Halloween Mystery Melange

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog has a nice long list of mystery novels (and a few short stories) with a Halloween theme.

Elizabeth Foxwell, editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection, notes that just in time for Halloween, Clues 30.2 has been published—a theme issue on paranormal mysteries guest edited by Agatha and Macavity nominee A. B. Emrys.

What better way to celebrate Halloween than snuggling down with a dim light (candlelight would be pretty awesome) and some Edgar Allan Poe stories? GalleyCat very helpfully posted links to free Poe eBooks from Project Gutenberg.

Are you stuck trying to think of a perfectly horrorific word to use? Dictionary.com compiled "Seven Spooky Words for Halloween."

Audible has released a new audio short story from author Neil Gaiman titled "Click-Clack the Rattlebag." Audible will donate $1 per download through Halloween to the literary charities DonorsChoose.org and Booktrust.

Here's a chance for you to win 10 horror movies on DVD. Simply snap photos of your TV or movie-inspired costumes, either from this year or excellent ones from years past, and e-mail them to katey@cinemablend.com before midnight on Friday, November 2, to be entered in a drawing.

What can you do with a giant pumpkin? Ray Villafane of Villafane Studios took one 1,800-pound pumpkin and created a ghoulish (zombish?) masterpiece for the New York Botanical Garden's Haunted Pumpkin Garden. The Mirror newspaper online has several other amazing pumpkin masterpieces.

BookRiot compiled its own gallery of Bookish Pumpkins (part one and part two), from Winnie the Pooh to Harry Potter.

Lucy Burdette, one of the authors who make up the Mystery Lovers' Kitchen blog, has an easy-peazy recipe for a Pumpkin Cornmeal Halloween Cake (that can be gluten-free if you use GF flour). Bonus points to Lucy for wearing the Kermit costume…

Over at the Criminal Element, Deborah Lacy offers up drink recipes to go along with some favorite crime dramas on TV (The Castletini) and mystery authors and books (Poirot Pumpkin Coffee).

Don't forget man's best friend, with these 25 Crazy Pet Costumes for Halloween.

Here are 10 classic short Halloween cartoons you can watch online, from Disney’s 1929 Skeleton Dance to The Duxorcist starring Daffy Duck.

Bibliomysteries

I received an interesting e-mail from Nina Lassam at Open Road Media, which is a publishing partner with Mysterious Press for eBooks. Together, they're releasing new bibliomystery eBooks from best selling mystery authors Anne Perry, Ken Bruen, C.J. Box, and Jeffery Deaver on November 12th. What is a Bibliomystery, you may ask? It's a book featuring books, manuscripts, libraries or publishing houses as a major theme that can appear in all the various subgenres: hard-boiled private-eye stories (such as Raymond Chandler's classic The Big Sleep), cozy mysteries (including those of Charlotte MacLeod's librarian sleuth) and the mainstream detective novel (such as Booked to Die by John Dunning).

The upcoming titles include

• The Scroll by Anne Perry: An ancient book draws a bookseller into a chilling mystery.
• Pronghorns of the Third Reich by C.J. Box: A hidden library holds a mystery that stretches back to Nazi Germany.
• Book of Virtue by Ken Bruen: A son¹s only inheritance is a leather-bound book, which causes his life to spin out of control.
• An Acceptable Sacrifice by Jeffery Deaver: A cartel leader's weakness is antique books ­ which federal agents use to attack where it matters most.

Look for more bibliomystery eBook titles in the coming months.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The Bond film franchise movie #23, Skyfall, has yet to debut in theaters in the U.S. (it debuted to record box office overseas this weekend), but Bond #24 and #25 are reportedly already being written by John Logan (Hugo, Gladiator, Aviator) as a two-movie arc. Production on 24 may start this time next year to accommodate a fall 2014 release; it's possible the two films will also be shot back-to-back.

Michael Pitt (Boardwalk Empire) joins Tony-winner Nina Arianda to star in the crime thriller Rob The Mob, scripted by Jonathan Fernandez. Based on a true story, the film follows a couple who target and rob some of New York's biggest mobsters.

Mirimax and Fathom events are joining forces to bring two of Quentin Tarantino's two biggest films to theaters for one night only for each. "Tarantino XX: Reservoir Dogs 20th Anniversary Event" will be simulcast Tuesday, December 4, and "Tarantino XX: Pulp Fiction Event" will follow two days later, with evening shows and some matinees in select markets. (Hat tip to Crimespree.)

Omnimystery News has a new trailer for the thriller Broken City, featuring an ex-cop Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) seeking redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure, the mayor (Russell Crowe). The film opens in theaters January 18th, 2013.

TV

Mira Sorvino has been chosen to star in TNT's pilot Trooper, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Sorvino will play a recently divorced and unconventional female state trooper whose trooper partner is a widowed father with a by-the-book approach to policing.

Rebecca Romijn has signed on to co-star with Jon Tenney in the TNT pilot King And Maxwell, from CBS TV Studios and Shane Brennan (NCIS). The characters and show are adapted from novels by David Baldacci and follow Sean King (Tenney) and Michelle Maxwell (Romijn), an atypical pair of private investigators.

The young British actress Hayley Atwell will play a policewoman who becomes obsessed with tracking down the killer of a 15-year-old girl in ITV’s just-commissioned Life Of Crime. The series will follow Atwell's character in three parts over three decades.

The pilot for a TV series based on the Beverly Hills Cop films continues to go forward. Eddie Murphy will reprise his role as Axel Foley, and Brandon T Jackson is in talks to play Axel's son Aaron Foley, a Beverly Hills police officer attempting to establish himself in the shadow of his legendary father, who is now the chief of police in Detroit.

Law & Order producer Barry Schindel is helping spearhead a new legal drama for USA. Titled Shadow Counsel, the series would follow a former Army lawyer recruited reluctantly by the FBI as a “secret” lawyer who operates off the record to circumvent existing roadblocks in classified cases.

Fresh off its recent Emmy, Golden Globe, ITV and BAFTA awards, Showtime's Homeland series was rather predictably renewed for a third season.

CBS gave full-season orders to their freshmen shows Vegas and Sherlock, while the CW's new series, featuring Stephen Amell as the crime-fighter superhero Arrow, has also been given a full season order.

USA gave the go-ahead to an unscripted docu-drama series, Partners in Crime. The show will focus on defense attorneys Mario Gallucci and Big Lou Gelormino as they take on infamous criminal cases and "are like brothers behind the courtroom scene, complete with bickering and family meals featuring spaghetti and buffalo meatballs."

PODCASTS/VIDEO

John Grisham appeared on the Colbert Report, talking about his rivalry with Stephen King, his days as a starving lawyer, and his latest book, The Racketeer.

From EuroCrime: A new daily series about European Crime Writing has started on BBC Radio 4 and the Martin Beck Killings, starring Steven Mackintosh, will begin on the 27th, all available for download.

THEATER

Baltimore's Center Stage is presenting The Completely Fictional—Utterly True—Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe through November 25. Written by Stephen Thorne and directed by Curt Columbus, the play touches on the morbid life and mysterious final days of Edgar Allen Poe, played by actor Bruce Nelson.

Dangerous Lady, a stage adaptation of one of Martina Cole's bestselling crime thrillers, is currently playing at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London, and the Guardian has a review.

After a long battle to secure the stage rights to the 1942 story "Rear Window" by Cornell Woolrich (made into Alfred Hitchcock's classic film), it appears that a Broadway adaptation is finally on track. Director Jay Russell and producer Charlie Lyons are on board, along with with Homeland actor Tim Guinee.

GAMES/COMICS

From Omnimyste
ry News: The first "Sherlock Holmes" game for the Nintendo 3DS was released this week in the UK and Nordic countries.

During at panel at the recent Comic Con in New York, it was announced that "2000 AD" editor Matt Smith will be writing a "Judge Dredd: Year One" miniseries for IDW Publishing, and writer John Wagner, who created Judge Dredd along with artist Carlos Ezquerra, will return as the writer of the "Judge Dredd" series in 2013. Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine
the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner.

Mystery Melange

Twitter is hosting a Twitter Fiction Festival in November and is inviting "authors and creative storytellers around the world to push the bounds of what’s possible with Twitter content." The proposal must fit into the time window of the five day festival—but that means that a project could run for the length of the festival, or just for an hour.

The Booksellers Association's IndieBound is adding a consumer website of "inspired recommendations" for readers from independent booksellers. The goal is to have booksellers submit book recommendations for titles they have loved, hidden gems, mid-list classics, or simply books selling well, to build up an "antidote to algorithm-based, chart-led, celebrity-endorsed book recommendations."

Actor Johnny Depp is partnering with Harper Collins to start a new literary imprint called Infinitum Nihil. It will publish titles reflecting Mr. Depp's eclectic tastes and interests, although only two have been mentioned thus far, a new work about Bob Dylan by the historian Douglas Brinkley and an unpublished novel by the folk singer Woody Guthrie.

A new study from the Pew Research Center about the reading habits of young people contained a few surprises: more than eight in ten Americans between the ages of 16 and 29 read a book in the past year; a majority of Americans from the ages of 16 through 29 still frequent libraries; and readers under 30 who read electronically were more likely to read books on a cellphone or a computer than a dedicated eReader.

Here's an intriguing idea from Houston: a roaming bookmobile library that "facilitates serendipitous discoveries in many different locations." The founders, librarians, Kelly Allen and Chris Grawl, call it the Billy Pilgrim Traveling Library (BPTL) and envision it as both a free range bookmobile (operating on a rent-barter-donate system) and a bookmobile-for-hire to public libraries, museums, schools, and local businesses.

Coming up this weekend are four different literary festivals ranging from Texas to Canada. The QuebeCrime Festival features special guests Laura Lippman, Mark Billingham and Linwood Barclay; Magna cum Murder in Muncie, Indiana, welcomes Guest of Honor S.J. Rozan and Banquet Speaker Eric G. Wilson; the Boston Book Festival, which is light on crime fiction but does include Dennis Lehane and Hank Phillippi Ryan, among many other authors of interest; and the Texas Book Festival in Austin will feature close to 300 authors, including Michael Ennis, Jasper Fforde, Amelia Gray, Janice Hamrick, Stephen Saylor, Roland Smith, Ellis Weiner and Reavis Z. Wortham.

Want to win a trip to France? Omnimystery News brought to my attention that publisher Le French Book is offering just that as part of a promotion for a new line of translated French crime novels, including The 7th Woman, winner of the 2007 Prix du Quai des Orfèvres for best unpublished crime novel manuscript. But hurry – you have to enter by October 29th.

Writing Crime Fiction

For all you authors, newbies and wannabes, there are some new (and recent) reference books on the craft of writing crime fiction that may be of interest.

The 12 award-winning thriller writers who constitute Top Suspense have banded together to share everything they know about their craft in the book Writing Crime Fiction. Joel Goldman has advice and tips on "going indie"; Vicki Hendricks offers secrets to sizzling sex scenes; Stephen Gallagher and Ed Gorman write on what it takes to start and finish that first novel; Hollywood veterans Lee Goldberg and Paul Levine give insights into how to turn your crime thriller into a TV series or movie; Libby Hellmann and Max Allan Collins describe how to ratchet up your book's suspense; Dave Zeltserman discusses noir fiction, while Naomi Hirahara discusses the perfect amateur sleuth; Harry Shannon writes about paranormal thrillers; and the prolific Bill Crider will tell you the secrets to writing more than a hundred thrillers.

Edited by Michelle Spring and Laurie R. King, the Arvon Book of Crime and Thriller Writing comes out of a series of professional writing courses by published writers and gathers the advice into a practical handbook. The book features fascinating insights from twenty-six top crime-writing guests including Lee Child, P.D James, and Ian Rankin and is a detailed, practical guide to writing every kind of crime story, from classic whodunits to fast-paced thrillers. The book's objective is to bring together some of the lessons and insights that the authors and contributors have learned over their careers, to help the readers to free their creative minds, while also studying the solid technique behind writing in this genre. It's divided into three sections: Part 1 – Essays on critical issues in the genre; Part 2: Guest Writers – 25 contributors offering advice and tips; Part 3: How To Write Crime.

Journalist and fiction writer Craig McDonald collected and edited Rogue Males: Conversations & Confrontations. The collection features "no-holds-barred" interviews with 16 authors who have shaped and defined narrative fiction and songwriting, including Elmore Leonard and James Crumley (in one of his last interviews); premier stylists James Sallis and Daniel Woodrell; noir kingpins James Ellroy and Ken Bruen, and top thriller writers Lee Child and Randy Wayne White. Stephen J. Cannell and Max Allan Collins hold forth on the intersection of crime novels and the silver screen while Andrew Vachss, Pete Dexter, Craig Holden, Alistair MacLeod, Tom Russell and Kinky Friedman round-out the collection on the craft of writing.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

It's been almost 30 years since the television series Mike Hammer, based on the novels by Mickey Spillane and starring Stacy Keach as the iconic private eye. Now, Warner Bros. has acquired the feature film rights to the "Mike Hammer" novels, although details are sketchy on the concept for any potential movies. (With thanks to Omnimystery News for the tip.)

Filming will soon start on Ombra Films' project, Mindscape, scripted by Guy Holmes and directed by Jorge Dorado, with a cast that includes Mark Strong, Taissa Farmiga and Brian Cox. The plot follows a man with the ability to enter people’s memories who tries to determine if a 16-year-old girl is a psychopath, a victim of trauma, or both.

Universal Pictures continues to pursue its remake of the gangster film Scarface, hiring Paul Attanasio to rewrite the movie from the original draft by David Ayer. The plan is to reimagine Scarface in a contemporary setting, rather than have it be a remake or a sequel.

The first film based on James Patterson's fictional detective Alex Cross, with Tyler Perry as the famous Washington D.C. crimefighter/psychologist, opened just this past Friday (to mixed reviews), but a sequel is apparently already in the works.

Universal Pictures and producer Scott Stuber have optioned the Derek Haas spy thriller novel The Right Hand. The book is focused on Austin Clay, a spy whose work is so covert that the government won’t even admit he exists, sent to track down a missing American operative in Russia.

Blackout, an action thriller based on a script by Sidney King, is closer to becoming a movie project. The plot centers on a cop transporting a mysterious and dangerous criminal across town when a city-wide blackout plunges them into darkness and chaos.

TV

The CWA handed out the winners for its film/TV Dagger Awards last Thursday. The Film Dagger went to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, while the The TV Dagger was given to Sherlock: Series 2. Other awards included The International TV Dagger to The Bridge; The Best Actress Dagger to Claire Danes for Homeland; The Best Actor Dagger to Benedict Cumberbatch for Sherlock; The Best Supporting Actress Dagger to Kelly Macdonald for Boardwalk Empire; The Best Supporting Actor Dagger to Martin Freeman for Sherlock. Also, the Best Detective Duo chosen by public vote was awarded to Lewis' DI Robbie Lewis and DS James Hathaway. (Hat tip The Rap Sheet.)

BBC America renewed its historical police procedural series Copper for a second season. The series, which centers on an Irish immigrant cop (played by Tom Weston-Jones) in 1864 New York, premiered in August with 1.1 million total viewers, the largest audience ever for a BBC America series debut.

CBS ordered two crime drama pilots, a project set in New Orleans titled The Big Easy, and Darkness Falls, a police procedural of sorts, in which an FBI psychologist and a homicide specialist "journey into small communities around the country to solve the darkest, most twisted single murders."

ABC bought American rights to the Dutch series Sea Of Fire, which will be adapted by Steve Maeda (The X-Files) and produced by Sony Pictures TV. The original series centered on three teenage girls who star in a pornographic film, a decision that "tears their families apart and leads to a disappearance, a murder and host of other secrets boiling under the surface."

Crime Time Preview summarizes upcoming crime dramas to be broadcast on BBC and ITV in the UK, some of which will show up in U.S. markets later in the year (e.g. Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and John Freeman).

PODCASTS

Patricia Cornwell joined CBS's This Morning to promote her new novel, The Bone Bed, and noted that she was "the pop culture mother of CSI."

Author R&R with D.J. McIntosh

D.J. (Dorothy) McIntosh is the former co-editor of the Crime Writers of Canada's newsletter, Fingerprints, and is a Toronto-based writer of novels and short mystery fiction. Her short story "The Hounds of Winter" was nominated for the 2008 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story.

Her first novel, The Witch of Babylon, was short-listed for the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award, and won a Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award for best unpublished (at the time) novel. The trade paperback version, published in Canada last year, was named "One of Six Enduring Historical Thrillers" by CNN (along with works by Umberto Eco, Wilbur Smith, Kate Mosse, Agatha Christie, and Dan Brown), and honored as one of Amazon.ca’s Best Books of 2011. The hardcover version debuts in the U.S. this week.

The book is set in modern-day New York City and Iraq and follows street-smart Turkish-American art dealer John Madison, who is caught up in the aftermath of the looting of the Baghdad Museum. A race to beat the bad guys to an mysterious ancient Assyrian treasure leads Madison on an international treasure-hunting adventure of lost relics, ancient sorcery, alchemy and the Mesopotamian cult of Ishtar. Author Louise Penny said of the novel, "I think The Witch of Babylon is going to blow everyone’s socks off, and Dorothy McIntosh will establish herself in the pantheon of Canadian writers."

D.J. is on a blog tour this week and stopped by to take some Author R&R (Reference and Research) with In Reference to Murder:

 

If there were ten rules for writing, one of them almost certainly would be “write what you know.” We authors hear that over and over again. I chose another path because I felt passionate about my subjects. My lack of knowledge didn’t stop me but it did necessitate years of research.

One way to look at a novel is as an extended lie; it is fiction after all! A writer’s job is to convince readers that what is fabricated is real and the more skillfully achieved, the more enjoyable the read. My approach was to pack as many facts and recognizable place names or other elements into the book as possible without diluting the story. That’s why I’d never choose a fictional city for a setting. The liberal use of ‘facts’ though, whether historical or contemporary, means that research has to be comprehensive.

The Witch of Babylon is set in two locations, New York City and Iraq. The challenge with New York was to find unique venues as the city has been written about so well and so often. Not being a New York native compounded the issue. It took three separate visits to find these venues, a welcome task I must say as I love the city so much.

I started by wandering, to the Village, Harlem, Hell’s Kitchen (now called the much less colorful Clinton) and the Lower East side. New York is a bountiful feast for authors because almost everywhere, something – a building, a park, an elevated rail line, a store window – catches our attention. I found a fantastic gothic high rise with terraces and gargoyles sprouting at the roof line, an abandoned steel arch bridge spanning the Harlem River and the Dominican Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer, not as well known as the cathedrals but exquisitely beautiful with remarkable stained glass windows, candle lit chapels and saintly relics. My love of music took me to Kenny’s Castaways, a historic New York music club that nurtured stars like Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith in the early days. These are just a few of the many gems I discovered.

Iraq presented the opposite problem. The Witch is set in 2003 at the advent of the war so it was impossible to visit there. To paint a convincing picture of Baghdad and Mosul in the north, I relied on hundreds of newspaper articles, photos, blogs written by Iraqi civilians, journalists and soldiers and books (notably Thieves of Baghdad by Matthew Bogdanos and William Patrick) detailing the looting and recovery of antiquities from the Iraq Museum. I watched many hours of television war coverage and you-tube videos. One of these taken in real time by a soldier that showed a high wall of sand as it swept toward a military encampment, left an indelible impression. There was a wealth of material to choose from and I’m so grateful to the bloggers, reporters and photojournalists who risked their lives to bring us the story of the war.

The third major research area concerned history. Mesopotamian achievements easily equal those of the Egyptians but surprisingly, little has been recently written about them for the lay reader. My main source was a book: The Might That Was Assyria by H.W. Saggs supplemented by lots of internet searches. Speaking with university professors helped enormously as well. Research turned up many fascinating facts. I had no idea for example, that a Babylonian scholar first posited that the earth revolves around the sun or that, in the Parthian era a rudimentary battery was developed more than a millennium before the modern version, or that the alchemy had its beginnings in perfume making. Learning about the three great Mesopotamian cultures, Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian, was so fascinating it became a pastime I really looked forward to. All three novels – Book 2 and 3 to come – focus on some aspect of Mesopotamian history. So by not following “write what you know” whole new worlds opened up to me.

Mystery Melange

The latest edition of Mystery Scene magazine features a profile of investigative journalist /author Hank
Philippi Ryan talking about where she gets her ideas; Hollywood screenwriter Attica Locke discusses how her family history is reflected in her writing; John Connolly offers an insightful look at what he
considers to be Ross Macdonald's crowning achievement, The Chill; Martin Edwards considers the stellar career of Robert Barnard; Larry Block bares all in "Now We Call It Mid-Century Erotica"; and Kevin Burton Smith offers "Mystery Fiction Action Figures We'd Like to See."  Plus, G.M. Malliet discusses James Thurber in a special online essay feature.

The latest crime poem is up over at the 5-2, an offering titled "Kilmahog" by Nigel Bird. Gerald So, editor over at the 5-2, also has an open call for holiday-themed crime poems set around Christmas or New Year's. Send 'em along by November 30th.

There is still time to buy tickets to the QuébeCrime Writers Festival coming up Thursday, October 25 to Saturday, October 27. Among the authors scheduled to attend are Linwood Barclay, Mark Billingham, Giles Blunt, Chelsea Cain, John Connolly, Chris F. Holm, Owen Laukkanen, Laura Lippman, Archer Mayor, and Michael Robotham.

Missed Bouchercon? Criminal Element has a few "mugshots" and "overheard" tidbits.

The University of South Alabama Baldwin County will offer "What about Murder? The Great Mystery Writers from the 'Golden Age' of Crime Fiction to the Present Day," a non-credit course this fall Tuesdays from Nov. 1-15 at the Fairhope campus. The course will focus on the life and major writings of six mystery and crime writers, including G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ellery Queen, P.D. James, Colin Dexter and Stieg Larsson. 

There's still time to register for MWA (Mystery Writers of America) University to be held October 27th in Charlotte. One of the instructors will be Nancy Pickard, and the core curriculum will include topics like "Dramatic Structure and Plot" and "Character."

Every week seems to launch a new trend or approach to digital publishing, with many of these companies hoping to shake up the world of publishing. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want indie book publishing site founded by former Gizmodo and Lifehacker editor Jason Chen that
releases bundles of theme-curated eBooks. Its latest bundle is a group of thriller and crime novels.

Meanwhile, Harper Collins' new imprint, Bourbon Street Books, yesterday launched its line of trade paperbacks with the reissue of four Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers. The four titles, Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon incorporate new designs and an introduction by contemporary bestselling mystery author, Elizabeth George.

Bookish Bliss

I'm a sucker for whimsy, especially when it's tied to bookish things (or crime fiction). And since it's never too early to start planning ahead for those on your Christmas list who have everything, consider this a two-fer of whimsical items that could be gift ideas.

This sunflower chair (or bookshelf chair) was created by designers He Mu and Zhang Qian from the Shanghai University of Engineering Science and won the Redtory Design Award.

The world's largest Scrabble game spans over 49 square feet, about five times the size of the original. One of only nine in existence, it's handmade by John Kahn, renowned mixed media artist and
creator of colossal pop art. Due to the price, it's probably not a good stocking-stuffer candidate.

You don't even need an e-book for this one. A point-and-click dictionary slides over reading material, and its integrated flip-up camera scans any word with the touch of a button to instantaneously display definitions on its screen.

This diminutive typewriter is actually a USB-capable device created by Jack Zylkin that plugs into device such as your PC, Mac, or even your iPad. So you can get the thrill of the old-fashioned click and clack of typewriter keys and still have the modern convenience of your digital device. 

Richard Hutton created this table for Milan Design Week 2008. The legs are composed of layers of books, piled upon each other. As Hutton notes, "A book is all about layers, layers of meaning. This collection is about objects and what we can read in them. Design is not only about beautiful forms, but also about the stories an object can tell."

This umbrella may not be a work of art, but it looks like one. The Sky Stack Cane Umbrella uses  nature and sky-high piles of vividly colored books placed along a grass border, a bold blue sky, and fluffy white clouds. Supposedly, it even keeps the rain off.

This one is cheating a little bit because these are "vintage" items from the 1980s that are no longer made, although you can still find them on eBay and other similar sites. These gun-shaped hairdryers were created by Jerdon industries and include such beauties as a 357 Magnum with holster. (Go ahead: make my bad-hair day.)

Did you know there is a Library Hotel near Grand Central Station in NYC? Each of the 10 guestroom floors honor one of the 10 categories of the Dewey Decimal System and each of the 60 rooms are uniquely adorned with a collection of books and art exploring a distinctive topic within the
category. Splurge on the Love Room, with a private terrace with views of the New York City Public Library and books chosen by Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Ben Affleck may don his director's hat again to take on a film adaptation of Dennis Lehane's latest novel, Live By Night. The book is set during the Prohibition era in Boston and follows Joe Coughlin, "the black sheep son of a police captain," as he moves up the ranks of organized crime.

Ewan McGregor will lead the cast of the Australian indie thriller Son of a Gun, playing a veteran criminal who takes a younger criminal under his wing.

CBS Films has offered Chris Hemsworth the role of terrorist hunter Mitch Rapp in in the big-screen version of Vince Flynn's bestselling novel series.

Julianne Moore is joining the Liam Neeson thriller Non-Stop about a federal air marshal (Neeson) challenged by a strange enemy who threatens the lives of his passengers.

Omnimystery News has a poster and the official trailer for the crime drama Gangster Squad, scheduled for release in January 2013, which is based on the book by Paul Lieberman and set in the 1950s LAPD.

TV

Gaumont International Television inked a deal with ABC for a potential straight-to-series project based on novelist James Patterson's character of New York Detective Michael Bennett. If the network likes the pilot, it will greenlight at 13-episode series for the project. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

The infamous Depression-era bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are big in Hollywood right now. Fox bought a modern take on the duo from Sony TV; the untitled project is described as a "serialized drama about two sexy, young lovers from struggling families in East Texas, who use their respective skill sets to pair up and fight back, one crime at at time." Plus, Oscar-nominated director Bruce Beresford has signed on to direct the four-hour Bonnie & Clyde miniseries that will air on both the History and Lifetime networks.

CBS bought a project from McG and Mentalist executive producer Daniel Cerone. It's a female-lead crime drama about an unconventional young female detective for the San Francisco Police Department who gets fired from the force, only to be secretly recruited by the Chief of Police to become an undercover officer posing as a vigilante.

The online video site Hulu is continuing to expand its original programming slate, with the latest including a joint 6-episode project with the BBC for the conspiracy comedy/thriller series titled The Wrong Mans. Hulu also picked up the exclusive U.S. rights to the French crime drama Braquo (Heist), about four Paris policemen whose colleague commits suicide following a case where he is being unfairly blamed..

NBC is in talks to buy a detective drama from Universal TV and Scott Free Productions. The project stars Kevin Klein and revolves around a genius investigator who moves in with a compulsive thief.

Clark Gregg will reprise his film role as Agent Phil Coulson in a television pilot based on Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D.

USA announced that Psych will return on Wednesday, February 27, 2013 for its upcoming seventh season.

Fox announced that the reality series Cops will return for a 25th season, taking turns in the police departments of Sacramento, Las Vegas, Portland (Oregon) and Alameda County, California.

David Suchet indicated that the next series of TV programs featuring his portrayal of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot will probably be the last. By then, Suchet will have appeared in every story Christie wrote featuring the Belgian detective. The upcoming final programs would include Labours of Hercules, Dead Man’s Folly, The Big Four, Elephants Can Remember and Curtain. (Hat tip to Crimespree.)

Film director Jane Campion talked with Hollywood Reporter about her new new project, a six-parter for the BBC and Sundance Channel called Top of the Lake. She called it "the anti-CSI procedural," which ties together a women's camp, a drug lord (played by Peter Mullan) and a murder mystery all in one.

PODCASTS

Suspense Radio's October lineup included Amy Shojal, Keith Rommel, and David Lyons on October 6th, and coming up on October 20th are John Connolly, Sandra Parshall, Tasha Alexander and Sam Hawken.

For a little bit of fun, check out this duet between Robert J Randisi and Parnell Hall at the recent Shamus Awards held at Bouchercon.

THEATER

Tom Hanks will play crime rep
orter Mike McAlary in Lucky Guy, the play Nora Ephron completed before she died in June at age 71. The role will mark the actor's Broadway debut in the limited-engagement run, scheduled at the Broadhurst Theatre with opening night set for April 1, 2013.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Hatfields & McCoys star Sam Reid is in talks to play a rebellious prophet who becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation in writer-director David Barker's Australian thriller, The Second Coming.

Nate Parker joined Liam Neeson in the cast of the thriller Non-Stop, about a federal air marshal in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a terrorist who threatens to kill an airplane passenger every 20 minutes that the hero doesn’t kill himself.

Christian Bale has been added to a cast that includes Jeremy Renner, Bradley Cooper and Amy Adam for an as-yet-untitled drama. The project is based on a true story about a financial con artist and his mistress who worked with a federal agent in order to nab other criminals.

The auction in celebration of 50 years of James Bond on film raised one million pounds ($1.6 million dollars U.S.) for charity.

TV

CBS is developing a crime drama project from the Mentalist creator/executive producer that is centered on two young female detectives who are complete opposites. The working title is Murder Bitches, and although it's also the nickname given to the detectives by colleagues, I have a feeling the show's title may change if it gets picked up for a full season order. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

The creative team behind Homeland have been busy; co-creators/executive producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa landed a pilot commitment from CBS based on the book The Anatomy Of Violence: The Biological Roots Of Crime by Adrian Raine, about a female FBI agent who starts working with a mysterious psychiatrist with whom she shares a past connection. Meanwhile, director/executive producer Michael Cuesta is teaming up with CSI executive producer/showrunner Carol Mendelsohn for Second Sight, a drama based on the 2000 British series starring Clive Owen.

As Omnimystery News reports, ABC has ordered Killer Women, a crime drama project based on the Argentine series Mujeres Asesinas, which in turn was adapted from the trilogy of thrillers by Marisa Grinstein. The original books include stories with each featuring a different female killer.

Martin Henderson (ABC's Off The Map) has signed on to star in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced NBC drama pilot The Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives, described as thriller-dramatic soap about a murder and the secrets and lies within a tightly woven group of three suburban couples and their families.

Doctor Who's Alex Kingston (River Song) will make an appearance on NCIS plyaing a shady business woman who gets tangled up with Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and the team.

Richard Burji (Desperate Housewives) has joined the cast of Body of Proof, to play a love interest for Jeri Ryan's character Kate Murphy.

Anthology Potpourri

The advent of eBooks has brought many changes to publishing, both good and bad, but one of the positive developments is a new wave of terrific short crime fiction anthologies. In case you missed them, here are a few of the latest publications released in September and October (noting that some are eBooks, some print, some both):

 

Beat to a Pulp: Superhero has gathered some of the best hardboiled and noir crime stories with a superhero twist. Billy Mitchell, the six-year-old "Red Avenger" in Kevin Burton Smith's tale, has an innocence and a special something that draws us to want to don a mask and tie a towel around our necks. Steve Weddle dissects the reality of a world in which super-powered "others" walk in the midst of normal people who tend to quote only parts of the Bible. And James Reasoner's story is set in a time not usually associated with superheroes -- the American Revolution -- yet Patrick Mainwaring finds the classic essence of a superhero. Other top contributors include Jake Hinkson, Garnett Elliott, Liam Jose, Sandra Seamans, Jerry Bloomfield, Thomas Pluck, Keith Rawson, Court Merrigan, Benoit Lelievre, and Chad Eagleton

The recent inaugural Bloody Scotland conference sponsored a short-story competition. The 19 winners chosen from 230 entries are collected into an anthology titled Worth the Wait, sponsored by Glengoyne Whisky. You can download a free copy via the conference site. As the sponsor foreword notes, "Scottish crime fiction and malt whisky are both international success stories and two of this nation’s greatest exports. Why? Because here in Scotland we understand that quality cannot be rushed. Crafting a great crime story takes time, care, attention and commitment. It doesn’t happen overnight – but when it does come together, it’s magical."

  Crime Factory is launching an all Australian crime fiction anthology, Hard Labour. It includes brand new fiction from Peter Corris, Leigh Redhead, Helen FitzGerald, Angela Savage, David Whish-Wilson, along with Garry Disher's first ever Wyatt story (unpublished in over a decade), JJ DeCeglie, Andrez Bergen, Deborah Sheldon and many more, including CFP’s own widely-published editorial staff. Along with a brand new story by Melbourne-based Irish veteran Adrian McKinty, the story collection is topped off with a foreword by Sisters in Crime National Co-Convenor, Lindy Cameron.

 

Fifteen Tales of Murder, Mayhem and Malice from the Land of Minnesota Nice, are "perfect for a quiet evening cozied up in front of the fireplace or to share around a flickering campfire. Some of them will scare you. Some may make you cringe. A few might bring a smile to your lips. All of them, we guarantee, will put to rest forever the myth of Minnesota Nice." Contributing authors include William Kent Krueger, Jess Lourey, Rich Thompson, Lois Greiman, Mary Logue, Pat Dennis, David Housewright, Elizabeth Gunn, Judith Borger, Joel Arnold, Lori L. Lake, Michael Allen Mallory, Marilyn Victor, Carl Brookins, and Ellen Hart.

 

Noir at the Bar 2 is "Back for another round of booze, blood and bad taste...and continues its assault on the literate world." Contributors include: Jedidiah Ayres, Frank Bill, Jane Bradley, Sonia L. Coney, Hilary Davidson, Les Edgerton, Nate Flexer, Matthew C. Funk, Jesus Angel Garcia, Glenn Gray, Kevin Lynn Helmick, Gordon Highland, John Hornor Jacobs, David James Keaton, Tim Lane, Erik Lundy, Jason Makansi, Matthew McBride, Jon McGoran, Cortright McMeel, Aaron Michael Morales, Scott Phillips, Robert J. Randisi & Christine Matthews, John Rector, Caleb J. Ross, Duane Swierczynski, Mark W. Tiedemann, Fred Venturini, Benjamin Whitmer and Nic Young.

 

Off The Record 2, At The Movies, is an anthology with 47 Short Stories with Classic Film Titles, with proceeds benefitting two child literacy charities. Edited by Paul D Brazill and Luca Veste, authors contributing stories include Will Carver, Steve Mosby, Helen FitzGerald, Adrian McKinty, Matt Hilton, Stav Sherez, Claire McGowan, Sean Cregan, David Jackson, Mel Sherratt, Nick Quantrill, Maxim Jakubowski, and many more.

Psychos: Serial Killers, Depraved Madmen, and the Criminally Insane, edited by John Skipp, is a crime anthology featuring stories by master storytellers including Neil Gaiman, Lawrence Block, and Ray Bradbury. As Skipp writes in the Foreword, the anthology includes "A staggering thirty-eight-course banquet of literary mania and mayhem, served up by some of the most amazingly astute, deeply disturbing, immensely entertaining chronicles of crazy ever to grace the printed page."

 

The relatively new Shotgun Honey ezine of crime and noir fiction brought together 29 authors from around the world to produce their first anthology, Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels. Featuring stories from: Patti Abbot, Peter Farris, Trey R. Barker, Hector Acosta, Cameron Ashley, Ray Banks, Frank Bill, Nigel Bird, Jen Conley, Paul D. Brazill, Thomas Pluck, Garnett Elliott, Matthew C. Funk, Chris F. Holm, Glenn Gray, Naomi Johnson, Nik Korpon, Kieran Shea, Julia Madeleine, Joe Myers, Andrew Nette, Mike Oliveri, Dan O'Shea, Tom Pits, Keith Rawson, Holley West, Frank Wheeler Jr., Jim Wilsky and Steve Weddle.

True Brit Grit was actually published in April of this year, but proceeds of this anthology go to support the charities Children 1st and the Francesca Bimpson Foundation. Edited by  Luca Veste and Paul D. Brazill, the volume contains forty five gritty stories from the likes of Ray Banks, Allan Guthrie, Charlie Williams, Julie Morrigan, Howard Lynskey, Sheila Quigley, Nick Quantrill and Matt Hilton.

Books to Die For is an anthology of essays billed as "the most ambitious anthology of its kind yet attempted, the world's leading mystery writers have come together to champion the greatest mystery novels ever written." In a series of personal essays that often reveal as much about the authors and their own work as they do about the books that they love, 119 authors from 20 countries have created a guide that will be indispensable for generations of readers and writers. From Agatha Christie to Lee Child, from Edgar Allan Poe to P. D. James, from Sherlock Holmes to Hannibal Lecter and Philip Marlowe to Lord Peter Wimsey, Books to Die For brings together the cream of the mystery world for a feast of reading pleasure, a treasure trove for those new to the genre and for those who believe that there is nothing new l

CSI Portsmouth

Tickets are now on sale for the third annual CSI Portsmouth festival taking place on Saturday, November 3, at John Pounds Centre, Portsmouth, England. Special guests include international crime authors Stephen Booth, Ann Cleeves, Matt Hilton and Pauline Rowson; Crime Scene Manager Co-ordinator Carolyn Lovell from Hampshire Police; DC Terry Fitzjohn Crime Scene Fire Investigations Officer, Hampshire Police; Andy Earl Hampshire Fire and Rescue Arson Task Force; Adrian Fretter, Hampshire Police Hi Tech Crime Unit; Professor Bran Nicol, University of Surrey, an expert on stalking culture including Internet Stalking; and Dr. Mark Button, Director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at University of Portsmouth.

Highlights of the one-day affair are two panel debates on crime fiction versus crime fact and a meet and mingle with top selling crime authors and police and forensic crime experts. Participants will also have a chance to learn about what really happens at a crime scene, how a fire investigation is worked, hear about cyber crime and internet stalking, see how the fingerprint bureau works, have your fingerprints taken, and much more.

 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Canadian author Linwoodo Barclay's novel Trust Your Eyes is being developed by Warner Brothers with Todd Phillips as director, his first thriller for the studio. The plot centers on a schizophrenic, map-obsessed savant who witnesses a murder online and investigates, along with his older brother. In the process, they cross paths with a politically connected ex-cop and his ice pick-wielding henchwoman.

A federal judge in New York ruled in favor of Paramount Studios over the estate of Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather. Puzo's family had sought to prevent Paramount from making additional movies based on Puzo's writing, and to cancel a contract made with the author. There's a lot more to the story (and many layers of legalities) that will likely continue in the courts for some time to come, so don't epect another Godfather film any time soon.

This may just be an item in the "wishful thinking" category, but Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC's Sherlock), is rumored to be the next James Bond villain. If that turns out to be true, we'll have to wait until 2014 to see him in the role. Meanwhile, it was reported last week that the upcoming Bond film Skyfall will be released in IMAX theaters a day early.

Speaking of all things James Bond, Digial Spy celebrates James Bond turning 50 on screen with "highlights" videos of all the 007s.

TV

Omnimystery News reported on not one, not two, but four new crime drama projects (here and here). CBS is developing three of them: a crime drama titled Solve For X in which a San Francisco game developer consults for a local police task force; Motor City Shakedown, based on characters created by novelist Jonathan Watkins featuring two very different lawyers forced to work together on cases; and Near Dead, centered on a NYPD detective who may have witnessed his wife's murder while undergoing a near-death experience. The fourth is from ABC, a pilot titled Wrongful Death, set in Florida where "a former cop-turned-felon-turned-Tampa insurance adjuster teams with an energetic but unpolished millennial at a private investigation firm to investigate wrongful deaths."

Deadline also reported that CBS is teaming up with Jerry Bruckheimer for an FBI drama pilot written by Aron Eli Coleite. Titled The Bureau, the project is described simply as "a character drama set at the NY field office of the FBI."

Meanwhile, NBC has a period crime drama pilot in the works titled Edison. As you can possibly guess from the title, it features a young Thomas Alva Edison who works "as a secret consultant to the under-trained and under-equipped New York Police force."

NBC and The Walking Dead executive producer Gale Anne Hurd will produce 11th Commandment, a series adaptation of UK author Jeffrey Archer’s 1998 thriller. Patrick Harbinson (Person of Interest, 24) is writing the script for the project.

The USA Network announced that Covert Affairs, Royal Pains and White Collar have all been renewed for new seasons. (Hat tip to Crimespree.)

TNT renewed Major Crimes for a second season. The show is the follow-up to The Closer, which ended its run after the departure of Kyra Sedgwick.

ABC has ordered a pilot commitment titled Dress To Kill, a drama from writer Jessica Sharzer (American Horror Story), described as "an erotic thriller/soap set in the New York fashion world with whodunit mystery at the heart of it."

John Larroquette has been added to the cast of NBC's midseason drama, Infamous, playing Senator Dwight Haverstock. He joins actress Meagan Good who will play a female detective trying to solve the murder of heiress Victoria Lawson.

FX Networks is developing a drama based on the 1996 crime thriller Fargo from the Coen Brothers. The film featured Frances McDormand as a pregnant police chief who investigates a series of homicides.

ITV renewed Whitechapel, the crime drama set in Victorian London's Whitechapel district, for a fourth season. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

PODCASTS

The Guardian books podcast discusses a never-before-published essay on crime writing from Agatha Christie; takes a look at author Attica Locke and race and history in the American south; and Tanya Byrne talks about young readers who are turning to crime.

Harlan Coben recently appered on the CBS Morning Show to talk about his Myron Bolitar thrillers and his latest YA novel, Seconds Away.

THEATER

A new staged production of Stephen King's novel Misery is set to open at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania in November. The play was adapted by William Goldman, who penned the screenplay for the Oscar-winning film version.