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

Participant Pictures announced that Laurence Fishburne and Clifton Collins Jr. will star in the studio’s upcoming film, Frank & Louis. Directed by Petra Volpe from a screenplay she co-wrote with Esther Bernstorff, Frank & Louis follows a man serving a life sentence who takes a job caring for fellow prisoners who are aging and suffering from memory loss diseases. What starts as a self-serving mission for parole turns into an emotional and transformative relationship, offering a glimmer of redemption in an otherwise unforgiving place.

Saban Films has acquired U.S. rights to the Mel Gibson thriller, On The Line, in which the Oscar winner portrays a radio host confronted by a hostile caller. In the film, the anonymous caller threatens to kill the host’s entire family while he is on air. To save loved ones, the radio host has to play a survival game over the course of one night and the only way to win is to find out the identity of the criminal. The film is director, writer, and producer Romuald Boulanger’s second feature following his 2020 debut, Connectés. On The Line also stars Kevin Dillon, Enrique Arce, William Moseley, and Nadia Farès. The film is currently in post-production, with a planned November 2022 release.

J.K. Simmons, Jackie Earle Haley, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica De Gouw, and Alice Lee have signed on to star alongside Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry in the Netflix thriller, Our Man from Jersey, from director Julian Farino. The film centers on Mike (Wahlberg), a down-to-earth construction worker from Jersey, who is quickly thrust into the world of super spies and secret agents when his high school ex-girlfriend Roxanne (Berry) recruits him on a high-stakes U.S. intelligence mission.

Oscar winner, Rita Moreno, is joining the cast of the latest Fast & Furious installment, Fast X, set to portray the grandmother to Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto in the film. Louis Letterier is set to direct, replacing Justin Lin, who departed the project over creative differences but remained on as a producer. Reacher breakout star, Alan Ritchson, also recently joined the cast. Moreno and Ritchson will be joined by fellow newbies Brie Larson and Jason Momoa, as well as franchise returnees Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, and Ludacris. Fast X will open in theaters May 19, 2023.

Utopia picked up North American rights to Holy Spider, Ali Abbasi’s Iranian thriller that has earned rave reviews after premiering at Cannes. Abbasi, who is an Iranian-Swedish director known for his previous Cannes winner, Border, has described Holy Spider as a "Persian Noir." The film follows female journalist Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) who travels to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer (Mehdi Bajestani) who believes he is doing the work of God, cleansing the streets of sinners by murdering sex workers. As the body count mounts, and Rahimi draws closer to exposing his crimes, the opportunity for justice grows harder to attain as the "Spider Killer" is embraced by many as a hero.

Abigail Breslin, Luke Wilson, Andy Garcia, and Donald Sutherland have signed on to star in the courtroom drama, Miranda’s Victim, from director Michelle Danner (The Runner), with production underway in New Jersey. The film, written by J. Craig Stiles and George Kolber, will tell the true story of Trish Weir (Breslin), who in 1963 was kidnapped and brutally raped by Ernesto Miranda. Committed to putting her assailant in prison, Trish’s life is destroyed by America’s legal system as she triggers a law that transforms the nation. Wilson will play Lawrence Turoff, the country prosecutor that convinces Trish to testify and helps her bring her aggressor to justice, with Garcia playing public defender Alvin Moore, who takes on Miranda’s case. Sutherland will protray Judge Wren, who convicts Miranda for the rape of Weir.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The Silence of the Lambs star, Jodie Foster, is set to lead the fourth iteration of HBO’s True Detective franchise, True Detective: Night Country. The story centers on Detectives Liz Danvers (Foster) and Evangeline Navarro who are looking to solve the case of six men who operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station and vanish without a trace when the long winter night falls in Ennis, Alaska. The detective duo will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice. True Detective, which was created and written by Nic Pizzolatto, ran for three seasons between 2014 and 2019. The third and most recent season, set in the Ozarks, aired on HBO in 2019 and starred Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff.

Tim Roth is replacing Ian McShane in the role of antagonist Ezra Shipman in Paramount+'s Australian crime drama series, Last King of the Cross, inspired by John Ibrahim's autobiography, Deadline reported, adding that McShane withdrew due to health concerns. The 10-part series is currently filming in and around Sydney and follows John Ibrahim and his rise from a poverty-stricken immigrant with no education, no money, and no prospects, to Australia’s most infamous nightclub mogul in Sydney’s Kings Cross, a mini-Atlantic City with every form of criminality on offer. Roth's Shipman is the most powerful and most feared man in Sydney, but now he is confronting his looming mortality. For all his power and material success, there's been no one to continue his legacy—until John Ibrahim.

After ten successful years, the critically acclaimed and beloved Endeavour is coming to a close, and the season currently filming in Oxford (Season 9) will be the last. The series was a prequel to the long-running series, Inspector Morse, and chronicled his coming of age. Fans in the US can look forward to Season 8 of Endeavour which airs Sundays, June 19- July 3 on Masterpiece PBS.

The Good Fight, a spinoff of The Good Wife, will also conclude, with its upcoming sixth season. The upcoming final season will see Diane (Baranski) feel like she’s going crazy as she struggles with an uneasy sense of déjà vu, with everything from Roe v. Wade, to voting rights, to Cold War aggression returning. Meanwhile, the lawyers of Reddick & Associates wonder if the violence that they see all around them points to an impending civil war, per a logline from the streaming service. CBS Studios president David Stapf praised executive producers Robert and Michelle King for pushing "creative boundaries" with the show.

Leonine Studios has taken worldwide rights to the German-Norwegian thriller series, The Seed (working title), which is set around the explosive takeover of a seed company and comes from Chameleon writer Christian Jeltsch. The Seed follows German detective Max (Heino Ferch) and Norwegian policewoman Thea (Bolsø Berdal), who set out to find Max’s missing nephew Victor (Jonathan Berlin) in Spitsbergen. It soon becomes apparent his disappearance may be connected to the takeover of a seed company that is causing controversy in Brussels. As they plunge deeper into webs of intrigue and political interests, they find their own lives in danger too. Rainer Bock (Better Call Saul), Seumas Sargent (Spy City), Erik Madsen (Vikings) and Friederike Becht (Labyrinth of Lies) round out the international cast.

Original S.W.A.T. cast member Lina Esco is exiting the CBS procedural after five seasons. Calling it "one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make," Esco said farewell to fans in a statement on social media. Her character Officer Christine "Chris" Alonso, who is openly bisexual, worked her final shift in Sunday night’s season finale. The storyline began to pave the way for Esco’s departure a few weeks ago when Alonso announced to her colleagues that she would be leaving S.W.A.T. in two weeks to take over the safe house for Mama Pina. S.W.A.T. was renewed for a sixth season in April.

Lex Medlin and Ariana Guerra are set as new series regulars, along with Jay Lee, who recurred last season as Chris Park, for the upcoming second season of CBS’s CSI: Vegas. Season 1 of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation sequel series opened a new chapter in Las Vegas – the city where it all began, introducing a serialized storytelling to the classic crime procedural drama. Facing an existential threat that could bring down the entire Crime Lab and release thousands of convicted killers back onto the neon-lit streets of Vegas, a brilliant new team of investigators led by Maxine Roby (Paula Newsome) enlisted the help of old friends, Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), to investigate a case centered around former colleague David Hodges (Wallace Langham). The first season also starred Matt Lauria, Mandeep Dhillon, and Mel Rodriguez.

Anthony Anderson will not be returning for Season 22 of NBC’s Law and Order. Anderson had only signed up to play Det. Kevin Bernard, a role he originated on the network from 2008-2010, for one season. After fulfilling his commitment, he’s set to move on. In his character’s final appearance in the Season 21 finale, Bernard recruited the help of SVU character, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), in the investigation of a police officer’s murder.

The Blacklist stars Amir Arison and Laura Sohn are departing the NBC series following Friday’s Season 9 finale. Arison will soon star as Amir in a Broadway adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s acclaimed novel, The Kite Runner, while Sohn is leaving to pursue other projects. Arison has portrayed FBI Special Agent Aram Mojtabai since the thriller-drama’s inception and was promoted to a series regular role in Season 2 after playing a recurring character in the first season. He was one of the few actors to remain with the series throughout all nine seasons, alongside star James Spader, Diego Klattenhoff, Harry Lennix, and Hisham Tawfiq.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Edwin Hill stopped by It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club to discuss his new thriller, The Secrets We Share.

On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Frank Zafiro welcomed Jill Maser, to discuss her eclectic catalog, and also Jamie Lee Fry to talk about her psychological thrillers.

This week's guest on My Favorite Detective Stories was John Gaspard, author of the Eli Marks mystery series as well as four other stand-alone novels.

On Queer Writers of Crime, Brad Shreve, author of the Mitch O'Reilly Mystery Series, offered up a sample of his current work in progress.

The "Heads Together Special" of Crime Time FM featured host, Paul Burke, chatting about the 15th CrimeFest held in Bristol with CrimeFest organizer, Donna Moore; Shots Magazine's Ayo Onatade; authors Victoria Selman and Luke McCallin; and Financial Times book critic, Barry Forshaw.

THEATRE

Angela Lansbury (known to many fans for her iconic Murder She Wrote TV role) will receive the 2022 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Lansbury made her Broadway debut in 1957 in Hotel Paradiso, followed by A Taste of Honey (1960), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), and Mame (1966), for which she won her first Tony. She also won Tonys for Dear World (1969), Gypsy (1974), and Sweeney Todd (1979).

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction

Hofstra University hosted an Agatha Christie interdisciplinary conference in 1991 in honor of the centennial of Christie's birth. The result of that conference was the book Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction, published in 1997 and edited by Hofstra professors Jerome H. Delamater and Ruth Prigozy. The editors were attempting to offer "a variety of new and innovative approaches to classic detective fiction," by including essays of a theoretical approach to the genre, then tracing the genre back to Agatha Christie and traditional British detective fiction.

Part I looks at the nature of and the audience for detective fiction, as well as at the genre as a literary form. This first half of the book includes an inquiry into the role of the detective, applications of psychology to the genre, and a look at literary criticism positing that "traditional detective fiction contained the seeds of its own subversion." Part II focuses on the writing of Agatha Christie and her heirs in the British ratiocinative tradition.

The 16 essays include topics such as "Shamus-a-um: Having the Quality of a Classical Detective" by Timothy W. Boyd and Carolyn Higbie; "Parody and Detective Fiction" by Janice MacDonald; "Christie's Narrative Games" by Robert Merrill; "The Game's Afoot: Predecessors and Pursuits of a Postmodern Detective Novel by Kathleen Belin Owen; and "Class, Gender, and the Possibilities of Detection in Anne Perry's Victorian Reconstructions" by Iska S. Alter.

Some of the themes underlying the book are the way the genre reflects important social and cultural attitudes, contributes to a reader's ability to adapt to the challenges of daily life, and provides alternate takes on the role of the detective as an investigator and arbiter of truth. As one of the essays notes, thanks to the detective novels of Tony Hillerman, set among the Native American population around New Mexico, "many American readers have probably gotten more insight into traditional Navajo culture from his detective stories than from any other recent books."

Canadian Accolades

Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) announced the winners for the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing. Started in 1984, the annual Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence, then known as the Arthur Ellis Awards, recognizes the best in mystery, crime, and suspense fiction, and crime nonfiction by Canadian authors. Congratulations to all this year's winner and finalists!

 

Best Crime Novel sponsored by Rakuten Kobo, with a $1000 prize: Dietrich Kalteis, Under an Outlaw Moon (ECW Press)

Also nominated:

Linwood Barclay, Find You First, William Morrow
Daniel Kalla, Lost Immunity, Simon & Schuster
Shari Lapena, Not a Happy Family, Doubleday Canada
Roz Nay, The Hunted, Simon & Schuster

Best Crime First Novel: Ashley Audrain, The Push (Viking Canada)

Also nominated:

Fiona King Foster, The Captive, HarperCollins Publishers
Byron TD Smith, Windfall, Shima Kun Press
Katherine Walker, All Is Well, Thistledown Press
David Whitton, Seven Down, Rare Machines

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery: Candas Jane Dorsey, What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? (ECW Press)

Also nominated:

Alice Bienia, Three Dog Knight, Cairn Press
Jackie Elliott, Hell's Half Acre, Joffe Books
Catherine Macdonald, So Many Windings, At Bay Press
Vicki Delany, Murder in a Teacup, Kensington Publishing Corp

Howard Engel Award for Best Crime Novel Set in Canada: C. S. Porter, Beneath Her Skin (Vagrant Press)

Also nominated:

Cathy Ace, Corpse with an Iron Will, Four Tails Publishing
Alice Walsh, Death on Darby’s Island, Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing
Sam Wiebe, Hell and Gone, Harbour Publishing Co.
Kevin Major, Three for Trinity, Breakwater Books

Best Crime Novella: Wayne Ng, Letters From Johnny (Guernica Editions)

Also nominated:

Marcelle Dube, Identity Withheld, Falcon Ridge Publishing
Brenda Gayle, Murder in Abstract, Bowstring Books
Elvie Simons, Not So Fast, Dr. Quick, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2021

Best Crime Short Story: Elizabeth Elwood, Number 10 Marlborough Place, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Also nominated:

Pam Barnsley, What can You Do?, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November/December 2021
Hilary Davidson, Weed Man, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2021BR
Charlotte Morganti, All My Darlings, Die Laughing
Melissa Yi, Dead Man's Hand, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2021

Best French Crime Book (Fiction and Nonfiction): Patrick Senécal, Flots (Editions Alire)

Also nominated:

Roxanne Bouchard, Le murmure des hakapiks, Libre Expression
Marc-Andre Chabot, Dis-moi qui doit vivre…, Libre Expression
Guillaume Morrissette, Conduite dangereuse, Saint-Jean
Richard Ste-Marie, Stigmates, Editions Alire

Best Juvenile or YA Crime Book: Kevin Sands, The Traitor's Blade, Aladdin (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated:

Karen Bass, Blood Donor, Orca Book Publishers
Rachelle Delaney, Alice Fleck's Recipes for Disaster, Puffin Canada
Cherie Dimaline, Hunting By Stars, Penguin Teen
Jordyn Taylor, Don't Breathe a Word, HarperTeen

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book: Nate Hendley, The Beatle Bandit (Dundurn Press)

Also nominated:

Sarah Berman, Don't Call it a Cult, Viking Canada
Aaron Chapman, Vancouver Vice: Crime and Spectacle in the City's West End, Arsenal Pulp Press
Catherine Fogarty, Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary, Biblioasis
Lorna Poplak, The Don: The Story of Toronto's Infamous Jail, Dundurn Press
 

The Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript: Renee Lehnen, Elmington

Also nominated:

Delee Fromm, The Strength to Rise
Pam Isfeld, Captives
Katie Mac, Ken's Corner
Mark Thomas, Part Time Crazy

Mystery Melange

In its annual awards ceremony held this week, the British Book Awards, a/k/a "The Nibbies," announced winners in the various categories. The top book in the Crime & Thriller category went to the late William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin for The Dark Remains. Rebus creator Rankin finished the incomplete novel, a prequel to McIlvanney's Laidlaw mysteries, left by the revered Scottish crime writer upon his death in 2015. Also making the shortlist this year were 1979 by Val McDermid; A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins; Girl A by Abigail Dean; The Appeal by Janice Hallett; and The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced the winners of the 57th Annual Nebula Awards. The Nebula Award for Best Novel went to A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark, which follows an agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities who has to investigate the gruesome mass murder of members of a secret society dedicated to "uncovering the wisdom" of a missing wizard. The Nebula for Best Novella was won by Premee Mohamed's And What Can We Offer You Tonight, about a woman who's shaken when her friend is murdered by a client, but somehow comes back to life, leading the duo to get revenge by confronting the limits of loyalty, guilt, and justice. For all this year's winners, follow this link.

In a virtual awards ceremony held the afternoon of May 24, Publishers Weekly editorial director, Jim Milliot, named The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas as PW Bookstore of the Year. Authors, booksellers, and publishing professionals testified how The Raven supported authors and books during the pandemic and that their actions helped sustain the indie bookstore industry itself. The Raven Book Store was founded in 1987 as a mystery-specialty store, and it retains a strong mystery section to this day, with additional specialties in fiction, poetry, current events, and environmental writing.

If you're a fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and the Reacher Amazon Prime television series, here's a rare opportunity for you: Lee Lofland announced that the Writers’ Police Academy is offering the chance via auction for one lucky person to win "the opportunity to join Lee Child on the set for Amazon’s Reacher Season Two, sometime in the fall, and (hopefully!) show up as a background extra in the show." You do not have to attend the Writers’ Police Academy event to enter your bid. To submit your bid by email, enter REACHER BID in the subject line and in the body of the email include your bid (in U.S. dollar amount), your name, address, and phone number. Then send the email to Lee at [email protected]. Bidding ends on June 19, 2022 at midnight EST, and the winner will be notified on June 21, 2022. (Sealed bids will also be accepted in-person at the June 2-5, 2022 Writers’ Police Academy conference.)

Fans of thriller author, Karin Slaughter, will be happy to hear that her "Slaughterfest" is back for 2022 on Wednesday, June 22 at Waterstones, London - Piccadilly. Slaughter, herself, who is known for her Will Trent series currently being developed as an ABC pilot, will be in conversation with bestselling thriller writer, Simon Toyne. There will also be a panel with some of crime writing’s rising stars (Nadine Matheson, Sam Holland, Rahul Raina, and Robert Gold), as well a panel titled "Destination: Murder" with bestsellers Erin Kelly, Lucy Clarke, Adele Parks and Lucy Foley.

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series "The First Two Pages," hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. Following her passing, the blog series relocated to Art Taylor's website, with the latest guest, Sarah M. Chen, joining in to continue a series of essays celebrating the release earlier this month of Low Down Dirty Vote, Volume 3. Edited by Mysti Berry, this new volume centers on the theme "The Color of My Vote" and features contributions from 22 authors. Proceeds will benefit Democracy Docket, "an organization that is successfully fighting against voter suppression in the United States." 

Every week, the Library of America publishes a selection from one of their collections on their website. This week's offering is "Creeping Siamese" from Dashiell Hammett: Crime Stories and Other Writings. Published originally in the March 1926 issue of The Black Mask, this was the last Hammett story to appear under the editorship of Philip C. Cody. In the wake of the box-office success of the 1941 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, King Features licensed several early Hammett stories for republication, hence the collection. The illustration accompanying the story online is by Stuart Hamilton for the reprint edition distributed by King Features Syndicate to newspapers for their Sunday supplements in 1942 (provided by Davy Crockett’s Almanack).

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Take No Prisoners" by Tad Tuleja.

In the Q&A roundup, Alex Segura spoke with Hilary Davidson on the Criminal Element blog about his new novel, Secret Identity, a rollicking literary mystery set in the world of comic books; also at Criminal Element, J.B. Stevens interviewed Peter Farris, author of The Devil Himself, a southern noir novel first published in France with enormous critical acclaim and which has won multiple literary awards; Rose Kerr stopped by The Stiletto Gang to discuss her new book, Death on the Set, the first book in the Brenna Flynn Mystery Series; and Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis chatted with Annette Dashofy about Fatal Reunion, the eleventh book in Dashofy’s Zoe Chambers mystery series.

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

A new adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, based on the Alan Moore graphic novels, is in the works at 20th Century Studios. The film will be written by Justin Haythe, who wrote the Jennifer Lawrence spy thriller, Red Sparrow. The new incarnation will be faithful to the original graphic novel, which involves famous fictional characters like Allan Quatermain, Mina Harker from Dracula, The Invisible Man, Dr. Henry Jekyll, Fu Manchu, Captain Nemo, and Professor Cavor teaming up to thwart a deadly attack on London from the air in Victorian times. The original 2003 film was the last appearance of Sean Connery on the big screen.

A new Ocean’s Eleven film starring Margot Robbie is in "active development" at Warner Bros., with four-time Emmy winner Jay Roach looking to direct the project. Deadline reported that the film, scripted by Carrie Solomon, will be set in Europe in the 1960s, but further details with regard to its plot are being kept under wraps. Warner Bros. is eyeing a production start in spring of 2023.

Saban Films has taken global rights to the John Travolta and Stephen Dorff feature, American Metal. Writer and first-time feature director Nicholas Maggio’s film tells the story of a desperate and struggling family man who robs a pill mill. However, when the theft turns violent, he finds himself hunted by both the police and the Dixieland mafia. Shiloh Fernandez, Ashley Benson, and Kevin Dillon also star.

Dree Hemingway is the latest addition to the cast of Yale Entertainment’s darkly comedic thriller, The Kill Room, from writer Jonathan Jacobson and director Nicol Paone. She joins an ensemble that also includes Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Manganiello, Maya Hawke, Debi Mazar, and Larry Pine. The Kill Room centers on hitman, Reggie (Manganiello), his boss (Jackson), an art dealer (Thurman) and their money laundering scheme that accidentally turns the hitman into an overnight Avant-Garde sensation, forcing the dealer to play the art world against the underworld. Hemingway will portray Anika, the owner of a successful art gallery that rivals Thurman’s.

Malin Åkerman is set to star alongside Jack Donnelly, Wayne Gordon, Nicole Bartlett, Celine Arden, and Sam Cassidy in the action-thriller, Us Or Them. Directed by Tom Paton (Black Ops), the film is written by Nicole Bartlett from a story by Paton. The story follows childhood best friends Jude (Donnelly) and Andy (Gordon) who are enjoying a luxury holiday won on a mobile game app. While there, they agree to play another game despite the foreboding caveat that once the game begins, they must play to the end. As the game progresses, the penalties for disagreement escalate along with the prize money. The pair soon realize that failure to agree will have dire consequences not just for them, but also for their family members.

Netflix has greenlit A Day and a Half, a Swedish action film directed, written, and starring Chernobyl and Westworld 's Fares Fares. The story follows Artan (Alexej Manvelov) and Louise (Alma Pöysti), a divorced couple on an emotionally charged road trip where Artan holds Louise hostage in order to reunite with his daughter. The journey takes them through rural Sweden during a hot summer with police officer Lukas (Fares) on their heels. One Netflix executive called it "an intimate story about loss, lies, betrayals, love, prejudice and family."

Fate of the Furious alum, Scott Eastwood, will return to the Fast & Furious franchise as part of the cast of Fast X. He joins an ensemble that also includes Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Jason Momoa, Charlize Theron, Brie Larson, Alan Ritchson, Nathalie Emmanuel, Michael Rooker, Daniela Melchior, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Ludacris, and Cardi B, as previously announced. Eastwood will reprise his role as Little Nobody, the right-hand man of Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody, who helped Dominic Toretto (Diesel) track down cyberterrorist Cipher (Theron) in the franchise’s eighth film, Fate of the Furious, released in 2017. Whether Russell will also return to the franchise is not yet clear

Oscar winners Jamie Foxx and Robert De Niro, along with Scott Eastwood and John Leguizamo. are set for the action movie, Tin Soldier, which begins filming next week in Greece. Tin Soldier tells the story of "The Bokushi" (Foxx), who preaches to hundreds of veterans who have been drawn to the promise of protection and purpose under him. Surrounded by his devout military-trained followers, he has built an impenetrable fortress and amassed an arsenal of weapons. After several failed infiltration attempts, the government – in the form of military operative Emmanuel Ashburn (De Niro) – recruits Nash Cavanaugh (Eastwood), an ex-special forces asset, who was once a disciple of The Bokushi. Nash agrees to use his vulnerable past and insider knowledge of the enigmatic leader to finally get revenge on the man who took everything from him, including the love of his life.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

HBO has renewed Barry for a fourth season. Production will begin in Los Angeles in June, with series star Bill Hader directing all eight episodes. Barry follows the misadventures of the titular character, a hired assassin who dreams of becoming an actor. The more he tries to move away from L.A.’s seedy underbelly, the deeper it consumes him — and affects everyone around him. In Season 3, Barry is fully committed to untangling himself from the murder business to follow his passion to act full time. But that proves to be a job in and of itself because he knows too much. The cast also includes Henry Winkler, Stephen Root, Michael Irby, Anthony Carrigan, and Sarah Goldberg.

Hulu has acquired the rights to the graphic novel, A Calculated Man, and is in the early stages of developing a series based on the crime story, which is set to be published in June. Peter Calloway, exec producer on HBO’s The Nevers and co-exec producer on Freeform’s Marvel series Cloak & Dagger and FX’s Legion, has signed to write and serve as showrunner on the project. The comic comes from writer Paul Tobin (Bunny Mask) and artist Alberto Albuquerque (The Amazing Spider-Man) and is a math-inspired crime series that follows Jack Beans, an accountant living in a witness protection program after betraying his former employers, the Pinafore crime family. After three years, Jack decides to reclaim his old life. What follows is a journey full of murder, mayhem and mathematics.

AMC has thrown its hat into the ring of video game adaptations, with a series based on the action-adventure game, Alan Wake. Published by Microsoft Studios, the game follows thriller novelist, Alan Wake, who seeks to uncover the truth behind his wife’s mysterious disappearance in the fictional town of Bright Falls, Washington. While investigating, Alan finds key events from his latest work coming to life.

James D’Arcy is set to star alongside Noomi Rapace and Jonathan Banks in Constellation, an eight-episode conspiracy-based psychological thriller drama series at Apple TV+. Oscar-nominated Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) and Joseph Cedar (Footnote) are set as directors on the series, joining previously announced director/EP Michelle MacLaren. Created and written by Peter Harness (The War of the Worlds), Constellation stars Rapace as Jo, a woman who returns to Earth after a disaster in space — only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing. The action-packed space adventure is an exploration of the dark edges of human psychology, one woman’s desperate quest to expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel, and her efforts to recover all that she has lost.

Lupita Nyong’o has exited Lady In The Lake, Apple TV+’s limited series adaptation of Laura Lippman’s book. Nyong’o was to star and executive produce alongside Natalie Portman, who remains in the series. The project is currently in production and a search is underway for a new actress to take over her role. The limited series takes place in '60s Baltimore, where an unsolved murder pushes housewife and mother, Maddie Schwartz (Portman), to reinvent her life as an investigative journalist. That decision sets her on a collision course with Cleo Sherwood, a hard-working woman juggling motherhood, many jobs, and a passionate commitment to advancing Baltimore’s Black progressive agenda.

Maahra Hill, who played the title role in the OWN series, Delilah, has been tapped as the female lead opposite Jesse L. Martin in NBC’s drama pilot, The Irrational. Written by Arika Mittman, The Irrational is based on bestselling author Dan Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational. The show follows Alec Baker (Martin), a world-renowned professor of behavioral science, who lends his expertise to an array of high-stakes cases involving governments, law enforcement, and corporations with his unique and unexpected approach to understanding human behavior.
 

Amazon Prime Video’s Alan Ritchson-fronted series, Reacher, will see a familiar face as Maria Sten returns for the second season, reprising her role of Frances Neagley. Here’s the logline for Season 2, which will be based on Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th book in Lee Child’s Reacher series: "When the members of Reacher’s old military unit start turning up dead, he has just one thing on his mind—revenge." 

Last week, Fox announced the bulk of its programming slate for 2022-23 but not a fall schedule, although the network indicated it would soon be forthcoming. The lineup will include the return of 9-1-1 Lone Star and the mob drama, The Cleaning Lady; the new crime anthology series Accused, from Homeland and 24 producers, Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, and House creator, David Shore; and also Alert, the character-driven police procedural about the LAMPU, the Los Angeles Police Department’s missing person’s unit.

Reba McEntire has joined Big Sky, David E. Kelley’s ABC drama, as a series regular for the upcoming third season. McEntire will play Sunny Brick, the mercurial matriarch of the Brick Family, a successful backcountry outfitter with a secret history of missing customers. McEntire will join new series regular cast members Jensen Ackles, who guest-stars in the upcoming Season 2 finale and will continue his role as Beau Arlen in Season 3, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who recurred as Tonya in Season 2 and was promoted to series regular for the upcoming season. Based on the books by C.J. Box,  Big Sky follows private detective Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) and her former partner, Undersheriff Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick), as they investigate local crimes, taking on drug syndicates, notorious kidnappers, crime dynasties, and more along the way.

Yasha Jackson is set as a lead opposite Michaela McManus in ABC’s national parks drama pilot from Rashad Raisani and A+E Studios. Written and executive produced by Raisani, the as-yet-untitled drama revolves around the tangled, messy lives of the agents who work for the ISB — an elite law-enforcement unit responsible for solving all serious crimes that occur in our country’s 81,000 square miles of protected land. Jackson will play Tiffany, a brassy, funny Park Service Agent and helicopter pilot. She's also fellow Park Service Agent Audrey’s (McManus) close friend.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Death on the Rocks," written by Guy Belleranti and read by actor Larry Mattox.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club celebrated their patrons by letting them run the show and tell us about their favorite books.

On Read or Dead, Katie and Nusrah discussed mysteries featuring some kind of time or inter-dimensional travel.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed A.M. Adair, an active duty Chief Warrant Officer in the United States Navy and author of action-packed spy/military thrillers. Her latest novel, Shadow War, was published in March.

Queer Writers of Crime's Laury recommended the first novel in a grim psychological series by Val McDermid.

Wrong Place Write Crime chatted with Neely Tucker about his Sully Carter novels and his career as a journalist.

My Favorite Detective Stories interviewed Brooklyn-born dancer and author, Lori Robbins, whose debut novel, Lesson Plan for Murder: A Master Class Mystery, won the Silver Falchion for Best Cozy Mystery and was a finalist in the Readers’ Choice and Indie Book Awards.

Crime Time FM welcomed authors Caz Frear and William Shaw to discuss procedurals, the rise of the armchair detective, and riding in Peter James's police car.

Anthony Award Nominees

Bouchercon 2022 has announced the Anthony Award Nominations. Congratulations to all the honorees!

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Albert Gate Mystery

Louis Tracy (1863-1928) was born in Liverpool to an upper middle class family and educated at the French Seminary at Douai. Although he led a relative life of leisure, he also joined the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment and earned a full certificate for a captaincy by the age of 18, an unusual feat for the time. He turned his hand to journalism in 1884, writing for several newspapers and even worked his way up to part-ownership of the The Evening News before selling his share. He is said to have used some of the proceeds to run 23 soup kitchens during the depression-style winter of 1894, using some of those glimpses of poverty first-hand in his later novels.

His first published work of fiction was a patriotic, somewhat propagandistic war-themed title, The Final War, which appeared as a serial from 1895 to August 1896 in Pearson's Weekly. After a visit to America for research, Tracy was due to write another serial for Pearson's, but fell ill. The publication drafted M. P. Shiel to help finish the work, which began a decades-long occasional, and sometimes prickly, collaboration between the two men. Tracy went on to publish prolifically, with some 80 or more books and numerous short stories, essays and articles, under his own name and the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser.

Tracy's fiction often featured American characters, a ploy to make it easier to sell his books on both sides of the Atlantic. This led to some head-scratching plotting such as setting The House of Peril in New York, even though it included a number of Tracy's familiar English detectives. In the revised English edition of 1924, (retitled The Park Lane Mystery), he reset the story in London. Tracy's strange love-hate relationship with his own country also led to pronouncements such as his comment to the Sunday Times that "American readers are better educated than the English," leading the reporter to sniff, "at least he writes novels about this country without the usual blunders of foreign writers."

The Albert Gate Mystery from 1904, is actually set in London and features one of Tracy's regular protagonists, amateur detective Barrister Reginald Brett. The plot hinges around priceless imperial diamonds sent by the Sultan of Turkey to London, to be cut in the heavily-guarded Albert Gate mansion by experts under the protection of the British government. However, four Turkish officials are found dead in the house, and the diamonds disappear. The leading culprit is Jack Talbot, a young secretary at the Foreign Office who was overseeing the endeavor and also disappeared without a trace the evening of the murders.

Brett reads about the events in the morning newspaper, detailing the high-ranking Turkish gentry, servants, guards, and fourteen expert Dutch diamond-cutters who have been detained at Scotland Yard, and how "the greatest living authority on toxicology" was among several medical personnel consulted. Brett's interest is piqued, but he doesn't get pulled into the mystery until the arrival of Lord Fairholme. It seems Fairholme's fiancee, Edith Talbot, refuses to marry him until her brother—who also happens to be the suspect Jack Talbot—is found and proved innocent.

Brett's investigation has him chasing diamond thieves through England, France and Sicily with the somewhat-antagonistic help of Scotland Yard detective Winter, as well as royal messenger Captain Gaultier, Lord Fairholme and Edith. Along the way, the sleuth (who is described as brash, fearless, handsome, brilliant, a human dynamo and both "the smartest criminal lawyer in London" and "the cleverest analytical detective of the age") dons disguises and wades through political intrigue, treason among thieves, and a spirited horse-carriage chase scene, before the denouement.

The character of Brett was compared to Sherlock Holmes during Tracy's day, although one reviewer said that "Mr. Reginal Brett is perhaps a trifle too Sherlockian in his rapid conclusions, although unlike the incomparable Holmes, he does not always permit his admiring audience to follow step by step in his course of reasoning." Brett has also been called a precursor of Lord Peter Wimsey, but as entertaining as he is at times, the writing and character aren't quite in the same league as Holmes and Wimsey.

There are some laugh-out-loud dated bits, too, such as "Brett expected to see a young, pretty and clever girl, vain enough to believe she had brains" (although the woman in question, Edith, turns out to be a fierce heroine in her own right). There are also some homages to other detective icons in the book, such as the small bust of Edgar Allan Poe in Brett's home and how he has adopted the French method of "reconstituting" the incidents, no doubt a nod to Vidocq, the founder and first director of the crime-detection Sûreté Nationale as well as the head of the first known private detective agency.

Mystery Melange

Morten Hesseldahl's thriller, Mørket under isen (The Darkness Under the Ice), has won this year's Harald Mogensen Prize, a Danish literary award for detective novels awarded by the Danish Criminal Academy (Det danske Kriminalakademi, or DKA). The prize was founded in 2006, first awarded in 2007, and is named after Danish author, editor, journalist, and critic Harald Mogensen, who was awarded The Danish Criminal Academy diploma in 1993.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), the premier organization of writers and publishers of horror and dark fantasy, announced this year’s Bram Stoker Awards winners at its first in-person ceremony since before the pandemic. Stephen Graham Jones won the award for Superior Achievement in a Novel for My Heart is a Chainsaw, a story of murder in small-town America where a broken young girl uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life. The title was also named named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR. Check out all of this year's Bram Stoker winners here.

In celebration of Pride, hosts Jeffrey Round and Hope Thompson will present Queer Noir at the Bar, an evening of queer crime fiction readings on June 8 in Toronto. Authors include Nairne Holtz, Jared Mitchell, Caro Soles, Felice Picano, Doug Schmidt, and a reading by actor Greg Campbell of Greg Kramer’s bestselling mystery novel, The Pursemonger of Fugu. Books will also be available for purchase and signing.

Kate Mosse, Richard Osman, and Dorothy Koomson are among authors appearing at the UK's Capital Crime Festival from September 29th to October 1st in Battersea Park. The program launched this week at Goldsboro Books, and was co-organized by bookshop owner and agent David Headley. Also confirmed to appear are Peter James, Mark Billingham, Robert Harris, S A Cosby, Jeffrey Archer, Anthony Horowitz, Charlie Higson, Jeffery Deaver, Lucy Foley, Bella Mackie, Ragnar Jónasson, Paula Hawkins, Reverend Richard Coles, Mark Edwards, Claire McGowan, Ben Aaronovitch, and former President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Judge Lady Hale, in conversation with Harriet Tyce. A full schedule of panel talks will be announced later in the summer. As part of the event, the Fingerprint Awards – which recognizes the best titles in the genre, voted for by readers – will be announced, with nine awards presented.

International Literary Properties (ILP) has acquired three new literary estates including majority interests in the estates of Dame Ngaio Marsh and Ann Rule. Marsh was one of the four original "Queens of Crime" writers who dominated the genre in the 1920s and 30s (along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Dorothy L. Sayers) and is best known for her series with Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Rule was a true crime writer known for her bestselling debut book on serial killer Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, published in 1980, the year of his conviction. ILP works with managers of literary estates and individual heirs to help realize the value from book and play-based intellectual property, working closely with award-winning TV, film and stage producers across the world.

The Summer issue of Mystery Scene is out, with a cover feature on Deon Meyer, often called the King of South African Crime Writing; Oline Cogdill provided a guide to mystery-themed cookbooks, as well as a tasting menu of ten delicious new culinary crime novels; Hank Phillippi Ryan assembled a panel of authors, screenwriters, agents, and showrunners to give insights into the fascinating Hollywood process of how an adaptation successfully goes from the page to the screen; Craig Sisterson interviewed author Tara Moss about her historical WWII-era novels, as well as her work as an award-winning human rights and disability advocate; plus Ellen Byron, Susan Van Kirk, Kathleen Kaska, and Gary Lovisi offered "My Book" essays on their new work.

The May edition of Mike Ripley’s Shots column, "Getting Away with Murder," profiled new releases from Tom Bradby (Yesterday’s Spy); Anthony Horowitz (With a Mind to Kill); Peter Morfoot (Essence Of Murder); Chris Pavon (Two Nights In Lisbon); William Shaw a/k/a G.W. Shaw (Dead Rich); and Jo Spain (The Last to Disappear). He also focused a spotlight on his current televisual binge watch, "an utterly delightful, thoughtful and light-hearted crime drama set in sun-drenched Sicily," about a Palermo family in 1979 who come to realize, mostly through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy, just how much of a grip the local mafia has on all aspects of everyday life.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Conversion" by Pamela Hobart Carter.

In the Q&A roundup, Indie Crime Scene interviewed Michael D. Graves, author of the Pete Stone Private Investigator series; Crime Fiction Lover spoke with David Adams Cleveland about his historical espionage novel, Gods of Deception, which has the judge in the notorious Alger Hiss case asking his grandson years later to help him figure out if Hiss was really guilty or innocent; and Nicola Upson, author of Dear Little Corpses, shared seven things she'd like her readers to know with Female First magazine.

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

Cinedigm has acquired North American rights to the CIA thriller, MK Ultra, starring Anson Mount, Jaime Ray Newman, and Jason Patric, scheduling it for release in theaters and on VOD this fall. The film is inspired by the true story of the illegal drug experimentation program, Project MKUltra, which the CIA established during the early 1960s. That program was a means of developing procedures and using drugs like LSD to weaken individuals in interrogations, forcing confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. The film will follow the brilliant psychiatrist Ford Strauss (Mount), who finds his professional and ethical boundaries tested as he is recruited to run a subset of the program at a rural Mississippi mental hospital.

Neon, the Oscar-winning studio behind Parasite, has acquired U.S. rights to Mothers’ Instinct, a psychological thriller starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway. The project is a remake of the 2018 critically acclaimed Belgian film, Duelles, by director Olivier Masset-Depasse, who will also direct the English-language remake of his film. As the official logline reads, "Set in the early '60s, best friends and neighbors Alice (Chastain) and Celine (Hathaway) both live an idyllic traditional lifestyle with manicured lawns, successful husbands, and sons of the same age. Life’s perfect harmony is suddenly shattered after a tragic accident. Guilt, suspicion and paranoia combine to unravel their sisterly bond and a psychological battle of wills begins as the maternal instinct reveals its darker side."

Ukrainian filmmaker Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi wrote and will direct the feature adaptation of John Valliant’s book, The Tiger, in which Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award-winner Alexander Skarsgård will star alongside Dane DeHaan. Set in snowy far east Russia in the late 90s, the feature follows a group of men — referred to as the Tiger Team — who work to protect endangered tigers from poachers and logging operations. The story follows Vanzin (Skarsgård), the Team’s leader whose sense of duty is tested when he’s charged with hunting down and exterminating a tiger that killed a poacher in self-defense. DeHaan will portray Kanchuga, a young environmental scientist and newest member of the Team.

Mads Mikkelsen will star in the new action-thriller, The Black Kaiser, based on the Dark Horse graphic novel series by Victor Santos. In the story, Mikkelsen will play The Black Kaiser, the world’s most lethal hitman, who uncovers a deadly conspiracy protecting a powerful syndicate of killers and becomes their number one target.

Ralph Fiennes has signed up to lead the conspiracy thriller, Conclave, with John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini also joining the cast. The film, written by Peter Straughan and based on Robert Harris’s novel of the same name, will be directed by Edward Berger. The story is set following the death of the Pope, when the reluctant Cardinal Lomeli is tasked with overseeing the group of Cardinals from across the globe responsible for selecting a new leader for the Church. But as the political machinations inside the Vatican intensify, he realizes that the departed Pope had kept a secret from them that he must uncover before a new Pope is chosen.

Liam Neeson is set to star in the thriller, Thug, reuniting with his Cold Pursuit director, Hans Petter Moland. Thug revolves around an aging San Pedro gangster (Neeson) who attempts to reconnect with his children and rectify the mistakes in his past. But the criminal underworld won’t loosen its grip willingly. Tony Gayton (Hells on Wheels) wrote the screenplay. 

Better Call Saul actress, Kerry Condon, is joining Liam Neeson and Ciarán Hinds in the thriller, In The Land Of Saints And Sinners. Set in a remote Irish village, Neeson will play a newly retired assassin who finds himself drawn into a lethal game of cat and mouse with a trio of vengeful terrorists. The screenplay comes from Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane, with revisions by Matthew Feitshans.

Daisy Ridley and Shazad Latif are set to star in Magpie, a contemporary noir thriller based on an original idea from Ridley that was written by Tom Bateman. Award-winning British theater talent Sam Yates will make his feature directorial debut. The film follows a couple whose lives are thrown into disarray when their daughter is cast opposite a controversial major star. 

Luis Gnecco, Claudia Ramírez, and Juan Manuel Bernal will lead the upcoming thriller, Confessions. The film, from award-winning writer-director Carlos Carrera, sees a young child from an affluent Mexico City family go missing. At night, hours after the disappearance, a man arrives at the family home to discuss the child’s return. The terms are not monetary, rather a confession from one family member that has committed a terrible act. One by one, confession by confession, the intruder exposes each family member—unveiling their deepest, shocking secrets.

Reacher breakout star, Alan Ritchson, is in talks to join Fast X, the 10th installment of the "Fast and Furious" franchise, which will open in theaters May 19, 2023. Vin Diesel and the core cast are returning alongside franchise newcomers Jason Momoa and Brie Larson. Justin Lin and Dan Mazeau co-wrote the script. Reacher, based on the books and character by Lee Child, was renewed for a second season, and Amazon recently inked Ritchson to a three-picture deal.

FBI: Most Wanted actor, Kellan Lutz, has been set to star in the thriller, Palido. Lutz will play an attorney with a military past who hunts down the gang that killed his wife and brother and took his daughter. Javier Reyna (Regionrat) is directing from his original screenplay. The crime thriller is due to start principal photography on July 11 in the state of Washington, with additional casting underway.

Glen Powell and Adria Arjona have signed on to star in the upcoming action-comedy, Hitman, from Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater (Boyhood). Written by Linklater and Powell, the film is based on a true story and has Powell starring as the most sought-after, albeit least trustworthy hitman in Houston. If you pay him to rub out a cheating spouse or a sadistic boss, you’d better watch out: he works for the cops. When he breaks protocol to help a desperate woman (Arjona) trying to get away from an abusive boyfriend, he finds himself living the life of one of his false personas, falling for the woman and flirting with becoming a criminal himself.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

It's upfront season again, when the television networks make decisions on series cancellations and renewals and also which pilots will move forward. ABC has ordered The Rookie spinoff, The Rookie: Feds, to series, with Niecy Nash-Betts starring as Simone Clark, the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy. The mysteries of Big Sky will also continue at ABC, which has renewed the David E. Kelly series for season three. The series stars Kylie Bunbury and Katheryn Winnick, with Jensen Ackles, who guest starred in the season two finale, joining the cast as a series regular. Not going forward is ABC's L.A. Law sequel, which saw Blair Underwood reprising his role as attorney Jonathan Rollins, but the finished pilot is being shopped to other outlets.

In the already announced new ABC series, Will Trent, Sonja Sohn has been set as a lead opposite Ramón Rodríguez. Based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling book series, Special Agent Will Trent (Rodríguez) of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations was abandoned at birth and endured a harsh coming-of-age in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. But now, determined to use his unique point of view to make sure no one is abandoned like he was, Trent has the highest clearance rate in the GBI. Sohn will play Amanda, the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Will’s (Rodriguez) boss.

CBS’s program announcements included news that the  FBI franchise will be continuing to solve crimes for the next few years after the network handed all three shows a two-season pick up. FBI will return for its fifth and sixth seasons; FBI: Most Wanted comes back for a fourth and fifth; and FBI: International gets picked up for its second and third seasons. It is the network’s latest bumper renewal order, having given The Equalizer a two-season pickup last week. CBS has also given series orders to three of its five drama pilots including Fire Country about an ex-con turned firefighter; the police procedural East New York, headlined by Amanda Warren and Jimmy Smits; and the mother-son legal drama, So Help Me Todd, starring Marcia Gay Harden and Skylar Astin.

It took an extra day but True Lies was also officially picked up by CBS to series. The project is a reboot of James Cameron’s hit 1994 action comedy movie and will star Steve Howey and Ginger Gonzaga in the roles made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Magnum PI wasn't as lucky, with CBS announcing the show starring Jay Hernandez will end after its current fourth season. Aside from Bull, which announced in January that its current sixth season will be its last, Magnum P.I. is the most established CBS series to be canceled this season. As a Top 25 show in total viewers, it also may also be the most watched broadcast series to get the axe this upfront season. As Deadline noted, as a reboot of the 1980s drama, which starred Tom Selleck, the new Magnum P.I. was a rare broadcast drama with a Latino lead.

Over at NBC, Law & Order has been renewed for Season 22 and Law & Order: Organized Crime for Season 3. The original "mothership" series returned from a 12-year-hiatus for its 21st season this year, with Sam Waterston and Anthony Anderson reprising their roles as D.A. Jack McCoy and Detective Kevin Bernard, respectively. The revived series also stars Jeffrey Donovan, Camryn Manheim, Hugh Dancy, and Odelya Halevi. NBC previously renewed Law & Order: SVU as part of a three-year renewal for what will be its 24th season, extending its record as the longest-running primetime live-action series of all time, and making it three-for-three for the Dick Wolf series. 
 

The CW network also announced its fall season, which includes the Walker origin story, Walker: Independence. Starring Matt Barr and Katherine McNamara, the prequel is set in the late 1800s and follows Abby Walker (McNamara), an affluent Bostonian whose husband is murdered before her eyes while on their journey out West. On her quest for revenge, Abby crosses paths with Hoyt Rawlins (Barr), a lovable rogue in search of purpose. Abby and Hoyt’s journey takes them to Independence, Texas, where they encounter diverse, eclectic residents running from their own troubled pasts and chasing their dreams, all while becoming agents of change themselves in the small town.

Emmy winner Archie Panjabi is set to star opposite Idris Elba in the Apple thriller series, Hijack. Told in real time, the seven-part Hijack follows the journey of a hijacked plane as it makes its way to London over a seven hour flight, and authorities on the ground scramble for answers. Elba plays Sam Nelson, an accomplished negotiator in the business world who needs to step up and use all his guile to try to save the lives of the passengers. Panjabi portrays Zahra Gahfoor, a counter terrorism officer who is on the ground when the plane is hijacked and becomes part of the investigation. 

The upcoming HBO and Channel 4 drama, Get Millie Black, has set Tamara Lawrance as the lead. With shooting beginning this week in Jamaica, the six-part detective drama has also rounded out its cast with Game of Thrones star Joe Dempsie joining and Tanya Hamilton set to direct. Lawrance will play ex-Scotland Yard detective Millie Black, who returns to Kingston to work missing persons cases for the Jamaican Police Force and soon finds herself on a quest to save a sister who won’t be saved, to find a boy who can’t be found, and to solve a case that will blow her world apart and prove almost as tough to crack as she is.

BBC One’s hugely popular drama, Silent Witness, celebrates its 25th series with the dramatic return of Amanda Burton as Sam Ryan. The longest-running crime drama currently airing on TV returns with six new episodes, opening in Liverpool with an assassination attempt and Sam Ryan calling on the Lyell team with a plea for help seventeen years after leaving the Lyell. Sam seeks to usher in democratic health care, but the shooting of the Health Secretary and Sam’s husband pulls Dr. Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox), Jack Hodgson (David Caves), and Simone Tyler (Genesis Lynea) into a world of duplicity, intrigue, and betrayal.

Left Bank Pictures and Netflix have set Sean Teale as the male lead in their new Spain-set series Palomino (working title). Teale joins lead Evin Ahmad in the eight-part thriller series set in the suburbs of Barcelona. Ahmad plays British teacher, Erin Carter, who is caught up in a brutal supermarket robbery and finds her life threatening to unravel as one of the robbers claims to recognize her. Teale will play Erin’s Spanish husband, Jordi, who works as a nurse at the local hospital. As the series progresses, Jordi starts to question his past, as well as his marriage.

Australian author, Dervla McTiernan, whose last two novels were international bestsellers, has optioned The Murder Rule, a thriller novel being published this month, to FX. The book focuses on an idealistic law student, who is an outsider to her peers. Working with her elite campus’s prestigious Innocence Project represents the high point of everything she’s sacrificed for, but in a twisted mother/daughter story, she soon reveals that underneath her do-gooder image lie rules pounded into her by mom—including "make them pay." 

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed P. David Ebersole to discuss his debut novel, 99 Miles From L.A., which was inspired by the song of the same title written by Hal David and Albert Hammond—and sung by everyone from Hammond to Julio Iglesias to Art Garfunkel, although it’s Johnny Mathis’s take that inspired Ebersole and consequently the novel.

On Spybrary, Jeff Quest welcomed Otto Penzler to share stories from his many years of collecting books and meeting spy fiction authors. They discussed stories about Eric Ambler, Charles McCarry, John le Carré, and many more, as well as Penzler's meeting with Len Deighton, how Ross Thomas nearly lost out on a million dollars, and a shocking revelation about a piece by Quiller writer Adam Hall.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Franz Zafiro, chatted with Emmeline Duncan about her Portland-based cozies.

My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, spoke with Edwin Hill, author of the critically-acclaimed Hester Thursby mystery series, the first of which, Little Comfort, was an Agatha Award finalist, a selection of the Mysterious Press First Mystery Club, and a Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books selection. 

Queer Writers of Crime discussed the news that when ReQueered Tales obtained the rights to Grant Michael's Stan Kraychik series, they never expected to come upon an unpublished 7th novel in the series. That novel, Do-Si-Do with Death, will be published later this month.

Nicola Upson chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about her novel, Dear Little Corpses; Josephine Tey and Margery Allingham; WWII and Golden Age crime; the Hitchcocks and Gielguds; not so cozy emotions; and the fun of writing.

Crimefest Garlands

CRIMEFEST, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, has announced the winners of its annual awards at a gala banquet this evening. Now in its 15th year, the awards honored the best crime books released in 2021 in the UK.

This year also saw the Thalia Proctor Memorial Award for Best Adapted TV Crime Drama named in honor of Proctor, a CrimeFest team member and a much-loved figure in the world of crime fiction, who sadly died earlier this year. The award is decided by public vote from a longlist of the forty-three programs broadcast on British television in the last year that were based on a crime book. Ann Cleeves won the inaugural prize for Shetland, beating out a shortlist that included Anthony Horowitz for Alex Rider; M.C. Beaton for Agatha Raisin; and James Runcie for Grantchester.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

 

Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award 

WINNER: David Heska Wanbli Weiden for Winter Counts (Simon & Schuster)

Other finalists:

Abigail Dean for Girl A (HarperCollins)
Janice Hallett for The Appeal (Viper)
Saima Mir for The Khan (Point Blank)
Rahul Raina for How to Kidnap the Rich (Abacus)
Lara Thompson for One Night, New York (Virago)

Audible Sounds of Crime Award 

WINNER: Richard Osman for The Man Who Died Twice, reader Lesley Manville (Penguin Random House Audio)

Other finalists:

Lee and Andrew Child for Better Off Dead, reader Jeff Harding (Penguin Random House Audio)
Abigail Dean for Girl A, reader Holliday Grainger (HarperFiction)
Paula Hawkins for Slow Fire Burning, reader Rosamund Pike (Penguin Random House Audio)
Lisa Jewell for The Night She Disappeared, reader Joanna Froggatt (Penguin Random House Audio)
Liane Moriarty  for Apples Never Fall, reader Caroline Lee (Penguin Random House Audio)
K.L. Slater for The Marriage, reader Lucy Price-Lewis (Audible Studios / Bookouture)
Karin Slaughter for False Witness, reader Kathleen Early (HarperCollins)

H R F Keating Award

WINNER:  Patricia Highsmith (edited by Anna von Planta) for Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

Other finalists:

Lucy Andrews & Samuel Saunders (editors) for The Detective’s Companion in Crime Fiction: A Study in Sidekicks (Palgrave Macmillan)
Richard Bradford for Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith (Bloomsbury Caravel)
James Fleming (editor) for Bond Behind the Iron Curtain (The Book Collector)
Carla Valentine for Murder Isn’t Easy: The Forensics of Agatha Christie (Little, Brown Book Group)
Stephen James Walker for Hank Janson Under Cover (Telos Publishing Ltd)

Last Laugh Award

WINNER:  Mick Herron for Slough House (Baskerville)

Other finalists:

Simon Brett for An Untidy Death (Severn House)
Andrea Camilleri for Riccardino (Mantle)
Christopher Fowler for Bryant & May: London Bridge is Falling Down (Doubleday)
Janice Hallett for The Appeal (Viper)
Antti Tuomainen for The Rabbit Factor (Orenda Books)

eDunnit Award 

WINNER:  Abigail Dean for Girl A (HarperCollins)

Other finalists:

Megan Abbott for The Turnout (Virago)
Gianrico Carofiglio for The Measure of Time (Bitter Lemon Press)
Michael Connelly for The Dark Hours (Orion Fiction)
Cath Staincliffe for Running Out of Road (Constable)
Andrew Taylor for The Royal Secret (HarperCollins)

Best Crime Novel for Children (ages 8-12) 

WINNER:  M.G. Leonard for Twitch (Walker Books)

Other finalists:

Frank Cottrell-Boyce for Noah’s Gold (Macmillan Children’s Books)
Maz Evans for VI Spy: Licence to Chill (Chicken House)
Anthony Horowitz for Nightshade (Walker Books)
Anthony Kessel for The Five Clues (Crown House Publishing)
Jennifer Killick for Crater Lake Evolution (Firefly Press)
Alexandra Page (illustrator: Penny Neville-Lee) for Wishyouwas (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc)
Ella Risbridger for The Secret Detectives (Nosy Crow)

Best Crime Novel for Young Adults (ages 12-16)

WINNER:  Angeline Boulley for Firekeeper’s Daughter (Rock the Boat)

Other finalists:

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé for Ace of Spades (Usborne Publishing)
Andreina Cordani for The Girl Who… (Atom)
William Hussey for The Outrage (Usborne Publishing)
Holly Jackson for As Good As Dead (Electric Monkey)
Patrice Lawrence for Splinters of Sunshine (Hodder Children’s Books)
Jonathan Stroud for The Outlaws of Scarlett & Browne (Walker Books)
C.L. Taylor for The Island (HQ)