Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Jake Gyllenhaal is reteaming with filmmaker Denis Villeneuve to bring Jo Nesbo’s crime novel The Son to the big screen. The project tells the story of Sonny Lofthus, a once-gifted 15-year-old and promising wrestler, whose life enters a downward spiral when his cop father commits suicide. After spending 12 years in prison, Sonny escapes when he learns the truth of his father’s death and begins hunting down the people responsible for his wrongful sentence.

Daniel Craig and Katherine Heigl are said to be finalizing deals to join Steven Soderbergh’s heist film Logan Lucky about brothers who plan a crime during a NASCAR race in Charlotte. The film is scheduled for a fall start date, which Deadline notes "puts further into question the actor’s willingness to return to the Bond franchise for MGM."

As news about Daniel Craig's will-he-or-won't-he status of appearing in the next James Bond movie continue to swirl (along with potential replacements), news comes that Sam Mendes says he won't be directing the next outing. As he explained, "It was an incredible adventure, I loved every second of it. But I think it's time for somebody else."

Jeff Bridges has joined the cast of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Matthew Vaughn’s follow up to his spy action adventure film, Kingsman: The Secret Service. Picking up from where the original film left off, Kingsman: The Golden Circle sees Gary "Eggsy" Unwin (Taron Egerton) and his supervisor Merlin (Mark Strong) heading to the US to join forces with the "Statesman," the Kingsman agency's American counterparts, after the destruction of Kingsman HQ at the hands of evil mastermind Poppy (Julianne Moore).

Zack Whedon’s feature debut Come and Find Me was acquired by Saban Films. The thriller stars Aaron Paul and Annabelle Wallis and centers on David (Paul) as he must track down the wherabouts of his mysterious girlfriend (Wallis) after he realizes she’s not who she was pretending to be.

Simon Pegg, Mike Myers, Max Irons, and Dexter Fletcher have joined Margot Robbie in the cast of Vaughn Stein’s noir thriller Terminal. The crime drama tells the story of two hit-men (Fletcher and Irons) as they embark on a borderline suicide mission for a mysterious employer and a high paycheck. Along the way, the unlikely pair come across a dynamic woman named Annie (Robbie) who may be more involved than they had originally suspected.

Thora Burch and Johnny Knoxville are set to join the dramatic thriller Above Suspicion starring Emilia Clarke and Jack Huston. Based on a true story, Above Suspicion follows a newly married star FBI agent that is assigned to an Appalachian mountain town in Kentucky and gets involved in a huge scandal that leads to the first conviction of an FBI agent for murder. Birch will play Clarke’s sister, while Knoxville will play Clarke’s ex-husband.

Octavia Spencer and John Hawkes have been tapped to star in the thriller Small Town Crime, directed by Eshom and Ian Nelms. Hawkes is set to play an alcoholic ex-cop trying to get his life and career together by investigating the death of a young woman, putting his family in danger. Spencer will take on the role as Hawkes' sister.

The Nordic young adult crime thriller series, The Snow White Trilogy, by Salla Simukka (who has has been already been compared to the likes of Jo Nesbø and Stieg Larsson) is to be adapted for the silver screen by Zero Gravity Management in association with Elina Ahlback Literary Agency. The trilogy follows the adventures of 17-year-old Lumikki Andersson as she encounters money-launderers, religious cults and a stalker. 

A trailer was released for The Infiltrator, directed by Brad Furman and starring Bryan Cranston as Robert Mazur, a federal agent tasked with exposing the drug empire of Pablo Escobar in the 1980s.

TELEVISION

Another Stephen King property is headed to the small screen. A ten-part series based on the novel Mr. Mercedes (adapted by David E. Kelley) that stars Brendan Gleeson and Anton Yelchin is coming to AT&T's Audience Network. The story centers on a demented killer who taunts a retired police detective with a series of lurid letters and emails, forcing the ex-cop to undertake a private, and potentially felonious, crusade to bring the killer to justice before he can strike again.

Epix has given a series order to Get Shorty, based on the novel by the late Elmore Leonard that was previously adapted for a 1995 film starring John Travolta. The hour-long show is being spearheaded by Davey Holmes (Shameless, Damages), with production is set to begin in the fall and a premiere slated for summer 2017.

Homeland showrunner Alex Gansa confirmed at a panel last week that Quinn, the character will be back played by Rupert Friend, is returning to Homeland as a series regular in Season 6. Quinn's fate was left up in the air at the end of last season and Gansa added, that although he'll return, "he may not be the same Quinn we know and love."

BBC America has added several cast members to Dirk Gently, BBC America’s eight-episode series based on the cult Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency novels by Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy author Douglas Adams. Filming got underway today in Vancouver, with premiere slated for the fall. 

FX has renewed The Americans for Seasons 5 and 6, which will be the series' last. The critically-lauded drama will get a 13-episode fifth season in 2017, and will wrap up the story of Russian spies Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) with a 10-episode sixth season in 2018.

Limitless creator and showrunner Craig Sweeny made it official that the show is officially dead after CBS has canceled it and no new network or platform stepped in to pick it up, ruling out a last minute save from Netflix, Amazon or Hulu.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Best-selling author John Hart talked about his new book Redemption Road with Kansas City Live.

NPR's Maureen Corrigan chatted with Fresh Air host Terry Gross about "4 First-Rate Thrillers Deliver A Summer Of Suspenseful Reading."

John Lescroart, author of the  the San Francisco based Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series, joined Alex Dolan on Thrill Seekers.

Mystery Melange

The Strand Magazine released its lineup of nominees for the 2015 Strand Magazine Critics Awards:

Best Novel

• Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith
• A Banquet of Consequences, by Elizabeth George
• The Lady from Zagreb, by Phillip Kerr
• Forty Thieves, by Thomas Perry
• The Whites, by Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt
• The Cartel, by Don Winslow

Best First Novel

• The Truth and Other Lies, by Sascha Arango  
• Normal, by Graeme Cameron 
• The Marauders, by Tom Cooper  
• Past Crimes, by Glen Erik Hamilton
• The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins  
• Disclaimer, by Renée Knight

Strand managing editor Andrew F. Gulli also announced via The Guardian that Colin Dexter, the creator of Inspector Endeavour Morse, and Jeffery Deaver, the inventor of New York City forensic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, have been chosen to receive this year’s Strand Critics lifetime achievement awards.  

At this past weekend's Crime Fest in the UK, the winners for the Audible Sounds of Crime Award (for best unabridged crime audiobook) was announced as The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, read by Clare Corbett, India Fisher, and Louise Brealey. Other awards handed out included the Kobo eDunnit Award (for the best crime fiction e-book), won by The Crossing, by Michael Connelly; The Last Laugh Award (for the best humorous crime novel) to Bryant & May and the Burning Man, by Christopher Fowler; The H.R.F. Keating Award (for the best biographical or critical book related to crime fiction) to The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards; and the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year went to The Caveman, by Jørn Lier Horst, translated by Anne Bruce

The CWA (Crime Writers Association) 2016 Dagger Award longlists were announced at Crimefest last weekend, with the finalists for the Goldsboro Dagger for Best Novel including Dodgers by Bill Beverly; Black Widow by Christopher Brookmyre; After You Die by Eve Dolan; Real Tigers by Mick Herron; Finders Keepers by Stephen King; Dead Pretty by David Mark; Blood Salt Water by Denise Mina; and She Died Young by Elizabeth Wilson. As the term "longlists" would suggest, the roll call in the various categories takes up a lot of real estate, which Mystery Fanfare has thoughtfully provided via this link.

Crimefest also announced the winner of this year's Margery Allingham short story contest, "The Box-Shaped Mystery" by Peter Guttridge. And just in time, too.

A Noir at the Bar across the Pond is coming up soon on Wednesday, June 1st at the Town Wall pub (Pink Lane, Newcastle), the first such event in the north east of England. Authors slated to appear and read from their works so far include Tess Makovesky, Graham Smith, and Jacky Collins, with more added soon.

London's first-ever female-led crime festival will launch this autumn, with the arrival of the Killer Women conference, set for Saturday, October 15. Killer Women is made up of 18 female, London-based crime novelists, including Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train, Jane Casey, and Tammy Cohen. The program will feature a variety of readings and debates ranging from Victorian Crime to modern forensic psychology to How To Solve A Murder with real-life detectives, and there will also be master classes with some of your favorite Killer Women authors, as well as an exclusive Murder Mystery, Killer Women cocktails, and more.

The Economist penned a fond farewell to the Kenneth Brannagh-starring Wallender series and the series' author, the late Henning Mankell.

Judy Blume offered up an essay for The Guardian on why US indie booksellers are thriving and why - at age 78 - the multimillion-selling author has begun a new career, opening her own bookshop.

Did you know the CIA has an art gallery? CIA museum director Toni Hiley spoke with NPR about the latest painting, the 21st in the collection, and why the CIA has an art gallery at all.

For fans of the recently-canceled TV series Castle, you can take some comfort in the knowledge that the book series spawned from the series, the Nicky Heat books "written" by Richard Castle will continue with the eighth and ninth books and even beyond. The real name of the author of the Castle/Nikki Heat books has long been a mystery, but the Castle producers and series publisher Hyperion will only admit "that the real author has appeared on an episode of Castle." Authors who have appeared on the show include James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane (and the late Stephen J. Cannell), although it's hard to imagine any of those folks signing on for ghostwriting. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Bored with your usual reading chair? Try one of these "10 Gorgeous Outdoor Reading Nooks."

In the Q&A roundup, Omnimystery News welcomed BJ Bourg, who discussed his Magnolia Parish mysteries and more; multiple award-winning author Steve Hamilton chatted with the Huffington Post about his new series featuring Nick Mason, an ex-con trying to break away from his criminal past; Criminal Element held a Q&A with Marla Cooper, Author of Terror in Taffeta; Crime Watch snagged a 9mm interview with Fever City author, Tim Baker; the Tampa Bay Examiner chatted with Louise Penny about her latest novel, A Great Reckoning, number twelve in her Inspector Gamache series; Laura Lippman chatted with Alex Segura over at Do Some Damage about her new novel, Wilde Lake; and the Mystery People snagged Larry D. Sweazy to discuss his new book, See Also, Deception, his second book to feature indexer Marjorie Trumaine.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Martin Scorsese's next project is the Oscar-winning director's long-awaited return to mobster epics, The Irishman, an adaptation by Steve Zaillian (Gangs of New York) of Charles Brandt's bestselling novel. Robert De Niro will play Frank Sheeran, a high-ranking Teamster with ties to the Bufalino crime family, who confessed that he killed fellow Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, whose body was never found. Al Pacino also is on board the long-gestating project, and The Irishman would mark the first collaboration between the actor and fellow gangster-movie icon Scorsese.

Mila Kunis and Bryan Cranston are attached to star in the Will Gluck-helmed comedic thriller Jackpot, a remake of a 2011 Norwegian film directed by Magnus Martens based on a Jo Nesbo story. Jennifer Garner is also in talks to join the project that opens with a man who wakes up in a strip bar clutching a shotgun surrounded by dead men and police guns aimed at him.

Universal Pictures is teaming up with screenwriter James Vanderbilt to craft a series of movies based on the works of Robert Ludlum, the best-selling author behind the studio’s hit Jason Bourne spy franchise. First up in this universe will be the adaptation of Ludlum's The Janson Directive, which will star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The story centers on Paul Janson, a former operative and best private security consultant in the world, who is framed for the murder of a prominent Nobel laureate and must join forces with the protege sent to kill him in order to survive.

John Cusack is in negotiations to star in the chase thriller Misfortune, playing Miller, a businessman embezzles a client’s money, leaves his family and everything behind to start a new life. Everything goes according to plan until he is separated from his cash in the middle of the wilderness, where three young friends stumble upon it. Miller, desperate and violent, will do anything to get it back.

Italy’s Colorado Films is teaming up with bestselling author Donato Carrisi, whose serial killer thriller The Whisperer has sold millions of copies around the world, to form a new company specialized in producing Italian thrillers for the international film and TV market. Not surprisingly, the short-term focus of the company's production roster will be two Carrisi books including The Whisperer, which takes its cue from six severed arms found arranged in a circle in a forest clearing, and The Girl in the Fog, about the disappearance of a teen girl in the Alps.

Sean Bean and Patrick Sabongui are set to star in Jason Bourque's action-thriller film Drone. The project centers on Neil (Bean), a high-level private drone contractor whose family doesn't know about his secret life until an enigmatic Pakistani businessman tracks him down, believing Neil to be responsible for the deaths of his wife and child. A harrowing confrontation takes place in Neil's house, which proves to be far more complex than a simple act of revenge.

Noomi Rapace is in negotiations to join Will Smith and Joel Edgerton in David Ayer's Bright, to be written and directed by Max Landis for Netflix. Bright is described as a cop thriller with fantasy elements, including orcs and fairies.

TELEVISION

Fox is already tweaking their fall schedule, with plans to move the Prison Break reboot and also Bones to mid-season debuts, mostly to make way for new baseball drama Pitch, which would be a natural follow-on to the network's Major League Baseball coverage.

Ewan McGregor is the latest feature actor who will star in FX’s Emmy-winning anthology series Fargo. McGregor will play the two central characters — brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy — in the upcoming third season, which is supposed to be set closer to present day than the first two installments.

Netflix has nabbed worldwide rights to the Jeremy Rush-directed action thriller Wheelman starring Frank Grillo as a getaway driver who is double crossed during a bank robbery. When plans go south, it is up to him to find out who betrayed him while he races to survive with a car full of money and his family on the line.

Netflix (in partnership with Univision) is also developing a series based on the life of infamous drug lord, El Chapo, made famous after a high-profile prison escape, his controversial interview with Sean Penn, and his subsequent recapture last year.

Fans of the long-running CSI franchise shows may be able to breathe a sigh of relief; after CBS announced they'd cancelled the last-remaining series, CSI: Cyber, the network hinted that the show "may come back in another incarnation." According to Deadline, the producers of the billion-dollar drama franchise also have been open to revisiting it and, after a break, that may happen.

USA Network has released the first trailer for the action thriller series Shooter, based on a character created by Stephen Hunter and featured in a novel Point of Impact.  (HT to Omnimystery News.)

The USA Network released trailers for two of its new fall series including Shooter, starring Ryan Phillippe as an expert marksman living in exile who is coaxed back into action after learning of a plot to kill the president, and also the psychological thriller Falling Water.

CBS released a trailer for Michael Weatherly’s new show, Bull, in which Weatherly plays Dr. Jason Bull, the founder of a very successful trial consulting firm. Bul
l is actually based on the early work of Dr. Phil McGraw, who ran his own trial consulting firm before becoming a talk show host. The network also dropped trailers for several other of its new shows, including the MacGuyer reboot and Training Day.

ABC released trailers for their new fall shows, including Conviction, Designated Survivor, Notorious, and Time After Time.

Confused about the fall television schedule and which shows are new or returning and on which nights? The Wrap has a handy guide for you. Or if you prefer it in grid format, here you go.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Cybersecurity expert Fred Bedrich and ethical hacker Michel Cusin stopped by 2nd Sunday Crime co chat with host Libby Hellmann about cyber security, why it's such a threat, and what they do to deal with it.

Suspense Radio welcomed author Ryan Quinn to discuss his thriller featuring ex-CIA operative Kera Mersal, The Good Traitor.

Giveaway Time! Nocturnals: The Mysterious Abductions

The Nocturnals: The Mysterious Abductions is a middle-grade mystery from the creative team of author Tracey Hecht, founder of Fabled Films, who has written, directed and produced for film, and New York City-based artist Kate Liebman. The Nocturnals, which Kirkus Reviews called "A delightful adventure about the power of uncommon traits and the joys of newfound friendship," features three unlikely friends:  Dawn, a serious fox, Tobin, a sweet pangolin, and Bismark, the loud mouthed, pint sized sugar glider.

Together they form a brigade of the night after a random encounter with a blood-thirsty snake, and just in time because something is threatening their night realm - animals are disappearing without a trace. Together with the help of a wombat, a band of coyotes and many others, Dawn, Tobin and Bismark journey to the depths of the earth in a wacky, high stakes game that will determine all of their survival.

I have one print copy to give away today, so if you'd like a copy for your favorite young reader, head on over to my website giveaway page and just enter your email. (Or if you have problems with that form, just drop me an email to bv@bvlawson.com with the subject "NOCTURNALS Giveaway.") The publisher does request that this particular giveaway be limited to U.S. addresses.

And if you'd like more information about the book, check out the official book website or their Facebook page.

Mystery Melange

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) announced the winners of the 21st annual Audie Awards competition, the premier awards program in the United States recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment. Best Mystery audiobook went to Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, read by Robert Glenister, and Best Thriller/Suspense audiobook was won by The Patriot Threat by Steve Berry, read by Scott Brick.

The ABA Journal and the University of Alabama School of Law announced the finalists for the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The three books chosen to compete for the prize are: Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt; Pleasantville by Attica Locke; and Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo by C. Joseph Greaves.

The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance has announced the finalists for the 2016 Maine Literary Awards, including the Book Award for Crime Fiction nods to The Precipice by Paul Doiron; The Fisherman by Vaughn C. Hardacker; and An Unbeaten Man by Brendan Rielly.

Columbia University's Butler Library is presenting a Symposium celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, to be held on September 30, Butler Library. A concurrent exhibit will run from September 26 to December 23 at the Butler Library and is free and open to the public. (HT to Mystery Fanfare.) 

CrimeFest has teamed up with publishers, authors, and libraries to give away 1,000 crime novels for free ahead of the crime fiction festival. Among the offerings are advanced reader copies from authors including Megan Abbott and Stefan Ahnhem months before they hit the shops, as well as titles from debut novelists Michelle Birkby and BBC screenwriter Simon Booker.

The TED-Ed team has crafted a lesson discussing the evolution of Sherlock Holmes. The online video examines some the sleuth’s most famous characteristics including his drug use, his partnership with Dr. Watson, and his enemy Professor Moriarty. Over at the TED-Ed website, viewers can access a quiz, a discussion board, and more resources.

Are you a John le Carre fan? You're not alone, as witnessed by recent movie and TV adaptations of his works. The Independent points out why the author continues to stay relevant in Hollywood with examples like Our Kind of Traitor and The Night Manager as filmmakers "have begun to get a handle on his digressions, flashbacks and jargon."

This week's new crime poem at the 5-2 is "Guilty" by Chad Haskins.

In the Q&A roundup, Con Lehane joined the Mystery People to discuss his new Ray Ambler novel; Criminal Element interviewed Diane Kelly, author of Against the Paw; jd daniels stopped by Omnimystery News to talk about her second mystery to feature amateur sleuth Jessie Murphy; the latest author to take the 9mm interview challenge at Crime Watch is JM Gulvin and his new series that introduces Texas Ranger John Quarrie.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

One of the world’s most famous crime novelists may be headed to the big screen once again: Agatha Christie, based on a script by Tom Shepherd, is in the works at Columbia Pictures. The action-adventure pic, which is being pitched as "Sherlock Holmes meets The Thomas Crown Affair," finds a young, adventurous Agatha Christie joining Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on a mission to track down the whereabouts of a missing oil tycoon.

In the first major deal closed at Cannes Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics bought rights to Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. Penned by David Birke and based on Phillipe Djian’s novel Oh…, the psychological thriller stars Isabelle Huppert as a powerful, ruthless business woman who survives an assault in her home and takes it upon herself to track down her assailant.

In another Cannes deal, it was reported that Don Johnson will star opposite Nicolas Cage, Anna Hutchison, and Talitha Bateman in the vigilante thriller adapted from Joyce Carol Oates' award-winning novel, Vengeance: A Love Story. The project centers on the case of a mother brutally raped by four meth heads who hire one of the nation's top criminal defense lawyers (Johnson), spurring a detective to take matters into his hands in order to protect the lives of three generations of women.

Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is joining Greg Kinnear and Emma Roberts to star in the psychological thriller Spinning Man, which will mark the American debut of Danish filmmaker Peter Flinth. The project was adapted from George Harrar’s novel by Matthew Aldrich and centers on a philosophy professor (Coster-Waldau) who becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of a high school cheerleader. Kinnear will portray the detective assigned to the investigation and Roberts (Scream Queens) will play the professor's prized student.

The much-in-demand Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is also set to take the lead in the dark comedy Small Crimes, a story of a disgraced former cop who is fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder and returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind. The project is based on Dave Zeltserman’s 2007 novel of the same title.

Adam Driver (Star Wars: the Force Awakens) has landed a lead role in Steven Soderbergh’s NASCAR heist film Logan Lucky, which centers on two brothers who attempt a crime during a NASCAR race. Seth MacFarlane is also in talks to join the project, joining Channing Tatum and Riley Keough (both from Soderbergh’s Magic Mike), who have also been tapped to join the cast.

Jennifer Lawrence is being eyed for a role opposite Sandra Bullock in the female-centric Ocean's 11 reboot. The story is a continuation of the successful George Clooney-led trilogy and centers around Bullock's character, who plays an ex-con and Danny Ocean’s sister. With a team of thieves, she sets out of steal a necklace from the Met Ball and frame a crooked gallery owner, with Lawrence playing Bullock's right-hand woman.

Kathryn Bigelow,  director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, is eyeing English actress Hannah Murray (Gilly on HBO’s Game of Thrones) for a key role in Bigelow's untitled true crime drama that will explore systemic racism in urban Detroit that led to riots.

Irish filmmaker John Moore (A Good Day to Die Hard, Behind Enemy Lines) is set to direct N.O.C., an action thriller that centers on the case of Alek, a deep-undercover CIA operative who discovers that a faction of the agency is collaborating with the terrorist cell he was sent to infiltrate. Stuck in a Berlin hospital and with the help of the EMT who saved his life, Alek must evade both the CIA and the terrorists if he wants to bring the evidence of the unsanctioned special op to the people he thinks he can trust.

Clive Owen has boarded Andorra, a romantic thriller based on Peter Cameron’s novel, with Owen starring  as Alexander Fox, a bookseller who leaves the U.S. after a personal tragedy to begin a new life abroad. The tiny eponymous country in which he finds himself is an idyllic escape, offering Fox the chance to reinvent himself until he becomes entangled with the ever-present locals as the mystery of his origin deepens. 

Sergei Bodrov will serve as executive producer and consultant on the English-language UK action-thriller Knuckledust. The whodunnit, in the process of casting, is set in a hyper realistic version of underground London and is described as "smart and gritty film that has the potential to become an iconic reference of the action-thriller genre."

IFC Midnight acquired North American and Latin American rights to I Am Not A Serial Killer, the Billy O’Brien-directed chiller based on Dan Wells' novel. Max Records, Christopher Lloyd, Laura Fraser and Karl Geary star in the pic, which takes place in a small Midwestern town where a troubled teen (Records) with homicidal tendencies must hunt down and destroy a supernatural killer while keeping his own inner demons at bay.

Dylan O'Brien is in talks to play Mitch Rapp in American Assassin, alongside Michael Keaton, in the project that's based on the Vince Flynn best-seller of the same name. The 10th of Flynn’s novels about Mitch Rapp, but the first chronologically, American Assassin has been eyed by Hollywood since it was first published. Seen as the launch of a possible franchise, Assassin will be directed by Michael Cuesta, whose most recent movie was the Jeremy Renner thriller Kill the Messenger.

XLrator Media and Benattar/Thomas Productions have kicked off production on their latest action-thriller, The Base, starring Cam Gigandet (The Magnificent Seven, Twilight) and directed by Jesse Gustafson. Gigandet will play the leader of a "Dirty Dozen" style band of military prisoners who have to fight off a terrorist attack on the remote prison in which they"re being held, which, unknown to them, is a cover for a secret drone control facility. 

A day after it was announced that Russell Crowe was in talks to star in an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, with James Franco already on board to direct and act in the film, news came that the project had to be scrapped due to rights issues. The project could still move forward if all the various parties involved are able to strike a deal. Blood Meridian follows the Glanton gang, a historical group of scalp hunters who massacred Native Americans and others for bounty and pleasure in the United States–Mexico borderlands from 1849 to 1850.

Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon from previous Dan Brown thrillers in the new trailer for Inferno, where he"s tasked with thwarting the release of a virus that threatens to wipe out the human race.

TELEVISION

The networks announced their fall schedules this past week during the annual spring "upfront" season, with some surprises but also a lot of returning shows. For a full listing, check out TV Guide's assessment here. Network by network, the highlights regarding crime dramas include:

ABC: After much back-and-forthing, ABC decided to cancel Castle but renewed American Crime, How to Get Away with Murder, and Quantico. New series are set to include Conviction, in which the daughter of a former president is blackmailed into taking a job as the head of Los Angeles’ newly created Conviction Integrity Unit; and Designated Survivor (starring Kiefer Sutherland) that follows a lower-level U.S. Cabinet member suddenly appointed president after a catastrophic attack during the State of the Union kills everyone above him in the line of succession.

CBS:  As previously announced, CBS canceled CSI and Person of Interest, as well as Game of Silence and CSI: Cyber, the last spinoff from the forensic procedural drama that took television by storm 16 years ago. Returning shows include Blue Bloods, Criminal Minds, Elementary, Hawaii Five-0, and all three NCIS franchises. New series on the docket are reboots of the 1970s series MacGyver; Training Day starring Bill Paxton which picks up 15 years after the events of the original film) as a morally grey detective who gets partnered up with a young officer (Justin Cromwell); and Bull, a legal drama based on the early career of Dr. Phil, starring Michael Weatherly as he uses his psychology skills to analyze juries as a legal defense consultant. CBS also decided to pass on the Nancy Drew update series Drew, which would have placed the iconic teenage detective in an adult setting, although the producers plan on shopping the project to other networks.

Fox:  As previously announced, Fox is going ahead with the 24 prequel, 24 Legacy, and greenlighted additional seasons of Lucifer and Sleepy Hollow. Fox also picked up to series a small-screen adaptation of Lethal Weapon, which rides along with classic cop duo Riggs and Murtaugh as they work a crime-ridden beat in modern-day L.A.; and APB, in which billionaire Gideon Rerves (Justin Kirk) decides to put up millions of dollars of his own money to take over Chicago's out of control 13th Precinct and reboot it as a private police force with cutting-edge technology and revolutionary new ideas.

NBC: The peacock network renewed most of its crime dramas including The Blacklist, Blindspot, Chicago Fire, Chicago Chicago P.D., Grimm, Law & Order: SVU, and Shades of Blue. New shows include the latest "Chicago" spinoff, the legal drama Chicago Justice.

Another Alan Glynn novel could be heading to TV: the writer, whose book The Dark Fields inspired both the Limitless feature film and CBS drama, has sold the rights to his forthcoming work Paradime to ITV Studios America. Taking the lead on the project is Moonlighting and Medium creator Glenn Gordon Caron who will serve as the showrunner on the psychological thriller that follows a man's strange journey after a stint in Afghanistan when he finds his doppelganger in New York City.

Ole Sondegard of Good Company Films, the man behind both the British and Swedish version of Wallander and also the Millennium trilogy, is adapting the mystery novels of Jørn Lier Horst, a former Senior Investigating Officer at the Norwegian police force. The series will center on Horst's chief inspector William Wisting, his team, and the relationship with his daughter Line, a crime reporter for VG (Norwegian newspaper).

Unforgettable alum Dylan Walsh has booked a recurring role on Season 5 of Netflix's Longmire, playing Shane Muldoon, Eddie Heffernan’s criminal boss,

Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan) has signed on for a recurring role in Shooter, USA Network’s upcoming drama series based on Stephen Hunter’s novel Point Of Impact and the 2007 Paramount film starring Mark Wahlberg. It stars Ryan Phillippe as Bob Lee Swagger, an expert marksman living in exile who is coaxed back into action after learning of a plot to kill the president.

A new trailer was released for season 4 of Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Suspense Radio had not one or two, but four authors on its latest two-podcast, including Steve Martini, Allan Topol, John Hegenberger and TR Ragan, each of whom showcased their unique writing style.

Authors on the Air interviewed Jane Tesh, a retired media specialist who's written four previous mystery novels featuring ex-beauty queen turned private eye Madeline Maclin and her reformed con-man husband Jerry, as well as three novels in the Grace Street Mysteries series.

THEATER

Jude Law will star in Obsession, a new play based on the 1943 Luchino Visconti film, at the Barbican Center in London in 2017. The film Obsession was itself an adaptation of James M. Cain's 1930s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is about a man and woman who are having an affair and plot to murder the woman’s husband.

The Baker Street Players will present the world premiere of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's play Sherlock Holmes and the Case of The American Twins on Fridays and Saturdays between May 20th and June 11th in Jackson, California. The play is a traditional Sherlockian adventure that begins at 221B Baker Street where a distressed female client consults with Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson on the whereabouts of her twin brother.  What follows is a trail that leads to Mycroft Holmes and on to Colonel Collins (retired intelligence officer from the Army) who sends Sherlock to Madam Flora Yao (a provocative connoisseur of information), culminating in the climactic denouement in Mrs. Hudson's sitting room.

National Readathon Day

On May 21, the American Library Association (ALA) and Penguin Random House will join to support the second annual National Readathon Day, which is dedicated to fostering reading at an early age and building community and participation at local libraries. Last year's effort raised $100,000 for the National Book Foundation and its efforts to deliver books to underserved communities.

The 2016 celebration is part of the ALA’s "Libraries Transform" campaign, and all funds raised will go to benefit the ALA’s "Every Child Ready to Read" initiative, a program that supports early literacy development—from birth to age five—through libraries.

You can help spread awareness of National Readathon Day by using the hashtag #Readathon2016 to spread awareness of the event and sharing how you plan to celebrate. You can also host or attend a Readathon Day party at libraries, schools and community centers, as well as make a contribution to the ALA’s literacy programs.

"There are more library locations in the US than Starbucks, Walmarts and McDonald’s combined," noted Skip Dye, Penguin Random House’s vice president of library marketing and digital sales. Dye added, "The power of the library is to reflect, honor and evolve the communities which they serve. Reading together as a community, as a family, is a power change agent."

To learn more about National Readathon Day, you can visit ReadathonDay.com, and to make a donation you can click here.

Mystery Melange

Bouchercon 2016 announced the finalists for this year's Anthony Awards, to be handed out at the annual conference held this year in New Orleans. Congrats to all the finalists in the various categories, which you can find via the official conference link.

The Portland, Oregon-based fan group Friends of Mystery announced this year's recipient of the Spotted Owl Award, given out annually to a mystery novelist whose primary residence is in the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, or Idaho, or in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The top honor went to author and Seattle Times economics columnist Jon Talton for his novel High Country Nocturne, but you can check out the other nine finalists via this link. (With a hat tip to the Rap Sheet.)

Austin Noir At The Bar is moving to a new location, Threadgills's, on May 12th, with readings by Con Lehane, Jordan Harper, Les Edgerton, and Jesse Sublett.

In honor of Short Story Month, the Short Mystery Fiction Society blog is highlighting one or more members' online stories per day. Head on over to the blog link for all the entries (including my stories "Gun Love" to be featured May 15 and "Wrong Side of the Bed" on May 29).

Mulholland Books unveiled the Strand Originals Publishing Program in conjunction with Strand Magazine. Strand Originals will consist of twenty of the best and most popular Strand Magazine short stories of all time, now being published by Mulholland Books as simultaneous e-book and audio digital downloads. The debut of Strand Originals begins with the publication of “Where the Evidence Lies” by Jeffery Deaver, “Meet and Greet” by Ian Rankin, “Jacket Man” by Linwood Barclay, “The Voiceless” by Faye Kellerman, and “Start-Up” by Olen Steinhauer, all published on April 19th, 2016.

If you like to play murder mystery games, Criminal Element has one for you - as part of their Tuesday lineup over the next few weeks, they're offering up CrimeHClue where readers choose the murderer, the murder weapon, and the location of the murder. Once the cards are set, they’ll hide the answers to the clues throughout our social media channels for a lucky winner to win a prize.

Fans of psychological thrillers (or those readers wanting an introduction to the subgenre), can check out Bookriot's listing of "32+ favorites."

If you can't make it to Book Expo America (again) this year, fear not: PBS' Book Now feature is going to cover quite a bit of the festivities from the event held in Chicago May 12-14.

CSI: The Experience, a traveling exhibition about crime lab forensic science and technology (developed by the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, in partnership with CBS and the National Science Foundation) is heading to China for the first time. Budding young Chinese forensic scientists will be able to take part in two separate crime labs ("trace evidence" and "forensic analysis") and an autopsy room where they can explore the technology used in evidence analysis.

A good private eye is worth his or her weight in gold, but stock photos of P.I.s don't do them much justice, as the "10 Most Clichéd Photos of Private Investigators" attest.

Traditionally publishers long considered novellas a costly affair, but Australian author Nick Earls makes the case that all that has changed with the book industry’s move to digital.

Can an author's prejudices ruin a book or is it "just" something you take in stride, especially when considering works by writers from previous time periods? The Guardian's Imogen Russell Williams takes on that subject, especially regarding some of the Golden Age detective fiction she grew up reading.

Unsolved cases often become the stuff of legend, and this list offers up ten of the "most unsolvable" of the unsolved.

Speaking of true crime, it appears that the old trope of a victim being waded down with cement shoes isn't just a fictional device, after all.

The crime poem of the week over at the 5-2 is "Domestic Disturbance" by Abigail George, and the new story-of-the-month at Beat to a Pulp is "Yolo" by Libby Cudmore.

In the Q&A roundup, USA Today sat down with Clare Mackintosh to talk about her latest psychological thriller, I Let You Go; the MomTrends blog welcomed Elaine Viets to talk about her Dead-End Job Mystery Series; Criminal Element spoke with Robert Goldsborough about continuing Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series; and the Mystery People snagged Paul Charles to discuss his Inspector Starrett series, religion, and writing.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke and Boardwalk Empire's Jack Huston are set to star in the Phillip Noyce-directed thriller Above Suspicion. The project is adapted from the book by New York Times columnist Joe Sharkey and explores the true story of a newly married FBI poster-boy (Huston) assigned to an Appalachian mountain town in Kentucky, where he’s drawn into an illicit affair with an impoverished local woman who becomes his star informant. She sees in him her means of escape; instead, it’s a ticket to disaster for both of them.

Michael Fassbender is circling the lead role for the adaptation of John Leake's true crime-based novel, Entering Hades. With Academy Award-winning Birdman co-screenwriter Alexander Dinelaris rewriting the original script penned by Bill Wheeler, the story centers on Jack Unterweger, an investigative journalist who also lived a secret life as a serial killer who murdered eleven people in multiple continents.

Dean Norris, Larry Pine, Shea Whigham and Mark Pellegrino have been added to the cast of High Wire Act, the Tony Gilroy-penned political action thriller starring Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike. Brad Anderson is set to direct the project, which centers on a former U.S. diplomat called back into service in 1980s Beirut to save a former colleague from the group responsible for his wife’s death.

Kiersey Clemons is joining the ensemble cast for Sony’s remake of the 1990 thriller Flatliners, with Ellen Page, Diego Luna, and Nina Dobrev also in the cast, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's Niels Arden Oplev attached to direct. Ben Ripley is penning the screenplay, which once again follows a group of medical students who experiment with “near death” experiences involving past tragedies until the dark consequences began to jeopardize their lives.

How to Get Away with Murder's Charlie Weber has been tapped to star in the political thriller Ex-Patriot, which follows a CIA analyst-turned-whistle blower who flees to Colombia for a life of penance and obscurity. When the agent is tracked down by her former flame (Weber), he enlists her help in taking down a money-laundering magnate with allged ties to terrorism but a personal vendetta proves no one can be trusted.

Vertical Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to Atlas Entertainment’s thriller The Hollow Point, from director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego. The project stars Patrick Wilson, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Jim Belushi, and Lynn Collin and is set in a small town at the U.S.- Mexico border where a new sheriff is plunged into the thick of the ongoing conflict over the drug trade as he investigates a cartel deal that goes horribly wrong.  

The rural thriller Blackway starring Anthony Hopkins has been given a June 10 limited release date and an official trailer. Based on the 2008 novel Go With Me by Castle Freeman, Jr., Blackway follows Lillian (Julia Stiles), a woman who has recently moved to her small logging home town where she has to team up with an ex-logger (Hopkins) and his laconic young friend (Alexander Ludwig) to fight a crooked cop.

TELEVISION

History and Narcos writer/producer Chris Brancato are developing Cartel, a drama series based on the life of drug kingpin El Chapo and his rise to power, with an inside look at how cartels use social media to maintain their images, recruit new members and threaten rivals.

Although ABC was supposed to announce the fate of Castle on Friday, the day came and went without an announcement. Apparently, it's because contracts were still being hammered out for the remaining stars, and according to a Deadline report, Seamus Dever, who plays Detective Kevin Ryan, was one of those actors, signing a new contract to continue with the show if there is a ninth season.

CBS announced they are renewing Criminal Minds for a twelfth season with a full-season order. The fact that it is the last-announced renewal of an established show at the network is said to have been due to budgetary concerns. The offshoot series, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, hasn't yet been renewed, but its ratings strength makes it a likely candidate.

Fox Television released a new teaser trailer for the second season of the psychological thriller Wayward Pines, based on a trilogy of novels by Blake Crouch, as this season's storyline is set to center on a Secret Service agent on a mission to find two missing federal agents, whose investigation only turns up more questions. (Hat tip to Ominimystery News.)

Showtime released a new trailer for Season 4 of Ray Donovan starring Liev Schreiber as fixer to L.A.’s mega-rich and super-famous.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Guardian's books podcast talked about writing crime with Donna Leon, Duncan Campbell, and Barry Forshaw.

Georgia Public Radio spoke with author Karin Slaughter about why she chooses to set her novels in Atlanta.

CyberSecurity experts joined Libby Hellmann on 2nd Sunday Crime to talk about the latest news from the world of cyber crime.

This week's Crime & Science Radio podcast featured an interview with former Federal Prosecutor turned author Allison Leotta about domestic and sex crimes.

A Naked Scientists podcast posed the question, "Can Science Prove Whodunnit?," taking a look at real case studies to find out how forensics can both help and hinder criminal investigations, including the insects who are first on the scene, how your phone can tell tales, and why DNA can lead you on a wild goose chase.

Mystery Melange

The annual Edgar Awards banquet was held last Thursday, with Best Novel honors handed out to Lori Roy's Let Me Die in His Footsteps, making Roy only the third author to win Best First Novel and Best Novel during their literary careers. Best First Novel for 2016 went to The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (who also won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction); and Best Paperback Original to The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney. Walter Mosley was also honored as the 2016 MWA Grand Master, and his acceptance speech titled “Acceptance" was a highlight of the evening. For all the winners in the various categories, hop on over to the Mystery Writers of America website.

Also this past weekend, Malice Domestic announced the winners of the 2016 Agatha Awards, including Best Contemporary Novel:  Long Upon the Land, Margaret Maron; Best Historical Novel: Dreaming Spies, Laurie R. King;  Best First Novel: On the Road with Del and Louise, Art Taylor (Henery Press); Best Nonfiction: The Golden Age of Murder, Martin Edwards; Best Short Story: “A Year Without Santa Claus?” by Barb Goffman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine); and Best Children’s/Young Adult: Andi Unstoppable, Amanda Flower.

BBC arts reporter Vincent Dowd delved into the popularity of Nordic crime novels and how they have influenced British crime writing and television dramas. As author Yrsa Sigurdardottir noted, there is a long and complex relationship between what's now branded Nordic Noir and the English-language tradition of crime-writing, while critic Barry Forshaw (who published a book about Nordic Noir in 2013 and also a guide to the UK equivalent), added that "The links between the two traditions are quite involved."

Ian Rankin, the creator of the bestselling Inspector Rebus novels, is set to be the Unesco City of Literature visiting professor at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in September of this year, contributing to contribute to seminars, lectures, and tutorials.

The publication The Diplomat profiled "Bangkok noir," and how Thailand’s capital has become home to a vibrant community of writers exploring the city’s vast underbelly.

SelfMadeHero just released a "graphic biography" of Agatha Christie, written by Anne Martinetti and Guillaume Lebeau and illustrated by Alexandre Franc, which uses Christie’s infamous disappearance as a way into her life story. Marintetti and Lebeau will discuss their new publication and Christie at the Institut Francais in London on May 11.

Speaking of Agatha Christie, have you ever dreamed of taking your own trip on the Orient Express?  Here's your chance, sort of: the legendary long-distance train will soon be brought back to life to coincide with the Cannes Film Festival, as the historic Pullman railway carriages rolls into Cannes, Bordeaux, and Paris's Gare de l'Est station as part of an exclusive pop-up restaurant overseen by Michelin three-star chef Yannick Alléno.

To mark Independent Bookshop Week, Guardian readers chose "The 10 best independent bookshops in the world" from a bohemian Parisian temple of reading to a bookshop with hidden animals.

The April/May issue of Suspense Magazine includes Q&As with Katherine Neville, John Gilstrap, Alex Berenson, Joe Hart, S.G. Redling; Barry Lancet and Kendra Elliott offer up helpful writing tips in Craft Corner; Jeff Ayers takes you "where no man has gone before"; plus, there are over 20 pages of book reviews, short stories, and other articles.

The second issue of Crime Syndicate Magazine is now available at Amazon and is "full of variety with noir stories, transgressive stories, stories about betrayal and lust, heist stories, rock and roll stories and, surprisingly, baseball stories."

That was the happy crime magazine news; the sad crime magazine news is that Editor Todd Robinson announced that Thuglit's next issue will be its last. The move is due to financial considerations, but the final issue will be chock-full of stories as Robinson includes as many qualified story submissions still in the pipeline as possible. He hopes to have the final Thuglit edition up by the end of May. In his video announcement on Facebook, Robinson made a valid point that bears repeating - he has been receiving far more submissions than subscriptions. If writers want to continue to have markets availble for their stories and readers want to continue to have access to those stories, they should be willing to subscribe to and support the few remaining 'zines that remain. (Another good reason to join Sisters in Crime, which recently announced that members will receive discount subscriptions to several publications.)

The featured crime poem over at the 5-2 this week is "Uncashed Tickets" by Bill Baber.

In the Q&A roundup this week, Laura Lippman chatted with The Columbus Dispatch about her writing, her settings, Tess Monoghan and more; author Lily Gardner stopped by Omnimystery News to discuss her Lennox Cooper mystery series, and OMN also welcomed Josie Claverton to chat about her series featuring hacker Amy Lane; the Mystery People snagged Ace Atkins to talk about his latest novel, Slow Burn, in which Atkins continues the investigations of Robert B Parker’s Spenser; and John Hart (the only author in history to have won the Edgar Award for consecutive novels) chatted with The Hartford Books Examiner about his newly released Redemption Road.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

June Pictures and B Story announced a May filming start for the psychological thriller, Thoroughbred, which marks the directorial debut of playwright-screenwriter Cory Finley. Olivia Cooke (Ready Player One) stars with Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) and Anton Yelchin (Green Room, Star Trek) in the story of a volatile friendship between two suburban teenage girls who discover that a murder might solve both of their problems.

The novel The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe has landed an adaptation at New Line Cinema with American Sniper's Andrew Lazar as producer. The book, often compared to previous adaptations Gone Girl and Girl On The Train, is told from the POV of an unreliable narrator and revolves around an investigator and psychological profiler who work to solve the cast of a young woman found beheaded in the home of a prominent businessman.

Paul Rudd is taking a dramatic turn as the lead in the Ben Lewin-directed The Catcher was a Spy, a film written from a script by Robert Rodat that's based on the book by Nicholas Dawidoff. Rudd will star in the true story as Moe Berg, the only Major League ballplayer whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA since he has the singular distinction of both a 15-year career as a catcher and a spy for the OSS during World War II.

James Foxx is in talks to star in an unusual "procedural" film, the dark, R-rated puppet project Happytime Murders, which takes place in a world where humans and puppets coexist, with the puppets viewed as second-class citizens. The story plot hinges on a group of puppet cast members of the 1980s children's TV show The Happytime Gang who begin turning up dead and an alcoholic, disgraced LAPD detective-turned-private-eye puppet who takes the case with his former human partner.

Last week, I noted that Robert Downey Jr. had indicated a Sherlock Holmes 3 might be in the works, and this week Deadline reported that screenwriter James Coyne has been tapped to pen a rewrite of the project. Coyne will take over writing duties begun by Iron Man 3 scribe Drew Pearc, continuing the Guy Ritchie-directed series that stars Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

The official trailer has been released for Snowden, Oliver Stone's upcoming film adaptation of two books: The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus, a novel by Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden's Russian Lawyer. The film, set for release on September 16, stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Snowden, with a cast rounded out by Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Wilkinson and Zachary Quinto.  

The annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival returns to Palm Springs, California, during May 12-15. Highlights include the restoration of Sudden Fear (1952) and a newly restored print of The Accused (1949) from the Library of Congress.

TELEVISION

Office alum John Krasinski has been cast as the next Jack Ryan in the TV series project based on Tom Clancy’s popular CIA hero, coming to Amazon via Paramount TV. While there is no official green light yet, the move is seen as a way to help secure a series order.

The Weinstein Company is developing an adaptation of Omerta, based on the final novel by The Godfather author Mario Puzo, with Sylvester Stallone to play the lead role of mob boss Raymonde Aprile, the last great American Don. The Magnificent Seven's Antoine Fuqua is also attached to direct the pilot, which is moving forward at a rapid pace and is a likely candidate for a network pickup.

Fox has gotten an early jump on its pickups for the 2016-17 broadcast season handing out an early series order to two shows, including 24: Legacy, which now counts former 24 star Kiefer Sutherland as an executive producer. 24: Legacy is a new take on the franchise that features an all-new cast of characters and is structured in the same style of the original series.

American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis has signed on to direct a thriller series, The Deleted, for Fullscreen’s new subscription video service. Although Ellis has written for the screen and has directed some short films, The Deleted will be his first try at directing. The project centers on the disappearance of three people in Los Angeles that seem to be unconnected to each other but trigger the collective paranoia of a group of twenty-somethings who recently escaped from a cult.

Fans of the BBC Sherlock series were thrilled to see Benedict Cumberbatch filming new scenes from the next installment, not scheduled for broadcast until next year. Fans captured some of the action in London for the first episode, which the Evening Standard reported would be based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1892 Sherlock story "The Adventure of Silver Blaze."

The Guardian looked deeper into the new British drama The Secret, based on the startling story of a devoutly murderous Northern Ireland dentist, and speculated on why Ulster has become the crime TV hotspot.

Acorn Media has released a new trailer for its upcoming DVD release of the first season of the Australian crime drama Janet King, featuring senior crown prosecutor Janet King (Marta Dusseldorp). (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest Crime and Science Radio focused on "Things That Go Boom in the Night," an interview with weapons and explosives expert and Author John Gilstrap.

Suspense Radio's Inside Edition welcomed authors Carl Brookins and Claire Mackintosh.

Beyond the Cover spoke with NY Times Bestselling author Steve Berry and literary agent Meg Ruley, whose clients include Lisa Gardner and Tess Gerritsen.

GAMES

The PlayStation 4 released the noir episodic adventure game, Blues and Bullets,for digital download. The game is set in the 1920's in the fictional US city of Santa Esperanza and stars Eliot Ness, a former legendary cop who, after putting Al Capone behind bars, wants to spend the rest of his life in peace, working behind the counter of a diner. But when a group of kids go missing, he's drawn back into the world of police work, allowing game players to "dive into shootouts, search for clues and rough up a few cronies in order to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The Guardian profiled Sam Barlow's Her Story and the story behind the new police procedural thriller game.