A Noir Affair

Every two years, fans of the devilishly dark and the tortuously twisted descend upon Philadephia for NoirCon. As the organizers note, "The sins, moral failings and dark truths of the human condition find a home at NoirCon—a forum where writers, filmmakers, publishers, and other noir fans share the trials of uncovering the dark side of life for readers and viewers. We look into the minds of tortured fictional characters and see real people, the mirror images of ourselves, coping with deep longing and inevitable disappointment."

In addition to a varied slate of authors and panels and films, NoirCon also bestows the David Goodis Award for Literary Excellence upon such noteworthy individuals as Ken Bruen and George Pelecanos. But it's not all dark and deadly; each conference sponsors one organization that helps those in need, such as the Awassa Children’s Project, helping Ethiopian orphans battle AIDS, and Project H.O.M.E.

This year, the journal NoirRiot will be published in conjunction with the conference for the first time, featuring original stories, essays and poems. I am honored to have two of my poems included and look forward to reading all the other contributions to the publication, edited by Lou Boxer and Matthew Louis.

Some of the featured authors scheduled to appear at NoirCon 2014 from October 30 to November 2 are Charles Benoit, John Connolly, K.A. Laity, and Fuminori Nakamura (this year's Goodis Award recipient). There will also be some surprises, which in the past have included performance art and musical guests. And, since the fest happens to occur on Halloween, the Saturday night award dinner will be themed accordingly.

To keep up with all the latest NoirCon news, follow the blog or their Twitter feed. To register, click on the Society Hill Playouse venue link, print out the PDF form, and mail it in along with your registration fee. Hurry and reserve your space - attendees to previous NoirCons have remarked on how much easier and fun it is to rub elbows with authors and fans at a smaller conference like this one with a more personalized experience.

Mystery Melange

Traditional publishers are still feeling their way around the new digital revolution, with some interesting partnerships turning up as a result. Simon & Schuster has signed up with book subscription services Scribd and Oyster (think Netflix for books) to make the publisher's backlist ebooks titles available. HarperCollins also inked a deal with the children's book subscription service, Epic, and St. Martins Press joined up with Swagbucks, an online book discovery site.

Meanwhile, the Library Journal is partnering with BiblioBoard to create a discovery portal for libraries for self-published ebooks, and Publishers Weekly created BookLife, a new website dedicated to supporting self-published authors. Ebook publisher/distributor Smashwords is also making their self-pubbed titles available through Overdrive, an ebook database for libraries.

If you're on Goodreads, the book lover's website is adding an "Ask the Author" feature. The site will start off with just a little over 50 authors participating, including Margaret Atwood, Khaled Hosseini, Douglas Preston, and James Patterson. Users post questions to favourite authors, get answers, and read Q&A's from other users. Eventually the program will roll out to include all of the 100,000+ authors  in the program, who will have the option of taking questions from fans and readers.

If you're a fan of all things Victorian, head on over to the British Library website. The venerable institution just launched a program to make the work of great Romantic and Victorian writers in its collections more accessible to the public. In addition to original manuscripts, first editions and rare illustrations, there will be newspapers, photographs, maps, letters, and diaries. It's also a potentially useful resource for writers of historical fiction.

The UK's Foyle's bookseller is launching the new Foyles Literary Tours International. To start, the new venture will offer tours to India and the UK and include stops of interest to the literary world, as well as giving participants local flavor and history of each region.

Omnivoracious editors picked their best Summer Reads titles, including the general creme-de-la-creme, and also in the categories of "Biggest Blockbusters" and "Beach Reads." It may be too late for Memorial Day, but you may find some fun books for the rest of your summer and beyond.

Crime Fiction Lover reported on the brand new reference book, Euro Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to European Crime Fiction, Film & TV, by Barry Forshaw. There are chapters on the rise of crime fiction in several countries including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Target" by Peter M. Gordon.

In the Q&A roundup this week, Walter Mosley chats with the Chicago Tribune about his latest novel Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore, and how he likes to keep his readers from becoming too comfortable.

All Things Anthology

Summer is a great time to catch up on reading, even if you only have short bites of time here and there. And what better to fill those short bites than some short stories?


New anthologies that may be of interest include Faceoff, edited by David Baldacci and sponsored by the International Thriller Writers group. The volume includes eleven tales that match up two protagonists from different authors. For instance, "Rhymes with Prey" by Jeffrey Deaver and John Sandford has Lincoln Rhyme and Lucas Davenport working a case together, while "Gaslighted" by R. L. Stine and Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child pits Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy against Aloysius Pendergast.

 

The New Black: A Neo-Noir Anthology, edited by Richard Thomas, is a collection of twenty dark stories from various genres including horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction. Sample stories include Kyle Minor’s "The Truth and All Its Ugly," about a substance-abusing man who takes his teenage son down the same dark slide after the wife/mother abandons them. 

 

Explosions: Stories of Our Landmine World, edited by Scott Bradley, has 25 stories from bestselling authors such as Jeffery Deaver, James Grady, John Sayles, C. Courtney Joyner, and Peter Straub. The stories are again on the dark side, although like The New Black, they run the gamut of genres. The connecting theme is that each story touches on landmines - proceeds from this charity anthology go to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization MAG (Mines Advisory Group).

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Benedict Cumberbatch is in talks to replace Guy Pearce in the new Whitey Bulger drama Black Mass currently filming in Boston, taking on the role of Billy Bulger, brother to the famous mob boss. The film is based on the book Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal, and will be released in theaters next year. Adam Scott was also added to the cast.

Dr. Who alum Karen Gillan is joining Ethan Hawke, John Travolta, and Taissa Farmiga in writer-director Ti West‘s revenge thriller Western In A Valley Of Violence. Gillan will play one of two sisters who run a hotel in the town where Hawke’s drifter seeks vengeance for the death of his best friend.

The untitled Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks Cold War film has snagged Joel and Ethan Coen to write the script. The project is based on the real-life story of Gary Powers, shot down while operating a spy plane above the Soviet Union, and James Donovan, a Harvard Law School alum used by the CIA to facilitate Powers' release.

When actor River Phoenix died at the age of 23 in 1993, he was working on the thriller Dark Blood, which was put on hold. Now, over 20 years later, the film is being given a theatrical release. Phoenix plays a desperate widower called Boy who lives in the desert on a nuclear testing site, but when a married couple (Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis) show up, he imprisons them to conquer his loneliness and lust.

20th Century Fox released a trailer for Matthew Vaughn‘s Kingsman: The Secret Service, based upon the comic book by Mark Millar, depicting a veteran secret agent who leads a young protege into the world of espionage.

Pierre Morel's The Gunman, starring Sean Penn, will debut on screens first in France before rolling out across theaters in the U.S. and the U.K. on February 20, 2015.

There's a new trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of the TV series The Equalizer. The update stars Denzel Washington as the former intelligence officer with a mysterious past who helps people in trouble.

TELEVISION

TNT's Major Crimes was itself a spinoff of The Closer, and now Major Crimes is geting a potential offshoot that would star Jon Tenney as Special Agent Fritz Howard, the husband of the series' main character, Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick).  

Author Christopher Fowler hinted at a plan in the works to bring his Bryant & May series to television. Fowler adds, "Although the deal is under wraps at the moment, I can reveal that, following negotiations with several companies, the old codgers will get a fresh chance to be seen by TV networks as a possible series."

The UK (and original) version of Broadchurch has rounded out its cast for the upcoming second season. In addition to David Tennant and Olivia Colman reprising their roles, there will be some new faces:  Charlotte Rampling, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Eve Myles and James D’Arcy.

Chloe Sevigny and Steven Pasquale have signed on for recurring roles on Netflix’s untitled psychological thriller drama written and executive produced by Damages creators Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman and Glenn Kessler. The 13-episode series is set in the Florida Keys and centers on a close-knit family of four adult siblings (Kyle Chandler, Ben Mendelsohn, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz) whose secrets and scars are revealed when their black sheep brother (Mendelsohn) returns home.

Coming in June, David Tennant (Dr. Who, Broadchurch) stars as a brilliant defense lawyer with a storybook family and a potent nickname, "The Escape Artist," for his ability to win freedom for guilty defendants. It debuts in June on PBS Masterpiece! Mystery, and Janet Rudolph over at Mystery Fanfare has a sneak preview.

The new network El Rey released a first look at the upcoming spy series Matador (no relation to the Pierce Brosnan movie), about a CIA agent whose cover is an international soccer star, originally pitched as a "Latino James Bond." The story comes from veterans Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Alias, Mission: Impossible 3).

The startup company ScreenHits is unveiling The Pilot Showcase, hosting 50 produced pilots that weren’t picked up to series. The shows will remain on the site for six months, where networks could theoretically then step in and pick them up.

THEATER

The cast was announced for the fall 2014 Broadway premiere of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, an adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling novel. Stars will include Alexander Sharp, "a soon-to-be Juilliard grad, in his Broadway debut," as well as Ian Barford (August: Osage County), Helen Carey (London Assurance), Francesca Faridany (The 39 Steps) and Enid Graham (The Constant Wife). Sharp will play the main character, an odd 15-year old boy suspected of killing his neighbor’s dog whose search for the real killer has unforeseen consequences. The play had an original, award-winning run in the U.K. at the National Theatre.

Mystery Melange

The nominees for the annual Anthony Awards were announced yesterday. The winner will be handed out at the annual Bouchercon conference in November, this year held in Long Beach, CA. The shortlist for Best Novel includes Robert Crais, Suspect; Sara J. Henry, A Cold and Lonely Place; William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace; Hank Phillippi Ryan, The Wrong Girl; and Julia Spencer-Fleming, Through the Evil Days.  Check out the Bouchercon 2014 blog for the shorlists for Best First Novel, Best Paperback Original, Best Short Story, Best Critical Work, Best YA, Best TV Episode, and Best Audio Book.

Awards galore were also front and central at the CrimeFest convention in the UK over the weekend. Mystery Fanfare posted a listing of all the nominees on the Crime Writers Association shortlists for the International Dagger, Historical Dagger, Non-Fiction Dagger and Short Story Dagger, and Martin Edwards was honored with the inaugural CWA Margery Allingham Prize.

Also announced at the CrimeFest Saturday's Gala Dinner was the winner of the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year to Linda, As in the Linda Murder, by Leif G.W. Persson; the Audible Sounds of Crime Award was given to The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith, read by Robert Glenister; the eDunnit Award for ebook went to Norwegian by Night, by Derek B. Miller; and Miller's book also won the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award for best humorous crime published in the UK. For the full list of nominees, check out the Crimefest website.

The new Spring issue of Mystery Fanfare is out, with a focus on Canadian crime fiction and is filled with essays, reviews and articles.

The latest edition of The Big Click was also released, an ezine published bimonthly. Their mission is "to find the best of new crime fiction in a variety of modes—we are especially interested in noir, confessional, weird and 'literary' fiction that depict and interrogate crime and social trespass." The new issue includes short stories from Heather L. Nelson and Gary Phillips and various reviews of new books.

Lit Reactor has announced their writing challenge for 2014. The 2012 challenge sought horror stories, while the 2013 event centered on sci-fi. The 2014 challenge is to be themed around crime fiction, with the Grand Prize winning story published in Thuglit, edited by Todd Robinson. The rules mandate stories of between 3,000 and 5,000 words, and although all subgenres are welcome, there are a few tropes that are not: no talian mafia, no hitmen, no sex crimes, and no serial killers.

Crime Fiction Lover has a guide to the works of John Connolly, who introduced his beloved character Charlie Parker in 1999's Every Dead Thing (which won the Shamus for best debut novel and also LA Times Book of the Year).

A sad bit of news: Author Martin Meyers passed away last week. As fellow author and friend Parnell Hall posted on Facebook, "Marty was the author of the Patrick Hardy series under his own name, and, with his wife, Annette Meyers, co-authored a series of historical mysteries under the name Maan Meyers, beginning with The Dutchman, set in New Amsterdam in 1664. Marty's short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen, as well as anthologies edited by Robert J. Randisi and Charlaine Harris. In 2002, Marty and Annette served as toastmasters at Malice Domestic."

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Concerned About the 'How'" by Ann Clark, and the featured pulp of the week story at Beat to a Pulp is "No Hard Feelings" by Alec Cizak.

The Q&A roundup this week includes an interview with Reed Farrel Coleman over at the Mystery People; and the Sons of Spade blog welcomed author and former law enforcement officer David Putnam.

Mystery Bestsellers for April

The Seattle Mystery Bookshop is a member of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA), an organization that at one time listed the top-selling novels each month for all member stores. Although the IMBA no longer keeps such lists online, the Seattle store carries on the tradition and posted their most popular books for the past month:

April Hardcover Bestsellers

1. Amanda Quick – Otherwise Engaged 

2. Tie:

Kelley Armstrong – Sea Of Shadows
Donna Leon – By Its Cover 

4. Mary Daheim – The Alpine Yeoman

5. Tie:

CJ Box – Stone Cold
Harlan Coben – Missing You

7. Tie:

Val McDermid – Northanger Abbey 
Benjamin Black – The Black-Eyed Blonde 

9. Tie:

Elizabeth Lowell – Night Diver
Peter Robinson – Children Of The Revolution
Alan Bradley – The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches
Jussi Adler-Olsen – Purity Of Vengeance 
Loren D. Estleman – Don't look For Me
Michael Robertson – Moriarty Returns A Letter
John Straley – Cold Storage Alaska
Pierre Lemaitre – Alex  

April Trade Paperback Bestsellers

1. Maurizio De Giovanni – I Will Have Vengeance

2. Peter Spiegelman – Thick As Thieves 

3. Tie:

Max Barry – Lexicon
Gillian Flynn – Gone Girl 
Burt Weissbourd – Inside Passage 

6. Tie:

Jussi Adler-Olsen – The Absent One
Craig Johnson – The Cold Dish
Ross Allison – Spooked In Seattle
Maurizio De Giovanni – Day Of The Dead

9. Tie:

Jussi Adler-Olsen – A Conspiracy Of Faith
Jussi Adler-Olsen – The Keeper Of Lost Causes
Jo Nesbo – Cockroaches 
Ben H. Winters – The Last Policeman 
Curt Colbert – Seattle Noir

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Warner Brothers has tapped Chris Sparling to adapt the bestselling Jo Nesbo crime novel Blood On Snow as a vehicle for director Daniel Espinosa and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Jake Gyllenhaal's crime drama Nightcrawler has sparked a bidding war at Cannes. It marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Dan Gilroy and stars Gyllenhaal as a freelance crime reporter in Los Angeles, with Rene Russo and Bill Paxton also in the cast.

Nicolas Cage and Jack Huston have signed on to star in the crime thriller The Trust, which centers around two evil cops who discover a strangely hidden and guarded safe filled with mysterious contents that leads them into dark territory.

Helen Mirren and Aaron Paul will star opposite Colin Firth in Gavin Hood's film project Eye in the Sky. Mirren will star as Colonel Michelle Madden, a military intelligence officer in command of a top secret drone operation, with Paul playing a American drone pilot. It's said to be a contemporary international thriller set in the shadowy world of remotely piloted drone warfare.

Edgar Ramirez is replacing Gerard Butler in the reboot of Point Break, playing the same character that helped boost Patrick Swayze's career in the 1991 original. The re-creation is "set in the world of international heists and extreme sports, and like the original, involves an undercover FBI agent infiltrating a criminal ring."

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke and X-Men actor Nicholas Hoult have signed on to star as the legendary bank-robbing duo Bonnie and Clyde in Michael Sucsy's film Go Down Together.

Idris Elba (star of the UK police drama Luther) will headline the thriller Bastille Day along with Adèle Exarchopoulos, while James Watkins will handle directing duties. Andrew Baldwin wrote the script that centers on a rogue CIA agent forced to team with an unsuspecting American con artist to thwart a terrorist attack on French soil.

The spy franchises Bourne and Mission Impossible are both getting new writers for upcoming sequels, with Andrew Baldwin handling Bourne duties and and video game author Will Staples taking on MI.

The Solution Entertainment Group offered a first look at Pierce Brosnan's return to spying in the upcoming November Man, based on the Bill Granger novel There Are No Spies.

A trailer was also released for Kidnapping Freddy Heineken starring Anthony Hopkins in the real-life story of the Heineken International CEO's kidnapping in 1983.

Coming out of Cannes: a first look at the revenge thriller Redeemer, a Spanish-language action film that centers on a former hitman who begins every day by holding a gun to his own head and pulling the trigger; every day he continues to live, he takes it as a sign he's meant to continue hunting down the men he used to work for.

TELEVISION

The British detective drama Broadchurch led the BAFTA television awards in the UK this weekend, winning three categories including best drama, best actress (Olivia Colman), and best supporting actor (David Bradley). The nod for best single drama went to Complicit, which follows the trail of an MI5 officer desperate to foil a terrorist attack, while Breaking Bad won the international category.

According to the Daily Mail, the actor best known as the comedic "Mr. Bean" is set to take on the role of Inspector Jules Maigret, the fictional creation of author Georges Simenon.

Martin Clunes (Doc Martin, Reggie Perrin) will play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a three-part series for ITV "inspired by a real-life case tackled by the author," as detailed in the Julian Barnes' novel Arthur & George.

ABC published their official Fall schedule, which has Castle on Mondays, Forever on Tuesdays, How to Get Away with Murder on Thursdays, and Revenge on Sundays. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Fox was a littler slower than the other networks in publishing their fall schedules, but as Omnimystery News also notes, they have included the new shows Gotham and Gracepoint, as well as renewing Sleepy Hollow, Bones, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

TNT and TBS also announced their upfront schedules last Wednesday, including several crime dramas and thrillers. One of the newest scripted series in development is a new adaptation of Ed McBain’s 87th series, one of the longest-running crime novel series ever published.

While ABC picked up Agent Carter and NBC picked up two new spy pilots, CBS and the CW passed on the spy pilots Red Zone and the Kurtzman/Orci spy show Identity.

SundanceTV acquired the rights to Danny Boyle's first venture into television, the satirical police drama Babylon.

After much speculation, several of the original stars of Broadchurch will be back for the second series, including David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Jodie Whittaker and Andrew Buchan. (Thanks to EuroCrime for the link.)

NBC has released a long-form trailer for one of the spy pilots the network recently ordered to series. Here's an extended look at State of Affairs, the Washington-set Katherine Heigl CIA drama.

Deadline has a grid-at-a-glance for the Fall 2014 network television schedule in the U.S.

VIDEOS/PODCASTS/RADIO

Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider series and also a show writer for Poirot, Murder in Mind, and Midsomer Murders, joined Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show. 

This week on Crime and Science Radio, DP Lyle and Jan Burke welcomed internationally renowned forensics pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht to discuss his life in criminal justice and the numerous famous cases he has been involved with over his stellar career.

Museum Mania

Tomorrow is International Museum Day! In addition to all the fine Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., there are a couple of off-the-beaten-path (and fee-based) museums that are unusual and fun.

The Spy Museum has the largest collection of international espionage artifacts ever placed on public display, an exhibit of "50 Years of Bond Villains," and interactive exhibits like Operation Spy.

Not too far away is the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, with forensic science workshops, Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-riddled car, a Firearms Training and Police Driving Simulator, and more.

Author R&R with Jenny Milchman

Thriller writer Jenny Milchman stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research):

Research is Murder: AKA How Not to Do Any For Your Book

I have a confession to make. No, I didn’t bury any dead bodies, but research often feels like it will be the death of me. When I was a child, my research projects would descend all too quickly into flights of fancy. I’m a suspense writer, and I prefer to make things up.

Luckily I don’t write historical novels, or ones with a lot of technical detail. I took part in a Skype chat once when Lee Child explained that he doesn’t do much research himself. Well, I’ve read every single Reacher novel. There’s a reason the man is a #1 New York Times bestseller. If I tried to imagine the interior workings of a gun, I would probably make it shoot backwards.

Now there’s a twist.

I buy myself out of the research problem by writing what reviewer Oline Cogdill calls family thrillers, about ordinary people who happen to find themselves in extraordinary situations. The ones none of us would ever want to be in—but can imagine all too well. You wake up in the morning and know that something is wrong. A bed is empty when it should be filled. The knock on the door doesn’t sound friendly.

This approach to constructing stories didn’t arise as a solution to my research problem, although it may have a pleasant synchronicity with my personal likes and dislikes. But the truth is that I am fascinated by the thin gray line. The horizon of the Before and After. As for heroes, I prefer constructing everyday ones. People who are a lot like you and me.

In my debut novel, Cover of Snow, Nora Hamilton wakes to find her husband missing from their bed. She discovers what happened to him all too quickly…and that is when the real danger starts. In my recently released follow-up, Ruin Falls, Liz Daniels has just set off on a family vacation when her children disappear. Liz finds out who has taken her kids in one terrifying slash of realization. Now the journey will begin to get them back.

Readers have pointed out to me that there are areas that call for research in both these novels. Nora is a restorer of old homes; Liz is an organic gardener. There is an autistic character in my first novel, and one who is dealing with a traumatic brain injury in my second. But you see, these are all subjects I know about from the inside out. I worked as a psychotherapist for ten years and saw patients with both forms of cognitive challenges. My first home was a dilapidated Victorian. No one with children these days can help but feel both the liberation and vise-like grip of the so-called organic movement.

Bought out of research…again.

I see a different kind of line coming, however. One I may very well need to cross. The new story blooming in my head will take on a subject I know nothing about. I sense a fork in the road, and am struggling with it.

Should I write this book and make everything up in the way that would best suit my story? I’ve done that in the past with unpublished manuscripts—and gotten fairly close. I’ve made up details about the law, journalism, and architecture, and when I went back and checked, they turned out to need little in the way of revision. But most of us know at least something about these topics. The one I am considering now is completely outside my wheelhouse.

It’s always a question as a writer how much work you want to put in up front, and how much you are willing to go back and revise in subsequent drafts. Part of me is tempted to let this exciting new story spin out, then go back and retrofit it if necessary. But part of me thinks that I should listen to the wisdom compiled in the pages of this blog, and do what all those other brave suspense and mystery writers do.

Research.

Don’t they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

Jenny Milchman's journey to publication took thirteen years, after which she hit the road for seven months with her family on what Shelf Awareness called "the world's longest book tour." Her debut novel, Cover of Snow, was chosen as an Indie Next and Target Pick, reviewed in the New York Times and San Francisco Journal of Books, won the Mary Higgins Clark award, and is nominated for a Barry. Jenny is also the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day and chair of International Thriller Writers' Debut Authors Program. Jenny's second novel, Ruin Falls, just came out and she and her family are back on the road.

A Little Dark & Stormy

Coming up May 23-25 is the very first Dark & Stormy crime fiction conference in Brighton, UK, "serving up a wicked selection of book, film, music & theatre events." The bestselling, award-winning author – Elizabeth Haynes, Lesley Thomson and Lisa Cutts start off the festivities in a panel on independent (small) publishers.

That's followed by a showing of Matthew Vaughn’s 2004 cult classic Layer Cake, starring Daniel Craig, Kenneth Cranham and Michael Gambon, and introduced by the author of the original novel and the screenplay, J.J. Connolly. Author Peter James rounds off the first day by celebrating the 10th anniversary of his Detective Roy Grace series. Other authors scheduled to appear include Sophie Hannah, Erin Kelly, Tony Parsons, Stella Rimington, Tom Robb Smith, S.J. Watson, and more.

Mystery Melange

The winners of the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards — the IPPYs — were announced. The awards program hopes to bring increased recognition to the "deserving but often unsung" titles from independent, university, and self-published outlets each year. The Gold Medal in the Mystery/Cozy/Noir category went to What's a Witch to Do? by Jennifer Harlow, while the Gold Medal winner in the Suspense/Thriller category was Carved in Darkness by Maegan Beaumont.

The Shirley Jackson Award nominees were also recently announced. The awards recognize "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic." (Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Do you have a legal-themed short story under 5,000 words in your desk drawer (or desktop folder)? If so, consider entering it in the 2014 ABA Journal/Ross Writing Contest for Legal Short Fiction, with a top prize of $3,000. Entries will be judged by a panel on the basis of creativity, plot exposition, legal insight and character development. (Thanks to Elizabeth Foxwell for the link.)

Happy Birthday to the Mysterious Galaxy independent genre bookstore, which just celebrated its twenty-first year (since Saturday, May 8, 1993). Store owners added, "We look forward to moving into an exciting future together with you. We appreciate each and every one of you, without whose support we would not be here to share our passion for books of Martians, Murder, Magic, and Mayhem, and More!"

I hadn't noticed this sad note, but this year's Bloody Words conference, Canada’s oldest and largest gathering of mystery readers and authors, will apparently be the last. Better hurry and get your tickets if you want to see this year's Special Guests – Vicki Delany, Michael Jecks, and Melodie Campbell – and be present for the last awarding of the Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award.

Omnimystery News noted that the new Hercule Poirot novel by Sophie Hannah (authorized by the Agatha Christie estate) will be titled The Monogram Murders and published on September 9th. The publisher also released a video with Hannah talking about the book. In case you're one of the few people on the planet who haven't read any Agatha Christie novels, Hannah has some suggestions on five "entry points" for reading her works, and why you should start there.

Speaking of Poirot, a retired UK Naval Commander's research leads him to believe that a Belgian gendarme billeted near the young Agatha Christie could have been the inspiration for the great fictional detective.

Dead Gun Press is a new online ezine that's seeking short stories of 500 to 2500 words in the genres of crime, noir, detective, westerns, horror, and sci-fi. Although this is a non-paying market, the press also has a Showcase Selections branch, which is looking for short story collections, novellas, and novelettes of 25,000 to 45,000 words, with royalties paid to authors. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.)

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Gentle Men," by Dalton Day, and the weekly story at Beat to a Pulp is "Murder by the Book" by Cathi Stoler.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Philip Kerr and Ace Atkins chatting with The Mystery People – Kerr about his new non-Bernie Gunther novel, which focuses on an FBI agent going after religious extremists in Texas and Atkins about his new novel, Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot; John Connolly stopped by Pulp Curry; Garrard Hayes takes Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp, Interview" challenge; and the Seattle Mystery Bookshop interviews Mary Daheim.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Black List writer Stephany Folsom has been hired to adapt Harlan Coben's novel Missing You for Warner Brothers, with Brett Ratner producing. The story follows a female police detective who encounters a former flame on a dating website, which leads to the discovery of an intricate scheme involving a brilliant sociopathic criminal.

Andy Goddard is set to direct an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Blunderer, about a 1960s architect leading a charmed and perfect life. That is, until his fascination with an unsolved murder leads him into a spiral of chaos as he is forced to play cat-and-mouse with a clever killer and an over-ambitious detective. The film stars Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel, and Imogen Poot.

Frank Langella is joining the romantic thriller The Driftless Area, about a bartender and a mysterious woman whose relationship is threatened after the bartender gets mixed up with a dangerous crook and his bag of stolen cash. Langella joins Anton Yelchin, Zooey Deschanel, John Hawkes, Ciaran Hinds and Alia Shawkat who've already signed on to the project.

Channing Tatum's production company and partners are taking on an undercover crime thiller based on a true story. The untitled project will star Tatum as an average family man who risks everything to go undercover and topple 1970s America's most dangerous mob boss. 

Open Road Films acquired U.S. rights to the Sean Penn action thriller The Gunman, based on Jean-Patrick Manchette's novel The Prone Gunman. Penn stars as a former special forces soldier and military contractor with PTSD who wants to reconnect with his longtime love, but first must go on the run across Europe to clear his name.

A new trailer was released for the upcoming action thriller Rage, starring Nicolas Cage and Danny Glover in a story that centers on a businessman whose teenage daughter is kidnapped by masked thugs one night.

TELEVISION

Fans of the crime drama Law & Order: SVU and Mariska Hargitay can breathe easier. After questions as to whether or not the long-running show would return, NBC renewed the series for a 16th season, with Hargitay reprising her role as Detective Olivia Benson.

NBC also announced the rest of its fall 2014 schedule, to include several new shows: a Katherine Heigl-fronted drama State of Affairs, the freshman spy thriller Allegiance, and The Mysteries of Laura, which stars Debra Messing; as well as returning shows The Blacklist, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Grimm.

CBS picked up the NCIS spinoff, NCIS: New Orleans, starring Scott Bakula, and the CSI spinoff, CSI: Cyber, starring Patricia Arquette. Other new shows include the police procedural Battle Creek starring Josh Duhamel and Kal Penn; the super-geek-hero series Scorpion, and the psychological thriller Stalker. The network also renewed The Mentalist at the last minute, though rookie shows Hostages and Intelligence were schedule casualties.

ABC greenlighted Secrets and Lies, based on an upcoming Australian series, which centers on a father (Ryan Phillippe) who becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a young boy when he finds the body. Other new ABC shows include How to Get Away With Murder, American Crime, and Marvel's Agent Carter. And to no one's surprise, Castle was also renewed.

If you'd like to see the status of new and renewed and canceled series on the major networks, Omnimystery News is keeping a running summary and updates.

TNT's upfront announcement includes a series order for a supernatural medical drama from The Closer's Kyra Sedgewick and the 1960s-set cop drama Public Morals, which has Steven Spielberg as an executive producer.

TBS gave the go-ahead to the character-driven, police comedy Angie Tribeca, a satirical look at police procedurals from Steve and Nancy Carell.

PBS Masterpiece Mysteries this summer includes two new Hercule Poirot dramas July 27 and August 3. PBS also announced its fall mystery lineup, featuring British actress Julia McKenzie (Cranford) returning as spinster sleuth Miss Marple in three new episodes in September; Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox return for a seventh season of the Inspector Lewis; as well as Death Comes to Pemberley, Worricker: Turks & Caicos, and Worricker: Salting the Battlefield.

BBC Films announced several projects in the pipeline, including: City of Tiny Lights (based on a Patrick Neate novel), starring Riz Ahmed as a cynical London private eye; and London Road, starring Olivia Colman and Tom Hardy, which documents the real-life events of 2006, when the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women.

As Deadline notes, having one network pass on a series is no longer the kiss of death. Several "leftover" shows have been picked up recently, incl
uding the Russian spy drama Allegiance, based on Keshet’s Israeli series The Gordin Cell, to air on NBC. Meanwhile, Fox gave a a 13-epsiode order for last season’s drama pilot Backstrom after CBS passed on it. The show is based on Leif G.W. Persson's books about an offensive, irascible detective in Portland's Serious Crimes Unit.

AMC has begun filiming in the UK on Knifeman, inspired by Wendy Moore's biography of John Hunter, an 18th century charming but arrogant surgeon (Tim Roth) who robs graves and harvests organs.

The Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul added three more actors to the cast: Patrick Fabian (Veronica Mars), Rhea Seehorn (Franklin & Bash), and Michael Mando (Orphan Black).

USA has given a cast-contingent pilot order to the drama Stanistan from writer Andy Parker. The project "follows the staff at the American compound in the Middle Eastern country of Stanistan, where State Department workers, covert CIA officers and journalists operate in a delicate balance of danger and silliness using every coping mechanism available."

Sheldon Turner is teaming up with author Walter Kirn again, afterTurner's adaptation (with Jason Reitma) of Kirn's novel Up in the Air was nominated for an Oscar. This time, the project is Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder. The limited series from Sony Pictures TV centers on the 10-year friendship between Kirn and German con artist Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who went by the name Clark Rockefeller.

Teen star Zendaya Coleman is returning to the Disney Channel to headline the new series Shake It Up, playing a teenage super-spy in training.

Omnimystery News reported that Acorn TV added 10 new programs to its streaming line-up, including: the exclusive US debut of Midsomer Murders with Neil Dudgeon as Detective Chief Inspector John Barnaby and Jason Hughes as his earnest, efficient protégé, Detective Sergeant Ben Jones;  and an adaptation of Wilkie Collins's Victorian mystery The Woman in White.

THEATER

The New York Philharmonic's recent staged production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will be telecast in the U.S. on PBS' Live From Lincoln Center Sept. 26. The stellar cast featured Emma Thompson, Bryn Terfel, and Audra McDonald.

A-1 Anthologies

Severn House published the latest anthology of the Crime Writers' Association, Guilty Parties. Edited by Martin Edwards, the book contains a short foreword by Alison Joseph (chair of the CWA), author bios, and stories by Peter and Phil Lovesey, Christopher Fowler, and many more. It's currently for sale in the UK, but a U.S. edition will be forthcoming in August. Martin talked it up on his blog, with some interesting behind-the-scenes info.

Empower: Fight Like A Girl, a special collection of short stories by top women writers from TV shows like Law & Order: SVU and The Shield, was also recently published. All proceeds will be donated to the non-profit Lupus Foundation of America. Bestselling author Lee Goldberg, who lost his own mother to the disease, said that "Even non-girls will feel empowered by these stories about ordinary, flawed characters finding their own strengths. Highly entertaining and original."

Mystery Melange

The Edgar Awards were announced last week, with Best Novel nods going to Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger and Best First Novel to Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. For all the various book and media categories, check out the Mystery Writers of America website.

Congratuations also to this year's winners of the Agatha Awards, handed out at the annual Malice Domestic Convention. Best First Novel went to Death Al Dente by Leslie Budewitz; Best Historical Novel to A Question of Honor by Charles Todd; Best Contemporary Novel to The Wrong Girl by Hank Phillippi Ryan; Best Nonfiction to The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower; Best Short Story to "The Care and Feeding of House Plants" by Art Taylor; and Best Children's/YA to Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein.

Meanwhile, across the Pond, the longlist of finalists was announced for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Past winners Lee Child, Mark Billingham and Denise Mina return, but there are some new faces, too.  

Noir at the Bar is back in LA at the Mandrake on June 22, with a killer lineup including Johnny Shaw, Ivy Pochoda, Travis Richardson, Samuel Gailey and David Putnam. Plus, there will be a special tribute and memorial to writer Bill "A.J." Hayes. (The Thrillers, Killers & Chillers blog also had a tribute to A.J. back in March.)

The new issue of the San Francisco literary quarterly McSweeney's showcases crime fiction from Latin America.

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine looks at crime convention season across the Pond, including CrimeFest and the new Dark and Stormy crime festival to be held in Brighton later this month. He also pays tribute to Roy Peter Martin, aged 83, the crime writer and reviewer better known under his writing names of James Melville and Hampton Charles.

The crime fiction blog roster is shrinking again. After recently losing Poe's Deadly Daughters, Top Suspense Group, The Outfit (a collection of Chicago crime fiction writers), Criminal Brief, The Lipstick Chronicles, Independent Crime, and The Little Blog of Murder (Ohio writers), The Crime Fiction Collective announced they, too, were closing down shop.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "To the Accused" by Matt Forrest Esenwine, and the featured story at Beat to a Pulp is "Hyperacusis" by J. M. Landon.

The Q&A this week includes Dick Holzhaus taking Paul D. Brazill's Short, Sharp Interview challenge; and Declan Burke grills author Lisa Alber.

Crime in the Keys

If you're still deciding on your vacation plans for the summer, why not combine some fun in the sun with a criminally good time? This June 13-15, the inaugural Mystery Writers Key West Fest heads to the land of Hemingway and Tennessee Williams with a dozen leading authors from the crime and adventure fiction genres.

The festival is the brainchild of co-founders Shirrel Rhoades, a publisher who has worked with Reader's Digest, Scholastic, Harper's, Marvel Entertainment, and Absolutely Amazing eBooks, and author Michael Haskins, creator of the Mad Mick Murphy mystery series. As Rhoades explained, "Haskins and I had already founded the Key West Writers Bloc to promote authors and their work, so we thought, why not bring together a gathering of acclaimed South Florida and Key West authors to talk with fans- not just about whodunnit- but about how they actually do it."

Highlights include a Friday-night opening party with participating mystery writers followed by—what else?—a Bar stroll led by author W.E.B. Griffin and Jim Linder, military contractor and retired Navy officer with the JIATF (Joint InterAgency Task Force, South) to some of the preferred Key West lairs of authors, actors, detectives and shady ne’er-do-well’s: Hog’s Breath Saloon, Fairvilla Megastore (free rum punch in Key West’s home for Fantasy Fest costumes), Pat Croce’s Rum Barrel and the waterfront Schooner Wharf Bar.

Sponsors brought on board include the Mystery Writers of America, the Florida Keys Council of the Arts, and the Key West Citizen newspaper, who are making the Fest open to authors, aspiring authors, and non-writing mystery-buffs. The Saturday sessions will offer up panels such as "Women of Mystery" and "Importance of Getting Locale Right."

DoubleTree by Hilton Grand Key Resort is the main venue for the event, and is offering an early bird rate for those who book rooms before May 10. For information on registration, visit the Mystery Writers Key West website.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Chockstone Pictures bought film rights to All The Old Knives, the forthcoming spy thriller by Olen Steinhauer to be published next year. The book takes place in an seaside town where two ex-lovers and CIA spies, Celia and Henry, meet for dinner and to relive their memories of a plane hijacking that ended in the death of everyone onboard. The question becomes whether Henry wants to rekindle their romance or get to the bottom of a conspiracy, and "it also becomes clear that one of the ex-lovers may not survive the meal."

Omnimystery News reported that Tomas Alfredson, the director of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, is taking on an adaptation of Jo Nesbo's thriller The Snowman for Working Title Films and Universal. The book features Nesbo's Oslo detective Harry Hole, who investigates the disappearance of a woman whose pink scarf is found wrapped around an ominous-looking snowman.

Solipsist Films acquired Spy Dance, the best-selling novel from D.C. lawyer-turned-author Allan Topol, about an ex-CIA operative who reinvents his identity after the agency sets him up, only to be sucked back into action against his former employers when his stepdaughter is taken hostage.

Christopher Plummer has joined the cast of the thriller Remember, directed by Atom Egoyan. Already aboard the project are actors Martin Landau, Dean Norris, Bruno Ganz, Heinz Lieven and Gunter Lamprecht. The story is described as "a compelling thriller in which the darkest chapter of modern history collides with a contemporary mission of revenge."

Autobahn starts production May 5 after finalizing its cast with new additions Nicholas Hoult, Felicity Jones, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley. The story follows a young American couple Casey (Hoult) and Juliette (Jones), "who are plunged into a game of cat and mouse across Germany after they find themselves caught between two ruthless criminals (Hopkins and Kingsley)."

The West Wing's Allison Janney and Homeland star Morena Baccarin have been added to the cast of Spy, the spy comedy for Fox, also starring Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, British comedienne Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale and Nia Long. The storyline revolves around a CIA analyst (McCarthy), who goes into the field for the first time. Janney and Baccarin will play fellow spies.

Natalie Zea (The Following, Justified star) has landed a lead role in indie feature Grey Lady, playing a vulnerable aspiring artist targeted by killers seeking vengeance on a Boston detective played by Eric Dane. Adrian Lester was also recently added to the cast, playing the role of a plainclothes Nantucket detective.

Sam Mendes says that the next Bond film will build on the storylines in Skyfall, something that wasn't previously used in Bond films until the Daniel Craig years. In addition to giving the new characters more buildup, Mendes added that he is further interested in looking at James Bond as an aging character, which he felt fans really responded to in the last movie.

The sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, titled London Has Fallen, is heading for theaters in October 2015. Gerard Butler has signed on to reprise his role as head of the Secret Service in a plot which sees doom and disaster surrounding the funeral of the British Prime Minister with various heads of state in the crosshairs.

The Beverly Hills Cop reboot has been given a release date of March 25, 2016. The project brings back Eddie Murphy to star as Axel Foley, the Detroit cop from the original film series, with Brett Ratner taking on directing duties. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec wrote the script.  

Due to scheduling issues, Robert Pattinson has exited Mission: Blacklist, an indie thriller the follows the hunt for Saddam Hussein. He was to play military interrogator Eric Maddox, who spearheaded Hussein's capture.

TELEVISION

Fox cancelled its futuristic cop drama Almost Human starring Karl Urban and Michael Ealy. Although it had some critical acclaim, Fox didn't deem the ratings high enough to warrant renewal after it hovered on the bubble.

Michael McKean (This Is Spinal Tap) is the first new cast member to join AMC’s series Better Call Saul, joining Breaking Bad alums Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks in this prequel to Breaking Bad.

TNT released a first look at its new series Murder in the First, which TV Guide calls "a new, dark and very creepy homicide mystery." The drama stars Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson as homicide detectives investigating two murders that seem unrelated at first but have a common denominator in a Silicon Valley wunderkind (played by Harry Potter's Tom Felton).

The season finale of NCIS will pay tribute to the late actor Ralph Waite, who played Agent Jethro Gibbs' father in the series.

Lt. Declan Murphy (Donal Logue) is returning to Law & Order: SVU to take over the reins of the SVU from Benson (Mariska Hargitay).

Fox released photos from its new drama, Gang Related. The show centers on an of
ficer (Ramon Rodriguez) on the Los Angeles Police Department's Gang Task Force who's also a loyal member of the city's most prominent gang.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Dr. Max Houck, Director of the Washington D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences, chatted with host Jan Burke and D.P. Lyle on this week's Crime and Science Radio.

THEATER

This year's nominees for the Tony Awards were announced last week, including A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder in the Best Musical category. The play follows the exploits of Monty Navarro, the black sheep of the D'Ysquith family, who finds out he is ninth in line to inherit a dukedom and decides to eliminate the other eight heirs standing in his way. Actors Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham were also nominated for best performance in a musical.

Theatre for a New Audience announced the complete cast for its upcoming production of Eugène Ionesco's The Killer, starring Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon. The unusual plot line revolves around the discovery of a utopia near the main character's dismal urban home, but it harbors one deadly secret: a serial murderer has been killing people for so long that the authorities have given up trying to catch him.

Author R&R with Mike Monson

Mike Monson is co-editor of the crime e-zine All Due Respect, along with Chris Rhatigan, and also the author of his own short fiction. His latest literary creation is the noir novella The Scent of New Death, about successful, unassuming bank robber Phil Gaines who marries a young, wild, and very kinky local bar maid. When the new bride runs off with Phil's business partner and his life's savings, he pursues them across the countryside as they lose themselves in a psycho-sexual killing spree.

If you're wondering how a writer researches topics like that, Mike stopped by to take a little Author R&R (Reference and Research) to explain:

My novella The Scent of New Death, did not require a lot of special, in-depth research.

It is the story of revenge among criminals in the Central Valley of California, specifically in and around the town of Modesto and a little bit in the Bay Area communities just east of San Francisco. Since I had lived in Modesto for about 20 years when I wrote it, and lived or worked in the Bay Area even longer than that, I didn’t have to do a lot of research to capture the settings. Here, though, by bullet points, is the research I did conduct:

• Bank robbery. My main character was a career bank robber, a very successful bank robber. Now, I am not a bank robber and I never have been a bank robber. All I knew about it was what I saw in the news and on TV and in movies, or read about in books. However, I felt certain that all of that information was romanticized and inaccurate. So, I went on the internet and read every article I could about actual bank robbers. Then, I found that the FBI site has a lot of information on real-life bank robbers. From the FBI I found out that the overwhelming majority of bank robbers are drug addicts who are not professionals, and who only rob banks because they are desperate for money. These criminals almost always get caught within six hours. There was another large group as well, and these were the non-addict, semi-professional bank robbers who were often able to pull off a dozen or more bank robberies before an arrest. But, this second group, according to the FBI, would almost always get caught eventually, as long as they kept pulling robberies. This was because of a few basic errors. So, the sort of person I was writing about – a man who could make a living for 12 years robbing banks while escaping detection – may not even exist in real life. But, I figured that since I was writing fiction, I could create such a person. The person I created, Phil Gaines, was notorious in the criminal community partly for the fact that he was that rare person, someone who actually defied the odds and made a living on bank jobs. I made him a guy who was as aware as I had become about all the reasons bank robbers get caught and who made sure to not make all the usual mistakes.
  
  
• Pawn brokers. Two important characters in the book were Carl Schmitz and Jack Dixon. The two had grown up together. Carl was a rich man who owned three pawn shops in Modesto. Jack was a thief and a fence. I needed for Jack to be resentful and jealous of Carl because Carl was rich while Jack was just getting by. So, I went to various State of California sites to find out the law regarding pawn brokers. I found out that if a person has a felony record or any record involving stolen goods, they can never get a pawnbrokers license in the state. This worked perfectly for me. As I wrote it, since Jack was a felon, and Carl was not, only Carl was able to get a license, thus preventing Jack from progressing as a legitimate business man.
  
  
• Geography and hiking. I did have one major bit of geography to research. I needed my character to hide out in the mountains and forests east of Modesto, near Yosemite. He needed to ditch his car, walk many many miles off-trail and out of sight of roads; camp near a small town; have breakfast in that town; somehow get all the way to the San Francisco airport using only cash and then over to Berkley on the BART train; and then get off on the right stop where there would be a Walgreens to buy a throw away cell phone near a place he could eat a snack that would have the news on the TV. And, I needed him to get on the right street from there that would take him up to the Berkeley Hills (you know, where Grandpa Zeke and Millie live in the TV show Parenthood?) I needed him to do all of this by just after 12 p.m. Again, I was able to use the internet. I knew of a road near Yosemite called Evergreen. I had Phil drive up that road in his Jeep and then hide the vehicle about a mile from any pavement. I knew of a foothill town called Groveland and it was perfect for me. And, from the spot where he ditched the car to Groveland was about 20 miles, so I had to do research to find out how long it takes the average person to walk 20 miles off-trail. Then, I found a breakfast place in Groveland on Yelp and I found a transportation company that would drive people all the way to the San Francisco Airport. I called this company and found out how much the drive cost and how long it took. Then, the rest, the Walgreens etc., was easy. By the time I was done I felt confident my depiction of events was entirely accurate and reasonable, which is very important to me.
  
  
• Zen in America. This wasn’t too hard because I already knew a lot about the subject from my own practice in Zen centers and from voracious reading and participation in internet forums. But, I did at one point have to give a character a Japanese Zen name. It turns out that there are websites for exactly that purpose, that provide a long list of typical Zen names for monks and priests and the English translation of same. This was very helpful.
  
  
• Guns. I gave Phil Gaines a Colt .45 automatic. I didn’t know that was what it was, I just had a picture of the gun he’d use in my head and I searched the internet until I found the gun that matched my imagination. Then, I learned everything I could about the gun in case I’d need any special facts in the narrative. Also, I wanted Phil to have a small gun that he could conceal, and, again, I found the perfect one on the internet that I was able to describe with absolute accuracy.
  
  
• Lock picking. At one point I needed Phil to very quickly and professionally pick a lock. And, again, I wanted his method to be accurate and I wanted to be able to describe it in perfect detail. Guess what? There are a lot of articles about lock picking, even instructional videos on YouTube. I found a common technique using something called a ‘bump key.’ It was reasonable for Phil to know how to do this and reasonable for him to have the proper equipment with him at all times. Again, this worked out great.

For more information about Mike and his writing (what he calls his "dark and creepy crime stories), check out his website and blog, which also has links to where you can purchase The Scent of New Death and his other fiction.