It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Elisabeth Moss and Blumhouse are developing a feature adaptation of the upcoming Virginia Feito psychological thriller novel, Mrs. March, a project in which the multi-Golden Globe and Emmy winning actress will play the titular character. Mrs. March follows a polished Upper East Side housewife who unravels when she begins to suspect the detestable protagonist of her husband’s latest bestselling novel is based on her. Feito will write the screenplay and executive produce.
Spyglass Media has optioned the rights to False Assurances, the debut bestselling novel from Christopher Rosow. The story is set in motion when the FBI Boston field office gets a hoax call, with a man claiming his sailboat was hijacked and used to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the United States. A presidential visit to Boston that night requires an investigation into the claims, and the FBI dispatches admin staffer Ben Porter, a laid-back millennial and the opposite of Jack Ryan in almost every way.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Idris Elba will star in and produce a new romantic spy thriller for Apple TV, teaming up with X-Men and Murder on the Orient Express producer, Simon Kinberg. Though plot details are being kept under wraps, the film is said to be in the vein of another Kinberg project, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which he wrote back in 2005, and will combine action and romance elements in the spy genre. Travon Free, a writer on The Daily Show, wrote the screenplay.
CBS’s CSI event series has been quietly moving forward, with William Petersen and Jorja Fox in negotiations to star in CSI: Vegas, which will serve as a sequel to the mothership series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Casting is under way for four new characters who will join Petersen’s Gil Grissom and Fox’s Sara Sidle. Although CSI: Vegas has not been officially ordered, its filming is eyed to begin in the fall when COVID conditions permit Hollywood production to resume safely.
Wonder Woman 1984 star, Connie Nielsen, and Doctor Who’s Christopher Eccleston are set to star in the psychological drama, Close to Me, a six-part serial adaptation of British author Amanda Reynolds’s novel. The project tells the story of Jo Harding (Nielsen), a woman who has a seemingly perfect life with her partner (Eccleston) until a fall erases an entire year from her memory. As she struggles to piece events together, Jo discovers that her life was in fact far from perfect, with someone trying to keep a terrible secret from her.
AMC Networks-owned streamer UMC has ordered the legal drama, Lace, with a six-episode order for its first season. The series will follow a prolific Los Angeles attorney who often blurs the lines between right and wrong to protect her rich and powerful clientele. It is currently casting and the producers are in talks with Jamal Hill, who helmed the Netflix feature, Deuces, to direct.
The CBS dramas NCIS and its spinoff NCIS: Los Angeles have been assigned tentative dates to start production on their upcoming seasons under strict COVID-19 protocols: Sept. 9 for the mothership series and Sept. 3 for NCIS: LA. As is the case with any attempts to restart production during the pandemic, the dates are not set in stone and might easily be pushed as conditions related to the spread of the coronavirus change daily.
Spectrum Originals has set a new premiere date for the Gabrielle Union-Jessica Alba series, L.A.’s Finest, after delaying the cop drama earlier this summer. The series will return for its second season on Wednesday, Sept. 9, when all 13 episodes are made available on-demand to Spectrum subscribers. A spinoff of the Bad Boys film series, L.A.’s Finest features Gabrielle Union reprising her role as Syd Burnett from 2003’s Bad Boys II. Now an LAPD detective, Syd is paired with a new partner, Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba).
FilmRise is launching its first original production, the forensic investigative series, Bloodline Detectives, hosted by Nancy Grace. The twenty-episode syndicated series will feature criminal investigations using familial DNA and premiere nationwide October 3 on stations reaching nearly 90% of the country followed by a roll out on streaming platforms in 2021.
Netflix has dropped the first trailer for Young Wallander, which premieres on September 3 and tells the story of detective Kurt Wallander’s first case as a recently graduated police officer in his early 20s. Swedish actor Adam Pålsson features in the eponymous role alongside Argo’s Richard Dillane and Black Mirror’s Leanne Best. Pålsson takes on the mantle of Wallander after he was previously played by Kenneth Branagh in a BBC adaptation of Henning Mankell’s novels.
ITV has commissioned an extended second season of its odd-couple detective series, McDonald & Dodds, starring Jason Watkins (The Crown) and Tala Gouveia (Cold Feet). The show features BAFTA-winner Watkins as Detective Sergeant Dodds, a modest and unassuming figure, who is thrown together with Detective Chief Inspector Lauren McDonald, a feisty crime fighter from London’s Metropolitan Police. McDonald & Dodds is set against the backdrop of the historic British city of Bath, in southwest England, and is created and executive produced by Shetland writer, Robert Murphy.
Peacock has handed a series order to the young-adult mystery drama, One of Us is Lying, and has tapped Darío Madrona, co-creator of Netflix’s Elite, as showrunner. The streaming service has given the adaptation of Karen M. McManus’s novel an eight-episode order after ordering a pilot last year. One Of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five high schoolers walk into detention and only four make it out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The Crime Writers of Color podcast spoke with J. L. Brown, author of the Jade Harrington mystery novels.
On the Crime Cafe podcast, Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer Ann Aptaker, author of the Cantor Gold mystery novels, which have won Lambda Literary and Goldie Awards.
Writer Types featured a "cornucopia of accents on the show this week as four authors from all over the world discuss four very different books." Special guests included Gigi Pandian, David Joy, Poppy Gee, and Jax Miller.
Laury A. Egan visited the Gay Mystery Podcast to talk about her novels which include Jenny Kidd, an LGTBQ suspense set in Venice, and the literary suspense novel, Wave in D Minor.
On the latest Read or Dead podcast, hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about a new Megan Abbott book; Unsolved Mysteries; cold cases and more.
T. Jefferson Parker was the guest on Speaking of Mysteries to discuss Then She Vanished, the fourth installment in his series about the Fallbrook, CA-based private investigator, Roland Ford.
Beyond the Cover chatted with Laurell K. Hamilton about her current release, Sucker Punch.
Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Joseph Reid to talk about Departure, the latest installment in his Seth Walker series about an air marshal turned investigator who solves crimes in and around aviation.
Writer/producer/director, Michael Elias, stopped by It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club to discuss his new novel You Can Go Home Now, which features a tough Queens detective with a series of cold case homicides on her desk – men whose widows had the same alibi: they were living in Artemis, a battered women’s shelter, when their husbands were killed.
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