Mystery Melange

The Los Angeles Times announced the finalists for its annual Book Prizes. The nominees in the Mystery/Thriller category include: Richard Crompton, Hour of the Red God; Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling; John Grisham, Sycamore Row; Gene Kerrigan, The Rage; and Ferdinand von Schirach, The Collini Case.

Finalists for the Audie Awards, handed out by the Audio Publishers Association for excellence in audio books, were announced last week. Mystery Scene Magazine noted the lists for the Mystery and Thriller/Suspense categories.

Open Road Media listed several worthy Mysteries for Black History Month for you to investigate.

The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes has landed at the COSI Center of Science and Technology in Columbus, Ohio, with a run through September 8. The show brings the world of Sherlock Holmes to life with interactive exhibits that allow visitors to become Holmes' eyes and ears as he tackles a new case, using investigative tools and techniques from Holmes himself. Other exhibits include original manuscripts, publications, period artifacts, film and television props and costumes and other interactive crime-solving opportunities.

Mike Ripley writes the entertaining and informative "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots eZine, but he is also an author in his own right. Telos Crime just released a new edition of his 1989 novel Angel Touch to mark the 25th anniversary of the title winning the first ever Last Laugh Award created by the Crime Writers Association to celebrate comedy in crime writing.

The weekly crime poem at the 5-2 is "Your Voice" by Lauren McBride.

Margot Kinberg's Anthology, In a Word: Murder, which was originally published as an ebook to raise money for the late blogger/crime fiction promoter Maxine Clark's preferred charity (the Princess Alice Hospice), is now available in paperback form.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Benedict Jones taking Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Short Interview" challenge; Hank Phillippi Ryan interviews fellow author Nancy Pickard for the Sisters in Crime New England blog; Dave Zeltserman chatted with LitVote about his award-winning short stories and novels; and Crime Watch featured "9mm: An interview with William Cook."

One sad note this week: Nancy Robertson Bell, author of the Jackson Crain and Biggie Weatherford series, has died at the age of 81 in her home state of Texas.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Will Smith is in early talks to star in the adaptation of Markus Sakey's novel Brilliance. Smith would play a federal agent in a world where some people are born with extraordinary abilities ("the brilliants"), including a man Smith is hunting who wants to start a civil war.

It looks like Jack O’Connell will play the lead in the thriller Section 6 (based on a spec script written by Aaron Berg that the studio won in a bidding war). The story centers on the origins of MI6, the British intelligence agency founded during World War I.

The film adaptation of the '60s TV spy series The Man From Uncle has been given a 2015 release date. Directed by Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes), the project stars Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill as the spy duo.

Director Patrick Hughes has been tapped to helm an English-language Hollywood remake of The Raid: Redemption, with the Hemsworth brothers as potential stars. The original project centered on an Indonesian S.W.A.T. team storming a building where a violent gangster holds hostages, and the young cop who tries to rescue his drug-dealing brother from the chaos inside.

Warner Bros. is taking an unusual route for Rob Thomas' upcoming Veronica Mars movie, an adaptation of the popular TV series. The studio is going to make the film available to rent or buy online on March 14, which is the same day it opens in 270 theaters across the U.S.

Actor Edward Norton's Class 5 Films is teaming up with Brett Ratner and James Packer’s RatPac Entertainment for Norton's adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's novel Motherless Brooklyn. The story centers on Lionel Essrog, a Brooklyn private detective with Tourette’s syndrome, who teams up with three boys from his former orphanage to serve as agents for a notorious New York mobster. When the mobster is murdered, Lionel works to find his boss's killer.

The next Bond will film will probably have a different look: Roger Deakins, the award-winning cinematographer who was responsible for Skyfall, won't be returning for Bond 24.

Fox Studios released a trailer for the upcoming action/thriller film In the Blood, starring Gina Carano as a woman whose husband is mysteriously abducted while they are vacationing in the tropics and her efforts to find him.

TELEVISION

CBS is planning another CSI spin-off, this time focusing on cyber crime. Inspired by the work of real-life Irish cyberpsychologist Mary Aiken, the pilot follows Avery Ryan, Special Agent in Charge at the Cyber Crime Division of the FBI in Quantico, VA.

NBC has given a 13-episode series order for the crime drama Shades of Blue starring Jennifer Lopez as a single mother and detective recruited to work undercover for the FBI's anti-corruption task force. 

NBC crime dramas Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Chicago P.D. are teaming up for a two-hour crossover event on Wednesday, February 26.

Former House star Kal Penn has joined the cast of the CBS's series Battle Creek from Vince Gilligan and David Shore. The story follows a detective and an FBI agent with very different world views who are teamed up Battle Creek Michigan, and Penn will play a local detective who has reservations about the newly-arrived FBI agent.

Omnimystery News reported that Debra Messing has been cast as the lead in NBC's pilot The Mysteries of Laura.

Ioan Gruffudd (Fantstic Four) has signed on to star in ABC's drama pilot Forever, playing New York City’s star medical examiner with a secret: he is immortal. He'll be joined by Judd Hirsch, who will play Morgan's best friend Abe, who knows his secret.

Peter Dinklage is reportedly being eyed for the TV adaptation of the popular sci-fi fantasy series The Beasts of Valhalla, to play the central role of the "dwarf detective" in the adaptation.

Welsh actor Matt Ryan (Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior) is in talks to play the lead in NBC's drama pilot Constantine, based on the characters from the DC Comics John Constantine series. Ryan's character is "an enigmatic and irreverent con man-turned-reluctant supernatural detective who is thrust into the role of defending us against dark forces from beyond."

The European crime drama Crossing Lines is being added to Netflix, with the first season of the series is now available for steaming. The show stars William Fichtner (Prison Break) as a disgraced New York cop who moves to Europe to head up a justice league that hunts down serial killers. Donald Sutherland also headlines the cast.

The ABC crime drama pilot Agatha has added to its cast. Meta Golding (The Hunger Games) will play a tough DA who is also the title Criminologist's nemesis, while Jee Young Han will play a rookie cop assigned as Agatha's liaison.

Richard Cabral and Johnny Ortiz have joined John Ridley’s American Crime pilot for ABC
Studios, which is about the racially charged crime of the home invasion and murder of a young war veteran and his beauty queen wife. Deadline also reported in the same article that Geoffrey Blake (Forrest Gump) has signed will have a role in TNT's pilot Agent X, starring Sharon Stone.

Nickelodeon has optioned author Chris Grabenstein's bestelling YA novel, Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library. The story unfolds over one weekend in the world's "most fabulous" library where middle-school students are locked in as part of a competition and must use its technical resources to find their way out.

ABC Family cancelled the supernatural mystery thriller Ravenswood after one season. Unfortunately, the abrupt ending will leave fans of the show without resolution for the story line. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Award-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger (who also was behind Paradise Lost and a Whitey Bulger documentary) will direct and executive produce The System, an eight-part series on the criminal justice system, for Al-Jazeera America. Episodes will examine such subjects as false confessions, mandatory sentencing and the treatment of juvenile offenders.

Mystery Melange

The winner of the £5,000 Telegraph Harvill Secker crime writing competition for an unpublished manuscript is Abir Mukherjee. His novel, A Rising Man, is set in Calcutta in the dying days of the Raj and opens with the brutal murder of a British burra sahib. Mukherjee's submission was picked from a pool of 400 submissions.

The latest issue of Mystery Readers Journal is out, with a focus on medical mysteries.

If you're in London on March 21st, reserve your spot at the symposium on continental crime writing and its translation into English. Sponsored by the European Commission Representation in the UK in partnership with City University London, the one-day event includes an introductory lecture and workshops with authors and translators. (Hat tip to ShotsMag)

If you're in New York City on April 30th, check out the launch party for the latest Mystery Writers of America anthology, Ice Cold, edited by Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. The launch party will be held at The Mysterious Bookshop, and many of the contributors and 2014 Edgar Award nominees are scheduled to appear.  

Thanks to Crime Fiction Lover for noting that Crime Story, a new festival for crime fiction lovers, is coming to Newcastle at the University of Northumbria on May 31st. The organizers have added a fun twist: they've commissioned author Ann Cleeves to invent a fictional crime which will then be investigated by various experts including forensic scientists, police detectives and legal eagles.  

AM Heath is partnering with The Writers’ Workshop to offer Criminal Lines 2014, a new crime writing prize open to unagented, debut authors, born or residing in the UK and Ireland. First prize is First prize: £1,000 and the chance to meet with literary agents. 

Linda Dewberry, the owner of Olympia, Washington's Whodunit? Books, has put her mystery bookstore up for sale. She's trying to find a new owner, but if a sale doesn't go through by April, the store will close for good.

Did your city make the  America's "most literate" cities list?

This week over at the crime poem site The 5-2, editor Gerald So is featuring love poems for Valentine's month or, as he calls it, "Love is a Crime" and also has this week's new poem, "Salt" by Sarah Nichols; the featured short story at Beat to a Pulp is "Cop," from . . . Gerald So! He's been a very busy fellow this week.

The Q&A roundup this week includes a chat with award-winning author Paul Levine over at the Harvard Square Edition; Jim Winter takes the Short Sharp Interview test for Paul D. Brazill; Charles Salzberg stops by the Sons of Spade blog; Declan Burke wecomes fellow author Frances di Plino; and Laura Lippman has a lenghty Q&A session with the New York Times.

John Dufresne, an American author of French Canadian descent, once collaborated with Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, Elmore Leonard and nine other South Florida writers on Naked Came the Manatee, a detective novel. He recently picked his "Top 10 Florida Noir" titles for Shots Magazine.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

George Clooney is looking to remake the Norwegian thriller Pioneer (set during Norway's old boom in the 1980s) via Clooney's Smokehouse production company. No word yet on whether Clooney will also star.

Sony Pictures won a bidding war involving multiple studios for the Joe Gazzam script Shadow Run, an action thriller said to be "in the vein of the Bourne movies."

Open Road Films picked up U.S. distribution rights to the thriller The Tank from writer-director Kellie Madison, which is about six people entering an isolation tank designed to simulate the lengthy trip to Mars.

Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss is joining the cast of the politically-themed thriller Zipper, about a successful prosecutor (Patrick Wilson) who risks losing his family and career to his temptation for other women. Dreyfuss will play a political "kingmaker."

Olivia Wilde has been added to the cast of the thriller Meadowland, playing a mom whose son disappears, leading her to form a dangerous relationship with a neglected boy.

Mad Men's January Jones is joining the supernatural thriller The Shuddering, playing a woman with strange visions who gets involved with a mystery that "goes back farther than she could imagine."

TELEVISION

Omnimystery News reported that BBC Two has order a five-part original drama series written by bestselling crime novelist Tom Rob Smith. Titled London Spy, it is centered on a young romantic drawn into the dangerous world of espionage.

Jason Isaacs (Awake) will star in USA Network’s upcoming event series Dig. He'll play an FBI agent who uncovers a conspiracy while investigating the death of an archaeologist.

Author Dennis Lehane is penning an adaptation of the Douglas Perry's new biography, Eliot Ness: The Rise And Fall Of An American Hero, for WGN America. The project chronicles the two decades of the famed prohibition agent folowing his take-down of Al Capone.

TNT has decided not to order a second season of its series Mob City, about the battle between the police and mobsters in 1940s Los Angeles.

David Fincher (House Of Cards, Gone Girl), is teaming up with HBO for a U.S. adaptation of the UK drama series Utopia, to be written by Gillian Flynn. The series surrounds the die-hard fans of an iconic, underground graphic novel who find themselves plunged into a game of shifting loyalties, conspiracy and shocking twists as they learn the dark secrets behind a sequel. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

BBC America is developing a Robin Hood drama titled Nottingham, with a different twist on the familiar tale: the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood are actually one and the same person: Robin Hood by night and seeming royal loyalist-turned spy by day.

Tom Hardy has joined Cillian Murphy to star in the BBC's gangster drama Peaky Blinders.

Jane Krakowski will star in Fox's comedy-mystery pilot Dead Boss, about an overachiever who's wrongfully convicted of murdering her boss and forced to rely on her train-wreck sister to prove her innocence. The projects based on the UK show of the same name.

Gavin Stenhouse has been cast as the lead in NBC thriller pilot Coercion, playing a decorated American war hero and newly-minted CIA analyst whose Russian-sleeper-cell family are tasked with turning him against his country.

British actress Sarah-Jane Potts has been cast as the replacement for Georgina Rylance in the Fox adaptation of the British procedural Broadchurch, playing attractive hotel owner Gemma.

Alec Baldwin will guest-star in an as-yet-to-be-revealed role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, in an episode directed by star Mariska Hargitay.

Deadline reported that Rose Rollins is set as one of the leads in TNT's legal drama pilot Guilt By Association, based on the novels by former prosecutor Marcia Clark, while Jamey Sheridan, (Homeland) has been cast in TNT's action-drama pilot Agent X, starring Sharon Stone.

Deadline noted two additional crime drama castings, including Gerald McRaney (House of Cards) in TNT's action-drama pilot Agent X, and Elvis Nolasco and Caitlin Gerard in ABC's American Crime.

ITV has commissioned an eighth season of Inspector Lewis, with Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox reprising their roles as Oxford detectives. This series will find Hathaway (Laurence Fox) has been promoted to Inspector after an extended break from the force, with the retired Lewis (Kevin Whately) drafted back to renew their partnership. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Former West Wing cast member Ron Canada will guest-star on an upcoming episod
e of Elementary a retired high school teacher from a crime-plagued Brooklyn neighborhood.

Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis will star opposite Ryan Phillippe in ABC's new drama series Secrets & Lies, about a family man who finds the body of a young boy and quickly becomes the prime murder suspect.

The reboot of The Flash on the CW network has signed Dawson's Creek star John Wesley Shipp, who played The Flash in the early 1990s CBS television series. His role in the new version is not being identified, for now.

Ahna O’Reilly is set to star in the CW pilot Identity, from executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci. It's about a young woman who receives an organ transplant from a newfound half-brother only to find her new family is the target of a CIA investigation, and the agency wants her to play informant.

TV Guide compiled the "complete pilot report" for the various U.S. networks and all the contenders vying for full season orders. This link is for ABC, but the article also includes links for NBC, CBS, Fox, and the CW).

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

On the most recent Crime and Science Radio podcast: Former FBI Agent George Fong.

THEATER

The musical adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho is eyeing a commercial London return this fall, with a possible U.S. run in the future. It's set in the during the 1980's era of Wall Street greed and starred AFTA Award-nominated "Doctor Who" star Matt Smith starred as serial killer Patrick Bateman.

Stumped for What to Read Next? Try These Ten Book Discovery Sites

With hundreds of thousands of books published each year, it can be a daunting task at times to decide which titles to read next, especially when it comes to find new-to-you authors. Several websites have sprung up to help with that very problem, relying upon "book discovery" data from readers and algorithms to suggest possible novels for you to read.

Since websites can come and go rather quicly in the rapidly-evolving world of the Internet, the following sites on the list all seem to still be working as of this writing. But if you find any errors or just want to chime in with your own favorites, make a note in the comments section. Also, one caveat—these sites are primarily and/or exclusively geared toward traditionally-published books, so if you're trying to find new or bestselling self-published works, you'll have to stick with the "Top Seller" lists on Amazon, B&N, and the other eBook sites.

TEN BOOK DISCOVERY SITES:

Bookish (recently acquired by Zola Books). Bookish was created by three major publishers, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette Book Group.  It's been called the "Pandora for books," and it features a simple interface that calls up a recommendation engine with over 600,000 titles and one million author profiles.

Bookseer also has a an easy to use interface with its "seer" thought balloon asking you to type in the book you just read so it can magically tell you what you should read next. Actually, it works with Amazon and Library Thing recommendations to compile its results, but it's still a quick way to get results. I do like what the site adds, though: "Of course, you could go ask your local bookshop or your local library."

First Chapters is a new book discovery site where readers can sample the first three to four chapters of great books free of charge in all categories and genres, including poetry and short stories.

The Fussy Librarian is a place where readers sign up, indicate what kinds of books, ebooks, or audios they prefer (genre, degree of violence, sex, etc) and get customized emails either daily or weekly with reading recommendations. As the site says, if you're a fan of cozy mysteries, they'll only send you an email when there's a mystery that doesn't have sex, violence or profanity. But if you're more of a book omnivore, they send along lots of suggestions every day.

Library Reads solicits public library staff throughout the U.S. to nominate new adult titles that they have read, loved, and are eager to share with patrons via the website libraryreads.org. The idea was that staff picks are better than most frequently circulated titles because they "wanted to expose people to titles they aren’t already seeing."

Nextread helps users pick books based on both their social network and the price of books. You login with your Facebook account and will be presented with books liked, recommended and read by your friends. You can also create customized lists of the books you are have read or want to read.

Riffle is sometimes called the "Pinterest of book discovery," and it's intended to be an alternative to Goodreads. Riffle users sign up and share reading lists on Riffle with their friends. Even if you haven’t signed up for Riffle, you can view reading lists.

What Should I Read Next? uses a database created from readers and their favorite books and then provides book recommendations and suggestions for what you should read next. Type in the title of a book or an author's name and click on the first listing that comes up. You'll be presented with a list of books that are similar in genre and style.

Whichbook uses millions of combinations of factors to suggest books that most closely match your needs. You use sliders to set a range within your choices (e.g. Happy vs. Sad, Gentle vs. Violent, Short vs. Long, etc.). Or, you can choose to filter out books by character type, plot or setting.

Your Next Read website functions in a way similar to What Should I Read Next? in that you type in a book title or author and click on that result to get suggestions of similar books.

Of course, there are always the websites that are review- and member-based, such as Goodreads, Shelfari, Library Thing, BookLikes, and Slicebooks, where people set up shelves of their books to share. Another possibility is Bookateria by Publishers Lunch, which includes industry "Best of the Year" book lists, plus you can browse by the latest releases in various categories, including Mystery, Crime and Thrillers.

Bored with Ordinary Valentine’s Cakes?

When you're creating your Valentine's confections for tomorrow's celebration, why not try something like the following? (Although they're probably not a great idea for children's parties…)

Via Dorothy Ann's Bakery & Cafe

 

Via the Murder Mystery Company

Mystery Melange

Italian novelist Andrea Camilleri was awarded the prestigious Pepe Carvalho prize for lifetime work, at the BCNegra noir literary festival in Barcelona last week. Previous winners include Michael Connelly, P.D. James, and Henning Mankell.

The just-held Love is Murder Conference handed out the annual Lovey Awards in several categories, including Best Series: Trickster's Point by William Kent Krueger and Best First Novel: Perfidy by M.E. May.

Editor Janet Rudolph has announced a call for essays on Canadian-themed mysteries for the Mystery Readers Journal. She's seking Author! Author! essays (500-1500 words- first person, upclose and personal about yourself, your books, and the Canada connection), with a deadline of March 15th.

For the second year in a row, Thrillerfest is adding the pre-conference workshop, "Today’s FBI: Crime Essentials For Writers." The event is an all-day event on July 7 at the FBI Headquarters in New York City, featuring FBI experts in cyber crime, international terrorism, criminal investigations and more. If you are already registered for ThrillerFest or CraftFest, you can add your registration for that workshop by sending an email to Dennis Kennett at registrar@thrillerwriters.org.

In honor of the 75th anniversary of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, The Guardian published an essay about Chandler's legacy and a quiz about the author so you can test your knowledge of his life and work.

The winners of the 2013 Florida Book Awards were announced, including the Gold Award in General Fiction given to Randy Wayne White for his second Hannah Smith mystery, Deceived. In the Popular Fiction category, the Silver award went to Brad Meltzer for his second Beecher White thriller, The Fifth Assassin, and the Bronze to Alex Kava for her latest Maggie O'Dell mystery, Stranded. (Hat tip to Janet Rudolph.)

Last week saw the official launch of Chalk Line Books, a publisher specializing in republishing vintage crime fiction classics as ebooks (in the same vein as the old Black Lizard Books). The company's first efforts include digital editions of two great crime fiction authors, Jim Thompson with Sharecropper Hell and David Goodis with The Secret Squad. Upcoming authors include Charles Williams, Ed McBain, Peter Rabe, and many more.  

Vanda Symon has been chosen to give the annual Ngaio Marsh Memorial Lecture on Sunday, April 13 at Christ's College Old Boy's Theatre in New Zealand.

This week's featured story at Beat to a Pulp is "Beyond the Sea" by Shotgun Honey's Chris Lirvin; and the featured weekly crime poem at the 5-2 is "Glossy" by Scott T. Hutchison.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Tana French, from an interview posted on her publisher's page, in which she talks about her writing, flawed heroes and her fifth book (in progress), with a working title of The Secret Place.

In the mood for some Valentine's Day mysteries? Janet Rudolph compiled a listing for the Mystery Fanfare blog.

A Scottish osteopath believes he has discovered the real-life inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Dr John Watson: William Smith, a pioneer of British osteopathy and student companion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1880s.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Johnny Depp has signed on to play real-life criminal-turned-fugitive Whitey Bulger in the film Black Mass. The producers are also in negotiations with Tom Hardy to play John Connolly, an FBI agent and friend of Bulger, currenly in prison for tipping off Bulger he was about to be indicted.

Actor Bill Paxton is putting on his director's hat for the adaptation of Joe Lansdale's novel The Bottoms. The story of the Edgar Award-winning novel about a crime coverup in a small town with racial undertones that leads one victim's family to pursue the truth.

Hannah Ware (Betrayal) has signed to star with Rupert Friend and Zachary Quinto in Agent 47, the reboot of Hitman from Fox Studios.

SC Films International has signed Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, Peter Weller, Michael Jai White, Celina Jade and Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa to the cast for the action thriller Skin Trade. The story follows a New York City detective whose family is killed by a Serbian crime boss and heads to Bangkok to team up with a Thai detective to get revenge.

Kate Winslet, Aaron Paul, and Michael B. Jordan have joined the cast of Triple Nine. The storyline follows a group of corrupt policemen who find themselves on the wrong end of a blackmail threat from the Russian mafia.

Ian McShane is joining the cast of The Man On Carrion Road, playing an aging retired Sheriff of a small border town with violent tendencies who teams with the town's new sheriff (Patrick Wilson) to stop a mysterious cartel butcher.

Paladin acquired the thriller The Maid’s Room from director Michael Walker, for a release in both theatrical and digital formats. The story follows a maid caring for a spoiled family in the Hamptons who gains leverage when the son of her employers comes home with a bloodied car after a hit and run.

Nicolas Cage is in talks to star in Men With No Fear, play Marty "The Mule," newly released from prison after being set up by his former boss, Frank, a small-time neighborhood crook.

TELEVISION

Amazon just released ten new pilots viewers can watch for free and vote on, including Bosch, based on the procedural novels by Michael Connelly. The viewer feedback will help determine which pilots will go to series. (Hat tip to Ominimystery News.)

Sissy Spacek has been added to the cast (that already includes Kyle Chandler, Ben Mendelsohn and Linda Cardellini) in Netflix's untitled 13-episode psychological thriller from the creators of Damages. The project follows a close-knit family of adult siblings whose secrets and scars are revealed when the black sheep oldest brother, Danny (Mendelsohn), returns home. Spacek is set to play the siblings' mother.

Former Fringe star Lance Reddick is heading to The Blacklist playing "The Cowboy," one of Red's (James Spader) many assets, although a new assignment for The Cowboy from Red will "leave Red in shock."

Hank Azaria and Sherilyn Fenn have signed on for multi-episode arcs on the second season of Showtime's drama series Ray Donovan, starring stars Liev Schreiber as LA's best professional "fixer." Azaria will play the ambitious head honcho of the Los Angeles FBI, and Fenn will play his frumpy wife.

Film director McG is joining NBC’s drama pilot The Mysteries Of Laura as director/executive producer. The show is based on the popular Spanish series Los Misterios De Laura and follows the life and relationships of a female homicide detective who can handle murderous criminals but not her evil twin sons.

ABC has hired Jace Alexander (Law & Order, The Blacklist) to helm the pilot Agatha. The plot centers on a former convict turned big city criminologist brought in to help local police crack a case—only the Chief detective she's been hired to help is her estranged father.

The latest NCIS spinoff, NCIS New Orleans has tapped some new cast members, incuding CCH Pounder (The Shield) to play Dr. Wade, the Jefferson Parish Medical Examiner; Zoe McLellan (JAG), playing Special Agent Brody; and Scott Bakula as Special Agent Pride.

USA Network says that the current season of Psych will be its last, with the series finale on March 26. The finale will be followed by the Psych After Show, a one-hour live Q&A in front of a studio audience featuring the cast and show creator Steve Franks. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Ryan Phillippe (Damages) and Natalie Martinez (Under The Dome, End Of Watch) have signed on to star in ABC's Secrets & Lies, centering on a family man who finds the body of a young boy and quickly becomes the prime murder suspect. The project is an adaptation of an Australian mystery series.

The Killing is adding Tyler Ross, Sterling Beaumon and Levi Meaden to its cast for the show's six-episode fourth and final season.

Netflix renewed its original series House of Cards for a third season. The show stars Kevin Spacey as a ruthless Washington-insider congressman, with Emmy winner Robin Wright playing his equally ambitious wife.

TNT has picked up six more episodes of the breakout docu-reality series, Cold Justice, which follows former prosecutor Kelly Siegler and former crime-scene investigator Yolanda McClary as they dig into unsolved cold murder cases.

Don Johnson is returning to television again as a lawman (the first such role since Miami Vice and Nash Bridges) in the supernatural From Dusk Till Dawn on the El Rey Network. He'll play Sheriff Earl McGraw, fixated on capturing the notorious Gecko brothers after their bank heist leaves several dead, with a trail that leads to a strip joint in Mexico filled with vampires.  

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Dean Gialamas, Director of the Los Angles County Sheriff’s Department’s Crime Lab, was the guest on the most recent Crime and Science Radio podcast.

Elizabeth Foxwell noted that the latest episode of the Warner Archive Collection podcast discusses the release of Bill Elliott Detective Mysteries (1955–57), a DVD of films with Elliott as a detective working in the LA sheriff's office.

Thanks to Elizabeth for also pointing out that the KPFA radio program Bookwaves has two versions online of a documentary on Elmore Leonard that includes archival interviews.

Mystery Melange

The nominees for the 2014 Agatha Awards were announced last week. Handed out at the Malice Domestic Convention each year, the awards celebrate "cozy" and traditional mysteries. The Best Contemporary Novel category nods include Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming (Minotaur Books); Pagan Spring by G.M. Malliet (Minotaur Books); How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books); Clammed Up by Barbara Ross (Kensington Books); and The Wrong Girl by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books)

David Cranmer announced that Beat to a Pulp is back with a revamped website (the archives of past stories is in the works) and a new editor added to the team, Chad Eagleton. The first featured story of 2014 is "Life of Salvage" by Frank Bill.

This week's crime poem over at the 5-2 is "In Memoriam: Ex-KGB Agent Complains…" by Elizabeth Lash. Website editor Gerald So also put out a call for original poems by an Irish poet or about Irish crime to be published the week of St. Patrick's Day, as well as any crime-themed poems for April, National Poetry Month.

You've still got a few days left to vote in The Rap Sheet's "You Pick 'Em: Best Crime Covers of 2013" poll. Voting will remain open through midnight on Friday, February 7th.

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine includes a host of new thrillers coming out in the next three months, as well as the usual reviews and news from the crime fiction social scene across the Pond.

Open Road Media just announced that twenty-two works by pioneering crime writer Dorothy Salisbury Davis will now be available as ebooks. Davis was a contemporary of Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Dashiell Hammett and a recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, as well as lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic.

Meanwhile, Penguin announced that they plan to reissue all 75 Inspector Maigret Mysteries by Georges Simenon. (Hat tip to Janet Rudolph.) The first two volumes are already available, beginning with the very first book in the series to feature the Paris police inspector, Pietr the Latvian.

The University of Portsmouth UK is seeking proposals of no more than 300 words for papers to present at its June symposium, "Detecting Objects: The Material Item and Detective Fiction." The description adds that pioneering works in the field of "thing theory" have sought to reconceptualise the roles of objects in fiction, and this conference will consider the ways in which objects have always been of crucial importance to the popular genre of detective fiction, as either clues, weapons, or as other embodiments of history.

Adrian McKinty chose his "top 10 locked-room mysteries" for The Guardian.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Thomas Pluck, speaking with The Mystery People about his novels with Iraqi war veteran and former MMA fighter, Rage Cage Reeves; and Barbara Levinson joined Make Mine Mystery to chat about the writing life and her latest novel, Outrageous October.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Philip Seymour Hoffman's next directing effort was to be the Depression-era mystery thriller Ezekiel Moss, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams. Unfortunately, the actor was found dead yesterday in his NYC apartment from an apparent drug overdose. It's far to early to tell how this will affect the project, but that doesn't really matter right now – most importantly, our sincere condolences, and I'm sure those of all his fans, go to the actor's family and friends. He will be missed by many.

The production company Lumanity has optioned Dennis Lehane's short story "Consumers," about a colorful hitman who targets players in high finance, for a feature film adaptation. Writer-producer Robert Budreau will pen the script.

Omnimystery News reported that Nic Pizzolatto's Edgar Award-nominated thriller Galveston is to be adapted for film by Jean Doumanian Productions. Pizzolatto also created, wrote and executive produces HBO's new drama True Detective.

More films are on the way made based on Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series, Copenhagen's cold case police unit. The Keeper of Lost Causes was the first film from the series. (Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Benedict Cumberbatch has joined the cast of the thriller Blood Mountain. He'll play a private military contractor whose special forces team is ambushed and killed during a covert raid, forcing him to personally escort one of the world's most wanted terrorists over hostile terrain to bring him to justice. As Variety adds, "With a bounty at stake and insurgents and rival mercenaries hunting them, the two find themselves facing not only their enemies, but each other in their fight for survival."

Chris Pine has signed on to star in The Line, a gritty thriller from director David Gordon Green and Walking Dead writer-producer Sang Kyu Kim. Pine will play a patrol agent who unexpectedly becomes caretaker of a young orphan after run-in with a criminal cartel and has to battle foes on both sides of the law and the border.

Meanwhile, Pine's fellow Star Trek cast member, Zachary Quinto, is joining Rupert Friend in the cast of Fox International’s Hitman sequel, Agent 47.

Actor Robert Carlyle will make his directorial debut with the dark comedy-thriller The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson, an adaption based on the popular series of novels by Douglas Lindsay. The project will star Caryle, Ray Winstone, Ewen Bremner and Emma Thompson in the tale of a Scottish barber who accidentally stumbles into the world of serial murder.

Fox International Productions picked up the spec script The Forger, about an ex-CIA forger who is living in Istanbul who must return to the world of espionage when his former agency handler turns up dead and a female Iranian intelligence agent needs to defect to the West.

A24 released the first trailer and poster for Denis Villeneuve’s psychological thriller Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal (a very busy man these days) in dual roles as a man who sees his doppelgänger in a movie and begins to obsess over finding him. Also in the cast are Isabella Rossellini

TELEVISION

NBC has ordered two extra episodes for the freshman series Chicago P.D., a spin-off of the network's other successful show, Chicago Fire.

Bones fans, rejoice: Fox has renewed the series for a 10th season. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Likewise, fans of the Cinemax crime drama Banshee will be happy to hear that the show was renewed for a 3rd season.

Dianne Wiest is heading for The Blacklist in a guest-starring role playing the head of Amnesty United, an organization created to fight the death penalty.

CBS ordered a terrorism pilot from the producer of Revenge. The story concerns a retired CIA officer who’s pulled back into action after a terrorist attack hits Washington, D.C.

Fox bought the thriller script The Unseen, based on the short story "Mr. Pettinger’s Daemon," which appeared in thriller author John Connolly's collection, Nocturnes. The plot centers on a hospital cleric sent to treat a patient in a remote parish and discovers the root of the man's erratic behavior is a biblical force of evil trying to surface from deep below the church.

Director Michael Offer (Last Resort) has been hired to helm the ABC drama pilot, How To Get Away With Murder, a suspense-driven legal thriller about ambitious law students and their brilliant and mysterious criminal defense professor who are entangled in a murder plot. Matt McGorry (Orange Is The New Black) has also been added to the cast.

Deadline reported that Neil Marshall (The Descent) will direct NBC's drama pilot Constantine, about an enigmatic and irreverent con man-turned-reluctant supernatural detective, while ABC has hired director Charles McDougall for its pilot Secrets & Lies about a family man who finds the body of a
young boy and quickly becomes the prime murder suspect.

Mike Colter has been cast in TNT's action-drama pilot Agent X, written by William Blake Herron and starring Sharon Stone as America’s first female Vice President who relies on her "secret weapon," Agent X (Jeff Hephner).  

Michael Pitt is joining Hannibal, playing Mason Verger, an unstable, wealthy patient of Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) who develops a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the cannibal killer. NBC also teased several other snippets about the return of the show on February 28th, including the addition of Katharine Isabelle as Hannibal's twin sister who may end up being a romantic interest for Will Graham. Also returning to the show are guest stars Gillian Anderson, Eddie Izzard and Raul Esparza.

A&E released a poster and a trailer for its new crime drama Those Who Kill, based on a Danish series inspired by the bestselling crime novels of Elsebeth Egholm. The show follows a recently-promoted homicide detective who tracks down serial killers and seeks the truth behind the disappearance of her brother. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

BBC Radio 3 is planning a broadcast in May to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth, but the work they've chosen isn't a typical Dylan Thomas subject. It's a script Thomas wrote with murder, mystery and intrigue in the South Pacific that was optioned at one time by actor Richard Burton but never developed into a film.

Ian Rankin joined host and fellow Scottman Craig Ferguson on the Late Show on CBS.

GAMES

Frogwares revealed more details about Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishment, a new adventure game heading to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 later this year.