In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) announced the winners of the 21st annual Audie Awards competition, the premier awards program in the United States recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment. Best Mystery audiobook went to Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, read by Robert Glenister, and Best Thriller/Suspense audiobook was won by The Patriot Threat by Steve Berry, read by Scott Brick.

The ABA Journal and the University of Alabama School of Law announced the finalists for the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The three books chosen to compete for the prize are: Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt; Pleasantville by Attica Locke; and Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo by C. Joseph Greaves.

The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance has announced the finalists for the 2016 Maine Literary Awards, including the Book Award for Crime Fiction nods to The Precipice by Paul Doiron; The Fisherman by Vaughn C. Hardacker; and An Unbeaten Man by Brendan Rielly.

Columbia University's Butler Library is presenting a Symposium celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, to be held on September 30, Butler Library. A concurrent exhibit will run from September 26 to December 23 at the Butler Library and is free and open to the public. (HT to Mystery Fanfare.) 

CrimeFest has teamed up with publishers, authors, and libraries to give away 1,000 crime novels for free ahead of the crime fiction festival. Among the offerings are advanced reader copies from authors including Megan Abbott and Stefan Ahnhem months before they hit the shops, as well as titles from debut novelists Michelle Birkby and BBC screenwriter Simon Booker.

The TED-Ed team has crafted a lesson discussing the evolution of Sherlock Holmes. The online video examines some the sleuth’s most famous characteristics including his drug use, his partnership with Dr. Watson, and his enemy Professor Moriarty. Over at the TED-Ed website, viewers can access a quiz, a discussion board, and more resources.

Are you a John le Carre fan? You're not alone, as witnessed by recent movie and TV adaptations of his works. The Independent points out why the author continues to stay relevant in Hollywood with examples like Our Kind of Traitor and The Night Manager as filmmakers "have begun to get a handle on his digressions, flashbacks and jargon."

This week's new crime poem at the 5-2 is "Guilty" by Chad Haskins.

In the Q&A roundup, Con Lehane joined the Mystery People to discuss his new Ray Ambler novel; Criminal Element interviewed Diane Kelly, author of Against the Paw; jd daniels stopped by Omnimystery News to talk about her second mystery to feature amateur sleuth Jessie Murphy; the latest author to take the 9mm interview challenge at Crime Watch is JM Gulvin and his new series that introduces Texas Ranger John Quarrie.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

One of the world’s most famous crime novelists may be headed to the big screen once again: Agatha Christie, based on a script by Tom Shepherd, is in the works at Columbia Pictures. The action-adventure pic, which is being pitched as "Sherlock Holmes meets The Thomas Crown Affair," finds a young, adventurous Agatha Christie joining Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on a mission to track down the whereabouts of a missing oil tycoon.

In the first major deal closed at Cannes Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics bought rights to Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. Penned by David Birke and based on Phillipe Djian’s novel Oh…, the psychological thriller stars Isabelle Huppert as a powerful, ruthless business woman who survives an assault in her home and takes it upon herself to track down her assailant.

In another Cannes deal, it was reported that Don Johnson will star opposite Nicolas Cage, Anna Hutchison, and Talitha Bateman in the vigilante thriller adapted from Joyce Carol Oates' award-winning novel, Vengeance: A Love Story. The project centers on the case of a mother brutally raped by four meth heads who hire one of the nation's top criminal defense lawyers (Johnson), spurring a detective to take matters into his hands in order to protect the lives of three generations of women.

Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is joining Greg Kinnear and Emma Roberts to star in the psychological thriller Spinning Man, which will mark the American debut of Danish filmmaker Peter Flinth. The project was adapted from George Harrar’s novel by Matthew Aldrich and centers on a philosophy professor (Coster-Waldau) who becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of a high school cheerleader. Kinnear will portray the detective assigned to the investigation and Roberts (Scream Queens) will play the professor's prized student.

The much-in-demand Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is also set to take the lead in the dark comedy Small Crimes, a story of a disgraced former cop who is fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder and returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind. The project is based on Dave Zeltserman’s 2007 novel of the same title.

Adam Driver (Star Wars: the Force Awakens) has landed a lead role in Steven Soderbergh’s NASCAR heist film Logan Lucky, which centers on two brothers who attempt a crime during a NASCAR race. Seth MacFarlane is also in talks to join the project, joining Channing Tatum and Riley Keough (both from Soderbergh’s Magic Mike), who have also been tapped to join the cast.

Jennifer Lawrence is being eyed for a role opposite Sandra Bullock in the female-centric Ocean's 11 reboot. The story is a continuation of the successful George Clooney-led trilogy and centers around Bullock's character, who plays an ex-con and Danny Ocean’s sister. With a team of thieves, she sets out of steal a necklace from the Met Ball and frame a crooked gallery owner, with Lawrence playing Bullock's right-hand woman.

Kathryn Bigelow,  director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, is eyeing English actress Hannah Murray (Gilly on HBO’s Game of Thrones) for a key role in Bigelow's untitled true crime drama that will explore systemic racism in urban Detroit that led to riots.

Irish filmmaker John Moore (A Good Day to Die Hard, Behind Enemy Lines) is set to direct N.O.C., an action thriller that centers on the case of Alek, a deep-undercover CIA operative who discovers that a faction of the agency is collaborating with the terrorist cell he was sent to infiltrate. Stuck in a Berlin hospital and with the help of the EMT who saved his life, Alek must evade both the CIA and the terrorists if he wants to bring the evidence of the unsanctioned special op to the people he thinks he can trust.

Clive Owen has boarded Andorra, a romantic thriller based on Peter Cameron’s novel, with Owen starring  as Alexander Fox, a bookseller who leaves the U.S. after a personal tragedy to begin a new life abroad. The tiny eponymous country in which he finds himself is an idyllic escape, offering Fox the chance to reinvent himself until he becomes entangled with the ever-present locals as the mystery of his origin deepens. 

Sergei Bodrov will serve as executive producer and consultant on the English-language UK action-thriller Knuckledust. The whodunnit, in the process of casting, is set in a hyper realistic version of underground London and is described as "smart and gritty film that has the potential to become an iconic reference of the action-thriller genre."

IFC Midnight acquired North American and Latin American rights to I Am Not A Serial Killer, the Billy O’Brien-directed chiller based on Dan Wells' novel. Max Records, Christopher Lloyd, Laura Fraser and Karl Geary star in the pic, which takes place in a small Midwestern town where a troubled teen (Records) with homicidal tendencies must hunt down and destroy a supernatural killer while keeping his own inner demons at bay.

Dylan O'Brien is in talks to play Mitch Rapp in American Assassin, alongside Michael Keaton, in the project that's based on the Vince Flynn best-seller of the same name. The 10th of Flynn’s novels about Mitch Rapp, but the first chronologically, American Assassin has been eyed by Hollywood since it was first published. Seen as the launch of a possible franchise, Assassin will be directed by Michael Cuesta, whose most recent movie was the Jeremy Renner thriller Kill the Messenger.

XLrator Media and Benattar/Thomas Productions have kicked off production on their latest action-thriller, The Base, starring Cam Gigandet (The Magnificent Seven, Twilight) and directed by Jesse Gustafson. Gigandet will play the leader of a "Dirty Dozen" style band of military prisoners who have to fight off a terrorist attack on the remote prison in which they"re being held, which, unknown to them, is a cover for a secret drone control facility. 

A day after it was announced that Russell Crowe was in talks to star in an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, with James Franco already on board to direct and act in the film, news came that the project had to be scrapped due to rights issues. The project could still move forward if all the various parties involved are able to strike a deal. Blood Meridian follows the Glanton gang, a historical group of scalp hunters who massacred Native Americans and others for bounty and pleasure in the United States–Mexico borderlands from 1849 to 1850.

Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon from previous Dan Brown thrillers in the new trailer for Inferno, where he"s tasked with thwarting the release of a virus that threatens to wipe out the human race.

TELEVISION

The networks announced their fall schedules this past week during the annual spring "upfront" season, with some surprises but also a lot of returning shows. For a full listing, check out TV Guide's assessment here. Network by network, the highlights regarding crime dramas include:

ABC: After much back-and-forthing, ABC decided to cancel Castle but renewed American Crime, How to Get Away with Murder, and Quantico. New series are set to include Conviction, in which the daughter of a former president is blackmailed into taking a job as the head of Los Angeles’ newly created Conviction Integrity Unit; and Designated Survivor (starring Kiefer Sutherland) that follows a lower-level U.S. Cabinet member suddenly appointed president after a catastrophic attack during the State of the Union kills everyone above him in the line of succession.

CBS:  As previously announced, CBS canceled CSI and Person of Interest, as well as Game of Silence and CSI: Cyber, the last spinoff from the forensic procedural drama that took television by storm 16 years ago. Returning shows include Blue Bloods, Criminal Minds, Elementary, Hawaii Five-0, and all three NCIS franchises. New series on the docket are reboots of the 1970s series MacGyver; Training Day starring Bill Paxton which picks up 15 years after the events of the original film) as a morally grey detective who gets partnered up with a young officer (Justin Cromwell); and Bull, a legal drama based on the early career of Dr. Phil, starring Michael Weatherly as he uses his psychology skills to analyze juries as a legal defense consultant. CBS also decided to pass on the Nancy Drew update series Drew, which would have placed the iconic teenage detective in an adult setting, although the producers plan on shopping the project to other networks.

Fox:  As previously announced, Fox is going ahead with the 24 prequel, 24 Legacy, and greenlighted additional seasons of Lucifer and Sleepy Hollow. Fox also picked up to series a small-screen adaptation of Lethal Weapon, which rides along with classic cop duo Riggs and Murtaugh as they work a crime-ridden beat in modern-day L.A.; and APB, in which billionaire Gideon Rerves (Justin Kirk) decides to put up millions of dollars of his own money to take over Chicago's out of control 13th Precinct and reboot it as a private police force with cutting-edge technology and revolutionary new ideas.

NBC: The peacock network renewed most of its crime dramas including The Blacklist, Blindspot, Chicago Fire, Chicago Chicago P.D., Grimm, Law & Order: SVU, and Shades of Blue. New shows include the latest "Chicago" spinoff, the legal drama Chicago Justice.

Another Alan Glynn novel could be heading to TV: the writer, whose book The Dark Fields inspired both the Limitless feature film and CBS drama, has sold the rights to his forthcoming work Paradime to ITV Studios America. Taking the lead on the project is Moonlighting and Medium creator Glenn Gordon Caron who will serve as the showrunner on the psychological thriller that follows a man's strange journey after a stint in Afghanistan when he finds his doppelganger in New York City.

Ole Sondegard of Good Company Films, the man behind both the British and Swedish version of Wallander and also the Millennium trilogy, is adapting the mystery novels of Jørn Lier Horst, a former Senior Investigating Officer at the Norwegian police force. The series will center on Horst's chief inspector William Wisting, his team, and the relationship with his daughter Line, a crime reporter for VG (Norwegian newspaper).

Unforgettable alum Dylan Walsh has booked a recurring role on Season 5 of Netflix's Longmire, playing Shane Muldoon, Eddie Heffernan’s criminal boss,

Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan) has signed on for a recurring role in Shooter, USA Network’s upcoming drama series based on Stephen Hunter’s novel Point Of Impact and the 2007 Paramount film starring Mark Wahlberg. It stars Ryan Phillippe as Bob Lee Swagger, an expert marksman living in exile who is coaxed back into action after learning of a plot to kill the president.

A new trailer was released for season 4 of Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Suspense Radio had not one or two, but four authors on its latest two-podcast, including Steve Martini, Allan Topol, John Hegenberger and TR Ragan, each of whom showcased their unique writing style.

Authors on the Air interviewed Jane Tesh, a retired media specialist who's written four previous mystery novels featuring ex-beauty queen turned private eye Madeline Maclin and her reformed con-man husband Jerry, as well as three novels in the Grace Street Mysteries series.

THEATER

Jude Law will star in Obsession, a new play based on the 1943 Luchino Visconti film, at the Barbican Center in London in 2017. The film Obsession was itself an adaptation of James M. Cain's 1930s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is about a man and woman who are having an affair and plot to murder the woman’s husband.

The Baker Street Players will present the world premiere of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's play Sherlock Holmes and the Case of The American Twins on Fridays and Saturdays between May 20th and June 11th in Jackson, California. The play is a traditional Sherlockian adventure that begins at 221B Baker Street where a distressed female client consults with Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson on the whereabouts of her twin brother.  What follows is a trail that leads to Mycroft Holmes and on to Colonel Collins (retired intelligence officer from the Army) who sends Sherlock to Madam Flora Yao (a provocative connoisseur of information), culminating in the climactic denouement in Mrs. Hudson's sitting room.

Your Sunday Music Treat

What does it sound like when 1,000 high school choir students pay tribute to Prince? Tesfa Wondemagegnehu was in Los Angeles guest-conducting the Los Angeles Master Chorale's annual High School Choir Festival, which brought the high school singers to a concert at Disney Hall. This "Purple Rain" tribute was part of the evening's festivities:

 

Quote of the Week

FFB: Maigret Sets a Trap

The incredibly prolific Belgian-French author Georges Simenon (1903–1989) published around 200 novels, 150 novellas, several nonfiction books and articles and an almost countless number of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. It's been said he churned out 60 to 80 pages a day (equivalent to roughly 15,000 to 20,000 words).

Although his standalone psychological suspense novels are probably his best and most-highly reviewed works, it's his series featuring Inspector Jules Maigret, commissioner of the Paris Brigade Criminelle, for which Simenon is best remembered. Maigret is a heavy drinking, pipe smoking stocky man of average height whose laid-back sleuthing style relies more on pure intuition than traditional police leg work. The character has been the subject of several TV adaptations, such as the ITV series titled simply, Maigret. Simenon's 1955 novel Maigret Sets a Trap (Maigret tend un piège) was turned into an episode of the ITV show in 1992 starring Michael Gambon, following an earlier film version (1958) with Jean Gabin in the title role, which won the Edgar Award and was nominated for 3 BAFTA Film Awards. The latest adaptation of the book premiered in March of this year with Rowan Atkinson in the title role.

It's the middle of a hot and steamy summer in Paris, and the Parisians are terrified. A Jack the Ripper-style serial killer has evaded police for five months, stabbing and murdering a woman each month, all with similar physical descriptions and all killed in the same Montmarte neighborhood. Dubbed "The Montmartre Maniac" by the newspapers, the psychopathic villain seems to be smugly taunting the police, who have no clues. Under pressure from the public, Maigret takes the advice of a famous psychologist and uses the journalists' obsession with the case to devise an elaborate trap to play on the killer's ego and trick him into making a mistake.

Maigret dangles policewomen with the same physical characteristics as the previous victims as bait in the Montmarte target zone, including young rookie Marthe Jusserand, a newly-minted member of Maigret's team. The plan seems to have failed at first, but during the villain's escape, Jusserand manages to get the suspect's description and grab one of his buttons and a piece of cloth from his jacket. The man is tracked and arrested, case seemingly closed—until another victim is killed while the suspect is still in jail. Maigret has a slight crisis of conscience, wondering if they've nabbed an innocent man, but then he sets a second trap and reveals the killer in a dramatic twist.

A bit of interesting trivia: Inspector Maigret was allegedly based on a real-life French policeman named Charles Chevenier. For a bit of added fun, the Simenon tribute site Trussel.com has photos and a Google map of the murder locations mentioned in Maigret Sets a Trap.

National Readathon Day

 

 

On May 21, the American Library Association (ALA) and Penguin Random House will join to support the second annual National Readathon Day, which is dedicated to fostering reading at an early age and building community and participation at local libraries. Last year's effort raised $100,000 for the National Book Foundation and its efforts to deliver books to underserved communities.

The 2016 celebration is part of the ALA’s "Libraries Transform" campaign, and all funds raised will go to benefit the ALA’s "Every Child Ready to Read" initiative, a program that supports early literacy development—from birth to age five—through libraries.

You can help spread awareness of National Readathon Day by using the hashtag #Readathon2016 to spread awareness of the event and sharing how you plan to celebrate. You can also host or attend a Readathon Day party at libraries, schools and community centers, as well as make a contribution to the ALA’s literacy programs.

"There are more library locations in the US than Starbucks, Walmarts and McDonald’s combined," noted Skip Dye, Penguin Random House’s vice president of library marketing and digital sales. Dye added, "The power of the library is to reflect, honor and evolve the communities which they serve. Reading together as a community, as a family, is a power change agent."

To learn more about National Readathon Day, you can visit ReadathonDay.com, and to make a donation you can click here.

Mystery Melange

Bouchercon 2016 announced the finalists for this year's Anthony Awards, to be handed out at the annual conference held this year in New Orleans. Congrats to all the finalists in the various categories, which you can find via the official conference link.

The Portland, Oregon-based fan group Friends of Mystery announced this year's recipient of the Spotted Owl Award, given out annually to a mystery novelist whose primary residence is in the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, or Idaho, or in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The top honor went to author and Seattle Times economics columnist Jon Talton for his novel High Country Nocturne, but you can check out the other nine finalists via this link. (With a hat tip to the Rap Sheet.)

Austin Noir At The Bar is moving to a new location, Threadgills's, on May 12th, with readings by Con Lehane, Jordan Harper, Les Edgerton, and Jesse Sublett.

In honor of Short Story Month, the Short Mystery Fiction Society blog is highlighting one or more members' online stories per day. Head on over to the blog link for all the entries (including my stories "Gun Love" to be featured May 15 and "Wrong Side of the Bed" on May 29).

Mulholland Books unveiled the Strand Originals Publishing Program in conjunction with Strand Magazine. Strand Originals will consist of twenty of the best and most popular Strand Magazine short stories of all time, now being published by Mulholland Books as simultaneous e-book and audio digital downloads. The debut of Strand Originals begins with the publication of “Where the Evidence Lies” by Jeffery Deaver, “Meet and Greet” by Ian Rankin, “Jacket Man” by Linwood Barclay, “The Voiceless” by Faye Kellerman, and “Start-Up” by Olen Steinhauer, all published on April 19th, 2016.

If you like to play murder mystery games, Criminal Element has one for you - as part of their Tuesday lineup over the next few weeks, they're offering up CrimeHClue where readers choose the murderer, the murder weapon, and the location of the murder. Once the cards are set, they’ll hide the answers to the clues throughout our social media channels for a lucky winner to win a prize.

Fans of psychological thrillers (or those readers wanting an introduction to the subgenre), can check out Bookriot's listing of "32+ favorites."

If you can't make it to Book Expo America (again) this year, fear not: PBS' Book Now feature is going to cover quite a bit of the festivities from the event held in Chicago May 12-14.

CSI: The Experience, a traveling exhibition about crime lab forensic science and technology (developed by the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, in partnership with CBS and the National Science Foundation) is heading to China for the first time. Budding young Chinese forensic scientists will be able to take part in two separate crime labs ("trace evidence" and "forensic analysis") and an autopsy room where they can explore the technology used in evidence analysis.

A good private eye is worth his or her weight in gold, but stock photos of P.I.s don't do them much justice, as the "10 Most Clichéd Photos of Private Investigators" attest.

Traditionally publishers long considered novellas a costly affair, but Australian author Nick Earls makes the case that all that has changed with the book industry’s move to digital.

Can an author's prejudices ruin a book or is it "just" something you take in stride, especially when considering works by writers from previous time periods? The Guardian's Imogen Russell Williams takes on that subject, especially regarding some of the Golden Age detective fiction she grew up reading.

Unsolved cases often become the stuff of legend, and this list offers up ten of the "most unsolvable" of the unsolved.

Speaking of true crime, it appears that the old trope of a victim being waded down with cement shoes isn't just a fictional device, after all.

The crime poem of the week over at the 5-2 is "Domestic Disturbance" by Abigail George, and the new story-of-the-month at Beat to a Pulp is "Yolo" by Libby Cudmore.

In the Q&A roundup, USA Today sat down with Clare Mackintosh to talk about her latest psychological thriller, I Let You Go; the MomTrends blog welcomed Elaine Viets to talk about her Dead-End Job Mystery Series; Criminal Element spoke with Robert Goldsborough about continuing Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series; and the Mystery People snagged Paul Charles to discuss his Inspector Starrett series, religion, and writing.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke and Boardwalk Empire's Jack Huston are set to star in the Phillip Noyce-directed thriller Above Suspicion. The project is adapted from the book by New York Times columnist Joe Sharkey and explores the true story of a newly married FBI poster-boy (Huston) assigned to an Appalachian mountain town in Kentucky, where he’s drawn into an illicit affair with an impoverished local woman who becomes his star informant. She sees in him her means of escape; instead, it’s a ticket to disaster for both of them.

Michael Fassbender is circling the lead role for the adaptation of John Leake's true crime-based novel, Entering Hades. With Academy Award-winning Birdman co-screenwriter Alexander Dinelaris rewriting the original script penned by Bill Wheeler, the story centers on Jack Unterweger, an investigative journalist who also lived a secret life as a serial killer who murdered eleven people in multiple continents.

Dean Norris, Larry Pine, Shea Whigham and Mark Pellegrino have been added to the cast of High Wire Act, the Tony Gilroy-penned political action thriller starring Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike. Brad Anderson is set to direct the project, which centers on a former U.S. diplomat called back into service in 1980s Beirut to save a former colleague from the group responsible for his wife’s death.

Kiersey Clemons is joining the ensemble cast for Sony’s remake of the 1990 thriller Flatliners, with Ellen Page, Diego Luna, and Nina Dobrev also in the cast, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's Niels Arden Oplev attached to direct. Ben Ripley is penning the screenplay, which once again follows a group of medical students who experiment with “near death” experiences involving past tragedies until the dark consequences began to jeopardize their lives.

How to Get Away with Murder's Charlie Weber has been tapped to star in the political thriller Ex-Patriot, which follows a CIA analyst-turned-whistle blower who flees to Colombia for a life of penance and obscurity. When the agent is tracked down by her former flame (Weber), he enlists her help in taking down a money-laundering magnate with allged ties to terrorism but a personal vendetta proves no one can be trusted.

Vertical Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to Atlas Entertainment’s thriller The Hollow Point, from director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego. The project stars Patrick Wilson, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Jim Belushi, and Lynn Collin and is set in a small town at the U.S.- Mexico border where a new sheriff is plunged into the thick of the ongoing conflict over the drug trade as he investigates a cartel deal that goes horribly wrong.  

The rural thriller Blackway starring Anthony Hopkins has been given a June 10 limited release date and an official trailer. Based on the 2008 novel Go With Me by Castle Freeman, Jr., Blackway follows Lillian (Julia Stiles), a woman who has recently moved to her small logging home town where she has to team up with an ex-logger (Hopkins) and his laconic young friend (Alexander Ludwig) to fight a crooked cop.

TELEVISION

History and Narcos writer/producer Chris Brancato are developing Cartel, a drama series based on the life of drug kingpin El Chapo and his rise to power, with an inside look at how cartels use social media to maintain their images, recruit new members and threaten rivals.

Although ABC was supposed to announce the fate of Castle on Friday, the day came and went without an announcement. Apparently, it's because contracts were still being hammered out for the remaining stars, and according to a Deadline report, Seamus Dever, who plays Detective Kevin Ryan, was one of those actors, signing a new contract to continue with the show if there is a ninth season.

CBS announced they are renewing Criminal Minds for a twelfth season with a full-season order. The fact that it is the last-announced renewal of an established show at the network is said to have been due to budgetary concerns. The offshoot series, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, hasn't yet been renewed, but its ratings strength makes it a likely candidate.

Fox Television released a new teaser trailer for the second season of the psychological thriller Wayward Pines, based on a trilogy of novels by Blake Crouch, as this season's storyline is set to center on a Secret Service agent on a mission to find two missing federal agents, whose investigation only turns up more questions. (Hat tip to Ominimystery News.)

Showtime released a new trailer for Season 4 of Ray Donovan starring Liev Schreiber as fixer to L.A.’s mega-rich and super-famous.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Guardian's books podcast talked about writing crime with Donna Leon, Duncan Campbell, and Barry Forshaw.

Georgia Public Radio spoke with author Karin Slaughter about why she chooses to set her novels in Atlanta.

CyberSecurity experts joined Libby Hellmann on 2nd Sunday Crime to talk about the latest news from the world of cyber crime.

This week's Crime & Science Radio podcast featured an interview with former Federal Prosecutor turned author Allison Leotta about domestic and sex crimes.

A Naked Scientists podcast posed the question, "Can Science Prove Whodunnit?," taking a look at real case studies to find out how forensics can both help and hinder criminal investigations, including the insects who are first on the scene, how your phone can tell tales, and why DNA can lead you on a wild goose chase.

Your Sunday Music Treat

In honor of Mother's Day, here's Renee Fleming performing Antonin Dvorak's "Songs My Mother Taught Me," part of the Czech composer’s collection of Gypsy songs, in which a woman sings of passing down the songs she learned to her own children.

Here's the translation:

Songs my mother taught me,
In the days long vanished;
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banished.
Now I teach my children,
Each melodious measure.
Oft the tears are flowing,
Oft they flow from my memory's treasure.

 

FFB: First Cases

Before they were stars, everyone's favorite literary private eyes had to start somewhere. Many jumped to life fully-formed in novels, but others began their lives in short stories. Robert Randisi, a lifelong champion of P.I. fiction and founder of the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA), in addition to being an author himself, put together a collection of First Cases: First Appearances of Classic Private Eyes in 1996. Fortunately, that volume was successful enough that Randisi was able to compile three additional collections, the last in 2002.

The 1996 volume (and the one that started it all) includes stories in which now-beloved protagonists first saw the light of day, such as Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective in "It's  a Lousy World," first published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine in 1968; Joe Gores's Dan Kearny and company in "File #1: The Mayfield Case," printed in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1968 (a banner year, it seems); Linda Barnes's Carlotta Carlyle in "Lucky Penny," published in New Black Mask in 1986; and Robert Randisi's own ex-boxer Miles Jacoby in "The Steinway Collection," first published in Mystery Monthly in 1977.

Other entries are the first short story appearances of detectives who had already made a splash in a novel, such as Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder in "Out of the Window,"  Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski  in "The Takamoku Joseki," and Max Allan Collins's Nathan Heller in "The Strawberry Teardrop," all three of which were published barely one year after each character's debut novel.

Most of these authors and their detectives went on to win major awards, including several Shamus nods—awards Randisi initiated as part of the PWA. In this book and the following volumes, the stories and characters include hard-boiled and soft-boiled, covering a range of settings (Block's Manhattan, Jeremiah Healy's Boston, Gores's San Francisco), but the most interesting aspect, as Randisi notes, "It's interesting to go back and read an early story about a series character. In some cases the character you meet is very different from the character as he or she appears in later stories." In some cases, these include a switch of POVs from third to first, or major life changes as with Block's pre-AA Scudder who still drinks bourbon with his coffee.

These collections should be both inspiration and caveat to contemporary writers of crime fiction short stories. If you're fortunate enough to produce a long-lived private eye series after having auditioned the character first in the short format, you might just wind up in a future Randisi anthology. So make it good and make it count.

Check out all the other offerings on the topic of "First Books" in the weekly Friday's "Forgotten" Books feature over at Patti Abbott's blog.