanto directing and Umair Aleem penning the script. The movie is being planned to stream on HBO Max. There’s no word yet if Seagal will reprise his role as Casey Ryback, the ex-Navy Seal turned cook who was the only person in that movie to stop a group of terrorists from taking control of a U.S. battleship. The movie, directed by Andrew Davis, also starred Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey and spawned a 1995 sequel Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

Mario Bava’s cult crime movie, Rabid Dogs, is getting an English-Language remake from scribes Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore. The original 1974 feature, an adaptation of Michael J. Carroll's short story, "Man and Boy," followed the bungled robbery by three violent criminals and the hostages they take—including a young woman, a middle-aged man, and his child—as they attempt to make a clean getaway from the police. The new production team has been working out the original film’s sexist tones to reimagine the film as a present-day thriller and the first in a trilogy.

Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola, and Chris Cooper are set to join Keira Knightley in 20th Century’s Boston Strangler, written and directed by Matt Ruskin. Based on the infamous Boston Strangler murders, the project tells the true story of Loretta McLaughlin, the first reporter to connect the murders and break the story of the Strangler. She and fellow reporter, Jean Cole, challenged the sexism of the early 1960s to report on the city’s most notorious serial killer and work tirelessly to keep women informed. Loretta pursued the story at great personal risk and uncovered corruption that cast doubt on the true identity of the killer.

Daniela Melchior and François Arnaud are the latest to join Liam Neeson in the movie thriller, Marlowe, which is currently filming in Ireland and Spain. Melchior and Arnaud will play the brother and sister, Lynn and Nico Peterson. The movie follows private detective Philip Marlowe (Neeson), who is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress. It looks like an open and shut case, but Marlowe soon finds himself in the underbelly of Hollywood’s film industry and unwittingly drawn into the crossfire of a legendary Hollywood actress and her subversive, ambitious daughter. Also starring are Diana Kruger, Jessica Lange, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alan Cumming, Danny Huston, Ian Hart and Colm Meaney. William Monahan’s script is based on the novel, The Black-Eyed Blonde, by John Banville, with Oscar winner Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) aboard to direct.

In case you're still leery of watching a movie in theatres, Daniel Craig's No Time To Die has been given an official Blu-Ray release date of December 21st, which is just in time for the holidays. The Blu-Ray will include several Bond Special Features, including director Baillie Walsh’s documentary Being James Bond: The Daniel Craig Story (but only on the 4K UHD version).

A trailer was released for Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, a noir psychological thriller starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett, which follows a charming but down-on-his-luck man (Cooper). After ingratiating himself with a clairvoyant (played by Toni Collette) and her mentalist husband (played by David Strathairn), he learns new grifting skills that grant him a ticket to mingle with the ultra-wealthy of 1940s New York. This puts him in conflict with a mysterious psychiatrist played by Cate Blanchett and a dangerous tycoon played by Richard Jenkins, all while a virtuous young woman named Molly (Rooney Mara) is at his side.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

An adaptation of Caitlin Rother’s true-crime book, Death On Ocean Boulevard: The Coronado Mansion, is in the works as a scripted limited series. Published by Kensington in April 2021, Death On Ocean Boulevard chronicles the harrowing story of Rebecca Zahau, who was found dead on the morning of July 13, 2011, at the historic Spreckels Mansion, a lavish beachfront property owned by her boyfriend, a powerful pharmaceutical tycoon. When authorities arrived, they found the cryptic message SHE SAVED HIM CAN YOU SAVE HER scrawled on a door near the victim. Was this a suicide note, or a killer’s taunt? Rebecca’s death came just two days after her boyfriend’s son took a devastating fall while in Rebecca’s care. Authorities deemed Rebecca’s death a suicide resulting from her guilt, but her family insists she was murdered. But who would stage a suicide or a murder in such a bizarre, elaborate way?

The serial killer novel, Dog Rose Dirt, from writer Jen Williams is to be adapted as a drama series by Gaumont UK. The psychological thriller, published earlier this year, follows a young woman whose dead mother’s secret past comes to light through a series of letters to a serial killer.

Alex Wolff has signed on to star opposite the previously announced Kiersey Clemons in Sophie Kargman’s feature directorial debut, Susie Searches. The project is based on Kargman's 2020 short film of the same name, in which she starred alongside Delon de Metz, Sam Lerner, Gabriel Notarangelo, and Alison Rich. The darkly comic thriller follows Susie (Clemons), an awkward college student who seizes the opportunity to bolster her popularity—and her overlooked true-crime podcast—by solving the disappearance of a classmate. But as her investigation proceeds, we realize that the truth and Susie aren’t at all what they seem. Wolff will play Jesse, the charismatic college kid whose disappearance sparks Susie’s investigation.

USA Network’s The Sinner, led by Bill Pullman as Det. Harry Ambrose, will air its final episode on Dec. 1, after the network announced the show's cancellation. Along with Pullman, Season 4 stars Frances Fisher, Alice Kremelberg, Neal Huff, Cindy Cheung, Ronin Wong, Jessica Hecht, and Michael Mosley. In Season 4, still reeling from the trauma of a previous case a year ago, the now-retired Harry Ambrose (Pullman) travels to Hanover Island in northern Maine for a recuperative getaway with his partner, Sonya (Hecht). When an unexpected tragedy occurs involving the daughter of a prominent island family, Ambrose is recruited to help the investigation, only to be thrown into a mystery of mounting paranoia that will turn this sleepy tourist island, and Ambrose’s life, upside down.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's Book of the Day podcast featured two thrillers, including astronaut Chris Hadfield speaking about his novel, The Apollo Murders, with former NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro; and in a rebroadcast from 2015, Robert Siegel chatted with author Anthony Horowitz about his James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, and what it's like giving a classic a 21st century twist.

Read or Dead's Katie and Nusrah discussed read-a-likes for some favorite and popular authors and recommended contemporary works similar to them to make your holiday shopping easier.

Over at the Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast, the second part of the mystery short story, "Harvey and the Redhead," written by Debra H. Goldstein and read by actors Ariel Linn and Sean Hopper, is up. You can listen to Part 1 here. 

 

Speaking of Mysteries chatted with Abir Mukherjee about The Shadows of Men, the fifth installment in Mukherjee’s series set in post-World-War I Calcutta featuring Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Suran Banerjee. Banerjee has been accused of murdering a Hindu scholar in a same-as-it-ever-was story of political and religious tension.

Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Yasmin Angoe, a first-generation Ghanaian American who received the 2020 Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Emerging Writers of Color from Sisters in Crime, about Yasmin’s debut, Her Name is Knight; the long hard road to getting published and almost giving up; writing a high-octane thriller that embraces her Ghanaian roots, and a lot more.

Wrong Place Write Crime chatted with Dana Stabenow about her Kate Shugak series, her Liam Campbell books, and a lot about Alaska. Plus Lance Wright from Down & Out Books was on hand to profile some new releases, and there were additional book recommendations from Sebastien Fitzek, Rebecca Rosenberg, Matt FitzSimmons, and William Kent Krueger.

My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, interviewed Colin Conway, the author of The Cozy Up series which pushes the envelope of the cozy genre. Conway is also the creator of The 509 Crime Stories, a series of novels set in Eastern Washington with revolving lead characters, and co-authored The Charlie-316 political thriller series.

All About Agatha spoke with Macavity Award-winning novelist John Copenhaver about his new book, The Savage Kind, in which two lonely teenage girls in 1940s Washington, DC, discover they have a penchant for solving crimes—and an even greater desire to commit them.

John Copenhaver also appeared on the Unlikeable Female Characters podcast to talk about his novel, his favorite femme fatales, and the future of queer crime.

CrimeTime FM welcomed Heather Young to discuss her debut psychological thriller, The Lost Girls, and to talk about storytelling, domestic abuse, ancient lands, and family.

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Sunday Music Treat

In honor of Thanksgiving coming up in the U.S. this week, here's a work by Percy Grainger (1882-1961), who was actually an Australian-born composer and pianist, although he lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. This is a short piece titled "Harvest Hymn" and is played here by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner:

 

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Quote of the Week

          

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Death of a Celebrity

Hulbert Footner (1879-1944) was born in Canada but emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 19 and lived most of his life in the States. He became a journalist and author after a failed attempt at being an actor, although at least three of his novels were later made into movies. He wrote two mystery series, one featuring the pathbreaking female detective, Madame Rosika Storey, and the other featuring a successful middle-aged mystery writer-turned criminologist named Amos Lee Mappin. But even the latter series showed the author's interest in writing women into his novels, as Mappin's sidekick is his young secretary, Fanny Parran.



Death of a Celebrity dates from 1938 and is one of the last outings for Mappin, who is described as "not a tall man and far from slender." As usual, Mappin finds himself involved in criminal activity among New York's wealthy social circles. The "celebrity" of the title is famous playwright Gavin Dordress, who throws a party for fellow celebrities who all have reasons to hate—and kill—their host: an aging actress is enraged when she finds out Dordress didn't create a role for her in his latest play; the playwright's "best and oldest friend" is jealous because he relies on Dordress for handouts to fund a failed career as a novelist; the suitor of Dordress's daughter feels her father is holding her back from marrying; and Dordress's manager thinks his wife is having an affair with Dordress.



As one of the playwright's former classmates and a friend, Mappin is also invited to the party and brings along his secretary Fanny Parran, whose "littleness, her dimples, her blonde curls and her lisp gave her the artless charm of a child, but a man who assumed to talk baby-talk to her was apt to get a shock." The party is anything but jovial, but when Dordress turns up dead the next morning, the police assume it's suicide from the layout of the victim's body. It's Dordress's daugher and Fanny who convince Mappin to consider murder, and as Mappin digs deeper, he uncovers blackmail, revenge, jealousy and a simmering deep hatred that eventually point to one of the party-goers as the killer.



Like many of Footner's other stories, Mappin's investigation involves discovering clues left at the crime scene, which he uses to recreate the timeline and events of the murder. The writing is serviceable, if not particularly memorable, nor are Footner's plots intricate, often not playing fair with the reader in laying out the clues. But his characterizations and the interactions between the characters are entertaining. Considering Footner's focus on strong women in his novels, it's not surprising that the most interesting characters in Death of a Celebrity are female.

          

Mystery Melange

The 6th Annual 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize honoring mid-career authors in fiction announced the longlist last week in a private virtual ceremony. The $50,000 prize will be awarded to an author of fiction in the middle of a burgeoning career. Finalists are expected to be named in early March 2022, followed by a winner named in April 2022. Among the thirty-seven author finalists are several who write crime and suspense fiction, including Megan Abbott (The Turnout), Dan Chaon (Sleepwalk), Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Plot), and Jonathan Lethem (Feral Detective).

Hannah Brown has won the 2021 Little, Brown UEA Crime Fiction Award for her historical suspense novel, My Name Is Emma. Each year, editors at Sphere choose the best novel by a graduating student, with the winner receiving £3,000. For the first time, judges also awarded a highly commended prize to Duality – a Russian in Osaka by Denise Kuehl, a Japanese-set procedural with near-future touches. The 2020 winner was Emma Styles, whose No Country for Girls will be published by Sphere.

At the recent New England Crime Bake conference in Dedham, Massachusetts, Joseph S. Walker was awarded the annual Al Blanchard Prize for his story, "Herb Ecks Goes Underground," which will be published in Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories.

The Crime Fiction Lover website solicited nominations for its first ever Crime Fiction Lover Awards and have announced the finalists in the various categories. Readers can vote on their favorites via this link.

The end-of-the-year "best" lists keep coming, including Kirkus Reviews, where editors have chosen their favorite mysteries and thrillers of the year; and Amazon, which also compiled a list of its picks for best mysteries and thrillers of 2021.

Martin Edwards offered up (the pen name of John Malcolm Andrews), who passed away recently. John wrote an antiques-themed mystery series as well as nonfiction works and also served as Chair of the Crime Writers' Association.

I think this should be the model for river towns everywhere: the legendary Bouquinistes boxes that have been lining the banks of the River Seine in Paris since the 16th century. (Booksellers take note: it seems there are some vacancies.) (HT to Shelf Awareness)

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "In Midair" by Toby Widdicombe.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews spoke with Lori Rader-Day about her new novel, Death at Greenway, which is based on the true events of a group of children evacuated out of the Blitz during World War II—to Agatha Christie's holiday estate, Greenway House; Mystery Tribune chatted with Nick Kolakowski, whose newest work, Love & Bullets, is being released by Shotgun Honey books on November 26; Lisa Haselton interviewed Weldon Burge about his debut thriller, Harvester of Sorry, the first in the planned Ezekial Marrs series; and Indie Crime Scene spoke with J.L. Doucette, author of Unknown Assailant (Book 3 of the Dr. Pepper Hunt Mysteries).

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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

Jake Gyllenhaal is in talks to star in a remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze movie, Road House, with Doug Liman also in discussions to direct. In the original film, Swayze played Dalton, a tough bouncer with a mysterious past who is hired to clean up one of middle America’s rowdiest bars and ends up taking down one of its most corrupt individuals in the process. It is currently unknown if Gyllenhaal would be playing Dalton or a new character.

Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alan Cumming, Danny Huston, Ian Hart, and Colm Meaney have joined Liam Neeson in the noir thriller, Marlowe, which is now filming in Ireland and Spain. The script from William Monahan is based on John Banville's novel, The Black-Eyed Blonde (a continuation of the Raymond Chandler iconic series featuring Philip Marlowe) with Oscar winner Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) aboard to direct. In Marlowe, when private detective Philip Marlowe (Neeson) is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress, it looks to be open and shut case. But Marlowe soon finds himself in the underbelly of Hollywood’s film industry and unwittingly drawn into the crossfire between a legendary Hollywood actress and her subversive, ambitious daughter.

Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment have co-acquired North American rights to The Forgiven, a thriller written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, which premiered at the 2021 Toronto Film Festival. The Forgiven is based on the novel of the same name by Lawrence Osborne and centers on wealthy Londoners David (Ralph Fiennes) and Jo Henninger (Jessica Chastain), who are involved in a tragic accident with a local teenage boy, after speeding through the Moroccan desert to attend an old friend’s lavish weekend party. Arriving late at the grand villa with the debauched party raging, the couple attempts to cover up the incident with the collusion of the local police. But when the boy’s father arrives seeking justice, the stage is set for a tension-filled culture clash in which David and Jo must come to terms with their fateful act and its shattering consequences.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Paramount+ has handed a series order to Happy Face, a crime drama series based on a hit podcast that tells the story of a notorious serial killer who was infamous for drawing smiley faces on letters to the media and prosecutors. The project centers on Melissa Jesperson-Moore, who at age 15 discovered that her father, Keith Hunter Jesperson, was the serial murderer known as the Happy Face Killer. As an adult, Melissa changed her name, guarded her secret, and cut off all ties to her father, who is currently serving life in prison. The scripted series will tell Melissa’s true-life story as her father contacts her to take credit for another victim, which pulls Melissa into an investigation of her father and his crimes.

The Apple TV+ limited series, The Last Thing He Told Me, has had a major recasting with Jennifer Garner taking over a role originally set for Julia Roberts, who had to depart due to scheduling conflicts. The Last Thing He Told Me is an adaptation of the bestseller of the same name by Laura Dave and follows a woman who forms an unexpected relationship with her 16-year-old stepdaughter while searching for the truth about why her husband has mysteriously disappeared.

Jeff Wilbusch is set to star in David E Kelley’s The Missing for NBC's Peacock streaming service. The adaptation of Israeli crime writer Dror A. Mishani’s The Missing File focuses on the unusually named Avraham Avraham, an NYPD detective with the 77th precinct 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.

Lizzy Caplan will star in a Fatal Attraction TV series at Paramount+, playing the role of Alex that Glenn Close made famous in the 1987 movie. Described as a deep-dive reimagining of the classic psychosexual thriller and '80s cultural touchstone, 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. That role, which was played by Michael Douglas, is currently being cast.

Peter Greene, Ayomide Adegun, and Jeremy Bobb are set as leads opposite Colin Woodell and Mel Gibson in Starz’s The Continental, the prequel to the Keanu Reeves/John Wick film series. The Continental will be presented as a three-night special event and explore the origin behind the hotel-for-assassins, which increasingly has become the centerpiece of the John Wick universe. This will be told through the eyes and actions of a young Winston Scott (Woodell), who is dragged into the Hell-scape of a 1975 New York City to face a past he thought he’d left behind.





Ruth Wilson is teaming with Lena Dunham and Dennis Lehane for an HBO limited series based on the Stitcher podcast, Mob Queens. Wilson will play Anna Genovese (Wilson), the second wife of infamous crime boss Vito Genovese and a fixture in the Village’s drag bar scene in the 1930s who later broke Cosa Nostra law—when she spilled the illegal dealings of her husband in divorce hearings.

Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) is set to star in and executive-produce the thriller series, Ballistic. Lihi Kornowski and Bosch's Jonathan Ohye will also star in the six-part series about a secret operative (Carpenter) who, after a mission is compromised, is forced into a psychological game of cat and mouse with her own mind while being hunted down by the very program that created her. Series creators Spenser Cohen (Moonfall) and Anna Halberg (Distant) will serve as showrunners and executive producers.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up featuring Part 1 of the mystery short story, "Harvey and the Redhead," written by Debra H Goldstein and read by actors Ariel Linn and Sean Hopper. (Part 2 will go up next week.)

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with H.Y. Hanna, who writes fun cozy mysteries "filled with humor, quirky characters, clever twists—and cats with big personalities."

On the Crime Writers of Color podcast, Midnight House anthology editors Abby Vandiver, Marla Bradeen, Steph Cha, and Alafair Burke were interviewed by Robert Justice; plus Carolyn Wilkins and Alex Segura read from their included short stories.

The Spybrary podcast welcomed the former director of the CIA’s Technical Service, Robert Wallace, to discuss his time in the CIA and the various non-fiction books he has co-authored since leaving the agency.

The Red Hot Chili Writers interviewed spy thriller writer, Charles Cumming and discussed his latest book, Judas 62; they also chatted with Vic Watson and Simon Berwick about the upcoming Bay Tales festival.

Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with S.F. Kosa about her most recent book, The Night We Burned.

Writers Detective Bureau host, Det. Adam Richardson, talked about how police deal with teenagers as missing persons and as suspects in a murder.

Crime Time FM chatted with Dominic Nolan about his new novel, Vine Street; 1930s Soho; obsession; history versus the past; and believing in your work.

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Sunday Music Treat

I meant to get this one up prior to Halloween, but it's the appropriately titled "Totentanz" ("Dance of Death") by Franz Liszt, based on the Gregorian chant, "Dies Irae" (something I used as part of the inspiration for my Scott Drayco crime novel, Dies Irae). Drayco has played this many times himself, but here's Dominic Chamot on the piano and the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jukka-Pekka Saraste:

 

          

Quote of the Week