Mystery Melange

This year's Killer Nashville Conference wrapped up with a dinner where the annual awards were handed out. Congratulations to Sara J. Henry upon winning the Silver Falchion Award for best novel of 2012 for A Cold and Lonely Place, and to Terri Coop, who won the Claymore for best unpublished manuscript for Dial 1-Pro-Hac-Vice.

The Pop Culture Nerd announced the winners of his annual Stalker Awards, celebrating the "best" in categories such as "Novel You Shoved Most Often" and "Lead Character You Most Want as Your Friend." For all the stalk-worthy categories, check out the website link above.

The Bloody Scotland conference announced the finalists for the 2013 Short Story Competition. You can read each story on the festival's website and vote for your favorite.

Patti Abbott has another flash fiction challenge on her blog, this one prompted by the headline she spied, "Michigan Man's Tastes Get Him Into Trouble." You are to feel free to change Michigan to whatever state or place you want (meaning the title of every story will be the same except for the locale). Each story should be 1000 words or fewer. If you have a blog, Patti will post the link. If not, she can post the story ro you. The deadline for all links to be posted is September 26th.

This week's Beat to a Pulp featured fiction is "Stringtown Road" from Richard Prosch, and the newest crime poem over at the 5-2 is "Crime Story" by Alan Catlin.

Criminal Element is offering a chance to win the entire 9-book Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson.

Author Cleo Coyle, a regular contributor to Mystery Lovers' Kitchen, offered up her take on how to make your own log peanut butter cookies and paired it up with a contest at Goodreads connected with her Coffeehouse Mystery Series.

This week's Q&A roundup includes Margaret Maron, who is Ed Gorman's latest "Pro-File"; Sheila Quigley is the subject of Paul D. Brazill's Short, Sharp Interview; Ruth Rendell chatting with The Guardian and noting that "a very well-known person once said he threw my book out of a taxi window"; and James Lee Burke was interviewed for Men's Journal about crime, marriage and how one of his manuscripts was rejected 111 times.

If you're big into the photo-sharing world of Instagram, you may be familiar with "selfies," or self-portraits people post via that popular app. One Tumblr blog twisted that concept around and created a page for "bookshelfies," where people can share photos of  themselves and their bookshelves.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

ImageMovers bought film rights to The Execution of Noa P Singleton: A Novel, the best-selling debut by author Elizabeth L. Silver. The plot follows a twenty-something college dropout who sits on death row for murder in Pennsylvania until a powerful attorney, the victim's own mother, tries to get his sentence commuted.

DreamWorks Studios acquired a book proposal by Paul Kix titled Noble Assassin, based on the true story of French aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur Robert de la Rochefoucauld, described as "being James Bond before there was a James Bond."

Olivia Munn (of the Newsroom) is in negotiations to join Johnny Depp in David Koepp's Lionsgate movie Mortdecai, based on Kyril Bonfiglioli's comedic crime novel The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery. The story follows Charlie Mortdecai (Depp), a wealthy art dealer and part-time rogue who often gets himself involved in strange cases of crime and espionage.

Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks will co-star alongside Charlize Theron and Chloe Moretz in Dark Places, the big screen adaptation of Gillian Flynn's best-selling mystery novel. Dark Places is one of two novels by Flynn being adapted for the big screen, along with Gone Girl, which is under the helm of director David Fincher and producer Reese Witherspoon.

Several trailers were released recently for films coming up later this month and in the fall, including the thriller Getaway, in which former race car driver Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) is pitted against the clock trying to save the life of his kidnapped wife; Ridley's Scott's The Counselor, based on a script by Cormac McCarthy about anattorney (Michael Fassbender) who finds himself in over his head after he gets involved with the drug trade; and the crime thriller Mission Park set in San Antonio, TX, where a drug syndicate has taken control of the region. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Here are a couple of publicity stills, one from the upcoming Foxcatcher with Steve Carell, who will take on a new type of role playing a killer, and the other for the WWII thriller The Monuments Men about a platoon sent into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

TELEVISION

As many mourned the death of author Elmore Leonard last week, Graham Yost, the showrunner for FX's Justified (based on a character from one of Leonard's stories), offered up a remembrance.

In more sad news, production on Rizzoli & Isles was shut down following the suicide of cast member Lee Thompson Young, who played the role of Detective Barry Frost. Warner Bros TV and executive producer Janet Tamaro said, "Everyone at Rizzoli & Isles is devastated by the news of the passing of Lee Thompson Young. We are beyond heartbroken at the loss of this sweet, gentle, good-hearted, intelligent man."

Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) is turning to television with Channel 4 pilot Babylon, said to be a contemporary police drama. BAFTA winners Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong have been hired to pen the script.

ABC has ordered a pilot from Shondaland, that company's fourth project during the current development season. How To Get Away With Murder will be written by by Grey's Anatomy supervising producer Peter Nowalk and is described as a "sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor who become entangled in a murder plot that will rock their entire university and change the course of their lives."  (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Sylvester Stallone is in talks for a Rambo television series, participating on a "creative level," with a new actor brought in to play the main character.

Marg Helgenberger will return as Catherine Willows for the 300th episode of CSI. The episode will center on a cold case that takes the characters back to the beginning, partly in the form of flashbacks, interspersed with new material.

Fox put in development a secret service dramedy titled Kill Zone, written by Todd Harthan (Psych) and produced by 20th TV. The buddy show is built around "an intense, edgy, humor-laced relationship between Dole Green, a 10-year vet of the Secret Service, and his rookie partner, Chad Burke, as they protect the President of the United States from a very credible death threat."

Melanie Griffith has signed on to play the mother of Danny Williams (Scott Caan) on Hawaii Five-0 for the upcoming season.

The Chicago Fire spin-off, Chicago PD, added Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill) and Patrick Flueger (The 4400) to the cast that already includes Jason Beghe, Jon Seda and Jesse Lee Soffer. The new show will follow the department's Intelligence Unit that combats organized crime, drug trafficking, and high profile murders.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest installment of NPR's "Crime in the City" series features author Ben Winters and his apocalyptic novel series based in Concord, NH.

As part of Open Road Media and MysteriousPress.com making the iconic stories from Black Mask available as ebooks, they released a video featuring Mysterious Press' Otto Penzler taking us back to 1920s and the creation of the iconic Black Mask magazine, where mystery greats Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Carroll John Daly got their start.

Jason Matthews, retired CIA officer and debut author of the spy thriller Red Sparrow, joined NPR's Diane Rehm Show to talk about his book and his career.

THEATER

Kenneth Branagh will make his New York stage debut in the U.S. premiere of Rob Ashford and Branagh's staging of Macbeth, featuring Branagh in the title role. The production is scheduled to open in June 2014 at Park Avenue Armory's 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall and feature Alex Kingston (River Song in Doctor Who) as Lady Macbeth.

Mystery Melange

By now, most of you probably know that the great crime fiction author Elmore Leonard died yesterday, at the age of 87. The obits and tributes are pouring in, including those from CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, and there will be plenty more to come. You can also listen to two half-hour-long interviews he had with Don Swaim at the CBS Radio studio in New York, talking about his life, his career, and his books.

Janet Rudolph, edtior of Mystery Readers Journal, put out a call for submissions for an upcoming themed issue, "Murder in Transit." If you have written a mystery that involves transportation—boats, autos, trains, planes, hot air balloons, etc—in some way, consider writing an author! author! essay (first person, 500-1500 words). The deadline is September 15. For more information, check out the journal's website.

The featured poem at the 5-2 this week is "High School Memory" by Casey Zella Moir, while the featured pulp of the week at Beat to a Pulp is "Verbal Warning" from Stephen D. Rogers.

Couldn't make it to St. Hilda's Crime and Mystery Conference in the UK this year? Ayo Onatade over at Shots Magazine has a very nice recap of last Saturday's festivities, including PD James, Frances Fyfield, Martin Edwards, Peter Robinson, Andrew Taylor and Val McDermid.

Hopefully, you're headed for Boucheron 2013 in Albany, which is less than a month away. The schedule was posted last week (on the website or as a PDF) and is packed with enough authorial starpower and intriguing panels to make your head do an Exorcist head spin.

The Q&A roundup this week includes authors Chuck Wendig (who also runs the Terrible Minds blog) and Stephen Blackmoore who visited Whack Magazine for a tongue-firmly-in-cheek interview to answer the kind of sexist questions normally targeted at women; and Dorothy Cannell, best known for her lighthearted traditional mysteries featuring Ellie Haskell and her husband Ben, chats with the Maine Crime Writers. Ed Gorman also has a couple of "Pro-Files" on his website, with Dave Zeltserman and Libby Fischer Hellman.

Another reason to wish we had more extensive train service in the U.S.: UK train operator Virgin Trains is planning a series of highspeed book signings. Travellers will be informed over the on-board announcement system and invited to buy a book before meeting authors including Scandinavian crime writer Jo Nesbo in a book-signing car. Fans can check out schedules via the train company's Facebook page.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Lionsgate has acquired the film rights to Kate Atkinson's stand-alone Life After Life, about a woman and her apparently infinite number of lives and the choices made when you have the chance to live all over again. A pair of TV writers have been tapped to write the script, Semi Chellas of Mad Men and Esta Spalding of The Bridge.

Darren Aronofsky is in early talks to direct Red Sparrow, an adaptation of the Jason Matthews espionage novel, which 20th Century Fox bought after a 7-figure deal. The book was published in June by Scribner.

Although Fox 2000 Pictures has been hoping to adapt a film based on Patricia Cornwell's series character Kay Scarpetta, the possibility looks even more likely now that Cornwell has jumped ship to publisher Harper Collins; both Fox 2000 Pictures and Harper Collins are owned by News Corporation. (Hat tip Omnimystery News.)

Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton (seen in HBO's action series Strike Back) has signed to star in Kill Me Three Times, the Krive Stenders-directed crime thriller described as "a story of murder and blackmail in an Australian surfing town."

Warner Brothers has hired James Gray to write and direct White Devil, the story
of a white orphan adopted into a Chinese family who rises
to the top of the Chinese Mafia in Boston.

TELEVISION

Omnimystery News reported that author Daniel Stashower's novel The Hour of Peril has been optioned for a TV mini-series by The Weinstein Company. No word yet on production details for the project, which tells of a secret plot to murder Abraham Lincoln before the Civil War.

ABC placed a script commitment plus penalty to Limelight, a drama project from writer-playwright Kelly Masterson (Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead). The story follows a murder trial turned into a national media obsession where the lives of everyone involved are thrust into the public spotlight.

ABC won a bidding war for the "high-concept crime drama" project, Forever, from former Chuck executive producer Matthew Miller and Lin Pictures. The premise is focused on Dr. Henry Morgan, a 200-year-old pathology associate who spends his days in the New York City Morgue trying to find a key to unlock the curse of his immortality, while partnering for investigative work with hard-nosed NYPD detective Jo Martinez. As Deadline notes, Forever draws some parallels to the short-lived 2008 Fox series New Amsterdam starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as a 400-year-old NYPD homicide detective with a female partner.

In another bidding war, NBC landed The Mysteries Of Laura, based on the popular Spanish series Los Misterios De Laura. It follows the life and relationships of a female homicide detective "who can handle murderous criminals — but not her evil twins."

NBC also ordered a pilot for the prison drama Paradise, based on a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. The story is set in the late 21st century where Las Vegas has been turned into the world's largest maximum-security prison, known as Paradise. A wrongly convicted inmate is desperate to get back to his family and prove his innocence, but first he has to somehow be the first to escape from Paradise.

Lifetime is working on a backdoor pilot from Nicholas Sparks Productions and Warner Horizon Television. The story is set at the end of the Civil War and a woman pushed into becoming an outlaw when a
corrupt bank threatens her family's land.

TNT has renewed four of its summer series including Rizzoli & Isles, Major Crimes, Perception and Falling Skies. All four shows will return for new seasons starting in 2014.

USA announced the fall premiere dates for its shows NCIS: Los Angeles, Covert Affairs and White Collar.

Acorn TV, a streaming service focused on the best of British TV in North America, is adding at least six shows each month, including: the exclusive U.S. premiere of Jack Irish, a new, ongoing detective series starring Guy Pearce (Iron Man 3, Memento), the brooding antihero of Australian writer Peter Temple's award-winning novels; Season 6 of hit period detective series Murdoch Mysteries; the newest episodes of Foyle's War, the day after they premiere on MASTERPIECE Mystery! on PBS; and new episodes from the final series of Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Tana French, author of Broken Harbor, joined NPR's Diane Rehm Show to chat about how she had dreams of becoming an archaeologist and fell into writing by accident.

Sue Grafton was the latest Crime in the City featured author on NPR about her series set in Santa Teresa, a fictional town based on Santa Barbara, California.

Web-only dramas are still in their infancy, but beginning to expand. A case in point are three current series based on the Sherlock Holmes canon, with two more in development. The current shows include No Place Like Homes, which has been around since 2009; The Great Hiatus Years, which envisions Holmes and Irene Adler adventures; and The Mary Morstan Mysteries, a mini-series that follows the tales of the rarely mentioned fiancee and later wife of Dr Watson. Coming up, 221B, with an emphasis on the home-life of the classic "odd couple" and another project yet to be named.

GAMES

The Novelist, a video game that will be available for PCs by the end of the summer, was "created not to satisfy primal bloodlust, but to tell a story about a single family's struggles," in which players guide an author named Dan Kaplan and decide how he will spend his days. Players will get a story that presents the same fundamental question in nine different ways over the course of the game.

Creatures, Crimes and Creativity

The brand-new conference Creatures, Crimes and Creativity (C3) is only a month away as it takes its inaugural flight into Baltimore, Maryland at the Hunt Valley Inn, September 13, 14 and 15. Jeffery Deaver is the keynote speaker at the event, which looks to gather together readers and writers of mystery, suspense, thriller, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and steampunk fiction.

If you are an author, August 16 is the deadline to register for the conference and have your photo appear in the C3 program (free!), and that's also the date for authors, publishers and everyone else to have an advertisement in the program. All attending authors will have additional perks, too: your books will be available in an on-site bookstore, with dedicated book signing times, your name and a link will be posted on the C3 website, and you will be invited to contribute to the C3 blog and offered a chance to film a video interview.

If you're a fan, you can enjoy panels and presentations from favorite authors, including bestsellers like mystery author Jeffery Deaver, fantasy/horror author Christopher Golden, thriller writer John Gilstrap and romantic suspense author Trice Hickman. Each attendee will receive a goodie-bag, plus there are book signings, a Twitter contest, and a scavenger hunt, with prizes like a Kindle, Amazon gift cards and paid attendance to the Love is Murder conference in Chicago.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Warner Brothers acquired film rights to the book Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. The story is based on a real-life seral killer case on Long Island, who has dumped his murder victims, all escorts advertising on Craigslist and similar websites, on Long Island’s South Shore.

Producer Andrew Lauren optioned film rights to the novel The Carrion Birds by Urban Waite, set in a Southwestern border town. The story follows a killer who is ready to put down his guns and reconnect with his young teenage son, when one final job goes awry and puts the killer in the crosshairs of his morally conflicted cousin and a new female sheriff. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Sylvester Stallone announced that Bruce Willis is out and Harrison Ford is in for Expendables 3. The film franchise stars various action-hero veterans as a group of elite mercenaries. The third installment is also adding Jackie Chan, Wesley Snipes, Nicolas Cage, Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas and Milla Jovovich to the cast.

Hugh Grant has joined the growing cast of the TV-to-film adaptation of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., playing  the head of British naval intelligence.

Humphrey Bogart's estate, led by the actor's son Stephen Bogart, has formed an independent film company, Santana Productions. Robbert de Klerk, co-managing partner of the estate, added that "the estate aims to create the kind of well-told noirs, thrillers and crime movies that Bogie loved."

A teaser clip was released for Kill Your Darlings, which opens in limited released October 18. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) as Jack Kerouac, and Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr in a premise that sees the three iconic figures arrested for murder when an outsider to their literary circle is found dead.

Sony Pictures released a trailer for Captain Phillips, based on the book A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and angerous Days at Sea by Richard Phillips and Stephan Talty. The film, which is directed by Paul Greengrass and stars Tom Hanks, premieres at the New York Film Festival in September and in theaters October 11.

Two clips from Ridley Scott's upcoming thriller The Counselor were also released. The film stars Michael Fassbender as a lawyer who finds himself in over his head when he gets involved in drug trafficking, with Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz and Penélope Cruz taking on supporting roles. The film hits theaters October 25.

TELEVISION

ABC bought an untitled police drama pilot from Shonda Rhimes' Shondaland production company. The potential series, from Made In Jersey creator Dana Calvo, is set in Miami and will follow "an unorthodox detective and his methodical new female partner as they solve cases that only seem to happen in the neon wilds of  one of America’s most eclectic and vibrant cities."

Fox ordered a script commitment for a new show from the creator of Bones. Noone is described as a crime drama procedural with redemption, martial arts and romance, set in San Francisco and featuring a female police detective and her unlikely ally.

Various networks are eyeing a potential CIA drama starring Katherine Heigl, according to Deadline. The pilot was written by Alexi Hawley (co-executive producer on Fox's drama The Following) and focuses on how the CIA handles hotspots around the globe, with Heigl playing an advisor to the U.S. president.

PBS announced the return of The Bletchley Circle for a second season, with the four-part drama to air on Sundays beginning in the Spring. The series is based on the real-life stories of women who worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park in the UK during World War II.

Omnimystery News reports that the drama based on PD James' Death Comes to Pemerbley will premiere next year on PBS in three one-hour installments. The miniseries stars Matthew Rhys as Mr. Darcy, Anna Maxwell Martin as Elizabeth Darcy, Matthew Goode as Mr. Wickham, and Jenna-Louise Coleman as Lydia Bennet.

Law & Order's Barry Schindel will serve as executive producer and showrunner for the CBS midseason drama series Intelligence, scheduled for a February 24th premiere. The series stars Josh Holloway and Marg Helgenberger and centers on U.S. Cyber Command unit which has been created around one agent (Holloway) who had a microchip implanted in his brain allowing him to access the entire Global Information Grid.

Connie Nielsen (Law & Order: SVU) will join the Fox thriller The Following as a series regular for the show's upcoming second season. Nielsen will play Lily Grey, a SoHo art dealer who turns to Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) for help and "forms an unexpected connection with him that could lead to problems down the road."

Juliette Lewis has joined Matt Dillon in the cast of M. Night Shymalan's Fox series Wayward Pines. The story centers around a Secret Service agent Ethan Burke (Dillon), who arrives in the small town to find two missing fe
deral agents, only to find the anwers may keep him from getting out of Wayward Pines alive. Lewis will play Beverly, a bartender who provides a sympathetic ear for Burke. Also joining the cast is Greta Lee, playing a coffee shop barista who knows everyone else's business.

USA's spy drama Covert Affairs is adding English actress Seeta Indrani (Broken) and Richard Short (666 Park Avenue) for multi-episode arcs on the series. Indrani will play a sophisticated Indian woman whom Annie (Piper Perabo) befriends in the hopes she may be the key to bringing Henry (Henry Wilcox) down for good, while Short will play an Irish rocker-type who becomes entangled in Annie’s world.

Showtime released a teaser trailer for the upcoming third season of its hit TV series Homeland.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest Untreed Reads podcast features authors Alison Owings, Janet Majerus, Marsha Qualey, Tim Black, Augusta Trobaugh, Kathleen Gerard, Kaye George and Victor J. Banis talking about their new releases.

Suspense Radio is adding a new show to its lineup (which currently includes its normal radio show and Suspense Radio One on One, which is a tour stop for Partners in Crime authors). Starting with the first show on September 7th and twice a month on Saturdays, authors D.P. Lyle and Jan Burke will team up to bring you "Crime and Science Radio," an in-depth look into forensics, crime scenes, how authors get it right and wrong, and much more.

July Bestsellers

The Seattle Mystery Bookshop released its July 2013 summer bestseller lists. If you're still looking for a good summer read, these are a good place to start:

HARDCOVER

1 – Craig Johnson, A Serpent’s Tooth, Viking
2 – Mike Lawson, House Odds, Grove Atlantic
3 – James Lee Burke, Light of the World, Simon & Schuster
4 – Mary Daheim, Gone With The Win, Morrow
5 – Carl Hiaasen, Bad Monkey, Knopf
6 – Timothy Hallinan, The Fame Thief, Soho
7 – C.J. Box, The Highway, Minotaur
8 – tie
Lisa Lutz, The Last Word, Simon & Schuster
Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo’s Calling, Mullholland
10 – Daniel Silva, The English Girl, Harper

TRADE PAPERBACK

1 – Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish, Penguin
2 – Jo Nesbø, The Bat, Vintage
3 – Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins, Harper
4 – tie
Ernie Cline, Ready Player One, Crown
Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery, Minotaur
Peter Spiegelman, Thick as Thieves, Vintage
7 – Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Keeper of Lost Causes, Plume
8 – Timothy Hallinan, Crashed, Soho
9 – tie
Jess Walter, We Live in Water, Harper
Urban Waite, The Terror of Living, Back Bay
Fred Vargas, The Ghost Riders of Ordebec, Penguin
Lecretia Grindle, Villa Triste, Grand Central
Maurizio de Giovanni, I Will Have Vengeance, Europa

MASS MARKET PAPERBACK

1 – Yasmine Galenorn, Night Vision, Berkley
2 – Jasper Fforde, The Last Dragonslayer, Harcourt
3 – Leslie Budewitz, Death al Dente, Berkley
4 – Louise Penny, Still Life, Minotaur
5 – Kevin O’Brien, Unspeakable, Pinnacle
6 – tie
Kat Richardson, Seawitch, Roc
Gail Carrieger, Soulless, Orbit
8 – tie
Kat Richardson, Greywalker, Roc
Mike Lawson, The Inside Ring, Grove Atlantic
10 – tie
Mary Daheim, The Wurst is Yet to Come, Harper
Ridley Pearson, The Risk Agent, Jove
Waverly Curtis, Dial C for Chihuahua, Kensington
Diana Renn, Tokyo Heist, Speak
C.J. Box, Open Season, Berkley
Ed Falco, The Family Corleone, Grand Central
Mary Lou Kirwin, Killer Librarian, Pocket

Mystery Melange

Tonight, the Berkeley, California, Literary Salon hosted by Janet Rudolph will feature Lisa Brackman, whose debut novel Rock Paper Tiger made several "Best of 2010" lists, and also Tim Hallinan, the author of three separate mystery series. You can check with Janet via her Mystery Fanfare blog about any seating availability by sending an e-mail to Janet@mysteryreaders.org.

Congrats to Jane Cleland, winner of the David Award for Dolled Up for Murder. The award is handed out at the Deadly Ink Conference to honor the best mystery published during the previous year.

The nominees (short list) for the 2013 Ned Kelly Awards have been announced by the Australian Crime Writers Association, with winners to be announced on September 7th in conjunction with the Brisbane Writers Festival. The list includes those for best novel:

• The Holiday Murders by Robert Gott
• Web of Deceit by Katherine Howell
• Blackwattle Creek by Geoffrey McGeachin
• I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty
• Silent Valley by Malla Nunn

The short list for the 2013 Bloody Scotland festival's Scottish Crime Book of the Year were also announced. The winners will be handed out September 14th. The nominees include:Dead Water by Ann Cleeves

• Pilgrim Soul by Gordon Ferris
• How a Gunman Says Goodbye by Malcolm MacKay
• The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid
• The Red Road by Denise Mina
• Standing In Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin

In honor of author M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin series celebrating its 20th birthday, Criminal Element is sponsoring a sweepstakes with a chance to win all 22 books in the series. Just visit the website and click on the link to fill out the form.

The Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Awards Banquet will be held in conjunction with the Bouchercon conference in Albany on Friday night, Sept. 20. The event is open to the public, and you don't have to be a PWA member to attend and rub elbows with your favorite authors. For questions and ticket information email RRandisi@aol.com.

This week's Beat to a Pulp entry switches from short fiction to poetry, with three offerings from Charles A. Gramlich.

The latest poem from the 5-2, which features new crime poems each week, is "The Survivor of a Slasher Flick in Middle Age" by Massachusetts author Peter Swanson.

The ABA chose their picks for the "25 greatest law novels…ever!" Hop on over to see the list, and you can also cast your vote for THE greatest. (Hat tip to Elizabeth Foxwell.)

Alec Cizak, editor of the magazine Pulp Modern, announced that after five issues, he will be shutting the 'zine down. It's sad to see another high-quality publication bit the dust, but you can still order back issues via Amazon with great stories from the likes of Patti Abbott, Matthew C. Funk, Chris Rhatigan,  John Kenyon, Stephen D. Rogers, Sandra Seamans, Lawrence Block and more.

The Q&A roundup this week includes a "short, sharp interview" with author Dana King at Paul D. Brazill's blog; Dana also makes an appearance on Patti Abbott's blog, talking about his fifteen-year path toward publication.

Author R&R - Joscelyn Godwin

In this edition of Author R&R (Research and Reference) for In Reference to Murder, Joscelyn Godwin, co-author of The Forbidden Book, discusses the inspiration behind writing the novel, described as "occult fiction": a murder mystery set against the conflicts of Islam and the West with symbolism, alchemy, and magic fueling the action. Joscelyn was born in England and lives in Hamilton, New York, where he is professor of music at Colgate University. He is a composer, musicologist, and translator, known for his work on ancient music, paganism, and music in the occult.

 

It began when Ian Caldwell sent me the novel that he and Dustin Thomason had written: The Rule of Four. He sent it to me because the plot hinges on a real Italian book of 1499 called the Hypnerotomachia  Poliphili, which I happened to have translated into English in 1999. I enjoyed The Rule of Four and admired the way the authors wove the Hypnerotomachia and its mysteries into their story. The book deservedly rose to the top of the best seller lists, and I was asked to write a short, unofficial guide-book to it. In about a month I wrote The Real Rule of Four, which showed how Caldwell and Thomason’s novel works, explains all its learned allusions, and introduces the real Hypnerotomachia.

The Hypnerotomachia is an epic fantasy novel set in an imaginary pagan land populated by goddesses, fauns, satyrs, and irresistibly sexy nymphs. The language is a flowery Italian, expanded with rare Latin and Greek words. It’s lavishly illustrated, and the general perfection of its design have earned it a place in the history of fine books. The author, who was a Franciscan friar (though you wouldn’t think it), had a passion for classical architecture, sculptures, tombs, and formal and symbolic gardens. The whole book drips with excess of language, imagery, and emotion. All it lacked was a complete English translation, since the last, incomplete one was made in the 16^th century. Since no one else seemed inclined to do it, and the 500^th anniversary was coming up, I took it on.

So that was what inspired The Rule of Four’s authors in their blend of Renaissance mysteries with modern ones. No sooner had their book arrived than Guido and I got in touch with one another. Guido already had seven novels behind him. I had never written fiction, but I did see one shortcoming in this genre, which Dan Brown had revitalized. It draws on esoteric traditions, but only for atmosphere and decoration, not as realities. I thought that between us, with Guido’s experience in fiction and my long interest in esotericism, we could write a novel in which the mysteries are real. Neither of us shares the scientific world view, i.e. that scientific materialism does the best job of explaining the universe. Indeed, we hold it in utter contempt. So we would reach into the past, into that wonderful period of Renaissance Hermeticism. We would use it to give our novel not just historical but also metaphysical depth.

The material lay close at hand in the form of another mysterious Italian work, The Magical World of the Heroes published in 1605 by Cesare della Riviera. Like the Hypnerotomachia, it operates on several levels including classical erudition, language games, self-development, and practical alchemy. We would make our chief character actually practice Riviera’s form of magic, and it would have real consequences.

You may think here of the Harry Potter books, because there too the magic is real. But Rowling’s is a different genre. Her readers give temporary consent to the way things work in her world, and don’t expect it to be like our world except in a symbolic sense. In our novel, on the contrary, magic happens in contemporary Italy, as I suspect it really does. We don’t ask you to believe that, nor to disbelieve it. Just consider it as a possibility, and that the world may be a much stranger and richer place than the one most people choose to inhabit.

The Forbidden Book by Joscelyn Godwin and Guido Mina di Sospiro is available via Amazon and other retailers.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Rosamund Pike, who starred in the Jack Reacher movie, has landed the lead in David Fincher's big-screen adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel Gone Girl. She'll play opposite Ben Affleck, who was already on board for the project, scheduled to start production in September.

Relativity Media is giving its film Out of the Furnace a wide release on Dec. 6. The story centers around a blue-collar factory worker (Christian Bale) who seeks vengeance when his younger brother, played by Casey Affleck, disappears and the local cops aren't much help. Woody Harrelson plays the heavy, while Forest Whitaker stars as one of the local cops investigating the case. Also in the all-star cast: Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard and Willem Dafoe.

There is movement toward a new Bourne franchise installment, with Anthony Peckham scripting a film that will continue the storyline of Aaron Cross, the character played by Jeremy Renner in the 2012 Bourne Legacy. Peckham also wrote the screenplay for the first Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey, Jr.

David Yates, who directed the final four installments of the Harry Potter series, is in final talks to helm the remake of the mob drama Scarface. The plan is update the story and characters, giving it more of a contemporary feel.

CBS Film has picked up the screen rights to Children of Paranoia, the debut YA novel by Trevor Shane about a young assassin caught up in a secret war that’s been waged for centuries, with assassinations passed off as accidents or acts of random violence.

Four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris is joining an all-star cast that includes Liam Neeson and Joel Kinnaman in the crime thriller Run All Night, about an aging mob hit man (Neeson) forced to take on his former boss (Harris), the leader of a prominent criminal organization in Philadelphia.

Great Gatsby star Elizabeth Debicki has landed a leading role in the film reboot of the 60s TV spy drama The Man From U.N.C.L.E., joining headliner stars Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill. Debicki's role is described as a femme fatale, although she won't be the only female in the cast, with Alicia Vikander playing an agent.

TELEVISION

Jack Bauer will return to Fox next year for 24: Live Another Day, which picks up several years after the end of the show and will depict a single day, packed into 12 hour-long episodes. Mary Lynn Rajskub, a regular on the original series, will return for the new show along with star Kiefer Sutherland.

Billy Bob Thornton is set to star in the small screen mini-series adaptation of the film Fargo for FX. His role is described as "the rootless, manipulative man who meets a small-town insurance salesman and sets him on a path of destruction." (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Fox handed out a series order for the adaptation of the popular British series Broadchurch, set to debut on American screens in the 2014-15 season. The story revolves around the tragic and mysterious death of a young boy found dead on an idyllic beach surrounded by rocks and a jutting cliff-face from where he may have fallen. (With a nod to Omnimystery News.)

Smash star Jeremy Jordan is set to guest-star on the upcoming season of Elementary, playing Joey Castro, the son of a former surgical patient of Joan's (Lucy Liu).

Syfy renewed its time-travel police drama Continuum, starring Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster, for a third season.

J.H. Wyman and J.J. Abrams (the team behind Fringe) chatted up their new series Almost Human during a Television Critics Association press tour session. The duo credited NYPD more than the supernatural Fringe as a blueprint for the show, which is set 35 years into the future when human cops in the LAPD are paired up with androids.

In another Television Critics Association panel, Mike Schur assured the audience that his new cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine is not a parody, with the comedic elements taking second place to telling a real cop story for stars Andy Samberg and Andre Braugher.

Fans of the BBC Sherlock series can get a small (spoiler-free) "hit" of their Sherlock fix via this trailer for the upcoming third series of the show to premiere in the UK later this year and in U.S. markets early in 2014.

PODCASTS

Indie publisher Untreed Reads, which started out as digital-only but is adding audio and print-on-demand, has also started an author podcast. It's available via Stitcher Radio (a free app for either Android or Apple devices) or you can listen online. Episode One features author Kevin J. Cunningham.

In case you missed it, the July 27th edition of Suspense Radio is archived online, with guests Marcus Sakey, Antonio Hill and Dan Graffeo.