Friday's "Forgotten Books" - Monkey Puzzle

Paula Gosling was born Paula Osius in 1939, the daughter of an inventor in Detroit, Michigan. She tried her hand at poetry at Wayne State University and later at a Detroit advertising agency, but wasn't happy. In 1964, she headed to England in search of romance, intrigue and adventure, eventually meeting her husband, Christopher Gosling, whom she married in 1968.

Although divorced after only nine years of marriage, she kept the Gosling surname as she started writing her books. Perhaps she felt she owed him her literary start, because it was loneliness when he was away working that led her to start writing to pass the time. The result was A Running Duck in 1974, which won the CWA's John Creasey Award for the best first novel of the year and was named in 1990 as one of the CWA's Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.

Many books followed, mostly standalones at first, including one paranormal book penned under the name Ainslie Skinner. Eventually she created her first series, with Detective Chief Inspector Luke Abbot, and another, the Blackwater Bay series, she set near the Great Lakes with Sheriff Matt Gabriel as protagonist. A third series, which she also set in the U.S., was launched in 1985 with Monkey Puzzle, a police procedural centered around homicide Lieutenant Jack Stryker, which won the 1985 CWA Gold Dagger Award.

Money Puzzle takes place primarily around Grantham University in Ohio, when one of the English professors, Aiken Adamson, is murdered and his tongue cut out. The professor was despised by all of his colleagues for collecting and hoarding secrets about them like the human equivalent of a thieving magpie. Hours before his death, all of the department members were with Adamson at a sherry reception, giving each of them opportunity for murder, in addition to the various motives they had—personal and professional rivalries, envy, sexual intrigue and blackmail.

As Detective Stryker digs deeper into the case, he realizes he has secret ties of his own to one of the professors, Kate Trevorne and starts to fall for her, despite the fact her boyfriend and fellow English prof is the prime suspect. Although at first, the murder is considered a crime of passion (the victim was a homosexual), the case soon takes a different turn when the Chairman of the Department is attacked and his ear cut off. Stryker, recovering from pneumonia, is doggedly determined to nail the culprit no matter what it takes, but when Kate is attacked and the murderer attempts to gouge out one of her eyes, the case becomes personal.

Gosling does a good job of portraying the sometimes cut-throat world of academia with its petty squabbles, jockeying for position and inter-departmental feuds. The characters are also relatively well drawn, although some might find a few cliches that date the book, i.e., the sleazy homosexual (complete with mirrors on the ceiling), an alcoholic Vietnam vet and a cop-hating young professor who participated in campus riots in the 70s. The writing carries you along at a suspenseful clip, but it can also show hints of Gosling's poetry background, like this excerpt following a snowfall:

He loved the city like this, hushed and briefly upended in it headlong run to destruction, mantled with a transient beauty that hid all the dirt and slowed all the hate. In two miles he passed only four cars, and the drivers smiled as they edged past one another in the rutted, twinkling streets. The snow made them momentary partners in adversity, witnesses of that fleeting moment in time when nobody had spoiled anything. Yet.

As a side note, Gosling's novel A Running Duck, written in 1974 (also published as Fair Game), was adapted into two separate films, one starring Sylvester Stallone, titled Cobra, and the second starring Cindy Crawford, titled Fair Game. Unfortunately, like a lot of books-to-film, the results were less than Oscar-worthy; the Stallone version was nominated for a Razzie in 1986 for worst screenplay and Metacritic listed the Cindy Crawford flick as one of its five worst movies based on a novel.

Not that Gosling was particularly worried. In a People interview, she noted she had optioned the film to Warner Bros, for a "mid-five-figure" sum and almost forgotten about it when a friend of her son's alerted her to the fact Gosling's name was in the Stallone film' credits. At the time, she said "I haven't really taken it in yet. It's all very exciting."

Mystery Melange

British author Jeffrey Archer has passed away at the age of 86. His thrillers and sagas of the rich and powerful sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide, while his life was often as suspenseful as his books, including serving as a conservative member of Parliament and serving jail term for perjury and perverting the course of justice. As the New York Times obituary noted, "In a life of achievement and disgrace, ambition, self-promotion, misbehavior and scandal were themes that he knew intimately and that propelled his best-selling novels."


As part of the Kildare Readers Festival in Newbridge, Ireland, there will be a panel on "The Perfect Crime" this Saturday, October 10th. Fiona Sherlock will moderate the discussion featuring John Banville, creator of the bestselling Quirke novels; Patricia Gibney, author of the Detective Lottie Parker series; and Edel Coffey, author of psychological thrillers (Breaking Point; In Glass Houses), who come together for a lively discussion on murder, mystery, and the art of suspense. To register, follow this link.


Across the Pond on October 11th, the Orange County Public Library Foundation will host an afternoon of mystery, authors, great food, and community at The Plot Thickens: Mystery Author Panel & Luncheon in Orange, California. authors Amy Meyerson, Kaira Rouda, and Duane Swierczynski will spill the secrets behind their craft, their inspirations, and how they keep readers guessing until the last page. Moderated by acclaimed author Kemper Donovan. For more information and to purchase tickets, follow this link (proceeds help support the Orange Public Library and literacy programs in the community).


On October 15th Noir At The Bar Seattle returns at a new venue, Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub in Pike Place. Hosted by Scotti Andrews and sponsored by the Northwest Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, the event will feature authors KB Anderson, Gerald Elias, Bethany Maines, Randy Moon, Roz Ray, Russ Thayer, and Will Viharo.


On October 17, the Mystery Writers of America New York chapter will host a panel at the Parkway Central Library in Philadelphia, PA. The panelists include Ann Aptaker (Cantor Gold series); Mark McNease (Devil’s Wood); Rich Zahradnik (The Bone Records), with Moderator James McCrone (Bastard Verdict). The theme is "A ticking clock: how do mystery writers keep the pace moving to raise the stakes of the story and create suspense?" This event is free and open to the public.


Dawn Barclay recently won the 2026 Lowell Thomas Gold Award from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation for her guidebook, Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover’s Travel Guide to the Mid-Atlantic States (Level Best Books). This is Barclay's second win following her 2023 nod for Traveling Different: Vacation Strategies for Parents of the Anxious, the Inflexible and the Neurodiverse (Rowman & Littlefield).


Mystery Readers Journal has a call for Author! Author! essays (500–1500 words, first person, up-close and personal about yourself, your books, and the theme connection), as well as articles and reviews of mysteries set in India. The deadline for submissions is November 5, 2026.


The College English Association welcomes proposals for presentations on "Mystery, Suspense, and True Crime" for their 57th annual conference, to be held in St. Louis from April 1-3, 2027. In keeping with CEA 2027’s theme of “Gateways,” this special topics area welcomes papers examining mystery, suspense, and true crime across literature, film, television, podcasts, digital media, and the classroom. Topics might include detection and investigation; genre and adaptation; evidence and interpretation; ethics and representation; victim, perpetrator, investigator, and audience perspectives; forgotten or recovered cases and voices; and the changing boundaries between fact and narrative.


Dean Street Press will be releasing a brand-new batch of reissues on December 1, marking the third wave of their project to bring Sara Woods' (1916-1985) legendary legal thrillers back into print. The prolific Anglo-Canadian crime writer produced this specific quintet of mystery tales during the last three years of the decade of the 1960s. These five novels have been out of print for nearly forty years, and the returning titles include The Case Is Altered (1967), And Shame the Devil (1967), Knives Have Edges (1968), Past Praying For (1968), and Tarry and Be Hanged (1969). Her novels featured canny barrister Antony Maitland, a character inspired by her beloved older brother, Antony Woods Hutton, who was a promising young solicitor tragically killed in 1941 during WWII at the age of 33 when his plane was shot down.


Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" featured Scott Adlerberg with an essay on his story "The Case of the Singular Hands" from The Speculative Detective Agency anthology, edited by Matthew David Goodwin and Richie Narvaez.

Short Mystery Fiction Society president Joseph S. Walker posted the latest monthly update of short crime fiction news around and about, including  the release of The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2026; the publication of Crime Before Our Time: Crime Fiction and Mystery Inspired by History, edited by Peter W. J. Hayes and Deborah Well (Level Best Books); and more tidbits.


Kevin Tipple's weekly Thursday Treats column has news of Black Cat Weekly #266; the latest issue of Dark Yonder, a new anthology from Sisters in Crime Colorado Chapter, Colorado Mystery Merge: Crime Fiction Collection 2; and much more.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Procrastination" by Craig Kirchner.


In the Q&A roundup, Humphrey Hawksley applied the Page 69 Test to his new Rake Ozenna thriller, Operation Icebreaker; John B. Valeri interviewed Hank Phillippi Ryan for CrimeReads about her new thriller, Mother Daughter Sister Stranger, as well as endings, generational scars, and secrets in mysteries; Deborah Kalb spoke with Jacqueline Corcoran aka Jacque Rosman about her Academic Mom Mysteries and also interviewed Katherine Reay about new novel cozy spy novel, The Undercover Bookshop; Crime Fiction Lover spoke with Bernadette Bernson about her new novel, The Whitby Protocol, featuring DC Martha Rowe; and the Maine Crime Writers welcomed Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series, to discuss his writing and latest book, Storm Tide.

The Birth of a New Magazine

It's always a joy to welcome a new crime fiction publication into the world, which is why I was happy to hear the release of the inaugural Short Mystery Fiction Society Mystery Magazine.  Coming from Murderous Ink Press and editor John Connor, SMFSMM will feature fiction, essays, reviews and interviews, all centered on the world of short crime fiction. As the zine's blurb notes, "Since its founding in 1996, the Short Mystery Fiction Society has actively celebrated, supported and promoted short mystery and crime fiction...[and] the launch of SMFS Mystery Magazine marks an exciting new chapter for the Society. No doubt some things will change as the magazine finds its format, but the underlying aim is to provide a platform for SMFS members to showcase their writings, be that fiction, reviews, interviews and opinion pieces – with the SMFS message board giving up-to-date news on markets, advice to new writers, discussions on trends and styles. Just visit our forum to join the merry band. We’re saving a place for you!"

Let Freedom Read

 

This week marks the return of Banned Books Week, an event originally launched in 1982 in response to a surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. The annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community—librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types—in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas. The theme of this year’s event is Let Books Be — Protect the Freedom to Read. 

The bulk of recent bans have been tied to schools, as reported by PEN America, which released its annual Index of School Book Bans report, noting that 11,982 books were banned in public schools, a drastic increase from the 6,870 titles banned the academic year prior. A website called "the Banned Book Index" is hoping to compile all challenged titles across the U.S., and a quick search through the database for mysteries and thrillers turns up books by Patricial Cornwell, Harlan Coben, Edgar Allan Poe, Brad Thor, James Patterson, Raymond Chandler, Michael Connelly, and Agatha Christie (yes, even Dame Agatha isn't exempt).

Fortunately, If you want to read the challenged books instead of having someone else decide whether you should, most are available through your local library, independent booksellers, bookshop.org, or Amazon. On October 10, 2026, organizers are asking everyone to take at least one action to help defend books from censorship and to stand up for the library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make them available. And share your actions on social media by using the hashtags #LetFreedomReadDay and #BannedBooksWeek.

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

Bradley Cooper has signed on to star in Paramount Pictures's new GI Joe movie. Cooper will portray Duke, the de facto leader of the G.I. Joe team, previously played by Channing Tatum in 2009’s G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra and 2013’s sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Danny McBride will make his directorial debut on the project, which is being touted as a reboot for the G.I. Joe live-action film franchise, which also included the 2021 movie Snake Eyes starring Henry Golding.


Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) will headline the new action movie, Shades of Paradise, from Weston Razooli (Riddle of Fire). The film follows four small-time criminals who are thrown into an odyssey of violence and betrayal following a jewel-heist, and is shot on 2-perf 35mm film by Simone D’Arcangelo (The Settlers). Also starring are Jack Dylan Grazer, Naira Lleo, Najwa Nimri, Rojuu, Zack Harrod, Teru Castilla Serrano, Romann Berrux, Rhys Mitchell, and Stanislav Baretsky. Oscar-nominated producer Andrew Morrison of Kaplan Morrison produced the project.


Andrew Schulz is set to join Universal and Joseph Kosinski’s Miami Vice ’85 picture starring Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler. He joins stars Whitney Peak, Alden Ehrenreich, Camila Morrone, John Leguizamo, and Danny Ramirez. Miami Vice ’85, with a screenplay by Dan Gilroy, explores the glamor and corruption of mid-1980s Miami in an all-new version of Miami Vice, inspired by the pilot episode of the landmark 1984-90 NBC series. The movie will be filmed for Imax and is set for release on May 19, 2028.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

Prime Video handed its flagship drama, Reacher starring Alan Ritchson, a Season 6 pickup just 12 days after the Season 4 finale and four months after the early Season 5 order, the first time the show has received two renewals in the same year. The expediency helps the series, developed by Nick Santora and based on Lee Child’s books, to stay on a yearly cadence. Season 5, which already had been largely written at the time of the May greenlight, started production in late July in Toronto, ahead of Season 4’s August 12 premiere. It is based on Make Me, the 20th book in Child’s series. It has not been determined which novel will serve as source material for Season 6.


Hulu is currently in development on a TV adaptation of the Elle Kennedy (Off Campus) novel Thornbird, with Marlene King (Pretty Little Liars) set as writer and executive producer of the 20th Television project. Thornbird is a coming-of-age thriller about a girl at the center of her own true-crime mystery. Ten years after her father—the infamous serial killer Gabriel Thorn—was caught, 17-year-old Ryan Shipley is back in her childhood hometown of Starling, Tennessee, trying to lay low. No one can know who the truth about her past, as all Ryan wants is a chance to live as a normal teenager. The book is the first title released by Kennedy under the pseudonym E. Kennedy, and follows one girl’s race to solve the crimes of her family’s twisted past before it’s too late.


The Fast & Furious franchise is coming to television after Peacock greenlit its first television series based on the hit movie franchise, which has made more than $7 billion at the global box office over the past 25 years. The series hails from Mike Daniels and Wolfe Coleman, who will write and serve as co-showrunners. The Fast & Furious action thrillers centered on a series of films revolving around street racing, heists, and spies.


Hugh Laurie is the latest addition to The Trial of Louise Woodward, HBO‘s true-crime limited series from creator Matthew Barry. The show also stars Catriona Chandler, Joanne Froggatt, Meghann Fahy, Sagar Radia, and Chloë Sevigny. The Trial of Louise Woodward tells the shocking true story of how an 18-year-old British au pair (Chandler) was accused of shaking to death a baby left in her care by her American host family, setting off an international media firestorm as the trial unfolds in full view of both the British and American public. Laurie plays Judge Hiller B. Zobel, of the Massachusetts Superior Court, who presided over the murder trial. As previously announced, Froggatt plays Louise’s mother, Susan, with Fahy and Radia as Deborah and Sunil Eappen — parents of the victim, Matthew Eappen. Sevigny plays Louise’s defense attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp.


Lucien Laviscount (Emily in Paris) and Taylour Paige (I Love Boosters) are set to topline Tyler Perry‘s Confabulation, a new Netflix thriller written and directed by Perry that will also feature Shamier Anderson (John Wick: Chapter 4) in a key role. The film follows a firefighter haunted by his past and struggling with reality who risks everything to rescue his high school sweetheart from her powerful husband, only for the truth to unravel in a shocking twist that questions what is real and what is confabulation. Others set for parts include Nadine Ellis (Our Kind of People), Peter Parros (The Haves and Have Nots), Najah Bradley (I Love Boosters), Mikeal Dwayne Griggs (Beauty in Black), Jenna Nolen (A La Carte), Michelle Núñez (The Rookie: Feds), Colin McCalla (Ballard) and Shelley Robertson (Bel-Air).


First-look images were released of Matthew Macfadyen descending into the John le Carré universe to play iconic spymaster George Smiley in BBC and MGM+'s Legacy of Spies. The eight-part drama marks Smiley’s long-anticipated return to television, a first in four decades, when he was played by Alec Guinness, although he was also portrayed in the 2011 movie version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by Gary Oldman. Legacy of Spies is adapted from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and draws on additional material from 2017’s A Legacy of Spies. When Leamas, a highly experienced Circus field operative, recruits Doris Quinz, a young and dynamic East German woman, to smuggle high-value Stasi documents into the West, it sets in motion a series of events that threaten to explode in the crucible of Cold War Berlin. Pursuing Leamas and Doris are Josef Fiedler and Hans-Dieter Mundt, two Stasi operatives whose ferocious desire to shut down the intelligence leak is matched only by their internal rivalry and an iron will to outmatch each other. Pulled into the action is Liz Gold, an idealistic young woman whose courage and conviction force Leamas to navigate a world where loyalties fracture and betrayal is inevitable.


First-look photos were also released for the final installment of Miss Scarlet (formerly titled Miss Scarlet and the Duke), Season 7, which will premiere Sunday, January 17, 2027, 8/7c on MASTERPIECE on PBS. The full series can be streamed before broadcast with PBS Passport, an added member benefit. Season 7 will also be available on PBS. The series stars Kate Phillips (Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light) as the title character, a Victorian era private detective, alongside Tom Durant-Pritchard (The Forsytes) as Inspector Alexander Blake, with returning cast members Paul Bazely, Tim Chipping, Evan McCabe, Felix Scott, Cordelia Bugeja, and Ansu Kabia also returning to the screen for one last hurrah.


More first-look photos were released, this time for Matthew Barry’s The Last Detective (fka Old Town Murders). The series follows a team of detectives as they investigate a succession of murder cases set against the striking backdrop of Tenby in Wales. Leading the charge are DI Glyn Walsh (Lewis Jones) and DS Sion Dearden (Steffan Rhodri), investigative partners whose instinctive understanding of one another proves invaluable as they navigate complex cases, unexpected twists, and long-buried secrets lurking beneath the town’s picturesque surface. The detectives are joined by DC Remy Jones (Bethan-Mary James), DC Neil Miller (Jordan Davies) and forensic biologist Pamela Thomas (Julie Graham).


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Elaine's Literary Salon welcomed award-winning author S.J. Rozan (of the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mysteries) to discuss the third installment in her new Dee and Lao mystery series, A Warning to the Curious, co-written with John Shen Yen Nee.


On the Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, Barbara Peters was in conversation with Michael Koryta about his latest novel, Die Famous.


Hank Philllippi Ryan stopped by the Get to Know podcast with hosts DP Lyle and Kathleen Antrum, to discuss her writing, including her latest psychological thriller, the page-turning standalone, The House.


On the latest Murder Junction, hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee discussed the true life case of the Cleveland Torso Murderer and Vaseem's latest paperback, The Edge of Darkness, the sixth in the Malabar House series.


The Femmes Detectives chatted with Ava Glass, the UK’s biggest selling female spy writer, who writes about the world of female spies from firsthand experience and has been dubbed the “female heir to James Bond” by James Patterson and “the new Queen of spy fiction” by The Guardian.


House of Mystery Radio spoke with Yasmin Angoe about her new thriller, The Ferryman's Daughter, in which the daughter of an infamous murderer gets caught up in a copycat’s sick game.


The Sisters in Crime podcast welcomed Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, award-winning author of essays and short stories, including those featured in Palm Springs Noir, CrimeReads, Orange County Noir, and more.


Author William Boyd joined guest host Ollie Webb Carter on Spybrary for a fascinating spoiler free conversation about spy fiction, John le Carré, Cold War espionage and the creation of his reluctant spy, Gabriel Dax.


On the Pick Your Poison podcast, Dr. Jen Prosser investigated what dangerous wellness trend causes harm with bubbles, why the treatment for too much oxygen can be more oxygen, and how concentration can make the difference between a mild exposure and a medical emergency.

Sunday Music Treat

Sergei Rachmaninov (a/k/a Rachmaninoff) is one of Scott Drayco's favorite composers. Here's one of Rachmaninov's pieces, the Prelude Op.23 No.5 in G minor, which was used in the Drayco mystery, The Suicide Sonata, as played by another talented pianist, Vladimir Ashkenazy:

 

Quote of the Week