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

Academy Award nominee, Amy Ryan, is joining the cast of the Apple Original Films thriller Wolves (working title) starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, that will be written, directed, and produced by Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home). Ryan’s role is being kept under wraps, but the film will star Clooney and Pitt as two fixers who prefer to work alone but find themselves assigned to the same job. Ryan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2007 for her performance in Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Hulu is developing The Midcoast, a drama series based on Adam White’s bestselling novel, from Escape at Dannemora co-creator Brett Johnson, The Littlefield Company, and 20th Television. With a script adaptation by Johnson, The Midcoast is an hourlong drama set on the scenic coast of Maine exploring the rise and fall of Ed Thatch, a lobster fisherman turned blue collar criminal with an unstable devotion to his wife. From the blurb, the story "explores the machinations of privilege, the dark recesses of the American dream, and the lies we tell as we try, at all costs, to protect the ones we love."

Bill Camp (The Queen’s Gambit) and Elizabeth Marvel (The Dropout) have been tapped to star opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga in Presumed Innocent, Apple TV+’s upcoming limited series from David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. Additionally, Greg Yaitanes (House of the Dragon) has come on board as director on the series alongside Anne Sewitsky. Inspired by Scott Turow’s courtroom thriller, Presumed Innocent is the story of a horrific murder that upends the Chicago Prosecuting Attorneys’ office when one of its own is suspected of the crime. The book was published in 1987 and was turned into a 1990 feature starring Harrison Ford in the role Gyllenhaal is taking on.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring something a bit different, an excerpt from a sci-fi novel that has a mystery side to it, "The Path" by Peter Riva, read by actor Terrance McArthur.

Crime Time FM host, Paul Burke, spoke with the director of American Murderer, Matthew Gentile, about the movie starring Tom Pelphrey and Ryan Philippe, which is based on a true story about a dogged FBI agent determined to take down a charismatic con man.

On the latest episode of It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club, Missy, Tracey, and Ann talked about a few of the new movies they enjoyed over the past few weeks. Each of these movies is currently available on Netflix including The Glass Onion and more.

On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed cozy mystery novels.

Agatha Accolades

The annual Malice Domestic conference announced this year's finalists for the Agatha Awards. The Agatha Awards celebrate the traditional mystery, best typified by the works of Agatha Christie, for whom the award is named. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence, and would not be classified as "hard-boiled." Winners will be presented Saturday, April 29, 2023, during Malice Domestic 35 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Best Contemporary Novel

• Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Death By Bubble Tea by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley)
• Fatal Reunion by Annette Dashofy (Level Best Books)
• Dead Man's Leap by Tina de Bellegarde (Level Best Books)
• A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Best Historical Novel

• The Counterfeit Wife by Mally Becker (Level Best Books)
• Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Amanda Flower (Berkley)
• The Lindbergh Nanny by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson (Mobius)
• Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden (Crooked Lane Books)

Best First Novel

• Cheddar Off Dead by Korina Moss (St. Martin’s)
• Death in the Aegean by M. A. Monnin (Level Best Books)
• The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra (Constable)
• Devil’s Chew Toy by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane Books)
• The Finalist by Joan Long (Level Best Books)
• The Gallery of Beauties by Nina Wachsman (Level Best Books)

Best Short Story

• "Beauty and the Beyotch," by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Magazine, Feb. 2022)
• "There Comes a Time," by Cynthia Kuhn (Malice Domestic Murder Most Diabolical) Wildside Press
• "Fly Me to the Morgue," by Lisa Q Mathews,( Malice Domestic Mystery Most Diabolical) Wildside Press
• "The Minnesota Twins Meet Bigfoot," by Richie Narvaez, (Land of 10,000 Thrills, Bouchercon Anthology) Down & Out Books
• "The Invisible Band," by Art Taylor (Edgar & Shamus Go Golden) Down & Out Books

Best Non-Fiction

• The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins)
• The Handbook to Agatha Christie: The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie by Mary Anna Evans and J. C. Bernthal (Bloomsbury Academic)
• The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie by Carla Valentine (Sourcebooks)
• Promophobia: Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Crime Fiction, Diane Vallere Ed.(Sisters in Crime)
• Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Crime)

Best Children's/YA Mystery

• Daybreak on Raven Island by Fleur Bradley (Viking Books for Young People)
• In Myrtle Peril by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers)
• #shedeservedit by Greg Herren (Bold Strokes Books)
• Sid Johnson and the Phantom Slave Stealer by Frances Schoonmaker (Auctus Publishers)
• Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade by Nancy Springer (Wednesday Books)

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: A Long Fatal Love Chase

When most people think of Louisa May Alcott, Little Women comes to mind, and indeed, that is her chief claim to fame in literary history. However, she also penned Gothic thrillers ("potboilers") under the name A. M. Barnard, a fact that was brought to light in the early 1940s by a rare book dealer, Madeleine B. Stern, and a librarian, Leona Rostenberg. This led to Stern's book Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott.

One of those thrillers is more of a Gothic suspense romance which she originally titled A Modern Mephistopheles, or The Fatal Love Chase, which she'd dashed off when publisher James R. Elliot asked her to write another novel suitable for serialization in the magazine The Flag of Our Union. After it was rejected for being "too long and too sensational", she reworked it and retitled it as Fair Rosamond, but ultimately it was shelved in a drawer.

Fair Rosamond ended up at a Harvard library, while the original was auctioned off by Alcott's heirs and eventually fell into the hands of a Manhattan rare book dealer. In 1994, a New Hampshire headmaster bought the manuscript and sold publication rights to Random House, receiving a $1.5 million advance. Random published it in 1995 under the title A Long Fatal Love Chase, and it turned out to be a bestseller 129 years after its creation.

The plot centers on lonely, trusting 18-year-old Rosamond Vivian, who lives with her unloving grandfather on an English island and falls for the suave Phillip Tempest, a man almost twice her age. After promising to marry her, he takes her off to his Mediterranean villa near Nice, but when she discovers he's secretly married and may have murdered the son he never acknowledged, Rosamond flees to Paris, assuming one new identity after another. But Phillip stalks her obsessively across Europe, even as Rosamund tries to take shelter with a Roman Catholic priest with whom she falls in love.  

Publishers Weekly observed that "This absorbing novel revises our image of a complex and, it is now clear, prescient writer,"  alluding to the novel's ripped-from-modern-headlines of domestic violence and abuse. The New York Times also noted that genius burned for Alcott following A Long Fatal Love Chase, but never again with such primitive and joyful heat and "One wonders what kind of writer she might have been had she been able to ... take her thrillers as seriously as her feminist editors and elucidators do today."

Mystery Melange

In addition to the announcement of the Edgar Awards by Mystery Writers of America, various other tributes also related to Edgar Allan Poe transpired around his birthday anniversary this month. The decades-long "Poe Toaster" Baltimore tradition continued at Westminster Presbyterian Church in which an unnamed man paid tribute at Poe's gravesite with flowers, words in Latin, and a toast. Several publications also contributed to the lore, as in the Washington Post's look at Poe's brief military journey; and Raidió Teilifís Éireann's take on how Poe became the darling of the maligned and misunderstood. Untapped New York listed "10 Places to Remember Edgar Allan Poe in NYC." And if you want to own a piece of Poe memorabilia all your own, you can bid on a rare signed letter by Poe at the online Bonhams Skinner's Fine Books and Rare Manuscripts Sale. Plus, coming up Feb 16 – Mar 2 at the 92 Street Y in NYC, Warburg Institute Professor and author John Tresch will conduct a mini-workshop on a lesser-known side to Poe: a man of science who was an avid consumer of scientific developments.
 

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog is celebrating the Chinese New Year with a look back at Mystery Readers Journal: Mystery in Asia (Volume 34: 3: 2018), and a list of mysteries that take place during the Lunar New Year.

The Mystery Writers of America Midwest chapter is sponsoring Queering the Crime Genre, a panel discussion with Greg Herren, John Copenhaver, JM Redmann, and Robyn Gigl, hosted by Anne Laughlin and Meredith Doench. This an online event on February 9 at 6:00pm Cental / 7:00pm Eastern, and you can register for free to attend via this link.

A Katonah Village Library mystery and thriller writers panel will be held Thursday Feb. 2, at 6:30 p.m. Fran Hauser will moderate the panel featuring authors Wendy Corsi Staub, Katie Sise, Wendy Walker, and Liao Butler discussing their latest releases. The event in Katonah, New York, is free and open to the public with no advance registration required.

More and more crime conferences are returning to in-person events after going online only during Covid. The California Crime Writers Conference (CCWC) will also be back with an in-person, two-day event to be held June 10-11, 2023 at the Hilton Los Angeles (Culver City). This year’s Guests of Honor are Deborah Crombie, bestselling and award-winning author of the Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James detective series, and critically acclaimed crime novelist Rachel Howzell Hall.

Twenty years after the end of the iconic television series Columbo, featuring Peter Falk as the seemingly bumbling but shrewd Los Angeles homicide detective, Tumblr users have rediscovered "the ultimate comfort TV show" and turned it into one of the internet's new darlings.

Writing for Book Riot, Adam Rizer investigated the history of "the Butler Did It" trope in crime fiction.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Allison Brennan, applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Don't Open the Door.

If you're currently part of the dating scene and also love mysteries, you might want to help this guy out.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Roe vs. Wade Falls" by Jennifer Lagier.

In the Q&A roundup, Indie Crime Scene interviewed Chad Boudreaux, whose debut novel, Scavenger Hunt, will be published on January 31, 2023; Writers Who Kill spoke with Annette Dashofy about the first book in her new series featuring photographer Emma Anderson and police detective Matthias Honeywell, Where the Guilty Hide; and Nerd Daily spoke with thriller author Allison Brennan about Don’t Open The Door, the second installment in her Regan Merritt series and follows Regan and her husband, Grant, seeking justice for their murdered 10 year-old son.

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

The thriller drama, Rainbow Six, a sequel to the 2021 film Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, is now officially moving forward. Helmed by the director behind the John Wick movies, Chad Stahelski, and based on Tom Clancy’s 1988 novel (which also has long been a popular video game franchise), Rainbow Six will star Michael B. Jordan reprising his role as John Kelly, a Navy SEAL who becomes a CIA operative. The actor’s 2021 debut as the Tom Clancy character was released straight to Amazon Prime. Clancy's novel sees Jordan's character (named John Clark in the novels) become the newly named head of Rainbow, an international task force dedicated to combating terrorism. In a trial by fire, he must stop a terrorist group of men and women so extreme that their success could literally mean the end of life on earth as we know it.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

PBS’s MASTERPIECE Mystery! announced that it will co-produce and broadcast Moonflower Murders, a new six-part drama based on the best-selling novel written by Anthony Horowitz. The first book in that series, Magpie Murders, was adapted as a PBS miniseries in 2022. Returning in the lead roles they originated in Magpie Murders are Academy Award-nominee Lesley Manville (The Crown, Phantom Thread) as editor-turned-sleuth, Susan Ryeland, and Timothy McMullan (Patrick Melrose, The Crown) as famous literary detective, Atticus Pünd. Published in 2020, Moonflower Murders was lauded as "a fiendishly plotted crime novel, with a fabulous twist" by The Guardian and picks up where Magpie Murders left off: Susan has left the cut-throat world of publishing and is living in Crete with her longtime boyfriend, Andreas. She ends up returning to London when she is asked to investigate a mystery relating to Alan Conway, the author of the best-selling Atticus Pünd mysteries, whose death changed her life in Magpie Murders.

Fox is developing a one-hour drama about undercover FBI agents from Joy Blake (Beacon 23), The Nacelle Company, and Fox Entertainment Studios. Written and executive produced by Blake, the untitled project follows a female FBI agent suffering a bad case of career burnout who is sent to train a team of ambitious, determined rookies in what it takes to go deep undercover. Former FBI agents Scott Payne and Melissa Fortunato are serving as consultants to the project.

Only Murders in the Building is adding the legendary Meryl Streep to the third season cast. In a surprise announcement made via social media, star Selena Gomez posted a behind-the-scenes video that shows her with her co-stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, and Paul Rudd. Suddenly, Streep pops up to make sure her new castmates are comfortable with pillows. Hulu confirmed the news but didn't provide additional information about Streep’s character.

NBC has ordered a pilot for the drama series Murder by the Book from Good Girls creator, Jenna Bans. Good Girls executive producer, Bill Krebs, will pen the script with Bans. Starring actor/comedian "Retta," the story will follow a big city Instafamous book reviewer who takes a page from the murder mystery books she reviews and becomes an unlikely detective to uncover the shocking truths about an eccentric seaside town. The project, which had received a put pilot commitment in September, reteams Retta with Bans and Krebs after the actress previously starred in all four seasons of NBC’s crime comedy-drama, Good Girls.

Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer has added Matt Angel (Dave) to its Season 2 cast in a recurring role. Angel joins previously announced additions Yaya DaCosta and Lana Parrilla. He will portray Henry Dahl, the host of a successful true crime podcast. Distrustful of Henry’s motives, Mickey (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) warns him not to interfere with an ongoing case. Based on the series of bestselling novels by Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer follows the redemption of Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles attorney who regains much of what he lost due to addiction with hard work and hustle. His success is also thanks to his devoted supporters: his ex-wives Maggie (Neve Campbell) and Lorna (Becki Newton), his driver and unofficial sponsor Izzy (Jazz Raycole), and the best investigator in town—and Lorna’s newly minted fiancé—Cisco (Angus Sampson).

Sharon Taylor (Fire Country) has joined the cast of the Amazon Original series, Cross, which stars Aldis Hodge in the role of Alex Cross. Taylor will portray Lt. Oracene Massey, Alex’s immediate superior at the Metro PD, and replaces the originally cast Karen LeBlanc, who exited due to scheduling conflicts. Alex Cross is a detective and forensic psychologist, uniquely capable of digging into the psyches of killers and their victims, in order to identify — and ultimately capture — the murderers. He is brilliant, flawed, and full of contradictions. A doting father and family man, Cross is single-minded to the point of obsession when he hunts killers. He is desperate for love, but his wife’s murder has left him too damaged to receive it. The series, which is based on the bestselling books by James Patterson, also stars Ryan Eggold, Isaiah Mustafa, Alona Tal, Johnny Ray Gill, Eloise Mumford, and Siobhan Murphy.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Speaking of Mysteries featured City Under One Roof, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Iris Yamashita’s debut crime fiction novel.

On the latest Crime Writers of Color podcast, Robert Justice interviewed Sulari Gentill, author of The Woman in the Library.

Spybrary Spy Book podcast host, Shane Whaley, interviewed David Brierley (Big Bear, Little Bear), joined by Mike Ripley, publisher, thriller critic, and author of the award-winning "Angel" series of comedy thrillers.

The Red Hot Chili Writers chatted with crime writer Helen Fields to discuss her new novel, The Institution; dissect Prince Andrew's autobiography; and talk about their favorite biographies, "quite possibly the best biographies of all time."

On the Writer's Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardson took a look at US Marshal Task Forces; warrant time restrictions; and "good faith."

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Claire Douglas, author of The Girls Who Disappeared.

Crime Time FM's Paul Burke continued his look ahead to the crime titles of 2023 with the second part in that series.

THEATRE

The world premiere of Rebus: A Game Called Malice will be staged at Queen's Theatre Hornchurch in London, February 2-5. The play is written exclusively for the stage by Ian Rankin (based on the character from Rankin's novels) and Simon Read, and will be directed by award winner Robin Lefevre. The lead role will be played by John Michie (best known for his roles as DI Robbie Ross in STV’s Taggart and Karl Munro in ITV’s Coronation Street). Michie will be joined by Rebecca Charles, Billy Hartman, Emily Joyce, Forbes Masson, and Emma Noakes. A splendid dinner party concludes with a game created by the hostess. A murder in a stately home needs to be solved. Suspects, clues and red herrings await… but the dinner-party guests have secrets of their own, threatened by the very game they are playing. And among them is Inspector John Rebus. True crime is his calling – is he playing an alternative game, one to which only he knows the rules? There is danger with every twist and turn – and a shocking discovery will send this game called Malice hurtling towards a gasp-inducing conclusion. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: A Thief in the Night

Ernest William Hornung (1866–1921) was an English poet and author who also happened to be the brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle. He also worked as a journalist in England, France and Australia, and centered many of his stories around Aussie settings and culture. He's perhaps best known for his series featuring gentleman thief A. J. Raffles, who first appeared in a story in Cassell's Magazine in 1898.

Raffles may have been one of the earliest anti-heroes in crime fiction, spending his days playing cricket and his nights carrying out ingenious burglaries, aided by his sidekick Harry "Bunny" Manders, a man he once saved from suicide and disgrace. Raffles the "Amateur Cracksman" appears in several stories that divide into two periods, one before he was unmasked while plying his trade on board a cruise ship and presumably jumped overboard and drowned, and the other following his return where he and Manders continue their thieving ways in disguise.

The stories were collected into several volumes, including A Thief in the Night, published in 1905. They include "The Criminologists," about a society of crime experts who invite Raffles and Manders to discuss crime in sport, but have more nefarious purposes in mind, believing him to be the notorious gentleman thief; "A Trap to Catch a Cracksman," in which Raffles attempts to rob American heavyweight boxing champion Barney Maguire, only to have it backfire on him; and "The Raffles Relics," where Ruffles—now in hiding—hears about an exhibit dedicated to his "work" at Scotland Yard's Black Room, and decides to steal back his trophies.

Raffles is a cynical character, whose philosophy is "we can't all be moralists, and the distribution of wealth is all wrong anyway." Still, he has his own code of honor, once stealing money from a miserly man to make a donation to their former school and volunteering for the Boer War, where he dies in battle after exposing an enemy spy. The stories in A Thief in the Night are actually told from Bunny's point of view, a la Watson and his accounts of Holmes, as Bunny reflects back on their adventures prior to the master thief's demise.

Several of Hornung's stories were later adapted for the theater, television and film, including portrayals by John Barrymore, David Niven, and as recently as 2001, a production starring Nigel Havers (Dangerfield, Coronation Street, Downton Abbey).

Edgar Excellence

 

As Mystery Writers of America celebrates the 214th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, MWA announced the nominees for the 2023 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, and television published or produced in 2022. The 77th Annual Edgar Awards will be celebrated on April 27, 2023, at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square.

 

BEST NOVEL

Devil House by John Darnielle (Farrar, Straus and Giroux - MCD)
Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown & Co./Mulholland Books)
Gangland by Chuck Hogan (Hachette Book Group – Grand Central Publishing)
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown & Co./Mulholland Books)
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Maid by Nita Prose (Penguin Random House – Ballantine Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
 
Jackal by Erin E. Adams (Penguin Random House - Bantam)
Don’t Know Tough by Eli Cranor (Soho Press – Soho Crime)
Shutter by Ramona Emerson (Soho Press – Soho Crime)
More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li (Penguin Random House – Tiny Reparations Books)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
 
Quarry’s Blood by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)

On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass (Harlequin Trade Publishing – Graydon House

Or Else by Joe Hart (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)

Cleopatra’s Dagger by Carole Lawrence (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)

A Familiar Stranger by A.R. Torre (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)

 

BEST FACT CRIME

Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls by Kathleen Hale (Grove Atlantic – Grove Press)
Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation by Erika Krouse (Flatiron Books)
Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles (Hachette Book Group – Workman Publishing – Algonquin Books)
American Caliph: The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, D.C. by Shahan Mufti (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur Books)

 

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
 
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins – Collins Crime Club)
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie by Mary Anna Evans & J.C. Bernthal (Bloomsbury – Bloomsbury Academic)
The Crime World of Michael Connelly: A Study of His Works and Their Adaptations by David Geherin (McFarland)
The Woman Beyond the Attic: The V.C. Andrews Story by Andrew Neiderman (Simon & Schuster – Gallery Books)
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Books – Pegasus Crime)
 
BEST SHORT STORY

"Red Flag," Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Gregory Fallis (Dell Magazines)
"Backstory," Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Charles John Harper (Dell Magazines)
"Locked-In," Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by William Burton McCormick (Dell Magazines)
“The Amnesty Box," Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms by Tim McLoughlin (Akashic Books)

“First You Dream, Then You Die," Black is the Night by Donna Moore (Titan Books)

 

BEST JUVENILE

The Swallowtail Legacy: Wreck at Ada’s Reef by Michael D. Beil (Holiday House – Pixel+Ink)
The Area 51 Files by Julie Buxbaum (Random House Children's Books - Delacorte Press)
Aggie Morton Mystery Queen: The Seaside Corpse by Marthe Jocelyn (Penguin Random House Canada - Tundra Books)

Adventures on Trains: Murder on the Safari Star by M.G. Leonard & Sam Sedgman (Macmillan Children's Publishing - Feiwel & Friends)
Chester Keene Cracks the Code by Kekla Magoon (Random House Children's Books - Wendy Lamb Books)
 
BEST YOUNG ADULT
 
Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne (Random House Children’s Books – Crown BFYR)
Frightmares by Eva V. Gibson (Random House Children’s Books - Underlined)
The Black Girls Left Standing by Juliana Goodman (Macmillan Children’s Books – Feiwel & Friends)
The Red Palace by June Hur (Macmillan Children’s Books – Feiwel & Friends)
Lock the Doors by Vincent Ralph (Sourcebooks - Fire)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“One Mighty and Strong" - Under the Banner of Heaven, Written by Brandon Boyce (Hulu/FX)
“Episode 1” – Magpie Murders, Written by Anthony Horowitz (Masterpiece/PBS)
“Episode 1" - Karen Pirie, Written by Emer Kenny (BritBox)
“When Harry Met Fergus" - Harry Wild, Written by David Logan (Acorn TV)
“The Reagan Way" - Blue Bloods, Written by Siobhan Byrne O’Connor (CBS)

"Eighteen Wheels A Predator" - Law & Order: SVU, Written by Brianna Yellen & Monet Hurst-Mendoza (NBC Universal)

 
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"Dogs in the Canyon," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Mark Harrison (Dell Magazines)

 

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
 
Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Amanda Flower (Penguin Random House - Berkley)

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)
The Disinvited Guest by Carol Goodman (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
A Dreadful Splendor by B.R. Myers (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
Never Name the Dead by D.M. Rowell (Crooked Lane Books)
 
THE G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD
 
Secret Lives by Mark de Castrique (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)

An Unforgiving Place by Claire Kells (Crooked Lane Books)

Hideout by Louisa Luna (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – Doubleday)

Behind the Lie by Emilya Naymark (Crooked Lane Books)

Secrets Typed in Blood by Stephen Spotswood (Knopf Doubleday Publishing – Doubleday)

 

THE LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN MEMORIAL AWARD

 

The Shadow of Memory by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane Books)

Buried in a Good Book by Tamara Berry (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)

Smile Beach Murder by Alicia Bessette (Penguin Random House – Berkley)

Desert Getaway by Michael Craft (Brash Books)

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)

 

SPECIAL AWARDS

 

GRAND MASTER

 

Michael Connelly

Joanne Fluke

 

RAVEN AWARD

 

Crime Writers of Color

Eddie Muller for Noir Alley and The Noir Foundation

 

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD

 

The Strand Magazine

Mystery Melange

Joffe Books announced the shortlist for the Joffe Books Prize for Crime Writers of Colour 2022. This year's pool of entries covered the gamut of gritty police procedurals to wrenching domestic suspense, evocative historical mysteries to page-turning cosies. Out of the longlist of twenty, five stood out, forming the official shortlist: The Labelled Bones by FQ Yeoh; Everyone Is Going To Know by Kingsley Pearson; The Smiling Mandarin by Mai Le Dinh; Red Obsession by Rose Lorimer; and Savage Territory by Sam Genever. The winner will be announced in January 2023.

More sad news for fans of mystery-themed bookstores, as Toronto’s Sleuth of Baker Street, announced it is closing. After forty years, owners Marian Misters and J.D. Singh have decided to retire from both work and bookselling. As Marian noted, "Spending forty years doing something we love has been a great pleasure, but the time has come for other things. There will be a transition period, naturally. What the transition will look like exactly, or how long the transition period will be, is not perfectly clear in our minds—there are a few moving parts and after forty years, it’s with considerable trepidation that we undertake this last, final, turn to our bookselling career—but our need and desire to do this is quite clear. We’ll stumble through this and make decisions as they need to be made."

The 15th year of Writers' Police Academy will once again offer hands-on training classes and sessions taught by leading law enforcement and forensics experts, scientists, and other industry professionals. This year's they've also added a special focus on homicide investigations that includes classes taught by top homicide and crime scene investigators, a coroner who’s also a flight nurse and author, evidence experts, SWAT team members, narcotics experts, behavioral health professionals, use of force and tactical response experts. This year's Guest of Honor is Hank Phillippi Ryan, and the special guest presenters include photojournalist Mike De Sisti, homicide detective/TV personality Steven Spingola (Cold Justice), and renowned serial killer expert Dr. Katherine Ramsland. Registration for the 2023 Writers’ Police Academy is scheduled to open February 1, 2023. 

There will be an exhibition featuring Sherlock Holmes materials from Occidental College's Ned Guymon Collection of Mystery and Detective Fiction during the 55th California International Antiquarian Book Fair held February 10–12 in Pasadena. The collection, one of the world's largest in the genre, is composed of some 16,000 items including such Holmesian treasures as an 1887 copy of A Study in Scarlet and other first edition books, magazines, and rare, fascinating ephemera.  (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at The Bunburyist)

As crime fiction continues to dominate sales and its critical reception grows, it has become an increasingly important part of Creative Writing courses. Clues: A Journal of Detection is looking for 500-750 word contributions for a new regular feature for the journal, a forum on teaching. Accounts from all classroom spaces (college, high school, graduate school, prisons, etc.) and teachers at all stages of their careers are welcome, as well as student voices.  Submissions are due February 1, 2023. For more information or to submit essays, please contact Jamie Bernthal- Hooker ([email protected]).

On January 26, Penguin Modern Classics will publish three well-regarded novels from the father of the spy thriller, Eric Ambler (1909-1998), including Passage of Arms, The Light of Day, and A Kind of Anger. Ambler is often said to have invented the modern suspense novel, and his disciples include John le Carré, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and Len Deighton. (HT to Shots Magazine) 

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "George Santos, Republican Representative-Elect From New York's Third Congressional District" by Robert Cooperman.

In the Q&A roundup, thriller author MHR Geer joined Lisa Haselton to talk about Geer's new suspense novel, Assumed; Grace Topping chatted with Kait Carson at Writers Who Kill to discuss the reissue of her book, Death by Blue Water; and Thomas Perry took the Page 69 test about his latest thriller, Murder Book.

Lefty Love

Left Coast Crime 2023 — Trouble in Tucson— will be presenting four Lefty Awards at the convention in Tucson, Arizona. Registrants of the Left Coast Crime Conventions in Tucson and Albuquerque were able to nominate three titles in each category. The 2023 Lefty awards will be voted on at the convention and presented at the Awards Banquet on Saturday, March 18, 2023, at the El Conquistador Tucson.

 

Lefty Nominees for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

• Ellen Byron, Bayou Book Thief (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Jennifer J. Chow, Death by Bubble Tea (Berkley Prime Crime)
• A.J. Devlin, Five Moves of Doom (NeWest Press)
• T.G. Herren, A Streetcar Named Murder (Crooked Lane Books)
• Catriona McPherson, Scot in a Trap (Severn House)

Lefty Nominees for Best Historical Mystery Novel
The Bill Gottfried Memorial for books covering events before 1970

• Dianne Freeman, A Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder (Kensington Books)
• Catriona McPherson, In Place of Fear (Mobius)
• Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run (William Morrow)
• Karen Odden, Under a Veiled Moon (Crooked Lane Books)
• Ann Parker, The Secret in the Wall (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Iona Whishaw, Framed in Fire (Touchwood Editions)

Lefty Nominees for Best Debut Mystery Novel

• Erin E. Adams, Jackal (Bantam Books)
• Eli Cranor, Don’t Know Tough (Soho Crime)
• Ramona Emerson, Shutter (Soho Crme)
• Meredith Hambrock, Other People’s Secrets (Crooked Lane Books)
• Harini Nagendra, The Bangalore Detectives Club (Pegasus Crime)
• Rob Osler, Devil’s Chew Toy (Crooked Lane Books)
• Jane Pek, The Verifiers (Vintage Books)

Lefty Nominees for Best Mystery Novel

• Kellye Garrett, Like a Sister (Mulholland Books)
• Laurie R. King, Back to the Garden (Bantam Books)
• James L’Etoile, Dead Drop (Level Best Books)
• Gigi Pandian, Under Lock & Skeleton Key (Minotaur Books)
• Louise Penny, A World of Curiosities (Minotaur Books)
• Alex Segura, Secret Identity (Flatiron Books)

 

To be eligible for the 2023 Lefty Awards, titles must have been published for the first time in the United States or Canada during 2022, in book or ebook format. (If published in other countries before 2022, a book is still eligible if it meets the US or Canadian publication requirement.)

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

Alona Tal (SEAL Team), Jake Busey (Predators), and Craig Sheffer (A River Runs Through It) have joined Mark Feuerstein, Neal McDonough, Dermot Mulroney, and Christopher Lloyd in Man in the Long Black Coat, from director Salvador Litvak. The film tells the story of a troubled teen accused of a shocking murder, and the unlikely detective who seeks to prove his innocence and expose a far more sinister truth.

Paul Ben-Victor (Plane) and Mercedes Varnado (The Mandalorian) are the newest additions to the cast of the action-thriller, The Collective, which follows a group of righteous assassins. The members take aim at a highly sophisticated human trafficking ring backed by a network of untouchable billionaires. With their backs against the wall, The Collective has no choice but to put their most important mission in the hands of rookie assassin, Sam Alexander (Lucas Till). What he lacks in experience he makes up for in savvy, grit, and a keen ability to improvise in the most dangerous situations. He is aided on his journey by Hugo (Tyrese Gibson) and Liam (Don Johnson), former CIA operatives turned rogue vigilantes.

The first trailer was released for Marlowe, the upcoming film starring Liam Neeson as Raymond Chandler's iconic detective, which premieres on February 15. Academy Award-winning screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed) adapted the project, with Neil Jordan (The Brave One) directing. The noir crime thriller is set in late 1930’s Los Angeles and centers around a street-wise, down-on-his-luck detective, Philip Marlowe, who is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger), daughter of a well-known movie star (Jessica Lange). The disappearance unearths a web of lies, and soon Marlowe is involved in a dangerous, deadly investigation where everyone involved has something to hide.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

AMC Networks has acquired the rights to John Maxim’s Bannerman spy book series for development as a potential television series. In the first of the books, The Bannerman Solution, Paul Bannerman was once his nation’s deadliest weapon – a top covert operative heading up the most lethal group of contract agents and network specialists in all of Europe. Now Bannerman is a liability, so the agency makes the decision that Bannerman and his people must be quietly eliminated. But Bannerman has other plans.

MGM+, formerly Epix, unveiled its programming lineup and development slate. The newly rebranded streaming service will launch on January 15 in conjunction with the season three premiere of Godfather of Harlem starring and executive produced by Forest Whitaker. Among the new projects are The Emperor of Ocean Park, a suspenseful take on Stephen L. Carter’s best-selling novel that centers around the death of a Black judge, whose daughter believes was actually murdered; Hoodlum, based on the 1997 MGM film written by Chris Brancato and based on the true story of 1930s Harlem numbers queen, Stephanie St. Clair, and her rise to prominence; and the docuseries, Wonderland Murders & the Secret History of Hollywood, a project executive produced by Bosch novelist, Michael Connelly.

In a competitive situation, veteran producer Clark Peterson (Monster, Rampart) and his Story and Film, Inc, has optioned Sara Foster’s thriller novel, The Hush, for development as a television series. Set in a near-future, surveillance-state London, The Hush follows a group of women who join forces with a midwife to save her daughter, who is the latest in a string of pregnant teens that have mysteriously disappeared. In the six months since the first case of a terrifying new epidemic, the government has passed sweeping new laws to monitor all citizens, and young pregnant women are vanishing without a trace.

Independent studio, wiip, has preemptively acquired An Honest Man, an upcoming novel by Michael Koryta, to develop as a television drama series, with Koryta attached to pen the adaptation. An Honest Man tells the story of Israel Pike, a man just released from prison for killing his own father, who returns to his ancestral island home in northern Maine and quickly becomes the primary suspect when seven men, including two Senate rivals and the prosecutor who sent Pike to prison, are found dead aboard a yacht drifting offshore. Lt. Jenn Salazar of the Maine State Police takes the lead in the investigation on Salvation Point Island, operating with secrets of her own to protect.

Nicholas Logan and Jeri Ryan have joined the cast of Dark Winds, AMC’s Western noir thriller series based on Tony Hillerman’s popular Leaphorn & Chee books. Set in 1971 on a remote outpost of the Navajo Nation near Monument Valley, Dark Winds follows Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and officer Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) of the Tribal Police as they are besieged by a series of seemingly unrelated crimes. Logan plays Colton Wolf, a twisted assassin with a secret that puts him on a collision course with Leaphorn. Ryan portrays Rosemary Vines, a femme fatale whose physical frailties hide her naked ambition as she leaves a trail of bodies in her wake. Jessica Matten, Deanna Allison, and Elva Guerra also star.

As part of a press tour, actor Timothy Olyphant talked about returning to Justified amid controversy surrounding police misconduct in the U.S. Based on the books by Elmore Leonard and his character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, Justified ended in 2015, but the crime drama is returning in the form of Justified: City Primeval, expected to premiere in summer 2023. Olyphant noted that "We’re not a show that’s a cheerleader for law enforcement" and that the storylines won’t gloss over the topic of police brutality and inequality. Set ten years after the finale of the original Justified, the new crime drama finds Givens juggling work with raising his teenage daughter Willa (Olyphant’s real-life daughter Vivian), with the action moving from Kentucky to the city of Detroit, where Givens joins the police department’s investigation into "The Oklahoma Wildman," known as Clement Mansel (Boyd Holbrook).

AMC announced that the premiere date for the second season of Dalgliesh (an Acorn TV Original) will be in April of this year. The new season is based on three more P.D. James novels, Death of an Expert Witness, A Certain Justice, and The Murder Room, with Bertie Carvel reprising his role as the enigmatic chief investigator.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Good Morning America spoke with James Patterson and Mike Lupica, authors of The House of Wolves, the story of a father’s murder and the family feud over his billion-dollar empire that follows.

The first Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode of 2023 is up featuring the mystery short story, "Owl Be Damned," written by Nikki Knight and read by actor Ariel Linn.

On Crime Time FM, Steve Cavanagh (Eddie Flynn series) and Imran Mahmood (All I Said Was True) discussed courtroom thrillers with Victoria Selman; why we all love Atticus Finch; the courtroom as a cathedral; and having a pint with Rumpole.