Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The good news for Morgan Freeman fans is that he is in a new movie just released in the UK, a thriller titled Momentum, in which Freeman plays a corrupt U.S. senator in South Africa involved with a diamond heist that goes terribly wrong. The bad news is the film has been a financial disaster thus far, making only $69 dollars profit in its release in ten UK cinemas. The film also stars ormer Bond girl Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) who is targeted by a hitman, played by the British actor James Purefoy.

Leonardo Di Caprio's new thriller Revenant is already receiving critical acclaim and Oscar buzz ahead of its theatrical release. But the film's gore apparently is a bit much for some preview-goers to take, with some walking out on the screening. The story follows a man (DiCaprio) who is attacked by a bear, witnesses the murder of his son, and is left for dead by the rest of his hunting party, then recovers to embark on a journey of revenge.

TELEVISION

In a competitive bid, Liza Marshall and Kris Thykier’s Archery Pictures won the television rights to option Rattle, the debut novel by former Daily Mirror showbiz reporter Fiona Cummins. Rattle is about a sinister bone collector with a macabre obsession for his museum of medical oddities who is hunted by Detective Etta Fitzroy before the psychopath can add to his collection with fresh bodies.

CBS is developing an untitled police drama from producer Aaron Kaplan that revolves around a unique, highly effective task force comprised entirely of African-American police officers, which was assembled in the early 1970s by the Boston Police Commissioner to prevent and solve crimes in previously neglected areas of the city.

Showtime has greenlighted Dark Net, an eight-part docuseries that explores the dark side of technology, to premiere Thursday, January 21. The series is an exploration of the netherworld where virtual and physical lives collide with themes such as bio-hacking, cyber-kidnapping, digital warfare, online cults, pornography addiction, the webcam sex trade and more.

HBO has put in development Bastards, a drama based on the Israeli series Nevelot. It's described as a thriller with dark comedic overtones that "follows two elderly Vietnam vets in contemporary Miami, whose resentment of today’s entitled youth causes a small act of self-defense to snowball into something much bigger."

FX announced it has ordered a third season of Fargo, the critically-acclaimed anthology series based on the Coen Brothers' 1996 film of the same name. Creator Noah Hawley will return to run the Emmy-, Peabody- and Golden Globe-winning show, which is in the midst of its second season, with the cast still to be determined.

TNT cancelled the spy series The Transporter, meaning it won't return for a third season. The program, which was based on the movie series of the same name, starred Chris Vance in the lead role of courier Frank Martin, originally played in the films by Jason Statham.

Quantico is adding three recurring characters to the cast. Jay Armstrong Johnson (Sex And The City 2), Lenny Platt (How To Get Away With Murder) and Li Jun Li (Minority Report) will appear in multi-episode arcs beginning with the midseason premiere on March 6.

A new trailer was released for the BBC's TV movie special of Luther, with Idris Elba is back as tormented genius DCI John Luther.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Suspense Magazine's Story Blender podcast, hosted by author Steven James and Susan May Warren, welcomed Steve Martini, author of critically-acclaimed legal thrillers, to talk about how research and location work together to provide the impetus for great stories, and how to dip your imagination into the darkness to write gripping villains.

The Thrilling Reads podcast festured author H.N. Wake, who lived in Africa, Asia and Europe for 20 years where she worked primarily with the US Government before turning her hand to writing political espionage thrillers.

This week's guest on Crime Fiction FM was award-winning author C. Joseph Greaves, who stopped by to discuss his new book, Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo).

THEATER

Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch had a return stint playing Hamlet on stage in London, and now, it appears, it is his TV rival's turn to take on the role. Andrew Scott, who played Moriarty in the BBC TV series, will take on the same Shakespeare role at London's Almeida Theatre.

Mystery Melange

Walter Mosley has been chosen as the 2016 Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America (MWA), an honor that represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing. The MWA also announced the Raven Award for outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing, with two honorees this year, editor and scholar Margaret Kinsman, and Sisters in Crime. Also announced was the the Ellery Queen Award, established in 1983 to honor “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry," which will be handed out to Janet Rudolph, editor of the Mystery Readers Journal.

Wordharvest Writing Contests announced that the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Novel was awarded to The Homeplace by by Kevin Wolf, which will be published by St. Martin’s Press in September 2016. The Tony Hillerman Mystery Short Story winner was Robert E. Evans for "A Simple Thing, Rather Elegant."

The Santa Barbara Independent profiled "Ross Macdonald at 100: The Rediscovery of Santa Barbara’s Greatest Writer."

This year is the 50th anniversary of Truman Capote's celebrated In Cold Blood, and the Sydney Morning Herald's Andrew Stephens delved into the topic of true crime dramas in both book and media forms, asking, "why do we sit spellbound as humans do their worst?"

The BBC took a look at a new book that explores the life and career of secretive Inverness mystery writer Elizabeth Mackintosh, who died in 1952. Mackintosh was one of the UK's most successful novelists and playwrights but is better known by her pen-names including Josephine Tey and Gordon Daviot.

The Washington Review of Books profiled the new scholarly work, The Legendary Detective: The Private Eye in Fact and Fiction, by John Walton, a professor of sociology at the University of California-Davis. As the author states, "This is a study of American society and culture that reveals how the detective business arose, fashioning its own fictions, in tandem with a culture industry that was constrained by commercial fact, each a piece of the larger political economy and both subject to an essential interplay."

Another new book on private detectives was discussed in the Wall Street Journal with a look at The Legendary Detective by John Walton and its take on the private eye in fact and fiction.

Author-educator Andy Martin shadowed crime fiction author Lee Child to observe the creative process all the way from the first word (“Moving”) to the last (“needle”), and the result is an interactive Q&A for the New York Times and the new book Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me.

A look at the latest journal reviews of crime fiction includes Declan Hughes writing for the The Irish times and offering up new books by Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, Robert Galbraith, and Sarah Weinman.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Again one hand" by Simon Perchik.

In the Q&A roundup, father-son duo of Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman talk about collaborating for the first time on the novel The Golem of Hollywood; Karla M. Hull stopped by Omnimystery News to discuss her new first in series mystery, A Sip of Death; Sons of Spade welcomed S.W. Lauden, a prolific short-story author whose debut novel, Bad Citizen Corporation, has just been published; The CBC chatted with crime writer Ian Rankin about his new novel Even Dogs in the Wild; and The Mystery People snagged Eric Beetner in a Q&A about his new novel The Rumrunners.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Kenneth Branagh has come on board the new film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express as both director and star, taking on the role of Hercule Poirot. Branagh is also a co-producer along with Ridley Scott (The Martian), Simon Kinberg (The Martian, X-Men: Days of Future Past), and Mark Gordon (Steve Jobs) with Michael Green (Blade Runner 2) writing the screenplay,

DreamWorks has acquired The Travelers, the latest thriller by New York Times best-selling author Chris Pavone. The book is descripted as a "Hitchcockian thriller with shades of Mr. And Mrs. Smith and North By Northwest."

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie is rumored to be considering a return to the Mission Impossible franchise for the sixth installment. Paramount and Skydance plan to potentially begin shooting as early as next August, with Tom Cruise once again on board to headline the picture.

Actor/comedian T.J. Miller is developing a project for Dreamworks titled Ex Criminals, with Miller starring in the project about a dysfunctional couple whose streak of bank robbing comes to a halt when they break up the night before their biggest heist ever.

Bruce Willis, Kellan Lutz and Dan Bilzerian star in the new trailer for the CIA spy thriller Extraction about a deadly father-son team.

A trailer was released for the dramedy Central Intelligence, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as an undercover CIA badass who drags Kevin Hart’s unwilling office worker into a mission of world shattering importance.

TELEVISION

Noah Hawley is adapting the Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat's Cradle as a limited series for FX. The 1963 novel satirizes the Cold War arms race and plays on societal anxiety over military annihilation and increased militarization in the world.

Gotham and Blindspot were among the leading contenders in the nominations for the American Society of Cinematographers’ television awards, announced last week. Gotham received two of the five nominations in the Episode of a Regular Series category, one each for cinematographers Christopher Norr and one for Crescenzo Notarile.

ABC has announced its midseason premiere dates including The Catch, which stars The Killing's Mireille Enos as a fraud investigator who finds herself the victim of a con perpetrated by her own fiancé (Parenthood's Peter Krause), plus American Crime, Quantico, and more.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest Crime and Science Radio featured Todd Matthews of NamUs on "Identifying The Dead, Finding The Missing."

Joining Debbi Mack on Crime Cafe, author Donna Fletcher Crow chatted about her Monastery Murders series and other novels.

Robert Crais was the featured guest on Speaking of Mysteries, discussing his latest book, The Promise, the latest outing for detective Elvis Cole and supporting cast of Joe Pike, Jon Stone, Scott James and Maggie, the LAPD K-9.

This month's Crime Vault Live featured author Mark Billingham and journalist-author Michael Carlson grilling Ian Rankin about Rebus, retirement ages and his new book Even Dogs in the Wild; and there are reviews of new releases by Stephen King, Jo Nesbo and Tess Gerritsen, and much more.

On Crime Fiction FM, award-winning author Joseph Badal stopped by to discuss his new book, Death Ship,the fifth in his Danforth Saga thriller series.

Mystery Melange

Kirkus Reviews named its list of the "Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2015."

Amazon editors also chose their Best Books lists for 2015, including Best Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense. For all the titles on the list, check out this link.

A bit of sad news from the mystery conference world:  the Love is Murder Conference, held annually since 1998 in Chicago and handing out the Lovey Awards, is cancelling its 2016 event. Organizers said that diminishing attendance and financial considerations caused not only the cancellation of this upcoming LIMCon but all future conferences, as well.

American Southern noir writer Joe R. Lansdale will be a featured guest at Italy’s Noir in Festival, held in the Alpine resort of Courmayeur, receiving the conference's Raymond Chandler Award. He'll also be showcasing his new book Honky Tonk Samurai, the latest in a series which is the basis for upcoming six-episode SundanceTV series Hap and Leonard.

The Boston Globe profiled Tess Gerritsen, who takes a break from her Rizzoli & Isles series with the standalone thriller, Playing with Fire, for which the author wrote the chilling musical composition at this new book’s core.

Lit Hub profiled Raymond Chandler - how his dual life in the UK and U.S. affected his writing and how plots were merely pegs on which to hang characters and language. Or, as the author himself said, "Very likely Agatha Christie and Rex Stout write better mysteries. But their words don’t get up and walk. Mine do."

Crime Syndicate Magazine has announced that the guest editor for their first issue is Eric Beetner, who is seeking submissions through December 5 for crime stories of 1500 to 4500 words. As to what types of stories they're looking for, "We love stories about violence, greed, lust, debauchery, and any combination of those things." (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.)

Brenda Starr, the glamorous, feisty redheaded reporter created by Dale Messick, captivated newspaper readers from 1940 through the comic's demise in 2011. But Brenda Starr is staging a comeback to headline a mystery novel series created by USA Today bestselling author J.J. Salem, with the first title, Black Orchid Murders, set for publication in Spring 2016. The 21st century version finds the character in her early 40s working as a TV pundit and visiting college professor. But she returns to hard news at a digital start-up when a series of murders targeting Chicago's elite hits too close to home, "all while navigating the complexities of modern life with a younger lover, a tycoon ex-husband and a head-strong, college-aged daughter showing signs of becoming Brenda Starr 2.0."

Eighty-five years after its first publication, Agatha Christie’s short story series, "The Mysterious Mr. Quin," is getting new life as an app. The story follows a group of socialites who gather for a party in a ritzy British country home and obsess over Derek Capel, a friend of the group who committed suicide 10 years earlier under suspicious circumstances. Over the course of the night Mr. Quin, a mysterious interloper, helps the guests piece together the true cause of Capel’s death. The app updates the action to the present day and allows viewers to click through the characters’ social media walls, feeds and albums to learn the plot.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Another Death" by Jennifer Lagier.

In the Q&A roundup this week, the MysteryPeople grilled Alen Mattich, author of the Marko della Torre novels; Matt Hilton takes Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge about his eries featuring PI Tess Grey, and her sidekick, Nicolas “Po” Villere, who is an ex-con; and David Baldacci was featured in a Q&A via The Telegraph.

Media Murder for Monday (Belated)

MOVIES

Christopher Nolan’s 2000 breakout thriller, Memento, is getting a remake courtesy of AMBI Pictures. The original version starred Guy Pearce as a man who is tracking down his wife’s killer but suffers from a unique from of memory loss. AMBI head Monika Bacardi added that "We intend to stay true to Christopher Nolan’s vision and deliver a memorable movie that is every bit as edgy, iconic and award-worthy as the original.”

Starz subsidiary Anchor Bay Entertainment has acquired U.S. Rights to What Lola Wants, a new crime drama from The Sheinberg’s The Bubble Factory. The project focuses on Lola, the 16-year old daughter of Hollywood royalty who fakes her own kidnapping to cover her running away from home, only to get kidnapped for random money.

Morgan Freeman has signed on for Cold Warriors from Millennium Entertainment, with Raja Gosnell set to direct the spy action/comedy.  Morgan will play a retired CIA agent and current stepfather who enlists the help of his video gram programmer stepson to finish a Cold War era mission.

Scott Eastwood has been cast as the brother of the character Ben Affleck will play in the upcoming prohibition-era crime drama Live By Night, based on Dennis Lehane's novel. Affleck plays Joe Coughlin, the son of a prominent police captain, who enters a world of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Florida and Havana, Cuba. Also in the cast are Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, Elle Fanning, Max Casella and Chris Cooper.

Danish actor Pilou Asbæk has landed the male lead in Rupert Sanders' adaptation of the Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell, teaming up with female lead, Scarlett Johansson. The story follows the exploits of a member of a covert ops unit of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission, which specializes in fighting technology-related crime.

To celebrate Sarah Weinman's new anthology, Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s and 1950s, New York City’s Film Forum will host a series of films in December based on the works of pioneering mid-century women crime writers. Included in the series are Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes and Don’t Bother to Knock, adapted from Charlotte Armstrong’s Mischief.  

TELEVISION

Fox has put in development Crooked, described as a family soap with a procedural spine that explores the bonds – and corruption – of police brotherhood in New Orleans. The show, said to be inspired by true events, centers on a longtime corrupt detective who is busted, his cases overturned and a thousand of the city’s worst criminals are released back onto the streets, one case at a time.

Jada Pinkett Smith will star and executive produce the ABC thriller pilot Murder Town. She'll play Wilmington, Delaware’s, first African American District Attorney, who finds herself confronted by old loyalties and loves, a shocking revelation about her murdered husband, and a polarizing, racially charged case that threatens to burn her and her city to the ground.

Canada's CTV announced it has picked up a TV series based on the 2000 John Cardinal mystery book by author Giles Blunt, Forty Words for Sorrow. The project, which tells the story of the gruesome murder of a 13-year-old girl found in an abandoned mine shaft, snagged Orphan Black and Saving Hope's Aubrey Nealon as writer and showrunner and will air in late 2016 or early 2017.

Close on the heels of NBC announcing it was adding an extra episode to the first-season order for the crime drama Blindspot, comes word that the network is renewing the freshman series for a second season. The show centers on a beautiful woman (Jaimie Alexander) with no memories of her past who is found naked in Times Square with her body fully covered in intricate tattoos who must partner with the FBI to discover the truth about her identity and get to the bottom of a conspiracy.

NBC announced it is renewing both Chicago Fire and Chicago PD for the 2016-2017 season.

ABC’s Wicked City wasn't so lucky, however, becoming the first new series this fall to be yanked off the schedule. The show centered around a killing spree set against the backdrop of the sex, politics and popular culture of 1980s Los Angeles

AMC announced a return date for Better Call Saul, returning for Season 2 on Monday, Feb. 15.

Meanwhile, ABC announced its midseason schedule return dates.

Eliza Coupe (Happy Endings) is joining the cast of ABC’s Quantico, beginning with the show’s 10th episode. She'll play Hannah Wyland, a Quantico graduate whose ambition, combined with her looks and her confidence, has rocketed her past her competition.

Fox is revamping its mid-season beginning in January to accommodate American Idol, which returns for its final season, relocating Sleepy Hollow to Fridays, while Bones is being put on the bench, with a return date and slot TBD. The new drama Lucifer will be paired with The X-Files revival on Mondays.

TNT has renewed Murder In The First for a third season to air in 2016. The crime drama, created by Steven Bochco and Eric Lodal, averaged an OK 2 million viewers in its second season, which wrapped its run on August 25. T
aye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson star.

Netflix announced an original true-crime, 10-part docuseries, Making a Murderer, which is being billed as "the most compelling American crime story you've never heard of." Set to premiere in December, the show tells the story of Steven Avery, wrongly convicted of assault and subsequently awarded millions of dollars based on the way his case was handled. But at the same time his assault case was prompting reforms to the criminal justice system, he became the prime suspect in a horrific second crime.

PODCASTS/RADIO/VIDEO

HarperCollins and the team at Killer Reads have shared a couple of videos featuring crime authors Tim Rob Smith and Mark Billingham being interviewed on their work by fellow crime writer Simon Toyne.

Debbi Mack's Crime Cafe podcast featured a Q&A with guest blogger Austin Camacho, or rather, his literary creation Hannibal Jones, a DC detective.

Crime Fiction FM welcomed debut author Sue Coletta to discuss her new book, the chilling psychological thriller, Marred.

THEATER

The 39 Steps, a "mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a dash of Monty Python," is being staged by the San Jose Stage Company from November 25 to December 20.

GAMES/APPS

TELL and Agatha Christie Productions (ACP) have launched a new storytelling app based on Christie's short story collection The Mysterious Mr Quin, starring Game of Thrones actor Gethin Anthony in the lead role. The app allows viewers not only to experience the drama but to share and comment on their favorite content. On reaching the mystery's conclusion, the audience is then able to revisit content, to uncover further details of the plot and continue piecing the puzzle together.

J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot has partnered with Infinity Blade developer Chair Entertainment for a video game set in the shadowy world of espionage. Spyjinx is described as "a mix of action-strategy, dynamic world-building and RPG character development," and it's coming to PC and mobile devices in 2016.

More Golden-Age Punshon

UK-based publisher Dean Street Press is reissuing five more E.R. Punshon golden age mysteries in December, some of the rarest of the author's Bobby Owen series. Published between 1938 and 1941, the titles have been unavailable for seventy years, with some print copies going for some pretty hefty change. The titles include Comes a Stranger, Suspects - Nine, Murder Abroad, Four Strange Women, and Ten Star Clues.

Dean Street founder Rupert Heath sent along a copy of Comes a Stranger, a bibliomystery set in a legendary private library in the world of rare books. As the novel begins, Bobby Owen and his fiancée are drawn into a dispute over Kayne Library, including charges of maladministration and familial desires to sell off the collection for profit. But things take a more sinister turn when a body is found in the library and the local police force press Bobby into service to help solve the crime. Along the way, as Curtis Evans notes in his Foreword, "a slashed portrait, a tale of an old lover’s long-hidden poems, an American with the remarkable, Elmer Gantry-ish name of Bertram A. Virtue, and a box of forget-me-nots all play parts in one of E.R. Punshon’s most beguiling tales of mystery."

Mystery Melange

The shortlist for the Ireland AM Crime Book of the Year was announced last week (hat tip to The Rap Sheet). The finalists include:

• Even the Dead, by Benjamin Black
• Freedom’s Child, by Jax Miller
• Are You Watching Me? by Sinéad Crowley
• Only We Know, by Karen Perry 
• The Game Changer, by Louise Phillips 
• After the Fire, by Jane Casey

Nominations are now open for the Crime Writers Association’s 2016 Dagger in the Library Award, where the winner is chosen by readers. As Crime Fiction Lover explains, it’s a unique part of the Dagger awards because it celebrates an author’s entire body of work rather than just one book. You can nominate up to three authors between now and March 1, 2016. You can also nominate your favorite library, with the library receiving the most votes also in line for some prizes.

An American Writers Museum is in the planning stages for Chicago, which would make it the only museum in the world dedicated to American writers. The museum was dreamed up by founder and president Malcolm E. O'Hagan, an east-coast engineer and book lover inspired by visits to the Dublin Writers Museum in his native Ireland. Its mission is to "engage the public in celebrating American writers and exploring their influence on our history, our identity, our culture and our daily lives," and organizers hope for an opening in 2017.

Speaking of American writers, the Morgan Library is hosting an exhibit called “Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars.” Items on display include early short stories, notebooks, manuscripts, pictures, and letters between the Nobel Prize-winning author and other writers such as Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The closing date has been set for January 31, 2016.

The Library Journal turned its spotlight on Titan Books, which started out in the graphics novel business but expanded in 2009 to include a fiction line emphasizing sf and fantasy, crime, and horror. After the company bought Hard Case Crime in 2011, their line has expanded to the point they will issue forty brand-new fiction titles in 2016, with a focus on crime fiction.

The Mystery People have been celebrating the fifth anniversary of the blog with authors offering up their "best book" lists. And now, the Mystery People have compiled their own choices for Top 100 Suspense & Crime Novels.

The Sidney Morning Herald profiled Pierre Lemaitre, a crime fiction author who recently won France's greatest literary prize with The Great Swindle (published in French as Au revoir la-haut).

Some good magazine news and some not-so-good: Thuglit is again open to submissions, seeking hardboiled stories of around 3,000-6,000 words; but we also got the sad news that Crossed Genres is closing up shop due to some staff issues, but mostly due to financial reasons. They'll still print up the December issue, but that will be the last.

Writing for The Guardian, novelist Jonathan Lee chose his favorite "Top 10 assassination plots in fiction," from Hilary Mantel to Ian Fleming.

In light of the release of the new James Bond movie, Mashable offered up all 193 gadgets James Bond has used - every Bond gadget ever. They also posted a list of 007 destinations where you can travel like the suave spy.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Not So Super" by John Grey.

The Q&A roundup includes Joelle Charbonneau stopping by Publishers Weekly to talk about her latest suspense YA novel where an anonymous social network claims it can fulfill the deepest desires of its users in exchange for the completion of several seemingly benign tasks; Sophie Masson returned to Omnimystery News to discuss the second book in her Trinity occult thriller series, The False Prince; Pulp Curry interrogated Eddie Muller, sometimes known as "the Czar of Noir," who is the founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation; over at The Rap Sheet, Ali Karim profiled and interviewed horror writer turned crime fictionist Conrad Williams; and Scott Butki interviewed Robert Crais for the Mystery People.

Author R&R with Diana Renn

Diana Renn is the Fiction Editor at YARN (Young Adult Review Network), an award-winning online magazine featuring short-form writing for teens. She's also the author of a new YA mystery called Blue Voyage, which School Library Journal called "witty and engaging, this book hearkens back to works by Agatha Christie. A great addition to any library that has a teen fan base for thrilling mysteries." 

Blue Voyage centers on Zan, a politician’s daughter and an adrenaline junkie who loves to live on the edge. But she gets more of a rush than she bargained for on a forced mother–daughter bonding trip to Turkey, where she finds herself in the crosshairs of an antiquities smuggling ring. These criminals believe that Zan can lead them to an ancient treasure that’s both priceless and cursed. Zan’s quest to save the treasure—and the lives of people she cares about—leads her from the sparkling Mediterranean, to the bustle of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, to the eerie and crumbling caves of Cappadocia.

Diana Renn stopped by In Reference to Murder today to talk about the book and her writing and researching process:

 

Blue Voyage: The Short Story that Wanted to Be a Book

Once upon a time there was a short story that really, really wanted to be a novel. It was called “Blue Voyage.”

It was long – nearly thirty pages, and therefore unmarketable to most literary journals or commercial magazines. It was set on a boat off the coast of Turkey, and that boat contained a cast so large it nearly sunk the ship: two families, each with three similarly-aged children (and thus great potential for confusion of characters), six older passengers of various nationalities, and a crew of three: a captain, a cook, and a first mate.

In this story, very little happened. The children squabbled. The adults in the two families talked in hushed voices about things the kids could only guess at. A shore expedition resulted in somebody going missing for awhile. A vendor pulled up to the boat and sold them some baklava. A British mystery writer on board seemed to be plotting a new novel based on the characters, and added a vague air of menace to the setting. And through it all, the main character, a teenage girl with a chip on her shoulder, resolved that she was not going to travel with these people anymore as soon as she turned eighteen.

This story was unmarketable not only because of its length, but also because it was supremely boring. After years of revising it, I set it aside in resignation.

It haunted me, though. I had become inspired to write it after a “Blue Voyage” cruise I took with my husband off the coast of Turkey. We had booked last-minute tickets on a boat that happened to have – this will shock you, I know – two traveling families with three children each, six older passengers of various nationalities, and yes, a crew of three. I thought I was clever in changing those nationalities and fictionalizing the real families we met on the cruise (who were actually perfectly nice, and never squabbled). I had loved writing about Turkey most of all. And maybe that was the problem. Was it possible I had the right setting but the wrong characters? Was it possible too that the story wanted to ramble and explore a terrain far bigger than a short story?

Years after that first draft, I looked at the story again in the cold light of day. I poked at it with a stick. I still liked parts of that story. The parts about Turkey. The boat. The baklava vendor who pulled up on a boat. The teenaged girl with a chip on her shoulder. But it didn’t feel like a story.

I began to experiment, writing some false starts in new directions. I cut the big families and pared down to a mother-daughter duo. I attempted a sibling, but cut her out too. Then I added an aunt. Suddenly the tensions and dynamics felt sharper, without all those extra people clamoring for attention. Still, I kept the boat so I did need some passengers, and some eventual suspects for a crime. So the older passengers of various nationalities packed their bags and trotted over from the long short story to what was now, quite clearly, becoming a novel. And that British mystery writer from the story? That, I realized was me (though not British) just trying to make sense of the characters. I didn’t need to be a character. I would stay behind the scenes.

I did keep the baklava vendor, a minor yet important character. When I realized he wasn’t just selling baklava, my page count started to rise and rise. I had the crux of my mystery.

Sometimes a story is just a story. The character arcs may be smaller, the plot points fewer or even scarce if one is writing a slice of life or flash fiction. Maybe the story is building toward a shift in a character’s perception, or a deeper understanding of something, and that is satisfying in itself.

But sometimes a story wants to be a novel if it is resisting the structure and word count imposed on it. A character prone to reflection about the past might be happier in a novel with more room to ruminate – if those reflections or flashbacks do in fact serve a purpose. Complex families and multi-generational issues can, in general, be more fully explored in a novel. Complex mystery plots almost always belong in a novel—and that, I realized, is what my story really wanted to have. That missing person story line turned out to be a key ingredient of the novel Blue Voyage, as well as a missing object.

My short story that wanted to be a novel now has a publication date, a pretty cover, and a rather hefty page count, clocking in at over 400 pages – a far cry from its original 30. I’m glad I didn’t give up on that story, and maybe it required an embryonic stage of several years so that I could figure it out. For me, that’s a happy ending.

 

You can learn more about Diana Renn and her books via her website, Facebook page, and you can follow her on Twitter. For more about where you can purchase Blue Voyage, check out this link.

Media Murder for Monday

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Mystery Melange

Voting in the Goodreads Choice Awards kicked off this week and continues over three rounds through November 23, 2015, with 300 nominees across 20 different categories. For the complete list of nominees in the mystery and thriller category, check out this link.

If you’re in London on November 10, you can check out a free German crime fiction event at the Goethe Institut London. Titled "In the library with the lead piping," it will feature two German authors, Mechtild Borrmann and Mario Giordano, and two British authors, Michael Ridpath and Louise Welsh.

Editor Kim Idol is seeking essays for a publication titled The Butterfly Effect: Tracking Chaos Theory in Detective Fiction. In this view of chaos theory, villains bring disruptions that cause pain, but that also root out what is already rotting inside the social structures that had existed previous to the murder; and detectives are seekers who may not understand or be able to articulate what they know, but who understand disaster as a cause and effect of stability. Submissions should be abstracts of 200-250 words in length and should a brief author biography. Submit to detectivesandchaos@gmail.com.

Many articles recently have focused on Agatha Christie and how her knowledge of poisons was central to her mystery plots, but Mental Floss takes a look at one instance when a hysterical news media, and even the author herself, became alarmed she may have taken things too far. It all centered around a group of contract killers using an obscure poison that was virtually unknown before the Christie used it in a book.

Lyndsay Faye snagged Otto Penzler for a discussion about the enduring appeal of Sherlock Holmes, on a recent Criminal Element blog feature. Plus, you can enter for a chance to win a copy of The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories edited by Penzler.

For another chance to win a copy of Penzler's new comprehensive collection of Sherlockian tales, you can write a Sherlock Holmes story of your very own with this fill-in-the-black game to create your own unique mystery.  

Issue #20 of ThugLit is out in ebook and print formats, with "eight brand spankin' new stories of darkest crime to infect your mind."

The Spectator examined John le Carré's novels and how the real subject at the heart of the author's work may be his conman father Ronnie.

What would Sherlock Holmes do without Dr. Watson at his side? Or Rizzoli without Isles? The Weekly Lizard focused their magnifying glass on five "power duos" of mystery and thriller fiction.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Financial I.V." by Dennis Weiser, and the most recent story at Beat to a Pulp is "Little Troubles" by Steve Weddle.

In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People lassoed Jason Starr to talk about his modern tales, including his latest, Savage Lane; Greg Rucka spoke with Comics Alliance about his new supernatural crime drama graphic novel, Black Magick; Julie Mulhern stopped by Omnimystery News to dicsuss the second mystery in her Country Club Murders series Guaranteed To Bleed; and the latest author to take the 9mm Interview Challenge at KiwiCrime is Tom Bouman, discussing his latest novel, Dry Bones in the Valley.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart are set to star in a film about Lizzie Borden. Pieter Van Hees will direct the untitled psychological thriller about the grisly murders of the Borden family, with Sevigny playing Borden, the woman who was infamously tried and acquitted for murdering her father and stepmother with an ax in 1892. Stewart would play the Bordens' live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan, a witness to the family tension who may have been in the home when the murders were committed.

Although there has been no official word from the studio, Sandra Bullock is allegedly set to topline an all-female version of Ocean's 11 with Gary Ross (The Hunger Games) directing, and George Clooney producing.  No plot details have been revealed, and it’s not yet clear whether the new Ocean’s Eleven will be a remake or reboot, although there’s a chance Clooney could cameo as Danny Ocean.

Justin Theroux is circling a lead role in director Tate Taylor‘s adaptation of Paula Hawkins' novel The Girl on the Train. Theroux would fill the role previously considered by Chris Evans, playing the ex-husband of Emily Blunt’s character. Jared Leto, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett and Edgar Ramirez round out the cast. Meanwhile, Walt Disney Pictures announced a release date of October 7, 2016 for the picture.

Willem Dafoe has joined the cast of the gritty crime-thriller, Dog Eat Dog, based on the award-winning book of the same name by celebrated author Eddie Bunker and directed by two-time Golden Globe and Palme d’Or nominee and WGA Laurel Award-winner Paul Schrader (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver). The story follows a trio of ex-cons in Los Angeles who are hired for a kidnapping but when the abduction goes awry, find themselves on the run, vowing to stay out of prison at all costs.

The sequel to 2014's John Wick has added to its cast. Common will star the main baddie opposite Keanu Reeves' titular assassin, and Ian McShane will return in his role of Winston, the owner of the infamous Continental Hotel.  

Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service) is nearing a deal to join Charlize Theron and James McAvoy in the spy thriller The Coldest City. David Leitch (John Wick) will direct from a script by Kurt Johnstad that follows a spy (Theron) who must find a list of spies a murdered MI6 officer was smuggling into the West.

Last week, I noted that the BBC is arranging for the Sherlock special to air in theaters in China and other selected cinemas around the globe. But Sherlock: The Abominable Bride will also appear on 500 movie screens January 5-6 in the U.S. with 20 minutes of exclusive, additional footage. Details will be announced around November 5.

TELEVISION

Bestselling author Charlaine Harris (of True Blood fame) is working with NBC on a new drama for fall 2016 that will be based on the author's Midnight, Texas, series about a fictitious and creepy town in the Lone Star state. Executive producer David Janollari added that one of the draws is that "All the books have great murders at the center."

Marc Webb (Limitless) has another project in development at CBS, Smoke & Mirrors, written and produced by NCIS: Los Angeles co-executive producer Dave Kalstein. The premise centers on a mysterious detective in the LAPD Robbery Homicide Division, a modern Houdini-like character who uses her knowledge of deception and misdirection to solve seemingly impossible crimes committed by criminal masterminds.

Brian Burns, executive producer of CBS’s Blue Bloods, has sold a script for another police procedural to the network. Tentatively titled 40-Year-Old Rookie, the project centers on a former criminal defense attorney who, in order to clear his conscience and be on the right side of justice, becomes a 40-year-old rookie cop working alongside his son in the same precinct.

In their first writing collaboration since creating Gossip Girl nine years ago, producing partners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are set to write and executive produce the ABC show The Party, which follows a murder investigation told over the course of 24 hours.  

Hulu will debut the nine-hour limited series 11.22.63, based on the time-travel novel by Stephen King about the JFK assassination, on Presidents Day, Feb. 15, 2016. J.J. Abrams, Stephen King, Bridget Carpenter and Bryan Burk serve as executive producers, with James Franco starring as a high-school history teacher who travels back in time to stop the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The studio also revealed the first teaser photos from the series.

CBS is shaking up its Monday night schedule, thanks to the strong ratings of its recently-premiered Supergirl. Starting next week, for the first time since 1949, CBS won’t offer any comedy on Monday nights and instead offer Supergirl, Scorpion and NCIS: Los Angeles.

Mulder and Scully are going monster-hunting in a new trailer for the revival of Fox’s X-Files.

Fox also released a new trailer for Lucifer, which centers on the devil who retires from Hell an
d moves to Los Angeles to help the LAPD punish criminals.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Patricia Cornwell discussed her latest crime thriller Depraved Heart on PBS' Tavis Smiley program.

Robert Galbraith, a/k/a JK Rowling, stopped by NPR to discuss her latest private eye novel. Rowling is also scheduled for a BBC Radio 2 interview today.

CrimeFictionFM welcomed author Jeri Westerson to discuss her new book, the eighth in her Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Mystery series, The Silence of Stones.

A story from EQMM’s Passport to Crime series is featured as this month's podcast from the 'zine. Belgium author Bavo Dhooge's story “Stinking Plaster” appeared in the September/October 2011 issue of EQMM and is read on the podcast by Josh Pachter, who translated the story into English for its publication in EQMM. (Note: if you're at work reading this, be aware that this podcast has auto-start audio.)

THEATER

Misery, the new Broadway suspense thriller based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, began performances Oct. 22 at the Broadhurst Theatre, toplined by Emmy Award winners Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf, as well as Leon Addison Brown. Playbill offered up a "first look" photo from the production.