Mystery Melange, Halloween Edition

Janet Rudolph compiled a listing of Halloween-themed mysteries on her Mystery Fanfare blog. You'd be surprised at how many there are, from Green Water Ghost by Glynn Marsh Alam all the way to All Hallow's Evil by Valerie Wolzien.

For some murderously good Halloween treats, Criminal Element offers up a Rest in Piece of Cake recipe, and Mystery Lovers Kitchen has several options for you to try, including Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake and Halloween Pudding Parfaits.

Criminal Element is sponsoring a Trick-or-Treat Food Mystery Book Sweepstakes, and you can enter now through November 12.

Mystery Playground has some Halloween cocktails, based on television crime dramas.

Evan Lewis, via his blog Davy Crockett's Almanack of Mystery, Adventure and the Wild West, noted some overlooked films for Halloween starring Abbott & Costello.

Kings River Life is featuring Halloween short stories this month. The 'zine also has a dedicated "Mystery Rats Maze" section for all things crime fiction.

RT Book Reviews had a little bit of fun with "Publishing Houses as Halloween Costumes."

The Killer Nashville conference announced that it is opening up its Silver Falchion Awards to everyone, not just conference attendees. Nominees will be accepted in the categories of  Best Novel, Best First Novel, Best Paperback, Best e-Book Original, Best Nonfiction, Best Juvenile, Best Young Adult, and Best Anthology. Winners, however, will still be chosen by 2014 Killer Nashville Writers' Conference attendees (similar to the Anthony Awards at Bouchercon).

The Crime Writers' Association in the UK announced more Dagger winners last week, incuding the Goldsboro Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year to Dead Lions by Mick Herron; the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller to Ghostman by Roger Hobbs; and the John Creasey New Blood, for best new crime writer to Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller. (Hat tip to It's a crime!)

Over at the SleuthSayers blog, Terence Faherty has a nice wrap-up of the recent Magna Cum Murder conference in Muncie, Indiana.

Soho Press has a new website, with Direct to Consumer Digital Sales and two book-of-the-month style subscriptions from their Soho Crime and Soho Teen imprints. The site also includes a fun Crime Map with a worldwide view of all the murders, heists, and shakedowns Soho authors have cooked up over the years.

"The All Consuming" by Tim McLafferty is this week's featured crime poem at the 5-2. Editor Gerald So has also collected previous featured poems into the second 5-2 poetry anthology, The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly, Vol. 2.

The latest Beat to a Pulp offering is "The Speed Date," from Kieran Shea.

The Q&A this week includes an interview with author Paul D. Brazill; the Old Stone Wall blog chats with author Cynthia Hickey; and Leslie Budewitz joins Writers Who Kill discussing her Food Lovers' Village Mysteries.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Warner Bros. is "near a deal" for Blood on the Snow, the first of a two-novel series by Jo Nesbo, to be published next year and written under the pseudonym Tom Johansson. The studio is planning on it being a vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio.

Millennium Films, the prduction company behind the action fanchise series Expendables, is planning a female spin-off currently known as The ExpendaBelles. Three actresses are negotiations to star: Meryl Streep, Cameron Diaz, and Milla Jovovich

Jason Statham is in talks to star with Melissa MCarthy in the Fox comedy spy caper Susan Cooper. McCarthy will play an unlikely secret agent, and Statham would play a spy on the same side.

The Noir City festival, sponsored by the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, continues this week, through October 30, with such goodies as Strange Impersonation, High Tide, The Sound and Fury, Repeat Performance, and the uncut version of Native Son.

Open Road Films released a new trailer for the upcoming thriller Homefront. The film stars Jason Statham as a former DEA agent living quietly in a rural bayou who's forced back in action when a sociopathic meth kingpin threatens him and his daughter. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Marvel Studios released a trailer for the upcoming  sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier, starring Chris Evans who's paired with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Sundance icon Robert Redford, in his first superhero effort.

TELEVISION

As Omnimystery News reported, PBS announced that Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, returns January 19th at 10 p.m., following Downton Abbey. The newly-released spring schedule also includes the premiere of the second season of Bletchley Circle, the series about female codebreakers during World War II, on April 13.

NBC is looking to revive the successful series Murder, She Wrote, originally starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher. The reboot will be a new take on the concept, with Oscar winner Octavia Spencer playing the amateur detective in a "light, contemporary procedural in the vein of Bones or Fargo."

CBS put into development a conspiracy crime drama based on the Austrian series Fast Forward. The story is about a female homicide detective who juggles the demands of her job while co-parenting and working side-by-side with her newly divorced husband, the medical examiner.

John Ridley, writer of the current movie 12 Years A Slave, is developing a project with ABC titled American Crime. It's set in California’s Central Valley and follows a racially charged murder and the subsequent trial, examined through the personal lives of the victims, the accused and their families.

TNT put in development for the action-driven drama Anonymous from Sons Of Anarchy executive producer Chris Collins. The project follows an ex-special ops soldier who discovers a global coverup that forces him to go off the grid to help those who cannot help themselves.

ABC is apparently in talks to resurrect Body of Proof, the show that was cancelled by the network after three seasons, despite decent ratings. What's unknown is if the cast, including show star Dana Delaney, and the crew will be able to return after moving on to other projects.

ABC also gave an order commitment for ten espidoes of an adaptation of the Australia crime drama Secrets & Liars, starring Martin Henderson as a family man who finds the body of a young boy and quickly becomes the prime murder suspect.

Starz Network is developing a 1970s bank robber drama titled Most Wanted. The show follows Nate Daniels, a talented and prolific bank robber who finds himself on a collision course with family and colleagues as he becomes one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted.

Showtime renewed Homeland for a fourth season, and USA's legal drama Suits also got a fourth-season nod.

Amy Aquino has joined the cast of Amazon's drama pilot Bosch, based on Michael Connelly's novels about Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), a veteran police homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Kristoffer Polaha (Ringer) is joining the 14th season of the long-running CBS crime drama CSI in a guest-starring role as a mechanic who appears charming but may have darker intentions.

Fox is delaying the premiere of its new futuristic scifi crime drama, Almost Human, to launch as a two-night event on Sunday, November 17 and Monday, November 18. The series is set 35 years into the future when LAPD human cops are paired up with lifelike androids, and a detective with a dislike for robots is partnered with one with emotions.

ITV released a trailer for David Suchet's last four cases portraying Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

I missed this one last week, but author Jo Nesbo joined Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show October 14th.

THEATER

The Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's time-bending drama Betrayal, starring Daniel Craig, Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz and Olivier nominee Rafe Spall, officially opened Oct. 27 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre for a limited engagement run through January 5th.

November 17 is the opening date for the new comedy musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder at the Walter Kerr Theater on Broadway. Tony winner Jefferson Mays plays eight different roles of arrogant English aristocrats "who are systematically eliminated by number nine in line, a revengeful rotter after the family fortune (Bryce Pinkham)."

Author R&R with William Petrocelli

William "Bill" Petrocelli spent a few years as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California and then as a poverty lawyer in Oakland, California, before going into private practice. For the past thirty years he and his wife Elaine have owned Book Passage, a highly successful independent bookstore in San Francisco and Corte Madera, California.

His first novel is The Circle of Thirteen, which begins with a mindless act of family violence and spans seven decades, culminating in the desperate effort by Julia Moro, the U.N. Security Director, to stop a major act of terror.  Underlying the tale are themes of poverty, political corruption, environmental disaster, and the backlash against the rising role of women.

Bill stopped by to take some "Author R&R" here at In Reference to Murder, talking about his decision to "Tell the Story Backwards":

Give me a scene, and I felt I could nail it. I’d written a whole series of encounters between the characters in The Circle of Thirteen, and after a lot of editing I thought they read well. Was I varying my sentence lengths, as writing teachers suggest? You bet. I had long sentences with dependent clauses, and they had sinuous phrases that wrapped around the visceral images. And there were short ones, too. Three-word sentences. Some two.

The scenes, I felt, all moved along nicely. I didn’t show my hand too early, give away anything too soon. The key word was always at the end of the sentence. The sentence with the most punch was at the end of the paragraph. The last paragraph of each chapter left your hanging, wondering what would come next.

Still, it was wrong. The scenes all had their share of tension. But the overall story tended to lumber along from decade to decade, hoping that the reader would follow the tale through the next phase, trusting that he or she would know that it would all be resolved at the end.  It was too much to ask – even of me.

Then I saw the movie Milk, and I realized what was wrong. Director Gus Van Sant did one crucial thing in that movie that made all the difference in the world. He opened the story with the ending – the tragic assassination of Supervisor Harvey Milk – and then spent the rest of the movie bringing the audience back to that point. Even though I lived in San Francisco and already knew how the story ended, this
telling-of-the-story-in-reverse had a dramatic impact on my appreciation of the movie.

I went back to my keyboard with a new approach to the story. If I started with the last scene – or, really, the almost last scene – the reader could read all of the lead-up scenes with a new sense of urgency
and foreboding.

It was about that time that I borrowed from another writer as well. (Borrow a little bit, and you are honoring the literary tradition; borrow a lot, and you are a despicable plagiarizer. It’s sometimes a
fine line). In this case the writer was Robert Wilson, who won a Gold Dagger from the British Crime Writers Association for A Small Death in Lisbon.  Wilson’s back-story covered several decades. But as he recounted it, he alternated those scenes with a second, fast-moving narrative strand that covered just a few weeks. He alternated back and forth between the two narratives throughout the book, and In the end the two strands come together with dramatic effect.

Borrowing a little here, borrowing a little there – I finally had what I wanted. The Circle of Thirteen
starts with a dramatic burst – a terrorist attack on the new United Nations building where all the world’s leaders are gathered. And from that point on the reader is able to follow the two narrative strands
back to that starting point. Now, I felt, the story could really begin.

The Circle of Thirteen is available through all the online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. You can visit Bill via his website, or catch him at any of the upcoming events listed there as part of his book tour.

Mystery Melange

Fellow blogger John F Norris of Pretty Sinister Books and Michael Hudson have launched Raven's Head Press, a new imprint devoted to crime and adventure fiction. As John notes, "Plans are to reissue adventure, crime and supernatural fiction that exemplify the kind of gripping and exciting stories published in the long gone pulp magazines and the vintage paperback imprints like Dell Mapbacks and Gold Medal." 

WritersWebTV is offering a free six-hour online workshop titled "Crime Pays: Writing Crime Fiction" on October 30th. It promises to "reveal the crime writer’s secrets, the tricks and techniques required to hook your reader in the first page, and to keep the plot moving," and includes authors Ken Bruen, Jane Casey, Declan Hughes and Niamh O’Connor. WritersWebTv will also offer a workshop on how to get published on Saturday, November 9.

Hat tip to Elizabeth Foxwell over at The Bunburyist blog for noting that Arcturus Publishing released two new reissues by British authors this month: a novel by Patricia Moyes (1923-2000) Johnny Under Ground, part of the Inspector Henry Tibbett series, with a compelling World War II plot line; and Tim Frazer Again by Francis Durbridge (1912-1988), which has Frazer on the trail of a woman who is suspected of killing a government agent.

This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Unfastening a Hook Stud" by F.J. Bergmann, while this week's story at Beat to a Pulp is "Collision" by David King, who sadly, passed away earlier this month. David Cranmer has a memorial for King on his blog.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Douglas Corleone, chatting with the Mystery People about his new thriller Good As Gone and its protagonist, private eye Simon Fisk; and Gareth Spark is one of the latest "Short, Sharp Interview" guests at Paul D. Bazill's blog, discussing his "country noir novella."

On her blog Books, the Universe and Everything, Emily Wilson paid tribute "to the things I love about independent bookstores."

If you're in the mood for a literary mystery, Thomas H. Cook chose "The 10 Best Mystery Books" for Publishers Weekly.

To Conference

A reminder about two terrific conferences coming up this weekend:

October 24 - November 3, 2013
International Festival of Authors
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Special Guests: Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Linwood Barclay, George Pelecanos, Louise Penny

October 25-27, 2013
Magna cum Murder Crime Writing Festival
Indianapolis, IN
Guest of Honor is Steve Hamilton (the Alex McKnight series) and dinner speaker is Hank Phillipi Ryan (author and an investigative reporter for Boston's NBC affiliate)

You can still register online fo Magna, and tickets are also still available for IFA events.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment are teaming up with Dennis Lehane to script Silk Road, based on the true story of a young kid arrested for putting out a hit on the clients of an online bazaar he created where they could buy illegal goods, including drugs or contract killings.

Nicole Kidman, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving will headline the cast of the new independent thriller, Strangerland. The story centers on a couple whose relationship is "pushed to the brink when their two teenage children disappear into the remote Australian desert and they are forced to confront the mystery of their children's fate."

A trailer was released for Liam Neeson's new thriller Non-Stop. Neeson plays a Air Marshall traveling on an overnight international flight that is hijacked.

Word & Film created a Holiday Movie Adaptation Guide to keep track of "a delicious assortment of page-to-screen adaptations diverse enough to please nearly any predilection."

Millenniun Films released a teaser poster for their upcoming adaptation of Marcus Sakey's Good People, starring James Franco, Kate Hudson as a couple who are plunged into trouble when they abscond with their dead tenant's money. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

TELEVISION

ABC is going to try recreating the literary hardboiled world of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in a pilot that received a development order. The possible new series is from the team of Castle crreator Andrew Marlowe and feature producer Michael De Luca (Captain Phillips, Fifty Shades Of Grey).

CBS is adapting Koethi Zan's thriller The Never List for television. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Fox is adapting the BBC America murder mystery Broadchurch for American audiences, but planning on keeping British star David Tennant (Doctor Who) as the lead, although he'll use an American accent.

20th Century Fox Television also picked up adaptation rights for the Norwegian thriller Mammon. The original series follows an investigative journalist who uncovers evidence of massive financial fraud that points to his own brother and the highest levels of Norwegian society.

Omnimystery News reported that HBO's upcoming series True Detective has been given a premiere date of January 12th, 2014. The show follows Louisiana State Police Detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson), brought in to revisit a homicide case they worked in 1995.

As TV Guide reports, Walter White may have died on Breaking Bad, but there's a possibility he and the entire cast could return to the small screen soon reprising their roles in the prequel spin-off series, Better Call Saul.

After only three weeks into the new season, NBC cancelled the remake of Ironside starring Blair Underwood as the wheelchair-bound detective.

Over at Fox, new series Brooklyn Nine-Nine fared much better, getting an extended season order for 22 episodes and also a shot at following the Super Bowl.

Fans of CSI actor George Eads, who were wondering where he'd disappeared, can relax knowing he is returning to the show after "arguing with a writer."

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

One of the features on CBS This Morning yesterday was Brad Meltzer, talking about his book History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time.

On this week's Crime & Science Radio, Jan Burke interviews Marcia Clark about "Judging Evidence."

THEATER

The first-ever play adapted from a John Grisham novel, A Time to Kill, opened on Broadway yesterday. The courtroom drama revolves around a young, idealistic lawyer defending a black man for taking the law into his own hands following an unspeakable crime committed against his young daughter.

Mystery Melange

It was a pleasure to hear that this year's Nobel Prize in Literature went to short-story author Alice Munro. I've been enjoying her stories for years, and I'm glad to see that oft-maligned short fiction is getting some recognition.

The Mystery Writers of America Norcal chapter is co-hosting an event in honor of Litquake, "An Evening with Anne Perry." The author will be featured in conversation with William C. Gordon on October 18 at 7:30pm at the Glass Door Gallery in San Francisco. Perry has published more than 80 mystery novels, primarily set in Victorian England

International bestselling author Jo Nesbo, creator of Headhunters and the Harry Hole series, has signed with publisher Harvill Secker for two new books written under the pseudonym Tom Johansen. The publisher is releasing few details about the works, other than the first book, Blood on Snow, will be published in autumn 2014, with the second to follow in spring 2015.

A big hat tip to Declan Burke for posting that the Irish Crime Fiction Festival at Trinity College has released its full lineup. It kicks off with "A Short Introduction to Crime Fiction: Why We Write It, How We Write It, and Why We Read It," with panelist Jane Casey, John Connolly, Alan Glynn, Declan Hughes, and Eoin McNamee. Also featured is an evening with author Johny Connolly interviewing Michael Connelly.

Following on the international theme, author/blogger Martin Edwards has a nice photo essay look at Italy and Crime Fiction.

Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai announced that they will be publishing a lost novel by MWA Grandmaster Lawrence Block for the first time in 50 years. Titled Borderline, it's a violent, intense story about five lives colliding on the border between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. Shots eZine had a feature on Hard Case and Ardai this week, talking about the publisher's release of four rare Michael Crichton books written early in the author's career under a pen name.

Akashic books has an ongoing online flash series, and they're adding a new category, "Terrible Twosdays." They're seeking stories up to 750 words that focus on the challenges of parenting children between 0 to 5 years of age, fiction or non-fiction. Although there is no payment, your story will be published on the Akashic website, if chosen. Other themed days include Mondays Are Murder and Thursdaze. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.)

As Crime Fiction Lover reminded me, Open Road Media is publishing a line of bibliomysteries, novella-length stories by top crime authors, with each involving a crime that somehow relates to a book. So far, the list of authors has included Jeffrey Deaver, Loren D Estleman, Ken Bruen, CJ Box, Laura Lippman and more, with the latest being The Last Testament by Peter Blauner.

Laura Wilson, winner of the Prix du Polar Europeen and the Crime Writers' Association's Ellis Peters Award, will be leading a new joint writing endeavor by UEA/Guardian. The three-month "How to Write Crime Fiction" course, begins February 10. There are only places for 12 participants who will meet as a group for one three-hour session per week at the Guardian building in London.

This week's Q&A roundup features author Jonathan Santlofer, who serves as editor of the new serial anthology Inherit the Dead; Omnimystery News chats with Lesley A. Diehl about her new cozy series with consignment store owner, and with author Luke Preston who writes a series about ex-cop Tom Bishop; A Knife and a Quill has "5 Quick Questions with Tom Pitts"; and Louise Penny chats with Mysterious People.

Gulp. Google reportedly takes down more than eight "pirate" links every second.

Criminal Element has a little fun with a multiple choice "game" of how to write a Lee Child novel in eight foolproof steps.

The Spliterati

Last week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released results from a study that tested about 166,000 people ages 16 to 65 in more than 20 countries and subnational regions. What they found was discouraging for the U.S. population: in math, reading and problem-solving using technology, American adults scored below the international average in all three areas.

As one analysis noted, the findings reinforce the enormous gap between the nation's high- and low-skilled workers and how difficult it can be to move ahead when your parents haven't. Not only does this affect the quality of life for each individual, but it also affects the future health of any nation and its global competitiveness and economic strength.

The average scores in literacy range from 250 in Italy to 296 in Japan. The U.S. average score was 270. (500 was the highest score in all three areas.) Average scores in 12 countries were higher than the average U.S. score. Dolores Perin, professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, said the report provides a "good basis for an argument there should be more resources to support adults with low
literacy."

Perin also pointed out that adults can learn new skills at any age, and there are adult-geared programs around the country. The challenge is to make sure programs have quality teaching and adults can and will regularly attend classes. I believe strongly that literacy is crucial for all of the other yardsticks measured in the study, and we need to help promote literacy among all sectors of the population.

Here are some organizations to consider lending your support, both financial and as a volunteer:

For Adults

• The Read Center (Virginia)
• ProLiteracy

For Kids

• Reading is Fundamental
• Reach Out and Read

For Families

• National Council for Family Literacy

There are also countless literacy-oriented organizations at city, county, state and local levels.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Anthony Hopkins has joined the cast of the thriller Kidnapping Freddy Heineken. Directed by Daniel Alfredson, (best known for helming the Swedish adaptations of both The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), the project is based on the true story of a team of criminals who attempted to kidnap the grandson of the founder of the Heineken Brewery.

Pierce Brosnan may be heading back to spyland, co-starring in the thriller Survivor, about a State Department employee (Milla Jovovich) in London charged with stopping terrorists from getting into the U.S. until she's framed and targeted for death. Dylan McDermott is also a new addition to the cast.

Universal Pictures may be adding to the spy genre after it closed a deal for Section 6, a spec script by Aaron Berg about the formation about the British intelligence agency MI6.

Bella Thorne and Kyra Sedgwick are set to star in Big Sky, the English-language feature film debut of Mexican filmmaker Jorge Michel Grau. The project is described as a "neo-Hitchcockian thriller." The cast also includes Frank Grillo (Zero Dark Thirty) and Aaron Tveit (Les Miserables).

Nicole Kidman will produce and star in an adaptation of The Silent Wife based on the novel by A.S.A. Harrison. Often compared to Gone Girl, the psychological thriller became a sensation only months after the death of the author.

Screen Australia has committed hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to support the development of 18 feature films and to cultivate the careers of the next generation of filmmakers. The projects include The End of Everything, a thriller based on the LA Times bestseller by Megan Abbott, produced by Kristian Moliere and written by Andy Cox; also the edgy thriller Berlin Syndrome, about a holiday romance that turns into an obsessive relationship.

Double Tony-Award winner Jennifer Ehle is joining the all-star cast that includes Christopher Plummer, John Travolta, and Tye Sheridan in the upcoming Code Entertainment film The Forger. It centers on a former art prodigy and petty thief who buys his way out of prison to spend time with his ailing son and teams with his father for one last job.

Garth Davis is in early talks to direct Shantaram, an adaptation of the book by Gregory David Roberts. The Johnny Depp-produced project centers on an Australian heroin addict convicted of robbery who flees to India and reinvents himself as a doctor but becomes involved in counterfeiting, smuggling and gunrunning.

Director Doug Liman (The Edge of Tomorrow) has taken over helming the drug smuggling action thriller Narco Sub. The title refers to semi-submersible crafts South American drug cartels have been using to ship cocaine into the U.S.

A new trailer was released for David O. Russell's American Hustle, described as a cross between Goodfellas and Boogie Nights. The film stars Bradley Cooper as an FBI agent getting con-men Christian Bale and Amy Adams to catch some crooked money-men.

TELEVISION

A crime drama produced by Eva Longoria and Conde Nast Entertainment landed at CBS after a bidding war with other networks. Titled Real Deal, the project is written by Burn Notice veteran Craig O’Neill and is based on a 2005 Glamour article. It's described as centering on "two polar opposite women — an ambitious FBI agent and an uncontrollable criminal Confidential Informant — who must find common ground if they’re going to survive both the streets of Los Angeles and each other."

Last season, CBS had viewers pick the ending of a Hawaii Five-O episode. This year, they're going one better by having fans create an entire episode via the "Fan Built Five-O initiative." The public will be able to vote online until Halloween for an episode's half-dozen key story points: scene of the crime, victim, murder weapon, evidence, suspect and takedown. 

Twentieth Century Fox and Audible are teaming up to offer a free, downloadable original half-hour audio Homeland episode with star Damian Lewis as his congressman-turned-fugitive character following the show's episode this Sunday.

FX signed a 10-part mini-series from director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and writer Simon Beaufoy. Titled Telemark, it's based on the story of the British-trained resistance fighters who sabotaged Hitler's nuclear development program during World War II.

Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad) and Glenn Howerton have signed on to FX's 10-episode limited series Fargo, an adaptation inspired by the 1996 Oscar-winning film. In the same article, Deadline reported that BBC America added Michiel Huisman (World War Z) Peter Outerbridge (Nikita) and Ari Millen (Rookie Blue) to Season 2 of its mystery-scifi series Orphan Black.

TNT renewed Cold Justice for a second season. The docudrama centers on former prosecutor Kelly Siegler and former crime-scene investigator Yolanda McClary as they solve small-town murder cases

Omnimystery News reported that the Ovation network has picked up all seven seasons of the Canadian procedure Murdoch Mysteries. The se
ries is based on the novels of Maureen Jennings and stars Yannick Bisson as police detective William Murdoch, who uses new forensic techniques to solve crimes in turn of the 20th century Toronto.

Former 24 producers Howard Gordon and Evan Katz have been given a script commitment from Fox TV for Trial of The Century, a serialized legal thriller told from the POV of a young Latina attorney working on a unique high-profile case.

Fox-TV has cancelled plans to air the midseason animated comedy series Murder Police. That may not be the end of the show, as producer 20th Century Fox TV is planning to continue fulfilling the 13-episode order and shop the series elsewhere.

TNT put in development the political thriller President X, about a former U.S. President who wakes up from a year-long coma and, now out of power, must hunt down the individual who tried to assassinate him.

Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling have been cast as a crime-solving duo in ABC Family's Mystery Girls pilot. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

CBS and Criminal Minds executive producer Janine Sherman Barrois are teaming up for a new crime drama that follows the intersecting lives of homicide detectives, attorneys, reporters, and the Mayor's office as they work to solve the most scandalous crimes San Francisco has seen in decades.

The USA Network ordered three pilots from the writers/producers behind Burn Notice, including a project titled Novice, which takes the audience on the journey of a young man trying to break into corporate America who finds his true calling may be a life of crime. 

Fans of the 1970s private detective series Remington Steele, which helped launch Pierce Brosnan's career, may be cringing at plans to reboot the show as a half-hour comedy on NBC.

TNT released a trailer for its new series coming December 4, Mob City (a/k/a L.A. Noir and Lost Angels), which follows members of an LAPD anti-mob task force.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Cozy writer Kathleen Delaney joined Suspense Radio for their latest podcast, talking about her new novel, Murder by Syllabub.

THEATER

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, New York Chapter, is producing a developmental reading of the play Killing Time: A Tale of Love and Murder, by author Jane K. Cleland and featuring her series protagonist, antiques appraiser Josie Prescott. For more information about the event on Monday, October 21, check out the Academy's website.

The Mystery of Irma Vep, which satirizes Gothic romance novels, pulp fiction, and horror movies, is being staged at the Newnan Theatre Company in Atlanta Octobe 24 – November 3. The comic take on crime has two actors playing eight different roles and changing costumes thirty-five times. In 1991, "Irma Vep" was the most produced play in the United States,  it later became the longest-running play ever produced in Brazil.

The Lockport Palace Theatre in Lockport, New York, is putting on a production of Ripper, an original play by Jon May telling the story of Jack the Ripper’s victims.

One-Hit Wonders

JD Sallinger has been in the news again lately, three years after his death. There's a new documentary about the reclusive author that hit theaters in a limited release this month, with talks of it being turned into a feature film. Although the documentary dropped the bombshell that Sallinger wrote other books that are set to be published started in 2015, until now he has been known as a one-hit novel wonder for Catcher in the Rye.

This made me think about one-hit wonders in the crime fiction realm, i.e., those famous for one and only one book (or even rarer, those who published only one). These are actually a lot harder to find than you might think, at least in crime fiction, where series characters are popular. Some notable examples include:

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890); part crime fiction, part sci-fi allegory
• Never Come Back by John Mair (1941) (he was killed during WWII)
• The Horizontal Man by Helen Eustis (1947); she won the Edgar for first novel for this book, wrote one more mystery and vanished from publishing
• The End is Known by Geoffrey Holiday Hall (1950); also won Edgar for best first novel
• The House Without a Door by Thomas Sterling (1951); yes, another Edgar winner
• The Eleventh Hour by Robert B. Sinclair (1952); won Edgar for best first novel
• Much Ado About Murder by Fred Lavon (1956); won Edgar for best first novel
• Root of Evil by James Cross (1958); nominated for an Edgar for best first novel
• Knock and Wait a While by William Rawle Weeks (1958) won Edgar 
• Florentine Finish by Cornelius Hirschberg (1964) won Edgar
  
• The Seven Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer (1974); the bestselling Sherlock Holmes pastiche was his only novel, although he is a noted film screenwriter, producer and director
• The Cook by Harry Kressing (1984)

In searching for these titles, I began to think that being nominated for, or winning, the Edgar for Best First Novel was akin to winning the Oscar for Best Actress—win, then disappear forever. But, I think First Novel winners Tony Hillerman, Bill Pronzini, James Patterson, Jonathan Kellerman, Elizabeth George, Patricia D. Cornwell, Don Winslow, and Michael Connelly have all done pretty well for themselves.

September Bestsellers

Although the Independent Mystery Booksellers doesn't release bestseller details any more for its member bookstores, the Seattle Mystery Bookstore is a good representative of what's popular in a given month. Here's their hardcover top sellers for September:

1. Lee Child – Never Go Back (Delacorte)
2. J.A. Jance – Second Watch (William Morrow) 
3. Sue Grafton – W Is For Wasted (Putnam)
4. Tied: Michael Gruber – The Return (Holt) 
Spencer Quinn – The Sound And The Furry 
6. Tied: Laurie R. King – The Bones Of Paris (Bantam) 
Pierre Lemaitre – Alex (Random House)
8. Hank Phillippa Ryan – The Wrong Girl (Forge)
9. Marisha Pessl – Night Film (Random House) 
10. Louise Penny – How The Light Gets In (Minotaur) 

Charity Begins at Tome

The book community has a history of being involved with charitable endeavors, and I recently came across two more that are bright spots in an otherwise unhappy news cycle. Melville House launched the Arjouni Fund to Fight Pancreatic Cancer in honor of author author Jakob Arjouni, who died of the disease this past January. Arjouni is known for his series of mystery novels featuring Turkish-German P.I. Kemal
Kayankaya, as well as literary novels and plays. Melville is partnering with the Lustgarten Foundation, the world’s largest private foundation dedicated to pancreatic cancer research, which will administer the fund and see that 100% of the money raised in Jakob’s name will go directly to research.

The other good bit of news is a joint effort coordinated by the indie bookstore DriveThruFiction. Several pubishers including Untreed Reads are contributing a work to be added to a special ebook bundle, whose proceeds will go to Feeding America, a charity which ensures food pantries across America have much-needed supplies to help the hungry around the country. The special bundle features over $175 worth of titles, and is available for only $20 with all proceeds going to Feeding America.

Mystery Melange

As the tributes to the late Tom Clancy pour in following his death last week, The Guardian lists their choice for the top five Clancy novels, and Salon reposted Tom Clancy's "5 big rules for writing and life."

One other sad note:  Mystery author Patricia Harrington has passed away. She penned a traditional mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Bridget O'Hern, a consultant to nonprofit and governmental agencies.

Howard Owen's Oregon Hill is this year's winner of the Hammett Prize, given by the International Association of Crime Writers. The other finalists were William Landay, Defending Jacob; Jim Lynch, Truth Like the Sun; Kurt Palka, Patient Number 7; and G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen.

Mike Ripley released his most recent "Getting Away With Murder" column for Shots eZine last Wednesday, just a little too late to include in that day's Mystery Melange. But the info is still just as fresh.

Suspense Magazine's new September/October 2013 issue includes interviews with L.L. Soares,
John Rector, Steven Gore, and Linda Fairstein. There are also sneak peeks inside three books by Tasha Alexander, Paul Parsons, and Wendy Corsi Staub; Lisa Gardner continues her writer's toolbox; and debut author Barry Lancet talks about his book Japantown.

The new issue of Noir Nation is out, with an India theme. In addition to 30 bew short stories, essays on noir-related poetry, music, and the visual arts by Atar Hadari, Vicki Gundrum, and Robert Brunet and two works of classic noir: "The Turkish Brothel" by the late Cortright McMeel and "The Perfect
Courtesan" by Kshemendra.

The Noir at the Bar series that has been popping up around the U.S., is adding a stop in Indianapolis on November 16th. CJ Edwards will host readings by Jed Ayres, Les Edgerton, David James Keaton, James Ward Kirk, Daniel O'Shea, and Scott Phillips.

The next MWA University will be held in Dallas on  Saturday, December 14. Expert authors Jess Lourey, Hallie Ephron, Reed Farrel Coleman, Charlaine Harris, Daniel Stashower, and Hank Phillippi Ryan will discuss their strategies for all facets of writing and publishing.

This week's Q&A roundup includes mystery author Sheila Webster Boneham, who visits Beth Groundwater's blog to talk about her latest novel featuring photographer Janet MacPhail; Randall Reneau, a professional geologist and author of the mining-themed mystery Deadly Lode, joins BC Blogcritics; Marilyn Meredith chats with Terry Ambrose about Meredith's 13th installment, Spirit Shapes, of her Native American series; and Ben Winters visited Alternative Magazine Online to discuss his Last Policement trilogy.

Author R&R with Leonard Goldberg

Leonard Goldberg stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research). Leonard is the creator of the medical thrillers featuring forensic patholoist Joanna Blalock, which have been translated into a dozen languages and sold more than a million copies worldwide. 

Goldberg's latest release is Plague Ship, so named because a highly contagious, deadly virus strikes a luxury liner, which causes the ship to be placed under quarantine and not allowed to dock—anywhere. Their only hope may be David Ballineau, a doctor and Special Forces veteran, who is traveling on board with his nurse girlfriend and his 11-year-old daughter.

Here's Leonard to tell you more about the background for the novel and why he started writing medical thrillers.

I can pinpoint the exact moment I decided to write a medical thriller. It all began with one of my patients at UCLA where I was in training to become a hematologist. The patient had a terribly aggressive form of anemia that was caused by her own immune system making antibodies that destroyed her own red blood cells. The antibodies were directed against various Rh factors on the surface of her red cells. And since virtually everybody’s red cells have some form of Rh factors on them, blood transfusions were of no use in this patient because her antibodies immediately destroyed the red cells transfused into her. Various drugs had no effect and her worsening anemia was causing her heart to fail. Death seemed imminent.

Then we heard of a family whose red blood cells were type O – Rh null, indicating the cells were totally deficient in A, B, and Rh factors and could be administered to virtually anyone without fear of transfusion reaction. We took blood from this family and transfused it into our patient with antibody-induced anemia, and the result was spectacular. There was not even a hint of transfusion reaction. So the donor’s blood, which was type O – Rh null, was the proverbial universal donor and would be accepted by anyone without rejection. And this gave me the idea for an individual who was born without a tissue type, making that person’s organs transplantable into anyone without fear of rejection. My first novel, Transplant, revolved around a young woman who was discovered to be a universal organ donor and was hounded by a wealthy, powerful man in desperate need of a new kidney. The book went through multiple printings and was auctioned by a major Hollywood studio. And so I was off to the races as a medical thriller writer.

Then, other ideas for novels came to mind. Being a big fan of author Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, I began to envision a modern-day medical Sherlock Holmes, who happened to be a woman. Not just any woman, but one who was young and strikingly attractive and who on first glance would always be underrated. So I made her a forensic pathologist with a razor-sharp mind, who was every bit Sherlock Holmes’ equal when it came to observation and deduction. And so Joanna Blalock was born and was the lead character in my next nine novels, many of which went through multiple printings. While Joanna is still in my mind, I have created yet another leading character named David Ballineau, an ER specialist who was once in Special Forces. A curious and unusual combination, you say. True, but he is loosely based on a real-life story as told to me by a former patient who was once in Special Forces.

With all this in mind, let’s turn to the question of why I started writing medical thrillers. Perhaps, deep down, there’s always been a bit of the writer in me. As a matter of fact, in my high school annual, I was projected to become a famous sports writer. Then, along came a five-star medical education, a deep love for mysteries and Sherlock Holmes stories, and a few fascinating ideas for a novel – and you end up with a writer of medical thrillers. You might say it was a gathering of the right elements at the exact right time. And why do I continue to write and dream up new ideas? Well, there’s a simple answer to that. Because writing becomes an addiction. I think Oliver Wendell Holmes described it best when he called it “the intoxicating pleasure of authorship.”

 

You can visit Leonard Goldberg's website, which also has more information about his books and ordering information for Plague Ship and also his Joanna Blalock thrillers.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Filmmaker Danny Boyle is planning to adapt the documentary Smash And Grab: The Story Of The Pink Panthers for a feature film. The story is based on the true-life team of the most successful jewel thieves in the world, known as the Pink Panthers, as they carry out heists across Europe and Asia while global police officers hunt them down.

New Line has picked up the remake rights to Secret, a Korean crime thriller about a detective who finds incriminating evidence that may implicate his wife at a murder scene.

Director Peter Landesman has come aboard Down By the River, an espionage revenge thriller based on the nonfiction book by Charles Bowden. The plot centers around the murder of the younger brother of a high-ranking DEA agent, ordered by a Mexican druglord, and how the agent crosses the border to catch his brother's killer.

The late Tom Clancy's literary creation Jack Ryan lives on in a trailer for the new Shadow Recruit film. It stars Chris Pine as a young Ryan from 9/11 through Afghanistan and into the CIA, where he uncovers a Russian plot to undermine the U.S. economy.

A trailer was also released for the upcoming film Out of the Furnace, from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper. The film stars Woody Harrelson as a dirty and dangerous backwoods criminal and Christian Bale as the factory worker who goes after him when his brother disappears. Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana and Sam Shepard all co-star.

TELEVISION

Shondaland has been very busy indeed. The hot production company has sold another pilot, this one a crime procedural to ABC. Titled Just Rewards, it follows a bankrupt, forty-something divorcée and her underemployed Millenial neighbors who make ends meet by chasing reward money for unsolved crimes.

CBS has committed to producing a pilot based on the 2012 thriller Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. The story centers around a wave of violent animal attacks
across the planet and the young renegade scientist who has to unlock the mystery behind the pandemic. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Kim Raver and William Devane have joined the cast of the Fox series 24: Live Another Day. They join star Kiefer Sutherland, who is back as CTU agent Jack Bauer, and Mary Lynn Rajskub as his quirky sidekick Chloe O’Brien.

Fox has scored the first success of the new fall season, quickly renewing its supernatural procedural Sleepy Hollow for a second season.

Equally pleased is NBC over its freshman drama Blacklist, starring James Spader as a wanted fugitive who turns himself in so that he can take down some other big name criminals. The network gave the go-ahead for a full season for the series.

NBC also handed out a pilot order for the futuristic drama Tin Man, a psychological crime thriller that focuses on "a fugitive robot accused of first-degree murder, who may hold the key to the future of human evolution, and the young female public defender forced to fight for his cause."

Omnimystery News reported that USA Network renewed Covert Affiairs for a fifth season.

ABC bought the pilot Beverly Kills, a drama about a wife and mom who retires from her job as a highly skilled hit-woman for the mob and tries to settle into domesticity, but is lured back into her former trade to clean up Beverly Hills and keep her family safe in the only way she knows how.

Alicia Witt and Edi Gathegi are joining the cast of FX/Sony TV's drama series Justified for its fifth season. Witt will play Wendy Crowe, the smart, sexy sister of crime lord Dale Crowe (Michael Rapaport), while Gathegi will play Jean Baptiste, a Haitian criminal in the employ of the Crowe family.

TV Guide spoke with NCIS executive producer Gary Glasberg about Ziva's exit from the show and what is next for Tony and the team.

Rhys Ifans is returning to Elementary on CBS for its second season, reprising his role as Sherlock Holmes’s brother Mycroft Holmes. Producers also confirmed that guest Natalie Dormer, playing Irene Adler, will
return around midseason and that the show hopes to have Sean Pertwee
also return as Inspector Lestrade.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

"Drugs, Poisons, Toxins, and Death" is the topic for this week's Crime & Science Radio podcast with Dr. D.P. Lyle.

Author William Boyd, who penned the latest installment in the James Bond franchise, talked with NPR about his writing and tackling the iconic fictional spy.

THEATER

Matt Smith (Dr. Who) is taking on the lead role role for the musical adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis's 1991 novel American Psycho, originally made into a 2000 movie starring Christian Bale. The musical opens at London's Almeida Theatre on December 3, and depending on its performance, there are plans to then transfer the production to the West End and Broadway.

Mystery Melange

Congratulations go to Debra Ginsberg who was honored with the 2013 T. Jefferson Parker Award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA), for her novel What the Heart Remembers. The other finalists included Strawberry Yellow, by Naomi Hirahara and Suspect, by Robert Crais. (Hat tip to the Rap Sheet.)

Kirkus Reviews turns 80 this year, and in honor of the anniversary, they're sponsoring a New York City Literary Tour contest. The prize includes round-trip airfare, a hotel stay, breakfast at the Algonquin Roundtable, bookstore gift certificates, passes to the Greenwich Village Literary Pub Crawl, and dinner at PUBLIC. You can enter every day through October 22, and one lucky winner with the correct answer to a quiz will win a free NYT best-selling book. Each time you answer a correct answer, you also get an
entry for a new iPad.

The Fall issue of the online 'zine Mysterical-e is out, with 17 new fiction tales, book reviews, an essay from Jan Christensen on how to make time for reading and a look at the new TV season's crime dramas from Gerald So.

Omnimystery News posted its regular feature of new hardcover releases come up during the month. October will see publication of titles from the likes of Tasha Alexander, Donna Andrews, Max Allan Collins, Elizabeth George, Charlaine Harris, G.M. Malliet, Sara Paretsky, Lisa Scottoline and many more.

This week's poem over at the 5-2 is "At Home in Abbtottabad, Pakistan" by Nancy Scott. The weekly pulp offering from Beat to a Pulp is "The Heist" by Fred Zakel.

Comets and Criminals ezine has started taking submissions again, after a hiatus. However, they are seeking reprints of previously-published short fiction in the categories of science fiction, crime/mystery, adventure, historical, and westerns, as long as it comes in under 10,000 words. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.)

Pan Macmillan is setting up a publishing industry-wide campaign titled Movember. In what is becoming an annual campaign, the program hopes to raises fund and awareness for prostate and testicular cancer throughout the month of November.

In the Q&A roundup this week, author and police officer Frank Zafiro chatted with Noir Nation editor Eddie Vega about his latest novel, Queen of Diamonds, co-written with Jim Wilsky; short story author Jerome W. McFadden, who is also editor for the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable monthly online literary journal, visited Writers Who Kill to chat about writing short fiction; and Russell Blake, author of over 20 suspense/action thrillers, spoke with Omnimystery News about his first detective novel, Black.

Following Patricia Highsmith week recently for Patti Abbott's Fridays "Forgotten" Book, Nick Jones has added a new feature to his blog Existential Ennui of first edition book covers of Highsmith's works, with not only "jackets and cases but uncorrected proofs and a few intriguing, little seen editions of her novels."

Scribd, the online document publishing service, announced a deal with HarperCollins, Kensington and other publishers for a global "Netflix-like" service for ebooks.

Good news for kids' literacy: the Reading Rainbow app, developed from the former PBS program, surpassed 3 million books read in its first year.

Think you are an expert on banned books? Try taking this quiz from The Guardian.

Due to severe funding cuts, libraries in the UK are in a bit of a crisis right now. As Teleread reports, this is driving some libraries to drink–literally. In an effort to stay open, some branches are considering converting to wine bars-cum-libraries.

Flavorwire compiled photos of "30 Excellent Bookstore Windows From Around the World."

True Hollywood Noir

The day following Media Murder for Monday seems like a good time to mention a new nonfiction book about true crime in La-La land from 1922 until 2001, True Hollywood Noir: Filmland Mysteries and Murder. Film historian Dina Di Mambro has put together 100 rare photographs to accompany the chapters on these scandalous celebrity tales, with the chapters dissecting the various theories in each case. As the title suggests, many of these stories date from the film noir period, in a "art imitates life" context, although more contemporary accounts are also included

Several of the sordid, and sad, stories deal with violent death, such as the murders of William Desmond Taylor and Thelma Todd, Bob Crane's 'officially' unsolved murder, the mysterious deaths of Thomas Ince and Paul Bern (Jean Harlow's husband), the alleged suicide of George Reeves (TV's Superman), and Natalie Wood. Others include gangster ties, like mobster Mickey Cohen, a notorious figure in the West Coast underworld in the '40s and '50s, who hung out with the Rat Pack and may have been responsible for the rise of Richard Milhouse Nixon's career.

Many of these cases involve hushed-up sexual liaisons and secret relationships; most date from a time when studios simply covered up murders and other violent deaths. Although Di Mambro doesn't say she has all the answers in these puzzling cases, in summarizing the stories behind each death and quoting the people involved and other research, she invites readers to make up their own minds. Thankfully, Di Mambro is also careful to include the human side of the people involved, with interviews from family member and friends.

Despite the tragic subject matter, Di Mambro's lean, factual accounts don't get in the way of the story-telling and make for an entertaining read. Di Mambro's website features some of her previous writing, including some of the subjects featured  in the book. The book itself is available from The Cadence Group (paperback, ISBN 9780615572697).