In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange, Halloween Edition

The shortlists for this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards were announced last week, including the Crime Fiction category. Those honorees include:

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard
Cruel Acts by Jane Casey
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
Twisted by Steve Cavanagh
The Wych Elm by Tana French
The Hiding Game by Louise Phillips

 

Publishers Weekly released its "best books" of the year lists, including a category for Best Mystery. For a slide show of all the top ten thrilling and chilling titles, click over to this link.

Janet Rudolph updated her list of Halloween Mysteries for the Mystery Fanfare blog. And it's quite a list!

Some might say true crime tales are far scarier than the fictional kind, knowing they're accounts of actual crime affecting real people. Marilyn Stasio, who usually reviews crime fiction for the New York Times, steps back to take a look at "Diamond Doris, the Bourbon King and Other Stars of True Crime."

The NYT also reported that Patricia Highsmith's diaries are going public. The author of psychological thrillers such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train, once said that "No writer would ever betray his secret life...It would be like standing naked in public," but her estate has authorized Liveright Publishing to release her private writings in a single volume to be released in 2021. They are said to include her reflections on her creative aspirations, her tumultuous romantic relationships, and her fascination with the psychological underpinnings of violence.

Kings River Life has some Halloween stories for you, including "As Easy as Trick or Treating" and "The Case of the Caramelized Corpse." They also have some recipes to get you in the spirit of things such as Grilled Apple Crisps.

The Mystery Lovers Kitchen folks have several recipes that are perfect for Halloween, including Pumpkin Mousse from Krista Davis; Pumpkin Spice Doughnuts from Peg Cochran; and Pumpkin Spice Cookies from Leslie Budewitz. For those who aren't fans of pumpkin, there are also Vicki Delany's Cinnamon Apple Muffins and Lucy Burdett's Candy Corn Cookies. Or maybe, you'd prefer Essie Lang's Halloween Eyeballs Appetizer.


The Maine Crime Writers polled their bloggers for "Our Votes for Scariest Book."

Over at the Kill Zone blog, Sue Colleta has a tongue-in-cheek primer titled "Welcome to Murder 101: PG Halloween Edition."

Looking for a bookish Halloween costume? Here are a few, starting with Nancy Drew; and a few more ideas. Or, maybe you'd just prefer some Literary Halloween swag.

Staying in on Halloween and looking for something scary to scream stream? Here are some suggestions.

Ever wonder what the "worst" Halloween candy is?

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "The Fuse is Burning" by David Cranmer.

In the Q&A roundup, The Dark Phantom blog talks craft with mystery author Susan McCormick; Pursuit Magazine chatted with thriller author Rea Frey about her psychological "whydunits"; Jacqueline Seewald interviewed author/editor Sandra Murphy about her writing and editing the new anthology, A Murder of Crows; and E.B. Davis chatted with Leigh Perry (a/k/ Toni L. P. Kelner) for the Writers Who Kill about her cozy paranormal series, The Family Skeleton mysteries.
 

Author R&R with Janet Roger

Janet Roger trained in archaeology, history, and English Lit, with a special interest in the early Cold War. Her debut crime novel, Shamus Dust: Hard Winter, Cold War, Cool Murder, is being compared to the Marlowe novels of Raymond Chandler in five-star reviews and centers on a private investigator seeking to solve a series of holiday murders:

Two candles flaring at a Christmas crib. A nurse who steps inside a church to light them. A gunshot emptied in a man's head in the creaking stillness before dawn, that the nurse says she didn't hear. It's 1947 in the snowbound, war-scarred city of London, where Pandora's Box just got opened in the ruins, City Police has a vice killing on its hands, and a spooked councilor hires a shamus to help spare his blushes. Like the Buddha says, everything is connected...so it all can be explained. But that's a little cryptic when you happen to be the shamus, and you're standing over a corpse.

Janet Roger stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing and researching her book.

 

How did Shamus Dust come to be? Well, that’s going back a while. Let me explain. It’s a novel written and then set aside in a drawer - well in a computer file, it wasn’t quite that long ago - then looked at again years later when I had some time to reflect on it. That initial draft dates way back to when I first lived and worked in and around the City of London, the capital’s financial Square Mile - or for our American gumshoe, London’s Wall Street. Now that I think of it, I doubt the idea for Shamus Dust could possibly have sparked outside that time and place. For three reasons.

In the first place, just then I’d been re-reading two very different crime writers that I thought most impressive. Raymond Chandler and Georges Simenon had both left indelible portraits of the cities where they set their stories. Neither was a native son, any more than I was native to London, yet both seemed to have a direct line to the essence of the places their characters moved through. In fact, they did such a job on the moods and atmospheres of Los Angeles and Paris, that they still colour our images of those cities today. When it comes down to researching, they show you that nothing - but nothing - beats breathing the air of the streets you plan to write about. It so happened that, at the time, I was breathing the air of London’s Square Mile. 

The second reason needs some recent history explaining. The City really is, more or less, the single square mile contained inside the arc of its ancient Roman walls. Its southern edge runs along the Thames shore. If you knew where to look, even in my days there, it bore some last scars of the wartime blitz. But reel back to the early Cold War, and a third of that square mile was still flattened rubble. It was archaeologists’ dreamland. For a few short years, digging in those blitz sites gave them unimagined access to a two-thousand years old Roman city right beneath their feet, and they wasted no time. Before reconstruction got seriously under way they’d already made monumental discoveries: a Roman temple, a Roman fortress on the line of the wall, even the foundations of an arena - a Roman coliseum, no less.

And there’s the puzzle. The discovery of the temple and the fortress made instant splash headlines. Yet London’s very own Roman coliseum - yes, there really is one - got overlooked. Seriously. And then entirely forgotten about until a rainy day almost forty years later, when the drawings were noticed in the archaeological record. That chance rediscovery intrigued me when I heard about it. Not only that, I was right there where it had been found. And where better to be able to follow the story back? I had the marvellous Museum of London. The Guildhall Library close by (with Cecil Brown’s astonishing birds-eye drawing of bomb damage in the Square Mile, made from a wartime barrage balloon). And of course, I had the bookshops. Which brings me to my third reason.

The London Encyclopedia? It’s a compendium history of the capital, street by street and too heavy to lug around, but a bible that sent me walking everywhere. (And left me with a habit of walking any city I’m in). Muirhead’s Short Guide to London 1947? It was a sort of visitor’s Baedeker, post zone by post zone, invaluable for checking that streets had survived the bombing and buildings still stood. There were many, many others, but you get the picture. We’re talking pre-internet search. There was no substitute for trawling the bookstores, and the irreplaceable second-hand bazaars. Then, far more than now, London was a book hound’s Aladdin’s cave.

So how did that coliseum puzzle work out? Happily, in the end. After its rediscovery in 1988, the amphitheatre was excavated for more than a decade, then opened to the public in a spectacular new gallery below ground (don’t miss it if you haven’t seen it). As for how evidence of a Roman arena - it’s the size of a football field - simply went unnoticed for so long, it still gets explained as a regrettable oversight, one of those things.

Shamus Dust tells the story rather differently. It goes back to the early Cold War years, when rebuilding the City was up for grabs, fortunes were staked on a construction boom and those blitz sites were some of the most valuable real estate on the planet. In this telling, the interests include high-end racketeers as well as corrupt City grandees, who think delaying construction would be very bad karma. Cue a monumental discovery on a construction site that nobody will get to hear of. Cue the apparent vice killing that gets Shamus Dust under way. And cue the hardboiled gumshoe who gets hired for the cover-up.

And that’s pretty much how Shamus Dust came to be. Thank you for asking! And one last thing. In 1949, just after the film’s huge critical and box-office success, Graham Greene wrote that The Third Man had been meant to entertain, make an audience laugh, and frighten a little. Of the grim Viennese penicillin racket it revolves around, he says it was the reality - but that the reality was only background to a fairytale. I think that’s spot on. Wonderful storyteller as Greene is, he’s no slouch at research. But he also understands that it’s never more than a point of departure. What you need then is to conjure some magic. I’m really glad you didn’t ask me where that comes from.

 

Published by Troubador, Shamus Dust is available for purchase on Amazon UK and Amazon US. Learn more about the book and Janet Roger via the author's website, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Studiocanal and Blumhouse are teaming up for a remake of The Bedroom Window, the 1987 thriller that starred Steve Guttenberg and Elizabeth McGovern and launched the star of Curtis Hanson, the late writer/director who went on to helm hits including L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys. Based on the Anne Holden novel, The Witnesses, the original film follows a man who beds his boss’ wife, but during the tryst, she observes from his bedroom window a violent attack on a young woman. He goes to the police on his lover’s behalf to report a crime he didn’t actually witness and becomes a suspect and potential target for the attacker.

Lionsgate and Deon Taylor are set to reteam for Taylor’s latest project, Free Agents, a crime drama set in the world of professional athletes. The announcement comes just weeks after the studio acquired Taylor’s psychological thriller, Fatale (starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank and Michael Ealy). Taylor will direct Free Agents from a script he co-wrote with Joe Bockol, which centers on a group of pro football players who turn to crime to get back at the owners who are exploiting and underpaying them.

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is returning to theaters in North America with 10 minutes of new footage as it readies its Oscar run this awards season. The film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie will expand to over 1,000 locations in the U.S. and Canada with footage from four separate scenes not included in the original theatrical version.

Mindhunter star Holt McCallany has been cast as a lead opposite Jason Statham in Cash Truck, a revenge-based action thriller that writer/director Guy Ritchie is basing on the 2004 French film, Le Convoyeur. Statham stars as H, a cold and mysterious character working at a cash-truck company responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week. Weaving through a carefully constructed narrative, the film shifts across timelines and among various characters’ perspectives. McCallany will play Bullet, who leads the transportation team and brings aboard H, who might not be who he says he is.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Hugh Laurie (The Night Manager, House) is developing a script for a TV adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's novels, but there is some mystery as to which of the Queen of Crime's books he is adapting, nor has he yet been attached to star. The project is being adapted for the BBC through ITV-owned producer Mammoth Screen, which has made several successful Christie adaptations for the BBC (aired on Amazon in the U.S.). Up next for the team is The Pale Horse, adapted by BAFTA-nominated Sarah Phelps, who won acclaim for her earlier TV version of the Christie classic, And Then There Were None.

The Crown producer Left Bank is developing a TV adaptation of Paul Sussman’s archeological thriller novels, The Khalifa Mysteries, and has tapped screenwriter Simon Allen, who has written on series including The Watch, Strike Back, and The Musketeers. The books have been described as the "intelligent reader’s answer to The Da Vinci Code" and mix modern-day police procedurals with archaeological mysteries.

Michael Mann will direct the pilot episode of Tokyo Vice, the crime drama series set to premiere on HBO’s forthcoming streaming platform HBO Max. In addition to serving as executive producer, Mann will also potentially direct further episodes of the show starring Ken Watanabe and Ansel Elgort, which is set to begin filming in February of 2020. Tokyo Vice is based on the nonfiction memoirs of Jake Adelstein (Elgort), a journalist who embedded himself with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police to sniff out corruption. 

NBC has handed a put pilot commitment to the thriller drama, The Mother-In-Law, based on Sally Hepworth’s novel and shepherded by The Path creator Jessica Goldberg and Amy Poehler's production company. Written by Goldberg, The Mother-In-Law is centered around a woman’s complicated relationship with her husband’s family that ends in death and is described as "a gripping mystery that explores motherhood, class, race and how dangerous family secrets can be."

Fox has given a put pilot commitment to Chain of Command, a one-hour drama from writer April Fitzsimmons (Doom Patrol, Valor), Jamie Lee Curtis, Berlanti Productions, and Warner Bros TV. Written by Fitzsimmons from a story by Fitzsimmons and Curtis, Chain of Command revolves around a young Air Force investigator with radical crime-solving methodology who returns to her hometown to join a military task force that doesn’t want her, a family who has traumatized her, and must confront the secrets that drove her away.

The CW has picked up nine additional episodes of both of its new fall series, Batwoman and Nancy Drew, bringing both series to full-season orders with 22 episodes each. In Nancy Drew, Kennedy McMann stars as the brilliant teenage detective whose sense of self had come from solving mysteries in her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine – until her mother’s untimely death derails her college plans and she finds herself a prime suspect in a crime.

Arrested Development star Alia Shawkat has been cast in FX’s The Old Man, joining previously announced cast members Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow, and Amy Brenneman. Based on Thomas Perry’s bestselling novel of the same name, The Old Man follows Dan Chase (Bridges), who absconded from the CIA decades ago and has been living off the grid since. When an assassin arrives and tries to take Chase out, the old operative learns that to ensure his future he now must reconcile his past. Shawkat will play Angela, described as a rising star at the FBI and a protégé to Deputy Director Harold Harper (Lithgow). Assigned to the pursuit of the fugitive Chase, Angela is swept into a world of buried secrets and hidden agendas that will put her relationship with Harper to the test.

The Oath's Cory Hardrict has been cast in a recurring role opposite Alex Russell in Season 3 of CBS’ police drama series S.W.A.T. Hardrict will play Nate, Jim’s estranged brother who reconnects with Street when a case brings them back together. Inspired by the 1970s television series and 2003 feature film, S.W.A.T. stars Shemar Moore as the locally born-and-raised sergeant tasked with running a specialized tactical unit that is the last stop in law enforcement in Los Angeles. Jay Harrington, Lina Esco, Kenny Johnson, David Lim and Patrick St. Esprit also star.

Rafe Spall and Anne-Marie Duff have been cast in BBC Two’s dramatization of the Novichok poisonings in the historic British city of Salisbury in March 2018. Also joining the cast are Game Of Thrones actor Mark Addy and Ripper Street's MyAnna Buring, as well as Annabel Scholey and Johnny Harris. Written by McMafia writers Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn, the three-part miniseries will tell the story of how ordinary people reacted as their city became the focus of a national emergency when Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by Russian operatives.

Minority Report alumna Meagan Good has been tapped for a key recurring role opposite Tom Payne, Michael Sheen, and Bellamy Young in Fox’s new drama, Prodigal Son. The series centers on criminal psychologist Malcolm Bright (Payne), who has a gift. He knows how killers think and how their minds work because his father Martin Whitly (Sheen) was one of the worst — a notorious serial killer called "The Surgeon."


PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up featuring the first chapter of the thriller, The Society, by C.G. Abbot (a/k/a Avery Daniels) as read by actor Ariel Linn. This one has a supernatural twist to it making it another episode perfect for your Halloween listening!

International and New York Times bestselling author, Tess Gerritsen, dropped by The Writer Files to chat about the role of luck in finding success as a writer; where she draws inspiration for her thrillers; her love-hate relationship with writing for the screen; and her unique creative process.

Author Stories welcomed Karen White to talk about her new Christmas mystery, The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host chatted with Debbi Mack to discuss her Sam McRae mysteries.

The latest guest on Debbi Mack's own Crime Cafe podcast this week was lawyer-turned-writer Richard T. Cahill.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about Stephen King's writers' retreat, got confirmation on Tana French being the best living mystery writer, and more.

Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover spoke with Sandra Brown, author of over 70 bestselling books, whose latest is Outfox.

On the latest Spybrary podcast, host Shane Whaley interviewed the writer and director of the short spy film, The Dry Cleaner Movie.

On Criminal Mischief Episode #30, host Dr. DP Lyle talked about "Evidence."

The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took on the topic of burglary investigations.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club interviewed authors who will be attending HallowRead, including Susan Viemeister (the Parker Williams and Bealtown Mystery Series); Bryan Nowak (The Dramatic Dead); and Melissa Caribou Annen (the Agent Raines series).

THEATER

Fresh from his Emmy-winning TV performance as serial killer Andrew Cunanan, Darren Criss will join the previously announced Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell in the upcoming revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo. Criss will play Bobby, the youngest in the play’s triumvirate of small-time hustlers looking to make a big score; Fishburne will play the character Donny; and Rockwell will play Teach. American Buffalo will begin previews on March 24, 2020, at the Circle in the Square Theatre, with an official opening on Tuesday, April 14.

FFB: Lonelyheart 4122

Colin Watson (1920-1983) was a British author who started out in life as a journalist, first as a reporter for the Boston Guardian and later as an editorial writer, theater critic and book reviewer. In 1958, while still working for newspapers, Watson published the first Flaxborough novel, Coffin, Scarcely Used, a book that Cecil Day-Lewis (who also wrote mysteries as Nicholas Blake) called "a great lark, full of preposterous situations and poker-faced wit."

Following the publication of the second book in the series, Watson retired to write full time and published a dozen mystery novels between 1958 and 1982. His mystery series came to known as The Flaxborough Chronicles, set as they were in Flaxborough, a fictional East Anglian city, population 15,000, loosely based on the Lincolnshire area of Boston where Watson worked as a journalist. The lead character in the series is Inspector Walter Purbright, assisted by his somewhat naive sidekick, Sergeant Sidney Love, and the Chief Constable, Harcourt Chubb. Watson's third book in the Chronicles, Hopjoy Was Here, won him a Silver Dagger from the British Crime Writers Association in 1962, and five years later he won a second Silver Dagger with Lonelyheart 4122.

Jeffery Ewener, a fan of Watson's work, wrote for the Mystery Magazine Web that in Watson's fictional world, "you find this...combination of superficial blandness deceptively concealing an uproar of animal spirits - like a hymn book hollowed-out to hold a hip flask. Watson gives us geriatric gentlemen patting bottoms, matronly housewives jumping into orgies, MI5 agents running up huge unpaid bar bills for reasons of National Security, austere solicitors blackmailing the local gentry."

As an example of what Ewener is referring to, take this excerpt from Lonelyheart 4122:

"Well, they didn't seem very pleased to see me, sir. Singleton wouldn't come out of the garden. He was going up and down with a lawn mower all the time. I had to ask each question as he went by one way, and try and catch the answer when he passed on the way back."

"Very trying for you, Sid."

"Not really. The answers were all very short. And him being so busy made it easier to get the writing samples. I just pinched three or four of the labels on his rose bushes. Of course," Love added, nodding at the file,  "I trimmed them down a bit and mounted them properly."

"So I noticed. Most neat. Now I understand why I couldn't make much sense out of "Peace Mrs. Pettifer Brevvitt's Pride Lancashire Ascending."

Lonelyheart 4122 introduces us to the character of Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime, who subsequently appeared in all Flaxborough novels save one. In this outing, Inspector Purbright's investigation into the disappearance of two respectable middle-aged women leads him to a matrimonial bureau where he meets another client, Miss Teatime, whom Purbright fears may also be in danger. But Miss Teatime doesn't want anything to do with his protection, and neither Miss Teatime nor her shady beau, a retired naval officer, is what they appear to be.

Four of The Flaxborough Chronicles were filmed for the BBC's  "Murder Most English" program, including Lonelyheart 4122. For a review of the TV episode based on the novel, check out Martin Edwards's estimable blog.

Looking Daggers

The 2019 Crime Writers Association (CWA) Dagger awards were handed out tonight at a ceremony at the Grange City Hotel in London. (For all the finalists, head on over here.) Congratulations to this years winners, including:

• CWA DIAMOND DAGGER (For a career of sustained excellence and a significant contribution to the genre): Robert Goddard
  
  
• CWA GOLD DAGGER:  W. Craven: The Puppet Show (Constable / Little Brown)
  
  
• CWA JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD): Chris Hammer: Scrublands (Wildfire)
  
  
• CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION: Ben Macintyre: The Spy and the Traitor (Viking)
  
  
• CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER: Holly Watt: To The Lions (Raven Books)
  
  
• CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER: Dov Alfon: A Long Night in Paris, translated by Daniella Zamir (MacLehose Press)
  
  
• CWA SAPERE BOOKS HISTORICAL DAGGER: S.G. MacLean: Destroying Angel (Quercus Fiction)
  
  
• CWA SHORT STORY DAGGER: Danuta Kot writing as Danuta Reah: "The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing" (in The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing and other Fantastic Female Fables, Fantastic Books); also highly commended: Teresa Solana: "I Detest Mozart" (in The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories by Teresa Solana, Bitter Lemon Press)
  
  
• CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY: Kate Ellis
  
  
• CWA DEBUT DAGGER: Shelley Burr: Wake; also highly commended, Catherine Hendricks: Hardways
  
  
• BEST CRIME AND MYSTERY PUBLISHER:  No Exit Press

Mystery Melange

School librarian Louise Morris won the Daily Mail First Novel Competition in the UK for The Coffin Club, which combines wartime memories, old age, and murder. She will receive a £20,000 advance, a publishing contract, and a literary agent.

The shortlist was announced for the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction. The £50,000 award, one of the UK’s most prestigious for nonfiction, includes several crime-themed books: Casey Cep’s investigation into Harper Lee’s abandoned true-crime book; Hallie Rubenhold’s look at the women murdered by Jack the Ripper; art critic Laura Cumming's memoir about her mother’s childhood kidnapping from a Lincolnshire beach; journalist Azadeh Moaveni collection of accounts from women who joined Islamic State; and historian Julia Lovell's re-evaluation of the political legacy of Mao.

Join the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, for another thrilling night on December 10 of chilling crime fiction read by the organization's talented members at the KGB Bar in NYC. Authors scheduled to appear include Ann Aptaker, Rhonda Barnat, Gary Cahill, Michael Chabler, Russ Colchamiro, and Teel James Glenn.

Submissions are open for the 2020 Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, the richest prize for a single short story in the English language, worth £30,000 to the winner. The closing date is 6pm on December 13, 2019. Anyone writing in English from the around the world can submit stories, but the author must have had works published in the UK.

Poisoned Pen Press and Book Riot are giving away books from the British Library Crime Classics series to get a jump on the holiday season. The novels include some of the finest Christmas and wintertime detective stories of the past—blending merry mysteries from much-loved authors with vintage crime vignettes set in winter. For your chance to be one of five winners of sets of British Library Crime Classics, enter by October 27, 2019.

The LA Times profiled Michael Connelly to find out why Los Angeles is the "perpetual dark heart of crime writing." In a companion piece, the Times also posted a list of the "20 Essential LA Noir Crime Books," and Christopher Smith also visited the fifteen most iconic Los Angeles locations of Connelly's Harry Bosch series.

Traveling a lot farther south, CrimeReads' Craig Pittman profiled "The Life and Times of Charles Willeford—Miami's Weird, Wonderful Master of Noir."

And going even father south, the Sydney Morning Herald asked, "Is crime Melbourne's hottest export?" and asked Aussie crime authors Michael Robotham, Jane Harper, Mark Brandi to weigh in on their successes and how the country influences their writing.

Authors Stephen and Tabitha King have famously resided in a Victorian mansion in Bangor, Maine, but that iconic house will soon have a new purpose:  as an archive and writers retreat. The Kings intend to turn the home into an archive that will house Stephen King’s writing, with the house next door to be used as a residence for up to five writers at any given time.

Via CBS's 60 Minutes, a real-life mystery: "Who's stealing Christopher Columbus letters from libraries around the world?" Copies of a letter written by Christopher Columbus describing his first impressions of the Americas are so rare and valuable, they're being stolen and replaced with forgeries at some of the world's most prestigious libraries.

Turns out if you don't want to be arrested for robbing banks, maybe you shouldn't write a novel about robbing banks.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Balfour" by Nancy Scott.

In the Q&A roundup, Craig Sisterson interviewed Kiwi crime writer Paul Cleave about his books and "making good people do bad things"; Joyce Carol Oates chatted with CrimeReads' Thomas Pluck about "Crime Fiction, Character, and Cats"; Vulture snagged director Rian Johnson to talk about "rescusitating" the mystery genre on the big screen; and Martina Cole spoke with The UK Express about her success (she's Britain's current bestselling female crime writer) and the literary snobbery she faces.

Author R&R with Michael Bowen

Michael Bowen recently retired from a 39-year career as a trial lawyer. The author of nineteen published novels, as well as scholarly and political commentary, Bowen is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he served on the Harvard Law Review. Bowen and his wife Sara, a noted lecturer on Jane Austen and Harvard Law graduate, live in Fox Point, Wisconsin.

Bowen's new crime novel, False Flag in Autumn, a seemingly ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller featuring protagonist Josie Kendall, introduced in 2016’s Damage Control, which Kirkus called "Bowen’s ebullient antidote to election year blues."

In False Flag, a rogue White House aide tries to use lobbyist Kendall as an unwitting pawn in a plot for a spectacular October surprise before the 2018 mid-term elections. She calls on her D.C.-insider husband, her edgy uncle, and colorful denizens of the Louisiana demi-monde to help her out-hustle the hustlers. But then Josie finds herself facing an even more daunting question: is there a false-flag attack planned in order to influence the 2020 presidential election? Josie will be forced to decide whether to venture out of the Beltway cocoon—where the weapons are leaks, winks, nudges, and spin—into a darker world where the weapons are actual weapons.

Bowen stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R:

 

THE JOYS AND PERILS OF RESEARCH IN WRITING MYSTERY FICTION

By Michael Bowen

I’ll never forget the picture: four-color two-page spread in Ladies’ Home Journal back in 1962, when that magazine had roughly the dimensions of a coffee table instead of the more standard size on newsstands today. It featured a standing rib roast fresh out of the oven, with a layer of perfectly browned fat at least two inches high. This was the centerpiece of an ad for something or other, but all I remember is the roast and the salivation it induced.

Cholesterol? Never heard of it. Ignorance was bliss.

I came across that ad serendipitously in the early 1990’s, doing research for a mystery set in New York City a generation earlier. My editor quite reasonably wanted to know whether household products that I had sprinkled into the story as background were actually on the market in 1962. Google didn’t exist yet – I just Googled it and verified that it wasn’t created until 1998 – so the best way to find out was to traipse to a public library and look at back issues of magazines aimed at housewives.

Bingo. You could indeed buy Johnson’s Wax and Pledge in the second year of the Kennedy administration. The New Yorker also accepted cigarette advertisements back then, including one for Parliaments with recessed filters – “NEAT AND CLEAN!” – apparently aimed at charming young women who enjoyed smoking but had a paradoxical aversion to actual tobacco. I stumbled over that one while trying to find out what Broadway shows my characters might have attended. An ad with that many layers of irony was too good to pass up. I actually plugged it into the story, along with The Fantastics and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Don’t tell anybody, but research is fun.

It’s also important. The first chapter of a courtroom drama I was reading a few years ago featured a fiercely whispered debate at counsel table between the two lawyers for the defendant in a murder case about whether to cross-examine the arresting officer, whose testimony on direct had just concluded. Boys and girls, this is something you think about before the first day of trial. I never got to chapter 2. Same with a scene in a fairly recent big-business-is-bad mystery in which a male senior executive who is a complete jerk capriciously and impulsively fires a female newbie who is a charming sweetheart. For at least a generation you’ve needed a sign-off from Human Resources and probably from a departmental committee and the company’s general counsel before you could even think about firing a member of a protected class in a firm with more than six employees

As far back as the 1930’s Dashiell Hammett was railing against lazy crime writers who didn’t know the difference between revolvers and automatic pistols. (The former don’t have safeties and don’t eject shell casings; the latter do). Midshipmen at the Naval Academy will not find themselves anywhere near the deck of an aircraft carrier during plebe summer, contrary to a late ’ninties movie about a female plebe who had allegedly murdered a romantic rival before reaching Annapolis. And so forth.

For quite awhile now, of course, we’ve been able to get information about basically anything with a few mouse clicks, without having to pore through stacks of periodicals in libraries. The catch is that you have to know what you don’t know. I knew that I didn’t know how fast males in good condition could be expected to move across uneven ground on foot in the dark, so when I was writing False Flag in Autumn this year I asked a graduate of West Point. On the other hand, it never occurred to me that the eponymous patron of a Boston art gallery victimized by a huge theft in the 1990’s, which I invoked in But Remember Their Names, might have spelled her last name differently than most people named Gardner spelled theirs. After correcting the spelling to Gardiner, my editor pointed out scoldingly that I could easily have looked this information up myself. Of course I could have – and I would have if I’d had the slightest doubt about the accuracy of my flatly erroneous assumption.

The larger problem with research is that it’s so much fun that the tail can end up wagging the dog. If you’ve invested three hours in confirming that colleges at Oxford University permitted women students to smoke on campus in 1912 (they did, to the delighted surprise of Dorothy L. Sayers), you’ll be strongly tempted to plug that datum into your story even if it doesn’t add enough to plot, characterization, or setting to justify the sentence or two – or three, or four – required to do so. If you’ve tracked down eight plays showing on Broadway in 1962, all you need for background color is to have a character casually mention going to one of them – but why not “show your work” by shoehorning the entire laundry list into your story? (Oops, I did that in Fielder’s Choice, didn’t I? Hey, I was young.)

Maybe the moral here is that writers should build their research on a foundation of humility. It helps to remember that, no matter how much we’ve learned from diligent inquiry among diverse sources about emergency room protocols, the muzzle velocities of civilian-model assault rifles, the Federal Rules of Evidence, or the names of streets in downtown Chicago, there will be readers who know more than we do – and some of them will let us know if our diligence leads us to incautious extrapolation from what we’ve learned. Much worse, others will simply stop reading.

The Whig historian Hilaire Belloc wrote that it isn’t bad history to say that the Battle of Waterloo was fought on a Tuesday even though it was fought on a Sunday, but it is bad history to say that it was won on the playing fields of Eton. Belloc was a better historian than I am, so I’ll defer to his judgment. What I can affirm with confidence is that it is bad mystery-writing to say either one – especially if you’re writing a plucky-couple puzzle mystery set in contemporary Seattle.    

For more information about the author or his books, visit Michael Bowen online.

Mystery Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine, Game Of Thrones star Lena Headey, and singer Rita Ora are among the cast for Twist, an update on the classic Charles Dickens story, Oliver Twist. Also starring will be David Walliams, Franz Drameh, Sophie Simnett, and newcomer Raff Law (son of Jude Law) in the title role. The project reimagines the character of Oliver as a streetwise artist living on the streets of day London. A chance encounter with a gang of grifters led by the charismatic Dodge (Ora) sees Twist (Law) caught up in a high stakes heist to steal a priceless painting for master thief, Fagin (Caine), and his psychopathic business partner, Sikes (Headey).

Sony’s TriStar has preemptively picked up Cooper McMains’ feature thriller, The Tip, and attached Emmy winning director John Strickland (The Bodyguard) to direct. Although the details of the Cooper McMains script are being kept under wraps, elements involve a waitress and a hefty $10K tip from a stranger with events turning dangerous.

Willem Dafoe has closed a deal to join Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, and Rooney Mara in Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Nightmare Alley. Dafoe will play the head barker at a traveling carnival who gives Bradley Cooper’s character a job, ushering him into a world of show biz and grifting. Del Toro, who co-wrote the script with Kim Morgan, will direct the thriller for Fox Searchlight with a production start date in early 2020.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Ilene Rosenzweig, Reel One Entertainment, Element 8 Entertainment, and Paris-based La Sabotière are developing a series based on Mary Higgins Clark’s U.S. crime novel, I’ll Be Seeing You. The project will be developed as an open-ended anthology series with each season inspired by a different Higgins Clark novel and a different crime, with over 40 titles to choose from. It will featuring a diverse cast of strong female characters, and set against the familiar backdrop of downtown Manhattan and the suburbs of New Jersey.

CBS has put in development, Bent, a crime drama from writer Vaun Wilmott (Star Trek: Discovery, Prison Break), Jerry Bruckheimer TV, and CBS Television Studios. Written by Wilmott, Bent revolves around an instinctive and streetwise Texas law enforcement officer who is caught between two parental figures – her biological father, who co-opted her into his 10-state crime spree as a child, and her adopted father, who caught them and took her in as his own.

Netflix is developing a sequel to Murder Mystery, the comedy that starred Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, with James Vanderbilt in negotiations to return and pen the script. Sandler and Aniston played a married couple who become embroiled in a murder plot while on a European vacation, bickering their way through the solving of the mystery.

PBS Masterpiece has joined the remake of the classic European detective series, Van der Valk, and will co-produce and air the show in the U.S. The original 1970s series was loosely based on the Nicolas Freeling novels and starred Barry Foster as the thoughtful titular Dutch detective, tackling crimes against a picturesque Dutch backdrop. The producers said the new iteration will see Van der Valk re-imagined as an unapologetic and street-smart cop in Amsterdam who leads a dynamic team investigating mysterious crimes.

Also on the European front, Hammarvik, created by best-selling Swedish author Camilla Läckberg, is the next original production from Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group), the Nordic region’s leading streaming company. The innovative 16-part series blends crime drama and soap opera, and will premiere exclusively on NENT Group’s Viaplay streaming service across the Nordic region in late 2020. Set in the small community of Hammarvik, the series follows police officer Johanna who returns to her home town for her mother’s funeral, whereupon she is confronted by old memories, conflicts and relationships.

Fox has given a script commitment with penalty to The Service, a one-hour drama from writer Drew Lindo, Blindspot creator Martin Gero, and Warner Bros TV. Ten years after her best friend, Josh, vanished, journalist Maya Ford is shocked to see him re-emerge in New York as an operative for The Service, a secret organization that creates elaborate public deceptions to change the lives of its clients. As she follows the man she once knew into The Service’s web, she’ll discover that its unseen influence has the power to change the world.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to Live, a Washington, D.C.-set police drama series executive produced by This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown through his 20th Century Fox TV-based Indian Meadows Productions. Written by Chris Collins (The Wire), Live is based on the Korean series of the same name and is described as "a grounded and gritty, adrenalized exploration of six interconnected unsung heroes within D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department" seen primarily through the eyes of Darcell Murrray, a young African-American cop born and raised in one of the most dangerous sectors of D.C.

Former Grimm executive producers Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner have reteamed with that series’ former writers Thomas Ian Griffith and Mary Page Keller for a new drama project for NBC. The Translator’s Daughter is a thriller about an American college student who, while interning for the CIA, finds herself torn among the loyalty to her country, the female crime boss protecting her, and the young New York detective with whom she’s fallen in love.

CBS TV Studios is looking to reboot the 1995 film comedy, Clueless, for the small screen as a mystery drama of sorts. The show would be focused on the Dionne character played by Stacey Dash in the Alicia Silverstone-led movie and the followup series. The reboot is described "as a baby pink and bisexual blue-tinted, tiny sunglasses-wearing, oat milk latte and Adderall-fueled look at what happens when the high school Queen Bee (Cher) disappears and her life-long number two (Dionne) steps into Cher’s vacant Air Jordans. How does Dionne deal with the pressures of being the new most popular girl in school, while also unraveling the mystery of what happened to her best friend, all in a setting that is uniquely 2020 LA?"

The Mediapro Studio Argentina is partnering with Vice Studios to co-produce The Cliff (El Acantilado), a crime thriller series set in Patagonia. The show has been created by Martin Hodara (who directed 2017 crime feature Black Snow starring Ricardo Darín) and is set in a small Patagonian town where the suicides of several teenagers have shaken local residents. The storyline follows the families of those affected seeking justice while authorities cover up crimes behind the deaths to avoid political consequences.

In a New York Times profile, author John le Carré revealed that his sons' production company, The Ink Factory, is plotting an epic new TV series about his most famous character, spymaster George Smiley. The Ink Factory now plans to do new television adaptations of all the novels featuring Cold War spy George Smiley - this time in chronological order. Le Carré says that his sons are interested in casting the British actor Jared Harris (Chernobyl, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). Harris was originally cast in Tomas Alfredson's 2011 le Carré adaptation, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as MI6 chief Percy Alleline, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, in which he played Professor Moriarty.

Why Women Kill has been renewed by CBS All Access for Season 2, according to the streaming service. The first season of the darkly comedic, drama anthology series stars Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste and examines details the lives of three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the ’60s, a socialite in the ’80s and a lawyer in 2019, each dealing with infidelity in their marriages. Season 2 will follow a new set of characters dealing with acts of betrayal.

Weeds alum Justin Kirk is set for a key undisclosed recurring role opposite John Lithgow, Matthew Rhys, and Tatiana Maslany in the limited HBO series, Perry Mason. The reimagined Perry Mason is set in 1932 Los Angeles and follows the origins of American fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason (Rhys).

Karrueche Tran (Claws) is set to recur on the upcoming Fox series, Deputy, starring Stephen Dorff. Deputy is a cop drama that blends the spirit of a classic Western with a modern attitude and gritty authenticity. Tran will play Genevieve, the fun-loving, quick-witted partner of a by-the-books deputy in the department. Yara Martinez, Brian Van Holt, Siena Goines, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Shane Paul McGhie, and Mark Moses co-star.

USA released the first full trailer for the third season of its crime drama anthology, The Sinner. In the third installment, Pullman plays Harry Ambrose, a detective who begins a routine investigation of a tragic car accident on the outskirts of Dorchester, in upstate New York but goes on to uncover a hidden crime that pulls him into the most dangerous and disturbing case of his career. Matt Bomer also stars as one of the men involved in the accident, and Chris Messina plays his creepy college friend.


PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

British crime author Martina Cole revealed she often receives marriage proposals from prisoners and indulges in a "big glass of whiskey" before writing her most gruesome scenes. The 60-year-old writer from Essex appeared on Loose Women where she opened up about her illustrious literary career, having released 22 novels about crime.

On East Coast Radio, host Terence Pillay chatted with multi award-winning author Deon Meyer about his writing and the upcoming Mnet show, Trackers, based on Meyer's novel.


RNZ: Saturday Morning spoke with Michael Connelly about his new Harry Bosch book, The Night Fire, which also sees the return of Connelly's characters LAPD Detective Renée Ballard and Bosch's half-brother attorney, Mickey Haller.

Writer Types welcomed three great authors: Wendy Corsi Staub, Jake Hinkson, and Matthew Mather, plus a report from the Men Of Mystery conference featuring Howard Michael Gould, Brett Battles, Jack Carr, Paddy Hirsch, Phoef Sutton, and Neal Griffin.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro featured author Catriona McPherson, who discussed her golden age mysteries starring Dandy Gilver, her comedic Lexy Campbell novels, her newest domestic Noir (Strangers at the Gate), Scotland, book conferences, and why mailboxes should be red instead of blue.

The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took on the topics of "Preptober, FBI Consultants, and SWAT Standoffs."

It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with author Joshilyn Jackson about her new psychological thriller, Never Have I Ever.

Red Hot Chilli Writers looked at the link between Agatha Christie's disappearance and a hotel room in Istanbul; the fate of Edgar Allen Poe; chatted with crime and contemporary romance novelist Elly Griffiths; found out about a fat bear contest in Alaska; discussed the Booker Prize; reviewed A Very Expensive Poison; and talked about the influence of book blurbs.

THEATRE

The New Victoria Theatre in Woking UK, is presenting The Girl on the Train from October 28 through November 2. This is the latest stop in the touring production of the adaptation of Paula Hawkins's novel, which centers on Rachel, whose only escape is the perfect couple she watches through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it appears. When Rachel learns that the woman she’s been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.

The Oak Park Festival near Chicago, Illinois, will present The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe — A Love Story, from October 24 through November 17. Two years after the death of his beloved wife, Edgar Allan Poe grapples with love and madness in this innovative, interactive theatre experience that takes place in different rooms in the theatre.


Chicago's Theatre in the Dark is presenting Three Stories Up from October 24 through November 9. After her husband is killed, a transit cop finds herself mixed up in Vancouver’s criminal underground. The 80-minute noir mystery is set (almost) completely in the dark, with the actors playing nearly a dozen characters including cops, priests, journalists, and grifters.

Sunday Music Treat

This coming Tuesday is the birthday of Franz Liszt, born October 22, 1811, in Austria. Liszt was probably the first real "rock star" (if you'll pardon the mixed genre refernce) in the music realm; women would literally attack him, tearing bits of his clothing, and fighting over broken piano strings and locks of his shoulder-length hair.

But Liszt walked away from his performance stardom in his 30s to compose music, instead. One such work is his "La campanella" (Italian for "The little bell"), the nickname given to the third of Liszt's six Grandes études de Paganini. Scott Drayco isn't as much of a fan of Liszt as some pianists, such as Lang Lang, who also has enjoyed a bit of a "rock star" attraction of his own and is a well-known proponent of Liszt's works.

Here's Lang Lang from a 2012 performance in Beijing performing La Campanella:

 

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