In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

For the second year in a row, Alaska thriller writer Marc Cameron won the Spotted Owl Award, an annual honor via the Friends of Mystery organization, celebrating crime fiction produced by authors in the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, British Columbia, Canada, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington). Cameron’s winning novel was Bad River, the seventh book in his series about Anchorage’s Arliss Cutter, a deputy U.S. marshal, which topped 71 nominees for the 2025 prize. Second place went to Baron Birtcher for Knife River, and third was a tie between Rene Denfeld for Sleeping Giants and Warren Easley for Deadly Redemption. For all the winners, follow this link. (HT to The Rap Sheet)

L’horloger, the debut novel by Belgian author Jérémie Claes, won the Evêché Prize for crime fiction on Tuesday evening in Marseille, France. The Evêché Prize – Polars du Sud, now in its eighth edition, is named after the legendary police headquarters in Marseille. It has been awarded since 2018 by a jury whose members include Marseille police officers, and which is presided over by Eric Arella, former chief of Marseille’s judicial police, who now heads Monaco’s police. Jérémie Claes is the second foreign author to receive this award, after Swiss writer Nicolas Feuz, for Heresix, in 2022.

John le Carré’s son, writer Nick Harkaway, continued his father's featuring iconic spy George Smiley series with the critically acclaimed and bestselling 2024 title, Karla's Choice. Now, he's announced a second book in the continuation series, The Taper Man (to be published in 2026), which sends Smiley for the first time on an operation to America in pursuit of an old communist network across the West Coast. In other Smiley news, le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold will premiere in the West End this autumn. Adapted by award-winning playwright and screenwriter David Eldridge and directed by Jeremy Herrin, this is the first novel by the spy genre master to be brought to life on London’s stage. Following a sold out premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2024, the play will be produced by Ink Factory and Second Half Productions in association with Nica Burns. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Janet Rudolph keeps a running list on her Mystery Fanfare blog of Memorial Day crime fiction, or titles that take place around that time. Memorial Day (aka Decoration Day) has been set aside as a day of remembrance for the men and women who died in the line of duty, and it's also become an unofficial start to the summer season in the U.S.

This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 is "(F)ELON" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Nev March, the first Indian-born writer to win Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America’s Award for Best First Crime Fiction, applied the Page 69 Test to The Silversmith’s Puzzle, the third installment in her historical Captain Jim and Lady Diana mystery series; Mike Martin chatted with Lisa Haselton about the newest novel in his Sgt. Windflower Mystery series, Friends Are Forever; and former FBI Director James Comey spoke with Crime Fiction Lover about writing his political thrillers featuring fictional prosecutor Nora Carleton.

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

Sony’s 3000 Pictures adaptation of Don Winslow's best-selling crime novel, City On Fire, has hired on Captain Fantastic director Matt Ross to helm the feature, which stars Austin Butler. Winslow's trilogy focuses on two criminal empires — one Irish, the other Italian — that control all of New England, until a modern-day Helen of Troy tears them apart and starts a brutal war. The main character, Danny Ryan (Butler), is forced to grow from a street soldier into a ruthlessly efficient leader to protect his friends, his family, and the home he loves. Fighting the Mafia, the local cops, the feds – everyone – Danny is out to build a dynasty or will die trying. It's a modern retelling of the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid and Greek tragic dramas set in the world of contemporary crime.

Highland Film Group has locked in key international deals in all media for the crime thriller, The Deputy, based on Victor Gischler’s novel of the same name, with Narcos co-creator Carlo Bernard adapting the screenplay. Helmed by Matt Sukkar, in his feature directorial debut, the story follows part-time Deputy Toby Sawyer (Duke Nicholson) who is tasked by his boss (William H. Macy) with guarding a corpse until the coroner arrives. When the body goes missing, he unwittingly uncovers decades of wrongdoing and risks his life to unravel the town’s deep web of corruption. Rounding out the cast are Tiffany Haddish, Stephen Dorff, Julia Fox, Billie Lourd, Devon Ross, and Colleen Camp.

The Green Knight's David Lowery has set his next feature with Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, an anarchic whodunnit and psychological thriller titled Death in Her Hands. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2020 novel, the story centers on recent widow Vesta Gul (Swinton), who comes across a chilling handwritten note in the woods near her home: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body." Except there is no body. No blood. Unmoored by the death of her husband and armed only with a camera, her dog Charlie, and her vivid imagination, Vesta becomes obsessed with uncovering Magda’s identity and fate. As her inner world begins to eclipse reality, the mystery of Magda threatens Vesta’s grip on her own life – until, in a spellbinding operatic climax, we realize that Magda’s death may finally allow Vesta to live.

Oscar-nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Eva Green (Casino Royale), and Maria Pedraza (Money Heist) are set to star in the thriller, Just Play Dead, to be directed by Gary Fleder (Homefront), based on a script by Dan Gordon (Rambo: Last Blood). The synopsis reads: "When wealthy criminal mastermind Jack Wolfe (Jackson) is cornered by the Feds, he plans to fake his own death and claim the $30 million life insurance payout with his 'grieving' wife Nora (Green), while framing her surfer lover Chad (María Pedraza) for his murder. But Nora is cooking up a scheme of her own: kill Jack for real, frame Chad and keep the fortune for herself. As lies unravel, Nora and Jack scramble to outsmart one another, leaving one burning question: who will come out on top in this twisted game of life and death?"

Martin Freeman (Sherlock; The Hobbit) and Olga Kurylenko (Quantum Of Solace) are set to star in Let God Sort It Out, marking the first production from newly launched Cobalt Sky Motion Picture Group, joined by Raised By Wolves (Dead Man’s Wire). The project follows Kyle Roberts (Freeman), a once-revered rock 'n' roll star battling burnout and inner demons. Seeking solace in a remote sanctuary, his pursuit of peace is shattered when a gang of petty criminals infiltrates his retreat, holding him hostage in an escalating standoff. As tensions rise, Kyle must reckon with whether he has the courage to fight back or if he’ll succumb to the shadows of his fractured psyche.

Mads Mikkelsen will star in Sirius, the feature directorial debut of Oscar-winning editor, Lee Smith. Written by Tony Mosher (Mechanic: Resurrection), Sirius is described as a gripping Arctic action-thriller inspired by the real-life Sirius Patrol, the Danish special forces unit charged with defending Greenland’s 8,700-mile frozen coastline. Smith is a renowned film editor whose work includes Interstellar, The Dark Knight, 1917, and The Truman Show. He won his Oscar for editing Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) and Oscar nominated Austin Butler (Elvis) are set to lead the new crime drama, Enemies, which Henry Dunham (The Standoff at Sparrow Creek) is both writing and directing. In Enemies, a relentless detective and an infamous contract killer collide in a deadly game of cat and mouse, leading both to discover unexpected similarities between them.

Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried (Mank) and Scoot McNairy (A Complete Unknown) are set to star in The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd, a new prison break thriller written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson. Currently in production in Georgia, the film follows a teacher in an abusive marriage who takes a job at a maximum security prison, where she falls for a charismatic inmate. The disastrous consequences call into question not only the nature of punishment and retribution, but the very limits of our humanity.

Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson, and Daisy Edgar-Jones are set to star in Here Comes the Flood, a new Netflix heist film from Fernando Meirelles, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind the streamer’s lauded drama, The Two Popes. Written by Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith), the film is described as an unconventional heist flick about a bank guard, a teller, and a master thief in a deadly game of cons and double crosses.

Brandon Sklenar (Drop) is boarding F.A.S.T., a long-gestating action thriller that TV producer Taylor Sheridan has scripted for Warner Bros. In the film, a former special forces commando is tapped by the DEA to lead a black op strike team against CIA-protected drug dealers. The project reunites Sklenar and Sheridan following their work on 1923, a Western drama for Paramount+ that’s part of the latter’s Yellowstone universe. Also a veteran of that series is cinematographer Ben Richardson, who will make his feature directorial debut on F.A.S.T., to be released in theaters on April 23, 2027.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Netflix has ordered a series adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s novel, All the Sinners Bleed, from The Obama’s Higher Ground and Amblin Television. The story follows the first Black Sheriff in a small Bible Belt County, haunted by his past in the FBI and his devout mother’s untimely death, as he must lead the hunt for a serial killer who has quietly been preying on Black communities in Southern Virginia for years in the name of God. Joe Robert Cole (Black Panther) will adapt and serve as showrunner for the nine-part series.

Former Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey is returning to broadcast TV as the lead in Memory of a Killer, Fox’s straight-to-series thriller about a hitman who develops early onset Alzheimer’s. Hailing from writers Ed Whitmore and Tracey Malone, the series is inspired by the 2003 Belgian film De Zaak Alzheimer (La Memoire Du Tueur), which was remade as the 2022 American film, Memory, directed by Martin Campbell. The new thriller tells a redemption story about Angelo Ledda (Dempsey), whose double life, as a hitman and an upstate photocopier salesman with a family, is threatened in the wake of an Alzheimer's diagnosis, the same disease that killed his older brother. While facing the loss of memories, Angelo must search deep into his past hits to save his family from his enemies.

Charlotte Kirk (Duchess) has signed on to star in Write To Kill from author and producer David P. Perlmutter. The series follows an aspiring author, cursed with writer’s block and ridden with debt, who is offered a huge amount of money to commit a heinous crime. The official synopsis reads: "Caught up in the machinations of the underworld and at the mercy of a London gangland boss, Mad Dog, will this budding writer accept the money, commit the crime, and leave his innocence behind him?" Also attached to star are Billy Hayes (Midnight Express), Elena Sanchez (Hunger Games), Sean Cronin (Mission Impossible), Rich Graff (Making Of The Mob), Amber Doig-Thorne (Winnie The Pooh – Blood and Honey), Brooke Lewis Bellas (Sinatra Club), Vanessa Eichholz (Hellboy), David Kallaway (Blacklist), and Jack Hudson (Accomplice).

It seems that S.W.A.T. isn't quite dead, after all. On the heels of CBS recently canceling the series, it was announced that Sony Pictures Television is spinning off the cop drama for a new show dubbed S.W.A.T. Exiles. Shemar Moore will reprise his character as Daniel "Hondo" Harrelson, while the 200-person production crew that helped to make S.W.A.T. a success for CBS will get to keep their jobs when production resumes this summer in Los Angeles. The plan for the studio is to produce and distribute the 10-episode series globally by "finding the right homes and partners for these new stories to reach the passionate S.W.A.T. fanbase and attract new viewers." The spinoff would follow Hondo after he's pulled out of retirement when a high-profile mission goes sideways in order to lead a last-chance experimental SWAT (political tactical) unit made up of untested, unpredictable young recruits.

The CW has picked up two seasons of the drama series, Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent. Based on the classic format created by Dick Wolf and developed by Rene Balcer for Universal Television, season 1 launched in 2024 on Canada’s CityTV. Starring Aden Young (Rectify) and Kathleen Munroe (City on Fire), Season 1 follows the Specialized Criminal Investigations Unit’s duo, Detective Sergeants Henry Graff (Young) and Frankie Bateman (Munroe), as they investigate high-profile homicides in Canada’s largest metropolis.

Patience will return to the UK's Channel 4 for a second series after season one became the network's biggest drama of 2025. Patience (Ella Maisy Purvis) will continue her work in the police criminal records department of City of York Police after establishing herself as an invaluable member of the team, bringing her unique insight into a series of perplexing cases. However, when a new boss, Detective Frankie Monroe (Jessica Hynes) brings a very different management style, it proves tricky for them both to navigate. Love is also in the air in this series as Patience begins a relationship with work colleague, Elliot (Tom Lewis), and the police department gets a makeover with the arrival of a new PR consultant, all while tackling intriguing crimes in extraordinary settings.

PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

In the latest episode of Murder Junction, Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee chatted with crime writer Tariq Ashkanani about his dark new thriller, The Midnight King, and a chilling true life crime: The Hinterkaifeck Murders.

Meet the Thriller Author interviewed Joshua Moehling, bestselling author of the Ben Packard thriller series, about the latest installment, A Long Time Gone.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up, featuring the first chapter of Pierce the Darkness by Nannette Potter, read by actors Ariel Linn and Sean Hopper.

On the Pick Your Poison podcast, Dr. Jen Prosser, investigated the poison that's the most potent known to man, yet is ubiquitous in nature. Plus, how you can be poisoned by a prison potato?

Crimefest Names Its Final Winners

After sixteen successful years, Bristol’s iconic crime fiction convention, CrimeFest, will come to an end in 2025. But they went out with a bang, including the annual CrimeFest Awards, with winners revealed at a Gala Awards Dinner yesterday evening. Congrats to all the winners and finalists!

SPECSAVERS DEBUT CRIME NOVEL AWARD:  Akira Otani (and translator Sam Bett) for The Night of Baba Yaga (Faber & Faber)

Other finalists include:

• Tom Baragwanath for Paper Cage (Baskerville)
• Tasha Coryell for Love Letters to a Serial Killer (Orion Fiction)
• C. L. Miller for The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder (Pan Macmillan)
• Tracy Sierra for Nightwatching (Viking)
• Claire Wilson for Five by Five (Michael Joseph)

eDUNNIT AWARD:  Jean Hanff Korelitz for The Sequel (Faber & Faber)

Other finalists include:

• Martin Edwards for Hemlock Bay (Head of Zeus)
• Laurie R. King for The Lantern’s Dance (Allison & Busby)
• Bella Mackie for What A Way To Go (The Borough Press)
• Liz Moore for The God of the Woods (The Borough Press)
• Peter Swanson for A Talent for Murder (Faber & Faber)

LAST LAUGH AWARD:  Mike Ripley for Mr Campion’s Christmas (Severn House) 

Other finalists include:

• Cathy Ace for The Case of the Secretive Secretary (Four Tails Publishing Ltd.)
• DG Coutinho for The Light and Shade of Ellen Swithin (Harvill Secker)
• Bella Mackie for What A Way To Go (The Borough Press)
• Orlando Murrin for Knife Skills for Beginners (Transworld)
• Antti Tuomianen (and translator David Hackston) for The Burning Stones (Orenda Books)

H.R.F. KEATING AWARD:  Mark Aldridge for Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert in Wickedness (HarperCollins) 

Other finalists include:

• Jem Bloomfield for Allusion in Detective Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan)
• Ashley Bowden for Female Detectives in Early Crime Fiction 1841-1920 (Fabula Mysterium Press)
• Dan Coxon & Richard V. Hirst for Writing the Murder: Essays in Crafting Crime Fiction (Dead Ink)
• Sara Lodge for The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female (Yale University Press)
• Lynda La Plante for Getting Away With Murder: My Unexpected Life on Page, Stage and Screen (Zaffre)

THALIA PROCTOR MEMORIAL AWARD FOR BEST ADAPTED TV CRIME DRAMA: Slow Horses (series 4), based on the Slough House books by Mick Herron (Apple TV+)

Other finalists include:

• Bad Monkey, based on the book by Carl Hiaasen (Apple TV+)
• Dalgliesh (series 3), based on the Inspector Dalgliesh books by P.D. James (Channel 5)
• Lady in the Lake based on the book by Laura Lippman (Apple TV+)
• Moonflower Murders based on the book by Anthony Horowitz (BBC)
• The Turkish Detective, based on the Inspector Ikmen books by Barbara Nadel (BBC)

BEST CRIME NOVEL FOR CHILDREN:  Sufiya Ahmed for Rosie Raja: Undercover Codebreaker (Bloomsbury Education)

Other finalists include:

• Natasha Farrant for The Secret of Golden Island (Faber & Faber)
• A.M. Howell for Mysteries at Sea: The Hollywood Kidnap Case (Usborne Publishing)
• M. G. Leonard for The Twitchers: Feather (Walker Books)
• Beth Lincoln for The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues (Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
• Nicki Thornton for The Floating Witch Mystery (Faber & Faber)

BEST CRIME NOVEL FOR YOUNG ADULTS:  Kayvion Lewis for Heist Royale (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)

Other finalists include:

• H.F. Askwith for A Cruel Twist of Fate (Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
• Denise Brown for It All Started With a Lie (Hashtag Press)
• A.J. Clack for Lie or Die (Firefly Press)
• Amie  Jordan for All the Hidden Monsters (Chicken House)
• Karen M. McManus for Such Charming Liars (Penguin Random House Children’s UK)

Quotation of the Week

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Murder Before Matins

John Reeves (1922-2022) was born in British Columbia, but was raised and educated in England where he studied music at St John's College, Cambridge. Eventually, he found himself back in Canada as a music and documentary producer for the CBC, where he was responsible for several technical innovations and a wide variety of musical, religious, literary, and dramatic series. He also composed his own music, over thirty pieces of religious works and several opera librettos. 

Reeves didn't turn to writing literary works until later in his career and is primarily known for his inventive radio plays, noteworthy for their use of verse, prose, music and shifting points of view. One even won the Prix D'Italy for tbe world's best radio play in play in 1959. But he also tried his hand at writing books, choosing to pen mystery novels featuring Inspector Andrew Coggin and Sergeant Fred Sump of the Metro Toronto Police. From the author's background, it's not terribly surprising the first book in the series was titled Murder by Microphone, while the second is 1984's Murder Before Matins, which was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award.

The story of Murder Before Matins is set in the cloistered world of Tathwell Abbey where the Prior is found murdered and suspicion falls on the entire order of Gilbertine nuns and monks who live in seclusion there. When Coggin, Sump and Constable Nancy Pringle are assigned to the case, they learn the victim was destined to be made Abbot and that even allegedly holy people are capable of dark ambition and violence.

In an interview from 1986 in Books in Canada, Reeves acknowledged that he lost his faith gradually, partly because of a "disillusionment with the institution of the Church." Even so, Murder Before Matins is a sympathetic portrayal of monastic life and includes a subplot of Constable Nancy Pringle's own struggles with her faith. Reeves added that, "Religion when I was a practising Christian was a very important part of my life, and the fact that I am no longer one has not reduced its emotional impact upon me. I think that to have a strong faith and then lose it leaves a particular hole in your life that cannot be replaced by anything else."

Reeves' mysteries are less about suspense typical of other police procedurals and more in the traditional puzzle-solving detective fiction (he even works in lists, diagrams, puns and one crossword puzzle in each novel). The Canadian Book Review Annual aptly noted that "Almost as entertaining as the detectives' unravelling of clues is Reeves' delightfully crisp yet cultivated prose style, and the frequency, in both the omniscient narration and the opinions of Coggin and Sump, of wry humour, dry wit, biting satire, and sometimes an outrageously amusing waspishnes."

Books in Canada wrote that "If Sherlock Holmas and Dr. Watson are respectively brilliant and dim, Andrew Coggin and Fred Sump shed light on crime about equally, less like a priest and acolyte than a happily married couple. Coggin is good at sifting details and making deductions; Sump is intuitive, disarming, a shrewd judge of character."

The follow-up Coggins/Sump novel, Murder With Muskets, was also a finalist for the 1986 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, and there was one more book in the series in 1988, Death in Prague. There was supposed to be a fifth book, set in a Toronto track and field club, but it was either never finished or not published.

Mystery Melange

Winners of the British Book Awards were announced this week, including the Crime and Thriller category, with Hunted by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker) snagging the top prize. The other finalists include All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Orion Fiction); Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent (Zaffre); Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French (Simon & Schuster); The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas (Penguin Michael Joseph); and We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Viking).

There are three crime excellent fiction conferences taking place this weekend. In addition to what is sadly the final installment of CrimeFest in the UK, which we've previously mentioned, there's also Sleuthfest in St. Petersburg, Florida. Although CrimeFest is geared as much toward readers and fans as authors, Sleuthfest is more of a writer's festival, which, as they note, "provides writers at any point in their publishing journey with techniques to improve their craft, information on publishing, marketing, and the business of writing, along with insight from best-selling authors, industry professionals, and forensics experts." Special guests this year include authors Lisa Unger, Michael Koryta, and Isabella Maldonado, and forensics expert, Dr. Katherine Ramsland. CrimeCon in Stamford, Connecticut, splits the difference, with a "Crime & Punishment" theme this year, where crime writers and experts look at the law from every angle. Featured authors include Lauren Willig, Hallie Ephron, Reed Farrel Coleman, Alex Segura, and more.

Noir at the Bar returns to Elaine's, 208 Queen Street, Alexandria, VA, Friday, June 6, from 6-9 pm EDT. Doors open at 5pm. There will be a meet-and-greet followed by readings from authors S.J. Rozan, Jeffrey Marks, Tom Milani, Elysia Whisler, Peter W.J. Hayes, Chris L. Robinson, Deb Merino, and Mark Bergin, moderated by thriller author and Elaine's owner, Jeffrey James Higgins. This is on the eve of ShortCon, the premier short-crime-fiction writer's conference. Attendance is free.

Author Don Winslow is "pausing" his retirement to write a new collection of short novels titled The Final Score. The deal was made quietly a few months ago, and it is now up for pre-orders on Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble prior to the official release on September 16. Winslow noted that "I don’t know if I am back for one more book or more...One day I just started writing again and I couldn’t stop. I wrote all of these stories in secret and for the first time in decades without a deadline. It felt good and I feel that two of these stories, Collision and The Final Score, are among the best work I’ve ever done." In addition to shopping those titles for film and TV deals, the author spent the past year reacquiring his backlist from various studios and streamers on adaptations of his film-friendly crime fiction projects that languished. That includes his Cartel book trilogy, the Godfather-like tale of the drug trade told in the global bestsellers The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border.

A short ghost story by Graham Greene described as "an eerie gem" was published for the first time in the 75th issue of Strand Magazine, a New York literary quarterly that has built a reputation for finding and publishing "lost" writings of well-known authors. Graham's tale, "Reading at Night," is a bit of a departure from his psychological and political thrillers including The Third Man and Our Man in Havana, and delves into a resurrection of "childhood fears and imagined horrors" experienced by a terrified solo male traveler as he reads supernatural stories in bed on a stormy night on the French Riviera. This same issue also makes widely available for the first time a previously little-known short story, "The Shameful Dream," by spy novelist Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series.

In more of the crime fiction-inspired summer travel ideas vein, K.W. Colyard traveled around the world via novels for BookRiot.

In the Q&A roundup, in a Q&A with Crime Reads, co-authors Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti discussed the art of collaborative writing, or "What Happens When a Journalist and a Psychotherapist Write a Mystery Together?"; Brendan Slocumb spoke with Deborah Kalb about his new novel The Dark Maestro; Crime Fiction Lover chatted with former journalist Andrew Lowe about writing his Creepy Crawly and the Jake Sawyer series; and Nerd Daily spoke with author Mia P. Manansala about Death in the Cards, her first YA mystery.

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

Run the Night, an action film starring Chris Pine, has landed at Lionsgate in a deal for worldwide rights. The story centers on a banker, accused of betraying the Dutch mob, who is dumped naked in the heart of Amsterdam with a $10 million bounty on his head. Hunted by the city’s most violent gangs, he must fight his way across the city by dawn to save the lives of his wife and child — revealing he was never just the money guy. Robert Alonzo will direct, in his feature debut, from a script by John Glenn and Alex Davidson.

Malin Akerman (Watchmen) and Michael Jai White (The Dark Knight) are set to lead spy thriller, Spymasters, from writer-director Lance Kawas. Described as a throwback to the "high-stakes erotic thrillers of the ’90s, coupled with modern action and intensity," the film centers on a CIA operative (White) assigned to surveil and possibly eliminate a former lover (Akerman), a dangerous and enigmatic figure within the agency known for her psychological prowess and covert influence over the world’s elite.

Amazon MGM Studios has landed worldwide distribution rights to The Beekeeper 2, with Jason Statham reprising his role in the sequel. Timo Tjahjanto (Nobody 2) is set to direct the film from a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer. The first movie, directed by David Ayer, follows a retired clandestine human-intelligence operative who sets out for revenge after his kind-hearted landlady becomes the victim of a phishing scam that steals millions of dollars from a charity she runs. The sequel is due to be released theatrically in a number of key territories.

Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller are set to co-star opposite Adam Driver in the upcoming film, Paper Tiger. (Johansson and Teller step in for Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, who had to drop out due to other commitments.) James Gray is writing and directing with production set to start next month in New Jersey. The film is described as a tense and gritty story revolving around two brothers who pursue the American Dream—only to become entangled in a scheme that turns out to be too good to be true. As they try to navigate their way through an ever-more dangerous world of corruption and violence, they find themselves and their family brutally terrorized by the Russian "Mafiya." Their bond begins to fray, and betrayal—once utterly unthinkable—now becomes all too possible.

John Wick producers Thunder Road are launching sales on the action film, The Surgeon, which will star Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. The project is written and directed by Roshan Sethi, a physician, Indie Spirit winner, and co-creator of hit Fox series The Resident. The film will follow a retired surgeon (Yeoh) who is abducted and forced to operate on a mystery patient. Though greatly outnumbered, her captors have overlooked her greatest weapon: 35-years of surgical experience, leading to an explosive and brutal confrontation during which she outwits and cuts down her enemies "in a visual style that defies anything you have seen before." Apparently, there are hopes it can become a franchise.

Writer-director Kurtis David Harder has wrapped production on Influencers, a new film following up his acclaimed 2023 Shudder. Cassandra Naud has returned to lead the ensemble, which also includes Georgina Campbell (Barbarian), Lisa Delamar (Survive), Jonathan Whitesell (The 100), Veronica Long (Billy the Kid), and Dylan Playfair (Letterkenny). In Influencers, a social media star—with a chilling fascination with murder and identity theft—is vacationing in Thailand and meets a mysterious woman, leading to unexpected and dangerous consequences.

Spike Lee released the first trailer for his crime thriller, Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky. Written by Alan Fox, the film is loosely based on Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, which follows a businessman deciding whether or not to use his wealth to further his career or save a child’s life. Both Highest 2 Lowest and High and Low are reinterpretations of Ed McBain’s mystery novel, The King’s Ransom. The movie will be released in theaters August 22 and stream on Apple TV+ starting September 5 after world premiering later this month at the Cannes Film Festival.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

The BBC and BritBox International have chosen Endless Night as their latest Agatha Christie adaptation. Set in 1967, the book is neither a Poirot nor a Marple but follows man-of-many-trades Michael Rogers, who finds himself working as chauffeur for the enigmatic designer du jour Rudolf Santonix. Transfixed by Santonix’s latest project, a beautiful house in the English countryside, Mike dreams of meeting the love of his life and taking up residence. But unbeknownst to Mike, the house that he has set his heart on has a dark past that goes back for centuries. The show is the latest in a long succession of Christie adaptations on the BBC and BritBox from Sarah Phelps and ITV Studios-owned Mammoth Screen, with the latest being Towards Zero starring Anjelica Huston.

Harlan Coben, whose books including Missing You and Fool Me Once have been turned into Netflix crime dramas, is expanding into the world of true-crime. CBS has ordered Harlan Coben’s Final Twist, an unscripted series, as part of its 2025/26 season, with Coben hosting the hour-long program. The network said he will "guide audiences through gripping tales of murder, high-profile crimes and life-altering surprises, each meticulously unraveled to reveal hidden truths, deceptions and lies," with each episode featuring exclusive interviews and never-before-seen archival materials surrounding certain cases.

Apple TV+ has greenlit The Wanted Man, an eight-episode thriller drama starring Hugh Laurie (House; The Night Manager). The Wanted Man centers on Felix Carmichael (Laurie), the head of a London crime syndicate called The Capital. The previously untouchable Felix is finally captured, but while being held in prison, he discovers that he was betrayed by someone close to him. As the traitor moves to dismantle his empire, Felix risks a daring escape in order to exact revenge, making him a wanted man once more. Thandiwe Newton (Westworld), Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk), Gina McKee (My Policeman), Hazel Doupe (Say Nothing), Elliott Heffernan (Blitz), and Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones) also star in the series, created, written, and executive produced by Hijack co-creator George Kay.

CBS has ordered the Yellowstone sequel, Y: Marshals (working title), for its midseason lineup. The new drama will feature Luke Grimes reprising his role as Kayce Dutton, who joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals. The official logline has Kayce "combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, where he and his teammates must balance family, duty and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence."

The 100 actor Sachin Sahel and Brady Roberts, co-creator of the Escaping Denver podcast, have teamed to develop a heist television series. Sideshow (working title) will see a young street performer recruited into a traveling sideshow, only to discover its circus performers use their unique skill sets to commit high-stakes heists. Sahel is writing the pilot based on an idea he developed with Brady, with casting and network attachments in coming months.

NBC has renewed Chicago Fire for a 14th season, Chicago P.D. for a 13th season, and Chicago Med for an 11th season. As with the recently renewed Law & Order (coming back for a 25th season) and Law & Order: SVU (back for a record 27th season), there will be some cost cutting, although most of the major stars, including SVU's Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T, will return. However, Juliana Martinez and Octavio Pisano will not be returning to SVU as series regulars. The network also reduced the "minimum guarantees" for most cast members across the Chicago and Law & Order series, meaning that regulars may not appear in every produced episode. The overall episode number may also be reduced with slightly shorter seasons.

NBC also took the axe to other series, including Found, canceled after two seasons, which starred Shanola Hampton as public relations specialist Gabi Mosely, who was once herself one of the more than 300,000 missing people of color in the U.S., and her crisis management team who now make sure there is always someone looking out for the forgotten missing people; Suits LA (after one season), a spinoff of the long-running USA Network series Suits, which centered on Ted Black (Stephen Amell), a former federal prosecutor from New York who has reinvented himself by representing the most powerful clients in Los Angeles; and The Irrational (after two seasons), based on Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational, and starring former Law & Order alum Jesse L. Martin as world-renowned professor of behavioral science, Alec Mercer, as he lends his unique expertise to an array of high-stakes cases involving governments, law enforcement, and corporations.

Apple's Cape Fear series has three new additions: Anna Baryshnikov (Love Lies Bleeding), Jamie Hector (Bosch), and Clara Wong (Billions), who join Javier Bardem, Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson, and CCH Pounder in the cast. Created, written, and showrun by Nick Antosca, the story follows happily married attorneys Anna Bowden (Adams) and Tom Bowden (Wilson) who find themselves at the center of a storm when Max Cady (Bardem), a notorious killer from their past, gets out of prison. The 10-episode series is a tense, Hitchcockian thriller and an examination of America’s obsession with true crime in the 21st century, and is based on both John D. MacDonald's novel, The Executioners, which inspired Gregory Peck’s 1962 film for Universal, as well as the acclaimed 1991 remake directed by Martin Scorsese, who is among the executive producers here.

PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Winston Duke will lead Kingsland, the fifth drama series that Kevin Hart and Charlamagne Tha God's audio production company has made with Audible. Duke (Black Panther; Us) will play seasoned investigator Jamison Wright in the thriller, alongside Yara Martinez, who plays Roxanne Wright. Also starring are Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Jason George, Joe Morton, and Jabari Banks. Per the synopsis, the story follows a fictional sovereign Black nation located just seven miles off the coast of Georgia. Funded by a landmark U.S. Reparations Act and founded as a haven for African Americans, Kingsland has, in just a decade, become one of the wealthiest and most exclusive countries in the world. As the nation prepares to mark its tenth anniversary, it is suddenly rattled by a series of brutal lynchings, shattering its image of perfection and igniting a high-stakes manhunt for a serial killer. Wright plays an investigator assigned to the case, who has to navigate the island’s elite political circles, long-buried secrets, and the growing unrest that could unravel the country’s carefully constructed identity.

NPR's Book of the Day featured the new novel, Fair Play by Louise Hegarty, a self-aware take on the golden age of detective fiction.

On NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, Ayesha Rascoe spoke with first-time author Liann Zhang about Julie Chan Is Dead, a thriller that satirizes influencers.

Mystery Melange

Book art by Thomas Wightman

The San Marino Public Library Foundation is hosting "A Conversation with Michael Connelly" on Friday, May 30, at 7 p.m. at the San Marino Community Center. Attendees will dive into the world of crime fiction with Connelly, the best-selling author of the "Harry Bosch" and "Lincoln Lawyer" series, as Connelly shares insights into his writing process and the inspiration behind his novels. Naomi Hirahara, Edgar Award-winning mystery author, will be the interviewer for the foundation. Connelly will also be signing copies of his latest novel following the talk. Proceeds from the event, which will have limited seating, benefits the Crowell Public Library. 

On the other side of the Atlantic, Surrey Libraries will feature an "Evening with Mark Billingham and Abir Mukherjee" as they discuss crime and thrillers and the long and often difficult road of writing, on Wednesday, June 25. Billingham is best known for his series with Tom Thorne and Detective Miller, and Mukherjee for his Wyndham & Banerjee novels. Book will be available for purchase, via Waterstones. Tickets are available via this link.

Noir at the Bar heads to Knoll's Bar in Laguna Niguel, California on Sunday, May 8, from 6:30-8:30pm. Authors currently scheduled to appear and read from their works include Eric Beetner, Matt Coyle, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Rachel Howzell Hall, Gary Phillips, and Halley Sutton, with Arvida Book Company on hand for sales.

There will be another Noir at the Bar at the Shade Bar in New York City on June 1st. Authors currently scheduled to appear include Christa Faust, Rob Hart, Alex Segura, K.T. Nguyen, Joshua Chaplinsky, Jordan Harper, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden, with Todd Robinson (aka "Big Daddy Thug") serving as host.

Some good news from journalist Barry Forshaw: Penguin is reissuing novels by one of the greatest of American crime fiction practitioners, the iconic Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), as part of the Penguin Modern Classics Crime series. The first three titles are set to publish on June 5 of this year, including Swag, The Switch, and Rum Punch, which Quentin Tarantino filmed as Jackie Brown. As Forshaw rightly notes, the centenary of Elmore Leonard’s birth takes place later this year, making this the perfect opportunity to revisit the "unmatched brilliance of the king of crime."

As part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer in Alaska Life, Reamer investigated how famous hard-boiled crime author Dashiell Hammett ended up stationed on Adak during World War II.

It's that time of year when many folks start thinking about travel plans, and Paul French takes us Down Under for a look at contemporary crime fiction in Perth and Western Australia.

Writing for India Today, Aditya Mani Jha reported on "India's Crime Fiction Wave," with a look at some recent books and conferences.

If you're a crime fiction fan and live in the UK, you might want to check out the magazine, "Cozy Crime Puzzles." (HT to Cross Examining Crime)

In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover welcomed Croatian crime writer Jurica Pavičic, whose work will appear in English translation for the first time with Red Water; and Publishers Weekly chatted with historical mystery author, Antonia Hodgson, about The Raven Scholar, the first volume of the Eternal Path trilogy, and how she plans like a raven and writes like a fox.

Anthony Accolades

The organizers of this year's Bouchercon Crime Fiction Conference, "Blood on the Bayou: Case Closed," announced the finalists for the annual Anthony Awards, with winners to be revealed during the convention in New Orleans, September 3-7. Congrats to all the finalists! (With a special hat tip and thanks to Jeff Pierce at The Rap Sheet.)

Best Hardcover Novel:

• Missing White Woman, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland)
• The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
• The Grey Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• Alter Ego, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)
• California Bear, by Duane Swiercynski (Mulholland)

Best First Novel:

• The Mechanics of Memory, by Audrey Lee (CamCat)
• Ghosts of Waikiki, by Jennifer K. Morita (Crooked Lane)
• You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton)
• Good-Looking Ugly, by Rob D. Smith (Shotgun Honey)
• Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best Paperback/E-book/Audiobook:

• The Last Few Miles of Road, by Eric Beetner (Level Best)
• Echo, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• Served Cold, by James L’Etoile (Level Best)
• Late Checkout, by Alan Orloff (Level Best)
• The Big Lie, by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best/Historia)

Best Historical:

• The Lantern’s Dance, by Laurie R. King (Bantam)
• The Witching Hour, by Catriona McPherson (Mobius)
• The Bootlegger’s Daughter, by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union)
• The Murder of Mr. Ma, by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan (Soho Crime)
• The Courtesan’s Pirate, by Nina Wachsman (Level Best/Historia)

Best Paranormal:

• A New Lease on Death, by Olivia Blacke (Minotaur)
• Five Furry Familiars, by Lynn Cahoon (Kensington Cozies)
• Exposure, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
• Lights, Cameras, Bones, by Carolyn Haines (Minotaur)
• Death in Ghostly Hue, by Susan Van Kirk (Level Best)

Best Cozy/Humorous:

• A Cup of Flour, a Pinch of Death, by Valerie Burns (Kensington Cozies)
• A Very Woodsy Murder, by Ellen Byron (Kensington Cozies)
• Ill-Fated Fortune, by Jennifer J. Chow (Minotaur)
• Scotzilla, by Catriona McPherson (Severn House)
• Cirque du Slay, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane)
• Dominoes, Danzón, and Death, by Raquel V. Reyes (Crooked Lane)

Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel:

• The Big Grey Men of Ben MacDhui, by K.B. Jackson (Reycraft)
• The Sasquatch of Harriman Lake, by K.B. Jackson (Reycraft)
• First Week Free at the Roomy Toilet, by Josh Proctor (Level Elevate)
• The Sherlock Society, by James Ponti (Aladdin Paperbacks)
• When Mimi Went Missing, by Suja Sukumar (Soho Teen)

Best Critical/Non-fiction:

• Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft, edited by Phyllis M. Betz (McFarland)
• Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers, by Chris Chan (Level Best)
• On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett, by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State University Press)
• Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, by Greg Lilly (History Press)
• The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, by Katherine Ramsland and Tracy Ullman (Crime Ink)

Best Anthology/Collection:

• Murder, Neat: A Sleuthslayer’s Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman (Level Short)
• Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House, edited by Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson (Down & Out)
• Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir, edited by Tod Goldberg (Soho Crime)
• Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham (Down & Out)
• Friend of the Devil: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead, edited by Josh Pachter (Down & Out)

Best Short Story:

• “A Matter of Trust,” by Barb Goffman (from Three Strikes—You’re Dead, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley (Wildside Press)
• “Twenty Centuries,” by James D.F. Hannah (from Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir, edited by Tod Goldberg; Soho Crime)
• “Something to Hold Onto,” by Curtis Ippolito (from Dark Yonder, Issue 6, edited by Katy Munger and Eryk Pruitt; Thalia Press)
• “Satan’s Spit,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham; Down & Out)
• “Reynisfjara,” by Kristopher Zgorski (from Mystery Most International, edited by Rita Owen, Verena Rose, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Short)

Author R&R with Mike Cobb

A native of Georgia, Mike Cobb splits his time between Midtown Atlanta and Blue Ridge, a tiny lake town tucked in the North Georgia mountains where Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina intersect. His body of literary work includes both fiction and nonfiction, short-form and long-form, as well as articles and blogs. He is the author of four published novels, Dead Beckoning, The Devil You Knew, its sequel You Will Know Me by My Deeds, and Muzzle the Black Dog. While he is comfortable playing across a broad range of topics, much of his focus is on true crime, crime fiction, and historical fiction. Rigorous research is foundational to his writing. He gets that honestly, having spent much of his professional career as a scientist. In his spare time, Mike enjoys reading, cooking, boating, and spending time with his family, including four granddaughters.

In Muzzle the Black Dog, when a mysterious stranger appears at Jack Pate’s isolated cabin door, his life is forever changed. The stranger’s cryptic message sets off a chain of events that lead Jack on a harrowing journey to uncover the true meaning of his own existence. As a series of unexplained fires threaten to consume everything he holds dear, Jack is forced to confront his deepest fears and question everything he thought he knew about himself. Set in the aftermath of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, Jack’s search for the truth takes him to the edge of sanity and puts him on a collision course with a dark and powerful force that has been lurking in the shadows. Readers will join Jack on a gripping and thought-provoking quest for answers in this tale of self-discovery and redemption.

Mike Cobb stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching the book:

I was a scientist before I became a writer, and while the tools have changed, the instincts and rigor remain the same. Curiosity still drives me, and research is where I feel at home—whether I’m digging through archives or reconstructing a vanished world on the page.

When I set out to write Muzzle the Black Dog, I knew the story would brush up against real, painful events that I remember well. The novel draws in part on the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, Eric Rudolph, and his brother Daniel. To get it right, I immersed myself in newspaper coverage from the time, sifting through headlines, timelines, and firsthand accounts. I combed archives for details that had long since slipped from public memory—what streets looked like, how events unfolded minute by minute, what the air might’ve felt like that day in the park.

It wasn’t just about facts—it was also about feel. I spent time in the places I was writing about, trying to capture the texture of the environment, the cadence of speech, the lingering tension in the aftermath of trauma. And because the book is fundamentally a work of fiction, I let my fictional characters speak to me and help me interweave their story around the panoply of historical events.

Just as I once studied data in a lab and scientific journals, I now study people, places, and moments—hoping to translate that understanding into fiction that feels true.

This deep-dive approach to research isn’t unique to Muzzle the Black Dog. It’s something I’ve brought to every book I’ve written and published. Whether I’m writing about a historical moment or a fictional crime, I ground my stories in real places, real people, and the real-world forces that shape them. I’ve spent countless hours in libraries, archives, on city streets, and in quiet corners of the internet, chasing down the smallest details—a street name, a weather report, the scent of a room—because those are the threads that help a story come alive. Research, for me, isn’t just a step in the process—it’s the heartbeat of the work.

 

You can learn more about Mike Cobb and his books at his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Goodreads. Muzzle the Black Dog and Mike’s other books are available from Amazon and all major booksellers.