In Reference to Murder

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

With one exception, the movie news this week focuses on remakes (who says Hollywood doesn't have creativity anymore?).

Bradley Cooper, Alex Pettyfer and Sofia Vergara have offered starring roles in a new film adaptation of Peter Dexter's thriller novel The Paperboy. The plot hinges on the slacker son of a small-town Florida newspaper publisher who gets involved in a murder investigation by his older brother, a big-city reporter (who would be played by Cooper).

Now for the remakes: 

A new version of the Bodyguard (you may remember the 1992 film with Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston, and the Dolly Parton song "I Will Always Love You" that Whitney yodeled sang). The updated twist: it's an Iraqi war veteran who's assigned to protect a singer in an age of high technology. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's film (whose project In a Better World won for Best Foreign-Language film at Sunday's Oscars), is going to direct a remake of the French kidnapping thriller Rapt.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown) is set to direct Red Circle, the remake of the 1970 Jean-Pierre Melville film Le Cercle Rouge, about an aristocratic thief, a vengeful mob boss, a murderer and cat-loving police superintendent.

TV

BBC1 has canceled the crime drama Zen starring Rufus Sewell, which was based on the character of Italian detective Aurelio Zen from the novels of Michael Dibdin. The production company behind the series, Left Bank (also responsible for BBC1's Swedish detective drama Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh), is in talks with other broadcasters to continue the show.

Rogers cable company in Canada is adding seven new channels, including GGBG, "devoted to people and organizations that uphold law and order in our society and that would feature entertainment programming on the police, law, the courts, emergency and medical response teams, as well as disaster and relief operations"; and Highwire, to include selections from crime fiction.

The seventh installment in the series of made-for-TV movies starring Tom Selleck as Police Chief Jesse Stone has been scheduled to premiere May 22. Stone is taken from the works of the late author Robert B. Parker. Kathy Baker and Kohl Sudduth return as members of the Paradise Police Force, with other returning cast to include William Devane, Stephen McHattie, Saul Rubinek and William Sadler.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Jo Nesbø will appear as a guest on the on BBC World Book Club on Monday March 7 at 3:30 p.m. London time. You can send questions in advance about Nesbø's latest novel The Redbreast to the Beeb.

Heidi Durrow discussed "Three Books To Rescue Nordic Lit From The Dark Side" for NPR.

KCRW's Bookworm show featured T.C. Boyle, about his latest novel, When the Killing's Done.

THEATER

The Lifeline Theater in Chicago is presenting a stage adaptation of Wilkie Collins' novel The Moonstone. 

Also in the Windy City, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater will present a new musical murder mystery, Murder For Two, with music by Joe Kinosian, lyrics by Kellen Blair and book by Kinosian and Blair. It's a whodunit where one actor (yet to be announced) plays the investigator of the crime and the other (Kinosian) plays all 13 suspects.

GAMES

Nancy Drew fans take note: There's a new Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. "Shadow Ranch" is the first installment, but the company behind the interactive app, Her Interactive, plans on additional titles.

Friday's Forgotten Books - Morse's Greatest Mystery

Norman Colin Dexter has received multiple honors and awards, including the CWA Gold Dagger and Silver Dagger awards, the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for outstanding services to crime literature (1997) and the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to literature.

All of his 13 novels and most of his short stories feature his famous fictional creation, Inspector Morse, who shares a love of classical music and crosswords with the author. The TV series based on Morse, starring actor John Thaw, ran for 33 episides from 1987-2000, followed by several more episodes of Inspector Lewis, featuring Morse's sidekick.

Dexter's short-story output isn't large, with some seven individual stories appearing in various magazines and anthologies, and only one collection, Morse's Greatest Mystery, from 1993 (in the UK; 1995 in the U.S). The 11 stories in this volume include six Morse/Lewis stories; one of Dexter's few American-set stories, about a group of con men; and his only Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Some of the highlights:

"The Inside Story": In the longest of the stories in the group, Morse and Lewis investigate after a young woman is stabbed to death in Oxford. The victim was writing a short story for a crime fiction contest (to be judged by no less than Julian Symons and H.R.F. Keating), and it becomes apparent to Morse there are autobiographical details included in her story that are not only clues, but motive for murder. (As an aside, this story was later bundled into a special edition paperback original, complete with crossword puzzle, and commissioned by American Express.)

"Evans Tries an O-Level":  This is a humorous and complex prison breakout yarn featuring the title character of James Roderick Evans, a convict already involved in two failed breakouts from an Oxford prison, which has earned him the nickname "Evans the Break." When Evans announces he wants to take an O-Level exam in German, this quite rightfully makes the prison Governor suspicious. (The story received a Macavity Award in 1996.)

"Neighbourhood Watch": A German professor's car is stolen and returned with an apology and tickets to the opera. Morse smugly believes it's a ploy to set up a cunning robbery while the professor attends the opera, only the tables end up being turned on Morse instead.

"A Case of Mis-Identity":  In this Holmes pastiche, Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes are rivals in trying to figure out the real story behind a disappearing bridegroom mystery, yet it's the loyal Watson who saves the day and has one of his few moments in the sun.

The stories included in the collection are a bit uneven, but the Morse offerings preserve the essence of the character, his intellect, quirkiness and wit. All in all, the longer novel format is probably a better vehicle to provide context for Morse and allow for the more intricate and careful plotting that Morse fans have come to expect.

London, Spinetingler & the Spirit of Short Fiction

Janet Rudoloph, editor of Mystery Readers Journal, is looking for  Author! Author! essays for the next issue, which will focus on mysteries set in London. These essays are between 500 and 2,500 words, "first person, upclose and personal about yourself, your books and the London connection. Think of it as chatting with readers and writers in the cafe (or tea shop) or bar!" The  deadline is fast approaching, March 10th. If interested, let Janet know via e-mail.

Spinetingler Magazine has kicked off its 2011 fiction publication with Fred Snyder's story "The Colombian." Editor-In-Chief Sandra Ruttan also reports that, while the magazine has reopened for fiction submissions, she doesn't expect they'll be open for long, as several stories for 2011 publication have already been selected. She remains hopeful that fiction publication will increase as site revenue increases. 

If you have younger writers in your circle of family, friends and neighbors, point them toward the Spirits of Short Fiction contest, sponsored by Jon Jordan as part of this year's Bouchercon Conference in St. Louis. The hope is the contest will "encourage young writers to express themselves through fiction and possibly launch future New York Times bestselling authors."  The rules are fairly simple: you must be under 18 and unpublished, and the story must be less than 5000 words, take place in St. Louis and contain a mention of BBQ. Entries are due by May 1st.

Mystery Melange

Craig Sisterson's Kiwi Crime blog has information on how you can help the victims of the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, which shook the area yesterday. Buildings were toppled and at least 75 people have died, with many more people potentially trapped in rubble. As he also notes, crime writers Paul Cleave, Andrew Grant and Steve Malley came through unscathed, although no word yet on folks associated with the Christchurch Writer's Festival, the Ngaio Marsh Award, or the Ngaio Marsh House.

It's beginning to look like we need an Antiques Road Show for literary treasures. "Lost" stories by Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse and Graham Greene were published recently in The Strand, and last month, it was announced that fifteen new Dashiell Hammett stories had been found and will be published in an upcoming story collection (and one in The Strand). Now comes word that five new Daphne du Maurier stories were turned up by a bookseller in the author's home town and will likewise be included in a new collection. And just in time for Presidents' Day, 74 long-lost books from Thomas Jefferson's personal library were discovered buried in the stacks of Washington University's library.

Speaking of libraries, it turns out that librarians make decent sleuths. After some fancy detective work, several librarians helped track down a man who had been stealing library books for 11 years and is estimated to have sold 2,200 of them on eBay, making potential hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thanks to the efforts of Detective Librarian Loretta Kelleher and others, the thief is now behind bars in New Rochelle, NY.

It seems that crime fiction is still popular among libraries in the U.K., with a majority (somewhere around 60 to 70% of the top 100) of the most-borrowed titles in 2010 belonging to the mystery/suspense/thriller category. The most borrowed author was James Patterson.

The Crimefactory magazine blog has an archived interview from 1996 with author James Crumley (The Last Good Kiss), who died in 2008. In reply to why he and so many other writers seemed attracted to Missoula, Montana, Crumley noted "It was the middle of the bottom of an ice-age lake, so maybe it's the prehistoric mud that attracts us!," and as for his former state of Texas, "Where I lived is the last place where there's a great clash between the white minority and the Mexican American majority, where people are still race conscious in a really silly way."

A look at Crippen and Landau's upcoming releases includes three different collections of short stories by Edward D. Hoch, who also died in 2008. Hoch wrote some 950 stories in his lifetime, appearing in 34 years of consecutive Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine issues. The three collections include Nothing Is Impossible: The Third Casebook of Dr. Sam Hawthorne; Funeral in the Fog and Other Simon Ark Tales; and Hoch's Ladies, three series of short stories, each featuring a female protagonist.

The Toronto Star takes a look at the environs that inspired Dostoevsky's classic Crime and Punishment, "about a murderer, his crime and the eternal nature of consequence." Guided walking tours around the same streets of St. Petersburg's tough Haymarket area where the fictional Raskilnokov walked are quite popular these days, even as the 130th anniversary of Dostoevsky's death was honored February 9th.

Publishers Weekly has a wrap-up of the recent Love is Murder conference, and just a reminder that there's still time to register for Sleuthfest in Florida, coming up March 3-6, with special guest authors S.J. Rozan, Meg Gardiner and Dennis Lehane.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

For his first film in a decade, Director John Polson has chosen fellow Australian Peter Temple's award-winning crime novel Truth. The novel became the first work of genre fiction to win the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2010. The story follows Melbourne Police Inspector Stephen Villani as he balances investigations into a murdered woman in a penthouse apartment and three men butchered in a sadistic rampage, while dealing with a tattoo-faced drug dealer corrupting his rebellious daughter and his own crumbling marriage.

Director Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Bone Collector) is taking on a film adaptation of Firing Point, a yet-to-be-published sequel to the 2003 submarine thriller Final Bearing by George Wallace and Don Keith. The novel is about an untested submarine captain who must work with a Navy SEAL team to rescue the Russian president and avoid igniting World War III. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Steve Rose, writing for The Guardian, takes a look at crime television and film based in Melbourne, Australia, including the new thriller Animal Kingdom by writer and director, David Michôd. It's based on a true case of two policemen lured to investigate an abandoned car, then shot dead in cold blood in retaliation for a previous shooting.

Robert Downey Jr is rumored to be in talks to star in the film adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's mystery novel, Inherent Vice, an adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon mystery novel. Downey would play Larry "Doc" Sportello, a private eye based in Los Angeles in the late 1960s who is tracking down the killer of a woman's wealthy lover.

TV

It's "old home" week for actor Jamie Bamber and producer Ronald D. Moore, both of Battlestar Galactica fame, with Bamber set to star in a new Moore pilot for NBC, titled 17th Precinct. He joins already-cast Stockard Channing in the ensemble cop drama set in a fictional town where magic and supernatural elements rule over science.

Fresh on the heels of the announcement from NBC about a new police procedural for the fall schedule blending fairytale fiction with reality comes news that the lead role has already been cast. David Giuntoli (of the Real World...seriously!) will star in Grimm as a detective who "begins to see humans as 'beast/animals', and discovers he has a legacy, to protect 'humans' from these beasts."

Maria Bello (ER, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) will take on the role made famous by Helen Mirren in the new Prime Suspect reboot, with English actor Toby Stephens playing her live-in boyfriend.

Four of the six NYPD rookie cop characters in the upcoming Robert De Niro-produced pilot Rookies have been cast:  this week Judy Marte, Tom Reed and Stark Sands joined already-announced Leelee Sobieski in starring roles.

Ashley Judd may be nearing a deal for her first regular TV series role, in ABC's action series Missing (one of several working titles). Judd would play Becca Winstone, a devoted single mom and ex-CIA agent who travels to Europe to track down her 18-year-old son after he disappears in Italy where he'd been working on architecture fellowship.

PODCASTS/RADIO

For NPR, Alan Cheuse reviews two crime novels set in two very different parts of the world, The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Japan), a story of murder, mathematics and rivalry, and Damage by John Lescroart (San Francisco), a tale of violence and revenge.

Friday's Forgotten Books - The Edgar Winners

After a Patti Abbott hiatus, when the very capable Evan Lewis, Kerrie Smith, Todd Mason and George Kelley filled in, the Queen of Friday's Forgotten Books returns today, and a big "Welcome Back!" to Patti.

The Edgar Awards Banquet is fast approaching: winners of the annual Mystery Writers of America awards will be named in just a little over two months, on April 28. While browsing through the shelves at my local public library, I stumbled across an anthology from 1980, The Edgar Winners, the 33rd Annual Anthology of the Mystery Writers of America.

It's edited by Bill Pronzini, who notes in his introduction that this anthology is

"The first anthology to bring together in one volume only those stories that have received the coveted Edgar as the Best Mystery Short Story of its year....These twenty-four stories include some of the finest mystery fiction to be published in the past four decades. Moreover, they represent the widest possible variety of types, themes, styles and authors--testimony to the fact that the mystery story, contrary to what certain critics would have us believe, is by no means a limited and hidebound genre."

A little history is in order, too, as the first two years of the Edgar Award for the short story were given for bodies of work; the third went to Ellery Queen's Mytery Magazine; and the next four were given to one-volume single-author collections. The current policy of honoring a single story didn't begin until 1954, and thus, Pronzini chose representative stories from the pre-1954 categories to be included here.

The stories are printed chronologically, from 1947's "The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party," by Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manford Bennington Lee), up through "The Cloud Beneath the Eave" by Barbara Owens, the winner from 1978. Other names are indeed a "Who's Who" of giants in crime fiction, short or long forms, including William Irish (a/k/a Cornell Woolrich), Lawrence G. Blochman, Philip MacDonald, Roadl Dahl, Stanley Ellin, Edward D. Hoch, Joe Gores and Robert L. Fish. On the other hand, it's interesting to see how many of the winning stories were penned by authors who, for whatever reason, never went on to widespread name recognition, like William O'Farrell, David Ely, Warner Law, Margery Finn Brown.

The themes and styles Pronzini alluded to above range from detective stories to psychological suspense, police procedurals, character studies, morality plays, social commentaries, and "gently nostalgic glimpses of the past, even what might be termed an avant-garde literary exercise." If you're looking for a book than provides an overview of the best writing in a variety of short mystery fiction sub-genres, then this is a good place to start.

As a reminder and nod to the latest possibilities for inclusion in a future Edgar-winning anthology, here are this year's nominated stories:

• "The Scent of Lilacs" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Doug Allyn (Dell Magazines)
• "The Plot" – First Thrills by Jeffery Deaver (Tom Doherty – Forge Books)
• "A Good Safe Place" – Thin Ice by Judith Green (Level Best Books)
• "Monsieur Alice is Absent" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Stephen Ross (Dell Magazines)
• "The Creative Writing Murders" – Dark End of the Street by Edmund White (Bloomsbury)

 Good luck to all!

Happy Birthday to the "Queen of Crime"

Today is the birthday of author Ruth Rendell, who has sold at least 20 million copies of more than 60 novels, translated into 25 languages worldwide. Her most famous literary creation is police Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford, who was named after taking a holiday in Ireland, as she noted in a recent interview. It was a choice between the Irish cities of Wexford and Waterford (approximately 60 kilometers apart), but Rendell happens to "like the letter X in names."

She says she actually didn't like Wexford in his first novel, From Doon with Death, wanting him to be "a bit less tough, more tolerant, a bit more literate, more liberal, more interesting to me." As she developed these qualities in later novels, the books' themes began to tackle racism, the environment and domestic violence, even though Rendell was afraid her readers wouldn't like it. The author hasn't stopped tackling contemporary topics, coming out strongly against a plan by the Suffolk County Council in the UK to close two-thirds of its libraries, adding "The thing is, if they are closed they will never open again."

Twice the Book Love

The National Book Festival on the Mall is adding a second day this year after ten years of being one day only. The event has readings and book signings by invited authors, including a Fiction and Mystery tent, which in 2010 featured Martha Grimes, Karin Slaughter, Peter Straub and Scott Turow. This year's lineup hasn't been scheduled yet, but you can check out podcasts from some of the authors who have appeared during the festival's 10 year history. Here are a few examples (note if you're at work—the audio starts automatically):

• Michael Connelly
• Ken Follett
• Martha Grimes
• Brad Meltzer
• Walter Mosley
• George Pelecanos
• Peter Robinson
• Karin Slaughter

There are plenty more you can find and access via the web site's search engine. If you're in the D.C. area September 24-25, stop on by, and you can even bring the kids for the Let's Read America Pavilion. The focus on literacy continues in the Pavilion of the States, where there will be reading and library-promotion programs and literary events from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. trusts and territories.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules) is taking on an adaptation of the best-selling crime novel by Lars Keper, The Hypnotist. It will be the director's first Swedish film in 25 years and his first-ever thriller.

DreamWorks has acquired the original script Voices from the Dead by J. Michael Straczynski. It's a thriller based on the friendship between magician Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which was real enough, although the script is about a fictitious case involving a psychic and bizarre murders in 1920s New York.

If you're a fan of film noir, then check out the charity blogathon February 14-21 titled "For the Love of Film (Noir)," to benefit the Film Noir Foundation. In addition to helping restore films in danger of being lost forever, you'll have a chance to be entered in raffles.

Andrew Garfield, Jennifer Garner and Marcia Gay Harden have joined the cast to star in Infinity Media's adaptation of the bestselling novel Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell (an Oprah's Book Club selection in March 2000). The murder-mystery plot is set in Pennsylvania and will be directed by Adrian Lyne.

Collider has posted the first looks at scenes from the upcoming film J. Edgar from Clint Eastwood. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover; Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson, Hoover's confidant and secret lover; and  Judi Dench as Hoover's mother, Anne Marie.

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice has found a wealthy benefactor and appears to be back on track. It follows Larry "Doc" Sportello, a pothead private eye wandering through the Summer of Love in 1969 Los Angeles, tracking down the killer of a woman's wealthy lover

D.J. Caruso has signed on to direct the film adaptation of Josh Bazell's suspense novel Beat the Reaper, about a former mobster-turned-doctor in the witness protection program whose past comes back to haunt him.

TV

Pay-cable channel Cinemax is taking the plunge into the original programming pool with its first scripted primetime drama, Strike Back, a 10-hour action series written by X-Files alum Frank Spotnitz and British TV writer Richard Zadjlic (EastEnders) and loosely based on Chris Ryan's book of the same name. The series stars Damien Scott as a former U.S. Special Forces op and Philip Winchester (Fringe, Crusoe) as Section 20 officer Michael Stonebridge.

AMC has scheduled a two-hour premiere for its new series Killing, about the murder of a young Seattle girl, Rosie Larsen, and the subsequent police investigation, on April 3. USA has likewise scheduled its premiere of the spinoff Burn Notice made-for-television prequel film, Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe, on April 17. Not to be outdone, A&E released a video sneak peak of its new crime drama Breakout Kings.

Apparently, the failure of J.J. Abrams's spy show Undercovers and the disappointing ratings for Fringe haven't diminished his clout in Hollywood; CBS picked up another pilot from Abrams, Person of Interest, which follows an ex-CIA hit man and a scientist who team up to prevent crimes before they happen.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Bunburyist's Elizabeth Foxwell points us to an interview with Joan Schenkar, author of The Talented Miss Highsmith.

CrimeWav's latest podcast is up, with excerpts from a new novel by Nik Korpon (Stay God).

THEATER

A play based on the  Detective Murdoch mystery novels by author Maureen Jennings is currently being staged in London. No Traveler Returns has the detective working undercover to solve a murder at a Huntsville inn during the Victorian era.

Valentine's Day Prequels

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare has a list of famous sweetheart sleuth duos and Valentine's Day mystery novels.

NPR takes a look at the dark origins of Valentine's Day, dating from the misogynistic feast of Lupercalia.

Alan Rinzler offers an editor's Valentine to writers, explaining "What Makes Writers Special."

Peter Robinson and nineteen other authors listed their favorite romantic reads for The Globe and Mail. Among the choices: Graham Greene and Dorothy L. Sayers.

Barbara Cartland's estate is publishing one-fourth of the romance novelist's titles as e-books for the first time, beginning tomorrow on Valentine's Day.

The Guardian has a slide show of the ten best literary love stories as told in pictures.

Jen Forbus moderated the "Cute Guys" panel of authors at the recent Love is Murder conference and has a video clip available.

Do you live on or near one of America's Most Romantic Main Streets?

NASA's Stardust spacecraft will have a rendezvous of its own on Valentine's Day—with comet Tempel 1. Talk about star-crossed romances.

Out of gift ideas? What lover wouldn't be thrilled to have a cockroach named after them.

The police have been going about this all wrong for the past several years, apparently. If you want to get guns off the streets, don't buy them back, exchange them for sex toys.