In Reference to Murder

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:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Bruce Willis and John Travolta are teaming up for the first time since Pulp Fiction in the Chuck Russell-directed action film, Paradise City. Willis plays renegade bounty hunter, Ryan Swan, who must carve his way through the Hawaiian crime world to wreak vengeance on the kingpin who murdered his father (played by Travolta). Deadline noted that the project is billed as "being similar to Miami Vice but with bounty hunters instead of cops." Thai actress and model, Praya Lundberg, has landed the lead female role.

Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, and Kathryn Hahn are set to join Daniel Craig in the next Knives Out installment from Netflix. Dave Bautista was also recently cast, joining Craig who is reprising the role of super sleuth Benoit Blanc. Rian Johnson is back to write and direct the pic and will produce with his partner Ram Bergman. Plot details for the sequel are unknown at this time, other then Craig’s Blanc returning to solve another mystery revolving around a large cast of suspects. It is also unknown who Norton, Bautista, Monáe, and Hahn will be playing in the project.

Russell Crowe has committed to star in Poker Face, a Gary Fleder-directed thriller. The film has Crowe playing Jake, a tech billionaire who gathers his childhood friends to his Miami estate for what turns into a high stakes game of poker. Those friends have a love-hate relationship with the host, a master game-player/planner who has concocted an elaborate scheme designed to bring a certain justice to all of them. However, Jake finds himself re-thinking his strategy when his Miami mansion is overtaken by a dangerous home invader whose previous jobs have all ended in murder and arson.

Focus Features has set The Northman for release in April 2022. The film is a Viking revenge drama directed by Robert Eggers that stars Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Björk, the Icelandic singer who is appearing in her first film since 2005. It was shot in Iceland and is described as an "epic revenge thriller" that explores how far a Viking prince will go to seek justice for his murdered father.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Working Title Television has nabbed rights to Stacey Abrams’s new novel, While Justice Sleeps, to adapt as a television series. The legal thriller follows Avery Keene, a brilliant young law clerk for the legendary Justice Howard Wynn, who is doing her best to excel in an arduous job with the court while also dealing with a troubled family. When the shocking news breaks that Wynn – the cantankerous swing vote on many current high-profile cases – has slipped into a coma, Avery’s life turns upside down. She is immediately notified that Wynn has left her with power of attorney and instructions for her to serve as his legal guardian.

Netflix and Legendary Productions are moving forward with a sequel to Enola Holmes, and Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill are set to reprise their roles as Enola and Sherlock Holmes. Harry Bradbeer is returning to direct, with Jack Thorne, who penned the first, writing the script for the sequel. The film is based on Nancy Springer’s Edgar Award-nominated book series, The Enola Holmes Mysteries, which comprises six books in total.

Peacock is back for more of the dramedy private eye series, Psych, ordering a third movie based on the cult favorite USA series. Psych 3: This Is Gus will be the second film to be available on the NBCUniversal-backed streaming service. In preparation for a shotgun wedding before the birth of Baby Guster, Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez) and Groomzilla Gus (Dulé Hill) go rogue in an attempt to track down Selene’s (Jazmyn Simon) estranged husband, as Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) grapples with the future of his career.

24's Kiefer Sutherland will play a private spy in his latest TV series in an untitled espionage drama that has been ordered by Paramount+. It is Sutherland’s latest small-screen role after a brief stint on Quibi’s The Fugitive, which premiered on the short-lived shortform service last August. The series stars Sutherland as private espionage operative, James Weir, who finds himself in the midst of a battle over the preservation of democracy in a world at odds with misinformation, behavioral manipulation, the surveillance state, and the interests that control these extraordinary powers.

In more Paramount+ news, CBS announced that the dramas SEAL Team and Clarice will be moving from CBS to the streaming service in their next seasons. Clarice, based on the character from The Silence of the Lambs by author Thomas Harris, will move to Paramount+ beginning with its upcoming second season. SEAL Team, currently in its 4th season, will kick off season 5 in the fall with a run of episodes aired on CBS, before making the jump to Paramount+.

CBS also announced it is cancelling All Rise after two seasons. All Rise followed the chaotic, hopeful, and sometimes absurd lives of its judges, prosecutors, and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks, and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal process. It starred Simone Missick as Judge Lola Carmichael.

ITV announced lead casting for the adaptation of Val McDermid’s DS Karen Pirie series (based on the author's first Pirie novel, The Distant Echo). Outlander actress, Lauren Lyle, will play Pirie, who is tasked with reopening an historic murder investigation that has been the subject of a provocative true crime podcast.

Betty Gilpin and Dan Stevens have joined the cast of Starz’s upcoming Watergate series, Gaslit. Based on Slate’s "Slow Burn" podcast, Gaslit stars Sean Penn as Richard Nixon’s loyal attorney general, John Mitchell, with Julia Roberts playing Mitchell’s Arkansan socialite wife, Martha. Gilpin and Stevens will play the infamous couple, Mo and John Dean, the young duo who were wrapped up in the political scandal while John was serving as a White House lawyer under the Nixon administration. Also joining the cast as series regulars are Shea Whigham as G. Gordon Liddy and Darby Camp as Marty Mitchell.

Brian Van Holt has been tapped for a key role opposite Kate McKinnon’s Carole Baskin and John Cameron Mitchell’s Joe "Exotic" Schreibvogel in Joe Exotic (working title), Peacock’s limited series based on the Wondery podcast. Holt will play John Reinke, the zoo manager at Joe’s (Mitchell) zoo, a loyal worker and friend until things go too far.

Amazon announced that the seventh and final season of the acclaimed cop drama, Bosch, will launch all eight episodes on Amazon Prime June 25. The series is based on the novels by Michael Connelly and stars Titus Welliver as Detective Harry Bosch.

ABC cancelled the legal drama, For Life, but Sony Pictures TV, which co-produces the show with ABC Signature, said they will shop the series to other buyers including Hulu. The series was inspired by the life of Isaac Wright Jr., who was wrongfully convicted as a drug kingpin but got his conviction overturned while in prison and became a licensed attorney. The show centers on an imprisoned man, Aaron Wallace (played by Nicholas Pinnock), who becomes a lawyer litigating cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.

Five episodes into its freshman run, ABC’s Katey Sagal-starring drama Rebel has also been cancelled. Inspired by the life of activist Erin Brockovich, the series centers on Annie "Rebel" Bello (Sagal), a blue-collar legal advocate without a law degree. She’s a funny, messy, brilliant and fearless woman who cares desperately about the causes she fights for and the people she loves.

ABC also took a pass on the crime drama pilot, Acts of Crime, written and directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. The project was described as "a unique spin on the crime procedural," although no other details had been revealed.

However, ABC has picked up a fourth season of cop drama, The Rookie. Created by Alexi Hawley, The Rookie stars Nathan Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie at the Los Angeles Police Department.

NBC has given a second-season order to Law & Order: Organized Crime, the series that brought Christopher Meloni’s Elliot Stabler character back to the venerable franchise for the first time in 10 years. The show revolves around the NYPD organized crime unit led by Stabler, with Danielle Moné Truitt, Tamara Taylor, Ainsley Seiger, and Dylan McDermott also starring.

Fox has ordered the anthology series, Accused, from Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa, and Alex Shore, the minds behind House and 24. The project is based on the BBC’s BAFTA-winning crime anthology, where each episode opens in a courtroom, with the accused not knowing their crime or how they ended up on trial, and is told from the defendant’s point of view.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Gar Anthony Haywood, author of In Things Unseen, was interviewed by Robert Justice on the Crime Writers of Color podcast.

The latest Mysteryrats Maze podcast features the first chapter of the mystery novel, In Dog We Trust, by Neil Plakcy, as read by actor Thomas Nance.

Suspense Radio welcomed Phillip Margolin to the show for the first time to talk about his latest book, A Matter of Life and Death.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Carter Wilson, author of seven critically acclaimed, standalone psychological thrillers, including his latest, The Dead Husband.

P. J. Vernon was the featured guest on Queer Writers of Crime. Called a "rising star thriller writer" by Library Journal, Vernon's debut, When You Find Me, was both an Audible Plus #1 Listen and an Associated Press Top Ten U.S. Audiobook.

Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Abir Mukherjee about his award-winning historical Wyndham and Banerjee series, his podcast (The Red Hot Chili Writers), tolerance, laziness, and a little bit of both Scottish and British history.

My Favorite Detective Stories sat down virtually with Lisa Gray, who previously worked as the Chief Scottish Football Writer at the Press Association and books columnist at the Daily Record Saturday Magazine. Her debut novel, Thin Air, was a besteseller, with the follow-up novel, Bad Memory, long-listed for the McIlvanney Prize.

Writer's Detective Bureau host, Adam Richardson, talked about processing a crime scene in a car when it's raining; who works a homicide case involving a white-collar crime suspect; strategies for writers to engage with cops about writing; and details about the two new courses he's launching this summer.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club discussed The Last Tea Bowl Thief by Jonelle Patrick.

Edgar Award Winner, Rosalie Knecht, talked to Crime Time FM host, Paul Burke, about her new novel, Who is Vera Kelly; New York in the 60s; CIA and US foreign policy; and noir fiction.

Quote of the Week

FFB: The Summer School Mystery

Josephine Bell is the pen name of Doris Collier Ball (1897-1987), who became a University College Hospital of London physician and married fellow doctor Norman Dyer Ball. After her husband died in a car accident in 1936, the tragedy pushed Bell to try her hand at writing, although she also maintained her medical practice until the age of 57. She continued to write full time until she was 85, creating numerous sleuths in over forty novels and several short stories, including Amy Tupper, Dr. Henry Frost and Dr. David Wintingham. She was a co-founder of the Crime Writers' Association, serving as its chair in 1959, and a member of the Detection Club.

It's the idealistic Dr. David Wintringham who is featured in Bell's novel from 1950, The Summer School Mystery. The school in the title refers to the summer music school at Falconbury, which proves to be more eventful than any of the students or lecturers could have imagined. The school is in the country, but many of the pupils and their instructors have traveled from the Royal School of Music in London. Derek Fox and his fiancée Belinda Power fail to turn up on time and nobody knows where they are. When the body of Belinda is discovered inside one of her own timpani, suspicion falls on Derek, who turns to Dr. Wintringham for help. But Derek is not forthcoming with information leaving David with little to go on. What is Derek hiding? And who killed Belinda if Derek is innocent?

It's been said that Bell's fiction marks a transition from British Golden Age style, in a society facing prewar industrial depression, wartime restrictions, and postwar austerity at the time that Bell began writing, which also served as the backdrop in many of her books. Dr. Wintringham is the type of professional working-man sleuth featured in such works, a physician at Research Hospital in London, who is married with four children and a frequent consultant to his friend Inspector Mitchell of Scotland Yard. Wintringham appeared in 18 novels and proved his skill at spotting incorrect medical diagnoses as well as clues left at crime scenes.

Bell was popular in her native England, but her novels didn't cross the Pond until 1955. Black Dagger Crime has brought back a few of her novels in print over the past several years, but in general, her books aren't easy to find.

Mystery Melange

This year's Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction, which celebrates the work of crime and thriller writers who are from or whose work celebrates the North East region of the UK, has been won by writer Robert Scragg for his novel, Helix. The judges took the unprecedented decision to also formally award Newcastle author Barbara Scott Emmett with the award's first ever runners-up prize, for her submission, Dog Leap Stairs.

The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance has announced the slate of finalists for the 2021 Maine Literary Awards. The nominees for the Book Award for Crime Fiction include Claire Ackroyd for Murder in the Maple Woods; Bruce Robert Coffin for Within Plain Sight; and Barbara Ross for Jane Darrowfield and the Madwoman Next Door.

After a year’s hiatus, the Wilbur Smith Award for Best Published Adventure Novel award has returned with a 12-strong longlist. The Prize is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English, and this year the award covers the best adventure fiction published between May 1, 2020 and April 30, 2021. Six titles will be selected by a panel of librarians and library staff for a shortlist to be announced on May 20, with the winner announced September 8. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Joffe Books, in conjunction with bestselling crime writer Dorothy Koomson and literary agent Susan Yearwood, is launching a new writing prize for unagented crime fiction writers of color to turn their unpublished manuscripts into bestsellers. The winner will receive a two-book publishing contract with Joffe Books. Entrants are invited to submit their full-length manuscript, written in English, along with a synopsis of the book and author biography, to [email protected] before the closing date of September 30. (HT to Shots Magazine)

New editions of five hardboiled detective novels by Chester Himes, featuring Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones, have been released as a set of Penguin Classics. As Crime Fiction Lover notes, Himes was an American crime fiction genius who is still underappreciated, and it's hard not to conclude that over the years racism has played a part in African-American Himes not being accorded the same status as Chandler and Hammett.

During the Covid-19 era, there has been a lot of sad news in the book world, especially with many bookstores having to close. So it's especially cheering to hear that there's a new indie bookstore that opened in Berlin, Pennsylvania, in the middle of the pandemic:  Poe's New & Used Bookstore, which specializes in fantasy and mystery titles (as you might gather from the name). The building also has space for local artists and crafters to sell their products, and the owners hope to have events such as poetry nights, literary events and fun community events. They also recently announced the Poe's Rainbow Grant for Young Writers. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Martin Edwards penned a tribute to crime writer, Annabel Donald, who passed away recently at the age of 76. Donald created a female TV researcher and detective called Alex Tanner in her Notting Hill series, beginning with An Uncommon Murder in 1992.

Writing for CrimeReads, Otto Penzler profiled Mary Roberts Rinehart, "America's answer to Agatha Christie." One of the mystery writers from Golden Age (the years between the two World Wars), Rinehart made the list of top ten bestselling books for each year in the 1920s five times, a feat matched only by Sinclair Lewis during that same period.

A real-life crime worthy of a mystery novel: a man in Tennessee allegedly paid a hitman with bitcoin to murder his wife (and even the BBC is involved).

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Finis" by Rena J. Worley.

In the Q&A roundup, Indie Crime Scene interviewed J. Luke Bennecke, whose newly released novel Waterborne is set during a pandemic - but was written two years ago; NPR spoke with Stacey Abrams about how a constitutional quirk inspired ner new thriller, While Justice Sleeps; author Amy Rivers talked about craft and her new thriller, Complicit, with the Dark Phantom blog; and Hank Phillippi Ryan offered up some writing advice in a chat with Keri-Rae Barnum.

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:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Oscar-nominated actor, Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), is making her feature directing debut with the psychological thriller, Pale Horse, scheduled to shoot this fall. Set in the Pacific Northwest, Pale Horse follows Naia, an esteemed, yet reclusive African-American YA book author who is living with MS. When Naia decides to shelter the man who escaped captivity with her long-missing brother, she finds herself caught up in a diabolical mystery.

According to Deadline, Warner Bros won a "wild spec auction" for the Tyler Marceca script, Stay Frosty, with Idris Elba attached to star and Sam Hargrave to direct. The story follows a man who has to figure out who wants him dead and why after miraculously surviving a bullet to the head. He needs to stop the assassin while still making it back home in time to spend Christmas with his son. As Deadline notes, it gives Elba a franchise play in a vehicle that is a bit of a John Wick-type character in a throwback to ’80s high-action Christmas movies that include Die Hard and Lethal Weapon.

Production has begun in Puerto Rico on Emmett/Furla Films's thriller, The Fortress, with Jesse Metcalfe, Bruce Willis, Chad Michael Murray, and Kelly Greyson starring for director Cullen Bressack. The franchise has been constructed as a trilogy, with the second and third installments shooting back-to-back. The story was written by Alan Horsnail and revolves around a top-secret resort for retired U.S. intelligence officers. A group of criminals led by Balzary (Murray) breach the compound, hellbent on revenge on Robert (Willis), forcing the retired officer and his son (Metcalfe) to save the day.


Blair Underwood (Quantico) is set to direct, produce, and star in Viral, an indie thriller from York Films. Underwood plays Andrew, who falls into paranoia after his wife goes missing. The only way out of the self-destructive cycle seems to be through his new girlfriend Emilia, but she has her own psychological trauma to deal with. Are they strong enough to get past their own nightmares and mental illnesses to find true happiness together? The film originally was set to shoot last year but was postponed due to the pandemic.

Blake Lively (The Rhythm Section) is set to star in and produce the Netflix original film, Lady Killer, based on the Dark Horse Comic of the same name, with Oscar winner Diablo Cody writing the screenplay adaptation. Lively will play Josie Schuller, who gives every appearance of being the perfect 1950 housewife but who leads a secret live as a trained killer for hire when she’s not catering to her family’s needs.

Ben Mendelsohn is set to star opposite Daisy Ridley in Neil Burger’s upcoming psychological thriller, The Marsh King’s Daughter, based on Karen Dionne’s thriller of the same name. Mendelsohn will play Jacob Holbrook, the infamous "Marsh King," who years ago kept his young daughter, Helena, and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. After a lifetime of trying to escape her past, the now grown Helena (Ridley) is forced to face her demons when her father unexpectedly returns.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

MRC Television and Johnson and Bergman’s T-Street banner have optioned Don Winslow’s bestselling debut novel, A Cool Breeze on the Underground, the first in a five-book series that will be developed for the small screen. Bad Education director, Cory Finley, will write, direct and executive produce, and Winslow will also serve as an executive producer. Winslow was a private detective when he wrote that first novel, long before his bestselling The Cartel trilogy (in production at Fox) or The Force (in production at 20th Century Studios). A Cool Breeze on the Underground introduces Neal Carey as he becomes a private investigator working for a covert New England organization called The Bank, which caters to exclusive wealthy clients. He’s assigned to find the rebellious teen daughter of a prominent senator who has gone underground in the violent London punk scene, rife with crime, drugs and danger.

NBC has picked up another Law & Order spinoff, this time going inside a criminal defense firm. Titled Law & Order: For the Defense, the new series will "take an unbiased look inside a criminal defense firm." Carol Mendelsohn (CSI) will serve as showrunner and executive producer alongside franchise boss Dick Wolf. For the Defense joins Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which has been renewed through Season 24, and the most recent addition to the franchise, Law & Order: Organized Crime, which marked longtime SVU star Christopher Meloni’s return after ten years away from the show.

Dick Wolf is also moving into half-hour drama with his latest series set at Amazon’s IMDb TV. Deadline reported that the free streaming service has ordered On Call, which follows a pair of police officers on patrol in Long Beach, CA. Each episode will track the duo as they respond to a new radio call, arriving on the scene to resolve an incident.

Elizabeth Olsen will play infamous Texas ax murderer, Candy Montgomery, in a limited series on HBO Max. Love and Death, written by David E. Kelley and directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, is the second streaming limited series project to revolve around Montgomery, who killed her church-going friend with an ax in the 1980s. (Elisabeth Moss is playing Candy in a Hulu series from Robin Veith with Nick Antosca). The HBO Max version is based on the book, Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs, and a collection of articles from Texas Monthly.

The Crown star, Claire Foy, is set to lead a new thriller from streamer BritBox U.K. The eight-part thriller, Marlow, centers on feuding families the Marlows and the Wyatts, who have existed in the "Edgelands" of the Thames Estuary for centuries. Foy stars as Evie Wyatt, who was born and bred in the Estuary and returns to the Edgelands — the place where she lost her father to a firestorm 15 years ago — in search of answers. However, drawn back into conflict with the Marlow clan, Evie finds herself in a battle with its ageing patriarch, Tom Marlow.

Fox has ordered its immigration/mob-crime drama pilot, The Cleaning Lady, to series for the 2021-22 season. The show stars Elodie Yung as a whip-smart doctor who comes to the U.S. for a medical treatment to save her ailing son. But when the system fails and pushes her into hiding, she becomes a cleaning lady for the mob and starts playing the game by her own rules.

USA Network has firmed up the cast for its upcoming Nash Bridges revival, which will return as a two-hour movie with stars Don Johnson (Nash Bridges), Cheech Marin (Joe Dominguez) and Jeff Perry (Harvey Leek) reprising their roles. Joining them are new cast members Diarra Kilpatrick, Bonnie Somerville, Joe Dinicol, Alexia Garcia, Angela Ko, and Paul James. The movie brings Johnson and Marin back together as elite investigators for the San Francisco Police Department Special Investigations Unit.

The Irregulars has been canceled by Netflix after one season, which is surprising considering it came in at No. 1 on Nielsen’s Top 10 SVOD rankings the week after it premiered. Based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and set in Victorian London, "The Irregulars" follows a gang of troubled street teens who are manipulated into solving crimes for "the sinister Doctor Watson and his mysterious business partner, the elusive Sherlock Holmes." As the crimes take on a horrifying supernatural edge and a dark power emerges, it’ll be up to the Irregulars to come together to save not only London but the entire world.

ABC renewed the freshman drama, Big Sky, for a second season. The series, which is based on The Highway series of books by C.J. Box, stars Katheryn Winnick and Kylie Bunbury. Bunbury plays Cassie Dewell, a private investigator who runs the Dewell & Hoyt agency, while Winnick plays Jenny Hoyt, an ex-cop-turned-private investigator who, despite being separated from her husband (briefly played by Ryan Phillippe), still does freelance work for the agency. The pair have joined forces to search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana.

The CW network renewed Kung Fu for a second season. The series follows a young Chinese American woman, Nicky Shen (played by Olivia Liang), whose quarter-life crisis causes her to drop out of college and go on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to San Francisco, she finds her hometown is overrun with crime and corruption, and her own parents Jin (Tzi Ma) and Mei-Li (Kheng Hua Tan) are at the mercy of a powerful Triad. Shen relies on friends, her martial arts skills, and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice…all while searching for the ruthless assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor Pei-Ling (Vanessa Kai) and is now targeting her.

ITV crime drama, Grace, starring John Simm, has been renewed for season two following the broadcast of just one episode. The drama debuted earlier this year with a feature-length episode, and the positive response was enough to warrant a commission for season two. The first episode, based on Peter James’s Roy Grace books, debuted back in March this year, featuring Simm (Doctor Who and Life on Mars) leading the cast as the titular Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.

Chad Rook is set for a recurring role in Joe Pickett, Spectrum Originals’s drama series based on C.J. Box’s bestselling novels. Joe Pickett follows a game warden (Michael Dormann) and his family as they navigate the changing political and socio-economic climate in a small rural town in Wyoming. Surrounded by rich history and vast wildlife, the township hides decades of schemes and secrets that are yet to be uncovered. Rook will play Deputy McLanahan.

Jamie McShane is joining CBS’s CSI: Vegas, a sequel to the mothership CSI series, in a recurring role. Additionally, Paul Guilfoyle, who played Jim Brass on the original, will return to reprise his role in the sequel series, appearing in two episodes. The sequel series opens a new chapter in Las Vegas, the city where it all began. Facing an existential threat that could bring down the Crime Lab, a brilliant team of forensic investigators must welcome back old friends and deploy new techniques to preserve and serve justice in Sin City. McShane will play Anson Wix, a civil attorney.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Suspense Radio welcomed back bestselling author J.A. Jance to talk about her latest book, Missing and Endangered.

The latest Mysteryrats Maze podcast features the short story "Not a Penny More" (Strand magazine) written by Jon Land and read by actor Larry Mattox.

Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Mariah Fredericks about Death of a Showman, the fourth installment of her series featuring lady’s maid Jane Prescott.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Mia P. Manansala, a writer and book coach from Chicago who loves books, baking, and bad-ass women. Her debut novel, Arsenic and Adobo, was released May 4 and is the first in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club highlighted three Hispanic mystery authors.

Literature professor, Tammy Bird, stopped by Queer Writers of Crime to chat about her gritty suspense and thriller stories including her latest novel, The Book of Promises, set in North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Matt Fitzpatrick stopped by Wrong Place, Write Crime to discuss his Justin McGee series.

Writers Detective Bureau was back from a hiatus with host, Adam Richardson, interviewing Marc Cameron about his career in the US Marshals Service, advice for a successful writing career, and details on his new book, Bone Rattle.


The Read or Dead podcast looked at crime novels that feature dinner parties gone wrong.

Quote of the Week

FFB: Monkey Puzzle

Paula Gosling was born Paula Osius in 1939, the daughter of an inventor in Detroit, Michigan. She tried her hand at poetry at Wayne State University and later at a Detroit advertising agency, but wasn't happy. In 1964, she headed to England in search of romance, intrigue and adventure, eventually meeting her husband, Christopher Gosling, whom she married in 1968.

Although divorced after only nine years of marriage, she kept the Gosling surname as she started writing her books. Perhaps she felt she owed him her literary start, because it was loneliness when he was away working that led her to start writing to pass the time. The result was A Running Duck in 1974, which won the CWA's John Creasey Award for the best first novel of the year and was named in 1990 as one of the CWA's Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.

Many books followed, mostly standalones at first, including one paranormal book penned under the name Ainslie Skinner. Eventually she created her first series, with Detective Chief Inspector Luke Abbot, and another, the Blackwater Bay series, she set near the Great Lakes with Sheriff Matt Gabriel as protagonist. A third series, which she also set in the U.S., was launched in 1985 with Monkey Puzzle, a police procedural centered around homicide Lieutenant Jack Stryker, which won the 1985 CWA Gold Dagger Award.

Money Puzzle takes place primarily around Grantham University in Ohio, when one of the English professors, Aiken Adamson, is murdered and his tongue cut out. The professor was despised by all of his colleagues for collecting and hoarding secrets about them like the human equivalent of a thieving magpie. Hours before his death, all of the department members were with Adamson at a sherry reception, giving each of them opportunity for murder, in addition to the various motives they had—personal and professional rivalries, envy, sexual intrigue and blackmail.

As Detective Stryker digs deeper into the case, he realizes he has secret ties of his own to one of the professors, Kate Trevorne and starts to fall for her, despite the fact her boyfriend and fellow English prof is the prime suspect. Although at first, the murder is considered a crime of passion (the victim was a homosexual), the case soon takes a different turn when the Chairman of the Department is attacked and his ear cut off. Stryker, recovering from pneumonia, is doggedly determined to nail the culprit no matter what it takes, but when Kate is attacked and the murderer attempts to gouge out one of her eyes, the case becomes personal.

Gosling does a good job of portraying the sometimes cut-throat world of academia with its petty squabbles, jockeying for position and inter-departmental feuds. The characters are also relatively well drawn, although some might find a few cliches that date the book, i.e., the sleazy homosexual (complete with mirrors on the ceiling), an alcoholic Vietnam vet and a cop-hating young professor who participated in campus riots in the 70s. The writing carries you along at a suspenseful clip, but it can also show hints of Gosling's poetry background, like this excerpt following a snowfall:

He loved the city like this, hushed and briefly upended in it headlong run to destruction, mantled with a transient beauty that hid all the dirt and slowed all the hate. In two miles he passed only four cars, and the drivers smiled as they edged past one another in the rutted, twinkling streets. The snow made them momentary partners in adversity, witnesses of that fleeting moment in time when nobody had spoiled anything. Yet.

As a side note, Gosling's novel A Running Duck, written in 1974 (also published as Fair Game), was adapted into two separate films, one starring Sylvester Stallone, titled Cobra, and the second starring Cindy Crawford, titled Fair Game. Unfortunately, like a lot of books-to-film, the results were less than Oscar-worthy; the Stallone version was nominated for a Razzie in 1986 for worst screenplay and Metacritic listed the Cindy Crawford flick as one of its five worst movies based on a novel.

Not that Gosling was particularly worried. In a People interview, she noted she had optioned the film to Warner Bros, for a "mid-five-figure" sum and almost forgotten about it when a friend of her son's alerted her to the fact Gosling's name was in the Stallone film' credits. At the time, she said "I haven't really taken it in yet. It's all very exciting."

Mystery Melange

The longlist was released for the annual Theakston Old Peculier Novel of the Year. This year’s longlist transports readers around the world from California to Sweden and Calcutta to a remote Irish island and explores every subgenre from Scandi noir to murderous families. There are several familiar faces on the list, as well as some fresh blood. Run by Harrogate International Festivals, the shortlist will be announced in June and the winner on July 22 at the opening evening of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, with the public able to vote for the winner on harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the winners of this year's Derringer Awards. There was a tie for Best Flash Story, "Memories of Fire," by C.W. Blackwell (Pulp Modern Flash) and "War Words" by Travis Richardson (Punk Noir Magazine). There was also a tie for Best Short Story (1,001 to 4,000 words), "The Great Bedbug Incident and the Invitation of Doom," by Eleanor Cawood Jones (Chesapeake Crimes: Invitation to Murder) and "River" by Stacy Woodson (The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell). Best Long Story (4,001 to 8,000 words) went to Sarah M. Chen's "Hotelin'" (Shotgun Honey), and Best Novelette (8,001 to 20,000 words) to Art Taylor for "The Boy Detective and the Summer of ’74" (Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine). This year's recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement, annually awarded to an outstanding living writer of short mysteries and selected by a five-member panel, is Brendan DuBois. The full list of finalists can be found here.

Capital Crime announced the Amazon Publishing New Voices Award, a competition including a potential Thomas & Mercer publishing deal. Writers of unpublished mystery, thriller, and crime fiction manuscripts in English from around the world are eligible to compete for a cash prize and the potential publishing contract. Additionally, ten finalists will be considered for a potential offer of Thomas & Mercer publication, while also receiving day passes to the next Capital Crime Festival. The closing date for entries will be 3rd August 2021. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Maxim Jakubowski has been appointed the new chair of the UK's Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). He will succeed outgoing chair Linda Stratmann, after she served the maximum two-year term in the role at the organization, which aims to support and promote the literary genre and its authors. He was voted in unanimously at the CWA’s annual general meeting. Jakubowski has worked as an editor (compiling more than 120 anthologies), translator, publisher, author, and critic. Following an editorial career in both France and the UK, during which time he launched several crime imprints, including Black Box Thrillers and Blue Murder, he opened the Murder One bookstore in London.

A passing of note to report via the New York Times: Jason Matthews, who became a best-selling author of three spy thrillers after 33 years as a C.I.A. officer in Istanbul, Athens, Belgrade, Rome, Budapest and Hong Kong, died last week at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 69. His wife, Suzanne Matthews, who was also a C.I.A. officer, said the cause was corticobasal degeneration, a rare degenerative disease. In his choice of a second career, Mr. Matthews followed other intelligence officers, like John le Carré, Ian Fleming, and Charles McCarry, "who became novelists — and who brought to their writing a knowledge of recruiting and handling foreign agents, of dead drops, brush passes, honey traps, debriefings, surveillance and countersurveillance."

There is a call for submissions for the third issue of Mean Streets: A Journal of American Crime and Detective Fiction on the topic of "American Golden Age Mystery and Detective Fiction (1920-1945)." Proposals are due by July 15 with final essays due December 1. The Shots Magazine blog has more details for interested authors, including suggested topics.

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away With Murder" column is out, although he notes that it's "not in its usual place. This is due to the main website having been hi-jacked by interweb pirates (probably Russian) and sailed into the Bermuda Triangle, or whatever it is happens in these cases. As you may have gathered, I am no expert when it comes to modern technology, but those who claim to be assure me that normal service will soon be resumed." The latest editions features feautures and reviews of oldies but goodies by William Le Quex, Michael Hamilton, Len Deighton, and more, as well as some new blood.

The Guardian profiled successful art theft detective, Christopher Marinello, who has spent three decades finding missing masterpieces, recovering half a billion dollars’ worth of art. He talked about threats from mobsters, tricky negotiations – and bungling thieves.

As the Rap Sheet blog noted, Kevin Burton Smith's iconic The Thrilling Detective website has moved to a new server. Although this means some of the links around the Web may no longer be operable, all the content will be available again soon. Meanwhile, Smith has also instituted a new Dick of the Day feature, where he highlights a different private eye each day on Twitter and Facebook.

McLean & Eakin Booksellers commissioned June Apothecary to make a fragrance for the store and "Pages" is the result. "We think it speaks to the feeling you have when you put your nose between the pages of a book," the bookshop posted on Facebook. The description of the scent read, "Crisp juniper fir mixes with luscious fig and bright lemon to create this truly unique and refreshing scent. Perfect to burn all year when you are missing your favorite book store up north!"

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "The Last Windmill" by Pamela Ebel.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton interviewed mystery author, R.G. Belsky, about his latest mystery, Beyond the Headlines; Mark Billingham, author of a series featuring the country-music-loving detective, Tom Thorne, chatted about his background as a stand-up comic, scriptwriter, and rock musician; Author Interviews spoke with Anne Hillerman, who continues the Navajo detective stories featuring Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee that her father Tony Hillerman made popular, including the latest, Stargazer; and Robert Dugoni was interviewed by Publishers Weekly about book eight of the Tracy Crosswhite series, in which the eponymous detective is reassigned to the Seattle police department’s cold case unit.

Anthony Accolades

The finalists for the 2021 Anthony Awards were just announced. The Anthony Awards have been presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986 and are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America. This year's conference will take place August 25-29 in New Orleans. Here's the list:

Best Hardcover Novel​

• What You Don't See - Tracy Clark
• Blacktop Wasteland - S.A. Cosby - Flatiron Books
• Little Secrets - Jennifer Hillier - Minotaur Books
• And Now She's Gone - Rachel Howzell Hall - Forge Books
• The First to Lie - Hank Phillippi Ryan - Forge Books

Best First Novel​

• Derailed - Mary Keliikoa - Camel Press
• Murder in Old Bombay - Nev March - Minotaur Books
• Murder at the Mena House - Erica Ruth Neubauer – Kensington
• The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman - Pamela Dorman Books
• Winter Counts - David Heska Wanbli Weiden - Ecco Press

Best Paperback Original/E-Book/Audiobook Original Novel​

• The Fate of a Flapper - Susanna Calkins - Griffin
• When No One is Watching - Alyssa Cole - William Morrow
• Unspeakable Things - Jess Lourey - Thomas & Mercer
• The Lucky One - Lori Rader-Day - William Morrow
• Dirty Old Town - Gabriel Valjan - Level Best Books

Best Short Story​

• "Dear Emily Etiquette" - Barb Goffman - EQMM - Dell Magazines
• "90 Miles" - Alex Segura - Both Sides: Stories From the Border - Agora Books
• "The Boy Detective & The Summer of '74" - Art Taylor - AHMM (Jan-Feb) - Dell Magazines
• "Elysian Fields" - Gabriel Valjan - California Schemin' - Wildside Press
• "The Twenty-Five Year Engagement" - James W. Ziskin - In League with Sherlock Holmes - Pegasus Crime

Best Juvenile/Young Adult​

• Midnight at the Barclay Hotel - Fleur Bradley - Viking Books for Young Readers
• Premeditated Myrtle - Elizabeth C. Bunce - Algonquin Young Readers
• From the Desk of Zoe Washington - Janae Marks - Katherine Tegen Books
• Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco - Richie Narvaez - Piñata Books
• Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall - Alex Segura - Disney Lucasfilm Press

Best Critical or Nonfiction Work​

• Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy - Leslie Brody - Seal Press
• American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics and the Birth of American CSI - Kate Winkler Dawson - G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club - Martin Edwards, ed. - Collins Crime Club
• The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia - Emma Copley Eisenberg - Hachette Books
• Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman behind Hitchcock - Christina Lane - Chicago Review Press
• Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession - Sarah Weinman, ed. - Ecco Press

Best Anthology or Collection​

• Shattering Glass: A Nasty Woman Press Anthology - Heather Graham, ed. - Nasty Woman Press
• Both Sides: Stories from the Border - Gabino Iglesias, ed. - Agora Books
• Noiryorican - Richie Narvaez - Down & Out Books
• The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell - Josh Pachter, ed. - Untreed Reads Publishing
• California Schemin' - Art Taylor. ed. - Wildside Press
• Lockdown: Stories of Crime, Terror, and Hope During a Pandemic - Nick Kolakowski and Steve Weddle, eds. - Polis Books

 

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:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Lionsgate has acquired North American rights to Collin Schiffli’s thriller, Die in a Gunfight, with plans to release it as a multi-platform title this summer. The film is described as a modern-day take on "Romeo and Juliet" and centers on two rival families, the Rathcarts and Gibbons. Ben (Diego Boneta), a rebellious young man, falls in love with Mary (Alexandra Daddario), the daughter of his father's enemy, starting a battle full of love, lust, revenge, and betrayal.

Bruce Willis is set to star in the revenge thriller, Soul Assassin. The story begins with a woman’s husband being killed in action as part of an experimental new military program. A former black-ops soldier (Willis) then takes his place to find his killer. Jesse Atlas will direct the script, co-written with Aaron Wolfe based on their short, Let Them Die Like Lovers, which was nominated for Best Narrative Short at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Jurnee Smollett (Lovecraft Country), is boarding the Netflix movie, Lou, as star and executive producer. Smollett joins Oscar winner, Allison Janney, who is also starring (and executive producing) the Anna Foerster-directed film. Written by Maggie Cohn, the story is set in motion when a young girl is kidnapped. Her mother, with no other option, teams up with the mysterious older woman next door to pursue the kidnapper – a journey into the wilderness that will test their limits and expose dark and shocking secrets from their pasts.

This Is Us star, Justin Hartley, is joining Y’lan Noel, Cleopatra Coleman, Lex Scott Davis, and Shamier Anderson in A Lot Of Nothing. The project is described as a "dark comedy-thriller" where things spiral out of control when a married couple is compelled to take dangerous actions after discovering their next-door neighbor (Hartley) is the police officer who just murdered an unarmed motorist.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Noah Centineo has signed on to star in and executive produce a new unnamed spy thriller series for the streaming giant Netflix. Centineo will play a fledgling lawyer at the CIA who becomes enmeshed in dangerous international power politics when a former asset threatens to expose the nature of her long-term relationship with the agency—unless they exonerate her of a serious crime.

Nordic Entertainment Group has ordered the psychological crime drama, Sisterhood. The six-episode series looks into who was really responsible for a young girl’s disappearance in Iceland 25 years ago. Ambitious police detective Vera (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir), dissatisfied with the original investigation, zeroes in on an unlikely trio of successful and respectable women.

Danish actress, Clara Rugaard, is to lead the cast for Sky’s The Rising, a supernatural crime thriller that was originally inspired by Belgian drama, Hotel Beau Séjour. The eight-part series has Rugaard starring as Neve Kelly, a woman who discovers she is dead. She’s scared and confused by this new existence at first, but when she realizes she has been murdered, she’s furious. She’s determined to find her killer and get justice, believing that it was someone she knew.

Josh Hartnett is to lead Sky’s four-part adaptation of the Robert Harris financial thriller, The Fear Index, directed by David Caffrey (The Alienist). Hartnett will play Dr. Alex Hoffmann, an American ex-pat physicist, who creates an AI-driven system that exploits fear in the financial markets and operates at lightning speed to make big returns. But on the day of launch, Alex’s sanity is shaken after he is viciously attacked at his home by a man who knows all of his security codes. After more unexplained occurrences, Alex becomes convinced he’s being framed. Other cast includes Leila Farzad, Arsher Ali, and Grégory Montel.

Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars, Harry Potter) will portray John Dean in HBO's upcoming five-part series about the Watergate scandal, The White House Plumbers. At the time of Richard Nixon's reign, Dean was a young and zealous member of the White House Counsel who worked to orchestrate the illegal cover-up that ultimately ended Nixon's presidency. Gleeson joins previously announced cast members Justin Theroux (who will play G. Gordon Liddy) and Woody Harrelson (playing E. Howard Hunt). The project chronicles former President Nixon's downfall, highlighting how the so-called masterminds responsible for protecting Nixon's presidency — Giddy and Hunt — unwittingly sabotaged it. The show is based on public records and Integrity, a novel by Egil "Bud" Krogh and Matthew Krogh.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

In a jam-packed episode of Writer Types, host Eric Beetner spoke with authors Chris Whitaker (We Begin At The End), Amy Suiter Clarke (Girl, 11), and Nicci French (The Other Side Of The Door). 

Queer Writers of Crime spoke with Robyn Gigl, an attorney, author, and activist who has been honored by the ACLU-NJ and the NJ Pride Network for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. Her debut legal thriller is By Way of Sorrow.

Alyssa Cole, author of the new thriller, When No One Is Watching, was interviewed by Robert Justice for the Crime Writers of Color podcast.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Not a Penny More," written by Jon Land and read by actor Larry Mattox.

The Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast showcased novelist and short-story author, Jeff Soloway, reading his EQMM debut story from the January/February 2021 issue, "The Interpreter and the Killer," which features a central character in a job we don't see often in mystery fiction.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone featured "In Conversation: Don Winslow and Anthony Horowitz with Phil Williams" from last summer's Locked-Up Festival.

Christine Feehan was the featured guest on Suspense Radio, discussing her latest book, Lightning Game, and much more.

My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, welcomed Sheldon Siegel, best-selling author of the critically acclaimed legal thriller series featuring San Francisco criminal defense attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with UK author, Clare Whitfield, who's been a dancer, copywriter, amateur fire breather, buyer, and mediocre weightlifter. Her debut crime thriller is People of Abandoned Character.

Carmen Jaramillo stopped by Wrong Place, Write Crime to discuss "Open Up Your Heart," her novella in A Grifter's Song series, and more.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club sat down with award-winning investigative journalist, Caitlin Rother, to discuss her new true-crime book, Death on Ocean Boulevard.

Barry Forshaw hosted a new feature on the Crime Time FM podcast, where he gives insights into the world of crime drama based on the commentaries and sleeve notes he writes for new releases and reissues of books and movies.