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

The Avengers' Anthony Mackie will star in and produce an action film for Netflix from Madison Turner, a former stuntman-turned-screenwriter. Mackie will play a character named Xavier Rhodes in The Ogun, a man who brings his teenage daughter to Nigeria to find a cure for the rare genetic condition that he passed on to her. But when his daughter is kidnapped, Rhodes goes on a rampage through the criminal underworld to find her before it’s too late, testing his powers to the limit.

HanWay Films has closed a string of international pre-sales on Phillip Noyce’s true-crime love story, Peggy Jo, which is set to star Lily James. James will play the title character, a bank robber who committed her heists while dressed as a man. Loosely based on the true story of the real-life Peggy Jo, the project is being pitched as "Bonnie without the Clyde" and has been adapted for screen by Appaloosa writer Robert Knott. The project is due to shoot in the U.S., but dates have not been revealed.

Although the James Bond action-thriller, No Time to Die, won't be out until April 2, 2021, Billie Eilish’s theme song for the much-delayed film received a Grammy Award nomination last week. Eilish’s single dropped October 1 in anticipation of the originally scheduled November release, which made it eligible for this year’s Grammys.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Fox is developing a crime drama based on the true-life experiences of professional medium, Tina Powers. Written by Michael Alaimo, the untitled project is described as a breezy procedural, in which a quirky TV news crime reporter starts listening to the voices she hears from beyond the grave in order to help Miami’s finest solve crimes.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Blindspot) has been tapped for a new series regular role opposite John Krasinski in the upcoming third season of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, a co-production of Amazon Studios, Paramount Television Studios, and Skydance Television. Jean-Baptiste will play Elizabeth Wright, the Chief of Station. Filming on the new season is expected to begin in 2021.

Kerry O’Malley and Cynthia Quiles are the latest actors to join the second season of CBS All Access’s Why Women Kill. This new season of the dark comedy features a new ensemble cast with storylines set in 1949 that will explore what it means to be beautiful; the hidden truth behind the façades people present to the world; the effects of being ignored and overlooked by society; and finally, the lengths one woman will go to in order to finally belong.

On December 4 at 9pm, More4, the British free-to-air television channel owned by Channel Four, will begin airing The Nordic Murders. The German crime drama, set on the island of Usedom on the Baltic Sea, focuses on a daugher and her estranged mother (recently released from prison for murdering her husband) who form an investigative team despite their wariness toward each other. (HT to Crime Fiction Lover)

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, featuring the mystery short story "No More Excuses" by Guy Belleranti, read by actor Sean Hopper

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed Leslie Rule to discuss her true crime debut, A Tangled Web, which covers a frightening Omaha love-triangle murder.

The Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about "Internal Affairs, Hold-Backs, and PSD Work."

Gray Basnight joined Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, to discuss his latest Sam Teagarden novel, The Madness of the Q.

The featured guest on Meet the Thriller Author was Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, founder of The Mysterious Press, and a man regarded as the world’s foremost authority on crime, mystery and suspense fiction.

Suspense Radio chatted with author Drew Murray about Broken Genius, his latest book featuring FBI Cyber Division Special Agent Will Parker.

This week's Speaking of Mysteries focused on They’re Gone, the new thriller by E. A. Aymar, writing as E. A. Barres, which takes its two main characters—who on the surface have nothing in common except the recent murders of their husbands—down some very twisty roads, literally and metaphorically.

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

Stampede Ventures Productions has optioned the rights to screenwriter Ward Parry’s spec script, Mr. Croup, described an original spy-thriller with franchise potential, inspired by the likes of James Bond and Liam Neeson’s Taken character, Bryan Mills. The script follows a mysterious recluse on a desolate island who finds himself in the company of a 10-year-old girl after her boat capsizes offshore and he is called to save her. With her in his possession, he must come out of hiding and face his past as a secret agent for the British government.

Saoirse Ronan, Sam Rockwell, and David Oyelowo have signed on to star in a new untitled murder mystery thriller from Searchlight Pictures. Tom George is on board to direct the film from a script by Mark Chappell. The story is set in 1950s London, where a desperate Hollywood film producer sets out to turn a popular West End play into a film. When members of the production are murdered, world-weary Inspector Stoppard (Rockwell) and overzealous rookie Constable Stalker (Ronan) find themselves in the midst of a puzzling whodunit within London’s glamorous Theatreland and sordid underground.

Michael Shannon is set to join Sony’s action thriller, Bullet Train, also starring Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Zazie Beetz, and Andrew Koji. Hobbs & Shaw director David Leitch will direct and also supervise the script, which will be written by Zak Olkewicz. The film is based on the Japanese novel, Maria Beetle, by bestselling author Kotaro Isaka and involves five assassins aboard a fast moving bullet train who find out their missions have something in common.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

A Dial M for Murder anthology series from Alicia Vikander and Terence Winter is in development at MGM/UA Television. Based on the 1952 Frederick Knott play and subsequent Alfred Hitchcock film adaptation, the series is said to retell the crime drama from a female perspective. Vikander (Danish Girl, Ex Machina, Tomb Raider) is set to star, with potential follow-up installments in the suspense thriller genre also planned. The original Dial M For Murder centers on a retired tennis champion who discovers that his wife has had an affair and hires an acquaintance to murder her. When the plan backfires and the wife kills her assassin, her husband frames her for the man’s murder, with his elaborate plot only uncovered with the help of his wife’s lover hours before she was to be executed.

Silverprint Pictures, the ITV Studios-owned production label behind the long-running series, Vera, is turning its attentions to its next Ann Cleeves adaptation. The production outfit will reimagine The Long Call as a four-part series, penned by Kelly Jones in what will be her first standalone series. The Long Call was published last year and is the first in a series of Two Rivers novels set in the English county of Devon. It follows detective Matthew Venn as he returns to the evangelical community in which he grew up to attend his father’s funeral. He is soon embroiled in the investigation of a murder close to his new home when the body of a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck is found on the beach. It draws Venn back into a community where murder and intrigue bubble beneath the surface, all set against the stunning backdrop of Devon’s coastline.

Lifetime has ordered the Meagan Good-led thriller, Death Saved My Life, as the next movie in its "Ripped From the Headlines" franchise. Along with Meagan Good, the small-screen film also stars Chiké Okonkwo and Good’s real-life sister, La’Myia Good. The Good sisters will portray siblings in the project, which is inspired by the true story of a woman who faked her own death in order to trap her husband after he hires a hitman to kill her. Lifetime’s lineup of upcoming "Ripped from the Headlines" movies also includes Girl in the Basement, starring Stefanie Scott, Judd Nelson, and Joley Fisher, and The Long Island Serial Killer: A Mother’s Hunt for Justice, lead by Kim Delaney and executive produced by Deborah Norville.

ABC has firmed up its midseason schedule, setting up early 2021 premiere dates for its scripted series. That includes ABC’s returning police procedural, The Rookie, starring Nathan Fillion, which is slated to return on January 3, and Big Sky, based on the 2013 novel The Highway by C. J. Box, scheduled to premiere January 26.

Coyote, the Border Patrol drama starring Michael Chiklis, is the latest high-profile Viacom scripted series to move to streaming. The series, which is produced by Sony Pictures Television, is moving from Paramount Network to CBS All Access. Coyote, which stars Juan Pablo Raba alongside Chiklis, is the story of Ben Clemens (Chiklis), who after 32 years as a border patrol agent is forced to work for the very people he spent his career trying to keep out of America. Now exposed to life on the other side of the wall, Ben will start to question his black and white views of the world, challenging his ideology and his loyalties.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Jeffery Deaver was the special guest on The Tartan Noir Show, talking about his latest books and plans for both the Lincoln Rhyme and Colter Shaw series, as well as the thrill of hearing his words spoken by Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie in the film version of The Bone Collector.

All About Agatha Christie chatted with Tana French about her latest book, The Searcher.

Meet the Thriller Author sat down with Jennifer Graeser Dornbush, a screenwriter, author, speaker, and forensic specialist.

In GAD We Trust discussed the new book from Mark Aldridge, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World.

The Gay Mystery Podcast welcomed Anne Laughlin, author of six novels for Bold Strokes Books. She is the recipient of four Goldie Awards and has been short-listed three times for a Lammy Award.

My Favorite Detective Stories chatted with Norman Brewer, an award-winning reporter and editor, about his latest work, Killer Politics, the sequel to Blending In: A Tale of Homegrown Terrorism.

Writers Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, talked about fingerprints, vigilantes, fiction writing, technical advising, and more in the latest episode.

The latest topic on the forensic podcast, Criminal Mischief, hosted by Dr. D.P. Lyle, was "Gunshot Wound Analysis."

Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Eric Campbell about the founding of Down and Out Books and his experiences as a publisher of hard boiled crime fiction.

Read or Dead geared up for the holiday season with a giant pile of books that you could give to someone (or yourself).

GAMES

After eight years, fans of the James Bond franchise will finally get a new video game, and it will tell the superspy’s origin story. Details about "Project 007" are sparse so far, but IO Interactive said the game will not be based solely on Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale novel or the 2006 film adaptation (or the prequel novels by Anthony Horowitz). Instead, it's a "wholly original Bond story developed exclusively as a video game." IO Interactive said the game will be released on modern systems and platforms, most likely playable on both current consoles and PCs.

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

Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss and Taryn Manning are joining the action-thriller, Every Last One of Them, joining the previously cast Mike Hatton, Paul Sloan, Brian Hayes Currie, Mary Christina Brown, Nick Vallelonga, and Claire Kniaz. Christian Sesma is directing from a screenplay co-written with Chee Keong Cheung, Alistair Cave, and Edward Thomas, although details about the plot haven't been revealed.

Indian filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj's upcoming untitled Bollywood film is inspired by a novel from the "queen of crime," Agatha Christie, and marks the first time that Agatha Christie Limited, which looks after the author's estate, has franchised her stories to an Indian filmmaker. Bhardwaj will only say of the plot, "A murder takes place in a misty Himalayan hill resort. As the whodunit unfolds, a couple almost unwittingly begin sleuthing to get to the bottom of the crime." Bhardwaj, 55, has directed and produced 15 films, including three modern-day adaptations of Shakespeare's plays - Maqbool based on Macbeth, Omkara based on Othello, and Haider based on Hamlet - which have a cult following among fans.

Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios has optioned rights to David Gilman’s thriller novel, The Englishman. Gilman is a former reconnaissance platoon paratrooper in the British Army, a firefighter, and a professional photographer who has also spent time as a writer on the ITV series, A Touch Of Frost. His published works include the "Master Of War" historical novels and the adventure series, Danger Zone. The Englishman centers on a former soldier whose work in the French Foreign Legion taking on terrorists in sub-Saharan Africa brings him to the attention of MI6. He is soon recruited for an undercover mission that takes him on a relentless search through the network of a dangerous international organized crime operation. The book is viewed as the first in a series.

Peter Sarsgaard, Riley Keough, and Bill Burr are joining Jake Gyllenhaal in The Guilty, for Netflix. Also joining the cast are Byron Bowers, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, David Castañeda, Christina Vidal, Paul Dano, Ethan Hawke, Adrian Martinez, Beau Knapp, and Edi Patterson. Antoine Fuqua is directing, while Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective) is writing the thriller, based on the Danish drama, Den Skyldige, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film will take place over the course of a single morning in a 911 dispatch call center, where operator Joe Bayler (Gyllenhaal) tries to save a caller in grave danger. However, he soon discovers that nothing is as it seems.

Jake Gyllenhaal is also in talks to star in Michael Bay's next film, an action movie titled Ambulance. While the logline for the film is being kept under wraps, Ambulance is said to be a remake of a 2005 film from Denmark about two brothers staging a robbery who steal an ambulance as their getaway vehicle with a paramedic and a dying patient in the back.
 

Gerard Butler will star in Night Has Fallen, the fourth installment in the successful "Fallen" box-office franchise. The film will reunite Butler and the Angel Has Fallen creative team, with Robert Kamen returning to write the screenplay and Ric Roman Waugh set to direct. Butler will return as U.S. Secret Service agent Mike Banning, although the plot details haven't been divulged. The fourth film in the franchise will be filmed at Millennium Media’s Nu Boyana Studios in Bulgaria and throughout Europe.

Colin Firth, Gemma Arterton, Simon Russell Beale, and Pappa Essiedu are attached to star in the period drama, Curtain Call, with Anand Tucker directing. The film, set in 1930s London, revolves around a feared theater critic named Jimmy Erskine (Beale); his loyal assistant; a newspaper owner who wants to get rid of the critic; and an actress who has been devastated by the excoriating theatrical reviews. The critic’s determination to survive ensures that the other characters are caught in a web of blackmail, deceit and murder. Patrick Marber adapted the script from Anthony Quinn’s novel.

Scott Eastwood has signed on to star alongside Tyrese Gibson, Famke Janssen, Kevin Durand, and Mel Gibson in the action-thriller, Dangerous, which is to be directed by David Hackl (Saw V). Eastwood will play a reformed sociopath who, after the death of his brother, heads to a remote island which soon falls under siege from a deadly gang of mercenaries. Forced to fend for himself, he discovers their role in his brother’s demise and sets off on a relentless quest for vengeance.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

ITV has announced a new four-part suspenseful thriller, Our House, based on Louise Candlish’s bestselling book of the same name. The four-part series tells the story of Fiona, who arrives home one day to find strangers moving into her house. With all her family’s possessions and furniture nowhere to be seen, Fiona believes there’s been a huge mistake and insists her home isn’t for sale. Events spiral beyond her control, and she’s unable to reach her husband, Bram. With her life as she knows it disappearing before her eyes, Fiona digs deeper and also realizes her husband has disappeared too. But the secrets and lies have only just begun.

Black Bear Television has nabbed the rights to Mary Kubica’s Local Woman Missing, an upcoming mystery novel about a series of strange disappearances. The story is told through different perspectives and timelines, and revolves around three missing women from the same town whose disappearances have remained unsolved. One day, over a decade after the women go missing, one of the victims shockingly returns home. That raises a number of questions. Where has she been? What happened to the other women? And who is responsible?

Emmy winner Kim Delaney has been tapped to star in Lifetime's original movie, The Long Island Serial Killer: A Mother’s Hunt for Justice. The movie is inspired by the emotional story of Mari Gilbert, played by Delaney, a mother whose daughter’s disappearance led to the discovery of 19 bodies, many of which are believed to have been murdered by an unidentified Long Island serial killer. The film follows her relentless pursuit for answers and the truth. Emmy-winning journalist Deborah Norville, who covered Gilbert’s story as anchor for Inside Edition, will executive produce. 

NBC has put in development a drama from husband-and-wife writing duo, April Maguire and Will Honley. In the untitled drama, a year after a weekend getaway ends in tragedy, a diverse group of former high school friends reunites in the hopes of getting closure. Their reunion takes a dark turn, however, when a stranger begins taunting them and exposes dangerous secrets that lead them to question whether their friend’s death was really an accident.

Adam Goldberg has been tapped as a lead opposite Queen Latifah in The Equalizer reboot, which has a straight-to-series order at CBS to launch this season. A reimagining of the classic series, The Equalizer stars Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Goldberg will play Harry Keshegian, an endearing, eccentric, and paranoid tech geek whose experience as a white-hat hacker lets him know what the real conspiracies are. He’s as loyal as they come and like a brother to McCall. The series, which recently started production, also stars Chris Noth, Lorraine Toussaint, Tory Kittles, Liza Lapira, and Laya DeLeon Hayes.

Marnee Carpenter (Criminal Minds) is set as a series regular opposite Rebecca Breeds in CBS’s Silence of the Lambs sequel series, Clarice. Additionally, Jayne Atkinson, Shawn Doyle, and Tim Guinee have been cast in recurring/guest roles in the midseason crime drama series based on Thomas Harris’ famous character. Clarice is set in 1993, one year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. It tells the personal story of FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Breeds) as she returns to the field to pursue serial murderers and sexual predators while navigating the high-stakes political world of Washington, D.C.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, "The Belle Hope," written by Peter DiChellis and is read by actors Max and Brianne Vogt Debbas.

Crime Cafe host, Debbi Mack, interviewed crime and suspense writer Sandra Woffington, author of the Wine Valley Mystery series.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Anthony Horowitz to discuss Moonflower Murders, his latest novel to feature book editor, Susan Ryeland, first introduced in the 2017 Magpie Murders.

The featured guest on My Favorite Detective Stories was Frank Bequaert, who trained as an electrical engineer, before turning his hand to writing short stories, including "Never Kidnap a Crime Novelist" under his pen name of Stan Dryer. 

Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover chatted with Dr. Ian Smith, known for his work on dieting and nutrition, who just completed his first thriller, The Unspoken.

Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Danny Gardner, who has enjoyed careers as an actor, director, and screenwriter. His latest book is Ace Book Coon, the second book in the series featuring disgraced Chicago Police Officer, Elliot Caprice, who is caught between two worlds in 1950s Chicago.

Wrong Place Write Crime welcomed James Swallow to discuss his Marc Dane novels as well as the considerable other IP universes he's written in (Star Trek, 24, Highlander, Deus Ex, and more).

The Writer's Detective Bureau podcast, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, celebrated its 100th episode with Adam answering a whole slew of writers' questions during a Facebook Live event.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a true-crime book review roundup.

Multi award-winning writer, Craig Russell, joined Theresa Talbot on The Tartan Noir Show to talk about what it’s like to have your books translated into 25 languages; how to immerse yourself in the world you are writing about; and how having really great headphones can change your life. Five of his Jan Fabel novels have been made into movies, with Craig making a cameo appearance as a detective.

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

Jason Priestley is attached to star in Fear The Worst, an adaptation of Linwood Barclay's thriller novel of the same name.  Fear The Worst portrays a divorced father whose quiet life is shattered when his 16 year old daughter mysteriously disappears. His search takes him on an agonizing journey through a twisted underworld, faced continually with the unrelenting fear of never finding his daughter.

Kevin Bacon has come aboard Andrew Baird’s action thriller, One Way, joining the previously announced cast Colson Baker and Travis Fimmel. The story centers on Freddy (Baker) who goes on the run with a bag full of cash after a robbery of his former crime boss goes wrong. With a potentially fatal wound, he slips onto a bus headed into the unrelenting California desert. After a call for help, Freddy’s estranged father (Bacon) betrays him, notifying the crime boss where he is. With his life slipping through his fingers, Freddy is left with very few choices to survive. Production is expected to commence in February in Los Angeles and Tulsa, OK.

Josh Duhamel has signed on to star in Bandit, a heist thriller directed by Allan Ungar and written by Kraig Wenman. Wenman’s script centers on the true-life exploits of Gilbert Galvan Jr., a notorious American bank robber who escaped from prison and crossed into Canada. There, he embarked on a robbery spree that set a record for the most consecutive robberies in Canadian history and would get him dubbed the "Flying Bandit."

Netflix has put together its ensemble cast for Munich, which will be led by Jeremy Irons. The World War II movie is set to be directed by Christian Schwochow (The Crown) and is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Robert Harris. The story centers on British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's (Irons) desperate plan to find a peaceful solution to thwart WWII. British civil servant Hugh Legat (George McKay) and German diplomat Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niehwöhner) are sent to Munich for an emergency conference. As they see if war can be averted — and at what cost — the two old friends find themselves at the center of a political plot, with their own lives in danger.

Noomi Rapace (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) is returning to Scandinavia and her native Sweden to star in an action thriller titled Black Crab, in the works at Netflix. Adam Berg will direct the feature adaptation of the novel by the same name written by Jerker Virdborg. The project is an action thriller set in a post-apocalyptic world torn apart by climate change and war. During an endless winter, six soldiers are sent on a dangerous mission across the frozen sea to transport a package that could finally end the war. Equipped with ice skates, unaware of what they’re carrying, or whom they can trust, the mission challenges their beliefs and forces them to ask: What are they willing to sacrifice for their own survival?

Zac Efron (The Greatest Showman) has boarded the survival thriller, Gold. Actor Anthony Hayes (Animal Kingdom) will direct and co-star in the project, which is based on a screenplay Hayes wrote with Polly Smyth. The film follows two strangers traveling through a desert who stumble across the biggest gold nugget ever found. They hatch a plan to protect and excavate their bounty with one man leaving to secure the necessary equipment. The other man remains and must endure harsh desert elements, ravenous wild dogs, and mysterious intruders, while battling the sinking suspicion he has been abandoned to his own fate.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up North American rights to James Kermack’s action thriller film, Knuckledust, with a planned release later this year. The movie stars Moe Dunford, Kate Dickie, Phil Davis, Alex Ferns, Olivier Richters, Jaime Winstone, Gethin Anthony, and Sebastien Foucan. In Knuckledust, police discover an elite fight club where they find seven underground levels, filled with the dead bodies of fighters from around the world. Only one man is found left alive, and the task force has to work out if he’s a mass murderer or the lone survivor.

Disney has officially pulled a couple of their 20th Century Studios movies off the December calendar, including Death on the Nile, starring Kenneth Brannagh as Hercule Poirot in the Agatha Christie novel adaptation. As Deadline notes, this stands as a grim reminder that the holiday moviegoing season is not going to be a gift for either Hollywood or moviegoers.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Kurt Wallander is set to take on more cases after the European drama, Young Wallander, based on Henning Mankell’s novels, was renewed at Netflix for a second season. The prequel series stars Swedish actor, Adam Pålsson, as the eponymous detective as he's just starting out his police career in the increasingly violent environment of present-day Sweden. In the first season, after he was unable to save a teenager from a gruesome attack, Wallander had to learn to cope with his guilt in order to solve the crime.

Irish public broadcaster RTÉ and Scandinavian streamer Viaplay have lined up an all-star cast including Game of Thrones and Project Blue Book star, Aidan Gillen, and Daredevil’s Charlie Cox for the crime drama, Kin. The series charts the lives of a fictional Dublin family embroiled in a gangland war and speaks to the enduring unbreakable bonds of blood and family.

CBS All Access will not move forward with a second season of the experimental police drama, Interrogation. The 10-episode series centered on a case in which a young man was charged and convicted of brutally murdering his mother. The non-linear series was structured such that viewers were allowed to watch the episodes in any order, which CBS All Access billed as an opportunity for viewers to “follow the evidence like a cold case detective, abandon the linear narrative and determine their own investigative path.” Peter Sarsgaard, Kyle Gallner, David Strathairn, Kodi Smit-McPhee starred in the series, with Vincent D’Onofrio as a recurring guest star.

Chris Labadie has booked a recurring role opposite Jared Padalecki on Walker, the CW’s Walker, Texas Ranger reboot from CBS Studios. The series centers on Cordell Walker (Padalecki), a widower and father of two with his own moral code, who returns home to Austin after being undercover for two years, only to discover there’s harder work to be done at home. Labadie will play Jordan, a hardened, tough ex-con who is in the Green Thumb and Grace program – and he’s also involved in a heroin smuggling operation.

The second season of Anthony Horowitz’s spy thriller, Alex Rider, (Amazon Prime) is set to start shooting at the beginning of next year. Sony is yet to officially confirm Season 2, but Deadline reported that the drama is slated to begin a 22-week shoot starting January 25 in Bristol, southwest England, which is later than originally intended due to Covid-related delays. Otto Farrant stars as Alex Rider, a British teenager who has been trained as a spy since childhood. Stephen Dillane and Vicky McClure also feature in the series as members of The Department, an underworld offshoot of MI6.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Read or Dead celebrated Nonfiction November with some great nonfiction reads; talked about the great casting in the new Jane Harper adaptation; and were pleasantly surprised by the Goodreads Choice Awards.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed K. A. Perry to talk about her environmental thriller, The Green Beach File.

Wrong Place, Write Crime chatted with Gary Lippman about his novel, Set the Controls for the Heart of Sharon Tate.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with Susan Spann, the award-winning author of CLIMB and the Hiro Hattori mystery novels featuring ninja detective, Hiro Hattori, and Portuguese Jesuit, Father Mateo.

The Tartan Noir Show welcomed Gordon Brown, the author of eight crime thriller novels set in Spain, Scotland, and the US. The latest in his Morgan Cry series is Thirty-One Bones.

The Gay Mystery Podcast talked with Grant Atherton, who lives in a small sleepy town on the east coast of England after moving down from London ten years ago. The fictional town of Elders Edge in his books is based very much on his home town with a few minor changes to suit the plots.

In GAD We Trust discussed "Appeal and Deception in Golden Age Detective Fiction" with Scott K. Ratner.

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

Mads Mikkelsen and Armie Hammer have been confirmed to star in writer-director Amma Asante’s The Billion Dollar Spy, which is based on the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, David E. Hoffman. The project is based on the true story of how Soviet engineer, Adolf Tolkachev (Mikkelsen), and his CIA handler, Brad Reid (Hammer), risked their lives to help bring an end to the Cold War.

Josh Duhamel, Abbie Cornish, Nick Nolte, and Omar Chaparro are set to star in the action thriller, Blackout, with filming underway in Mexico City. Blackout follows Cain (Duhamel), who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with no memory. After meeting Anna (Cornish), he discovers who he is but soon finds himself fighting for his life as several warring cartel factions attack him, each looking for something he has stolen. Cain looks towards co-worker and mentor, DEA Agent McCoy (Nolte), for answers.

Sydney Sweeney will take the lead role in the crime drama, Silver Star, which charts the story of an unlikely couple: Buddy, a 20-year-old fresh out of jail, and Franny (Sweeney), a pregnant 19-year-old. After Buddy's botched robbery attempt at the bank that foreclosed on his childhood home, he abducts Franny, triggering an unexpected journey together. Casting for the male lead is underway with filming scheduled for early 2021 in the U.S. 

The celebrated Thai martial arts star, Tony Jaa, will play the lead in an English-language action-thriller film (as yet untitled) that's hoped to be the first installment of a three-picture franchise. Jaa will play a legendary assassin who disappeared three years ago and becomes the target of criminal organizations and law enforcement agencies. According to producers, the story will unfold in an unconventional structure, and as the manhunt accelerates, the mystery of the assassin’s identity is slowly unraveled.

Matt Damon will be making an unbilled cameo in Steven Soderbergh’s latest HBO Max crime thriller, No Sudden Move. The project is set in 1955 Detroit and centers on a group of small-time criminals who are hired to steal what they think is a simple document. When their plan goes horribly wrong, their search for who hired them and why weaves them through all echelons of the race-torn, rapidly changing city.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Cush Jumbo, James Nesbitt, Richard Armitage, and Sarah Parish have been set as leads in the series adaptation of Harlan Coben’s bestselling novel, Stay Close, for Netflix. Coben is penning the eight-episode drama, which will be relocated from the U.S. to the UK. The story follows three people living comfortable lives who each conceal dark secrets that even the closest to them would never suspect. As the past comes back to haunt them, threatening to ruin their lives and the lives of those around them, what will be their next move?

CBS is taking a shot on adapting the German police procedural dramedy, Einstein, with major changes to the original concept. The 2017 German series was a police procedural about the unknown great-great-grandson of Albert Einstein, a theoretical physics professor, who helps the police in solving murder cases. The CBS take centers on a roguish, out-of-the-box-thinking physics professor who happens to be the secret, illegitimate great-granddaughter of Albert Einstein. She begrudgingly partners with a Boston homicide detective not only to help solve the most puzzling of crimes, but also to address the problems inside the institution of policing itself. 

CBS has put in development the drama, Tempest, from Jeff Buhler. The story centers around an ex-Army intelligence officer and her survivalist brother-in-law as they work together to solve the mysterious death of her husband. Their discovery that he was one of 127 test subjects in a top secret government mind control program leads them to try to track down and save the remaining test subjects before they commit the most heinous acts of terror.

Amazon Prime Video has acquired the psychological thriller drama series, Tell Me Your Secrets, starring Lily Rabe, Amy Brenneman, Hamish Linklater, and Enrique Murciano. The 10-episode drama revolves around a trio of characters who all have a mysterious and troubling past. As each of them is pushed to the edge, the truth about their pasts and motives grows ever murkier, blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator. 

Amazon is also in negotiations to pick up the action-thriller screenplay titled Ruby, which is about a female assassin. Plot details are sketchy, but the story is said to be in the spirit of the Geena Davis-Samuel L. Jackson 1996 cult action, Long Kiss Goodnight, which followed a schoolteacher suffering from amnesia who sets out on a journey to find out who she is with the help of a private detective until they uncover a dark conspiracy.

The CW has acquired additional seasons of the Canadian drama series, Coroner and Burden of Truth, along with a three-episode Bulletproof special event. Burden of Truth follows Joanna Chang (Kristin Kreuk), a ruthless, big-city lawyer who returns to her small hometown in Millwood for a case that will change her life forever; Coroner is based on the Jenny Cooper series of novels by M. R. Hall and stars Serinda Swan as a recently widowed coroner in Toronto who investigates suspicious deaths; Bulletproof follows NCA detectives and best friends, Aaron Bishop (Noel Clarke) and Ronnie Pike Jr. (Ashley Walters), who investigate some of the UK's most dangerous criminals.

Rachel Keller has been cast in a lead role opposite Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe in HBO Max’s upcoming drama series, Tokyo Vice, from executive produce Michael Mann, who is directing the pilot episode. Keller will play Samantha, a role recast after Odessa Young pulled out due to scheduling conflicts. Created and written by J.T. Rogers and based on Jake Adelstein’s nonfiction book, Tokyo Vice is a firsthand account of a young American journalist (Elgort) working the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat.

Netflix has ordered a third season of its drug-trafficking drama series, Narcos: Mexico. When it returns, it will be without series lead Diego Luna (who portrayed drug cartel leader Félix Gallardo), and with a new showrunner. Season 2 ended with Luna’s Gallardo sentenced to prison for his drug trafficking crimes and there had been speculation he would not return if the series was renewed for a third season. Series co-creator Carlo Bernard will be taking over day-to-day showrunning duties from Eric Newman, who is stepping back after five seasons.

Due to Covid-19, CBS has trimmed the orders for most of its scripted series from a full-season 22 episodes down to 16-18. The programs affected include the NCIS franchise, Blue Bloods, SEAL Team, Magnum P.I. and Bull.

The CW has announced premiere dates for its new season next January, including the returning series Nancy Drew (January 20), and new drama, Walker (January 21) starring Jared Padalecki, which is a reboot of the 1990s series, Walker, Texas Ranger.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On a recent episode of the podcast In GAD We Trust, James Scott Byrnside stopped by to discuss mystery tropes of the Golden Age such as "the dying message," "the false solution," and "the seance." Authors singled out for particular praise include Christianna Brand and Anthony Berkeley Cox, whereas G. K. Chesterton and Ellery Queen come in for some criticism. (HT to The Bunburyist blog)

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts, Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste, discussed horror novels in honor of Halloween, including their favorites; the differences between crime and horror; and much more.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime and suspense writer, A.C. Frieden, on the Crime Cafe podcast.

Dr. DP Lyle returned to My Favorite Detective Stories to chat about his award-winning books and also consulting with novelists and television shows.

Suspense Radio welcomed thriller author, Brad Parks, to talk about his latest book, Interference.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with author Dan Padavona about his Darkwater Cove Psychological Thrilles series, the latest of which, Don't Breathe, was published October 29th.

Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Drew Murray about his new novel, Broken Genius.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a "Halloween Cozy Roundup."

Doug Johnstone was the special guest on The Tartan Noir Show, chatting about the stroke he had at the beginning of lockdown and how he finished the first draft of a new novel while recovering. He's the author of a series that started with A Dark Matter, shortlisted for this year’s McIlvanney Prize.

The Gay Mystery Podcast spoke with Randy Boyd, whose four novels, including two mystery/thrillers, have been nominated for five Lambda Literary Awards and all feature main characters who are black, gay, and living with HIV/AIDS. 

Maxine Mei-Fung Chung was interviewed by Robert Justice for The Crime Writers of Color podcast. Maxine is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist who lectures on trauma, gender and sexuality, clinical dissociation, and attachment theory. The Eighth Girl, her debut novel, was published earlier this year and has been optioned for film by Netflix with Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan.

Tori Eldridge stopped by the Unlikeable Female Characters podcast to talk about her Lily Wong series, as well as her best self-defense tips, and her thoughts on violence and vengeance in crime fiction.

The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast featured prolific short story author, John M. Floyd, recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement, reading his story, "On the Road With Mary Jo," from the January/February 2019 issue of EQMM.

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

Derek Kolstad, creator of the John Wick franchise, is teaming up with Swiss producer-distributor, Ascot Elite Entertainment, director Claudio Faeh, and producer Christopher Milburn on the action-thriller, Acolyte. The project centers on a rogue government agency that’s using blackmail to coerce everyday citizens into committing acts of domestic terror. The agency mistakenly kidnaps the wife of a retired operative who responds by recruiting a disbanded group of trained "associates" to exact revenge and rescue his wife. Casting is underway in London, and Ascot Elite is aiming for the film to become the first in a series of related features.

Taylor Kitsch has been set as the new male lead in Wash Me in the River, after Colson "Machine Gun Kelly" Baker dropped out due to scheduling. Kitsch joins Robert De Niro and John Malkovich in the drama that will be directed by Randall Emmett. The action-thriller, which shoots early next month in Georgia and Puerto Rico, is said to be in the vein of No Country for Old Men. Kitsch will play a recovering addict who starts a violent vendetta against the dealers responsible for selling the drugs that resulted in his fiancée’s death.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is set to join the ensemble cast of the Sony action-thriller, Bullet Train, also starring Brad Pitt and the recently added Joey King and Andrew Koji. The film is based on the Japanese novel, Maria Beetle, by best-selling author Kotaro Isaka. Plot details are vague though Taylor-Johnson is expected to play one of the four assassins in the film along with Pitt and King.

Toby Huss has joined the action-thriller, CopShop, in a supporting role. Gerard Butler, Frank Grillo, and Alexis Louder lead the cast in the film, which is being written and directed by Joe Carnahan. The plot centers on a small-town police station that becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Butler), a smart rookie female cop (Louder), and a double-crossing con man (Grillo) who, with no place left to run, seeks refuge behind bars.

Sony has given a new release date (November 20) and released a trailer for the crime drama, The Last Vermeer. Based on the book, The Man Who Made Vermeers, by Jonathan Lopez, the story follows Joseph Piller (played by Claes Bang), a Dutch Jew who fought in the Resistance during the Second World War. Following the war, Piller becomes an investigator assigned the task of identifying and redistributing stolen art. He zeroes in on the flamboyant Han van Meegeren (Guy Pearce) who hosted hedonistic soirées and allegedly sold Dutch art treasures to Hermann Goring and other top Nazis. Van Meegeren is arrested for collaboration, punishable by death, but, despite mounting evidence, Piller, with the aid of his assistant (Vicky Krieps), becomes increasingly convinced of Han’s innocence and finds himself in the unlikely position of fighting to save his life.

The first trailer was released for Dreamland, the Margot Robbie-led story of a fugitive bank robber during the Great Depression. Finn Cole (Peaky Blinders) also stars, playing a young man who dreams of escaping his small Texas town. When he encounters Robbie’s character, wounded and on the run, he is torn between claiming her bounty and his growing attraction to her. Vertical Entertainment will release the film in more than 100 theaters beginning November 13 before the film heads to video-on-demand starting November 17.


TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Dick Wolf’s groundbreaking 1990s cop drama, New York Undercover, is making a return. NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, Peacock, is in negotiations for a new incarnation of the project, which is expected to receive a series commitment. Written by Ayanna Floyd Davis, the new project is described as a re-examination of the original, reflecting the current times, and will pick up twenty years later. The original 1994 program starred Malik Yoba and Michael DeLorenzo as undercover detectives, marking the first police drama on U.S. television to feature two people of color in the lead roles. The reimagining is still in very early stages, and it's not known whether it would feature characters from the original series.

Jake Gyllenhaal will star in and executive produce the HBO crime series, The Son. Based on Jo Nesbø’s novel of the same name, the story follows an electrifying tale of vengeance set amid Oslo’s brutal hierarchy of corruption. Denis Villeneuve will direct, and writer Lenore Zion will serve as showrunner. (Nesbø himself will also serve as one of the executive producers.)

Actor Bertie Carvel (Dr. Foster) will take the lead in a six-episode UK series based on P.D. James’s stories featuring Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. The series will trace Dalgliesh’s crime-fighting career from 1970s England to the present day, with each story featuring him solving an unusual murder. Each case will offer its own unique setting and guest cast. The new series, titled Dalgliesh, will include adaptations of Shroud for a Nightingale, featuring the murder of a student nurse; Dorset-set The Black Tower, an investigation into a strange home for the disabled; and A Taste for Death, in which a homeless pensioner and a Minister of the Crown are found dead in a church. Roy Marsden played Dalgliesh across several series in the 1980s and 1990s.

David Gordon Green is developing a series adaptation of Smokey and the Bandit for the NBC-affiliated production company, UCP. The project, based on the 1977 film starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, is described as "an epic adventure of family, small-town crime, unlikely heroes, legend and legacy. Inspired by the genre of 70s and 80s drive-in double-features, the series explores the crossroads where humble realities meet those larger-than-life, all in a blast of tailpipe exhaust." Green will direct the pilot and co-write with Brian Sides, while Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins of Fuzzy Door will executive produce.

The short-form streaming series, Quibi, is shutting down as of December 1 after less than a year in operation. Launched in April in the early weeks of pandemic shutdowns, the subscription service targeting teenagers and young adults never gained any traction for shows told in under-10-minute "quick bites" meant to be consumed on smartphones — despite the involvement of big stars like Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, and Liam Hemsworth. The service raised nearly $2 billion and included such programs as the thrillers, Most Dangerous Game, Survive, The Fugitive, and Wireless; the crime drama, #FreeRayshawn; and the psychological thriller, The Stranger.

Netflix has put a third season of Mindhunter on "indefinite hold." Created by Joe Penhall, Mindhunter is based on the true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, and stars Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv.

James Cusati-Moyer has booked a recurring role on Netflix’s upcoming limited series, Inventing Anna. The ten-episode series from Scandal creator, Shonda Rhimes, adapts the New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler about Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey, the 28-year-old who faked being a German heiress to swindle New York elite out of more than $200,000. Cusati-Moyer will play Val, a stylist and fashion director who experiences firsthand the whiplash of a whirlwind friendship with Anna.

Maura Tierney (The Affair) is set to recur on Showtime's Your Honor, the limited legal drama. Bryan Cranston stars as Michael Desiato, a respected judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run in New Orleans that leads to a high-stakes game of lies, deceit, and impossible choices. Tierney plays Fiona McKee, a fearless prosecutor trying a major case in Desiato’s courtroom in four episodes of the show.

A trailer has been released for The Flight Attendant, based on Chris Bohjalian's novel. HBO Max will premiere the eight-episode limited series, starring and produced by Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory), November 26. The cast also includes Michiel Huisman, Rosie Perez, Zosia Mamet, Michelle Gomez, T.R. Knight, and Colin Woode.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Read or Dead hosts, Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham, mourned the ending of The President is Missing adaptation, celebrated some revivals and reboots, and talked about their love of audiobooks.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime and suspense writer, A.C. Frieden, on the Crime Cafe podcast. A native of Switzerland, he's earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in molecular biology, two law degrees, and got his pilot's certificate and scuba instructor license.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring part of the first chapter of the Halloween-appropriate, Lipstick, Lies & Dead Guys by Jennifer Fischetto, as read by actor Teya Juarez.

The latest edition of Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction, hosted by Dr. DP Lyle, tackled the subject of "Nasty Deadly Poisons."

Suspense Radio spoke with John Gilstrap about book twelve in the Jonathan Grave series, Hellfire.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Rick Mofina, a former journalist who has interviewed murderers on death row, flown over Los Angeles with the LAPD and patrolled with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. Rick’s novel, Missing Daughter, just won the 2020 Barry Award for Best Paperback Original Mystery/Crime Novel.

The Gay Mystery Podcast's featured guest was Frank W. Butterfield, the Amazon best-selling author of over sixty novels, novellas, and short stories, including the Nick Williams Mystery Series.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, spoke with Beau Johnson about his short story collection, All of Them to Burn.

The Tartan Noir Show's guest this week was Graeme Macrae Burnet, whose second novel, His Bloody Project, was shorted-listed for the Booker Prize.

Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about running partial license plates; manner/cause/mechanism of death; and using the Peter Principle in your character creation.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Michelle Cox, author of the multiple award-winning Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as "Novel Notes of Local Lore," a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago's forgotten residents.

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

After years in development, a movie (still untitled) based on the '80s male strip club Chippendales scandal is getting closer to the big-screen treatment, with Craig Gillespie hired to direct and Dev Patel to star. The "American Dream gone wrong story" follows Steve Banerjee (Patel), who emigrated from India to Playa del Rey to chase the dream of fame and fortune, eventually presiding over a flesh empire including male exotic dancers that earned $8 million a year. Banerjee was later charged with plotting to murder former Chippendales dancers and choreographers he saw as business rivals and eventually pleaded guilty to attempted arson, racketeering, and murder for hire.

An inaugural screenwriting lab co-founded by Margot Robbie, designed to help women writers break into the action and franchise film market, has seen a stunning 100% sales return on six original pitches. Each of the six women writers marked their first major sale following the workshop, all in the action or genre arena and all with commitments for distribution. Projects include Sue Chung's Sanctuary, which has been acquired for distribution by Universal, a gritty action thriller with an immigration story at the center; Charmaine DeGraté's Protégé, a lethal spy games ensemble thriller; and Maria Sten's Legacy, a high-concept heist drama set in the criminal underbelly of New Orleans (which is being developed as a TV series).

Mindy Kaling, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Lucy Boynton have been added to the already-strong cast of Lockdown, the Doug Liman-directed heist thriller/romantic comedy scripted by Steven Knight. They join Anne Hathaway, Chewitel Eijofor, Ben Stiller, Stephen Merchant, Dulee Hill, Jazmyn Simons, and Mark Gatiss. Hathaway and Ejiofor play a sparring couple who call a truce to attempt a high-risk, high-stakes jewelry heist at one of the world’s most exclusive department stores, Harrods (and the iconic London landmark even granted its glamorous backdrop to the shoot).

Following stiff situation, The Safran Company and Hera Pictures have won the film and TV rights to a book about a notorious gang of female thieves who plied their trade on the streets of south London. Brian McDonald’s true crime story, Alice Diamond And The Forty Elephants, examines the travails of Alice Diamond’s all-female crime syndicate, based in the Elephant and Castle region of Britain’s capital city in the 1900s.

A trailer was released for I’m Your Woman, starring Rachel Brosnahan as a mom who finds herself on the lam, which will open the virtual AFI Fest October 22. The story follows suburban housewife Jean (Brosnahan) who lives a seemingly easy life, supported by husband Eddie’s (Bill Heck) career as a thief. But when Eddie betrays his partners, Jean and her baby are forced to go on the run, and Eddie’s old friend Cal (Arinzé Kene) is tasked with the job of keeping them safe. After Cal mysteriously disappears, Jean befriends Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake), and the two women set out on a perilous journey into the heart of Eddie’s criminal underworld.


TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Tomorrow Studios, the producer behind apocalyptic drama Snowpiercer, is working on a television adaptation of Dean Koontz’s latest thriller novel, Devoted. The book, which was published by Amazon Publishing in March 2020, tells the story of Woody Bookman, a boy who hasn’t spoken a word in his eleven years of life, and who believes a monstrous evil was behind his father’s death and now threatens him and his mother.

NBC has put in development Always Wright, a drama from For Life executive producer Sonay Hoffman and Sony Pictures TV. Written by Hoffman, Always Wright is set in Los Angeles and revolves around a young, wealthy, and jet-setting African-American couple who solve mysteries, run their own successful empires, and are completely head-over-heels in love with each other.

Amazon has ordered an adaptation based on the Italian original, Everybody Loves Diamonds, a heist series with a comedic twist. The project is inspired by the 2003 real-life "Antwerp Diamond Heist," and will follow a team of small-time Italian thieves who manage to deceive top-level security to steal millions of dollars’ worth of precious stones from the Antwerp Diamond Centre. Stefano Bises (Gomorrah), Michele Astori (The Mafia Only Kills In Summer), Giulio Carrieri, and Bernardo Pellegrini are writing the scripts, with Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa producing for Wildside Studios.

After a sojourn in the Pacific Northwest, serial killer Dexter is headed back to Showtime. The premium cable outlet has ordered a 10-episode Dexter limited series that will reunite star Michael C. Hall and original showrunner Clyde Phillips. The show will be a continuation of the original, eight-season series, which ended in 2013 with Hall's Dexter Morgan going on self-imposed exile as a lumberjack and living a solitary life. Production is scheduled to begin early next year for a planned fall 2021 premiere.

NCIS fans can rejoice now that CBS has announced the premiere date for Season 18. The network has slotted the opening episode on Tuesday, Nov. 17, with the milestone 400th episode (which is said to tell the origin story of how Gibbs and Ducky became such great friends and partners) airing not long after the Season 18 premiere.

Showtime is no longer making its drama pilot, The President Is Missing, an adaptation of the novel by President Bill Clinton and James Patterson, from Christopher McQuarrie and Anthony Peckham. The network had ordered the project to pilot, which was fully cast and ready to go when the coronavirus pandemic halted all production in mid-March. In light of the uncertainty surrounding production amid the pandemic, Showtime has opted not to move forward with the pilot.

Spectrum has canceled LA’s Finest after two seasons. A spinoff of the Bad Boys film series, L.A.’s Finest featured Gabrielle Union reprising her role as Syd Burnett from 2003’s Bad Boys II. Now an LAPD detective, Syd is paired with a new partner, Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba). The show’s second season was originally scheduled to premiere in June, but Spectrum postponed that to September in response to the wave of protests that erupted nationwide in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day.


PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Writer Types welcomed three doctor-authors, Dr. Ian K Smith, Dr. Joel Shulkin, and Dr. John Bishop, to talk about their latest novels, and also had a fall book preview featuring recommended books coming out later this year.

My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, chatted with Stephanie Kane, a lawyer and martial arts enthusiast, about her award-winning crime novels.

The special guest on Suspense Radio was Ruth Ware, the international bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, The Death of Mrs Westaway, and The Turn of the Key.

Kim Johnson stopped by the Crime Writers of Color podcast. Kim is the author of This is My America, her debut novel that explores racial injustice against innocent Black men and the families left behind to pick up the pieces.

The Gay Mystery Podcast welcomed Paris-based Dieter Moitzi, book reviewer and author of two short-story collections, three poetry collections, and two murder mystery novels in French, German, and English, the first of which won the French Gay Crime Fiction Award 2019.

Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Noelle Holten, an award-winning blogger at Crime Book Junkie, a PR & Social Media Manager for Bookouture (a leading digital publisher in the UK), and former Senior Probation Officer for eighteen years. Her debut novel is Dead Inside, the start of a new series featuring DC Maggie Jamieson.

The Tartan Noir Show welcomed Susi Holliday, "The Twisted Sister of the Psychological Thriller."

Wrong Place, Write Crime snagged Eric Van Lustbader to chat about his Nicholas Linnear series (The Ninja, etc.), his many Bourne continuation novels, his new novel, The Nemesis Manifesto (launching a new series), the movie biz, the publishing biz, Japanese wood blocks, graphic novels, and his time in music journalism and working for Elektra Records.

Writers Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about how police would handle a missing persons investigation during a blizzard with a serial killer on the loose; NTSB investigations and the use of Rapid DNA; and conducting sexual assault investigations.

Brian Freeman, a New York Times bestselling author of psychological thrillers including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series, was the latest guest on It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club.

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-winner, Kate Winslet, will star in and produce Fake!, a movie about the OneCoin Ponzi scheme. The project will reteam Winslet with writer/director, Scott Z. Burns, who worked with the actress on Contagion, the 2011 pandemic thriller. Fake! is based on the upcoming book of the same name by Jen McAdam with Douglas Thompson and tells the true-life story of McAdam and her involvement with the OneCoin Ponzi scheme where she served as a whistleblower on the international cryptocurrency scam.

Alexis Louder (Watchmen) has joined the cast of the Joe Carnahan-directed action thriller, CopShop, which just resumed production in Georgia after being temporarily halted when crew members tested positive for COVID-19. Carnahan penned the most recent draft based on the original screenplay by Kurt McLeod. The plot centers on a small-town police station that becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Gerard Butler), a smart rookie female cop (Louder), and a double-crossing con man (Frank Grillo) who seeks refuge behind bars with no place left to run.

The trailer was released for 355, the female-led spy thriller, which shows Jessica Chastain as a wild-card agent, who must join forces with other skilled agents when a top-secret weapon is obtained by a mercenary. Her team is rounded out by a marquee roster of talent including Lupita N’yongo, Penelope Cruz, and Diane Kruger.

A trailer was also released for the action-comedy Fatman, which stars Mel Gibson as a very atypical Santa, who works the heavy bag, drinks tequila, and knows his way around a gun. After declining interest in Christmas has Santa considering retirement, Chris Cringle partners with the U.S. military in order to save his business.


TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Author James Patterson has inked a first-look deal with Sharp Objects studio eOne and has set an adaptation of his upcoming novel, The Noise, as the first project. He has signed the deal via his production company James Patterson Entertainment (which has previous credits on series including the CBS dramas, Instinct and Zoo, and Netflix’s recent Jeffrey Epstein mini-series). The Noise, a thriller surrounding a deadly scientific mystery, is told through the eyes of two young sisters living in the Oregon wilderness and the brilliant doctor trying to save them as a destructive force threatens humanity as we know it.

Charter Communications’ Spectrum Originals and ITV are co-producing Angela Black, a Hitchcockian psychological thriller starring Downton Abbey's Joanne Froggatt. The six-part series features Froggatt as Angela Black, a woman with an apparently idyllic life, who is actually being tormented by her husband, Olivier (played by Game Of Thrones star Michiel Huisman). Angela is approached out of the blue by Ed (Dr. Who's Samuel Adewunmi), a private investigator, who divulges Olivier’s darkest secrets. When faced with some horrifying truths about her husband, a stunned Angela is left reeling. Can she really trust Ed? Can she leave behind her life as she knows it and finally free herself from Olivier?

The CW network is developing the mystery drama, Pandora’s Box and Ship, from Life Sentence creators Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith. The show follows the selfish and sarcastic Lou Tucker, a grifter whose latest scam is stealing from packages at the Box and Ship where she works to make ends meet. When she opens a package that contains Pandora’s actual Box, she inadvertently unleashes all of the mythological evils of the ancient world into our modern one. And, unfortunately for humanity, it’s going to be up to her and a bookish Professor of Greek Mythology, along with a group of unqualified misfits, to put them all back in.

Black Bear Televison has partnered with Crazy Heart writer-director, Scott Cooper, to develop the limited dramatic series, Angels & Demons. Making his television debut, Cooper will write and direct all the episodes. The drama is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning St. Petersburg Times article by Thomas French, a powerful and personal true crime drama examining the tragic murder of three women whose bodies were found floating in the shallow tidewaters of Tampa Bay.

Susan Sarandon has been cast as the lead of HBO Max’s, Red Bird Lane, a psychological thriller pilot from John Wells. Other actors joining the project include Kiersey Clemons, Isidora Goreshter, Danny Huston, Ash Santos, Fiona Dourif, Dizzie Harris, and Tara Lynne Barr. Red Bird Lane follows eight strangers who arrive at an isolated house, all for different reasons, and quickly realize that something sinister and terrifying awaits them.

Will Sharpe, who starred in the Netflix/BBC drama, Giri/Haji, and directed the quirky British comedy, Flowers, is taking over directing duties from Alexander Payne for Landscapers. The  drama, which is inspired by real events, tells the story of killers Susan and Christopher Edwards, who murdered Susan's parents, buried their bodies in the garden, and then spent 15 years looting their bank accounts to spend on Hollywood memorabilia.

Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick) has been cast as the co-lead alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in a still-untitled global spy adventure series, which is in the works at Skydance Television. Created by Nick Santora (Scorpion), the series has a father (Schwarzenegger) and daughter (Barbaro) at the center of the story.

ABC has set a quartet of recurring guest stars (Brooke Smith, Jeffrey Joseph, Gage Marsh, and Gabriel Jacob-Cross) for the network’s upcoming David E. Kelley thriller series, Big Sky, which is based on the book series by C.J. Box. The new ABC series sees private detectives Cassie Dewell (played by Kylie Bunbury) and Cody Hoyt (Ryan Phillippe) team with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) to search for two sisters mysteriously kidnapped by a truck driver in Montana. Upon learning that the kidnapping isn’t an isolated incident, the law officials must race against the clock to prevent any more abductions.

Three and a half years after her Blue Bloods exit, Amy Carlson is returning to CBS with a recurring role on the upcoming second season of FBI: Most Wanted. She is one of two major new recurring additions to the Wolf Entertainment series, along with Lost alum Terry O’Quinn. (Production for Season 2 of the FBI spinoff started earlier this week in New York City.) Carlson plays Jackie Ward, a veteran bounty hunter who has crossed paths with Jess before and is a thorn in the team’s side. O’Quinn plays Byron Lacroix, who has a troubled past with Jess.

Demore Barnes has been promoted to series regular for the upcoming 22nd season of NBC’s Law & Order: SVU. Barnes will continue in the role of Deputy Chief Christian Garland, a forthright, analytical and charismatic leader, eager to apply more contemporary principles to the NYPD while navigating its political minefields along with Capt. Benson (Mariska Hargitay). He was introduced early last season and appeared in more than a third of the episodes. Law & Order: SVU started production on Season 22 Sept. 14 in New York.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone (Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste) were joined by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, author of the award winning novel, Blood and Sugar, to talk about her previous career in politics, writing historical crime, how to appeal to contemporary readers, and more.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime and suspense writer, Wendy Hewlett, on the Crime Cafe podcast.

The new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "Killer At the Door," by Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson, as read by local actor Suzanne Grazyna.

Read or Dead hosts, Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham, had some good news to share and got into the fall spirit with some dark, creepy campus novels.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Brian Freeman, author of psychological thrillers, including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, welcomed Stephanie Kane to talk about her latest book, Automat.

The Gay Mystery Podcast's featured guest was Lev Raphael, author of Dancing on Tisha B'Av, which won a Lambda Award.

The Tartan Noir Show welcomed Michael J. Malone to talk about his latest novel, A Song of Isolation, and about his move from prize-winning poetry to crime fiction.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Mark Billingham, whose series of novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has twice won him the Crime Novel Of The Year Award, as well as the Sherlock Award for Best British Detective, and also been nominated for seven CWA Daggers.

THEATRE

A star-studded lineup will take part in a benefit series of new, livestreamed stage-reading productions of works by such major playwrights as Gore Vidal, David Mamet, Kenneth Lonergan, and Donald Margulies. The weekly Spotlight On Plays will be part of a web series at the recently launched Broadway’s Best Shows website, with proceeds from ticket sales donated to The Actor’s Fund. Productions are all-new and performed remotely, with directors including Mamet, Phylicia Rashad, and Daniel Sullivan given leeway in how to present their shows. They include David Mamet’s social-crime drama, Race, on October 29, starring David Alan Grier, Ed O’Neill, Alicia Stith, and Richard Thomas, as directed by Phylicia Rashad.

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

After starring together in the upcoming film, The Suicide Squad, Idris Elba and John Cena are re-teaming for the drama, Heads of State, from Amazon Studios. Specifics are being kept under wraps, but the project is said to be a "’90s style two-hander, a high-octane premise that has a bit of Air Force One meets Hobbs and Shaw, bringing together an odd couple in a high stakes situation."

A film chronicling the tumultuous making of the landmark 1972 movie, The Godfather, has found its stars in Oscar Isaac and Jake Gyllenhaal. The pair have signed on to play director Francis Ford Coppola and former Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans in the indie drama, Francis and The Godfather. Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (Rain Man) has been tapped to helm the project. According to Hollywood lore, the making of The Godfather was chaotic, mostly due to the epic behind-the-scenes battles between Coppola and the studio on everything from shooting locations to casting.

Aisling Walsh (Maudie) will direct Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins and rising Brit actor Johnny Flynn (Emma) in the feature film, One Life, scripted by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake. The project tells the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, whose unheralded endeavors on the eve of World War II saved the lives of more than 600 European refugee children who otherwise would have perished in the Nazi death camps. His actions were relatively unknown for nearly fifty years until, aged 88, he found himself driven to publicly reveal the past—with which he had never fully reconciled—in order to remind the world of the need for tolerance and humanity.

The musical-chairs scheduling and rescheduling of movie premieres continues at a frantic pace. The latest victims are the James Bond movie, No Time to Die, now slotted for Easter Weekend in April 2021. That, in turn, prompted the latest Fast and the Furious franchise installment, F9, to move to May 28, 2021, which is Memorial Day weekend. As Deadline reported, this is proving problematic for a certain cinema chain.


TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Acorn TV is set to adapt Julie Wassmer’s Whitstable Pearl Mystery novels into a six-part series. Kerry Godliman stars as big-hearted local restaurant owner, Pearl Nolan, who sets up a local detective agency after undergoing police training in an earlier career. She is soon embroiled in her first case when she discovers the body of close friend, Vinnie. Pearl forms an unlikely partnership with DCI Mike McGuire, a new local police chief who has transferred from London to escape his past. And when a second body shows up, Pearl finds herself pulled into the dark underbelly of the picturesque town she calls home.

Heyday Television is adapting Peter McLean’s fantasy crime novel, Priest of Bones, for the small screen. The book, described as "Peaky Blinders with swords," revolves around Tomas Piety, a nefarious crime lord turned priest. After being away at war for many years, Tomas comes back to find that his city of Ellinburg has changed: his people have lost their wealth, and the town is overrun by a foreign power. With his gang of Pious Men, Tomas embroils himself in cutthroat politics and epic barroom brawls to win back the city that once was his.

Netflix has ordered Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a limited series about the real-life serial killer, from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. Richard Jenkins will co-star on the show as Dahmer’s father, Lionel, a chemist, who showed him how to bleach and preserve animal bones as a child. The roles of Dahmer himself and Glenda Cleveland, a neighbor who tried to warn police about Dahmer’s behavior, have yet to be filled. The project will consist of 10 episodes and span the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s and end with Dahmer’s arrest in the early ’90s, with a focus primarily on the victims.

NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime, featuring Chris Meloni’s return as Elliot Stabler, is no longer part of NBC’s fall schedule, due to the departure of showrunner Matt Olmstead. The newest Law & Order series was supposed to air Thursday nights at 10 p.m. following the 22nd season of SVU at 9 p.m. It was NBC’s only new show slotted for this fall, and is still expected to debut at some point during the 2020-2021 TV season.

Nearly four months after Cops was canceled by Paramount Network amid the nationwide protests against police brutality, the show has quietly resumed production in Spokane County, Washington. The episodes will not air in the U.S. but are being produced to fulfill international contractual commitments.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Debbi Mack interviewed journalist and crime writer, Tom Vater, who's based in Bangkok, on the Crime Cafe podcast.

Writer Types host, Eric Beetner, welcomed four authors with three books for a discussion of their new releases, including co-authors Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith (Make The Cry); Heather Young (The Distant Dead); and debut author, Micah Nemerever.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Paul Levine, who worked as a newspaper reporter, a law professor, and a trial lawyer before becoming a full-time novelist. They discussed his latest book, Cheater's Game, an Amazon bestseller based on the college admissions scandal that is sending Aunt Becky from Full House to jail.

David Housewright joined host John Hoda of the My Favorite Detectives Stories podcast. David is a past President of the Private Eye Writers of America, an Edgar Award winner, and author of the Rushmore McKenzie and Holland Taylor private eye novels.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, spoke with Chris Mooney about his new book, Blood World.

Historical mysteries were the focus of the latest podcast from It Was a Dark and Story Book Club.

Greg Herren stopped by The Gay Mystery Podcast. His novel, Murder in the Rue Chartres, won a Lambda Literary Award, and he's also won several other awards, including an Anthony. He is currently the Executive Vice President of Mystery Writers of America.

The Tartan Noir Show featured bestselling author, Max Brooks, talking about World War Z and zombies.


On the latest Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast, Barb Goffman read her tale "Dear Emily Etiquette" from the current September/October 2020 issue. Barb has won the Agatha, Macavity, and Silver Falchion awards for her short fiction.

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

Jeremy Walters and Tommy Reid, the writer and producer behind the true-life mobster drama, Kill the Irishman, are partnering again for the independent feature, Bitter Sweet. The film follows an unassuming ex-cop who is mistaken for an infamous mob hitman and becomes entangled in a mystery in order to hunt the men who brutally murdered his wife. Walters will direct off a screenplay he wrote, with casting still underway.

Vertical Entertainment and Noriva are teaming for the US distribution of the FBI spy thriller, The Informer, starring Joel Kinnaman. The feature will be available November 6 via Comcast, ATT, DIRECTV, Dish, Spectrum, Verizon, Frontier, Amazon, FandangoNow, Vudu, Microsoft, Sony, and Redbox On Demand. Italian actor-turned-filmmaker Andrea Di Stefano directed and co-wrote with Matt Cook and Rowan Joffé. The project follows Pete Koslow (Kinnaman), who is a former special operations soldier working as an informant for the FBI to help dismantle the Polish mafia’s drug trade in New York. But when the FBI’s operation goes wrong, resulting in the death of an undercover NYPD cop, Pete is coerced into returning to the prison where he previously served time for manslaughter in order to take down the cartel from the inside.

Netflix has landed Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, and Jurnee Smollett to star in Spiderhead, the Joseph Kosinski-directed adaptation of the George Saunders short story. Spiderhead is set in the near future, when convicts are offered the chance to volunteer as medical subjects in hopes of shortening their sentences. The focus is on two prisoners who become the test patients for emotion-altering drugs that force the prisoners to grapple with their pasts in a facility run by a brilliant visionary who supervises the program.

Netflix also acquired the thriller, I Care a Lot, from the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie stars Rosamund Pike as Marla, who sets herself up as the legal guardian of elderly people in order to take advantage of them. But she makes a big mistake when she takes on the wrong elderly client. Eiza González, Peter Dinklage, Chris Messina, and Dianne Wiest also star in the film written and directed by J Blakeson.

Apple Original Films has acquired the rights to Cherry, a heist film directed by Avengers filmmakers, Joe and Anthony Russo, to be released in 2021. The project stars Tom Holland and Ciara Bravo and is based on a novel by Nico Walker that tells the story of a former Army medic who returned from Iraq with extreme undiagnosed PTSD, fell into opioid addiction, and began robbing banks.

Open Road Films’s action-thriller, Honest Thief, starring Liam Neeson, is set to go wide on October 16 at 2,000 theaters, which is a week later and in a lot more theaters than originally planned. The movie is from Ozark co-creator and producer Mark Williams and stars Neeson as a bank robber who tries to turn himself in after falling for a woman (Kate Walsh) who works at the storage facility where he’s stashed his money. Complications ensue when his case is turned over to a corrupt FBI agent (Jai Courtney) and he must go underground to save both himself and the woman he loves.

Screen Media has acquired U.S. rights to the thriller, Girl, written and directed by Chad Foust and starring Bella Thorne and Mickey Rourke. The deal came ahead of the film’s U.S. premiere later this week at Fantastic Fest, with a November release date in the works. Thorne plays a woman (she’s only known as Girl) who returns to her small hometown to exact revenge on her abusive father, only to discover someone murdered him the day before. As she searches for answers, she soon finds herself prey to a sinister sheriff (Rourke) and uncovers a disturbing family legacy more disturbing than she’d imagined.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

HBO Max is developing a television drama inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic, Rashomon. The project has been in the works for about two years after the television arm of Steven Spielberg’s company announced that it had secured the rights to create a new series inspired by the film. The series will not be an adaptation but will retain the key plot device of the Kurosawa film – a drama centering on a grisly sexual assault and murder and the unraveling mystery seen through multiple characters’ competing narratives.

Peacock has acquired the David E. Kelley crime-thriller drama series, Mr. Mercedes, which is based on Stephen King’s bestselling Bill Hodges trilogy. The first two seasons will premiere exclusively on the NBCUniversal streaming service on Thursday, October 15, with a premiere date for Season 3 TBD. The fate of the series, which previously aired on AT&T Audience Network, had been in limbo since Audience announced in the spring that it was ceasing operations. Mr. Mercedes follows a retired detective who is tormented by a serial killer through a series of letters and e-mails, causing him to set out on a dangerous and potentially felonious crusade to protect his loved ones and himself.

ABC released a teaser trailer for Big Sky based on The Highway, the first book in C.J. Box's Cassie Dewell novel series. In the straight-to-series drama, written and executive produced by David E. Kelley, private detective Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) partners with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana.

Nicole Ari Parker (Empire) is joining NBC’s Chicago P.D. for a major recurring role on the upcoming eighth season of the Dick Wolf drama series. She will play Deputy Superintendent Samatha Miller, an ardent proponent of police reform who will not tolerate breaches of the new police guidelines and protocols. She will be tasked with reining in Detective Sergeant Hank Voight, who's known for his violent methods with criminals.

Aggi O'Casey and Tom Varey are set to star in the new BBC thriller, Ridley Road, based on the novel by Jo Bloom. The project follows a young Jewish woman who joins her boyfriend in fighting against neo-Nazism in post-war Britain and infiltrates a neo-Nazi group, a move that ends up challenging her courage and loyalties.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On September 30 at 6pm, Authors on the Air will present author and former cop, Bruce Robert Coffin, live in conversation with New York Times bestselling author, Craig Johnson. Johnson is best known for his Walt Longmire mystery series, which is the basis for the hit Netflix drama.

The new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast featured the first chapter of the mystery novel, Revenge On Route 66, by Kris Neri as read by actor Jasmine Swalef.

The Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast was joined by Stuart Neville, who discussed his new collection of short stories, The Traveller, as well as pancake recipes, nice tools, and class issues.

Rachel Howzell was the special guest on Speaking of Mysteries, discussing her latest thriller, And Now She's Gone.

Suspense Magazine's Beyond the Cover chatted with Shannon Kirk, whose dark novel, Method 15/33, was released to critical acclaim. Shannon is back with the sequel to that book, Viebury Grove.

The latest Criminal Mischief discussed author Gayle Lynds's “10 Rules For Writing A Best-selling Thriller.”

The latest episode of Wrong Place, Write Crime, welcomed author Lee Matthew Goldberg to talk about his new book, The Ancestor.

Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, talked about returning to old crime scenes, how police can track the cellphone of a missing person, investigating a child death, and reform.

Brad Parks stopped by It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club to discuss his latest novel, Interference, a mystery set in the world of quantum physics.

The latest guest on The Gay Mystery Podcast was Garrick Jones, a former opera singer turned author of The Cricketer's Arms: A Clyde Smith Mystery and more.

The featured guest on the latest Tartan Noir Show was Ann Cleeves, author of more than 30 novels and creator of the series characters Jimmy Perez (played by Douglas Henshall in the hit TV show, Shetland) and Vera Stanhope (played by Brenda Blethyn in TV’s Vera). Ann also chatted about her support for libraries, her love for Shetland and Fair Isle - even without amenities - and why, when she starts to write a novel, she never knows what will happen at the end.

Nikki Dolson, author of Love and Other Criminal Behavior, was interviewed by Robert Justice on the Crime Writers of Color podcast. Dolson is a writer primarily of short fiction, which has been published in places like Shotgun Honey, Tough, Thuglit, and Bartleby Snopes. She’s also written the quasi-novel, All Things Violent, in addition to her short story collection, Love, and Other Criminal Behavior.