Mystery Melange

 

Earlier this month, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance revealed the winners of the 2018 Maine Literary Awards. Congratulations go to In Solo Time by Richard J. Cass, which won the The Book Award for Crime Fiction.

Frankie Y. Bailey will leading a crime fiction writing workshop at the Albany Public Library's Howe Branch on July 9. Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Albany and has five mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Lizzie Stuart and two police procedurals novels featuring Albany police detective Hannah Stuart. She is a Macavity Award-winner and has been nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Agatha awards. She is also a past executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime.

My thanks to Janet Rudolph for bringing us the sad news of the passing of Edgar Award-nominated author, Sally Sluhan Wright. Wright was best known for a series featuring Ben Reese, a university archivist who was one of America’s first Rangers and worked for Army Intelligence in Europe in WWII. Her most recent novel was Behind the Bonehouse, the second in her Jo Grant mystery series set within the horse industry in Lexington, Kentucky. A third and final book in that series is due to be released at a future date.

The latest edition of online crime 'zine Yellow Mama is out, with new fiction by Mark Joseph Kevlock, Bill Baber, Paul Michael Dubal, Norbert Kovacs, F. Michael La Rosa, Kenneth James Crist, J. Brooke, Edward Francisco, Paul Beckman, and also poetry by John Grey, Gregory E. Lucas, Meg Baird, Joe Balaz, and the Nielsens. Yellow Mama also serves up its usual complement of illustrations and photography.

Through the years, publishers have tried to boost sales by creating more salacious covers for works, even when it didn't really reflect what the story was about - often in ways that are laughable and cringe-worthy. Rebecca Romney discussed this over at Crime Reads, pointing out detective novels that got the "sexy pulp" treatment, and Emily Temple did the same at Libhub for classic works of literature that were also given pulp covers (who knew Lord Jim freelanced as a romance novel cover model?).

Many people associate the character of Sherlock Holmes with the famous quote "Elementary, my dear Watson" - which is something Holmes never actually said in Athur Conan Doyle's stories. However, there are may other quotes you may, or may not, have heard of that Holmes actually did say, as Book Riot notes.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Ace" by John Jeffire.

In the Q&A roundup, author John Bowie takes Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge to talk about a little bit of everything including what he's working on next; the LA Review of Books spoke with author and award-winning journalist Sebastian Rotella about his latest thriller featuring his fictional counterpart Valentine Pescatore, Rip Crew, that delves into the shadowy world of Mexican border smugglers; and LitHub asked author Megan Abbott to discuss the differences between hardboiled and noir crime fiction.

Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings to you and hope you enjoy the latest roundup of crime dramas to start off the week:

FILM

David Ayer is squeezing in the gritty indie crime thriller, Tax Collector, between directing Bright and its sequel. Although plot details are being kept under wraps, the crime drama is set in Los Angeles and stars Shia LaBeouf and Bobby Soto. Tax Collector is said to harken back to Ayer’s earlier gritty crime thrillers Training Day (which he wrote and Antoine Fuqua directed) and End of Watch.

Quentin Tarantino has hired Scoot McNairy to join the cast of his Sony Pictures film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. McNairy will play the role of a cowboy named Business Bob Gilbert, a character in the Western TV show that's an element of a Pulp Fiction-like tapestry of the summer of 1969 in L.A. set against the backdrop of the Manson Family murders. McNairy joins an all-star cast that is led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Timothy Olyphant, Luke Perry, Damian Lewis, Dakota Fanning, Al Pacino, Emile Hirsch, Clifton Collins Jr, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Keith Jefferson, and Nicholas Hammond.

20th Century Fox has moved Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, based on the Agatha Christie novel featuring Detective Hercule Poirot, from its planned Nov. 8, 2019 release to Dec. 20, 2019, which means it will go head-to-head against a pair of likely blockbusters: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Episode IX and Universal’s musical Wicked. Christie's classic story sees Poirot on vacation on the Nile pulled into the investigation of the murder of a young heiress.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Paramount Television, Anonymous Content, and Sugar23 have optioned the rights to Shari Lapena’s bestselling thriller novel The Couple Next Door to develop as a television series. Adapted by playwright/TV writer Lila Feinberg (Younger), the potential series will follow three couples, living in the same apartment building in Manhattan, as their lives intertwine and unfold in the aftermath of a dinner party that ends in a shocking crime.

BritBox has teamed up with the BBC and a number of of other European broadcasters to launch a Spain-set crime drama from the writer behind The Good Karma Hospital and Delicious. With a working title of The Mallorca Files, the ten-part drama is set among the expat community on the sunny Spanish island and features a British and German detective clashing over their very different approaches to policing the island. While self-confessed introverted Brit Miranda Blake takes her career seriously, German Max Wolf is a classic extrovert and unashamedly unconventional, and the two characters battle it out to solve crimes in the sun-drenched setting.

DirecTV has nabbed Latin American pay TV rights to Mediaset España’s hit Spanish primetime drama El Accidente (which is an adaptation of a Turkish TV series). The show tells the story of a woman investigating her husband’s double life after a terrible accident sheds light on his secrets and lies. It stars some of Spain’s most highly-regarded actors including Inma Cuesta, Quim Gutiérrez, and Berta Vázquez.

Former Inhumans star Serinda Swan has been tapped to star in the CBC’s upcoming drama series Coroner, created by Morwyn Brebner (Saving Hope) and inspired by M.R. Hall’s best-selling book series. The project centers on a former Toronto ER doctor turned newly appointed coroner investigating suspicious deaths, Jenny Cooper. The recent passing of her beloved husband has unlocked a primal connection to death that's tied to a secret in her past that is only now coming to the surface.

The new trailer for Aneesh Chaganty’s innovative, award-winning Sundance thriller Searching stars John Cho as David Kim, who starts to go down an Internet rabbit hole when his 16-year-old daughter (Michelle La) goes missing. A local investigation is opened and a detective is assigned to the case, but 37 hours later and without a single lead, David decides to search his daughter’s laptop. It opens a Pandora’s box of clues, truths and secrets that might or might not lead him to his daughter. The thriller also stars Debra Messing, Joseph Lee, and Sara Sohn.

NBC has unveiled its fall premiere dates including the "Chicago" trio of Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D. back-to-back on September 26, and Law & Order: SVU on September 27.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Suspense Radio Inside Edition welcomed Kelli Clare to chat about her romantic thriller Hidden, which delves into the dark corners of obsession and family intrigue, and also spoke with EC Frey about her latest novel, Entangled Moon, that centers on Heather, a woman who has everything - until a bullet ends the life of an ex-employee whom Heather helped fire.

The Story Blender chatted with Carolyn Wheat, instructor and award-winning mystery writer, who shares her unique insights and explains the difference between mystery and suspense.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham discussed Gillian Flynn and the upcoming adaptation of her novel, Sharp Objects, for HBO, as well as taking a look at diversifying crime fiction, and also the words or descriptions that will immediately will cause them to pick up a book.