In Reference to Murder

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:

AWARDS

The Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) award nominations were announced this past week. Among the crime drama nods are House of Gucci (based on the true story of Patrizia Reggiani and the events leading up to her conviction for murdering her ex-husband), which was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (essentially, "Best Picture"); in the Best Actor category, Benedict Cumberbatch was nominated for his role in Power of the Dog, and Denzel Washington was nominated for The Tragedy of Macbeth; and in the Best Actress category, Lady Gaga was nominated for House of Gucci. On the TV side, Mare of Easttown received several acting nods, including Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series (Kate Winslet; Jean Smart) and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series (Evan Peters). You can check out all the SAG honorees via this link.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) also unveiled longlists that narrowed the field in 24 different categories at the British Academy Film Awards. Among the crime dramas in the Best Film category are House of Gucci; No Time to Die; The Power of the Dog; and The Tragedy of Macbeth. House of Gucci and No Time to Die were also nominated in the Best British Film category, along with The King’s Man. The Wrap has a wrap-up of all the categories and longlisted honorees.

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Gal Gadot is attached to star in and produce a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, To Catch a Thief, for Paramount Pictures, with Eileen Jones writing the script. Plot details about the remake are being kept under wraps, but the original 1955 film starred Cary Grant as a retired cat burglar who has to save his reformed reputation by catching an impostor preying on the wealthy tourists of the French Riviera. The film also starred Grace Kelly, who played the daughter of a wealthy widow.

Denzel Washington revealed he’s gearing up to return for The Equalizer 3, a sequel to his action franchise with director Antoine Fuqua, who is also in talks to return to direct the sequel. The Equalizer was first released in 2014 and starred Washington as a former marine named Robert McCall who tries to rescue a young girl from violent Russian mobsters. The original film and the follow-up were based loosely on the 1980s TV series, which has also been more recently adapted as a CBS series starring Queen Latifah.

Aaron Eckhart has been set as the lead in Renny Harlin’s action-thriller, The Bricklayer, which is due to get underway in March in Europe. Millennium Media is producing with Gerard Butler after both teamed up with Eckhart on the lucrative "Has Fallen" franchise. In The Bricklayer, someone is blackmailing the CIA by assassinating foreign journalists and making it look like the agency is responsible. As the world begins to unite against the U.S., the CIA must lure its most brilliant – and rebellious – operative out of retirement, forcing him to confront his checkered past while unraveling an international conspiracy.

Snake Eyes star Andrew Koji is set for the ensemble cast of the action-fantasy Boy Kills World, joining Bill Skarsgård, Samara Weaving, and Yayan Ruhian, with first-time feature director Moritz Mohr helming the project. Boy Kills World is described as a one-of-a-kind action spectacle set in a dystopian fever-dream reality and follows a boy who is a deaf mute with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, he escapes to the jungle and is trained by a mysterious shaman to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death.

A new take on the cult 2012 martial arts film, The Raid: Redemption, is coming to Netflix from producers Michael Bay and Gareth Evans, with Patrick Hughes (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) on board to direct. The original 2012 movie, written and directed by Evans, was heralded for its "hyper-kinetic and violent action sequences and unrelenting pacing." The film followed an Indonesian S.W.A.T. team trapped inside a tenement run by a mobster who sends his endless army of killers and thugs to stop them from climbing to the top of the building. The new film is set in Philadelphia’s drug-infested "Badlands"” and follows an elite undercover DEA task force as they climb a ladder of cartel informants to catch an elusive kingpin.

Netflix is planning to shoot back-to-back sequels for Red Notice in early 2023. Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, Red Notice stars Dwayne Johnson as an FBI agent who is forced to team up with a thief (played by Ryan Reynolds) in order to best another thief (Gal Gadot). Thurber is also writing both sequels, with production subject to the availability and deals of its three principal stars.

RLJE Films has unveiled the brand new poster and trailer for Last Looks. Previously titled Waldo, the comedy-crime film stars Charlie Hunnam as ex-LAPD superstar Charlie Waldo and Mel Gibson as Alastair Pinch, an eccentric actor who spends his days drunk on the set of his TV show. When Pinch’s wife is found dead, he is the prime suspect and Waldo is convinced to come out of retirement to investigate what happened. The case finds Waldo contending with gangsters, Hollywood executives, and pre-school teachers, all in pursuit of clearing Pinch’s name … or confirming his guilt.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Justified: City Primeval has been greenlighted at FX, with Timothy Olyphant reprising his role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens for the limited series. Seven years after the end of FX’s Justified, Sony Pictures Television and FX Productions are producing their latest Elmore Leonard adaptation, based on the author’s novel City Primeval: High Noon In Detroit. The show returns to Givens’s story eight years after he’s left Kentucky and now is based in Miami, balancing life as a marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl. A chance encounter on a Florida highway sends him to Detroit where he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent sociopath who’s already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once and wants to do so again.

HT to Crime Fiction Lover for reminding me that the new crime drama, The Responder, is coming to BBC One later this month. Best known to crime fiction lovers for his starring roles in the likes of Sherlock and Fargo, Martin Freeman stars in the series, taking on a very different role as Chris, who is described as "a crisis-stricken, morally compromised, unconventional urgent response officer tackling a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool."

Actor and filmmaker Mark O’Brien is set to star in season 2 of HBO’s Perry Mason in the recurring guest star role of Thomas Milligan. Thomas is Los Angeles’s ambitious Deputy District Attorney, described as "an aggressive attack dog in court as he strives to make his mark and ascend to greater heights, no matter whose blood he has to spill to get there." Season 2 will be eight episodes long with Matthew Rhys returning to the title role in the Emmy-nominated series.

Acclaimed author Daniel Woodrell’s The Bayou Trilogy crime novels are getting a TV series adaptation. The Bayou Trilogy novels—Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do—chronicle business-as-usual corruption in the fictitious Louisiana parish of St. Bruno. In the eye of the storm stands Detective Renee Shade, whose sense of duty collides with a violent underbelly of Dixie Mafia, ex-cons, dirty cops, and political grifters, along with pesky personal demons and a web of family entanglements.

Season 2 of The Flight Attendant has added Sharon Stone in a recurring role opposite Kaley Cuoco's Cassie Bowden. Stone will play Lisa Bowden, Cassie’s estranged mother who would prefer to stay estranged. The second-season storyline has Cassie living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time. But when an overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, she becomes entangled in another international intrigue.

Domhnall Gleeson has been tapped as the title character in FX’s 10-episode limited series, The Patient, playing a serial killer who holds a psychotherapist hostage and demands the doctor cure him of his homicidal urges. Steve Carell was previously announced to star as the therapist when the show was first ordered to series in October. Also joining the series are Linda Emond, Andrew Leeds, and Laura Niemi.

Zorro is headed to the CW as a gender-swapped reimagining of the classic masked vigilante character. Co-penned by Sean Tretta and the brother-sister team of Robert and Rebecca Rodriguez (Rebecca will also serve as director), Zorro centers on a young woman seeking vengeance for her father’s murder who joins a secret society and adopts the outlaw persona of Zorro.

A series adaptation of Hell or High Water is in the works at Fox. The one-hour drama is based on the 2016 western crime drama that starred Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster. In that film, Pine and Foster starred as two brothers who rob banks in order save their family ranch, with Bridges playing one of the Texas Rangers who was trying to hunt them down. Here’s the logline for the Fox version: "When a ruthless oil tycoon attempts to plunder a West Texas ranching community, two local brothers dodge a zealous Texas Ranger and fight to keep what’s theirs, one bank robbery at a time, come hell or high water."

Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali will star in and produce Onyx Collective’s limited series, The Plot, as a struggling author who finds success with an act of literary theft and finds himself playing a game of cat and mouse with someone who knows his secret. The series landed at Disney’s Onyx Collective after a bidding war across multiple streaming platforms. It will air on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in all other territories. The Plot is based on the 2021 best-selling novel of the same name by Jean Hanff Korelitz. Another Korelitz book, You Should Have Known, was adapted into HBO’s 2020 limited series, The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.

Lyndon Smith, Zuri Reed, Jake Austin Walker, Antonio Cipriano, and Jordan Rodrigues are set as series regulars opposite Lisette Alexis in National Treasure for Disney+. The project is an expansion of the National Treasure movie franchise told from the point of view of young heroine Jess (Alexis), a DREAMer in search of answers about her family who embarks on the adventure of a lifetime to uncover the truth about the past and save a lost Pan-American treasure. Smith will play FBI Agent Ross, while Reed, Cipriano, and Rodrigues play Jess's friends and cohorts. Walker takes on the role of a fellow treasure hunter who's magnetically drawn to Jess.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's Scott Simon talked to author Elizabeth George about her new mystery, Something to Hide, the 21st Inspector Lynley novel.

The Sopranos star, Michael Imperioli, is joining season two of true-crime podcast, Deep Cover, this time focusing on the Chicago mob. Deep Cover: Mob Land, which is narrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Halpern, centers around Chicago’s corruption in the 1970s and 1980s. The first season, which featured Walton Goggins, followed a Detroit FBI agent as he goes undercover in an outlaw motorcycle gang and his bizarre series of discoveries that inadvertently lead to the U.S. invasion of a foreign country. The ten-episode series premieres on January 24 and you can listen to the trailer via this link.

Aaron Philip Clark, author of Under Color of Law, was interviewed by Robert Justice for the Crime Writers of Color podcast.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with forensic pathologist and crime writer, Ellery Kane.

On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Frank Zafiro chatted with Vikki J. Carter about her role as The Author's Librarian; the importance of research; her books in progress; and her own podcast (Authors of the Pacific Northwest).

My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Jule Selbo, a screenwriter and playwright whose debut crime novel is 10 Days: A Dee Rommel Mystery.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with Lorie Lewis Ham about her debut novel, One of Us (Tower District Mystery #1).

The latest trio of featured authors on Crime Time FM included Jane Casey, Liz Nugent, and Jefferey Deaver.

Quote of the Week

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Archer Files

Ross Macdonald (1915-1983), born Kenneth Millar in Los Gatos, California, spent most of his early life in Canada, where his father worked as a harbor pilot. His parents separated when he was three, and since his mother suffered from typhoid fever and couldn't support them, he moved around among various relatives, once counting "the number of rooms I had lived in during my first sixteen years, and got a total of fifty."

In 1938 he married Margaret Sturm, who as Margaret Millar would have her own career as an acclaimed mystery writer. Between 1938 and 1939 Kenneth Millar studied at the University of Michigan where he met W.H. Auden, who encouraged him to regard detective novels as a legitimate literary form.  Millar eventually settled on the pen name Ross Macdonald to avoid mixups with contemporary John D. MacDonald.  Ross first introduced the popular divorced former cop-turned-private-eye Lew Archer in the 1946 short story "Find the Woman." A full-length novel, The Moving Target, followed in 1949, the first in a series of 18 Archer novels.

Macdonald used spiral-bound notebooks, filling about three pages a day while sitting in the same bedroom chair where he wrote all of his books for three decades. He worked on several books at once, often finding ideas for plots by sitting in on local criminal trials. He was a dedicated conservationist, and he and his wife were active in the efforts to save the California condor from extinction. He died from Alzheimer's disease in 1983.

In 2007, Crippen & Landru released a new anthology of Macdonald's Lew Archer short stories, collected together in one volume for the first time. Titled The Archer Files, The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator Including Newly Discovered Case Notes, the volume includes previously published stories and several never-before-published fragments of unfinished Macdonald stories—case notes, so to speak, from the files of Lew Archer.

Novelist William Goldman declared the Archer canon as "the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American," and John Leonard of The New York Times stated Macdonald had transcended the genre to become "a major American novelist." His works have inspired countless mystery writers since, such as Sue Grafton, who even set her novels in the same Santa Barbara locale Macdonald had done (although both used the fictional name Santa Teresa for the town).

On a January Magazine tribute page via Jeff Pierce, you'll many fun anecdotes about Macdonald and his influence, such as the following from Michael Connelly:  "I came to him late. The first book of his I read was The Blue Hammer. Of course, it was a joy to realize when I was finished that I had a wealth of Lew Archer stories to go back and read. And I did. This was about the time I was thinking that I wanted to write for a living and Macdonald's books showed me the possibility that crime novels could be art. I still remember in the opening pages of The Blue Hammer how he described a woman's body as having been kept trim by tennis and anger. I read that and knew I was on to something. I was home."

Mystery Melange

Mystery Writers of America announced that the 2022 Grand Master will be Laurie R. King, bestselling author of 30 novels and other works, including the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories. MWA also announced that the Raven Award recipient, recognizing achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing, is librarian, blogger, and book reviewer, Lesa Holstine. The Ellery Queen Award recipient, which honors "outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry," is Juliet Grames, Associate Publisher at Soho Press, where she has curated the award-winning Soho Crime imprint since 2011. The honorees will accept their awards at the 76th Annual Edgar Awards Ceremony on April 28, 2022, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York City.

Aspiring crime novelists have until the end of February to enter the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Debut Dagger, sponsored by ProWritingAid. Shortlisted authors often get representation by literary agents, with a number going on to get publication deals. Budding authors are invited to submit the opening 3,000 words and a synopsis of the full novel of up to 1,500 words before the competition deadline of 6pm GMT on Monday, February 28, 2022. The competition is only open to writers who have never had a novel or novella published in any genre, or self-published one within the last 5 years. However authors of published short stories are eligible, as are authors of published non-fiction. For full rules, and to enter, go to Competitions on the CWA website.

The lists of crime fiction titles to look forward to in the new year continue to grow, including Jeff Pierce's annual tally over at The Rap Sheet blog, with new-release lists through February for both the U.S. and U.K.

As the Northern Hemisphere shivers in the throes of a January deep-freeze, it seems like the perfect time to take a look at Crime Fiction set in Antarctica, courtesy of CrimeReads.

In a previous Mystery Melange post, I noted that the exhibition "Sherlock Holmes in 221 Objects" opens at New York's Grolier Club on January 21, 2022. It features items from the collection of Cathy and Glen Miranker, including artwork, books, correspondence, and manuscripts about the iconic literary detective. As the New York Times added this week, there is one puzzling exhibit among the collection; why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—who famously denounced pirate publishers since they cranked out cheap editions and didn't pay him royalties—sign a pirated edition of The Sign of the Four (the second of the four Sherlock Holmes novels)? (Paywall for non-NYT subscribers, alas)

Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, a bronze statue of Agatha Christie is to go up in Wallingford town centre in a bid to attract fans of the author to her former hometown. Town councillors approved the use of Arts funding for the Agatha Christie Project Committee plan for the statue and town "mystery trail." Details of the trail are also yet to be confirmed, but it is hoped that it will take visitors around points of interest connected with the writer’s life, including her former home and her burial site.

The novel world of bibliotherapy: Studies over the past few years have indicated that reading improves empathy and encourages understanding and has a whole host of other positive benefits. Now, new research also shows how literature is helping people navigate mental health issues.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Unresolved Story on the Butt End of Avenue B" by Saira Viola.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews checked in with Alafair Burke, a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent novels include The Wife, optioned for a feature film by Amazon, and The Ex, which was nominated for the Edgar Award for best novel; Writers Who Kill welcomed Amy Pershing to chat about An Eggnog to Die For, the second book in Amy Pershing’s Cape Cod Foodie mystery series; and Murder Books spoke with novelist, short story author, and former newspaper editor Richard McGonegal about his writing and newest mystery novel, Ghoul Duty, the second in his Sheriff Francis Hood series.

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

With the final season of her hit series Ozark set to premiere later this month on Netflix, Emmy winner Julia Garner is already setting up her next big project, with a starring role in Paramount Players’s Apartment 7A. John Krasinski and Allyson Seeger are producing via Sunday Night along with Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller via their Platinum Dunes company. Natalie Erika James is attached to direct and co-wrote the latest script with Christian White, based off a draft by Skylar James. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but it is being described as a psychological thriller.

Michael Cudlitz and Jake Abel and have signed on to star alongside Zhang Hanyu and Vivienne Tien in Unspoken, a dramatic feature from writer-director Daming Chen that's currently in production. Unspoken tells the story of Xu (Zhang), an estranged father separated from his deaf daughter and her new life at an American university, whose murder reunites them in a way neither could have foreseen. The tragedy pierces Xu with grief and guilt that he couldn’t be present to protect his child. An ex-cop himself, he becomes convinced the local authorities are pursuing the wrong suspect – and that racism is compromising the investigation.

Mena Suvari will star alongside Steven Ogg, Christina Ricci, and Samantha Win in The Dresden Sun, the upcoming cyberpunk film from writer-director Michael Ryan. A heist goes south when Crilenger (Ogg)—a brilliant, principled mercenary with a traumatic past—works with an insider to steal a valued asset from Peredor Corporation called "the sphere." Meanwhile, a financial analyst, who despises his job at the powerful investment firm Mutual One, finds himself caught between deadly corporate rivals, financial fraud, and technological espionage, and is ultimately forced to run from a psychopathic military contractor.

Thornbyrd Films has launched production on Healed, a psychological thriller starring Guinevere Turner, Shantell Yasmine Abeydeera, Emily Goss, Benjamin Barrett, and Todd Lowe, which has been awarded the coveted ReFrame Stamp from the Sundance Institute and Women in Film for gender-balanced hiring. The film, written by Abeydeera, follows former pop icon Jazz Powers (Abeydeera) and her pregnant wife Olivia (Goss) as they attend an intimate meditation retreat at the invitation of renowned mindfulness expert, Georgia Chambers (Turner). A string of unorthodox therapy sessions and unusual events involving Georgia’s neighbor (Barrett) evoke memories of Jazz’s father (Lowe) and leave her questioning Georgia’s practice. Additional probing later reveals that the women are unknowing participants in an experiment that could change the course of their lives forever.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Keanu Reeves is in talks to star in Hulu’s The Devil In The White City, an adaptation of Erik Larson’s 2003 book that tells the true story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, whose fates were forever linked by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. It follows Daniel H. Burnham, a brilliant and fastidious architect racing to make his mark on the world, and Henry H. Holmes, a handsome and cunning doctor who fashioned his own pharmaceutical "Murder Castle" on fair grounds–a palace built to seduce, torture, and mutilate young women. It marks a significant step forward for the adaptation, which has been in various stages of development since Leonardo DiCaprio bought the film rights to the book in 2010 and previously set it up as a feature at Paramount with Martin Scorsese to direct. The project would mark Reeves’ first major U.S. TV role.

The Crown's Tobias Menzies will star in Manhunt, a new limited drama series for Apple TV+ from Lionstage and 3 Arts. He'll play Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln’s War Secretary and friend, who was nearly driven to madness by the need to catch assassin John Wilkes Booth and to carry out Lincoln’s legacy. The project is based on James Swanson’s book, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer.

The CW is expanding the cast for Season 2 of Kung Fu, its reboot of the classic series, adding Vanessa Yao, Annie Q., and JB Tadena in recurring roles. Following the explosive Season 1 finale, Season 2 picks up with Nicky Shen (Olivia Liang) and her family in a great place: Nicky’s been using her kung fu skills to keep Chinatown safe, and she and Henry (Eddie Liu) are only deeper in love with each other. Everything’s fine ... until the reemergence of villainous businessman, Russell Tan, and the surprise appearance of Nicky’s enigmatic cousin, Mia (Yao).

NCIS stars Wilmer Valderrama and Katrina Law will be visiting Vanessa Lachey and the rest of the NCIS: Hawai’i gang as part of a crossover special event airing via CBS on March 28. Details regarding the storyline are being kept under wraps by CBS, but according to Law, "Viewers can certainly expect an action-packed episode."

Channel 4’s foreign crime streaming service, Walter Presents, will debut four Scandinavian crime series between January and March 2022. First up is the Norwegian procedural, Outlier, which will air on Channel 4 from January 9. It will be followed by Cry Wolf (Denmark) starting January 30; The Truth Will Out season 2 (Sweden) on February 13; and Snow Angels (Sweden) on March 13.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Murder and Money," by Jacqueline Seewald, read by actor Larry Mattox

Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed Sebastien Fitzek to talk about the English translation of Das Packet (The Package) and his new project, The Playlist.

Jason King returned to the Spybrary Podcast for his annual appearance to share his best espionage novels of 2021.

My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, chatted with Marcy McCreary about her latest novel, The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon.

On the first Red Hot Chili Writers episode of the new year, hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee looked back at 2021; took a look forward to 2022; and talked about Abir's "crime-writing teapot."

Sunday Music Treat

It's rare that we have recordings of any composers prior to the advent of the modern record player, but there are some old piano rolls which have been adapted for modern playback. Case in point, here's Claude Debussy playing his own iconic piece, "Claire de lune" from the Suite Bergamasque, written in 1890-1905:

 

Quote of the Week

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Mrs. Knox's Profession

Jessica Mann (13 September 1937 – 10 July 2018) had a background in archaeology, Anglo-Saxon, and law and worked in various fields in the UK before turning to writing crime fiction with 1971's A Charitable End. She was also a well-known and respected radio and television broadcast, particularly her radio program, "Women of Mystery," and authored a treatise on women crime writers entitled Deadlier than the Male.

Mrs. Knox's Profession was Mann's second novel, and centers around Sarah Foster, a selfish, self-centered woman who is transplanted from her comfortable home in London to a Midlands suburb when her husband Jeffrey, an architect, takes a new job there. She and the other bored executive wives fill their days with outings at the tennis club, at coffee parties, and gossiping. Then, Sarah finds an altogether different side of her new neighborhood, with wife-swapping parties and an affair with an MP, Victor Nightingale.

Sarah is also introduced to Mrs. Knox, a childless woman whose husband is away abroad most of the time and fufills her loneliness by being a foster mother. It would spoil the plot to reveal that child-sitting isn't the only thing Mrs. Knox is good at, but Sarah finds out on her own when she is asked to look after a neighbor's child who promptly disappears. The kidnapping draws Sarah into a nightmarish world of intrigue, ransom, and murder that threatens to shatter her carefully-constructed web of lies and her marriage.

As Betty Rowlands notes in her preface to the Black Dagger edition, Mann defies convention by making almost all of the characters unattractive. Victor is greedy, ruthless and ambtious, his assistant is a rogue, his fiancée a calculating predator. Even Sarah's children are spoiled and demanding. As Rowlands adds, "Only Sarah's devoted husband Jeffrey, a kindly, hard-working architect, her shy neighbor Flora Millington, and ultimately Ms Knox herself, move us to compassion."

One interesting bit of trivia: Mrs. Knox's Profession was a 1973 Raven Mystery Award Winner for best Hardcover Book Jacket.

Mystery Melange

British crime author Ann Cleeves was one of the individuals named in the UK's official New Year Honours List. Creator of the Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez, and Matthew Veyn series, Cleeves has been recognized for her services to reading and libraries and joins the list "due to her extensive contribution to the crime fiction genre."

Darien Library and Barrett Bookstore will present a virtual evening with four bestselling thriller authors: Debbie Babitt (Saving Grace); Lynne Constantine (The Stranger in the Mirror); Wendy Walker (Don’t Look for Me); and Hank Phillippi Ryan (Her Perfect Life). Register for this free online event on Wednesday, January 12 at 7pm via this link.

The Baker Street Irregulars is planning to conduct its 2022 January events in person in New York City beginning January 13, 2022. Many events will be open to all Sherlockians with special tax-free group rates for hotel lodgings. Official BSI events that will be open to the public include the BSI Distinguished Speaker Lecture (Thursday), the Merchants Room (Saturday), and the BSI Luncheon Reception (Saturday).

If you happen to be Down Under on February 2, the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) is sponsoring the Summer of Mystery literary crime exhibition celebrating women crime writers and fictional crime fighters. Participants can join in an immersive recreation of mystery and mayhem in the historical setting of The Heights with a display featuring costumes and props from the world of Miss Phryne Fisher, as well as scenes recreated from well-known crime novels. There will also be a Trust Trail of Mystery to keep the kids busy.

Crime Reads welcomed Robert Miklitsch to talk about his latest book, I Died a Million Times: Gangster Noir in Midcentury America, and how the Senate Kefauver Committee investigation, which was broadcast on television, sparked an insatiable appetite for crime stories in 1950s America.


If you're looking for new crime fiction books to start off the new year, CrimeReads's Molly Odintz has ten suggestions for you. Over at the Shots Magazine blog, Ayo Onatade also has some upcoming titles to seek out, with an emphasis on British and European titles.

Dorothy L. Sayers: A Companion to Mystery Fiction by Eric Sandberg was recently released. It's the eleventh volume in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series edited by Elizabeth Foxwell and is a comprehensive guide to the mystery work of the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, with info on some of Sayers's religious-related works.

It appears that at least part of a real-life publishing mystery has been solved. For the past few years, someone has been stealing unpublished manscripts from lesser-known authors and bestsellers like Margaret Atwood. The perpetrator would use a phishing scheme pretending to be affiliated with legitimate publishing houses in order to have authors send him their works. However, the pilfered books never appeared as pirated copies nor was there ever any ransom, making the crime even more baffling. But yesterday, the FBI arrested Filippo Bernardini, a 29-year-old publishing professional who worked as a rights coordinator for a major international publisher in London (in his Twitter bio, he added that he worked for Simon & Schuster U.K. which wasn't named officially in the arrest warrant). There's no word on a motive yet, although knowing what’s coming, who is buying what, and how much they’re paying, could give publishing companies an edge.

On Jan. 1, works that were first published in 1926 entered the public domain, which means they will become available for free at sites such as Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks. Among the books included this year: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne; Soldiers’ Pay, the first novel published by William Faulkner; and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series, "The First Two Pages," hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work, and after her death, the feature was relocated to Art Taylor's website. For the initial First Two Pages of 2022, Art welcomes E.A. Aymar, who is a gifted and dedicated author, a thoughtful and provocative essayist, a tirelessly generous supporter of other writers, and a friend to the entire community. Ed has also established himself as an extraordinary short fiction writer and talks about his latest story, "The Search for Eric Garcia," which is in the anthology, Midnight Hour: A Chilling Anthology of Crime Fiction from 20 Authors of Color, edited by Abby L. Vandiver.

Teresa Dovalpage, a college professor and author of three theater plays and twelve novels, including the Havana Mystery series published by Soho Crime, applied the Page 69 Test to Death under the Perseids, the most recent novel in the series.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Epiphany 2021" by Tad Tuleja.

In the Q&A roundup, Robert McCaw stopped by Deborah Kalb's blog to talk about Treachery Times Two, the fourth in his Koa Kane series, set in Hawaii; E. B. Davis interviewed Jennifer J. Chow for the Writers Who Kill blog about her latest Sassy Cat cozy mystery , Mimi Lee Cracks the Code; and Author Interviews welcomed Karen Odden, whose novels A Dangerous Duet and A Trace of Deceit have won awards for historical mystery and historical fiction, about her latest work, Down a Dark River.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week (and a new year!) and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

SP Releasing has acquired worldwide rights to the psychological thriller, Nightshade, starring Lou Ferrigno Jr. (S.W.A.T.), Dina Meyer (Starship Troopers) and Jason Patric (Wayward Pines), with plans to release it in theaters across North America and on VOD platforms on January 4. The film, which is directed by Landon Williams, follows a homicide detective (Ferrigno Jr.) on the hunt for a serial killer, who experiences a series of disturbing dreams leading him to seek hypnotherapy and the aid of a psychiatrist (Meyer). The treatment reveals undeniable parallels between his nightmares and the murders, sending him into a spiral of paranoia and distrust.

A trailer dropped for the Tamil-language Indian thriller, Valimai, starring Ajith Kumar as Arjun, an IPS officer who sets out on a mission to hunt down illegal bikers involved in theft and murder. Huma Qureshi and Kartikeya Gummakonda also star. Ajith Kumar, known to his fans as "Thala" (Leader), is one of the most bankable stars from South India’s Tamil-language film industry and has a following across India. Valimai is due a release on Jan. 14, 2022.

Wondering when your favorite blockbuster action movie or thriller is slated for release in the new year? Deadline offered up a list of release dates for the "Most Anticipated 2022 Movies."

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Chris Noth is out of the CBS drama, The Equalizer, as the actor faces allegations of sexual assault. "Chris Noth will no longer film additional episodes of The Equalizer, effective immediately," CBS and Universal Television, which produces the series, said in a statement. He will appear in one more episode of the show that has completed production. Noth played William Bishop, the former CIA handler and longtime friend of lead character, Robyn McCall (Queen Latifah).

In an interview with Deadline, crime author Harlan Coben said that "The worst TV adaptations are slavishly devoted to the [original] text." Coben also indicated he hopes to continue working with Netflix as his five-year deal draws to a close. Coben's unusual contract with the streamer saw him mostly adapting his own novels for shows around Europe, even relocating Stay Close from Atlantic City to the British seaside resort of Blackpool for the TV version. The author has plans for at least two more shows, which would bring him up to nine of the planned 14 when the deal was struck in 2018.

The creators and stars of the upcoming Stephen Merchant-starring BBC1 factual drama, Four Lives—about serial killer Stephen Port’s crimes—have slammed London’s Metropolitan Police and the UK justice system for "monumental failings" over the case. An inquest into the Met’s investigation into Port’s four murders concluded in December that three of them "probably" could have been avoided if the police hadn’t missed opportunities, while a group of UK MPs has called for a public inquiry into claims of institutional homophobia that beset the case.

The official Twitter account for the BBC America drama series, Killing Eve, posted a 30-second teaser trailer, offering a preview of the season’s February 27, 2022 premiere. The storyline will see MI6 agent Eve Polastri’s (Sandra Oh) obsession with serial killer, Villanelle (Jodie Comer), come to a head in the fourth and final season. The show has racked up much critical acclaim in its short run, with Comer and Sandra Oh taking home an Emmy and Golden Globe, respectively, for their acting work.

A trailer was also released for the BBC's award-winning period gangster saga, Peaky Blinders, which will end with its upcoming sixth season. An air date has not yet been announced, although it has been teased for early 2022. Peaky Blinders features an ensemble cast led by Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory (who passed away in April of 2021), and Paul Anderson, starring as Tommy Shelby, Elizabeth "Polly" Gray, and Arthur Shelby, respectively. Sam Neill, Iddo Goldberg, Tom Hardy, Paddy Considine, Adrien Brody, Aidan Gillen, Annabelle Wallis, Charlotte Riley, Sam Claflin, Stephen Graham, Sophie Rundle, and Anya Taylor-Joy also have had recurring roles at various times of the series.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Writers Detective Bureau host, Detective Adam Richardson, discussed finding last wills for a homicide investigation; and he also answered two queries about historical crime scenarios: a murder in 1912, and a character in a romance who works for the NYPD in the late 80s/early 90s.

The Wrong Place, Write Crime podcast welcomed Janet Lynn and Will Zeilinger to talk about their solo work and their collaborations, which include the Skylar Drake Mystery Series.

The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast ushered in 2022 with a reading of a New Year’s story from EQMM’s Department of First Stories. New writer Ken Linn begins his tale on July 4th—but follows his protagonist up to the turn of a new year.

On Crime Time FM, Craig Sisterson chatted with Peter Papathanasiou about his dark outback thriller, The Stoning.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club had a recast of episode 163 featuring an interview with Caitlin Rother about her book, Death on Ocean Boulevard: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case.