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:

AWARDS

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) unveiled the winners of their annual SAG Awards for both movies and television last night. Among the crime drama honorees were The Trial of the Chicago 7 which won the award for Best Cast in a Motion Picture (the equivalent of Best Picture), and Daniel Kaluuya won the Best Actor in a Motion Picture prize for his role in Judas and the Black Messiah. On the TV side, Jason Bateman was named Best Actor in a Drama for his role in Ozark.

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Netflix will buy the rights to produce two sequels to Knives Out, with director, Rian Johnson, and star, Daniel Craig, set to return to the franchise. The Knives Out sequels have casting underway, and the production team hopes to begin filming in Greece in late June. The original Knives Out was a murder mystery that starred Craig as detective Benoit Blanc investigating the death of the wealthy author, Harlan Thrombey (played by the late Christopher Plummer in one of his last roles).

Salma Hayek has joined the cast of House of Gucci, Ridley Scott’s next film that also stars Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jeremy Irons, Al Pacino, Jack Huston, and Jared Leto. The film tells the story of how Gaga’s character, Patrizia Reggiani, infamously carried out a hit on her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci, after he sold the Gucci fashion empire to an investment group. Hayek will play Pina Auriemma, a friend of Reggiani and a clairvoyant who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for allegedly organizing the killing for a fee.

Armie Hammer has been dropped from another film following accusations of sexual assault against him, this time the Cold War thriller, The Billion Dollar Spy. Based on a real-life story, The Billion Dollar Spy was to have starred Hammer as Brad Reid, a fresh arrival at the Moscow station of the CIA, where he’s approached by Soviet engineer, Adolf Tolkachev (Mads Mikkelsen). No re-casting details have been released just yet.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has given a formal order for the revival series, CSI: Vegas, the first new installment in the "CSI" franchise since CSI: Cyber was canceled in 2016. "Vegas" will see original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation stars Wallace Langham, William Petersen, and Jorja Fox reprise their roles alongside new cast members Paula Newsome, Matt Lauria, Mel Rodriguez, and Mandeep Dhillon. Per CBS, the new series "opens a brand new chapter in Las Vegas, the city where it all began. Facing an existential threat that could bring down the Crime Lab, a brilliant new team of forensic investigators must welcome back old friends and deploy new techniques to preserve and serve justice in Sin City."

HBO Max is adapting the true-crime docuseries, The Staircase, into a limited scripted series that will star Colin Firth as American novelist, Michael Peterson, who was on trial in 2001 for killing his wife. The writer claimed his wife died at their home after falling down the stairs, but a medical examiner determined she'd been bludgeoned to death. Peterson was convicted in 2003 for the murder and spent eight years in prison. In 2011, he was granted a new trial, but before it could start, he submitted to an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time served and set free.

Nicky Torchia, Michael Rivera, and Ibrahim Renno are set for recurring roles opposite Christopher Meloni, Dylan McDermott, Tamara Taylor, and Danielle Moné Truitt in NBC’s Law & Order: SVU spinoff series, Law & Order: Organized Crime. The new series follows Elliot Stabler's (Meloni) return to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. Stabler will aim to rebuild his life as part of a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.

Netflix revealed that Lucifer will return in May for the second half of Season 5. The supernatural procedural series, which initially aired on Fox for three seasons before moving to Netflix, follows Tom Ellis’s Lucifer, who is bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell. He resigns his throne and abandons his kingdom for Los Angeles, where he gets his kicks helping LAPD detective, Chloe Decker. Lucifer began airing season 5 in August and will come to an end with an upcoming sixth season.

Shout! Studios has acquired worldwide rights to Emmy-winning director Nancy Buirski’s documentary, A Crime on the Bayou, the third in her trilogy of films that explore vital stories from the Civil Rights era. The project revisits the case of Gary Duncan, who as a Black teenager in 1966 was arrested in Louisiana in a racially-charged incident. Duncan’s "crime" was to break up a fight between white and Black youths outside a newly-integrated school, during which he "gently [laid] his hand on a white boy’s arm," setting in motion a prosecution for assault on a minor. Duncan was defended by Richard Sobol, a young Jewish attorney, and the two developed a friendship as they took their fight for Duncan’s exoneration all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, Daniella Bernett, on the Crime Cafe podcast, discussing Bernett's latest novel, Old Sins Never Die.

Writer Types welcomed Peter Robinson, author of the long-running DCI Banks novels series, and also spoke with debut author, Robyn Gigl (By Way Of Sorrow), and French author, Johana Gustawsson (Blood Song).

The latest Mysteryrats Maze podcast featured the mystery short story, "Sweet Tea and Deviled Eggs" by Sandra Murphy, as read by actor, Donna Beavers.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with bestselling author Peter May, who was born in Glasgow, but now lives in France. His latest book, The Night Gate, brings back forensics expert, Enzo Macleod, and spans two murders across three generations: from war-torn London to the deadly enemy facing the world in 2020, the coronavirus. And Enzo's investigations reveal an unexpected link between the murders - the Mona Lisa.

Wrong Place, Write Crime had a Q&A with Michael Poo‪l‬, talking about his episode of A Grifter's Song, "Rocky Mountain Lie."

Karen Dionne was the latest guest on My Favorite Detective Stories. Karen is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of the award-winning psychological suspense novel, The Marsh King’s Daughter.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club celebrated Woman's History Month by featuring four fiction books that include real women of history.

Queer Writers of Crime spoke with Marco Carocari, who grew up in Switzerland and worked in a hardware store before traveling the globe working for the airlines and later as an internationally published photographer. His debut crime novel is Blackout.

Lynda LaPlante's Listening to the Dead forensic podcast tackled the topic, "Cause of Death – Poisoning."

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

Mel Gibson will take on another big action role in the thriller, Hot Seat, starring alongside Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill), with James Cullen Bressack set to direct. Based on a story by Leon Langford and Collin Watts, Hot Seat centers on an ex-hacker forced to break into banking institutions by an anonymous man who planted a bomb under his chair at his office. Gibson’s character plays the man who must try to enter the booby-trapped building to get the young man off the "hot seat."

Mike Pniewski, Thad Luckinbill, Sky Ferreira, James Devoti, and Michael Beasley will round out the cast of Netflix’s crime thriller, Reptile (appearing alongside previously announced cast members Benicio Del Toro, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Silverstone, Michael Pitt, Ato Essandoh, Frances Fisher, Eric Bogosian, Domenick Lombardozzi, Karl Glusman, Matilda Lutz, Owen Teague, and Catherine Dyer). The story is set in motion by the brutal murder of a young real estate agent and centers on a hardened detective (Del Toro) as he attempts to uncover the truth in a case where nothing is as it seems. In doing so, he finds himself dismantling the illusions in his own life. The film marks the feature directorial debut of Grant Singer, known previously for his work in directing music videos and commercials.

Tony Goldwyn and Paul Ben-Victor have joined Gerard Butler in Lionsgate’s action thriller, The Plane. Goldwyn will play Scarsdale, an ex-Special Forces officer who is now a corporate crisis manager and fixer. Ben-Victor will play Hampton, owner of the airline. The Plane, directed by Jean-François Richet, follows commercial pilot Brodie Torrance (Butler) who, after a heroic job of successfully landing his storm-damaged aircraft in hostile territory, finds himself threatened by militant pirates who are planning to take the plane and its passengers hostage. As the world’s authorities and media search for the disappeared aircraft, Brodie must rise to the occasion and keep his passengers safe long enough for help to arrive.

Mayans M.C. star, JD Pardo, has come aboard the Robert Rodriguez action-thriller, Hypnotic, joining Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, Dayo Okeniyi, William Fichtner, and Hala Finley. Currently filming in Texas, Hypnotic follows a detective (Affleck) who becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter (Finley) and a secret government program—while investigating a string of impossible high-end crimes.

Mena Suvari will star alongside Dermot Mulroney and Darren Mann in Breakwater, an indie project from writer-director James Rowe and Loose Cannon Pictures. The crime thriller revolves around Dovey (Mann), a young ex-con who breaks his parole and crosses state lines in order to track down the estranged daughter of fellow inmate Ray Childress (Mulroney). Suvari will portray Kendra, the audacious and alluring manager of a restaurant near the state prison, who offers newly released inmates their first taste of the outside world.

Abbie Cornish and Laz Alonso have signed on to headline Detained, a psychological thriller from director Felipe Mucci. The film follows a woman (Cornish) who wakes up in an isolated police interrogation room with no memory of the night prior. The cops in the station proceed to make some wild allegations as they interrogate her, and there's an eerie vibe that there's something "not quite right" about this particular station or the cops who are running it.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Entertainment One has acquired the rights to bestselling author Lisa Gardner’s novel, Before She Disappeared, with Oscar-winner Hillary Swank set to star and executive produce via her Film Bandits banner. Gardner’s novel follows Frankie Elkin, a recovering alcoholic who travels light and is obsessed with locating missing people whose cases have been dismissed, overlooked, or marginalized.

HBO Max is developing Aloha MotherF**ker, a drama series based on Jason Ryan’s best-selling novel, Hell-Bent. The story centers on Renee, a divorced mom in her 40s, who heads to Hawaii to start her own investigation when cops fail to find her son’s killers. She uncovers rampant disorganized crime and systemic corruption within the police and legal system, before inadvertently finding a new place for herself in the world.

Although it had been announced before the start of the latest NCIS season, its 18th, that star Mark Harmon (playing Leroy Jethro Gibbs) would be appearing in fewer episodes, it turns out last week's is going to be his last. Harmon reportedly was ready to hang up Gibbs’s cap after last season, but learned that if he did so, CBS might not renew NCIS at all. As such, he agreed to return in a limited capacity. But in the fourth episode of Season 19—after Gibbs and the team solved the case of a contract killer hired by a conglomerate to clear the way for an environment-poisoning copper mine—Gibbs decided not to take back his badge, gun and job, when offered by Director Vance, but stay put in "the middle of nowhere" in Alaska, where this multi-episode arc had most recently led him.

Emma Corrin will star in FX’s limited series, Retreat. The project centers on the "Gen Z amateur sleuth," Darby Hart (Corrin), who is invited by a reclusive billionaire to participate in a retreat at a remote and dazzling location. When one of the other guests is found dead, Darby must fight to prove it was murder against a tide of competing interests and before the killer strikes again.

ABC is developing a legal drama written and executive produced by Bill Chais (a former public defender), and Pat Cunnane, who was President Barack Obama’s Senior Writer and Deputy Director of Messaging at the White House. In the untitled project, a brash Bronx public defender comes to North Carolina to reform a dysfunctional, seriously underfunded criminal justice system, putting him on a collision course with the tough-on-crime governor. Desperate and out of options, he invokes an arcane law that can compel any attorney to serve as defense counsel in criminal trials…and assigns the first case to the governor herself, an attorney in good standing.

Lin Shaye is set to star in and exec-produce the action-thriller, Ellen. The six-episode series will follow a nefarious land developer who gets more than he bargained for when he tries to intimidate an 80-year-old widow (Shaye) into abandoning her Montana ranch. The series will be directed by the filmmaker duo, Clif Prowse and Derek Lee (Afflicted), with a script from Tim Walker.

Just days before the premiere of You season 3, Netflix has renewed the stalker drama for a fourth season. The series, which is based on Caroline Kepnes's novels, follows Joe (Penn Badgley) as he quite literally does anything for love—and then deals with the consequences. 

Octavio Pisano, who portrays Detective Joe Velasco on Law & Order: SVU, has been promoted to series regular on the NBC procedural. Pisano’s Velasco is a former undercover cop and detective under Chief McGrath (Terry Serpico) who’s been assigned to the SVU and has appeared in 3 episodes so far, beginning with the season 23 premiere. Season 23 picked up mere hours after last season’s finale, where Catalina Machado (Zabryna Guevara) was arrested for trafficking single mothers living in shelters in a complex housing-for-sex scheme. She now wants to flip on her superiors in exchange for a deal with the feds, and names a powerful congressman as the big fish. It’s a make-or-break case for the NYPD and puts enormous pressure on the entire SVU squad to get a conviction.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, starring John Krasinski, has been renewed for a fourth season ahead of the show's Season 3 premiere on Amazon Prime Video. Additionally, Michael Peña is set to join the Season 4 cast in an undisclosed role. Season 3 finds Jack Ryan (Krasinski) on the run and in a race against time when he's wrongly implicated in a larger conspiracy and finds himself a fugitive out in the cold. Now, wanted by both the CIA and an international rogue faction he's uncovered, Jack is forced underground in Europe while trying to stay alive and prevent a massive global conflict. Also set to return for the third season are Wendell Pierce as James Greer and Michael Kelly as Mike November.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed William Kent Krueger to talk about his Cork O'Connor series; his novel, Saving Grace; and writing, logging, and nostalgia. Plus Maria Marotti discussed her book, The Etruscan Princess; Lance Wright shared some new releases from Down & Out Books; and Elizabeth Splaine, James Swallow, Sarah Adlahka, and Sheila Lowe offered up some book recommendations.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Rory Clements, a British author of historical thrillers. He won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award in 2010 for his novel, Revenger, and the CWA Historical Dagger in 2018 for Nucleus. His latest novel, A Prince and a Spy, is his first novel to be published in America, but it’s the fifth book in his Tom Wilde series.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with historical novelist, Elodie Harper, about The Wolf Den, set in the brothels of ancient Pompeii. They also discussed French literature and the podcast's own Abir Mukherjee's recent trip to France.

On the latest Crime Time FM, Paul Burke shared his thoughts on some of the new crime, mystery, and thriller releases.

THEATRE

The world premiere theatrical adaptation of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is set to tour the U.K. January 10 – November 12, 2022. Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel have adapted the best-seller, about a professor and symbologist trying to crack the code to solve a murder and reveal a well-guarded, centuries-old religious mystery. Olivier winner Nigel Harman will play professor Robert Langdon, Danny John-Jules will play Sir Leigh Teabing, and Hannah Rose Caton will play Sophie Neveu.

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

Keira Knightley is set to star as the lead in the 20th Century Studios film, Boston Strangler, that recounts the real-life Boston Strangler murders in the 1960s. Knightley will portray Loretta McLaughlin, who was the first reporter to connect the murders and break the story of the Strangler. She and fellow reporter, Jean Cole, challenged the sexism of the early ’60s to report on the city’s most notorious serial killer and worked tirelessly to keep women informed. McLaughlin pursued the story at great personal risk and uncovered corruption that cast doubt on the true identity of the killer. Matt Ruskin (Crown Heights) will write the original screenplay and direct the film.

Mischa Barton has been tapped to lead the crime thriller, Invitation To A Murder, which is being directed by Stephen Shimek (The Adventure of A.R.I.: My Robot Friend). Brian O’Donnell penned the script, which is based on an original story by Gérard Miller. When a reclusive billionaire invites six seemingly random strangers to his island estate, intrepid, aspiring detective Miranda Green (Barton) finds the mysterious invitation too alluring to pass up. When another guest turns up dead, Miranda must get to the bottom of the malicious plot behind the gathering to prove herself and maybe save her life.

Actress Louise Linton has found her next film role, a murder-mystery movie called, Out of Hand. Linton will star alongside Pierson Fodé and William Baldwin, with Brian Skiba directing the project for Toric Films. Described as being in the vein of "Basic Instinct meets Cape Fear," the project tells the story of a professor of literature and psychology at Berkeley, Dr. Valerie Cross (Linton), and her oppressive lover, David (Fodé), who become suspects in the vicious murder of one of her female students.

Focus Features has set a release date of February 25, 2022 for the gritty drama, The Outfit. The pic marks Graham Moore’s directorial debut, and follows Leonard, played by Mark Rylance, an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. But after a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: A family of vicious gangsters. Moore, who won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Imitation Game, co-wrote the screenplay with actor/writer Johnathan McClain (Mad Men). The cast also includes Dylan O’Brien, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Simon Russell Beale.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

In a competitive situation with multiple bidders, A+E Studios has landed exclusive rights to the late bestselling author Sue Grafton’s alphabet book series featuring private investigator protagonist Kinsey Millhone. Under the pact, the studio can develop and produce the entire library of Grafton’s wildly popular alphabet mysteries for television. This marks the first time the screen rights to the book series has been made available, with Steve Humphrey, Grafton’s husband for more than 40 years, serving as executive producer on the adaptations. As Grafton fans may recall, however, and as this Deadline article notes, Grafton famously stated she was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows. "I will never sell [Kinsey] to Hollywood...I have made my children promise not to sell her. We’ve taken a blood oath, and if they do so I will come back from the grave."

L.A. Law has taken a major step in its TV comeback, with ABC handing out a pilot green light to a new incarnation of the iconic Steven Bochco legal drama. The project, which had been in the works at the network since December, is headlined by Blair Underwood, reprising his role as attorney Jonathan Rollins in addition to executive producing. In the new series, the law firm of McKenzie Brackman reinvents itself as a litigation firm specializing in only the most high profile, boundary-pushing, and incendiary cases. Underwood’s Jonathan Rollins has gone from idealistic to more conservative as he clashes with millennial JJ Freeman to decide the best path forward for the firm to effect political and legal change.

Poldark star, Aidan Turner, is set to play a doctor with a dark side in a new ITV drama from Bodyguard and The Pembrokeshire Murders producer, World Productions. The five-part adaptation of Michael Robotham’s novel, The Suspect, will also star Shaun Parkes, Sian Clifford, Camilla Beeput, Adam James, and Anjli Mohindra, and is being written by Gangs of London writer Peter Berry. It follows Doctor Joe O’Loughlin (Turner) who appears to have the perfect life – a devoted wife, a loving daughter, successful practice as a clinical psychologist, media profile and a publishing deal. But when a young woman is found in a shallow grave in a West London cemetery, investigators begin to question whether Joe's work as a clinical psychologist has allowed him to develop a criminal mindset or worse.

USA Network’s two-hour film, Nash Bridges, has been given a Thanksgiving weekend premiere date, Saturday, Nov. 27. The movie brings back original cast members Don Johnson and Cheech Marin as elite investigators for the San Francisco Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit. If the movie does well, it could launch a Nash Bridges series revival. In addition to Johnson and Marin, the film brings back original cast member, Jeff Perry. They are joined in the cast by new additions Joe Dinicol, Diarra Kilpatrick, Angela Ko, Paul James, Alexia Garcia, and Bonnie Sommerville.

ITV has commissioned the four-part psychological thriller, Without Sin, starring Vicky McClure and written by screenwriting newcomer, Frances Poletti. The story explores the relationship which develops between a grieving mother (McClure) and the man she believes murdered her daughter (Johnny Harris).

Netflix’s Painkiller has added Taylor Kitsch, Ana Cruz Kayne, Tyler Ritter, John Ales, Sam Anderson, Carolina Bartczak, Jack Mulhern, and Ron Lea to its cast. (Previously announced cast members include Uzo Aduba, Matthew Broderick, West Duchovny, Dina Shihabi, and John Rothman.) The limited drama series chronicles the origins of the opioid crisis and the role of Purdue Pharma.

Jessica Biel has replaced Elisabeth Moss (who had to depart the series over scheduling conflicts) in Hulu’s upcoming scripted series about Candy Montgomery. The project, which is titled Candy, centers on Montgomery, the infamous Texas murderer, and her victim, Betty Gore. Here is the logline for the series: "In 1980 Texas, Candy Montgomery (Biel) seemingly had it all – loving husband with a good job, a daughter and a son, a nice house in the brand new suburbs – so why did she kill her friend from church with an ax?"

CBS Studios has partnered with Syrreal Entertainment and ARD Degeto on an "elevated genre-drama" to be broadcast via the latter’s online platform ARD Mediathek. Titled Oderbruch, the series begins with the discovery of numerous murder victims in the eponymous region in Germany. Ex-cop Maggie Kring (Karoline Schuch) and detective Roland Voit (Felix Kramer) will be brought together after more than 20 years of separation to examine the case, which becomes a personal one for Maggie as it is connected to the mysterious death of her brother many years before.

NBC has opted not to proceed with its drama pilot, Getaway. Written and executive produced by JJ Bailey and Moira Kirland, Getaway centered on a destination wedding at an isolated luxury resort that quickly descends into chaos after a group of dangerous criminals takes the island hostage. The small group of guests, led by a fearless female Army vet (Annie Ilonzeh), will do everything they can to stay alive. As Deadline reports, two other leads in the now-abandoned project, Manifest's Matt Long and All Rise's Marg Helgenberger, are now potentially free to return to their other shows, although there's been no official word from either of those productions.

The first back orders for new fall 2021 series have gone to CBS's NCIS: Hawai’i and FBI: International. Both NCIS: Hawai’i and FBI: International are supported by strong lead-ins as they follow the mothership series of their franchises, NCIS, and FBI, respectively

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, featuring the mystery short story, "The Last Customer," written by John Gaspard and read by actor Parker Forrest Lewis. It is set in a magic store, perfect for Halloween season.

Robert Justice interviewed Patricia Raybon for the Crime Writers of Color podcast. Raybon is an award-winning author who has written memoirs and articles set at the daring intersection of faith and race, who is releasing her debut crime novel, All That is Secret, a 1920s murder mystery series about a young Black theologian—a fan of Sherlock Holmes—solving crime and murder in Colorado’s dangerous era of the Ku Klux Klan.

Eric Rickstad (I Am Not Who You Think I Am) joined Eric Beetner as co-host of Writer Types and interviewed fellow authors John Copenhaver (The Savage Kind); Dennis Palumbo (Panic Attack); and Alverne Ball (Blue Religion).

Book Riot's Read or Dead podcast chatted about mystery releases you may have missed in 2020 and 2021.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed David McCloskey to discuss Damascus Station, his debut thriller set against the ongoing conflict in Syria. The novel introduces CIA officer, Sam Joseph, who has fallen for a source, which is strictly forbidden, and the deadly double crossing that ensues.

Meet the Thriller Author spoke with author and physician, Ian K. Smith. He's best-known for his expert health and fitness advice on national broadcasts and in his bestselling nonfiction books, but his crime novels have taken critics and fans alike by storm.

Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed Rebecca Rosenberg to discuss her true crime book, At Any Cost.

My Favorite Detective Stories chatted with David Swinson, who grew up in Washington, DC, Beirut, Mexico City, and Stockholm as the son of a foreign service officer. He is a retired police detective from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, having been assigned to Major Crimes. Swinson is the author of The Second Girl, Crime Song, Trigger, and City on the Edge.

Clay Small's The Forger's Forgery was on the book menu at the Dark and Stormy Book Club podcast. The book follows a visiting professor to Amsterdam, Henry Lindon, who discovers that notorious Dutch art forger, Han van Meegeren, and secrets of the art world may hold the key to settling old scores and putting a predator away for good.

Crime Time FM aired its monthly magazine show, Heads Togther, with a discussion of upcoming TV shows; NDAs; Bloody Scotland; and the latest podcasts. The special guest was Craig Sisterson, a crime fiction critic who writes for a number of publications and is the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards in his native New Zealand

Cozy Ink Podcast host, Leah Bailey, focused on the first installment of a multi-part discussion of "Cozy Mysteries in the Midwest."

THEATRE

The Broadway revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell, and Darren Criss – postponed from 2020 due to the Covid shutdown – will open at Circle in the Square Theatre on Wednesday, April 14, 2022, two years to the day after its original target. American Buffalo, which concerns three small-time hustlers who want a bigger cut of the American dream, premiered on Broadway in 1977, receiving the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play.

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

Netflix and the Russo Brothers’ AGBO production company are reuniting to make an untitled heist thriller from Emmy-winning Fargo creator, Noah Hawley. Plot details are being kept under wraps on the project, which is based on an original idea by Hawley, but the producers have already signed Bridgerton's breakout, Regé-Jean Page, to star in the lead role.

In a pre-emptive purchase, 20th Century Studios has acquired the rights to an untitled thriller to be written by Shawn Simmons and produced by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Deadpool). The project is described as "an irreverent high-speed thriller" that follows a former teenage getaway driver who gets dragged back into her unsavory past when a previous employer offers her the chance to save the life of her chronically unreliable ex-boyfriend.

The final James Bond outing for Daniel Craig, No Time to Die, was delayed several times due to Covid-related scheduling problems, but the film is finally getting its theatrical release. Apparently, all that pent-up demand is having an effect at the box office, as the film is set for a record $119 million overseas opening in 54 foreign markets ahead of its debut in North America on October 8.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Eleven and a half years after NBC abruptly canceled Law & Order, denying its shot at making TV history, the network is bringing back Dick Wolf’s Emmy-winning series for a new season, its 21st. NBC has greenlit a new installment of Law & Order, from Wolf and writer-showrunner Rick Eid, which will continue the classic bifurcated format and will once again examine "the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders." There is no cast announced yet, but the new season is expected to feature beloved characters from the original series, with Sam Waterston’s Jack McCoy believed to be at the top of the wish list.

Yellow Bird UK has optioned the rights to Alison Gaylin’s forthcoming novel, The Collective, and is planning to develop it into a major TV series. The story centers on Camille Gardener, a grieving and angry mother who is obsessed with the privileged young man she believes to be responsible for her daughter's death. When her rash actions draw the attention of a secret group of women—The Collective—Camille is drawn into a dark web where these mothers share their stories of loss and desire for justice in a world where privilege denies accountability. Fueled by mutual rage, the Collective members devise and act out retribution fantasies via precise, anonymous, and highly coordinated revenge killings. But is it merely a role-playing exercise or terrifying reality?

David Tennant is set to play Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian Federal Security Services and KGB officer who was poisoned to death, in a drama series for ITV and Nordic Entertainment Group. The four-part series centers around the determined Scotland Yard Officers who worked for ten years to prove who was responsible, in one of the most complex and dangerous investigations in the history of the Metropolitan Police. Margarita Levieva also stars as Marina, Alexander’s fearless, dignified widow who fought tirelessly to persuade the British Government to publicly name her husband’s killers and acknowledge the role of the Russian State in his murder. Mark Bonnar and Neil Maskell round out the leads, playing former Scotland Yard officers, Clive Timmons and Brent Hyatt.

British broadcaster ITV has commissioned DI Ray, a four-part series centered around Rachita Ray, a police officer who takes on a case that forces her to confront a lifelong personal conflict between her British identity and her South Asian heritage. The series will track a murder investigation while exploring the realties of racism in the workplace. It asks difficult questions about what it’s like to be British but feel like an outsider, while taking viewers through the murky underworld of Birmingham. The series is being written by Maya Sondhi, who stars on the hit BBC police drama series, Line of Duty, and has penned episodes of Eastenders and Ackley Bridge.

The Studio Lambert production team has optioned Nicola Williams’s legal thriller, Without Prejudice, which was republished in 2021 as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain: Writing Back series. The novel follows the brilliant Lee Mitchell, a 30-year-old barrister from a working-class Caribbean background, as she takes on the biggest case of her career.

Amblin Television has acquired the rights to Kimberly McCreight's thriller novel, Friends Like These. The story follows five friends who gather at a picture perfect country house in the Catskills for a co-ed bachelor weekend. It’s been a decade since graduation, but they have remained devoted to one another, forever bound by the mysterious and tragic death of Alice, their sixth member, during senior year. But the "bachelor weekend" is just a front—they’re actually gathering for a staged intervention for Keith, Alice’s college boyfriend, now a successful art dealer caught in a downward spiral of opioid addiction. But Keith has brought an unexpected guest along for the weekend, a charismatic bad boy named Finch, who senses the fault lines within the group and wastes no time exploiting them to his own benefit.

Masterpiece on PBS has just revealed photos from its new mystery arriving next year, Magpie Murders, an adaptation of the popular novel of the same name by Anthony Horowitz. It stars Lesley Manville as book editor Susan Ryeland, who is given an unfinished manuscript by best-selling mystery writer Alan Conway (Conleth Hill, Game of Thrones) featuring Conway’s longtime main character, detective Atticus Pünd. When she attempts to attain the final chapters from Conway, she finds herself in the middle of a shocking mystery case of her own that will change her life in ways she never expected.

Netflix’s Enola Holmes sequel, based on The Enola Holmes Mysteries by author Nancy Springer, is bringing back fan favorite, Helena Bonham Carter, to reprise her role as Enola’s mother and mentor, Eudoria Holmes. She'll join Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill, who were previously reported to be returning for the sequel to lead the cast. The films tell the story of Enola (Brown), the rebellious teen sister of Sherlock Holmes (Cavill), who is a gifted super-sleuth in her own right and often outsmarts her famous siblings.

Ginger Gonzaga will join Steve Howey as the leads for the CBS drama pilot, True Lies, based on James Cameron’s 1994 action comedy film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. The series hails from Burn Notice creator Matt Nix, McG, and Cameron. Written by Nix and to be directed by Anthony Hemingway, the pilot’s plot is true to its movie roots: Shocked to discover that her bland and unremarkable computer consultant husband (Howey) is a skilled international spy, an unfulfilled suburban housewife (Gonzaga) is propelled into a life of danger and adventure when she’s recruited to work alongside him to save the world as they try to revitalize their passionless marriage.

Tyrone Marshall Brown is set as a series regular opposite Sydney Chandler in Showtime's drama pilot, Coercion. Written and to be directed by Susannah Grant (Unbelievable; Erin Brockovich), Coercion is inspired by the life of Rebecca Bender (Chandler) and depicts Bender’s escape from six years in the world of sex trafficking in Las Vegas; her struggles to return to a "normal" life; and her emergence as a confident, funny and impassioned advocate for justice. Brown will play Dawson, a young special agent with the FBI who is tasked with doing something about the prostitution problem in Vegas.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, bestselling author of five novels including her latest, the psychological thriller, Fierce Little Thing.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, Rea Frey, on the Crime Cafe podcast. Frey is the author domestic thrillers and also CEO and Founder of Writeway, a company that helps authors get published.


A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring an excerpt from the first chapter of Department of Death by Lev Raphael, as read by actor Kelly Ventura.

Sheila Lowe stopped by Wrong Place, Write Crime to chat about her Claudia Rose series and more.

In the latest Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast, John F. Dobbyn, author of the Devlin and Knight legal thrillers, read "A Little Help From My Friend," a compelling tale from the magazine's March/April 2020 issue.

The latest episode of The Red Hot Chli Writers featured an interview with author and journalist, Tim Marshall; a discussion of how geography influences modern politics; and a look at some of the best ever literary novels set in Scotland, as well as a round-up from the recent Bloody Scotland festival.

The latest Cozy Ink Podcast examined "Cozy Mysteries with Crafts."

THEATRE

Now that Daniel Craig has bid farewell to James Bond, he's joining a production of Shakespeare's Macbeth on Broadway, starring alongside Ruth Negga as Lady Macbeth, in an all-new, 15-week production to be directed by Tony Award winner, Sam Gold. Macbeth will begin performances on Tuesday, March 29, 2022, at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre, with an official opening on Thursday, April 28, 2022. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

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

Spider-Man: Homecoming director, Jon Watts, is writing, directing, and producing a movie that will bring George Clooney and Brad Pitt together again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, once the project was made known, just about every studio and streaming service jumped in to bid on it. Details about the movie itself are being held close to the vest, but the movie is apparently about two "lone wolf fixers" who get assigned to the same job.

Harry Potter screenwriter, Steve Kloves, has found a more adult project to take on, as he is set to adapt Flynn Berry’s New York Times bestselling novel, Northern Spy, for Netflix. The story is set in the midst of renewed sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and follows a woman who learns that her younger sister has not only been working for the IRA but also has become an MI5 informer. To protect her family, the older sister helps pass information to MI5, but the IRA eventually tries to conscript her.

Kevin Hart and F. Gary Gray are teaming up on the drama, Lift, for Netflix, a heist film that Netflix acquired last March as a spec script by Dan Kunka. Hart will play a master thief who is wooed by his ex-girlfriend and the FBI to pull off an impossible heist with his international crew on a 777 flying from London to Zurich.

Although Chris Hemsworth’s black ops mercenary character, Tyler Rake, appeared to have met his end at the close of Extraction, the actor confirmed today that he will be back for Extraction 2, as Netflix unveiled a teaser for the sequel. Hemsworth will re-team on the follow-up film with director Sam Hargrave, as well as producers Joe and Anthony Russo. The original action-thriller penned by Joe Russo was based on the graphic novel, Ciudad, and followed Rake’s efforts to rescue Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal)—the son of an Indian crime lord—and watched as his mission went awry after he was double-crossed.

Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Noomi Rapace (Prometheus), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), and Daniela Melchior (Suicide Squad) have been quietly filming the action film, Assassin Club, in Italy. Camille Delamarre (Transporter: Refueled) is directing the movie, which has just wrapped shooting in Turin. Assassin Club takes place in the world of international spies and elite assassins where Morgan Gaines (Golding) is the best of the best. When Morgan is hired to kill six people around the world, he soon discovers all the targets are also assassins unknowingly hired to kill each other. Rapace plays Falk, the only assassin with skills to match his own. Under the guidance of his mentor Jonathan Caldwell (Neill), Morgan must defeat Falk and the other assassins to keep himself and his girlfriend Sophie (Melchior) alive.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Yesterday producer, Matthew James Wilkinson, is teaming up with Poldark and Endeavour exec producer, Tom Mullens, on a TV adaptation of Scottish author Iain Banks’s thriller novel, The Business. The project follows Kate Telman, a working-class Glaswegian who has risen through the ranks to become a senior executive in a secretive super-corporation, known only as "The Business." Telman discovers that The Business is planning to buy a small country in order to secure a seat on the UN and that, despite the benevolent image and democratic structure it presents to the world, the company will stop at nothing to increase its influence. So begins a dangerous personal reckoning as Telman travels the globe, determined to uncover the conspiracy at the heart of the shady company she works for.

Chicago Med and Arrow star, Colin Donnell, is set to lead Peacock’s Australia-set crime drama, Irreverent. The series will also feature PJ Byrne, Kylie Bracknell, Briallen Clarke, Tegan Stimson, Ed Oxenbould, Wayne Blair, Russell Dykstra, Calen Tassone, and Jason Wilder as series regulars. Irreverent follows a criminal from Chicago who bungles a heist and is forced to hide out in a small Australian reef town in Far North Queensland posing as the new church Reverend. Donnell will play Mack/Paulo, a skilled and articulate mediator who keeps the peace between organized crime families in Chicago. After a mediation goes badly wrong, Mack flees to a remote beach town in tropical Australia where he is forced to assume the identity of a Reverend in order to stay ahead of the people who want him dead.

NBC has ordered the thriller, The Endgame, from executive producers Julie Plec and Justin Lin. The series stars Morena Baccarin and Ryan Michelle Bathe as a criminal mastermind and the FBI agent trying to stop her plan. Plec will executive produce with Nicholas Wootton, and Jake Coburn, who will both write the series. As the logline states, it's "a pulse-pounding, high-stakes thriller about Elena Federova (Baccarin), a recently captured international arms dealer and brilliant criminal mastermind who even in captivity orchestrates a number of coordinated bank heists, and Val Turner (Bathe), the principled, relentless, and socially outcast FBI agent who will stop at nothing to foil her ambitious plan."

Netflix has opted not to renew the geopolitical espionage thriller, Hit & Run, co-created, executive produced and headlined by Lior Raz, for a second season. The news comes a month and a half after the release of Season 1, which ended with a major cliffhanger. Hit & Run, which also starred Sanaa Lathan, Kaelen Ohm, Moran Rosenblatt, and Gregg Henry, was well received by critics and viewers. But the sprawling drama, filmed in New York and Israel, is expensive, and due to the COVID-related industry shutdown, the nine-episode Season 1 took three years to produce. Hit & Run centers on Segev (Raz), a happily married man whose life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident in Tel Aviv. Grief-stricken and confused, he searches for his wife’s killers, who have fled to the U.S. With the help of an ex-lover, Naomi Hicks (Lathan), he uncovers disturbing truths about his beloved wife and the secrets she kept from him.

Starz has put in development Lagordiloca, a drama series that chronicles the rise of street journalist, Priscilla Villarreal, as she capitalizes on the power of livestream reporting to expose corruption, cartels, and serial killers in the border town of Laredo, Texas. The project, Inspired by Skip Hollandsworth’s and Leif Reigstad’s articles about Villarreal in Texas Monthly, comes from playwright, film/TV writer, and filmmaker Hilary Bettis, who is penning the adaptation. A modern-day folk hero tale, Priscilla’s use of social media pushes the boundaries of freedom of speech and press to the extreme, shaking the community’s foundation to its core.

Season 9 of The Blacklist, which will be the NBC drama’s first year without now-exited star Megan Boone, will open its October 21 premiere with a time jump that will pick up with Raymond Reddington (James Spader) two years after the death of Elizabeth Keen (Boone). Per NBC, "In the two years following the death of Elizabeth Keen, Raymond Reddington (James Spader) and the members of the FBI Task Force have disbanded, their lives now changed in unexpected ways and with Reddington’s whereabouts unknown. Finding themselves each at a crossroads, a common purpose compels them to renew their original mission: to take down dangerous, vicious and eccentric Blacklisters. In the process, they begin to uncover lethal adversaries, unimaginable conspiracies, and surprising betrayals that will threaten alliances and spur vengeance for the past, led by the most devious criminal of them all – Raymond Reddington."

Steve Coogan (Philomena) has been cast as Jimmy Savile in the BBC One drama, The Reckoning. Savile rose from working-class origins to become one of the biggest stars of British television, but faced rumors of misconduct during his career. After his death in 2011, the full extent of his crimes, which included sexually abusing hundreds of child victims, was revealed. The controversial TV project will be directed by Sandra Goldbacher (Ordeal by Innocence). The production team said they are working closely with people whose lives were impacted by Savile to ensure their stories are told with sensitivity and respect. The series will look into the way Savile used his celebrity and powerful connections to conceal his wrongdoings and to hide in plain sight.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

It Was a Dark & Stormy Book Club welcomed Stephanie Kane, an attorney and author of legal thrillers. In 2020, she published Quiet Time, a mystery novel based on her own life as a witness to the murder of her future mother-in-law, a case that resulted in the killer being set free. In 2021, she published Cold Case Story, a true-crime account that ultimately led to a reopening of the case and prosecution of the perpetrator thirty years after the crime.

Thriller and horror author Dan Padavona was the latest guest on My Favorite Detective Stories, chatting about his Wolf Lake series, his Darkwater Cove series, and the Scarlett Bell series.

Read or Dead discussed books that will take you on "a twisty, turn-y journey."

On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Owen Mullen stopped by to discuss his new book, The Accused.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Scott Shepherd, a veteran writer/producer/show-runner of programs such as The Equalizer and Miami Vice, to talk about his debut crime novel, The Last Commandment.

On CrimeTime FM, Fiona Cummins (When I Was Ten) and David Fennell (The Art of Death) discussed why we’re so intrigued by serial killers, what makes a good thriller, and which fictional murderer they’d be most afraid to be stranded on a desert island with.

The Cozy Ink Podcast host, Leah Bailey, compiled a list of author interviews she's done with books that contain not only excellent culinary delights, but also the recipes to create them yourself.

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:

AWARDS

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences handed out the 73rd primetime Emmy Awards last night. There weren't very many crime drama winners this year, with most of the nods going to The Crown for, well, just about everything. However, Mare of Easttown had several nods:  Kate Winslet won Best Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie for her role as Mare Sheehan; Evan Peters won Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role as Detective Colin Zabel; and Julianne Nicholson won an Outstanding Supporting Actress award for her role as Lori Ross.

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Megan Fox has been set to star with Tyson Ritter in the feature thriller, Johnny And Clyde, a "new take on the famous Bonnie and Clyde story." The movie will follow the two eponymous serial killers, madly in love and on an endless crime spree, who have their sights set on robbing a prosperous casino run by crime boss Alana (Fox) and her head of security (Ritter). The movie is currently in production in Rhode Island with the roles of Johnny and Clyde to be cast "imminently."

Bridget Regan and Patrick Heusinger (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) have signed on to star alongside Katherine Castro in Weak, a new thriller from writer-director, J.S. Mayank. The film is inspired by a true story and follows an investigation involving two women: Audra (Castro), who’s suffering from depression, and her friend, Jen (Regan), who’s trying to help her cope with the mental health issues. Upon their visit to a gun range, an unexpected turn of events leads to a surprising and horrifying revelation.

Winona Ryder is starring alongside Dermot Mulroney, John Gallagher Jr., Owen Teague, and Brianne Tju in The Cow, described as "a mystery thriller" that marks the feature directing debut of Eli Horowitz, co-creator of Amazon’s anthology series, Homecoming. However, plot details are being kept under wraps about the script, which was co-penned by Horowitz and Matthew Derby.

Netflix is teaming up with Vishal Bhardwaj Films for the espionage feature, Khufiya. Based on the spy novel, Escape to Nowhere, by Amar Bhushan, as well as true events, the film tells the story of Krishna Mehra, an intelligence operative at India’s Research and Analysis Wing who is assigned to track down the mole selling defense secrets.

Travis Fimmel, Brady Noon, and Frances Fisher have been added to the cast of Rust, the feature Western that stars Alec Baldwin and is written and directed by Joel Souza (Crown Vic). The story centers on infamous Western outlaw, Harland Rust (Baldwin), who's had a bounty on his head for as long as he can remember. When his estranged 13-year-old grandson Lucas (Noon) is convicted of an accidental murder and sentenced to hang, Rust travels to Kansas to break him out of prison. Together, the fugitives must outrun the legendary U.S. Marshal, Wood Helm, and bounty-hunter, Fenton "Preacher" Lang (Fimmel), who are hot on their tail.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton’s HiddenLight Productions have optioned film and TV rights to Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series. Hillary, who has made no secret of her love of the mystery series throughout the years, told attendees at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention last week how much she and Chelsea love the character and her journey during a time of "great social upheaval."

Mark Gordon Pictures is moving along with its series adaptation of Norman Mailer’s spy epic, Harlot’s Ghost. Éric Rochant (who is also developing a global spy thriller with Snowpiercer producer Tomorrow Studios), will write, direct, executive produce, and showrun the project. Harlot’s Ghost, which was published in 1991, is a fictional chronicle of the CIA and centers on Harry Hubbard, the son and godson of CIA legends. His journey to learn the secrets of his organization—and his own past—takes him through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the "momentous catastrophe" of the Kennedy assassination. All the while, Hubbard is haunted by women who were loved by both his godfather and President Kennedy.

Hulu has given a formal green light to Career Opportunities In Murder & Mayhem (working title), a pilot headlined by Mandy Patinkin and Violett Beane. Joining the duo as series regulars are Lauren Patten, Hugo Diego Garcia, Angela Zhou, and Rahul Kohli. Written by Stumptown duo, Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams, and to be directed by Marc Webb, the project asks the question, "How do you solve a murder in a post-fact world? Especially when sailing the Mediterranean on an ocean liner filled with the wealthy and powerful?" Everyone on board is hiding something…but is one of them a killer? That’s what the "World’s Once Greatest Detective," Rufus Cotesworth (Patinkin), and his protégé, Imogene (Beane), aim to discover.

Idris Elba will officially reprise his role as the brilliant detective John Luther for a Luther movie at Netflix and will be joined in the cast by Cynthia Erivo and Andy Serkis. Neil Cross, the series creator of Luther, will return to write the script for the movie, and Emmy nominee Jamie Payne is set to direct. The film will continue the events of the "Luther" saga, which aired in 2010 and ran for five seasons on the BBC. Other plot details, however, are being kept under wraps.

Emily Deschanel has been cast as the lead in Netflix’s limited series adaptation of Devil in Ohio. The eight-episode thriller is based on a book of the same name by Daria Polatin, which is inspired by a true story. The series will be written, executive produced, and showrun by author Polatin and follows hospital psychiatrist, Dr. Suzanne Mathis, whose world is turned upside down when she shelters a mysterious cult escapee.

The CW has acquired Professionals, a loose remake of the Christian Slater-fronted action movie, Soldiers of Fortune, which was made for the Scandinavian SVOD service, Viaplay. The series stars Smallville’s Tom Welling as Vincent Corbo, a top-tier security operative paid to protect the interests of rich and powerful clients by any means necessary. After a next-gen medical satellite explodes on launch, Corbo is hired by the rocket’s designer, billionaire futurist Peter Swann (Brendan Fraser), who suspects sabotage. Complicating Corbo’s new gig is his former paramour and now Swann’s fiancée, medical visionary Dr. Grace Davila (Elena Anaya), who is racing to help stave off a global catastrophe. Even worse, Corbo must also contend with a rogue Europol agent (Ken Duken), who is hell-bent on busting him for past sins.

The real-life story about $70 billion in bonds that went missing in downtown Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy is being loosely adapted as a series for Netflix. Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) is among the cast in Jigsaw, an eight-part heist action drama that the streamer says takes a "nonlinear approach to storytelling in a way where viewers are in control." Spanning a quarter-century, Jigsaw centers on the largest heist ever attempted and the vengeance, scheming, loyalties, and betrayals that surround it.

The Hulu series, Only Murders in the Building, has officially been renewed for a second season. The comedic murder-mystery series follows three strangers—Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) who share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one when a grisly death occurs inside their exclusive Upper West Side apartment building. As they record a podcast to document the case, the three unravel the complex secrets of the building which stretch back years. Soon, the endangered trio comes to realize a killer might be living amongst them as they race to decipher the mounting clues before it’s too late.

Freeform has ordered an untitled Hitchcockian nanny-drama pilot that follows a young woman as she's thrust into a world of old money and deadly secrets. Andrea Londo plays Elena, who at first seems like just a wholesome, friendly young woman trying to get a job as the live-in nanny to a wealthy widower (Warren Christie) and his young son at the Greybourne. However, she’s not the wide-eyed innocent she seems to be. Once Elena is ensconced in this world, she’ll discover she’s not the only one with dark secrets or a hidden agenda.

Netflix has given a series order to the legal drama, Partner Track, with Arden Cho set to star. Based on Helen Wan’s 2013 novel of the same name, Partner Track centers on Ingrid Yun (Cho), an idealistic young lawyer who struggles with her moral compass and her passions as she fights to climb the partner track at an elite New York City law firm. Bridgerton’s Julie Anne Robinson will direct the first two episodes of the series.

Law & Order: SVU’s Demore Barnes reacted to news of his upcoming exit from the long-running NBC series, sharing on social media that he’s proud of his work but in the dark about the shift in casting, adding "I don't know why this happened." Barnes and co-star Jamie Gray Hyder, who play Deputy Chief Christian Garland and Officer Kat Tamin, respectively, are departing Law & Order: SVU ahead of its Season 23 premiere next Thursday. Barnes and Hyder were introduced in Season 21 as recurring characters, and both were promoted to series regulars for Season 22. Barnes said his character was the "first Black deputy chief in SVU history."

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Colson Whitehead joined NPR's Fresh Air to discuss his latest novel, Harlem Shuffle, and the extensive background research he conducts whenever he works on a book.

Writer Types regular host, Eric Beetner, was joined by guest co-host, Frank Zafiro, and guests Amanda Jayatissa (My Sweet Girl); Swedish author Tove Alsterdal (We Know You Remember); and Suruthi Bala & Hannah Maguire from the podcast Redhanded! and its associated book (Redhanded: An Exploration of Criminals, Cannibals, Cults, and What Makes a Killer Tick).

Nadine Matheson—author of The Jigsaw Man—was interviewed by Robert Justice for Crime Writers of Color. When bodies start washing up along the banks of the River Thames, DI Henley fears it is the work of Peter Olivier, the notorious Jigsaw Killer. But it can’t be him; Olivier is already behind bars, and Henley was the one who put him there. The race is on to find the killer before more bodies are found.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the first chapter of Murder Under a Blue Moon by Abigail Keam, as read by actor Brianne Vogt Debbas.

 

The All About Agatha podcast hosted their own event at the recent International Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay, revisiting Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Amanda Jayatissa to discuss her debut thriller, My Sweet Girl, which centers on Paloma, who thought her perfect life would begin once she was adopted and made it to America, but she’s about to find out that no matter how far you run, your past always catches up to you.

Lisa Regan stopped by Meet the Thriller Author to discuss her Detective Josie Quinn series, including the latest installment, Her Deadly Touch.

CrimeTime FM's Paul Burke chatted with Simon Scarrow about his new-to-paperback thriller, Blackout; the importance of teaching and understanding history; challenging views of the past; and writing historical fiction.

Over the past two weeks, the Cozy Ink podcast highlighted cozy mysteries featuring cats and dogs. This week, host Leah Bailey tackled cozy mysteries that feature a variety of animals.

James Swallow returned to Wrong Place, Write Crime to talk about his new Marc Dane novels, his Star Trek tie-in novels, and some writing theory (including making location an integral part of the book). Regular host, Frank Zafiro, was also joined by Writer Types host, Eric Beetner, as they chatted about other recommended books and the craft of writing.

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

Morgan Freeman, Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, and Danny DeVito will headline the cast in the next project from director Taylor Hackford, a film titled Sniff. Based on a script by Tom Grey, the story is described as "a stylish reinvention of the film noir." When two residents at a retirement community die under suspicious circumstances, retired detective Joe Mulwray (Freeman) is pulled back into the action by his former partner, William Keys (DeVito) as they uncover a hidden underworld of sex, drugs, and murder in the high-end luxury retirement community controlled by kingpin, Harvey Stride (Pacino), and his femme fatale enforcer, "The Spider" (Mirren).

John Lithgow has joined the cast of Sharper, the Apple Original Films thriller being directed by The Crown helmer, Benjamin Caron. Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, and Briana Middleton also star in the film, set to begin principal photography this week in New York City. The project, which will premiere in theaters and globally on Apple TV+, is based on a script by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka and unfolds within the streets of New York City, from the penthouses of Fifth Avenue to the shadowy corners of Queens. Motivations are suspect and expectations are turned upside down when nothing is as it seems.

Filming has begun in the UK on the spy thriller, Argylle. The film, based on the soon-to-be-launched spy novel of the same name from author Ellie Conway, follows the world’s greatest spy, known as "Argylle," as he is caught up in a globe-trotting adventure. The movie will be the first of at least three films in the franchise and is set in America, London, and multiple locations across the world. Henry Cavill takes on the titular role, headlining a cast that also includes Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

ViacomCBS and MTV Entertainment Studios have struck an exclusive overall deal with Emmy-nominated actor David Oyelowo and his wife, actress, writer, and producer Jessica Oyelowo, for original scripted and unscripted series via their Yoruba Saxon productions. In their first project under the pact, David Oyelowo is attached to star in the titular role in Bass Reeves, a limited series about the legendary African-American lawman of the wild West. Reeves was known as the greatest frontier hero in American history and is also believed to be the inspiration for The Lone Ranger. He worked in the post-Reconstruction era as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory, capturing over 3,000 of the most dangerous criminals without ever being wounded.

Best-selling crime author, Ian Rankin, has written a TV series for Channel 4 in the UK that will see members of the public take on the role of detective and lead their own investigations. Murder Island, which was filmed during the summer and airs next month, will blend fact, drama, and competition formats. Filmed on the remote Scottish island of Gigha, the six-part series is based around a murder plot, written and developed by Rankin, that stars a group of amateur detectives who will compete to solve a crime and build a "watertight case" that can stand up in court. Contestants on Murder Island will be overseen by some of the UK's leading senior investigating officers.

The BBC unveiled the cast for the upcoming six-part period drama, The Gallows Pole, based on the novel of the same name by Benjamin Myers. The Gallows Pole fictionalizes the remarkable true story of the rise and fall of David Hartley and the Cragg Vale Coiners. Set against the backdrop of the coming industrial revolution in 18th century Yorkshire, the drama follows the enigmatic David Hartley (Michael Socha), as he assembles a gang of workers to embark upon a revolutionary criminal enterprise that will capsize the economy and become the biggest fraud in British history. Also starring are Thomas Turgoose, George MacKay, Tom Burke, Sophie McShera, Cara Theobold, Yusra Warsama, Eve Burley, Nicole Barber Lane, Samuel Edward-Cook, Anthony Welsh, Joe Sproull, Adam Fogerty, and Fine Time Fontayne.

British actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge has exited Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith series due to creative differences with fellow star and executive producer, Donald Glover. According to those close to the project, Waller-Bridge’s departure is amicable and her role will be re-cast. The series, based on Doug Liman’s feature starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, is a joint production between New Regency and Amazon Prime Video. The story of a married couple who discover they are spies hired to assassinate each other was first released in 2005 but somewhat overshadowed by the romance between the two leads.

Steve Howey has landed the male lead in True Lies, the CBS drama pilot adaptation of James Cameron’s 1994 action comedy movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. Written by Matt Nix and to be directed by Anthony Hemingway, the pilot’s plot is true to its movie roots: Shocked to discover that her bland and unremarkable computer consultant husband (Howey) is a skilled international spy, an unfulfilled suburban housewife is propelled into a life of danger and adventure when she’s recruited to work alongside him to save the world as they try to revitalize their passionless marriage.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

James Ellroy, the "demon dog" of American crime fiction, is doubling down on the world of podcasting. It was announced in April that he was working on a true crime audio series titled Hollywood Death Trip, and now he's partnering with podcasting firm Audio Up to adapt his American Tabloid novel into a scripted podcast. The 12-part series is set to launch on July 4, 2022, with casting to begin immediately.

On the Crime Cafe podcast, Debbie Mack interviewed Mark Edward Langley, author of the Arthur Nakai Mystery Series set in New Mexico.

Writer Types featured an end-of-the-summer blowout with five amazing authors including Matthew Fitzsimmons (Constance); Rachel Howzell Hall (These Toxic Things); Taylor Moore (Down Range); Tessa Lunney (Autumn Leaves, 1922); and Elisabeth De Mariaffi (The Retreat).

Michael Craft was the featured guest on Queer Writers of Crime. Michael is the author of seventeen novels, four of which have been honored as finalists for Lambda Literary Awards, and his 2019 mystery, ChoirMaster, was a Gold Winner of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award.

Read Or Dead talked about books featuring cults and people who become a part of them.

Margaret Mizushima was the guest on Speaking of Mysteries, discussing Striking Range, the seventh installment in her Timber Creek K-9 mystery series, in which Timber Creek County Deputy Mattie Cobb braves ice storms and murderers while looking into the death of a young woman and the kidnappers of the woman’s newborn

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Andrews & Wilson, the bestselling co-author team of multiple covert ops and action-adventure thriller novels including Tier One and Sons of Valor. Brian Andrews is a US Navy veteran and former submarine officer, while Jeffrey Wilson has worked as an actor, firefighter, paramedic, jet pilot, and diving instructor, as well as a vascular and trauma surgeon.

Pauline Rowson stopped by My Favorite Detective Stories to chat with host, John Hoda, about her three seaside-themed thriller series.

Sunday Times bestseller, Samantha Downing (My Lovely Wife) joined CrimeTime FM to discuss what makes a great plot twist and also "pantsing."

Since last week's Cozy Ink podcast focused on mysteries with cats, this week's program gives equal time to the dogs.

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

Billy Bob Thornton, Robin Wright, and Hopper Penn are set to star in Where All Light Tends to Go, which will be directed by Ben Young (Hounds of Love; Extinction). The screenplay was written by Robert Knott and is based on the novel by David Joy. Set in the Appalachian Mountains, Where All Light Tends to Go is described as "a tense thriller about a family dominated by a crime lord who controls his family and his business with his fists. When his son meets the girl of his dreams, desperately wanting to escape the life he is expected to lead and freeing himself from the clutches of his father, he is forced to go head to head with the terrifying man who will stop at nothing to ensure loyalty from all of those around him."

Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver are attached as the leads in Master Gardener, a crime thriller that Paul Schrader (The Card Counter) is directing from his original screenplay. It follows a meticulous horticulturist (Edgerton) who is devoted to tending the grounds of a beautiful estate and pandering to his employer, a wealthy dowager (Weaver). When she demands that he take on her wayward and troubled great-niece, it unlocks dark secrets from a buried violent past.

Tom Berenger and Cam Gigandet are set to lead the cast of the action thriller, Black Warrant, directed by Tibor Takács. Based on a story by Michael Paré and D. Glase Lomond, the project follows a semi-retired special ops assassin (Berenger) and a DEA agent (Gigandet) who cross paths on separate missions to stop a cyberterrorist group in possession of a dangerous machine that could attack the power grid and threaten global catastrophe. Jeff Fahey also co-stars in the film, which heads into production next month.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Alfred Molina is set to star in Amazon's police drama series, Three Pines, which comes from The Crown producer, Left Bank Pictures. The project is based on Louise Penny's novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec (played by Molina), who investigates a spate of murders in Three Pines, a seemingly idyllic village where he discovers long-buried secrets and faces a few of his own ghosts. The cast also includes Rossif Sutherland, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Tantoo Cardinal, Clare Coulter, Sarah Booth, Anna Tierney, Julian Bailey, Frédéric-Antoine Guimond, Pierre Simpson, Tamara Brown, Marie-France Lambert, Frank Schorpion, Marcel Jeannin, Georgina Lynn Lightning, Crystle Lightning, Isabel Deroy-Olson, and Anna Lambe.

HBO Max has given a pilot order to Dead Boy Detectives, a series based on the DC Comics characters created by Neil Gaiman, from The Flight Attendant creator Steve Yockey, Doom Patrol creator Jeremy Carver, Berlanti Productions, and Warner Brothers TV. Written by Yockey, the one-hour series would follow the Dead Boy Detectives (Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine) who decided not to enter the afterlife in order to stay on earth and investigate crimes involving the supernatural.

Joseph Russo has been tapped to play "Crazy" Joe Gallo opposite Miles Teller and Matthew Goode in The Offer, Paramount+’s upcoming limited series about the making of The Godfather. The project is based on Oscar-winning producer Al Ruddy’s (Teller) experience of making the iconic 1972 film that Francis Ford Coppola directed and adapted with Mario Puzo from Puzo’s bestselling novel. The movie starred Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, John Cazale, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and Talia Shire; it was nominated for 11 Oscars and won three, including Best Picture for Ruddy.

Rainn Wilson is set as a lead opposite Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon in Dark Winds, AMC’s Western noir thriller series based on Tony Hillerman’s popular Leaphorn & Chee book series. Dark Winds, which has a six-episode order, is a psychological thriller that follows two Navajo police officers, Leaphorn (McClarnon) and Chee (Gordon), in the 1970s Southwest as their search for clues in a grisly double-murder case forces them to challenge their own spiritual beliefs and come to terms with the trauma of their pasts. Wilson will play Devoted Dan, a "pious" missionary who recruits followers to the gates of his used-car lot—all the while being a degenerate practitioner of every biblical sin he decries.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, "Water Fall," written by Merrilee Robson and read by actor Teya Juarez.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, Samantha Downing, for the Crime Cafe podcast. Downing's third novel, For Your Own Good, was recently optioned by a production company.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Karen Cleveland to discuss her new thriller, You Can Run, which follows a CIA analyst who makes a split-second decision that endangers her country but saves her son—and must now team up with an investigative journalist she’s not sure she can trust.

Suspense Radio chatted with Chuck Wendig about his latest novel, The Book of Accidents. Wendig also writes the Miriam Black thrillers, the Atlanta Burns books, the Wanderers series and more.

Matthew FitzSimmons stopped by Meet the Thriller Author. He pens the bestselling Gibson Vaughn series, which includes The Short Drop and Poisonfeather.

Criminal Mischief: Episode #47, hosted by Dr. DP Lyle, tackled the topic of "Amnesia and Trauma Amnesia," used in such novels as The Bourne Identity, and which may have even affected Agatha Christie...or not.

This month's Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast offered something new: A reading by Canadian journalist, author, and professor Dean Jobb of his true crime piece "Arthur Conan Doyle and the Mutineers," which was published in the September/October 2020 issue.

Queer Writers of Crime spoke with award-winning author, C. L. Brees, who holds degrees in Police Studies and Cyber Forensics and writes the DS Anderson series.

Crime Time FM chatted with Simone Buchholz about Hotel Cartagena, featuring Public Prosecutor Chastity Riley who's dropped unwittingly into the middle of a tense hostage situation.

The Red Hot Chili Writers podcast welcomed indie publisher Orenda Books, along with founder Karen Sullivan and authors Awais Khan, Will Carver, and Lilja Sigurdardottir chatting about their terrific new novels.

The Cozy Ink podcast featured a look at cozy mysteries that include cats. 😼

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 Statham and Miramax are partnering for a third time on The Bee Keeper, a spec script by Kurt Wimmer for which the studio shelled out seven figures. A September 2022 production start is being eyed, with filming in London and Atlanta. The Bee Keeper is described as "a lightning-paced thriller deeply steeped in the mythology of Bee Keeping...that explores universal themes with an unconventional story that will have fans sitting on the edge of their seats." Miramax is currently searching for a director.

Tyson Ritter has joined the cast of Prisoner’s Daughter, from director Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight), joining previously announced actors Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale. The film is written by Mark Bacci and tells the story of Max (Cox), a tough but proud ex-con, who’s struggling to find a way to reconnect with his only daughter Maxine (Beckinsale), as well as his grandson. But as he begins an attempt at reconciliation, his violent past catches up to him once again. Ritter will play Maxine’s ex-husband, Tyler, who fights with her to stay connected to their son Ezra.

Showtime announced that the Ray Donovan feature-length movie will debut in the first quarter of 2022, which would be exactly two years after the TV series’ surprise cancellation that led to an outcry from fans. Showrunner David Hollander admitted at the time that the show’s creative team had been blindsided by the decision, as the seventh season had not been planned as a final chapter. Showtime's President of Entertainment, Gary Levine, is promising viewers a satisfying ending with the movie, in which Liev Schreiber returns as uber fixer Donovan, Jon Voight as Mickey Donovan, and Kerris Dorsey as Ray’s daughter Bridget.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

The Wire writer/producer, George Pelecanos, who has had an informal home at HBO for nearly two decades, has made it official with a recently signed two-year overall deal. Under the pact, Pelecanos will develop and produce original content for the network and has set for his first project a drama series based on John D. MacDonald’s novel, The Last One Left. Pelecanos will serve as co-writer along with Megan Abbott (The Deuce; Dare Me) and serve as showrunner. The logline: In 1967 Miami, a pleasure cruiser carrying a wealthy deal-maker and his guests explodes en route to the Bahamas with only the captain found alive. The mysterious Gold Coast resident, Crissy Harkinson, may know far more about the explosion than she’s telling, and when Sam Boylston, the brother of one of the victims, arrives to find answers, he joins forces with Francisca Torcedo, who works for Crissy and has her own suspicions about her ambitious employer.

In a competitive situation, Paramount+ has won rights to develop Yellow Bird, a series based on Sierra Crane Murdoch’s Pulitzer Prize finalist, Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country. The series will focus on Lissa Yellowbird, newly released from jail and returning to her reservation in North Dakota in the midst of one of the largest oil booms in modern history. Her attempts to reconcile with her estranged family are complicated when she becomes obsessed with a young oil worker’s disappearance. "An amateur sleuth from the wrong side of the law, Yellowbird ultimately exposes a sweeping criminal conspiracy of murder and corruption, healing her own family in the process of helping the oil worker’s mother find closure regarding her son’s fate." The real-life Yellowbird has gone on to investigate cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women nationwide, which will be the focus of subsequent seasons.

Amazon Studios has put into development Infinite Thread, which began as a spec script written by Julius and Alston Ramsay, who will also serve as co-showrunners alongside Byron Balasco. The logline:  "After a pair of twins are abducted, a determined sheriff deputy embarks on a quest into the unknown that will alter the course of human history. Infinite Thread is described as blending true crime and science fiction in its depiction of one man’s epic investigation into a crime that breaks the boundaries of time and space."

CBS Studios is developing Broadmoor, a drama series intended for the UK/International premium and streaming market. Inspired by true events, Broadmoor is based on the famous British high-security psychiatric hospital, originally known as the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. It features overlapping stories about the staff, the visitors and, of course, the patients that included maniacs, stranglers, slashers, and serial killers. Set against the backdrop of a crumbling 1970s-80s Britain on the edge of violent social change, the series follows a young woman who goes to Broadmoor "believing that murderous behavior can be understood, treated, even tamed, only to find she has entered a warehouse for England’s fears, the locked attic where its demons reside in a Gothic hell."

FX has rounded out the ensemble cast to join Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones in the studio’s new limited series, Under the Banner of Heaven, tapping new additions Sam Worthington, Denise Gough, Wyatt Russell, Billy Howle, Gil Birmingham, Adelaide Clemens, Rory Culkin, Seth Numrich, Chloe Pirrie, Sandra Seacat, and Christopher Heyerdahl. Inspired by the New York Times bestseller from Jon Krakauer, the story follows a detective whose faith is tested as he investigates a brutal murder that seems to be connected to an esteemed Utah family’s spiral into Mormon/LDS fundamentalism and their distrust of the government.

Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz is set as a series regular opposite Elle Fanning, Colton Ryan, and Chloë Sevigny in the Hulu drama, The Girl From Plainville. Based on the Esquire article by Jesse Barron, the project stars Fanning as Michelle Carter and is inspired by the true story of her controversial "texting suicide" case.The limited series will explore Carter’s relationship with Conrad "Coco" Roy III (Ryan) and the events that led to his death and, later, her controversial conviction of involuntary manslaughter. Butz will play Conrad "Co" Roy II, Coco’s father. Toughened by life and work at the docks and on the boats in Mattapoisett, MA, Co is forced to face his own mistakes as a father and sets out to come to terms with the death of his son.

During the recent Big Sky panel at a Television Critics Association event, actor John Carroll Lynch announced he will be returning for Season 2 of the crime drama, although the details on his return are being kept under wraps. The character Lynch played in Season 1 was sex trafficking Montana state trooper, Rick Legarski, who was shot in the head in the Season 1 finale. Even if he’s dead though, showrunner and executive producer, Elwood Reid, noted during the panel that Legarski has a twin, as alluded to in the first season. Reid also confirmed that this season’s "new baddie, who is going to bring in more baddies," is Ren, the character played by new series regular Janina Gavankar. Another addition to the cast coming in to shake things up is Logan Marshall-Green’s Travis, a man from Jenny (Katheryn Winnick)’s past, who was friends with her and her late husband Cody (Ryan Phillippe). 

Rob Yang has landed a recurring role on the six-part second season of the BBC spy drama series, The Capture, which is now underway in the UK. Starring Holliday Grainger as Detective Inspector Rachel Carey, the second season of the surveillance thriller will see Carey trying to navigate a Britain under siege from hacked news feeds, manipulated media, and interference in politics. Yang will play the head of an internationally renowned Chinese tech company based in the UK. Grainger is returning alongside Ron Perlman, Ben Miles, Lia Williams, Nigel Lindsay, Cavan Clerkin, and Ginny Holder.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The Read or Dead podcast discussed translated works of crime and mystery written by women authors, in celebration of Women in Translation Month.

This week's guest on Queer Writers of Crime was Garrett Hutson, who writes upmarket mysteries and historical spy fiction.

Patricia Sargeant, author of Murder by Page One, was interviewed by Robert Justice for the Crime Writers of Color podcast.

Speaking of Mysteries co-founder, Les Klinger, talked about the astounding series of vintage mysteries that he edited, wrote introductions for, and annotated for The Library of Congress Crime Classics.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed John Gaspard, author of the Eli Marks mystery series, as well as the Como Lake Players mystery series under the pen name Bobbie Raymond.

Margaret Murphy stopped by My Favorite Detective Stories to chat about the psychological thrillers she writes under her own name, and forensic thrillers penned as Ashley Dyer and AD Garrett.

Crime Time FM discussed the film version of The Dry; upcoming books by Victoria Selman and Barry Forshaw; Bloody Scotland; Sherlock on film; The Da Vinci Code, and much more.

The latest Cozy Ink podcast focused on Alexis Morgan’s Abby McCree Mystery Series.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with Sheryl Ickes about Death of a Dispatcher, the first installment in her Becky and Rufus Cross-Country Mystery Series.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Morgan Freeman and Yellowstone’s Cole Hauser are set to star in the action thriller, Muti, from director George Gallo. The feature film follows a detective (Hauser) who is unable to process the death of his daughter and embarks on a hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on a brutal tribal ritual known as MUTI. The detective recruits the help of a professor and African anthropologist (Freeman) who hides an unspeakable secret but allows the detective to go deeper into the killer’s world, revealing one man’s insanity is another man’s religion. 

Mena Suvari and Danielle Harris have joined the cast and production team of the psychological thriller, Anne, With Love, starring Blaine Morris. George Henry Horton (Dreadspace) will direct the film from a script he co-wrote with Morris. Among the supporting cast are Jaime Gallagher, Luke Barnett, Rocky Perez, Anwar Wolf, Leonard Amoia, Lucy Werner, Hunter Brown, and Robert H. Lambert. The story follows Anne (Morris), a painter who struggles with inner demons after being forced into a life of solitude when her husband leaves mysteriously. Suvari will play her closest confidant, Maya, who has a dark secret of her own. Harris will play Anne’s neighbor, who has several striking similarities in both her appearance and life.

Olivia Scott Welch has signed on to star opposite George Baron in The Blue Rose, a surreal genre-bender that Baron wrote and is directing in his feature debut. The noir pic is set in the 1950s, following the one-night journey of two rookie detectives as they set out to solve a homicide, only to find themselves in an alternate reality made up of their worst nightmares. Welch will play Detective Lilly, with Baron portraying Detective Dalton.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Aaron Magnani has acquired rights to Capital Crimes, the 32-part crime thriller book series originated by President Harry S. Truman’s daughter, Margaret Truman, with plans to adapt them into a TV series. The potential adaptation will center on the books’ hero, Robert Brixton, a rugged former cop and special operator who served with SITQUAL, a private security arm of the State Department. Brixton’s skills, as one of the few internationally licensed private investigators, are put to use against an assortment of villains and plots seeking to do the country great harm.

Peacock has handed a straight-to-series order for a ten-part crime drama set in Australia, hailing from Matchbox Pictures, the production company behind Cate Blanchett’s Stateless. Irreverant was created by Paddy Macrae (Wanted) and follows a criminal from Chicago who bungles a heist and is forced to hide out in a small Australian reef town in Far North Queensland posing as the new church Reverend.

All Rise may have a new life on a new network. OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network is in talks for a new season of the legal drama starring Simone Missick, three months after the series was cancelled by CBS. All Rise is set in Los Angeles and centers on Judge Lola Carmichael (Missick), a highly regarded and impressive deputy district attorney "who doesn’t intend to sit back on the bench in her new role, but instead leans in, immediately pushing the boundaries and challenging the expectations of what a judge can be."

Josh Duhamel has been tapped to star opposite Renée Zellweger in NBC’s limited series, The Thing About Pam. Based on a stranger-than-fiction story featured on Dateline NBC, The Thing About Pam centers around the murder of Betsy Faria that resulted in the conviction of her husband, Russ, though he insisted he didn’t kill her. His conviction was later overturned. The brutal crime set off a chain of events that would expose a diabolical scheme deeply involving another woman, Pam Hupp (Zellweger). Duhamel will play Joel Schwartz, the defense attorney for Russ Faria.


Oscar nominee, Chloë Sevigny, is set as a lead opposite Elle Fanning and Colton Ryan in the Hulu drama, The Girl From Plainville. Based off the Esquire article by Jesse Barron, the limited series will explore Michelle Carter’s (Fanning) relationship with Conrad "Coco" Roy III (Ryan) and the events that led to his death and her controversial conviction of involuntary manslaughter. Sevigny will play Lynn Roy, Coco’s mother. 

The Americans alum, Noah Emmerich, has been tapped for a major role opposite Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon in Dark Winds, AMC’s Western noir thriller series based on Tony Hillerman’s popular Leaphorn & Chee book series. With a six-episode order, the psychological thriller follows two Navajo police officers, Joe Leaphorn (McClarnon) and Jim Chee (Gordon), in the 1970s Southwest as the search for clues in a grisly double-murder case forces them to challenge their own spiritual beliefs and come to terms with the trauma of their pasts. Emmerich will play Whitover, a burned-out FBI agent whose once-promising career is dying on the vine. A brazen robbery puts him back in the big time, but first he must enlist the help of the Navajo Tribal Police led by Lieutenant Leaphorn.

ABC is rounding out the recurring cast for the second season of its popular drama series, Big Sky, with the addition of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Madelyn Kientz, Troy Johnson, Lola Reid, Jeremy Ray Taylor, TV Carpio, and Arturo Del Puerto. In Season 2 of the David E. Kelley series, based on the books by C.J. Box, when private detectives Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) and Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) reunite to investigate a car wreck outside of Helena, Montana, they soon discover the case might not be as straightforward as it seems. As they unravel the mystery of the accident, their worlds will collide with a band of unsuspecting teens, a flirtatious face from Jenny’s past, and a vicious outsider hellbent on finding answers.

If you want to know when your favorite TV show is returning (and when new ones are set to debut), check out this calendar of premiere dates, courtesy of Deadline.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast features an excerpt from One of Us by Lorie Lewis Ham (who is also the executive producer and director of the podcast), as read by actor Casey Ballard.

NPR book critic, Maureen Corrigan, spoke about the recent spate of author-manuscript-theft plots in crime fiction, with a look at Laura Lippman's Dream Girl.

NPR's Fresh Air looked at how David E. Kelley and actor Nicole Kidman have joined forces again to adapt another Liane Moriarty novel for Hulu, Nine Perfect Strangers, a miniseries that is "unorthodox and impeccably cast."

Queer Writers of Crime spoke with Lucy Sussex about her prize-winning Blockbuster! nonfiction book which profiles Fergus Hume’s 1886 book, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne and the biggest selling detective novel of the 1800s.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer Saralyn Richard, author of the Detective Oliver Parrott mysteries, for the Crime Cafe podcast.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Terry Roberts to chat about his historical thrillers.

Crime Time FM chatted with Daniel Cole about his new thriller, Mimic, and the coming TV series of his debut novel, Ragdoll.

In the latest episode of The Red Hot Chili Writers, S.A. Cosby, the award-winning author of Razorblade Tears, discussed a new "Writing Crime Fiction" course, and reviewed the Tokyo Olympics, including taking certain Olympic events to task.

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

Following a highly competitive auction, Amazon Studios has acquired a star vehicle that will have Emily Blunt playing Kate Warne, the first woman to become a detective at the Pinkerton Agency. Based on a script by Gustin Nash, the movie is a propulsive action adventure built around Warne, a real-life female Sherlock Holmes in a male-dominated industry whose singular sleuthing skills paved the way for future women in law enforcement and forever changed how detective work was done.

John Lithgow has joined the cast of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon for Apple Studios. Lithgow will play the role of Prosecutor Leaward and joins the previously announced ensemble cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Louis Cancelmi, William Belleu, Tatanka Means, Michael Abbott Jr., Pat Healy, and Scott Shepherd. Killers of the Flower Moon is based on David Grann’s novel and is set in 1920s Oklahoma depicting the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.

Jalyn Hall has signed on to play Emmett Till in Chinonye Chukwu’s Till. The 14-year-old actor will appear in the film alongside previously announced cast members Danielle Deadwyler and Whoopi Goldberg. Till tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Deadwyler), whose pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett Louis Till became a galvanizing moment that helped lead to the creation of the civil rights movement. 

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman) has signed on to star in the dystopian crime thriller, By All, with Steve Caple Jr. attached to direct. Being positioned as a potential franchise starter, the story kicks off in the aftermath of a tragic event and follows Donte, a man struggling to make ends meet, who is forced to go on the run in a world without police where justice is crowd-sourced.

Amazon Studios has acquired Coyote Blue from John Wick writer, Derek Kolstad. Sterling K. Brown is attached to star with Hanelle M. Culpepper making her feature directorial debut. The action film stars Brown as an everyman who’s hunted by a ruthless criminal syndicate for his mysterious cargo and now must navigate the treacherous terrain of Route 66 while unleashing his lethal set of skills in a fight for survival.

Lionsgate has closed a deal for Clancy Brown to star opposite Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rina Sawayama, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane in John Wick: Chapter 4. The latest "John Wick" installment is written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, with production already underway in France, Germany, and Japan.

Jake T. Austin, Paulo Costanzo, Iman Karram, and Ka’ramuu Kush have joined the cast of Daft State, the psychological thriller from Chad Bishoff. The four actors will appear alongside previously announced leads Christopher Backus and Skye P. Marshall. The film charts the mysterious psychological destruction of Easton (Backus), who is driven to the edge of sanity, and possible self-harm, by those that love him most—his wife (Marshall) and daughter. Will Easton succumb to their increasingly traumatizing pressure, or will he conquer the dark forces at play in his addled psyche?

RLJE Films has unveiled the first trailer for Prisoners of the Ghostland, which it will release in theaters, on digital, and VOD September 17. The crime thriller from director Sion Sono is set in the treacherous frontier city of Samurai Town where a ruthless bank robber (Nicholas Cage) is sprung from jail by wealthy warlord The Governor (Bill Moseley), whose adopted granddaughter, Bernice, has gone missing. The Governor offers the prisoner his freedom in exchange for retrieving the runaway. Strapped into a leather suit that will self-destruct within three days, the bandit sets off on a journey to find the young woman and his own path to redemption.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICE

Apple has handed out a ten-episode order to the crime drama, Bad Monkey, adapted from the 2013 novel by Carl Hiaasen. Vince Vaughn will play Andrew Yancy, a one-time detective demoted to restaurant inspector in Southern Florida. A severed arm found by a tourist pulls Yancy into the world of greed and corruption that devastates the land and environment in both Florida and the Bahamas.

ITV has set the cast for its upcoming adaptation of Sara Collins’s period drama, The Confessions of Frannie Langton. Karla-Simone Spence, who starred in the Paramount Pictures feature, Blue Story, as well as BBC series Wannabe and Gold Digger, leads the cast as Langton. The story follows a servant and former slave accused of murdering her employer and his wife in a thriller that moves from a Jamaican sugar plantation to the fetid streets of Georgian London.

In a competitive situation, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carol Leonnig’s bestselling book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, will be adapted as a television series. Zero Fail portrays the steely resolve and sacrifices of many Secret Service agents who have committed their lives to protecting the nation’s security, while also revealing other senior agents’ arrogant misconduct and salacious scandals that the service sought to cover up—from the drunken outing the night before the Kennedy assassination to the agents’ own tortured roles in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th.

FX made it official that Studio 54: American Crime Story, the fourth installment of the series, has been put into development. The project will tell the story of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, who in 1977 turned their Midtown Manhattan disco into an international mecca of nightlife for the rich and famous and commoners alike—renowned for its lavish parties, music, sex, and open drug use. With Rubell and Schrager’s rapid rise came their epic fall less than three years later when the impresarios were convicted of tax fraud.

Tony winner, Ali Stroker (Oklahoma!), Karen Robinson, and Rosanny Zayas are set as series regulars opposite Michelle Monaghan, Matt Bomer, and Daniel Sunjata in Echoes, Netflix’s psychological thriller limited series from 13 Reasons Why showrunner Brian Yorkey. Created and written by Vanessa Gazy, Echoes is a mystery thriller about identical twins Leni and Gina, both portrayed by Monaghan, who share a dangerous secret. Since they were children, Leni and Gina have swapped lives, culminating in a double life as adults: They share two homes, two husbands and a child, but everything in their perfectly choreographed world is thrown into disarray when one of the sisters goes missing.

Paapa Essiedu, Indira Varma, and Andy Nyman are joining the cast for the second season of the BBC One crime drama, The Capture. Holliday Grainger will return as the lead alongside Ron Perlman, Ben Miles, Lia Williams, Nigel Lindsay, Cavan Clerkin, and Ginny Holder. The second season will reveal "a Britain under siege: hacked news feeds, manipulated media, and interference in politics. Entrenched in the UK’s own ‘Correction’ unit, DCI Rachel Carey (Grainger) finds herself in the middle of a new conspiracy – with a new target. But how can she solve this case when she can’t even trust her closest colleagues?"

A trailer was released for the Swedish Agatha Christie series, Hjerson. Based on a fictional character penned by the fictional character, Ariadne Oliver, a mystery crime writer who appears in a number of Agatha Christie novels, the series is set to start in Sweden on August 16. Johan Rheborg will play Sven Hjerson and Hanna Alström will play his sidekick, Klara Sandberg, a former trash TV producer who successfully pitches a true-life crime show starring Hjerson, who will solve a real crime each week.

Hallmark unveiled the film lineup for its autumn Movie & Mysteries events. From Sunday, September 12 through Sunday, October 17, Hallmark will debut thrilling mysteries each week, including One Summer starring Sam Page, Amanda Schull, and Grey’s Anatomy alum Sarah Drew. 

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Eric Beetner was joined by co-host, Naomi Hirahara (Clark and Division), and authors Andrea Bartz (We Were Never Here), SF Kosa (The Night We Burned), and Claire Douglas (Then She Vanishes) on Writer Types.

The Queer Writers of Crime podcast chatted with John Copenhaver, whose historical crime novel, Dodging and Burning, won the 2019 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel and garnered Anthony, Strand Critics, Barry, and Lambda Literary Award nominations. His second novel, The Savage Kind, will be released in October of 2021.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Isabella Maldonado, the first Latina to attain the rank of captain in her police department, who retired as the Commander of Special Investigations and Forensics after two decades on the force. The Cipher, the first book in her new series featuring FBI Special Agent Nina Guerrera, was published in November 2020 and the sequel, A Different Dawn, will be published later this month.

Crimetime FM held a roundtable with publishing gurus Katherine Armstrong (Simon & Schuster), Miranda Jewess (Viper), and literary agent, David Headley (Goldsboro/Capital Crime), to discuss the latest trends and where the future lies.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, Saralyn Richard, author of the Detective Oliver Parrott mysteries and other books, for the Crime Cafe podcast.

My Favorite Detective Stories spoke with J.C. Fields, author of award-winning suspense novels in the Sean Kruger Series.

On the Cozy Ink Podcast, Tara Lush (author of the Coffee Lover’s cozy mystery series) discussed how to draft your first cozy mystery.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a paranormal mystery roundup.

Read or Dead discussed mysteries based on real-life happenings.


GAMES

Twelve Minutes, a new thriller video game from Annapurna Interactive, comes out Aug. 19 and has a star voice cast including Willem Dafoe, James McAvoy, and Daisy Ridley. Twelve Minutes is about a man (McAvoy) who’s sitting down for a nice dinner at home with his wife (Ridley) when an intruder (Dafoe) bursts in, accuses the wife of murdering someone, then beats the man to death. Taking a page from Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day movie, the game’s director, Luis Antonio, structured Twelve Minutes around a time loop that repeats in 12-minute intervals. The player’s job is to run through the scenario enough times to break out of the loop and solve the crime.