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
Hot on the heels of his Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA wins for Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy is set to reprise his starring role in Peaky Blinders for a follow-up film to shoot in September, according to series creator Steven Knight. Originally airing on BBC before eventually moving to Netflix, Peaky Blinders takes its name from the Birmingham gang whose exploits it chronicles in the aftermath of World War I. Murphy led the popular British crime drama series as gang leader Tommy Shelby, with the show running for six seasons between 2013 and 2022.
The 1999 cult favorite film, The Boondock Saints, is set for a "universe expansion" of the action film franchise about the fraternal twin Irish brothers who raise holy hell to rid their Boston hometown of all criminals. Both films starred The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery as the MacManus brothers, with Billy Connolly playing their father. Reedus and Flanery will reprise their roles, and the search is on for a new director after Troy Duffy stepped away from that role. Duffy plans to write a series of books about the Saints, continuing their story that way.
Ilfenesh Hadera has been tapped to star opposite Denzel Washington in High and Low, Spike Lee's English-language reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller. Loosely based on the 1959 novel King’s Ransom, written by Evan Hunter under the pen name Ed McBain, the original High and Low watches as a shoe company executive becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom. It’s unclear how closely Lee’s film will hew to the original storyline, and there’s no word yet as to the role Hadera will play.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
Peacock has picked up The Good Daughter, a limited series psychological suspense thriller starring and executive produced by Jessica Biel. Based on Karin Slaughter's bestselling novel and with the author writing all episodes, the series centers on sisters Charlotte (Biel) and Samantha Quinn, who have spent the last twenty-eight years trying to piece together the lives that were fractured by a single night of violence. When another attack splinters the small town of Pikeville, Charlotte is the first witness on the scene. Now a lawyer like her father, she’s forced to confront her own demons as the case twists through one shocking revelation after another. In the end, both she and Samantha find themselves wondering if the price of being the good daughter was worth it after all.
Netflix is teaming up with Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø, whose Harry Hole crime novels have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, for a new "Next on Nordic" noir series, Harry Hole (working title). The project is based on Nesbø’s novel, The Devil’s Star, about the series' titular detective, with Nesbø also writing the script. The story is set In the heat of a sweltering Oslo summer, when a young woman is found murdered in her flat—with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid. An off-the-rails alcoholic barely holding on to his job, Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with Tom Waaler, a hated colleague whom Harry believes is responsible for the murder of his partner. When another woman is reported missing five days later, and her severed finger turns up adorned with a red star-shaped diamond ring, Harry fears a serial killer is at work.
Netflix also unveiled other "Next on Nordic" programs including its first Nordic period drama, The New Force, set in 1958 and focused on Sweden's first female police officer graduates. Ridiculed by the public, belittled by the media, and scorned by their colleagues, the pioneering officers are placed in Sweden’s most crime-ridden district, in Stockholm, where they realize their biggest problem isn’t the criminals but resistance from colleagues and their own families. There will also be a standalone sequel to the Danish series, The Chestnut Man, based on a Søren Sveistrup novel, with Danica Curcic and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard starring as detectives Mark Hess and Naia Thulin investigating crimes of a violent murderer who stalks victims before killing them. Plus, Netflix announced a second season of Barracuda Queens, which follows a group of girls who engage in an escalating series of robberies, this time set in the art world.
Narcos creator Chris Brancato is developing a Peaky Blinders-style series about Irish gangs in New York, with the working title, The Westies. Deadline reported that the project is in early development for MGM+, and will focus on "fearsome Irish gangs" with a starting point of the late 1970s.
Maggie Q is set to headline Prime Video's untitled Renée Ballard series, a Bosch spinoff about the LAPD’s Cold Case Division. Based on the work of bestselling author Michael Connelly, the drama follows Detective Renée Ballard, who is tasked with running the LAPD’s new cold-case unit — a poorly funded, all-volunteer unit with the largest case load in the city. Ballard approaches these frozen-in-time cases with empathy and determination. When she uncovers a larger conspiracy during her investigations, she’ll lean on the assistance of her retired ally, Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), to navigate the dangers that threaten both her unit and her life.
Murder In A Small Town, Fox’s psychological crime drama starring Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk, has expanded its cast with new additions James Cromwell (Succession), Stana Katic (Castle), and Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica). Based on the "Karl Alberg" books by L.R. Wright, Sutherland stars as Karl Alberg, a detective who moves to a quiet coastal town in search of peace of mind but finds the paradise has more than its share of secrets. Kreuk plays Cassandra, a local librarian who becomes Alberg’s muse, foil, and romantic interest. Douglas plays Sergeant Sid Sokolowski, Alberg’s second in command, with Cromwell and Katic appearing in guest star roles.
CBS's NCIS: Origins has found its young Mike Franks. Kyle Schmid has been cast as a lead opposite Austin Stowell and Mariel Molino in the CBS Studios-produced Young Gibbs drama, a prequel to the venerable procedural, which has a straight-to-series order for the 2024-2025 broadcast season. Origins begins in 1991, years prior to the events of NCIS, and follows Gibbs (Stowell) as he starts his career as a newly minted special agent at the fledgling NCIS Camp Pendleton office where he forges his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by NCIS legend Mike Franks (Schmid).
CBS has picked up NCIS: Sydney for a second season. The procedural will also return for a second year on Paramount+ Australia. NCIS: Sydney marked the first international expansion of the franchise and was the No. 1 new series of the fall and currently ranks as the No. 3 new series of the 2023-2024 season, behind Tracker and Elsbeth.
NBC has renewed all three One Chicago series—Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D.—for the 2024-25 season. The trio of shows returned in January following a long break due to the dual writers' and actors' strikes with shortened seasons. New episodes are released on Wednesdays and are currently the top three shows of the night this season in total viewers. Replays are available the following day via Peacock.
Netflix has set April 25 as the premiere date for its upcoming dark YA genre series, Dead Boy Detectives. Based on the comics of the same name by Neil Gaiman and part of The Sandman Universe, Dead Boy Detectives follows Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), the "brains" and "brawn" behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends and ghosts…who solve mysteries. They will do anything to stick together – including escaping evil witches, Hell, and Death herself. With the help of a clairvoyant named Crystal (Kassius Nelson) and her friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), they crack some of the mortal realm’s most mystifying paranormal cases.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
On the latest episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, Shane Whaley interviewed Michael Frost Beckner, the writer of the movie Spy Game. They discussed Michael's Spy Game book series including a new novella called Kaleidoscope and how it fits into his Spy Game trilogy.
On Crime Time FM, Graham Bartlett chatted with host Paul Burke about his new police thriller, City on Fire, the third Jo Howe novel; Brighton and policing in a modern city; dialing up the drama; Brighton's rebel soul; meeting readers; and supporting 150+ writers with policing matters.
Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Ron Corbett, a former radio host and newspaper columnist, whose first book of fiction was Ragged Lake, the debut novel in the Frank Yakabuski mystery series, and an Edgar Award nominee for Best Original Paperback. His latest novel, Cape Rage, features undercover agent, Danny Barrett who is in the rugged landscape of the Pacific Northwest, where he is caught between a family of criminals and the psychopath who is tracking them down.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up, featuring the mystery short story, "Charity Begins At Home," by Herschel Cozine, read by actor Sean Hopper.
The Cop and Writers podcast, hosted by Patrick J. O'Donnell, welcomed Rebekah Strong, an active member of law enforcement for over twenty years, working her way up from patrol to Crime Scene Investigator. She also writes crime novels under the pen name of R.J. Strong, including two books in the Luke Marshall series and her latest, Perimortem, the first novel in the Elloree Holt Forensic Crime Thriller Series.
Crime fiction and true crime writer Amanda Lamb joined Debbi Mack on the latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast.
On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed European mysteries and thrillers.
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