In Reference to Murder

FFB: Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal

On the surface, Valentine's Day may appear to be all about love and relationships, chocolate and flowers, but I suspect there are equal amounts of angst, heartbreak and even violence underneath the crepe paper hearts and pink-ribboned candy boxes. Likewise, there's a lot of faux comaraderie and back-stabbing involved with another type of manufactured social event that's really all about shallow displays and profit-motives—namely, beauty pageants. Put the two together and you have Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal, by H.R.F. Keating.

In Keating's standalone police procedural from 1965, night club queen Fay Curtis seemingly commits suicide shortly after passing along a note to beauty pageant impresario Teddy Pariss, who's in the middle of rehearsing the Miss Valentine contest at the Star Bowl ballroom. When Pariss also winds up dead, with a golden-handled paper knife in the shape of a naked female sticking in his back, it's clear his death was anything but suicide.

Soho Police Constable Peter Lassington and CID Detective-Constable Jack Spratt are in on both cases from the outset. But when Scotland Yard Superintendent Ironside's right-hand man is knocked out of commission, Ironside corrals Lassington and Spratt into assisting his own investigation. The Miss Valentine contest provides a gaggle of beauty contestants and various other associates of the murdered Pariss as suspects, and also affords Keating literary bon mots like the following:

The overwhelming impression at the door was of a mass of bits of the feminine, at their most blatant. Mouths, lipstick-shaped in screaming red, unlikely pink, heavy  magenta, darted here, there and everywhere, pouting, smiling, sulking. Legs in shimmering nylon and tight-stretched ski pants waved and flaunted. Blouses and hugging jerseys, A cup, B cup, C cup, advanced and flirted. Fingernails in every shade and circumstance of red flickered, pointed, lured and beckoned. Guaranteed personal freshness from spray, bottle and tube clashed and mingled all around. From the chaos, Ironside brought order like a sedulous botanist in a wild garden.

Lassington may be the POV character, but Superintendent Ironside is the star of the show, stage-managing the suspects, clues and histrionics with his unflappable, disarming presence. He would have been an interesting choice for his own series, a la Keating's other popular protagonist, Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID, except for the fact this is Ironside's last case before retiring to the countryside to tend his domestic rabbits, far from the seamy Soho nightlife.

It's rather easy to guess the culprit due to a giant in-your-face clue toward the start of the book, but perhaps that was Keating's way of preventing the reader from feeling cheated or sucker-punched by the ultimate resolution. It might not be one of Keating's best, but contains his characteristic humor and, as he once said, the manner in which he tries "to convey character through dialogue and forward the story through descriptions of place and situation, but it can only be a snapshot of the particular moment I have reached in the story."

Although the series has been hard to find before now, Severn House will be producing the first of 21 Ghote books as eBooks early this year, to be followed by a number of specially chosen titles which will appear as trade paperbacks in Canongate’s new Black Thorn ­­­­series.

Mystery Melange - Valentine's Edition

Happy Valentine's Day week to all! If you're in the mood for loving on some criminally good reading, check out Janet Rudolph's list of Valentine's Day Crime Fiction (and note that Janet also has another appropriate blog titled Dying for Chocolate).

Hardboiled Wonderland has been featuring a two-week series of "My Felonious Valentine" - crime movies with a touch of romance.

The Mystery Lovers Kitchen has a variety of recipes from the blog's authors, including a few Valentine's Day offerings: Cleo Coyle's Festive Valentine Side Dish and Valentine's Day Chocolate Heart Cookies from Ellie Alexander.

AudioFiles Magazine has a list for you of "Audiobooks for Valentine’s Day: Crime-Solving Couples."

This Saturday, February 15, Mystery Writers of America's Northern California branch will feature a panel on "The Why of Where: Crime Writers Talk About the Sense of Place in Crime Fiction." The event will include Nancy Tingley (moderator), Glenda Carroll, Priscilla Royal, Susan C. Shea, and Domenic Stansberry at the Petaluma Regional Library in Petaluma, CA. And coming up February 19, the chapter will present NorCal Noir: An Evening with Mystery Writers of America featuring Reece Hirsch (moderator), Michael Nava, Claire Ortalda, and Lisa Towles at the Oakland Public Library.

The Mystery Writers of America announced the schedule of Edgar Week activities coming up in New York City this spring. On April 29th, a symposium will feature several panels on various aspects of writing crime fiction with moderators Alex Segura, S.J. Rozan, Laurie R. King, Susan Breen, Nora McFarland, and James L’Etoile. And the evening includes Oline Cogdill (2013 Raven Award winner) interviewing the MWA 2020 Grand Master, Barbara Neely. Thursday, April 30 will see the annual Edgar Awards banquet at the Grand Hyatt Hotel emceed by current MWA president, Meg Gardiner. More information and tickets are available via the MWA website.

The stories of locked-room king Seishi Yokomizo, considered the master of ingenious plotting with a reputation in Japan to rival Agatha Christie’s, were long unavailable to English-speaking audiences. The first English version of The Honjin Murders was only published last year when Pushkin Vertigo released Louise Heal Kawai’s translation - 73 years after the original novel first appeared in Japan. And now, the indie press is also publishing Yumiko Yamazaki’s translation of Kindaichi’s second outing, The Inugami Curse. The Honjin Murders novel won Yokomizo the first Mystery Writers of Japan award in 1948, and its protagonist, the scruffy amateur sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi, went on to star in another 76 novels, selling more than 55 million books and appearing in numerous television and stage adaptations.

There's a call for abstracts for "Through a Glass Darkly: European History and Politics in Contemporary Crime Narratives." The publication seeks to uncover the ways in which the crime genre, in all of its multiple guises, has "investigated and interrogated the concealed histories and political underpinnings of national and supranational societies and institutions in Europe," particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to be considered for inclusion in this volume, send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short biography to [email protected] by May 31, 2020.

Organizers of the upcoming Granite Noir conference in Aberdeen, to be held February 20 to 23, asked some of the authors who will be appearing, "why women matter in crime fiction," with a selection of their favorite female sleuths.

Via the Washington Times: "How Dashiell Hammett put true crime to paper." Hammett’s stories took on a feel of realism and authenticity thanks to his experiences as a Pinkerton detective which he used to craft his fictional stories - true crimes, nicknames, slang, dramatic situations, and characters based on people he met.

Elizabeth Foxwell pointed out a fun link: History Extra of BBC History Magazine looked at the history of Scotland Yard including Charles Frederick Field (the model for Dickens's Inspector Bucket in Bleak House). The article also covers fictional Yard representatives such as Wilkie Collins's Sergeant Cuff, John Creasey's George Gideon, Andrew J. Forrester Jr.'s Mrs. G, and P. D. James's Adam Dalgleish.

Robert Dugoni, bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series, the Charles Jenkins Series and the David Sloane series, took the Page 69 Test to his new Tracy Crosswhite novel, A Cold Trail. Not to be outdone, Hilary Davidson also took the challenge with her new standalone thriller, Don't Look Down.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Marks" by Peter M. Gordon.

In the Q&A roundup, Writers Who Kill blogger E. B. Davis Interviewed Rhys Bowen about Above The Bay of Angels, set in London and Nice during the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign; The Book People's Scott Montgomery welcomed Nick Petrie for a discussion of the author's new book, The Wild One, which features Peter Ash, a drifting marine vet who suffers from PTSD; Peter Burke chatted with Will Shindler, author of the debut crime novel, The Burning Men; the Dirty Books Blog had a Q&A with Daniel Vlasaty about his new book, Stay Ugly; and Liz Moore spoke with Libro.fm about her audiobook, Long Bright River.

Author R&R with Alan Orloff

Before turning his hand to writing, Alan Orloff worked on nuclear submarines, supervised assembly workers in factories, had stints at the Washington Post and Arbiton and even started his own newsletter business, educating the public about the benefits of recycling and waste reduction. But then the writing bug bit, and his debut mystery, Diamonds for the Dead, was published in 2010 with Midnight Ink and went on to be nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. He published two more novels with Midnight Ink, Killer Routine in 2011 and Deadly Campaign in 2012, a duology in his Last Laff Mystery Series.

His new novel is a private eye thriller, I Know Where You Sleep from Down & Out Books. A relentless stalker has been terrorizing Jessica Smith, and, out of good options, she finally turns to her last resort—private investigator Anderson West. It seems like everyone is a suspect, Jessica’s ex-boyfriend and current boyfriend, her incredibly creepy boss, and the suspicious reverend at her church who definitely seems to be hiding something. West and his rule-breaking, loose-cannon sister, Carrie, race to find the culprit as the stalker’s notes become increasingly more threatening.

Alan stops by In Reference to Murder today for some Author R&R about writing and researching his novels:

 

Riding the Mean Streets

When I started writing, I wanted to write books similar to those I enjoyed reading, namely crime novels. But having been raised in sheltered suburbia, I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with crime, and I knew I needed to do some hands-on research.

So I knocked over a 7-Eleven.

No, not really. I attended a local Citizen’s Police Academy, and it proved to be a great way to see what police departments really do (without actually having to enroll in the real police academy and become an honest-to-goodness cop).

Many local law enforcement jurisdictions hold their own Citizen Academies (or some version of one—make a few calls, you’ll be surprised). Mine was conducted by the Herndon Police Department (in VA), and we gathered one night for 12 weeks to learn about all aspects of the policing business.

Undercover narc cops spoke to us about the seamy underbelly of the drug world, regaling us with some amazing stories and showing us what different drugs looked like, up close and personal (they had a large briefcase where samples were all bagged and tagged). Gang specialists told us about dealing with different gangs and how to spot gang activity. We watched a K9 unit demonstrate “take-down” techniques, and we hit the streets to work the LIDAR gun.

We visited the evidence lab and learned how to expose fingerprints with superglue fumes; we observed the lie detector in use (excuse me, the polygraph); and we got to fire live weapons on the range. A word of warning: Don’t mess with me—I put all eleven rounds in the inner circle, and it was the first time I’d ever even touched a real gun.

Another highlight was our visit to the County Detention Center (aka, the jail). We toured the whole thing—intake, processing, fingerprinting, breathalyzers, the holding cells, regular cells (pods, I think they were called), as well as the “special” cells. Fascinating and mighty depressing. Talk about getting scared straight!

While all those experiences were terrific, the highlight was my ride-along with a police officer.

I’ll take you back to that Saturday night on the mean streets of Herndon...

We’d been cruising for about two hours or so, checking out the normal trouble spots, and we’d gotten the usual calls: excessive noise at a sketchy apartment complex (a party gone wild), some possible gang activity near the convenience store, and a DiP (that’s Drunk In Public, for all you, uh, rookies) outside a local bar. Just your typical shift. Then we got a report on the radio of people—several people—running through the Community Center’s parking lot with rifles.

“Hold on,” the officer beside me said, as she flipped on the siren. We went roaring through town, cars parting to let us through. Screeching into the Community Center parking lot, we pulled up alongside a couple other cruisers, both empty, one with a door still flung open. Someone had left in a big hurry.

The officer barked at me, “Stay here. Don’t get out of the car.”

I forced a nod, too much cotton in my mouth to speak. Of course, she didn’t have to worry. I had no intention of following her into the night with a bunch of armed goons on the loose.

She grabbed her shotgun out of the lockdown and raced off, leaving me all alone.

All alone.

My heart raced. What if the guys with guns doubled back and found me, by myself, a sitting duck in a patrol car right underneath the parking lot lights? Would I become the unfortunate reason future ride-alongs had to be eliminated? I sank in my seat as low as I could go and peered out over the dashboard, hoping for reinforcements. Nope, just me and the empty police cars. I’d realized it before, but it hit home a lot harder in that moment. We didn’t pay law enforcement personnel nearly enough.

Luckily, the situation had a non-violent resolution. It turned out that the people running through the parking lot were teenagers wielding air rifles. No one got hurt. But man, how easily could something have gone terribly, irrevocably wrong? In the dark, those air rifles were indistinguishable from real rifles. Some poor teenager’s head easily could have been blown off.

I’ll say it again; I heartily recommend attending a Citizen’s Police Academy. Just make sure to wear two pairs of underwear on ride-along night.

And what did I do with this experience? I used it for the basis of the opening sequence of a novel, titled (appropriately enough) RIDE-ALONG!

 

To find out more about Alan and his books, head on over to his website or follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. I Know Where You Sleep is available from Down & Out Books and all major online and brick-and-mortar booksellers.

Media Murder for Monday

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

 

AWARDS

The 92nd Academy Awards were handed out last night, and there were few surprises among the crime drama winners, all of whom have triumphed in several of the other awards ceremonies this year. Joaquin Phoenix won Best Actor for his title role in Joker; Brad Pitt won Best Supporting Actor for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood; and Hildur Guðnadóttir won Best Score for Joker. For those wondering about overall results, Parasite was the big winner of the evening (Best Picture and Best Foreign Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay).

 

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Lionsgate made it official, announcing last week that Knives Out is getting a sequel, potentially with a 2022 release date. Daniel Craig's Detective Benoit Blanc would return in a potential franchise through-line, but as director Rian Johnson indicated, it wouldn't be for a sequel per se, but creating "...a whole new mystery, a whole new location, all new cast, whole new mechanics of the appeal of a mystery and everything."

TrustNordisk has snapped up world sales for the crime thriller, The Marco Effect, from Oscar-Nominated Director Martin Zandvliet. Based on Jussi Adler-Olsen’s bestselling crime-thriller novel of the same name, the project stars Ulrich Thomsen, Zaki Youssef, and Sofie Torp in the story of a silent, traumatized homeless boy who is arrested at the Danish boarder control for possession of a missing public servant’s passport. A police inspector is tasked with finding the connection, but the case contains several suspicious elements: the public servant was accused of pedophilia shortly before he disappeared, and his case was closed unusually quickly.

Noomi Rapace, Charlie Plummer, and Sophia Lills have joined Peter Dinklage in the cast for the upcoming thriller, The Thicket. The film, based on the novel by Joe R. Lansdale, follows an innocent young man (Plummer) who goes on an epic quest to rescue his sister (Lillis) after she has been kidnapped by violent killer named Cut Throat Bill (Rapace) and her gang. Along the way, he enlists the help of a crafty bounty hunter (Dinklage), a grave-digging alcoholic son of an ex-slave, and a street-smart prostitute. The three track the girl into the deadly no-man’s land known as The Big Thicket — a place where blood and chaos reign.

The next two Mission: Impossible movies are bringing back a key character from Mission Impossible: Fallout. British actress Vanessa Kirby, who plays the "White Widow" character, confirmed she’ll be back for the coming films. In an interview with Glamour, Kirby expressed excitement over "starting firearms training" for the action film.

In honor of the Oscars, director Rian Johnson joined the podcast All of It to discuss his mystery film, Knives Out, nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Amazon Studios is developing a one-hour drama titled The Dark Corners of the Night. The project is based on the third novel in Edgar-winning author Meg Gardiner’s UNSUB series featuring a young FBI agent pursuing other UNSUBs (short for "Unknown Subjects," a term for an unknown serial killer). The first book follows a female detective on the trail of an infamous serial killer – inspired by the still-unsolved Zodiac case – who breaks his silence and begins killing again. The detective grew up watching her father destroy himself and his family as he chased the killer, and now finds herself confronting the same monster her father failed to catch.

ITV is adapting Val McDermid’s series of cold case investigation novels featuring Karen Pirie. The British broadcaster has ordered three two-hour drama episodes based on McDermid’s novel, The Distant Echo, the first in a series of best-selling novels about a young Scottish female detective set in the Scottish university town of St. Andrew’s.

Fox has given a cast-contingent pilot order to Blood Relative, a forensic genealogy-themed crime drama from writer-producer Chris Levinson (Tyrant) and producer Liza Chasin (Tales of the City). Blood Relative is based on James Renner’s 2018 article "Beyond the Jungle of Bad: The True Story of Two Women from California Who Are Solving All the Mysteries," about Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick and Dr. Margaret Press. The duo have combined their genealogy expertise to push the boundaries of forensic science and help law enforcement identify Joe and Jane Does and track down serial killers.

CBS ordered the pilot, Out the Door, written by 24 veteran Evan Katz. As the tagline goes, "Upon learning that his impending retirement is being pushed off by several years, an LAPD detective who just wants his pension so he can go off and live the good life decides to do everything in his power to get fired, but his bad behavior only leads to surprising success at solving cases."

Sid Gentle Films is looking to build on the international smash hit Killing Eve with another crime adaptation, Watching You, the first installment in Swedish author Jan Arnald’s latest series of detective novels. Better known by his pen name Arne Dahl, the Scandinavian writer first published Watching You in 2016, which tells the story of Stockholm-based detective, Sam Berger, and his attempts to find a serial killer following the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl. As the case unravels, it reveals sinister connections with Berger’s own life.

Showtime’s drama series Ray Donovan starring Liev Schreiber will not be getting a final chapter, and the Season 7 finale, which aired on January 19, will now stand as a series finale. Schreiber’s Donovan was an at-all-costs fixer for the rich and famous originally from South Boston who worked in Los Angeles and later New York. He did whatever it took to get the messy jobs done — all while trying to protect his family and keep his ex-con dad (Jon Voight) from mucking things up. 

Chris Pratt is eyeing a return to television as the star in and executive producer of The Terminal List, a TV series based on Jack Carr’s bestselling novel. The Terminal List is a conspiracy thriller that combines elevated action with deep psychological questions about the cost of pushing our nation’s highest trained operators too far. The series follows Reece (Pratt) after his entire platoon of Navy SEALs is ambushed during a high-stakes covert mission. Reece returns home with conflicting memories of the event and questions about his culpability. However, as new evidence comes to light, Reece discovers dark forces working against him.

Tom Hiddleston is set as the male lead in White Stork (formerly known as Spadehead), a 10-episode Netflix political thriller series about the paradox of truth in a post-truth world. The British drama series follows James Cooper (Hiddleston), who is selected to run for a seat in parliament. Asher Millan is sent to vet him for primetime but she quickly uncovers potentially damaging secrets buried deep in James’s past—secrets that will threaten to blow everything apart – his career, his marriage, even the powerful people backing his campaign.

Toni Collette is set to star in the thriller, Pieces of Her, for Netflix. The eight-episode series is based on a novel of the same title by Karin Slaughter and centers on Andy Oliver and her mother, Laura (Collette). A random act of violence in their Georgia hometown sets off a chain of events that leaves Andy desperate for answers. She embarks on a dangerous journey that draws her toward the dark, hidden heart of her family.

Kingdom alum Kiele Sanchez has been cast as a female lead in CBS’s drama, The Lincoln Lawyer, based on Michael Connelly’s series of bestselling novels. The Lincoln Lawyer centers on Mickey Haller, an iconoclastic idealist who runs his law practice out of the back of his Lincoln Town Car, as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles. Sanchez will play Lorna, Mickey’s second ex-wife and a constant confidante who works as his office manager, running the business side of Mickey’s practice while he traverses the town in his Lincoln.

The CW added The 100 star Lindsey Morgan as the new partner for Jared Padalecki in the reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger. She'll play Micki, a Texas-born-and-bred police officer with military experience who is tired of taking crap just because she's a woman. The reboot series will take Padalecki's character back to Austin after a two-year undercover stint following the death of his wife. The no-nonsense lawman will attempt to reconnect with his estranged children and rebuild family bridges, while also digging into the increasingly suspicious circumstances surrounding his wife's death.

Mark Feuerstein (Prison Break) and Kelli Williams (The Practice), are set for key recurring roles opposite Michael Chiklis in Coyote, Paramount Network’s one-hour scripted drama series. Coyote is the story of Ben Clemens (Chiklis), who, after 32 years as a border patrol agent, is forced to work for the very people he spent his career trying to keep out of America. Now exposed to life on the other side of the wall, Ben will start to question his black-and-white views of the world, challenging his ideology and his loyalties.

Medalion Rahimi, who has recurred on NCIS: Los Angeles as Special Agent Fatima Namazi since last season, has been promoted to series regular on the CBS drama series. Rahimi’s Namazi is an all-American LA native from the 90210 who is a Middle East specialist and a kickass cryptological technician who proves to be an invaluable asset to the NCIS: LA team.

The short-form, mobile-only streaming service Quibi launches in April and released a trailer for one of its first big titles, Most Dangerous Game. The project is a contemporary take on the famous old short story by Richard Connell about a rich guy hunting a poor man, with Christoph Waltz playing the "hunter" and Liam Hemsworth the "prey."

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer Bill Duncan, author of the Rafferty Private Eye series, on the Crime Cafe podcast.

New York Times bestselling author and former Special Forces Officer, Brad Taylor, joined Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover to talk about his latest Pike Logan thriller, Hunter Killer.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro welcomed P.L. Katz to discuss his debut novel, Disorder.

On the latest Writer's Detective Bureau podcast host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson talked about security clearances, FBI Resident Agencies, government budgets, and how chain of command works on a task force.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Lee Goldberg about his latest thriller, Lost Hills, in which a detective’s brutal first case could make or break her career.

THEATRE

The Sydney Opera House announced that American Psycho – The Musical will be presented in the Sydney Opera House Playhouse June 4-12, returning after a successful season at the Hayes Theatre Company in 2019 that earned the musical nine Sydney Theatre Awards. Based on Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 controversial best-selling novel, American Psycho, and the film of the same name, the play is a chilling yet wickedly comedic insight into a society driven by capitalism, self-image and wealth. Starring Ben Gerrard, the dark social satire tells the story of Patrick Bateman, a young and handsome member of Manhattan’s elite who indulges in sadistic sex and murder.

The Florida Repertory Theatre will present A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder beginning February 11. Set in the elegant Edwardian era, the story traces the brilliant trajectory of Monty Navarro—a charmer, seducer and avenger—on his quest for recognition and family fortune.

Norwich Theatre Royal in Norwich, UK, will host the touring production of Curtains, February 11-15. The murder-mystery-musical plot centers on Jessica Cranshaw, star of the new Broadway-bound musical Robbin Hood, who's been murdered on stage on opening night, with the entire cast and crew suspects. Time to call in the local detective, Frank Cioffi, who just happens to be a huge musical theatre fan. With a nose for crime and an ear for music, Frank has his work cut out trying to find the killer while giving the show a lifeline.

FFB: Mistletoe from Purple Sage

Barbara Burnett Smith (1947-2005) did voiceover work in radio and television commercials for two decades and also owned a company that provided communication and leadership classes. But as the daughter-in-law of mystery writer Thomas B. Dewey, Barbara was bitten by the writing bug herself and joined a writers group that included feedback from authors Susan Rogers Cooper and Jeff Abbott. The result was Writers of the Purple Sage, nominated in 1994 for an Agatha Award for best first mystery novel.

That first novel introduced a series featuring Jolie Wyatt, a radio station reporter and aspiring writer who went on to be the protagonist in four more books, including Mistletoe from Purple Sage in 1997. Mistletoe opens with Jolie celebrating the publication of her first book as she and her husband travel to Austin for the Christmas holidays. She's also promised to attend an anniversary party for her former employer, Rose Sterling Advertising Agency, which she's dreading because her ex-lover also happens to be the owner's son-in-law. But when an employee turns up dead in the women's bathroom during the party, Jolie finds that instead of unwrapping presents, she becomes wrapped up in the case.

Barbara also wrote a standalone with radio disc-jockey Cassie Ferries and began another cozy mystery series in 2005 featuring beader Kitzi Camden. But the second book in that series had to be completed by Barbara's friend Karen MacInerney when tragedy struck Barbara down at the far-too-young age of 57 while on an act of mercy. She and her husband were driving to San Antonio to rescue an Airedale, and on the way home, they stopped at the Remember the Alibi mystery bookstore. When the dog jumped out of the car and ran into traffic on that dark and rainy night, Barbara was fatally injured when struck by a car.

Publishers Weekly said of Barbara's first novel that the characters were well rounded and "Purple Sage promising as a rich setting for future tales from this talented newcomer." The character of Jolie Wyatt has also been described as a fiercely independent, highly sympathetic narrator who handles herself with characteristic wit and aplomb. It could easily be said that the same character assessment makes an appropriate epitaph for Burnett-Smith, too.

Mystery Melange

As many of you may already know, Mary Higgins Clark, the "Queen Of Suspense," passed away this past weekend. Simon & Schuster President and CEO Carolyn K. Reidy said that "Beginning in 1975 with the publication of Where Are The Children?, each of her 56 books has been a bestseller...[and] there are more than 100 million copies of her books in print in the United States." Higgins Clark didn't began publishing in her late 40s, but her formula of "placing her characters into perilous situations and often triumphing," proved to be a winner with her legions of fans. Higgins Clark was 92.

Northern Virginia Noir at the Bar returns February 16 at Busboys and Poets in Shirlington, co-sponsored by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Sisters in Crime Chessie Chapter, and Level Best Books Day. There will be readings and signings from Kathleen Barber, Karen Cantwell, Shawn Cosby, Patrick Hyde, Ellen Clair Lamb, Ken Lawrence, Shawn Simmons, and Art Taylor. Josh Pachter will also be on hand to serve as host of the proceedings.

Join a panel discussion Saturday, February 22 at Clean Prose, London's first co-working space for writers. Lucy Foley (The Hunting Party), Andrew Wilson (A Talent for Murder) and Mia Emilie (The Watchers Trilogy), will be in discussion with J C Bernthal and Brittain Bright to explore how crime and detective novels are constructed and what makes the perfect ending.

On Saturday, February 29th, at the Paisley Book Festival in the UK, the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers (composed of Mark Billingham, Stuart Neville, Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Luca Veste, and Doug Johnstone) will "murder songs for fun hither and yon" as well as sign books.

CrimeFest 2020 announced that Lynda La Plante, Laura Lippman, and Robert Goddard will be among the authors headlining the crime fiction convention this summer. Up to 150 authors will descend on Bristol appearing in over 50 panels delving into diverse topics from politics to historical crime, the golden age of crime fiction to police procedurals, serial killers to cozy crime. There will also be a panel on crime fiction reviewers, honoring the late Marcel Berlins, and a "Ghost of Honour" remembering Dick Francis. Other authors on the bill for CrimeFest's 11th year include Dreda Say Mitchell, Sarah Pinborough, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Lynne Truss and Zoë Sharp. Sponsored by Specsavers, CrimeFest will take place from June 4th to 7th at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel.

Think your book has a knock-'em-dead opening sentence? If so, you can submit it to the ThrillerFest Best First Sentence Contest. To qualify to enter, you must be an ITW member or registered for ThrillerFest XV (2020). Winners will be announced on Wednesday, July 8, 2020 at the CraftFest luncheon.
 

Otto Penzler has taken sole ownership of the Mysterious Press and added it to his publishing company, Penzler Publishers. Penzler founded Mysterious Press in 1975 but it has been an imprint at Grove Atlantic for the past nine years (which will bring out 10 titles this year). Beginning in 2021, the Mysterious Press will be distributed by Norton, which also distributes two other imprints of Penzler Publishers: American Mystery Classics, which is issuing hardcover and trade paperbacks of Golden Age detective novels; and Scarlet, which will release its first list of psychological and domestic suspense titles in the fall. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

It's no secret I adore libraries and librarians (thanks, Mom!). Even the humble bookmobile has a fascinating history.

It's getting harder for crime writers to keep up with all the latest technology for their books. Case in point, a new proof-of-concept study used a highly sensitive mass spectrometry method to date fingerprints. If the techniques works, crime lab scientists will be able to pin down the exact time the fingerprint was left.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Hugh Chaffin" by David Cranmer.

In the Q&A roundup, The Guardian spoke with Nora Roberts, a/k/a JD Robb, about her writing routine and how she's managed to publish 220 novels in two different genres; The Telegraph of India featured an interview with Ann Cleves about her writing and the "recipe for creating the perfect sleuth"; and C.J. Tudor chatted with Crime by the Book about The Other People, her inventive new thriller following a father on the hunt for his missing daughter.

Author R&R with Alex Marwood

Since both her grandmothers were successful novelists (Margaret Kennedy and Leonora Starr/Dorothy Rivers), it's only natural that Alex Marwood would eventually turn her hand to the genre after an initial career as a journalist across the British press. Her first novel, The Wicked Girls, was shortlisted for the ITW, Anthony, and Macavity awards, included in Stephen King’s Ten Best Books of the Year list, and won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. The Killer Next Door, her second novel, won the coveted Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel and was nominated for the Anthony and Barry. 

Her latest is The Poison Garden, a novel about cults and cult thinking. When divorcee Sarah Byrne agrees to foster a teenage niece and nephew she never knew she had, she quickly finds that the challenges of parenthood are greatly multiplied when the children have grown up in a cult. Eerie, blonde children who finish each other’s sentences and, though fascinated by the outside world have no interest in adopting its values, they politely block her attempts to bond, fail to make friends, and quickly attract the attention of bullies at school. Soon, Sarah is wondering if she has made a terrible mistake.

Meanwhile their adult half-sister Romy is placed in a hard-to-let flat by Heathrow airport, alone and searching for her siblings in a world filled with mysteries and dangers. Romy, pregnant with a child that she believes to be the future savior of humanity, is looking for a way back to what remains of her former community. And the only way she will be allowed back into the fold is to rid the world of pretenders to her baby’s crown. Pretenders who include her own fifteen-year-old sister…

Alex explains more about writing the novel:

When I started writing this book, I fully intended to make it as straightforward as it could be, coming off the back off The Darkest Secret, which was quite a headache to write. But the more research I did, the more complex the whole thing became, because cults, in the end, are all about how we relate to the world, the assumptions we make and our desire to get along, and the fact that all of those elements of the human character are more easily manipulated and exploited than we like to believe. So it’s about power—the taking and seceding of it—about family, about the wish to belong and the wish to do the right thing, and how those drives can be turned against you. It’s about the power of ideas and how becoming too rigid in your beliefs will make you a prisoner. It’s about the human ability to fight literally to the death against ideas that challenge the ones we hold dear.

[The inspiration is] so many things. It’s a subject that’s always interested me. The world as it is at the moment is full of them—they seem to be coming from every side, from anti-vaxxers to flat earthers to Trumpites and Antifa in the States and Corbynites and both sides of the Brexit debate in the UK, Extinction Rebellion everywhere. And, of course, the twisting of belief that led to Al Quaeda and, later, ISIL. Cults are literally everywhere, right down to the microcosmic cultism you see in the eyes of your average narcissist in the full flow of an ego-protecting tantrum. This book’s been a long time coming, honestly.

I’m very slow, because I always think I’m going to plot ahead of time and always lose endless time to going up the blind alleyways before I accept that I’m not that sort of writer.

So once I really start, it’ll be from character. I’ll have the setup—in this case, the mass suicide at Plas Golau and the stories of the ones who survived, and some loose idea—happy or tragic outcome, not much more than that—of where I’m going to go with it, but then I just have to write thousands and thousands of words exploring the people and their world before I finally know them and hit the place where the book itself begins. Things often reshape and reshape as I’m going along. A couple of times I’ve literally not seen a huge twist coming until I was in the middle of writing it, though when I go back I’ll see that I’ve completely set things up to lead to that point, subconsciously.

It’s very wasteful and I’ll never manage to be a book-a-year writer as a result, but it’s the only way I know how to write. I’m also an obsessive editor as I go along. I’ve been writing a TV script of The Darkest Secret with a wonderful, patient American collaborator, and I’ve been driving him half-mad with my “God, can we go back and redraw those last three episodes before we go on please?” ways—but I think he’s actually starting to accept my approach, up to a point. I am really envious of people who can do a vomit draft and then rework it into something readable, but I just can’t. Carrying on writing when I know that something isn’t right yet fills me with a paralyzing existential dread.

You can learn more about Alex Marwood and her books via her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Poison Garden is now available via all major online and brick-and-mortar booksellers.

Bang-Up Barrys

The team at Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine have announced the 2020 Barry Award nominations. Congrats and good luck to all!

Best Novel

THE LOST MAN, Jane Harper
IF SHE WAKES, Michael Koryta
METROPOLIS, Philip Kerr
THE BORDER, Don Winslow
YOUR HOUSE WILL PAY, Steph Cha
THIRTEEN, Steve Cavanagh

Best First Novel

THE CHESTNUT MAN, Soren Sveistrup
THE SILENT PATIENT, Alex Michaelides
AMERICAN SPY, Lauren Wilkinson
SAVE ME FROM DANGEROUS MEN, S. A. Lelchuk
SCRUBLANDS, Chris Hammer
TO THE LIONS, Holly Watt

Best Paperback Original

THE GODMOTHER, Hannelore Cayre
WINNER KILLS ALL, R. J. Bailey
KILLING QUARRY, Max Allan Collins
FATE, Ian Hamilton
MISSING DAUGHTER, Rick Mofina
NO GOOD DEED, James Swain

Best Thriller

MISSION CRITICAL, Mark Greaney
BACKLASH, Brad Thor
THE CHAIN, Adrian McKinty
THE BURGLAR, Thomas Perry
TRUE BELIEVER, Jack Carr
WHITE HOT SILENCE, Henry Porter

Best Mystery/Crime Novel of the Decade

GONE GIRL, Gillian Flynn
NOVEMBER ROAD, Lou Berney
SUSPECT, Robert Crais
THE DRY, Jane Harper
THE BLACK HOUSE, Peter May
CARTEL, Don Winslow

Audio Accolades

The Audio Publishers Association announced this year's finalists for the annual Audio awards in twenty-four categories. Stephen King will receive a lifetime achievement award at the gala, to be held March 2 in New York City. Here are the nods for best Mystery and Thriller/Suspense:

Mystery

• Along Came a Spider (25 anniversary edition) by James Patterson, narrated by Taye Diggs, published by Hachette Audio
• The Boy by Tami Hoag, narrated by Hillary Huber, published by Brilliance Publishing
• The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup, narrated by Peter Noble, published by HarperAudio
• The Lost Man by Jane Harper, narrated by Stephen Shanahan, published by Macmillan Audio
• The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke, narrated by Will Patton, published by Simon & Schuster Audio

Thriller/Suspense

• Blood in the Water by Jack Flynn, narrated by Dion Graham, published by Recorded Books
• Freefall by Jessica Barry, narrated by Hillary Huber, Karissa Vacker, and MacLeod Andrews, published by HarperAudio
• The Institute by Stephen King, narrated by Santino Fontana, published by Simon & Schuster Audio
• Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman, narrated by Susan Bennett, published by HarperAudio
• Winter Dark by Alex Callister, narrated by Ell Potter, published by Audible Originals

Some crime fiction titles were also included among the finalists for best narrator:

Best Female Narrator

• All the Lost Things by Michelle Sacks, narrated by Cassandra Morris, published by Hachette Audio
• The Boy by Tami Hoag, narrated by Hillary Huber, published by Brilliance Publishing
• Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, narrated by Marin Ireland, published by HarperAudio
• Prime Suspect by Lynda La Plante, narrated by Rachel Atkins, published by Zaffle
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, narrated by January LaVoy, published by Hachette Audio

Best Male Narrator

• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, narrated by Tom Hanks, published by HarperAudio
• Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer, narrated by Robert Petkoff, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny, narrated by Robert Bathurst, published by Macmillan Audio
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, narrated by JD Jackson, published by Penguin Random House Audio
• Watership Down by Richard Adams, narrated by Peter Capaldi, published by Blackstone Publishing

Media Murder for Monday

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

AWARDS

The British Academy of Film and Television handed their BAFTA Awards last night, the British version of the Oscars. There were a few honors for crime dramas, including Joaquin Phoenix winning Best Actor for Joker and Brad Pitt winning Best Supporting Actor for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. Composer Hildur Guđnadóttir also continued her string of accolades this year with a Best Original Score nod for Joker.

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Jodie Foster has come on board to direct an untitled drama about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa. Bill Wheeler is writing the screenplay, based on the book, The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa, by Seymour Reit. The robbery, which took place at the Louvre in Paris, was perpetrated by Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, who believed Leonardo da Vinci’s painting should have been displayed in Italy. Peruggia kept the painting for two years and was caught when he attempted to sell it to the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Paramount Pictures has set Ron Howard to direct The Fixer, based on a Tyler Hisel script. It tells the true story of a disgraced FBI agent who's tapped by the CIA during the height of the Cold War to lead a ragtag team of CIA operatives and Chicago mobsters on an unlikely mission to try to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Lethal Weapon 5 has had trouble getting off the ground (the last installment coming 22 years ago). However, director Richard Donner and producer Dan Lin recently revealed that Lethal Weapon 5 is on track to eventually being made. Lin said, "We’re trying to make the last Lethal Weapon movie. And Dick Donner’s coming back. The original cast is coming back. And it’s just amazing. The story itself is very personal to him. Mel and Danny are ready to go, so it’s about the script."

An official trailer dropped for The Burnt Orange Heresy. Art critic James Figueras (Claes Bang) and his lover, fellow American Berenice Hollis (Elizabeth Debicki), travel to the estate of powerful art collector Cassidy (Mick Jagger), who asks James to steal a masterpiece from the studio of a famous artist (Donald Sutherland).

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NBC has given a formal pilot order to Langdon, a drama based on Dan Brown’s best-selling thriller novel The Lost Symbol. Langdon is conceived as a prequel and follows the early adventures of famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who must solve a series of deadly puzzles to save his kidnapped mentor and thwart a chilling global conspiracy.

True Detective creator, Nic Pizzolatto, and one of the show's original stars, Matthew McConaughey, are reuniting for Redeemer, a drama series which landed a script-to-series commitment at FX. Created by Pizzolatto and inspired by Patrick Coleman’s debut novel The Churchgoer, Redeemer stars McConaughey as a minister-turned-dissolute security guard "whose search for a missing woman in Texas leads him through a corruption-steeped criminal conspiracy, as his past and present impact and entwine around a mystery of escalating violence and deceit."

Twelve years after The Practice and Boston Legal ended their runs on ABC, David E. Kelley is returning to the broadcast network with the drama The Big Sky. Based on The Highway, the first book in C.J. Box’s Cassie Dewell series of novels, the procedural thriller follows private detective Cassie Dewell, who partners with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana.

CBS has given a pilot green light to The Equalizer, a reimagining of the classic series with Queen Latifah starring and executive producing. This new take is based on the character played by Edward Woodward on the original series and by Denzel Washington in the movie franchise, a retired intelligence agent with a mysterious past who uses the skills from a former career to exact justice on behalf of innocent people who are trapped in dangerous circumstances.

Author Andy McDermott’s spy thriller, The Persona Protocol, has been optioned by Universal TV, while Headline has picked up another two books by the author. The Persona Protocol follows Adam Gray—an agent implanted with experimental technology that lets him temporarily take on the memories and personality of others—as he hunts down a global terrorist conspiracy. The two more thrillers acquired by Headline for a potential series are based on McDermott's novels featuring globe-trotting archaeologist Nina Wilde and ex-SAS soldier Eddie Chase.

The CW has given a pilot order to Kung Fu, a reimagining with a female lead of the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series. In the reimagined version, a young Chinese-American woman drops out of college and goes on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice…all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and is now targeting her.

Epix’s noir drama series Perpetual Grace, LTD will wrap with a limited-run conclusion instead of a second season. While received very well by critics and fans, the series didn't find a wide enough audience. The show premiered in June 2019 and stars Jimmi Simpson as the young grifter, James, as he attempts to prey upon Pastor Byron Brown (Ben Kingsley), who turns out to be far more dangerous than James suspects—Byron and his wife Lillian (Jacki Weaver), known as Pa and Ma, have used religion to bilk hundreds of innocent people out of their life savings.

Margarita Levieva is set to star in the international spy thriller, In From the Cold, which has received an eight-episode series order by Netflix. During a European vacation with her daughter, an American single mother’s life is turned upside down when the CIA forces her to confront her long-buried past as a Russian spy who was also the product of a highly classified KGB experiment granting her special abilities.

Deadline reported that Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) has been tapped for a recurring role in the second season of CBS’s summer action-adventure series Blood & Treasure. The show stars Matt Barr and Sofia Pernas in a globe-trotting action-adventure drama about a brilliant antiquities expert and a cunning art thief who team up to catch a ruthless terrorist who funds his attacks through stolen treasure. In the same Deadline report, Sarah Minnich (Better Call Saul) is set to recur opposite Rosario Dawson in USA Network’s new crime anthology series Briarpatch, which follows Allegra Dill (Dawson), a dogged investigator returning to her border-town Texas home after her sister is murdered.

A trailer was released for Quibi's upcoming series The Fugitive, a reboot of the Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones movie (and the 1960s TV series that inspired it). The project stars Boyd Holbrook and Kiefer Sutherland playing all-new characters engaged in a similar game of cat-and-mouse...with a 21st century twist.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about the Edgar Award nominees and some genre-crossing SFF mysteries.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Chad Dunas to chat about his new mystery, The Blaze.

Bestselling author Joseph Finder joined Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover to discuss his latest book, House on Fire, featuring private investigator Nick Heller.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up featuring the mystery short story "Bark Simpson and the Scent of Death" by Alan Orloff, read by actor Sean Hopper.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, welcomed Nick Feldman to talk about his Mina Davis series.

The Writer's Detective Bureau podcast, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took up the topics of isolation and quarantine orders by Public Health, how jurisdiction usually works for narcotics cases, and using Search and Rescue teams in searching for a missing child.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Eugenia Lovett West about her latest novel, Firewall.

The latest podcast from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine features a story by one of crime fiction's most celebrated critics, Francis M. Nevins, a former law professor who has also authored a number of well-received novels and short stories. Nevins reads his story "Night of Silken Snow" (which first appeared in the November 1994 issue of EQMM) with Christine Gilsinan.