In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

The Crime Writers of Canada announced this year's winners of the Arthur Ellis Awards, which recognize the best in mystery, crime, and suspense writing in fiction and non-fiction by Canadian writers. The Best Crime Novel went to Sleeping in the Ground, by Peter Robinson, while the Best First Crime Novel was given to Full Curl, by Dave Butler. For all the honorees, follow this link.

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate announced the shortlist for the 14th annual Crime Novel of the Year, which celebrates the best crime writing from British and Irish authors. The six titles include A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee; The Long Drop by Denise Mina; Spook Street by Mick Herron; The Intrusions by Stav Sherez; Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner; and Insidious Intent by Val McDermid. The shortlist will feature in a six-week promotion in libraries and in WHSmith stores, with the overall winner to be decided by the panel of Judges, alongside a public vote.

The Private Eye Writers of America announced the 2018 Shamus Award nominees including Best Novel finalists Dark Water by Parker Bilal; Blood Truth by Matt Coyle; Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton; The Room of White Fire by T. Jefferson Parker, and Monument Road by Michael Wiley. For the full list, including nods for Best Paperback Original, Best First Private Eye Novel, and Best P.I. Short Story, head on over to the Writing PIs website. Winners in the various categories will be announced at the PWA Banquet at Bouchercon in September.

French crime writer Fred Vargas, the pen name of Frederique Audoin-Rouzeau, has won Spain's prestigious Asturias prize for literature. The award foundation said that Vargas, who is also a distinguished archaeologist, perceives society as "a mysterious and complex ecosystem" and her detective stories possess original plots and irony in their description of characters, as well as abundant imagination. Vargas has won three International Dagger Awards from the Crime Writers Association.

Down & Out Books announced that New Wave Crime will join its publishing family. Founded and edited by Chantelle Aimée Osman, New Wave Crime will focus on diversity of plot, culture, and character, and champion new voices in the crime genre. Osman is currently seeking submissions, which may be sent to [email protected], and expects the first titles to be published in early 2019.

Sadly, it appears that Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, is on the market yet again. Mystery Lovers was founded in 1990 by Richard Goldman and Mary Alice Gorman, who sold the store in 2012 to Laurie Stephens, a bookseller and former librarian. In 2015, Natalie Sacco and Trevor Thomas purchased the store from Stephens but have decided to sell the store due to "family circumstances and new plans for the future." Thomas and Sacco said that their only requirement for a successor is that they be "passionate about books and the Mystery Lovers community," and assured customers that while the search for a buyer is in progress events will go on as scheduled. If you're an interested buyer, contact Natalie Sacco at [email protected]. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

In writing for the New York Times, Russian scholar Jennifer Wilson makes the case for Dostoyevsky predicting the current "true crime" craze.

In light of the upcoming mystery novel penned by President Bill Clinton and James Patterson, the New York Times took a look at the long tradition of chief executives devouring thrillers, mysteries and detective stories.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Not for Vegas" by Rachel Lynn McGuire.

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Jill Orr, who is the author of the new mystery novel The Bad Break, the second in her Riley Ellison series; the New York Times chatted with Louise Penny, author of the Inspector Gamache mystery series; and the Christian Science Monitor interviewed Anne Hillerman, daughter of author Tony Hillerman, about keeping her father's mysteries alive and putting the focus on a new female character.

Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings to all! For those of you in the U.S. who are observing Memorial Day, I hope you are taking time to remember the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces, as well as enjoying some quality time together with family and friends.

And now, here's a roundup of the latest news of crime dramas, on the big and small screens, as well as podcasts and the stage:

MOVIES

MGM is re-launching Orion Classics, with a focus on multi-platform and specialized releases and acquisitions, and has named Mike P. Nelson’s thriller The Domestics as its first release. The Domestics is set in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world inhabited by murderous gangs divided into deadly factions, where Nina (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (Tyler Hoechlin) race desperately across the lawless countryside in search of safety. Rounding out the cast are Lance Reddick (The Wire), Sonoya Mizuno (Ex Machina), Dana Gourrier (The Hateful Eight), Thomas Francis Murphy (True Detective) and David Dastmalchian (The Belko Experiment). 

In the last John Wick installment, the retired hit man was declared officially excommunicado from the Continental and dealing with a global contract out on his head. The next installment, John Wick: Chapter 3 will pick up after the events of the last film and find Keanu Reeves' character facing countless threats with no sanctuary to turn to. Joining the action franchise this time around are Halle Berry and Anjelica Huston, who will work with returning members Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick.

It's been almost two years since the last James Bond outing, and during the time since, there's been a lot of talk around who would direct the next film (Danny Boyle), whether Daniel Craig would be returning to the role for a fifth installment (yes, he is), and if we'd be seeing it any time soon. Regarding the last question, the tentatively titled Bond 25 has officially been set for release on October 25th, 2019 in the UK and two weeks later on November 8th in the U.S.

Al Pacino’s Scarface will be re-released June 10-13 to mark the film's 35th anniversary. Brian De Palma’s movie, based on a screenplay by Oliver Stone, is a gangland classic that stars Pacino as a Cuban gangster who rises through the ranks of the drug trade in Miami in the 1980s. The re-release is being presented by Universal Pictures, which is also producing a new version of De Palma’s film, directed by Antoine Fuqua.

A trailer was released for City of Lies (based on the novel of the same name by journalist Randall Sullivan) starring Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker as they take on one of the most notorious unsolved cases in Los Angeles history: the murder of Biggie Smalls. Depp will play Russell Poole, a real-life detective who spent years trying to crack the mystery, who teams up with a desperate reporter (Forest Whitaker) to solve the mystery of Biggie Smalls’ death and the conspiracy to cover up the case.

The first trailer is out for Papillon, a remake of the classic 1973 film that was based on the memoirs of convicted felon and fugitive Henri Charrière. Directed by Michael Noer (Northwest) from a script by Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners), the film stars Charlie Hunnam, Rami Malek, Yorick Van Wageningen, Roland Moller, Tommy Flanagan and Eve Hewson, and opens in theaters August 24.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Ryan Reynolds and Michael Bay are heading to Netflix to star in Six Underground, a Bay-directed action picture that has Skydance Media partnering with the streaming giant. Reynolds will be reunited with his Deadpool and Deadpool 2 writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, who penned the script that centers on six billionaires who fake their own deaths and form an elite team to take down bad guys.

The next installment in BBC One’s collection of Agatha Christie stories, The ABC Murders, has signed John Malkovich to play Hercule Poirot and Rupert Grint to portray Inspector Crome. Filming is due to begin in June on the three-part drama that is set in the 1930s at a time when Britain is dangerously divided and suspicion and hatred are on the rise. The story sees Poirot face a serial killer known only as A.B.C. As the body count rises, the only clue is a copy of The ABC Railway Guide at each crime scene.

Season 9 has been confirmed for ITV's award-winning crime drama VERA, with Brenda Blethyn returning once again to play the unorthodox but brilliantly perceptive Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope. The four-part season centers on the death of Joanne Caswell a newly qualified HMP forensic psychologist working in Newcastle, who'd been looking into the crime of a former patient who had recently committed suicide. Kenny Doughty returns as Detective Sergeant Aiden Healy, who over the years has proved himself to be a strong and reliable partner to DCI Stanhope. Doctor Who’s Peter Davison, James Atherton (The Crown), Adrian Lukis (Little Boy Blue), and Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones) will lead the all-star guest cast.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced its fall slate including Coroner (winter 2019), an hourlong procedural series based on former barrister-turned-acclaimed crime writer M.R. Hall's bestselling Jenny Cooper novels, about a former ER doctor newly appointed as a coroner investigating suspicious deaths. The CBC also renewed the Frankie Drake Mysteries and the Murdoch Mysteries for an additional season each.

Independent drama producer Kudos has won the television adaptation rights to Diane Setterfield’s new suspense novel Once Upon a River. The story is a period mystery set in an inn on the River Thames where the regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child, although hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can it be explained by science? Setterfield’s debut 2006 novel The Thirteenth Tale was adapted into a BBC TV drama starring Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Coleman.

Only a short time after Syfy canceled The Expanse beyond its upcoming third season, Amazon announced it was picking up the critically praised series for Season 4. Co-created and written by Oscar-nominated screenwriting duo Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men), the series is based on the bestselling book series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (under the pen name James S. A. Corey). The project stars Steven Strait, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dominique Tipper, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham, Frankie Adams, and Thomas Jane in the police detective set in the asteroid belt where the first officer of an interplanetary ice freighter and an Earth-bound United Nations executive slowly uncover a vast conspiracy that threatens the Earth’s rebellious colony.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The New York Times profiled the podcast My Favorite Murder, which has legions of female fans who call themselves Murderinos and have turned the show’s hosts, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff, into global stars.

The Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste talked about Cocky Cowboys, trademark bullying, Ian McEwan's disappointing grades, and much more. Craig Sisterson also reviewed Dark Pines by Will Dean and Paper Ghosts by Julia Haeberlin, and special guest Simon Toyne chatted about the Solomon Creed novels, working in TV and the vagaries of that business, plus basing books on true crimes.

Suspense Radio's Inside Edition was joined by Sisters in Crime talking about the organization and also welcomed author Charlie Donlea to discuss his latest novel, Don't Believe It, in which a filmmaker helps clear a woman convicted of murder—only to find she may be a puppet in a sinister game.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime fiction author David Swinson on the Crime Cafe podcast. Swinson's new novel Crime Song is the follow up in his D.C.-set series featuring Frank Marr, a retired cop turned PI, who was a burglar in his former life.

Read or Dead discussed books by Asian and Asian American writers in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

THEATER

The Strand Theater in Marietta, Georgia, is presenting encore performance of Murder! at The Strand, an immersive theatrical whodunit that sold out during its initial run in April. The additional performances June 7-10 will once again allow the audience to identify the true story behind a nefarious crime and the criminal with the motive to commit it.

Chicago's Lifeline Theatre is mounting a revival of its 2010 hit adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel, Neverwhere, itself based on the 1996 BBC television series in which a man and woman find themselves trapped in a shadowy underworld beneath London’s streets where rogues and assassins roam. Robert Kauzlaric’s adaptation is directed by Ilesa Duncan with a run from May 25-July 15.

Quote of the Week

FFB: This Rough Magic

Mary Stewart was born in 1916 in Sunderland, County Durham, England and graduated from Durham University, later serving as a lecturer in English Language and Literature there. She turned to writing novels in the 1950s and is considered to be one of the founders of "romantic suspense." Her marriage to Sir Frederick Stewart, one-time chairman of the Geology Department of Edinburgh University, led to extensive travels that provided inspiration for the detailed exotic settings her novels are famous for.

One such novel heavily dependent upon a sense of place is 1964's This Rough Magic, a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel in 1965 (beaten out by John Le Carré's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold). Lucy Waring, a young British stage actress whose first big play folded abruptly, is having a hard time finding work, so she accepts an invitation to stay with her married sister on the idyllic Ionian island of Corfu. At least, it appears idyllic, but on her first morning there, someone shoots at a tame dolphin, a young Greek boy drowns off the coast of Albania, and soon afterward a smuggler washes up dead in a nearby cove. The prime suspect is one of their neighbors, the handsome, arrogant son of a famous British actor-turned-hermit, although he's not the only one with secrets to hide.

In the story, Corfu is the alleged locale for Shakespeare's The Tempest, which provides plenty of fodder for tie-ins to Shakespeare's play, including the character of Sir Julian Gale (who is a Lawrence Olivier clone), elements such as a deliberate take on Prospero's books, a girl named Miranda and a touch of Ariel's music and epigraphs from the play prefacing each chapter, along with plenty of other literary references.

Setting is another major aspect of the novel, not surprising since the author has said she is blessed with a very good visual memory, "almost like a movie camera. When I start describing something in a book, I find myself putting down things I didn't know I'd caught. I'm a sponge, a happy thing for a writer to be":

The alleys were deserted, save for the thin cats and the singing birds in cages on the walls. Here and there, where a gap in the homes had a blazing wedge of sunlight across the stones, dusty kittens baked themselves in patches of marigolds, or very old women peered from the black doorways. The smell of charcoal-cooking hung in the warm air. Our steps echoed up the hills while from the main streets the sound of talk and laughter surged back at us, muted like the roar of a river in a distant gorge.

Stewart is also solid in her characterizations for the most part, with Lucy, the typical plucky-and-feisty Stewart heroine, and the various supporting cast members fleshed out in vivid detail, particularly the aging hermit actor, Sir Julian. As this is "romantic suspense," there are a couple of love-story angles involved. However, they actually take a back seat to the suspense elements that start off slowly but build steadily until the end, which includes a bona fide deus ex machina (involving a young man, a motorcycle and the island's patron saint, Spiridion).

As for male readers hesitant to pick up a Stewart book, Anthony Boucher noted that "it would take a suspiciously over-male he-man to resist the charm and narrative vigor of Mary Stewart's adventure stories." Stewart's strong story-telling skills are indeed evident, something she once commented on:  "I've written stories since I was three and a half, and I think you're either born with the storyteller's flair or you're not. You can learn much about the craft of writing, but you either have the storyteller's flair or you don't. It's no virtue of mine. It's just there."

Mystery Melange

News of crime fiction awards have been coming so fast, it's almost impossible to keep up, but here are a few of the most recent:

The UK's CrimeFest conference announced the winners of its annual awards at a ceremony held this past weekend. The eDunnit Award for the best crime fiction ebook first published in both hard copy and in electronic format in the British Isles in 2017 went to Michael Connelly for The Late Show; the Audible Sounds of Crime (for audiobooks) winner was J.P. Delaney, The Girl Before, read by Emilia Fox, Finty Williams & Lise Aagaard Knudse; the Last Laugh Award for the best humorous crime novel was handed out to Mick Herron for Spook Street; the H.R.F. Keating Award for the best biographical or critical book was won by Mike Ripley, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang; the Best Children's Novel winner was Helena Duggan, A Place Called Perfect; and the Best Young Adult novel winner was Patrice Lawrence, Indigo Donut.

Also at the Gala Dinner at CrimeFest, Petrona Award judges Barry Forshaw and Sarah Ward announced the winner of the 2018 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The winner is Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito, translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles and published by Simon & Schuster. Malin Persson Giolito and Rachel Willson-Broyles will also receive a cash prize. (HT to the Rap Sheet, which also lists the other finalists.)

The Crime Writers Association announced the longlists for this year's Dagger Awards for the Gold, Ian Fleming, John Creasey, International, Historical and Short Story Daggers plus the Dagger in the Library. Shortlists for the Daggers will be released in July and the winners announced at the Dagger Awards dinner in London in late October. If you'd like a quick at-a-glance summary of the lists, Karen Meeks at EuroCrime has a rundown.

We also now know this year’s longlist of ten titles for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel written by a New Zealand author. The finalists will be announced in July, along with the finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, and the winners announced as part of a special event at the WORD Christchurch Festival, held from August 29 to September 2.

The ABA Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction announced the shortlist of three novels and has opened up voting by the public who serve as a collective "fifth juror" for determining the winner. This year's finalists are Proof by CE Tobisman; Testimony by Scott Turow; and Exposed by Lisa Scottoline.

In other crime fiction and book world news:

Join the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, for a "thrilling night of chilling crime fiction read by our talented members" next month. The lineup includes Jill Block, Lawrence Block, Jeffrey Brown, P.D. Halt, Michael O'Keefe, and Jeff Soloway. Hosted by Jeff Markowitz, this event, to be held June 7 at the KGB Bar, is free and open to the public.

It was only a week or two ago that I noted the most recent RT Book Review Award announcements, which included both career achievement and the annual yearly winner nods for crime fiction works. Unfortunately, last week came news that RT Book Reviews parent company Romantic Times is shutting down after 37 years, which will mean the end to those two endeavors plus the RT VIP Salon. It would also mean the end to the annual RT Booklovers Convention, but according to Shelf Awareness, at least one of the people behind the RT conventions plans to launch a successor convention called "BookLoversCon" next year. Let's hope someone comes through for the review end of the company, as well, since book review and discovery outlets are continuing to rapidly shrink in number.

Ambient Lit is an ambitious project that hopes to redesign fiction for phones by customizing a reader's experience by using their location, weather, and season. Will it take off or just be another interesting but passing experiment? And what would it mean for writers?

The Conversation magazine profiled the interesting history behind an Agatha Christie anomaly: When the ancient Egyptian priest Heqanakhte wrote a series of letters to his family during the 12th Dynasty (1991-1802BC), he couldn't have imagined he was creating the framework around which the British crime writer Agatha Christie would weave one of the world’s first historical crime novels, some 4,000 years later.

If you want to own a literal piece of Agatha Christie's world, the seaside home overlooking the island where Agatha Christie wrote And Then There Were None is on the market. All you need is £2million ($2.7 million U.S.). Onnalea is a four-bedroom abode in the Devon area with views over Burgh Island where the author penned her 1939 crime fiction masterpiece.

You've probably heard of the phrase "bats in the belfrey," but you probably haven't heard about bats in the library. And it's all for a good cause.

Speaking of libraries, the Guardian reported on "Bacon, cheese slices and sawblades: the strangest bookmarks left at libraries."

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Consensual Crime" by J.H. Johns.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep, and Antonio Banderas are all in talks to star in The Laundromat, a Steven Soderbergh-directed drama about the Panama Papers scandal. The script, by Scott Z. Burns, is based on Jake Bernstein's book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite. The drama is the story of the revelations of reams of documents leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca by an anonymous whistleblower that bared embarrassing details on investments and money trails from politicians the world trying to evade taxes.

Sony’s Screen Gems picked up a worldwide rights deal at Cannes for The Intruder, a Deon Taylor-directed thriller that stars Dennis Quaid, Meaghan Good, Michael Ealy, and Joseph Sikora. The project is a psychological thriller about a young married couple who buys a beautiful Napa Valley home only to find that the man they bought it from refuses to let go of the property as he slowly terrorizes them. Quaid plays the seller, with Good and Ealy playing the couple who discover that the motivated seller has no intention of vacating the premises.

British filmmaker Gerard Johnson is set to direct the true-crime thriller Three Rivers, with Robbie Brenner (Dallas Buyers Club) and Michael Keyes producing. Although the exact plot details are being kept under wraps, the dark and gritty thriller is based on actual events and follows three troubled and volatile individuals whose lives collide in a series of tragic and fateful events that took place in the Pittsburgh.

Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg will star in the feature film Shirley about the famed horror author Shirley Jackson. Based on Susan Scarf Merrell’s book of the same name, the film tells the story of a young couple who move in with Jackson and her Bennington College professor-husband, Stanley Hyman (Stuhlbarg), in the hopes of starting a new life. Instead, they find themselves fodder for a psycho-drama that inspires Jackson’s next major novel.

Bradley Cooper may reunite with Clint Eastwood in his next film, as he's in talks to join the Eastwood-directed The Mule. The movie follows 90-year-old drug courier Earl Stone (to be played by Eastwood), an award-winning horticulturist and decorated WWII veteran, who is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he's offered a job that simply requires him to drive—easy enough but, unbeknownst to Earl, he’s just signed on as a drug courier for a Mexican cartel, and also hit the radar of hard-charging DEA agent Colin Bates (Cooper).

Famke Janssen and Robert Patrick have joined John Travolta and Morgan Freeman in the crime thriller The Poison Rose. Travolta will play a private investigator who enjoys his share of drinking, smoking, and gambling, as well as women in distress. Janssen will play Travolta’s former love interest in the film, who hires him to investigate a murder. George Gallo will direct from a script he wrote with Richard Salvatore, based on Salvatore’s novel of the same name.

Sony Pictures has released an official trailer for their upcoming thriller, Searching, starring John Cho (Star Trek) as a father trying to find his missing 15-year-old daughter through clues left behind by her digital footprint.

A trailer was also released for The Happytime Murders, the Muppets movie that stars Melissa McCarthy playing Connie Edwards, a law enforcement officer. When Edwards is asked to investigate the mysterious deaths of Hollywood puppet personalities, she soon realizes that these are no coincidence – someone is targeting them. The trailer also features Joel McHale, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudolph, and Leslie David Baker. Parents should take note that this is an R-rated version that promises "No Sesame, All Street," and even some Muppet copulating.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Amazon Studios has landed The Hunt, a vengeance-driven Nazi hunting series executive produced by Oscar-winning Get Out writer-director Jordan Peele, with a 10-episode straight-to-series order. Based on an original idea, drawing from real-life events, The Hunt follows a diverse band of Nazi Hunters living in 1977 New York City who have discovered that hundreds of high ranking Nazi officials are living among us and conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the U.S. The eclectic team of Hunters will set out on a bloody quest to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans.

CBS picked up some of its drama pilots to series including the crime dramas, F.B.I., Magnum PI, The Red Line, and The Code. One of the highest-profile pilots that did not get picked up is the 1950s drama LA Confidential, based on James Ellroy’s classic novel. Deadline reports that although the project drew the same reaction throughout pilot season – from script stage to network screenings – that it's a great show, there were doubts it belonged on CBS. Because of its strong critical praise there is speculation that LA Confidential could go to CBS’ streaming sibling CBS All Access or another digital platform.

After three seasons on SundanceTV, Hap and Leonard won’t be getting another renewal notice. The noirish series stars James Purefoy and Michael Kenneth Williams as amateur investigators and is based on Joe R. Lansdale’s 1980s set novels of two mainly unlucky Lone Star state buddies’ misadventures. Although it became the highest rated original series in Sundance TV’s history, it was apparently not enough to save the fan-favorite show.

TV Line had a partial listing of all the pilots that didn't get picked up to series, including some surprises such as the reboots of Get Christie Love, Greatest American Hero, Cagney and Lacey, and LA's Finest. I can't help but noticing a theme here (also including the non-crime dramas Mix Tape and Wayward Sisters), that all of those shows are "diverse" and female-centric, something that Hollywood has said it was going to work to increase.

Jennifer Love Hewitt has joined the cast of 9-1-1 for Season 2 for a lead role opposite Peter Krause, Angela Bassett, and Oliver Stark. She steps in for Connie Britton, who is departing the Ryan Murphy-produced series at the conclusion of her one-year deal. Hewitt will play Maddie, the sister of firefighter Evan "Buck" Buckley (Stark), who is starting her life over as a 911 operator. 9-1-1 explores the high-pressure experiences of police officers, firefighters and emergency operators who are thrust into the most frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations. 

The CW is making a casting change on its newly picked up drama series In the Dark, from CBS TV Studios and Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Films. Austin Nichols, who co-starred in the pilot, is leaving and his role, Dean, will be recast. Written by Corinne Kingsbury and directed by Michael Showalter, In the Dark centers on Murphy (Perry Mattfeld), a flawed and irreverent young woman who just happens to be blind and is the only "witness" to the murder of her drug-dealing friend, Tyson. When the police dismiss her story, she sets out with her dog, Pretzel, to find the killer.

Fox’s Lethal Weapon has hired a new co-lead, tapping American Pie's Seann William Scott to replace fired star Clayne Crawford. With Scott — who will be playing a new character (possibly Riggs’ brother) — in place, Fox has renewed Lethal Weapon for a third season. The recasting caps a tumultuous two weeks for Fox’s sophomore drama that began with an explosive Deadline report that detailed Crawford’s alleged bad behavior on the show’s set.

The recasting news continues as Dick Wolf’s new CBS drama series F.B.I. recasts a co-starring role. The part of Ellen, who was played in the pilot by Connie Nielsen, is FBI Special Agent in Charge at the New York Bureau, a deeply respected boss who is elegant, cultured, and operates under massive pressure. The cast of the show includes Missy Peregrym, Zeeko Zaki, Jeremy Sisto and Ebonée Noel.

HBO is taking on one of the most famous cases in America with The Case Against Adnan Syed, a four-hour documentary series directed by Oscar nominee Amy Berg. The series will explore the 1999 disappearance and murder of Hae Min Lee and the conviction of her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed. The case gripped the nation when it became the subject of the popular podcast Serial. 

Shades of Blue and Eyewitness creator Adi Hasak is teaming with Dynamic Television (SyFy’s Van Helsing, Wynona Earp) for a U.S. version of German series Tempel. The project tells the story of Mark Tempel, an ex-con who struggles to pay the bills working as an elderly care giver. When his family is terrorized by thugs hired to scare working class families into moving out of Los Angeles’ Frogtown neighborhood — Tempel is drawn back into the underground world of cage fighting in order to provide for his family. But what begins as a struggle to replace his daughter’s shattered violin becomes a battle against the evil forces of gentrification.

If you're still confused by all of the whirlwind network fall schedule news, TV Guide has links for schedules, trailers, and other articles for ABC, CBS, the CW, Fox, and NBC.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Peter James was featured in a Q&A with London Live, chatting about researching his latest thriller that took him all the way to Albania.

Big Blend Radio’s Toast to The Arts show welcomed acclaimed novelist Mike Nemeth to discuss his new crime thriller The Undiscovered Country (a follow up to his best-selling debut novel, Defiled), which explores the complexities of families, the depth of secrets they hide, and the sacrifices they make to keep them buried.

On episode 17 of Writer Types, the special guests were Kellye Garrett, Alex Segura, and Naomi Hirahara, plus the Unpanel featured comedic crime writers Bill Fitzhugh, Ellen Byron, Mike McCrary and Alex Shaffer.

Sunday Music Treat

Scott Drayco will be making his fifth appearance in the upcoming novel, The Suicide Sonata. One of the pieces that is mentioned in the book is Franz Schubert's Impromptu #3, from Opus 90. As Drayco notes, the piece has "Hints of deep sadness and a bit of acceptance of that sadness as part of being human. Not a prayer, not a plea, just an admission that dark and light were all part of the same spectrum." Here's pianist Evgeny Kissin peforming this deceptively simple work:

 

 

Quote of the Week

FFB: Death of a Celebrity

Hulbert Footner (1879-1944) was born in Canada but emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 19 and lived most of his life in the States. He became a journalist and author after a failed attempt at being an actor, although at least three of his novels were later made into movies. He wrote two mystery series, one featuring the pathbreaking female detective Madame Rosika Storey, and the other featuring a successful middle-aged mystery writer-turned criminologist named Amos Lee Mappin. But even the latter series showed the author's interest in writing women into his novels, as Mappin's sidekick is his young secretary, Fanny Parran.

Death of a Celebrity dates from 1938 and is one of the last outings for Mappin, who is described as "not a tall man and far from slender." As usual, Mappin finds himself involved in criminal activity among New York's wealthy social circles. The "celebrity" of the title is famous playwright Gavin Dordress, who throws a party for fellow celebrities who all have reasons to hate—and kill—their host:  an aging actress is enraged when she finds out Dordress didn't create a role for her in his latest play; the playwright's "best and oldest friend" is jealous because he relies on Dordress for handouts to fund a failed career as a novelist; the suitor of Dordress's daughter feels her father is holding her back from marrying; and Dordress's manager thinks his wife is having an affair with Dordress.

As one of the playwright's former classmates and a friend, Mappin is also invited to the party and brings along his secretary Fanny Parran, whose "littleness, her dimples, her blonde curls and her lisp gave her the artless charm of a child, but a man who assumed to talk baby-talk to her was apt to get a shock." The party is anything but jovial, but when Dordress turns up dead the next morning, the police assume it's suicide from the layout of the victim's body. It's Dordress's daugher and Fanny who convince Mappin to consider murder, and as Mappin digs deeper, he uncovers blackmail, revenge, jealousy and a simmering deep hatred that eventually point to one of the party-goers as the killer.

Like many of Footner's other stories, Mappin's investigation involves discovering clues left at the crime scene, which he uses to recreate the timeline and events of the murder. The writing is serviceable, if not particularly memorable, nor are Footner's plots intricate, often not playing fair with the reader in laying out the clues. But his characterizations and the interactions between the characters are entertaining. Considering Footner's focus on strong women in his novels, it's not surprising that the most interesting characters in Death of a Celebrity are female.

Mystery Melange

The recently announced British Book Awards included a win for The Dry by Jane Harper in the Crime and Thriller category. The winner of the Best Fiction award went to Jon McGregor for Reservoir 13, about the aftershocks of a girl's disappearance in an English village.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society announced this year's winners of the Derringer Awards for short crime fiction. Best Flash Story was "Fishing for an Alibi" by Earl Staggs (Flash Bang Mysteries); Best Short Story was "The Cop Who Liked Gilbert and Sullivan" by Robert Lopresti (Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #23); Best Long Story was "Death in the Serengeti" by David H. Hendrickson (Fiction River: Pulse Pounders: Andrenaline); and Best Novelette was "Flowing Waters" by Brendan DuBois (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine). Read the lists of all the finalists in the various categories here.

The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers' announced their annual Scribe Award Nominees. Included among the books of interest to crime fiction fans are Don Pendleton’s The Executioner: Fatal Prescription, by Michael A. Black; The Will to Kill, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins; and Robert B. Parker’s The Hangman’s Sonnet, by Reed Farrel Coleman (Putnam). Winners of all the 2018 Scribe Awards will be declared during this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International, July 19-22. (HT to the Rap Sheet)

A new festival is headed to Cardiff, Wales on June 1-2. The Crime and Coffee festival is the first such event to be held in Wales and will include panels, workshops, and readings with such authors as Belinda Bauer, Christopher Fowler, Rebecca Tope, Kate Hamer, Mark Ellis, Katherine Stansfield and many more.

The Southbank Centre has scheduled a special event featuring internationally best-selling authors Lee Child (Jack Reacher novels) and Ian Rankin (Inspector Rebus) in conversation as they consider the art of creating suspense and discuss the real world that their novels reflect. Although the event won't take place until November 15 at the Southbank Center's Queen Elizabeth Hall in the UK, tickets have already gone on sale.

Book publisher, editor and bookstore owner Otto Penzler has started another new initiative, Penzler Publishers, which will release its first six books this fall under the American Mystery Classics imprint. The imprint will focus on traditional mystery stories from the "golden age of detective fiction," to be released in both hardcover and trade paperback but not as e-books. Penzler said his inspiration to launch the imprint by the fact that British publishers have been successfully releasing mystery reprints from this time period but none so far in the U.S. Instead of hardboiled titles like Vintage, the imprint will focus on authors such as Ellery Queen and Mary Roberts Rinehart with the goal toward releasing 24 books annually by 2020.

The Lawrence Library in Pepperell, MA, is hosting the exhibit "Mysteries Revealed Book Illustration: Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys," through June 8. The exhibition of original cover art and first editions of both children's series is drawn from a collection by Jim McNamara, who owns nearly 4,000 Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books from the 1920s to now and written in several languages. He also collects memorabilia and cover artwork from each decade, dating back to the 1950s.  (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at the Bunburyist)

NoirCon, which cancelled this year's event due to the death of co-founder, Deen Kogan, has launched a new online journal, Retreats from Oblivion. NoirCon is a biennial conference devoted to noir and its creative expressions, and the journal will spotlight newly published work as well as highlights from past NoirCon catalogs. Offerings will include short stories, critical essays (not single-title reviews), poems, photographs, comics, artwork, interviews, songs, and much more. First up is the story "Easy Go" by Rick Ollerman.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of CrimeFest this year, organizers tapped Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller to edit an anthology of short crime fiction titled Ten Year Stretch. The work includes stories by Bill Beverly, Simon Brett, Lee Child, Ann Cleves, Jeffrey Deaver, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Peter Guttridge, Sophie Hannah, John Harvey, Mick Herron, Donna Moore, Caro Ramsay, Ian Rankin, James Sallis, Zoë Sharp, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Maj Sjöwall, Michael Stanley, and Andrew Taylor. All royalties from this collection go to the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

Murder on the Beach mystery bookstore in Delray Beach, Fla., was part of a feature by Atlas Obscura of "62 of the World's Best Independent Bookstores" as recommended by the Atlas Obscure readers. To celebrate that honor, Boca Magazine also featured a Q&A with bookstore owner Joanne Sinchuk. To see more of the indie bookstores named in the article - and whether your favorite was included - follow this link.

A possible plot for your next thriller - or maybe, it's more like your next sci-fi novel, depending upon your viewpoint. A prominent geneticist, who helped pioneer the use of the Crispr technique, said recently that criminals could alter their DNA to evade justice with new genetic editing tools. Not so fast, says Dr. Caitlin Curtis, a geneticist who studies privacy and data protection issues.

Speaking of thrillers, at least of the spy variety, Newsweek reported on a recently-outed spy whose name was included in the release from the National Archives of thousands of documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Not only is the spy still alive, he is a former editor at the Agence France-Presse and was friends (or frenemies) with Richard Wright, the acclaimed author of Native Son and Black Boy, and Chester Himes, the ex-convict turned author of hard-boiled detective fiction.

You probably don't give your fingerprints much thought. But Chantel Tattoli, writing for the Paris Review, invites you to take a look at "The Surprising History (and Future) of Fingerprints."

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Northern Bride" by Colin James.

In the Q&A roundup, Rob Hart interviewed fellow author Owen Laukkanen for Lit Reactor, talking about boats, trains, dogs, and his latest novel, Gale Force. Lit Reactor also featured an interview with Jeffery Hess about Tushhog, a follow-up to his 2016 debut novel Beachhead; Crime Fiction Lover's Catherine Turnbull chatted with Isbelle Grey, a prolific writer with a series featuring detective Grace Fisher, as well as standalone psychological thrillers and television writing credits that include over 35 episodes of series such as Midsomer Murders; and Alex Segura was snagged by the Mystery People to discuss Blackout, his latest book to feature private eye Pete Fernandez.