Mystery Melange

The Southwest Festival Reading Festival returns this Saturday, March 7, to downtown Fort Myers, Florida, sponsored by the Fort Myers Regional Library. Crime fiction authors taking part include Bruce Borgos, Ward Larsen, Sarah Pekkanen, Spencer Quinn, David Rosenfelt, Brad Thor, and more. The event is free and open to the public.

Noir at the Bar returns to San Diego at the Kensington Club this Saturday from 5:30-7:30pm. Authors scheduled to appear and read from their works include Eric Beetner, Matt Coyle, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Debby Holt Larkin, Caitline Rother, and Carl Vonderau. Books and drinks will be available for purchase. Rother is handling hosting duties, and you can RVSP via her website.


The UK's Capital Crime festival announced its 2026 headliners, including Lee and Andrew Child, Jane Harper, Claire Douglas, Andrea Mara, Clare Mackintosh, Peter James, Lucy Foley, Abir Mukherje, and more. The event returns to London's Leonardo Royal Hotel, St Paul’s, on from June 18th-20th and includes the announcement of the Fingerprint Award winners and various panels with a full schedule to be unveiled in March. Capital Crime will also be participating in the National Year of Reading, a nationwide campaign designed to help people rediscover the joy of reading. (HT to Shots Magazine.)


The Milwaukee Repertory Theatre is hosting an Agatha Christie Festival April through June, a citywide celebration of Agatha Christie and her enduring legacy centered around the final two plays of the 2025/26 Season, Mrs. Christie and And Then There Were None. There will also be a Dame Agatha display at the center; a March 31 screening of Death on the Nile (1978); a free April 7 event, "The Enduring Mystery of Agatha Christie from Page to Stage," at Boswell Book Co. with Christopher Chan of Agatha Christie Ltd. and Laura Braza, director of the Rep production of And Then There Were None; Whodunit Wednesdays, a reading series in April and May at Milwaukee Public Libraries; events for young people; a costume party, trivia night, high tea, and more. (HT to The Bunburyist)


Yale University's Lillian Goldman Law Library is hosting the rare-book exhibit, "Queens of Crime: Four Authors and the Pulp Detective," (Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses one of the largest rare book collections in the world), which follows four women mystery writers working in England and the English literary market from the aftermath of World War I through the later 20th century. The four authors included in the exhibit include Agatha Christie and her iconic Hercule Poirot detective; Dorothy Sayers (the aristocratic Peter Wimsey); Margery Allingham (Albert Campion); and Ngaio Marsh (Robert Alleyn). The exhibit will be on view at the Rare Book Room, Library Lower Level 2, through April 29, 2026.


True crime books, podcasts, and television programs are all the rage right now, and there's a new exhibition to capitalize on that, "Mind of a Serial Killer," which is headed to New York City on April 17th. It's currently showing in Atlanta where it made its American debut after traveling to Berlin, London, Dublin, and Paris. In includes more than 2,100 original artifacts from serial killers from all over the world like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Jack the Ripper, along with older and less well-known cases including some women. Photographs, testimonies, and victim biographies, Jeffrey Dahmer’s glasses, Robert Berdella’s saw, original materials linked to John Wayne Gacy, and a freezer used by a cannibal killer, alongside reconstructions of infamous crime scenes, including those of Ted Bundy and the Zodiac Killer. The exhibit is not recommended for children under the age of 14.


On the other side of the Atlantic, the upcoming exhibition, "Londoners on Trial: Crime, Courts and the Public 1244-1924," heads to the London Archives from March 9, 2026 to February 27, 2027. This free exhibition explores the history of law and order in London, uncovering the stories of London’s criminals, victims and law enforcers from the medieval period to modern times. Drawing on the Archives' extensive collections, it examines how the growing city was governed and Londoners’ enduring fascination with true crime through cases involving figures such as Moll Cutpurse, Dick Turpin, Jack Sheppard, Oscar Wilde, and Sylvia Pankhurst.


For crime fiction enthusiasts more into the academic side of things, there are a couple of new calls for papers:  "White-Coat Stories: Medicine, Criminality, and Murder," part of the International Conference of the English Department at the University of Bucharest, June 5-6 2026, with a submission deadline of March 15; and “Popular Literature: Culture, Power, and the Politics of the Popular," sponsored by New Literaria: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Humanities, with a deadline for submissions of June 30.


In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb interviewed Wendy Gee, author of the new novel Side Hustle, the second in her Carolina Crossfire series; and Gin Phillips applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Ruby Falls, a historical mystery set almost entirely underground during the Great Depression about a waterfall in the middle of a mountain and the unthinkable crime that happens in its caves.

The Audies Have It

 

The Audio Publishers Association announced the winner for the annual Audie Awards for audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment, including mysteries and thrillers. You can check out all of the finalists and winners here, which have some crime-related titles sprinkled throughout the various categories. Winners (indicated in bold below) were celebrated at the 2026 Audies Gala at Pier 60 in New York City on Monday, March 2, 2026. 

Mysteries

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

Thrillers

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

Author R&R with Paul Coggins

Paul Coggins is a prominent criminal defense attorney in Dallas and the former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.  After his BA from Yale, he earned law degrees from Harvard and Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He has traveled widely and lives in the high stakes world portrayed in the Cash McCahill novels.

Chasing the Chameleon is the third book in the Cash McCahill series. His prior Cash novels were Sting Like a Butterfly and The Eye of the Tigress. He is working on the fourth installment in the series: Canary in the Courthouse.

In Chameleon, a drug cartel gives Dallas defense lawyer Cash McCahill an ultimatum: betray his client or face death. He refuses to turn on his client, prompting the cartel to put out a hit on him. Instead of going on the run, Cash hides in plain sight by surgically altering his face and stealing the identity of a dead cop twenty years his senior. Only two people know Cash’s secret: the surgeon who gave him a new face and Tina Campos, a trans woman who introduced Cash to the surgeon and who works as a paralegal in Cash’s law firm.

Burrowed deep underground, Cash remains safe and secluded until a killer stalks and kills several trans women. The victims all have links to Tina, and the killer closes in on her. Protecting Tina forces Cash out of hiding and into the open, where he faces not one but two deadly threats.

Coggins stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching this book:

 

On why writing legal fiction makes me a better lawyer and vice versa:

Whenever appearing on a panel at a writers’ conference or book festival, I am often asked whether I’m a writer who practices law or a lawyer who writes on the side. The question stops me every time, because I cannot conceive of being one but not the other.

I have known since junior high school that I would pursue dual careers as a lawyer and writer. Or author and attorney. Which course receives top billing depends on my mood that day and hour.

My parents, both of whom were teachers, blamed my choice of careers on too many hours in my youth spent watching black-and-white reruns of Perry Mason and reading scores of Erle Stanley Gardner’s eighty-two Perry Mason mysteries.

Indeed, Cash McCahill, the lawyer protagonist of my Cash series, could be the offspring of Mason. He shares Mason’s trial skills and flair for drama, but Cash has hit a few more bumps in the road, including doing a stint in federal prison for jury tampering.

To me, writing legal novels and trying criminal cases are two sides of the same coin. At Harvard Law School, my constitutional law professor said that 99% of being a good lawyer is picking the right word at the right time. Well, that is 100% of being a good writer. Thus, the overlap between my two cherished occupations is almost complete.

The thirst to pursue both careers has led me down many interesting paths. I made it an early goal to learn as much as possible about all facets of criminal justice, including the workings of courts, cops, and corrections.

My desire to explore every bright light and dark corner of criminal justice led me from the lecture halls and libraries of Oxford University to the meanest cellblocks in the toughest prisons in the country. I have also clerked for an appellate judge and anchored a legal call-in radio show.

The mother lode of all experiences has been my twelve years in the Department of Justice: four as a front-line federal prosecutor and eight as the U.S. Attorney in North Texas, overseeing scores of prosecutors in a vast district that spanned one hundred counties and stretched from Dallas-Fort Worth to Lubbock and Amarillo.

At the Justice Department, I had the privilege of working with hundreds of local, state, and federal prosecutors and thousands of cops and agents. I could mine their stories for a century and never do more than scratch the surface.

Chasing the Chameleon is my third book in the Cash McCahill series. Only seventy-nine more Cash novels to reach Erle Stanley Gardner’s Herculean output of eighty-two Perry Mason mysteries.

You can learn more about Paul Coggins on his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Chasing the Chameleon is now available via all major booksellers.

Leftys Rule

 

Left Coast Crime 2026 revealed the winners of four Lefty Awards at the 36th annual convention on Saturday, February 28, at the Hyatt Regency on the Embarcadero.  Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!


Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel:  Catriona McPherson, Scot’s Eggs (Severn House)

Also nominated:

Ellen Byron, Solid Gold Murder (Kensington)
Jennifer J. Chow, Star-Crossed Egg Tarts (St. Martin’s Paperbacks)
Elizabeth Crowens, Bye Bye Blackbird (Level Best Books)
Cindy Sample, All’s Faire in Love and Murder (Cindy Sample Books)


Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel:  Rob Osler, The Case of the Missing Maid (Kensington)
(The Bill Gottfried Memorial)

Also nominated: 

Cara Black, Huguette (Soho Crime)
Mariah Fredericks, The Girl in the Green Dress (Minotaur Books)
Dianne Freeman, A Daughter’s Guide to Mothers and Murder (Kensington)
Claire M. Johnson, City Lights (Level Best Books)
Laurie R. King, Knave of Diamonds (Bantam)


Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel: Adrian Andover, Whiskey Business (Chestnut Avenue Press)

Also nominated: 

Kristen L. Berry, We Don’t Talk About Carol (Bantam)
Laurie L. Dove, Mask of the Deer Woman (Berkley)
Sue Hincenbergs, The Retirement Plan (William Morrow)
Marisa Kashino, Best Offer Wins (Celadon Books)
Diane Schaffer, Mortal Zin (Sibylline Press)


Lefty for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories): James L’Etoile, River of Lies (Oceanview Publishing)

Also nominated: 

Lou Berney, Crooks (William Morrow)
Claire Booth, Throwing Shadows (Severn House)
Tracy Clark, Edge (Thomas & Mercer)
Leslie Karst, Waters of Destruction (Severn House)
Gigi Pandian, The Library Game (Minotaur Books)

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
 
Sony Pictures Classics has snapped up global rights to the crime thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, which had its world premiere at Sundance, with a fall theatrical release in the works. The movie follows Harry Lehman (John Turturro), an aging pickpocket who plies his trade with ever-diminishing returns in a drastically changed New York. Wallets stuffed with cash have been replaced by easily canceled credit cards, and Harry struggles to make ends meet as he cares for his disabled wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave). When he unwittingly purloins and fences a valuable USB stick, Harry finds himself in a race against time to return the loot or face the rage of a vengeful crime family. Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany, Victoria Moroles, and Steve Buscemi also star.


Lucian Msamati (Conclave), Merv Lukeba (Skins), Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ (Dreamers), and Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones) have signed on to star in the British social thriller, Found.  Kalungi Ssebandeke will make his feature directorial debut with the project, working from his original script. Set in a Southern English town, the film follows Xavier Prince (Lukeba), a deeply troubled man whose good deed turns into a hellish nightmare when he’s accused of murder. With only circumstantial evidence against him and an unwillingness to admit to a recent drug relapse for fear of losing access to his young daughter, Xavier must rely on his recently estranged childhood sweetheart, Sadie (Adékọluẹ́jọ́), now studying criminal law, to uncover the truth before the justice system closes in.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

Writer-producers Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie (The Lost Symbol) have boarded Fox‘s new drama, The Interrogator as executive producers and showrunners. The project, co-produced by Lionsgate Television and Fox Entertainment Studios, was recently picked up with a 12-episode straight-to-series order for the 2026-27 season. The Interrogator centers on former MI6 agent Conrad Henry (played by British actor-comedian Stephen Fry) and his elite team. When conventional methods have failed, Henry’s quirky charm, superior intellect, and mind-bending behavioral maneuvers make him the only man able to lockpick the minds of the world’s most dangerous criminals.


Matt Dillon is set to headline and executive produce MGM+'s upcoming eight-episode drama series, The Magnificent Seven, a reimagining of the classic 1960 Western film. Dillon will play Chris Adams, who becomes the leader of seven gunslingers determined to protect a group of innocent villagers from a mercenary land baron hellbent on stealing their land. Stoic, steady under pressure, and with an unflinching gaze that does most of the talking for him, Chris has no patience for hypocrisy or cruelty and holds fast to a quiet moral code rooted in fairness and restraint. The role was played by Yul Brynner in the 1960 film, with Denzel Washington portraying a spiritual successor of the character in Antoine Fuqua’s 2016 remake.


Taylor Sheridan's upcoming Tulsa King spinoff for Paramount+ starring Samuel L. Jackson has been officially renamed Frisco King after the series, fka NOLA King, has undergone a creative overhaul. Once set in New Orleans with a pilot script by Dave Erickson, the offshoot will now be set in Frisco, TX (thus the new title), with Sheridan writing all eight episodes. Additional casting is currently underway for the spinoff, which will begin filming late March in Fort Worth, TX. Jackson’s character, Russell Lee Washington Jr., was first introduced in the third season of Tulsa King, which premiered in September on Paramount+.


Michaela McManus (One Tree Hill, Law & Order: SVU) has joined the ensemble cast of NBC's The Rockford Files pilot starring David Boreanaz. The project is a contemporary update on the classic series of the same name. Newly paroled after doing time for a crime he didn’t commit, James Rockford (Boreanaz) returns 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. McManus will play Kate, an East Hollywood detective whose romantic relationship with Rockford got complicated after he publicly accused fellow officers of framing him. Kate is a new character created for the potential NBC series, not one that existed as part of the original which ran from 1974 to 1980 with James Garner leading the cast as the titular detective.


Leland Orser is set as a series regular in Apple TV's Safe Houses, an eight-episode spy thriller from Homeland executive producer Gideon Raff, inspired by Dan Fesperman’s novel of the same name. Jennifer Connelly and Ana de Armas are in final negotiations to star and executive produce. Safe Houses is an international espionage thriller set in the aftermath of the killing of a high-ranking CIA officer in Madrid and follows Sofia Jiménez, a fugitive agent accused of the crime, and Ambassador Elizabeth Winthrop, the victim's widow, as they each investigate the murder from opposite sides. They soon unravel a vast conspiracy that could upend the balance of global power. Orser is believed to be playing Senator Douglas Patterson, Winthrop’s older brother.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Nadine Matheson chatted with host Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about her new crime thriller, The Shadow Carver; being the Chair of the CWA; serial killers; fraudsters; hurricanes in Grenada; and troublesome domestic appliances.


Murder Junction hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee spoke with crime writer Tim Weaver about his bestselling character, David Raker, who makes his appearance in a fifteenth novel, The Lost Women.


On the Pick Your Poison podcast, Dr. Jen Prosser investigated what meal ended the House of Habsburg and was said by Voltaire to have changed the destiny of Europel the risks associated with foraging; and what milk thistle might be an antidote for.

Sunday Music Treat

You've probably heard this piece a hundred times and didn't know its origins. It's the "Flight of the Bumblebee,"  an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, and Rimsky completed the piece on March 6, in 1844:

 

 

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