B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 87

FFB: The Grey Flannel Shroud

Henry Slesar (1927-2002) was an American author, playwright, and copywriter, and I think it's say to say he was prolific. Around 1955, he started to write short stories while working as a copywriter and eventually created 500 stories for magazines like Playboy, Imaginative Tales, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. The latter was particularly appropriate, becasue Slesar went on to become a frequent contributor to the popular Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series. He also served as head writer for CBS Daytime's The Edge of Night, for which he won an Emmy in 1974, and penned scripts for The Twilight Zone, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Batman.



It wasn't until 1959 that he tried his hand at a novel, The Grey Flannel Shroud, an effort that turned out to be as successful as his many other endeavors, receiving the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1960. Slesar was an experienced ad man, credited with being the brains behind McGraw-Hill's extremely popular "The Man in the Chair" advertising campaign, as well as coining the phrase "coffee break." Thus it's no surprise that advertising is at the heart of the plot in The Grey Flannel Shroud.



In the novel, Dave Robbins is a a handsome young account manager at a small Madison Avenue agency who is put in charge of the prestigious Burke Baby Food account. He'd only gotten the job due to a colleague's heart attack and now he finds himself fending off the unwelcome attentions of an influential client and the scorn of the head of the Burke empire. Things take a turn for the bizzare when people connected to the Burke Baby account begin to die in strange ways. Dave soon worries he's next, a suspicion given weight by a near-fatal push off a train platform and poisoned medication.



Aided by a reporter friend/drinking buddy and Dave's clever and gutsy girlfriend, Janey Hagerty, an art director at the agency, Dave tries to navigate his complicated love life and the promising Burke account career-booster, while trying to figure out why the boss's confidential files include an unexplained and large payment to the mysterious "A.G"—and why being put in charge of the Burke account may end up being the very last thing he ever does.



The Grey Flannel Shroud isn't heavy on the sleuthing, but if you're a fan of Mad Men, you'll see a lot of the essence of that era in the advertising world in this novel. There's plenty of character development and also whimsy—such as the chapter headings, all of which are taken from famous advertising campaigns.

          

Mystery Melange

Yesterday brought the announcement of the 2021 Macavity Awards, which are nominated and voted on by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI. Best Novel went to Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby; Best First Novel: Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden; Best Critical/Biographical: H R.F. Keating: A Life of Crime by Sheila Mitchell; Best Short Story: "Elysian Fields" by Gabriel Valjan (California Schemin’: The 2020 Bouchercon Anthology, edited by Art Taylor; and the Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery: Turn to Stone by James W. Ziskin.

Also this week in a virtual ceremony on Facebook, the Australian Crime Writers' Association announced the winners of the 2021 Ned Kelly Awards. They include: Best Debut Crime Fiction - The Second Son by Loraine Peck; Best True Crime - Stalking Claremont by Bret Christian; Best International Crime Fiction - We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker; and Best Crime Fiction - Consolation by Garry Disher.

Author Martin Walker, whose novels feature police chief Bruno Courrèges and are set in the Perigord region of France, has been named this year's winner of the Prix Charbonnier, awarded by the Federation of Alliances Françaises in the USA to those making a special contribution to French culture. He follows in the footsteps of Leonard Slatkin, Francois Truffaut, Pierre Cardin, Julia Child, Andre Cointreau, and many more.

D. Ann Williams has won the 2021 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, sponsored by Sisters in Crime. Williams's novel in progress, titled Murder at the Freeman Hotel, is set in 1920s California and features Minnie Freeman, a woman on a mission to move to a new city, open a hotel, and stay independently wealthy. Her plan is hindered by the dead body found at the bottom of the new automatic elevator shaft and a sigil linking it to other deaths. SinC also announced the honorable mention winners: Hiawatha Bray, Lily Meade, Robin Page, Catherine Tucker, and Zoe B. Wallbrook.

Unpublished crime writers in Wales have a little over a week left to enter the Crime Cymru First Novel Prize sponsored by the Crime Cymru crime writing collective. Send along the first 5,000 words of your crime novel plus a one-page synopsis by September 3. The two winners (one each of an English-language manuscript and another in Welsh) will receive a four-night stay in Nant and a writing retreat generously donated by Lit Wales, as well as a year's mentoring from a Crime Cymru member.

Writers who can boil down a mystery into a half-dozen words are encouraged to enter the fifth annual Six-Word Mystery Contest sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America (RMMWA). The contest opens September 1, 2021, and entries must be received by midnight, Oct. 8, 2021, MST. Six-word "whodunits" can be entered in one or all five of the following categories: Hard Boiled or Noir; Cozy Mystery; Thriller Mystery; Police Procedural Mystery; and/or a mystery with Romance or Lust. The Six-Word Mystery Contest is open to all adults 18 and over, with no residency requirements.

Registration is open for ITW's 8th annual Online Thriller School. Ten weeks of intensive craft lessons will begin on September 14, with a bonus "Ask Me Anything" panel. Authors scheduled to instruct include Liv Constantine, Jeffery Deaver, Lisa Gardner, Alexia Gordon, Adam Hamdy, Cate Holahan, Anthony Horowitz, Steven James, Tosca Lee, Jaime Levine, David Morrell, Samuel Octavius, Alex Segura, and Jerri Williams. Topics include Pacing; World Building; Building Suspense; Villains – Beyond the Cardboard Cutout; How to Edit Like a Pro; Creating Depth of Character; The G-Woman: An Insider’s Look at the FBI; How to Write a Killer Twist; Creating Realistic Dialogue; and Developing and Honing Your Voice.

Many people have the mistaken notion that forensic science provides an iron-clad form of evidence for criminal convictions. However, as recent cases such as the Washington, DC Crime Lab show, it's definitely not without its pitfalls. Then, there's the controversy surrounding ScatterShot, an AI-based tech that is problematic at best and has already landed a man in jail for nearly a year despite scant evidence. As artificial intelligence slowly creeps into every aspect of culture, it's good to be reminded that it's often as fallible as its creators.

For years, a mysterious figure has been stealing books before their release. Is it espionage? Revenge? Or a complete waste of time?

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "My Eyes Are Blue, His Are Brown, But They're The Same" by Terry Dawley.

In the Q&A roundup, William Kent Krueger spoke with the New York Times about his love of stories, handed out some great book recommendations, and described his writing process (subscription required); and Megan Abbott was interviewed by Lithub's Maris Review podcast to discuss her new novel, The Turnout, and the dark underworld of ballet.

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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

Morgan Freeman and Yellowstone’s Cole Hauser are set to star in the action thriller, Muti, from director George Gallo. The feature film follows a detective (Hauser) who is unable to process the death of his daughter and embarks on a hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on a brutal tribal ritual known as MUTI. The detective recruits the help of a professor and African anthropologist (Freeman) who hides an unspeakable secret but allows the detective to go deeper into the killer’s world, revealing one man’s insanity is another man’s religion. 

Mena Suvari and Danielle Harris have joined the cast and production team of the psychological thriller, Anne, With Love, starring Blaine Morris. George Henry Horton (Dreadspace) will direct the film from a script he co-wrote with Morris. Among the supporting cast are Jaime Gallagher, Luke Barnett, Rocky Perez, Anwar Wolf, Leonard Amoia, Lucy Werner, Hunter Brown, and Robert H. Lambert. The story follows Anne (Morris), a painter who struggles with inner demons after being forced into a life of solitude when her husband leaves mysteriously. Suvari will play her closest confidant, Maya, who has a dark secret of her own. Harris will play Anne’s neighbor, who has several striking similarities in both her appearance and life.

Olivia Scott Welch has signed on to star opposite George Baron in The Blue Rose, a surreal genre-bender that Baron wrote and is directing in his feature debut. The noir pic is set in the 1950s, following the one-night journey of two rookie detectives as they set out to solve a homicide, only to find themselves in an alternate reality made up of their worst nightmares. Welch will play Detective Lilly, with Baron portraying Detective Dalton.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Aaron Magnani has acquired rights to Capital Crimes, the 32-part crime thriller book series originated by President Harry S. Truman’s daughter, Margaret Truman, with plans to adapt them into a TV series. The potential adaptation will center on the books’ hero, Robert Brixton, a rugged former cop and special operator who served with SITQUAL, a private security arm of the State Department. Brixton’s skills, as one of the few internationally licensed private investigators, are put to use against an assortment of villains and plots seeking to do the country great harm.

Peacock has handed a straight-to-series order for a ten-part crime drama set in Australia, hailing from Matchbox Pictures, the production company behind Cate Blanchett’s Stateless. Irreverant was created by Paddy Macrae (Wanted) and follows a criminal from Chicago who bungles a heist and is forced to hide out in a small Australian reef town in Far North Queensland posing as the new church Reverend.

All Rise may have a new life on a new network. OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network is in talks for a new season of the legal drama starring Simone Missick, three months after the series was cancelled by CBS. All Rise is set in Los Angeles and centers on Judge Lola Carmichael (Missick), a highly regarded and impressive deputy district attorney "who doesn’t intend to sit back on the bench in her new role, but instead leans in, immediately pushing the boundaries and challenging the expectations of what a judge can be."

Josh Duhamel has been tapped to star opposite Renée Zellweger in NBC’s limited series, The Thing About Pam. Based on a stranger-than-fiction story featured on Dateline NBC, The Thing About Pam centers around the murder of Betsy Faria that resulted in the conviction of her husband, Russ, though he insisted he didn’t kill her. His conviction was later overturned. The brutal crime set off a chain of events that would expose a diabolical scheme deeply involving another woman, Pam Hupp (Zellweger). Duhamel will play Joel Schwartz, the defense attorney for Russ Faria.





Oscar nominee, Chloë Sevigny, is set as a lead opposite Elle Fanning and Colton Ryan in the Hulu drama, The Girl From Plainville. Based off the Esquire article by Jesse Barron, the limited series will explore Michelle Carter’s (Fanning) relationship with Conrad "Coco" Roy III (Ryan) and the events that led to his death and her controversial conviction of involuntary manslaughter. Sevigny will play Lynn Roy, Coco’s mother. 

The Americans alum, Noah Emmerich, has been tapped for a major role opposite Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon in Dark Winds, AMC’s Western noir thriller series based on Tony Hillerman’s popular Leaphorn & Chee book series. With a six-episode order, the psychological thriller follows two Navajo police officers, Joe Leaphorn (McClarnon) and Jim Chee (Gordon), in the 1970s Southwest as the search for clues in a grisly double-murder case forces them to challenge their own spiritual beliefs and come to terms with the trauma of their pasts. Emmerich will play Whitover, a burned-out FBI agent whose once-promising career is dying on the vine. A brazen robbery puts him back in the big time, but first he must enlist the help of the Navajo Tribal Police led by Lieutenant Leaphorn.

ABC is rounding out the recurring cast for the second season of its popular drama series, Big Sky, with the addition of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Madelyn Kientz, Troy Johnson, Lola Reid, Jeremy Ray Taylor, TV Carpio, and Arturo Del Puerto. In Season 2 of the David E. Kelley series, based on the books by C.J. Box, when private detectives Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) and Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) reunite to investigate a car wreck outside of Helena, Montana, they soon discover the case might not be as straightforward as it seems. As they unravel the mystery of the accident, their worlds will collide with a band of unsuspecting teens, a flirtatious face from Jenny’s past, and a vicious outsider hellbent on finding answers.

If you want to know when your favorite TV show is returning (and when new ones are set to debut), check out this calendar of premiere dates, courtesy of Deadline.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast features an excerpt from One of Us by Lorie Lewis Ham (who is also the executive producer and director of the podcast), as read by actor Casey Ballard.

NPR book critic, Maureen Corrigan, spoke about the recent spate of author-manuscript-theft plots in crime fiction, with a look at Laura Lippman's Dream Girl.

NPR's Fresh Air looked at how David E. Kelley and actor Nicole Kidman have joined forces again to adapt another Liane Moriarty novel for Hulu, Nine Perfect Strangers, a miniseries that is "unorthodox and impeccably cast."

Queer Writers of Crime spoke with Lucy Sussex about her prize-winning Blockbuster! nonfiction book which profiles Fergus Hume’s 1886 book, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne and the biggest selling detective novel of the 1800s.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer Saralyn Richard, author of the Detective Oliver Parrott mysteries, for the Crime Cafe podcast.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Terry Roberts to chat about his historical thrillers.

Crime Time FM chatted with Daniel Cole about his new thriller, Mimic, and the coming TV series of his debut novel, Ragdoll.

In the latest episode of The Red Hot Chili Writers, S.A. Cosby, the award-winning author of Razorblade Tears, discussed a new "Writing Crime Fiction" course, and reviewed the Tokyo Olympics, including taking certain Olympic events to task.

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Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Winners

The annual Killer Nashville conference announced the winners of the Silver Falchion Award, which seeks to discover and honor the best books of 2021 that incorporate the elements of mystery, thriller, and suspense. Here are the honorees and congrats to all!

 

BEST ACTION ADVENTURE 

The Crow’s Nest by Richard Meredith

BEST COMEDY 

Con Me Once by J. L. Delozier

BEST COZY 

Rose by Any Other Name by Becki Willis

BEST HISTORICAL

The Lost Wisdom of the Magic by Susie Helme



BEST INVESTIGATOR 

Within Plain Sight by Bruce Robert Coffin

BEST JUVENILE 

Y.A. Irish Town by Matthew John Meagher

BEST MYSTERY 

Code Gray by Benny Sims

BEST NON-FICTION 

Words Whispered in Water by Andy Rosenthal

BEST SCI-FI / FANTASY 

Odyssey Tale by Cody Schlegel

BEST SHORT STORY COLLECTION 

Couch Detective Book 2 by James Glass

BEST SUPERNATURAL 

Borrowed Memories by Christine Mager Wevik

BEST SUSPENSE 

Ring of Conspiracy by J. Robert Kinney

BEST THRILLER

The Divine Devils by R. Weir

CLAYMORE AWARD FOR BEST UNPUBLISHED

Winner: Crooked / Suspense / by Mary Bush
First Runner-Up: Choosing Guilt / Mystery / Frances Aylor
 
READERS' CHOICE AWARD
 
A Palette for Love and Murder / Saralyn Richard
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FFB: A Good Story and Thieves' Dozen

Donald Westlake (1933-2008) was not only a prolific novelist, he also penned enough stories to fill seven story collections, some 138 stories in all. Many were included in highly-regarded anthologies, others in magazines like Playboy, The New York Times Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and several sadly defunct 'zines. I thought I'd mention two of his collections, A Good Story and Other Stories (1999); and Thieves' Dozen (2004).



A Good Story is a actually a good representative sampling of Westlake's writing, since it covers 40 years of his career. It includes "Once on a Desert Island," about the fantasy life of a lone marooned bookkeeper, a murder and an imaginary lover; "Sinner or Saint," which finds a con man impersonating a minister hustling a wealthy parishioner for her famous heirloom diamond; "Never Shake a Family Tree" about a woman doing a little geneology by placing an ad in the paper who learns how far rotten apples fall from the family tree; and in "Skeeks," a tabloid journalist must solve a murder for his story on the death of a major television star—who happens to be a dog. The New York Times Book Review noted "Trickery reins: the good, the bad and the obnoxious alike are prey as well as predator. A Good Story earns its title with twists worthy of O. Henry."



Thieves' Dozen features stories with Westlake's comedic professional thief, John Dortmunder, actually 11 Dortmunder stories, not 12, a little bit of additional humor on the author's part. Just as A Good Story makes for a general overview of Westlake's writing in general, Thieves' Dozen is a good introduction to Dortmunder and his capers. In "Horse Laugh," Dortmunder and his gang are in New Jersey, stealing a racehorse, only Dortmunder soon finds himself holding on for dear life to the runaway steed while sirens wail around him; "Now What?" finds Dortmunder riding the New York subway with a ham sandwich in a paper bag—only the sandwich happens to have a $300K brooch inside; a crooked artist named Three Finger Gillie wants Dortmunder to steal his own paintings in "Art and Craft"; and in "Too Many Crooks," the gang tunnels into a bank vault only to find it packed with hostages from an armed robbery already in progress.



Westlake says of his popular literary creation in the Preface, "And I guess Dortmunder remains pecularliarly mine, at whatever length. Originally, he was just passing through. He wasn't expected to have legs, and yet here he is, still domitable but bowed, apprentice, it would appear, of both the extended romp and the quick-hit, the perhahps-not-exactly-surgical strike."

          

Mystery Melange

Although the Crime Cologne festival won't be held this year, its "Crime Cologne Award 2021" will still be awarded, and the festival recently announced the six finalists whittled down from the original fifteen-book longlist. They include: Orkun Ertener - Was bisher gescha (What Happened So Far); Marcel Huwyler - Frau Morgenstern und der Verrat (Ms. Morgenstern and the Betrayal); Merle Kröger - Die Experten (The Experts); Ben Riffko - Grünes Öl (Green Oil); Joachim B. Schmidt - Kalmann; and Matthias Wittekindt - Vor Gericht (In Court). As Literary Saloon noted, we'll likely see some of these in English translation, certainly Joachim B. Schmidt's Kalmann, which is forthcoming from Bitter Lemon Press.

Bloody Scotland announced the full program for this year's hybrid festival that will give festival goers in Stirling the full-on festival experience while allowing authors and readers who can’t be there in person the opportunity to join in the fun. Running from September 17-19, highlights include Q&As with Kathy Reichs, Karin Slaughter, Lee Child and Stephen King; panels with Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, Alan Parks, Mark Billingham, Kia Abdullah and Louise Candlish; Pitch Perfect and Crime in the Spotlight events; a performance by the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers and a cabaret twist on the normal Quiz which will see each quizzer (Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Doug Johnston, Mark Billingham, Luca Veste and Stuart Neville) performing a musical number; a live version of the Red Hot Chili Writers popular crime podcast; an A-Z of Crime starting with Megan Abbott and concluding with Anne Zouroudi; and Around the World in 80 Deaths featuring authors from Argentina, the Sicangu Lakota Nation, Russia, and Nigeria, chaired by Craig Sisterson.

As part of their Sizzling Summer Series, three chapters of Sisters in Crime are presenting a free virtual panel on August 22 that gives you a taste of three authors' different takes on the mystery genre. With moderator Maddie Margarita, the authors will talk about how they write and the differences in their approaches in their latest books. Currently scheduled to appear on the panel are Anthony Award-nominated E.A. Aymar, whose most recent thriller, They're Gone, was published in 2020 under his pseudonym E.A. Barres; Alma Katsu, whose debut spy thriller, Red Widow, is the logical marriage of her love of storytelling with her 30+ year career in intelligence; and Tara Laskowski, whose debut suspense novel, One Night Gone, won the Agatha Award, Macavity Award, and the Anthony Award. For more information and to order books, you can visit co-sponsor Book Carnival's website.

Meanwhile, the national Sisters in Crime organization is also offering a free series of talks for members and the general public on writing crime short stories. In the first of four sessions on the craft of writing short mystery fiction (Wednesday, September 22), Art Taylor walks you through the basics of writing short stories: what is a short story, what is its history, and what you can expect when you read one. He’ll be joined by Steph Cha, editor of The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021, who will talk to Art about what’s going on in the world of short mystery fiction right now. Also coming up in later months, Plot and Structure with Barb Goffman (January 2022); Prose with E.A. Aymar/E.A. Barres (April 2022); and Endings with Toni L.P. Kelner (July 2022).

The new Arthur Conan Doyle Society (spearheaded by George Mason University's Ross Davies) is devoted to the study and enjoyment of the works of Conan Doyle. It is accepting nominations until November 1, 2021, for the best scholarly writing on Conan Doyle's works or life that was published in 2020–21. (HT to The Bunburyist.) Doylean Honorees receive:  An invitation to an event in their honor to be held at The Mysterious Bookshop in NYC during the week of January 10, 2022 (exact date TBD); a $250 Bookshop credit and a lovely certificate; and "a justifiable sense of pleasure and pride for impressing Doyleans of good taste and high integrity."

The next issue of Mystery Readers Journal will focus on Cold Case Mysteries. Editor Janet Rudolph is seeking reviews (50-250 words), articles (250-1,000 words), and Author! Author! essays (500-1,000 words). Author Author! Essays are first person, about yourself, your books, and your unique take on "Cold Case Mysteries." Submissions are due September 15.

One more nasty side effect of COVID: since the start of the pandemic, there’s been a rise in instances of government censorship of books around the world. In October 2020, the International Publishers Association released a 106-page report, "Freedom to Publish: Challenges, Violations and Countries of Concern," that outlined 847 instances of censorship in a host of countries, including France, Iran, Serbia, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. According to the report, in 55% of those instances, the censorship was undertaken by government authorities. 

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is celebrating their eightieth anniversary with an EQMM anniversary tradition, a trivia contest. The first reader to e-mail them with the correct answers by October 15 will win a choice of five free EQMM anthologies from the archives. Five runners-up will each receive one anthology.

It's Bulwer-Lytton time again! The contest that celebrates deliberately bad writing is back with this year's winners. There are various categories such as the Crime & Detective division (including the winner, Paul Scheeler, Buffalo, NY), that are definitely worth checking out for a good chuckle.





This latest featured poem at the 5-2 Crime Poem Weekly is "An Open Letter from a Funeral Director to the Anxi-Vaxxers" by Robert Cooperman. And 5-2 editor, Gerald So, is seeking more submissions for the online crime poetry 'zine by August 31st. If you have something you've tucked away in a drawer, dust it off and send it along.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element chatted with Megan Collins, author of The Family Plot, about a family obsessed with true crime who becomes the center of a true crime themselves; and CrimeReads spoke with Aya de Leon, Lauren Wilkinson, and Rosalie Knecht, three authors driving the evolution of feminist espionage fiction.

         Related StoriesMystery Melange 

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

Following a highly competitive auction, Amazon Studios has acquired a star vehicle that will have Emily Blunt playing Kate Warne, the first woman to become a detective at the Pinkerton Agency. Based on a script by Gustin Nash, the movie is a propulsive action adventure built around Warne, a real-life female Sherlock Holmes in a male-dominated industry whose singular sleuthing skills paved the way for future women in law enforcement and forever changed how detective work was done.

John Lithgow has joined the cast of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon for Apple Studios. Lithgow will play the role of Prosecutor Leaward and joins the previously announced ensemble cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Louis Cancelmi, William Belleu, Tatanka Means, Michael Abbott Jr., Pat Healy, and Scott Shepherd. Killers of the Flower Moon is based on David Grann’s novel and is set in 1920s Oklahoma depicting the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.

Jalyn Hall has signed on to play Emmett Till in Chinonye Chukwu’s Till. The 14-year-old actor will appear in the film alongside previously announced cast members Danielle Deadwyler and Whoopi Goldberg. Till tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Deadwyler), whose pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett Louis Till became a galvanizing moment that helped lead to the creation of the civil rights movement. 

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman) has signed on to star in the dystopian crime thriller, By All, with Steve Caple Jr. attached to direct. Being positioned as a potential franchise starter, the story kicks off in the aftermath of a tragic event and follows Donte, a man struggling to make ends meet, who is forced to go on the run in a world without police where justice is crowd-sourced.

Amazon Studios has acquired Coyote Blue from John Wick writer, Derek Kolstad. Sterling K. Brown is attached to star with Hanelle M. Culpepper making her feature directorial debut. The action film stars Brown as an everyman who’s hunted by a ruthless criminal syndicate for his mysterious cargo and now must navigate the treacherous terrain of Route 66 while unleashing his lethal set of skills in a fight for survival.

Lionsgate has closed a deal for Clancy Brown to star opposite Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rina Sawayama, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane in John Wick: Chapter 4. The latest "John Wick" installment is written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, with production already underway in France, Germany, and Japan.

Jake T. Austin, Paulo Costanzo, Iman Karram, and Ka’ramuu Kush have joined the cast of Daft State, the psychological thriller from Chad Bishoff. The four actors will appear alongside previously announced leads Christopher Backus and Skye P. Marshall. The film charts the mysterious psychological destruction of Easton (Backus), who is driven to the edge of sanity, and possible self-harm, by those that love him most—his wife (Marshall) and daughter. Will Easton succumb to their increasingly traumatizing pressure, or will he conquer the dark forces at play in his addled psyche?

RLJE Films has unveiled the first trailer for Prisoners of the Ghostland, which it will release in theaters, on digital, and VOD September 17. The crime thriller from director Sion Sono is set in the treacherous frontier city of Samurai Town where a ruthless bank robber (Nicholas Cage) is sprung from jail by wealthy warlord The Governor (Bill Moseley), whose adopted granddaughter, Bernice, has gone missing. The Governor offers the prisoner his freedom in exchange for retrieving the runaway. Strapped into a leather suit that will self-destruct within three days, the bandit sets off on a journey to find the young woman and his own path to redemption.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Apple has handed out a ten-episode order to the crime drama, Bad Monkey, adapted from the 2013 novel by Carl Hiaasen. Vince Vaughn will play Andrew Yancy, a one-time detective demoted to restaurant inspector in Southern Florida. A severed arm found by a tourist pulls Yancy into the world of greed and corruption that devastates the land and environment in both Florida and the Bahamas.

ITV has set the cast for its upcoming adaptation of Sara Collins’s period drama, The Confessions of Frannie Langton. Karla-Simone Spence, who starred in the Paramount Pictures feature, Blue Story, as well as BBC series Wannabe and Gold Digger, leads the cast as Langton. The story follows a servant and former slave accused of murdering her employer and his wife in a thriller that moves from a Jamaican sugar plantation to the fetid streets of Georgian London.

In a competitive situation, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carol Leonnig’s bestselling book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, will be adapted as a television series. Zero Fail portrays the steely resolve and sacrifices of many Secret Service agents who have committed their lives to protecting the nation’s security, while also revealing other senior agents’ arrogant misconduct and salacious scandals that the service sought to cover up—from the drunken outing the night before the Kennedy assassination to the agents’ own tortured roles in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th.

FX made it official that Studio 54: American Crime Story, the fourth installment of the series, has been put into development. The project will tell the story of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, who in 1977 turned their Midtown Manhattan disco into an international mecca of nightlife for the rich and famous and commoners alike—renowned for its lavish parties, music, sex, and open drug use. With Rubell and Schrager’s rapid rise came their epic fall less than three years later when the impresarios were convicted of tax fraud.

Tony winner, Ali Stroker (Oklahoma!), Karen Robinson, and Rosanny Zayas are set as series regulars opposite Michelle Monaghan, Matt Bomer, and Daniel Sunjata in Echoes, Netflix’s psychological thriller limited series from 13 Reasons Why showrunner Brian Yorkey. Created and written by Vanessa Gazy, Echoes is a mystery thriller about identical twins Leni and Gina, both portrayed by Monaghan, who share a dangerous secret. Since they were children, Leni and Gina have swapped lives, culminating in a double life as adults: They share two homes, two husbands and a child, but everything in their perfectly choreographed world is thrown into disarray when one of the sisters goes missing.

Paapa Essiedu, Indira Varma, and Andy Nyman are joining the cast for the second season of the BBC One crime drama, The Capture. Holliday Grainger will return as the lead alongside Ron Perlman, Ben Miles, Lia Williams, Nigel Lindsay, Cavan Clerkin, and Ginny Holder. The second season will reveal "a Britain under siege: hacked news feeds, manipulated media, and interference in politics. Entrenched in the UK’s own ‘Correction’ unit, DCI Rachel Carey (Grainger) finds herself in the middle of a new conspiracy – with a new target. But how can she solve this case when she can’t even trust her closest colleagues?"

A trailer was released for the Swedish Agatha Christie series, Hjerson. Based on a fictional character penned by the fictional character, Ariadne Oliver, a mystery crime writer who appears in a number of Agatha Christie novels, the series is set to start in Sweden on August 16. Johan Rheborg will play Sven Hjerson and Hanna Alström will play his sidekick, Klara Sandberg, a former trash TV producer who successfully pitches a true-life crime show starring Hjerson, who will solve a real crime each week.

Hallmark unveiled the film lineup for its autumn Movie & Mysteries events. From Sunday, September 12 through Sunday, October 17, Hallmark will debut thrilling mysteries each week, including One Summer starring Sam Page, Amanda Schull, and Grey’s Anatomy alum Sarah Drew. 

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Eric Beetner was joined by co-host, Naomi Hirahara (Clark and Division), and authors Andrea Bartz (We Were Never Here), SF Kosa (The Night We Burned), and Claire Douglas (Then She Vanishes) on Writer Types.

The Queer Writers of Crime podcast chatted with John Copenhaver, whose historical crime novel, Dodging and Burning, won the 2019 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel and garnered Anthony, Strand Critics, Barry, and Lambda Literary Award nominations. His second novel, The Savage Kind, will be released in October of 2021.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Isabella Maldonado, the first Latina to attain the rank of captain in her police department, who retired as the Commander of Special Investigations and Forensics after two decades on the force. The Cipher, the first book in her new series featuring FBI Special Agent Nina Guerrera, was published in November 2020 and the sequel, A Different Dawn, will be published later this month.

Crimetime FM held a roundtable with publishing gurus Katherine Armstrong (Simon & Schuster), Miranda Jewess (Viper), and literary agent, David Headley (Goldsboro/Capital Crime), to discuss the latest trends and where the future lies.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, Saralyn Richard, author of the Detective Oliver Parrott mysteries and other books, for the Crime Cafe podcast.

My Favorite Detective Stories spoke with J.C. Fields, author of award-winning suspense novels in the Sean Kruger Series.

On the Cozy Ink Podcast, Tara Lush (author of the Coffee Lover’s cozy mystery series) discussed how to draft your first cozy mystery.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a paranormal mystery roundup.

Read or Dead discussed mysteries based on real-life happenings.





GAMES

Twelve Minutes, a new thriller video game from Annapurna Interactive, comes out Aug. 19 and has a star voice cast including Willem Dafoe, James McAvoy, and Daisy Ridley. Twelve Minutes is about a man (McAvoy) who’s sitting down for a nice dinner at home with his wife (Ridley) when an intruder (Dafoe) bursts in, accuses the wife of murdering someone, then beats the man to death. Taking a page from Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day movie, the game’s director, Luis Antonio, structured Twelve Minutes around a time loop that repeats in 12-minute intervals. The player’s job is to run through the scenario enough times to break out of the loop and solve the crime.

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FFB: The Adventures of Romney Pringle

British author R. Austin Freeman (1862-1943) primarily wrote detective stories and is best known for his legal/forensic investigator, Dr. John Thorndyke, using Freeman's early experiences as a colonial surgeon to help inspire and inform his work. That same military experience left Freeman a semi-invalid from malaria and blackwater fever but also gave him time to write.



For Freeman's first works, he used the pen name Clifford Ashdown and collaborated with Dr. John James Pitcairn, a medical officer at Holloway Prison. These were a series of stories published in such magazines as Cassell's that featured gentleman con man Romney Pringle. The Adventures of Romney Pringle from 1902 collected the first six cases of Pringle; first editions of this work are so rare today, Elizabeth Foxwell reported in 2009 that one sold for over $3,000 at Sotheby's (if you see a copy like the one to the right and it's a bargain, grab it.)

 

Freeman is credited with inventing the inverted detective story, where the identity of the criminal is shown from the beginning, demonstrated in some of the stories included in this volume:



"The Assyrian Rejuvenator"

"The Foreign Office Despatch"

"The Chicago Heiress"

"The Lizard's Sacle"

"The Paste Diamonds"

"The Kailyard Novel"



As Bob Schneider noted for GA Detection, Romney Pringle lives by his wits and keen observational powers, being a consummate student of human nature. The "gentleman" moniker is relevant to the handsome, charming Pringle because runs a pseudo literary agency, eschews violence and—when not participating in his criminal pastimes of patent medicine fraud, forgery or burglary—enjoys fine art, bicycling and boating. He's also a master of disguises and has skills that help him track down his prey, usually other criminals, including experience in chemistry and gemology.



Freeman had a detailed and personal knowledge of the backstreets of London, Highgate and Hampstead in the years prior to World War II, and his descriptions are one of the most charming aspects of his writing, counting no less than T.S. Eliot and Raymond Chandler as fans. There are criticisms, too, including Freeman's tendency to be repetitive in certain catch-phrases, dialogue, settings and character types, but such quibbles can be overlooked in the grander scheme of Freeman's storytelling.



One of Freeman's other well-known contributions is his essay "The Art of the Detective Story," included in Detection Medley, book of essays published by the Detection Club in the UK in 1939. Freeeman is fairly critical of the standard of detective fiction writing in his day and includes such observations as the following, which seems as relevant now as it did over 70 years ago:

The rarity of good detective fiction is to be explained by a fact which appears to be little recognized either by critics or by authors; the fact, namely, that a completely executed detective story is a very difficult and highly technical work, a work demanding in its creator the union of qualities which, if not mutually antagonistic, are at least seldom met with united in a single individual. On the one hand, it is a work of imagination, demanding the creative, artistic faculty; on the other, it is a work of ratiocination, demanding the power of logical analysis and subtle and acute reasoning; and, added to these inherent qualities, there must be a somewhat extensive outfit of special knowledge. Evidence alike of the difficulty of the work and the failure to realize it is furnished by those occasional experiments of novelists of the orthodox kind which have been referred to, experiments which commonly fail by reason of a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the work and the qualities that it should possess.

          

Mystery Melange

Deadly Pleasures Magazine announced The Barry Award Winners recently. George Easter, Editor of Deadly Pleasures, noted that "in an ordinary year the winners of the Barry Awards would be announced during the Opening Ceremonies of Bouchercon...But this year is no ordinary one." So the decision was made to go ahead with the official announcement of this year's winners. Best Novel went to Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby; Best First Novel to Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden; Best Paperback Original to James W. Ziskin; and Best Thriller to Eddie's Boy by Thomas Perry.

Author Anthony Horowitz has won the Best Mystery of the Decade (2010–2019) award by Honkaku Mystery Writers Club for his first Daniel Hawthorne novel, The Word is Murder, making him the most decorated foreign crime author in Japanese history. According to his publisher, Horowitz is the first author in Japanese history to win 16 literary awards in total. All three of Horowitz’s books are published in Japan by Tokyo Sogensha in deals brokered by Curtis Brown and have been honored with crime awards, with Magpie Murders garnering seven, The Word is Murder five, and The Sentence is Death four.

There's quite a bit of conference news to report. First off, thanks to generous funding from Creative Scotland, the 2021 Bloody Scotland Festival will be going ahead in hybrid form from Friday September 17th to Sunday September 19th. As usual, the opening night will be marked with the presentation of the McIlvanney Prize and the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize. Bloody Scotland "is delighted" to welcome back a live audience and all events will take place with the safety of authors and readers in mind, but for those who don't feel ready to venture out or can't get to Stirling, all events will be available on-line. The full program will be revealed on Wednesday August 18th, and tickets will go on sale at 12 noon that day. Full details of all events, and how to book tickets for both watching on-line and in-person, will be available via the official website.

Killer Nashville is still going full steam ahead with an in-person event this year. However, if for some reason you're signed up but decide you can't attend, all sessions will be recorded so you’ll have access to every single session on the Killer Nashville roster. Killer Nashville organizers have been finalizing all the panels for the even August 19-22, and have now posted the majority of those details online.

Also, the annual Desert Sleuths WriteNow! Conference is holding their event in September in a 100% virtual capacity. The Guest of Honor is Ann Cleeves (Shetland Series, Vera Stanhope Series), with other appearances by special guests Isabella Maldonado, Peng Shepherd, Gary Phillips, Eric Beetner, Kelli Stanley, Jenna Jankowski (Sourcebooks), Bronwen Hruska (Soho Press), Brett Battles, and Connie B. Dowell. Plus, there will be consultations on September 10 with Madelyn Burt (Stonesong Literary), Christina Hogrebe (Jane Rotrosen Agency), Jenna Jankowski (Sourcebooks), Hailey Dezort (Kaye Publicity), and Connie B. Dowell (Book Echoes Media). The conference itself starts Saturday, September 11 at 8am PT/11am ET, and all conference sessions will be recorded if you cannot attend live.

The deadline is fast approaching for submissions to the Joffe Books Prize for Crime Fiction Writers of Colour. The competition aims to champion authors from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds writing in one of the various crime fiction genres, whether you're writing your crime fiction debut, are previously published or are self-published. Entrants are invited to submit their full-length manuscript, written in English, along with a synopsis of the book and author biography by September 30.

Singer Dolly Parton is teaming up with James Patterson to co-write a novel titled Run, Rose, Run through Little, Brown & Co. The novel will follow a young woman who heads to Nashville with dreams of becoming a star, but her music is fueled by a brutal secret she has worked hard to keep. The project will also include Parton's next album, with twelve songs written specifically to accompany her new literary adventure.

A recent study found that in Russia, crime fiction is king. The demand for imported crime fiction in the Russian market is related, publishers say, to the impact of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Statistics from the Russian Book Union indicate that the most successful books in the genre are a mix of police procedurals with elements of psychological thrillers, film noir, and private investigation. According to a report in Izvestia, by next year the number of international crime fiction could grow by 150 percent and create competition for domestic authors working in the genre.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "How to Make a Whale Out of an Envelope."

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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

Warner Bros. International Television Production Germany has acquired the exclusive international rights to bestselling Icelandic author Ragnar Jónasson’s “Dark Iceland” series of crime novels and will co-produce with Herbert L. Kloiber’s Night Train Media. The “Dark Iceland” series comprises six novels — Snowblind, Blackout, Rupture, Whiteout, Nightblind and Winterkill — published between 2010 and 2020. Set in a remote Icelandic fishing village, they follow protagonist Ari Thór Arason, a rookie detective on his first posting, troubled by a complex past he's unable to leave behind.

Apple is closing worldwide rights on Argylle, the next film to be directed by Matthew Vaughn, in the hope it will launch a franchise. Argylle comes with a killer cast led by Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson. Making her screen-starring debut will be Grammy winner Dua Lipa, who will also provide music for the title track and score. The film, based on the soon-to-be-launched spy novel of the same name from author Ellie Conway, follows the world’s greatest spy as he is caught up in a globe-trotting adventure.

Kelly Gale and Mike Colter have signed on to star in The Plane alongside Gerard Butler. Lionsgate’s action thriller centers on Ray Torrance (Butler), an airline pilot who heroically lands a storm-damaged aircraft in hostile territory, only to be threatened by militant pirates planning on taking the plane and its passengers hostage. As the world’s authorities and media search for the disappeared aircraft, Torrance must rise to the occasion and keep his passengers safe long enough for help to arrive. Colter will play Louis Gaspare, a cool-headed, ex-military man being extradited to Canada on charges of homicide when the plane crash lands. However, there was no word on what role newcomer Gale (in her first acting role) will play in the film.

Brendan Fraser has joined the cast of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, a crime drama based on the bestselling book by David Grann. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, the story examines the serial murders of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation—a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror. Fraser joins Oscar winners Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, Emmy nominated Jesse Plemons, and more in the cast.

A trailer was released for Copshop, which stars Gerard Butler as one of many assassins targeting Teddy Muretto (Frank Grillo), a man so desperate for protection he’ll willingly get arrested to be brought to safety. In a desperate bid for survival, Teddy teams up with officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder), but assassin Bob Viddick (Butler) is determined not to let anything stand in his way of bringing Teddy down.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

IMDb TV has picked up the first season of Australian drama series, Troppo, based on Candice Fox’s bestselling novel, Crimson Lake. Starring and executive produced by Thomas Jane (The Expanse; The Vanished), Troppo tells the story of Ted Conkaffey (Jane), an ex-cop falsely accused of committing a disturbing crime, who has escaped to hide away in the tropics of Far North Queensland. As he tries to avoid discovery, he’s drawn into investigating a wild murder and a missing person, alongside a complicated woman with dark secrets of her own.

Ellen Burstyn is joining NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime during its second season when she’ll reprise the role of Bernadette Stabler, mother of Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni). She returns to the franchise as a guest star nearly 13 years after she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her contribution to the episode of Law & Order: SVU titled “Swing.” In Law & Order: Organized Crime, created by Dick Wolf, Meloni’s Elliot Stabler returns to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. However, the city and police department have changed dramatically in the decade he’s been away and he must adapt to a criminal justice system in the midst of its own moment of reckoning.

In other Law & Order: Organized Crime news, Emmy winner, Ron Cephas Jones, and British actor, Vinnie Jones, are set for key recurring roles in season 2. Cephas Jones will play Congressman Leon Kilbride, a born politician who fosters connections and always plays his cards right. Vinnie Jones will portray Albi Briscu, an Eastern European gangster who is the last remaining member of the organization from the old country.

A&E is reviving two fan-favorite true crime series, Cold Case Files and American Justice, which will return to the cable network on Friday, Aug. 20. Original host and producer, Bill Kurtis, returns for Cold Case while Dennis Haysbert takes over narration for the "reimagined" version of Justice. Cold Case Files, which revisits unsolved cases through interviews with family members and investigators, first debuted on A&E in 1999 with Kurtis as host. (The network teamed with Blumhouse Television for a 10-episode revival in 2017, with Danny Glover providing narration.) American Justice aired on A&E between 1992 and 2005, examining cases like the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings, the Wells Fargo Heist, and the murder of Selena.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Debbi Mack interviewed crime fiction writer, Thomas O'Callaghan, for the Crime Cafe podcast to talk about his series of thrillers featuring New York City detective, Lt. John Driscoll.

Writer Types host, Eric Beenter, spoke with authors Bracken MacLeod (Closing Costs); Shari Lapena (Not A Happy Family); and Chris Offut (The Killing Hills).

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Taylor Moore to talk about his debut thriller, Down Range, in which undercover DEA Agent Garrett Kohl tries to protect a young Afghani boy who survived a massacre.

On the latest Crime Writers of Color podcast, Tracy Clark was interviewed by Robert Justice about her Cass Raines Chicago Mysteries.

Queer Writers of Crime featured a chat with Marko Realmonte, who works in the film and television industry as a writer, publicist, photographer, and script reader. His first queer novel, Murder at White Oak, was published in 2019, and since then he's published two additional novels in his Jake Weston Mystery series.

The latest guest on Meet the Thriller Author was Gregg Olsen, a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of nonfiction books and novels.

On the Criminal Mischief podcast, host DP Lyle talked about the critical opening scene of a novel.

As part of EQMM’s 80th anniversary celebration, the magazine is offering a podcast featuring some of the characters from the Ellery Queen novels and stories written by Frederic Danny and Manfred B. Lee (EQMM’s founders). Dale C. Andrews, a longtime, devoted Ellery Queen fan who's written several Ellery Queen pastiches for EQMM, reads from the most recent of them, “Four Words."

The Red Hot Chili Writers talked to crime writing superstars Mark Billingham and Steve Cavanagh; discussed the return of the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival; and pondered the meaning of altruism and simple acts of kindness (including swimming with sharks).

The Cozy Ink Podcast featured an interview with author Jay Forman discussing her Lee Smith cozy mystery series.

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