In Reference to Murder

Quote of the Week

FFB: The Bulrush Murders

Rebecca Rothenberg was one of five authors Elizabeth Foxwell highlighted as female mystery writers who left us too soon. In Rothenberg's case, she died in 1998 of a brain tumor at the age of 50. In addition to being an author, Rothenberg was a musician, epidemiologist and amateur botanist. Her series with microbiologist Claire Sharples included three books in all (with a fourth finished by her friend Taffy Cannon), beginning with The Bulrush Murders in 1991, only seven years before the author's death. It went on to be named as one of the Top Ten Mysteries of the year by the Los Angeles Times and was nominated for the Agatha and Anthony awards (appropriate in advance of next week's Bouchercon conference).

The Bulrush Murders introduces us to Claire Sharples, who is feeling like one of her caged laboratory rats, working in MIT's research facilities. On an impulse, she takes an agricultural research job in a rural part of California's San Joaquin Valley, only to discover that the bleak region is most notable for its absences of rain, decent conversation, jazz music and good Thai restaurants. When a young Hispanic friend drives plunges his motorcycle into a reservoir, Claire investigates the circumstances surrounding his death with the help of her new enigmatic coworker Sam. She soon finds herself unhappily drawn to the ill-mannered field scientist Sam, to the suspicious death that indicates it wasn't an accident, and to the mystery of why a Mexican farm family's crops seem to be the only ones in the San Joaquin Valley suffering from a blight. Even the death in Vietnam of the young murdered man's brother might not be what it first seemed.

Rothenberg created an appealing fish-out-water protagonist in Claire, who has one foot in two different worlds and not a single foot on a firm emotional foundation:

No mistaking which "community" she belonged to—not of souls but of namers, the Community of Scientists: a bunch of self-absorbed misanthropic misfits who retreated from the demands and ambiguities of the world into their self-created, logical, orderly systems, devising technical solutions to spiritual problems...and me, she thought. I'm like that. Sometimes I think I'm not because--why? Because I'm female? Because I have the vocabulary to talk about feelings? But I'm just like them: give me a touch intellectual puzzle and I perform like an integrated circuit; put me in a situation requiring an emotional response and I fall apart. Or else I concert it to an algorithm, a model, a problem I can solve. Something I can "look up."

The Los Angeles Times Book Review's Charles Champlin called The Bulrush Murders "A spellbinding first mystery ...[an ] intricate and action-rich plot...At the story's center, always, is an affecting and insightful portrait of a bright woman struggling for simple equality in an environment as prickly and hostile as some of the wild grasses the author describes so well." Kirkus Reviews added, "A convincing look at racism in southern California, agricultural hardships, and the difficulty that arises when opposites fall in love. A judicious balance of science and emotion, then, and a better-than-average debut."

The other two books in the series by Rothenberg are The Dandelion Murders and The Shy Tulip Murders, and the novel completed by Taffy Cannon is titled The Tumbleweed Murders.

Happy Books-Giving

 

Mystery Melange, Thanksgiving Edition

Samantha Harvey’s The Western Wind has won the £1000 2019 Staunch Book Prize. The controversial award, now in its second year, is for a thriller novel in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered. The other contenders included Liar's Candle by August Thomas; Only To Sleep by Lawrence Osborne; Honey by Brenda Brooks; and The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre.

This past weekend, Sisters in Crime Australia handed out its 26th annual Scarlet Stiletto Awards for short fiction "written by Australian women and featuring a strong female protagonist." The top honor, the Swinburne University Award, went to “At Length I Would Be Avenged,” by Blanche Clark. For all the winners in the various categories, check out the full list on the SinC-Aussie website.

Forensic anthropologist and author, Kathy Reichs, was one of the most recent individuals to receive the Order of Canada. Reichs is perhaps best known for her series, Bones, and its TV adaptation. Reichs joined actors William Shatner and Donald Sutherland, as well as Christina Jennings, founder of the production company behind the Murdoch Mysteries, in the honor.

The Goodreads Choice Awards have narrowed the Best Mystery & Thriller nominees down to the list of finalists.

There will be a special post-show discussion/Q&A with three acclaimed Boston mystery writers after the Lyric Stage's performance of Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express, December 19. Participating will be Julie Hennrikus (the Theater Cop and Garden Squad series), Susan Larson, and Hank Phillippi Ryan (award-winning author of 11 mysteries including the latest, The Murder List).

Janet Rudolph has her annual list out of Thanksgiving-themed mysteries over at her Mystery Fanfare blog. Plenty of options there to enjoy while you're waiting for the turkey to cook.

Kings River Life has some free Thanksgiving short stories, including "Justice for Elijah: a Thanksgiving Mystery" by Earl Staggs and "Ya Never Know: A Thanksgiving Tale" by Gale Farrelly.

Mystery Lovers Kitchen has several recipes appropriate for the holiday. Sip on some Thanksgiving Cider by Krista Davis, enjoy some Roasted Sweet Potato and Squash Soup before the turkey, and finish up with some Pumpkin Bread Pudding or Pumpkin Cake.

Something else to be thankful for: "Bookstores are back and they're back in a big way."

Tired of the usual Thanksgiving football on TV? TV Guide has a list of all the marathons over the holiday, including Blue Bloods, Forensic Files, Homeland, Law & Order, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, and Law & Order:SVU among many, many more.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Appraisal" by J.D. Smith.

In the Q&A roundup, Lesa Holstine chatted with Diane Kelly, author of the Paw Enforcement series, as well as the Death and Taxes mysteries and the Home Flipper mysteries; the Dark Phantom blog had an interview with Deborah Serani, author of the psychological suspense novel, The Ninth Session; the Minneapolis Star Tribune spoke with Janet Evanovich, who is promoting her 26th Stephanie Plum novel, Twisted Twenty-Six; and Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus series, explained to The National why "I'm fonder of Rebus than he would be of me."

Author R&R with Lisa Regan

Before turning her hand to writing crime fiction, Lisa Regan worked as a paralegal, martial arts instructor, certified nursing assistant, and bookstore manager. But she'd been writing novels since she was 11 years old when one of her parents brought home an old-fashioned typewriter. That love of writing morphed into her successful series, first with Claire Fletcher and Detective Connor Parks, and later with Detective Josie Quinn, all of which has led her to become a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. 

In Vanishing Girls, which has just been released in paperback by Grand Central Publishing, Isabelle Coleman, a blonde, beautiful young girl goes missing, and everyone from the small town of Denton joins the search. They can find no trace of the town's darling, but Detective Josie Quinn finds another girl they didn't even know was missing. Mute and unresponsive, it's clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Josie can get from her is the name of a third girl and a flash of a neon tongue piercing that matches Isabelle's.

The race is on to find Isabelle alive, and Josie fears there may be other girls in terrible danger. When the trail leads her to a cold case labelled a hoax by authorities, Josie begins to wonder is there anyone left she can trust? Someone in this close-knit town is committing unspeakable crimes. Can Josie catch the killer before another victim loses their life?

Lisa Regan stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about "going undercover" — with dogs — to write and research the Josie Quinn series.

 

Shadowing Search and Rescue Dogs

Many of my books feature missing persons. In book 6 of my Detective Josie Quinn series, Her Silent Cry, a little girl goes missing from a park and in book 7, Cold Heart Creek, a camper goes missing in the woods. I knew that oftentimes; law enforcement can avail themselves of search and rescue dogs to aid in the rescue or recovery of missing persons. However, I didn’t know much at all about search and rescue dogs. I read many things online but still didn’t feel as though I had enough of a grasp on the subject to write about it in an authentic way. I started searching for organizations in my area, hoping that someone from one of them would be willing to answer my questions. I came across the website for Search and Rescue Dogs of Pennsylvania (sardogs.org) and sent them an email. In less than a day, I had an offer from Vicki Wooters to come and watch her and her husband, Chuck Wooters train their dogs.

 

I was thrilled and nervous. I brought my twelve-year-old daughter with me and we shadowed Vicki, Chuck, their intern, and their wonderful dogs for a few hours. The training that day took place on a large private property with lots of wooded areas and an obstacle course. Both Chuck and Vicki were wonderful, immediately giving us a detailed run-down of how searches are conducted and how the dogs carry out their work.

 

Quake searches the Obstacle Course looking for remains

 

We took an initial walk around the property with Chuck, Vicki, and their intern. The dogs stayed in their cages in the backs of Chuck’s and Vicki’s vehicles. Large, thick, silver tarps had been thrown over the vehicles. Vicki told me those were Aluminet tarps and they helped keep the inside of the vehicles cool during the summer. It was a very hot day, but peeking inside the backs of the trucks, the German Shepherds appeared perfectly comfortable. Chuck had human remains with him in a black box, which he went off to hide while the rest of us continued to explore. We found an area at the bottom of a very steep ravine where Vicki ordered her intern to stay. She explained that she would have her dog, Rini, do a “live find” using their intern.

 

We left the intern in the ravine and took the long walk back to the vehicles. Vicki got Rini out of the back of her vehicle. Rini is a beautiful, two-year-old red sable German Shepherd. At Vicki’s command, Rini immediately laid down in the grass to wait for further instruction. However, she was clearly anxious to get to work, as evidenced by her grousing. I had always thought that dogs needed a personal item, like an item of clothing the person had been wearing, to search and find that person. This is not true. Vicki said that Rini could scent a person from a door handle. Indeed, she was right. Vicki kept her on a long lead, guided her to the intern’s car, and let her sniff the door handle all while Vicki issued words of encouragement. Once Vicki put Rini’s harness on, Rini was ready to go. Vicki explained that the harness was Rini’s indicator that it was time to work. Rini took off immediately in the direction where we’d left the intern.

 

 

What was most fascinating to me was the laser focus with which Rini carried out her duties. Vicki explained that once she was “in-scent”, meaning she had picked up the person’s scent and was following it, she wouldn’t be distracted by anything. Watching Rini follow the intern’s scent with such concentration, I realized that you could probably dangle a juicy steak right in front of her face, and she’d bypass it without even a glance. Vicki was right. Once she was in-scent, there was no distracting her and no stopping her.

 

As Rini worked, Vicki gave us a crash course on search and rescue dogs. For example, there are different kinds of search dogs: cadaver dogs, water recovery dogs, trailing dogs and air scent dogs. Each dog has its own specialty. They can be dual-trained. However, not all search and rescue dogs are certified by national organizations which set standards for the training of search and rescue dogs such as the International Police Work Dog Association, North American Police Work Dog Association, International Rescue Dog Organization, and the United States Police Canine Association. If you ever need to hire a rescue dog, you should make sure they have certifications.

 

Vicki also showed us her “puff bottle” which was a small bottle of baby powder which she used to test which direction the wind traveled so she could guide Rini if necessary. Vicki also explained that people walk around with an invisible scent cloud around them, shedding their scent as they went. She told me to imagine Pig Pen from Charlie Brown. In the cartoon, he walks around in a cloud of dirt. A person’s scent, though invisible, is like this. We can’t see it or smell it but the dogs can hone in on a person’s unique scent immediately.

 

Also, search and rescue dogs have both active and passive indicators. This means when they find what they’re looking for, they’ll perform some action to indicate to their handler that they’ve achieved their mission. Rini had an active indicator, which was a bark. She found the intern within minutes and barked until we caught up with her. She was rewarded by getting to play with her pull toy.

 

Rini finds the intern, gives a bark for an active indicator

 

A passive indicator is when a dog sits or lays down upon finding their target. We got to witness this when we shadowed Chuck and his dog, Quake, an eight-year-old sable German Shepherd whose specialty is human remains detection. Chuck had hidden some human remains in the obstacle course. As soon as Chuck approached the back of the truck where Quake and one of his canine colleagues were crated, Quake got very excited, barking, and eager to go to work. Quake was every bit as well behaved, laser focused and enthusiastic about working as Rini. When Chuck put on a black vest over his white polo shirt, Quake knew it was time to work. “He’s always ready to work,” Chuck told me. Chuck put Quake on a lead until we got into the obstacle course. Once inside the area, he let Quake loose and we watched him lope gracefully through the area, searching for his quarry. After only a few minutes, Quake laid down beside one of the obstacles. This was called his “down”, meaning the passive indicator he gave when he found human remains.

 

Quake using his "down" indicator to show he's found the remains

 

Watching expert handlers, Vicki and Chuck Wooters train with their dogs was one of the most fun and fascinating experiences I’ve ever had. I am truly in awe of them. If I ever get lost or abducted, I’d really like the Wooters and their dogs on the case! I hope that one day I’ll be able to shadow them again during training. Before we left, I had one last question, which was: “Where does one get human remains for training purposes?”

Vicki answered, “Bone room dot com.”

Yes, it’s a real thing.

If you want to learn more about Search and Rescue Dogs of Pennsylvania, please visit their website: http://www.sardogs.org/home-.html

Also, SARDOGS is a non-profit organization and they offer their services completely free of charge. They rely on donations in order to continue to provide their invaluable services.

 

You can find out more about Lisa Regan and her books via her website and also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. Vanishing Girls and the other books in the Josie Quinn series are available via Grand Central and all major booksellers.

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

Robocop Returns has landed director Abe Forsythe (Little Monsters), who takes over from Neil Blomkamp after he exited the project in August. The film is being developed as a direct sequel to the original 1987 movie, and the original film's screenwriters, Ed Neumier and Michael Miner will be producing. The original Robocop (directed by Paul Verhoeven) centered on a police officer who, on death’s doorstep, is used as an experiment to create a new type of half man, half machine officer who struggles with resurfacing memories and corrupt city officials.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley has added Holt McCallany (Mindhunters) to the Fox Searchlight film's cast of Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara, and Willem Defoe. Based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel, the project revolves around an ex-carnival con-man turned spiritualist (Cooper), who teams up with a female psychiatrist to scoop cash out of the wallets and lives of their wealthy marks with some less than holy moves – until things take a sour turn. McCallany will play Anderson, a get-the-job-done bruiser with more going on that is first apparent from his tough guy persona.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NBC has put in development Escape, an action thriller drama based on the 2015 Russian series Quest, from Lucifer executive producer Jason Ning. In the story written by Ning, six complete strangers wake up on the roof of a building in San Francisco and are told they have 36 hours to live unless they can solve a series of deadly games set throughout the city.

ITV-owned producer Big Talk and British writer Sean Conway (Ray Donovan) are working on a drama adaptation of Tade Thompson’s African noir novel, Making Wolf (to be published in May 2020). The book tells the story of Weston Kogi, a London security guard who returns to his West African home country and thinks telling people he works as a homicide detective is harmless hyperbole. However, he is kidnapped and forced by two separate rebel factions to investigate the murder of a local hero, Papa Busi. Solving the crime may tip a country on the brink into civil war and cost Weston his life.

Harrison Ford is headed for the first regular television role of his career. The star of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark is attached to star in a series adaptation of The Staircase, detailing the trial of American novelist Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife in 2001. Peterson claimed his wife died after falling down the stairs at their home, but police suspected he bludgeoned her to death and staged the scene to look like an accident. The project is currently being shopped to networks and streaming services.

Yorgos Lanthimos is set to direct an adaptation of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit, in development at Fox Searchlight Television. Based on the best-selling book by Mark Seal, the limited series will tell the true story of Clark Rockefeller, a gregarious, successful, and mysterious descendant of the Rockefeller clan. When his wife Sandra begins to suspect that Clark isn’t who he says he is, his decades-long web of deception slowly begins to unravel.

Dr. Who and Good Omens star, David Tennant, is to play infamous Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen in the three-part ITV drama, Des. The project is based on the Brian Masters book, Killing For Company, in which the author cooperated with Nilsen to get inside the mind of a man who murdered at least 15 men and boys between 1978 and 1983 (Nilsen died in jail last year.) Joining Tennant is The Crown star Jason Watkins, who will play Masters, and Line Of Duty actor Daniel Mays, who features as Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay.

Trainspotting and Broadwalk Empire actress, Kelly Macdonald, is to play the police officer suspected of corruption in season six of BBC One’s smash-hit crime drama, Line Of Duty. Macdonald will star as Detective Chief Inspector Joanne Davidson, who draws the attention of anti-corruption unit AC-12 for her unconventional conduct during the investigation of an unsolved murder. Martin Compston, Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar will return as the AC-12 officers investigating Macdonald’s character.

Quibi’s untitled action thriller starring Liam Hemsworth has added five new cast members: Jimmy Akingbola, Sarah Gadon, Zach Cherry, Christoph Waltz, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo. The series from Scorpion creator Nick Santora follows Dodge Maynard (Hemsworth) who, out of desperation to take care of his pregnant wife before a terminal illness can take his life, accepts an offer to participate in a deadly game where he soon discovers that he’s not the hunter but the prey. Gadon is set to play Dodge’s wife Valerie, and Cherry will step into the role of Looger, Dodge’s best friend from childhood. Akingbola’s role is being kept under wraps.

Adam Rose and Taylor Black have been tapped for recurring roles opposite Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba on the upcoming second season of Spectrum’s action drama, L.A.’s Finest. Season one of the series follows Syd Burnett (Union), who was last seen in Miami taking down a drug cartel and left her complicated past to become an LAPD detective. Paired with a new partner, Nancy McKenna (Alba), a working mom with an equally complex history, Syd was forced to confront how her unapologetic lifestyle was masking a greater personal secret.

The trailer has dropped for Dare Me, the USA Network program based on Megan Abbott’s 2012 novel of that same name. Dare Me, which will follow the lives of some competitive high school cheerleaders in "a small Midwestern town," is set to debut on December 29, with Abbott as one of its executive producers.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Harlan Coben spoke with France 24 about his books and how "writers never like to admit it but all lead characters are based on them."

A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the first chapter of "The Cupid Caper" by Larissa Reinhart, read by actor Teya Juarez.

Elizabeth Zelvin’s short story, "A Work In Progress" (from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine: May/June 2019) is the current selection for the AHMM Podcast.

Writer Types welcomed three authors for an interview, Nicci French, Nick Kolakowski, and Trey R Barker.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham gave some recommendations of books you can pick up during the holiday season to gift to the people in your life — or just get for yourself.

Suspense Radio's Beyond The Cover welcomed as special guest, the international bestselling author, John Connolly, to chat about the latest in his Charlie Parker series, A Book of Bones.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack chatted with true crime writer and private investigator, Dennis N. Griffin, about his books and founding The Transparency Project.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro chatted with Lou Berney, author of November Road, which this year won the Anthony, Barry, Left Coast Crime, and Macavity Awards for Best Mystery Novel, as well as the Hammett Prize.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with John Glatt about his latest true crime book, The Family Next Door, which tells the horrific story of the Turpin Family.

The Crime Time podcast reviewed the film adaptation of Doctor Sleep; the book, The Lying Room by married-couple authors, Nicci French; and Andrew McGahan’s The Rich Man’s House.

The latest Partners in Crime episode discussed the Golden Age of crime fiction, the comeback of audio fiction, and more.

Quote of the Week

FFB: Ah, Sweet Mystery

Celestine Sibley (1914–1999) worked as a journalist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for more than 50 years, covering the James Earl Ray trial, among her many assignments. She penned more than 10,000 columns, as well as many popular essays on southern culture.

She had a bit of a detour in the early 1950s, working as a Hollywood correspondent and interviewing celebrities like Clark Gable, Walt Disney, and Jane Russell. It was at this point she turned her hand to writing pulp stories, moonlighting as a True Confession and True Detective reporter and selling stories with faux-shocking headlines like "I Wanted to Die" and "I Was a Junkie."

Perhaps motivated by her pulp-experiences, she decided to switch to writing books. Those efforts resulted in the publication of The Malignant Heart (1958), the first book in her mystery series featuring newly-widowed Atlanta newspaper reporter-columnist Kate Mulcay. However, she didn't write her second Kate Mulcay novel, Ah Sweet Mystery, until 1991, some 33 years later, which she followed up with four more before her death.

Bill Kovach, a former editor of The Journal-Constitution, referred to her newspaper writing as "a country-girl-come-to-the-city kind of column" and that Sibley "was the last voice of the white-glove, tea-and-apple-blossom set that had not a sharp edge on it.'' I think that aptly sums up the style of writing in Ah Sweet Mystery.

The novel begins with Mulcay living by herself in a rural log cabin with some reminiscing on life with her husband Benjy, a member of the Atlanta police force who died from cancer. One of the friends Mulcay has made in the area is the elderly Miss Willie, devoted stepmother to the adult Garney Wilcox. Wilcox is a land developer hated by just about everyone who is pushing his stepmother into a nursing home, egged on by his equally-unpleasant wife Voncile.

When Garney is found poisoned, electrocuted and bludgeoned, Miss Willie confesses to the murder, but Mulcay doesn't buy it for a minute. With the help of Atlanta PD Sergeant Mellie Alvarez and some Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald songs, the feisty Mulcay sets out to exonerate Miss Willie and finds that the traditional southern culture in Fulton County hides dark secrets of incest, rape and drug-running.
 
If you're looking for more sleuthing and procedural elements, this novel isn't for you. It's more of a social commentary with detailed painting of the place and the characters who populate it. The mystery takes a back seat, the story ends somewhat abruptly, and the dialect gets laid on perhaps a bit thick at times. However, if you can get past all of that, you will enjoy Sibley's leisurely, folksy style.

Mystery Melange

The An Post Irish Book Awards 2019 winners were announced, and this year's Crime Fiction Book of the Year goes to Cruel Acts by Jane Casey. The other finalists in that category include Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard; The Chain by Adrian McKinty; Twisted by Steve Cavanagh; The Wych Elm by Tana French; and The Hiding Game by Louise Phillips.

British social historian Hallie Rubenhold has won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction for her book The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. The book reconstructs the lives of five of the women killed by the notorious Jack the Ripper, and gives voice to the murdered women as well as painting a picture of the precariousness of working class lives in Victorian London.

CrimeFest has launched two new prizes for debut crime novel and best TV crime drama for the 2020 awards. In association with headline sponsor Specsavers, CrimeFest announced plans for the £1,000 Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award and also a Best TV Crime Drama, eligible for TV shows broadcast in 2019 in the UK based on a crime novel or true crime book, published anytime. (HT to the Bookseller)

San Diego's Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore received notice that it's losing the lease for its Balboa Avenue storefront and must relocate in 60 days. In an e-mail, the bookstore said, "It is with heavy hearts that we share that unless a new buyer and new location are found immediately," the shop will be forced to close. The store has been a vital part of the San Diego community for nearly 27 years, participating in regional and industry conventions and countless in-store events. The bookstore's purchase is expected to be a turnkey sale, retaining the staff and mission of Mysterious Galaxy to grow and expand the already established brand. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Granite Noir, Aberdeen’s international crime writing festival, returns in February 2020 and announced the headliners. Although the full lineup won't be released until December, the honored guests will include Sara Paretsky (of the private investigator V.I. Warshawski series) in conservation with Denise Mina, and Ben Aaronovitch (author of the bestselling Rivers of London urban fantasy series, in conversation with festival ambassador Stuart MacBride.

The end of the year means it's time for the "best of" 2019 lists, with the latest from the Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and the Washington Post.

The White House is reviving the National Medal of Arts, with plans to honor author James Patterson in addition to actor Jon Voight, singer Alison Krauss, Sharon Percy Rockefeller and the musicians of the United States Military. The award is given to individuals who “are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States,” according to the National Endowment for the Arts. National Council on the Arts, which oversees the endowment, reviews nominations and send recommendations to the president, who determines the honorees.

Kwei Quartey stopped by the Murder is Everywhere blog for a look at African crime fiction and its themes and settings. Quartey is the author of two series set in Ghana, a police procedural featuring the smart cop, Darko Dawson, and a new series with private eye Emma Djan.

The Golden Age writer, Dorothy L. Sayers, is apparently having something of a resurgence, possibly due to the renewed interest in fellow Golden Ager, Agatha Christie (and here's another take on that). The Seattle Times's Moira Macdonald has just discovered Sayer's creation, Harriet Vane, and the New Yorker profiled "An Overlooked Novel from 1935 by the Godmother of Feminist Detective Fiction."

Book Riot has an occasional feature they call the United States of a Mystery with "essential" books set in each state. The latest outing travels to Georgia.

Raymond Chandler spent a portion of his youth in the UK, and the Irish Times took a look at how that childhood may have affected Chandler's iconic detective fiction.

If you're a fan of the late author, Sue Grafton (of the Alphabet mysteries, beginning with A is for Alibi), her mansion is on the market. Grafton and her husband Steve Humphrey designed the mansion on a hill in Montecito, CA, which was listed with a new price of $6,999,000, after going on the market earlier this year with an $8.5 million price tag. The author died in late 2017, after completing Y is for Yesterday, her last novel in the series.

Hachette Book Group is offering a chance to win Michael Connelly's complete Harry Bosch series. One lucky winner will be drawn from random entries through December 1 (U.S. only).

As if you didn't need another reason to read, it seems that readers are more satisfied with their lives.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Page 8 Incident" by Allan Lake.

In the Q&A roundup, Lesa Holstine chatted with Lois Winston, author of the Anastasia Pollack mysteries; the Sunday Post spoke with Alex Gray about her latest thriller, The Stalker; and Declan Burke sat down with Queen's University's Dominique Jeannerod to discuss The Lammisters, his new comedic crime novel.

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

Beverly Hills Cop is returning after Paramount made a one-time license deal (with an option for a sequel) that will enable Netflix to make the fourth installment of the film with Eddie Murphy and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The studio had been developing a reboot for a while, and Netflix jumped at the chance for a potential big-star franchise.

John Woo’s forthcoming remake of his 1989 crime drama, The Killer, has had a bit of setback after star Lupita Nyong’o had to back out of the project. The iconic director note that it was a scheduling problem because "she’s so popular right now" and script rewrites had taken longer than expected, affecting the star's availability. Woo's project is still being planned as a gender-flipped take on the classic drama starring Chow Yun-fat.

Screen Gems has preemptively bought Reparations, a script by Jeff Howard and Andre Owens described as "an action heist movie interwoven with a socially conscious theme." Although some details of the plot are sketchy, here's the pitch: When a lost cache of Confederate gold falls into the wrong hands, an amateur crew comes together to get the gold and use it to fund long overdue reparations.

Shailene Woodley is set to star in the title role of Girl Named Sue, the true story of California DEA agent Sue Webber-Brown and her role in creating the Drug Endangered Child (DEC) protocol. Set in the in the ’90s at the height of the crystal meth crisis, Webber-Brown fights her way into the boys’ club of law enforcement where she takes it upon herself to help the small children overlooked during raids, a decision that will change her life forever.

Filming is underway on Deep Water, the first movie from Indecent Proposal and Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne in almost two decades. Adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel, the story follows Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas who play Vic and Melinda Van Allen, an attractive young married couple whose mind games with each other take a twisted turn when people around them start turning up dead.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has put in development Borrowed Time, a drama from writer Amanda Green, Elizabeth Banks, and Max Handelman. Written by Green, Borrowed Time follows a cop who wakes up in the body of a stranger with no memory of who she is. The search for her identity is complicated by someone who is trying to kill the person whose life she is inhabiting. She prevents the murder, only to awaken in a different body with a new mystery to solve.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to Sometimes I Lie, a limited series starring and executive produced by Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum, Sarah Michelle Gellar. The project, based on former BBC journalist Alice Feeney’s debut novel, stars Gellar as Amber Reynolds, who is in a coma. She can’t remember how she got there, but she knows it wasn’t an accident. Terrified and trapped in her own body, she tries to piece together her memories of the last week, knowing that someone is lying and that her life is still very much in danger.

Amazon Studios has picked up a fourth and final season of Goliath, its original legal drama series from David E. Kelley and Jonathan Shapiro that stars Billy Bob Thornton. Thornton won a Golden Globe for playing McBride, the hard-living, once-famous L.A. lawyer with a complicated past who seeks redemption by solving cases nobody else can crack.

Gary Oldman is to star in the spy drama, Slow Horses, for Apple's new digital TV serivce with Justified’s Graham Yost exec producing. Based on Mick Herron’s spy novels, the project features Jackson Lamb, a brilliant but irascible leader of a group of spies, who end up in MI5’s Slough House, having been exiled from the mainstream for their mistakes.

Don Johnson, set to reprise the title role in USA Network’s upcoming Nash Bridges revival, confirmed today that longtime co-star Cheech Marin will be back for the reboot reprising his role as Inspector Joe Dominguez. The original series, which ran on CBS from 1996 to 2001, starred Johnson as an investigator in an elite Special Investigations Unit of the San Francisco Police Department.

ITV has cancelled Rob Lowe’s British cop drama, Wild Bill, after just one season. The West Wing star played high-flying U.S. cop Bill Hixon, who was appointed Chief Constable of the East Lincolnshire Police Force in the UK.

The pilot for Last Summer, the Freeform thriller from Jessica Biel and and Michelle Purple, has assembled a strong cast including Michael Landes, Brooklyn Sudano, Harley Quinn Smith, Chiara Aurelia, Mika Abdalla, Froy Gutierrez, Allius Barnes, Blake Lee, and Nathaniel Ashton. Last Summer is an unconventional thriller that actually takes place over three summers in the '90s in a small Texas town when a beautiful popular teen, Kate (Abdalla), is abducted and, seemingly unrelated, a girl, Jeanette (Aurelia), goes from being a sweet, awkward outlier to the most popular girl in town and, by ’95, the most despised person in America.

Tamara Podemski is set to co-star in Run, HBO’s romantic comedic thriller pilot from Killing Eve creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her frequent collaborator Vicky Jones. Run centers on Ruby (Merritt Wever), a woman living a humdrum existence who one day gets a text inviting her to fulfill a youthful pact, promising true love and self-reinvention, by stepping out of her life to take a journey with her oldest flame. Podemski plays Babe, a soft-spoken police detective with a dry sense of humor, whose first big case offers her the chance to show off her genuinely good police skills and also meet someone who might change her life forever.

Austin Stowell is joining the upcoming streaming drama, The Old Man, as a series regular, playing a younger version of Jeff Bridges’ character Dan Chase. The series is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Thomas Perry and centers on the titular "old man" (Bridges), who absconded from the CIA decades ago and now lives off the grid. 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. Stowell’s story as the younger Dan Chase will take place thirty years prior to the events of the pilot, as he undertakes a dangerous mission against the backdrop of the Soviet-Afghan war.

Lorraine Toussaint, Chet Hanks, and Jimi Stanton are set to recur in Your Honor, Showtime’s limited series starring Bryan Cranston. Based on the Israeli drama format Kvodo, the legal thriller stars Cranston as a respected New Orleans judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run that leads to a high-stakes game of lies, deceit and impossible choices.

CBS will finally air a crossover between its Friday night, set-in-Hawaii dramas Hawaii Five-0 and Magnum P.I. Peter Lenkov, executive producer on both series, announced the crossover in an interview with TV Line, explaining that the story will involve the two sets of investigators converging on the same hotel. Lenkov described the event as "a big-stakes story that really feels like a two-hour movie." The episodes are set to air back-to-back on Friday, Jan. 3.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed Navada Barr, the award-winning novelist and New York Times best-selling author of the Anna Pigeon mysteries.

Dean Koontz was the guest on Meet the Thriller Author, discussing Nameless, his new series of short thrillers available for free to Prime and Kindle Unlimited members.

Write Place, Wrong Crime host, Frank Zafiro, chatted with John Sheppherd about his career in low budget movies, and his book Bottom Feeders, which is about a murder...on the set of a low budget movie.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts, Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste, talked about the end of times; which crime writer they would like to team up with come the zombie apocalypse; trying not to slander Jeffery Archer; the vagaries of American toilets, and much more.

This week's topics on the Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, were "20BooksVegas, POIs and UNSUBs, and Wiretap Technicalities."

THEATRE

Baltimore, Maryland's Everyman Theatre continues its 2019/2020 season with Agatha Christie's famous whodunit, Murder on the Orient Express. Everyman's production, directed by Founding Artistic Director, Vincent M. Lancisi, was adapted by noted playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me A Tenor; Crazy For You), and runs December 3, 2019, through January 5, 2020.