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 Golden Globe Awards announced the nominees for 2021, in a year severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and theatre closings/production delays. There weren't a lot of crime drama nods among the film selections, although The Trial of the Chicago 7 made the list for Best Drama, with Aaron Sorkin also nominated for Best Director. The dark comedy thriller, Promising Young Woman, also was nominated for Best Drama, as was its director, Emerald Fennell, and lead actress, Carey Mulligan. The other Best Actress nods included Andra Day for The United States vs. Billie Holiday, in which the FBI launches an undercover sting operation against the legendary jazz singer, and on the Best Actor side, Tahar Rahim was nominated for his role in The Mauritanian, a true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi's experience of being held for fourteen years without charge in Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
The TV side also had a few crime drama honors, notably Ozark and Ratched for Best Drama Series, and the dark crime comedy, The Flight Attendant, for Best Musical/Comedy Series. For Best Actor in a Drama Series, Bryan Cranston was nominated (Your Honor) as was Hugh Grant (The Undoing). Best Actress in a Drama Series nods included Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Laura Linney (Ozark), and Sarah Paulson (Ratched).
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) also announced the nominees for their annual awards. Among the crime/thriller dramas there are Da 5 Bloods and The Trial of the Chicago 7 competing for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, and on the TV side, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series includes Better Call Saul and Ozark.
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Following the successful launch of The White Tiger, filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, author Aravind Adiga, and Netflix have set their next collaboration for the big screen, Adiga's 2020 novel, Amnesty. Set in Australia, the story centers on Danny, an undocumented immigrant who cleans houses and realizes he has information about the murder of one of his employers. Over the course of one tense summer day, Danny plays a cat-and-mouse game with the man he suspects to be the murderer, but he realizes that if he speaks up, he will be deported.
Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and New Republic Pictures (NRP) have signed on to produce Queen Bitch & The High Horse, which will be directed by the female writing/directing team Bert & Bertie. The project is inspired by the largest municipal fraud in American history and follows Penny Banks, an ambitious woman whose passion for civic duty was eclipsed by her love for horses. As she rises the ranks of city hall, she embezzles millions to fund a show horse empire.
Ruth Wilson is set to co-star in Searchlight’s untitled murder mystery, to be directed by Tom George and to co-star Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, David Oyelowo, and Adrien Brody. Written by Mark Chappell, the script is set in 1950s London where a desperate Hollywood film producer sets out to turn a popular West End play into a film. When members of the production are murdered, world-weary Inspector Stoppard (Rockwell) and overzealous rookie Constable Stalker (Ronan) find themselves in the midst of a puzzling whodunit within London’s glamorous Theatreland and sordid underground.
Jennifer Lopez is reteaming with Netflix to star in and produce the action feature, The Mother, which Mulan director Niki Caro is in talks to direct. Lopez will play a deadly female assassin who comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men.
Warner Bros. has announced that Those Who Wish Me Dead, a neo-Western film starring Angelina Jolie, has slotted its release date for May 14 (debuting both in theaters and on HBO Max). Based on Michael Koryta’s 2014 novel of the same name, the film follows a teenager who witnesses a murder and finds himself being pursued by twin assassins in the Montana wilderness. Though there is a survival expert tasked with protecting him, a forest fire threatens to destroy them all.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Fox has put in development Red Widow, a one-hour CIA thriller based on Alma Katsu’s forthcoming book. The story revolves around the lives of two female CIA agents that become intertwined around an internal threat to the Agency’s Russia Division, as they navigate the mostly male world of intelligence. Author and former NSA/CIA senior intelligence analyst, Katsu, is attached as an executive producer
Stone Village Television has acquired TV rights for Alex Michaelides' second thriller, The Maidens, which will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in June 2021. The Maidens is said to weave together Greek mythology, psychology, and murder to deliver a "spellbinding" literary thriller. Michaelides first novel, The Silent Patient, debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list at No.1 in 2019.
Amazon has commissioned its first true-crime series, Gefesselt (working title). Produced by Neue Bioskop and directed by Florian Schwarz, the six-part show describes the search for the so-called "acid barrel killer," who terrorized Hamburg between 1986 and 1992. He was finally hunted down only by the courageous efforts of a woman who was not part of the actual investigating team, but who, as a contact person for the relatives of the victims, picked up the trail of the perpetrator and had to assert herself against resistance within the police.
ABC has handed a pilot order to National Parks, a drama written by actor Kevin Costner, Aaron Helbing, and author Jon Baird. The one-hour drama, formerly known as ISB, follows a small group of elite National Park Service agents as they solve crimes while protecting the parks — which, while being known for their sweeping, beautiful landscapes, also attract a vast array of criminal activity.
In her broadcast debut, two-time Oscar winner, Renée Zellweger, is set to headline and executive produce the limited series, The Thing About Pam, which has been greenlighted by NBC with a six-episode straight-to-series order. The project is based on the real-life murder of Betsy Faria, which resulted in her husband Russ’s conviction. He always insisted that he did not kill her, and his conviction was later overturned as the brutal crime set off a chain of events exposing a diabolical scheme involving Pam Hupp (Zellweger).
Becki Newton is set as a lead opposite Manuel Garcia-Rulfo in The Lincoln Lawyer, Netflix’s drama series based on Michael Connelly's bestselling novels. Additionally, Jazz Raycole and Angus Sampson, who had been cast in the project’s previous incarnation at CBS, have made deals to continue in their roles on Netflix. The moves round out the main adult cast, which also includes Neve Campbell, who had started the casting process with an offer for the CBS pilot. The Lincoln Lawyer revolves around Mickey Haller (Garcia-Rulfo), an iconoclastic idealist, who runs his law practice out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles.
Eddie Izzard, Jo Joyner, and Andi Osho are joining Cush Jumbo and James Nesbitt in the cast of Harlan Coben’s Netflix drama, Stay Close. Other previously announced cast members include Richard Armitage, Sarah Parish, Daniel Francis, Bethany Antonia, Rachel Andrews, Poppy Gilbert, and Hyoie O’Grady. The eight-part drama will follow three key characters whose dark secrets resurface and set off a chain of events that threatens to destroy their lives.
Newcomer Candace Grace has been tapped as the lead in Sam Esmail’s ABC drama pilot, Acts of Crime. Also joining as series regulars are Molly Price, Peter Mark Kendall, and newcomer Josiah Cross. Written and directed by Esmail, Acts of Crime is described as "a unique spin on the crime procedural," although no other details have been revealed. Grace will play Vivien Lamonte, a Black police detective working homicide in suburban New Jersey, whose early years were spent on the wrong side of the law. Price plays Captain Gunn, while Kendall will play Todd, a spry rookie detective who went to law school but decided that he wanted to "catch the bad guys" instead of prosecuting them.
Bones alumna Tamara Taylor is set as a lead opposite Christopher Meloni and Dylan McDermott in Law & Order: Organized Crime, NBC’s Law & Order: SVU spinoff series slated to premiere later this year. In Law & Order: Organized Crime, Elliot Stabler (Meloni) returns to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. Stabler will aim to rebuild his life as part of a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one. NBC has set April 1st as the premiere date, which is a two-hour crossover with SVU.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The latest Crime Writers of Color podcast featured E. A. Aymar (a/k/a E. A. Barres), author of They’re Gone, as interviewed by Robert Justice.
Meet the Thriller Author's special guest this week was Walter Mosley, whose books have won numerous awards and have been translated into more than twenty languages. Mosley is the author of the acclaimed Easy Rawlins series of mysteries.
Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, James H. Roby, a former Air Force officer and author of the Urban Knights thriller series, for the Crime Cafe podcast.
Writer Types chatted with German best seller, Sebastian Fitzek, about his new novel, The Package and Isabella Maldonado about her new series starter, The Cipher; debut author Fiona King Foster also chatted about her novel, The Captive; and in a new segment, Jason Pinter and Nick Petrie discussed long-running series and how to keep up the quality.
Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Daniel Pyne to dicsuss his new thriller, Water Memory, featuring former black ops expert turned private security contractor, Aubrey Sentro.
Suspense Magazine's podcast sat down with Victoria Thompson, as she talked about her latest book, City Of Schemes, the fourth installment in her Counterfeit Lady series.
The featured guest on My Favorite Detective Stories was James D.F. Hannah, Shamus Award-winning author of the Henry Malone series, as well as the novel, The Righteous Path.
Mick Herron returned to the Spybrary Podcast to discusses his latest novel, Slough House, which takes a look at the corrupt web of media, global finance, spycraft, and politics that power our modern world.
Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Lawrence Maddox about his new novella, The Down and Out.
Queer Writers of Crime welcomed Edwin Hill, the author of critically-acclaimed crime novels Watch Her, The Missing Ones, and Little Comfort. He has been nominated for Edgar and Agatha Awards and was recognized as one of "Six Crime Writers to Watch" in Mystery Scene magazine
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club podcast offered a roundup of romantic suspense titles.
The latest episode of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's podcast included a story by Edward D. Hoch, who had a thirty-five-year streak of unbroken publication in each issue of Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine until his death in early 2008. EQMM editor Janet Hutchings read his story "The Man Who Drowned in Champagne," from the April 1998 issue.
On The Writer's Detective Bureau, host and veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, talked about transporting an inmate from federal custody to testify in state court, creating realistic clandestine drug lab scenes, and the realities of cops using drones for an aerial search.
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