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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Death of a Busybody

In her 67 years, California author Elizabeth Linington (1921-1988) wrote some 82 crime fiction novels, published between 1955 and 1990, under her own name as well as the pen names Anne Blaisdell, Lesley Egan, Egan O'Neill, and Dell Shannon. She started out writing radio and stage dramas in the 1940s, switched to historical novels and finally to mysteries in 1960, winning three Edgar Award nominations almost back to back, in 1960, 1962, and 1963.

Perhaps it was due to her own family's 19th-century Irish immigrant background that many of her protagonists had strong ethnic identities, including an Italian rose-fancier, Glendale police Detective Vic Varallo; New England Sergeant Andrew Clock of the LADP and his sidekick, the Jewish lawyer and amateur detective Jesse Falkenstein, who quotes the Talmud; and Sergeant Ivor Maddox, a Welsh bachelor assigned to Hollywood's Wilcox Avenue station.

Her most successful creation was written under her Dell Shannon name, the dapper Mexican-American LAPD Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, who first appeared in Case Pending, as well as one of her other Edgar-nominated works, Knave of Hearts. Sometimes called the "Queen of the Procedurals," Lininger/Shannon among the first women to write in the police procedural genre, as well as one of the first to feature a Latino police officer.

Some critics have pointed out that Linington/Shannon's earliest works were her best, with more attention to detail and craft, but as she started cranking out as many as four books a year, the quality began to suffer, throwing in more cliches and pot-boiler touches. George N. Dove, author of such nonfiction books as The Reader and the Detective Story, pointed out that Linington/Shannon eventually settled down into a formula characterized by a remarkable number of storylines representing the number of cases on which her police officers like Mendoaza are employed (as many as 24 in Spring of Violence), with one main case surrounded by the other unrelated ones in various stages of investigation.

Mendoza is a single detective, just shy of middle age, when he makes his first appearance in Case Pending, but his character is developed throughout the thirty-eight books published over twenty-seven years. He has an inexplicable attraction to women, since he's not unusually handsome, and often finds their attention to be a personal and professional nuisance. He grew up poor and became a gambler to survive before he ultimately joined the police and was surprised by inherited wealth from his miser grandfather. He has a fondness for racy cars, high-stakes poker, and his Abyssinian cat, Bast, eventually settling down to marry Alison Weir in the early novels (Shannon wasn't shy about killing off characters, so suffice it to say, the cast of characters surrounding him tends to change).

In Death of a Busybody (first published in 1963, but reissued as a Mystery Guild selection by Doubleday in 1988), Margaret Chadwick is the snoop in question, a serious flaw for someone who had money and a pedigree. When she turns up dead, no one seems to care, something Mendoza begins to understand more clearly as he realizes the extent of the damage this one women did—pitting husbands against wives, children against parents, and sewing seeds of jealousy, suspicion and hatred like other people sew tulips and daffodils. But when a second body turns up, killed on the same night in the same way, things get a little murkier. Unlike her later "formulaic" novels, Busybody focuses on one case only, and even has Mendoza pull the main players together at the end for the "reveal," deciding he "wants to handle it the way they do in the detective novels."

Shannon may have been called the "Queen of the Proceedurals" and compared to masters such as Ed McBain and John Creasey, but by her own admission, she based her knowledge of police routine and law not on direct experience but on the basic texts used by police departments themselves and took plots from detective magazines. By today's standards, that makes for a more genteel investigation, but she manages some interesting character development and snappy dialogue. It's interesting to see her multi-layered handling of racial, gender and sexual prejudices and roles, themes that are just as prevalent and volatile today as they were back when she was writing this, some sixty years ago in 1962-63.

In the Thick of Theakston

 

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths has been announced as the winner of Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2026, the UK and Ireland’s most prestigious crime fiction award. The award was presented by Harrogate International Festivals at a special ceremony hosted by writer and broadcaster, Steph McGovern, on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Thursday, July 23.


The other finalists include: The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani (Profile Books, Viper);  The Death of Us by Abigail Dean (HarperCollins, Hemlock Press);  Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney (Pan Macmillan, Pan Fiction); Clown Town by Mick Herron (John Murray Books, Baskerville); and Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan (Bonnier Books, Zaffre).

Also announced was the McDermid Debut Award, named in recognition of iconic crime writer Val McDermid, which was won by Frances Crawford for A Bad, Bad Place. In addition, playwright Mel Pennant was awarded "Highly Commended" for A Murder for Miss Hortense.

The other presentation of the evening featured bestselling US novelist David Baldacci receiving the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition for his exceptional contribution to the crime thriller genre, honoring a remarkable career that has captivated millions of readers worldwide and helped shape modern suspense fiction. Baldacci is the latest in a line of acclaimed authors to have received the coveted award, with previous winners including Sir Ian Rankin, Lynda La Plante, James Patterson, John Grisham, Lee Child, Val McDermid, P.D. James, Michael Connelly, Martina Cole, and last year’s recipient, Elly Griffiths.

Mystery Melange

The winners of the Shirley Jackson Awards for outstanding literary achievement in psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic were announced last week. The top nod in the Best Novel category was Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng: A Horror Mystery of a Chinese American Crime Scene Cleaner, Serial Killers and Hungry Ghosts by Kylie Lee Baker. The supernatural crime novel was also listed as one of the New York Times' "100 Notable Books for 2025."


The deadline of July 31 is fast approaching to apply for the $2,000 Sisters in Crime Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers. Interested authors do not need to be a SinC member to apply, but applicants must not have published more than ten short pieces of fiction or two novels. Authors should submit a cover letter, biographical statement, and a short story of first chapter(s) of a manuscript-in-progress of 2,500 to 5,000 words and must not have not used generative AI to write, research, or brainstorm the work. For more information, follow this link.


July 31st is also the deadline to submit a short story for publication consideration in the latest anthology from the Malice Domestic conference. Stories should be in the traditional mystery vein, be no more than 5,000 words, and fit the theme of "Murder Most Musical." No generative AI should be used in the creation of the work. For more information, check out the official website.


One hundred years after the death of author Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), the Victorian Jewish Writers Project will be hosting an online symposium examining Zangwill’s writing, public career, and legacy on August 4th at noon (ET). Among Zangwill's works is the locked-room novel The Big Bow Mystery (1891), which served as the basis for three Hollywood film versions, and the short stories "Cheating the Gallows" (1893) and "The Memory Clearing House" (1892). He was sometimes called "the Dickens of the ghetto" for his stories of life in London's immigrant Jewish community. (HT to The Bunburyist)


Mystery Writers of America's SoCal chapter (in partnership with SoCal Sisters in Crime), is sponsoring a panel on Wednesday, September 9, at 7pm at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California. Titled "Inventing the Page," the event will feature Meg Gardiner (the Evan Delaney novels), Jordan Harper (TV screenwriter and author of She Rides Shotgun), and Tess Gerritsen (Rizzoli & Isles) talking about their writing and how inspire newer authors with their insights. Follow this link for registration information.


Joseph S. Walker, President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, announced in the organization's newsgroup that Murderous Ink Press and editor John Connor will soon be launching SMFS Mystery Magazine. Current plans call for three issues a year, offering fiction, essays, interviews, and reviews highlighting the work of the organization's writers. The release of the first issue is scheduled for October, in time for the Calgary Bouchercon, and will include fiction from Ginny Swart, Eve Fisher, S. B. Watson, Vinnie Hansen, Jim Guigli, Kevin R. Tipple, Ed Teja, and Nikki Knight; interviews from Kevin Tipple and M. E. Proctor; an essay by N. M. Cedeno; and reviews by June Lorraine Roberts and Mat Coward.


Editor Janet Rudolph is seeking articles, reviews, and author essays for the next issue of Mystery Readers Journal. The theme is "cross-genre fiction," which blends the themes, tropes, and conventions of two or more distinct literary genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and Westerns that retain a central investigation or puzzle at its heart. However, she's not looking for historical mysteries, as there have been five historical mystery issues of the journal on that theme. The deadline for submissions is August 20, 2026. For more information, click on over here.


The editors of CrimeReads selected their list of fourteen of the best classic crime fiction reissues this summer. They range from Yukito Ayatsuji's The Clock House Murders, translated by Ho-Ling Wong (Pushkin Vertigo) to Georges Simenon's The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, translated by Siân Reynolds (Picador) to Three Crime Novels: Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo, and The Bobby Gold Stories by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury).


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Forever Chemicals" by JK Miller.


In the Q&A roundup, Jackie McMahon applied the Page 69 Test to her novel, The Cloak and Dagger Club, the first in a new historical mystery series; ahead of his appearance at the upcoming St Hilda's conference, author Ajay Chowdhury (of the Detective Kamil Rahman series) spoke with Shotsmag Confidential about his writing and latest standalone thriller, Eden Falls; Allison Montclair, author of the Sparks and Bainbridge mysteries, also applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, Fire Must Burn; and Shotsmag Confidential chatted with Martin Edwards, former Chair of the Crime Writers Association and current President of the Detection Club as well as a bestselling author and editor, about editing Guilty Secrets, the latest Crime Writers Association anthology.

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

Dylan Douglas, son of of Hollywood legends Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, has booked his first feature role in the action-thriller, Killing Hitler. The story follows two notorious American gangsters who plan the impossible: an attempt to kill Adolf Hitler in 1933 Berlin. The movie shows how the FBI prevented these notable Jewish American gangsters from altering the course of history in 1933 and is told through the eyes of lead character, Ben, whose early years are portrayed by Douglas and whose later years are portrayed by David Arquette. Also starring in the cast are Danny A. Abeckaser (The Perfect Gamble) who also serves as director, Harry Goodwins (The Gentlemen), Greg Finley (The Secret Life Of The American Teenager), Graham Sibley (Lincoln), and Lorenzo Antonucci (Ice Cream Man). Killing Hitler is based on an article by Professor Robert Rockaway called, "The Jewish Plot to Kill Hitler."


James Gray’s Cannes-premiering crime thriller, Paper Tiger, will open the 64th New York Film Festival in its North American premiere on September 25. Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson star. Set in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn, the film is a New York story charting the tragic domestic fallout after family man and engineer Irwin (Teller), who aspires to middle-class comforts, is pulled into a shady deal by his brother, Gary (Driver). A former NYPD cop, Gary thinks he can make a killing on a scheme with Russian mafia, dumping oil by the Gowanus Canal. Instead, he ends up endangering his brother, as well as Irwin’s sons (Gavin Goudey and Roman Engel) and wife Hester (Johansson). Neon pictures is planning a Nov. 13 theatrical debut.

 
TELEVISION/STREAMING

Icelandic producer Glassriver is teaming with ZDF Studios-owned Network Movie to adapt Áróra, a crime drama series based on Lilja Sigurðardóttir’s internationally bestselling “An Áróra Investigation” novels. Network Movie has optioned all five books in the series. Set across Iceland and London, the drama follows Áróra, a tough fraud investigator with Icelandic roots who returns home to search for her missing sister. What begins as a family mission soon expands into a wider criminal investigation as she teams with Daniel, an Icelandic police detective and potential love interest, exposing corruption, betrayal, and violence beneath Iceland’s rugged landscape.


Cooper & Fry is heading to the U.S. after streamer BritBox snapped up the British crime drama. BritBox has snagged Season 1 of the show for U.S. and Canada, while Netflix has taken second window UK rights. Adapted from Stephen Booth’s bestselling detective novels, Cooper & Fry follows unlikely detective duo Ben Cooper and Diane Fry, played by Robert James-Collier (Downton Abbey) and Mandip Gill (Doctor Who). Set in and around England’s picturesque Peak District, the series follows Cooper, who is struggling to emerge from the shadow of his late father, while Fry is an outsider fleeing tragedies in her past. Together, they tackle grisly crimes in the remote countryside. The series recently scored a Season 2 commission from 5 (formerly Channel 5), with filming currently underway ahead of a 2027 bow. Specifically, the upcoming season will cover Booth’s novels The Devil’s Edge, Fall Down Dead, One Last Breath, and The Murder Road.   


Netflix has announced that Liz Hannah, co-creator and co-showrunner of Netflix’s The God of the Woods, will direct on the show alongside Cory Finley, Meera Menon, and Quyen Tran. Each will tackle two episodes of the eight-episode drama, based on the bestselling novel from co-creator/co-showrunner Liz Moore. Starring Maya Hawke and Kerry Condon, The God of the Woods is a multi-generational series set in the Adirondacks that explores the Van Laar family’s dark secrets, class tensions, and the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar from her family’s summer camp — in the wake of an earlier family tragedy that may be related. As the past and present collide, the Van Laars’ wealth and influence unravel, revealing the damaging consequences of privilege and the abuse of power. Hawke plays Judy Luptack, a smart and quietly determined investigator — the first woman in the male-dominated Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who gets assigned to the case of Barbara’s disappearance. Condon, meanwhile, plays Alice Van Laar, mother of the missing 13-year-old.


Australian crime drama Scrublands is back for a third season, with Luke Arnold (Black Sails) and Bella Heathcote (Pieces of Her) returning to lead the cast. Scrublands: Trust, as it will be known, will see the pair chasing conspiracy and corruption through Sydney’s underbelly and the vast vistas of the Blue Mountains. The four-part season is based on Chris Hammer’s bestselling novel, Trust, and will jump the action back a decade on previous seasons. Per the synopsis: Mandy Bond (Heathcote) thought she’d dealt with her past, but an old name has come back to haunt her: Tom Molloy (Lincoln Younes),  the fiancé she never told her partner, investigative reporter, Martin Scarsden (Arnold) about. Molloy stole $15 million before vanishing and now his body has been found and with it, emerging secrets Mandy is desperate to keep hidden.


Gabriel Luna has joined the cast of Showtime's Dexter: Resurrection Season 2, guest starring as serial killer Ray Ballard, who operates under the name The Sleepy-Eyed Stranger. In addition to Luna, the previously announced Season 2 cast will also include Brian Cox as The New York Ripper; Uma Thurman will reprise her role as Charley; Dan Stevens as The Five Borough Killerl Bokeem Woodbine as Capt. Mixon; and Nona Parker Johnson as Fiona Mixon. Krysten Ritter will guest star in Season 2. From Emmy-nominated showrunner and executive producer Clyde Phillips, the series stars SAG and Golden Globe winner Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Six Feet Under) in the titular role of Dexter Morgan. The original show's first season and characters are derived from the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), the first in a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay.


Ella Anderson (Song Sung Blue) is the latest addition to the main cast of Conviction, Hulu‘s upcoming series starring Elisabeth Moss, which is based on the book of the same name by Jack Jordan. Anderson is set as a series regular in the legal drama, joining Moss, who also executive produces, and previously cast Jimmi Simpson, Kevin McKidd, Sebastian De Souza, Adam Godley, and Linda Emond. Written by David Shore (creator of House), Conviction follows criminal defense attorney Neve Harper (Moss), a confident lawyer who finally has her shot at a career-making case: a high-profile murder where the husband is accused of killing his wife by setting their home on fire. But when a mysterious stranger begins blackmailing Neve, she is forced to compromise every legal, moral, and ethical obligation to gain an acquittal — or else risk her dark secrets being exposed. Details about the rest of the characters are not being disclosed.


MASTERPIECE PBS has announced that Season 2 of Maigret will premiere on Sunday, October 18 on PBS at 9/8c and be available to stream via the PBS app and Prime Video. Based on Georges Simenon's novels about the iconic French detective, this ground-breaking, contemporary version of Maigret is written by Patrick Harbinson (Homeland, 24). In the second installment of the series, Chief Inspector Maigret (Benjamin Wainwright) and his team of detectives investigate a series of haunting and complex crimes, while the stakes are raised for Maigret and his wife Louise (Stephanie Martini). Maigret's unique brand of justice exposes him to the critical eye of his mentor, Police Director Xavier Guichard (Nathaniel Parker). He decides that Maigret needs to be taught a lesson and deliberately weakens his team. With the pressure mounting inexorably, Maigret will be forced to make a choice between his personal life and his career.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

In the latest episode of Spybrary, Shane Whaley is joined by fellow Spybrarian and Head of Boston Station, Joe Modzelewski, to welcome bestselling espionage author Charles Cumming back to the show. to discuss his new Lachlan Kite thriller, ICARUS 17, released on July 2 in the UK and July 7 in the United States. Billed as a nail-biting new entry in the BOX 88 series, ICARUS 17 sees Kite pulled back into fieldwork when Martha Rain, a woman from his past, asks for his help in finding her missing son, Max.


In the latest episode of Meet the Thriller Author, Alan Peterson welcomed crime and suspense author Tom Towslee to talk about his fascinating journey from journalism and political communications to writing gripping mystery and thriller novels and to discuss Tom’s latest novel, Finding Lexi Divine, which introduces readers to Charlie Doyle, a suspended police officer hired to track down a missing stripper. What begins as a simple missing-person case quickly spirals into a dangerous investigation involving drug trafficking, corruption, and murder.


The Flamingo Files podcast spoke with Elaine Viets, who has written 36 mysteries in four bestselling series: the Francesca Vierling novels, the Dead-End Job mysteries, the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper novels and the Angela Richman mysteries; and also with Neil Plakcy about Dog of Secrets, the latest in his dog-centered mysteries.


Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction host DP Lyle, MD, had a fun chat with former police officer, paramedic, and nonfiction author David L. Williams, about interrogation techniques. His debut mystery/thriller novel, The Shadow Box, will be released through Black Rose in February 2027.


Murder Junction chatted with Otto Penzler, legendary owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York, the world's largest specialist crime and thriller bookshop. They also discussed Otto's latest project, editing and releasing a series of "American Mystery Classics."


On Pick Your Poison, Dr. Jen Prosser investigated what ancient remedy was a byword for treating madness in ancient Greece and was used to treat Heracles after he murdered his wife and children. And what flower contains the same toxin as poisonous toads?

Your Sunday Music Treat

I never cease to be amazed by child prodigies. By now, you've hopefully had the chance to hear violinist Joshua Bell as an adult, but here's a peek at what he sounded like as a youngster way back in 1982 at a master class with Josef Gingold:

 

 

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