Media Murder for Monday

I hope everyone in the U.S. enjoyed a happy, healthy, holiday weekend. But it's Monday again, which means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Tom Shepherd, who scripted Robert Downey Jr.’s forthcoming The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, has been signed to write Paramount's Matt Helm project, based on Donald Hamilton’s long-running book series of spy thrillers. Bradley Cooper is set to star as the title character, with George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci all serving as executive producers. Four of the books were made into films in the 1960s starring Dean Martin, but they were more spoofs of the source material. Hamilton’s Helm was a U.S. special agent/assassin during World War II who left the life to raise a family in Santa Fe but is forced to return to his former life.

The Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark, has found its lead in Alessandro Nivola, who is in final talks to play Dicky Moltisanti, Tony's (James Gandolfini) mentor and Christopher's (Michael Imperioli) father. The Many Saints of Newark takes place in the 1960s, more than 30 years before the HBO series, when Italians and African-Americans were essentially at war in New Jersey. Moltisanti is described as a "charismatic but violent man" who falls in love with his own father's extremely young bride. He's the mentor to a teenage Tony Soprano, who is under Moltisanti's tutelage after Tony's father goes to prison. Other Sopranos fan-favorite characters are also expected to appear in the film.

The latest and final Department Q film The Purity Of Vengeance has become the highest-grossing Danish film at the local box office. The latest installment, based on the fourth book in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s book series about crime unit Department Q, charts how a series of mysterious disappearances in 1987 are all eerily connected to the same person.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NCIS star and executive producer Mark Harmon is behind a new crime drama project at CBS, based on author John Sandford's best-selling Prey novels. The show would focus on Minneapolis homicide detective Lucas Davenport and his best friend and profiler, psychology professor and nun Elle Krueger. The two were brought together by a shared tragedy and now work together to hunt the most dangerous criminals in Minnesota.

Netflix has ordered the new docuseries The Innocent Man, based on John Grisham’s best-selling book, with a December 14 premiere. Innocent Man is a story that gained national attention thanks to Grisham’s nonfiction work, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. The Netflix six-part documentary series blends new footage with archival video and photos and focuses on two murders that shook the small town of Ada, Oklahoma, in the 1980s and the controversial chain of events that followed.

The Crown star Kate Phillips will take the lead role in Miss Scarlet and The Duke, a British crime drama that marks A+E Networks International’s first moves into international scripted co-productions.The series was created by the writer of Grantchester and The Mallorca Files, Rachael New, and follows the first ever-female detective in 19th century London.

AT&T Audience Network has ordered a third season of the drama Mr. Mercedes, based on the Stephen King novels, with 10 hour-long episodes. Brendan Gleeson will return to star as retired Detective Bill Hodges, who becomes obsessed with the psychopath Brady Hartsfield, a/k/a Mr. Mercedes (played by Harry Treadaway). Also returning is Holly Gibney (Justine Lupe), who became Detective Hodges' partner in a private investigative agency during the second season.

Chaske Spencer is joining the Season 4 cast of NBC’s Blindspot in a recurring role. Although details are mainly being kept under wraps, it is known that he'll be playing Dominic Masters, someone who works for Madeline Burke (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). In Season 4, Jane Doe/Remi (Jaime Alexander) continues to fight the effects of the ZIP poisoning she received in Season 3, which has destroyed her recent memory. This, as the FBI team hunts a dangerous enemy operative, and a deadly new foe emerges.

ABC’s summer procedural drama series Take Two was cancelled after it wrapped its 13-episode first-season run. The straight-to-series drama starred Rachel Bilson as Sam, the former star of a hit cop series who’s fresh out of rehab following a bender of epic proportions. Desperate to restart her career, she talks her way into shadowing rough-and-tumble private investigator Eddie (Eddie Cibrian) as research for a potential comeback role.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed law enforcement officer and author of authentic hard-boiled crime fiction, Gavin Reese.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe featured the Philip Marlowe radio episode “The Persian Slippers.”

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about Tom Cruise being too short for Jack Reacher, how boring the Goodreads Choice Awards are, and do a spoiler-filled discussion of the new Tana French book, The Witch Elm.

The latest Crime Files podcast was recorded live at the Rooftop Book Club event and featured authors Rachel Abbott, Elly Griffiths and Sabine Durrant, and was chaired by editor, Claire Frost.

The new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "What A Little Cinnamon Can Do," written by mystery author L. D. Barnes and read by Fresno actor Julia Reimer.

BBC Radio's Open Book podcast chatted with Lee Child, author of the phenomenally successful Jack Reacher series, who told host Mariella Frostrup why his famous creation continues to fascinate him.

THEATER

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time returns to the UK's National Theatre for a strictly limited season beginning November 29th. The play centers on the the young autistic Christopher, whose detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

Mystery Melange

 

[One late-breaking addendum to the following news item: The MWA Board has decided to rescind the award to Linda Fairstein. "MWA cannot move forward with an award that lacks the support of such a large percentage of our members," the group said in a statement that also pledged to re-evaluate its process for selecting honorees.]

Mystery Writers of America has chosen its annual Grand Master, Raven, and Ellery Queen awards. Linda Fairstein and Martin Cruz Smith will be the 2019 Grand Masters, an award that acknowledges important contributions to this genre and a body of work. The Raven Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement outside the realm of creative writing, goes to Marilyn Stasio, the mystery critic for the New York Times Book Review (and other magazines). The Ellery Queen Award, honoring people in the mystery-publishing industry, goes to Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. There is one bit of controvery this year, however; Edgar Award winner Attica Locke has taken exception (as Danny Gardner explains) to the selection of Linda Fairstein as Grand Master due to her involvement with the notorious Central Park Five case. In reply, the Mystery Writers of America Board of Directors posted on Facebook that "We are taking seriously the issues raised by Attica Locke. Our Board is going to discuss these concerns as soon as possible and make a further statement soon."

The winners of the annual Irish Book Awards were announced, including Crime Fiction Book of the Year which was won by Skin Deep from author Liz Nugent.

The inaugural Staunch Prize for crime fiction works that don't feature violence against women has been won by Australian author Jock Serong for his novel On the Java Ridge, in which a group of surfers tries to rescue a refugee boat from a storm.

The Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter is holding its annual Mystery Author Extravaganza in Virginia on December 1. Some 27 chapter authors will be on hand to talk about their new mystery/crime books and short stories published this year. Participating authors include William Ade, Donna Andrews, E.A. Aymar, Karen Cantwell, Maya Corrigan, Barb Goffman, Sherry Harris, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Libby Klein, Maureen Klovers, Tara Laskowski, Eileen McIntire, Adam Meyer, Melinda Mullett, Alan Orloff, Josh Pachter, Shari Randall, Susan Reiss, Verena Rose, Harriette Sackler, Colleen Shogan, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Lane Stone, Art Taylor, Robin Templeton, Cathy Wiley, and Stacy Woodson. Booksellers from Mystery Loves Company will be there to sell these authors’ works, and the authors will be happy to sign them.

Noir at the Bar returns to the Shade Bar in New York City on December 2. Authors scheduled to be on hand for readings and signings include Kellye Garrett, Kelby Losack, Albert Tucher, Michael J. Seidlinger, Jason Starr, Casey Barrett, and hosts Scott Adlerberg and Jen Conley.

London’s new crime and thriller festival, Capital Crime, is launching a new year-round digital crime and thriller festival, Capital Crime Digital. The online festival will feature interviews, profiles and discussions with authors and other crime and thriller creatives, with a planned launch in September 2019, to coincide with Capital Crime, which takes place in London September 26th to 28th. (HT to Ayo Onatade at Shots Magazine)

The Financial Times added its contribution to the end-of-the-year lists with its choice of "The Year's Best Crime Fiction." You have to be a subscriber to read the article, but Crimetime UK has a recap.

The LA Review of Books featured a roundtable discussion with crime writers of color hosted by Gar Anthony Haywood. The participants, including Walter Mosley, Kellye Garrett, Barbara Neely, Rachel Howzell Hall, and Kyra Davis joined in an enlightening and inside look at what it’s like to be a black mystery writer today.

The latest issue of Noir City, published by the Film Noir Foundation, focuses on international noir, including the long history of Mexican noir, the crime dramas of Japan’s Yoshitarô Nomura, Iranian genre films, the Canadian noir The Silent Partner, and much more.

Buzzfeed contributor Kristen Evans took at look at novels that prove women make fascinating fictional killers, too.

The third issue of Mystery Readers Journal: Mystery in Asia (Volume 34: 3) is available now as a PDF and will be shortly available in hardcopy. Online articles also include "Digging into the Thai Underbelly" by Colin Cotterill and "Darkness in the Land of Smiles" by Timothy Hallinan.

Another mystery bookstore may be in jeopardy of closing. Once Upon a Time, an independent mystery bookstore in Minneapolis for 31 years, has launched a Go Fund Me page after suffering financial difficulties. For more details and to make a contribution, head on over to this link.

Criminal Element posted a holiday sweepstakes for mass market copies of each of Sue Grafton's "alphabet mystery series" books (U.S. only). The deadline for entries is December 8th.

Over at the Passing Tramp blog, Curtis Evans profiled the unexpected convergence of violent criminal Whitey Bulger and cozy author Charlotte Macleod.

Writing for The Guardian, Sarah Crompton explored why a new generation is falling for Agatha Christie.

For all you authors, a New York Times article profiled the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBN) and how its database of more than three million detailed images of spent shell casings from firearms, which have unique sets of scratches, grooves and dents, to help solve crimes.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Induration" by Sanjeev Sethi.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element chatted with Ben Aaronovitch, author of Lies Sleeping; and Brooke Hunter interviewed Australian Emily Webb, a journalist and author specializing in true crime, about her collection of shocking cases each of which has occurred in suburban Australia, titled Suburban Nightmare.

 

Indies First

 

Today is one of the busier shopping days of the year, and it's also time for the annual Small Business Saturday, a day to celebrate and support small businesses and all they do for their communities. As part of that, bookstores are celebrating the sixth annual Indies First program, which now includes more than 500 indie bookstores around the U.S. To find the closest bookseller near you, check out Indiebound's Indie Bookstore Finder.

Mystery Melange - Thanksgiving Edition

 

The end of the year "best" lists keep on coming. Kirkus shared the thirteen books it has chosen for "Best mystery and thrillers of 2018" and Strand Magazine compiled its list of twenty "best" books.

Meanwhile, the Goodreads Readers Choice Awards has narrowed it longlists down to finalists including ten Mystery/Thriller titles. Voting continues through November 26 with winners announced on December 4.

Janet Rudolph has updated her annual list of Thanksgiving-themed mysteries over at the Mystery Fanfare blog.

The Mystery Lovers Kitchen crew have several Thanksgiving recipes for you, including dressing, brussels sprouts with bacon, pumpkin crisp streusel, cranberry pie, and more.

The holiday issue of Mystery Scene Magazine is out, with a profile of M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin mystery series and the UK television show based on the novels with Ashley Jensen played Agatha. Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke talk about their collaboration and the ins and outs of co-writing; Oline H. Cogdill catches up with Lou Berney to chat about his new book November Road, the follow-on to his Edgar Award-winning The Long and Faraway Gone; Craig Sisterson talks with Mindy Mejia, a rising star who has a real talent for evoking rural life in her home state of Minnesota; Kevin Burton Smith has scoured the retail landscape again to gather a bundle of holiday gifts for mystery lovers; plus more news and reviews.

Kings River Life has two Thanksgiving mystery short stories online for your reading pleasure, one by Gail Farrelly titled "Ya Never Know: A Thanksgiving Tale," and the other titled "Justice For Elijah: A Thanksgiving Mystery Short Story" by Earl Staggs.

Switchblade: Stiletto Heeled, the all female issue, is now available on Kindle. It's the first publication in the new Switchblade addition to their publishing lineup, with Lisa Douglass, the newest member of the editorial team, serving as Managing Editor.

The Washington Post's Michael Dirda took an affectionate look at the pleasures of classic whodunnits from the Golden Era, stilted dialogue, ludicrous plots, and all.

The Age profiled some of Australia's "deadliest female writers."

Something not to be thankful for: book banning is alive and well in Kuwait. The Information ministry blacklist said that the Kuwait international literary festival had banned 948 books including Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The information ministry has blacklisted more than 4,000 books over the past five years, including Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

The Wall Street Journal has gotten into the gift-giving spirit early with some recommendations of collections of 1920s crime fiction, female-detective stories and more.

What do you get for the crime fiction lover who has everything? Look no further than the album "Just the Clothes on My Back" by the American roots rock band Naked Blue, which is full of tracks about Lee Child’s wide-roaming ex-forces crime buster Jack Reacher.

For those of you in the U.S. who are planning on sitting around watching TV while digesting that huge Thanksgiving dinner, there are several marathons to choose from the entire weekend, including the NCIS series (all three), Forensic Files, Criminal Minds, and CSI, among many, many more.

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "The Man Who Stole Poetry" by Anne Graue.

In the Q&A roundup John Sanford is the latest "By the Book" interview for the New York Times; and the Mystery People's Scott Butkis interviewed Alafair Burke, who has joined forces again with Mary Higgins Clark for a new book in their Under Suspicion series, You Don’t Own Me.

 

Media Murder for Monday

Monday means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Margot Robbie’s Luckychap and Dan Lin’s Rideback are developing Tess Sharpe’s novel Barbed Wire Heart for Warner Bros., with Westworld scribe Carly Wray adapting. Barbed Wire Heart follows Harley McKenna, the daughter of a meth-dealing killer who’s been groomed for the family business since she was 16. She squares off against the rival family who took her mother’s life and she must find a way to stand up to them and her fierce father without jeopardizing the lives of the abuse survivors in the women’s shelter she runs.

Paramount Pictures is in talks with with Chris Pratt to star in a relaunch of its action franchise The Saint. Based on the character in the novels by Leslie Charteris, The Saint was originally adapted into a 1940s serial and then a TV series in the 1960s starring Roger Moore. Simon Templar, known as "The Saint" is a wealthy adventurer and fixer who takes on the criminal underworld.

Aisha Tyler (24, Criminal Mind) has been set to direct Vigilante, a female-themed thriller scripted by Irwin Winkler and Jose Ruisanchez. The project is described as a socially charged #MeToo era thriller that follows the journey of a young woman who, after suffering a brutal attack, channels her anger and grief into protecting others.

Peter Sarsgaard, Maya Hawke, and Betty Gabriel have joined Liev Schreiber, Marisa Tomei, and Alex Wolff in the indie dramatic thriller Human Capital, an adaption of Stephen Amidon’s novel which is being helmed by Mark Meyers. The film centers on the lives of two families, one middle-class and one privileged, as their lives intertwine across the social divide when two of their children suddenly begin a relationship that leads to a tragic accident.

The British Independent Film Awards has set a handful of early winners including a couple of crime dramas. Psychological noir thriller You Were Never Really Here (Amazon) took Best Music for Jonny Greenwood and Best Sound for Paul Davies. Layton’s heist picture American Animals (The Orchard) won Best Editing by Nick Fenton, Julian Hart, and Chris Gill.

An official trailer was released for The Informer, starring Joel Kinnaman as an ex-con who goes undercover and intentionally gets himself incarcerated again in order to infiltrate the mob at a maximum security prison.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NBC has given a script commitment to Red Stick, a crime drama from bestselling author Patricia Cornwell and Sony Pictures TV. Written by Samantha Humphrey (S.W.A.T.), Red Stick is based on an idea by Cornwell and follows Dr. Annie Dodge who is summoned from New York to her hometown of Baton Rouge, LA, after the sudden death of her father, the city’s beloved coroner. Now, as she’s mourning the loss of her childhood hero, Annie finds herself reluctantly stepping into her father’s role to solve an ongoing murder while navigating the complicated waters of Bayou politics, Southern hospitality and a simmering past romance.

The peacock network also given a script commitment to The Bone Collector, based on the bestselling book series by Jeffery Deaver and the 1999 movie of the same name which starred Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Written by VJ Boyd and Mark Bianculli, The Bone Collector follows Lincoln Rhyme, a retired genius forensic criminologist left paralyzed after an accident on the job. When a harrowing case brings him back to the force, Rhyme partners up with an ambitious young detective, Amelia Sachs, to take down some of the most dangerous criminals in the U.S.

Fox has given a script commitment to Puller, an hour-long drama based on David Baldacci’s bestselling John Puller book series. Written by Bones executive producer Carla Kettner, Puller is described as an action-forward procedural thriller about John Puller, an investigator with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Puller, a decorated former Army Ranger, faces the most difficult case of his life when his brother, a convicted traitor, escapes from a maximum security prison. Together with Veronica Knox, an army intel specialist, Puller searches for his fugitive brother. In the book series, John and Veronica solve the most difficult of crimes while John secretly battles to restore his family honor.

Fox is also developing a female-centric Texas Rangers drama. Written by Matt Cook, the untitled project centers on Lauren Crawford Flynn, one of only two females in the legendary and notoriously tough Texas Rangers, who balances the demands of her intense, high stakes job in a male dominated world with the challenges of being a single mom to a young teenage daughter.

Joel Silver and his Silver Pictures Television have sold two crime drama projects to CBS, False Memories and Crooked Brooklyn. False Memories is inspired by Emmy Bryce’s article “False Memories and False Confessions: The Psychology of Imagined Crimes,” in Wired UK and centers on a forensic psychologist who uses her expertise in the malleability of human memory to investigate crime scenes. Crooked Brooklyn is inspired by Michael Vecchione and Jerry Schmetterer’s 2015 bestselling book Crooked Brooklyn: Taking Down Corrupt Judges, Dirty Politicians, Killers and Body Snatchers, and centers on a drive to ferret out corruption that leads to the DAs of the Brooklyn Rackets Division given badges and guns to investigate crime on the streets and prosecuting those crimes in the courtroom.

ABC has put in development the drama The Marriage Lie, inspired by Kimberly Belle’s bestselling book of the same name and adapted by writer Michael Cooney. The project centers on Iris and Will whose seven-year marriage seems idyllic. But on the morning Will flies out for a business trip to Florida, Iris’s happy world comes to an abrupt halt when she learns his name is on a passenger list not for Florida but on another headed to New York that has crashed. As Iris sets off on a desperate quest to uncover what her husband was keeping from her, the answers she finds shock her to her very core.

Netflix is working on a new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's thriller novel, Rebecca. It tells the story of a young woman (Lily James) who, on arriving at her husband's (Armie Hammer) imposing family estate on a bleak English coast, finds herself battling the shadow of his dead first wife, the mysterious Rebecca, whose legacy continues to haunt the house. In 1940, Alfred Hitchcock directed the iconic film version that starred Lawrence Oliver and Joan Fontaine.

Amazon Studios has closed an exclusive production deal with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Television for eight thriller genre features which will all be connected thematically. The deal marks Amazon Studios’ first ever global-direct to service deal for feature length programs.The movies will be made by a diverse group of filmmakers and is being developed out of Amazon’s movie department.

With a fifth season currently in production and set to launch next year, Amazon announced the Titus Welliver-led series of Connelly’s beloved and hardboiled LAPD detective, Bosch, will be back for a Season 6. In addition to Welliver as the jazz loving Harry Bosch, the series also stars Jamie Hector as LAPD Detective Jerry Edgar, Amy Aquino as Lt. Grace Billets, Madison Lintz as Maddie Bosch, and Lance Reddick as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving.

Netflix has opted not to renew The Good Cop, its hourlong dramedy starring Tony Danza and Josh Groban. The Good Cop starred Danza as Tony Sr., 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.

CBS All Access, CBS’ SVOD and live streaming service, has given a straight-to-series order to the true-crime drama, Interrogation. Co-created by Swedish writer-producer Anders Weidemann (30 Degrees In February) and John Mankiewicz (House of Cards, Bosch), Interrogation is an original concept based on a true story that spanned more than 30 years, in which a young man was charged and convicted of brutally murdering his mother. Each episode is structured around an interrogation taken directly from the real police case files, with the goal of turning the viewer into a detective.

Hugh Grant has joined the cast of the HBO’s The Undoing, set to star opposite Nicole Kidman. Grant will play Jonathan Sachs, an acclaimed pediatric oncologist, devoted husband to Grace Sachs (Kidman) and doting father, whose past undergoes scrutiny when he suddenly disappears, leading to a chain of terrible revelations for his wife. Based on the book You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, the six-episode series follows Grace in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster.

Stranger Things star David Harbour has joined the cast of the Chris Hemsworth action vehicle Dhaka for Netflix. The screenplay, written by Joe Russo, centers on the underworld of weapons dealers and traffickers, where a young boy becomes the pawn in a war between notorious drug lords. Trapped by kidnappers inside one of the world’s most impenetrable cities, his rescue beckons the unparalleled skill of a mercenary named Tyler Rake. But Rake is a broken man with nothing to lose, harboring a death wish that makes an already deadly mission near impossible.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, co-author of Mycroft and Sherlock, stopped by CBS's The Talk.

Crime novelist, poet, and jazz enthusiast John Harvey was one of the latest guests on BBC Radio's Private Passions podcast, hosted by Michael Berkeley.

Beyond the Cover welcomed Jon Land, author of the new Jessica Fletcher novel, Manuscript for Murder: a Murder, She Wrote novel.

The latest episode of Writer Types featured thriller writer Lee Child, creator of the Jack Reacher series, as well as Sara Gran with her new Claire DeWitt novel, The Infinite Blacktop. Also Peter Leonard talked about keeping alive his father Elmore's creation, Raylan Givens alive in Raylan Goes To Detroit.

In the Speaking of Mysteries podcast, Wiggins is back in The Red Ribbon, H.B. Lyle’s second installment of the continuing story of Sherlock Holmes’ Irregular-in-Chief’s career in Britain’s MI-5.

Host D.P. Lyle talked about "Mood and Tone in Crime Fiction" in the latest installment of CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction.

Author R&R with Jay A. Gerzman

Jay A. Gertzman is Professor Emeritus of English at Mansfield University, where his specialties included Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, noir crime fiction, and literary censorship. He's written books on the editions of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and on the distribution and prosecution of erotic literature in the 1920s and 30s. He's also the author of the seminal study of Samuel Roth, Samuel Roth, Infamous Modernist. Gertzman has published articles on David Goodis in Paperback Parade, Crimespree Magazine, Academia.com, Alan Guthrie’s Noir Originals, and the programs of the Noircon conferences.

His new book is titled Pulp According to David Goodis, which, as the title suggests, focuses on the work of David Loeb Goodis (1917-1967), an American writer of crime fiction noted for his output of short stories and novels in the noir and pulp fiction realm. Gertzman's work starts with six characteristics of 1950s pulp noir and works its way to drawing parallels between Goodis's work and Kafka’s. Other elements covered in this critical analysis of Goodis’s oeuvre include his Hollywood script-writing career; his use of Freud, Arthur Miller, Faulkner and Hemingway; and his "noble loser's" indomitable perseverance. Woody Haut (author of Neon Noir: Contemporary American Crime Fiction), called Gerzman's book "The most comprehensive Goodis study yet. Gertzman culls the files, brings everything together and then some. Not only essential reading for all Goodis obsessives but an excellent introduction to one of noir’s greatest writers."

Jay Gertzman stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching his new book:

 

AGING BOOKWORM’S PAPER TRAIL TRACES PULP WRITER

David Goodis became exclusively a writer of crime paperback originals (not previously published in hardback) in 1950. He remained so the rest of his life. The points of sale, the readership, and the selling points of the novels were the same as for the pulp crime magazines. They had the same distributors. People scoped them out on newsstands, in drug stores, super markets, candy stores, cigar stores, hotel lobbies, bus and train stations, and for a while in subway station vending machines.

My first task was to study the pulp market. The Association of National Advertisers recorded magazine circulation and rate trends, from 1937 to 1995. Popular Publications studied the parameters of marketing and distributing the paperback “original.” The “original” was a new and highly significant post-war development in mass market popular entertainment. Publishers like Lion and Fawcett paid writers upon acceptance of the MS. Popular Publications specialized in sports, men’s adventure, romance and western magazines. They recorded the number of copies sold in various parts of the country of each of these genres and the most lucrative points of sale.

The New American Library files include advice to editors about instructing writers how to sell books. Publisher Victor Weybright wanted writers who could combine “sparse sentences, the conscious use of short, punchy words, inexorable movement,” and stories that  “got under the skin of life. He had Mickey Spillane under contract, but much preferred James M. Cain, whom Raymond Chandler dismissed as sleazy.  Two of Cain’s most famous passages describe a wife and her lover making violent love immediately after the killing of her husband; another couple have sex on the altar of an abandoned church. Spillane, anyone?

L Ron Hubbard’s correspondence describe how to create workable pulp story lines and character types. He headed The American Fiction Guild of magazine writers in the 30s. His yarns featured good-guy cops and reckless heroes. Yes, he stated he first learned the ropes by “dragging the story into the muck.” Surprisingly or not, there is no better source for understanding 1930s pulp magazine formulae.

Goodis set many novels in the working class and underclass neighborhoods of his native Philadelphia, where “blight” was the result of political abandonment of what once were proud ethnic enclaves. Loan sharking, alcoholism, prostitution, drug dealing, and gambling addiction were the motivating forces of the “Philly gothic” in which Goodis (“the poet of the losers”) specialized. 

I have gathered census figures of the neighborhoods about which he wrote, as well as newspaper stories and photographic coverage of 1950s urban Philadelphia. The Temple University Urban Archives contain clippings of reporters’ interviews with residents suffering in enclaves of declining population and businesses. They document the elimination of playgrounds, corner stores and other support services for the neighborhoods, and of the odorous and unhealthy rendering factories that zoning commissions did not prevent from existing next to houses and schools. The city’s own archives have stunning photos of this process. Philadelphia police statistics in 1950 show that Philadelphia skid row and river wards ranked highest in the city in arrests. The reason was the racketeering that replaced lawful means of employment when City Hall turned its back instead of helping people in stress. Goodis’ writing is as productive a treatment of this process as any sociological study. This is partly the result of his use of the slang and idiom that people actually spoke. Novels with titles such as Street of No Return and Down There show that he is the master of Philadelphia Gothic.

A Major theme of American 20^th century literature is the existence of discontent and isolation because of obligations to family and community. I detected the effects on Goodis’ writings by reading Nathaniel West, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway and Faulkner. They also write about manic behavioral repetition, familial obligations, and psychic entrapment what Arthur Miller called “The Tragedy of the Common Man.” Reading then-reputable critics who dismissed pulp crime as a form of “masscult” gave me a perspective on the false contrast between the “low” entertainment of pulp stories and the cultural capital of “literature.”

Analogues in Goodis’ writings to Kafka’s occur throughout his career. I can’t say that I took a trip to the Kafka Museum in Prague as research, but the shadowy lighting, the expressionistic background music, and the roomful of art based on Kafka’s work did deepen my feeling about Goodis’ own work.  A construction modeling the killing machine from Kafka’s “Penal Colony” was a revelation: Kafka and Goodis, who wrote less than two generations apart, were brothers under the skin.

 

You can read more about Jay Gerzman and his book via the Down & Out Books website or the book's Facebook page, or follow the author on Twitter and Facebook. American History is now available via Down & Out Books and all major booksellers.

 

Mystery Melange

 

Maureen Corrigan of The Washington Post picked her list of "The 10 best thrillers and mysteries of 2018." Check out all of the ten titles via this link.

Amazon announced its editors’ picks of the best books of 2018 this past weekend. To check out all of the top 20 honorees, hop on over here.

Scots crime writer Val McDermid has been appointed as the new patron of the Scottish Book Trust, an organization that tries to transform lives through reading and writing. Val will lend her support to Trust to help inspire and support the people of Scotland to read and write for pleasure through programs and outreach work.

Prometheus Books, which is nearing its 50th anniversary, has decided to refocus on nonfiction titles and sold its two genre imprints to Start Publishing. One of those, the crime fiction imprint Seventh Street Books, currently has a backlist of about ninety titles including award-winning books by Allen Eskins, Adrian McKinty, Lori Rader-Day, and Terry Shames. Start Publishing began has an exclusively digital publisher but has expanded to include print editions as well. Start will publish both print and digital editions of the newly acquired Seventh Street titles.

A new book suggests that Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on the real-life mathematician, George Boole.

The Guardian profiled Endless Night, one of Agatha Christie's favorite of her works that "still has shock factor." As the article author, Sam Jordison, notes, the 1967 novel isn’t so much a "whodunnit," as a "who gonna get done."

The latest issue of Mysterical-E is available online for your reading pleasure, with eleven new crime stories; Gerald So's regular column takes a look at the Cloak and Dagger TV series and more media crime notables, while Anita Page looked back at the 1997 classic, Wag the Dog; plus new book reviews from Christine Verstraete and new interviews and more.

More fun with amazing bookstores to put on your bucket list: "Living 11 Of The Dreamiest Bookstores To Get Lost In Across Canada"

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "I Believe Her" by John Kaprielian.

In the Q&A roundup, Alexander McCall Smith (author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series) sat down for a chat with the Globe & Mail about his writing and how, at age 70, he has no desire to slow down; the Sudbury Star spoke with Sam Wiebe who edited the latest addition to the Akashic Books noir series titles, Vancouver Noir; and Writers Tell All welcomed Jeff Abbott talking about his novel The Three Beths and what it was like trying to contine to write after his house burned down.

Media Murder for Monday

Monday greetings to all and welcome to your latest crime drama roundup:

THE BIG SCREEN

A Breaking Bad movie from original series creator Vince Gilligan is set to begin production in New Mexico later this month. Further details about the film are being kept under wraps, although it's said to follow the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom. What's unclear is whether any of the show’s original characters are expected to return or if the project is planned for a theatrical release or will air on television.

The live-action film version of the 1960s pop icon/animated TV series Jonny Quest appears closer to becoming a reality after Lego Batman Movie director Chris McKay has been hired to direct the project for Warner Brothers. The story centers on the adventurous boy hero Jonny Quest who travels around the world with his scientist father, his adopted brother Hadji, and their former secret agent bodyguard, Race Bannon, to solve world-threatening mysteries. An individual with knowledge with of the project told TheWrap that a major movie star is being eyed to play Race Bannon.

J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot has optioned an untitled feature pitch from The Crown writer Ed Hemming following a competitive auction. Plot details are being kept under wraps, although it's understood to be a high school-set thriller in the present day with a socially relevant twist. 

Allison Janney has landed the lead role in the thriller Lou, another project being set up at J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot Productions. Anna Foerster (Underworld: Blood Wars, Outlander) will direct the dramatic thriller that follows a tough elderly woman living on a remote island who is recruited by a neighbor to help her find her kidnapped daughter. Janney will play a rule-breaking woman with a tough shell and abilities as a tracker.

Saban Films has acquired North American rights to American Dreamer, Derrick Borte’s thriller starring Jim Gaffigan as a down-on-his-luck rideshare driver who gets in way over his head with drug dealers and a kidnapping. Saban plans a theatrical release for the pic, which had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Less than a month after announcing the upcoming seventh season of Orange Is the New Black would be its final run, producers Lionsgate Television are already mulling a potential sequel to the series created by Jenji Kohan and starring Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Uzo Aduba and Danielle Brooks. Orange Is the New Black, which is inspired by Piper Kerman's memoir of the same name, bowed to critical acclaim in 2013.

Emmy-winning director Susanne Bier (The Night Manager) has signed on to direct all six episodes of The Undoing, the network’s high-profile limited series written by David E. Kelley and starring Nicole Kidman. Adapted from Jean Hanff Korelitz’s book You Should Have Known, The Undoing centers on Grace Sachs (Kidman), who is living a seemingly perfect life - a successful therapist with a new book, a devoted husband, and a young son in an elite private school. But a violent death followed by her husband going missing threatens to tear her perfect world apart.

Emmy-winning The Americans star Matthew Rhys is in talks to take on the role of the iconic titular lawyer in HBO's planned Perry Mason reboot. Rhys played Russian spy Philip Jennings for six seasons on FX's The Americans, and this year the role scored him his first career Emmy after three prior nominations.

Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) and Brian J. Smith (Sense8) have been cast as two of the leads of USA Network’s straight-to-series drama Treadstone, an offshoot of Universal’s Bourne franchise, from creator Tim Kring and Universal Cable Productions. Written by Kring, Treadstone explores the origin story and present-day actions of a CIA black ops program known as Operation Treadstone — a covert program that uses behavior-modification protocol to turn recruits into nearly superhuman assassins.

Robin Givens is set to appear on the ABC legal drama The Fix in the recurring role of Julianne Johnson, the loyal ex-wife of Sevvy (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The Fix follows Maya Travis (Robin Tunney), an L.A. district attorney who suffers a devastating defeat when prosecuting Sevvy, an A-list actor for double murder. With her high-profile career derailed, she flees for a quieter life in Washington. But when Sevvy falls under suspicion for another murder eight years later, Maya is lured back to the DA’s office for another chance at justice.

Max Greenfield is the latest original Veronica Mars cast member set to reprise their role in the upcoming Hulu revival. Also joining the cast of the eight-episode limited series, scheduled to premiere in 2019, is Patton Oswalt. Greenfield’s Leo D’Amato was the new Sheriff’s Deputy when he recurred on the first three seasons of Veronica Mars. In the followup movie, Leo was a detective at the San Diego Police Department who helped Veronica (Kristen Bell) in the Susan Knight murder investigation.

Less than a month after its premiere on ABC, The Rookie is getting a full-season order. The cop drama premiered in mid-October to ratings that surpassed its time period from previous shows in that slot.

TNT's hitman series Good Behavior has been canceled after two seasons. The series was based on books by Blake Crouch and starred Michelle Dockery as Letty, a con artist released from jail on good behavior, who accidentally becomes entangled with an assassin named Javier played by Diego Botto.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Showtime is launching a companion podcast for its upcoming limited series from Ben Stiller, Escape at Dannemora, that will delve into the real-life events that inspired the drama. The limited series, which is directed and executive produced by Stiller, is based on the 2015 prison break from Clinton Correctional Facility. The podcast, which is produced by Wondery’s Real Crime Profile, will dive deeper into the real-life events and feature interviews with cast-members, real people involved in the case and the creators.

In the latest Crime Friction episode, hosts Jay Stringer and Chantelle Aimee Ausman were joined by Lou Berney to talk about hats, the sixties, and his new book, November Road.

The MysteryRats Maze podcast featured the first chapter of the mystery novel The Plunge by Nancy G. West, read by local actor Ariel Bennett.

Host Debbi Mack welcomed crime writer Dana King, author of the Nick Forte & Penns River Series, for an interview on the Crime Cafe.

Regular Read or Dead host Rincey Abraham was joined by guest host Liberty Hardy to "basically just rave about the amazingness that is Agatha Christie."

The latest Spybrary podcast featured a chat with author Merle Nygate about her first espionage novel, The Righteous Spy.

THEATER

A new Sherlock Holmes adaptation is heading to The New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, from November 15-17. Nick Lane adapted Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four for the stage, and says of the production, "Some of it is set during the Indian rebellion of 1857 – the book does go back 35 years in time from when it was written to talk about what transpired and why the crime at the centre of the novel happened, so there’s quite a bit of exposition. You have to try and find ways to make it fun for the audience to watch and visually interesting."

Author R&R with Libby Fischer Hellmann

Libby Fischer Hellman has published thirteen novels and twenty short stories including suspense mysteries, historicals, PI novels, amateur sleuth tales, police procedurals, and even a cozy mystery. Her first novel, An Eye for Murder, which features Ellie Foreman, a video producer and single mother, was released in 2002 and nominated for several awards. Publishers Weekly called it a "masterful blend of politics, history, and suspense." In 2008 Libby introduced her second series featuring hard-boiled Chicago PI Georgia Davis, with the latest book in that installment just released, High Crimes.

How do you solve a murder when there are 42,000 suspects? That’s the task facing Chicago PI Georgia Davis, hired to hunt down those ultimately responsible for the assassination of  Resistance leader Dena Baldwin at a demonstration fourteen months after the 2016 election. The gunman, on a hotel rooftop near Grant Park, dies within minutes of the shooting.  As Georgia sifts through Dena’s 42,000 Facebook followers, she discovers that unknown enemies hiding behind fake profiles have infiltrated the group. She finds others who will do whatever it takes—including murder—to shield right-wing, wealthy elites. When Georgia begins piecing together the facts, relatives of both victims mysteriously disappear, and the danger escalates. Threats and bruises have never frightened Georgia, but she’s side-swiped by the sudden reappearance of the mother who abandoned her when she was a child. Can she survive an emotional family crisis  at the same time she pursues killers whose only goal is to protect themselves?

Libby stops by In Reference to Murder to talk briefly about writing the book and offers up an excerpt:

 

RESEARCH FOR HIGH CRIMES

The short answer is that I didn’t do much research for this book. The daily news cycle provided most of what I needed. Even before the election, I started following a few people on Twitter with contacts in the IC (Intelligence Community). Through piecing together what they were and were not reporting, I was able to construct an overview of what has become the most corrupt, incompetent administration in American history.  I also joined a Facebook group (featured in the novel itself) that provides a daily compendium of news stories and articles that deepened my knowledge. And I followed blogs like Amy Siskind’s Weekly List of creeping authoritarianism and the death of democracy. Fun stuff, right?

Having said all that, however, there were a couple of situations for which I needed help. I talked to an ethical hacker to construct how to send an anonymous email that couldn’t be traced, and I also talked to a scientist who told me how to set up the explosion that kills the killer. 

 

BOOK EXCERPT 

Georgia rose. “Erica?”

The woman nodded. Her black hair, threaded with gray, was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She wore jeans, a wool jacket, and snow boots despite the absence of snow. Her neck was long and graceful, but her tight expression made her otherwise smooth features look sharp and out of place, as if they were surprised to find themselves arranged on her face. She was pale and thin, on the way toward emaciated. Grief, likely.

“I’m Georgia Davis.”

The woman, probably in her fifties, gave her a slight nod and gestured to the younger man beside her. “This is my son, Jeffrey. Dena’s brother.”

That Dena had a brother was news to Georgia. It hadn’t been mentioned in the media. Jeffrey was several inches taller than his mother, but just as slim. Somewhere in his thirties. He shared his mother’s dark eyes and hair, minus the gray. His face held a somber, soulful expression.

“He’s as devastated as I am. We both want to get to the bottom of this.”

Get to the bottom of what? Three people had died, including Dena. A dozen more wounded. The shooter had been found—dead from an IED explosion on the roof of a hotel directly across from Grant Park. An open-and-shut case, or so officialdom proclaimed. Domestic terrorism. Tick off yet another massacre to add to the legacy of American gun violence.

Georgia reined in her impatience. “Would you like some coffee? It’s on me.”

“I—uh—tea would be nice.”

A few minutes later, with cappuccino and a pastry for Georgia, the same for Jeffrey, and tea for Erica, they settled into chairs. Jeffrey cleared his throat. Erica sipped her tea. She looked dazed, almost lost. She was clearly struggling. An unusual tug of protectiveness came over Georgia. She gentled her voice as she prompted Erica.

“You said, ‘get to the bottom of this.’ What do you mean?”

Erica’s chest rose and fell. She took another sip of tea. “I assume you’re up to speed on the events of—of Dena’s death.”

Georgia nodded. It was still the top story everywhere. A year had passed since the election of the most unpopular president ever, and despite a core base of supporters, millions were demanding he be removed from office. The president and his administration were incompetent, corrupt, and dangerous. The rumors were that Chicago bookies wouldn’t take any more bets about his odds for survival. A special counsel was investigating.

Erica played with her spoon. “So let me tell you about Dena. She is—was—a left-wing progressive, and she supported Bernie until the convention. Afterwards, she switched to Hillary. She volunteered, rang doorbells in Wisconsin, made phone calls. She organized a rally in Evanston and even put together a carpool to drive seniors to the polls.” She shifted. “The morning after the results were in, she refused to believe them. Later that day she created a Facebook group, ResistanceUSA.”

“Wait. Are you saying she founded the group?”

A wan smile came across Erica’s face. “That’s right. She believed that the vote, particularly in the midwest swing states, had been manipulated by Russia. She wasn’t alone: others were—and still are—alleging it too. The group exploded, and by the end of the year, there were nearly forty-two thousand members.”

“Forty-two thousand people in seven weeks?”

Erica nodded. “Her energy never flagged. Within six months, she was a national figure. She was one of the first to call out every misstep by the new administration, every injustice, every example of creeping authoritarianism, every risk to our democracy. She was in the middle of expanding her ‘repertoire’ when she—died. She had begun to speak out about other issues. The dangers of fracking, the criminality of the new administration, the mess he’s made with our foreign allies. She’d really come into her own. It’s as if she was born to do this. Of course, in the process she made enemies.”

“Such as?”

“There were the bots—you know—know—automated tweets and Facebook messages that roll out whenever a specific subject is raised. Anyway, hundreds, maybe thousands of bots trolled her online.” Erica let out a world-weary breath. “Then there were the real trolls. Human crazies, I call them.”

Georgia nodded. Like mutant viruses, they had invaded the Internet to sow discord and chaos wherever possible.

“They accused her of lying, of propaganda, of being a traitor to the country. Some people even accused her of being a Russian spy working undercover.”

“Although how they could, given the administration’s complicity with Russia, is nuts,” Jeffrey cut in.

Erica nodded in acknowledgment. “Still, Dena was in her element. She thrived on allies and adversaries alike. When she wasn’t appearing on TV, she was organizing, bringing new converts to the group.”

Georgia’s eyebrows went up at the word “converts.” Erica caught it. “Yes, it may have started as a cult, but it grew so big so fast that it became a movement. Dena is—was very persuasive.” Her smile held a mix of pride and sorrow.

“So, last fall she and her crew decided to organize a grass-roots demonstration. They used the Facebook group to spread the She called for a million people to come out. Privately, she hoped there would be at least a thousand.”

“For what reason?”

“January marked a year since the inauguration, but in that short time so much of our country and policies are now unrecognizable. She wanted people to use their First Amendment rights to let the traitor know that what he’s doing and what he represents are not okay.”

“She succeeded,” Georgia said.

Another sad smile curled Erica’s lips. “It was amazing! Police estimated over two hundred thousand people came to Grant Park.” Her smile faded.

Georgia understood. There was no need to repeat the rest. A sharpshooter with a .223 Bushmaster rifle equipped with a bump stock had opened up, killing Dena, group member DJ Grabiner, and a protestor in the front row. Her second-in-command, Ruth Marriotti, along with a dozen others, had been wounded. Chicago cops tracked the gunman to the roof of the White Star Hotel twenty-two minutes later, where they discovered he’d blown himself up with what they later learned was a pipe bomb. Why he hadn’t used the Bushmaster to off himself was still unknown.

The shooter, Scott Allen Jarvis, had materialized seemingly out of nowhere. He was raised on an Iowa farm, but the family was forced to sell when Jarvis was seventeen. He moved to Iowa City for college but never graduated. His parents died in a house fire soon after he left home, leaving only Jarvis and his younger sister, Katherine. He enlisted in the army and survived two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. Afterward he resurfaced in Rogers Park, a neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side, where he lived with his sister and was unemployed much of the time.

Law enforcement and the media scoured his history in the hope of tying him to some kind of radical terrorist group but didn’t find anything. It was as if the guy dropped in from another planet. That didn’t deter cable news, of course, hungry for any scrap of information, meaningful or not. They replayed the video of the shooting and the simple service that passed for Jarvis’s funeral so often that Georgia had to turn the TV off. She could only guess how it affected Erica.

Now Erica’s eyes filled. She swiped at them with her napkin.

Georgia squeezed Erica’s hand. Jeffrey Baldwin cleared his throat. Georgia glanced over. He looked like he was struggling to control his emotions.

Erica swallowed, then picked up her teaspoon, stirred her tea, replaced the spoon on the saucer. Finally, she looked up, and Georgia asked, “Why do you think your daughter was targeted for murder?”

Excerpted from HIGH CRIMES © Copyright 2018 by Libby Fischer Hellmann. Reprinted with permission of the author. All rights reserved. 

 

You can read more about Libby and High Crimes via her website and follow Libby on Facebook and Twitter.