Mystery Melange - Halloween Edition

The shortlists for this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards were announced last week, including the Crime Fiction category. Those honorees include:

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard
Cruel Acts by Jane Casey
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
Twisted by Steve Cavanagh
The Wych Elm by Tana French
The Hiding Game by Louise Phillips

Publishers Weekly released its "best books" of the year lists, including a category for Best Mystery. For a slide show of all the top ten thrilling and chilling titles, click over to this link.

Janet Rudolph updated her list of Halloween Mysteries for the Mystery Fanfare blog. And it's quite a list!

Some might say true crime tales are far scarier than the fictional kind, knowing they're accounts of actual crime affecting real people. Marilyn Stasio, who usually reviews crime fiction for the New York Times, steps back to take a look at "Diamond Doris, the Bourbon King and Other Stars of True Crime."

The NYT also reported that Patricia Highsmith's diaries are going public. The author of psychological thrillers such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train, once said that "No writer would ever betray his secret life...It would be like standing naked in public," but her estate has authorized Liveright Publishing to release her private writings in a single volume to be released in 2021. They are said to include her reflections on her creative aspirations, her tumultuous romantic relationships, and her fascination with the psychological underpinnings of violence.

Kings River Life has some Halloween stories for you, including "As Easy as Trick or Treating" and "The Case of the Caramelized Corpse." They also have some recipes to get you in the spirit of things such as Grilled Apple Crisps.

The Mystery Lovers Kitchen folks have several recipes that are perfect for Halloween, including Pumpkin Mousse from Krista Davis; Pumpkin Spice Doughnuts from Peg Cochran; and Pumpkin Spice Cookies from Leslie Budewitz. For those who aren't fans of pumpkin, there are also Vicki Delany's Cinnamon Apple Muffins and Lucy Burdett's Candy Corn Cookies. Or maybe, you'd prefer Essie Lang's Halloween Eyeballs Appetizer.

The Maine Crime Writers polled their bloggers for "Our Votes for Scariest Book."

Over at the Kill Zone blog, Sue Colleta has a tongue-in-cheek primer titled "Welcome to Murder 101: PG Halloween Edition."

Looking for a bookish Halloween costume? Here are a few, starting with Nancy Drew; and a few more ideas. Or, maybe you'd just prefer some Literary Halloween swag.

Staying in on Halloween and looking for something scary to scream stream? Here are some suggestions.

Ever wonder what the "worst" Halloween candy is?

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "The Fuse is Burning" by David Cranmer.

In the Q&A roundup, The Dark Phantom blog talks craft with mystery author Susan McCormick; Pursuit Magazine chatted with thriller author Rea Frey about her psychological "whydunits"; Jacqueline Seewald interviewed author/editor Sandra Murphy about her writing and editing the new anthology, A Murder of Crows; and E.B. Davis chatted with Leigh Perry (a/k/ Toni L. P. Kelner) for the Writers Who Kill about her cozy paranormal series, The Family Skeleton mysteries.
 

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Studiocanal and Blumhouse are teaming up for a remake of The Bedroom Window, the 1987 thriller that starred Steve Guttenberg and Elizabeth McGovern and launched the star of Curtis Hanson, the late writer/director who went on to helm hits including L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys. Based on the Anne Holden novel, The Witnesses, the original film follows a man who beds his boss’ wife, but during the tryst, she observes from his bedroom window a violent attack on a young woman. He goes to the police on his lover’s behalf to report a crime he didn’t actually witness and becomes a suspect and potential target for the attacker.

Lionsgate and Deon Taylor are set to reteam for Taylor’s latest project, Free Agents, a crime drama set in the world of professional athletes. The announcement comes just weeks after the studio acquired Taylor’s psychological thriller, Fatale (starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank and Michael Ealy). Taylor will direct Free Agents from a script he co-wrote with Joe Bockol, which centers on a group of pro football players who turn to crime to get back at the owners who are exploiting and underpaying them.

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is returning to theaters in North America with 10 minutes of new footage as it readies its Oscar run this awards season. The film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie will expand to over 1,000 locations in the U.S. and Canada with footage from four separate scenes not included in the original theatrical version.

Mindhunter star Holt McCallany has been cast as a lead opposite Jason Statham in Cash Truck, a revenge-based action thriller that writer/director Guy Ritchie is basing on the 2004 French film, Le Convoyeur. Statham stars as H, a cold and mysterious character working at a cash-truck company responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week. Weaving through a carefully constructed narrative, the film shifts across timelines and among various characters’ perspectives. McCallany will play Bullet, who leads the transportation team and brings aboard H, who might not be who he says he is.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Hugh Laurie (The Night Manager, House) is developing a script for a TV adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's novels, but there is some mystery as to which of the Queen of Crime's books he is adapting, nor has he yet been attached to star. The project is being adapted for the BBC through ITV-owned producer Mammoth Screen, which has made several successful Christie adaptations for the BBC (aired on Amazon in the U.S.). Up next for the team is The Pale Horse, adapted by BAFTA-nominated Sarah Phelps, who won acclaim for her earlier TV version of the Christie classic, And Then There Were None.

The Crown producer Left Bank is developing a TV adaptation of Paul Sussman’s archeological thriller novels, The Khalifa Mysteries, and has tapped screenwriter Simon Allen, who has written on series including The Watch, Strike Back, and The Musketeers. The books have been described as the "intelligent reader’s answer to The Da Vinci Code" and mix modern-day police procedurals with archaeological mysteries.

Michael Mann will direct the pilot episode of Tokyo Vice, the crime drama series set to premiere on HBO’s forthcoming streaming platform HBO Max. In addition to serving as executive producer, Mann will also potentially direct further episodes of the show starring Ken Watanabe and Ansel Elgort, which is set to begin filming in February of 2020. Tokyo Vice is based on the nonfiction memoirs of Jake Adelstein (Elgort), a journalist who embedded himself with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police to sniff out corruption. 

NBC has handed a put pilot commitment to the thriller drama, The Mother-In-Law, based on Sally Hepworth’s novel and shepherded by The Path creator Jessica Goldberg and Amy Poehler's production company. Written by Goldberg, The Mother-In-Law is centered around a woman’s complicated relationship with her husband’s family that ends in death and is described as "a gripping mystery that explores motherhood, class, race and how dangerous family secrets can be."

Fox has given a put pilot commitment to Chain of Command, a one-hour drama from writer April Fitzsimmons (Doom Patrol, Valor), Jamie Lee Curtis, Berlanti Productions, and Warner Bros TV. Written by Fitzsimmons from a story by Fitzsimmons and Curtis, Chain of Command revolves around a young Air Force investigator with radical crime-solving methodology who returns to her hometown to join a military task force that doesn’t want her, a family who has traumatized her, and must confront the secrets that drove her away.

The CW has picked up nine additional episodes of both of its new fall series, Batwoman and Nancy Drew, bringing both series to full-season orders with 22 episodes each. In Nancy Drew, Kennedy McMann stars as the brilliant teenage detective whose sense of self had come from solving mysteries in her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine – until her mother’s untimely death derails her college plans and she finds herself a prime suspect in a crime.

Arrested Development star Alia Shawkat has been cast in FX’s The Old Man, joining previously announced cast members Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow, and Amy Brenneman. Based on Thomas Perry’s bestselling novel of the same name, The Old Man follows Dan Chase (Bridges), who absconded from the CIA decades ago and has been living off the grid since. When an assassin arrives and tries to take Chase out, the old operative learns that to ensure his future he now must reconcile his past. Shawkat will play Angela, described as a rising star at the FBI and a protégé to Deputy Director Harold Harper (Lithgow). Assigned to the pursuit of the fugitive Chase, Angela is swept into a world of buried secrets and hidden agendas that will put her relationship with Harper to the test.

The Oath's Cory Hardrict has been cast in a recurring role opposite Alex Russell in Season 3 of CBS’ police drama series S.W.A.T. Hardrict will play Nate, Jim’s estranged brother who reconnects with Street when a case brings them back together. Inspired by the 1970s television series and 2003 feature film, S.W.A.T. stars Shemar Moore as the locally born-and-raised sergeant tasked with running a specialized tactical unit that is the last stop in law enforcement in Los Angeles. Jay Harrington, Lina Esco, Kenny Johnson, David Lim and Patrick St. Esprit also star.

Rafe Spall and Anne-Marie Duff have been cast in BBC Two’s dramatization of the Novichok poisonings in the historic British city of Salisbury in March 2018. Also joining the cast are Game Of Thrones actor Mark Addy and Ripper Street's MyAnna Buring, as well as Annabel Scholey and Johnny Harris. Written by McMafia writers Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn, the three-part miniseries will tell the story of how ordinary people reacted as their city became the focus of a national emergency when Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by Russian operatives.

Minority Report alumna Meagan Good has been tapped for a key recurring role opposite Tom Payne, Michael Sheen, and Bellamy Young in Fox’s new drama, Prodigal Son. The series centers on criminal psychologist Malcolm Bright (Payne), who has a gift. He knows how killers think and how their minds work because his father Martin Whitly (Sheen) was one of the worst — a notorious serial killer called "The Surgeon."

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up featuring the first chapter of the thriller, The Society, by C.G. Abbot (a/k/a Avery Daniels) as read by actor Ariel Linn. This one has a supernatural twist to it making it another episode perfect for your Halloween listening!

International and New York Times bestselling author, Tess Gerritsen, dropped by The Writer Files to chat about the role of luck in finding success as a writer; where she draws inspiration for her thrillers; her love-hate relationship with writing for the screen; and her unique creative process.

Author Stories welcomed Karen White to talk about her new Christmas mystery, The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host chatted with Debbi Mack to discuss her Sam McRae mysteries.

The latest guest on Debbi Mack's own Crime Cafe podcast this week was lawyer-turned-writer Richard T. Cahill.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about Stephen King's writers' retreat, got confirmation on Tana French being the best living mystery writer, and more.

Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover spoke with Sandra Brown, author of over 70 bestselling books, whose latest is Outfox.

On the latest Spybrary podcast, host Shane Whaley interviewed the writer and director of the short spy film, The Dry Cleaner Movie.

On Criminal Mischief Episode #30, host Dr. DP Lyle talked about "Evidence."

The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took on the topic of burglary investigations.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club interviewed authors who will be attending HallowRead, including Susan Viemeister (the Parker Williams and Bealtown Mystery Series); Bryan Nowak (The Dramatic Dead); and Melissa Caribou Annen (the Agent Raines series).

THEATER

Fresh from his Emmy-winning TV performance as serial killer Andrew Cunanan, Darren Criss will join the previously announced Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell in the upcoming revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo. Criss will play Bobby, the youngest in the play’s triumvirate of small-time hustlers looking to make a big score; Fishburne will play the character Donny; and Rockwell will play Teach. American Buffalo will begin previews on March 24, 2020, at the Circle in the Square Theatre, with an official opening on Tuesday, April 14.

Mystery Melange

 

School librarian Louise Morris won the Daily Mail First Novel Competition in the UK for The Coffin Club, which combines wartime memories, old age, and murder. She will receive a £20,000 advance, a publishing contract, and a literary agent.

The shortlist was announced for the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction. The £50,000 award, one of the UK’s most prestigious for nonfiction, includes several crime-themed books: Casey Cep’s investigation into Harper Lee’s abandoned true-crime book; Hallie Rubenhold’s look at the women murdered by Jack the Ripper; art critic Laura Cumming's memoir about her mother’s childhood kidnapping from a Lincolnshire beach; journalist Azadeh Moaveni collection of accounts from women who joined Islamic State; and historian Julia Lovell's re-evaluation of the political legacy of Mao.

Join the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, for another thrilling night on December 10 of chilling crime fiction read by the organization's talented members at the KGB Bar in NYC. Authors scheduled to appear include Ann Aptaker, Rhonda Barnat, Gary Cahill, Michael Chabler, Russ Colchamiro, and Teel James Glenn.

Submissions are open for the 2020 Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, the richest prize for a single short story in the English language, worth £30,000 to the winner. The closing date is 6pm on December 13, 2019. Anyone writing in English from the around the world can submit stories, but the author must have had works published in the UK.

Poisoned Pen Press and Book Riot are giving away books from the British Library Crime Classics series to get a jump on the holiday season. The novels include some of the finest Christmas and wintertime detective stories of the past—blending merry mysteries from much-loved authors with vintage crime vignettes set in winter. For your chance to be one of five winners of sets of British Library Crime Classics, enter by October 27, 2019.

The LA Times profiled Michael Connelly to find out why Los Angeles is the "perpetual dark heart of crime writing." In a companion piece, the Times also posted a list of the "20 Essential LA Noir Crime Books," and Christopher Smith also visited the fifteen most iconic Los Angeles locations of Connelly's Harry Bosch series.

Traveling a lot farther south, CrimeReads' Craig Pittman profiled "The Life and Times of Charles Willeford—Miami's Weird, Wonderful Master of Noir."

And going even father south, the Sydney Morning Herald asked, "Is crime Melbourne's hottest export?" and asked Aussie crime authors Michael Robotham, Jane Harper, Mark Brandi to weigh in on their successes and how the country influences their writing.

Authors Stephen and Tabitha King have famously resided in a Victorian mansion in Bangor, Maine, but that iconic house will soon have a new purpose:  as an archive and writers retreat. The Kings intend to turn the home into an archive that will house Stephen King’s writing, with the house next door to be used as a residence for up to five writers at any given time.

Via CBS's 60 Minutes, a real-life mystery: "Who's stealing Christopher Columbus letters from libraries around the world?" Copies of a letter written by Christopher Columbus describing his first impressions of the Americas are so rare and valuable, they're being stolen and replaced with forgeries at some of the world's most prestigious libraries.

Turns out if you don't want to be arrested for robbing banks, maybe you shouldn't write a novel about robbing banks.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Balfour" by Nancy Scott.

In the Q&A roundup, Craig Sisterson interviewed Kiwi crime writer Paul Cleave about his books and "making good people do bad things"; Joyce Carol Oates chatted with CrimeReads' Thomas Pluck about "Crime Fiction, Character, and Cats"; Vulture snagged director Rian Johnson to talk about "rescusitating" the mystery genre on the big screen; and Martina Cole spoke with The UK Express about her success (she's Britain's current bestselling female crime writer) and the literary snobbery she faces.

Looking Daggers

The 2019 Crime Writers Association (CWA) Dagger awards were handed out tonight at a ceremony at the Grange City Hotel in London. (For all the finalists, head on over here.) Congratulations to this years winners, including:

• CWA DIAMOND DAGGER (For a career of sustained excellence and a significant contribution to the genre): Robert Goddard
  
  
• CWA GOLD DAGGER:  W. Craven: The Puppet Show (Constable / Little Brown)
  
  
• CWA JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD): Chris Hammer: Scrublands (Wildfire)
  
  
• CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION: Ben Macintyre: The Spy and the Traitor (Viking)
  
  
• CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER: Holly Watt: To The Lions (Raven Books)
  
  
• CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER: Dov Alfon: A Long Night in Paris, translated by Daniella Zamir (MacLehose Press)
  
  
• CWA SAPERE BOOKS HISTORICAL DAGGER: S.G. MacLean: Destroying Angel (Quercus Fiction)
  
  
• CWA SHORT STORY DAGGER: Danuta Kot writing as Danuta Reah: "The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing" (in The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing and other Fantastic Female Fables, Fantastic Books); also highly commended: Teresa Solana: "I Detest Mozart" (in The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories by Teresa Solana, Bitter Lemon Press)
  
  
• CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY: Kate Ellis
  
  
• CWA DEBUT DAGGER: Shelley Burr: Wake; also highly commended, Catherine Hendricks: Hardways
  
  
• BEST CRIME AND MYSTERY PUBLISHER:  No Exit Press

Author R&R with Michael Bowen

Michael Bowen recently retired from a 39-year career as a trial lawyer. The author of nineteen published novels, as well as scholarly and political commentary, Bowen is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he served on the Harvard Law Review. Bowen and his wife Sara, a noted lecturer on Jane Austen and Harvard Law graduate, live in Fox Point, Wisconsin.

Bowen's new crime novel, False Flag in Autumn, a seemingly ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller featuring protagonist Josie Kendall, introduced in 2016’s Damage Control, which Kirkus called "Bowen’s ebullient antidote to election year blues."

In False Flag, a rogue White House aide tries to use lobbyist Kendall as an unwitting pawn in a plot for a spectacular October surprise before the 2018 mid-term elections. She calls on her D.C.-insider husband, her edgy uncle, and colorful denizens of the Louisiana demi-monde to help her out-hustle the hustlers. But then Josie finds herself facing an even more daunting question: is there a false-flag attack planned in order to influence the 2020 presidential election? Josie will be forced to decide whether to venture out of the Beltway cocoon—where the weapons are leaks, winks, nudges, and spin—into a darker world where the weapons are actual weapons.

Bowen stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R:

 

THE JOYS AND PERILS OF RESEARCH IN WRITING MYSTERY FICTION

By Michael Bowen

I’ll never forget the picture: four-color two-page spread in Ladies’ Home Journal back in 1962, when that magazine had roughly the dimensions of a coffee table instead of the more standard size on newsstands today. It featured a standing rib roast fresh out of the oven, with a layer of perfectly browned fat at least two inches high. This was the centerpiece of an ad for something or other, but all I remember is the roast and the salivation it induced.

Cholesterol? Never heard of it. Ignorance was bliss.

I came across that ad serendipitously in the early 1990’s, doing research for a mystery set in New York City a generation earlier. My editor quite reasonably wanted to know whether household products that I had sprinkled into the story as background were actually on the market in 1962. Google didn’t exist yet – I just Googled it and verified that it wasn’t created until 1998 – so the best way to find out was to traipse to a public library and look at back issues of magazines aimed at housewives.

Bingo. You could indeed buy Johnson’s Wax and Pledge in the second year of the Kennedy administration. The New Yorker also accepted cigarette advertisements back then, including one for Parliaments with recessed filters – “NEAT AND CLEAN!” – apparently aimed at charming young women who enjoyed smoking but had a paradoxical aversion to actual tobacco. I stumbled over that one while trying to find out what Broadway shows my characters might have attended. An ad with that many layers of irony was too good to pass up. I actually plugged it into the story, along with The Fantastics and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Don’t tell anybody, but research is fun.

It’s also important. The first chapter of a courtroom drama I was reading a few years ago featured a fiercely whispered debate at counsel table between the two lawyers for the defendant in a murder case about whether to cross-examine the arresting officer, whose testimony on direct had just concluded. Boys and girls, this is something you think about before the first day of trial. I never got to chapter 2. Same with a scene in a fairly recent big-business-is-bad mystery in which a male senior executive who is a complete jerk capriciously and impulsively fires a female newbie who is a charming sweetheart. For at least a generation you’ve needed a sign-off from Human Resources and probably from a departmental committee and the company’s general counsel before you could even think about firing a member of a protected class in a firm with more than six employees

As far back as the 1930’s Dashiell Hammett was railing against lazy crime writers who didn’t know the difference between revolvers and automatic pistols. (The former don’t have safeties and don’t eject shell casings; the latter do). Midshipmen at the Naval Academy will not find themselves anywhere near the deck of an aircraft carrier during plebe summer, contrary to a late ’ninties movie about a female plebe who had allegedly murdered a romantic rival before reaching Annapolis. And so forth.

For quite awhile now, of course, we’ve been able to get information about basically anything with a few mouse clicks, without having to pore through stacks of periodicals in libraries. The catch is that you have to know what you don’t know. I knew that I didn’t know how fast males in good condition could be expected to move across uneven ground on foot in the dark, so when I was writing False Flag in Autumn this year I asked a graduate of West Point. On the other hand, it never occurred to me that the eponymous patron of a Boston art gallery victimized by a huge theft in the 1990’s, which I invoked in But Remember Their Names, might have spelled her last name differently than most people named Gardner spelled theirs. After correcting the spelling to Gardiner, my editor pointed out scoldingly that I could easily have looked this information up myself. Of course I could have – and I would have if I’d had the slightest doubt about the accuracy of my flatly erroneous assumption.

The larger problem with research is that it’s so much fun that the tail can end up wagging the dog. If you’ve invested three hours in confirming that colleges at Oxford University permitted women students to smoke on campus in 1912 (they did, to the delighted surprise of Dorothy L. Sayers), you’ll be strongly tempted to plug that datum into your story even if it doesn’t add enough to plot, characterization, or setting to justify the sentence or two – or three, or four – required to do so. If you’ve tracked down eight plays showing on Broadway in 1962, all you need for background color is to have a character casually mention going to one of them – but why not “show your work” by shoehorning the entire laundry list into your story? (Oops, I did that in Fielder’s Choice, didn’t I? Hey, I was young.)

Maybe the moral here is that writers should build their research on a foundation of humility. It helps to remember that, no matter how much we’ve learned from diligent inquiry among diverse sources about emergency room protocols, the muzzle velocities of civilian-model assault rifles, the Federal Rules of Evidence, or the names of streets in downtown Chicago, there will be readers who know more than we do – and some of them will let us know if our diligence leads us to incautious extrapolation from what we’ve learned. Much worse, others will simply stop reading.

The Whig historian Hilaire Belloc wrote that it isn’t bad history to say that the Battle of Waterloo was fought on a Tuesday even though it was fought on a Sunday, but it is bad history to say that it was won on the playing fields of Eton. Belloc was a better historian than I am, so I’ll defer to his judgment. What I can affirm with confidence is that it is bad mystery-writing to say either one – especially if you’re writing a plucky-couple puzzle mystery set in contemporary Seattle.    

For more information about the author or his books, visit Michael Bowen online.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine, Game Of Thrones star Lena Headey, and singer Rita Ora are among the cast for Twist, an update on the classic Charles Dickens story, Oliver Twist. Also starring will be David Walliams, Franz Drameh, Sophie Simnett, and newcomer Raff Law (son of Jude Law) in the title role. The project reimagines the character of Oliver as a streetwise artist living on the streets of day London. A chance encounter with a gang of grifters led by the charismatic Dodge (Ora) sees Twist (Law) caught up in a high stakes heist to steal a priceless painting for master thief, Fagin (Caine), and his psychopathic business partner, Sikes (Headey).

Sony’s TriStar has preemptively picked up Cooper McMains’ feature thriller, The Tip, and attached Emmy winning director John Strickland (The Bodyguard) to direct. Although the details of the Cooper McMains script are being kept under wraps, elements involve a waitress and a hefty $10K tip from a stranger with events turning dangerous.

Willem Dafoe has closed a deal to join Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, and Rooney Mara in Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Nightmare Alley. Dafoe will play the head barker at a traveling carnival who gives Bradley Cooper’s character a job, ushering him into a world of show biz and grifting. Del Toro, who co-wrote the script with Kim Morgan, will direct the thriller for Fox Searchlight with a production start date in early 2020.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Ilene Rosenzweig, Reel One Entertainment, Element 8 Entertainment, and Paris-based La Sabotière are developing a series based on Mary Higgins Clark’s U.S. crime novel, I’ll Be Seeing You. The project will be developed as an open-ended anthology series with each season inspired by a different Higgins Clark novel and a different crime, with over 40 titles to choose from. It will featuring a diverse cast of strong female characters, and set against the familiar backdrop of downtown Manhattan and the suburbs of New Jersey.

CBS has put in development, Bent, a crime drama from writer Vaun Wilmott (Star Trek: Discovery, Prison Break), Jerry Bruckheimer TV, and CBS Television Studios. Written by Wilmott, Bent revolves around an instinctive and streetwise Texas law enforcement officer who is caught between two parental figures – her biological father, who co-opted her into his 10-state crime spree as a child, and her adopted father, who caught them and took her in as his own.

Netflix is developing a sequel to Murder Mystery, the comedy that starred Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, with James Vanderbilt in negotiations to return and pen the script. Sandler and Aniston played a married couple who become embroiled in a murder plot while on a European vacation, bickering their way through the solving of the mystery.

PBS Masterpiece has joined the remake of the classic European detective series, Van der Valk, and will co-produce and air the show in the U.S. The original 1970s series was loosely based on the Nicolas Freeling novels and starred Barry Foster as the thoughtful titular Dutch detective, tackling crimes against a picturesque Dutch backdrop. The producers said the new iteration will see Van der Valk re-imagined as an unapologetic and street-smart cop in Amsterdam who leads a dynamic team investigating mysterious crimes.

Also on the European front, Hammarvik, created by best-selling Swedish author Camilla Läckberg, is the next original production from Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group), the Nordic region’s leading streaming company. The innovative 16-part series blends crime drama and soap opera, and will premiere exclusively on NENT Group’s Viaplay streaming service across the Nordic region in late 2020. Set in the small community of Hammarvik, the series follows police officer Johanna who returns to her home town for her mother’s funeral, whereupon she is confronted by old memories, conflicts and relationships.

Fox has given a script commitment with penalty to The Service, a one-hour drama from writer Drew Lindo, Blindspot creator Martin Gero, and Warner Bros TV. Ten years after her best friend, Josh, vanished, journalist Maya Ford is shocked to see him re-emerge in New York as an operative for The Service, a secret organization that creates elaborate public deceptions to change the lives of its clients. As she follows the man she once knew into The Service’s web, she’ll discover that its unseen influence has the power to change the world.

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to Live, a Washington, D.C.-set police drama series executive produced by This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown through his 20th Century Fox TV-based Indian Meadows Productions. Written by Chris Collins (The Wire), Live is based on the Korean series of the same name and is described as "a grounded and gritty, adrenalized exploration of six interconnected unsung heroes within D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department" seen primarily through the eyes of Darcell Murrray, a young African-American cop born and raised in one of the most dangerous sectors of D.C.

Former Grimm executive producers Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner have reteamed with that series’ former writers Thomas Ian Griffith and Mary Page Keller for a new drama project for NBC. The Translator’s Daughter is a thriller about an American college student who, while interning for the CIA, finds herself torn among the loyalty to her country, the female crime boss protecting her, and the young New York detective with whom she’s fallen in love.

CBS TV Studios is looking to reboot the 1995 film comedy, Clueless, for the small screen as a mystery drama of sorts. The show would be focused on the Dionne character played by Stacey Dash in the Alicia Silverstone-led movie and the followup series. The reboot is described "as a baby pink and bisexual blue-tinted, tiny sunglasses-wearing, oat milk latte and Adderall-fueled look at what happens when the high school Queen Bee (Cher) disappears and her life-long number two (Dionne) steps into Cher’s vacant Air Jordans. How does Dionne deal with the pressures of being the new most popular girl in school, while also unraveling the mystery of what happened to her best friend, all in a setting that is uniquely 2020 LA?"

The Mediapro Studio Argentina is partnering with Vice Studios to co-produce The Cliff (El Acantilado), a crime thriller series set in Patagonia. The show has been created by Martin Hodara (who directed 2017 crime feature Black Snow starring Ricardo Darín) and is set in a small Patagonian town where the suicides of several teenagers have shaken local residents. The storyline follows the families of those affected seeking justice while authorities cover up crimes behind the deaths to avoid political consequences.

In a New York Times profile, author John le Carré revealed that his sons' production company, The Ink Factory, is plotting an epic new TV series about his most famous character, spymaster George Smiley. The Ink Factory now plans to do new television adaptations of all the novels featuring Cold War spy George Smiley - this time in chronological order. Le Carré says that his sons are interested in casting the British actor Jared Harris (Chernobyl, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). Harris was originally cast in Tomas Alfredson's 2011 le Carré adaptation, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as MI6 chief Percy Alleline, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, in which he played Professor Moriarty.

Why Women Kill has been renewed by CBS All Access for Season 2, according to the streaming service. The first season of the darkly comedic, drama anthology series stars Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste and examines details the lives of three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the ’60s, a socialite in the ’80s and a lawyer in 2019, each dealing with infidelity in their marriages. Season 2 will follow a new set of characters dealing with acts of betrayal.

Weeds alum Justin Kirk is set for a key undisclosed recurring role opposite John Lithgow, Matthew Rhys, and Tatiana Maslany in the limited HBO series, Perry Mason. The reimagined Perry Mason is set in 1932 Los Angeles and follows the origins of American fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason (Rhys).

Karrueche Tran (Claws) is set to recur on the upcoming Fox series, Deputy, starring Stephen Dorff. Deputy is a cop drama that blends the spirit of a classic Western with a modern attitude and gritty authenticity. Tran will play Genevieve, the fun-loving, quick-witted partner of a by-the-books deputy in the department. Yara Martinez, Brian Van Holt, Siena Goines, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Shane Paul McGhie, and Mark Moses co-star.

USA released the first full trailer for the third season of its crime drama anthology, The Sinner. In the third installment, Pullman plays Harry Ambrose, a detective who begins a routine investigation of a tragic car accident on the outskirts of Dorchester, in upstate New York but goes on to uncover a hidden crime that pulls him into the most dangerous and disturbing case of his career. Matt Bomer also stars as one of the men involved in the accident, and Chris Messina plays his creepy college friend.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

British crime author Martina Cole revealed she often receives marriage proposals from prisoners and indulges in a "big glass of whiskey" before writing her most gruesome scenes. The 60-year-old writer from Essex appeared on Loose Women where she opened up about her illustrious literary career, having released 22 novels about crime.

On East Coast Radio, host Terence Pillay chatted with multi award-winning author Deon Meyer about his writing and the upcoming Mnet show, Trackers, based on Meyer's novel.

RNZ: Saturday Morning spoke with Michael Connelly about his new Harry Bosch book, The Night Fire, which also sees the return of Connelly's characters LAPD Detective Renée Ballard and Bosch's half-brother attorney, Mickey Haller.

Writer Types welcomed three great authors: Wendy Corsi Staub, Jake Hinkson, and Matthew Mather, plus a report from the Men Of Mystery conference featuring Howard Michael Gould, Brett Battles, Jack Carr, Paddy Hirsch, Phoef Sutton, and Neal Griffin.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro featured author Catriona McPherson, who discussed her golden age mysteries starring Dandy Gilver, her comedic Lexy Campbell novels, her newest domestic Noir (Strangers at the Gate), Scotland, book conferences, and why mailboxes should be red instead of blue.

The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took on the topics of "Preptober, FBI Consultants, and SWAT Standoffs."

It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with author Joshilyn Jackson about her new psychological thriller, Never Have I Ever.

Red Hot Chilli Writers looked at the link between Agatha Christie's disappearance and a hotel room in Istanbul; the fate of Edgar Allen Poe; chatted with crime and contemporary romance novelist Elly Griffiths; found out about a fat bear contest in Alaska; discussed the Booker Prize; reviewed A Very Expensive Poison; and talked about the influence of book blurbs.

THEATRE

The New Victoria Theatre in Woking UK, is presenting The Girl on the Train from October 28 through November 2. This is the latest stop in the touring production of the adaptation of Paula Hawkins's novel, which centers on Rachel, whose only escape is the perfect couple she watches through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it appears. When Rachel learns that the woman she’s been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.

The Oak Park Festival near Chicago, Illinois, will present The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe — A Love Story, from October 24 through November 17. Two years after the death of his beloved wife, Edgar Allan Poe grapples with love and madness in this innovative, interactive theatre experience that takes place in different rooms in the theatre.

Chicago's Theatre in the Dark is presenting Three Stories Up from October 24 through November 9. After her husband is killed, a transit cop finds herself mixed up in Vancouver’s criminal underground. The 80-minute noir mystery is set (almost) completely in the dark, with the actors playing nearly a dozen characters including cops, priests, journalists, and grifters.

Mystery Melange

The longlist for the third annual Warwick Prize for Women in Translation was announced, including the literary murder mystery, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tocarczu, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

On Saturday, October 26, the Texas Book Festival is sponsoring a Lit Crawl Austin, which includes events such as a Noir at the Bar at Cheer Up Charlies. The MysteryPeople will present a "round of hip, hard-boiled, nitty-gritty noir readings" by crime fiction authors Steph Cha, May Cobb, Gabino Iglesias, Joe Lansdale, Craig Johnson, Mike McCrary, and Alex Segura. Scott Montgomery will be taking on hosting duties for the evening.

The annual mystery fan conference Boucheron is coming up later this month in Dallas, but If you missed the inaugural Capital Crime conference in London recently, Ali Karim has a wrap-up for The Rap Sheet. Capital Crime is a celebration of books, films, and TV with a line-up that focuses on a mix of world class talent, rising stars, and newcomers. This year's headliners included David Baldacci, John Connolly, Ian Rankin, Anne Cleeves, and Anthony Horowitz.

If you're going to Bouchercon, you won't want to miss The Ghost Town Mortuary, a radio play by Anthony Boucher, performed by members of Mystery Writers of America NorCal, Friday, November 1, 11 am, at the Landmark Ballroom in the Hyatt Regency. Authors scheduled to participate include Laurie R. King, David Corbett, Kelli Stanley, Reece Hirsch, Randal Brands, Dale Berry, Gigi Pandian, James L'Etoile, and Terry Shames.

The Left Coast Crime National Committee is offering five scholarships to Left Coast Crime #30 in San Diego, California, March 12-15, 2020. The LCC Scholarships include a free registration to the convention in San Diego (currently $215) plus $500 expense money. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Serpent's Tail senior commissioning editor, Miranda Jewess, will launch a new crime imprint, Viper, at a launch party in London on November 7th. The 20 titles planned for its inaugural year include the very first title, the "haunting police procedural" A Famished Heart by Irish author Nicola White (due February 2020). Others in the pipeline include The Plague Letters by NPR senior editor Vikki Valentine, writing under her pen name V L Valentine, and David Jackson's standalone thriller, The Resident. Jewess, the former acquisitions and managing editor at Titan Books, joined the company as senior commissioning editor for Serpent’s Tail Crime in February to commission titles across the crime, thriller, and suspense genres.

The British Library has just issued its catalogue for the first half of next year, including half a dozen Crime Classics. Stand-out titles, according to editor Martin Edwards, will be The Woman in the Wardrobe by Peter Shaffer; John Dickson Carr's atmospheric Castle Skull, set in the Rhineland; Mary Kelly's The Spoilt Kill, which won her the CWA Gold Dagger when she was still in her early thirties, and many other upcoming mystery goodies.

The Fall/October issue of Flash Bang Mysteries, edited by B.J. and Brandon Bourg, is up and available online. I am thrilled and honored that my flash piece, "The Barbecue Pot" was chosen as the cover story and Editor's Choice, joining the talented company of authors Alan Orloff, Bruce Harris, and Herschel Cozine in the issue.

In a restored recording from 1954, Ngaio Marsh speaks about her first novel, A Man Lay Dead (1934); relates her "odd" (in her view) process of writing detective fiction; and provides her eyewitness account of the eventful inauguration of E. C. Bentley as Detection Club president in 1936 with Dorothy L. Sayers and John Rhode. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at the Bunburyist)

Georgia Public Broadcasting snagged Amaryllis Fox for a recent profile. Fox's book, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, is a memoir about the author's time as a spy and is especially helpful for those of you who write spy thrillers (tip: eateries are key to spycraft).

What makes reading a good mystery so satisfying? Vulture collected thoughts and tips from thirteen crime novelists.

Do you like a little bit of the supernatural with your crime fiction? Author John Connolly offered up a defense of cross-genre writing (which includes his own latest work, A Book of Bones) for CrimeReads. And he didn't have to look too far, since Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and even Arthur Conan Doyle had some supernatural literary connections.

In honor of the new Nancy Drew series on the CW network, Book Riot has a "Which Nancy Drew Sidekick are You?" quiz and a list of Nancy Drew computer games for "every mood."

I have to admit it: I'm a closeted pun fan. And apparently, I'm not the only one, as these grammar puns will attest. (I'm sorry, and you're welcome.)

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Nocturne" by John Oughton.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Scott Adlerberg chatted with Jake Hinkson about his new novel, Dry County, as well as the influences of film noir in Jake's books and thoughts about the origins of evil; GQ's Writer of the Year, James Ellroy, spoke with the magazine about his latest Los Angeles-based noir thriller, reconciling with his second ex-wife, how his mother's murder shaped his writing and finding the "happy gene" via the twin mediums of coffee and "scantily clad young women; spy thriller author John le Carré spoke with The Guardian about Britain, Boris and Brexit; Joy Kluver interviewed William Ryan about his latest novel, A House of Ghosts; and CrimeReads featured one interview with William Kent Krueger on "Writing a New American Epic for the Mississippi River" and another with Lee Child about "Mortality, Sales, Rivals, and Successors."

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Jason Statham is reuniting with Guy Ritchie for the fourth time on an untitled action thriller, a remake of the French 2004 movie, Le Convoyeur, starring Jean Dujardin and Albert Dupontel. The project is a revenge-thriller that will follow "H," a cold and mysterious man responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week. The film also shifts across timelines and between various character’s perspectives.

A female-fronted John Wick spinoff film titled Ballerina is in the works, with Len Wiseman set to direct the film. Ballerina follows a female assassin and will be developed as an extension to the John Wick universe. 

Taken director Pierre Morel is set to helm an action thriller based on the graphic novel, The Blacksmith, by Malik Evans and Richard Sparkman. The project tells the story of a go-to weapons expert who goes on the run after his lab is destroyed and his colleagues are murdered. He has to use his unique set of skills to keep him alive and journey through the heart of his own dark profession. 

Ben Foster (Hell Or High Water) and Gillian Jacobs (Community) have joined Chris Pine in the action-thriller, Violence Of Action, which has now begun principal photography in the U.S., Germany, and Romania. Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident) is directing from a script by J.P. Davis. The story centers on James Harper (Pine), who is involuntarily discharged from the Green Berets and joins a paramilitary organization in order to support his family. Harper travels to Berlin with his elite team on a black ops mission to investigate a mysterious threat, where he finds himself alone and hunted across Europe after he is betrayed.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

ABC has given a put pilot commitment to Homicide Special, a crime drama from The Resident co-creator/executive producers Amy Holden Jones and Andrew Chapman. Homicide Special is set inside the Homicide Special division of the Philadelphia PD and follows two young and recently promoted female detectives and a beat cop as they take on an entrenched and corrupt system at an inner city precinct.

Fox has given a script commitment to an FBI drama from The Resident supervising producer Jen Klein. The project is an untitled fast-paced, character-driven drama centering on four female FBI agents in the Manhattan field office, a storyline inspired by journalist and author Doug Stanton’s interviews of women in law enforcement. 

David Oyelowo has been tapped for the lead role in Showtime's The President Is Missing, based on the book of the same name by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. The project follows a powerless and politically aimless Vice President (Oyelowo) who unexpectedly becomes President halfway into his administration’s first term, despite his every wish to the contrary. He walks right into a secret, world-threatening crisis, both inside and outside the White House. 

HBO has picked up a series adaptation of the Maniac Cop film franchise from Nicolas Winding Reffn. Set in Los Angeles, Maniac Cop is told through "a kaleidoscope of characters, from cop to common criminal" when a killer in uniform unleashes mayhem upon the streets. Paranoia leads to social disorder as a city wrestles with the mystery of the exterminator in blue – is he mere mortal, or a supernatural force?

The creative team behind NBC’s 2018-19 drama series, The Village, have reteamed for another drama, which has landed at NBC for development. Titled Bad Blood, the crime drama centers on a murder investigation that leads an upstanding detective deep into the life of a criminal brother he never knew he had. While one brother struggles to go straight, the other increasingly finds himself with a foot in two worlds — cracking cases, harboring secrets, and treading the slippery moral slope of putting blood before blue.

Prodigal Son has been picked up for a full season at Fox, taking Season 1 up to 22 episodes total. The series premiere of Prodigal Son was the highest-rated new series on any network and helped lead Fox to its first victory on opening night of the broadcast season in 10 years. The Walking Dead's Tom Payne stars as Malcolm Bright, a criminal psychologist whose father, Dr. Martin Whitly (Michael Sheen), is a notorious serial killer known as "The Surgeon." Bright's relationship with his father gives him both the baggage and the expertise he needs to solve crimes as a consultant for the NYPD. The network also announced that Here and Now alum Raymond Lee is set for a recurring role in the series.

Last week I noted that the Bourne franchise is coming back very soon to USA with a spinoff series called Treadstone. The show, which is primarily set within the present day, follows a number of sleeper agents after the supposed shuttering of Treadstone years prior. Now, Amazon has picked up the global rights to the drama and will launch the series outside of the States in January 2020 following its debut on the NBCU-backed cable network on October 15. The series stars Jeremy Irvine, Tracy Ifeachor, Omar Metwally, Brian J. Smith, Hyo Joo Han, Gabrielle Scharnitzky, Emilia Schüle, and Michelle Forbes.

A+E networks' spy documentary series, Damien Lewis: Spy Wars, has been picked up in international markets including Canada and China shortly after the Smithsonian Channel snagged it for the U.S. market. The project is Homeland star Lewis's first foray into factual television, and is an eight-part documentary series telling the true stories behind some of the most important international spy operations of the past 40 years.

The Irishman’s Stephen Graham and Black ’47’s Freddie Fox are to star in the new ITV crime drama, White House Farm. Graham plays DCI "Taff" Jones and Fox plays Jeremy Bamber in the factual drama that tells the story of members of the same family who were murdered at an Essex farmhouse. Mark Addy, Gemma Whelan, Mark Stanley, Alexa Davies, Cressida Bonas, Alfie Allen, Amanda Burton, and Nicholas Farrell also star.

Clive Owen is joining Julianne Moore in the thriller, Lisey’s Story, the upcoming Apple+ limited series from Stephen King and J.J. Abrams. Based on King’s best-selling novel from 2006, the eight-episode follows Lisey (Moore) two years following the death of her husband when a series of events causes her to face realities about her husband she had repressed and forgotten.

The Expanse star Cas Anvar has booked a recurring role on the sixth and final season of ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. Anvar plays Robert Hsieh, an in-house lawyer of a popular dating app who works closely with Caplan & Gold on a discrimination suit. 

Game Of Thrones alum Michiel Huisman is set as the male lead opposite Kaley Cuoco in HBO Max’s thriller drama series, The Flight Attendant. The Flight Attendant follows Cassie (Cuoco), a flight attendant who wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man – and no idea what happened. Huisman will play Alex, a charming, wealthy businessman, who runs into some serious bad luck in Bangkok and ends up sticking with Cassie longer than expected. It was also announced that The Purge alum Colin Woodell is set for a key role as an out-of-work actor whose boozy charm is very attractive to Cassie.

Avan Jogia, Dane DeHaan, and Maika Monroe are set to star in the upcoming Quibi series, The Stranger. The thriller follows an unassuming young rideshare driver who is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious Hollywood Hills passenger enters her car. Her terrifying ride with the stranger unfolds over 12 hours as she navigates the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in a chilling game of cat and mouse. 

John Boyd has been upped to a series regular on FBI for the CBS drama’s current second season. His first episode as a series regular will air on October 22. Bones-alum Boyd plays Agent Stuart Scola, a silver-tongued, quick-witted former Wall Street type. 

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Deon Meyer spoke with JustNje about expectations surrounding the M-net series adaptation of his acclaimed crime novel, Trackers.

In the latest Read or Dead podcast episode, regular host Katie McClean Horner was joined by guest host, Liberty Hardy, to talk about Knives Out, creepy mysteries, and more.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed author Deborah Crombie to chat about the latest in her series with Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James, Bitter Feast.

The latest episode of Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, "Mr. Borden Does Not Quite Remem…" written by Ana Brazil and read by actor Kelly Ventura; the story has to do with Lizzie Borden and is perfect for Halloween.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack welcomed journalist and crime writer Peter Eichstaedt. His nonfiction works include First Kill Your Family, his book on child soldiers in Uganda (the 2009 Colorado Book Award winner), and his latest thriller novel is Enemy of the People, the second installlment in his series featuring journalist Kyle Dawson.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club featured guests Lauren North, author of The Perfect Son, and former Toronto Police Officer tuned crime writer, Desmond Ryan, author of Man at the Door.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro chatted with Owen Mullen about his native Scotland and his new book, Deadly Harm.

Beyond The Cover welcomed special guest Casey Barrett to talk about his latest book, The Tower of Songs.

THEATER

The Portland Ballet will present Tales by Poe, October 18-19, at Westbrook Performing Arts Center. Inspired by the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Artistic Director Nell Shipman has transformed Poe’s "Berenice," "Tell Tale Heart" and "Masque of the Red Death" into ballets suitable for the most haunting time of the year.

The Lakewood Playhouse is presenting the return engagement of their popular one-man show, An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe. The play will be performed October 18-19 and features Tim Hoban as Edgar Allan Poe inviting you into his parlor to hear some of his most famous stories of the macabre and imagery-filled poetry.

Mystery Melange

 

The Texas Book Festival tweeted this morning that the 2019 Texas Writer Award Winner is Attica Locke. Locke's latest novel, Heaven, My Home, is the sequel to the Edgar Award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird. Her third novel Pleasantville was the winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was also long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction. Locke will receive the award on Saturday, October 26, at the festival in Austin.

The Mystery Writers of America's Northern California chapter is sponsoring a weeklong celebration of crime and mystery fiction at various locations in California from October 19 through 26. The events kick off in San Francisco with a Noir at the Bar featuring Laurie R. King as emcee and authors David Corbett, Alan Jacobson, Claire Johnson, Eileen Rendahl, Kelli Stanley. All the events are free and open to the public.

This week saw the 170th anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe and the arrival of the first International Edgar Allan Poe Festival and Awards, held in Baltimore. At the Saturday evening banquet, the award for Best Adaptations of E.A. Poe’s Life or Works went to The Raven, by Damien Draven; The Tale Telling Heart, by Nicholas Schleif and A Midnight Visit, by Broad Encounters Productions. The Best Original Works Inspired by E.A. Poe’s Life and Writing were Bury Me Like Poe, by Kandy S. Alameda; The Raven Nutcracker, by Tracy Dentico; and The Assassination Of Edgar Allan Poe, by Devon Armstrong and John Armstrong. Also celebrating the Poe milestone in Richmond, Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch put together a montage of Poe-related articles and photos from their archives, and Richmond's WWBT-TV looked into the enduring mystery behind the author's death. And now might also be a good time to pay a visit to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum.

On Saturday, November 9 at 5:00 p.m., the Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Pasadena will host the panel ON THE RUN: Australian Crime Writers in America. Pasadena author Désirée Zamorano moderates this discussion with visiting authors Sulari Gentill (the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries); Robert Gott (historical crime novels); Jock Serong (Quota; Preservation), and Emma Viskic (Resurrection Bay). ON THE RUN is a group of four award-winning Australian crime writers, who recently received a grant by the Australia Council for the Arts to tour the United States.

The Beacon Society is sponsoring an essay contest for US and Canadian students in 4th to 12th grades that focuses on the Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League," "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," and "The Greek Interpreter." There are cash prizes for first to third place, and the submission deadline is February 1, 2020. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at The Bunburyist)

The Fall 2019 issue of Suspense Magazine is out, featuring interviews of Doug Preston and Lincoln Child; Karin Slaughter; Iris Johansen; David Baldacci; Adrian McKinty; Chris Bauer; Karen Katchur, and Leslie Meier. Daryl Wood Gerber has a feature "On Writing" and Dennis Palumbo has had "Enough" and lets you know why. There are also dozen of pages of reviews, short stories and much more.

Hodder & Stoughton has commissioned a major new book about Agatha Christie from historian and biographer Lucy Worsley, promising a new perspective on the crime master. Worsley said she wanted to place Christie as a female author in the wider context of "a troubled 20th century." The historian has previously written a history of the detective fiction genre, A Very British Murder, and a biography of another successful female author, Jane Austen.

Sarah Weinman penned a profile for Crimereads of "How Mary Roberts Rinehart, Queen of the Mystery Novel, Was Very Nearly Murdered."

For you authors out there: over at the Killzone blog, John Gilstrap talked about using guns in crime fiction, while Sue Coletta wondered if writers (and others) can lose their fingerprints.

In the "truth is often stranger than fiction" department, the FBI is calling Samuel Little America's "most prolific serial killer," confessing to 93 murders, of which 50 have been verified.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Shut-Off" by Wayne R. Burke. And the 5-2 editor, Gerald So, also made note of 5-2 "best" poems of the year that will be submitted to Sundress Publications' Best of the Net anthology.

In the Q&A roundup, the Daily journal spoke with J.A. Jance about her early setbacks and later successes; New Zealand's Stuff Magazine chatted with author Adrian McKinty on going from being an Uber driver to selling a crime novel to Hollywood; Star2 interviewed John Connolly about his Charlie Parker series and the settings involved in the latest installment, A Book of Bones; Canberra journalist and author, Chris Hammer, sat down with Riotact about how crime does pay with the publication of his second novel, Silver; and the Dark Phantom Review snagged true crime writer Caitlin Rother to discuss her research and writing, including her latest book about the murders of Tom and Jackie Hawks.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

The full cast was revealed for Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile just as the sequel to Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express begins filming in Egypt (with a target release of October 9, 2020). The Agatha Christie adaptation once again stars Branagh as Hercule Poirot, along with co-stars Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, and Letitia Wright. Michael Green, who adapted Murder on the Orient Express, is pulling down writing duties for Death on the Nile. Branagh also announced that he is going to shoot the project in 65mm.

Sony Pictures Classics has set a release date for Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor, which is the official entry from Italy for the International Feature Film Oscar. The film opened on May 23 in Italy and will now be released stateside in New York and Los Angeles on January 31, 2020. The Traitor is based on the true story of Tommaso Buscetta (played by Pierfrancesco Favino), the man who brought down the Cosa Nostra mafia in Sicily. During its Cannes premiere, The Traitor screened in competition and received a 13-minute standing ovation.

Christopher McQuarrie has apparently begun work on the next two Mission: Impossible movies. While the exact plan for the two films hasn't been revealed, they'll be released a year apart from each other which means the two films are set to be shot back-to-back.

A trailer was released for Guy Ritchie’s latest film, The Gentlemen, with Matthew McConaughey playing the sole American expat among an impressive cast of British tough guys. McConaughey’s character has built a profitable marijuana empire in London and is rumored to be cashing out of his business forever, leading every gangster in town to plot schemes, bribes and blackmail in an attempt to win his empire. The only problem is, he is not for sale. Also in the cast are Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

CBS has given a put pilot order to Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren’s one-hour drama, The International. Lundgren is set to star as Anders Soto, described as part negotiator, part international spy. He is a one-man covert black-ops team working for the U.N., called in to find asymmetrical solutions to the world’s most delicate and complex problems. Stallone is set to direct, while Ken Sanzel will write and executive produce.

The Bourne franchise is coming back soon to USA with a spinoff series called Treadstone. The show, which is primarily set within the present day, follows a number of sleeper agents after the supposed shuttering of Treadstone years prior. Treadstone will expand the lore of the franchise as well as playing into a new Bourne film, which is in the works.

CBS has put in development Drift, a drama from Black List writer Christopher Salmanpour. After the disappearance of her wife on a scuba trip, a renowned and fearless oceanographer forms an unorthodox but highly skilled team of specialists. They take on the unique challenge of solving crimes committed at sea where evidence and clues are as fickle as the tides, devoting themselves to bringing closure to victims who rarely get it.

AMC has given a series order to the courtroom drama, 61st Street, being described as a "two-season television event series," with eight episodes each. The drama centers on Moses Johnson, a "promising, black high school athlete who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system" when he is taken by the police as a supposed gang member and accused of the death of an officer during a drug bust gone wrong. Peter Moffat, who wrote the BBC drama which inspired HBO’s The Night Of, is showrunner and executive producer.

TBS has given a straight-to-series order to Obliterated, a 10-episode one-hour action drama. Obliterated is a serialized action dramedy focused on an elite special forces team tracking a deadly terrorist network, hell-bent on blowing up Las Vegas. After their raging end-of-mission party filled with alcohol and drug-fueled debauchery, the team discovers the bomb they deactivated was a decoy. With the clock ticking, the intoxicated team has to fight through their impairments, overcome their personal issues, deactivate the bomb, and save the world.

Sonoya Mizuno (Maniac) is set as a series regular opposite Kaley Cuoco in HBO Max’s thriller drama series, The Flight Attendant, based on the novel by New York Times bestselling author Chris Bohjalian. The project centers on Cassie (Cuoco), a flight attendant, who wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man – and no idea what happened. Mizuno will play Miranda, a savvy and potentially dangerous businesswoman who Cassie meets in Bangkok.

S.W.A.T. actress, Stephanie Sigman, confirmed her departure from the CBS drama on social media this week after fans noticed her absence from the show’s Season 3 premiere. One of the show’s original cast members alongside series star Shemar Moore, Sigman portrayed Jessica Cortez, commanding officer of the LAPD Metropolitan Division for two seasons. In the Season 2 finale, the character accepted an offer from the FBI to leave the LAPD and go undercover.

Once Upon a Time alumna Mekia Cox is returning to ABC with a series regular role on the upcoming second season of the cop drama, The Rookie, starring Nathan Fillion. Cox will play Detective Nyla Harper, who tries to reclaim a more normal law enforcement life after a four-year stint working undercover. Her character first appears in the upcoming fourth episode "Warriors and Guardians."

BBC One is set to premiere its Sarah Phelps-written crime drama, Dublin Murders, on October 14. The eight-episode series has been picked up by Starz in the U.S. and is adapted from Tana French’s first two novels in the Dublin Murder Squad crime series, In The Woods and The Likeness. Filmed in Belfast and Dublin, Dublin Murders stars Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful) as detectives dispatched to investigate a child’s murder, who find a community caught between old and new Ireland.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Laura Lippman joins WYNC's Greene Space to discuss her new book, Lady in the Lake, for the first installment of the book club, "Get Lit with All Of It."

Two Crime Writers and Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste presented a live recording from the Bloody Scotland crime festival as they were joined by an array of talent including Richard Osman, Mark Billingham, Caroline Kepnes, Chris Brookmyre, Helen FitzGerald, and Abir Mukherjee.

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack interviewed retired police officer and detective with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Andy Caldwell. Caldwell's book, Room 1203, is the true crime story of the O.J. case, on which Caldwell served as an investigator.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro welcomed Dietrich Kalteis to talk about his new release, Call Down the Thunder.

The latest Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took a look at the topics of "Firearms Qualifications, Exceptional Means, and OODA Loops."

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Anna Lee Huber, the Daphne award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries, the Verity Kent Mysteries, the Gothic Myths series, and the forthcoming anthology, The Deadly Hours.

The latest podcast from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine features a reading of Macavity Award-nominated short story, "Race to Judgment," by author Craig Faustus Buck.

THEATER

The King's Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland, is staging English dramatist J. B. Priestley's play, An Inspector Calls, through October 12. When Inspector Goole arrives unexpectedly at the prosperous Birling family home, their peaceful dinner party is shattered by his investigations into the death of a young woman. His startling revelations shake the very foundations of their lives.