In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

 

Mystery Writers of America has established a new scholarship program in honor of the late Barbara Neely, a trailblazing Black crime novelist who was named a Grand Master by MWA in late 2019. A novelist, short story writer, and activist, Ms. Neely was best known for creating the distinctive amateur sleuth Blanche White. Ms. Neely was to be publicly honored by her colleagues and presented with the Grand Master award at the 2020 Edgar Awards banquet, but sadly, Ms. Neely passed away in March 2020 before she could be feted and honored as she deserved. After her unfortunate passing, the organization’s board of directors received permission from Ms. Neely’s family to establish an annual scholarship in her memory for a Black crime writer. After some discussion, the MWA Board of Directors decided to give out two scholarships of $2000 each per year: one for an aspiring Black writer who has yet to publish in the crime or mystery field, and another for Black authors who have already published in crime or mystery.

Bastille Day was yesterday, but you can still celebrate with this list from Mystery Fanfare of crime fiction books set in France.

Ahead of this month's Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, the Daily Express gathered some of the world's leading thriller writers to reveal the inspirations behind their much-loved sleuths, from Vera to Inspector Rebus and more.


In a sign that things are returning to normal, the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona, hosted its first live author event since March 2020, a publication day party for T.J. Newman and her debut thriller, Falling. Owner Barbara Peters said, "We were touched and thrilled to welcome a limited number of readers into the store for our conversation which can be viewed on our FB video page."

Summer travel conjures up dreams of global vacations (at least before the pandemic). To help ease your wanderlust, Book Trib profiled "8 Historical Thrillers From Around the World."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "A Daughter Remembers Her Father" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton chatted with Monique Gliozzi about her new thriller, Facets of the Past; over at the Shots Magazine blog, John Parker spoke with John Connolly about his latest adventure featuring his troubled detective, Charlie Parker; speaking with The Guardian, Christopher Fowler explained why it was hard to let go of his detective duo of Arthur Bryant and John May who have solved their last case after twenty outings; and thriller author Karin Slaughter spoke with The Orange County Register about her new book, False Witness, and cooking with Coca-Cola.

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

Judas and the Black Messiah's director-producer and co-scribe Shaka King, along with producers Ryan Coogler and Charles D. King and star Lil Rel Howery, are collaborating on an untitled original movie centering around an American political insurrection. Details are being kept secret although Shaka King will be part of the writing team that he's currently assembling. Judas and the Black Messiah received six Oscar noms including Best Picture, and won for Daniel Kaluuya’s turn as Black Panthers chairman, Fred Hampton

Working Title has optioned rights to best-selling author Ruth Ware’s suspense thriller, The Turn of the Key. Max Minghella (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Jamie Bell (Rocketman) have signed on to write the screen adaptation of the novel, which tells the story of a young woman who stumbles across an ad to take on a position as a live-in nanny at a high-tech "smart" house in the Scottish Highlands. In spite of the extremely generous salary, a beautiful location, an incredible home and the seemingly picture-perfect family, it soon becomes clear that all is not what it seems.

Nell Tiger Free (Servant), Thomas Doherty (Gossip Girl) and Lorenza Izzo (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) will lead the cast of Fall Into Darkness, an English-language remake of Spanish thriller, La Cueva. Billed as a "Lord of the Flies survival tale," the story follows two American travelers in the Dominican Republic as they join a backpacking trip with experienced locals. When the hike takes them into the disorienting depths of a vast cave system, desperation for survival drives them to make choices that will change them forever.

Lionsgate has reportedly closed a deal for Lance Reddick to reprise his role as Charon, the concierge of New York’s Continental Hotel, in the John Wick franchise. He’s the guy who helps out Keanu Reeves’s title character whether he’s fending off bad guys or looking after Wick’s dog. Reddick joins the previously announced cast of Reeves, Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rina Sawayama, and Shamier Anderson in the Chad Stahelski-directed sequel.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Apple is set to produce a series adaptation of the Garth Risk Hallberg novel, City on Fire. The project is being developed by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who are writing the series and will all serve as showrunners and executive producers. In City on Fire, Samantha Cicciaro, an NYU student is shot in Central Park on the 4th of July with no witnesses and very little physical evidence. As the crime against Samantha is investigated, she’s revealed to be the crucial connection between a series of mysterious city-wide fires, the downtown music scene, and a wealthy uptown real estate family fraying under the strain of the many secrets they keep.

Kyle MacLachlan is set for a key role opposite Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mitchell in Joe Exotic (working title), Peacock’s limited series based on the Wondery podcast. The project centers on Carole Baskin (McKinnon), a big cat enthusiast, who learns that fellow exotic animal lover Joe "Exotic" Schreibvogel (Mitchell) is breeding and using his big cats for profit. She sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry. But Carole has a checkered past of her own and when the claws come out, Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy. MacLachlan will play Howard Baskin, Carole’s (McKinnon) even-keeled husband who supports her throughout the endeavor with Joe (Mitchell). 

Lily Rabe is set as a lead alongside Elizabeth Olsen, Jesse Plemons, and Patrick Fugit in HBO Max’s Love and Death, a limited series about the true story of Texas housewife Candy Montgomery’s murder of Betty Gore in 1980. Rabe will portray Gore opposite Olsen’s Montgomery in the series from David E. Kelley, Nicole Kidman, and Lionsgate Television. Love and Death is inspired by the book, Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs and a collection of articles from Texas Monthly. The series revolves around two churchgoing couples enjoying small-town family life in Wylie, until somebody picks up an ax. 

Kaley Cuoco is in negotiations to star in and produce the "high concept" thriller, Role Play, which follows a young married couple whose life turns upside down after secrets are revealed about each other’s past. The screenplay is from Seth Owen, also wrote the 2015 Ridley Scott produced sci-fi thriller Morgan, and is said to have "a franchise-able hook." 

Virgin River‘s Benjamin Hollingsworth is set for a recurring role in Joe Pickett, the Spectrum Originals drama based on C.J Box’s novels. The ten-part series will be headlined by Michael Dorman and also features David Alan Grier, Julianna Guill, Sharon Lawrence, Mustafa Speaks, Paul Sparks, Skywalker Hughes, and Kamryn Pliva. Joe Pickett follows a game warden (Dorman) 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. Hollingsworth will portray Ote Keeley, a big game poacher whose brazen and unpredictable behavior makes him both intimidating and a bit scary.

MASTERPIECE Mystery! released a 2021 preview video on YouTube. This year's programs include Unforgotten Season 4 with a July 11 premiere (6 episodes); Guilt, with a September 5 premiere (packaged as two, 2-hour episodes); Grantchester Season 6, with an October 3 premiere (8 episodes); and Baptiste Season 2, premiering on October 17 (6 episodes).

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On CrimeTime FM, Laura Lippman talked to Paul Burke about her new novel, Dream Girl; Baltimore; #Me TOO and racism; and why being a writer is a little like playing for a living.

The latest edition of Writer Types featured authors turned co-writers Tess Gerritsen and Gary Braver talking about their new collaboration, Choose Me; Willa C Richards discussing her debut novel, The Comfort of Monsters; and there was a panel with Palm Springs Noir contributing authors Tod Goldberg, Janet Fitch, and Barbara DeMarco-Barrett.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Susan Elia MacNeal to talk about The Hollywood Spy, the tenth installment in MacNeal’s World War Two-era series featuring Maggie Hope, a code breaker and bomb defuser.

The feature guest on Queer Writers of Crime was Christopher Murphy, an activist, artist, and author of the breakout thriller, Where The Boys Are.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime fiction writer, Richard Meredith, for the Crime Cafe podcast.

The Suspense Magazine podcast had a Q&A with Author Riley Sager (the pseudonym of a former journalist, editor and graphic designer), as he talked about his latest book, Survive the Night.

The latest guest on Meet the Thriller Author was Jeffrey James Higgins, a former reporter and retired supervisory special agent who writes thriller novels, creative nonfiction, short stories, and essays.

The Red Hot Chili Writers chatted with regular contributor, Amit Dhand, about his new book, The Blood Divide, and with Tariq Ashkanani about his thriller, Welcome to Cooper. Tariq also told us about the Capital Crime New Voices Award, which is open to anyone who wants to write a crime novel.

Killer Thrillers

FFB: A Different Kind of Summer

Gwendoline Butler (b. 1922) had limited success as a writer before she began a police procedural series featuring a young Scotland Yard Inspector, John Coffin, penning eight Coffin novels between 1956 and 1962. When Butler's husband took a job teaching in St. Andrews, Scotland, the author decided she wanted a change from Coffin and found her inspiration one day when she saw a young red-haired Scottish policewoman. She later asked the local police chief about the young officer and was told she was a recent graduate on a rapid promotion track. Thus was born the character of Detective Charmian Daniels of the fictional Deerham Hill CID and, as some have given credit to the author (written under her pen name of Jennie Melville), the birth also of the woman's police procedural.

Butler also dipped her pen into the romantic suspense well for a time, evening receiving a Romantic Novelists Association Major Award in 1981, but eventually returned to both Inspector Coffin and Detective Daniels. She went on to write over 70 novels and was a recipient of the Crime Writers Association Silver Dagger in 1973 and shortlisted for the Golden Dagger for another novel.

One critic elevated Butler to a status equal to the Four Great Founding Mothers: Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh, not only due to their writing, but in light of how many other elements they had in common: all well-educated (Butler lectured at Oxford), all prolific writers, all wrote on subjects other than detective fiction, and four of the group had supportive husbands. If she is not as well remembered as the others, it may be due to the fact that writers who she helped paved the way for, such as P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, eventually eclipsed her in acclaim.

Butler's writing of her female detective, Charmian Daniels, shows elements of early feminism and as the character grew through the years, Detective Daniels also reflected the changing roles of women and attitudes toward them, particularly in a traditional man's field, law enforcement. Daniels grows in her career through time and is eventually promoted to Chief Superintendent with a move to Windsor. In an interview with Clues: A Journal of Detection in 2000, Butler said, "I was determined she [Daniels] should be a success and I suppose in a sense I was basing her on what would have happened to me if I'd remained in academic life when on the whole in my day, even more so now, women do climb the ladder. I was in the generation that was expecting to be successful as a woman in whatever field they ventured."  

In Butler's A Different Kind of Summer, dating from 1967, the fifth outing for Detective Daniels, Daniels is still a sergeant when an unidentified body arrives on a train into town in a coffin minus head or hands. It's up to Daniels to figure out which of many missing women this could be, including an increasing number of young girls vanishing in London. As she gets deeper into the case, she tries to stay objective and focused even as she starts receiving menacing phone calls and has to deal with a new young assistant, Christine Quinn, and a hysterical troublemaker who claims she's lost her sister.

There's been a lot of hue and cry lately about the amount of violence against women in crime fiction novels, and a mutilated female corpse would fall into that category, but in a commentary included in the original publication of A Different Kind of Summer, Butler said that she was interested in people committing crimes and why some people, usually women, form the victim syndrome, in that the bad guys sense these victims are afraid (a reason why policewomen acting as decoys often fail to lure attackers, because their sense of confidence is too obvious).

Butler has a low-key writing style, blending social commentary with quirky characters, detailed plotting and thoughtful writing for the most part, although in general, it's her novels with Inspector John Coffin where she's had her greatest success. One wonders if writing from a woman's point of view was too close to home to provide the inspirational distance required or if perhaps the fact the author's brother was Warden of the Toynbee Settlement in London gave her more of a first-hand experience with male protagonists. In either case, with Butler's Daniels or Butler's Coffin, there's a lot of good material there, enough to show that grouping her with the "Four Great Founding Mothers" isn't that much of a stretch. If you're a fan of the "Golden Age" of detective fiction, then you'll enjoy these series.

Mystery Melange

The Maltese Falcon Society of Japan has announced that C.J. Box is the winner of the 2021 Maltese Falcon Award for Breaking Point, the 13th in the Joe Pickett series, as the best hardboiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year. Mr. Box will receive a wood-crafted Falcon statuette. (HT to The Gumshoe Site) Previous winners have included Walter Mosley, Don Winslow, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, and more.

Musician-turned-mystery-writer Corey Lynn Fayman took top honors in the 2021 San Diego Book Awards for Ballast Point Breakdown, a wisecracking novel that features a guitar-playing detective, Navy SEALs, and trained dolphins. This is the fourth book by Fayman, who has also worked day jobs as a keyboard player, sound-designer, and college instructor. All the stories feature Rolly Waters, an eccentric detective the author created out of "boredom and a warped sense of literary ambition."

The long-running Colorado Authors League (CAL) writing competition announced finalists this week in various categories. Those of interest to the crime fiction community include:

Best Novel: Mystery (Cozy)

Judilee Butler and GaGa Gabardi: The Last Hurrah: A Phoebe Korneal Mystery
Kate M. Lansing: Killer Chardonnay
Irv Sternberg: The Mervin Gardens Murders

Bets Novel: Mystery (Crime, Suspense)

Margaret Mizushima: Hanging Falls: A Timber Creek Mystery
Barbara Nickless: Gone to Darkness
Sheri Cobb South: Brother, Can You Spare a Crime?

Best Novel: Action, Adventure

Jodi Bowersox: The Diamond Diva Vendetta
Sheri Cobb South: Brother, Can You Spare a Crime?
Robert G. Williscroft: Operation Ice Breaker: A Mac McDowell Mission

 

Comma Press is calling for submissions to the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction, an award run in partnership with the University of Central Lancashire. The competition is open to both published and unpublished writers in the UK, and aims to seek out the best established or up and coming voices in the form. This year's theme is crime stories. The winning writer will receive £500 and will have their story published online by Northern Soul, while all shortlisted authors will be featured in an e-book anthology, published by Comma Press and sold online.


Sad news in the publishing world: Perseverance Press is closing its doors after long run. In a statement by Meredith Phillips, originally sent to the Dorothy-L Listserv, she announced that "Perseverance Press/John Daniel & Co. will be going out of business soon, with the recent sad demise of John Daniel [in December 2020]. We ended our 22-year publishing history this spring on a high note: the starred PW review for Lev Raphael’s DEPARTMENT OF DEATH.
In the last two decades we’ve published over 80 books by more than 30 authors. Some of them continued longstanding series; others started new ones or wrote stand-alones; two were nonfiction writing guides. Several were award-nominated (Edgar, Shamus, Ellis, Anthony), and some of them won awards as well (Agatha, Barry, Willa). In every case, our relationships with our authors have been rich and rewarding. John and Susan Daniel’s motto for their publishing company (which was almost twice as old as the Perseverance division) was always 'Our authors are our friends' and PP/JD has maintained that. We’ve also continued the high standards and visual quality of the books, largely due to Eric Larson, our designer/typesetter/ebook magician. Susan Daniel will gradually close down the company throughout this year, but Lev’s new book will be obtainable from the usual retail venues and via our website through Dec. 31. The remaining books will be returned to their authors, along with their publishing rights...so anyone who wants to purchase should contact them directly." (HT to Sisters in Crime)

The modernist landmark Isokon Building, aka London's Lawn Road Flats—which served as Agatha Christie's wartime flat—offers a short film on Agatha Christie's residence there from 1941 to 1947. It also is presenting an exhibition on Christie in its gallery. Christie lived and wrote there while her second husband, Max Mallowan, was on assignment in the Middle East and while she was working in the dispensary of University College Hospital. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at The Bunburyist blog)

Speaking of Dame Agatha, since it's summer, CrimeReads has an appropriate article on how the author helped popularize surfing. Cowabunga, dame!

The Spectator also took a look at "How a mysterious Harrogate hotel became a Mecca for crime fiction fans." (Hint: Agatha Christie again)

Wondering what the "most bookish" cities in the world are these days? This list might surprise you.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Heloise's Epistle" by Jennifer Lagier.

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb chatted with Hilary Davidson, author of the Lily Moore series, about her new novel, Her Last Breath; Deborah also featured interviews with Susan Elia MacNeal, author of the new mystery novel, The Hollywood Spy, the 10th in her World War II-era Maggie Hope series, and Carol Goodman, author of the new thriller, The Stranger Behind You.

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

Scott Adkins is in negotiations to join the cast of Lionsgate’s John Wick 4, with Keanu Reeves reprising the role of Wick. Donnie Yen, Rina Sawayama, and Shamier Anderson are also joining the cast, with Chad Stahelski returning as director. The film, written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, is set for theatrical release on May 27, 2022.

Inbar Lavi and Jack Kesy have signed on to star in Vronika, a psychological thriller from writer/director Geert Heetebrij. Heetebrij’s debut feature centers on strong-willed Roni (Lavi) and her ambitious husband Stephen (Kesy), a stay-at-home crypto-currency day trader who manifests a twin version of his wife named Vronika (also played by Lavi), to assist him in winning trades.

Logan Marshall-Green, Matt Craven, and newcomer Ridley Asha Bateman have joined the cast of Lou. They join previously announced cast members Allison Janney and Jurnee Smollett. In Lou, a young girl is kidnapped, and 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.

Sarah Goldberg and Jimmy Akingbola have joined the cast of the UK thriller, Freegard. As previously revealed, the cast is led by James Norton, Gemma Arterton, Shazad Latif, Marisa Abela, Edwina Findley, and Julian Barratt. Based on true events, the movie will chart the story of career conman, Robert Freegard, played by Norton, with Gemma Arterton as the woman who brought him down.

The John Leguizamo crime movie, Dark Blood, has been picked up for distribution in North and South America by FilmRise. The film, directed by Colombian filmmaker Harold Trompetero (Diastole systole: Los movimientos del Corazon), follows a father who is imprisoned after committing a brutal revenge crime. During his confinement he must adapt to a new life of abuse, including injury and humiliation by guards and other prisoners. Deadline provided the first trailer for the project.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

John Lithgow is returning to his old Dexter stomping grounds, making a "short but decisive appearance" in the Michael C. Hall-led revival of Dexter on Showtime this fall. Awarded his fifth Emmy for the role as the revered but feared “Trinity Killer” in the fourth season of the series’ original run, Lithgow’s character was soundly bumped off by Dexter Morgan himself in season-finale episode back in late 2009. This of course, raises the question of how Lithgow’s Arthur Mitchell will return, but the writers say they've "concocted a pathway for the Trinity Killer to come back that works within the larger Dexter narrative."

Antonio Banderas is set to play the Italian crime reporter Mario Spezi, who investigated one of the most notorious serial murder cases in Europe alongside American fiction writer Douglas Preston. The limited series project is based on Preston and Spezi’s book, The Monster of Florence: A True Story, the investigation into a serial killer who murdered 14 people between 1974 and 1985 in the Italian province. Preston and Spezi uncovered mistakes made by police in their investigations of the crimes, all of which were tied to young couples killed during romantic rendezvous in the Italian countryside. Preston and Spezi at one point became entangled in the case and accused by police of crimes associated with the murders.

Netflix is developing The Craving, a new thriller drama series from Escape Room director, Adam Robitel, and writer Gavin Heffernan (Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension). The Craving explores "the real-world horrors of addiction through a genre lens" and centers around a female sheriff in a Colorado ski town besieged by an unprecedented new threat.

Lifetime has greenlighted Safe Space, a new original movie thriller starring Nicole Ari Parker and her husband, Boris Kodjoe, who also makes his directorial debut. Drea de Matteo, Nik Sanchez, and Mackenzie Astin also star. Safe Space centers on recently widowed Lila Jackson (Ari Parker) and her 14-year-old, autistic son Ian (Sanchez). Since the death of her husband, Lila is grateful for their kind neighbor Neil Hargrove (Kodjoe), who looks out for them. After Ian accidentally witnesses a break-in at the house across the street and records the horrific murder of the homeowner, Lila becomes embroiled in a deadly struggle to protect her son from intruders Dominic (Astin) and Rocco (De Matteo), who will stop at nothing to retrieve the video evidence of the crime and silence them. Hiding and trapped in a makeshift panic room created by her late husband, Lila and Ian must use all of their strength and intelligence to outsmart the intruders to save themselves.

Janine Nabers, who has written on HBO’s Watchmen and Netflix’s Away, has signed an overall deal with Amazon Studios. The playwright and television writer has also set up her first project in development, a tech drama called Syd. The series follows a powerful Black tech CEO who wakes up one morning to discover that a mysterious entity has hacked its way into his life. In order to regain control, he must follow a series of sinister clues.

William Fichtner has been tapped for a key role opposite Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mitchell in Joe Exotic (working title), Peacock’s limited series based on the Wondery podcast. Fichtner will play Rick Kirkham, Joe’s (Mitchell) reality show producer in a recasting, taking over for Dennis Quaid, who had to exit the project due to a scheduling conflict. The project centers on Carole Baskin (McKinnon), a big cat enthusiast, who learns that fellow exotic animal lover Joe “Exotic” Schreibvogel (Mitchell) is breeding and using his big cats for profit. She sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry. But Carole has a checkered past of her own and when the claws come out, Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy.

Wunmi Mosaku is set to join the growing ensemble of HBO’s We Own This City limited series, from The Wire’s EP David Simon and producer George Pelecanos. Jon Bernthal, Josh Charles and Jamie Hector are also on board in the cast. The series is based on Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton’s book, We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption and chronicles the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force — and the corruption and moral collapse that befell an American city in which the policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of actual police work.

13 Reasons Why showrunner, Brian Yorkey, has inked a new overall deal with Netflix and has set up the limited thriller series, Echoes. The seven-episode series is described as “a mystery thriller about two identical twins, Leni and Gina, who share a dangerous secret." Since they were children, Leni and Gina have secretly swapped lives, culminating in a double life as adults: they share two homes, two husbands, and a child, but everything in their perfectly choreographed world is thrown into disarray when one of the sisters goes missing.

Allison Tolman, J.C. MacKenzie, Chris Bauer, Hamish Linklater, and Chris Messina are set for recurring roles in Starz’s Watergate drama, Gaslit, starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. Based on the first season of the Slate podcast, Slow Burn, Gaslit is a modern take on Watergate that focuses on the untold stories and forgotten characters of the scandal — from Nixon’s bumbling, opportunistic subordinates, to the deranged zealots aiding and abetting their crimes, to the tragic whistleblowers who would eventually bring the whole rotten enterprise crashing down.

Michael Stuhlbarg is set as a lead in The Staircase, HBO Max’s limited series drama adaptation based on the true-crime docuseries. He joins previously announced Colin Firth, Toni Collette, Rosemarie DeWitt, Juliette Binoche, Parker Posey, Odessa Young, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Dane DeHaan, Olivia DeJonge, and Sophie Turner. The eight-episode series, from Christine director Antonio Campos and American Crime Story writer Maggie Cohn, explores the life of Michael Peterson (Firth), his sprawling North Carolina family, and the suspicious death of his wife, Kathleen (Collette). Stuhlbarg will play David Rudolf, Michael Peterson’s criminal defense attorney.

Telma Hopkins, Linda Park, and Vanessa Marano are set as series regulars opposite Shanola Hampton and Dascha Polanco in the NBC pilot, Dangerous Moms. Written by Janine Sherman Barrois and based on the Spanish series, Señoras del (h)Ampa, Dangerous Moms is an off-center dark dramedy about four diverse mothers who accidentally kill the queen bee of their school’s PTA during the demonstration of a new high-end food processor. The story becomes a female anthem about friendship and family as it tells the story of one completely unprepared group of women who must juggle their everyday lives while their worlds are turned upside down.

Agent Clinton Skye won’t be returning to FBI: Most Wanted. Nathaniel Arcand’s Clinton Skye was introduced in the 18th episode of the first season of the mothership FBI series, which served as the backdoor pilot for the spinoff. He appeared in the first 14 episodes of the 15-episode first season of the spinoff, but only three episodes in Season 2. FBI: Most Wanted is a high-stakes drama that focuses on the Fugitive Task Force, a unit that relentlessly pursues and captures the notorious criminals on the Bureau’s Most Wanted list. The series stars Julian McMahon, Kellan Lutz, Roxy Sternberg, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Miguel Gomez.

ABC has decided not to go forward with the Kevin Costner-executive produced National Parks Investigation. The crime drama, starring Billy Campbell, will be shopped around to other networks.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Author Cate Holahan (Her Three Lives) joined Eric Beetner from the co-host seat on Writer Types as they chatted with guests Tracy Clark (Runner) and Morgan Cry (Thirty-One Bones).

Read or Dead tackled mysteries that work great on audio in celebration of Audiobook Appreciation Month.

Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Hilary Davidson about her new psychological thriller, Her Last Breath.

This week's guest on Queer Writers of Crime was Ann McMan, author of twelve novels and two collections of short stories. She is a two-time Lambda Literary Award winner, a nine-time winner of Golden Crown Literary Society Awards, a three-time IPPY medalist, a Foreword Indies finalist, and a recipient of the Alice B. Medal for her outstanding body of work

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Mary Keliikoa, author of the Lefty and Agatha award nominated PI Kelly Pruett mystery series and the upcoming Misty Pines mystery series featuring Sheriff Jax Turner, slated for release in September 2022.

CrimeTime FM featured Sarah Vaughan (Anatomy of a Scandal) and Harriet Tyce (Blood Orange) discussing courtroom dramas, the lure of the wig and gown, and why British writers shouldn’t be talking about the gavel.


A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, this one featuring the mystery short story, "Pig Lickin' Good," by Debra Goldstein as read by actor Ariel Linn. The story takes place on the 4th of July, perfect for your holiday-themed listening.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine has a tradition of including work written by writing teams and collaborators. Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet, who have been writing together for more than forty years as Hal Charles, saw their fiction debut in the magazine’s Department of First Stories. In this month’s podcast, Hal Blythe reads “Draw Play” by Hal Charles from the May 2003 issue.

The Criminal Mischief podcast with Dr. D.P. Lyle investigated "Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" and its potentially criminal applications.

Happy Independence Day!

Dagger Delights

The British Crime Writers’ Association announced the winners of this year's Dagger Awards:

Gold Dagger

Winner: We Begin at the End, by Chris Whitaker (Zaffre)

Highly commended: Blacktop Wasteland, by S.A. Cosby (Headline); House of Correction, by Nicci French (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated: City of Ghosts, by Ben Creed (Welbeck); Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith (Sphere); The Postscript Murders, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus); and Midnight Atlanta, by Thomas Mullen (Little, Brown)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger

Winner: When She Was Good, by Michael Robotham (Sphere)

Also nominated: Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith (Sphere); The Nothing Man, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Atlantic); The Devil and the Dark Water, by Stuart Turton (Raven); One by One, by Ruth Ware (Harvill Secker); and We Begin at the End, by Chris Whitaker (Zaffre)

John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger

Winner: The Creak on the Stairs, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (Orenda)

Also nominated: City of Ghosts, by Ben Creed (Welbeck); The One That Got Away, by Egan Hughes (Sphere); The Bone Jar, by S.W. Kane (Thomas & Mercer); Fortune Favours the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood (Wildfire); and Three Fifths, by John Vercher (Pushkin Press)

Sapere Books Historical Dagger

Winner: Midnight at Malabar House, by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)

Also nominated: Snow, by John Banville (Faber and Faber); The Unwanted Dead, by Chris Lloyd (Orion Fiction); The City Under Siege, by Michael Russell (Constable); Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons, by David S. Stafford (Allison & Busby); and The Mimosa Tree Mystery, by Ovidia Yu (Constable)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction

Winner: Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind, by Sue Black (Doubleday)

Also nominated: We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence, by Becky Cooper (Heinemann); These Are Not Gentle People, by Andrew Harding (MacLehose Press); Dancing with the Octopus: The Telling of a True Crime, by Debora Harding (Profile); The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us, by Nick Hayes (Bloomsbury Circus); and Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy, by Ben MacIntyre (Viking)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger

Winner: The Disaster Tourist, by Yun Ko-eun, translated by Lizzie Buehler (Serpent’s Tail)

Also nominated: Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith (Michael Joseph); The Coral Bride, by Roxanne Bouchard, translated by David Warriner (Orenda); Three, by D.A. Mishani, translated by Jessica Cohen (Riverrun); To Cook a Bear, by Mikael Niemi, translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner (MacLehose Press); and The Seven Doors, by Agnes Ravatn, translated by Rosie Hedger (Orenda)

Short Story Dagger

Winner: “Monsters,” by Clare Mackintosh (from First Edition: Celebrating 21 Years of Goldsboro Books, edited by David Headley and Daniel Gedeon; The Dome Press)

Also nominated: “A Dog Is for Life, Not Just for Christmas,” by Robert Scragg (from Afraid of the Christmas Lights, edited by Robert Scragg; Robert Scragg); “Deathbed,” by Elle Croft (from Afraid of the Light, edited by Robert Scragg; Robert Scragg); “Daddy Dearest,” by Dominic Nolan (from Afraid of the Light); “Hunted,” by Victoria Selman (from Afraid of the Christmas Lights); and “Planting Nan,” by James Delargy (from Afraid of the Light)

Dagger in the Library

Winner: Peter May

Also nominated: C.L. Taylor, Lisa Jewell, James Oswald, Denise Mina, and L.J. Ross

Publishers’ Dagger 

Winner: Head of Zeus

Also nominated: Faber and Faber, Michael Joseph, No Exit Press, Raven, and Viper

CWA Debut Dagger

Winner: Deception, by Hannah Redding. Highly commended: Underwater, by Fiona McPhillips

Also nominated: The Looking Glass Spy, by Ashley Harrison; Rough Justice, by Biba Pearce; Lightfoot, by Edward Regenye; and Mandatory Reporting, by Jennifer Wilson O’Raghallaigh


In addition, Martina Cole was given the 2021 Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement.

FFB: More Good Old Stuff

John D. MacDonald (1916-1986), author of over 70 novels, is best remembered for the books featuring Florida-based private eye Travis McGee, who the Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley called "one of the great characters in contemporary American fiction - not crime fiction; fiction, period." MacDonald himself admitted he enjoyed the detective genre because it gave him a captive audience for his favorite parts of the books, the asides. He said, "I can have the hero hanging on a ledge with somebody pounding on his knuckles with a hammer, and I can go off and make a comment on something in the world that's bugging me, and when I come back, the readers will still be there."

The prolific author actually got his start writing short stories. While he was in the Army in 1945, he sent a short story home to his wife, who promptly typed it up and submitted it to Story magazine. The editors bought it for $25, thus giving MacDonald the idea that he could make a career as a writer. He told Ed Gorman in an interview that after leaving the Army, "I wrote eight hundred thousand words of short stories in those four months, tried to keep thirty of them in the mail at all times, slept about six hours a night and lost twenty pounds."

He eventually sold over six hundred stories to a variety of magazines in a variety of genres, from mystery to sports, to sci-fi, to westerns, to romances. Some of the publications his stories appeared in included crime pulps like Dime Detective and Black Mask, but he was also published in higher-profile glossy 'zines like Esquire, Playboy and Cosmopolitan. His stories were also included in various anthologies and in collections including:

    End of the Tiger and Other Stories (1966)
    S*E*V*E*N (1971)
    Other Times, Other Worlds (1978)
    The Good Old Stuff (1982)
    More Good Old Stuff (1984)

The 1984 collection, More Good Old Stuff, contains 14 of MacDonald's earlier stories from the pulp mystery/detective magazines of the late 1940s. They include "Deadly Damsel," the story of a professional widow (who has wed and murdered five husbands) and an amateur con man who get fatally tangled in a web of their own devising, from which we get lines like these:

"Death gave her a feeling of power that she bore with her wherever she went. She looked at the dull, tidy little lives of the women in the small cities in which she lived, and she felt like a goddess. She could write all manner of things on the black slate of life, and then, with one gesture, wipe the slate clean and begin all over again. New words, new love, new tenderness and a new manner of death... It was good to kill men..."

Or there's "Death for Sale," about a hired killer with a broken soul who stalks a French Nazi-collaborator to a New Orleans restaurant, where hunter and quarry suddenly trade places. MacDonald wrote in the Foreword that he was "tempted to clean up some of the very stilted dialogue" and change the gimmick at the end of this story, but it would "be unfair to excise the warts to make myself look better than I was."

MacDonald was almost apologetic in his Foreword about how dated some of the stories were (he updated some minor details because of that), but as he also said, "The events of these stories are in a past so recent they could just as well have been written today. And that is a portion of my intent, to show how little the world really changes." Those words could almost serve as a summary of these early stories; although they lack the polish and the more intense, well constructed plots that were to come, the nugget of great storytelling that marks the author's work is all there and changed very little over time, but just got better.

Mystery Melange

Bloody Scotland announced the shortlist for the Bloody Scotland Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2021. This year's titles include The Silent Daughter by Emma Christie; No Harm Done by AJ Liddle; Edge of the Grave by Robbie Morrison; and Waking the Tiger by Mark Wightman. Three of the books are also on this year’s longlist for the McIlvanney Prize for Best Crime Fiction Novel.

Slaughterfest is returning once again. Now in its second year, the event celebrates crime writing with a weekend of programs curated by author Karin Slaughter with HarperFiction. Covering the broad spectrum of crime fiction, from historical to courtroom thrillers, organized crime gangs to the return of serial killers, SlaughterFest will offer a diverse slate for readers in the genre. The festival will feature a mix of live and pre-recorded content, hosted on Zoom and the Killer Reads Facebook page, and will take place on the 3rd and 4th of September.

On Wednesday, July 7, the Toronto Star is sponsoring a Q&A with Kathy Reichs, author of the crime novels featuring Temperance Bones that were adapted into the TV series, Bones. Fans can submit their questions ahead of time for Reichs to answer during the online event.

The journal Genre en séries : cinéma, télévision, medias has put out a call for papers for a special themed issue reexamining gender representations in film noir. Proposals (abstract of 500-800 words along with a short bio-bibliography) are due before September 15. The issue itself will be published in fall 2022. Shots Magazine's Ayo Ontade has additional information including some suggested topic areas.

Writing for Criminal Element, Tracy Clark offered a brief "Roundup of Black Detective Novels from Then Until Now." Clark also provided her take on the subject for Crime Reads, with an article on "The PI of Color: When It's About More Than the Crime."

Over at The Rap Sheet, Jeff Pierce wondered where all the literary heirs to Agatha Christie's Poirot had vanished. In true sleuthing fashion, he digs deeper into the mystery.

Here's a fun idea for a theme park: Storyville Gardens, a new interactive park that aims to instil a love of reading in visitors.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Eastside Shakedown" by C.W. Blackwell.

In the Q&A roundup, Connie Berry, author of The Art of Betrayal, talked about craft over for the Dark Phantom blog; and Lucy Burdette chatted with Terrie Farley Moran about taking over the Murder She Wrote novel series and her inspiration behind the first title, Killing in a Koi Pond.