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
 
Magnolia Pictures has closed a deal for I Want Your Sex, with a big theatrical release planned for later this year. The Gregg Araki-directed erotically charged drama follows Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), a kind-hearted, if unmotivated, twentysomething, whose fantasies quickly come true when he lands a job with renowned artist and provocateur Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde). When Erika breaks down office boundaries and takes Elliot on as her sexual muse and subordinate, their sexually-charged relationship makes him question his own desires, boundaries, and relationships with his uptight girlfriend (Charli XCX) and repressed roommate (Chase Sui Wonders). As the stakes heighten and power dynamics shift, the film mixes satire, romantic comedy, mystery, and murder. Mason Gooding, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida, and Daveed Diggs round out the cast.

Sony Pictures has tapped Pete Chiarelli (The Proposal) to pen a new installment of the Charlie’s Angels franchise. Charlie’s Angels originated with the hit ’70s ABC series of the same name, and was centered on a trio of female private investigators played by Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith. Sony first reignited the franchise with a 2000 film starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu, which was a box office hit and spurred the 2003 sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. The next attempt at breathing new life into the franchise was a 2011 ABC revival starring Annie Ilonzeh, Minka Kelly, and Rachael Taylor, which was canceled after just a handful of episodes. Sony’s most recent attempt came with a 2019 film written and directed by Elizabeth Banks, and starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska, which didn’t fare well at the box office.


Nick Jonas has signed on to star in the action-thriller, Bodyman, a film to be directed by Gary Fleder (Homefront) from a script penned by Byron Balasco (Kingdom). Principal photography is set to begin in June 2026. Bodyman follows a violent struggle for power and ultimately survival that ensues during a family Christmas when an eccentric billionaire unexpectedly signs over his nepo-baby children’s expected inheritance of his private military company to his longtime bodyguard (Jonas). Who will make it out of their remote family estate alive?


Catherine Zeta-Jones is set to star in the psychological thriller, Cupid, as a marriage counselor whose methods push a fractured relationship into increasingly dangerous territory. The film will be directed by Tate Taylor (The Girl on the Train, The Help) from a screenplay by the Van Dyke brothers (Don’t Worry Darling). Cupid follows a couple who try to repair their frayed marriage over the course of a weekend at the home of seemingly helpful but unorthodox marriage counselor (Zeta-Jones). What starts out as a hopeful endeavor quickly turns dark as her methods become crueler and more dangerous. Filming is being lined up for late summer-early fall 2026 in Natchez, MS.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

David Boreanaz is taking over the iconic role of Jim Rockford in NBC's upcoming reboot pilot of The Rockford Files. The character was originally played by the late James Garner, who portrayed Rockford on the original NBC show from 1974-1980 and in six made-for-TV movies on CBS. The concept for the reboot series sees James Rockford newly paroled for a crime he didn't commit and returning to his life as a private investigator, using his charm and wit to solve cases around Los Angeles. It doesn’t take long for his quest for legitimacy to land him squarely in the crosshairs of both local police and organized crime. Boreanaz reached out to Garner's daughter, Gigi Garner, about his casting, and she enthusiastically gave him her blessing.


Oscar winner Colin Firth has been cast opposite Jack Lowden in Apple TV‘s untitled drama based on Metropolis from Philip Kerr’s bestselling Berlin Noir book series featuring detective Bernie Gunther. Oscar winner Peter Straughan wrote the adaptation, which is directed by Tom Shankland. Bernie (Lowden) is a police officer, newly promoted to the intimidating and elite Berlin Murder Squad, and must investigate what seems to be a serial killer targeting victims on the fringes of society. Bernie’s Berlin is a city of unprecedented freedom and dizzying turbulence, the Nazis just a distant nightmare waiting in the wings. Firth will play Paul Lohser, a brilliant but prickly Murder Detective with the Berlin Police. Meticulous, anti-social, and well-educated, he’s everything Bernie isn’t. And as his partner and unlikely mentor, Lohser is Bernie’s best and only hope of catching the killer.


Kerry Godliman (After Life) and Nina Singh (Virdee) have been cast as the lead detectives in BritBox and ITV’s reboot of Dalziel and Pascoe, based on the mystery novels of the same name written by Reginald Hill. Godliman and Singh will play female detectives in a twist on the original series (broadcast on the BBC for 12 seasons between 1996-2007), which starred Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan in the titular roles. The reimagined series centers on the relationship between seasoned Detective Inspector Andrea Dalziel (Godliman) and the newly qualified, by-the-book perfectionist Detective Sergeant Paige Pascoe (Singh). Despite their clashing methods, Dalziel and Pascoe work together to form a formidable partnership that is underscored by humor, heart, and humanity.


Safe Houses, the latest spy series from Apple International, is in negotiations with Jennifer Connelly and Ana de Armas to star in the series from Homeland scribe Gideon Raff. The eight-episode series is based on the Dan Fesperman novel, an international espionage thriller set in the aftermath of the killing of a high-ranking CIA officer in Madrid. The show is centered on Sofia Jiménez (de Armas), a fugitive agent accused of the crime, and Ambassador Elizabeth Winthrop (Connelly), the victim's widow, as they each investigate the murder from opposite sides, unraveling a vast conspiracy that could upend the balance of global power. Fesperman’s novel was released in 2018 by Knopf. The title is one of at least a dozen books written by the former reporter, which are inspired by the real-life assignments he covered across the globe.


Fremantle’s Red Planet Pictures has beaten out competition to land It’s Not What You Think, the upcoming novel from bestselling author Clare Mackintosh. Kam Odedra (Hijack, Lupin), will adapt the novel (being published by HarperFiction in March) for TV. The story follows Nadeeka Prasanna and Detective Chief Inspector Lauren Caldwell, who are forced together after Nadeeka finds her partner, Jamie, murdered and her home a crime scene. As they embark on parallel investigations, the two women are taken down dark, sinister, and diverging paths in a race against time.  


JD Pardo (Mayans M.C., Road House) has joined the recurring cast of the MGM+ series Bosch: Start of Watch, a prequel series that expands the Bosch Universe into the past. He joins the previously announced leads Cameron Monaghan and Omari Hardwick, as well as Ariana Guerra. The prequel is set in 1991 Los Angeles and follows 26-year-old Harry Bosch (Monaghan) during his earliest days as a rookie cop. Pardo will play Cory, a brilliant, disciplined professional thief whose calm precision was forged in the foster system, where he learned early how to read people, anticipate danger, and stay in control. Raised alongside his younger surrogate brother, Bosch, Cory developed a fierce loyalty to the family he chose. There is no direct source material for Start of Watch since author Michael Connelly’s Bosch book series does not include a prequel. The story came together through bits and pieces from Harry’s early years, which are planted in various novels in the book series.


Peacock‘s new crime thriller M.I.A., from creator, writer, and executive producer Bill Dubuque, will be available on May 7. Season 1 consists of nine 60-minute episodes and stars series regulars Shannon Gisela, Cary Elwes, Danay Garcia, Brittany Adebumola, Dylan Jackson, Alberto Guerra, Maurice Compte, Gerardo Celasco, and Marta Milans. Running drugs is a family affair for Etta Tiger Jonze (Gisela) in M.I.A. But when the family business is threatened, she is thrust into a life she never expected, forcing her to use her wits to survive as she navigates Miami’s criminal underground. M.I.A. has the distinction of being one of the few shows set in Miami that was also produced there.


The first trailer was unveiled for Prime Video's Scarpetta. Based on Patricia Cornwell’s bestselling book series, Scarpetta centers on the titular character (played by Nicole Kidman), an unrelenting medical examiner, who is determined to serve as the voice of the victims, unmask a serial killer, and prove that her career-making case from 28 years prior isn’t also her undoing. The series also stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Scarpetta's sister, Dorothy Farinelli. Additional cast includes Bobby Cannavale as Detective Pete Marino, Simon Baker as FBI profiler Benton Wesley, and Ariana DeBose as Kay’s tech-savvy niece Lucy Watson.  


ITV released a trailer for Gone, George Kay’s psychological drama starring Eve Myles and David Morrissey. Set against the backdrop of a prestigious private school, a foreboding forest, and the quiet sprawl of Bristol, Gone follows local Headmaster Michael Polly (Morrissey), who becomes the prime suspect in his wife Sarah’s disappearance. An upstanding member of the community, Michael is inscrutable and likes order and precision in his working life, but then he encounters gutsy Detective Annie Cassidy (Myles) and a compulsive game of cat and mouse begins as she chips away at his veneer in search of the truth. The series is inspired by the work of former Detective Superintendent for Gloucestershire Police, Julie Mackay, and ITV Crime Correspondent Robert Murphy, and partly inspired by their book, To Hunt A Killer.


The trailer that Prime Video released for its upcoming drama series, Young Sherlock, has racked up record views and become Prime Video’s most-watched series trailer ever within a seven-day period. The series chronicles the detective’s origin story, with Hero Fiennes Tiffin starring as the defiant sleuth who is framed for murder and gets involved in a global conspiracy that alters the course of his life. The series, which is based on Andrew Lane’s spin-off book series, also stars Dónal Finn, Zine Tseng, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone, Max Irons, and Colin Firth.


A trailer was also released for Spider-Noir. Nicolas Cage, who voiced the character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, is bringing Spider-Noir to life in a live-action series for Prime Video, his first television series. All eight episodes of the season will be available to binge on May 27. The series tells the story of Ben Reilly (Cage), a seasoned, down-on-his-luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life, following a deeply personal tragedy, as the city’s one and only superhero.  The cast also includes Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, Karen Rodriguez, Brendan Gleeson, Jack Huston, and Abraham Popoola.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

On Spybrary, Spywrite's Jeff Quest sat down with Ace Atkins to dive deep into his nostalgic Cold War spy novel, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, a thrilling, 1980s-set espionage adventure that blends suburban coming-of-age storytelling with high-stakes KGB intrigue.


Tracy Sierra chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about her new psychological thriller, Warning Signs; true crime; tragedy through a lens; James Joyce; danger least expected, and more.


Murder Junction discussed Vaseem Khan's new locked room mystery novel, The Edge of Darkness, set in the Naga Hills district of 1950s India, and also took at look at the infamous Battle of the Tennis Court that took place in the region during WW2.


Author Kaira Rouda was interviewed by Olivia Fierro on the Poisoned Pen podcast about Rouda's new novel, We Were Never Friends.


Dr. Jen Prosser investigated an antidote made from the blood of scientists and a poisoning that occurs due to a lack of bile acids and good bacteria in the GI tract, on the Pick Your Poison podcast.

Sunday Music Treat

Here's the James Bond theme song as you've never heard it before, courtesy of the quirky percussion trio Blue Man Group: 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Gideon's Fire

Tell most authors they must write 10,000 words a day — in longhand —toward the goal of creating some 600 books in their lifetime, and they would likely say something along the lines of (in polite terms), "it can't be done." Tell most critics that the author of the book in your hand is indeed that prolific and they'd likely say (in polite terms), "then it must be crap."

John Creasey inspired such amazement and skepticism from other authors as well as critics, but when it came down to the readers, they voted with their wallets. By the time of Creasey's death in 1973, over 80 million copies of his books (written under 28 different pseydonyms) in 5,000 different editions in 28 languages had been sold around the world. It wasn't even as if the man sat chained to a desk all day — he also managed to establish the Crime Writers’ Association, create his very own mystery magazine, and still had time left over to found a political party in his native England. (One note about persistence: Creasey allegedly received 743 rejection slips before he sold his first book.)

When I was a youngster, I was introduced to Creasey's work through his series featuring The Honourable Richard Rollison (a/k/a The Toff), a nobleman and amateur crime solver aided by his manservant, Jolly. Creasey's most critically-acclaimed work, however, came via his police procedurals with protagonist Commander George Gideon of London's Scotland Yard, penned under the name J. J. Marric, which inspired a TV series and movie. According to an apocryphal story, one of Creasey's neighbors, a London police inspector, challenged the author with the words "Why don't you show us as we are?" and the next year Cresey published his first Inspector West police procedural book (the first of forty such novels), the success of which led to Gideon in the 1950s.

In 1955, writing for the New York Times Book Review, Anthony Boucher thought Creasey/Marric's Gideon's Day was the author's best book ever, saying,

''Nobody could make a regular career of presenting in some 75,000 words a half dozen or more plots, plus a technical study of Scotland Yard procedure, plus a realistic analysis of the characters of policemen and criminals. However, the incredible Mr. Creasey has calmly gone on presenting us with a Gideon novel each year, all of high quality." 

Likewise, H. R. F. Keating, the crime books reviewer for the London Times for 15 years, chose Gideon's Week as one of his "100 Best Crime and Mystery Books [from 1845 to 1986]."

The book which finally won Creasey the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, however, was Gideon's Fire, in 1962. George Gideon, Commander of the C.I.D., is met at the office one morning with the beginnings of a very bad day: the news of a sex maniac who raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl, and an arson fire in an old tenement building which wiped out a family of seven. In a style which has since become commonplace for police procedurals, Creasey weaves these and other autonomous story lines throughout the book, including a case of stock fraud; a man who is suspected of killing two former mistresses; a bank robbery with the mastermind still at large, and an ugly family crisis building up in Gideon's own home, managing to tie up all plots by the end.

The book also exhibits the authentic earthy police procedural style Creasey used in this particular series, as well as his sympathetic treatment of many of his characters, culminating in the man Gideon, who feels a oneness with his city, London, and an abiding empathy with crime victims. Creasey once said,

"My characters live in my mind...I can see them and hear them much more clearly than most people whom I know in life...it never occurs to me that they don't exist."

Mystery Melange

The 2026 Pulp Factory Awards finalists have been announced, voted on by members of Pulp Factory, a professional association of pulp writers, artists, editors and publishers. Although most of the nominees fall under the pure fantasy/horror/sci-fi umbrella, the Best Pulp Novel category includes A Walking Shadow (Paradise Investigations Book 2) by Teel James Glenn (Author) and Lissanne Lake (Illustrator), a supernatural private investigator mystery; and finalists in the Best Anthology category include The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin Vol-3 (The Captain Hawklin Adventures); Mystery Men (& Women) Vol. 10; and Pulp Reality No. 5 – Stormgate Press. (Hat tip to Mike Glyer's File 270). Voting for the winners is open to the public and available via this link. The awards will be handed out at the traditional ceremony at the Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention in Lombard, IL, March 27, 2026.


On February 13, from 6-7:30 PM, Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, California will present "It's a Mystery: Five Authors on the Perfect Whodunit." Five masters of mystery fiction—Cara Black, M.M. Chouinard, Carmela Dutra, Laurie R. King, and Gigi Pandian—will reveal their latest titles; where they get their inspiration; and how they decide which clues to divulge and which to keep hidden until you turn to the very last page. For ticket information, follow this link.


The next MWA University from Mystery Writers of America will be on Wednesday, February 18th, titled "Killer Love Letters." Join senior editor for Atlantic, Joe Brosnan, and literary manager Liza Fleissig as they share what makes them fall in love with a query letter. There is a fee for non-members of MWA, but the online discussion is free for members.


The Midwest Mystery Conference announced the author lineup for this year's event, to be held in Chicago on April 11. Previous speakers have included Sara Paretsky, Scott Turow, Gillian Flynn, Jeffery Deaver, Sophie Hannah, Rachel Howzell Hall, William Kent Krueger, S.A. Cosby, and more. (NOTE: I've recently updated the Conferences section in the right sidebar on this blog - linked here.)


For the more academically inclined, there are a couple of calls for papers with submission deadlines coming up soon. The National Conference 2026 to be held in April at SAGE University Indore, India, has a theme this year of "Towards 2050: Reimagining Crime and Criminal Justice System in the Era of AI & ML." Abstracts are due February 20th (and there are financial prizes for the top three papers). The 10th Workshop on the Economics of Organized Crime will take place at the University of Catania in Italy in May and is seeking theoretical and empirical studies on the topic, with abstracts due February 16th.


Janet Rudolph posted a list of Olympic-themed mysteries on her Mystery Fanfare blog, including both summer and winter games.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Say Her Name" (For Renée Nicole Good) by Jennifer Lagier.


In the Q&A roundup, Jeffrey Siger, a former Wall Street lawyer turned author of the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series of mystery thrillers, applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, A Study in Secrets; and Author Interviews chatted with Will Shindler, who spent years working for the BBC as a broadcast journalist and on various dramas as a writer and script editor, about his critically acclaimed DI Alex Finn novels and his latest book, The Bone Queen.

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
 
In a competitive situation, Netflix has acquired the action thriller Kill Switch from Harrison Query, with Jake Gyllenhaal attached to star. As Deadline noted, it's been described as falling somewhere between Collateral and Sicario, although the film’s logline is being kept under wraps. 6th & Idaho’s Matt Reeves & Lynn Harris will produce along with Gyllenhaal & Josh McLauglin’s Nine Stories banner and Scott Glassgold and his 12:01 Films. Kill Switch is the second hot package to sell recently from the same team. Last June, Query set up his political thriller short story, "Code Black," at Amazon MGM, with Gyllenhaal set to star, and the triumvirate of 6th & Idaho, Nine Storiesm and 12:01 aboard to produce.


Writer-director Kevin Interdonato’s indie feature, Dirty Hands, has been picked up by Saban Films for domestic release in the U.S. starting April 24. The action-packed thriller stars Patrick Muldoon, Kevin Interdonato, Michael Beach, Denise Richards, and Guy Nardulli. The film’s synopsis reads: Dirty Hands kicks-off in the underbelly of Chicago when a routine drug deal goes south for the Denton brothers, Richie (Muldoon) and Danny (Interdonato). Richie’s girlfriend, Sheila (Richards), struggles between her loyalties to Richie and his boss (Michael Beach), as rival leader, Rodney (Nardulli), and his gang are out for blood. With a Kingpin’s son murdered, the brothers must fight for their lives if they’re going to survive the night.


Quantify has launched international sales on the thriller, Blood Behind Us, one of the last films made by the late actor Michael Madsen. The movie also stars Tanner Beard, Jaime King, Michael Aaron Milligan, Russell Quinn, Ramsey Krull, and Katie Leclerc, and is directed by Brendan Gabriel Murphy. The storyline follows a troubled war veteran drawn back into violence through a motorcycle gang and a fractured relationship with his father, played by Reservoir Dogs actor Madsen in what producers describe as "a raw, commanding final turn."


TELEVISION/STREAMING

MASTERPIECE on PBS announced it will be co-producing the upcoming six-part police procedural, Winter. The series features an unconventional forensic pathologist, played by Richard Armitage (Missing You, Fool Me Once). Set in Bristol, England, Winter follows Dr. Ethan Winter (Armitage), one of the most gifted pathologists of his generation. He possesses an extraordinary analytical mind, capable of impeccable deductive reasoning which perfectly complements DI Lauren Bell, played by Annabel Scholey (The Sixth Commandment, Rivals), a meticulous, no-nonsense detective who is as driven as Winter when working on a case. Together they make a formidable team, as Winter’s genius and insight into the victims is invaluable to Bell and her murder squad detectives. Yet Winter is harboring a secret: the unsolved murder of someone close to him still haunts his every move, and he’s intent on unofficially investigating the death to bring the murderer to justice.


Channel 4 in the UK announced that production has commenced on the four-part thriller, Careless, an original drama by Australian broadcaster and streamer, Stan, produced in association with Channel 4 and others, and led by Solly McLeod (House of the Dragon), Robyn Malcolm (After The Party), Katie Leung (Bridgerton), and Richard Roxburgh (Rake). From creators Helen Fitzgerald (author of The Cry) and Louise Fox (Broadchurch), Careless will also star Mabel Li (The Testaments), Thomas Weatherall (The Narrow Road To The Deep North), and Alison Peebles (Dept. Q). The story centers on Scottish backpacker Robbie (Solly McLeod), who finds himself in Sydney, determined to become a live-in carer for a notorious rock’n’roll legend, Mike (Richard Roxburgh), who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. To his delight, he nails the interview and gets the gig.  But, as he grows closer to Mike, he also grows closer to Mike’s wife Angela (Robyn Malcolm) and becomes a confidante to both Mike and Angela. As Robbie integrates himself further in their relationship, it becomes clear there’s something in Robbie’s past which may put Mike and Angela in serious danger.


Apple TV has set a release date for its upcoming drama series, Cape Fear. The 10-episode psychological thriller will arrive on the streamer on June 5, 2026 with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday through July 31. Cape Fear is based on the novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald, which inspired Gregory Peck’s 1962 film and the 1991 remake directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. Billed as a tense, Hitchcockian thriller and an examination of America’s obsession with true crime, the description reads: a storm is coming for happily married attorneys Anna (Amy Adams) and Tom Bowden (Patrick Wilson) when Max Cady (Javier Bardem), the notorious killer they are responsible for putting behind bars, is let out of prison — and he wants vengeance. In addition to Bardem, Wilson and Adams, the cast includes CCH Pounder, Anna Baryshnikov, Jamie Hector, Lily Collias, Joe Anders, and Malia Pyles.


Kate Mara, Kerry Washington, and Elisabeth Moss have some dark secrets they’re keeping behind closed doors in the first official teaser for Apple TV’s Imperfect Women. The new psychological thriller, which is executive produced by Moss and Washington, was adapted from Araminta Hall’s 2020 novel of the same name. Per a description of the series, Imperfect Women examines a crime that shatters the lives of a decades-long friendship of three women. As the investigation unfolds, so does the truth about how even the closest friendships may not be what they seem.


Dark Winds has scored an early Season 5 renewal on AMC Networks. Season 5 begins filming in Santa Fe, New Mexico in March and will also consist of eight hour-long episodes set to debut in 2027. Based on Tom Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee book series, the drama follows Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) of  the Navajo Tribal Police solving mysteries on their reservation as it is besieged by increasingly violent crimes in the 1970s. The series is created for television by Graham Roland. Season 4 focuses on the search for a missing Navajo girl, which takes Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito from the safety of Navajo Nation to the gritty terrain of 1970s Los Angeles in a race against the clock to save her from an obsessive killer with ties to organized crime.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest episode of Meet the Thriller Author featured crime novelist Jonathan Kellerman, the #1 New York Times bestselling author behind the iconic Alex Delaware series.

 
On Crime Time FM, Louise Welsh chatted with Paul Burke about her new novel, The Cut Up; Rilke; Glasgow; Scottish PEN; academia; and being decent people.


On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester recommended some of their favorite historical mysteries.

Mystery Melange

 Author James Sallis passed way last week after a long illness. Sallis was 81 years old. He began writing science fiction for magazines in the late 1960s and later branched out into crime fiction, penning a series of novels featuring the detective character Lew Griffin set in New Orleans, and the 2005 novel Drive, which was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name. He received the Grand Prix de Littérature policière (for 2012's The Killer is Dying), a Bouchercon lifetime achievement award, and the Hammett Award for literary excellence in crime writing.


The inaugural Newberry Crime Writing Workshop (NCWW), an intensive 4-week writers’ workshop for developing crime and mystery authors, will take place July 6-31, 2026, on the historic campus of Newberry College in Newberry, SC. Applications are open through March 15. This year's instructors are Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Bracken, Cheryl Head, and Warren S. Moore III. To apply, complete the workshop application form and pay the application fee; more information is available via this link.


International bestselling crime writer, Denise Mina, has been revealed as the guest programmer for the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival 2026, which will return to the historic city of Stirling from September 18-20. She follows the success of Sir Ian Rankin, who as the first ever guest programmer brought a host of big names to the 2025 festival including Kate Atkinson, Kathy Reichs, and the Reverend Richard Coles. Denise is working alongside festival director, Bob McDevitt, and the programming team of fellow authors, Abir Mukherjee, Lin Anderson, Craig Robertson, and Gordon Brown, to bring another world class line-up of authors and special guests to the prestigious Festival. The complete program will launch in June 2026.


Harrogate International Festivals have announced the full lineup of Special Guest headliners for the 2026 UK Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, taking place July 23-26 2026. Ann Cleeves, Brenda Blethyn, Anthony Horowitz, Holly Jackson, Chris Brookmyre, Chris Whitaker, Jane Harper, and LJ Ross join previously announced headliners Nadine Matheson, Gillian McAllister, Steve Cavanagh, Alice Feeney and David Baldacci in a line-up of crime writing legends and international bestsellers from the UK, Australia, Ireland and the US, curated by 2026 Festival Programming Chair, Lisa Jewell. An unmissable event for Vera fans will be writer Ann Cleeves and actor Brenda Blethyn, who played DCI Vera Stanhope for fourteen years, taking an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the much-loved TV series, as Cleeves unveils her latest Vera Stanhope novel. Plus Festival Chair Lisa Jewell will be conversation with Lee Child, iconic creator of the Jack Reacher novels.


The deadline for scholarships to this year's Thriller Fest, which takes place May 5 – May 9, 2026 at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City, is coming up soon. The Fresh Perspectives Scholarship is offered to any underrepresented author, published or unpublished, while the Undiscovered New Voices Scholarship is for any unpublished author who is writing a mystery/thriller novel (80-100k words). Plus, there's a new opportunity this year, the Poisoned Pen / Barbara Peters Scholarship, which is open to any International Thriller Writer member (full members only) who has, at the time of submission to the scholarship, been published or is under contract for at least one novel of at least 80K words and has no more than three published novels. The deadline for all three scholarships in February 15th. For more information, check out the Thriller Fest website via this link.


The Museum of the Moving Image will pay tribute to HBO‘s iconic mob drama The Sopranos with an exhibition, opening February 14 in the NYC Museum’s Amphitheater Gallery, and three special screenings featuring showrunner and series creator David Chase and cast members Steven Van Zandt, Dominic Chianese, Edie Falco, and Annabella Sciorra. Stories and sets for The Sopranos will trace how the series’ narrative and visual worlds were established. Drawing from Chase’s personal archive, the exhibition features scripts, notes, and research that document the development of the series’ story arcs and character trajectories as it moved from a pilot into the first season. It also examines the design of the four principal sites where the series’ central action was set —Dr. Melfi’s office, the Soprano home, the Bada Bing strip club, and Satriale’s Pork Store—through concept art, construction drawings, and ground plans by production designers Edward Pisoni (pilot) and Dean Taucher (season one) .


In honor of Super Bowl this Sunday, Janet Rudolph posted a list of some Super Bowl and football (American style) themed mysteries.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Break the Cycle: A Fibonacci Poem" by F.I. Goldhaber.


In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Robert Dugoni (author of the Tracy Crosswhite mysteries) about his new novel, Her Cold Justice, the latest in the Keera Duggan series; writer and former police officer and attorney, Terrence P. Dwyer, chatted with Lisa Haselton about his new true crime memoir, The Badge Between Us: Duty, Marriage, and Family; and Simon Lewis spoke to Crime Time about No Exit: An Inspector Jian Novel, the latest in his series featuring a Chinese policeman in London.