In Reference to Murder

Another Week, Another Great Giveaway!

Author Peter May is one of Scotland's most prolific television dramatists, with over 1,000 credits in 15 years as scriptwriter and script editor on prime-time British television dramas. But he left all that behind and moved to France to concentrate on his first love, writing novels. Since then, May has been the recipient of multiple awards for his internationally best-selling Lewis Trilogy set in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, as well as two other series and several standalone books.

May is on tour in the U.S. promoting the Quercus reprint edition of the second installment in his Lewis Trilogy—arguably among the author's most popular works—titled The Lewis Man. The first book in the trilogy, set in the Outer Hebrides, followed Edinburgh Detective Inspector Fin Macleod sent to the Isle of Lewis, the land of his birth, to investigate a brutal killing in the close-knit community.

In the The Lewis Man sequel, Fin has left his wife and career in Edinburgh to live on the Isle, where a mummified body is discovered in a peat bog. Perforated by several stab wounds, the male corpse is initially believed to be more than two thousand years old, until the police spot the Elvis tattoo on his right arm.

The Guardian noted that "this is not only a good mystery, but also a moving and evocative portrayal of a place where the unforgiving weather is matched only by the church's harsh patronage." Indeed, May's landscapes and setting are one of the big draws to this series, and have even spawned a coffee table photo book and an online travel guide.

The Blackhouse was shortlisted for a Macavity Award and a Barry Award, and The Lewis Man made the shortlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Just recently, it was announced that the BBC had snapped up the rights to The Lewis Trilogy to adapt into a television series.

The publisher is providing a copy of The Lewis Man for one reader of this blog, to be drawn at random, limited to U.S. addresses this time. If you'd like to be entered in the random drawing, just drop me an e-mail at [email protected] with "Peter May Giveaway" in the subject line.

Mystery Melange

Book sculpture by Su Blackwell

The Crime Writers Association announced the 2014 longlist for its Dagger in the Library Award that honors "an author's whole body of work to date." The authors on this year's longlist include M.C. Beaton, Tony Black, Sharon Bolton, Elly Griffiths, Mari Hannah, James Oswald, Phil Rickman, Leigh Russell, Mel Sherratt and Neil White. The winner will be chosen by a panel including previous winners, CWA representatives and U.K. librarians.

Bloody Scotland also announced the short-list for the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award 2014:

The Amber Fury by Natalie Haynes
Falling Fast by Neil Broadfoot
Entry Island by Peter May
Flesh Wounds by Christopher Brookmyre
A Lovely Way to Burn by Louise Welsh
In The Rosary Garden by Nicola White

At last weekend's Writers' Police Academy, the Golden Donut short story award was presented to Rick McMahan for his entry titled "Practice." Submissions had to be exactly 200 words and be based on a provided photo prompt.

In conjunction with the very first Iceland Noir international festival of crime fiction, Irish author William Ryan will host a crime fiction workshop at Reykjavík City Library on November 21.

The Northeast Modern Language Association will examine the relationship between detective fiction and emerging technologies in a panel to be held April 30 though May 3 of 2015 in Toronto. Organizers are seeking papers, and applicants can submit 300-word abstracts online by September 30.

The latest issue of Suspense Magazine has profiles of Dennis Lehane, Gregg Hurwitz, D.P. Lyle, Meg Gardiner, and Bruce DeSilva, as well as Lee Child vs. Joseph Finder in "Face-Off," L.J. Sellers sharing eight lessons she learned from Law Enforcement, and 17 pages of book reviews.

The Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America (FMWA) announced its first Freddie Award for Writing Excellence designed to recognize outstanding unpublished mystery writers and novels. The "Freddies" will be awarded to winning contestants in two categories, Hard-Boiled and Traditional and announced at Sleuthfest February 26-March 1. Submissions will consist of the first 20 pages of an unpublished mystery, with a deadline of October 15, 2014, and the top five entries in each category will be read by an acquiring editor or agent.

LitReactor compiled a list of Ten Literary Chillers where literary fiction and horror converge, from Mary Shelley to Megan Abbott.

Business Insider online scanned through the unclassified glossary of terms and definitions for counterintelligence professionals created by the Defence Department a couple months ago and picked out the "27 Phrases Only Spies Will Understand."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Eve Shrugged"by Catherine Wald.

Good news for the future of reading: a recent Pew Research’s survey of more than 6,000 Americans 16 and over found that 88% of Americans under 30 read a book in the past year, compared with 79% of those age 30 and older.

The Q&A roundup this week includes a profile of physician, author, and consultant, Dr. D.P. Lyle, via the LA Times; Omnimystery News chats with Libby Fischer Hellman about her Chicago PI Georgia Davis series; Private Investigator John Nardizzi visits the Wicked Cozy Authors to talk about his writing and the things authors get wrong; and Peter Lovesey stops by The Rap Sheet.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Keanu Reeves is set to star in New Angeles, from a script written by crime fiction author Gregg Hurwitz. The plot centers on a man whose escapes into virtual reality unveil clues to real-world mysteries that could result in dire consequences for him and his family.

CinemaBlend reported that Robert Downey Jr. has signed on to play Leonardo da Vinci in the movie adaptation of Assassin’s Creed, with Michael Fassbender attached to the leading role of Desmond Miles. The plot finds Fassbender's character "captured by a large corporation and is forced into a machine, named ‘The Animus,’ allowing him to relive the memories of his ancestors … to retrieve powerful and dangerous artifacts."

Sony Pictures Classics bought up North American rights to Giulio Ricciarelli's directorial debut, Labyrinth of Lies, a fact-based thriller that “exposes the conspiracy of certain prominent institutions and government branches to cover up the crimes of Nazis during WWII.”

Saban's Saban Films is closing in on a deal for U.S. rights to Sarik Andreasyan's action thriller American Heist, starring Hayden Christensen and Adrien Brody as two brothers caught up in a high-stakes bank robbery.

Saban also snapped up domestic distribution rights to the art heist film The Forger starring John Travolta about a second-generation thief who "gets out of prison to spend time with his son by taking on a job with his father to pay back a syndicate that arranged his release."

Director Paul Greengrass is in talks to join Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill for a project in development about Richard Jewell, the heroic security guard who discovered a suspicious backpack in the Olympics compound during the 1996 games in Atlanta but was instead called a terrorist.

The Toronto International Film Festival featured a lineup of several documentaries based on "murder and lies," including The Look of Silence, Merchants of Doubt and Tales of the Grim Sleeper.

The first trailer was released for Inherent Vice, based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon and starring Joaquin Phoenix  and Reese Witherspoon.

Crime Fiction Lover compiled a list of the "20 greatest classic crime movies of all time." See if you agree and how many of the films you've seen.

TELEVISION

Fans of Longmire are not happy with A&E over canceling the series after three seasons. Some are even contacting cable companies to ask them to remove A&E from their lineup. Warner Bros. Television has heard the call to find a home for its series and will pitch the drama to both digital and cable outlets.

CBS is teaming with writer Nikki Toscano and Universal TV for the drama Last Hour, an "action-packed, high-stakes, real-time drama is in the vein of 24 with a female twist." That female lead is an FBI agent in the last hour of an operation as she infiltrates the most dangerous criminal organizations in the world.

20th Century Fox and Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment are looking to adapt Dan Brown's techno-thriller Digital Fortress into a TV series. The plot pits an NSA cryptographer against a former NSA employee who is putting the government’s most consequential secrets up for auction.

Shondaland productions and Person of Interest co-executive producer David Slack are teaming up for an ensemble cop drama titled Protect and Survive that center on the last LAPD precinct fighting to hang on in Los Angeles after a massive disaster.

Paramount TV and Mark Wahlberg are developing for TNT a small-screen adaptation of the 2007 conspiracy thriller film Shooter. Wahlberg would play a marksman and former U.S. Marine Scout Sniper coaxed back into action only to be framed for murder and going on the run.

Deadline reported that Portia Doubleday and Carly Chaikin have been cast in USA’s computer hacker pilot Mr. Robot, and Rupert Evans has a lead role in Amazon's pilot The Man In The High Castle, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel.

TNT renewed the Steven Bochco-produced drama Murder in the First for for an additional 10-episode season.

HBO Documentary Films acquired U.S. rights to Nick Broomfield's serial killer documentary Tales of the Grim Sleeper.

Owain Yeoman (The Mentalist) will join the AMC period spy drama Turn as a series regular in season two, playing Benedict Arnold.

Luke Perry is headed to the latest CSI spinoff series, CSI: Cyber, playing a former FBI agent who has ties to Special Agent Avery Ryan's (Patricia Arquette) past.

Greg Ellis will join Season 5 of CBS' Hawaii Five-O for a multi-episode arc, playing an antique book shop owner who Jerry (Jorge Garcia) believes is running a major counterfeiting money operation on O’ahu.

TV Guide posted photos from the new season of Hawaii Five-O, with Grover (Chi McBride) as a full-fledged member of the team and Jerry (Jorge Garcia) promoted to series regular.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Peter May appeared on the Late Late Show Show with Craig Ferguson to talk about his novel The Lewis Man, and Lawrence Block also stopped by to chat with Ferguson and discuss his latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones.

THEATER

The planned off-Broadway run of an American Psycho musical has been canceled because the rights holders, Act 4 Entertainment, decided not to move forward with the off-Broadway production. The New York Times speculated the move came due to Act 4's desire to send the show straight to Broadway.

Quote of the Day

FFB: The Night the Gods Smiled

Eric Wright was born in London, England in 1929 to a poor working-class family, an experience he later detailed in his memoir, Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man. When he was 22, he immigrated to Canada and eventually became an English professor, chair of the English department, then Dean of Arts at Ryerson Institute of Technology in Toronto.

Wright penned dozens of stories, many of them crime fiction, and served as editor of Criminal Shorts: Mysteries by Canadian Crime Writers, published in 1992. He also created not one or two, but four different detective series including police officer Mel Pickett; Lucy Trimble Brenner, who inherits a Toronto private detective agency; and part-time community college English teacher named Joe Barley, who also works part-time as a private eye.

His most popular literary creation, however, is Charlie Salter, a Toronto cop suffering from middle-aged depression when he's first introduced in The Night the Gods Smiled, the author's debut novel in 1983. The book won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel, the Crime Writer's Association's John Creasey Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award.

At the start of the story, Salter's doldrums are compounded by police politics that have left him working what's essentially a desk job. When he's offered the first interesting case to come along in awhile, he jumps at the chance. David Summers, an English professor at a local college, has been murdered in a Montreal hotel room during a conference. Initially, the only clues are a lipstick-marked glass and a whisky bottle used to crush Summer's skull, but Salter soon realizes he has a long list of potential suspects, including a prostitute, mistresses, the victim's bitter wife, his squash partner, his stock-broker and assorted colleagues and students.

Salter is an engaging character, self-righteous, outspoken, and happily married, albeit with an undercurrent of cultural/class friction between his police officer status and his wife's wealthy family. His mid-life crisis sees him taking up squash after meeting the victim's playing partner, and developing a crush on Summer's favorite student, a free-spirited young woman named Molly.

Wright is known for his "lucid and agreeably laconic style," as one reviewer put it, while Kirkus adds that "the balance between sleuthing and gentle character-comedy is maintained beautifully throughout—with superior dialogue, intriguing Canadian specifics, and not a single cliché in sight." There were eleven Salter books in all, first published in hardcover until the series was dropped by Signet. A few reprints are available, including an omnibus of the first three novels in the series, published by Dundurn.

Giveaway Time! Murder on the Ile Sordou

M.L. LONGWORTH has lived in Aix-en-Provence since 1997. She has written about the region for The Washington Post, The Times (U.K.), The Independent (U.K.), and Bon Appetit Magazine. She is the author of a bilingual collection of essays, Une Américaine en Provence published by La Martinière in 2004. She divides her time between Aix and Paris, where she teaches writing at NYU's Paris campus. NPR included her in its summer "Crime in the City" features, about her mysteries set in the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence.

The fourth installment in that series is Murder on the Ile Sordou, once again featuring Antoine Verlaque, the "handsome and seductive" chief magistrate of Aix. Judge Verlaque and his girlfriend, law professor Marine Bonnet, are hoping to enjoy a relaxing holiday at the Locanda Sordou, an opulent hotel reopening after being closed for several decades, but someone has other plans.

Ex-financier Maxime Le Bon and his wife, Catherine, have spent years and their life savings restoring the hotel, which lies in an archipelago of glittering islands just off the coast of Marseille. A motley crew of guests arrive by boat for the grand opening. In addition to Antoine and Marine, there’s Marine’s best friend Sylvie; a fading film star, his much-younger wife and her disgruntled teenage son; an aspiring poet; an American couple; and a French couple trying to save their marriage. The murder of one of the guests casts a shadow over everyone’s vacation, but things go from bad to worse when a a violent storm cuts off all communication with the mainland. Will the killer strike again?

The publisher is offering a copy of this book to one lucky reader of this blog, so if you'd like to be entered in the random drawing, just drop me a note at [email protected] with "Book Giveaway" in the subject.

Learn more about the author, her books, and her time in France via her website and blog.

Mystery Melange

Book rock art

Congratulations to this year's Ned Kelly Award winners, handed out by the Australian Crime Writers Association. The winners include In the Morning I'll Be Gone by Adrian McKinty (Best Crime Novel); Hades by Candice Fox (Best First Crime Novel); Murder in Mississippi by John Safran (Best True Crime); and "Web Design" by Emma Viskic (Sandra Harvey Short Story Award).

Hofstra University announced the three finalists of their law-themed short story writing contest, with nods going to Bev Vincent, Andrew Italia, and grand-prizer winner, Lucian Dervan.

Northern Virginia will host a Noir at the Bar event Saturday, September 13 at One More Page Books. Participants include Bruce Holsinger, Terry Irving, Dana King, Nik Korpon, Elisa Nader, Laura Ellen Scott, Kieran Shea, and Steve Weddle. Author E.A. Aymar will emcee the evening's entertainment, and David Montgomery is the evening's mixologist and bartender.

The upcoming Left Coast Crime Conference has had a change of guests, after Ridley Pearson had to cancel. The new Guest of Honor is the Edgar, Lefty, Shamus, and Macavity-nominated Tim Hallinan, author of sixteen published novels including six Bangkok-set thrillers about American travel writer, Poke Rafferty.

There's a new kid on the blog: BJ Bourg, former editor of Mouth Full of Bullets and the Chief Investigator for a Louisiana District Attorney’s Office, has started up Righting Crime Fiction for writers seeking to include police procedural information in their stories and who want to get it right. First up, "Revolver Basics."

Salon senior writer Laura Miller made the case for "Why today’s most exciting crime novelists are women."

Over at Slate.com, Zachary Karabell explains why independent booksellers are on the rise again.

Did you know that science fiction author Ray Bradbury also wrote noir? Edward A. Grainger reported on just such a book over at Criminal Element.

The University of East Anglia is adding a Masters in Crime Fiction degree to launch in September 2015. The program will include critical, theoretical and historical perspectives as well as a creative writing focus. The publishing company Little Brown plans to award £3,000 to one student and also will read the students' manuscripts. (Hat tip to Janet Rudolph at Mystery Fanfare.)

A new app wants to help Sherlock fans control their withdrawal symptoms until the next TV series from the BBC.  Available for iOS, Android, and Kindle, the app includes a game where you solve a series of cases, with Benedict Cumberbatch leaving you voicemails with mission updates, and you can watch exclusive video and audio clips.

Margaret Atwood is the first contributor to the Future Library, which will compile 100 texts for publication in 2114. The Future Library project was conceived by the award-winning Scottish artist Katie Paterson and involves the planting of a forest of 1,000 trees in Nordmarka, just outside Oslo. Every year until 2114, one writer will be invited to contribute a new text to the collection, and in 2114, the trees will be cut down to provide the paper for the texts to be printed.

Bete Noire is open for submissions again. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.) They are seeking stories that are well written, character driven and have a dark bent to them. Pulp Modern is also looking for submissions on the theme of "drugs."

The annual William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program for Unpublished Writers, sponsored by the Malice Domestic conference, will accept submissions between September 15 and November 1. Each grant includes a $1,500 award plus a comprehensive registration for the following year's convention and two nights' lodging at the convention hotel.

Kobo has launched a Mystery Contest With Gone Girl to promote the company's new Aura H2O E-Reader.  Titled "Going, Going, Gone," the six-week promotion puts readers’ sleuthing skills to the test by reading ebooks and solving riddles, and then entering for a chance to win $5,000 (Canadian) and a Kobo Aura H2O.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "911" by Charles Rammelkamp, and the new story at Beat to a Pulp is "The July Rebellion" by Kate Lincoln.

This week's Q&A Roundup includes Minerva Koenig chatting with The Mystery People about her debut novel Nine Days, and Christopher Meeks stopped by Omnimystery News to talk about his new crime thriller, A Death in Vegas.

More Murder and Mayhem!

So many crime fiction conferences have called it quits recently, it was with great sadness we learned in January that Murder and Mayhem in Muskego was shutting down, too. The conference's major sponsor, the Friends of the Library, was no longer able to support this event, because the ALA's rules require that all library programs should be free and open to the public.

Fast forward to August and the arrival of news that the conference is being reborn as Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee! Organizers Jon Jordan, Ruth Jordan, Erica Ruth Neubauer, and Penny Halle have switched venues to the Potawatomi Hotel & Casino and already lined up a great group of authors, including (so far):

Carole Barrowman
Kristi Belcamino
Susanna Calkins
Dana Cameron
Jessie Chandler
Sean Chercover
Matthew Clemons
Blake Crouch
Ian Hamilton
Chris Holm
Jess Lourey
Lori Rader-Day
Rob Riley
Todd Robinson
Marcus Sakey
Tom Schreck
Alex Segura
Johnny Shaw
Frank Wheeler Jr

They have a new website, too, as well as a new Facebook page with all the details, including the date - November 1. The registration fee helps to pay for the facilities and running the event, with any leftover money to be split between a local literacy charity and next year's event.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Sony Pictures Entertainment announced George Clooney will direct a movie based on British journalist Nick Davies’ book Hack Attack: The Inside Story of How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch. The book follows the scandal surrounding Murdoch’s now-shuttered News of the World tabloid and its hacking into the phones of celebrities and a 13-year-old girl who had been kidnapped and was later murdered.

Julia Roberts is joining Chiwetel Ejiofor and Gwyneth Paltrow in The Secret in Their Eyes, based on the 2009 Oscar-winning Argentinian thriller. The plot centers on a retired attorney who writes a book about an unsolved case and his own unrequited love for one of his former superiors, prompting old secrets to be revealed.

Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana and Elle Fanning will play the female leads in Ben Affleck's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel Live By Night.

Keanu Reeves has signed onto the dramatic cop thriller Daughter of God, playing a police detective who investigates the truth behind his partner’s death, while a young Latina woman (Ana de Armas) experiences "strange happenings."

Paramount Pictures is in talks to sign their villain for the upcoming Mission: Impossible 5 - it's Sean Harris, best known for his work in the TV series The Borgias, and in films such as Prometheus and Red Riding Trilogy.

Saban Films purchased U.S. rights to Tracers, the action thriller starring Taylor Lautner as a New York City bike messenger who meets a girl and gets ucked into the world of parkour, with an underworld element.  

The Hollywood Reporter noted that David Fincher's Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck, and Antoine Fuqua's The Equalizer with Denzel Washington will be part of the Zurich Film Festival's lineup of gala premieres.

A new trailer was released for the film adaptation of the TV series The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington as a former black ops commando who helps find justice for victims of crime.

TELEVISION

The Crime Writers’ Association announced the nominees for the film and TV categories of ITV3 Dagger awards.

The Son Of Sam sereial killings are being developed into a miniseries by Blumhouse Productions and Fox TV Studios. The miniseries will be split up into six hours, and will juxtaposes David Richard Berkowitz’s murder confession of Satan worship and human sacrifice with the actual police investigation between December 1975-1977.

Justin Lin (of The Fast And The Furious) is in talks to direct at least the first two episodes of the upcoming season. Although no cast members or plot details have been confirmed, Colin Ferrell, Taylor Kitsch and Vince Vaughn are expected to be in the cast, according to Deadline.

Lev Gorn, a regular on the FX spy series The Americans, has been promoted to a series regular, continuing his role as a KGB agent. Gorn has also landed a guest role on CBS' NCIS as a Russian Deputy Ambassador, and may eventually cross over to the new NCIS: New Orleans.

Peter Gallagher has landed a recurring role on Law & Order: SVU's upcoming 16th season, playing Deputy Chief William Dodds, the "charismatic but tough boss of every special victims unit in New York City."

Author M.C. Beaton reported on her Facebook page that Matt McCooey will play Bill Wong in the two hour pilot based on the Agatha Raisin novels, produced by Sky in the UK and airing just prior to Christmas.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

This week, NPR's summer "Crime in the City" series focused on Ghanaian mystery writer Kwei Quartey and his Detective Inspector Darko Dawson, who patrols the streets of Accra.

Quote of the Day