Dorothy Salisbury Davis (1916-2014) was born in Chicago and raised as a Roman Catholic but left the church when she married her husband, the late actor Harry Davis. Now considered one of the Grand Dames of crime fiction, she didn't start out as a writer, working first in advertising and as a librarian, publishing her first novel in 1949 with the encouragement of her husband. Her 20 novels and numerous short stories went on to receive seven Edgar Award nominations, and her novel Broken Vows was also made into a 1987 TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones.
She's had a clear influence on the crime fiction community, serving as Mystery Writers of America grandmaster in 1985 and on the initial steering committee for the formation of Sisters in Crime (along with Charlotte MacLeod, Kate Mattes, Betty Francis, Sara Paretsky, Nancy Pickard and Susan Dunlap). She was Guest of Honor at Malice Domestic VI, quoting Hilaire Belloc, that "It will not matter if my sins are scarlet, if only my books are read."
By her own account, Davis is an "odd fit" in crime fiction, unhappy with her perceived inability to create a memorable series character and uncomfortable with violence and murder. But she's very happy creating villains, and has often commented that villains are much more fun to write about than heroes. Her themes trend more toward psychology than out-and-out detection and religious tensions are often found in her work, not surprising considering her own background.That religious undercurrent can be found in The Habit of Fear, the fourth and last in her series featuring Julie Hayes, a former actress and fortuneteller-turned New York City tabloid reporter, but the religious theme is only a small part of the deftly-knit threads of the plot that begin with her husband Jeff telling her he wants a divorce. Angry and hurt, she storms out of their apartment where she's tricked into a nightmare scenario of rape and sodomy by two mysterious men. Although she's reluctant to help the police, preferring to try and put as much emotional distance between her and the events as possible, she's drawn into the case, as well as a search for the Irish father she never knew, a journey that eventually takes her to the land of her beloved Yeats.
But her troubles only follow her, as a strange "Gray Man" seems to be stalking her, there's an appearance by her two attackers who escaped New York on bail, and she finds herself in the middle of tensions involving the Irish Republican Army and a splinter group. Underlying it all is a NYC gangster who watches over Julie as a protective, yet violent, avenging guardian angel. The plot threads ultimately do tie together into a hopeful but bittersweet conclusion.
Salisbury once contributed the chapter "Background and Atmosphere" to the Writer's Digest Mystery Writer's Handbook in 1975, and she is certainly adept with creating atmosphere in The Habit of Fear, first in the seedy side streets, police precincts and courts of New York and then in the bucolic but war-torn landscapes of Dublin, Wicklow, Ballina and Sligo:
Julie climbed the narrow street to where the village came to an abrupt end at a gate to the ruins. The wind gusted fiercely. The river became rapids alongside the ruins and rushed noisily down the hillside. Looking down, she could see boats at anchor, heaving in the heavy waters. Beyond the inlet was the Atlantic, blue and white-capped and dappled with dark patches where the clouds threw their shadows. As she went on, she could see the coast road with an occasional cottage and bits of color where the stacked turf was tucked around with plastic tarps.
Her characterizations are also rich and multi-layered, with no character completely evil or saintly. In an interview with Don Swaim on the CBS Radio studio show "Wired for Books," she talked about this novel and how she created the character of Julie Hayes during a period when the author herself was in therapy. She made Hayes a defender of street people due to Davis's own walking through city areas frequented by prostitutes, where she said she was accepted as "this little old lady with white hair in a raincoat," talking to various people from all walks of life.
The Independent Book Publishers Association officially announced finalists for the Benjamin Franklin Awards program, recognizing excellence and innovation in independent publishing. The nods in the Mystery/Suspense category include An Accidental Corpse by Helen A. Harrison; Black Hearts White Minds: A Carl Gordon Legal Thriller by Mitch Margo; Burning Ridge: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima, and Welcome to Sugarville: A Novel in Stories by J.J. Haas.
Bestselling author James Patterson is working with the Booksellers Association to create an award to celebrate young booksellers new to the book selling field in the UK and Ireland that are 25 or younger and have been selling books for at least 12 months. This isn’t the only time Patterson has given love to bookstores, previously donating over $1.5m to bookshops in the US, UK, and Ireland.
Registration is now open for the ITW's Sixth Annual Online Thriller School. The seven-week program, which begins March 25, focuses on the craft of thriller writing via a Facebook Live video, written materials that include further reading and study suggestions, and an entire week of on-line Q&A. This year's faculty include Steve Berry, Grant Blackwood, F. Paul Wilson, Hank Phillippi Ryan, David Corbett, Gayle Lynds, James Scott Bell and Kathleen Antrim.
Sisters in Crime have opened the submission period for the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, an annual grant of $2,000 for an emerging writer of color. An unpublished writer is preferred, although publication of one work of short fiction, an academic work, or up to two self-published or traditionally published books will not disqualify an applicant. For more information, check out the official SinC website.
Eighty years after the publication of Raymond Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep, the Saturday Evening Post profiled the iconic author's “two-fisted legacy” that combined his colorful life and English education to elevate the hard-boiled school of detective fiction.
Speaking of Chandler, at the recent literary auction which included books from Otto Penzler, a first edition of The Big Sleep, signed by the author on the front free endpaper, doubled its pre-auction estimate when it brought $57,500. Among the other prizes to be had were a rare first edition in the original first printing dust jacket of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest that netted $75,000. The rare copy is in such exceptional condition that Penzler himself called it “the world’s best copy.”
The theories as to the real identity of Jack the Ripper are far more numerous than the serial killer's number of victims. Various experts have linked Queen Victoria's grandson, American quack-doctor Francis Tumblety, radical religious poet Francis Thompson, and many more. Now, evidence from a blood-covered shawl found at one of the murder scenes that's believed to contain DNA from both butchered victim Catherine Eddowes and the world's most infamous serial killer, may solve the mystery once and for all.
In a somewhat unrelated but relevant essay, Smithsonian magazine looked into “The Myth of Fingerprints” and the perils of relying on that forensic tool as well as its more recent counterpart, DNA evidence.
Thriller author Karen Ellis (a pseudonym of author Katia Lief) applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Last Night.
There are subscription services for just about everything these days - clothing, razors, food, music, books, you name it. Now, an endeavor called Hunt A Killer lets you play armchair detective without having to leave your home. Each month, subscribers receive a box ("episodes") that includes items related to the story and the mystery you're trying to solve. Each storyline lasts six episodes with each episode building on the one before leading up to an exciting season finale. It's an alternative to shy folks who might be too leery of the "escape room" experiences popping up around the world. Plus, for every episode of Hunt A Killer delivered, portions of the proceeds fund the cold case efforts at Cold Case Foundation.
If you're a fan of the game Clue and not shy, you might be interested in an event coming to Pittsburgh this summer. Based on a concept that started in the UK, CluedUpp is a game as billed as a “giant, outdoor version of the board game Clue.” It requires a team of two to six people to play detectives and a smartphone with the CluedUpp app. Participants are asked to come up with a “fantastically clever team name” and encouraged to dress in 1920s-inspired clothing. Organizers expect more than 100 teams to take part.
Via BookRiot, this little time-wasting quiz: “Which Kickass Literary Investigator Are You?”
The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is “Search the Hollow” by Benjamin Welton.
In the Q&A roundup, Gregg Hurwitz spoke with the Daily Mail about his meticulous research and the rules of creating a bestseller; Crime by the Book welcomed Emily Carpenter to talk about her addictive new suspense novel, Until the Day I Die; Kittling: Books asked Wendall Thomas for a Scene of the Crime interview about her Cyd Redondo mysteries, her favorite recurring character in crime fiction, and more; and Harlan Coben chatted with Ali Karim for Shots Magazine about his latest thriller, Run Away.
Patricia “Patti” Abbott is no stranger to this blog, being the organizer and shepherd of the Friday's Forgotten Books feature that I've participated in over the last ten years. Patti is also a very fine author whose novels Concrete Angel (2015) and Shot in Detroit (2016) were published by Polis books and shortlisted for the Anthony, Macavity, and Edgar Awards.
Patti's Monkey Justice was just released by Down & Out Books, a collection of twenty-three short crime tales that explore the dark side of human behavior and are more about victims than perpetrators of crime: a father oversteps his proscribed duties; a young woman awakens something dormant in an older man; a young man saves his family but loses himself; a boy is a stranger in his newly configured house; a man misunderstands the marital situation he is drawn into; a squatter pleads for our pity but in the end betrays it; two old men compete for attention in a nursing home.
Patti stops by In Reference to Murder to talk more about this work and her writing in general:
How did this collection come about?
MONKEY JUSTICE was originally published nearly a decade ago by Snubnose Press as an electronic collection of stories. It represents twenty-two of my earliest crime fiction stories. All of them had already been published online, in anthologies, and in crime and literary magazines. When Snubnose Press went out of business, the manuscript disappeared, an event that had never occurred to me. It existed only on the ebook readers of the people who purchased it. Down and Out Books was kind enough to offer publication of a new print and ebook edition. If not, for them, this collection would be gone. In fact, the press had to use my own kindle to get to the manuscript. Too many years, computers, floppy disks, CDs and flash drives had come and gone.
Where do the ideas for your stories come from?
This is a question often posed to writers. At the time they were written, I was often on a bus to work two hours a day. Most of the stories emanated from the world that I passed through as I moved from a upper- middle class suburb into the city of Detroit. The entry into southeastern Detroit from Grosse Pointe Park is one of the most dramatic transitions you can imagine. It can't help but spur ideas. The title story, in fact, was one I overheard between two people on the seat in front of me. It was such an amazing story, I could hardly wait to get to begin writing it. Although all of these stories have a flash of inspiration or a detail or two from my life, none are about me. Some are from a male point of view, something that just happens now and then. Do I feel empowered by putting a male at the helm? Or do my stories speak to the dominance of males in crime? The most evil character in the book is a woman, however, and certainly not a victim.
Why are your stories so dark?
My mother always bemoaned the fact that I didn't write uplifting stories. But I think she read them incorrectly. My stories are often about the victim of a crime. Or someone trying to redress a crime. The very first story LIKE A HAWK RISING is about a thief, yes, but he is trying to save a boy he sees being mistreated. I have to admit to stealing "Souris" from a former family member in its entirety. Sometimes you hear a story that is so wonderful you can barely bring yourself to change a word. Also mostly true is "The Squatter" and I apologize for reminding a dear friend of a bad incident in her life. "The Tortoise and the Tortoise" incorporates incidents from my father's time in assisted living. But definitely not the character's solution to his problems. So each of the stories borrow something from my life or the lives of people I know, but they are fiction. Or so I tell myself.
I thank Bonnie for giving me a platform to announce the publication on my collection. If it wasn't for the kindness of friends, it would indeed be a dark life.
Sophie Littlefield, author A Bad Day for Sorry, said of Monkey Justice, “In this collection of short contemporary noir fiction, Patti Abbott distinguishes herself as an extraordinary storyteller of the dark recesses of the human heart. Abbott’s characters hit hard, fight dirty, and seek a brand of hardscrabble justice that will leave you both wincing and wishing for more.” Author/editor Chris Rhatigan added, “Patti Abbott is one of the premier practitioners of the American crime story. The staggering level of care she invests in her craft is always evident from the first sentence to the last. She writes smart, dark tales with frighteningly real characters and vivid settings.”
You can experience those smart, dark tales by grabbing your copy of Monkey Justice via all major booksellers and also follow Patti on Facebook and Twitter, as well as her blog which is where you'll find many of the Friday's Forgotten Books offerings.
It’s the start of a new week and that means it’s time for a new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN
Tom Holland is in talks to star in a new film from Avengers directors Anthony and Joe Russo, the heist movie Cherry. Based on the 2018 novel by Nico Walker, the story centers on a former Iraq War Army medic who turned to robbing banks to pay for his increasing medical bills and to cope with his PTSD. While fictionalized, the book parallels the true story of its author, who himself was an army medic convicted for bank robbery and is currently serving out the last two years of his 11-year prison sentence.
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Avengement, an action thriller starring Doctor Strange’s Scott Adkins and directed by Jesse V. Johnson from a screenplay he co-wrote with Stu Small. The film centers on a lowly criminal named Cain Burgess (Adkins) who evades his guards while on furlough and returns to his old haunts to take revenge on the people who made him a cold-hearted killer. Nick Moran, Thomas Turgoose, Kierston Wareing and Louis Mandylor co-star.
Killing Ground helmer, Damien Power, is attached to direct 20th Century Fox’s No Exit, a thriller based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Adams. The project follows several strangers stranded at a rest stop during a blizzard, where a young woman discovers a kidnapped girl and must determine who the kidnapper is and plot their escape.
Denzel Washington is in talks to star in John Lee Hancock’s cop thriller Little Things, taking on the role of Deke, a burned out Kern County sheriff who teams with LA County Sheriff’s Department detective, Baxter, to reel in a wily serial killer. Deke’s nose for the “little things” (hence the title of the movie) proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent the rules embroils Baxter in a soul-shattering dilemma, even as Deke wrestles with a dark secret from his past. The role of Baxter has yet to be cast.
Oscar winner Morgan Freeman has signed on for The Hitman’s Bodyguard sequel from Lionsgate and Millennium Films. Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, and Salma Hayek are set to reprise their roles with Patrick Hughes returning to direct from a screenplay by Tom O’Connor. The latest installment, which is slated to begin filming this month, will follow Michael Bryce (Reynolds) who joins Darius (Jackson) and his wife Sonia (Hayek) on a mission along the Amalfi Coast.
John Magaro has been cast in The Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark, reteaming with David Chase after their 2012 movie Not Fade Away. There’s no word on who Magaro is playing, but he joins Alessandro Nivola, Vera Farmiga, Ray Liotta, Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Billy Magnussen and Michael Gandolfini in the cast. The project is set in the era of the Newark riots in the 1960s, when African Americans and Italian Americans in the city were at each other’s throats.
Denis O’Hare, Naomi Battrick and Ruairi O’Connor have joined Danis Tanovic’s The Postcard Killings. The trio will star alongside Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Connie Nielsen and Cush Jumbo in the adaptation of the James Patterson and Liza Marklund bestseller which follows a hardened New York Detective (Dean Morgan), in search of the person responsible for the murder of his only daughter.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Riven Rock Projects is moving into the action-thriller arena with the acquisition of Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series. The books, which consist of 14 installments including the recent Malta Exchange, focus on former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone, who partners with Cassiopeia Vitt to take down the world’s deadliest terrorists, assassins and con men, unraveling along the way some of history’s most legendary and iconic mysteries.
Indie producer Stampede has acquired bestselling author Ragnar Jónasson’s Icelandic thriller The Darkness and will adapt it as a local-language series. The Darkness, which was published last year, is Jónasson’s first in a planned trilogy focusing on Reykjavik detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir, a dedicated investigator forced into early retirement who takes on a final cold case centered on the mysterious death of a young Russian asylum seeker.
NBC has given an early Season 7 renewal to veteran thriller drama The Blacklist. Series star James Spader had renegotiated his deal early on, adding an extra year, but the rest of the show’s original cast members’ contracts were up at the end of the current sixth season. In addition to headliners Spader, Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, and Harry Lennix, The Blacklist cast also features Amir Arison, Mozhan Marnò and Hisham Tawfiq.
Michael Ealy and Mark Webber are set as leads opposite Cobie Smulders in Stumptown, ABC’s drama pilot inspired by the graphic novels published by Oni Press. It follows Dex Parios (Smulders), a strong, assertive, and sharp-witted Army veteran working as a PI in Portland, OR. Ealy will play Miles Hoffman, a detective with the Portland Police Department who is looking for escaped convict Samuel Kane, while Webber’s Grey McConnell is Dex’s best friend and has an unrequited crush on her. It was also announced last week that The Practice alumna Camryn Manheim is set as a lead in the project.
Last week I reported that Game of Thrones alum Finn Jones had signed on to star in Fox’s crime drama pilot Prodigal Son, but the network announced four days later they’d changed their minds and have replaced him with Walking Dead star Tom Payne. The project centers on Malcolm Bright, who has a gift of knowing how killers think and how their minds work because his father Martin Whitly (played by Michael Sheen) is one of the worst — a notorious serial killer called “The Surgeon.” Also starring in the pilot as previously announced are Bellamy Young, Lou Diamond Phillips, Aurora Perrineau, and Frank Harts.
And in other recasting news, Fox’s drama pilot, Deputy, is recasting one of the female leads opposite star Stephen Dorff. Bex Taylor-Klaus has been cast as Deputy Breanna Bishop, replacing Jasmine Kaur, who originally was cast in the role. Deputy centers on Deputy Bill Hollister (Dorff), a career lawman who’s very comfortable kicking down doors yet utterly lost in a staff meeting. But when the L.A. County sheriff drops dead, Bill becomes acting sheriff, in charge of 10,000 sworn deputies policing a modern Wild West. Taylor-Klaus’s Deputy Breanna Bishop is the smartly dressed, sarcastic, “quietly badass” driver in charge of newly appointed Sheriff Hollister’s security detail
Mary Stuart Masterson (Benny and Joon) is set as a lead opposite Nicholas Pinnock and Indira Varma in ABC’s untitled legal/family drama pilot from Hank Steinberg, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Doug Robinson, and Alison Greenspan. Also executive producing is Isaac Wright Jr., who was wrongfully convicted as a drug kingpin but got his conviction overturned while in prison and became a licensed attorney. Masterson will play Anya, the hard-charging Brooklyn District Attorney.
Former Midnight, Texas star Arielle Kebbel has been hired as the female lead opposite Russell Hornsby in NBC’s Lincoln, the drama pilot based on Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme book series that started with the 1997 novel The Bone Collector. Called back into action when the killer re-emerges, Lincoln forms a unique partnership with Amelia Sachs (Kebbel), a young beat cop who helps him hunt the deadly mastermind while also taking on the most high-profile cases in the NYPD. Also joining the cast is Michael Imperioli, who will play Rick Sellitto, an NYPD detective who assists the title character, a quadriplegic forensic criminalist.
Freddie Prinze Jr. is joining the CW’s Nancy Drew project, playing Nancy's father Carson Drew. In the untitled pilot based on the series of mystery novels featuring the teen sleuth, Carson is a dynamic attorney who has become estranged from his daughter (Kennedy McMann) following the death of his beloved wife. His attempts to reconnect with Nancy run aground when her murder investigation reveals unsettling secrets from Carson's past. The cast also includes Leah Lewis (Charmed), Tunji Kasim, Maddison Jaizani and Alex Saxon.
Joseph Lyle Taylor (Sneaky Pete) and David Fierro (The Knick) are set as series regulars opposite Edie Falco and Michael Chernus in the CBS drama pilot Tommy (fka Nancy), from the Bull team of co-creator Paul Attanasio and producer Amblin TV. Falco will play Abigail “Tommy” Thomas, a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles. Fierro’s Buddy is the brilliant, manipulative mayor of Los Angeles, who becomes a rival for power with the city’s first female police chief, while Taylor will portray Dudik, Buddy’s deputy.
Longmire and Saving Grace alum Bailey Chase and David Andrews (Shooter) have joined the Season 4 cast of USA Network’s Queen of the South drama series in key roles. Starring Alice Braga and based on the best-selling book La Reina Del Sur by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Queen of the South tells the powerful story of Teresa Mendoza (Braga), a woman who is forced to run from a Mexican cartel to seek refuge in America.
Scrubs alum Donald Faison is set as a lead opposite Allison Tolman in Emergence, NBC’s mystery drama pilot. Emergence is a character-driven genre thriller that centers on Jo (Tolman), a police chief who takes in a young child, Piper (Alexa Skye Swinton), she finds near the site of a mysterious accident. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined.
Michael Mosley (Seven Seconds, Ozark) is set as a series regular in Fox’s artificial intelligence thriller drama pilot neXT. The show is described as “a propulsive, fact-based thriller grounded in the latest A.I. research.” Mosley will play CM, a Southern ex-con hacker with a genius IQ who works at the FBI cybercrime division. He joins previously cast series regulars Fernanda Andrade, Eve Harlowe, Aaron Moten, and Gerardo Celasco.
Joe Tippett (Rise) and Colony alum Alex Neustaedter are set as series regulars opposite Malin Akerman and Mykelti Williamson in NBC’s legal drama pilot Prism, inspired by Rashomon, the 1950 Japanese period psychological thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa. Prism is described as a provocative exploration of a murder trial in which every episode is told through the perspective of a different key person involved.
A trailer was released for Charlie Says, a film which focuses on the females who fell prey to the manipulation of the infamous murderer and cult leader Charles Manson. American Psycho filmmaker Mary Harron directed the film, which stars The Crown’s Matt Smith as Manson.
A keynote lecture by James Naremore will be part of the second annual Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival Wednesday, March 27. The event will be held at the Katharina Otto-Bernstein screening room at the Lenfest Center for the Arts in New York and features the talk “Into the Night: Cornell Woolrich and Film Noir.”
If you’re a fan of international crime dramas, check out this list from the New York Times of “5 New International Series [that] Visit 5 Far-Flung Crime Scenes.”
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The Story Blender welcomed Liv Constantine, the internationally bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish, who follows that success with an addictive novel about the aftermath of a brutal high-society murder in The Last Time I Saw You.
Debbi Mack interviewed mystery author Phillippe Diederich (writing as Danny Lopez), author of the Dexter Vega mysteries, on the Crime Cafe podcast.
Writer Types hosts Eric Beetner and S.W. Lauden welcomed the writing team of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar to talk about their debut novel, Double Exposure; Wendall Thomas, author of the Cyd Redondo series; Jeffrey Fleishman to answer five questions about his novel My Detective; plus authors from the upcoming anthology Murder A Go-Gos.
Hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about the big college admissions scam and provided some creepy book picks for a reader’s book club on the Read or Dead podcast.
The latest two Speaking of Mysteries podcasts featured Jess Montgomery discussing The Widows, the first novel in a new series with Lily Ross, the first woman sheriff in Ohio; and Glen Erik Hamilton, talking about Mercy River, the fourth installment in his series about the former Army Ranger, Van Shaw.
Tell the Damn Story host Chris Ryan chatted with mystery author and ex-journalist, R.G. Belsky.
The latest edition of Michael Connelly’s Murder Book podcast focuses on the defense of Pierre Romain.
THEATER
The Kings Theatre in Edinburgh is staging a production of The Girl on the Train, adapted from Paula Hawkins’s novel about a woman who learns someone she’s been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, embroiling her in a thrilling mystery. The show opens March 25 with a run through March 30.
GAMES
NEXT Studios has announced its upcoming narrative-centric detective game, Unheard, will be released on PC on March 29, 2019. Unheard combines story-driven audio drama with puzzle elements to create a unique experience where players take on the role of a time-traveling detective who is only able to use one sense—sound.
Josephine Bell, the pen name of Doris Collier Ball, was born in Manchester in 1897, educated at Cambridge, and became a University College Hospital of London physician. She married a fellow physician who died at a young age in 1936, which is when Bell turned her hand to writing, even as she maintained her medical practice.
She was a co-founder of the Crime Writers' Association, serving as its chair in 1959, and also became a member of the Detection Club. She eventually closed her medical practice at age 57 but continued to write full time until she was 85, creating numerous sleuths in her more than 40 crime novels (at the rate of two a year), such as AmyTupper, Dr. David Wintingham, Dr. Henry Frost, and Scotland Yard Inspector Steven Mitchell.
Not surprisingly, her novels often feature a strong medical component, not the least of which were two of her doctor-protagonists. She also featured poison and other unusual methods of murder prominently in her plots. Bell and her family were experienced sailors, and the author drew upon this knowledge, too, using many vivid passages in her books that relate to the water and to various nautical details.Water is certainly at the heart of the setting in Bell's novel The Port of London Murders from 1938, specifically as the title suggests, the port area of London's River Thames. It's a tough neighborhood, but the death of one Mary Holland is still a bit of a shock, even though it appears at first to be a suicide by Lysol poisoning. Tell-tale needle marks on the victim's arm lead Detective Sergeant Chandler to suspect murder tied into a drug ring—which seems even more chillingly apparent when Chandler disappears shortly after he starts to investigate, right before he's due to testify at the inquest. It's up to Inspector Mitchell of Scotland Yard to unravel the layers of deception and addiction that are exploiting rich and poor alike in a way that hasn't changed much in the seventy years since the book was written.
Bell is particularly good with settings, even the squalid ones that pop up in the novel, no doubt witnessed first-hand in her role as a physician who saw people from every walk of life. Her take on the state of medicine in her day was often somewhat bleak, as in this passage from the book—again, as true today as it was in 1938:
For the great majority of these cases, too poor to have a doctor of their own, there was little he could do...Dr. Freeman could encourage them with a bottle of medicine and help them with a pint of milk a day, but it was not in his power nor that of anyone else to effect a lasting cure of their complaints. There were others, too, not old, but equally hopeless, who attended the dispensary as regular visitors; those struck down in youth or middle age by tuberculosis, rheumatism, heart trouble, and a number of more rare diseases. They had come to the end of their resources, their insurances, and their capacity for earning. The hospitals could do nothing more for them, but they still lived, in the worse possible surroundings, and the Public Assistance saw to it that they did not die too soon.
For over 30 years, the Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”) have identified and honored the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books. The organization recently announced the finalists of the 31st Lammys, culled from over 1,000 book submissions by 300 publishers, with winners to be announced at the Awards Ceremony and Gala the evening of Monday, June 3, 2019 in New York City. Here are the finalists for best Lesbian Mystery and Best Gay Mystery:
Lesbian Mystery
Gay Mystery
Friends of Mystery, a non-profit literary organization headquartered in Portland, Oregon, announced its list of 10 finalists for the 2019 Spotted Owl Award. For a book to be considered, the author must have primary residence in the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, or the Province of British Columbia. The winner will be awarded later this month from among the nominees:
Foreword Magazine released the list of finalists for the 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, including the fifteen titles in the Mystery category and the thirteen books in the Thriller category.
This coming Saturday, March 16th, the Murderous March 2019 Writers’ & Readers’ Confab, hosted by the Mavens of Mayhem (Sisters in Crime, Upper Hudson chapter) and the East Greenbush Community Library will take place in East Greenbush, New York. Canadian author Vicki Delany is the keynote speaker, with other featured authors to include Edwin Hill, Frankie Y. Bailey, Catherine Bruns, Debi Chowdhury, Denis Foley, and Kathleen J. Kaminski.
Portland, Maine’s Brownville Free Public Library will host a series of discussions themed around “Detective Fiction in the 20th Century: A Notion of Evil,” from April 16 - June 11, 2019. This series examines the enormous popularity of mystery/detective fiction and at the same time “provides a highly entertaining platform to consider the nature of a specific literary genre.” Organizers also hope participants will experience how literature grows out of and is changed by the cultural climate and historical moment from which it springs.
Yes Weekly profiled the “six-gun sisters and future female private eyes,” a/k/a the diverse pulp fiction of Nicole Givens Kurtz, whose novels include a rare black female protagonist in pulp fiction.
A literary mystery solved? It's well known that literature was almost exclusively the realm of monasteries in medieval times, but it was primarily thought to involve male scribes. However, analysis of the fossilized dental plaque of a medieval woman reveals lapis lazuli, suggesting she was an accomplished painter of illuminated manuscripts. Christina Warinner of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, senior author on the paper about the discovery, added, “This woman's story could have remained hidden forever without the use of these techniques. It makes me wonder how many other artists we might find in medieval cemeteries - if we only look.”
Mardi Gras 2019 may be history, but you can still check out more lists of the crime fiction of New Orleans and Carnival, courtesy of Crime Reads.
The Spectator has regular writing challenges for their readers, and the latest was to submit a short story in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction set in the corridors of power. According to the editors, “Raymond Chandler cast a long shadow over an entry bristling with stinging one-liners, dames, black humour and grandstanding similes laid on with a trowel. The mean streets of Westminster were the most popular setting, though there were glimpses of Brussels and the Oval Office too.”
Speaking of hard-boiled, Crime Reads offered up a list of “The 10 Best and Pulpiest Mickey Spillane Covers” in honor the iconic crime fiction author's birthday.
Folks in relatively low-crime areas often find entertainment from reading the local police blotter. YouTuber Michael McCurdy recently took this to another level and made a video featuring animated selections from the police blotter for Port Townsend, Washington, and surrounding Jefferson County. Watch as a tough local cop rescues an otter from a garbage can. Just another day on the job.
NPR has a series of puzzles online, and a recent one was based on the names of famous writers of mysteries, crime fiction, and spy novels, with their last names anagrammed. If you’re familiar with classic crime fiction, this should be a piece of cake (or cafe coke pie, if you prefer).
The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is “The Good, the Kind, the Peaceful” by David Cranmer.
In the Q&A roundup, David Roy of the Irish Times chatted with novelist Anthony Horowitz about his best-selling teen spy series Alex Rider and what it’s like penning new adventures for Ian Fleming’s James Bond; Donna Leon, author of the Guido Brunetti series, was the latest to participate in the New York Times's By the Book Q&A; Don Winslow was interviewed by GQ Magazine to chat about his latest novel (the third in his cartel trilogy), Trump, and becoming an accidental activist; Ann Cleves spoke with the Belfast Telegraph about the pain of losing her husband, what she makes of TV series inspired by her work and how commercial success hasn’t changed her; and William Kent Krueger sat down with the Minnesota Sun Sailor about the inspiration for his latest mystery and how his sense of rebellion still finds its way into his books.
It’s the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN
Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures and Brad Pitt’s Plan B (the creative team behind this year's Oscar winners Vice and If Beale Street Could Talk) are adapting the best-selling novel The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides to the big screen. The thriller centers on Alicia Berenson, a famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer with a seemingly perfect life - until one day she shoots her husband five times in the face and then never speaks another word. When she's sent to the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London, criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber is determined to get her to talk and unravel the mystery behind her actions, a pursuit that threatens to consume him.
The upstart Solstice Studios has chosen its first homegrown picture, the action thriller Split Second. Scripted by former military intelligence officer Mitchell LaFortune, Split Second centers on an assassin who suffers a psychological breakdown when he is ordered to kill the woman who is his lifeline. The story follows two versions of the same character: one who pulls the trigger and descends into madness, the other who takes the road to redemption and goes on the run with her.
Unified Pictures is developing the film noir thriller Whisper. The project stars Maia Mitchell, Joey Bicicchi, and Guy Burnet, with Azi Rahman making his feature directorial debut. Bicicchi plays Nick, a talented photographer who is new to Los Angeles and falls for Tessa (Mitchell), a free-spirited young woman who is no longer charmed by the city. Their worlds are turned upside down when she asks him to do the unimaginable, which forces the duo down a path of revenge and destruction.
Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike has been cast as the lead in the thriller I Care A Lot. Director J Blakeson (The 5th Wave) is also writing the project, which will begin shooting in June of this year. Oscar nominee Pike will play Marla Grayson, a highly successful legal guardian with a knack for using the law to her benefit and her clients’ detriment. But when she cherry picks her seemingly perfect client, she soon realizes looks can be deceiving.
James Moses Black has come aboard Black and Blue, a crime drama directed by Deon Taylor. Naomie Harris stars as a rookie cop in New Orleans who witnesses corrupt narc officers murdering a drug dealer, an event captured by her body cam. When they then fail to execute her and she escapes, the narcs pin the murder on her, and she is hunted both by the narcs who are desperate to destroy the incriminating footage, as well as the drug dealers out for apparent revenge.
Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow announced the release of Sherlock Holmes 3 has been pushed back a full year. The still-untitled follow up to 2011’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows will now hit theaters December 22, 2021, instead of December 25, 2020. The first two films were directed by Guy Ritchie and starred Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson, respectively. It's not been officially announced whether Downey and Law will return for the third outing.
If you're a fan of noir cinema, check out this list of the “10 best neo-noir films of all time: From Chinatown to LA Confidential.”
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
FX Networks has landed the rights to adapt Don Winslow’s acclaimed Cartel Trilogy into a TV series that will include Winslow’s 2005 novel The Power of the Dog, the 2015 followup The Cartel, and the just published conclusion, The Border. The book trilogy spans a 45 year period and follows DEA agent Art Keller through America’s long running war on drugs as well as his blood feud with Mexican drug kingpin Adan Berrera. The first two books were originally sold to be turned into a feature film by Fox, but the company ultimately decided it was too much material for a two-hour film and better suited for “an edgy Sons of Anarchy-style series” by sister company FX.
The classic British series Rumpole of the Bailey is returning to the small screen. The legal drama, which was created by writer and barrister John Mortimer, will be rebooted by Mortimer’s daughter, Emily. The original starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an elderly barrister in London who defended a weird and wonderful mix of clients. Polly Williams, eOne’s head of scripted development in the UK, told Deadline that Mortimer has “reimagined” the series and she and her sister Rosie were writing the script. “They have written a very modern take on Rumpole. I’m very excited to see how that turns out,” Williams added.
Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories has inked a deal with Agatha Christie Ltd. to develop a new Miss Marple TV series. The latest incarnation will be co-developed by the Big Little Lies producer and Endeavor Content. Christie’s books about the amateur detective have been in print for more than 90 years and are now in more than 100 territories worldwide. Numerous film and TV adaptations through that time have starred Margaret Rutherford, Angela Lansbury, Geraldine McEwan, Helen Hayes, and Joan Hickson as the iconic amateur sleuth.
NBC has put the brakes on its plans for Law & Order: Hate Crimes, the greenlighted new Law & Order spinoff from the franchise’s creator Dick Wolf, which had already been given a 13-episode order. The project remains in active development at the network as everyone “needed more time to fresh (sic) out the concept.” Meanwhile, SVU has not been renewed, although it is considered to be likely so it can break the record for the longest-run drama series jointly held by Gunsmoke and Law & Order. It is thought the Hate Crimes spinoff could then be introduced during SVU’s 21st and likely final season.
A drama series starring Captain Marvel star Brie Larson has landed at Apple with a straight-to-series order. The untitled female-focused CIA drama is based on Amaryrillis Fox’s upcoming memoir, Coming of Age in the CIA, and draws upon the real-life experiences of undercover operative Fox as a young woman working up the ranks in the spy agency.
Podcast company Wondery is stepping up its television activities following the success of Dirty John and is in talks to adapt its latest hit, Over My Dead Body. The first season of the Over My Dead Body podcast tells the story of Dan Markel and his wife Wendi, two good-looking attorneys whose wedding is featured in the New York Times. But when this perfect couple’s marriage falls apart, it leads to a bad breakup, a worse divorce, and a murder case involving a menagerie of high-priced lawyers and unexpected co-conspirators.
USA Network has picked up a third season of its thriller drama series, The Sinner, and has tapped Matt Bomer as a new lead opposite Bill Pullman who will return as Detective Harry Ambrose. Bomer will play Jamie, an upstanding Dorchester resident and expectant father who looks to Ambrose for support in the wake of an accident. He succeeds Jessica Biel and Carrie Coon, who starred opposite Pullman in Seasons 1 and 2, respectively.
Russell Hornsby has been hired as the title character in NBC’s Lincoln, a drama pilot based on the bestselling book series by Jeffery Deaver (adapted into the 1999 movie starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie). Lincoln follows legendary forensic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme (Hornsby), who was seriously injured during his hunt for the diabolical serial killer known as the Bone Collector. Called back into action when the killer re-emerges, Rhyme forms a unique partnership with Amelia Sachs, a young beat cop who helps him hunt the deadly mastermind while also taking on the most high-profile cases in the NYPD.
Nicholas Pinnock (Counterpart) has been cast as the lead in ABC’s untitled legal/family drama pilot that centers on Aaron (Pinnock), a prisoner who becomes a lawyer, litigating cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. One of the producers on the project is Isaac Wright, Jr., who was once wrongfully convicted as drug kingpin but got his conviction overturned while in prison and became a licensed attorney. It was also recently announced that Indira Varma (Game of Thrones) has been cast as the female lead in the pilot.
Game of Thrones alum Finn Jones has signed on to star in Fox’s crime drama pilot, Prodigal Son. The project centers on Malcolm Bright (Jones), who has a gift—he knows how killers think because his father Martin Whitly (played by Michael Sheen) is one of the worst, a notorious serial killer called “The Surgeon.” Also starring in the pilot are Bellamy Young, Lou Diamond Phillips, Aurora Perrineau, and Frank Harts.
ITV announced that Brenda Blethyn will return for a 10th series of Vera (based on the novels by Ann Cleeves), reprising her role as DCI Vera Stanhope. Four feature-length episodes, set in North East England, will begin production in April and will air in 2020. Returning alongside Blethyn are Kenny Doughty (DS Aiden Healy), Jon Morrison (DC Kenny Lockhart), Riley Jones (DC Mark Edwards), Ibinabo Jack (DC Jacqueline Williams), and Paul Kaye (Dr Malcolm Donahue).
Hellboy’s Ron Perlman and X-Men’s Famke Janssen are to star in BBC One's spy drama The Capture, joining previously announced Callum Turner and Holliday Grainger in the six-part series. The London-set spy thriller begins with the unjust arrest of an innocent man and escalates into a multi-layered conspiracy of manipulated evidence.
Sara Rue is set as a series regular in NBC’s Prism pilot. Written and directed by Daniel Barnz, Prism is inspired by Rashomon, the 1950 Japanese period psychological thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa, and is described as a “provocative exploration of a murder trial in which every episode is told through the perspective of a different key person involved.”
Sofia Barclay has booked a series regular role on ABC’s NYPD Blue pilot, a new iteration of the iconic cop drama. The sequel centers on Theo (played by Fabien Frankel), the son of Dennis Franz’s Detective Andy Sipowicz character from the original series, who tries to earn his detective shield and work in the 15th squad while investigating his father’s murder.
Daredevil alum Wilson Bethel is set as a series regular in the CBS legal drama pilot Courthouse, a show that pulls back the curtain on the court system. It follows the lives of the judges, assistant district attorneys, and public defenders as they work with bailiffs, clerks, cops and jurors to bring justice to the people of Los Angeles. Bethel will play Mark, a roguish, highly successful Deputy District Attorney.
Maddison Jaizani and Alex Saxon are set as series regulars opposite Kennedy McMann and Tunji Kasim in the CW’s untitled Nancy Drew pilot inspired by the classic mysteries about the brilliant young sleuth. Jaizani will play Bess, a refined young woman whose wealthy background sets her apart from Nancy (Kennedy McMann) – but when they both become suspects in the same murder, Bess proves to be a spirited ally in the search for the real killer.
Chris D’Elia is set for a recurring role on the upcoming second season of Netflix’s You. D’Elia will play Henderson, a “designer hoodie, black Ray-Bans, expensive sneakers-wearing famous comedian.” You follows bookstore manager and stalker Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and is based on Caroline Kepnes’s best-selling novels. The show’s second season will be loosely based on the author’s second book in the series titled Hidden Bodies, which follows Goldberg to Los Angeles where he meets Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), an aspiring chef who isn’t into social media like his previous leading lady.
Yara Martinez and Brian Van Holt will co-star opposite Stephen Dorff in Deputy, Fox’s police drama pilot from Bright helmer David Ayer, Aquaman writer Will Beall, and eOne. Written by Beall and directed by Ayer, Deputy centers on Deputy Bill Hollister (Dorff), a career lawman who’s very comfortable kicking down doors but utterly lost in a staff meeting. But when the L.A. County sheriff drops dead, Bill becomes acting sheriff, in charge of 10,000 sworn deputies policing a modern Wild West. Martinez will play Hollister’s wife, Dr. Paula Reyes, a trauma surgeon, while Van Holt will play former Marine-turned-Deputy Cade Walker.
Sarayu Blue has joined the cast of Medical Police, which has a 10-episode series order at Netflix and stars Childrens Hospital alums Erinn Hayes and Rob Huebel. Medical Police is described as an action-packed thriller, mystery, and love story that centers on two American physicians (Hayes and Huebel) stationed at a pediatric hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, who discover a civilization-threatening virus. The duo are recruited as government agents in a race against time and around the world to find a cure and uncover a dark conspiracy.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
David Swinson was featured on WAMU public radio's Kojo Nnamdi Show to talk about his career, his characters, and the “good cop/bad cop” tropes of crime fiction.
On the latest Mysteryrat’s Maze podcast from Kings River Life magazine, actor Thomas Nance reads the first chapter of the mystery novel Fostering Death by K.M. Rockwood.
Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed guest Jo Spain, who talked about her road to being published, Brookside, and writing for TV.
Beyond the Cover chatted with Greg Iles about his latest novel, Cemetery Road.
Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack interviewed Dr. Ellen Kirschman, clinical psychologist and consultant, who's worked with law enforcement agencies for over 20 years, and has written mysteries and nonfiction books like I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know.
Dr. D.P. Lyle's Criminal Mischief focused on “The Rules of Writing.”
Michael Connelly's Murder Book podcast continued the real life saga of a Hollywood killing that tested the limits of the American justice system.
THEATER
The Mystery Series at Calgary's Vertigo Theatre is performing Might as Well Be Dead: a Nero Wolfe Mystery, from March 16- April 14. Adapted by Joseph Goodrich from the Rex Stout novel, the story follows iconic P.I. Nero Wole and his assistant Archie Goodwin as they help a client whose estranged son has been charged with murder.
