In Reference to Murder

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, won't be released until November, but that didn't keep Sony Pictures from announg a 24th Bond film will be heading to theaters in 2014, once again starring Daniel Craig.

Guillermo del Toro has optioned The Bloody Benders script by Adam Robitel. It's based on the true story of a family who ran something of a Bates hotel in Kansas in 1873; as many as 20 guests checked in, and never checked out, robbed and murdered by their hosts.

The star-studded cast of the movie Out of the Furnace keeps getting bigger. Willem Dafoe was just added, joining the likes of Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard, Woody Harrelson and Forest Whitaker, in the tale of two brothers who live in the Rust Belt, one who lands in prison, the other in a ruthless criminal enterprise.

Warner Bros is launching Inside the Script, a series of illustrated eBooks with the shooting scripts, production notes, storyboards, photos, posters, on-set stills and more for classic movies including Casablanca, Ben-Hur, An American In Paris and North By Northwest.

TV

The E! network, known mostly for its Hollywood gossip shows, is adding a lineup of scripted series including the Amy Devlin Mysteries, based on a graphic novel about a young "culturally-obsessed detective who brings her own style and POV to police work." Another series is titled Juror #9, about a man named Alex Dunbar who accidentally kills a woman who's been blackmailing him for a shady business deal. He frames a man who turns out to become the scion of a business empire, and "the ensuing media frenzy engulfs the police investigator, the DA and even Alex's wife as the trial becomes the national obsession."

Syfy picked up rights to the Harper Connelly Mysteries by True Blood author Charlaine Harris. The four-book series is about a young woman who develops the ability to sense the location and last memories of dead people, after she's struck by lightning. The TV series will presumably be more than four episodes.

Syfy is also developing a show called Seeing Things, based on Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's graphic novel about a police officer who is killed but forced to come back as a ghost and carry out covert missions for a government agency.

A&E announced the premiere date for The Glades, June 3 at 9 p.m. It will be followed at 10 by the series premiere of Longmire, based on Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire mystery novels and starring Robert Taylor as the sheriff of a Wyoming town.

Actor Ray Stevenson (star of films Thor and The Three Musketeers) will have a recurring role next season in Dexter, playing the leader of a Russian organized crime syndicate.

The stars of HBO's Boardwalk Empire teased season 3 at a recent Q&A in North Hollywood. The new season will pick up 15 months in the future from the end of season two and will see the rise of gangsters like Al Capone.

Trying to keep up with the pilots for potential fall TV series? Here's the latest scorecard, from Omnimystery News.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Suspense Radio returns after a two-week hiatus with authors Paul French, Donald Allen Kirch, Robert Bennett and Andrew Kaplan.

THEATER

American Psycho, the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis that was turned into a feature film starring Christian Bale, is going to be adapted again, this time for the theater—a musical for the London stage.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Moving Toyshop

Robert Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978) set out to be a professional musician and had a successful career writing vocal and choral music. He composed music for the cinema, too, close to 50 films including the scores for many British comedies of the 1950s. That comedy link isn't surprising considering Montgomery also wrote comic mystery novels under the pen name of Edmund Crispin, the first of which, The Case of the Gilded Fly, was published in 1944. Crispin didn't write many novels, but those he did featured the eccentric, absent-minded Oxford don and professor of English and Literature, Gervase Fen.

The third of these books is perhaps his best. Titled The Moving Toyshop, P.D. James named it as one of the best five mysteries of all time and critic and mystery writer H.R.F. Keating included it among the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. Keating added, "The word to describe The Moving Toyshop is 'rococo'. It possesses in splendid abundance the ebullient charm of the works of art thus labelled. It is alive with flourishes. Its mainspring the actual disappearance of a toyshop visited in midnight Oxford, has all the right fancifulness, and at the end it is explained with perfect plausibility."

The plot centers on poet Richard Cadogan, who stumbles on the dead body of an old lady in an Oxford toyshop late one night right before a blow from an unseen assailant knocks him unconscious. But when he recovers, not only has the woman disappeared, the entire toyshop has vanished, replaced by a grocery store. When the police not surprisingly refuse to believe Cadogan's story, he turns to the only person he thinks can help, his former colleague Gervase Fen. Fen's response is a typical Crisin ploy, a breaking of the fourth-wall illusion, "It's somewhat unusual business, isn't it." "So unusual," replies the poet, "that no one in his sense would invent it." (At another point, Fen dreams up book titles "for Crispin.") Fen sets about solving the impossible crime via his intuition, wits and wit, tossing in various literary references and quotations along the way, including clues based on Edward Lear limericks.

Crispin unfortunately suffered from a problem with alcoholism, and it was his drinking that eventually made into an invalid and semi-recluse, too weak to write. It's a shame, for it would have been interesting to see where his imagination and whimsical take on the genre would have led him, had he had full use of his faculties. The Fen books are witty, clever and entertaining, and filled with wonderfully eccentric characters.
FYI, the Felony & Mayhem Press reprinted several titles in the Fen series, including a new edition of The Moving Toyshop just last year, adding to an audio book from Audible in 2008.

Mystery Melange

The program for the 10th Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival was announced yesterday and inludes headliners Jo Nesbo, Harlan Coben, John Connolly, Kate Mosse, Peter Robinson, Peter James and Ian Rankin. (Hat tip to the blog It's a Crime--or a Mystery)

In the interview roundup this week, the acclaimed and prolific author Robert Randisi stopped by Petticoats and Pistols, talking about his westerns and what makes a good story;  the blog Kittling: Books talked with writing duo Joyce and Jim Lavene about their cozy mysteries and how they write as a team; Existential Ennui (love the blog title) had a Q&A with spy novelist Jeremy Duns.

Not so much a Q&A as a guest post, Les Edgerton gives tips via Kristen Lamb's blog on how to create a remarkable writing voice.

More award and award nomination congratulations to report this week:

• This year's nominees for the Arthur Ellis Awards for crime fiction authors were handed out by the Crime Writers of Canada.

• The Los Angeles Times Book Award winners were also announced, with Stephen King awarded the prize for in the Mystery/Thriller Category for his novel 11/22/63.

• The Mystery Writers of America gave the Mary Higgins Clark Award to Sara J. Henry for her novel Learning to Swim.

• CrimeFest in the UK announced shortlists for Audible Sounds of Crime Awards, given for the best abridged and unabridged crime audiobooks in both printed and audio formats; the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award for the best humorous crime novel; and the eDunnit Award for the best crime fiction ebook first published in both hardcopy and in electronic format.

• Tonight is also the night of the annual Edgar Awards Banquet, where this year's award winners will be announced. For a list of the finalists, you can check the In Reference to Murder Recent Mystery Awards link. Just in case you can't wait, Dan Wager, the "Hungry Detective," lists his picks.

Boston's Big Thrill

If you're in the Boston area this Wednesday, join the Boston Public Library in a special fundraiser titled "The Big Thrill." Authors Lee Child, Charlaine Harris, Tess Gerritsen, Karin Slaughter and David Hosp will be on hand, and you can also enjoy drinks, hors d'oeuvres and a silent auction full of various prizes.

This is part of a Save the Libraries campaign spearheaded by Karin Slaughter, who is quite passionate about the subject, adding, "The funding of American libraries should be a matter of national security. Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation’s sovereignty. For nearly 85 percent of kids living in rural areas, the only place where they have access to technology or books outside the schoolroom is in a public library. For many urban kids, the only safe haven they have to study or do homework is the public library."

Tickets are still available for this event, and you can also bid on eBay for signed books and other goodies.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

This bit of casting is probably going to be as controversial and hotly debated as the news that 5'9" Tom Cruise would play 6'6" Jack Reacher from Lee Child's novels. It appears the film adapation/reboot of the popular 1970s TV show Rockford Files (originally starring James Garner), is being filmed as a star vehicle for Vince Vaughn. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake are teaming up in Runner, Runner, a thriller about online gambling. Brad Furman, the same director behind the film adaption of Michael Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer, is also on board the project.

Taken director Pierre Morel has signed on to direct Bastille Day, an action thriller about a young American artist living in Paris who teams up with a washed-up CIA agent to prevent an attack on the city.

Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper may be teaming up for a film written by Eric Singer about the 70s FBI sting operation Abscam that took down a bunch of U.S. congressmen. It's not a done deal, but it has a director (David O Russell) and funding appears to be in place.

Hat to Janet Rudolph of Mystery Fanfare for alerting us to upcoming noir film events at the San Francisco International Film Festival and Arthur Lyons Film Festival in in Palm Springs.

Speaking of film festivals, the Noir City Festival in Los Angeles will also be screening 30 rarely-seen films through May 6th at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre.

TV

The eight-part series The Great American Manhunt began on NatGeo TV this past Friday (but hopefully you can catch the first installment On Demand). It's a reality challenge show sets that pits three real-world crime experts (a cop, a forensic scientist and a forensic psychologist) against each other in hunting down a real-life mystery target at large without any modern shortcuts like DNA, dental records or ID databases.

USA has announced the summer return dates for Burn Notice, White Collar, Covert Affair and more.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is adding a new crime drama, Cracked, to its 2012-13 schedule. The police procedural stars Stefanie von Pfetten (Battlestar Galactica). The CBC had earlier announced it had acquired Murdoch Mysteries, a period drama from Shaftesbury Films.

Mariska Hargitay has signed a deal with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit to return for a 14th season next year.

The producers of Homeland announced new characters and storylines for the second season debuting in September. There's also a trailer on this link (with a warning for possible spoilers).

The original Netflix mob drama Lilyhammer is returning for a second season. The show folows Frank 'The Fixer' Tagliano (played by Steven Van Zandt) as he attempts to start a new life in Lillehammer, Norway.

Actor Vince Vaughn is developing a new drama about global private security operatives with Boardwalk Empire's Lawrence Konner. I have a feeling this project will be a little less controversial for Vaughn.

PODCASTS/RADIO

David Suchet, who plays the perfect Hercule Poirot in the BBC's television adaptations of Agatha Christie's series, talked with BBC Radio 4 about his role in a new production of Long Day's Journey Into Night and the upcoming final installments of the Poirot series.

Sarah Weinman discusses the new book Hit Lit, by mystery writer James W. Hall, and his case that the biggest hits from the past hundred years share 12 features.

THEATER

Academy Award-nominated playwright Jose Rivera will join the production of his Off-Broadway drama Massacre (Sing to Your Children) for the April 23 and 25 performances—as an actor. The psychological drama is set in a small New Hampshire town where seven friends conspire to murder their mysterious neighbor Joe.

Author Anthony Horowitz, the creator of the TV series Foyle's War, is also a successful playwright, and his psychological thriler Mindgame (that debuted off-Broadway in 2008), is being staged in several locations:  by the Progress Theatre Company in the UK in May; the Willits Community Theatre in Northern California; and the UK's Loft Theatre in September.

World Book Night

The first World Book Night was held in the UK in 2011, and its success has spawned a U.S. effort and similar events in other countries. Tomorrow (Monday, April 23) is the very first World Book Night in the U.S., when tens of thousands of volunteers across the country will hand out free copies of books in their communities. Publishers, bookstores, libraries and authors are also donating their services and time. The goal is to give books to new readers, encourage reading and just share a passion for terrific books. Or, as the WBN website says, "The goal of World Book Night is to seek out reluctant adult readers wherever they are, in towns and cities, in public settings or in places from nursing homes to food pantries, low income schools to mass transit."

Although it's too late to volunteer for this year's event, organizers hope it will become an annual tradition. Check out the 30 books on this year's list, and maybe you have a copy of one of the titles you can pass along to a reluctant reader among your friends, family and colleagues.

Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries

Today, Sisters in Crime's "Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries Every Day" event is taking place in libraries and bookstores across the nation, from Livermore Falls, Maine, to Honolulu, Hawaii. To support the project, a group of SinC members volunteered to go into bookstores and libraries to help those on the front lines of crime fiction - the very important people who help get crime fiction into the hands of interested readers. Frankie Y. Bailey, President of Sisters in Crime, noted, "In honor of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Sisters in Crime, we are very pleased to be able to thank some of the people who work the hardest on the front lines of publishing by rolling up our sleeves and working beside them."

For a listing of member participants, check out the SinC blog, which also has more details about where folks will be adding reports and information as the day progresses. In addition, SinC's more than 3,000 members are supporting the "Solving Mysteries Day" event by going into libraries and bookstores today to personally thank the booksellers and librarians they find working behind the counters and in the stacks. You don't have to be a member of SinC to do this - it you have some spare time today, head to your local bookstore and/or library and let the staff know how much you appreciate them.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Killings at Badger's Drift

Caroline Graham (born in the UK in 1931) had what you would definitely call a varied background, including leaving school at age 14 to work in a factory, a stint in the Navy, professional dancer, actress, journalist and scriptwriter for radio plays followed by television work. But her desire to write novels led her to publish the romance novel Fire Dance in 1982 when she was in her 50s, followed by several other books that had  modest success.

In 1987 she published her first crime fiction novel, The Killings at Badger's Drift, which introduced DCI Tom Barnaby and Sergeant Gavin Troy and won the Macavity Award for "Best First Novel" (in addition to being nominated for the same honor by the Anthony and Agatha Awards). In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association selected Badger's Drift as one of the top hundred crime novels of all time.

The DCI Barnaby series was popular enough to spawn six more installments, but it wasn't until ITV came calling that the fortunes of Graham (and Barnaby) really took off. The televised series Midsomer Murders, based on Graham's books and starring John Nettles, began with an adaptation of Badger's Drift in 1997 and is still going strong with new episodes 15 years later. Graham herself has written many of those episodes, but several other writers have also contributed, including Anthony Horowitz (the creator of Foyle's War, among many other works). Graham's ultimate success prompted her to achieve another dream, an advanced degree in Writing for the Theatre at Birmingham University that she obtained at the age of 60.

The Killings at Badger's Drift is set in an idyllic English village of that name filled with stereotypical characters including vicar, bumbling local doctor, and kindly spinster who taught almost everyone in town. When the spinster dies, everyone believes it was natural causes—except for her closest friend, Miss Lucy Bellringer, who is convincing enough that Chief Inspector Barnaby orders an autopsy. When the coroner finds the woman died of hemlock-laden wine, Barnaby and Sargeant Troy begin to peel away layers of scandals and festering resentments in the town that provides them with plenty of suspects. And then, the murderer strikes again, leaving a woman's bloody corpse to be found by her son, the local undertaker...

Caroline Graham manages to channel the Golden Age mysteries and preserve the same small-town English village milieu popularized by Agatha Christie, while throwing in modern touches and a little more violence and sex. Chief Inspector Barnaby and Sergeant Troy are polar opposites and both well-drawn—Barnaby the conservative, thoughtful, married officer with a dry wit, and Troy, the young, handsome, know-it-all. Publishers Weekly said that "Graham makes the characters humanly believable in her witty and tragic novel, a real winner," while the Washington Post noted "The characters are strong, with a decidedly dark side, and the plot is twisted enough to stump the most astute."

The settings and descriptions are also detailed, astute and quite fun to read, as in this excerpt:

She was very, very fat. She spread outwards and towered upwards. At least a quarter of her height seemed to be accounted for by her hair, which was a rigid pagoda-like structure: a landscape of peaks and waves, whorls and curls ending in a sharp point like an inverted ice-cream cone. It was the colour of butterscotch instant whip. She wore a great deal of makeup in excitable colours and a lilac caftan, rather short, revealing bolstery legs and tiny feet. The chief inspector fielded her welcoming glance, direct and sharp as a lancet, and introduced himself.

This is a wonderful introduction to Graham, to Barnaby and even to the TV program, although those episodes have veered away from the original material a bit. It's a pity there were only seven books in the series.

Mystery Melange

Melville International Crime has just released Dead Man Upright, thus restoring all five of Derek Raymond's "Factory Novels" to print for the first time in nearly a decade. Melville calls the series books "among the grimmest and yet most heartfelt works of noir ever composed. Brooding and metaphysical in their purpose, Raymond's novels are both innovative works of style and searing indictments of the inherent violence of bureaucracy." For a clip of the author reading from his novel He Died with His Eyes Open, click here.

This September, Hard Case Crime will release James M. Cain's final unpublished crime novel, titled The Cocktail Waitress, and is teasing fans with the new cover for the book. You can also find an excerpt of the first chapter via that same link. Stephen King adds ""Here, long after anyone would have expected it, is the voice of James M. Cain, as fresh and as relevant as ever. The Cocktail Waitress will involve you, and then shock you with an ending you’ll never forget. This is a true rarity: a reader’s novel that’s also a literary event."

The Washington Post takes a hard look at flawed FBI forensics processes and how the Department of Justice's promises to protect the rights of defendants became more of an exercise in damage control, leaving prisoners locked away or in the dark for years longer than necessary.

Mystery Fanfare has the winners of this year's Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Awards in the crime fiction categories that include Contemporary Mystery, Historical Mystery, First Mystery, Amateur Sleuth and Suspense/Thriller. Congrats to all!

At the (London Book) Fair

The venerable and gigantic London Book Fair started this week, with hundreds of international vendors of all stripes from the publishing world. It's also well known for bringing together film and TV producers with over 400 literary agencies and publishers offering content with screen adaptation potential. Here are some of the highlights thus far from the blogosphere:

Ayo Onatade is blogging about the event for Shots Magazine online and has some of the book and TV deals that have already been inked (more to come!).

Barnes & Noble is recruiting publishers for new content to show up in the Nook Store in the US, including British and global authors and books.

Josh Getzler is reporting on the LBF for the blog Hey, There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room, including the fair's international flare and how the "people have been simply wonderful--smart, productive, all excited to talk books."

OverDrive reported on recent library ebook usage data, noting that during the month of March, OverDrive  recorded a total of over 12.6 million visits from 219 different countries; 86% of those visitors came from the US, with another 10% coming from Canada with UK, NZ, and Australia rounding out the top 5.

International Publishers Association also talked about digital publishing at the "Global Publishing Statistics" seminar. Digital migration has taken off in the UK and US, but not in other countries, and small and medium-sized publishers were encouraged to look to foreign markets to increase the bottom line. One possible bright note: in China, reading and writing online is an enormous industry, with very successful authors started online which have  then migrated into the printing world."

Speaking of China, the LBF opened with a protest against a special section dedicated to China, thanks to the Chinese government's censorship policies that have led to the imprisonment of authors and also the LBF's decision to invite only an officially sanctioned slate of Chinese writers.

For a listing of all the crime fiction publishers/exhibitors, check out the listing here.