Topflight Thrillers

 

The International Thriller Writers association announced the finalists for the 2026 ITW Thriller Awards. ITW will announce the winners at ThrillerFest XXI on Saturday, May 9, 2026, at the New York Hilton Midtown, New York City. Congratulations to all!


Best Standalone Novel

Megan Collins – Cross My Heart (Atria)
Ruth Knafo Setton – Zigzag Girl (Black Spring Press)
Gilly Macmillan – The Burning Library (William Morrow)
Sarah Pekkanen – The Locked Ward (St. Martin’s Press)
Olivia Worley – So Happy Together (Minotaur)

Best Series Novel

James Byrne – Chain Reaction (Minotaur)
Robert Crais – The Big Empty (Penguin/Putnam)
John McMahon – Head Cases (Minotaur)
Christopher Reich – The Tourists (Thomas & Mercer)
Vincent Zandri – Terminal Moonlight (Down & Out Books)

Best First Novel

Chris Chibnall – Death At The White Hart (Pamela Dorman Books)
Kelsey Cox – Party Of Liars (Minotaur)
Sophie Stava – Count My Lies (Gallery/Scout Press)
Zoe B. Wallbrook – History Lessons (Soho Crime)
Liann Zhang – Julie Chan Is Dead (Atria)

Best Young Audiobook

S. A. Cosby – King Of Ashes (Macmillan), narrated by Adam Lazarre-White
Mark Edwards – The Wasp Trap (Simon & Schuster), narrated by John Hopkins, Anna Burnett
Marisa Kashino – Best Offer Wins (Macmillan), narrated by Cia Court
Xan Kaur – When Devils Sing (Macmillan), narrated by Michael Crouch, Anjali Kunapaneni,  Jennifer Pickens, Landon Woodson
CN Mabry, N'Dia Rae – The Cheater's Wife (Simon Maverick), narrated by Ruffin Prentiss, Machelle Williams
Michael Robotham – The White Crow (Simon & Schuster), narrated by Katy Sobey

Best Young Adult Novel

Liz Lawson – Murder Between Friends (Delacorte Press)
Margot McGovern – This Stays Between Us (Penguin Young Readers)
Clay McLeod Chapman – Shiny Happy People (Delacorte Press)
Diana Rodriguez Wallach – The Silenced (Delacorte Press)
Julie Soto – The Thrashers (Wednesday Books)

Best Short Story

Katrina Carrasco – “Level Up” (Bywater Books)
Scott William Carter – “The Seduction of Dr. Dimension” (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)
Lee Child – “Eleven Numbers” (Amazon Original Stories)
David Lagercrantz – “False Note” (Amazon Original Stories)
Jessica Van Dessel – “The Violent Season” (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

Media Murder for Monday

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


THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
 
08 Entertainment’s supernatural thriller, Unmerciful Good Fortune, has signed Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas to star opposite Rosario Dawson, Scott Eastwood, and Susan Sarandon in the film from writer-director Tirsa Hackshaw. The project is based on Edwin Sánchez’s stage play and centers on Maritza Cruz (Dawson), a high-end celebrity attorney pulled into a headline-making case involving a young woman accused of multiple murders—only for the defendant to claim she possesses psychic abilities and kills to prevent worse fates, plunging Maritza into a moral and spiritual labyrinth. Banderas takes on the role of Pito Cruz, while Eastwood plays Paul Leslie, and Sarandon is Dr. Irene Charles.


Concourse Media has landed worldwide sales for the heist thriller, The Smack, which has Oscar winners Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, and Marisa Tomei attached to star. Based on Richard Lange’s 2017 novel, the story follows a down-on-his-luck conman (Affleck) who teams up with a casino waitress to execute a high-stakes con targeting a hidden horde of stolen U.S. military cash. What starts off as an easy plan spirals into a deadly game as they collide with dangerous criminals chasing the same score. The film, which was announced a few years ago with a slightly different cast was written by David M. Rosenthal and Keith Kjarval, who adapted the novel.


Kate Beckinsale has signed on to star in The Savior, an action-thriller from director Russell Mulcahy (1986’s Highlander, Resident Evil: Extinction). The story follows a mother, Jordyn Parker (Beckinsale) struggling with addiction who is forced to resurrect a violent past to rescue her kidnapped daughter from ruthless human traffickers. The gritty thriller is billed as "being in the spirit of Man on Fire, Collateral, and Sicario." Marc Furmie (Viper, The Weight of Darkness) and Jason Mavraidis (Viper) wrote the script based on a story by Corey Large.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

HBO has given an eight-episode order to Damon Lindelof’s new limited series, The Chain, based on the Adrian McKinty book of the same name. Lindelof will serve as showrunner and is writing the pilot script alongside Carly Wray, with Breannah Gibson also contributing to the pilot story. The novel follows Rachel, a divorcée who is undergoing treatment for cancer, who gets a call that her daughter, Kylie, has been kidnapped and is now part of The Chain. To get Kylie back, she must kidnap another child after paying a ransom. Kylie will be released when the parents of the child Rachel has kidnapped take yet another child and continue the chain.


Ahead of The Lincoln Lawyer's Season 4 premiere on February 5, the Netflix and A+E Studios legal drama has been renewed for a fifth season. Season 5 will consist of 10 episodes and will be inspired by Resurrection Walk, the seventh book in the Lincoln Lawyer series by author Michael Connelly. The Lincoln Lawyer follows the redemption of Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia Rulfo), a Los Angeles attorney who regains much of what he lost due to addiction with hard work and hustle. His success is also thanks to his devoted supporters: his ex-wives Maggie (Neve Campbell) and Lorna (Becki Newton), his driver and unofficial sponsor Izzy (Jazz Raycole) and the best investigator in town — and Lorna’s newly minted fiancé — Cisco (Angus Sampson).


Dalziel and Pascoe, the iconic British crime drama that ran on the BBC from 1996 until 2007, is getting a reboot, with BritBox ordering a "contemporary reimagining" of the show. Based on the novels of the same name by Reginald Hill, Dalziel and Pascoe was a classic odd couple detective drama, pitting the blunt, old-school and frequently insensitive sleuthing style of detective superintendent Andrew Dalziel against the more methodical and modern techniques of his partner, detective inspector Peter Pascoe. The books and series were set primarily in the fictional town of Wetherton in the North English county of Yorkshire.


Sherlock & Daughter creator Brendan Foley has landed his next project, returning to the Nordic region to pen an adaptation of Finnish geopolitical thriller, Operation: Arctic Fox, by journalist and former army officer Helena Immonen. Set against escalating Arctic ambitions by Russia and China, the story follows a Finnish family of operatives navigating military conflict, biological warfare, and global espionage as geopolitical tensions reach a breaking point. 


Rachel Keller (Fargo, Tokyo Vice) has secured a key leading role in the new CBS legal drama Cupertino, from Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife, The Good Fight). Cupertino is a David vs. Goliath legal drama set in the heart of Silicon Valley that follows Michael (Mike Colter), a lawyer who is being cheated out of his stock options by his former employer, a tech start-up. Refusing to back down, he joins forces with Olivia (Keller), another recently fired attorney, to represent those taken advantage of by the tech elite and help them fight back in a high-stakes battle against the Goliaths controlling Silicon Valley. 


Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjian (The Big Sick) and Tze Chun (Gotham, Once Upon A Time), are behind an adaptation of Image Comics’ Sex Criminals, which has landed an eight-episode series order at Amazon. Nanjiani also will appear in the series. Sex Criminals is centered around Suze, a normal girl with an extraordinary ability: when she has sex, she stops time. One night, she meets Jon, who has the same gift. And so they do what any other sex-having, time-stopping couple would do: they rob banks. The comics, which were written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Chip Zdarsky, were originally published in 2013, and there have been six volumes.


Anjli Mohindra, Shaun Parkes, and Aidan Gillen will lead the cast of ITV’s six-part legal thriller, Saviour, written by criminal barrister, novelist, and screenwriter Imran Mahmood. The production follows Ben (Archie Fisher), who, after borrowing his dad’s police uniform for a costume party, gets into an altercation that results in a man’s death. Called to represent Ben is brilliant criminal defense solicitor Indy Sangar (Mohindra). In defending Ben from an allegation of murder, Indy is confronted with a world of police corruption and a defendant who is keeping secrets from her, but what she doesn't know is that deeply personal secrets of her own are finally coming to the surface and threatening to tear her career and her family apart. Indy is also up against a formidable adversary in Detective Inspector Jon Creasy (Parkes) who butts heads with Eddie (Gillen), his colleague and Ben’s father, who is ruthlessly intent on clearing his son’s name.


Netflix has renewed Danish crime series The Asset for a second season. The series follows the work of a young agent, who goes undercover and befriends a drug smuggler’s wife. Season 1 launched in October last year, and hit the number one position in 52 countries and top 10 in 90. Lead cast members Clara Dessau, Maria Cordsen, Afshin Firouzi, and Nicolas Bro are all returning. Details on Season 2 are scarce, with Netflix saying only the agents “will encounter their greatest challenges yet in the fight for survival and justice.”

 
Netflix also revealed a teaser-trailer for Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole (Norwegian title: Jo Nesbøs Harry Hole). This is the first series based on Nesbø’s global bestselling books and will make its global debut on March 26. Tobias Santelmann (Exit, The Last Kingdom) is leading the cast as detective Harry Hole, alongside Joel Kinnaman (Altered Carbon, The Suicide Squad) as Tom Waaler, and Pia Tjelta (Made in Oslo, State of Happiness) as Rakel Fauke.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
 
On Crime Time FM, Simon Beckett chatted with Paul Burke about his new Dr. David Hunter novel, The Bone Garden; writing series fiction as standalones; the psychological, gothic thriller, and more.


Elizabeth Camden joined John Charles to discuss Camden's new novel, Beyond the Clouds, on the Poisoned Pen podcast.


Murder Junction hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee interviewed crime writer Louise Welsh about her career and her latest novel, The Cut Up. They also discussed some of the most expensive books to be sold secondhand, and the death of playwright Christopher Marlowe.


Authors on the Air spoke with Wendy Walker and how her personal experiences played into writing her new psychological thriller, Blade.


On Pick Your Poison, Dr. Jen Prosser tackled a real-life scenario where a person can be found dead in an enclosed space, without evidence of trauma, intrusion, or even another person.

Applause for Anthologies

The Short Mystery Fiction Society, a group of writers, readers, editors, publishers, and others dedicated to the promotion and celebration of mystery and crime short stories, unveiled the finalists for the Best Anthology Award. Although the Derringer Awards for excellence in short crime fiction have been handed out since 1988, this is only the second year for the Best Anthology honor. (The other categories are still being judged, with finalists to be revealed on April 1.) SMFS members will vote for the anthology winner, to be announced on Friday, May 1. This year's finalists include:

Crimeucopia - The Not So Frail Detective Agency, edited by John Connor (Murderous Ink Press): celebrating the modern female investigator by gathering 15 top class authors and letting them tell you all about the exploits of their creations.

Gone Fishin': Crime Takes a Holiday, The Eighth Guppy Anthology, edited by James M. Jackson (Wolf's Echo Press): the latest anthology from the 1,100-member Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime features 23 stories representing a wide variety of crime fiction, including murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and cozy capers.

Hollywood Kills: An Anthology, edited by Adam Meyer & Alan Orloff (Level Best Books - Level Short): shocking short fiction about the dark underbelly of show business—written by those who know it firsthand, with a close-up look at the dark side of ambition via an all-star cast of schemers, dreamers, killers, and con artists.

Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense: A Superior Shores Anthology, edited by Judy Penz Sheluk (Superior Shores Press): Desire or desperation, revenge or retribution—how far would you go to realize a dream? The twenty-two authors in this collection explore the possibilities, with predictably unpredictable results.

On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology, edited by Curtis Ippolito (Rock and a Hard Place Press): in light of increased average global temperatures that have wreaked havoc on ecosystems, economies, and people’s lives, 15 stories exploring the intersection of climate change and crime through the lens of fifteen short stories from some of today’s best crime fiction writers.

SoWest: Danger Awaits! A Desert Sleuths Anthology, edited by Claire A. Murray, Eva Eldridge, Suzanne E. Flaig, Denise Ganley, and Sarah Smith (DS Publishing): 25 stories filled with everyday people, private investigators, police personnel, husbands and wives, and others who solve crimes and mysteries their own way. A blend of historical, contemporary, paranormal, serious, and humorous, where each story features an Arizona setting.

Sunday Music Treat

Many folks have never heard of shape-note (or "Sacred Harp") singing, but it's an original American form of singing that involves reading shapes and syllables for notes instead of learning the usual scales and music notation. It's found primarily in the Appalachian regions of the U.S., such as the first clip from Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains (not too far from where I grew up), which can serve an introduction, but I'll post a second clip by the LA Choral Lab singing the shape-note tune "Star in the East" from William Walker's Southern Harmony (still in use today):

xx

 

Quote of the Week

 

Audio Accolades

The Audio Publishers Association announced the finalists for the annual Audie Awards for audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment, including mysteries and thrillers. You can check out all of the shortlisted titles here, which have some crime-related titles sprinkled throughout the various categories, including King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby, narrated by Adam Lazarre-White, a finalist for Best Audiobook of the Year. Winners will be revealed at the 2026 Audies Gala to be held at Pier 60 in New York City on Monday, March 2, 2026. 

Mystery Finalists

• Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben, narrated by Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Kiff VandenHeuvel, Suehyla El-Attar Young, Peter Ganim, Saskia Maarleveld, and James Fouhey (Hachette Audio)
• Gray Dawn by Walter Mosley, narrated by Michael Boatman and Walter Mosley (Hachette Audio)
• The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict, narrated by Bessie Carter (Macmillan Audio)
• Secret Sister by Sarah A. Denzil, narrated by Jessica Gunning, Sacha Dhawan, Joanne Froggatt, Nathaniel Curtis, and Hopi Grace (Audible Originals)
• Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto, narrated by Eunice Wong (Penguin Ranndom House Audio)

Thriller Finalists

• Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, narrated by Richard Armitage and Tuppence Middleton (Macmillan Audio)
• Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell, narrated by Richard Armitage, Joanne Froggatt, Tamaryn Payne, Gemma Whelan, Louise Brealey, and Patience Tomlinson (Simon & Schuster Audio)
• Everyone Is Lying to You by Jo Piazza, narrated by Rachel F. Hirsch, Sarah Reny, Vas Eli and Saskia Maarleveld (Penguin Random House Audio)
• Havoc by Christopher Bollen, narrated by Maggi-Meg Reed (HarperAudio)
• To Die For by David Baldacci, narrated by Zach Villa, Mela Lee, Cassandra Morris, Rena Marie Villano, Christine Lakin, Will Collyer, Kiff Vandenheuvel, and Erin Bennett (Hachette Audio)

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Hand in the Glove

Viewed from a contemporary perspective, it's hard to recall a time when there weren't female detectives the likes of V.I. Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone, Tess Monaghan and Sharon McCone, but back in the 1930s they were almost nonexistent. As a child, I went through my fair share of Nero Wolfe stories by Rex Stout, among the many books read under the covers with a flashlight to circumvent the parental "go to bed" commandment. But at the time I never read or even knew of Stout's female detective, Theodolinda "Dol" Bonner, who came to being in the standalone novel The Hand in the Glove in 1937, one of the very first female private eyes.

Although Stout only gave Bonner one solo outing, she also guest-starred in some of the Nero Wolfe stories, one of the few women Wolfe tolerated perhaps because she herself claimed to have been "inoculated against" men, even her suitor, the newspaperman Len Chisholm. Although The Hand in the Glove is a contemporary of the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin titles, it was written in the third person narrative, not Archie's sarcastic first-person. Even so, it still has some of the hallmark wit that graces the Wolfe/Goodwin novels. In the book, a religious charlatan has charmed the wife of wealthy industrialist, P.L. Storrs, who decides he needs a private investigator to look into the man and hires Bonner, even though he doesn't approve of female detectives. But when she arrives at Storrs' country estate, she instead finds the body of her client and a garden party filled with a bouquet of suspects.

Bonner isn't quite the fully realized, tough-as-nails P.I. of the 21st century, sending out mixed messages about her ability to do the job as a woman, perhaps mirroring the changing-but-still-traditional views of women in Stout's day. Bonner begins the novel as part of a two-woman firm, Bonner and Raffray, although the Raffray half soon dissolves, Bonner being disgusted about Raffray's submissiveness to her fiancée. Yet, Bonner concedes she herself decided to be a detective on flimsy grounds, adding, "I made a long list of all the activities I might undertake on my own. They all seemed monotonous or distasteful except two or three, and I flipped a coin to decide between detective and landscape design." Although she's a smart cookie and solves the crimes where the male detectives in the case don't, she's also squeamish about seeing corpses and faints after she shoots a criminal.

After Dol first appeared, Stout's New York editor wrote to her London counterpart, "The Hand in the Glove is doing almost as well as Nero, but whether or not there will be another Dol Bonner mystery we can't be sure." Turns out, it was twenty years later that she reappeared, as Wolfe's operative in the 1956 Too Many Detectives. Anthony Boucher noted of these later appearances, that while Bonner was Archie's age, it was Wolfe who made "sheep's eyes" at her, inviting her to breakfast and dinner and seating her at his right. The confused Archie, taken by Bonner's pretty assistant Sally Colt, wonders if "there might be some flaw in my attitude toward female dicks," and concludes, "If she hooks him and Sally hooks me, we can can all solve cases together and dominate the field."

The Thrilling Detective site points out that In 1992, NBC dusted off the rights to The Hand In The Glove and made a TV movie (under the title Lady Against the Odds) as a vehicle for actress Crystal Bernard (of the sitcom Wings), moving the setting up a few years to World War II. According to People Magazine, it was an "uninvolving and ludicrously unconvincing...turkey."  Still, it did win an Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special for cinematographer Bradford May. So at least it looked marvelous.