In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange, New Year's Edition

Clock book sculpture by Wetcanvas

In the mood for some crime fiction set on and around New Year's Day? Mystery Fanfare has a list for you.

It's never too early to start making up your reading lists for 2015. The Read Me Deadly blog has a Winter Preview in multiple parts (be sure and click on "Older Posts" at the bottom for the previous installments); A Fantastical Librarian profiles some "Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2015: Crime & Historical Crime Fiction; the Blookstained Bookshelf has a calendar through August of upcoming crime fiction titles; and the Loony Teen Writer has a list of YA "Creepy and Crimey Books to Lok Out for in 2015."

If you need a little bit of help in organization your reading ideas, try a reading challenge. A Bookish Girl is sponsoring a 2015 Cloak and Dagger Challenge, complete with book giveaways. The You, Me, and a Cup of Tea blog has a directory of various challenges, including a New Author challenge, A to Z challenge, Monthly Key Words Challenge and much more.

If you're an author, Jane Friedman has a quick look ahead at the technical end of publishing in the new year.

If you're a book AND fashion lover, you might want to head over to BookRiot for a look at "bookish shoes for literary feet."

British author Christopher Fowler (of the Bryant & May series) reported that a long-discussed Scotland Yard "black museum" is moving forward. The renamed Crime Museum is partnering with the Museum of London to display a selection of the 20,000 exhibits relating to the UK's most infamous crimes.

The House of Crime and Mystery blog is asking you to vote for your favorite crime books of 2014, including titles from the U.S., UK, Canada, and around the globe.

Meanwhile, Preditors & Editors is also hosting its annual book poll, including thriller and mystery categories (full disclosure: Played to Death is nominated in the mystery category), as well as best review blog, and many more.

Crimetime Preview has a look at new TV crime dramas coming up in the UK during 2015 via the BBC, ITV, C4 and BSkyB, from thrillers such as Safe House with Christopher Eccleston and the character-driven series The Trials of Jimmy Rose with Ray Winstone. And here are some looks at selected new midseason shows of 2015 on network TV and cable, including several crime-relelated series.

The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio blog is beginning a series taking a look at "The Top 10 Nero Wolfe Novellas," with Part One.

This week's featured crime poem over at the 5-2 is "Villanelle at McDonalds" by Catherine Wald.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Janet Evanovich stopping by the New York Times to talk about her work and how she's a big fan of Scrooge McDuck; and thriller writer Thomas Waite and novelist and screenwriter Glenn Cooper chat with Omnimystery News about their latest books.

Media Monday for Monday

Here's the latest roundup of crime-themed dramas on stage and screen:

MOVIES

Star Jeremy Renner and producer Scott Stuber discussed Kill the Messenger for Deadline.com. Their upcoming film is centered on Gary Webb, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who uncovered a CIA plot in the 1980s that funneled cocaine into the U.S. to finance arms purchases in Central America, then faced a campaign to undermine and deny his work.

Jake Hinkson profiled "The Film Noir of Robert Wise" for Criminal Element.

CinemaBlend has a list of "The 10 Best Movie Villains Of 2014" (but beware of the spoiler alerts).

A teaser photo was released for Guy Ritchie's adaptation of the '60s television spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., starring Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo, Armie Hammer as Illya Kuryakin, and Alicia Vikander’s Gabby Teller.   

TELEVISION

The Mysterious Press blog reported that Peter King's London-based "gourmet detective" novels are being adapted for television by the Hallmark Channel.

Fox has put in an order for a drama set on Coronado Island that revolves around the first group of female U.S. soldiers vying to earn a spot in the world’s toughest boy’s club, the Navy SEALs.

BBC films released a trailer for Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, and Daniel Bruhl in the true story of a Jewish refugee forced to flee Vienna during World War II who decades later makes it her personal mission to reclaim a painting the Nazis stole from her family.

In a move aimed at keeping up with competitors Netflix and Amazon, Hulu's streaming video service signed deals with 20th Century Fox and MGM to make Hulu the exclusive subscription home for a number of programs, including series such as Fargo and Sons of Anarchy.

Mark Gatiss, co-creator of BBC's adaptation Sherlock, discussed "what went into setting Sherlock Holmes in a technological era."

Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton revisited locations from David Simon's critically acclaimed drama, The Wire, in a story for CNN.

A new teaser trailer was released by AMC for the upcoming Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Noir at the Bar co-founder Peter Rozovsky has links to three Noir at the Bar podcasts from the recent NoirCon convention in Philadephia, featuring readers Duane Swierczynski, Sarah Weinman, Jonathan Woods, Jon McGoran, and Erik Arneson.

THEATER

If you're in New York City on New Year's Day, you can catch the show Perfect Crime. Off-Broadway’s longest-running mystery thriller is set in the home of a wealthy psychiatrist accused of murdering her husband. The handsome detective is convinced that he has her all figured out, but the murder is only the beginning in what may just be the perfect crime.

Quote of the Day

FFB: 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. 

Merry Christmas to All!

Mystery Melange, Christmas Edition

Holiday tree book sculpture by James Downing

Stumped for a holiday-themed mystery to read? Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog has a comprehensive listing, broken down into five parts, all of which you can access here.

Stumped for a holiday dish to serve at your next party? The Mystery Lovers' Kitchen blog has their usual complement of terrific ideas (and books to accompany them), from Easy Layered Eggnog Latte Cocktails to Iced Gingerbread Cookie Sticks. And Omnivoracious has "12 Days of Cookie Recipes" for your holiday baking.

Stumped for that last-minute gift for the book lovers on your list? Check out NPR's picks for Best Mysteries of 2014.

The Criminal Element blog is sponsoring a "Yule Be Sorry" sweepstakes through December 30, with the lucky winner taking home seven crime fiction books.

The December 2014 issue of Suspense magazine includes author features with James Lee Burke, Peter James, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Stuart Neville. You'll also meet the winner of the Crimson Scribe Award as he talks writing with Anthony J. Franze; read part II of the "All-American: How Greg Pappas Went From Football Star to the Only American in Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel" by Jon Land; plus 20 pages of reviews and more.

Jen's Book Thoughts wants to hear your favorite books of the year. She'll collect all the nominations and add them to her own end-of-the-year Books in Review blog posts.

Another writer for that blog, Jake Hinkson, picked out "7 Noir Holiday Films," for those of you who need a break from all that "merry" and "ho ho ho."

Kings River Life is celebrating the holidays with several crime-themed short stories, including "Gracie's Gift from the East," by Gary Hoffman, and "You Better Watch Out" by Aileen Baron.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown's Christmas, NPR had a restrospective and also encouraged listeners to submit their own "sad Christmas tree" photos via Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The Guardian takes note of the fact that the bestselling book in the UK this Christmas is a book reissue from the 1930s, Mystery in White: A Christmas Crime Story by J Jefferson Farjeon.

The All Things Crime blog made a list (and checked it twice) of  the "Top 10 Wacky Christmas Crimes," from the Santa Claus bank robber to a Christmas shopping light-saber assult. You can't make this stuff up.

Chuck Wendig takes a look at Christmas music for people who hate Christmas music.

What says "Christmas holiday" (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) more than cold weather and snow? And Scandinavia tends to have a lot of both. Editor Janet Rudoph has posted a call for submissions of reviews and articles for the next Mystery Readers Journal, which will be themed around Scandinavia.

The latest e-issue of Yellow Mama is available, with some holiday treats and four "powerful, thought-provoking stories."

The new crime poem over at the 5-2 is "You Didn't Mean to Kill Anyone" by Roger Netzer.

In the Q&A roundup this week, Tina Whittle chats with Omnimystery News about the latest book in her Tai Randolph and Trey Seaver series, Deeper Than the Grave, and Jay Brandon discusses his new political thriller, Shadow Knight's Mate.

Media Murder for Monday

Here's a wrap-up of the latest news from the crime drama scene:

AWARDS

Awards nomination season continues with the Critics' Choice Awards. Best Picture nominees inlude the crime-related dramas Gone Girl, Nightcrawler, and The Imitation Game. Many of the same movies that were recently given SAG and Golden Globe nods made an appearance, but Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper slipped into the game with two nominations. Benedict Cumberbatch (Imitation Game) and Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) continued their strong showing among the various awards, with nominations in the Best Actor categories. One actor who was snubbed by the Golden Globes but has gotten many rave reviews, Josh Brolin, was included in the Best Supporing Actor list for his role in Inherent Vice. For the complete (and long) list of all the nominees, check out The Wrap's rundown.

MOVIES

Drafthouse Films acquired North American distribution rights to Julia Hart’s western thriller, The Keeping Room, after its acclaimed world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Described as “a feminist western with bite," the film follows three Southern women forced to defend their land and fight for their lives at the end of the Civil War.

As Deadline reported, "the chilling effect of the Sony Pictures hack and terrorist threats against The Interview are reverberating." New Regency canceled another project that was set in North Korea. The untitled thriller was being developed by director Gore Verbinski as a star vehicle for Foxcatcher star Steve Carell.

A24 acquired U.S. rights to director Adam Smith’s anticipated feature debut Trespass Against Us, starring Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson as a father and son outlaw duo, with Fassbender’s character torn between adhering to his rowdy father’s ways or doing what he believes is best for his children.

Deadline posted the latest trailer for American Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper in what's being hailed as "a career standout turn."

TELEVISION

The Starz/BBC mystery drama The Missing will be coming back for Season 2. In the same vein as True Detective, there will be a completely different missing person case at its center, and an all new cast will be rounded up to play the new characters.

ABC bought the FBI drama High Life, which follows the survivor of a high-profile crime as a child, who is now a tough but tormented FBI agent heading up a nationwide unit dedicated to investigating “crimes of the century.”

NBC's timely hacker drama Mr. Robot has been ordered to series. The project follows a young programmer, Elliot (Rami Malek), who suffers from an antisocial disorder and can only connect to people by hacking them. Christian Slater also stars, as the mysterious anarchist Mr. Robot.

Deadline reported that another Swedish book trilogy has become a hot Hollywood commodity following a competitive bidding war. The "hot property" is the bestselling book trilogy The Crow Girl written by Erik Axl Sund (a/k/a authors Jerker Eriksson and Haringkan Sundquist), which won't be published in the U.S. until 2016. The books center on three women, a detective investigating the murders of abused children, a psychotherapist specializing in child abuse cases, and a patient who has suffered childhood trauma. Top actresses are already expressing their interest in the project.

Hannibal has recast one of the major roles for the upcoming third season. Michael Pitt has left the series, and the producers have hired Joe Anderson (Hercules) to play the psychopath Mason Verger.

Cicely Tyson will guest star in an upcoming episode of ABC's How to Get Away with Murder playing opposite series regular Viola Davis, although her specific role hasn't been announced.

David Schwimmer has been tapped to star in FX's anthology offering American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, based on Jeffrey Toobin's best-selling book. He'll play Simpson's friend and attorney Robert Kardashian.

British actor Neil Jackson (Sleepy Hollow) is joining the cast of TNT drama pilot, Lumen, about a famous author of fantasy books suddenly disappears, and a family of four who find themselves transported to the mystical alternate world that inspired her work. Jackson is set to play Prince Dai of Lumen, who’s also the long lost husband and father of the family.

ABC Family has ordered Recovery Road to series. The show will be based on the young adult novel by Blake Nelson, which focuses on Maddie, a teenager dealing with addiction.

The new reality series from Dick Wolf (Law & Order) is set for a premiere on January 22. The unscripted program follows multiple sets of partners in the New Orleans Emergency Medical Services unit who cover the intense and unpredictable overnight shift as they battle time and circumstance to save lives.

BBC America released a trailer for the upcoming third season of Orphan Black, which will see relationships put to the test with the introduction of a highly trained, identical male-soldier clone Rudy, played by Ari Millen.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Public Radio International had a story on Blacksad, a "sort of comic book take on the classic film noir detective movies."

THEATER

As I noted last week, a new play based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story Hound of the Baskervilles is coming to D.C.'s Arena Stage in 2015. This week brings news that a Sherlock Holmes play will also return to Broadway in 2017, according to producers Antonio R. Marion and Kimberly Much. Titled Sherlock Holmes, and written by British writing team Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel, the play will explore Holmes' personal history as he solves a new mystery.

GAMES

CSI executive producer Anthony E. Zuiker, in partnership with two entertainment companies, announced the new game Mysteryopolis, an animated video series combining traditional videos with interactive games in a new genre focused on “gamified narratives.” In Mysteryopolis, players follow along with the story of Jordy, a typical 13-year old turned secret agent, who must save his hometown of Mysteryopolis from a major threat.

Deck the Halls with Untreed Reads

A holiday offering from Jay Hartman, Editor-in-Chief at Untreed Reads publshing:
 
Hi, everyone!

Just wanted to let you know that our “Run Run Rudolph” sale has begun. From now through Christmas Day, over 1,000 ebook titles from 15+ publishers are 50% off and paperbacks are 30% off. That means we have short stories as low as $0.25. Not too shabby eh?

 

For a complete lineup of the publishers participating in the sale, visit our homepage at http://store.untreedreads.com .

 

All discounts will show up in your shopping cart during the final step of checkout. If you’re someone who prefers to read your titles in PDF, this is definitely the sale for you as you get PDF, EPUB and Kindle for one price. Also, any of our titles can be gifted to someone else. For gifting instructions, visit http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=14 .

 

If you want to order a paperback and ensure it reaches someone in time for the holidays, please contact me off-list and I can help make that happen.

 

Thanks!

---

Jay Hartman

Editor-in-Chief

Untreed Reads Publishing

http://www.untreedreads.com

http://store.untreedreads.com

 

I have a couple of ebooks in the Untreed Reads store that are part of the holiday sales that might make great digital "stocking stuffers":

 

"Ill-Gotten Games," one of the first Scott Drayco mystery stories, in which the clock is ticking as crime consultant Drayco and "the world's most diminutive defense attorney" Benny Baskin play games with a dangerous killer in order to save an innocent man from going to jail.

 

I also have a story in Grimm Tales, edited by John Kenyon. Grimm Tales is a collection of stories by some of the top names in online crime fiction, all based on classic fairy tales. As novelist Ken Bruen writes in his introduction, "Ever imagined what would have come down the dark pike if The Brothers Grimm were more Brothers Coen and wrote mystery?"

 

 

Quote of the Day

FFB: Under the Snow

Before the recent Scandinavian crime fiction invasion, before even Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, there was Kerstin Lillemor Ekman (born August 1933), whose debut crime novel, Thirty-Meter Murder (30 meter mord), was published in 1959. Her first few mystery novels grew out of her background as a documentary filmmaker, and she wrote seven crime fiction books in all before turning her hand to more general psychological and social themes (and one book that's a history of Sweden told from the POV of a troll). She did later return to the genre, with the detective novel Blackwater (Händelser vid vatten) in 1993, which won the Swedish Crime Academy's award for best crime novel.

Eckman's novel Under the Snow (De tre små mästarna) from 1961 is set in the harsh, distant landscape of the Arctic Circle's Lapland in the town of Rakisjokk during the extended darkness of winter. Or as one character notes, "You might say this is where the world comes to an end." A drunken evening ends in the death of a local artist and teacher named Matti Olsson, but when Constable Torsson sets out to investigate (a 25-mile trek on skis across a frozen lake), he is met with a conspiracy of silence, mismatched stories and only a single clue: a bloodstained mahjong tile. His efforts aren't helped by the fact that the locals are part of the ethnic Sami group who speak Finnish and don't think very highly of Swedes. Torsson has no choice to close the case. That is, until David Malm, an eccentric redheaded painter and friend of Matti's, arrives in town to investigate the truth on his own and runs into beautiful teacher Anna Ryd who is caught with a bag containing a bloody noose with a human hair clinging to it.

Eckman maintains the dark atmosphere of the unrelenting subzero cold and sunless days (followed by nights where the sun never sets) where nearly everyone has secrets, but still manages to inject bits of humor and her trademark irony: the super-fit younger colleague decked out in the 1960 version of chic Gore-Tex gear who turns an ankle in the first few yards during his first attempt on skis; a language professor who happily scribbles down the ferryman's epithets; a elkhound that barks nonstop. One unusual technique: Ekman wrote Under the Snow almost completely in the third person except for Chapter 12, where Matti's killer explains how the murder was committed. Of her writing influences, Eckman has said "I live in  a small village and I have been living in two other small villages far up north in Sweden. Very close to the forest, the mountains, the waters. They have had a great impact on me, melting into my language."

Under the Snow remained unavailable in English from the time of its publication until the translation by Joan Tate in 1996, 35 years later. Entertainment Weekly called Eckman "Striking...a sort of Graham Greene meets Dean Koontz," and the Library Journal added that "Ekman's brilliant evocation of a place and culture above the Arctic Circle is as compelling and mysterious as the crime itself." Ekman was elected member of the Swedish Academy in 1978, but left in 1989 when the academy didn't take a strong stand after the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. She also turned her hand back to the screen with a Swedish TV movie based on one of her books and appearances as herself in documentaries.