In Reference to Murder

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), is helming a drama about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, with a script by Mark Boal. The project just signed its first star, Jason Clarke of the TV series The Chicago Code, as part of the terrorist-hunting team and is also eyeing Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Rooney Mara and Tom Hardy to fill out the cast.

Clive Owen is the go-to-guy when a film project needs an actor to play a spy. He's already protrayed a former MI6 operative (Duplicity), former SAS operative (Killer Elite) and MI5 agent (Shadow Play). Up next is Recall, where Owen will star as an NSA agent trying to piece together the events of a botched hostage rescue operation. The project has director Harold Becker (Mercury Rising) on board, as well as screenwriter Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Hardcore). 

The first mystery in the Joona Linna series by Lars Kepler, The Hypnotist, is headed to film, and the first stars have been signed, including Tobias Zilliacus, playing Detective Inspector Joona Linna, with Lena Olin as his wife and Mikael Persbrandt as the "hypnotist." (Hat tip to Ominimystery News.)

It appears the rest of the recent movie news is all about remakes:

• If all the stars align, so to speak, Ben Afflect will direct the US remake of Harlan Coben’s standalone mystery Tell No One, first adapted for the 2006 French film directed by Guillaume Canet. Warner Brothers & Universal optioned the movie for American audiences.

• Joshua Marston will direct a remake of Giuseppe Capotondi’s Italian thriller The Double Hour, about an ex-cop who meets a beauty during a speed-dating session, then encounters problems when the couple retreats to a country cottage and secrets from her dark past begin to surface.

• Before two thrillers from the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival even get a wide release in the U.S., they're being remade as American versions: Frédéric Jardin's Sleepless Night, about a police officer whose son is kidnapped by drug dealers after the officer steals a bag of cocaine from a Paris nightclub, and Gareth Evans' The Raid, described as "Die Hard in a drug kingpin's lair."

• Spike Lee is remaking the South Korean thriller Oldboy, about a man kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years, and upon release, is given a cell phone, clothes and some money, then goes on a mission of revenge. Josh Brolin has already signed on to play the victim, and Colin Firth has been offered the villain role.

TV

Many of you may be too young to remember the 1950s TV series The Rifleman (unless you're like me and saw it in later re-runs). It centered around Civil war hero Lucas McCain, a sharpshooter with a haunted past who moves to the New Mexico territory and joins forces with the Sheriff to protect his new town and become its unofficial guardian. CBS apparently remembers it and has signed up a reboot of the series.

It appears that "Hannibal" the TV series is going to be a real project after all. NBC signed a deal last week with Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Heroes) to create a broadcast series based on Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the fictional creation of Thomas Harris in such books as Silence of the Lambs. There aren't many details just yet, but Entertainment Weekly added it's likely to be a twisted police procedural version of The Mentalist, i.e. a hero solving weekly crimes while a legendary serial killer remains at large.

Criminal Minds is heading for its 150th episode that will feature The Shield‘s Jay Karnes as a suspected serial rapist, with Dina Meyer playing  a potential victim.

Hollywood takes Bollywood, as Slumdog Millionaire star Anil Kapoor will take on an Indian version of the Emmy-winning drama 24, with Kapoor both producing and starring as the Jack Bauer character.

With the advent (pun intended) of the holiday season upon us, that also means the networks are putting new episodes of shows on hiatus, in some cases for a couple of months. TV Line has a listing of many of these shows, including the dates of their fall finale and 2012 return.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Crime Beat Radio is a weekly hour-long radio program that airs Thursday at 9 p.m. eastern, with guests running the gamut from ex-mobsters, informants, prisoners and drug dealers to undercover law enforcement agents, sports officials, and investigative journalists. If you'd like to see the upcoming schedule check out the cheat sheet here, and for archives, visit ArtistFirst Radio.

Blog Bytes Bonus

I somehow managed to overlook the face that Bill Crider mentioned this blog in one of his "Blog Bytes" columns for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: "Maybe you'd like a single site where news about the mystery field is udpated often. Take a look at BV Lawson's In Reference to Murder, which as someone used to say, has loads of "news, views, and interviews." Media murders? BV covers movies, TV, the web, and radio. She also writes about marekts and  even contributes to 'Friday's Forgotten Books.' On the left side of her blog she has links to most of the stuff on In Reference to Murder referenced above. Many thanks for the mention, Bill!

Friday's Forgotten Books - The New Adventures of Sherlock Homes

It's a great time to be Sherlock Holmes, as the LondonW1 blog notes. There's a hit TV series, movie franchise and the new book by Anthony Horowitz, House of Silk, is the first Holmes novel approved by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate in the past 125 years. Holmes pastiche short stories have long been popular, including the anthology published last month by Poisoned Pen Press, A Study In Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger.

An earlier anthology of Holmes pastiches from 1987 was also authorized by the Conan Doyle estate, a centennial edition marking the 100th year since the appearance of Holmes in print. Titled The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, editors Martin H. Greenberg and Carol-Lynn Rössel Waugh collected new stories by John Lutz, Stuart Kaminsky, Gary Alan Ruse, Ed Hoch, Jon L. Breen, Micharl Harrison, Barry Jones, Joyce Harrison, Loren D. Estleman, Michael Gilbert, Dorothy B. Hughes, Peter Lovesey, Lillian de la Torre, Edward Wellen and Stephen King.

Stories that capture the time period and style well are Barry Jones' "The Shadows on the Lawn" and Stuart Kaminsky's "The Final Toast," in which you get double Holmes, as the sleuth plays a Holmes lookalike in a plot of revenge. The more faithful to the actual Holmes canon are by Dorothy B. Hughes and Stephen King. The "muffin" of Hughes' story "Sherlock Holmes and the Muffin" refers to one of Mrs. Hudson's poor and illiterate girls who ends up helping Holmes solve a diamond robbery. "The Doctor's Case" by King is a brilliant locked-room mystery which is the only story Watson solved before Holmes did.

And if you're wondering how to go about writing your own Holmes-inspired story, Anthony Horowitz offers up "Ten Rules for Writing a Sherlock Holmes Novel."

In Reference to Murder

I recently mentioned two crime fiction reference books, How to Write a Dick, from real-life PIs Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman, and also Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately about Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure from attorney Leslie Budewitz.

There are a few additional upcoming reference titles you may find both entertaining and enlightening, including Clues to Christie: The Definitive Guide to Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Tommy & Tuppence, and all of Agatha Christie's Mysteries, an eBook from Harper Collins (hat tip to Omnimysteries); Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us by Alisa Bowman and former FBI agent Mary Ellen O'Toole, who worked extensively on serial killer cases, a book featured in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune; Crime Fiction from Poe to the Present by Martin Priestman (author of Detective Fiction and Literature and the Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction); and Now Write! Mysteries: Suspense, Crime, Thriller, and Other Mystery Fiction Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers, by Sherry Ellis and Laurie Lamson, the fourth in the "Now Write" series.

Looking ahead to April 2012, author, blogger and D. P. Lyle, M.D., has a sequel to his popular book Murder & Mayhem: A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers, this one titled More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered. If you haven't visited Dr. Lyle's helpful Writer's Forensics Blog, you should hop over and take a look.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Warner Bros. and producer Joel Silver have bought the rights to The Galton Case, a novel by Ross Macdonald featuring his iconic private investigator Lew Archer, in hopes of launching a new franchise. Galton Case, in which Archer is hired by a wealthy old woman to try and find her long-missing son and heir to her fortune, is actually the eighth book in the series.

Paramount Pictures has bought the film rights to two Tana French novels, the author's 2008 debut In the Woods, about the investigation into the murder of a 12-year-old girl in Dublin, Ireland, and the sequel, The Likeness, with the same detective, Cassie Maddox, investigating the death of a young woman who is a dead ringer for Cassie herself.

Jason Statham has signed to star as a damaged ex-Special Forces soldier trapped in London's criminal underworld who becomes an avenging angel when he is able to assume another identity. The movie is titled Hummingbird and will serve as the directorial debut of screenwriter Steven Knight, who penned the crime thrillers Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises.

Coming soon to a movie screen near you could be an adaptation of Glen Larson's 1981 TV series The Fall Guy, which starred Lee Majors as a stuntman who moonlighted as a bounty hunter. Rumor has it that director Martin Campbell (who helmed the Bond film Casino Royale) is in talks to take on the project.

Colin Farrell is joining Noomi Rapace, who played Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish-language version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, in Niels Arden Oplev's film Dead Man Down. The project, a mob drama about a hitman (Farrell) who falls in love with a "disfigured former beauty" (Rapace) and goes on a killing spree, was written by J.H. Wyman, of Fox TV's Fringe.

Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (the writers behind the Saw movies) are adapting for film their thriller Black Light, just published by Mulholland Books. The novel is about a private eye whose gifts make him suited to solve supernatural cases, at the same time he's obsessed with contacting the parents who were killed while he was a child by using a special "black light.

Alona Tal and Natalie Martinez have signed on to play two female leads in the noir thriller Broken City, to be directed by Allen Hughes (From Hell). They join actor Mark Wahlberg, who stars as a former police officer turned private investigator who "finds himself up to his neck in scandal while tailing the mayor's wife because she's suspected of infidelity." Also signed to the cast are actors Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

TV

Author Patricia Cornwell will appear as herself on an episode of Criminal Minds in January. She filmed the show this past week and tweeted her experiences.

Here's the first trailer for the debut of TNT's new Mystery Movie Night, starting off with a production of Scott Turow's Innocent starring Bill Pullman as a judge charged with the murder of his wife 20 years after he was cleared in the death of his mistress.

TV Line is running a 64-bracket tournament of "Ultimate Male Law Enforcement Crushes." Follow the bracket here and join in the voting as new pairings pop up, e.g. this one.

PODCASTS/RADIO

John Powers talked with NPR's "Fresh Air" program, giving his reasons why Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy is the greatest spy story ever told.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Windy City

Hubert "Hugh" Holton grew up in Woodlawn, outside of Chicago, the only son of a police officer. In high school, he started reading detective novels from the school library—Mickey Spillane, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, Arthur Conan Doyle. He later said, "One of the things that I always noticed about the books was that police types were always portrayed as very stupid individuals. My father is now, as he was then, one of the smartest people I ever met. I was saying, 'How in the world are they doing this? Why are they making these officers look so stupid?'"

In July 1964, Holton himself joined the police department's cadet program, then spent a three-year tour of duty (including a seven-month stint in Vietnam) until returning to Chicago to sign up with the police academy in 1969. He was one of the first black officers to work in Wrigleyville, but after a district commander told him, "I don't need any colored tactical officers in my district," he transferred to Wentworth. Six months later, he'd moved up to plainclothes, and eventually was promoted up to commander of the Grand Crossing District.

But those early crime fiction novels continued to haunt him, and he enrolled in writing programs at Columbia College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1986, he attended a conference at Northwestern sponsored by the midwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and two years later took a course taught by mystery author Barbara D'Amato. Thanks to her encouragement, he subsequently published his first novel, Violent Crimes, featuring Larry Cole, a young black police officer at the start of his career, aided by an older and wiser Italian-American partner named Blackie Silvestri. Holton went on to write ten successful novels in the Cole series, but sadly, Holton died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 54.

The second installment in the thriller series featuring Chicago Police Commander Larry Cole is Windy City. While investigating the death of a fellow officer, Cole stumbles across a pattern of killings that leads him to discover that the alleged fun-loving, super rich couple Neil and Margo DeWitt have a gruesome hobby:  they murder women and children using methods from Chicago-area mystery novels. Cole enlists a group of mystery writers to help him figure out where the homicidal couple will strike next. But as the body count rises, the threat hits closer to home:  not only are the DeWitts responsible for killing Cole's best buddy, Margo DeWitt is setting her sights on Cole's young son as her ultimate target.

Kirkus Reviews noted, "It's the rare reader who'll put this one down as it hurtles—one chilling event after the next—to its over-the-top finale...a bravura performance."

Night and the City

The Los Angeles Poetry Festival "Night and the City" is presenting a variety of noir poetry, fiction and film events through November 13th at various venues. Tonight, it's "A Touch of Naomi," an Evening with Mystery Writer Naomi Hirahara and torchy songs and sax music by Doc & Renee at the South Pasadena Public Library Community Room.  Friday, Judith Freeman, Gary Phillips, Dick Lochte and moderator Richard Modiano take on a panel titled "Sundrenched Dark: Raymond Chandler and His Los Angeles Legacy, at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center at 7 p.m. Following that at 9 p.m, it's an evening of "Darkness Falls" with James Ellroy. Most of these events do charge a minimal admission, so be sure and check the schedule.

There's lots more, too, including Saturday's "Best of the Hardboiled: Selected Readings from Classic Detective and Crime Stories" by actors Dale Raoul (True Blood) and Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Deadwood), poet Laurel Ann Bogen and "surprise guests." The admission for this event at CBS Studios at 1 p.m., is free. 

 

 

Mystery Melange

The new digital eBook publisher Blasted Heath launches this week by giving away a copy of the five launch novels, All The Young Warriors by Anthony Neil Smith, Dead Money by Ray Banks, Phase Four by Gary Carson, The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson by Douglas Lindsay, and The Man in the Seventh Row by Brian Pendreigh.

Speaking of eBooks, Gerard Brennan's novella The Point, about two Irish brothers tied together by crime, is now available for the Kindle in both the U.S. and UK. Brennan is a fellow blogger over at Crime Scene NI and writer of gritty short stories. Brian McGilloway says of Brennan's novella, that it's "the real deal—the writing is razor sharp, the characters engaging, the ending a blast. From start to finish it's true Northern Noir, crafted with style and wit." 

Omnimystery News is back with its monthly "firsts on the first," a listing of crime fiction novels with new series characters being released during the upcoming month. November's featured "firsts" are by authors Marc Cameron, Diane Kelly, Piper Maitland, Q. R. Markham, Amy Patricia Meade, Alexei Maxim Russel and Rochelle Staab.

From the Zine Scene: Zoom Street's November issue is a special Noir Edition, with art by John Nickle, noir book reviews and a hard-boiled detectives quiz. Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled was released this week, a new anthology billed as "a compilation of uncompromising, gritty tales following in the footsteps of the tough and violent fiction popularized by the legendary Black Mask magazine in its early days." Authors with stories include Garnett Elliott, Glenn Gray, John Hornor Jacobs, Patricia Abbott, Thomas Pluck, Brad Green, Ron Earl Phillips, Kent Gowran, Amy Grech, Benoit Lelievre, Kieran Shea, David Cranmer, and Wayne D. Dundee. And Noir Journal 46 features the No Frills Book Review Marathon, Part 2.

Speaking of Beat to a Pulp: they're now open for submissions again.

The next full Love is Murder conference won't be held until 2012, but they're starting early with two mini-conferences at Chicago-area libraries in mid-November. Featured authors include Featured authors are Andrew Grant, Shane Gericke, Tasha Alexander, Luisa Buehler, Raymond Benson, Michael Harvey, Jeffrey Small and Robert Goldborough. And they're free! (Thanks to Omnimysteries news for the info.)

Crime Scraps had a "Who is your favourite male Swedish crime writer" poll. Although results are in, you may find some new authors there to interest you. And who received the most votes? You might just be surprised.