Mystery Melange

 

The winner of the CWA Dagger in the Library for 2017 is Mari Hannah, recently announced at a reception at the British Library. The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by a crime writer that users of libraries particularly admire and is unique among crime-writing awards in that only library staff are able to make the original author nominations. Mari will also be honored at the CWA Dagger Awards Dinner in London on October 26. (HT to Eurocrime)

The Foreword Reviews Indie Book Awards were announced, including the titles in the Mystery and Thriller/Suspense Categories where A Girl Like You by Michelle Cox won for Mystery and Revelation by Carter Wilson won the Thriller category.

At the Western Writers of America Conference in Kansas City, MO, Minotaur Books announced that Carol Potenza’s Hearts of the Missing won the 2017 Tony Hillerman Prize for a best first mystery novel. Minotaur Books is planning to publish Potenza’s debut in the fall of 2018. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Dashiell Hammett’s 1929 classic detective novel Red Harvest is expected to be the leading feature in The KoKo Collection, part of the Rare Books Auction at Heritage Auctions on September 14. That title is expected to fetch up to $30,000, while Hammett’s 1930 follow-up, The Maltese Falcon, is estimated to go for $20,000.

Florida International University's Wolfsonian is hosting the student-curated exhibition "In the Shadows; American Pulp Cover Art" through July 9. Included are covers from Argosy, Detective Fiction, Detective Novels Magazine, G-Men Detective, and Popular Detective. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

The Atlantic reported on the downfall of The Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon for becoming involved with an arms dealer, noting that "reporters have often been unable to resist getting their hands dirty with the topics they cover."

This summer, Mersey Ferries are offering crime fiction fans the chance to step aboard their iconic vessels in Liverpool, UK, for an evening with a difference: the murder mystery cruise events invite passengers to solve a case as it unfolds before their eyes.

Joseph Finder wrote for the Chicago Tribune that "Spy novels can't stay ahead of headlines."

Think you know everything there is to know about feminist icon Nancy Drew? Here are twelve fascinating facts that might surprise you.

Brian McGilloway listed his "Top Ten Northern Irish Crime Novels" for Strand Magazine, while Otto Penzler chose "Five Crime and Mystery Picks for Summer" for Lithub.

From the department of forensic science advancements comes news that DNA left behind by a rapist who attacked five women in Montgomery County has provided police with what could provide a breakthrough in the unsolved cases: a sketch depicting what the unidentified man might look like.

Planning a trip to Denmark? You can take a mini-tour online with some insider tips from Sara Blaedel, the Danish "Queen of Crime."

Speaking of settings ... authors like Sophie Hannah explain why they're important in a novel.

This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Live! With a Ceramic Kitchen Knife and Kathie Lee" by Nathan Lauer.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element chatted with Barry Lancet, Author of The Spy Across the Table; the Irish News spoke with crime writer Anthony Quinn on Schubert, Beckett, and the perils of social media; debut author Roz Nay sat down with the Calgary Herald to talk about her new crime thriller novel, Our Little Secret; and Meg Gardiner discussed her new thriller that was inspired by the Zodiac Killer with Bookpage.

Author R&R with Stephen Hillard

Before settling into his current career as an author and private equity entrepreneur, Stephen "Steve" Hillard was a teacher at Rikers Island Prison, a welder, a carpenter, and a practicing lawyer. Publication of his first book in 2011, Mirkwood: A Novel About JRR Tolkien, resulted in controversy when the Tolkien Estate sought to ban the book, to which the author responded with a lawsuit in federal court. After the dispute received international attention and the case was later settled, the book went on to become an Amazon Fantasy Best Seller, recipient of a national IPPY Award, and was published world-wide in Spanish by an imprint of Planeta. An epic spin-out of the book's main fantasy character led to another series that is in development as a TV project by The Ovation Network.

Stephen's latest novel is KNOLL: The Last JFK Conspiracist, which follows a young protégé of Edward Snowden who flees the NSA after she learns that her project (KNOLL) is designed to detect and destroy any person with new facts about the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. The project’s latest target: a small-town attorney, son of a mysteriously murdered cop, who has just discovered his family’s involvement with deceased Mafia Kingpin Carlos Marcello, and the events that day in Dallas. All paths lead to a small Louisiana town that still hides its secrets, and converge on the doorstep of Marcello’s still-active savant of assassins. He is unstoppable. His creed: Omerta Is Forever.

Stephen stops by In Reference to Murder today to chat about writing and researching the book:

 

As the author, let me first confess:  I am among the majority of Americans who believe that JFK was assassinated as the result of a conspiracy. 

From that public view have flowed somewhere between 4,000 and 40,000 books, movies, TV shows, comics, songs, websites and, of course, questions.  The topic has incredible legs.  Most, if not all, of the perspectives in those sources tend to look backwards.

In writing KNOLL, I wanted to explore things looking forward, but with a sense that time is running short.  As the subtitle, The Last JFK Conspiracist, suggests, I wanted to explore the subtext of whether this ultimate murder mystery is now becoming The Ultimate Cold Case, forever unresolved and therefore forever disquieting, or whether it could still be solved.

How might such a solution happen?  After researching the non-fiction sources, the videos, the movies. and the really great but limited number of novels covering the assassination, as well as archives and transcripts of oral histories of people involved, I interviewed cold-case forensic experts. Not surprisingly, their common view was that a solution would most likely happen in one, or both, of two ways: the proverbial “lucky break” and/or the application of new technology.

I had known for years where the story would take place — a very closed Mafia world circa 1963 that was off the beaten path of JFK conspiracists.  I had a wealth of information. In 1963, my brother was playing in the house band at the nightclub owned by Mafia Kingpin Carlos Marcello in Bossier City, Louisiana.  Bossier City was the notorious “Sin City of the South” that catered to the secret vices of Dallas.  Marcello was friendly with the band and my brother saw and heard a lot.  Elvis, dressed down, also showed up at that nightclub one rainy night.  At the same time, my father was the night manager at the main downtown Shreveport hotel across the Red River where vice and Mob connections were part of room service.  One of my boyhood friends in Bossier City was the son of a made Mafia guy.  This town, secretive and a key getaway for the Louisiana Mob, became the locus for the logistics of the  “shooting” part of the conspiracy in the book.

I also grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado, boyhood home of blacklisted, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.  Trumbo penned and largely produced Executive Action (1973), the first movie to portray the assassination to murder JFK.  Trumbo was convinced that there was a conspiracy.  My affinity for Trumbo and his work led me to include him as a character    

Finally, as a lawyer, I had the professional experience of spending a lot of time in Washington, D.C. lobbying on the Hill.  This included working closely with senior Senators on intelligence and defense committees.  With the right access, it doesn’t take long to recognize how things work.

Given the location and this milieu of place and time and certain key events, I needed characters. I didn’t really create them — they walked up to me in my head and introduced themselves. Of the two protagonists, each personified a solution path. One was caught up in the dilemma of discovering that his family just might have been involved in the assassination.  The other is a fugitive NSA analyst who discovers that her project (KNOLL) was designed not to uncover the truth about the murder, but to finally bury it, to eliminate any last sources of evidence, human or otherwise.  She updates the JFK dialogue and brings it into the present, with the almost unfathomable capabilities of modern intelligence gathering.  Those capabilities are currently missing from the world of JFK conspiracists research.

I then allowed each character to develop their own sets of passions, foibles, flaws and history. That, of course, is the interesting part in writing fiction.  How does someone react react when they discover that their father (himself the victim of an unsolved murder) was part of a murder conspiracy, particularly one in which the President was assassinated?  How does one decide to flee the NSA and the country, Edward Snowden-like, with a cache of information and insights about the purge of clues and witnesses (and, secretly, with ongoing access to the main NSA computer system)?  And what forces are still out there, inexorably moving to destroy each of these protagonists?

These, along with a myriad set of true facts that begin to fit together in new ways, were the key writer’s ingredients.  I hope the book stirs reflection on the basic question:  might this case still be solved, or are we the last real JFK conspiracists?

 

You can read more about Stephen Hillard and the book via his website, LinkedIn profile, or his Amazon profile or book page.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively have boarded the murder mystery A Simple Favour, which is being touted as the next Gone Girl. The project is directed by Ghostbusters' Paul Feig and is based on the novel of the same name by Darcey Bell about a mommy blogger in a small town and her best friend who suddenly vanishes.

Justin Theroux and Gillian Anderson are joining the cast of Lionsgate’s action-comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me, joining already-signed stars Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Sam Heughan, and Hasan Minhaj. Kunis and McKinnon will play best friends who become entangled in an international conspiracy once they discover that one of their ex-boyfriends was a spy. When he’s killed in the middle of a mission, they decide to take up the cause and finish it. Anderson will play an M-like figure who serves as Heughan’s boss, while Theroux’s role is being kept under wraps.

Cristal Pictures has acquired an original pitch entitled The Steward from John Wick screenwriter Derek Kolstad. Not much is known about the details, but the project is described as an action thriller that is "driven by a charismatic male lead, [and] possesses the kind of proven genre appeal that has resonated in both the domestic and worldwide markets."

CBS Films has released a new trailer for the superspy thriller American Assassin, based on the best-selling novel by Vince Flynn, which stars Dylan O’Brien as CIA black ops recruit, Mitch Rapp.

TELEVISION

Tony Danza is returning to television in the Netflix dramedy The Good Cop for ten one-hour episodes. Danza will play a disgraced former NYPD officer who never followed the rules and lives with his son - who is currently a detective for the NYPD and the complete opposite personality type from this father. Andy Breckman, who created Monk, will be the showrunner and executive producer for the series, and Randy Zisk, who worked on Bones, will direct the first episode.

The upcoming Psych movie has managed to snag all the original cast (James Roday, Dulé Hill, Timothy Omundson, Maggie Lawson, Corbin Bernsen and Kirsten Nelson) for the revival, but the producers announced that Ballers actress Jazmyn Simon will also be joining the movie as a new love interest for Gus.

Finn Wittrock is boarding FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. The La La Land star will play Jeff Trail, who is friends with serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) and becomes his first victim.

Criminal Minds is snapping up a star from the cancelled spinoff Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders to join the cast of the original program. The Beyond Borders actor Daniel Henney has been tapped to join the flagship BAU squad when it returns for a 13th season.

The ABC action-based FBI series Quantico has been going through a shakeup after losing Joshua Safran as showrunner and cast members Yasmine Al Massri and Pearl Thusi. Now, the Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Aunjanue Ellis and Russell Tovey will also be leaving the show, although there are hints the duo may return for occasional appearances. The program has signed a new showrunner, Michael Seitzman, creator of Code Black, who will somehow manage to head both series simultaneously.

Prime Suspect: Tennison heads to PBS Masterpiece for a three-part series beginning Sunday night June 25 for three episodes. This project is the backstory to the highly acclaimed series Prime Suspect starring Helen Mirren and turns back the clock to spotlight the early career of policewoman Jane Tennison. Stefanie Martini takes on the role of the rookie WPC. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

CBS will give the remaining eleven episodes of Doubt a new home on Saturday nights over the summer, which will give fans a chance to see how the short-lived drama turned out. Doubt starred Katherine Heigl as an attorney who falls in love/lust with a client, played by Steven Pasquale, who was the target of new accusations that he murdered his girlfriend almost 25 years earlier.

Fox is getting an early jump on development season with its first drama order, a partnership with wrapper-actor-producer Tip "T.I." Harris and Jerry Bruckheimer. The police procedural is titled Atlanta's Most Wanted and stars T.I. as Marcus Armstrong, the son of an infamous Atlanta criminal kingpin who is recruited to be part of a new vice squad that tackles the growing criminal elements in his hometown. Marcus' involvement will jeopardize his own long-held secret that threatens to upend his entire life.

Fox also set the fall premiere dates for its program lineup, which includes Lethal Weapon and Gotham.

Not to be outdone, NBC announced its fall lineup premiere dates, with the vast majority of programs premiering the week of September 25. Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders bows on Tuesday, September 26, Law & Order: SVU and Chicago P.D. on the 27th, and Chicago Fire on the 28th. Both The Blacklist and Blindspot return in early October.

A sneak peek clip was released by Epix for the upcoming original series Get Shorty, based in part on the 1990 Elmore Leonard novel that became a hit 1995 film. The 10-episode series stars Chris O'Dowd, Ray Romano, Sean Bridgers, Lidia Porto, Megan Stevenson, Carolyn Dodd, Goya Robles and Lucy Walters and premieres August 13 on
Epix.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The View welcomed David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.

Capital Public Radio hosted a Q&A with author Barry Lancet, who just published his fourth novel in the Jim Brodie thriller series, The Spy Across The Table, which follows an antique dealer and private eye investigating a double murder connected to the most powerful people in Washington D.C.

CPR also grilled John Lescroart on his latest thriller, Fatal, an explosive story of infidelity, danger, and moral ambiguity in the vein of Fatal Attraction.

The Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast featured guest co-host Stuart Neville chatting about writing advice and how much of it is ridiculous, writers block, and his forthcoming novel Here and Gone (under his pen name Haylen Beck); and also author Erin Kelly, who talked about being a bestseller, courtroom research, series vs standalone, influences, and more.

The special guest on the most recent Story Blender podcast was Jon Land, discussing his latest novel Strong Cold Dead, which sees the return of Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong.

Crime Corner host and author Matt Coyle welcomed former policewoman and award-winning author Robin Burcell to his debut broadcast. Burcell spent nearly three decades working in law enforcement as a police officer, hostage negotiator, criminal investigator and FBI Academy-trained forensic artist, and currently co-writes with international best-selling author Clive Cussler on the Fargo series.

A Stab in the Dark host Mark Billingham was joined by David Simon, creator of The Wire, and his bestselling author-wife, Laura Lippman. David and Laura talked about their wedding (officiated by John Waters), how newspaper journalism has changed over the years, and how the lines between fiction, reality and truth are becoming blurred. Plus, Paul Hirons spoke with award-winning crime writer, Megan Megan Abbott. 

Book Riot's Read or Dead podcast talked about the difference between mysteries, thrillers, and suspense books and provided some recommendations for each genre and sub-genre.

North Carolina Public Radio sat down with Margaret Maron, who is retiring from novel writing after 35 years and 31 titles by coming full circle with her character NYPD homicide detective Sigrid Harald.

THEATER

Bruce Kimmel will serve as director on the Group Rep's upcoming production of Frederick Knott's mystery thriller Dial "M" for Murder which opens on the Main Stage, June 30th, at the Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood. The show will run weekends from June 30 - August 19.

Mystery Melange

 

The Deadly Ink conference handed out its annual David Award (named for David Sasher, Sr.) to the novel Yom Killer, by Ilene Schneider. The other finalists for the award, given to the best mystery published in 2016, included Blonde Ice, by R. G. Belsky; Written Off, by E. J. Copperman; Death of a Toy Soldier, by Barbara Early; and Seconds to Live, by Melinda Leigh. (HT to Classic Mysteries)

The Lambda Awards for LGBT fiction announced its annual winners, including Best Lesbian Mystery to Pathogen by Jessica L. Webb, and Best Gay Mystery to Speakers of the Dead: A Walt Whitman Mystery by J. Aaron Sanders.

Bloody Scotland revealed the longlist for the 2017 McIlvanney Prize Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award, which has crime-fiction heavyweights such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid competing with debuts writers like Helen Fields, Claire MacLeary and Owen Mullen. The twelve longlisted books will be whittled down to a list of five finalists at the beginning of September, with the winner announced at the festival's Opening Gala reception on September 8th.

This past week, the longlist for the 2017 Ngaio Marsh award for best New Zealand crime fiction was also announced. A panel of seven crime fiction experts from five countries will choose the shortlist, to be announced alongside the finalists for the best first novel and the inaugural best true-crime book. The winner will be announced at a WORD Christchurch event in October.

Carleton University recently conferred a Doctor of Literature, honoris causa, on Louise Penny in recognition of her career as an award-winning broadcaster and author of detective fiction.

The Lilly Library of Indiana University has created an online version of its 1973 exhibition "The First Hundred Years of Detective Fiction, 1841–1941," which provides a useful history of the genre through the works selected. You'll find the usual items by Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle, but there are hidden gems by less well-known authors in both England and the U.S. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell).

Veteran Nordic Noir writer Kjell Ola Dahl, whose latest novel Faithless came out earlier this year, outlined seven essential reads for any fan of the genre.

Why do some people believe so strongly they've committed a murder even when they haven't? The New Yorker investigated the perils of relying on memory and false confessions in criminal cases.

It's summer and that means vacation time (at least, for some of you!). If you need some inspiration as to where to travel, here are a few "vacation ideas for book lovers."

The June issue of Yellow Mama is out with new fiction from J. Brooke featuring a lesbian P.I./bounty hunter; Part 1 of Kenneth James Crist’s “Run, Robby, Run"; and other shorts by Kip Hanson, Gary Lovisi, Sean Daly, Liz McAdams, Rick McQuiston, and Paul Beckman. There's also new poetry and illustrations.

This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Silencers" by Robert Cooperman, and the new short fiction at Beat to a Pulp is "Closing Time" by William E. Wallace.

In the Q&A roundup, the LA Review of Books spoke with noir author Lisa Brackmann about her latest book, Hour of the Rat; Olen Steinhauer interviewed fellow author Mark Mills about his new historical crime novel Where Dead Men Meet set in Europe on the cusp of World War Two; and thriller writer Paula Hawkins revealed what book she'd take to a desert island in a chat with the Daily Mail.

Media Murder for Monday

Monday means it's time again for the weekly roundup of the latest crime drama news from stage and screen:

MOVIES

In a deal from the Los Angeles Film Festival, Vertical Entertainment acquired U.S. rights to the psychological thriller Never Here, with plans for a theatrical release in fourth-quarter 2017 followed by a pay TV debut on Starz in early 2018. The project is written and directed by Camille Thoman and centers on Miranda (Mireille Enos), an installation artist who follows, photographs and documents the lives of strangers to create her art. One night her secret lover witnesses a violent act from Miranda’s apartment window, so to protect his identity, Miranda poses as the primary witness, making statements to the police about a crime she did not see. Also in the cast are Sam Shepard, Goran Visnjic, Vincent Piazza, Nina Arianda, Ana Nogueira, and Desmin Borges.

Michelle Monaghan, whose character married Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible III and who made another appearance in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, is returning for Paramount and Skydance’s next installment of the franchise. The announcement was made by writer-director Christopher McQuarrie vis his Instagram account.

At the End of the Tunnel, a thriller described as a Spanish-language Rear Window homage, was the big winner at the 43rd annual Seattle International Film Festival. Attendees of the festival named it both best film and best director (Rodrigo Grande) in the audience-voted Golden Space Needle awards.

A new trailer was released for Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, the thriller starring John Boyega, Will Poulter, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, John Krasinski and Anthony Mackie. The film is based on the true story of the terrifying 1967 civil unrest, which took plays over five summer days in the Michigan city.

TELEVISION

Lionsgate is developing a TV series spin-off of the John Wick film franchise called The Continental. The prequel will be a "cool, Wick-ian, magical, and mysterious world" built around the Continental, a hotel chain for training and supporting assassins.

USA is returning to the character-based comedic crime genre where it had a lot of success early on with series like Monk and Psych, with Olive Forever, which follows the exploits of Olive, a mysterious high school student with an affection for cat burglary-type shenanigans, mostly because she is a cat burglar. New to a sleepy town with a criminal underbelly, Olive must navigate new foster parents, new boyfriends, new gangsters…and new crime opportunities.

FX has picked up the hour-long drama Honey from Gerard Barrett, according to Deadline. Details about the drama haven't been released, but the story will take place in the world of corporate espionage.

Two cast members are leaving Quantico. Yasmine Al Massri, who played twin FBI recruits Nimah and Raina on the first two seasons of ABC drama series Quantico, will not return for Season 3. The actress announced her departure on Instagram earlier this week. Shortly afterward, the show announced that Pearl Thusi, who joined Quantico last season, will also not be returning.

When Criminal Minds brought Season 12 to a close last month, the fates of several major characters were up in the air. Thanks to last-minute contract negotiations, fans can breathe a sigh of relief since Criminal Minds announced that actresses Kirsten Vangsness and A.J. Cook have both successfully negotiated raises for their contracts, confirming their returns.

James Martinez (House of Cards) is set for a recurring role in TNT’s crime-drama series Major Crimes, playing the sociopathic father of a potential kidnap victim, a man who started a second family without ever informing them he had a son from another marriage. He joins an ensemble cast that includes Mary McDonnell, Tony Denison, Michael Paul Chan, Phillip P. Keene and Raymond Cruz.

TNT’s Snowpiercer just added Alison Wright to the cast as a series regular, joining the already-hired Jennifer Connelly. The new show was ordered to pilot by TNT and will center around the same premise as the acclaimed 2013 thriller of the same name, which was adapted from the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the only remaining humans are aboard the globe-circling Snowpiercer train.

Grey’s Anatomy alum Sandra Oh has landed the title role in BBC America’s original eight-part scripted series Killing Eve. Oh’s Eve is a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade security services operative whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. The other main character is Villanelle (not yet cast), an elegant, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her.

FX is reshuffling the order of the upcoming two installments of American Crime Story. The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which is far along into production, will now air as a second season of the anthology series, with a premiere date tentative slated for early 2018, followed by Katrina, whose filming has been pushed to early 2018. It is unclear whether all big-name actors who had been locked for Katrina, including Annette Bening, Dennis Quaid, and Matthew Broderick,
will still be available to do the series on the new timetable.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Guardian books podcast featured Scottish crime fiction with Ann Cleeves and Chris Brookmyre as they investigated the murky world of tartan noir.

A CBC panel of Margaret Cannon, J D Singh, and P K Rangachari discussed the best crime fiction for summer reading.

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed best-selling author Tim Hallinan to the studio to discuss his new book Pulped, which features his private eye Simeon Grist, with a twist: Grist has found out he's a fictional character, the books he's featured in are going out of print, and one of his last remaining readers in the real world has just been murdered. So he sets out to solve the crime.

Episode 6 of the Writer Types podcast featured interviews with Meg Gardiner, Jordan Harper, John Rector, and Thomas Pluck; book recommendations from indie booksellers; an a short story by Angel Luis Colon.

The latest installment of A Stab in the Dark included best-selling authors Sarah Hilary and Belinda Bauer, who discussed the creation of Sarah’s complex heroine Marnie Rome and Belinda’s unique and vulnerable heroes.

THEATER

In Degrees of Error's interactive Murder, She Didn't Write, the audience becomes the author as they are invited to help to create their very own Agatha Christie-inspired masterpiece - and to watch it unfold on stage. Every night, the company creates a unique space where audiences can unleash their literary prowess and create an original improvised murder-mystery. Founded in 2010, Degrees of Error have recently been appointed as the first resident theatre company at the brand new Bristol Improv Theatre, the first theatre in Britain dedicated to the art of improv. Murder, She Didn't Write runs through August on Sunday nights as part of Edinburgh Festival's Fringe.

GAMES

Sony announced a new social multiplayer experience for its PlayStation 4 console called PlayLink, which will use iOS and Android devices as extensions of gameplay happening on the console. The games offered through PlayLink include "Hidden Agenda," which tasks up to six friends with navigating a gritty crime drama by guiding a detective and a district attorney through dangerous traps left behind by a serial killer called "The Trapper." Similar to Supermassive's PS4 game Until Dawn, players will have to use quick-thinking decision making to help each character survive to the end of the story, but a voting mechanic will weigh the characters' decisions toward whichever option receives the most votes.

Mystery Melange

 

Naomi Alderman is this year's winner of the Baileys Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize. The award is considered the most prestigious for fiction written by a woman and was given to Alderman for her futuristic thriller, The Power.

The Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense is named for Daphne du Maurier, the author of Rebecca, a suspense novel with romantic and gothic overtones and a precursor to today's romantic suspense. Presented annually by the RWA Kiss of Death organization, this year's Daphne finalists were named in the category of Mainstream Mystery/Suspense and various Romantic Suspense categories. Finalists in the Mainstream Mystery/Suspense category include Notorious by Carey Baldwin; Death Among the Doilies (A Cora Crafts Mystery) by Mollie Cox Bryan; Elegy in Scarlet by BV Lawson; Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan; and In the Barren Ground by Loreth Anne White. For all the finalists (including those both unpublished and published divisions) follow this link.

David Schmid, Ph.D. received the 2017 George N. Dove Award for Contributions to the Study of Mystery and Crime Fiction. David Schmid, Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University at Buffalo (State University of New York), was selected to receive the 2017 Dove Award. The honor is bestowed for outstanding contributions to the serious study of mystery, detective, and crime fiction by the Mystery and Detective Fiction Area of the Popular Culture Association. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

The 2017 IndieReader Discovery Awards were announced recently at Book Con, part of the annual BEA conference. This year's First Place winner in the Fiction category was the suspense novel Darkroom by Mary Maddox. The Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category winner was Geoffrey Visgilio for his novel, Switch.

The English Bookshop in Stockholm, Sweden, will continue its Nordic Noir Talks series with authors Anita Shenoi and Gabriella Ullberg Westin on June 15. Other upcoming events include Johan Theorin on July 6 and Christoffer Carlsson on September 14.

Crime fiction authors Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, along with Deborah Levy, are among those who were made new Royal Society of Literature fellows for 2017. The RSL will host a ceremony honoring all the new fellows on June 19.

On July 9, the next Mystery Writers of America's MWA University moves to the Mid-Atlantic area in Bethesda, Maryland, with bestselling author Jeffery Deaver anchoring a day of classes to help you take your writing career to the next level. Deaver's will talk about "Writing Commerial Fiction' during the three-hour morning session. Alan Orloff will also be on hand to discuss "Writing the Dreaded Query Letter," and Clair Lamb will talk about "Managing Your Social Media Presence."

Criminal Element and Putnam Books are offering one winner a chance to win a complete set (to date, A-X) of Sue Grafton's Alphabet mystery series, featuring private eye Kinsey Millhone.

As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, HarperCollins India is coming up with 25 of the best Agatha Christie titles in a special and limited facsimile edition format. These limited hardback facsimile editions have been reproduced from the first editions published between the 1920s and 1970s with the jacket and text of each title presented exactly as they had originally appeared in hardback.

Atlas Obscura profiled the "Cheap Thrills, Private Dicks, and Desperate Dames From the Heyday of Pulp Fiction" from the late 1800s to the 1950s, with a focus on the covers and illustrators.

Every wonder what police departments do with all the guns they confiscate off the streets? This video will give you an idea.

Cool idea of the summer: the New York Public Library's second annual subway reading promotion is called Subway Library and offers commuters six weeks of free downloadable books from the city’s public libraries. The ten train cars have seats that resemble books on a shelf.

Copies of John Grisham's first book are worth more than $4,000 ... if you can find one.

Good police sketch artists can help make or break a case when it comes to locating suspects. But things don't always work out perfectly as this slightly tongue-in-cheek list of "21 Worst Police Sketches Of All Time" will attest.

You may need a microscope for these, but they might be worth it.

This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Trump as a Fire Without Light #266" by Darren C. Demaree.

In the Q&A roundup, Elizabeth Foxwell spoke with Joan Hess, who completed the last Amelia Peabody book begun by Hess' late friend Elizabeth Peters (the pen name of Barbara Mertz); Stuart Neville chatted with the Irish News about AC/DC, Genesis, and Tom Wolfe; WBUR chatted with Dennis Lehane about his latest thiller, Since We Fell; the Key West Bluepaper had a Q&A with Mystery Fest Key West special guest author Randy Rawls; Cara Black joined the Mystery People to speak and sign her latest Leduc investigation, Murder in Saint-Germain; and the Seattle PI featured a Q&A with both Megan Abbott and Alison Gaylin, co-authors of Normandy Gold.

Media Murder for Monday

Welcome to another Monday and a roundup of the latest crime drama news:

MOVIES

Steven Spielberg's latest project, The Papers, is lining up an all-star cast. The project is based on the Washington Post's publication of the classified Pentagon Papers in 1971 and will feature Meryl Streep as Post publisher Kay Graham, Tom Hanks as Post editor Ben Bradlee, Sarah Paulson (American Crime Story), Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul), Matthew Rhys (The Americans), and Jesse Plemons (Fargo). The movie will see a limited release on Dec. 22 and go wide on Jan. 12, 2018.

Nicolas Cage is set to star in the action thriller Mandy, directed by Beyond the Black Rainbow helmer Panos Cosmatos. The film is currently in pre-production, with plans to shoot this summer in Belgium. The story is set in the primal wilderness of 1983 where Red Miller, a broken and haunted man hunts an unhinged religious sect who slaughtered the love of his life.

Forest Whitaker is boarding David M. Rosenthal’s action-thriller How It Ends, which is set against a mysterious apocalyptic event that turns the roads into mayhem and follows a young father who will stop at nothing to get home to his pregnant wife on the other side of the country.

MPI Media Group has acquired all U.S. rights to Francesca Eastwood’s thriller M.F.A. for release this fall under its Dark Sky Films banner. The project is directed by Natalia Leite from a debut screenplay by actress Leah McKendrick (Bad Moms) who also co-stars along with Clifton Collins Jr. (Westworld). M.F.A. follows Eastwood’s art student character, who’s forced to take action to protect herself after being sexually assaulted by a fellow classmate. Attempting to cope with her trauma, she impulsively confronts her attacker, leading to a violent altercation that culminates in his accidental death.

Logan's director James Mangold is attached to helm Disorder, a remake of the 2015 French film from Sony and Escape Artists. The original film was directed by Alice Winocour and follows Matthias Schoenaerts as an ex-soldier with PTSD who’s hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman.

Universal has released the first trailer for the Doug Liman-directed film American Made, starring Tom Cruise in the real-life story of pilot Barry Seal, a hustler who is tapped by the CIA to to run one of the biggest covert operations in U.S. history. Set in the 1980s, the crime drama co-stars Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, E. Roger Mitchell, Jesse Plemons, Lola Kirke, Alejandro Edda, Benito Martinez, Caleb Landry Jones and Jayma Mays.

Couldn't make it to Cannes this year? Welcome to the club. Fortunately, Crime Fiction Lover has a roundup of "The top five crime films of Cannes 2017."

The San Rafael, California, Cinema & Psyche series will feature a NeoNoir Masterwork Festival on six nights beginning June 19. Organizations have lined up Klute, The Conversation, Body Heat, House of Games, The Grifters, and Miller’s Crossing, with each session including background info, film clips, a film viewed in full, and a lively discussion.

TELEVISION

Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro has signed on to star in Showtime's upcoming limited eight-part series Escape at Dannemora. It's based on the 2015 prison break that saw two convicted murderers escape from New York's Clinton Correctional Facility with the help of a female prison employee, leading to a massive manhunt. Benicio Del Toro will star as Richard Matt, the mastermind behind the escape, while Paul Dano will play Matt's partner in crime, David Sweat, and Patricia Arquette will play the accomplice.

Another Oscar-winner, Julia Roberts, is in talks to head to the small screen for Homecoming, from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. The limited series is a political thriller that centers on a caseworker at a secret government facility and is presented in a collage of telephone calls, therapy sessions, and overheard conversations. The project is based on the fictional podcast of the same name, which debuted last November and starred Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac, David Schwimmer, Amy Sedaris, and David Cross.

Fox has canceled 24: Legacy, although it's not giving up on the series. The network has plans to attempt another reboot of the franchise by developing a 24 anthology series, following new stories for each season with new cast members.

Season 3 of Fargo may be its last, according to show creator Noah Hawley, who said that "There's only a certain amount of storytelling you can tell in that vein...So watch the 10th hour [of season 3] because it might be the last."

NCIS is losing one of its stars when the new season premieres in the fall. Jennifer Esposito, who played NCIS Special Agent Alex Quinn on Season 14, is leaving the show after just one season. She remains in the CBS family via her ongoing recurring role on Showtime’s The Affair as Nina Solloway, Noah’s (Dominic West) sister. Additionally, Esposito has booked a co-starring role opposite John Travolta in the feature Speed Kills for Hannibal Classics.

Greg Plageman is the new executi
ve producer and showrunner for Season 2 of NBC’s Taken. Plageman, who was previously the showrunner and EP on CBS’ Person of Interest, takes over the reins of the show that stars Clive Standen as Bryan Mills, a former Green Beret who becomes a deadly CIA operative. Taken is based on the film trilogy that starred Liam Neeson, with the TV series picking up Mills’ story 30 years earlier in life.

Julianne Nicholson has landed the role of defense attorney Jill Lansing in NBC’s Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, marking Nicholson’s fourth series with Law & Order franchise creator Dick Wolf. The Menendez Murders is an eight-episode series offering a dramatization of the real-life murder trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez that dominated headlines in the 1990s. Constance Marie (Switched At Birth) and Carlos Gomez (Madam Secretary) have also joined the cast.

The Acorn TV original crime series Loch Ness begins on Monday, June 19 and is described as an atmospheric murder mystery thriller starring Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad) and Siobhan Finneran (Downton Abbey). The haunting shores of Scotland’s most iconic loch is the stunning backdrop for the six-part drama written by Stephen Brady (Vera) and produced by ITV Studios for ITV in the UK. Shortly after its ITV broadcast, Loch Ness will premiere in the U.S. beginning on consecutive Mondays, starting June 19, 2017 through the finale on July 24. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Acorn TV also announced its summer slate of returning favorites Vera, Midsomer Murders, and Murdoch Mysteries.

A&E Network has pushed back the premiere dates for its documentary Biggie: The Life of Notorious B.I.G. and also its limited series Who Killed Tupac? Originally scheduled for June 28 and June 29, respectively, Biggie will now air September 4, while the six-part Shakur series will debut some time in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Netflix has unveiled the first full trailer for Gypsy, in which Oscar nominee Naomi Watts plays a therapist who crosses the line with her patients and gives in to her desires, throwing her family life into utter chaos.

Discovery provided a first look trailer for its eight-part limited series about Ted Kaczynski’s one-man war against modern society, Manhunt: Unabomber, which follows the FBI’s famed hunt for the deadliest serial bomber in history.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Film critic and bestselling author Stephen Hunter discussed G-Man, the 10th book in his Bob Lee Swagger family saga, on Big Blend Radio.

A Stab in the Dark, the podcast hosted by award-winning crime writer Mark Billingham, returned to the world of podcasts this week, hosting a new series investigating the worlds of crime fiction and TV crime drama. The second series of the show starts off with Rebus creator Ian Rankin talking about the 30th anniversary of his iconic detective, how the character has changed over the years, and his thoughts on the detective’s return to television later in 2017. Over the next two months, guests will include award-winning crime writers Lee Child, Belinda Bauer, Sarah Hilary, Bill Beverly, Karin Slaughter and Laura Lippman, as well as creator of The Wire David Simon and Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss.

Author John Lescroart stopped by Capital Public Radio to talk about his long career of 30 bestsellers and his latest novel, Fatal, which introduces a new character, Sergeant Beth Tully of the San Francisco PD.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed their special guest, author and screenwriter Jordan Harper, who's worked on The Mentalist and Gotham. His debut novel is She Rides Shotgun.

Beyond The Cover featured a round table discussion with authors Jon Land (Caitlin Strong series) and Allison Brennan (Lucy Kincaid series).

Read or Dead is a new mystery/thriller podcast From Book Riot that will appear twice monthly. Hosted by Rincey Abraham and Katie McLain, the show will discuss everything related to mysteries, thrillers, suspense books, and even some book-adjacent news and topics. The first episode features a discussion about some adaptations they are excited to see and upcoming releases they can't wait to read.

THEATER

Unbound Productions have taken their outdoor immersive theatre concept and expanded into the mystery genre, mounting their first major production under the moniker Mystery Lit with Holmes, Sherlock and the Consulting Detective. Written by Jonathan Josephson, the prodution combines three of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries into one epic whodunit set in the Los Angeles Arboretum's historic Santa Anita Train Depot that doubles as the dark and foggy night intrigue of Victorian England. The production runs through July 1.

GAMES

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan is currently in the process of developing a virtual reality project based on his iconic series, and he's working with Sony to potentially make this a part of its PlayStation VR system. It's currently unknown if the new Breaking Bad experience will utilize an episodic storytelling format or if only one standalone story will be told.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

There are so many comings and goings in the publishing world, it's hard to keep track of them all. Still, I'm always interested to hear of new indie publishers in the crime fiction realm, and three of those young whipper-snappers have crossed my desk recently. They're worth keeping your eye on, and I hope they can bring forth many interesting new (or reissued) titles in the genre, whether it's novellas, classics, or pulp.


If you like your crime on the short side, Number 13 Press has your number. They are an e-publishing company whose stated aim is to "build a list of 13 quality crime titles, to be published consecutively on the 13th of each month, starting in November 2014." They've kept that pace so far, with seven titles available, starting with Of Blondes and Bullets by Michael Young (with "a touch of David Goodis’s everyman-noir, a dash of Brit Grit, and a whole lot of hardboiled") up through Redbone by Matt Phillips, a "captivating murder ballad-noir."


Chalk Line Books specializes in republishing vintage crime fiction classics with ten evocative illustrations in each book. Their goal is to become the best publisher of vintage crime fiction by bringing you a high-quality selection of "Books to die for!" (a la Black Lizard Books). The first novels out of the starting gate were Jim Thompson's Sharecropper Hell and David Goodis' The Secret Squad, with newer titles and more to come from James M. Cain, Charles Williams, Ed McBain, Peter Rabe, and more.


Bitter Lemon Press has been around since 2003, making it the "oldest" of these three publishers. The London-based press was established to bring readers high quality thrillers and other contemporary crime fiction books from abroad and explore the "dark, sexy and often humorous novels that expose the seamier side of society." Bitter Lemon Press recently signed a series of deals for female crime writers from around the world, including Brazil's Patrica Melo, Turkey's Esmahan Aykol and Argentina's Claudia Piñeiro.

Mystery Melange

Louise Penny and Trudy Nan Boyce are the recipients of the 2017 Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction, named to honor the memory of Diana Pinckley. Bestselling author Louise Penny, the first Canadian to receive the award, is the winner of the Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work. Trudy Nan Boyce was given the Pinckley Prize for Debut Novel for her book Out of the Blues.

The Private Eye Writers of America announced the finalists for this year's Shamus Awards. Best Private Eye Novel contendees include Reed Farrel Coleman, Where It Hurts; Lindsey Davis, The Graveyard of the Hesperides; Timothy Hallinan, Fields Where They Lay; Al Lamanda, With 6 You Get Wally; and Robert S. Levinson, The Stardom Affair. For all the nominees head on over to the PWA website.

The Audio Publishers Association named this year's winners of the annual Audie Awards for excellence in audiobook narration and presentation. Best Mystery went to The Crossing, by Michael Connelly, narrated by Titus Welliver, and best Thriller/Suspense was won by Cross Justice, by James Patterson, narrated by Ruben Santiago Hudson and Jefferson Mays. For all the various category finalists and winners, head on over to the APA's official page.

Craig Sisterson of the Ngaio Marsh awards for crime fiction announced a brand new literary award for Kiwi true-crime books. The Ngaio Marsh Awards have honored New Zealand’s crime fiction since 2010, but the long-term plan was always to expand the award categories to highlight excellence in other forms of local crime writing. And as Sisterson noted, with more than a dozen local true crime novels published in the last two years, now seems like the right time to start celebrating non-fiction crime writing with its own award.

Sponsored by the Writers’ Police Academy, the Golden Donut Short Story Contest is now accepting submissions. The contest requires authors to write a story that’s exactly 200 words, based on the photo posted on the website, with this year’s final judge Craig Johnson (author of the best-selling Walt Longmire mysteries and 2017 WPA Guest of Honor) deciding the winner. The Golden Donut winner earns a free 2018 registration to a Writers’ Police Academy.

This year, the crime festival Bloody Scotland' is producing its first ever book of fiction, an anthology of short stories published in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland. The anthology has Scotland’s crime writers using the "sinister side" of the country’s heritage in a series of "gripping, chilling and redemptive" stories. Contributors include Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Gordon Brown, Doug Johnstone, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride, with tales ranging from a murder in an ancient broch to a dark sychological thriller set in Edinburgh Castle to an ‘urbex’ rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin.

Down & Out Books is celebrating the sixth anniversary of the independent company that was founded to publish quality literary and crime fiction. Fifty-six titles are planned for release in 2017 and forty titles are already under contract for 2018 publication. Authors publishing with Down & Out Books have won a number of leading awards, including the Anthony Award, Shamus Award, the Macavity, and the IPPY Award. The trend continues this year with the news in May that six of its books have been nominated for a 2017 Anthony Award.

Meanwhile, Seventh Street Books, the mystery, thriller, and crime fiction imprint of Prometheus Books, is marking its fifth anniversary at Book Expo America. Jon Kurtz, In the short time since the publisher started, their books have been up for Edgar, Barry, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. This year, of the six Edgar Award finalists for Best Paperback Original, three were published by Seventh Street, and the winner was the press’ Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty.

On June 7-9, a conference on "Women Criminals : Iconic Characters in History, Media and Crime Fiction" heads to the University of Rouen-Normandy. You can follow this link for the full program. It's in French, but if you don't read/speak the language, Google Chrome will translate it for you.

Scotland's Dundee University announced it will offer a postgraduate degree in crime fiction. The MLitt in crime writing and forensic investigation course will not only explore crime fiction, but help teach writers about the history of forensic science and its applications in solving crimes and as evidence in court. The course will begin in September this year and is being run as a collaboration between the university’s School of Humanities and its world-leading Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification.

The second issue of the new 'zine Occult Detective Quarterly is out, with nine original stories by Tim Waggoner, Steve Liskow, Tricia Owens, Edward M Erdelac, Brandon Barrows, Kelly A Harmon, Joshua M Reynolds, Mike Chinn, and Bruno Lombardi. (HT to Sandra Seamans)

Is the best crime fiction urban? John Banville (a/k/a Benjamin Black) thinks so.

Philip Rafferty stopped by the Crime Fiction Lover blog to list "The five books that got me hooked on crime fiction."

USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Jaynes took the Page 69 Test for her new stand-alone thriller The Stranger Inside.

Love steamy thrillers? The Strand Magazine has a list of ten of the "best."

This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Turn the Camera Off" by Oral Nussbaum.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's John Valeri interviewed novelist and screenwriter Sarah Lotz about her latest crime novel, The White Road; Valeri also interrogated music journalist, film critic, and author Jordan Harper about his debut novel, She Rides Shotgun; A.J. Hartley, the internationally bestselling author of the Steeplejack series set in a fantasy version of South Africa, also answered Crime HQ's queries about his writing; the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine blog welcomed guest interviewer Scott Loring Sanders in conversation with Lisa Unger; Mystery People contributor and blogger Scott Butki chatted with Andrew Pyper about his supernatural psychological thriller The Only Child; and Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis sat down with Sherry Harris to discuss the new book in her Sarah Winston Garage Sale Series, A Good Day To Buy.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D star Clark Gregg is set to appear in the Simon Kaijer-directed thriller Spinning Man, along with Guy Pearce, Pierce Brosnan, Minnie Driver, and Odeya Rush. The film is based on George Harrar’s novel, which Matthew Aldrich adapted. The story centers on Evan (Pearce), a philosophy professor and family man whose past reveals a number of illicit relations with his students. When a young woman is found murdered, he becomes the prime suspect. Gregg will play Paul, a lawyer who helps Evan sort out the legality of his relationship with his students.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian has been attached to rewrite the Fox thriller Dark Web, updating previous drafts penned by Joel and Ethan Coen and Dennis Lehane. The project follows the true story of a 29-year-old idealist named Ross William Ulbricht (a/k/a Dread Pirate Roberts) who built an online illegal-drug marketplace called "The Silk Road," and along the way allegedly became a murderous kingpin.

Charlize Theron shows some of her badass assassin moves in an extended clip for the upcoming Atomic Blonde. The spy thriller is based on writer Antony Johnston and illustrator Sam Hart's graphic novel The Coldest City, which follows MI6’s most lethal assassin (Theron) sent to deliver a priceless dossier in Berlin with the help of embedded station chief David Percival (James McAvoy), only to get caught up in a web of international intrigue and deception.  

Fox studios released a trailer of Kenneth Branagh starring as the iconic Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Fox’s upcoming adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic Murder On The Orient Express. Branagh directs an ensemble cast including Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Judi Dench and Olivia Colman for a reboot of the much-loved whodunit.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival runs from June 21st until July 2nd with a total of 151 features from 46 countries and multiple special events. Among the crime dramas being screened are the action-packed crime thriller Operation Mekong; filmmaker Justin Edgar’s noir British thriller The Marker; the Toby Jones-starring psychological thriller Kaleidoscope; the Irish Medieval thriller Pilgrimage; the French cop comedy R.A.I.D Special Unit; the true-life thriller Hostages; the taut Icelandic thriller The Oath; the psychological horror-thriller The Dark Mile; and an International Premiere of Katarzyna Adamik’s thriller Amok. Author Ian Rankin will also be on hand to present the crime drama Reichenbach Falls.

TELEVISION

UK-based indie Eleventh Hour Films has optioned the screen rights to Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling Alex Rider novels. BAFTA winner Guy Burt is attached to script a large-scale family series based on the Horowitz's YA books that chart the adventures of a reluctant teenage super-spy on his missions to save the world. Eleventh Hour is currently developing the project with ITV.

AMC is developing three shows via the network’s "scripts-to-series" model that skips the pilot process and instead appoints groups of writers to develop a first season bible and write several episodes, after which AMC decides whether to grant a straight-to-series order. The shows include NOS4A2 (pronounced "Nosferatu"), which follows Victoria McQueen, a woman with a secret gift for finding things, who sets out to locate a superhuman kidnapper and rescue his victims. It's based on the novel by Joe Hill that was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. One of the other script-to-series projects is Pandora, a global mystery-thriller tracking three converging storylines about ordinary people piecing together dark secrets after advanced malware dismantles encryption across the Internet.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's father Stanley Johnson’s satirical thriller about political "skullduggery," Kompromat, is to be adapted for a Channel 4 TV series. The thriller imagines the behind-the-scenes shenanigans in the run-up to the European Union Referendum and the US presidential campaign. Kompromat is the Russian term for compromising materials about a politician or other public figure.  

Cinemax has canceled the crime series Quarry after one season. Co-creator Michael D. Fuller announced the news on Wednesday in a blog post entitled "Goodbye Cruel World." Fuller co-created the show (along with Graham Gordy) that's based on the novel series by Max Allan Collins and follows a Marine who returns home from Vietnam in 1972 and is drawn into a string of nefarious actions in his hometown of Memphis.

Dale Soules, a recurring guest since Season 2 as no-nonsense inmate Frieda Berlin, has been promoted to series regular for Season 6 of Orange is the New Black.  Frieda, who boasts neck tattoos and knows a lot about murder, acknowledged in a previous season that she committed a crime. Season 5 which takes place over three days, begins streaming Friday, June 9 and sees the inmates at Litchfield in control and empowered to fight for justice following Poussey’s (Samira Wiley) death that sparked the riot at the end of Season 4.

NBC has tweaked its fall schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders is now slotted for Tuesday at 10 pm, while Chicago Fire will be in the 10 pm slot on Thursdays. Meanwhile, the peacock network also announced it has cast the elder Menendez brother in the form of Young and the Restless actor Miles Gaston
Villanueva.

HBO released the first trailer for its upcoming drama The Deuce, which stars James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal in the burgeoning NYC porn industry in the 1970s and '80s. The eight-episode drama, which debuts Sept. 10, was created by detective fiction novelist George Pelecanos and The Wire creator David Simon.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

On a recent BBC podcast, Bridget Kendall explored the life and work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in a discussion with biographer Andrew Lycett and the scholars Catherine Wynne and Stefan Lampadius.

Kathleen McFall and Clark Hays and Kendra Elliott were the guests on Suspense Radio's Inside Edition yesterday. McFall and Hays are the authors of the book Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road, while Elliott is the creator of A Merciful Truth, her latest book featuring FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed special guest Angela Clarke, the Sunday Times bestseller who spills all about social media, the fashion industry, and how to get into crime writing.

For a fun change of pace, the Writer Types podcast put a panel of crime writers including Christa Faust, Glen Erik Hamilton, and Danny Gardner to the test in the first Crime Quiz Live!  

THEATER

Beginning June 16, the Park Square Theater in Saint Paul, MN, is staging Might As Well Be Dead: A Nero Wolfe Mystery, adapted from the novel by Rex Stout. The world premiere commission by the theater's Mystery Writers Producers’ Club takes on Stout's story about a wealthy St. Paul businesswoman who hires to Wolfe to find her estranged son to make amends. But what if the young man doesn’t want to be found? And what if he’s the same Paul Herrold on trial for murder? The case draws the great detective and his devoted sidekick into a web of deceit – one that even the master sleuth may regret taking on.