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
Two-time Oscar nominee Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), will play legendary author Agatha Christie alongside Vincent Cassel (La Haine) in the noir mystery-thriller, Eleven Missing Days. The movie is based on the true story of the British author’s mysterious disappearance in December 1926, while Christie was at the height of her fame. In a case of life imitating art, this whodunnit explores the investigation behind her disappearance, strangely resembling an Agatha Christie novel itself where everyone in her life became a suspect. Cassel will play a retired Belgian police detective who gets drawn into the case, in an echo of Christie’s most famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot. Nicole Elizabeth Berger (He’s Watching You) and Oliver Trevena (The Gorge) will also co-star. Bertie Ellwood (Silo) is directing from a screenplay by Ernesto Foronda (Better Luck Tomorrow), based on the book, Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, by Christie scholar Jared Cade.
StudioCanal's new genre division, Sixth Dimension, is heading into production this summer on Sean Byrne's high-stakes thriller, The Mannequin, starring Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter). Byrne is directing and writing. Byrne said in a statement, “After wading through bloodied waters together on Dangerous Animals, I’m thrilled to be alongside my friends at StudioCanal’s Sixth Dimension. I can’t wait to unleash The Mannequin on the big screen. There have been other serial killer procedurals, but this is its own thrillingly deranged beast—twisted, intense, propulsive, and anchored by a fearless performance from Melissa Leo, building to a shocking twist you won’t see coming. It’ll put you on the edge of your seat and keep you there.”
Scott Adkins and Lewis Tan are set to lead Deadlocked, about a deadly siege in which a group of jurors come under attack. Pre-production on the pic has begun, with Tan overseeing the action design in collaboration with a fight choreographer, and Roel Reiné (Classified) directing. The plot is based around a routine jury site visit that turns deadly when a mercenary kill team led by Hewitt (Adkins) storms the location in search of a secret ledger detailing citywide corruption. Trapped inside, a disgraced ex-cop-turned-bailiff (Tan) must protect the surviving jurors and battle the attackers outside while exposing a traitor within.
Will Smith has committed to star in the David Gordon Green-directed action-thriller Supermax, about two FBI agents investigating a murder that’s taken place in the world’s most secure prison. Amazon MGM Studios closed a deal for worldwide rights to the Miramax project, which will mark Smith’s first non-franchise studio movie in recent years. This will allegedly be a streaming film and not a theatrical release. Additional casting is underway, including Smith’s FBI agent partner, said to be a female role. The project is written by David Weil and David J. Rosen, known for their work on the TV series Hunters and Invasion.
Bill Camp (The Night Of, Presumed Innocent) is set to join Melissa McCarthy and Connor Storrie in Turpentine, the forthcoming indie thriller from Craig Zobel (The Penguin and Mare of Easttown), but his character details are under wraps. Based on a script by Justin Varava that made the 2024 Black List, Turpentine follows a deadbeat son who hires friends to rob his own parents to pay off a bookie, with disastrous results. Rian Johnson (Knives Out) and Ram Bergman’s T-Street are producing alongside Shivani Rawat’s ShivHans Pictures.
Two-time Oscar nominee Colman Domingo (Disclosure Day), Golden Globe nominee Nicholas Hoult (Superman), Hamnet and A Quiet Place star Noah Jupe, and Golden Globe winner Emma Corrin (The Crown) are set to star in the psychological thriller, The Servant, from writer-director Francis Lee. The Servant is set in 1950s New York and follows Tony (Hoult), an entitled British man who moves into a beautiful apartment on Central Park and becomes embroiled in a wicked power play with his manservant, Barrett (Domingo). The project is a reimagining of the subversive 1963 Joseph Losey classic (from a screenplay by Harold Pinter), with its undertones of class, sexuality, and politics and Dirk Bogarde playing the sociopathic manservant to acclaim.
Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen) has inked a deal to direct Six Minutes to Freedom, Kurt Muse and John Gilstrap’s work of non-fiction about the 1989 Delta Force rescue of an American hostage in Panama. With a screenplay by Jared Rosenberg, the film is based on the true story of Operation Acid Gambit, one of the most daring military raids in history. At its center is Kurt Muse, a businessman-turned-CIA asset who ran a clandestine radio operation in Panama to undermine Manuel Noriega’s regime in the late 1980s. After being arrested by Noriega’s secret police and imprisoned in brutal conditions, Muse was rescued by the United States' most elite warriors, Delta Force, during their invasion of Panama in December 1989.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Netflix is extending its overall deal with author Harlan Coben, greenlighting Myron Bolitar, a drama inspired by Coben's signature collection of novels. The drama is from Emmy winner David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) and Kyle Long (Suits) who are writing, executive producing, and co-showrunning. In it, after an injury ends his NBA dreams, Myron Bolitar reinvents himself as a sports agent — using charm, smarts, and a ruthless partner to navigate the high-stakes and dirty world of sports, where saving his clients often means risking himself. Greg Yaitanes, who directed half of the episodes of another Kelley series adaptation of a well known thriller novel, Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, will direct multiple episodes and will executive produce the series.
The Lincoln Lawyer starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is coming to an end, with the upcoming fifth season being its last. Based on the novels by Michael Connelly, the legal drama stars Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller, a defense attorney in Los Angeles who often works out of a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Navigator. The 10-episode fifth season is inspired by the seventh book in the series, Resurrection Walk. In it, Mickey Haller’s world is upended when the half-sister he never knew existed, Emi (Cobie Smulders), comes to him with a plea to help free a wrongfully convicted woman. In a season defined by blood ties and buried secrets, Mickey takes on a grueling habeas petition to overturn a six-year-old murder conviction, but the deeper he digs, the more nefarious the forces arrayed against him become. Meanwhile, the stakes rise for his trusted team as Lorna (Becki Newton), Izzy (Jazz Raycole), and Cisco (Angus Sampson) step up to tackle high-profile challenges of their own.
Prime Video has renewed its hit series Reacher for a fifth season ahead of its Season 4 premiere expected for later this year. The series adaptation of Lee Child’s bestselling Jack Reacher novels follows Reacher (Alan Ritchson), a drifter carrying no phone and the barest of essentials as he travels the country and explores the nation he once served, usually ending up in situations requiring his keen mind and hard-hitting fists. Season 4 will be based on the 13th book in Child’s book series, Gone Tomorrow. When a chance encounter with a distraught stranger on a subway goes horribly wrong, Reacher is drawn into a complex and deadly game that pits him against ruthless foes from the highest echelons of power. New to the cast for Season 4 are Chris Marquette, Sydelle Noel, Agnez Mo, Anggun, Kevin Weisman, Marc Blucas, Kevin Corrigan, and Kathleen Roberston.
The Good Doctor star Freddie Highmore and series creator David Shore have teamed up for I’m Not Here to Hurt You, a new family crime drama from Sony Pictures Television and Bell Media. Highmore also stars in the Crave original series, which follows an upstanding family man who spirals into a life of crime after killing someone in a bicycle accident, "driven by the noble but futile goal of never hurting anyone ever again” per the logline. The series is inspired by the true story of a man who became known as "Ireland’s most polite bank robber” and The Irish Independent podcast of the same name.
Ella Rubin (The Girl from Plainville) is set to star opposite Maya Hawke and Kerry Condon in The God of the Woods, Netflix's series adaptation of the bestselling novel by Liz Moore. From writers, executive producers, and co-showrunners Liz Hannah and Liz Moore, The God of the Woods is a multi-generational drama series set in the Adirondacks, exploring 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. Rubin will play Louise Donnadieu, a working-class counselor at Camp Emerson whose life is upended when one of her young campers, Barbara, goes missing. Condon plays Barbara’s mother, Alice Van Laar; Hawke plays Judy Luptack, investigator on the case.
The Rookie spinoff pilot, The Rookie: North, starring Jay Ellis, has been picked up to series by ABC with an order for 10 episodes that are expected to premiere in midseason. The Rookie: North introduces Alex Holland (Ellis) who believed his midlife wasn’t worthy of a crisis. But after a violent home invasion ignites a dormant purpose, Alex battles a lifetime of failed commitments by joining the Pierce County Police Department as a rookie. Policing from the urban coast to the rural forest where backup isn’t just five minutes away, Alex must prove to his skeptical training officer, his fellow rookies, and himself that he’s finally found something worthy of the fight. Ellis stars alongside Chris Sullivan, Karen Fukuhara, Froy Gutierrez, Janet Montgomery, Mya Lowe, and Malik Watson.
After months of speculation, NBCUniversal has confirmed that a live-action series based on Universal’s Fast & Furious action movie franchise is in development, with potentially three additional series, according to franchise star and producer Vin Diesel. The first series is set up at Peacock (with more in various stages of development at Universal Television), with a pilot to be written by Mike Daniels, who just got an NBC series order for his take on another high-profile title from the NBCUniversal library, The Rockford Files.
Matt Bomer (Outcome, Fellow Travelers) has joined Season 2 of Peacock and Sky’s spy thriller drama, The Day of the Jackal, as a recurring character opposite star Eddie Redmayne. Details about Bomer’s character are being kept under wraps, but he will allegedly be playing a villain. In the second season, which has started production in Budapest, Bomer joins fellow new cast additions Weruche Opia and Pablo Schreiber. Based on the Frederick Forsyth novel and the 1973 film adaptation from Universal, The Day of the Jackal follows an unrivaled and highly elusive lone assassin, the Jackal (Redmayne), who makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee.
The first trailer for the new USA Network series Anna Pigeon starring Tracy Spiridakos as the titular character has been released. The show’s premiere date has been set for August 7 at 10 p.m. Based on the bestselling novels by Nevada Barr, the series follows Anna, a former city slicker who becomes a park ranger after a devastating loss that changed the trajectory of her life forever. While Anna tries to outrun her demons, her focus turns to solving crimes that have taken place within national park grounds, no matter who or what gets in her way. The series also features regulars Ronnie Rowe Jr. as FBI Agent Frederick Stanton, a charismatic wanderer who chases crimes through national parks; and Paulina Alexis as Zoey Bear Child, a young ranger coming into her own, whom Anna mentors.
The White Lotus has rounded out the cast for its fourth season with three final cast additions in Ben Kingsley, Max Minghella, and Pekka Strang. Kingsley (The Thursday Murder Club), Minghella (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Strang (Mister 8) will appear within the newest group of White Lotus hotel guests and employees that the HBO drama series follows over the span of a week, taking place during the Cannes Film Festival. They join the existing Season 4 recruits, which include Vincent Cassel, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Caleb Jonte Edwards, Dylan Ennis, Corentin Fila, Ari Graynor, Marissa Long, Alexander Ludwig, Chris Messina, AJ Michalka, Kumail Nanjiani, and Nadia Tereszkiewicz.
A trailer dropped for the eleventh and final season of the beloved PBS Mystery! series Grantchester, which will debut on Sunday, June 14, 2026. Robson Green returns as Geordie with Rishi Nair as Alphy; Al Weaver as Leonard Finch; Tessa Peake-Jones as Mrs. C; Kacey Ainsworth as Cathy Keating; Oliver Dimsdale as Daniel Marlowe; Nick Brimble as Jack Chapman; Bradley Hall as DC Larry Peters, and Melissa Johns as Miss Scott.
The Terminal List, starring Chris Pratt, will return with Season 2 on October 21. Based on the best-selling novels of the same name from Jack Carr, The Terminal List centers on Navy SEAL Commander James Reece (Pratt) as he battles unknown conspiratorial forces seeking to upend the world order. The season comes from Carr’s second novel, True Believer, where he puts James Reece on a journey of violent redemption, finding a new purpose after finishing his list after he uncovers a conspiracy that reaches from Moscow to Langley and ties into his own family’s history. Returning cast members include Raife Hastings (Tom Hopper), Katie Buranek (Constance Wu), Mohammed Farooq (Dar Salim), and Jules Landry (Luke Hemsworth).
ABC unveiled its 2026-27 season which moves the Kaitlin Olson-led series High Potential to a mid-season return, enabling the network to utilize the post-Dancing With the Stars time slot on Tuesday to provide a solid launching pad for sophomore series RJ Decker—the crime drama starring Scott Speedman and inspired by the novel Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen. High Potential will be joined by other mid-season shows, The Rookie and its Jay Ellis-led spinoff, The Rookie: North, as well as the drama Will Trent, based on the books by Karen Slaughter.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke (writing under the pen name Evelyn Clarke) spoke with Scott Simon on NPR's Book of the Day about their new collaboration, The Ending Writes Itself, where a contest to complete a manuscript turns deadly.
Legendary thriller author James Grady joined Alan Petersen on Meet the Thriller Author to discuss his remarkable career, the enduring legacy of Six Days of the Condor, and his gripping new noir thriller, Shadows on Sidewalks.
On Crime Time FM, Victoria Selman interviewed Anna Bailey (The Tall Bones) and Tariq Ashkanani (The Hollow Boys) about the importance of character development over plot in mystery writing.
The Cops and Writers podcast spoke with New York City Death Investigator and author, Barbara Butcher, about her work, her book What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator, her new TV special The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher, and the television pilot that is being filmed based on her life at the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.
Most people know Andrew Lloyd Webber for his mega-blockbuster musicals, but did you also know he wrote a Requiem? Here's the "Pie Jesu" section performed by Sarah Brightman, Paul Miles-Kingston, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the Winchester Cathedral Choir, conducted by Lorin Maazel (in a music video created in 1985):
Much later, in her sixties, she began to take long walks at night by herself all over the back streets of London, partly for research and partly to prove a point. Her conclusion was that to make the dark streets lose their terror, "We don’t need more policemen on the beat. We need more grandmothers." Those experiences were compiled into a TV program about challenging people’s fears of urban streets at night and many observations also wound up in her books.
Her life may have seemed like domestic bliss on the surface, but it was filled with its share of tragedy that would be at home in any crime novel: Not only did she lose her mother at age 17, but her youngest daughter committed suicide, as did Fremlin's husband, rather than live a disabled life after a heart attack. She also outlived her second husband and her other two children, and went slowly blind in her later years, spending her last days in a nursing home, which was a bit ironic, considering she became an advocate for euthanasia late in life.
Celia Fremlin used to say that she wrote the sort of book she wanted to read, in which a mysterious threat hangs over someone and escalates chapter by chapter; or as, H.R.F. Keating recalled her saying, "to put a plot that is exciting or terrifying against a background that is domestic, very ordinary, humdrum." She used this to great effect in The Long Shadow and others, slowly building an atmosphere of suspense and terror out of the excruciatingly mundane, using the contrasts as a literary canvas like Dali and his surrealistic art.
Her character observations managed to be cutting and yet have a touch of dark humor, as well, as this passage from Imogen's experience at a party a well-wishing friend had encouraged her to attend:
Worst of all, perhaps, was the apparently unending procession of people who, incredibly, still hadn't heard, and had to be clobbered with the news in the first moment of meeting. Had to have the smiles slashed from their faces, the cheery words of greeting rammed back down their gullets as if by a gratuitous blow across the mouth. There they would be, waving from across the road, calling "Hi!" from their garden gates, phoning by chance from Los Angeles, from Aberdeen, from Beckenham...One and all to have their friendly overtures slammed into silence, their kindly voices choked with shock. One after another, day after day, over and over again: sometimes Imogen felt like the Black Death stalking the earth, destroying everything in her path.
Fremlin's books are filled with astute perceptions that no doubt bear the imprint of her first-hand research into human behavior, as Imogen's stepson Robin advises her about taking on boarders:
I'd choose Depressions rather than Anxiety States...From the point of view of a landlady, Depressions are good because they lie in bed until midday and don't eat breakfast. Whereas Anxiety States want grapefruit—All Bran—the lot."
In addition to her 20 novels and nonfiction books, the last dating from 1994, she wrote short stories, poetry and articles and was a member of the Crime Writers Association for many years. The Long Shadow, The Hours Before Dawn, and her other fiction certainly deserves a closer look.
The 2026 winners of The British Book Awards (aka "The Nibbies") were announced on Tuesday. A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith (Raven Books) won in the Crime and Thriller category, besting the other finalists which included Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall (Penguin); The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (The Borough Press); The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman (Viking); The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown (Bantam); and The Tenant by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press). Another crime fiction title was among among the finalists in the Audiobook category, Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, narrated by Richard Armitage and Tuppence Middleton (Macmillan).
CrimeCONN returns this Saturday, co-sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, and the Ferguson Library in Stamford, CT. The event offers both an in-person and a virtual attendance option. The headliner this year is bestselling author Alafair Burke, in conversation with John Valeri, acclaimed mystery reviewer and online host. Hank Phillippi Ryan will hold this year’s one-hour writers workshop, as well as appear on a panel led by Reed Farrel Coleman. Other bestselling and award-winning authors joining panels include Alison Gaylin, Lynne Constantine, Peter Blauner, Kate White, and Hilary Davidson. CrimeCONN also features a perennial favorite, Michelle Clark’s forensic science panel.
The Gaithersburg, Maryland Book Festival is also being held this Saturday, and includes some panels of interest to crime fiction fans, held appropriately in the Dashiell Hammett Pavilion. Kicking things off at 12:15, Dan Fesperman (Pariah) and Nick Petrie (The Dark Time) will be in conversation by I.S. Berry in the appropriately named Dashiell Hammett Pavilion. At 1:15, Sujata Massey (The Star from Calcutta) and Kate Hilton (City of the Muse) will be in conversation with Nicole Hertvik. Then at 2:15, George Packer (The Emergency) will be interviewed by Samuel Ashworth. At 3:15, Jennifer Van Der Kleut (The Better Mother) and Finlay (The Anniversary) will be on a panel moderated by K.T. Nguyen. And at 4:15, Rader-Day (Wreck Your Heart) and Susan Coll (The Literati) are interviewed by Laura Scalzo.
In celebration of the recent ThrillerFest convention, readers in the U.S. and Canada can enter to win all ten nominees for Best Standalone and Best First Novel from the Thriller Awards. You'd better hurry, though, as the deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, May 18, 2026. Note that there is a limit of one entry per person and per email address.
The print edition is now available for Mystery Readers Journal: Fairs, Fêtes, & Festivals in Mysteries (42:1). There are a few "teaser" essays and columns you can read online, including: "The Welsh Have a Word for It…" by Cathy Ace; "It Takes a Village Fair: Setting the Stage for Murder" by Paula Munier; and "Crime Seen: Fun—and Fear—at the Fair" by Kate Derie.
This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Nolo Contendere" by Ed Robson.
In the Q&A roundup, writer and publisher Charles Ardai spoke with CrimeReads about noir fiction and the ongoing adventures of Hard Case Crime, which continues to carry the mantle for classic crime fiction; Andrew Welsh-Huggins applied the Page 69 Test to the new book in the Mercury Carter thriller series, The Delivery; and The Dark Phantom blog interviewed Tucker May, author of The Lemon House Murders.
Russell stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:
Because I was/am a homicide detective writing about the investigation parts of my novels come to me as second nature. However, there are always new techniques being developed that I need to keep on top of and I am luckily able to do this as I still carry out reviews into mostly child but also adult domestic murders. The techniques that are changing most frequently are those digital ones. The speed of change of modern technology and use of AI is a constant challenge for me to make sure, what I really try to achieve in my fiction books, that of authenticity of the investigation. Working with those senior detectives on these murders helps me to do this.
Alfred Lord Tennyson the Victorian poet said, ‘It is better have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ He wrote those words about a close friend of his Arthur Hallam whom he met at Trinity College in Cambridge, England. Arthur died as a 22 year old in a hotel room in Vienna in 1833. I thought 22 year old’s are not meant to die and I wondered what really happened to him. So, I set the story in modern times to ensure I could use all of the investigative techniques that I knew.
Off to Vienna I then went to carry out my research, because for me the feeling of ‘Place,’ also being authentic is so important to me. I don’t in my novels make up imaginary places, they are all the real places and real streets and landmarks. People often comment to me that they went and visited a certain town or place after reading about them in my novels, which please me greatly.
A key piece of research that took longer for this novel was getting my head around the structure of the Austrian Police Service and the law and techniques there, as they are different to those in the UK. Internet research was a key part to this for me but also finding a connection there to test out certain ideas on what could and couldn’t be feasible.
I have been told that all of the research was worthwhile and while the books and this one are an easy and entertaining read, the intricacies of the investigation reviewers find are very interesting. For me this is what makes my novels different to others in the genre as I take the reader for a walk with me in a homicide detectives shoes.
You can learn more about Russell Wate via his website and follow
him on LInkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Getting
Away with Murder is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and
Cranthorpe Millner.
