Mystery Melange

The Bloody Scotland festival announced finalists for this year's Crime Book of the Year:  Paths of the Dead by Lin Anderson; DM For Murder by Matt Bendoris;  Dead Girl Walking by Brookmyre; Thin Air by Ann Cleeves; The Ghosts of Altona by Craig Russell; and Death Is A Welcome Guest by Louise Welsh.

The Romance Writers of America chose the winners of this year's RITA Awards, including Best Romantic Suspense title, Concealed in Death by J.D. Robb, and 2015 Golden Heart Award (for an unpublished novel): Romantic Suspense, A Shot Worth Taking by Tracy Poole.

In September, the Theatre Royal in Waterford, Ireland will present "125 Years of Agatha Christie." Agatha Christie expert and lifelong fan Dr. John Curran will survey the output over half a century of the world’s favorite detective novelist, and there will be a screening of the 1945 film adaptation of Christie's novel And Then There Were None. (HT to Crime Fiction Ireland.)

Over in Turkey, one of the world’s oldest luxury hotels will host the “Black Week Turkey” event in October in honor of Agatha Christie’s 125th birthday. Christie wrote one of her most beloved books, Murder on the Orient Express, in the Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah in Istanbul in 1934, and the resort will host Christie's grandson and several crime fiction authors during the event.

The latest issue of Pulp Modern, edited by Alec Cizak, is available via Kindle and Createspace and features stories on the theme of "Dangerous Women." As the 'zine notes, "from little girls luring old perverts to their deaths to shape-shifting women in the wild west, your appetite for new, engaging fiction will be thoroughly satisfied." Authors included in the issue are Math Bird, Monica Clark, Jen Conley, Janna Darkovich, Christopher Davis, Coy Hall, Michael McNichols, David Rachels, Melody Reams, Mike Sheedy, Max Sheridan, Deborah Sheldon, Parnell Stultz, Liam Sweeny, and John Teel.   

True Detective fans on Reddit have been comparing notes to answer the question "Is True Detective season 2 a James Ellroy rip-off?" drawing attention to similarities in storylines by James Ellroy and True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto. (Note that the Telegraph article contains some spoilers for the season.)

Author Kris Calvin picked her list of "Top 10 Political Crime Fiction Thrillers" for The Strand Magazine.

A.S. Byatt penned an essay for The Guardian about Margery Allingham's Traitor’s Purse, which the author wrote in fragments in 1940 in-between air raids and "created a wartime masterpiece."

Author Laura Lippman talks about the "Books That Changed Me" with the Sydney Morning Herald.

Think you know your Agatha Christie trivia? Here's a quiz to see just how big a fan you are.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Predator and Prey" by Joseph D'Agnese.

In the Q&A roundup, bestselling UK crime writer, Peter May, tackles the Crime Files quiz; author Joanne Phillips stopped by Omnimystery News today to discuss her cozy series featuring amateur sleuth Flora Lively; the Mystery People grilled debut author Alexandra Burt about her domestic thriller Remember Mia and also talked with Linwood Barclay about his latest thriller, Broken Promise; former private eye-turned author Michael Koryta talked about how his work with the Innocence Project inspired his new novel, Last Words; and Sara Paretsky spoke with the Huffington Post about her latest V.I. Warshawski novel, Brushback.

Media Murder for Monday

Here's a wrap-up of this week's crime drama news:

MOVIES

Director Ridley Scott is taking on Don Winslow's novel Cartel as a film adaptation for Fox. The drug-trafficking plot has prescient parallels to the real-life escape of Mexican drug lord El Chapo earlier this month and follows a DEA agent and a cartel operative as they try to take each other down. Deadline also reported that the producers are courting Leonardo DiCaprio to play the lead role of DEA agent Art Keller.

Gone Girl's Rosamund Pike is set to star in Tony Gilroy’s political thriller High Wire Act set in 1980’s Beirut. The story follows Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm), a former U.S. diplomat called back into service to save a former colleague from the group possibly responsible for his own family’s death. Pike will play a CIA field agent working undercover at the American embassy tasked with keeping Mason alive and ensuring the mission's success.

Sam Mendes, who directed the recent James Bond film Skyfall, indicated in an interview with the BBC that he will not be returning to the franchise after the upcoming Spectre. Meanwhile, Daniel Craig's future playing 007 is also up in the air, but if there's one lesson to learn about Hollywood is "you never say never."

The Johnny Depp-starring biopic of notorious gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, Black Mass, will get its world premiere out of competition at this year’s festival on September 4. The film is directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) and also stars Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rory Cochrane, Jesse Plemons, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard and Kevin Bacon.

The first full trailer was released for the upcoming Bond film Spectre, with the first extended look at Dave Bautista as evil henchman Mr. Hinx and the first real look at Christoph Waltz as Franz Oberhauser, the head of SPECTRE.

TELEVISION

Netflix is not renewing Lilyhammer for a fourth season. The series starred The Sopranos actor and E Street band member Steven Van Zandt as a man continuing a life of mafia crime and leisure while in witness protection in Lillehammer, Norway.

Rizzoli & Isles fans can relax, since TNT announced the network is renewing the show for a seventh season with a 13-episode order to air next summer. This is down from its series-high number of 18 episodes in season six, although there is currently no talk about season seven being its last.

The Shield's Michael Chiklis is joing Fox’s GOTHAM as a series regular, playing Captain Nathaniel Barnes, described as a cop who “lands on the Gotham City Police Department like a tornado, ripping out the dead wood of the city’s police force.” 

The Flash star Rick Cosnett will have a recurring role on ABC’s new drama series Quantico, playing an "openly gay, incredibly funny former defense attorney who used his rhetoric and savvy against FBI cases."

Joey Pollari and Hope Davis are heading to ABC’s American Crime for the drama’s second season. Pollari will play Eric Lupton, a basketball player from a working class family who attends college on a basketball scholarship, while Davis' character has not been defined just yet.

Kendrick Sampson (The Vampire Diaries, Gracepoint) will take on a "substantive recurring role" in the upcoming season of ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder.

British actor Colin Salmon has landed a major recurring role in CBS’ upcoming sci-fi drama Limitless, based on the 2011 feature film starring Bradley Cooper (who will reprise his role as a recurring guest star). The series centers on Brian Finch (Jake McDorman), who discovers the brain-boosting power of the mysterious drug NZT and is coerced by the FBI into using his extraordinary cognitive abilities to solve complex cases for them. Salmon will play a former intelligence officer who keeps tabs on Finch.

Six Feet Under alum Lauren Ambrose and The Flash's Robbie Amell are heading to Fox's reboot of The X-Files, appearing in appear in one episode of the six-episode miniseries playing new FBI agents. Somehow, the show is also bringing back the "late" sleuthing trio of The Lone Gunmen who were killed off in the original series.

Kumail Nanjiani, X-files superfan and host of The X-Files podcast, will also appear in an upcoming episode written and directed by Darin Morgan.

The X-Files keeps drawing out its teaser trailers, this time with the first one that includes dialogue between Mulder and Scully.

A trailer was released for the new season of Fargo that follows Deputy Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson) and Sheriff Hank Larsson (Ted Danson) who are investigating a double murder at a diner in Luverne, Minnesota, circa 1979.

PODCASTS/RADIO/VIDEO

There's a new podcast in town: Debbi Mack's The Crime Cafe will be available via iTunes and will showcase interviews with leading crime and thriller authors. The inaugural episode features an interview with author Jenny Milchman.

Vinci, a podcast about True Detective in
iTunes and Stitcher, uses its inaugural show to wonder if The Long Goodbye inspired Rick Springfield's character in the True Detective series.

THEATER

Benjamin Walker will take the lead in the musical adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel American Psycho on Broadway, with an official open date of March 21, 2016, in a Shubert theater TBA. The show had its world premiere at the Almeida Theater in London in 2013 with Dr. Who star Matt Smith taking on the role of the role of Manhattan businessman and serial killer Patrick Bateman.

Mystery Melange

This week's look at crime fiction news includes awards in the UK, New Zealand, and Spain, a profile of Maj Sjöwal, the cast of cast of HBO's The Wire reunited in Baltimore, and more.

Debut author Sarah Hilary has won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for Someone Else’s Skin. She was selected from a shortlist of six, whittled down from a longlist of 18 titles published by British and Irish authors over the last year.

The shortlist has been announced for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, recognizing the best crime, mystery or thriller novel written by a New Zealand citizen or resident:

• Five Minutes Alone by Paul Cleave
• The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing
• Swimming in the Dark by Paddy Richardson
• The Children's Pond by Tina Shaw
• Fallout by Paul Thomas

Paula Hawkins, Ann Cleeves, Mark Billingham, Val McDermid, Peter James, and Marnie Riches were the winners of the inaugural Dead Good Reader Awards presented at Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. The winners were decided by a public vote, with more than 4,000 votes had been received from online readers and festival attendees.

Spain's Semana Negra 2015 conference presented the Premio Dashiell Hammett, an award for best crime fiction in Spanish, to Yo fui Johnny Thunders by Carlos Zanón.

The summer issue of Pulp Literature is out, with a profile of author Robert J Sawyer; Mel Anastasiou rounds out the first Stella Ryman novella Omnibus with "The Case of the Vanishing Resident"; plus more great fiction and some poetry from Wally Swist and Valentina Cano.

Jake Kerridge profiled Maj Sjöwal, who along with her partner Per Wahlöö, is often credited with inventing "Nordic Noir." The couple's series of 10 detective stories featuring policeman called Martin Beck, have had a huge influence on not just Scandinavian authors but crime writers around the world. A TV crew is also development a documentary on her life, that will hopefully be completed in time for her 80th birthday in September.

The cast of HBO's The Wire reunited in Baltimore to celebrate the city's real-life residents by reading their monologues that highlight the city's resiliency. Dominic West (Det. Jimmy McNulty), Michael K. Williams (Omar), Wendell Pierce (Det. Bunk Moreland) and Felicia Pearson (Felicia) were among the cast members in attendance at Wired Up!

Journalist Stephen Grey, author of The New Spymasters: Inside the Modern World of Espionage, chose his list of the "Top 10 books about spies" for The Guardian.

The Telegraph noted in an article titled "Crime writers are the victims as Sherlock's too slow for forensics" that contemporary authors struggle to keep up with new technological developments.

This year's Semana Negra (Noir Week) runs from July 10th to the 19th in Gijón, on the northern Spanish coast, and The Local Online has a preview.

If you were a fan of The Hardy Boys books during your youth (as I was), you'll enjoy Mengal Floss' list of "15 Mysterious Facts About ‘The Hardy Boys."

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (made into a film starring Christian Bale), has been pulled from bookshelves by police in Australia. The problem? A woman complained that the book wasn't shrink-wrapped. Under that country's national censorship legislation, the psychological thriller is only allowed to be sold in plastic wrapping and sold exclusively to those aged over 18.

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

In the Q&A roundup this week, Joe Cosentino drops by Omnimystery News to talk about the debut novel in his new gay cozy mystery series, Drama Queen; Sue Grafton zips by for a short Q&A with the New York Times; thriller author Gayle Lynds joined the Maine Crime Writers to chat about her new book, The Assassins; and Sons of Spade welcomed Trace Conger to discuss his hardboiled Finn Harding series.

Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again, which means summer is flying by, but even better, it's time for the latest wrap-up of crime drama news:

MOVIES

James Franco and Ahna O’Reilly are developing a movie version of Alex Marwood’s murder mystery The Killer Next Door, with Franco producing and O'Reilly to potentially star. The story centers on six neighbors forced into an unlikely alliance without realizing that one of them is a killer who will do anything to protect his secret.

Red Planet Entertainment and Pathbender have optioned the nonfiction book Gray Water: Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy by Jamie Smith, a self-described CIA operative and co-founder of the private military company Blackwater. Although the accuracy of his memoir has been called into question, the producers believe the controversy will only add to the mystique surrounding the project.

The Guardian reported that the film adaptation of the bestselling mystery novel The Girl on the Train will be set in the U.S. instead of its original English setting. In a recent interview with the Sunday Times, the book's author Paula Hawkins said it was likely to take place in upstate New York, adding, "I’m not really concerned about the repositioning as I think it is the type of story that could take place in any commuter town."

Right after GG Walker's thriller novel All Is Not Forgotten sold to St. Martin’s Press following a bidding battle (with plans to publish in early 2017), Warner Brothers closed a significant preemptive acquisition of film rights. Reese Witherspoon is set to produce and may play the role of the mother of a teenage girl who is brutally raped and decides to give their daughter a pill to erase her short term memory so she won’t relive the trauma of the attack.

20th Century Fox snapped up film rights to Epic Magazine's true story "Pipino: Gentleman Thief" by Joshua Davis and David Wolman. The project concerns the exploits of master thief Vincenzo Pipino, who scaled multiple stories and clay rooftops to steal art, clothing, and jewelry in 1990’s Italy.

TELEVISION

The 2015 Emmy Award nominations were announced last week, with several crime dramas coming away with multiple nods, incuding Better Call Saul, Homeland, and Orange is the New Black for Outstanding Drama; Kyle Chandler (Bloodline), Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul), and Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) for Best Actor in a Drama Series; Claire Danes (Homeland), Viola Davis (How to Get Away With Murder), and Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) for Best actress in a Drama Series. Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Curtain, Poirot’s Last Case also picked up a nomination for Outstanding Television Movie. For all the nominee lists, check out the official Emmy website.

BBC One is partnering with Lifetime for a miniseries based on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. The UK will premiere the program as a three-episode series later this year to coincide with Agatha Christie’s 125th anniversary, with the U.S. premiere on Lifetime as a two-part miniseries in 2016. The iconic novel follows ten strangers with dubious pasts lured to an isolated island where they're accused of crimes and start to die myteriously, one by one.

AMC's Revolutionary War spy drama Turn has been renewed for a third season. The series center around the Culper spy ring during the war, focusing on Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell), a man recruited into spying despite the fact other members of his family are loyalists.

Downton Abbey actress Michelle Dockery has been cast in Good Behavior, a drama pilot ordered by TNT that's based on novels by Blake Crouch. Dockery will play Letty Dobesh, a thief and con artist fresh out of prison. When she overhears a hitman being hired to kill a man's wife, she sets out to derail the job, "setting her on a collision course with the killer and entangling them in a dangerous and seductive relationship."

Peter Krause has landed the male lead in ABC's midseason drama The Catch from Shondaland (the production company behind How to Get Away With Murder). Krause replaces Damon Dayoub who appeared in the pilot. The plot focuses on Alice Vaughan (The Killing's Mireille Enos), a fraud investigator who is pitted against a successful con man who lives the good life with other people’s money.

Deadline reported that Sunkrish Bala (The Walking Dead) has booked a season-long arc on ABC's Castle, playing Vikram Singh, "a high-strung, tech analyst with a complicated past."

The same Deadline article also noted that Anabelle Acosta (Ballers) is set for a multi-episode arc on ABC’s new FBI series Quantico, and a separate report adds that Josh Hopkins is also joining Quantico to play Special Agent Liam O’Connor, taking over the role played by Dougray Scott in the pilot.

Although the CSI series-ending finale has lined up many former cast members from previous seasons, two names will be absent: Eizabeth Shue and George Eads have declined to participate, even though Eads' character, forensic investigator Nick Stokes, was already written into the script.

Alana de la Garza and Annie Funke will star opposite Gary Sinise in CBS’ Criminal Minds spin-off Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, which "follows FBI agents helping American citizens who find themselves in trouble abroad."

Fargo's Allison Tolman will guest star on Amazon's drama Mad Dogs, joining Coby Bell in a recurring role. Th
e drama follows four former frat brothers who travel to Belize for a reunion and luxury vacation that's interrupted by a series of wild events exposing dark secrets, deception and murder.

The Fox programs Bones and Sleepy Hollow are having a crossover episode. I'm not exactly how they intend on pulling that off, but it will be across two episodes, one on each show sometime late in the 2015-16 season.

Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver and Lena Headey (Game Of Thrones) have boarded the BBC’s reboot of the classic children’s animated series Danger Mouse. Oliver will voice the role of mad scientist wolf Dr. Augustus P. Crumhorn III, while Headey will be the voice of U.S. Secret Agent Jeopardy Mouse. 

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

NPR's Fresh Air welcomed Don Winslow, author of The Cartel, who spent 10 years immersed in the Mexican drug wars before writing the novel.

THEATER

Chuck Palahniuk, the author behind Fight Club, announced that he’s working on a rock opera based on his hit novel, with David Fincher (the filmmaker who helmed the movie version), and Julie Taymor, a renowned theatrical director, both on board the project.

Mystery Melange

More book awards this week: The 2015 Thriller Awards were handed out at the annual ThrillerFest in New York City. Megan Abbott won Best Novel for The Fever; Vincent Zandri won in the Best Paperback Original category for Moonlight Weeps; Best First Novel went to Laura McHugh for The Weight of Blood; Best Short Story was “The Last Wrestling Bear in West Kentucky” by Tim L. Williams (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine); the Best Young Adult Novel was Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano; and Best E-Book Original Novel was won by C.J. Lyons for Hard Fall. (Hat tip to Shots eZine.)

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers Awards announced the winners of the Ninth Annual Scribe Award Winners, including Best Original Novel to Homeland: Saul’s Game by Andrew Kaplan; Best Original Speculative Novel (tie) to Pathfinder: The Redemption Engine by James Sutter and Fringe: Sins of the Father by Christa Faust; and Best Short Story, "Mike Hammer: It's in the Book" by Max Collins and Mickey Spillane. For the complete list of winners and nominees, check out the IAMTW website.

This year's T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award finalists from the Southern California Independent Booksellers are Marry, Kiss, Kill by Anne Flett-Giordano; The Replacements by David Putnam; and The Cartel by Don Winslow.

Oregon-based author Roger Hobbs has won the 2015 Maltese Falcon Award for his debut novel, Ghost Man (originally published in English in 2013). The Maltese Falcon prize is presented by Japan’s crime fiction-oriented Maltese Falcon Society to “the best hard-boiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year.” Hobbs will receive a wood-carved Falcon statuette. (Hat tip to The Gumshoe website.)

Noir at the Bar arrives in Durham, North Carolina, on August 13, with Eric Beetner, Steve Weddle, David Terrenoire, Eryk Pruitt, S A Crosby, Greg Barth, and Geraud Staton on hand for readings and signings.

On a sad note, last week we lost author Tom Piccirilli who passed away after a long battle with brain cancer. He wrote in several genres, and his crime fiction was honored by the International Thriller Writers and the Edgar Awards. The Rap Sheet has links to a couple of interviews with Piccirilli, who has left a couple dozen novels and many dozens of novellas, short stories, and collections as a legacy.

Another month, another mystery bookshop for sale. This time, it's the Once Upon a Crime store in Minneapolis, which has hosted many a bestselling author for talks and signings. The store was voted Favorite Mystery Bookstore in the Country by Crimespree magazine and in 2011 owners Pat Frovarp and Gary Shulze received the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the Raven Award. The owners are forced to seek a buyer because "We're not getting any younger," and Shulze is undergoing cancer treatments.

Hat tip to Elizabeth Foxwell for noting that The NSA has declassified 7,000 records of William F. Friedman (1891–1969), a U.S. cryptology pioneer inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, and his wife Elizebeth (1892–1980), also a noted codebreaker. The move dovetails with exhibitions on the Friedmans by the Marshall Foundation and the National Cryptological Museum.

Slate profiled Mildred "Millie" Wirt Benson (1905-2002), the first author ever to write under the name "Carolyn Keene," the name affixed to the Nancy Drew books. In addition to being a court reporter, journalist, and private pilot, she was also an adventurer, who made many trips to Central America.

Nick Jones, posting at his Existential Ennui blog, investigated the origins of Patricia Highsmith's iconic Talented Mr. Ripley, with both fictional and real-life inspirations.

Who would you pick as your favorite British crime fiction villain, Hannibal Lecter or Tom Ripley? Britain's top crime writers weighed in with their choices for top Big Bad, as well as their favorite crime committed in a book, favorite crime authors, and more.

Writer Warren Ellis and illustrator Jason Masters are working on a new James Bond comic book series, twenty years after the last such effort by Topps Comics, which published a short-lived adaptation of the GoldenEye film. The story arc will revolves around a Helsinki "vengeance mission," with 007 pursuing an evil force in the city.

The crime poem at the 5-2 this week is "My Summer Vacation" by Vera Salter.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Brian Panowich chatting with the Mystery People about his debut novel Bull Mountain, which centers on two brothers on the opposite sides of the law; Barbara Venkataraman stopped by Ominimystery News to discuss her mysteries featuring attorney Jamie Quinn; and Tripwire Magazine grilled Lawrence Block to find out what makes him tick.

Another Death in the Blogging Family

We lost another one of our Friday's Forgotten Books "family" on Sunday when Randy Johnson, who operated the blog Not the Baseball Pitcher, passed away (Ron Scheer left us in April). Randy had suffered from health problems for a while, but kept the extent of them private, so it was a shock to all of us when his nephew posted a "Farewell" message Randy wrote before his death. You can read it here, and I also encourage you to read Randy's previous postings for his insights and recommendations about westerns and other interesting books that caught his attention. He will be missed by many.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Dominic Cooper will play the lead in Stratton, after Henry Cavill left the picture just before production started. Stratton is based on Duncan Falconer’s book series and follows the titular John Stratton, a British Special Boat Service commando tasked with fighting international terrorists in Northern Ireland.

Robert Pattinson is set to star in Good Time, the new caper film from indie filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie. Pattinson will play a bankrobber named Connie trying to evade the police as they close in on him.

A trailer was released for the Stephen Spielberg-directed Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer involved with the spying case of Francis Gary Powers, shot down over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

An extended trailer was released for the film adaptation of the spy TV series Man From U.N.C.L.E. starrring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer.

Kentucky's historic Louisville Palace began as a movie theater and will partially revert back to its original purpose this summer as it hosts a Film Noir festival, with classics of the genre shown Fridays and Saturday in July and August.

Noir film enthusiasts might also enjoy an infographic courtesy of Mental Floss, which breaks down the genre's characteristics with a series of examples culled from around 100 classic film noir flicks.

TELEVISION

A&E Network has ordered a crime drama pilot from Gambit writer Joshua Zetumer titled The Infamous. It centers on an ambitious reformed gangster and the LAPD detective hell-bent on taking him down, set against real events in the '90s leading up to the LA Riots.

Spike TV is developing a six-part docuseries based on the real-life international murder mystery that embroiled tech entrepreneur John McAfee.

Acorn TV announced the U.S. premiere dates for Partners in Crime, based on Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence sleuthing duo. The show, which stars David Walliams and Jessica Raine, will have the first two episodes debut on Thursday, September 3, with a new episode added every Thursday, through the sixth and final episode on October 1st.

Justified's Stephen Root and Marque Richardson will take lead roles in HBO's TV adaptation of the 2014 Tony-winning Best Play All the Way. Root will play FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, while Richardson will play civil rights activist Bob Mose. The project has already signed Bryan Cranston, recreating his Tony-winning role as President Lyndon Johnson.

The Neighbors alum Toks Olagundoye is joining Castle as a new series regular in Season 8. She will play Hayley Vargas, a "quick-witted, free-spirited, former Scotland Yard police officer who works as a security specialist and is not afraid to cross lines to get things done."

Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) will appear in the upcoming X-Files, playing a man Mulder suspects in a series of what appear to be animal attacks.

Fans of Twin Peaks will have to wait a little longer, since the series' revival has been delayed until 2017. Co-creators Mark Frost and David Lynch indicated the schedule change is in order to “raise the bar” with the new run of the series.

The BBC teased the Sherlock Christmas special, with a photo showing the dynamic duo in Victorian garb and a new trailer. Executive producer Steven Moffat has previously said the traditional holiday episode would be a standalone set in the era when the books were originally written.

FX has released two "super cryptic" teasers for the new season of Fargo, featuring Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Wilson and Ted Danson.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

NPR's Maureen Corrigan selected "Dead-Cinch Thrillers: 4 Books To Get Your Heart Pounding."

Sean Chercover was interviewed by Libby Fischer Hellman on Second Sunday Crime, talking about his latest installment in the series featuring Daniel Byrne, an investigator for the Vatican department that scrutinizes miracle claims.

11 Facts About Crime Fiction To Impress Your Friends

Next time you're at a dinner party or need some quickie facts to show how cool crime fiction really is (as if you really needed an excuse), maybe these will come in handy:

 

1. Agatha Christie (1890–1976) is the world’s best-selling fiction writer, according to the Guinness Book of Records. Her seventy some-odd crime novels and short story collections have sold an estimated 2 billion copies (although some estimates peg it at up to 4 billion).
   
   
2. Agatha Christie is also the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages. (Source: Index Translationum)
   
   
3. The most prolific mystery author was John Creasey, who wrote over 600 books under 28 different pseudonyms. Coming in a close second is Georges Simenon, with 500+ books. (Brazilian author Ryoki Inoue created Portuguese-language pulp fiction to the tune of nearly 1,100 books, but many of those were romances.) (Source: Guinness book of World Records)
   
   
4. The first literary detective is widely considered to be C. Auguste Dupin, who first appeared in "The Murders In the Rue Morgue" in 1841, written by Edgar Allan Poe.
   
   
5. The earliest known crime novel is The Rector of Veilbye by the Danish author Steen Steensen Blicher, published in 1829. Although one could make the argument that the earliest known example of a crime story was "The Three Apples," one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade from Arabian Nights.
   
   
6. The earliest locked-room mystery may well be from the 5th century BC, when Herodotus told the tale of the robber whose headless body was found in a sealed stone chamber with only one guarded exit. But the first of the true modern example of that genre is generally said to be Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
   
   
7. The first detective film is often cited as Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a very short Mutoscope reel created between 1900 and 1903 by Arthur Marvin.
   
   
8. The highest circulating crime fiction subgenre titles in 2013 in the U.S. were police procedurals at 29%, according to the Library Journal Mystery Survey. Cozies were a close second place at 24%, with Amateur Detectives third at 19%.  
   
   
9. In that same Library Journal survey, crime fiction was the most-frequently borrowed genre, at a whopping 78% (mysteries, 55%, thrillers, 23%).
   
   
10. The very first Edgar Awards Grand Master honor was given in 1955 to Agatha Christie - but most people probably don't know Alfred Hitchcock was given that title in 1978 (the only non-mystery-author to be so honored).
    
    
11. Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake hold the record for total Edgar Award honors, with 11 nominations and 5 wins (including the Grand Master Award) for Block and 11 nominations and 4 wins for Westlake. Westlake was also one of only three writers (along with Joe Gores and William L. DeAndrea) to win Edgars in three different categories (Best Novel, Best Short Story, Best Motion Picture Screenplay). (Source: Edgar Awards database)

Mystery Melange

Some good magazine news: BJ Bourg, former editor of the now-defunct Mouth Full of Bullets ezine, announced he's spearheading a new quarterly called BJ Bourg's Mystery Mag. He's seeking mystery/crime flash stories on the hard-boiled side of 500 to 750 words in length, and interested authors can find more details on his Righting Crime Fiction blog. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.)

The next Noir at the Bar event will take place in Staten Island this Sunday, with authors Rob Hart (New Yorked), Josh Bazell (Beat the Reaper), Todd Robinson (The Hard Bounce), Eddie Joyce (Small Mercies), Terrence McCauley (Sympathy for the Devil), and Hilary Davidson (Blood Always Tells) on hand for readings and signings.

Via the Bang2Write blog, one lucky person will win 10 British crime fiction novels in honor of BritCrime’s first free online crime fiction fest in July. The deadline for entering is before midnight July 10.

The New York Times reported on the mostly-forgotten story of Samuel J. Battle, the first black officer in the New York Police Department, a story brought to the attention first of poet Langston Hughes and later reporter Arthur Browne. One rather poignant part of the article still relevant via contemporary headlines, is that Battle was the son of former slaves from North Carolina who entered the department in 1911 "following intense lobbying by Harlem’s elite ministers and newspaper editors, who saw integration as a remedy for police violence against blacks."

The Bookseller's Stuart Bache took note of "The Resurgence of Golden Age Crime." From The British Library’s Crime Classics, Orion’s e-only The Murder Room imprint to HarperCollins’ revival of the Collins Crime Club, it shows the readership for the golden age detective novel is as hungry as ever for crime that stands the test of time.

Writing for Kirkus Reviews, J. Kingston Pierce tried to answer one reader's complaint about the "drunken and damaged protagonists" in detective fiction with a recap of authors and crime series that prove there's quite a variety of sleuths being written today.

Author Don Winslow (Cartel) offered up a list of "6 great books that explore the inner lives of cops."

The Books Live: Crime Beat blog posted a link to an essay by University of Pretoria academic Elizabeth le Roux, titled "South African Crime and Detective Fiction in English: A Bibliography and Publishing History." The essay focuses on crime fiction titles published up to 1994, concentrating on the period before June Drummond and James McClure, including a goodly number of South African crime novels prior to the 1950s.

The BBC blog discussed the letters revealing Arthur Conan Doyle's involvement in the 110-year-old mystery of a horse mutilation that are going on display in Portsmouth.

The latest issue of Suspense Magazine has an an excerpt from new books by Ingrid Thoft and Nelson DeMille; the latest forensics notes from D.P. Lyle; interviews with CJ Box, Patrick Kendrick, and Nelson DeMille; Q&As with debut authors Christine Carbo, Neal Griffin, and Simon Gervais; and the latest book notes and reviews.

Scientific American reported on the use of stingray technology by local and state law enforcement agencies, setting up fake cell towers to gather mobile data without a court order. Allegedly, agencies like the Baltimore PD used a cell site simulator thousands of times and signed a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI instructing prosecutors to drop cases rather than reveal the department’s use of the stingray.

Forensic scientists at Austria's University of Salzburg have developed a new method for establishing an exact time of death after as long as 10 days by evaluating the breakdown of protein building blocks of muscle.

Think you know your detective fiction? Guardian Books has a quiz on detective duos for you.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 is "Scholastic Musical Chairs" by David S. Pointer, and there's also a new noir poem, "Sick in the Head" by David Barber at Beat to a Pulp.

In the Q&A roundup, Patti Abbott chats with the Mystery People about her debut novel, Concrete Angel; the MP also invited Brad Parks to talk about his latest mystery to feature Newark, NJ reporter Carter Ross; The Seattle Times discussed the "real life horrors" in Don Winslow's new drug trafficking novel, Cartel; and Omnimystery News welcomed Channing Whitaker to talk about his new book, Until the Sun Rises.

The Latest Prose ‘n Cons

The summer issue of Prose 'n Cons is out with a profile of true crime writer and novelist Carla Norton, who wrote a NYT bestseller on the Cameron Hooker kidnapping and bondage case titled Perfect Victim. After writing about real-life victimization took its toll, Hooker decided to switch to novels, penning two books that allow a kidnapping victim to reclaim her life on her own terms.

The issue also has a look at the upcoming PulpFest; a profile of Ray Celestin's new novel The Axeman; the best day trips and destinations for true-crime lovers; an examination of the new technique of brain fingerprinting that could help police read the minds of criminals; the lure of murder mystery parties; new short fiction from Jake Teeny and Salena Casha; and much more. You can also catch the latest News Headlines from yours truly.

Media Murder for Monday

Monday blues got you down? Maybe the latest news of crime dramas on film and TV will perk you up:

MOVIES

Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow's next project is Book of Henry, based on an original screenplay written by best-selling crime novelist Gregg Hurwitz. The plot is being kept under wraps although production will start this fall in New York.

A Most Violent year director J.C. Chandor is in talks to helm the Paramount action thriller Triple Frontier, set in the notorious border zone between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil where the Iguazu and Parana rivers converge and provide a haven for organized crime.

The first international trailer for the psychological thriller The Red Spider hints at the story that's based on a real series of serial-killer murders in the late ’60s Cold War-era Eastern Europe.

The first trailer was released for the thriller Secret in Their Eyes (based on the Eduardo Sacheri novel La pregunta de sus ojos), starring Julia Roberts as a detective who discovers her daughter has been murdered and left for dead in a dumpster. The Daily Mail had a mini-profile.

A trailer was also released for London Has Fallen, the sequel to 2013's Olympus Has Fallen. The follow-on film once again follows Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) and President Ben Asher (Aaron Eckhart) fighting for their lives after a terrorist group targets world leaders in London for a state funeral.

TELEVISION

The 1985 cult film To Live And Die In L.A. is headed to the small screen via WGN America. The TV adaptation will be directed/produced by Oscar winner William Friedkin, who created the project with fellow Oscar winner, Bobby Moresco (Crash). The story, based on the novel by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, follows a fearless agent in L.A. who will stop at nothing to bring down the counterfeiter who killed his partner.

NBC has cancelled American Odyssey after one season. The drama starred Anna Friel, Peter Facinelli, Jake Robinson, Trent Williams in the tale of an Army Sgt. as she struggled to make it home after discovering a dangerous government secret during a raid in the west African Republic of Mali.

Deadline reported that the 1987 film Fatal Attraction is getting a reboot limited-run series at Fox. The project will closely follow the movie plot where Michael Douglas starred as a man who had an affair only to be stalked by the woman (Glenn Close) when he dumps her.

The same Deadline report above on Fatal Attraction noted that Paramount is mining its archives for TV adaptations, including plans to develop an HBO series based on Shutter Island with the involvement of both Martin Scorsese (who directed the 2010 film) and author Dennis Lehane.

Lifetime has greenlighted a movie based on the Charles Manson Family murders. With Jeff Ward playing Manson, the story hinges on Linda Kasabian (MacKenzie Mauzy) who joins Manson's commune looking for acceptance only to get drawn into criminal activities.

Kevin Alejandro (Arrow, True Blood) is joining the Fox series adaptation Lucifer, playing the role of a grumpy LAPD homicide detective who's suspicious of Lucifer's intentions that have to do with his family. Alejandro is replacing Law & Order SVU star Nicholas Gonzalez, who played the role during the pilot of the series.

Billy Magnussen, who will be playing Kato Kaelin in FX’s upcoming 10-hour series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, has been hired for another FX project, a pilot about the beginnings of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Amazon has zipped up licensing rights for several PBS shows, including the 1950s detective drama Grantchester.

WGN had a little fun with the detective dramas Elementary and Person of Interest, with a promo featuring Elementary stars Miller and Lucy Liu and POI’s Emerson and Jim Caviezel facing off in a test to determine who’s the better twosome and why.

THEATER

I'm not sure how this is going to work, but a musical based on Ian Fleming's suave super spy James Bond is headed to Broadway, after Executive Producer Merry Saltzman (daughter of legendary Bond film producer and impresario Harry Saltzman) secured the rights for the project. James Bond: The Musical, will have a book by novelist Dave Clarke and music and lyrics by country composer Jay Henry Weisz.

GAMES

A new Hitman video game is coming, and a few short clips were recently leaked. It's part of the series featuring Agent 47, a cloned assassin-for-hire, with the movie adaptation based on the character being released in August. The new game will be available for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One this December holiday season.

And the Winners Are ...

There's been a lot of news lately from a variety of annual crime fiction awards, but what if those awards only happened every four years? That's what you face in the world of piano competitions, including the Van Cliburn and the just-completed Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Since I have a piano background and the crime consultant in my Scott Drayco series is also pianist, it's been fun to watch snippets of the live-streaming from the competition. The Gold Medal was given yesterday to 27-year-old Russian Dmitry Masleev, with Lithuanian Lukas Geniušas and American 19-year-old George Li awarded Silver Medals. You'll be hearing a lot more from all of these talented artists.

Here's a snippet from one of wunderkind George Li's first-round performances:

 

Mystery Melange

At a banquet last evening, the Crime Writers Association announced more of its annual Dagger Awards.  The International Dagger went to Camille, by Pierre Lemaitre, translated by Frank Wynne; the Short Story Dagger was handed out for “Apocrypha,” by Richard Lange (from Sweet Nothing: Stories, by Richard Lange; Mulholland Press); The Non-fiction Dagger: In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile, by Dan Davies; The Endeavour Historical Dagger: The Seeker, by S.G. MacLean; The Debut Dagger: Last of the Soho Legends, by Greg Keen; and the Dagger in the Library for body of work went to Christopher Fowler. (Hat tip to The Rap Sheet.) 

Foreword Reviews announced the winners in its 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards, including the mystery and thriller categories.

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is an annual grant of $1,500 for an emerging writer of color, sponsored by the Sisters in Crime organization. An unpublished writer is preferred, although publication of one work of short fiction or an academic work won't disqualify an applicant. This grant is intended to support the recipient in activities related to crime fiction writing and career development. Deadline for applications is July 5, with the winner to be selected and announced in the fall.

Seattle Mystery Bookshop announced the sad news that the shop's founder, William D. Farley, died this week. Farley and his wife B Jo opened the bookshop in the summer of 1990. As the store blog noted, "It was his intention that the Seattle Mystery Bookshop be a place where readers and writers could meet, that it be a resource for those with questions or simply looking for a new author to read, that it be a place for someone new to the novels as well as the serious buyers looking to extend their collections."

The latest edition of Thuglit is out and available for download for the Kindle. Check out new original short fiction from Michael Pool, Mike Madden, Matthew J. Hockey, Dan J. Fiore, Joseph Rubas, Amanda Marbais, Luis Colón, Garnett Elliott.

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine includes a wrap-up of the annual Crime in the Court party thrown by Goldsboro Books, plus a look at recent awards and the usual variety of book reviews and news.

Crime fiction author James Patterson has been making headlines donating money to bookstores and libraries. The efforts include a $1.75m program to help fund school libraries and independent booksellers, and he recently announced the first round of awardees for those grants.

Since we're on the topic of bestselling crime fiction authors making donations, Peter James has donated £15,000 to a Sussex Police crime prevention campaign aimed at highlighting the danger of cyber crime and how the public can keep themselves safe.

The Indiana University library at Bloomington has a little exhibit they're featuring this summer. Titled "Death by Gimmick!," the four cases display gimmicks that pushed the fiction of some authors into the territory of the bizarre. Mapbooks are there, as is Dennis Wheatley's Crime Dossiers, which included print material such as cablegrams and transcripts of interview to each reader to help them solve the crime.

The Guardian picked a list of the top ten books about the mafia, "some fact, some myth, and some both."

The island country of Malta decided that one way to boost the country's profile was to have crime thrillers set there. So, the Malta Tourism Authority spent a week hosting authors Chris Kuzneski, Boyd Morrison and Graham Brown in hopes they'll help promote the Maltese islands in the U.S. market by using the archipelago as a backdrop in their books.

The Sydney Morning Herald profiled the new book Blockbuster! The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Lucy Sussex. It details the story of Ferguson's 1886 crime thriller set in Melbourne and how it became a global publishing phenomenon. (WaPo discussed it last year, and it was one the subject of an IRTM Friday's "Forgotten" Book.)

The Guardian examined the Sherlock Holmes canon via a series of charts to help explain his enduring appeal. Meanwhile, the Den of Geek blog profiled "10 Offbeat Takes" on Sherlock Holmes.

In more classic crime fun, the International Crime Fiction Resesarch Group blogged about the "Semantics of murder: A look at the titles of the 66 novels by Agatha Christie."

Mashable offered up a list of "10 influential pulp novels that are criminally good," from the pulp tradition of the early 20th century, from Doc Savage to Raymond Chandler, to Dashiell Hammett.

You've heard that no two fingerprints are alike, but now scientists think that each person may have a unique sense of smell. They hope that a sort of "olfactory fingerprint"' test will not identify individuals but rather may help with everything from an early diagnosis of degenerative brain disorders to a non-invasive test for matching donor organs.

It's official: "twerking," the dance movement popularized by Miley Cyrus, has been officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary. But, surprise! The OED editors say that "twerk" actually dates back to 1820 when it was spelled "twirk," meaning a twisting or jerking movement or twitch.

The new poem at the 5-2 is "Elegy for a Lost War" by Dennis Weiser.

In the Q&A roundup this week, the latest "9mm interview" from Crime Watch featured Rosie Claverton, author of a series of cybercrime thrillers and an in-progress historic fantasy mystery set in Victorian times; mystery author Channing Whitaker stopped by Omnimystery News to talk about his new supernatural mystery; Jame DiBiasio took Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge to discuss the sequel to his debut thriller, Gaijin Cowgirl; and the Mystery People snared Don Winslow to talk about his new drug-trafficking novel, Cartel.