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
Conclave, the latest from Oscar-winning director Edward Berger, has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Focus Features. Berger’s follow-up to Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front remake stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Carlos Diehz, Lucian Msamati, Brían F. O’Byrne, Merab Ninidze, Sergio Castellitto, and Isabella Rossellini. Based on Robert Harris’s novel, the film centers on a secret papal conclave as they go about electing a new Pope — and a conspiracy amid rival factions, self-serving political ambitions, and secrets held by the former Pope.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
Andrée A. Michaud’s novel Boundary is being developed as a thriller series to be known as Boundary Pond. Louis Choquette (19-2; Mafiosa) is attached as showrunner and director, and the project will come to market in coming weeks. The story is set amid the idyllic cottage life and warmth and familiarity of Boundary Pond’s forests, which turn treacherous after a mysterious death rocks the normally peaceful lake community where outsiders keep summer cabins, and locals struggle through the winter. When a second body turns up, murder is suspected.
MGM+ has given the green light to the true crime docuseries, The Wonderland Murders & The Secret History of Hollywood, a four-episode series based on Michael Connelly’s Audible podcast of the same name. The project explores the notorious Wonderland murder case, which took place in Los Angeles in the 1980s when four people were discovered severely beaten to death in a suburban home in Laurel Canyon on Wonderland Avenue. As the description notes, “From a bought-off juror to the biggest porn actor of his generation, an alleged corrupt federal agent and a kind of Zelig of Hollywood’s dark underbelly, much about the case remains unresolved, and there are people who got away with murder."
The BBC will air Return to Paradise, an Australia-set spin-off of the long-running drama, Death in Paradise. Filming next year, the six-part series follows Australian ex-pat Mackenzie Clarke, the seemingly golden girl of the London Metropolitan police force, who is suddenly forced to pull up stakes and move back to her childhood home of Dolphin Cove. When a murder takes place in the idyllic beachside hamlet, Mack can’t help but put her inspired detective brilliance to good use.
The Rookie: Feds has been canceled after one season at ABC. The drama series stars Niecy Nash-Betts as former guidance counselor Simone, who becomes the oldest rookie in the agency as she joins the FBI as an agent. As Simone hones her skills and trusts her intuition, she proves her skeptics wrong, including Special Agent Matthew Garza, played by Felix Solis. Created by Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter, who also served as showrunner for the freshman show, The Rookie: Feds rounded out its cast with Frankie R. Faison, James Lesure, Britt Robertson, and Kevin Zegers.
In more fallout from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, ABC has also opted not to proceed with The Good Lawyer, its planned legal spinoff from The Good Doctor that was going to be toplined by Kennedy McMann and Felicity Huffman. ABC had planned to launch The Good Lawyer this coming spring, but the broadcasting networks are running out of shelf space as they try to accommodate all of their popular returning scripted series.
A trailer was released for the second season of the hit show Reacher on Prime Video. Based on Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th book in Lee Child’s global best-selling series, the story begins when veteran military police investigator Jack Reacher (played by Alan Ritchson), receives a coded message that the members of his former U.S. Army unit, the 110th MP Special Investigations, are being mysteriously and brutally murdered one by one.
A trailer also dropped for Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, in which everyone’s favorite germaphobic detective (played by Tony Shalhoub) is tasked with solving a murder for his stepdaughter Molly (Caitlin McGee) a journalist who is getting ready for her wedding. Shalhoub reunites with stars from the original series that ran from 2002-2009, Ted Levine, Traylor Howard, Jason Gray-Stanford, Melora Hardin, and Hector Elizondo. The cast is also joined by Caitlin McGee and James Purefoy. The movie premieres Dec. 8 on Peacock.
Masterpiece Mystery released a trailer for season 4 of Miss Scarlet and the Duke, which premieres Sunday, January 7, 2024 at the special time of 8/7c. The series follows Eliza Scarlet, Victorian London’s first-ever female detective, who spars with Scotland Yard Detective Inspector William Wellington, a.k.a., The Duke. In Season 4, Eliza is running a London-based detective agency. Things are not going entirely smoothly, although help comes from some familiar sources. Outside work, her relationship with William (The Duke) builds towards a looming decision that will shape both their lives.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The second season of Moriarty dropped this week on Audible. This nine-episode audio performance, subtitled "The Silent Order," is inspired by Sherlock Holmes, but Charles Kindinger’s script offers a moral scrambling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic stories. In the latest Moriarty installment, six months after surviving near death at Reichenbach Falls, Professor James Moriarty tracks down the woman he loves in New York City, where she is trapped in the web of The Order – an evil organization that stretches beyond Britain and the Crown. When his attempts to break her free lead to tragedy, Moriarty returns home, determined to bring down the entire global organization. But before he can strike, he makes another shocking discovery: Sherlock Holmes is alive and shares his goal. Moriarty and Holmes must set their animosity aside and join forces to stop the assassination of the American president and a devastating world war.
On the Crime Writers of Color podcast, Robert Justice interviewed Shelly Ellis, author of over a dozen novels including the "Three Mrs. Greys" series and Not So Perfect Strangers.
Norwegian crime writing legend, Gunnar Staalesen, chatted with Crime Time FM's Craig Sisterson about his new hardboiled thriller, Mirror Image; Varg Veum and Bergen; crime fiction as social commentary with humor; Joe Biden, PI; and wolves in a sanctuary.
The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with crime writer and former journalist, Fiona Cummins, about her momentous meeting with George Clooney. They also discussed new research showing the range of cats' facial expressions, and dissected the case of the Aussie mushroom poisoning.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club discussed mysteries set in Colonial America.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, featuring the first chapter of Steadying the Ark by Rebecca K. Jones, read by actor Shauna Dolin.
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