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
Village Roadshow Pictures has optioned The Prize, a spec feature written by Chris Sparling (Buried; Greenland), with Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales co-director Espen Sandberg also on board the project. The conspiracy thriller follows an American private investigator who travels to Stockholm after the suspicious death of an old friend, a ranking member of the Nobel Prize selection committee. Once there, he becomes entangled in a dangerous web of corruption and crime that exists beneath the surface of the powerful and rarefied circle.
A trailer was released for Death on the Nile, with Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Ali Fazal, and Sophie Okonedo leading an all-star cast that also sees Kenneth Brannagh returning as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Fox has given a script commitment with penalty to a one-hour drama based on Joshilyn Jackson’s bestselling suspense novel, Never Have I Ever. Adapted by Nurse Jackie co-creator, Liz Brixius, the project revolves around a friendly book club of suburban moms that becomes the perfect feeding ground for a charismatic new neighbor with a penchant for blackmail.
NBCUniversal's Canadian production company, Lark Productions, has pulled together a female-led creative team that includes Avengers actress Cobie Smulders to adapt Amy Stuart’s "Still" series of novels for TV (including Still Mine, the sequel Still Water, and the recently released third novel in the series, Still Here). The first novel features Clare O’Dey, a woman on the run from an abusive husband who becomes embroiled in the search for the truth about the suspicious disappearance of a local woman in a small mining town; in Still Water, Clare uses her newfound investigative skills to unravel another disappearance from a women’s shelter; and in the third novel Still Here, Clare tracks two missing persons, including the private investigator, Malcolm, who set her on her journey.
Annapurna Pictures has teamed with Janicza Bravo (of the upcoming Zola), to write and direct a series adaptation of Ian Parker’s New Yorker article, "A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions," with Jake Gyllenhaal attached to star. Published in February 2019, Parker’s article explores the complex life of former book editor Dan Mallory, whose debut psychological thriller, The Woman in the Window (written under the pseudonym A.J. Finn), was number one on the New York Times Bestseller list, the first debut novel to do so in twelve years. The author's many false claims will be the inspiration for the series, which will follow an unreliable narrator who nurses brain tumors he does not have and mourns family members who are not dead while preying on people’s sympathy to get away with almost anything.
Aleyse Shannon (Charmed) has been set as a new series regular in IMDb TV’s Leverage reboot, a new incarnation of the 2008 crime drama from Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment. The Leverage sequel is described as "a fresh update of the original concept, about reformed crooks using their unique skills to right corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on common citizens." Shannon will play a hacker and joins fellow new star to the series, Noah Wyle, who will play Harry Sullivan, a corporate lawyer looking for redemption after realizing he’d been on the wrong side of the table for his entire career. Returning cast members include Beth Riesgraf, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, and Aldis Hodge, although it was announced embattled actor Timothy Hutton will not be returning for the follow-up.
There will be no second season for Penny Dreadful: City of Angels after Showtime cancelled the series. The show was set in 1938 Los Angeles amid social and political tension as a grisly murder shook the city, and was a sequel to the original Penny Dreadful program that aired from 2014-16 on Showtime and Sky. Penny Dreadful: City of Angels starred Nathan Lane, Natalie Dormer, Daniel Zovatto, Kerry Bishé, Rory Kinnear, Adriana Barraza, Michael Gladis, Jessica Garza, and Johnathan Nieves.
World Productions has resumed filming on its BBC One submarine thriller, Vigil, starring Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie. Produced in Glasgow, Scotland, the show was forced to shut down earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but filming is now back underway with safety protocols. The BBC released a first-look image of the six-part series, which tells the fictional story of how the disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler and a death onboard a Trident nuclear submarine create conflict between the police, the Royal Navy, and intelligence services.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
John A. Hoda, the host of My Favorite Detective Show, chatted with Mark Edward Langley about his series featuring ex-marine Arthur Nakai—who spent years as a member of the Shadow Wolves, an ICE tactical unit tasked by the US government to hunt human traffickers and drug smugglers on the US/Mexico border.
The latest Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast featured the first two chapters of the mystery novel, Homebody, written by Louise Titchener and read by actor Casey Ballard.
The Seattle Public Library's Thrilling Tales podcast recently offered short story readings including such classics as E. Phillips Oppenheim's "The Reckoning with Otto Schreed" (1922), and the G. K. Chesterton story, "The Hammer of God" (1910) featuring Father Brown. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)
The Documentary on One podcast profiled Sam Millar, whose life reads like pure fiction: after joining the IRA as a teenager, he spent years on the notorious blanket protest in Northern Ireland and later admitted to taking part in a seven million dollar armed robbery in the US before starting a new life as a writer of award winning crime novels.
Criminal Mischief host, Dr. DP Lyle, took on the topic of "Nasty Deadly Poisons." Although crime writers have long loved poisons in their plots, especially arsenic, there are other more uncommon, and deadly, options for a murder mystery.
Writer Types welcomed debut thriller writer, David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Winter Counts), along with authors Johnny Shaw (The Southland) and Jospeh Reid (Departure).
This latest special guest on Speaking of Mysteries was Robert Pobi, discussing Under Pressure, the second installment in his series featuring Dr. Lucas Page—an astrophysicist who also happens to be a best-selling author and professor, former FBI agent, and world-class misanthrope.
Meet the Thriller Author was joined by John Gilstrap, the New York Times bestselling author of a series with hostage rescue specialist Jonathan Grave, and a screenwriter who's been contracted to write and co-produce the film adaptation of his book, Six Minutes to Freedom.
Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, tackled "Vehicle Tampering Clues, Trademarks, and Notice of Warrant Service."
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed C. M. Gleason to discuss her novels in the Lincoln's White House Mysteries series.
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