Media Murder for Monday

Here's the latest crime drama news from stage and screen:

MOVIES

Skydance Productions, MGM, and Paramount TV are shopping around a remake of Sydney Pollack's 1975 spy thriller Three Days of the Condor (starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway). Like the original, the new project is based on James Grady's novel Six Days of the Condor, with Jason Smilovic (Lucky Number Slevin) and Todd Katzberg on board to write the reboot.

Kenneth Branagh and Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese are joining forces for a screen version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. It will be an adaptation of the recent Branagh production that originated at the 2013 Manchester International Festival and was subsequently staged in Manhattan at the Park Avenue Armory.

Screenwriter/director Tom Ford is teaming up with George Clooney for for the post-modern noir thriller Nocturnal Animals, an adaptation of Austin Wright's 1993 book Tony and Susan. The story follows a woman named Susan who receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband that forces her to confront the darkness that inhabits her life. Jake Gyllenhaal is attached to star, while Amy Adams is in talks to join him in the cast.

Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn will co-write the female-led revenge thriller Widows with Steve McQueen, who will also direct the film. Based on a British miniseries of the same name, the project is set in the aftermath of a heist gone wrong where four widows of the armed robbers killed in the failed caper join forces to pull off the robbery themselves.

Fox 2000 has acquired an untitled book Jeffrey Toobin is writing about Patty Hearst, the heiress kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 and brainwashed into becoming a bank robber and spokesman for the radical group’s causes before landing in prison.

Idris Elba has been hired to replace Jamie Foxx in The Trap, which will co-star Benicio Del Toro, James Franco and Al Pacino. Set against the backdrop of the Miami music scene, the story centers on an ex-con (Del Toro) out for revenge against a gangster rapper and former friend (Elba) who let him take the fall for a robbery they committed 14 years earlier.  Franco will play Elba’s drug-addled manager, Pacino will play Del Toro’s parole officer, and Pattinson will play a surfer who helps Del Toro exact revenge.

Matthew McConaughey has been signed to star in The Billionaire’s Vinegar, about the real-life scandal surrounding an auctioned cache of wine bottles purported to have been owned by Thomas Jefferson that were called fakes.

David Strathairn has joined the cast of Sacha Gervasi’s November Criminals, starring alongside Ansel Elgort, Chloë Grace Moretz and Catherine Keener. Steven Knight wrote the script adaptation of Sam Munson's novel about two teenagers in D.C. who investigate the murder of their friend while falling in love for the first time.

"Noir City: The 17th Annual Festival of Film Noir" will open April 3 in Hollywood at the Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre. Presented by the American Cinematheque in collaboration with the Film Noir Foundation, the festival features American movies, British thrillers, three rarities from Argentina, and even a new noir from the Humphrey Bogart Estate's Santana Films.

The first trailer was released for the upcoming James Bond film, Spectre. The producers also announced the film will be distributed in IMAX when it first opens worldwide on November 6.

A full trailer was released for the next Mission Impossible installment, titled Rogue Nation.

A Hindi-language trailer (subtitled) was released for for Anurag Kashyap’s period crime drama Bombay Velvet, starring Ranbir Kapoor. Set against the backdrop of Bollywood’s Golden Age and based on Gyan Prakash’s book Mumbai Fables, the film is about an ordinary man who must forge his destiny in the City of Dreams.

TELEVISION

Thirteen years after The X-Files ended its nine-season run on Fox, the official announcement was made that the series will return as a six-episode event series from series creator/executive producer Chris Carter, with stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson returning to their roles as FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Although TNT passed on the original drug-trade pilot from Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, they liked the setting (the wild and unpredictable world of the Florida drug trade in the 1970s) enough to ask for a retooling of the project.

Madison Lintz has been promoted to a series regular for Season 2 of Amazon’s drama series Bosch. Lintz plays Maddie, daughter of Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), and will have a more prominent presence in the new season.

Connie Britton has joined the upcoming American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. She'll be playing murder victim Nicole Brown's friend Faye Resnick, who went on to write a controversial book about Brown.

Alex Steele has been added to the cast of the ABC pilot Original Sin, which also includes Joan Hart, Zach Gilford and Andrew McCarthy. The story centers on the return of a politician’s son presumed murdered after disappearing over a decade earlier, which ends shockwaves through his tight knit family.  

Melissa Joan Hart is set to guest-star on The Mysteries of Laura as an internet radio host named KC Moss who runs a website bent on solving a 15-year-old cold case. However, she clashes with Laura (Debra Messing) when Laura thinks KC's site is getting in the way of the actual investigation.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

NPR interviewed Omar Shahid Hamid, a former cop turned crime writer whose books are set in his native Pakistan.

Hosts Jan Burke and D.P. Lyle welcomed Judge Donald Shelton to talk about "Forensic Science And The Courts" on Crime and Science Radio.

The Today Show featured Harlan Coben, talking about his latest novel, The Stranger.

BBC Radio 4 will broadcast a documentary on David Lynch's Twin Peaks in April. Presented by Danny Leigh, the program will include Rob da Bank discussing the influence of the show's soundtrack and commentary from crime writer Denise Mina and Andy Burns, author of the Twins Peak book Wrapped In Plastic.

THEATER

Atlanta's Alliance Theatre is presenting the world premiere production Edward Foote from award-winning Atlanta playwright and author Phillip DePoy. The play is a Gothic murder mystery set to haunting Appalachian folk songs and runs through April 19, 2015.

Author R&R with Peter Swanson & a Giveaway!

It's time once again for some Author R&R (Reference and Research), today featuring Peter Swanson. Plus at the bottom of this post, look for details on how to win a free book!

Peter Swanson is the author of two novels, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, and his latest, The Kind Worth Killing. Swanson's poems, stories and reviews have appeared in such journals as The Atlantic, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epoch, Measure, Notre Dame Review, Soundings East, and The Vocabula Review. He has won awards in poetry from The Lyric and Yankee Magazine and is currently completing a sonnet sequence on all 53 of Alfred Hitchcock’s films.

I enjoy hearing how different authors approach researching their novels, be it through job shadowing, being buried in library stacks, going online, interviews, news reports, or whatever techniques and methods they use in getting the details just right. Or whether they feel too much research and over-planning can be deadly to a manuscript. Swanson probably falls into the latter category, as you will see from his unique take on research:

Peter Swanson stopped by In Reference to Murder to discuss his latest novel:

 

Truth is, I do very little research. And it’s not because I don’t have to, it’s because I don’t really want to—it’s because I’m lazy. There’s nothing worse, for me, than being in the middle of writing a scene in which a search warrant is presented, and then I suddenly realize that I have no idea what a search warrant would even look like.

But here’s the good news. I can just go ahead and Google it, which is pretty much what I do these days. Voila. An image of a search warrant on the web that I can describe in my book. Here’s the rub, though. That image is probably attached to some interesting story, and suddenly I’m reading the story instead of working on my book. It’s a double-edge sword, the internet—great for research, and equally great for time wasting.

I did do one solid research trip for my last book, The Kind Worth Killing. There’s a crucial scene set in an old cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. I could picture the cemetery, perched on a steep hill that overlooks the town center. I live very close to Concord so I went on a quick research trip one cold and blustery weekday, and spent the afternoon alone in The Old Hill Burying Ground, taking some pictures, but mostly just reading gravestones, and soaking up some atmosphere.

Afterwards, I went to the lovely old tavern in the Colonial Inn and had a drink. Both the graveyard and the tavern wound up in my book. I might not have described them perfectly, but it helped that I was there. I think this is the best kind of research. Just going somewhere and walking around. Getting away from your computer for a little bit. So much more rewarding than looking up what a search warrant looks like.

The Kind Worth Killing was called "Chilling and hypnotically suspenseful … could be an instant classic," by Lee Child (of the Jack Reacher novels). Entertainment Weekly added, "Is The Kind Worth Killing the next Gone Girl? This homage to Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train shares a lot of Gone Girl’s hallmarks but cranks up the volume on each. There aren’t just two unreliable narrators, there are four. There isn’t just one enormous, game-changing twist. Try three, including one at the end that will take your breath away. You’ll also lose count of all the sociopaths. Or are they psychopaths? It doesn’t matter—just know that they’re each deranged but oh-so-compelling."

For your chance to win a copy of Swanson's novel The Kind Worth Killing, just send along an e-mail to bv@bvlawson.com with Contest Entry in the subject line, and you'll be entered into the random drawing. And if you want to be added to my newsletter list for occasional news updates, you can mention that in your e-mail (you won't be added without your consent and can unsubscribe at any time). Good luck!

Mystery Melange

This year's Crime & Mystery Weekend at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, August 14-16, is dedicated to the late PD James. Highlights will include lectures by special guests Ann Cleves and Alan Bradley, as well as sessions like "Detecting Couples, "The Romance Of The Lone Detective", "Reader, I Murdered Him", and "Love: The Perfect Motive For Murder."

Congratulations to the winners of the second annual Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction, named in memory of Diana Pinckley, longtime crime fiction columnist for The New Orleans Times-Picayune. Bestselling author Nevada Barr was honored with the Pinckley Prize for a Distinguished Body of Work, and Adrianne Harun won the Pinckley Prize for a Debut Novel, for A Man Came Out Of A Door In The Mountain.

Keep your eye out for the shortlist for the 2015 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel published in English in 2014, which will be announced tomorrow.

A previously unpublished short story by playwright Tennessee Williams appears in the spring issue of the Strand. Titled "The Eye That Saw Death," the work is a horror story with undertones of Edgar Allan Poe, focusing on a man who receives an eye transplant from a convicted killer.

The Stiletto Gang blog welcomed the authors nominated for the Agatha Best First Novel Award, to be announced at the annual Malice Domestic conference.

Time magazine examined the resurgence of the "continuation novel," i.e., those books which author estate reps approve as sequels to the deceased writer's original canon. Examples cites included Benjamin Black's take on Raymond Chandler’s famous PI, Philip Marlowe, as well as William Boyd as Ian Fleming, Sophie Hannah as Agatha Christie, and Anthony Horowitz as Arthur Conan Doyle.

Speaking of Arthur Conan Doyle, was he a victim of a police conspiracy? The Guardian makes the case that the Staffordshire police fabricated evidence to  discredit Doyle’s investigation into the case of a Birmingham solicitor accused of maiming horses and sending poison-pen letters at the turn of the 20th century.

The sight of a drone delivering your Amazon puchase may have taken one step closer; the FAA announced it was issuing an "experimental airworthiness certificate" for the retailer to begin testing of the potential future service.

Inspector Rebus fans can rejoice in the news that Ian Rankin is bringing out the 20th installment in that series about a year's hiatus.

A new app called Clean Reader is arousing the fury of authors everywhere. By allowing readers to swap swear words in their novels with sanitized versions without the approval of authors, the authors claim it sets a dangerous precedent of censorship.

The new featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "True Confessions" by Etta Abrahams.

In the Q&A roundup, David Morrell (author of the Rambo series), chats with the Huffington Post; Hallie Ephron spoke with WBUR about her latest suspense novel, Night Night, Sleep Tight, based on her Hollywood childhood; Declan Burke grilled Richard Beard about the second novel in his trilogy; and Harlan Coben tells The Guardian why "Every successful author still has to treat it as a job."

MOVIES

Universal is moving forward with a remake of Scarface, hiring Jonathan Herman to do the rewrite and Pablo Larraín to direct. The new film is said to be an update and will be set in Los Angeles intead of Miami, exploring an immigrant's rise in the criminal underworld.

Black List screenwriter Annie Neal has been tapped to pen a script re-imagining Agatha Christie as a swashbuckling sleuth. The spec script for Agatha is described as "an action adventure in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes meets Romancing the Stone," and focuses on the eleven days Christie went missing in 1926 that led to a media frenzy.

Lionsgate is in negotiations to acquire the rights to Anna Carey's YA novel Blackbird, with Danny Mackey to potentialy pen the adaptation. The story centers on a game of cat-and-mouse that ensues with a young girl wakes up on the tracks of the L.A. subway with no memory, a tattoo of a blackbird, a code, and instructions not to call the police.

Alchemy Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to distribute the all-star espionage thriller Survivor, with a cast that includes Milla Jovovich, Emma Thompson, Robert Forster, Angela Bassett, James D'Arcy, Dylan McDermott and Brosnan as the bad guy. The film centers on a Foreign Service officer (Jovovich) who tries to prevent a terrorist attack but is forced to go on the run after being framed for crimes she didn't commit.

Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 picked up feature rights to the high-concept thriller The Brain Hack from writer-director Joe White, which centers on two students who create a way to induce hallucinogenic visions of God and then are stalked by a mysterious cult bent on destroying them.

The 17th Annual Los Angeles Film Noir Festival (a/k/a NOIR CITY: Hollywood), is scheduled for April 3–19, 2015 at the Egyptian Theatre. This year's program includes tributes to actors Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck and novelists Dorothy B. Hughes and Cornell Woolrich. (Hat tip Mystery Fanfare.)

The first trailer for the latest installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise was released, with Tom Cruise returning as Ethan Hawk.

TELEVISION

Bosch has been given a second-season order by Amazon after only a month into its first season. The series is based on Michael Connelly's novels featuring LAPD cop, Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch, and stars Titus Welliver in the title role.

Steven Moffat, co-creator of Sherlock along with Mark Gatiss, told Entertainment Weekly that the crew had been filming a special episode set in the Victorian era, which will be separate from the new series. As to how the detective duo wind up back in the 1880s, Moffat has been cagey. No date has been set by the BBC for the broadcast, but it's expected to air during the Christmas 2015 period.

Kelli Williams (The Practice) has been cast as the lead in the UP network’s first scripted series, Ties That Bind. Williams will a tough police detective who has to bring her brother's teenage children into her own home after she arrests the brother for aggravated assault, and he's sent to prison.

Sony Pictures TV has sold a 10-episode series to Fox that's based on the real-life friendship between Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle and illusionist Harry Houdini. The drama, from David Ticher (The Librarian) and David Shore and David Hoselton (House), is titled Houdini and Doyle and will feature the duo grudgingly joining forces to investigate crimes with a supernatural slant.

THEATER

One of Hitchcock's most acclaimed films, Notorious, is being adapted by the Gothenburg Opera of Sweden's resident composer Hans Gefors, along with librettist Kerstin Perskiwill. The spy thriller opera will hit the stage in September through November of this year.

A new tour of the musical Bullets Over Broadway will launch in August. Based on the Woody Allen film, the musical centers on an aspiring playwright who finds out his play is getting the Broadway treatment thanks to a wealthy gangster who's taken a sudden interest in producing—with the caveat his dimwitted moll has to star in one of the leading roles.

Media Murder for Monday

Here's the latest news of crime dramas on stage and screen:

MOVIES

Although the reboot of Murder on the Orient Express has been on hold for some time, it seems to be moving forward with the hiring of Michael Green to pen the script. The original 1974 movie from Sidney Lumet was based on Agatha Christie's iconic mystery novel and starred Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot.

Peter Dinklage and Nicola Peltz are in talks to join Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike in the adaptation of Deep Blue Goodbye, based on the detective novel by John D. MacDonald.

Josh Duhamel and Alice Eve have joined Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino in the cast of Beyond Deceit, a legal thriller marking the directorial debut of screenwriter Shintaro Shimosawa. The project centers on an ambitious young lawyer (Duhamel) who takes on a big case against a ruthless executive of a pharmaceutical company, only to get drawn into a murder case where he becomes the prime suspect.

The latest James Bond movie Spectre has added The Bridge star Stephanie Sigman to the cast playing a woman named Estrella, rumored to be a femme fatale character.

TELEVISION

The BBC greenlighted a third season of the UK crime drama The Fall, starring Gillian Anderson as Superintendent Stella Gibson and Fifty Shades Of Grey's Jamie Dornan as serial killer Paul Spector.

Anne-Marie Duff has snaggled the lead role in the four-part BBC psychological crime drama, From Darkness. The series follows Clare Church, an ex-police officer who left the force in the mid-90s after the impact of violence became too overwhelming, but the discovery of four bodies from a past investigation pulls her back in to a world she thought she'd left behind.

The USA network greenlighted a pilot commitment for Shooter, a drama series adaptation of the 2007 film (based on the bestselling novel Point Of Impact by Stephen Hunter), which is being executive produced by the film’s star Mark Wahlberg. The TV drama centers on a highly decorated Marine sniper who goes on the run when he's framed for an attack on the President and has to track down whoever set him up.

The USA network also handed out a pilot order to the drama Falling Water, described as "a mind-bending thriller intersecting reality and unconscious thoughts."

A&E picked up the rights to Impact, a drama series from filmmaker Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), journalist-turned-TV writer Jason George (Nashville) and All3Media America. Impact is described as a fast-paced thriller about the downing of a major commercial flight near the nation’s capital, and "when the country’s best airline investigator learns her son may have been on the flight, everyone she once trusted will become a suspect."

The Netflix Canadian thriller Between will debut on May 21, but you won’t be able to binge watch like other Netflix series, since the six one-hour episodes will only appear on a weekly basis. The survivalist thriller drama tells the story of a town where everyone over 21 years old has been wiped out by a mysterious disease, leaving the inhabitants to fend for themselves.

Lauren Ambrose, currently seen in USA’s limited series DIG, is the last of the four main leads to be cast in the ABC pilot Broad Squad, is a fictionalized account of the graduating class of Boston’s first female patrol officers in 1978. The other three female stars are Charlotte Spencer, Cody Horn, Rutina Wesley. Rounding out the cast are Michael Gaston (The Mentalist), Kenneth Mitchell (Jericho) and Alberto Frezza.

Rachel Boston (Witches Of East End) has been hired as a series regular in the CBS civil rights crime drama pilot For Justice, based on James Patterson’s crime novel, The Thomas Berryman Number. The series centers on Special Agent Natalia "Nat" Chappel (played by Anika Noni Rose), a cool, laser-focused, FBI agent who works in the Criminal Section of the Department of Civil Rights Division. Boston will play another DOJ lawyer with Nat’s team.

Fox has delayed production on its American remake of the UK police procedural Luther to wait until the crush of pilot season is over before resuming its search for a leading man.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

NPR's "All Things Considered" spoke with real-life cyber psychologist Mary Aiken, who's also a producer on the new show CSI: Cyber.

WBUR in Boston interviewed native son Dennis Lehane about his writing and latest novel, World Gone By.

The newest Crime and Science Radio podcast, "Spy vs Spy vs Spy," featured hosts Jan Burke and D.P. Lyle interviewing "the Queen of Espionage," Gayle Lynds.

The latest podcast from Suspense Radio's "Inside Edition" welcomed guest authors A.J. Tata, Aric Carter, CJ Box, and Leon Opio.

THEATER

Following its successful premiere at D.C.'s Arena Stage, Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery moves to New York City's McCarter Theater. Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, the show stars Gregory Wooddell (The Lyons, As You Like It) as Sherlock Holmes with Lucas Hall (Tales from Red Vienna) as Doctor Watson, and Stanley Bahorek, Michael Glenn, and Jane Pfitsch playing more than 40 additional characters.

The Minnesota Opera is staging the premiere of a work by Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell based on the novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon (also made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey and Angela Lansbury). Like the book and movie, the opera centers on an American soldier brainwashed by Chinese Communists to kill on command, hence becoming “the perfect assassin."  (Hat tip to the Parterre blog.)

Mystery Melange

The Los Angeles Times Book Prize competition announced finalists in various categories, including the five top Mystery/Thriller novels first published in 2014 (with winners announced on April 18, during the L.A. Times Festival of Books):

• Dry Bones in the Valley, by Tom Bouman (Norton)
• The Painter, by Peter Heller (Knopf)
• After I’m Gone, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• Sins of Our Fathers, by Shawn Lawrence Otto (Milkweed)
• The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, by Peter Swanson (Morrow)

Left Coast Crime starts tomorrow, so if you happen to be in town for the conference in Portland, Oregon, check out a Noir at the Bar event tonight at the Church Bar (2600 NE Sandy Blvd., Portland) at 6 p.m. Authors scheduled to take part include Hilary Davidson, Johnny Shaw, Todd Robinson, Lou Berney, J. David Osborne, Blake Crouch, Barry Graham, and S.G. Redling.

On the other side of the Pond, Bookseller Waterstones and HarperCollins are sponsoring the free Killer Crime Festival 2015 this Friday, March 13, where authors Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves and more will participate in events in cities including London, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Plymouth. (Hat tip to Crime Fiction Lover.)

A new crime fiction conference, Deal Noir, will take place at The Landmark Centre in the UK city of Deal, Kent, on March 28. The full-day conference will feature some of the UK's most popular authors who will be speaking on various aspects of crime fiction, as well as interactive sessions where the audience will have a chance to put their questions to the panel. Scheduled authors include Catherine Aird, Simon Brett, Mark Billingham, and many more.

Sherlocked is an official Sherlock Convention from Massive Events, in association with Hartswood Films and Showmasters Ltd. It's scheduled for Friday 24th April to Sunday 26th April 2015 at The ExCeL in London and provides the "the opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of the TV show Sherlock, featuring cast and creators from the show and Sherlock himself, Benedict Cumberbatch."

The Washington Post profiled mystery author Todd Downing (1902-1974), an Oklahoman who was part Choctaw and set nearly all his mysteries in Mexico. Blogger Curt Evans has helped to bring Downing's works back to light on his blog and in a biographical treatment via Coachwhip Publications. Coachwhip has also reissued several of Downing’s mysteries, many of which feature Hugh Rennert, a U.S. customs agent.

There’s good news for mystery lovers in the Library Journal's recent annual survey. Over 90% of the libraries surveyed said mysteries are among their top-circulating genres, both in print and ebook formats. Libraries also reported their budgets have increased, which many mean even more mystery books are coming to local library shelves. (Hat tip to author Peter DiChellis.)

A crime jury made up of the some of Germany's leading crime fiction reviewers picked their top crime fiction titles from around the globe published in 2014.

Sophie Hannah, author of the new Poirot novel sanctioned by the Agatha Christie estate, talked with The Telegraph about how crime writers in the UK are forced to set novels in fictional towns to escape judgments about their characters' background and social standing because of Britain's obsession with class.

In a story straight out of a Dan Brown novel, a €100,000 ransom was demanded by thieves who stole an extremely rare handwritten letter by renaissance artist Michelangelo.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Get to Smashing" by Scott Wozniak."

The Q&A roundup includes a Huffington Post chat with C. J. Box, the bestselling author of 16 Joe Pickett novels; Lauren Carr dropped by Omnimystery News to discuss her Mac Faraday mystery series; and Dennis Lehane spoke with the Tampa Bay Times about his latest novel World Gone By and why we love outlaws.

Media Murder for Monday

Here's the latest crime drama news on the air, on the stage and on screen:

MOVIES

Benjamin Bratt will star alongside Bryan Cranston and Diane Kruger in The Infiltrator, a fact-based thriller directed by Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer). The project tells the story of a customs and excise agent (Cranston) who went undercover as a money launderer and infiltrated the bankers behind the Medellin drug cartel. Bratt will play Roberto Alcanio, who dealt directly with the infamous Pablo Escobar.

Nicola's Books of Ann Arbor Michigan is partnering with the Michigan Theater for a weekly film series through April of movies based on noir books. After such showings as The Maltese Falcon, the store also sells copies of the book that inspired the film, as well as other noir titles.  (Hat tip to Shelf Awareness.)

The first trailer was released for Mr. Holmes, featuring Ian McKellen as an elderly version of the iconic detective. Based on Mitch Cullin’s novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, the plot features the detective teaming up with a young boy to solve one last mystery.

A trailer was released for The Connection, which was inspired by the real-life story of Marseilles magistrate Pierre Michel (played by Jean Dujardin) and his relentless crusade to dismantle the most notorious drug smuggling operation in history: the French Connection.

TELEVISION

The Dublin Murder Squad series of crime novels by Tana French are to be developed as a TV series by Euston Film and Veritas Entertainment. The producers hope to offer the series to "the international television market."

NBC has cancelled the spy drama Allegiance after only five episodes. There's no word on whether the network will make the remaining produced episodes available for viewing via another means.

Rob Kazinsky (True Blood, Pacific Rim) will play the lead role in Fox's pilot scifi-supernatural-thriller police procedural drama Frankenstein. The project is from Rand Ravich (Crisis) and Howard Gordon (Homeland) and follows the story of Ray Pritchard (played by Kazinsky), a morally corrupt retired cop given a second chance at life when he's brought back from the dead. Now younger and stronger, he has to choose between his old temptations and his new sense of purpose.

Another True Blood alum, Rutina Wesley, is headed to ABC’s Broad Squad, a 1978-set drama pilot about Boston’s first female patrol officers, where she'll play one of the four central female cops.

Eddie Izzard is set to star in HBO's drama pilot The Devil You Know alongside newcomer actresses Nadia Alexander and Ismenia Mendes. Co-written by Orange Is The New Black creators Jenji Kohan, Bruce Miller and Tracy Miller and directed by Gus Van Sant, the period drama focuses on the infamous Salem Witch Trials in 17th century New England. Izzard plays farmer Thomas Putnam, the conservative, rigid and devoutly Puritan patriarch of the powerful Putnam family.

Giovanni Ribisi has snagged the lead role in the CBS drama pilot Sneaky Pete, written/executive produced by Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston and House creator David Shore.

Dreama Walker will star opposite KaDee Strickland in Doubt, the CBS drama about a smart, chic, successful defense lawyer at a boutique firm who shockingly gets involved romantically with one of her clients who may or may not be guilty of a brutal crime.

The upcoming fifth season of Homeland will jump two-and-a-half years in the future in Europe (most likely, Germany), where Claire Danes' Carrie will no longer be an intelligence officer.

TNT has ordered 12 additional episodes of real-life investigative series Cold Justice for premiere on April 10. The show follows former prosecutor Kelly Siegler as they assist local law enforcement in trying to close long-unsolved cases. Additionally, the network ordered two new Justice Served specials hosted by John Walsh (America’s Most Wanted). The specials will update viewers on victims’ families and the status of cases as they have wound their way through the legal system.

PODCASTS/RADIO/VIDEO

The latest podcast from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine features a story from the late, long-time contributor of stories to that 'zine. "The Problem of the Lobster Shack" features a locked room with an escape artist bound and chained at the center of it. (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)

THEATER

Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures is bringing an adaptation of Stephen King's novel Misery to Broadway, which will mark the Broadway debut for Bruce Willis. Willis will play the housebound writer Paul Sheldon, who becomes a prisoner of Annie Wilkes, to be played by Elizabeth Marvel (Other Desert Cities, House of Cards).

Final casting has been announced for Lonny Price's production of the crime musical Sweeney Todd that begins performances at the London Coliseum March 30, prior to an official opening March 31 (running April 12). The lead role of the demon barber of Fleet Street will be sung by Bryn Terfel, with Emma Thompson playing Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Gone Girl's Rosamund Pike will star opposite Christian Bale for the big-screen adaptation of John D. MacDonald's The Deep Blue Good-by (with Dennis Lehane penning the first draft of the script), centering on Travis McGee (Bale), the self-described “salvage consultant” private eye who lives on a houseboat.

Leonardo DiCaprio is joining the cast of The Crowded Room to take on the role of Billy Milligan, the first person to successfully use multiple personality disorder as a defense when he went on trial in the 1970s after being accused of raping three women.

Screenwriter Nick Schenk is adapting Sam Dolnick’s article from the New York Times Magazine “The Sinaloa Cartel’s 90-Year-Old Drug Mule” for Imperative Entertainment. Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) is attached to direct the film, based on the real-life tale of Leo Sharp, an award-winning horticulturist who secretly spent years working as one of the most trusted drug courier for Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel.

Lionsgate set a September 18 limited-release date for Sicario, the drug-runner drama from director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners), with a wide release a week later. Emily Blunt stars as an idealistic FBI agent exposed to the brutal world of international drug trafficking by members of a government task force (Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro).

A trailer was released for Cymbeline, starring Oscar nominees Ethan Hawke and Ed Harris in an update of William Shakespeare's classic set in the drug gang underworld of the present.

Did you know there's an official James Bond website (007.com)? You can catch details on the upcoming Spectre film, as well as other news and tidbits related to Bond-land.

TELEVISION

ITV is rebooting the 1960s series The Saint, which was based on the iconic character from the mystery novel series by Leslie Charteris. The dapper amateur slueth was originally played on TV by Roger Moore in his pre-007 days, but no word has been leaked about casting the role this time around.

Blade star Wesley Snipes is heading to TV for the NBC pilot Endgame. The Las Vegas-set drama stars Philip Winchester as a former sniper-turned-security expert drawn into a mysterious conspiracy forcing him to complete a series of challenges to save innocent lives. Snipes will play the pit boss for "The Game."

Dougray Scott (Hemlock Grove) has joined the cast of ABC drama pilot Quantico, a show that centers on a group of young FBI recruits who battle their way through training at the Quantico base in Virginia.

Rush star Tom Ellis has been cast as the title character in Fox’s comic book drama Lucifer, from Warner Bros. and Jerry Bruckheimer TV. Based on the characters from the DC Entertainment’s Vertigo, the TV series centers on Lucifer (Ellis) who abandons his throne as Lord of Hell for the alluring insanity of Los Angeles, where he gets his kicks helping the LAPD punish criminals.

Margo Martindale (of The Millers) is returning to CBS to co-star in the drama pilot Sneaky Pete, written and executive produced by Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston and House creator David Shore for Sony TV. The series centers on a formerly jailed con man who takes cover from his past by assuming the identity of a cellmate.

Adam Rodriguez (CSI: Miami) has joined the cast opposite Paula Patton in ABC‘s drama pilot Runner. The project centers on Lauren, who discovers the husband she thought dead is alive and traveling with a woman who uses Lauren's stolen identity, but Lauren's search for the truth leads into the middle of Mexican cartels and people from her past she hoped to forget.

ITV renewed the crime drama Broadchurch for a third season, with David Tennant and Olivia Colman reprising their roles as detectives Alex Hardy and Ellie Miller.

AMC is slating the second season of its original program Turn: Washington’s Spies to follow the first season of Better Call Saul, meaning a new night for the historical spy drama. Turn will return for its second season on Monday, April 13.

CBS is hoping to put CSI: Crime Scene Investigation into the record books by declaring March 4 “World CSI Day,” and break the Guinness World Record for “Largest Ever TV Drama Simulcast.”

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest Crime & Science Radio features hosts Jan Burke and D.P. Lyle welcoming Louisiana Police Chief Scott Silverii.

THEATER

Oscar winning actor Robert De Niro and Jerry Zaks will serve as directors for the The Paper Mill Playhouse production of the musical A Bronx Tale, based on a book by Chazz Palminteri (with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater). It's described as a "complex love story set against the backdrop of racial strife and organized crime in the 1960s. It is the story of an Italian-American teenager finding his path in lif
e as he must choose between the father who raised him and a mob-boss father figure who fascinates him."

Got News?

I'm going to be writing a News column for the quarterly Prose 'n Cons magazine, so now's your chance to send along any news that would interest the wider community of crime fiction fans and readers. If you know of newsworthy crime-themed TV shows or movies, new/special releases or reissues, author appearances, fan conferences, special events — feel free to send them along to bv@bvlawson.com. I won't be able to include everything in a 750-word column, but I'll do my best to include items that will appeal to mystery fans in the U.S. Canada, and around the globe.

FYI, hop on over to check out the latest highlights from the magazine, and you can enter the monthly contest to win a free digital subscription!

Mystery Melange

The LAMBDA Literary Awards honoring excellence in LGBT fiction announced finalists in various categories, including mysteries. For all the nominees, check out the Lamba Literary website.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society also announced finalists for excellence in short crime fiction, divided into Flash Fiction, Short Stories, Long Stories, and Novelettes. I am humbly grateful to be one of those finalists this year, especially when included on a list of so many fine writers. Check out the full listing here (although there may be an amendment announcement coming soon).

This Saturday, March 7, the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature will include a panel discussion about the global appeal of the crime and mystery-fiction genre, from the perspective of British authors Stuart MacBride and Sophie Hannah, Canada’s Peter Robinson and Iceland’s Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.

International bestselling author Jo Nesbo will appear on April 8 at the Old Swan Hotel for a special event to launch the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, including the reveal of the full 2015 festival program. (Hat tip to Ayo Anatade via Shots Magazine.)

Soho Press has partnered with independent bookstore Politics & Prose to send one lucky winner on a trip to Paris hosted by New York Times bestselling mystery author Cara Black. The winner will join Cara and a group organized by Politics & Prose on a guided tour of Paris exploring some of the most memorable scenes associated with the cases private investigator Aimée Leduc has solved in several books. For more information on how to enter, check out the Paris is for Murder website.

It's time to bid another long-running blog a fond farewell. It's a crime! (Or a mystery…) has been focusing on reviews and news in the crime and thriller fiction arena since 2005. Rhian Davies posted a note on the blog that this Friday will be the blog's last post.

Margaret Lucke takes a look at some overlooked female PIs that paved the way for the better-known creations from Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton.

Elizabeth Foxwell, editor of the crime fiction journal Clues, announced that Editorial Board members Rachel Schaffer and John Scaggs are coediting the McFarland essay collection "Wanted, Read or Alive" on Craig Johnson's novels with Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire and the Longmire TV series. The submission deadline for papers is June 1, 2015.

The latest issue of Crimespree Magazine includes Q&A's with F. Paul Wilson, Charles Todd, Sophie Hanna, Duane Swierczynski, and Terry hayes; a look at Sleuthfest and Reed Farrel Coleman's first of a four-book deal featuring Paradise police chief Jesse Stone; Gerald So's review of Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot; new fiction from Patrick Shawn Bagley, and much more.

Thuglit's Issue #16 has "eight new tales of murder, misdeeds, mayhem, and misdemeanors" from Eric Beetner, Devon Robbins, Ed Kurtz, Erik Arneson, Bracken MacLeod, Mark Rapacz, Scott Loring Sanders, and Rob Hart.

The new edition of All Due Respect, edited by Chris Rhatigan and Mike Monson, includes an Q&A with Steve Weddle and excerpt from his novel Broken Prayer, as well as new fiction from Keith Rawson, Paul D. Brazill, Angel Luis Colon, Garnett Elliot, Gabino Iglesias and Joe Sinisi.

The March/April issue of The Big Click kicks off with new fiction from Trent Zelazny, titled "Parts Unknown." Barry Graham will have an essay titled "Lucha Noir: How Christa Faust Wrestles with Reality in Hoodtown" available for reading on March 10, with more fiction and book reviews coming out later this month.

Jack Hardway's March-April Crime Magazine features five new short stories; The Big Caper, a full-length pulp novel by a master of the caper, Lionel White; an episode of Suspense!; and D.O.A., a crime movie from the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, "with a grabbing opening sequence and fast-paced plot concerning a poisoned man on an odd quest."

Are women hardwired to love thrillers? Rebecca Whitney makes the case for The Telegraph.

Fancy some Scottish crime fiction, but don't know where to start? The Lancaster Guardian featured "Ten top Scottish crime series."

If you read print books exclusively, or at least mostly, you'll be happy to know you're not alone. The latest Pew Internet Research study found that e-reading is on the rise but still vastly eclipsed by the continuing popularity of print.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 is "Passing on a Possible Career-Enhancing Interview Façade" by David S. Pointer.

The Q&A roundup includes Les Roberts talking with the Sandusky Register about his Milan Jacovich series; Damien Seaman chatted with Nigel Bird about his novel The Killing Of Emma Gross and the new novella, Berlin Burning; and Adam Christopher takes Craig Sisterson's "9mm interview challenge" about his new novelization of the hit US television series Elementary.