RIP, Sue Grafton and Kinsey Millhone

I was so sorry to hear about the death of Sue Grafton, best known for her private eye crime fiction series featuring Kinsey Millhone. Grafton passed away Thursday at the age of 77 after a two-year battle with cancer. Her "alphabet" books with Millhone (beginning with A is for Alibi) have been published in 28 countries and translated into 26 languages with a readership in the millions. The recipient of the first two Anthony Awards for Best Novel (1986, 1987), Grafton has also won three Shamus Awards, two more Anthonys, and also received the highest achievement in U.S. crime fiction, the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 2009. In addition, she was presented with Bouchercon's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.

Grafton's latest installment in her Millhone series was Y is for Yesterday, and she had plans for the final installment, to be titled Z is for Zero. However, her daughter Jamie wrote on Facebook that Kinsey's crime-solving days are over. "Sue always said that she would continue writing as long as she had the juice...Many of you also know that she was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows, and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name. Because of all of those things, and out of the deep abiding love and respect for our dear sweet Sue, as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y."

Here are some of the latest tributes from the New York Times, Mystery Fanfare, The Washington Post, and Ruth Jordan (Crimespree Magazine).

 

RIP, Sue Grafton and Kinsey Millhone

I was so sorry to hear about the death of Sue Grafton, best known for her private eye crime fiction series featuring Kinsey Millhone. Grafton passed away Thursday at the age of 77 after a two-year battle with cancer. Her "alphabet" books with Millhone (beginning with A is for Alibi) have been published in 28 countries and translated into 26 languages with a readership in the millions. The recipient of the first two Anthony Awards for Best Novel (1986, 1987), Grafton has also won three Shamus Awards, two more Anthonys, and also received the highest achievement in U.S. crime fiction, the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 2009. In addition, she was presented with Bouchercon's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.

Grafton's latest installment in her Millhone series was Y is for Yesterday, and she had plans for the final installment, to be titled Z is for Zero. However, her daughter Jamie wrote on Facebook that Kinsey's crime-solving days are over. "Sue always said that she would continue writing as long as she had the juice...Many of you also know that she was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows, and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name. Because of all of those things, and out of the deep abiding love and respect for our dear sweet Sue, as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y."

Here are some of the latest tributes from the New York Times, Mystery Fanfare, The Washington Post, and Ruth Jordan (Crimespree Magazine).

Mystery Melange Christmas Edition

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare has the annual mammoth listing of Christmas-themed mysteries, broken down into Authors A-D; E-H; I-N; O-R; and S-Z.

The Library Journal also has a list of homicide for the holidays, along with a pack of dog stories and all kinds of delicious holiday treats. And even the New York Times' Marilyn Stasio jumped into the holiday fray with some picks.

Meanwhile, Criminal Element wants your vote for your "favorite" Christmas cozy mystery.

Crime fiction fans who enjoy a little mayhem with their merry will also appreciate The Usual Santas from Soho Crime, an anthology of eighteen crime stories that "contain laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season." Contributors include Helene Tursten, Mick Herron, Martin Limón, Timothy Hallinan, Teresa Dovalpage, Mette Ivie Harrison, Colin Cotterill, Ed Lin, Stuart Neville, Tod Goldberg, Henry Chang, James R. Benn, Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, Sujata Massey, Gary Corby, Cara Black, Stephanie Barron, and Peter Lovesey.

Mystery Lovers Kitchen has its usual roster of tempting (and not so homicidal) holiday treats such as this Christmas Stollen and some Peppermint Bark Candy. Criminal Element also has a "Ginger Schnapped" cocktail, inspired by Gail Oust's fifth Spice Shop Mystery, Ginger Snapped.

Archaeologists in Turkey believe they have discovered Santa Claus's tomb. They've unearthed what they say is likely the tomb of the original Santa Claus, or Saint Nicholas, beneath an ancient church in Demre, southern Turkey. Demre, previously known as Myra, in Antalya province, is believed to be the birthplace of the 4th century bishop.

From the north pole to Middle-earth: The Bodleian library will exhibit Tolkien's Christmas letters to his children, masquerading as Father Christmas.

Book Riot has some Bookish Holiday Traditions to consider, as well as "10 Super Luxe Christmas Gifts for Book Lovers."

If it’s not enough to read your favorite crime novels this Christmas, why not visit the places where they’re set? Starting with MC Beaton's Agatha Raisin series set in a picturesque village in the Cotswolds, The Australian adds nine other places to add to your literary bucket list.

The grisly world of Victorian crime is bought vividly to life in fascinating, but gruesome illustrations from "Penny Dreadfuls," highlighting the most notorious murders and executions of the day.

Bookriot celebrates "Noir is the New Black" and offers up nine great noir books to consider as possible gifts for fans of the genre or if you just want to get acquainted and need a good starting point.

Kings River Life Magazine offered up a free holiday mystery short story by Sylvia Maultash Walsh, "The Sun Sets in Key West."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "View, Interrupted" by Lucie Winborne.

The Rhode Island State House Christmas has died - now if officials can only discover who's responsible for its "murder." Farther south, Mrs. Claus says her phone was stolen at Santa House in Portsmouth, VA.

From the mouths of babes - a five-year-old boy called 9-1-1 to warn police that the Grinch was going to steal Christmas.

Are these the five worst Christmas songs of all time?

Ever wonder why we kiss under mistletoe and toast with eggnog?

Need some ideas for the writer or book lover on your gift list? Here are lists of suggestions from The Writer Life; Helping Writers Become Authors; Build Book Buzz; and Jami Gold's Ultimate Gift Guide.

And finally, in case you missed it, here's the Jimmy Kimmel show take on a more murderous version of Elf on the Shelf.

Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again and time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:

AWARDS

The Screen Actors' Guild announced their picks for the "Best of 2017" performances on film, giving Fox Searchlight’s crime comedy-drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a leading four mentions including the Ensemble category, which is the closest thing the guild gets to a Best Picture designation. Frances McDormand also received a nomination for Best Actress for her work in Three Billboards, while Denzel Washington was honored in the Best Actor category for Roman J. Israel, Esq. On the TV side, Big Little Lies had four acting nods to Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman, Reece Witherspoon, and Alexander Skardsgard. Benedict Cumberbatch was also nominated for Sherlock and Robert DeNiro for his role as Bernie Madoff in The Wizard of Lies.

Likewise, the Writer Guilds of America released a list of its category nominees from the past year's best TV and radio shows (film nods to come), which include Best Drama honors to The Americans (written by Peter Ackerman, Hilary Bettis, Joshua Brand, Joel Fields, Stephen Schiff, Joe Weisberg, Tracey Scott Wilson) and Better Call Saul (written by Ann Cherkis, Vince Gilligan, Jonathan Glatzer, Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, Heather Marion, Thomas Schnauz, Gordon Smith). The New Series nominees also include American Vandal (written by Seth Cohen, Lauren Herstik, Dan Lagana, Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, Jessica Meyer, Dan Perrault, Amy Pocha, Mike Rosolio, Tony Yacenda); The Deuce (written by Megan Abbott, Marc Henry Johnson, Lisa Lutz, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, Will Ralston, David Simon, Chris Yakaitis); and Ozark (written by Whit Anderson, Bill Dubuque, Ryan Farley, Alyson Feltes, Paul Kolsby, David Manson, Chris Mundy, Mark Williams, Ning Zhou, Martin Zimmerman).

MOVIES

Benny and Josh Safdie, the brother filmmaking team behind the Robert Pattinson crime thriller Good Time, are taking on the remake of 48 Hrs. for Paramount.  48 Hrs. was one of the movies that helped launch the big-screen career of Eddie Murphy as well as the buddy-cop genre. Murphy and Nick Nolte starred as a convict and cop, respectively, who must team up to catch a pair of cop killers within 48 hours. 

Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence is attached to star in and produce the 19th century true-crime drama Burial Rites, which is being directed Luca Guadagnino (a front-runner in the Oscar race with his romance-drama Call Me by Your Name). Based on Hannah Kent’s debut novel and true events, the project tells the story of Agnes Magnusdottir (Lawrence), the last woman to be publicly executed in Iceland in 1830, after being sentenced to death for killing two men and setting fire to their home. The story takes place during the last winter of Agnes’ life while she awaits confirmation of her death sentence by the high court in Denmark. As she waits to die, she starts to live, reluctantly forging emotional and romantic attachments.

The Shaft reboot, Son of Shaft, has found another one of its headliner actors. Independence Day: Resurgence's Jessie Usher was already cast as the newest, youngest Shaft (the son of Samuel L. Jackson's returning character), but his mother was the last pivotal role to be decided on for this family affair, and the production has found her in the form of Regina Hall. The project centers on Usher's younger Shaft, who's not exactly the eye candy to all the chicks that his great uncle, or even his father were. However, he is a young and promising FBI agent, who is about to engage in the family business of detective work after a friend has died under mysterious circumstances.

Fox Searchlight released a new still from the upcoming Can You Ever Forgive Me? that sees Melissa McCarthy playing biographer and notorious faker Lee Israel. Israel was a successful biographer during her heyday in the ’70s and ’80s, writing tomes on cosmetics empress Estée Lauder and actress Tallulah Bankhead. Her career stagnated in the years following, with a resurgence in the ’90s after unearthing never-seen letters from icons like Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward. Except they weren’t from Parker or Coward - Israel forged them all. The lies led her to federal court in 1993 where she pled guilty to fraud. Israel outlined her criminal adventures in her final book, the 2008 memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me? on which the film is based. McCarthy steps into a role that previously had Julianne Moore attached. 

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Bridge of Spies writer Matt Charman has partnered with George Clooney and Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures partner Grant Heslov for Watergate, an eight-part limited series for Netflix. Each episode of Watergate would focus on an individual surrounding the 1970s scandal such as former Attorney General John Mitchell and Richard Nixon counsel John Ehrlichman. It is styled after famous Japanese period drama Rashomon.

Showtime’s Boston crime drama City on a Hill has added several new actors to join Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge. Jill Hennessy, Kevin Chapman, Jere Shea and Lauren E. Banks have signed on as series regulars, while Cathy Moriarty, Michael O’Keefe, Amanda Clayton and Rory Culkin will guest star in the pilot and have recurring roles if the project is ordered to series. City on a Hill is a fictional account of what was called the Boston Miracle and centers on Decourcy Ward (Hodge), an African-American District Attorney who comes in from Brooklyn advocating change and the unlikely alliance he forms with Jackie Rhodes (Bacon), a corrupt yet venerated FBI veteran who is invested in maintaining the status quo. Together they take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown in a case that grows to encompass and eventually upend Boston’s city-wide criminal justice system. 

Prison Break is a good bet to return for a Season 6, which would serve as a follow-up to this year's big revival season. Although nothing supremely official has been revealed by Fox, Prison Break star Dominic Purcell took to Instagram to make the announcement.

USA Network has passed on Olive Forever, its comedic crime drama pilot from Insurgent writer Brian Duffield, AwesomenessTV and its former CEO Brian Robbins, although Universal Cable Prods., which produced the pilot, plans to shop it elsewhere. Olive Forever follows the exploits of Olive (Emily Rudd), a high school student, con artist, cat burglar and chameleon who’s mature beyond her years. She is a savvy survivor who knows she can “get away with anything.” A foster kid, Olive knows how to work the system, her tough exterior protecting a girl who’s just looking for a home.

The techno-thriller Mr. Robot, starring Rami Malek, will return for another season. Show creator Sam Esmail shared the confirmation that the show would return to USA for Season 4 via social media.

The Sopranos' alum Vincent Pastore is set for a recurring role opposite Scott Caan and Alex O’Loughlin on CBS’ Hawaii Five-O. Pastore will play Vito, Danny’s (Caan) "uncle" from New Jersey, a contractor and general Mr. Fix-It. Danny grew up thinking Vito was "connected," something Vito played up to, despite having no mob ties to speak of. 

Hallmark released a a preview for Past Malice: An Emma Fielding Mystery starring Courtney Thorne-Smith and James Tupper. The show debuts in January and is based on the mystery novels by Dana Cameron.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The inaugural episode of the Crime Friction podcast featured hosts Chantelle and Jay with NYT bestselling author Reed Farrel Coleman as the special guest, to talk about pet peeves, craft, and meeting Elmore Leonard in an airport.

Beyond the Cover's special guest was physician-turned-author D.P. Lyle, chatting about his latest PI Jake Longly and Nicole Jamison installment, A-List, set in New Orleans amid a Hollywood scandal.

Mystery Melange

The Nero Award, presented each year to an author for the best American mystery written in the tradition of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories, was announced at the recent Black Orchid Banquet in New York City. The "Nero," considered one of the premier awards granted to authors of crime fiction, this year goes to Al Lamanda for With 6 You Get Wally. The other finalists were Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon; Home by Harlen Coben; and Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr.

The 2017 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards included the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Novel of the Year, which went to The Therapy House, by Julie Parsons. The other finalists included Can You Keep A Secret? by Karen Perry; Here and Gone, by Haylen Beck; Let the Dead Speak, by Jane Casey; One Bad Turn, by Sinéad Crowley; and There Was a Crooked Man, by Cat Hogan. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

International bestseller Tess Gerritsen received the Robert B. Parker award this year at the sixth annual New England Mobile Book Fair Mystery Gala. The annual crime fiction party at the Newton, Massachusetts indie bookstore also hosted more than 30 other authors along with Gerritsen's honor, with additional seasonal festivities for book lovers.

ThrillerFest organizers announced the featured authors for the 2018 conference, held at the Grand Hyatt, New York City from July 10-14, including 2018 ThrillerMaster George R.R. Martin; 2018 Silver Bullet Award James Rollins; 2017 ThrillerMaster Lee Child; and 2017 Silver Bullet Award Lisa Gardner.

The Granite Noir crime festival will return to Aberdeen in 2018, with headliners including authors Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid. As well as Cleeves - who has had Shetland and Vera adapted for television - other big names for 2018 include Christopher Brookmyre, Hugh Fraser and Robert Daws. Chaired by BBC Scotland's Fiona Stalker, the three-day event will run from 23-25 February and include authors from Scandinavia to talk to audiences about their novels, as well as a slate of film screenings and workshops for children.

Crime Fiction Lover profiled new, strong female voices "that we expect to light the way in 2018."

The end of the year lists continue with this one from the Washington Post book editors and their choices of "The 10 best thrillers and mysteries of 2017." Also, Marilyn Stasio's list for the New York Times of "The Best Crime Novels of 2017" has ten additional featured titles, and as The Rap Sheet notes, Adam Woog of the Seattle Times has also been busy compiling his own top picks. Across The Pond, The Guardian posted its "Bests of 2017," The Telegraph celebrated "A criminally good year: the best thrillers and crime fiction of 2017," and Declan Burke and Declan Hughes, writing for the The Irish Times, featured "Deadly fiction: the 20 best crime books of 2017."

I missed this bit of sad news: mystery author Joan Hess passed away at the age of 68. Hess was the author of the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the Arly Hanks Mysteries, formally known as the Maggody Mysteries, and won the American Mystery Award, the Agatha Award (for which she had been nominated five times), and the Macavity Award.

Kid power! When third graders at Tomoka Elementary School in Florida learned the local Barnes & Noble would likely close at the end of the year, they wrote CEO Demos Parneros a letter "in colorful penmanship" on poster-sized paper, begging him not to close the store and suggesting other sites. They even invited him to visit their town to see alternative locations. Apparently, the letter did the trick, and B&N renewed the store's lease for another year. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Writing for the Irish Times, Declan Burke profiled the Irish spy novel as it "comes in from the cold."

Thrillers took the majority of the top spots on the 2017 Apple iBooks bestseller lists, including three psycholoogical thrillers that took the top spots, Michelle Frances’ The Girl Friend; Lies by T M Logan; and The Girl Before by J P Delaney.

As it turns out, Iceland’s new Prime Minister is an expert on crime thrillers.

Just in time for Christmas shopping, Book Riot has a list of good mystery books for teens.

Bad news for Barnes & Noble, but ultimately good news for book lovers: Barnes & Noble sales fell 7.9% in the second quarter that ended October 28, and B&N noted that half the decline was due to the lack of a bestseller (like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child which was selling well during that same period last year), but the rest of the decline was attributed to non-book products. CEO Demos Parneros noted that "book sales continued to strengthen, and as a result of the improving trends, we will continue to place a greater emphasis on books, while further narrowing our non-book assortment. We expect these improvements to continue as we head into the holiday season." (HT to Shelf Awareness)

They say no publicity is bad, even bad publicity (for authors, anyway), so "congrats" to American author Christopher Bollen whose thriller The Destroyers has generally won critical praise - but was also just awarded the dreaded Bad Sex in Fiction Prize for a passage comparing a male character’s genitalia to a billiard rack. The prize is a compliment in a way, as it's only given to an"outstandingly bad" sex scene "in an otherwise good novel." Books that are meant to be primarily erotic or pornographic aren't considered. And Bollen is hardly alone. Previous winners of the award, now in its 25th year, include such notaries as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and John Updike (who received a special "lifetime achievement award").

Forensic scientists behaving badly: Hannah Devlin and Vikram Dodd report that ten thousand criminal cases in England and Wales have to be reviewed following an alleged manipulation at a forensics lab in Manchester, UK.

But the forensic science news isn't all bad; an Australian team found that blowfly feces contains human DNA for two years – and could be even more vital evidence than previously thought. Plus, forensic technology developed at Loughborough University will make it “impossible” for criminals to destroy fingerprint evidence.

And yet more forensic good news: you might not have heard of Thomas Hargrove, but as The New Yorker notes in a recent profile they titled "The Serial Killer Detector," the unassuming former journalist, equipped with an algorithm and the largest collection of murder records in the country, finds patterns in crime.

If you live in an earthquake-prone area, you might consider this - a wall-to-wall bookshelf made to withstand temblors.

If you're not familiar with The Onion and its news parodies, this is a good time to take a look at a tongue-in-cheek bit of advice to stay mentally sharp as you age.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Broken Sky" by Carlton Johnson.

In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People chatted with Layton Green, author of their Pick Of The Month, Written in Blood, and also with Matt Coyle who "brings that classic trope of the tarnished knight/errant private eye" to his Rick Cahill series; the Criminal Element spoke with Joanna Schaffhausen about her debut thriller, The Vanishing Season; the Seattle PI sat down with Sheila Lowe, author of the Forensic Handwriting Mysteries; Crime by the Book welcomed Ragnar Jonasson for a discussion of the latest in his Dark Iceland series, Nightblind; Paul D. Brazill offered up two "Short, Sharp Interivews" with K.S. Hunter and Jack Strange; and Omnimystery News spoke with Mary Cunningham, who introduces travel agent and sometime amateur sleuth Andi Anna Jones in Margaritas, Mayhem & Murder.

Media Murder for Monday (on a Tuesday)

Media Murder for Monday (this week on a Tuesday) returns with some of the highlights from the latest crime drama news:

AWARDS

The Golden Globe Award nominations were announced yesterday and include a few crime-themed films, including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Post as Best Drama contenders; Best Actress nods to Jessica Chastain, for Molly's Game, Frances McDormand, for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Meryl Streep, for The Post, and Michelle Williams, for All the Money in the World; and Best Actor nominations for Tom Hanks, The Post, and Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq. On the TV side, Best Actor and Actress honors (in various drama categories) include Bob Odenkirk, (Better Call Saul); Liev Schreiber, (Ray Donovan); Jason Bateman, (Ozark); Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, (The Wizard of Lies); Kyle MacLachlan, (Twin Peaks); Jessica Biel (The Sinner); Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, and Alexander Skarsgard (Big Little Lies); Ewan McGregor and David Thewlis (Fargo), and Christian Slater (Mr. Robot). One other interesting nomination of note: Christopher Plummer was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for All the Money in the World, taking over Kevin Spacey's part that was cut out of the film following his recent sexual harassment controversy.

The Writers Guild of America also announced their nominations for the year's best TV projects. Best Drama Series nods include The Americans and Better Call Saul; Best New Series nominations include American Vandal, The Deuce, and Ozark; and the Long Form Adapted category is headlined by Big Little Lies, (teleplay by David E. Kelley and based on the Novel by Liane Moriarty), Fargo, and The Wizard of Lies (based on the Bernie Madoff book by Diane B. Henriques).

The International Emmy Awards were announced and include a Best Performance by an Actor nod to Kenneth Branagh for his portrayal of Wallander, from the series based on the crime fiction of Henning Mankell, and a Best Performance by an Actress win by Anna Friel for her work in the British crime noir detective series Marcella. The Best Series Award went to the thriller Mammon 2 for its episode, "Nothing is Just Politics," in which freedom of speech is under attack as a well-known commentator and journalist in Norway's biggest newspaper is brutally murdered.

MOVIES

Anonymous Content is going all in on the series of thriller novels by Lars Kepler, the pseudonym for the married Swedish authors Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, after optioning both a film adaptation of The Sandman and a TV series adaptation of The Hypnotist. The Sandman tells the chilling story of a manipulative serial killer and the two cops who try to beat him at his own game, while The Hypnotist takes place in the frigid climes of Tumba, Sweden, where a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna in the sole surviving witness—the boy whose family was killed before his eyes.

Narcos director Jose Padilha is coming on board to develop Master Thieves as a possible feature film at Sony. The project is based on the true story of the 1990 Isabel Gardner Museum Heist in Boston, the single biggest property theft in the history of the United States. Over $500M worth of art was stolen and it remains one of the more celebrated unsolved mysteries, with the art never recovered and the identities of the thieves never discovered.

Even while Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express is still in its first run in theaters, there are already plans afoot for a sequel adaptation of another Agatha Christie novel, Death on the Nile. Twentieth Century Fox has hired Orient Express screenwriter Michael Green to return for the project, and although Branagh hasn't yet signed on, he's expected to return to the director’s chair and reprise his role of the mustachioed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

Lit management/producer Sentient has acquired Tony Mosher’s survival thriller spec script Sirius in competitive bidding, with Taken helmer Pierre Morel set to direct. The film tells the story of two members of a Danish special forces dog sled team — one a sage veteran and the other a bold new recruit — who become ensnared in an international incident while on a mission to one of the coldest and deadliest places on Earth, facing off not only against highly trained adversaries but also cruel forces of nature.

Kyla Drew (Prisoners) and Annie Ilonzeh (All Eyez on Me) have been cast in Peppermint, the Jennifer Garner-starring action thriller that also has John Ortiz, Richard Cabral, Juan Pablo Raba and John Gallagher Jr. in the cast. Garner plays Riley North, a young mother who awakens from a coma after her husband and daughter are killed in a brutal attack on the family. When the system shields the murderers from justice, Riley sets out to transform herself from citizen to urban guerrilla to methodically deliver her personal brand of justice. Drew will play Maria, a homeless street kid whom Riley takes un under her protective wing, while Ilonzeh is FBI agent Lisa Inman, who tracks Riley down.

Ryan Reynolds is set to join the world of Pokemon in the forthcoming live-action Detective Pikachu film from Legendary. The project was originally announced in summer 2016 during the Pokemon Go mobile game craze and will be directed by Rob Letterman with a script by Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch.

James Mangold is set to direct the untitled Patty Hearst drama for Fox, with Elle Fanning in talks to star as the heiress. The film will be an adaptation of Jeffrey Toobin’s best-selling American Heiress, and is set to delve into Toobin’s reporting on Hearst’s kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 and her subsequent run from the FBI after turning into an SLA sympathizer.

The new trailer for Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here features Joaquin Phoenix as a PTSD-ridden vet who slowly unravels as he attempts to bust a senator’s daughter out of a sex-trafficking ring.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Ruth Ware’s New York Times-bestselling psychological thriller The Lying Game is being turned into a television series by Entertainment One (eOne) and The Gotham Group. The novel starts after a woman walking her dog in an idyllic coastal village finds something sinister in the local estuary before three young women in London receive a mysterious text message from one of their friends. The women had been at boarding school together and were known for playing the "lying game," telling lies to fellow boarders and teachers, before they were expelled following the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher.

The John Le Carré spy drama The Night Manager is moving closer towards a second series after signing British writer Matthew Orton to pen The Ink Factory-produced series. Night Manager director Susanne Bier also said in March that a follow-up was "slowly being developed" but that the creators were taking their time to make sure series two lives up to the first series. The original series featured Tom Hiddleston as enigmatic Jonathan Pine, who goes undercover to expose billionaire arms dealer Richard Roper, played by Hugh Laurie, and Hiddleston has said he would consider featuring in a second series.

CBS has given a 13-episode straight-to-series order to Blood & Treasure, an hourlong serialized action-adventure series for premiere in summer 2019. Written by Matt Federman and Stephen Scaia, Blood & Treasure centers on a brilliant antiquities expert and a cunning art thief who team up to catch a ruthless terrorist who funds his attacks through stolen treasure. As they crisscross the globe hunting their target, they unexpectedly find themselves in the center of a 2,000-year-old battle for the cradle of civilization.

CBS' live-streaming service All Access is moving from space to storybooks with Tell Me a Story, which takes the world’s most beloved fairy tales and reimagines them as a dark and twisted psychological thriller. The show is set in modern-day New York City, with the first season of the drama interweaving the stories "The Three Little Pigs," "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" into "an epic and subversive tale of love, loss, greed, revenge and murder."

NBC has put in development drama Spirit of the Law, based on the life of California pastor Kalvin Cressel, who was a federal special agent for 30 years. The series would follow Cressel as he works on dangerous cases during the week, including going undercover, coming back to his flock on Sunday at what used to be the toughest church in all of Compton when the city was torn by gang violence.

Showtime has put in development Kilroy County, a drama based on the Dutch series Holland’s Hoop. It centers on Simon, a forensic psychiatrist struggling to treat the criminally insane at a high security facility near Chicago. When his estranged father dies, Simon hopes the ensuing visit to the family farm will allow him to confront issues in his marriage and with his own children. But the more pressing problem is that one of his former patients, Dennis, a dangerous but extremely charming psychopath, has followed them there.

John Stamos is set for a key recurring role opposite Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail in Lifetime’s straight-to-series psychological thriller drama You. Written by Berlanti and Gamble based on Caroline Kepnes’ best-selling novel, You is described as a 21st century love story that asks, "What would you do for love?" When a brilliant bookstore manager Joe (Badgley) crosses paths with an aspiring writer, Beck (Lail), his answer becomes clear: anything. Stamos will play Dr, Nicky, who becomes a fixture in Beck’s (Lail) life, much to the dismay of Joe (Badgley). Shay Mitchell also stars.

Netflix is set to launch the Chinese detective drama Day and Night, a 32-part series that follows a detective who attempts to clear his twin brother from a murder charge. After recusing himself from the case, he is hired as a secret consultant by the new investigator.

Just days after Berlin Station had its Season 2 finale, Epix gave the Olen Steinhauer-created spy series a third season. Season 3 of Berlin Station looks set to start streaming on Epix in late 2018 or early 2019, although it's not yet clear who is returning from the series that includes a cast composed of Richard Armitage, Michelle Forbes, Leland Orser, Ashley Judd, Richard Jenkins and Rhys Ifans.

Another series getting "more" is CBS' Sherlock Holmes program, Elementary, which was just given eight additional episodes for Season 6 of the crime procedural, bringing the total to 21 episodes.

As CBS has firmed up its midseason schedule and ordered two additional episodes of its freshman Shemar Moore-starring drama series S.W.A.T., bringing it up to a full 22 episodes.

Netflix has formally ordered a second season of Mindhunter, its crime drama series executive produced by David Fincher and Charlize Theron and starring Jonathan Groff and and Holt McCallany as FBI agents and profilers Holden Ford and Bill Tench.

Costa Ronin is set for a recurring role on the upcoming seventh season of Showtime’s Emmy-winning drama Homeland. Russia native Ronin has played KGB agent Oleg Burov on all five seasons of FX’s 1980-set spy drama The Americans.

Ryan Kwanten, a regular fixture on HBO's True Blood, will headline the upcoming Crackle series The Oath, which stars Kwanten as a dirty cop operating in a department filled with organized gangs.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

On BBC Radio 4, journalist Jonathan Guyer examined the different forms of noir fiction addressing the failed revolutions, jihadism, and chaos in Egypt and "the strange case of the Arab whodunnit."

Authors on the Air's Crime Corner podcast with host Matt Coyle welcomed Nadine Nettmann to chat about her Sommelier Mystery Series, with the debut novel, Decanting a Murder, nominated for the Anthony, Agatha, and Lefty awards.

The latest Crime Cafe podcast with host Debbi Mack featured an interview with crime fiction author Vincent Zandri.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Vest returned for a new season of brand new episodes. First up was a report on the Bad Sex award (won by a thriller author), celebrating the best examples of bad sex scenes in fiction for the past year, as voted for by the Literary Review.

THEATER

Calgary Canada's Vertigo Theatre continues their Mystery Series productions with The 39 Steps, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the movie by Alfred Hitchcock. The story centers on a beautiful spy who is murdered and how the main suspect, Richard Hannay, must stay one step ahead of the killers, the police, and a jealous husband in a quest to prove his innocence. This two-time Tony Award-winning treat features a talented cast of four playing over 150 zany characters, an on-stage plane crash, handcuffs, missing fingers and some good old-fashioned romance. The production runs through Dec. 16.

Rising star Thom Southerland is directing a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony and Olivier-Award nominated musical, The Woman in White for a strictly limited 12-week season at the UK's Charing Cross Theatre. The tempestuous tale of love, betrayal and greed, adapted from Wilkie Collins’ haunting Victorian thriller, sees Walter Hartright’s life changed forever after a chance encounter with a mysterious woman, dressed in white, desperate to reveal her chilling secret. The production will run through February 10, 2018.

Author R&R with Trey R. Barker

Trey R. Barker spent nearly two decades as an on-again/off-again journalist before moving into law enforcement in North-Central Illinois, at the Bureau County Sheriff’s Office. He is currently a sergeant of patrol with a specialty in crisis negotiations and on-line child sexual exploitation and an investigator for the Illinois Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

He's also the author of more than 200 short stories, as well as the Barefield trilogy – 2000 Miles to Open Road, Exit Blood, Death is Not Forever – published by Down & Out Books. The first two books in his Jace Salome novels were published by Five Star (which has since dropped its crime fiction line), but the third installment in the series, When the Lonesome Dog Barks, is being published by Down & Out.

Trey stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing the book and how his day job influenced and inspired the work:

In The Eyes…The Words

By Trey R. Barker

By the time I knocked on his door, I had the evidence.

As always, I’d been gathering it for months.  Peer-to-peer software, his computer constantly sharing specific files with my task force computer; back and forth, request and answer, a digital, forensic version of the call and response liturgy.

By the time I knocked on his door, I knew the man. I knew his public habits, his employment and wife’s name.  I knew his child’s name and where he lived.

I knew, when I knocked on his door, exactly what I would see. I knew exactly the look I would see in his eyes when he saw me and my team. He would know, instantly, why we were there.  I would see tears and anger, eyes darting and looking for a way out, hyperventilating, self-loathing, slivers of relief that it was now over. He would stammer but nod thoughtfully when I told him his IP came up in an internet investigation.  He would offer to help any way he could, but he would give signals that he wanted to talk to us privately, rather than in front of his family.

And when we were talking privately, when I showed him the evidence his computer had already sent me, he would admit to trading child pornography. He would tell me everything and it would be awful for everyone in that house.

It always was and by that time, I had done scores of these cases.

I knew, when I knocked on his door, that I would see him, his wife, his child.

Yet when I actually knocked, I did not see what I expected.  Instead, I saw the nine neighborhood children who attended his wife’s on-site day care.

My heart broke.

* * *

Ultimately, every child who looked at me that day was forensically interviewed and there was exactly zero evidence the man had ever touched a child.  He pleaded guilty and took a lengthy prison sentence.  It played out how it always had in those investigations. I did those investigations for almost five years before I had to stop and with every investigation, my heart broke. Regardless of the outcome—plea or trial—my heart broke for those children in the pictures that my suspects so blithely traded.  There was never a thought for those children by the men who traded, in spite of what those men would eventually tell me (and I promise you the justifications can make you stop breathing). Even if the pictures and videos were decades old, the children long since grown up to be their own monsters or to save others from the monsters or dead from their own hand because they couldn’t fight the monsters anymore, my heart constantly shattered.

That is what I used in When The Lonesome Dog Barks, the third Jace Salome novel (Down and Out Books, November, 2017).

While there is no child pornography in Lonesome Dog, what I learned working on two child sexual exploitation task forces (one state-level and one Federal-level) came to bear. I was basically researching by reaching into my own memory. I took what I had worked with on the task forces, the way files were shared and spread and viewed, and then bent and shaped that knowledge into something I could use to help craft this story.

In terms of the technical end of things, I did tap into the brain of my team’s uber-computer-guru to make sure I hadn’t screwed it up, but for the emotional things, I tapped into the horrors that each and every officer who’s done these kinds of cases can easily dredge up. What I described at the beginning of this piece—everything packed so deeply and tightly into the suspects’ eyes, and their justifications afterward—were what I tried to unpack for When The Lonesome Dog Barks.

Yet the thing I tried the hardest to recreate, the thing that still haunts me the most, were the interviews and the justifications.  Not the words, those were predictable enough (like the man who told me it was the fault of the four-year old girl in the forced-sex videos “…because look how she was dressed!” or the man who told me he and his male cousin were just fooling around trading pictures of their own cocks back and forth and “…it got a little crazy.”), but the utter lack of remorse.

Once caught, they were all remorseful, but it was window dressing—cheap blinds covering the fact that they had not an ounce of actual remorse.  To them, the pictures were fantasy and make-believe; no one really got hurt making those pictures, no one was truly molested, no one was truly damaged to the point of killing themselves.  To those men, the pictures with full color and the videos with stereo sound were nothing more than a means to an end, and as long as that end was pleasure, then who the hell cared about the means?

And yes, it was exactly the same for those men who had been molested themselves.  They had felt the terror in the most visceral way possible and now, years later, cared not at all about that same terror being visited upon someone else.

An odd fact for you…in every single one of my cases that involved the suspect having been molested as a child, the age group the suspects looked at was always the age they themselves had been molested.

 So the research for Lonesome Dog was not geography or cultural norms or street dialect.  It was reaction and emotion, usage of another human being; it was trying to convey to my readers exactly what I heard my suspects say when I looked in their eyes after I had knocked on their doors.

 

You can find out more about Trey R. Barker and his writing via his website and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. His book When the Lonesome Dog Barks is now available via all major online and print booksellers.

Mystery Melange, Thanksgiving Edition

MWA announced the 2018 Grand Master, Raven, and Ellery Queen Award recipients:  Jane Langton, William Link, and Peter Lovesey have been chosen as the 2018 Grand Masters by Mystery Writers of America (MWA) - the award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality; the Raven Award for outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing will be given to The Raven Bookstore and Kristopher Zgorski, founder of the founder of the crime fiction review blog BOLO Books; and the The Ellery Queen Award that honors “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry,” will be given to publisher/editor/translator Robert Pépin.

Author Michael Redhill has won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for the best in Canadian fiction for his novel Bellevue Square. The thriller about a woman on the hunt for her doppelganger was praised Monday by jury members for its “complex literary wonders.”  Past winners of the 100,000 Canadian dollar ($78,000 U.S.) Giller prize have included Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler and Alice Munro. The Giller was created in 1994 by businessman Jack Rabinovitch in memory of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller. 

While you're waiting for family to arrive for Thanksgiving, why not check out of the Thanksgiving-themed crime fiction titles on this list, courtesy of Mystery Fanfare.

Vice offered up its thanks for "Agatha Christie, Murder-Mystery Pioneer and the Original Gone Girl."

Courtesy of the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine blog, here's a short short by the late Edward D. Hoch titled "The Thanksgiving Chicken."

The Mystery Lovers Kitchen has several holiday recipes worth checking out, such as this Butternut Squash Quinoa Salad and Maple-Glazed Roasted Acorn Squash with Toasted Pumpkin Seeds.

Apparently, crime fiction books can make excellent travel guides

I always give thanks for libraries, and here's more proof that librarians are heroes and have been for some time: In the 1930s, many people living in isolated communities had very little access to jobs, let alone a good education for their children. In Kentucky, they had isolated mountain communities which could only get their books and reading material from one source… librarians on horseback, part of President Franklin Roosevelt WPA initiative. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

The Daily Mail took a peek inside Australia's only "body farm," the secret bush site in Sydney where corpses are left to decompose to help police solve murders - and 500 donors are waiting to get in.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Cruel Poetry" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the abbreviated Q&A roundup, Nick Triplow took Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge on the eve of the launch of Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir, Triplow's book about the life and work of the author best known for his novel Jack’s Return Home, adapted as Get Carter in 1971.

Author R&R with Michael Mayo

Michael Mayo has written about film for the Washington Post and the Roanoke Times. He was the host of the nationally syndicated radio programs Movie Show on Radio and Max and Mike on the Movies. He is the author of American Murder: Criminals, Crime, and the Media, as well as VideoHound’s Video Premieres, Horror Show, and War Movies.

His first novel, Jimmy the Stick, which was published in 2012, initiated the Jimmy Quinn series set in the bloody days of Prohibition. From the bar of his quiet little speakeasy, this limping tough guy serves drinks to every hood in Manhattan—at least until the bullets start to fly. Publishers Weekly said of the series, "Mayo persuasively portrays such real-life mobsters as Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano in a tale sure to appeal to fans of Max Allan Collins’s gangster historicals."

The latest installment of Jimmy Quinn's adventures is Jimmy and Fay, set right as King Kong is premiering at Radio City Music Hall, and Fay Wray is about to become the most famous actress on earth. So what’s she doing hanging around a rundown Manhattan speakeasy? This Hollywood scream queen has come to see Jimmy Quinn after a blackmailer has pictures of a Fay Wray lookalike engaged in conduct that would make King Kong blush. Jimmy tries to settle the matter quietly, but stopping the extortion will cut just as deeply as Fay’s famous scream, ringing from Broadway all the way to Chinatown.

Michael Mayo stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing a Prohibition-era setting:

 

Prohibition New York – Greatest. Setting. Ever.

Prohibition really was the Golden Age for American crime. With the passage of the Volstead Act which in 1920 prohibited the possession, sale and transportation of beer, wine and spirits, bad guys became good guys to anyone who simply wanted to buy a drink. Big city cops and elected officials certainly didn’t believe in the new law. They saw it as something forced on them by appleknockers from the sticks. Sure, all the saloons closed down, but speakeasies opened right up, and the Twenties were ready to roar.

New York was already undergoing a massive transformation. The economic boom just beginning to power up Wall Street. Thousands of young men were returning from World War I, and thousands of young women were moving from the hinterlands to work in offices. All of them wanted to have some fun.

That’s the city that I write about in the Jimmy Quinn novels. It’s equal parts Warner Bros. movies, Dashiell Hammett and Damon Runyon stories, the photographs of Berenice Abbott and Margaret Bourke White, and the paintings of Reginald Marsh and John Sloan. During those years, America became the country we recognize today. Men quit wearing high stiff collars and long coats. Their tailored suits are essentially unchanged. Young women had just thrown off the heavy drapery of Victorian clothes and were experimenting with fashion. The cars may never have been so cool.

 At the center of everything was money.

As the famous madam Polly Adler put it, “In the world of the Twenties, as I saw it, the only unforgiveable sin was to be poor—Money was what counted… Everybody had an angle, everybody was raking in the chips, there was no excuse not to have money—and along with everybody else, I was right there, with my feet planted firmly in the trough.”

New York was (and is) a city that ran on money, alcohol and sex, and Prohibition brought those three together in an important new way. The saloon had been an all-male enterprise. A woman who was not a prostitute or a temperance crusader wouldn’t think of setting foot inside one. Speakeasies, however, were open to everyone. And Prohibition added another exotic element; it made alcohol forbidden fruit to the newly liberated “flappers,” a generation of young women who were eager to break old rules and to try new things. Collectively these guys and dolls were referred to by their disapproving elders as “flaming youth.” Hubba-hubba.

And it wasn’t only the patrons of speakeasies who were young. Many of the mobsters who made their fortunes in bootlegging were surprisingly youthful. When Prohibition began, “Lucky” Luciano was the old man of his group at 23. Meyer Lansky was 18; their friend Ben “Bugsy” Siegel was 14. These guys had grown up on the streets and were experienced beyond their years. By the time Prohibition was repealed, they were millionaires.

Of course, there was considerable violence, too, as there is with any extremely profitable, extremely competitive illegal enterprise. Particularly in the early days, Luciano, Lansky and Siegel were ambitious and ruthless. But as long as gangsters were shooting gangsters, nobody got too upset about it.

In short, Prohibition-era New York was young, stylish, sinful and unrepentant. Could a crime writer ask for anything more?

 

You read learn more about Mike, his books, and Jimmy and Fay via his website or check out a recent interview with Mystery Scene Magazine. His books are available via most online and brick-and-mortar bookstores.

 

Author R&R with Lawrence Kelter

Lawrence Kelter is a resident New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn and residing on Long Island, and often uses Manhattan and Long Island as backdrops for his stories. Early in his career, he received direction from bestselling novelist Nelson DeMille, who put pencil to paper to assist in the editing of his first book, and Kelter was also a member of a private writing workshop led by the late soap opera legend and AFTRA president, Ann Loring. Since then, he's authored three novels featuring street savvy NYPD detective, Stephanie Chalice:  Don't Close Your Eyes, Ransom Beach, and The Brain Vault.

Most recently, he's been tapped to write Back to Brooklyn, the literary sequel to Dale Launer's classic legal comedy film My Cousin Vinny. Kelter answered some burning questions about how that project came to pass:

How did the chance to write BACK TO BROOKLYN come about?

Lawrence Kelter: There was one specific project I always wanted to be involved in, but like the rock star dream and the Super Bowl victory, I thought it was not to be. You might think this silly or lame. And maybe it is. There was a film I enjoyed so much that every time it popped up on TV, it made me late for an appointment because I just couldn’t pull myself away. I knew the script verbatim and often incorporated the better-known lines into my everyday conversation. That movie is My Cousin Vinny.

It popped up on the tube about two years ago, and I decided to email the screenwriter/producer to tell him how much I loved his film, thinking, Hollywood screenwriter—I’m dirt beneath his boot—He’ll never reply.

But he did.

And somehow we forged a connection. Emails led to conversations. He discussed his upcoming projects with me, and I with him. One day he called up and said, “Hey, I read one of your books and you’re pretty f_ _king funny.”

“So how about you let me turn My Cousin Vinny into a book series?”

“Make me an offer.”

Four attorneys and fourteen months later, BACK TO BROOKLYN was delivered to Eric Campbell, publisher of Down & Out Books.

What was the most rewarding part of writing established characters like Lisa and Vincent? The most challenging part?

Lawrence Kelter: Writing BACK TO BROOKLYN was the most fun I’ve ever had sitting in front of a keyboard. I have high hopes for this book. After all, I love the characters and the backstory—not to mention the two years I have invested in the project. But where it goes from here… I've received a great deal of feedback from readers. Almost universally they tell me that that they can hear Lisa and Vinny in their heads playing that cat and mouse game--they visualize Marisa Tomei and Joe Pesci as they're reading. Nothing could be more rewarding than that.

At the onset there were two big challenges that gave me pause. 1) I had to get the voices just right--my Vinny and Lisa had to sound exactly like Vinny and Lisa from the film with the same type of smart Alec rhetoric and the same colloquialisms. They had to think alike and  react alike. In the words of Beechum County DA Jim Trotter III, they had to be, "IDENTICAL!" 2) The movie reveal was just so damn clever and startling that it was a real challenge to develop a plot that felt like the original but was completely different, and at the end ... well, it was a serious undertaking to reveal the true villain and his MO without relying on "magic grits" and "Positraction."

Why should fans of My Cousin Vinny read BACK TO BROOKLYN?

 

Lawrence Kelter: Fans of the film will instantly fall back in love with Vinny and Lisa and hopefully laugh just as hard as they did the first time they saw the film. In the words of New York Times bestselling author William Landay: "Like visiting with old friends, BACK TO BROOKLYN captures the fun and spontaneity of every lawyer's favorite legal comedy, My Cousin Vinny. As surefooted as a '63 Pontiac with Positraction." 

 

Have you heard feedback on BACK TO BROOKLYN from the original movie cast?

Lawrence Kelter: Both Ralph Macchio and his wife have both read the novel and reported that they really enjoyed it. I tried to get in touch with Joe and Marisa but was unsuccessful. On a lighter note, Nelson DeMille gave his copy of the book to his mother after he read it and she reported, "Nelson, this guy knows Brooklyn a hell of a lot better than you do!"

What are you working on now? Will we see further adventures with Vinny and Lisa?

Lawrence Kelter: I'm working on four or five new books at once. OMG, it's scary that I can't remember how many books I'm working on. They're all in different states of completion. Next up is (insert drumroll) the novelization of My Cousin Vinny. Why you ask? Because it's bigger, and fresher, with additional scenes, lots of new humor, and sneak peeks into Vinny and Lisa's history that was not revealed in the film. It's due for release in March of next year.

 
You can learn more about Lawrence Kelter on his official website and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.  Back to Brooklyn is available via Down & Out Books and from all major online and brick-and-mortar booksellers.

 

Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings! Start your week off with this latest roundup of crime drama news:

MOVIES

Sony Pictures won rights to finance and distribute #9, the working title of Quentin Tarantino’s next film. The project is set in Los Angeles in the late ’60s and early ’70s during the Charles Manson crime spree, with Tarantino hoping Margot Robbie will play the role of Sharon Tate. The film is described as featuring an ensemble cast, and Tarantino reportedly has had conversations with Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio for the two main lead male roles. 

Oscar winner Mahershala Ali has signed on to star in and executive produce a feature adaptation of A.J. Wolfe’s upcoming true crime thriller Burn. Anonymous Content acquired the book, which will be adapted for the big screen by Fredrick Kotto, a former detective turned screenwriter. Burn is described as a contemporary crime thriller about a Northern California detective who brought a cartel to its knees while working undercover, all while keeping that part of his life from his family. 

The bidding battle to option rights to Riley Sager’s bestselling novel Final Girls was won by Universal Pictures. Sager's book centers around Quincy Carpenter, who 10 years ago went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horrible massacre. The press quickly labeled her as the “Final Girl” coined for the group of similar survivors. Riley Sager’s other mystery thriller Last Time I lied will be released July 10.

Bleecker Street’s second release with Steven Soderbergh, Unsane, will hit theaters on March 23. It's been reported that Soderbergh reportedly shot the project on his iPhone. It stars Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, SNL alum Jay Pharaoh, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, and Amy Irving and centers on a young woman (Foy) who is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where she is confronted by her greatest fear — but is it real or is it a product of her delusion?

Emmy winner Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and Sebastian Stan (I, Tonya) are in negotiations to join Nicole Kidman in Karyn Kusama’s modern crime thriller Destroyer. The story follows the moral and existential odyssey of LAPD detective Erin Bell (Kidman) who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

Circle of Confusion, the production company behind The Walking Dead, has joined forces with Lightning Entertainment and Hindsight Media for a multi-year suspense/thriller genre slate deal, which aims to produce two-three films a year. The first film under this new deal will be Tone-Deaf, written and to be directed by Ricky Bates Jr., which follows millennial Olive who, after a string of bad relationships and work failures, leaves the city for a weekend of peace in the country only to discover the shockingly dark underbelly of rural America.

The 8th Annual Noir City Xmas returns December 20 at San Francisco's historic Castro Theatre. The Film Noir Foundation will offer up "a double-feature of rare noir-stained 1940s' yuletide films to darken your spirits," Manhandled and Alias Boston Blackie. The evening will also feature the unveiling of the full schedule for Noir City 16, the world's most popular film noir festival, coming to the Castro Theatre January 26 through February 4, 2018. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge are set to star on Showtime’s drama pilot, City on a Hill, which hails from Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Jennifer Todd. The story is set in the early 90s, when Boston was rife with violent criminals emboldened by local law enforcement agencies in which corruption and racism was the norm. It all changes during the “Boston Miracle,” when District Attorney “Decourcy Ward” (Hodge) forms an unlikely alliance with a corrupt yet venerated FBI veteran, “Jackie Rhodes” (Bacon), who is deeply invested in maintaining the status quo. Together they take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown in a case that grows to encompass and eventually upend Boston’s city-wide criminal justice system.

Netflix is nearing a deal for rights to Hummingbird Salamander and plans to tap Sugar23 to produce the picture. The project is based on the book by Jeff VanderMeer, and is "set ten seconds into the future" in a story that deals with bioterrorism, ecoterrorism, and climate change."

Amazon has acquired the Sony Pictures crime thriller drama Absentia headlined by former Castle star Stana Katic in her return to television. The series enters on FBI agent Emily Byrne (Katic). who disappears without a trace and is declared dead while hunting one of Boston’s most notorious serial killers. Six years later, Emily is found in a cabin in the woods, barely alive, and with no memory of the years she was missing. Returning home to learn her husband has remarried and her son is being raised by another woman, she soon finds herself implicated in a new series of murders.

Speaking of Castle, ABC has given a straight-to-series order to the Castle-like procedural Take Two from Castle co-creators Terri Edda Miller and Andrew W. Marlow. Starring Rachel Bilson and Eddie Cibrian, the drama follows a washed-up actress and former star of a hit police drama (Bilson) who, fresh out of rehab, teams up with a private investigator (Cibrian) as research for her comeback role.

Carmen Ejogo is set to star opposite Mahershala Ali in the third season of Nic Pizzolatto’s HBO crime anthology series True Detective. The new installment tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. Ejogo will play Amelia Reardon, an Arkansas schoolteacher with a connection to two missing children in 1980. Ali plays the lead role of Wayne Hays, a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas. 

ABC has given a put pilot commitment to The French Detective, based on James Patterson’s Luc Moncrief mysteries, with The Artist's Jean Dujardin attached to star and EuropaCorp founder and Taken creator Luc Besson set to direct in his TV directorial debut. Written by Assassin’s Creed scribes Bill Collage and Adam Cooper, and Jonathan Collier (Bones), The French Detective is a light procedural drama that centers on Luc Moncrief, a Parisian detective who joins the NYPD in order to leave his previous life behind and start fresh as he and his blue collar female partner solve New York’s most complex and inscrutable crimes.

CBS has put in development the crime drama The Source, from Dr. Phil and Jay McGraw’s Stage 29 Productions and CBS Television Studios. Written by Amanda Green (Lethal Weapon, The Mysteries of Laura), The Source centers on a millennial investigative reporter who teams with an LAPD detective as they make use of her dogged brand of investigating outside the bounds of the law in order to expose crime and wrongdoing.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to Off-Site, an hourlong adventure drama from 20th Century Fox TV and Len Wiseman’s studio-based Sketch Films. Off-Site centers around a former chaos agent for the CIA who’s recruited to Morocco by a UN Investigator to help unearth the mysteries behind a bizarre cult rumored to be in possession of a mystical threat. 

The Wire alum Isiah Whitlock Jr. has been cast as a series regular opposite Tony Danza and Josh Groban in The Good Cop, a 10-episode straight-to-series dramedy crime procedural for Netflix. The Good Cop centers on Tony Sr. (Danza), a disgraced former NYPD officer who never followed the rules. He lives with his son, Tony Jr. (Groban), an earnest, obsessively honest NYPD detective who makes a point of always following the rules. This “odd couple” become unofficial partners as Tony Sr. offers his overly cautious son blunt, streetwise advice on everything from handling suspects to handling women. Whitlock will play veteran homicide detective, Burl Loomis, who’s marking the days left until retirement. 

Streaming giant Netflix is teaming up with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment to produce an eight-episode political espionage series titled Bard of Blood. Based on the bestselling 2015 book of the same name by Bilal Siddiqi, the multilingual series, in Urdu, English, Hindi and other languages, is set in the Indian subcontinent. It will follow Kabir Anand, an expelled spy who is recalled from his new life as a Shakespeare professor to save his country and his long-lost love. 

Fox’s new procedural drama 9-1-1 will bow at 9 PM Wednesday, January 3, following the debut of the 10-episode second season of The X-Files revival. The two series take the Wednesday night slots of the on-hiatus Empire and Star.

FX is developing the “Crimetown” podcast as a scripted series. The project will be written by hosts Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier, who are also behind HBO’s The Jinx. The podcast from Gimlet Media centers on the impact of organized crime and corruption on the city of Providence, R.I.

CBS made a back order decision on a few new fall series, including giving a full-season pickup to drama S.W.A.T. after three airings. The procedural stars stars Shemar Moore, Stephanie Sigman, Alex Russell, Jay Harrington, Lina Esco, Kenny Johnson, Peter Onorati and David Lim.

The first trailer was released for The Assassination Of Gianni Versace, the second season of FX's anthology series, American Crime Story.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

BBC Radio Bristol podcast host Steve Yabsley welcomed Thriller writer Sanjida Kay to discuss her gripping new novel, The Stolen Child.

Also via the BBC, author Simon Lelic joined the Radio 2 Book Club to discuss his new psychological thriller, The House.

Boston's public radio station WBUR discussed the newly-discovered Raymond Chandler story that takes on the health care industry.

Suspense Radio Inside Edition's last show of the year "packed in four hours into two hours," as it welcomed Steve Havill, Matt Coyle, Daryl Wood Gerber. and Dr. Mott Sharir.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack welcomed Art Taylor, author of On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Taylor has also won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, two Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction.

Thriller Author Jamie Freveletti was the featured guest on Authors on the Air's 2nd Sunday Crime podcast. Her debut thriller Running from the Devil was awarded “Best First Novel” by the International Thriller Writers and Deadly Pleasures Magazine, and nominated for a Macavity Award for Best First Mystery by the Mystery Readers International.

NPR's All Things Considered profiled "The Tiny, Murderous World Of Frances Glessner Lee," a series of tiny dollhouse crime scenes that have been used to train investigators from the 1930s to the present.

THEATER

Kellen Blair and Joe Kinosian’s Murder for Two screwball spoof of old-time thrillers is now on stage at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. The show involves "madcap mayhem, involving a cross between (Agathie) Christie contemporaries Preston Sturges and the Marx Brothers," and is framed as a musical melodrama blending the English music hall with ragtime and a dash of diva disco. Murder for Two continues through Jan. 14 at the Stackner Cabaret.

A star-studded cast is taking to the stage in Bath for a performance of Ruth Rendell's classic novel, A Judgment In Stone, adapted by Simon Brett and Antony Lampard. It tells the story of Eunice Parchman, a housekeeper struggling to find her place in the world, but when she begins working for a very wealthy family, the long-standing reason for her awkwardness becomes clear and leads to a horrific Valentine’s Day murder. The show runs at the Theatre Royal in Sawclose through November 25.