In Reference to Murder

Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings to all and welcome to your latest crime drama roundup:

THE BIG SCREEN

A Breaking Bad movie from original series creator Vince Gilligan is set to begin production in New Mexico later this month. Further details about the film are being kept under wraps, although it's said to follow the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom. What's unclear is whether any of the show’s original characters are expected to return or if the project is planned for a theatrical release or will air on television.

The live-action film version of the 1960s pop icon/animated TV series Jonny Quest appears closer to becoming a reality after Lego Batman Movie director Chris McKay has been hired to direct the project for Warner Brothers. The story centers on the adventurous boy hero Jonny Quest who travels around the world with his scientist father, his adopted brother Hadji, and their former secret agent bodyguard, Race Bannon, to solve world-threatening mysteries. An individual with knowledge with of the project told TheWrap that a major movie star is being eyed to play Race Bannon.

J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot has optioned an untitled feature pitch from The Crown writer Ed Hemming following a competitive auction. Plot details are being kept under wraps, although it's understood to be a high school-set thriller in the present day with a socially relevant twist. 

Allison Janney has landed the lead role in the thriller Lou, another project being set up at J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot Productions. Anna Foerster (Underworld: Blood Wars, Outlander) will direct the dramatic thriller that follows a tough elderly woman living on a remote island who is recruited by a neighbor to help her find her kidnapped daughter. Janney will play a rule-breaking woman with a tough shell and abilities as a tracker.

Saban Films has acquired North American rights to American Dreamer, Derrick Borte’s thriller starring Jim Gaffigan as a down-on-his-luck rideshare driver who gets in way over his head with drug dealers and a kidnapping. Saban plans a theatrical release for the pic, which had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Less than a month after announcing the upcoming seventh season of Orange Is the New Black would be its final run, producers Lionsgate Television are already mulling a potential sequel to the series created by Jenji Kohan and starring Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Uzo Aduba and Danielle Brooks. Orange Is the New Black, which is inspired by Piper Kerman's memoir of the same name, bowed to critical acclaim in 2013.

Emmy-winning director Susanne Bier (The Night Manager) has signed on to direct all six episodes of The Undoing, the network’s high-profile limited series written by David E. Kelley and starring Nicole Kidman. Adapted from Jean Hanff Korelitz’s book You Should Have Known, The Undoing centers on Grace Sachs (Kidman), who is living a seemingly perfect life - a successful therapist with a new book, a devoted husband, and a young son in an elite private school. But a violent death followed by her husband going missing threatens to tear her perfect world apart.

Emmy-winning The Americans star Matthew Rhys is in talks to take on the role of the iconic titular lawyer in HBO's planned Perry Mason reboot. Rhys played Russian spy Philip Jennings for six seasons on FX's The Americans, and this year the role scored him his first career Emmy after three prior nominations.

Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) and Brian J. Smith (Sense8) have been cast as two of the leads of USA Network’s straight-to-series drama Treadstone, an offshoot of Universal’s Bourne franchise, from creator Tim Kring and Universal Cable Productions. Written by Kring, Treadstone explores the origin story and present-day actions of a CIA black ops program known as Operation Treadstone — a covert program that uses behavior-modification protocol to turn recruits into nearly superhuman assassins.

Robin Givens is set to appear on the ABC legal drama The Fix in the recurring role of Julianne Johnson, the loyal ex-wife of Sevvy (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The Fix follows Maya Travis (Robin Tunney), an L.A. district attorney who suffers a devastating defeat when prosecuting Sevvy, an A-list actor for double murder. With her high-profile career derailed, she flees for a quieter life in Washington. But when Sevvy falls under suspicion for another murder eight years later, Maya is lured back to the DA’s office for another chance at justice.

Max Greenfield is the latest original Veronica Mars cast member set to reprise their role in the upcoming Hulu revival. Also joining the cast of the eight-episode limited series, scheduled to premiere in 2019, is Patton Oswalt. Greenfield’s Leo D’Amato was the new Sheriff’s Deputy when he recurred on the first three seasons of Veronica Mars. In the followup movie, Leo was a detective at the San Diego Police Department who helped Veronica (Kristen Bell) in the Susan Knight murder investigation.

Less than a month after its premiere on ABC, The Rookie is getting a full-season order. The cop drama premiered in mid-October to ratings that surpassed its time period from previous shows in that slot.

TNT's hitman series Good Behavior has been canceled after two seasons. The series was based on books by Blake Crouch and starred Michelle Dockery as Letty, a con artist released from jail on good behavior, who accidentally becomes entangled with an assassin named Javier played by Diego Botto.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Showtime is launching a companion podcast for its upcoming limited series from Ben Stiller, Escape at Dannemora, that will delve into the real-life events that inspired the drama. The limited series, which is directed and executive produced by Stiller, is based on the 2015 prison break from Clinton Correctional Facility. The podcast, which is produced by Wondery’s Real Crime Profile, will dive deeper into the real-life events and feature interviews with cast-members, real people involved in the case and the creators.

In the latest Crime Friction episode, hosts Jay Stringer and Chantelle Aimee Ausman were joined by Lou Berney to talk about hats, the sixties, and his new book, November Road.

The MysteryRats Maze podcast featured the first chapter of the mystery novel The Plunge by Nancy G. West, read by local actor Ariel Bennett.

Host Debbi Mack welcomed crime writer Dana King, author of the Nick Forte & Penns River Series, for an interview on the Crime Cafe.

Regular Read or Dead host Rincey Abraham was joined by guest host Liberty Hardy to "basically just rave about the amazingness that is Agatha Christie."

The latest Spybrary podcast featured a chat with author Merle Nygate about her first espionage novel, The Righteous Spy.

THEATER

A new Sherlock Holmes adaptation is heading to The New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, from November 15-17. Nick Lane adapted Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four for the stage, and says of the production, "Some of it is set during the Indian rebellion of 1857 – the book does go back 35 years in time from when it was written to talk about what transpired and why the crime at the centre of the novel happened, so there’s quite a bit of exposition. You have to try and find ways to make it fun for the audience to watch and visually interesting."

Media Murder for Monday

Welcome to the first post-time-change edition of Media Murder, with the latest roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Mel Gibson is teaming up with Charlie Hunnam and Eiza Gonzalez for Waldo, the action-packed thriller from Brit filmmaker Tim Kirkby, best known for directing episodes of Veep. The film is based on the novel Last Looks by Howard Gould and follows the brilliant but disgraced former LAPD detective Charlie Waldo (Hunnam), currently living the life of a minimalist in the woods. His quiet life comes to a startling halt when he is roped back into working as a private eye to investigate the murder of an eccentric TV star’s wife.

Dev Patel has been set to make his feature directing debut with action revenge pic Monkey Man. The Oscar nominee will also star in the film, which follows the Kid (Patel) who emerges from prison to take on a world enmeshed in corporate greed and eroding spiritual values. Thunder Road producer Basil Iwanyk calls it a “vibrant, thrilling and above all entertaining story.”

A24 announced it has picked up North American rights to the war thriller, The Kill Team, starring Nat Wolff and Alexander Skarsgard. The project follows a young soldier in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan who witnesses other recruits killing innocent civilians and considers reporting them to higher-ups as the heavily-armed, increasingly violent platoon becomes suspicious that someone in their ranks has turned on them.

Noomi Rapace (the Millennium series) has been set to star in the thriller The Secrets We Keep, which has Joel Kinnaman (Suicide Squad) also in talks to join. Yuval Adler will direct from a script by Ryan Covington. Rapace will play Maja, a woman rebuilding her life along with her husband Dobie in New York after WWII. When they encounter an eerily familiar man their life starts to unravel. They wonder, could this be the officer who was one of their chief tormentors at the concentration camp Birkenau all those years ago?

Chloë Grace Moretz and Jack O’Connell will play Bonnie and Clyde in Kike Maillo’s Love Is a Gun, based on the book Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by bestselling author Jeff Guinn. Oscar nominee Shelton Turner (Up in the Air) wrote the screenplay, while Johnny Newman (Narcos) added revisions. Parker and Barrow gained renown during the Great Depression as they committed multiple bank and store robberies from 1931 to 1935. They are believed to have killed at least nine police officers before they were slain in Louisiana.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The Watch, based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, has landed an eight-part series order at BBC America. The network describes the show as a “punk rock thriller” inspired by the City Watch subset of Discworld novels. The character-driven series centers on Terry Pratchett’s misfit cops as they fight "to save a ramshackle city of normalized wrongness, from both the past and future in a perilous quest."

NBC has put in development Einstein, based on the popular German series, from writer Michael Reisz (Shadowhunters), Carol Mendelsohn, Tariq Jalil’s Intrigue Entertainment and Universal TV. Written by Reisz, Einstein follows a whip-smart, smooth-talking and illegitimate descendant of Albert Einstein who is recruited by the police for his skills at solving particularly complex cases.

The Disney-owned cable channel Freeform announced it's working on an adaptation of Stephen King's novel Joyland. The project tells the story of Devin, a college student who takes a summer job at an amusement park in a North Carolina tourist town where he confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child and the way both will change his life forever.

NBC has put in development an LAPD police drama from writer Kevin O’Hare, The Brave creator Dean Georgaris, Keshet Studios and Universal TV. Written and executive produced by O’Hare, the untitled project is based on police pilot programs in major U.S. cities. The drama follows an unlikely group of LAPD officers and detectives incentivized to live and become active members in the community they patrol, all in hopes of changing perceptions and reducing violence.

BBC Studios is developing a high-end drama based on the real-life story behind the murderous Lady Macbeth, which is set before the Shakespeare play and tells the epic and violent tale of Lady Macbeth from the female perspective, when she was Gruoch Ingen Boite, married to Gille Coemgáin, the King of Mormaer.

McMafia producer Cuba Pictures is developing a TV adaptation of Lesley Kara's debut novel, The Rumour, a story loosely based on the real-life case of British child killer Mary Kill. The book, which is set to be published in December, starts when single mother Joanna hears a rumor at the school gates that a notorious child killer is living under a new identity in their sleepy little town of Flinstead-on-Sea. How dangerous can one rumor become? And how far will Joanna go to protect her loved ones from harm when she realizes what she’s unleashed?

Ryan Hansen is officially on board for Hulu’s Veronica Mars revival reprising his role of Rick Casablancas. He joins star Kristen Bell and series creator Rob Thomas, along with a slew of other show alums, for the streamer’s eight-episode run.

William Shatner is returning at the host of Rescue 911, a reboot of the CBS series that ran from 1989 to 1996. The show featured real footage and reenactments of 911 call emergencies, and the new version would have some updates, including a new weekly, two-hour format offering a live look at first responders taking real emergency calls every week.

Investigation Discovery has ordered a six-part crime series about cold case murders in small towns from British producer Britespark Films. Welcome To Murdertown follows the baffling murder mysteries where it’s not just one person who’s hiding something – it’s everybody. From small towns and tight-lipped communities to tight-knit families, investigators must penetrate a wall of silence to crack the case.

HBO released a trailer for the upcoming third season of True Detective, which stars Mahershala Ali as an Arkansas police detective who can’t stop thinking about the two children who went missing 30 years prior. Costarring with Ali is Stephen Dorff as Hays’ partner on the case.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Crimereads profiled the event in 1958 when the BBC asked Ian Fleming to “interview” his eminent friend, Raymond Chandler, on Chandler’s 70th birthday. The interview is broken down into four audio segments with some of the transcripts.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Henry Porter to chat about Firefly, his new novel which is a classic thriller—with a twist.

Lynda La Plante has shaped crime fiction writing over the course of the last 35 years, and she spoke with the Ray Darcy Show about her enduring career.

In the latest edition of Crime Cafe, host Debbi Mack spoke with David Malcolm about his novel, The German Messenger, a historical espionage story.

Crime Novelist and The Deuce Creator George Pelecanos stopped by Wisconsin Public Radio to discuss his latest novel, The Man Who Came Uptown, and the author's history of using blue-collar stories in his work.

D.P. Lyle's latest episode of his podcast, CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction, focused on "Famous and Odd DNA Cases."

Lea Wait was the featured guest on Destination Mystery. Wait is the author of historical books for young people and the cozy Antique Print Mystery Series for adults.

Media Murder for Monday

Monday means it's time for a new week and a new roundup of the latest crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Martin Scorsese has been attached to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio to star in the feature adaptation of the New York Times bestselling David Grann book, Killers of the Flower Moon, with Eric Roth writing the script. The project is based on a true story and set in 1920s Oklahoma when the Osage Nation were the richest people per capita in the world, after oil was discovered under their land. And then they were murdered, one by one. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case and unraveled a chilling conspiracy and one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

Chris Pratt is in talks to star in director Taylor Sheridan’s next project, tentatively titled Fast. The plot is mostly under wraps, but it centers on a black ops team that goes after drug dealers who are being protected by the feds.

Jamie Lee Curtis is joining the cast with Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, and Lakeith Stanfield in director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. The project is still somewhat mysterious but has been described as a modern-day murder mystery in the classic whodunit style.

David Tennant and Emily Watson are set to star in Quicksand, a thriller that will mark the feature directorial debut of Humans and Troy: Fall of a City TV director Mark Brozel. The story centers on British couple Dan (Tennant) and Sarah (Watson) who are living out their dream in the Mediterranean. But their paradise comes to an abrupt end when their visiting son is murdered by a local youth. Dan, grief stricken, is offered a chance at revenge by a dangerous stranger who won’t take no for an answer, but the price of revenge is one more murder.

Academy Award winner Geena Davis and Joan Chen have joined Jessica Chastain’s drama Eve, with Tate Taylor directing. Colin Farrell, Common, John Malkovich, and Diana Silvers are also set to star in the project. Although plot details are murky, Chastain is portraying the title character, who works for a black ops organization led by Farrell’s character. Common will portray her ex-fiance.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Blackbox Multimedia is developing The Last Cop and also Murder in Time, the latter of which is based on a series of time-traveling crime thrillers by U.S. writer Julie McElwain. McElwain’s three "Murder in Time” books, published by Pegasus, revolve around tough FBI agent Kendra Donovan who goes rogue in London in an effort to assassinate the man who killed her team, only to end up in England in the 1800s. The Last Cop is described as a crime procedural set in an alternative present/near future in which there is no crime due to implanted crime inhibitor chips that detect violent impulses in the brain. Against this backdrop, a reluctant former police detective is taken out of retirement to solve a murder, the first in 17 years.

Broadchurch star Elen Rhys and Pagan Peak's Julian Looman will star in the BBC drama The Mallorca Files. The ten-part series is created by Dan Sefton and is set among the expat community on the sunny Spanish island that features a British and German detective clashing over their very different approaches to policing the island.

Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Shannon Tarbet have been cast in Season 2 of BBC America’s breakout drama series Killing Eve, joining previously announced new cast members Nina Sosanya, Edward Bluemel and Julian Barratt and series stars Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer and Fiona Shaw. Killing Eve centers on two women; Eve (Oh) is a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade security services operative whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy, and Villanelle (Comer), an elegant, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her. These two fiercely intelligent women, equally obsessed with each other, go head to head in an epic game of cat and mouse.

True-crime hub Investigation Discovery (ID) has renewed Breaking Homicide for Season 2, and production is already underway. Breaking Homicide follows veteran police detective and private investigator Derrick Levasseur in his pursuit of cold cases around the nation.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Author Novoneel Chakraborty's thriller novel Black Suits You is to be developed into a web series by Ekta Kapoor's OTT platform. The story of Black Suits You follows Kiyan Roy, a reclusive author of a bestselling erotica trilogy, who is stalked by obsessed fan. Soon, he falls for her charms and gets sucked deeper and deeper into a dark and twisted love affair until his life and career slowly begin to unravel.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack welcomed author David Malcolm to discuss his novel, The German Messenger, a historical espionage story.

Suspense Radio Inside Edition chatted with authors Tasha Alexander (Uneasy Lies The Crown), JJ Hensley (Record Scratch), and Daniella Bernett (A Checkered Past).

Beyond the Cover's latest special guests were Jeff Abbott (The Three Beths) and Julie Hyzy (Vitural Sabotage).

Writer Types' Halloween episode featured horror writers Paul Tremblay (The Cabin At The End of the World) and Amy Lukavics (Nightingale). Plus, some scary book recommendations from the Malmons.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about a very cool program Stephen King runs and some of the upcoming releases that they are very excited about.

THEATER

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts is staging a production of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, as adapted by Ken Ludwig, through November 11. Directed by Sheldon Epps, the cast features Tony Amendola as Christie's iconic detective, Hercule Poirot. 

Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again, which means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news on screens both big and small:

THE BIG SCREEN

Michael B. Jordan will star in and produce Lionsgate’s film adaptation of assassin story The Silver Bear. A director has not yet been attached to the project, announced last week. The film is based on the book series by Derek Haas (the screenwriter for Wanted and 3:10 to Yuma) and centers on an assassin named Columbus — called the Silver Bear by some — who tracks a powerful politician with presidential aspirations.

IFC Films has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to Out Of Blue. The crime drama, written and directed by Carol Morley, had its premiere at this year’s Toronto Film Festival and will be released in theaters sometime next year. Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile), Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom), James Caan (Misery), Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and Mamie Gummer (End Of Tour) star. Based on the novel by Martin Amis, the story follows a New Orleans homicide detective Mike Hoolihan (Clarkson) as she investigates the shooting of leading astrophysicist and black hole expert Jennifer Rockwell (Gummer). As she gets deeper into the case, her quest for the truth completely shakes her view of the universe, and ultimately herself.

Liam Hemsworth and Vince Vaughn are heading to Arkansas, Clark Duke’s feature directorial debut that Duke wrote and will also star in. Arkansas follows a pair of low level drug runners in the Dixie Mafia, Kyle (Hemsworth) and Swin (Duke), who live by the orders of an Arkansas-based drug kingpin Frog (Vaughn), whom they’ve never met. But when a deal goes horribly wrong, deadly consequences are soon to rattle the duo’s routine lives.

Eve, the upcoming crime drama starring Jessica Chastain, has added Joan Chen and Academy Award-winner Geena Davis to its cast. The plot for the film is being kept under wraps, but the production companies on the project, Voltage Pictures and Freckle Films, describe it as" a character-driven action-drama."

Don Johnson and Blade Runner 2049 actress Ana de Armas are set to join Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Lakeith Stanfield, and Michael Shannon in writer-director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. Shooting is due to begin next month on the modern-day murder mystery which will see Craig star as a detective, although the plot and character details are largely being kept under wraps.

After co-starring in last year’s successful Murder on the Orient Express, Tom Bateman is set to return as Bouc in the 20th Century Fox feature adaptation of Death on the Nile, which will now be released October 2, 2020, instead of December 20, 2019. The latest Agatha Christie film also will see the return of Kenneth Branagh as director and in the role of Hercule Poirot, and Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer also attached to star.

Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, and Henry Czerny have come aboard Fox Searchlight’s Ready or Not thriller, which is being directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, with Samara Weaving and Andie MacDowell previously announced to star in the film. The plot centers on a young bride (Weaving) as she joins her new husband’s (O’Brien) rich, eccentric family (Brody, Czerny, and MacDowell) in a time-honored tradition that turns into a lethal game with everyone fighting for their survival.

A trailer was released for Destroyer, starring an unrecognizable Nicole Kidman as LAPD detective Erin Bell who was placed undercover as a young cop with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has put in development the cop drama Ranger, inspired by James Patterson’s recently released best-selling novel, Texas Ranger. The project hails from American Sniper writer Jason Hall, and centers on a Texas Ranger and his cantankerous father move to South Florida where the Ranger becomes a homicide detective and searches for his brother’s killer.

ABC has landed Wolfe, a crime drama from former Bones producer Kathy Reichs and executive producer/co-showrunner Michael Peterson, who also serves as writer on the project. Wolfe centers on veterinarian Dr. Charles Wolfe, who has a unique perspective on homicide, believing murder is a primal, animalistic act, and killers are animals. After getting elected coroner of Boulder, CO, Wolfe partners with his mirror opposite, FBI profiler Kristin Faulk, who is confident Wolfe is dead wrong and that it is nurture, not nature, that leads a person to murder.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to an hour-long female-focused FBI drama from former Queen Sugar showrunner Monica Macer, Thruline and 20th Century Fox TV. Written by Macer, the Untitled FBI Women Project (aka The Tribe) is inspired by journalist and author Doug Stanton’s interviews of women in law enforcement. It is a character-driven drama set inside the New York City field office of the FBI featuring the stories of three female agents as they struggle to balance their professional and personal lives. 

NBC has given a put pilot commitment to Emergence, a mystery drama from Kevin (Probably) Saves The World creators/executive producers Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, director Paul McGuigan and ABC Studios. Written by Fazekas and Butters, Emergence centers around a sheriff who takes in a young child that she finds near the site of a mysterious accident who has no memory of what has happened. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined, and the child’s identity is at the center of it all.

Shades of Blues star/executive producer Jennifer Lopez has teamed with co-star Vincent Laresca for a new cop drama, which has been put in development by NBC. The project, Blood Ties, hails from former The Mentalist executive producer Tom Szentgyorgyi, who also serves as screenwriter. Blood Ties is a procedural crime show in the vein of NYPD Blue, in which convicted homicide detective Steve Horvath is exonerated and given his job back but finds he now has unconventional insight about the criminals he faces. Teaming up with an unexpected rookie who has a secret agenda of his own, Horvath must learn to adapt to life outside of prison while trying to figure out who framed him and why.

Shades of Blue creator Adi Hasak is teaming with Red Arrow Studios International and Universal Television to develop a U.S. version of popular German series The Last Cop (Der Letzte Bulle). The Last Cop tells the story of Mick Briggs, an alpha male detective, who wakes up from a 25-year coma and struggles to find his identity as a man, husband and father in a world he neither recognizes nor understands.

British producer Synchronicity Films is lining up the next project from The Cry author Helen FitzGerald, which the author is still writing and will be released in 2020. The BBC One drama is said to be a domestic disaster noir story set in a small town. The Broadchurch-style tale explores small-town secrets in an action-packed thriller format that features a devastating bush fire and its impact on a community. 

Another classic series is coming back to television without rebooting its entire universe—in fact, it's killing off a major character. NYPD Blue is getting a revival but the premise revolves around the death of original series protagonist Andy Sipowicz (played by Dennis Franz). The new show would be based on Theo Sipowicz, who followed in his father's footsteps and pursued law enforcement. His goal is to earn his shield as a detective and investigate crime out of his dad's old 15th precinct, including using his NYPD resources to investigate his dad's murder.

Doubt creators Joan Rater and Tony Phelan have sold two dramas to NBC including Trust, based on the French-language format Banking District, which is described as part thriller, part family drama. It follows psychology professor Michaela Murphy as she unexpectedly takes over her family’s banking business when her brother suspiciously falls into a coma. In order to save her brother’s life, the bank and her family’s legacy, Michaela must contend with her estranged family and in doing so begins to uncover a host of long-buried secrets.

Fox is developing the police drama Deputy from David Ayer and former LAPD detective Will Beall. The project is being made with the full cooperation of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and centers on Deputy Bill Hollister, a career lawman who’s very comfortable kicking down doors and utterly lost in a staff meeting. But when the LA County Sheriff drops dead, Bill becomes acting sheriff of Los Angeles County, in charge of 10,000 sworn deputies policing a modern Wild West.

Martin Freeman will star in the six-part drama, A Confession, for UK’s ITV. Written by Jeff Pope, the series tells the story of how Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, played by Freeman, deliberately breached police procedure and protocol to catch a killer, a decision that ultimately cost him his career and reputation. 

The Scorpion and X-Files star Robert Patrick is boarding Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix drama, The Laundromat, taking on the role of Captain Perry. He joins an ensemble cast of Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, David Schwimmer, and Will Forte in the story that centers around one of the largest money laundering schemes ever, "The Panama Papers," documents that linked money laundering to politicians and powerful higher-ups such as U.S. President Donald Trump.

Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno is set for a leading role opposite Sophia Bush in CBS’ drama pilot Surveillance. The project is described as a complex and timely spy thriller centered around the head of communications for the NSA (Bush), a charming operative who finds her loyalties torn between protecting the government’s secrets and her own. Sandino Moreno will play Natalie, who oversees all active operations at the NSA, the first woman to do so – and she’s excellent at her job. She is fiercely loyal to Maddy (Bush), her close colleague and longtime friend, and the two are like sisters.

Enrico Colantoni is set to join Kristen Bell in Hulu’s eight-episode Veronica Mars revival. He will reprise his series regular role from the original of Keith Mars, Veronica’s (Bell) father and head of Mars Investigations. The hour-long limited series, slated to premiere in 2019, hails from Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, who will pen the first episode. In the revival, spring breakers are getting murdered in Neptune, thereby decimating the seaside town’s lifeblood tourist industry. 

After finding huge success in the United Kingdom, Bodyguard will make its way stateside on October 24 when it debuts on Netflix. Bodyguard tells the story of David Budd (Richard Madden), a heroic, but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Branch (RasP) of London’s Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, could he become her biggest threat?

CBS has handed back-orders to three more freshman series, including Magnum P.I, the reboot starring Jay Hernandez. Although the show got off to a modest ratings start, it improved its programming block by fifty percent-plus over last season’s low-rated comedies.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest episode of Two Crime Writers and a Microphone is titled "Would a Crime Writer Lie to You!," and recorded in front of a live audience at the Bloody Scotland crime festival. The featured authors include Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Abir Mukherjee, Denise Mina, Sarah Pinborough, Will Dean, Mark Billingham, Stuart Neville, and Howard Linskey.

Suspense Radio Inside Edition welcomed Marnie Riches (The Girl Who Wouldn't Die) and Reavis Wortham (Gold Dust) to the show.

James Scott Bell, a winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for his novel, Romeo’s Way, and the #1 bestselling author of books on the craft of writing, was the latest featured guest on Meet the Thriller Writer podcast.

D.P. Lyle's podcast, Criminal Mischief: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction, focused on "Writing Modern Crime Fiction."

Kings River Life Magazine Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "The Mercy Killer," written by mystery author Merrilee Robson and read by Kingsburg actor Thomas Nance.

Self-Publishing Journeys spoke with UK indie thriller writer Nathan Burrows about his trilogy of dark comedy thrillers based in Norfolk.

Media Murder for Monday

Welcome to a new Monday and a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Lawrence Kasdan (of Star Wars fame) is turning his attention next to the JFK assassination, acquiring the film rights to November Road, the new novel from Edgar Award-winning author Lou Berney. The story follows Frank Guidry, who is connected to the president's murder, and when other loose ends begin dying all around him, Frank knows he’s next. Hunted by a ruthless hitman hired by his ex-boss, Frank heads across the desert where he meets Charlotte Roy, who is running away from her small-town life and abusive alcoholic husband with two young daughters and an epileptic dog in tow. Guidry sees this instant family scenario as the perfect cover, and Charlotte sees him as her best chance at a new life—if they can escape before his past catches up to them.

Liam Neeson and Kate Walsh are set to star in Honest Thief, a film to be directed by Mark Williams, who co-created the hit Netflix series Ozark. Neeson plays a career bank robber who meets the love his life in Annie (Walsh), a clerk at a storage facility where he hid $7 million in stolen loot. They fall head over heels, and he resolves to wipe the slate clean by turning himself in. When the case is turned over to a crooked FBI agent, everything becomes far more dangerous and difficult.

Emmy winner Sarah Paulson (American Crime Story: The People v. O. J. Simpson) has been tapped as the lead in the Lionsgate thriller, Run, which will reunite the team behind the Sundance award-winning film, Searching, with its helmer Aneesh Chaganty attached to direct. The story follows a teenaged girl, raised in total isolation by her mother (Paulson), whose life begins to unravel as she discovers her mother’s sinister secret.

Freya Tingley (Hemlock Grove) and Paul Rae (True Grit) will star in the indie thriller Year Of The Detectives, which goes into production this month in LA. Tingley will play Nic O’Connell who inherits her grandfathers’ long-running private detective agency in the heart of Chinatown. She and her co-inheritor must put aside their differences to solve the final mystery of their grandparents’ deaths, with Rae playing the detective who reluctantly joins their effort as the bodies pile up. 

Golden Globe winner Rachel Brosnahan is set to co-star with Benedict Cumberbatch in the Cold War drama, Ironbark. Dominic Cooke is on board to direct the feature from a screenplay by The Hitman’s Bodyguard scribe Tom O’Connor. The project is based on the true story of Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch), a British businessman who helped the CIA penetrate the Soviet nuclear program during the Cold War. Wynne and his Russian source, Oleg Penkovsky, provided the crucial intelligence that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis. Brosnahan will play Emily Donovan, the brilliant, determined CIA agent who runs Wynne and Penkovsky’s espionage operation.

Matthew McConaughey is joining writer/director Guy Ritchie in a return to British crime dramas via Toff Guys. McConaughey will star alongside Kate Beckinsale and Crazy Rich Asians breakout star Henry Golding in the story that explores the collision between old money in Europe and the modern marijuana industrial complex with new gang entrants swarming.

The mystery drama Knives Out keeps filling out its all-star roster. Following the producers' announcement Daniel Craig and Chris Evans were set to co-star, comes news that Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water, The Little Drummer Girl) will also be joining the project, the plot of which is, well, mysterious thus far, but is described "as a modern-day murder mystery in the classic Agatha Christie whodunit style."

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Netflix has picked up The Laundromat, the Steven Soderbergh-directed drama about the Panama Papers scandal. David Schwimmer has just joined an all-star cast led by Oscar-winning Darkest Hour star Gary Oldman, The Post's Meryl Streep and Life Itself's Antonio Banderas. The film has a script by Scott Z. Burns, based on the Jake Bernstein book, Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite.

Writer-director Leslye Headland will adapt and direct the movie thriller Tell Me Everything for Netflix, which preemptively swooped on screen rights to the project earlier this year. It’s based on Cambria Brockman’s debut novel, which Ballantine acquired at auction for a June 2019 street date. Set at an elite college in small-town New England, it follows the shifting alliances and romantic entanglements of six tight-knit students — until one of them is murdered.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to Saturday Night Special, a police drama from Black List writer Robert Specland. Saturday Night Special is a grounded police soap exploring a tight-knit group of Washington D.C. cops with focus on "the wildest, most dangerous shift of the week, giving us an in-depth look at the police force from the top down, Lieutenant to rookies, and how a job like this affects each of their lives, and their lives affect the job."

Rob Lowe is set to star in the six-part British crime drama Wild Bill for ITV, playing the high-flying US cop, Bill Hixon, who is appointed Chief Constable of the East Lincolnshire Police Force. The story follows follow Lowe’s Hixon as he lands in Lincolnshire with his 14 year-old daughter Kelsey, hoping to flee their recent painful past. Whip-smart, acerbic and unstoppable, Bill is very good at what he does but from the outset Bill isn’t about making friends—until he soon discovers the people of Boston are just as smart-mouthed, cynical and difficult to impress as he is.

Tobias Lindholm, one of the writers behind the Danish TV hit Borgen, is to turn the murder of the Swedish journalist Kim Wall into a six-part TV series – but the killer, the self-taught rocket engineer Peter Madsen, will not feature. The project will instead primarily focus on the police investigation of Wall's murder when she went missing in August 2017 after boarding Madsen’s homemade submarine for a profile she was writing about him. Her dismembered body was found floating in the Copenhagen harbor shortly afterward. Madsen maintains that Wall died in an accident on the submarine, and that he “buried her at sea,” but he was found guilty of her murder in April.

Paris-based company About Premium Content is on board to co-finance The Murders, a gritty eight-part Canadian police thriller series. Gotham's Jessica Lucas stars as Kate Jameson, a rookie homicide detective who searches for redemption in her investigative work after indirectly causing the death of a fellow officer. Jameson is partnered with detective Mike Huntley (Lochlyn Munroe) with whom she navigates the case of a mysterious serial killer who uses music for destructive ends.

A Star is Born's Rafi Gavron is set as a series regular opposite Forest Whitaker and Vincent D’Onofrio in Godfather of Harlem, Epix’s straight-to-series crime drama. Written and executive produced by Chris Brancato (Narcos) and Paul Eckstein, Godfather of Harlem is inspired by the true story of infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson (Whitaker), who in the early 1960s returned from ten years in prison to find the neighborhood he once ruled in shambles. With the streets controlled by the Italian mob, Bumpy must take on the Genovese crime family to regain control and forms an alliance with radical preacher Malcolm X. Gavron plays Ernie Nunzi, a flashy young mobster with dreams of getting “made,” into the Genovese Family.

Katherine LaNasa (Imposters) has joined the cast of Are You Sleeping, the upcoming Apple thriller drama series starring Octavia Spencer and Lizzy Caplan, in a major recurring role. She'll play a new character that replaces the one previously played by Moon Bloodgood who was cast as a series regular on the show but exited after four of the eight Season 1 episodes were filmed. As part of the recasting, the role of Poppy’s right hand was re-conceived, and LaNasa will play Noa Havilland, Poppy’s (Spencer) producing partner. Are You Sleeping is based on the true-crime novel by Kathleen Barber and takes a look into America’s obsession with true-crime podcasts, challenging its viewers to consider the consequences when the pursuit of justice is placed on a public stage.

Ozark has been renewed for a third season of 10 episodes at Netflix. The crime drama stars Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Sofia Hublitz, Skylar Gaertner, Julia Garner, Jason Butler Harner, Peter Mullan, and Lisa Emery and focuses on the Byrde family, with patriarch Marty (Bateman) working as a financial adviser as well as a money launderer for a Mexican drug cartel.

The first trailer for AMC’s upcoming miniseries Little Drummer Girl was released, and it features Alexander Skarsgard, Michael Shannon and Florence Pugh in an international game of espionage. The 1970s-set thriller is based on John le Carré’s novel of the same name, and tells the story of young actress Charlie (Pugh), who gets caught up in Israeli intelligence officer Becker’s complex and high-stakes plot orchestrated by Spymaster Kurtz (Shannon).

Bravo released a trailer for Dirty John, its upcoming series based on the true-crime podcast of the same name. It follows the twisted story of Debra Newell Stewart, a divorceé in Los Angeles who meets the too-good-to-be-true John Meehan on a dating site. They hit it off and things move at warp speed, but something is amiss from the start.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Suspense Magazine's Story Blender podcast welcomed Karin Slaughter to discuss her passion for sharing empowering and honest stories of women including her latest novel, Pieces of Her.

The legendary Lawrence Block stopped by the Writer Types podcast. Hosts Eric Beetner and S.W. Lauden also asked five questions with Stephen Jay Schwartz, and Karen Olson sat down for a chat. Plus this week's Unpanel featured award winners Meg Gardiner, Attica Locke, and Kristen Lepionka.

The latest Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast Featuring the first Haunted Bookshop Mystery by Cleo Coyle, The Ghost and Mrs. McClure, with excerpts read by Max Debbas.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about some casting news, other exciting podcasts, lots of Tana French mentions, plus some book recommendations for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Lou Berney and his new novel November Road, where cataclysmic events, chance encounters, and unintended consequences collide.

THEATER

The Metropolitan Opera will premiere Nico Muhly's Marnie on October 19. The production is a re-imagining of Winston Graham’s thriller novel set in the 1950s about a beautiful, mysterious young woman who assumes multiple identities. Director Michael Mayer and his creative team have devised a fast-moving, cinematic world for the twisty story of denial and deceit, which also inspired a film by Alfred Hitchcock. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard sings the enigmatic Marnie, and baritone Christopher Maltman is the man who pursues her—with disastrous results

Media Murder for Monday

Here's your weekly roundup of the latest crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

20th Century Fox has optioned the best-selling series Spy School by Stuart Gibbs and attached the author attached to write the screenplay based on the first title in the series. Spy School follows middle schooler Ben Ripley, who dreams of becoming a CIA agent. Even though he is awkward and accident prone, he is brilliant and recruited for a magnet school with a focus on science that actually is a front for a junior CIA academy.

Golden Globe winner Maggie Gyllenhaal has teamed with Pie Films to acquire film rights to Elena Ferrante’s novel The Lost Daughter, which will mark her Gyllenhaal's first outing as a director. The Lost Daughter follows a woman who experiences a seemingly meaningless event while on a beach vacation that causes her to be overwhelmed by memories of the difficult and unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. What begins as an apparently serene tale of a woman’s pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes a ferocious psychological thriller about a confrontation with an unsettled past.

Captain America's Chris Evans will co-star with Daniel Craig in Rian Johnson’s murder mystery movie Knives Out. Johnson, who wrote the script and is producing with partner Ram Bergman, will make the movie before directing a new trilogy in the Star Wars universe. Plot details on the film are largely being kept under wraps, although it's said to be a modern day murder mystery in the classic whodunit style.

Armie Hammer has joined Gal Gadot in the cast of Death on the Nile, 20th Century Fox’s follow-up to last year’s successful Agatha Christie adaptation Murder on the Orient Express. Kenneth Branagh returns to direct and star as master detective Hercule Poirot, and Orient Express scribe Michael Green is back to adapt. The book’s plot centers on Poirot investigating a murder during a luxurious cruise on the Nile River that he just happens to be on. But just as he identifies a motley collection of would-be killers, several of the suspects also meet their demise, which only deepens the mystery.

Ray Donovan's Eddie Marsan has come aboard the Fast & Furious spin-off Hobbs and Shaw starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. Chris Morgan will serve as producer and screenwriter for the project that stars Johnson as U.S. Diplomatic Security Agent Luke Hobbs who forms an unlikely alliance with Statham’s Deckard Shaw. The film is scheduled to premiere Aug. 2, 2019.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has put in development Body Cam Cop, a drama series from Madam Secretary executive producer/writer David Grae and former CBS Entertainment president-turned-producer Glenn Geller. The story follows a cop whose heroism inadvertently lands him celebrity status after an on-the-job incident goes viral. He and his new partner are selected to be part of a pilot program that livestreams body cam footage to the public, but they soon find their lives have become more complicated.

Fox has given a script commitment to an untitled FBI cyber security drama from The Resident executive producer/showrunner Todd Harthan, former Prison Break executive producer Vaun Wilmott and 20th Century Fox TV. The project centers on FBI Director Dole Green, who is framed for a brazen, well-orchestrated attack at the agency headquarters where a treasure trove of classified data and agents identities is stolen in one of the worst attacks on national security in US history. With his career in shambles, Dole must fight to protect his family and get his life back through any means necessary.

J.K Rowling's (a/k/a Robert Galbraith) detective Cormoran Strike is heading back to the BBC with four new episodes of the crime drama known as Strike in the UK and C.B. Strike on HBO's sister network Cinemax.Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger will return as Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.

Nickelodeon announced its latest TV movie, titled Bixler High Private Eye, starring Jace Norman and Ariel Martin. The comedy tells the story of a young sleuth, Xander DeWitt, whose father suddenly goes missing. Xander’s mom then sends him to live with his grandfather — who used to be a private eye — but it’s in his father’s hometown where the mystery really picks up. Xander finds a surprising lead in the case and meets Kenzie Messina, played by Martin, who is a reporter for the school paper.

On the heels of Queen of the South's recent Season 3 finale, the crime drama has been renewed for a fourth season to premiere in 2019. Starring Alice Braga, Queen of the South is based on the bestselling book La Reina Del Sur by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and tells the powerful story of Teresa Mendoza (Braga), a woman who is forced to run from the Mexican cartel and seek refuge in America. In Season 3, Teresa strikes out on her own, determined to build a new empire for herself. But as enemies old and new close in, she realizes that being Queen will require more work and more sacrifice than she ever imagined.

Black Panther's Winston Duke is set to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in the Netflix crime drama Wonderland, adapted from the novel Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, written by Ace Atkins. The book is part of the Spenser series, named after a fictional character in the series of detective novels initially written by American mystery writer Parker and later by Atkins. The story follows Spenser who, fresh out of prison, is sucked back into Boston’s underbelly as he uncovers the truth about a sensational murder and the twisted conspiracy behind it. Duke will play Hawk, Spenser’s close friend and an equally tough guy and enforcer with a shady past.

Lethal Weapon had barely gotten over the drama of one of the show's two main characters, Riggs (Clayne Crawford), being ousted from the show after the second season due to his reportedly volatile behavior was over, when the other main star of the show, Damon Wayans, added another shock. In an interview with Electronic Urban Report, Wayans announced that he is "going to be quitting the show in December, after we finish the initial 13 [episodes]."

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

This week's Kings River Life Magazine Mystery Rats Maze podcast features an excerpt from Cleo Coyle's novel The Ghost and Mrs. McClure: Book #1 of the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, read by actor Max Debbas.

The Crime Files podcast (via By Hodder & Stoughton, Headline Publishing Group & Quercus Books) has two new episodes, one looking at "The legacy of Philip Kerr, author of the Bernie Gunther series," and another with a look back at the Harrogate 2018 crime fiction festival.

DP Lyle's Criminal Mischief: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction took a look this week at "Making Characters Compliant."

Suspense Magazine's Beyond the Cover welcomed Lisa Unger to discuss her new psychological thriller Under My Skin.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste discussed bookshops in paradise, being billionaires, defending big companies on social media, and more. The special guests were the duo Chris Brookmyre and Dr. Marisa Haetzman, who make up the author Ambrose Parry, talking about writing as a duo, becoming a writer, and historical medical facts.

THEATER

Rebus: Long Shadows, the play based on Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series, opens tonight at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh with a run through Saturday, October 13. Adapted by Rona Murno and starring Charles Lawson as John Rebus, the story follows the Detective Inspector who is now retired. But the shadows of his former life still follow him through the streets of Edinburgh when the daughter of a murder victim appears outside his flat.

Media Murder for Monday

Welcome to a new Monday and a new roundup of the latest crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Warner Brothers picked up film rights to Annie Ward’s debut thriller, Beautiful Bad, which has a U.S. publication date set for March 2019. Beautiful Bad the tells the devastating story of three friends who come face to face with manipulation, turmoil, and tragedy, unable to outrun their tangled and tumultuous past that culminates in a desperate crime.

Filmula Entertainment has acquired rights to historian James L. Swanson’s upcoming book Lion In Winter, about America’s most prolific Chicago Outfit syndicate mob boss and a key henchman in the infamous "Capone massacres." The book will be adapted into a feature film by Chuck Hogan (13 Hours) and is based on a true story about a criminal who has never been caught. It's described as "an ambitious ensemble piece covering the lives of up-and-coming hitmen, next in line to the title character’s aging, relentless syndicate murderer in an untold tale of American history."

The Ink Factory and Marc Platt Prods. are joining forces to adapt We Were Never Here, the novel from Lara Prescott based on events surrounding the publication of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, as either a film or TV series. The project is a thriller and love story set in the 1950s during the Cold War and centers on a CIA plan to engineer the publication of Doctor Zhivago in Pasternak’s home country of Russia where authorities banned the book.

SK Global (fresh from its box-office hit with Crazy Rich Asians) has nabbed the film rights to the exposé Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World. The book, written by Wall Street Journal reporters Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, recounts a massive U.S. fraud case that ensnared Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio after a wannabe infiltrated his inner circle. The book centers on Jho Low, the heist's alleged mastermind, who remains an international fugitive.

Gal Gadot has signed on to star in Death on the Nile, the latest Agatha Christie adaptation set up at 20th Century Fox with Kenneth Branagh directing and Michael Green (who also adapted Orient Express) set as screenwriter. The project, which already has a December 20, 2019, release date, centers on Poirot investigating a murder during a luxurious cruise on the Nile River that he just happens to be on. But just as he identifies a motley collection of would-be killers, several of the suspects also meet their demise, which only deepens the mystery.

Donald Sutherland is the latest to join the cast of the Giuseppe Capotondi-directed heist film The Burnt Orange Heresy. The film is based on Charles Willeford’s novel, which was adapted for the screen by Scott B. Smith, and follows an art critic and his girlfriend who make a deal with a wealthy man to steal a masterpiece from a famous artist’s studio. But not everything is as it seems and career ambitions soon lead to blackmail, arson, burglary, and even murder.

Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons, Sienna Miller, and Friday Night Lights alum Taylor Kitsch are set to co-star in 17 Bridges, the action thriller starring Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman. The plot follows a disgraced NYPD detective (Boseman), who is thrust into a citywide manhunt for a pair of cop killers after uncovering a massive and unexpected conspiracy. As the night unfolds, lines become blurred on who he is pursuing, and who is in pursuit of him. When the search intensifies, extreme measures are taken to prevent the killers from escaping Manhattan as the authorities close all 17 bridges to prevent any entry or exit from the iconic island.

Quentin Tarantino has set Bruce Dern to play George Spahn in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, the role that Dern’s longtime friend Burt Reynolds was going to play but was unable to shoot before he died on September 6. Dern joins a stellar cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, James Mardsen, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Timothy Olyphant, Damian Lewis, Lena Dunham, Emile Hirsch, Luke Perry, Scoot McNairy and James Remar. The film is a Pulp Fiction-esque tapestry of stories in an around Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, when Charles Manson and his followers massacred Sharon Tate and others.

Focus Features has set a February 8 limited release for Everybody Knows (Todos lo Saben), Asghar Farhadi’s psychological thriller starring Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Ricardo Darín that opened the Cannes Film Festival in May. It follows Laura (Cruz) on her travels with her two kids from Argentina to her small hometown in Spain for her sister’s wedding. Amid the joyful reunion and festivities, the eldest daughter is abducted. In the tense days that follow, various family and community tensions surface and deeply hidden secrets are revealed.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The team behind Blindspot have landed a new drama at CBS with a pilot production commitment to The Secret to a Good Marriage. The project centers on an elite pair of CIA spies who, in the wake of their fractured marriage, are pushed to their limits both professionally and personally, fighting to save the world while they forge a new kind of relationship for themselves and their son.

CBS also put in development H-Town, a drama series from writer Samantha Corbin-Miller (Law & Order: SVU) that's based on the Echo Media/Sphere Media Plus Canadian cop drama series 19-2. The U.S. version will follow two Houston detectives from opposing sides of a multi-generational family feud who are paired as partners and find themselves surprisingly drawn to each other even as they investigate a case that may have far-reaching ramifications for both their families.

Gomorrah series writers Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli are leading the book-to-TV adaptation of the WWII crime story The Butchers Of Berlin. The murder-mystery story is set in war-torn Nazi Germany 1943 and centers on financial crime investigator August Schlegel, who is assigned to a homicide case and finds himself immersed in a murky world. The book is the first in a developing series following Schlegel through the plotting and paranoia of the Third Reich.

French actress Eva Green (Casino Royale, Penny Dreadful) has signed to star in the BBC television adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, The Luminaries. The period tale is set on the Wild West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island in the boom years of the 1860s gold rush and is billed as an "epic story of love, murder and revenge, as men and women traveled across the world to make their fortunes.” The BBC also announced that Eve Hewson (Bridge of Spies) has joined the cast.

Emmy-nominated writer and producer Frank Pugliese (House of Cards) has been set as showrunner for TNT’s The Angel of Darkness, a limited series based on the sequel to best-selling The Alienist by Caleb Carr. The Alienist’s lead cast, including Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans, and Dakota Fanning, will return for The Angel of Darkness with a new storyline that finds Sara Howard (Fanning), who has opened her own private detective agency, enlisting the help of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Brühl) and John Moore (Evans) to hunt down an elusive killer.

Last week it was announced Veronica Mars is getting a revival, and the writing staff later revealed by show creator Rob Thomas will include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who penned two mystery novels based on Sherlock Holmes' brother Mycroft. The writing team will also include David Walpert, Diane Ruggiero, Raymond Obstfeld, and Rick Fox.

The CW has put in development the drama Ruthless from Bull star Michael Weatherly and his Solar Drive Productions and CBS Television Studios. Written by George Olson, Ruthless centers on an ex-CIA operative, desperate for a normal life after a decade spent as a government killing machine, and a slightly unhinged teenage girl craving an escape from the mundane, who are forced into an unlikely alliance.

FX is developing the drama Trashers, loosely based on Rich Cohen’s The Atlantic article "The Mobster Who Bought his Son a Hockey Team.” The story follows a minor league hockey team owned by a small town trash hauler with mob ties and is described “a tale of goons, no-show jobs, and a legendary minor-league franchise that helped land its owner in prison."

French-born author Johana Gustawsson’s Roy and Castells series has been sold to Banijay Studios France and award-winning French actress Alexandra Lamy for a television adaptation. Lamy will adapt it for the screen and play the main character, Emily Roy. The series will include four to six episodes per book beginning with the thriller Block 46, set in Sweden where Chief Inspector Bergstrom and renowned profiler Emily Roy investigate a series of murders of children.

Jonathan Tucker has been added to the Elizabeth Banks-directed Charlie’s Angels reboot, which will focus on the next generation of elite crime-fighting detectives. Tucker joins Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Banks, Naomi Scott, Luis Gerardo Méndez, as well as Patrick Stewart and Banks (and the recently announced Djimon Hounsou) playing different Bosley characters. Following the original TV series and films, The Townsend Agency has grown considerably and gone global, providing security and intelligence services to a wide variety of private clients with offices and highly-trained teams worldwide.

Billy Lush (Kingdom) and Juliet Landau (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) are set for key recurring roles on the upcoming fifth season of Amazon’s Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling novels. Bosch stars Titus Welliver as homicide Detective Harry Bosch, Jamie Hector as Jerry Edgar, Amy Aquino as Lt. Grace Billets, Madison Lintz as Maddie Bosch and Lance Reddick as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving. Lush will play Stones, a tough, cold-blooded criminal, heavily involved in the opioid trade. Landau will portray Rita Tedesco, a court reporter living with a secret.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Karin Slaughter went one-on-one with KCTV in Kansas City, talking about her latest novel, Pieces of Her.

National Public Radio affiliate KCAW in Sitka, Alaska, spoke with former Sitka police chief Sheldon Schmitt has published his first crime novel, Bush Blues.

Authors on the Air chatted with writer, lawyer, and former therapist Wendy Tyson about how her background has inspired her two mystery series, the Greenhouse mystery series and the Allison Campbell mystery series.

Suspense Radio Insider Edition welcomed authors Marine Riches (The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die) and Reavis Wortham (Gold Dust) to the show.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack spoke with attorney and crime writer Michael Zimecki.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham discussed some mystery adaptations and recommended books with LGBTQ protagonists.

Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again and that means it's time for the latest crime drama roundup:

THE BIG SCREEN

Sony is developing the film, Storming Las Vegas, based on the 2008 book from John Huddy. Dennis Lehane has been hired to adapt the book that follows a series of daring Las Vegas casino robberies masterminded by Jose Vigoa over the span of 16 months. The Cuban-born Vigoa and his crew evaded police as they stole millions from some of the biggest players on the strip until Lt. John Alamshaw and a team of Vegas' robbery detectives brought Vigoa to justice.

Another Tom Clancy character is headed to Hollywood after Paramount Pictures tapped Michael B. Jordan to play Clancy hero John Clark in a new two-film series. The studio is developing the two pics based on the Clancy books Rainbow Six and Without Remorse, both novels in which Clark is the main star. Without Remorse will be the first film of the two, serving as an origin story for the character of Clark, a.k.a. John Terrence Kelly, an ex-Navy Seal-turned-operations officer for the CIA.

Last Monday, I noted that the latest James Bond movie seemed to be back on track following the departure of director Danny Boyle, after longtime Bond sreenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade had been tasked with crafting a new script. On Thursday, producers announced that True Detective director Cary Joji Fukunaga had been hired to direct the still-untitled 25th film in the franchise, becoming the first American filmmaker to take on that role. The new film, in which Daniel Craig returns for his fifth (and likely final) outing as secret agent 007, will begin shooting on March 4, 2019 with a current release date of February 20, 2020.

Angelina Jolie is attached to star in The Kept, a period revenge thriller based on the 2014 James Scott novel of the same name, with Alice Birch (who wrote the Florence Pugh-starring period drama Lady Macbeth), to pen the screenplay. Set in the winter of 1897 in rural New York, the story is set in motion when a woman returns to her isolated homestead to discover that her husband and four of her children were murdered. The woman is shot and tended to by her remaining son, Caleb, who survived by hiding in the pantry. With her 12-year-old by her side, the woman sets out to find those responsible, but the gritty journey in blizzard conditions to a lake town will reveal secrets that will test the bond of mother and son.

Cinemablend reported that Fox's untitled Kingsman movie (the third in the franchise) is set for release just over a year from now, on November 8, 2019. Writer-director Matthew Vaughn is returning to return to pen the screenplay and direct the film, thus completing the trilogy. There isn't an official plot description yet, but the director has spoken in the past about the third film in the franchise taking the characters on a journey to a place we've never seen them before, and it would presumably conclude the Harry Hart-Eggsy relationship.

Oscar-winner Allison Janney will play trailblazing feminist lawyer Susan Estrich in an untitled project about the women who took on Fox News kingpin Roger Ailes and the toxic male culture at the network. Author and liberal commentator Estrich, who was the first female President of the Harvard Law Review and the first woman to manage a presidential campaign, surprised many by representing Ailes even after a slew of sexual harassment allegations surfaced against him. I, Tonya and Mom star Janney bolsters an A-List cast which already includes Charlize Theron (as Megyn Kelly), Nicole Kidman (as Gretchen Carlson), Margot Robbie (as a Fox News associate producer) and John Lithgow (as Ailes).


Andie MacDowell has signed on to co-star in the genre thriller Ready or Not, joining Samara Weaving in the cast. Ready or Not tells the story of a young woman, who on the night of her wedding, is invited to her new in-laws time-honored tradition which turns into a lethal game of survival. MacDowell will play the mother-in-law to Weaving’s protagonist.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Apple has given an eight-episode straight-to-series order to Defending Jacob, headlined and executive produced by Chris Evans. Created and written by Mark Bomback (Planet of the Apes trilogy) and based on William Landay’s bestselling novel, the project tells the story of a father dealing with the accusation that his son is a 14-year-old murderer.

Hulu has given a direct-to-series eight-episode order to a Veronica Mars revival slated to premiere in 2019, with Kristen Bell reprising her role as the title character. Hulu also landed streaming rights to the complete series in a new deal with original series producer Warner Bros. TV, as well as SVOD rights to all past episodes of the original Veronica Mars. The revival hails from the cult favorite’s original’s creator Rob Thomas, who will pen the first episode in which spring breakers are getting murdered in Neptune, thereby decimating the seaside town’s lifeblood tourist industry. 

NBC has put in development Strong Justice, an hourlong drama from Wendy Calhoun (Empire), Elizabeth Banks, and Max Handelman’s Brownstone Productions and Warner Bros. TV. Written by Calhoun, Strong Justice centers on FBI’s first-ever mother-daughter duo, Special Agents Etta and Memphis Strong, who strive to be exceptional investigators despite sexist and racist hurdles.

Fox has put in development Switch, an hourlong drama from former Underground executive producers Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell, Len Wiseman and Warner Bros. TV. The "adrenaline-fueled procedural" deals with the exploits of the FBI’s newest undercover unit, the Switch Division, a task force created to allow an agent to go undercover inside the body of another human being. Although hard pressed at first to find anyone insane enough to try the new technology, a former undercover burnout named Harry “Mac” Macallister takes up the challenge and the opportunity to spend each week inside the bodies of various criminals.

CBS is developing the drama Far Rockaway, from writer David Wilcox (CBS’ Bull), Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek: Discovery) and CBS TV Studios. Written by Wilcox, Far Rockaway is based on the Spanish format titled Estoy Vivo and is set in Far Rockaway, where a workaholic NYPD detective killed in the line of duty is granted a second chance to return to earth in the body of another cop in order to bring his killer to justice and heal the fractured family he left behind.

What do Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the disembodied voice of Bosley (as first seen in the original TV Charlie's Angels) have in common? Patrick Stewart, it seems. Stewart has joined the Charlie's Angels project to play the familiar role of Bosley. While that in itself isn't unusual, director Elizabeth Banks was, and still is, planning to play the same role. So, it appears that the plan is for the new Charlie's Angels to have multiple Bosleys, with Banks playing one and Patrick Stewart playing another, and perhaps other actors playing the role as well.

The breakout BBC One drama Bodyguard is headed to Netflix. The streaming network will carry the terror thriller starring Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden and Line of Duty’s Keeley Hawes outside of the UK and Ireland with a premiere set for October 24. Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd (Madden), a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Branch (RasP) of London’s Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague (Hawes), Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, could he become her biggest threat?

Sony Crackle's original streaming series StartUp has added Mira Sorvino for its upcoming third season and released a trailer. Mira Sorvino appears in the 10-episode season in a guest star role as NSA Agent Rebecca Stroud, who is investigating the show’s centerpiece outfit ArakNet. Stroud, as the trailer shows, is prepared to go to any lengths to try to bring down ArakNet, the creation of a group of tech entrepreneurs. The show will begin streaming on Crackle on November 1, after a preview period on Amazon devices starting October 22.

Netflix has handed a Season 2 renewal to its gritty Indian crime drama Sacred Games. Based on Vikram Chandra’s best-selling novel, it’s described as a tale of betrayal, crime, passion and a thrilling chase through Mumbai’s underbelly.

ITV is bringing back hit cop drama Unforgotten for a fourth season. The series (which is being developed in the U.S. for ABC by Josh Berman, Sony Pictures Television and BBC Worldwide Productions), has been handed a six-episode run following the success of the third season. Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar return as two London detectives, who work together to solve cold case murders and disappearances.

Tiya Sircar, who currently recurs on NBC’s The Good Place, has been tapped as the lead in Good Sam, a Netflix feature based on the mystery book series of the same name by Dete Meserve. The film follows Intrepid TV news reporter Kate Bradley who is assigned to uncover the identity of a mysterious Good Samaritan—Good Sam—who has been anonymously leaving $100,000 cash gifts on the doorsteps of seemingly random New Yorkers. As interest in the extraordinary gifts sweeps across the country, as Kate seeks to unravel the identity of Good Sam and the powerful and unexpected reasons behind the extraordinary gifts.

Coming off a key recurring role on The Americans, Laurie Holden is set for another major recurring part opposite Kelsey Grammer on Fox’s new legal drama series Proven Innocent, from Empire co-creator Danny Strong and writer David Elliott. Written by Elliott, Proven Innocent follows a criminal defense firm led by Madeline Scott (Rachelle Lefevre), a fierce and uncompromising lawyer with a hunger for justice. Holden will play Greta Bellows, the wife of Gore Bellows (Grammer), the hard-as-nails and tough-on-crime state’s attorney, a "Lady Macbeth type" who wants her husband to win the Attorney General race, possibly even more than he does.

Ahead of the Season 3 premiere of Live PD, A&E gave another massive order to its flagship series, picking up an additional 150 episodes of the hit real-time reality police docuseries. Totaling 450 hours, the deal extends the series’ run into 2019, with the new order bringing the number of commissioned episodes to date to 293. Hosted by Dan Abrams with analysis from Tom Morris Jr. and Sgt. Sean ‘Sticks’ Larkin, Live PD follows diverse police departments from across the country in real time as they patrol their communities.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Val McDermid chatted with the BBC's A Point of View podcast to make the case that "crime fiction isn't really about murder at all."

Beyond the Cover welcomed special guests Boyd Morrison (co-author with Clive Cussler of Shadow Tyrants) and PJ Tracy (The Guilty Dead).

Criminal Mischief, hosted by DP Lyle, investigated the POV authors choose for crime fiction manuscript and how it can make or break your story.

The Mysteryrats Maze Podcast podcast featured the first chapter of the mystery novel Murder at the Driskill by Kathleen Kaska, read actor Casey Ballard.

Media Murder for Monday

Hope all those of you in the path of Florence and the storm's aftermath are safe this Monday morning (and it's always good to remind folks that the American Red Cross needs your help in times of disaster relief situations).

Meanwhile, here's the stormy Media Murder for Monday roundup of the latest crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

IIFC Films has acquired domestic rights to Judi Dench’s period spy thriller Red Joan for a 2019 theatrical release. Loosely inspired by the biography of British KGB agent Melita Norwood, the film is directed by Trevor Nunn and had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Written by Lindsay Shapero and based on Jennie Rooney’s best-selling novel of the same name, the story follows a retired scientist living in a London suburb who is arrested for crimes committed many years ago. 

Singer and actress Idina Menzel (Frozen) is joining Adam Sandler, Eric Bogosian, Lakeith Stanfield and Judd Hirsch in the cast of Uncut Gems. Set in the Diamond district of New York City, Sandler will star as a jewelry store owner with a gambling addiction who is juggling two relationships and escalating debts, with Menzel playing Sandler’s wife. 

Good news for James Bond fans who feared chaos after the departure of Danny Boyle from the upcoming Bond 25 film. Screenwriter Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who’ve been aboard the 007 franchise as story writers since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, are now turning their approved Bond 25 treatment into a script with elements from Boyle’s script and working them all into a new movie. A search is still underway by Eon and MGM for a new director and Deadline has heard that such names as Edgar Wright, Yann Demange, and David Mackenzie’s have been floated. 

Academy Award winner Melissa Leo and Bella Thorne have been tapped to star in Leave Not One Alive, an indie revenge thriller written and directed by Jordan Galland. The plot follows a theater actress, Lillian Cooper (Leo) whose son dies mysteriously. When the investigating officer (Michael Potts) rules the cause of death an accidental overdose, Lillian conducts her own investigation which leads her to an unlikely alliance with her son’s former drug dealer (Thorne). On her quest for answers, Lillian hallucinates some of the iconic characters she’s played on stage which serve as her inner voice, urging her to avenge her son’s death.

Pretty Little Liars alum Keegan Allen will star in an untitled social media thriller film along with Holland Roden, Ronen Rubinstein, Denzel Whitaker, hip hop recording artist Siya, social media star George Janko and Pasha Lychnikoff. The story centers on a social media personality who, along with his close friends and millions of online followers, travels to Moscow to capture new content for his successful vlog. Pushing the limits to excite and engage his growing audience, the group enters a cold world of mystery and excess at every turn, blurring the lines between game and danger until all of them must fight to survive. 

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) is set to star in and executive produce The Banker’s Wife, a high stakes international thriller drama series based on Cristina Alger’s book. The project (which has also snagged top TV writer-creator Meredith Stiehm and top TV director Lesli Linka Glatter) is inspired by the Panama Papers and set in the world of global finance from Geneva to Paris, London and New York, with two women racing for answers when a mysterious plane crash sets them off on parallel pursuits of truth. 

Grey Matter Productions and Topic Studios have set writer-director Oren Moverman to adapt The Good Girl, the debut thriller novel from Mary Kubica, into a thriller drama series. The story centers on the kidnapping-gone-wrong of Mia Dennett, the perfect daughter of a prominent Chicago judge. When she is abducted as part of a wild extortion plot, her kidnapper unexpectedly decides to hide her in a remote cabin for months, evading both the police and the criminals who want to use her to get to her father. The plot alternates timelines and the shifting points of view of Mia’s mother, her kidnapper, and the detective tasked with finding her in a quest to find out what really happened to Mia and how, even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems.

Fox has given put-pilot commitments to two high-profile cop drama projects, Connect and Prodigal Son. Connect described as "a high concept, adrenalized procedural" about a brash hero with a gift that he will use to assist his cop brother with whom he has a troubled relationship. Prodigal Son centers on Malcolm Bright who has the gift of knowing how killers think and how their minds work; his father was a notorious serial killer called “The Surgeon,” which led Bright to become the best criminal psychologist around since murder is the family business. 

Fans of the thriller Absentia can breathe a sigh of relief because Amazon has finally picked up a second season of the show starring and executive produced by Castle alumna Stana Katic.  New cast members joining season two — currently filming in Sofia, Bulgaria — include Matthew Le Nevez (The Widow) and Natasha Little (The Night Manager). Patrick Heusinger returns for season two as Emily’s (Katic) ex-husband and Special Agent Nick Durand. In season two, Emily's obsessive investigation into the questions that haunt her uncovers a serial killer and a spiraling conspiracy that threatens more than just her family. 

Oscar nominee Chloë Sevigny and The Carrie Diaries star AnnaSophia Robb are set to co-star opposite Patricia Arquette and Joey King in the first season of The Act, Hulu’s character-based anthology series that tells startling, stranger-than-fiction true crime stories. The first season is based on Dean’s 2016 Buzzfeed article “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered.” It follows Gypsy Blanchard (King), a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother, Dee Dee (Arquette). Her quest for independence opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, one that ultimately leads to murder.

The reboot of Charlie's Angels is going to have more than just three angels. Freshly-named Charlie's Angel Kristen Stewart explained in an interview with Variety that the reboot will feature a whole network of angels around the world who work together to get the job done. 

Amazon dropped a video trailer for the psychological thriller Homecoming starring Julia Roberts a caseworker at a secret government facility who works with a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed special guest Elly Griffiths, who talked about her Ruth Galloway series, her upcoming standalone novel, archaeology, her Italian roots and much more.

The Story Blender spoke with author KJ Howe about the follow-up to her exhilarating debut, The Freedom Broker.

Author Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer Elka Ray on the Crime Cafe podcast. Ray is the Canadian author of two novels, Saigon Dark and Hanoi Jane, a collection of short crime stories and has a romantic mystery coming out with Seventh Street Press in early 2019.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham discussed historical mysteries, Serial season 3 and more.

Speaking of Mysteries grilled Margaret Mizushima about her fourth Timber Creek K-9 mystery feauturing Officer Mattie Cobb and Robo, her German Shepherd partner.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Bob Mayer, the NY Times bestselling author of the series Area 51, The Green Berets, Atlantis and the Time Patrol.

Spybrary listeners voted overwhelmingly for Len Deighton's Berlin Game to be the first spy book to be discussed in the podcasts Spybrary book club edition, and a panel that includes Spybrary host Shane Whaley, Deighton expert Rob Mallows, and spy genre expert Peter Newman, take on the challenge.

Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings and welcome to the latest crime drama roundup:

THE BIG SCREEN

Media Rights Capital won a bidding war at the Toronto Film Festival for the world rights to Knives Out, a contemporary murder mystery that will star Daniel Craig as a detective assigned to solve the crime, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson directing from his own script. Johnson told Deadline he's been a long-time Agatha Christie nut and over the summer scripted his contemporary version of the locked door mansion murder mystery.

The screen rights for the thriller novel The Nowhere Child by Christian White have been snapped up by Australian production company Carver Films and US-based production company Anonymous Content. The Nowhere Child tells the story of a kidnapped child and according to the publisher, has broken the record for the fastest-selling Australian debut novel ever, with over 25,000 sales in its first eight weeks. The novel also won Australia’s Victorian Premier’s Award, awarded to an unpublished manuscript. Previous winners include Jane Harper’s The Dry and Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project.

UK's Bad Penny Productions has optioned British writer Lawrence Osborne’s well-reviewed Cambodia-set thriller Hunters In The Dark, with Osborne and Ben Cookson (Waiting For Anya) adapting the novel for the screen. The novel takes place in modern day Cambodia and sees an English teacher, Robert Grieve, win a satchel’s worth of money and decide to take a journey deeper into the wilder side of the country. Coming up against a scheming American, a crooked police officer and a darker side of Cambodia, Grieve follows his journey to a dramatic climax.

Animal Kingdom and Playtime are spearheading an English-language remake of the Austrian psychological chiller Goodnight Mommy, with Matt Sobel, director of 2015 Sundance drama Take Me To The River, attached to direct. The story follows Elias and his twin brother Lukas who arrive at their mother’s house to find her face covered in bandages - the result, she explains, of recent cosmetic surgery. Lukas delights in their mother’s uncharacteristically lax house rules, but n Elias’ mind, a dreadful thought takes root: the sinking suspicion that this woman beneath the gauze, who’s making their food and sleeping in the next room, isn’t really their mother.

Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, Chris Evans and Tracy Letts are in talks to star in The Devil All the Time, an adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s 2011 novel. Based on a script adaptation by Antonio Campos (who will also direct) and Paulo Campos, the story follows a man desperate to save his dying wife whose prayers turn to sacrifice, drawing in his vengeful son, a serial killer couple, a faith-testing preacher and a corrupt local sheriff in a story told across two decades.

An indie thriller is in the works about The Cuban Five, a group of Cuban agents sent to south Florida by the Castro government to spy on exile groups in the 1990s. The film will be directed by Clement Virgo from a Barrie Dunn screenplay, which is based on Stephen Kimber’s book What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of The Cuban Five. The agents were arrested by U.S. authorities in 1998, convicted and jailed, only to be released in 2014 as part of a spy exchange negotiated by then president Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro to improve relations between the two countries. In March 2015, Dunn and Kimber met in Havana with the five agents, who agreed to work with the Canadian film producers to make the film about their story.

Patrick Melrose Emmy nominee Edward Berger has been set to direct Rio, the Steven Knight-penned psychological thriller starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jake Gyllenhaal as two old friends who meet again in the titular city. One is a journalist, the other a hugely successful financier. Plot details are under wraps, although there is also a strong female lead character.

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger has signed on to the Giuseppe Capotondi-directed film The Burnt Orange Heresy, joining Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki. The neo-noir thriller is based on Charles Willeford’s novel, which was adapted for the screen by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Scott B. Smith. Set in present-day Italy, the pic follows an ambitious art dealer who is hired to steal a rare painting from one of most enigmatic painters of all time, but becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.

The trailer has arrived for Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman’s action thriller Hunter Killer, based on the novel Firing Point by George Wallace and Don Keith

The first clip has been released for Out of Blue, which is based on the Martin Amis's novel Night Train. Directed by Carol Morley (The Falling), the "neo-noir metaphysical mystery" stars Patricia Clarkson as a homicide detective called to investigate the shooting of leading astrophysicist and black hole expert, but once on the case, she’s affected in ways she struggles to comprehend. The cast also includes Jacki Weaver, James Caan, Toby Jones, Aaron Tveit, Mamie Gummer, Jonathan Majors, and Devyn A. Tyler.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The BBC is developing a detective drama series based on the classic 1938 mystery novel The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake, the nom de plume of poet Cecil Day-Lewis, father of Daniel Day-Lewis. The adaptation is being written by Gaby Chiappe, who has written on a number of British crime dramas, including ITV's Vera as well as BBC's Shetland. Nathaniel Parker, the actor who played the lead role in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, is an executive producer for the project, which is likely to be five or six episodes. Deadline added that the "series could turn into a long-running franchise for the BBC as Blake/Day Lewis wrote 15 books featuring the detective."

The CW is developing a drama inspired by the classic Nancy Drew mysteries, adapted by by Noga Landau (The Magicians). Launching a Nancy Drew TV series has been a priority for CBS TV Studios, which has the rights to the the classic YA mystery books and has developed two Nancy Drew series over the past three years, Drew at CBS during the 2015-16 development season, which went to pilot starring Sarah Shahi and got close to a series order, and Nancy Drew at NBC this past season. Both incarnations were conceived as sequels to the books, with an adult Nancy Drew at the center, whereas the CW version stays closer to the source material, with Nancy just out of high school.

Doctor Who's Alice Troughton has been set as lead director of Channel 4’s crime thriller Baghdad Central as filming kicks off in Morocco. The drama, written by The Last Kingdom scribe Stephen Butchard and based on the novel by Elliott Colla, is set in 2003 Baghdad after Saddam Hussein has fallen and the city lies at the center of the coalition’s efforts to secure the region. In the midst of this chaos, crime and paranoia, Iraqi ex-policeman Muhsin al-Khafaji (played by Waleed Zuaiter), has lost everything and is battling daily to keep himself and his sick daughter safe. But when he learns that his estranged elder daughter is missing, Khafaji is forced into a desperate search to find her.

The Voice judge Adam Levine's company, 222 Productions, and Universal TV have optioned the rights to the Thorn series of novels by James W. Hall, which will be developed for television. There are 14 books in the series, which began with Under Cover of Daylight in 1987. The series follows Thorn, a fishing guide in the Florida Keys with a dark past. When that past comes back around in the form of new violence that rips his world apart, Thorn has to take drastic steps to protect and avenge his chosen family. A writer and cast for the project will be announced later.

NBC is expanding the Law & Order franchise with a 13-episode order to Law & Order: Hate Crimes, based on New York’s actual Hate Crimes Task Force, the second oldest bias-based task force in the U.S. The unit, which pledges to uphold a zero tolerance policy against discrimination of any kind, works under the NYPD’s real Special Victims Unit and often borrows SVU’s detectives to assist in their investigations. The new Law & Order series will be introduced as a planted spinoff from SVU, with the first incarnation of the new unit appearing in the latter part of the upcoming season of the Mariska Hargitay-starring series.

Phoenix Pictures and Renaissance Literary & Talent are teaming to develop a television anthology based on a series of short stories by prolific mystery writer Cornell Woolrich. The Woolrich library has been a complicated rights issue with more than five owners controlling the nearly 300 properties in the Estate.  Woolrich is the most adapted crime author in the film noir era, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black as examples of his classics. His stories were also prominent on one of the Golden Age of radio’s classic shows, Suspense.

Oxygen Media has inked an overall development deal with Paul Holes, the hero detective who helped bring the Golden State Killer to justice. Holes said, "I’m retired now, and am looking forward to this next chapter of my career where I can help shine a light on cases that deserve national exposure.” 

Patricia Arquette will star in Hulu’s true-crime series, The Act, a seasonal anthology, with the first season based on Dean’s 2016 BuzzFeed article “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered.” It follows Gypsy Blanchard, a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother. Her quest for independence opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, one that ultimately leads to murder. 

Casting was announced for Acorn's adaptation of the British drama series Queens of Mystery, with Julie Graham, Siobhan Redmond, Sarah Woodward and Olivia Vinall in the leads as the eponymous Queens. Queens of Mystery follows a perennially single female detective (Matilda Stone) and her three aunts (Cat, Beth and Jane), who are well-known crime writers that help her solve whodunit style murders as well as set her up on blind dates.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Author Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author Jame DiBiasio on the Crime Cafe podcast, chatting about his latest novel, Bloody Paradise, a tropical noir set in Thailand.

Writer Types welcomed a trio of authors including Aaron Phillip Clark, Nick Kolakowski and Eva Montealegre.

Robert Olen Butler stopped by Speaking of Mysteries to discuss Paris in the Dark, Butler’s fourth Christopher Marlowe Cobb thriller.

In episode #3 of Criminal Mischief: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction, host D.P. Lyle talked about a medical examiner's three most important determinations: cause, manner, and time of death.

On the Crime Syndicate podcast, Canadian crime author Dietrich Kalteis stopped by to discuss his latest novel, Poughkeepsie Shuffle, with host Michael Pool.

The latest Mystery Rats Maze episode featured the mystery short story, "Doggy DNA", written by mystery author Neil Plakcy and read by actor Thomas Nance.

This is Criminal welcomed three of America’s most experienced trauma surgeons speak to talk about what happens when someone is shot.

THEATER

The full cast was recently announced for the world premiere UK Tour of Rebus: Long Shadows: Dani Heron (Angela), Eleanor House (Heather/Maggie) and Neil McKinven (Mordaunt) join Charles Lawson (John Rebus), John Stahl (Big Ger Cafferty) and Cathy Tyson (Siobhan Clarke). The play is directed by Robin Lefevre and opens at Birmingham Repertory Theatre on September 20 with a run through November 24.

The UK's Blackeyed Theatre is touring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, to venues including Worthing’s Connaught Theatre (Thursday-Saturday, September 20–22). In the play, when Mary Morstan arrives at Baker Street to request help following the mysterious disappearance of her father, Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson are plunged into a murky world of deception and a complex plot involving murder, corruption and stolen jewels.

The Lincoln, Nebraska area is having a mini Agatha Christie play cycle, with three works by Agatha Christie performed this fall beginning with the Southeast Community College theater students, instructors and community members present the radio play series "Murder in the Studio" this past weekend. Then, starting in October, the Lincoln Community Playhouse and Beatrice Community Players will tag-team stages to present Christie's Black Coffee and Murder is Announced.

Greensboro, North Carolina's Triad Stage is also presenting an Agatha Chrsitie classic, And Then There Were None, September 14 - October 7. In the classic tale, a group of characters stranded on an island realize that one of their number has to be the killer, and race to solve the crime before they become the murderer’s next victim.

Dame Agatha is also on stage at the Granite Theatre in Westerly, Rhode Island, with a production of the Miss Marple mystery A Murder is Announced through September 30.