In Reference to Murder

FFB: Under the Snow

Today's Friday's "Forgotten" Book feature hosted by Patti Abott is focused on small-town cops or sheriffs. In that vein, I offer up a Nordic take on the subject.

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 but 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.

Mystery Melange

The International Thriller Writers announced the 2017 Thriller Award Nominations in the categories of Best Hardcover Novel, Best First Novel, Best Paperback Novel, Best Short Story, Best Young Adult, and Best E-Book Original. For all the lists and nominees, head on over to the official Thriller Awards website - and congratulations to all.

The Gold Medal winners from the 29th Annual Independent Book Publishers Association Ben Franklin Awards were also announced, including The Devil's Flood: Emory Crawford Mysteries, Book Three, which won in the Mystery & Suspense Category. The Silver winners were James Waltzer's Of Sound Mind and Jeffrey Alan Lockwood's Poisoned Justice: A Riley the Exterminator Mystery.

The winners of this year's Minnesota Book Awards sponsored by the Friends of the St. Paul Library included Allen Eskens' detective novel The Heavens May Fall in the Genre Fiction category. For all the winners and finalists lists, click on over to the awards site.

The world’s biggest celebration of the crime genre, Harrogate, unveiled its full program, including a new exhibition celebration Agatha Christie and the connections between her writing, life, and publishing career using rare photographs and documents from both the Agatha Christie and Collins archives in a visually led outdoor display. The exhibition, part of HarperCollins’ 200th anniversary, will be displayed at the Festival venue, the Old Swan Hotel, where Christie was found after her famous disappearance in 1926. (HT to Shots Magazine). The conference also announced that the  91-year-old artist behind Agatha Christie’s iconic book jackets in the 1960s and 70s, Tom Adams, will make an appearance.

The St Hilda’s College Mystery and Crime Conference, to be held August 18-20, also announced its lineup this year, which includes Yrsa Sigurðardóttir as Conference Guest of Honour and Natasha Cooper as Conference Chair.  

Now through May 7, the Free Library in Philadelphia is presenting an immersive theater experience, in partnership with New Paradise Laboratories, titled Gumshoe. Visitors can participate in the "investigation" that blends disguise, subterfuge, infiltration, half-truths, and bald-faced lies, to get to the bottom of a crime that hasn’t yet happened. While you're at the library, you'll also want to check out  the companion exhibition, "Clever Criminals and Daring Detectives."  Meanwhile, over at the Rare Book Department at Parkway Central Library, the exhibition "Becoming the Detective: The Making of a Genre" continues through September 1.

The National Post took a look at how the infamous Black Dahlia murder sparked a pop culture fascination, including novels and films, and affected public perception.

More sad publishing news: Simon & Schuster shut down its Tyrus Books imprint last week, according to its publisher Ben LeRoy, who originally founded Tyrus Books in 2009, after selling his previous company, Bleak House, to Big Earth Publishing. At that time, Tyrus focused on hardboiled crime fiction, but when F&W acquired Tyrus in 2013 and its focus expanded, it began publishing literary fiction, including novels with ecological themes.

This week, the 5-2 continues its "30 Days of the Five-Two" poetry blog tour with "Harley Caress" by Joe Balaz, from Cindy Rosmus's quarterly fiction and poetry site Yellow Mama, named for the Alabama electric chair. As 5-2 editor Gerald So notes, "The poem's voyeuristic quality piqued my interest, as did the way it's written, in Hawaiian Islands pidgin. Usually, I don't know I've seen celebrities outside TV and movies until well after the fact."

In the Q&A roundup, Lesa's Book Critiques welcomed Rebecca Cantrell to talk about her Hannah Vogel mysteries, Joe Tesla thrillers, and more; the Mystery People spoke with Robin Yocum about his new novel, Welcome Murder; Gerald So interviewed several of the many and talented Derringer Award finalists on his website; and Karin Slaughter and Sara Paretsky shared a Q&A session ahead of Paretsky's new V.I. Warshawski novel Fallout and the mass market edition of Karin Slaughter's The Kept Woman.

Media for Monday

Here's the latest roundup of crime drama news:

MOVIES

Spider-Man's Tobey Maguire is moving behind the camera to direct an adaptation of Jo Nesbo's best-selling thriller Blood on Snow. Maguire’s Material and Lawrence Grey’s Grey Matter Productions acquired the screen rights to the 2015 Norwegian novel and hired on Nesbo to pen the script. Blood on Snow centers on Olav, a contract killer in Oslo who, when instructed to kill his adulterous wife, falls into a meditation on death and love, and opts instead to pursue his boss' rival.  

Jo Nesbo is apparently a hot property right now, as it was also announced that another project based on one of the hot Norwegian author’s works is in the pipeline. Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are adapting Nesbo’s upcoming novel I Am Victor for Baltasar Kormakur to direct and produce. The story is a thriller about a skilled but morally corrupt and narcissistic divorce attorney who's framed for a series of brutal murders and embarks on his own investigation to find the real killer.

Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria) has come on board to direct the Cuban spy thriller Wasp Network from his own script. Wasp Network is based on Fernando Morais’ book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, and enters on Cuban spies in American territory during the 1990s when anti-Castro groups based in Florida carried out military attacks on Cuba, and the Cuban government struck back with the Wasp Network to infiltrate those organizations.

Colin Farrell is in negotiations to star in Steve McQueen and New Regency’s heist thriller Widows, joining Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, and Andre Holland in the cast. Gone Girl screenwriter and novelist Gillian Flynn will write the script with McQueen, which is based on the 1983 British miniseries about a caper gone wrong.

Supergirl actor Frederick Schmidt has joined the cast of Paramount’s Mission:Impossible 6, the sequel to the Tom Cruise-starring franchise. Christopher McQuarrie returns as director in the film, with the plot still held under wraps.

Filming has begun in Edinburgh, Scotland for the new crowdfunded psychic thriller First and Only. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by author Peter Flannery, and directed by award-winning director Magnus Wake, James Robinson stars as the ominous figure of serial killer Mal whose religious killing spree can only be stopped by Simon, a mysteriously gifted young man who has been haunted by Mal since witnessing his first murder as a boy.

The Egyptian film The Nile Hilton Incident (a/k/a Cairo Confidential) won the Grand Prix at the 9th Beaune International Thriller Film Festival in France. The film, which also won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic section of Sundance in January, is Inspired by the true story of Lebanese Singer Suzanne Tamim’s murder in 2008.

TELEVISION

The Peabody Awards, which honor the most powerful, enlightening and invigorating stories in TV, radio and digital media, have named the 2017 finalists, including Oscar-winning O.J.: Made in America, American Crime, and a long list of documentaries and podcasts. The winners will be honored May 20, and Rashida Jones will host the ceremony to air on June 2 on PBS and Fusion — marking the first time it will be telecast on both national broadcast and cable television.

Brendan Fraser (The Affair, The Mummy franchise) has been cast opposite Max Irons and Mira Sorvino in Condor, AT&T Audience Network’s 10-episode straight-to-series drama inspired by Sydney Pollack’s 1975 political thriller Three Days of the Condor. The story follows Joe Turner (Irons), a young CIA analyst whose idealism is tested when he stumbles onto a terrible but brilliant plan that threatens the lives of millions.

Anya Taylor-Joy, Romola Garai and Alex Hassell have been set to star in BBC One and Masterpiece’s period thriller The Miniaturist, based on the best-selling novel by Jessie Burton. The story is set in 1686, when 18-year-old Nella Oortman (Taylor-Joy) moves from the country to begin a new life as the wife of wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt (Hassell). But she soon realizes nothing is at it seems when her new husband gives her a miniature replica of their home to be furnished by an elusive Miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror what is happening within the house in unexpected ways amid escalating dangers.

Grammy-winning singer Ricky Martin has signed on to co-star opposite Édgar Rarmirez, Penélope Cruz, and Darren Criss in Versace: American Crime Story. The 10-episode Versace examines the July 1997 assassination of Gianni Versace (Ramirez) on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion by sociopath and serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Criss). Martin will play Versace’s longtime partner Antonio D’Amico, while Cruz plays Versace’s sister Donatella.

Osric Chau, who recurred during the first season of BBC America’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (based on the cult novels by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams), has been promoted to series regular for Season 2. Chau plays the manic Vogel, a member of the Rowdy 3.

Netflix has come on board BBC Two’s contemporary thriller Collateral as co-producer and will release the show globally outside the UK. Carey Mulligan stars as Detective Inspector Kip Glaspie in the drama set over the course of four days that explores the spiraling repercussions surrounding the fatal shooting of a pizza delivery man.

Law & Order: SVU is lining up its own take on the topic of newsroom sexual harassment, with Christopher McDonald (Thelma and Louise), Bonnie Somerville (Friends) and Mark Moses (Mad Men) set to headline an April episode of the NBC procedural seemingly inspired by the Roger Ailes scandal at Fox that led to the longtime chief's departure. 

Fans of CBS' Criminal Minds, which was on the bubble for renewal, can breathe a sigh of relief now that the network has officially given the go-ahead to another season of the series, which will be its thirteenth.

Studiocanal has sold German rights to drama The Five, the 10-part show created for television by bestselling author Harlan Coben. The series, which debuted on the U.K. broadcaster Sky 1 in April 2016, follows a group of friends whose lives are thrown into turmoil when the DNA of one of the friends’ brothers, who disappeared 20 years ago, is detected at a fresh crime scene.  

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack presented dark crime fiction writer Jen Conley, to chat about her writing and new book Cannibals.

Jan Burke and D.P. Lyle, hosts of the Crime and Science Radio podcast, announced the sad news that they are ending the project after three and half years. However, they will keep all the sixty-seven shows produced thus far in an online archives.

Your Sunday Music Treat

If you haven't seen this unique musical instrument from the group Wintergatan (Martin Molin and Marcus Sjöberg), you must - it's really amazing:

 

Quote of the Week

FFB: Murder in Japan and Danger in D.C.

Martin H. "Harry" Greenberg (1941-2011) started out as a political science professor and later founded book packager Tekno Books, which published over 2,300 books translated into 33 languages. But he may be best known to many as the "king of anthologists," editing singly or with others over 1,298 anthologies and commissioning over 8,200 original short stories—but I'm not sure anyone really knows how many he hand a hand in. Greenberg received four genre Lifetime Achievement Awards: the Milford Award in science fiction, the Solstice Award in science fiction, the Bram Stoker Award in horror, and the Ellery Queen Award in mystery.

His collaborators included the bright lights in their respective genres, such as science fiction author Isaac Asimov, with whom Greenberg edited more than 120 anthologies, and crime fiction authors Ed Gorman and Bill Pronzini, among many others. As an example of his wide-ranging thematic material, I offer up two very different anthologies, Murder in Japan: Japanese Stories of Crime and Detection, and Danger in D.C.: Cat Crimes in the Nation's Capital.

Danger in D.C. is one of at least seven in a series of "cat crimes" story anthologies Greenberg edited with Ed Gorman from 1991 to 1998. As you might guess from the title, the volume features 18 stories with felines connected to the nation's capitol in some way, with offerings by Jon L. Breen, Max Allan Collins, Bill Crider, Barbara D'Amato, Carole Nelson Douglas, John Lutz, Barbara Paul, Carolyn Wheat, and more. Since the book dates from the Clinton presidential years, many of the stories feature the "first cat" Sox or a stand-in, including "Code Red: Terror on the Mall" by Bill Crider, involving a terrorist plot to blow up the President's cat and the Washington Monument. 

Murder in Japan is co-edited with John L. Apostolou and includes 14 stories arranged chronologically from pre-1920s up to the 1980s. Although crime fiction has been quite popular in Japan for some time, few short stories have been translated into English, and I can almost guarantee that neither you (nor I) have heard of most of the authors included here, beginning with two stories by Edogawa Rampo, credited as being  the father of the Japanese mystery story and influenced heavily by Edgar Allan Poe. There are also two stories by Shizuko Natsuki, sometimes referred to as the "Agatha Christie of Japan," (whose 1983 novel Murder at Mt. Fuji sold over a million copies) with her tales frequently based on actual cases.

If you want to delve into the many treasures Greenberg left behind as part of his legacy, check out the partial bibliography listed on the Fantastic Fiction web site. To put his impact into perspective, if you read one story from one of his anthologies per day (using a 1,000 anthology total with an average 14 stories each), it would take you 38 years to read them all—without taking a day off. Happy reading!

Mystery Melange

Paper Sculpture by Malena Valcárcel

The 2017 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year announced the shortlist of outstanding crime novels from Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The winning title will be announced at the Gala Dinner on May 20 during the annual international CrimeFest held in Bristol.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society posted the finalists for this year's best in short crime fiction, from flash length all the way to novelette. For all the lists, head on over to the official SMFS website.

The Daily Mail First Novel competition is launching its second annual event which offers the prize of a £20,000 publishing deal with Penguin Random House. Last year's contest attracted 5,000 entries, with the winner being Amy Lloyd for her thriller Red River. Since most of the best entries last year (according to the judges) were crime and thrillers, this year organizers are asking for entries in that genre only, from detective crime to spy thrillers to psychological chillers. Interested first-time authors who have never been published can send in the first 5,000 words and a short synopsis.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert Bloch (1917-1994), best known for his book Psycho which became an even more famous film by Alfred Hitchcock. Although he wrote primarily in horror and sci-fi, Bloch also penned crime fiction works, and served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America (1970). Todd Mason has been including retrospectives on his blog this week in honor of the occasion as well as a partial bibliography.

The Writers Who Kill blog hosted interviews with the finalists for the Agatha Award for Best Short Crime Story and also has links to the stories so you can read them for yourself.

Agatha Christie's books and stories have been translated into over 100 languages, but writer Ragnar Jónasson recounted for The Guardian how he came to be a primary translator of the Queen of Crime's books into Icelandic and why one clue took ten years to translate.

In Mike Ripley's latest Getting Away with Murder column for Shots Magazine, he tells us that his long-simmering project Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, a "reader’s history" of the boom in British thriller writing 1953-1975, has been given a home by HarperCollins in their famous Crime Club imprint; plus he has a profile of Cuban crime-writing superstar Leonardo Padura; a look at new re-releases from Ostara Crime, reviews of two new debut thrillers, and plenty more reviews of note.

The escape-room event, in which groups of players are locked into a room and have to solve puzzles and complete a mission to escape, may have started in Kyoto in 2007, but they have since spread around the globe with such features as Escape The Room in New York City. Apparently, the film and TV business has also embraced the trend as a marketing tool to stand out in a crowded marketplace and give fans an immersive experience - shows such as Game of Thrones, Prison Break: Resurrection, and Murdoch Mysteries have all offered their take on an escape room.

Do you love the television spy series The Americans on FX? If so, here are "10 Books to Read If You Love Watching The Americans."

Rabeea, a Karachi-based book critic presently writing for Chicago Review of Books, Wales Art Review, Brooklyn Mag, and elsewhere, was getting a little tired of "the girl who" crime novel trend, prompting this subjective list of "5 Psychological Thrillers That Aren’t Formulaic."

Looking for the perfect place to stage the perfect crime? You might want to consider taking a little cruise.

Speaking of all things criminal, it appears that hair strands could reveal lifestyle secrets of criminals.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Sins to Forgive" by J.H. Johns

In the Q&A roundup, Henry Brock (Vicious Dogs) is the latest author to take Paul D. Brazill's Short Sharp Interview challenge; the Mysteristas welcomed Marilyn Larew, author of Aftermath; Sarah Pinborough stopped by Anne Bonny Book Reviews about her bestselling thrillers; Needham Local spoke with Dave Zeltserman about the upcoming movie adapted from his book, Small Crimes; and Crime Readers chatted with Seven Womack to discuss his series featuring Nashville PI, Harry James Denton.

Media Murder for Monday

Happy Monday to all! Here's an update of the latest crime drama news:

MOVIES

Liam Neeson has signed on to play the lead role in Marlowe, which is based on the iconic Raymond Chandler character Philip Marlowe. The film is being adapted from The Black-Eyed Blonde follow-on novel by Benjamin Black, which centers on the private eye during the early 1950s where Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow. That is, until a beautiful blonde client comes in and asks Marlowe to find her ex-lover, which soon has Marlowe wrapped up with one of the more powerful families in Bay City who are willing to go to any lengths to protect their fortune.

Fox Searchlight has acquired the rights to The Spy With No Name, a Jeff Maysh eBook published under the Amazon Kindle Single label. The book tells the true story of Erwin van Haarlem, a Cold War secret agent whose stolen identity broke the heart of an innocent woman who thought she’d found her long-lost son.

Doctor Strange actor Scott Adkins has been tapped as the lead in the sci-fi action thriller Incoming, about an International Space Station that now serves as a prison. When the imprisoned terrorists take over the Station and turn it into a missile aimed at Moscow, only a shuttle pilot and a rookie doctor can stop them.

Ron Howard’s production outfit Imagine Entertainment has optioned the novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, with British author Jason Arnopp to adapt the screenplay of his own 2016 debut. The plot follows titular pop culture journalist Jack Sparks who is researching a book on the occult, but after sparking a Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism, Sparks is found dead in mysterious circumstances.

Throttle, the novella by Stephen King and his son, novelist Joe Hill, is getting the big-screen treatment. Throttle tells of a motorcycle gang riding across a stark Nevada desert after a deal gone bad, who become pursued by a faceless trucker hell-bent on revenge.  

Logan Lerman and Olivia Cooke are in final negotiations to star in The Tracking Of A Russian Spy, the thriller based on real events and based on Mitch Swenson’s memoir. The plot centers on a secret romance between journalist Swenson (Lerman) and a mysterious Russian woman named Katya (Cooke) he met in a New York nightclub who disappears suddenly after the arrest of 10 Russian-Americans charged with spying for the Kremlin.  

Amber Heard is attached to topline the crime thriller The Kind Worth Killing based on Peter Swanson’s 2015 novel, with Christopher Kyle adapting the screenplay. The book follows Lily, a mysterious and stunning killer who meets Ted Severson on a late-night flight from London to Boston. When Ted confesses he’s had thoughts about murdering his unfaithful wife, Lily offers to help, and the two form a strange, twisted bond while plotting his wife’s demise.

Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight) has boarded the indie Never Saw It Coming, playing Wendell Garfield, the husband of a missing woman (Diane D'Aquila) whose disappearance is investigated by a psychic (Emily Hampshire). The book is based on the 2013 novel by Linwood Barclay, who also wrote the screenplay.

Mission: Impossible 6 has announced its cast with several returning members including Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Alec Baldwin as Alan Hunley, and Sean Harris as Solomon Lane. One notable absentee from the group is Jeremy Renner, who played William Brandt in Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation, who is reportedly committed to other projects.

TELEVISION

HBO is in talks with veteran David Milch to join True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto for a potential third season of the crime drama franchise. Pizzolatto, who created the show and has written every episode so far (sharing co-writing credit with Scott Lasser for two episodes in Season 2), has reportedly finished the first two scripts for a prospective third season.

Homeland director Lesli Linka Glatter is set to direct the first two episodes of Dick Wolf’s limited series Law & Order: True Crime — The Menendez Murders for NBC, which is scheduled to begin production this spring in Los Angeles. The series will center on Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents and sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without parole.  

Film actor Miles Teller is headed to the small screen for Amazon's upcoming original drama series Too Old to Die Young, a crime-thriller project from Drive filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn that explores a hidden world of assassins. Teller will play the lead role of Martin, a police officer entangled in the criminal underbelly of Los Angeles.

Investigation Discovery has given a greenlight to The Von Bulow Affair, the network’s first scripted limited series, and has set premiere dates for its first two scripted movies, The Dating Game Killer and Fatal Vision. The network is also planning a new three-part documentary event series based on the serial killer known as Son of Sam.

Mark Strong is set to star in the Fox Networks' espionage thriller Deep State. The eight-episode hourlong original series follows Strong's character who is brought back into the game to avenge the death of his son, only to find himself at the heart of a covert intelligence war and a conspiracy to profit from the spread of chaos throughout the Middle East.

Hidden Figures star Aldis Hodge is heading to The Blacklist to guest-star as a high-end thief who's on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for stealing luxury items, but "with his powerful physique and violent tendencies, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty."

Chris Pine will guest-star on the police/procedural parody Angie Tribeca as Dr. Thomas Hornbein, a serial killer nicknamed "The Zookeeeper" that Tribeca (Rashida Jones) brought to justice many years ago.  

ABC has pulled freshman drama series Time After Time from its schedule after five low-rated episodes, effectively canceling the new series. Based on the novel by Karl Alexander and the movie, Time After Time followed science fiction writer H.G. Wells as he was transported to modern day Manhattan in pursuit of Jack the Ripper.  

The animated spy-parody Archer, which has been the focus of a series on FX, is switching gears to re-imagine the Sterling Archer character navigating post-war L.A. as a hard-boiled, hard-drinking gumshoe straight out of classic noir a la Raymond Chandler.

CBS announced the season finale dates for its primetime dramas, comedies and unscripted series. Follow this link to find out when your favorites are ending their seasons and what's coming back next season.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest Crime and Science Radio included a discussion of facial recognition and other biometrics with FBI Senior Photographic Technologist, Richard W. Vorder Bruegge.

This week's Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast featured special guest Angela Marsons, author of the bestselling Kim Stone series.

Host Debbi Mack welcomed thriller author Michael Parker on the Crime Cafe podcast.

KQED radio spoke with Jerry Miller, who spent more than 25 years behind bars for kidnapping, rape and robbery — crimes he didn't commit. Miller's story is now part of a new book called Anatomy of Innocence, which fleshes out personal accounts of wrongful convictions, with a twist: in each chapter, a mystery or thriller writer (Lee Child, Sara Paretsky, Laurie R. King, and more) tells the story of a real-life exoneree.

The Center for Fiction in NYC has been inviting bestselling authors to participate in its Crime Fiction Academy for the past several years. You may not have known, however, that you can access all those archived video talks via the Center for Fiction's website.

THEATER

Sherlock Holmes returns to the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park with a comedic twist in Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, with a run from April 22 to May 20 in the Marx Theatre. The play features five actors, with two playing Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, and three others playing more than 40 different roles.

Quote of the Week