The Edgars Via the Ether

Following the cancellation of the annual Edgar Awards banquet, hosted by the Mystery Writers of America, the organization announced it would switch to an online awards ceremony via Twitter. That day has arrived, and the winners for excellence in crime fiction and drama are:

BEST NOVEL

WINNER:  The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Also nominated:

Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland (Hachette Book Group – Grand Central Publishing)
The River by Peter Heller (Penguin Random House – Alfred A. Knopf)
Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus Books)
Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
 
WINNER:  Miracle Creek by Angie Kim (Farrar Straus and Giroux)

Also nominated:

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing (Penguin Random House - Berkley)
The Good Detective by John McMahon (Penguin Random House – G.P. Putnam's Sons)
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott (Penguin Random House – Alfred A. Knopf)
Three-Fifths by John Vercher (Polis Books – Agora Books)
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (Penguin Random House – Random House)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
 
WINNER:  The Hotel Neversink by Adam O'Fallon Price (Tin House Books)

Also nominated:

Dread of Winter by Susan Alice Bickford (Kensington Publishing)
Freedom Road by William Lashner (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
Blood Relations by Jonathan Moore (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – Mariner Books)
February's Son by Alan Parks (Europa Editions – World Noir)
The Bird Boys by Lisa Sandlin (Cinco Puntos Press)

BEST FACT CRIME

WINNER:  The Less People Know About Us: A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity by Axton Betz-Hamilton (Hachette Book Group – Grand Central Publishing)

Also nominated:

The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott (Penguin Random House - Crown)
American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan (Penguin Random House - Viking)
Norco '80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History by Peter Houlahan (Counterpoint Press)
Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall by James Polchin (Counterpoint Press)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
 
WINNER:  Hitchcock and the Censors by John Billheimer (University Press of Kentucky)

Also nominated:

Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan by Ursula Buchan (Bloomsbury Publishing)
The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of Collins Crime Club by John Curran (Collins Crime Club)
Medieval Crime Fiction: A Critical Overview by Anne McKendry (McFarland)
The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle
Remade the World for Women by Mo Moulton (Hachette Book Group – Basic Books)
 
BEST SHORT STORY

WINNER:  "One of These Nights," from Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers by Livia Llewellyn (Akashic Books)

Also nominated:

"Turistas," from Paque Tu Lo Sepas by Hector Acosta (Down & Out Books)
"The Passenger," from Sydney Noir by Kirsten Tranter (Akashic Books)
"Home at Last," from Die Behind the Wheel: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Steely Dan by Sam Wiebe (Down & Out Books)
"Brother's Keeper," from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Dave Zeltserman (Dell Magazine)

BEST JUVENILE

WINNER:  Me and Sam-Sam Handle the Apocalypse by Susan Vaught (Simon & Schuster Children's Books – Paula Wiseman Books)

Also nominated:

The Collected Works of Gretchen Oyster by Cary Fagan (Penguin Random House Canada – Tundra Books
Eventown by Corey Ann Haydu (HarperCollins Children's Books – Katherine Tegen Books)
The Whispers by Greg Howard (Penguin Young Readers – G.P. Putnam's Sons BFYR)
All the Greys on Greene Street by Laura Tucker (Penguin Young Readers – Viking BFYR)
 
BEST YOUNG ADULT
 
WINNER:  Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer (Tom Doherty Associates – Tor Teen)

Also nominated:

Killing November by Adriana Mather (Random House Children's Books – Alfred A. Knopf BFYR)
Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay (Penguin Young Readers - Kokila)
The Deceivers by Kristen Simmons (Tom Doherty Associates – Tor Teen)
Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas (Bloomsbury Publishing)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

WINNER:  "Season 5, Episode 4" – Line of Duty, Teleplay by Jed Mercurio (Acorn TV)

Also nominated:

"Season 5, Episode 3" – Line of Duty, Teleplay by Jed Mercurio (Acorn TV)
"Episode 1" – Dublin Murders, Teleplay by Sarah Phelps (STARZ)
"Episode 1" – Manhunt, Teleplay by Ed Whitmore (Acorn TV)
"Episode 1" – The Wisting, Teleplay by Katherine Valen Zeiner & Trygve Allister Diesen (Sundance Now) 
 
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

WINNER:  "There's a Riot Goin' On," from Milwaukee Noir by Derrick Harriell (Akashic Books)

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
 
WINNER:  The Night Visitors by Carol Goodman (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

Also nominated:

One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski (Harlequin – Graydon House)
Strangers at the Gate by Catriona McPherson (Minotaur Books)
Where the Missing Go by Emma Rowley (Kensington Publishing)
The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Tom Doherty Associates – Forge Books)

THE G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD
 
WINNER:  Borrowed Time by Tracy Clark (Kensington Publishing)

Also nominated:

Shamed by Linda Castillo (Minotaur Books)
The Missing Ones by Edwin Hill (Kensington Publishing)
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
The Alchemist's Illusion by Gigi Pandian (Midnight Ink)
Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon (Cincos Puntos Press)

Mystery Melange

Another crime fiction conference has had to cancel due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bloody Scotland, which was scheduled for September 18-20, will not take place this year in order to maintain safety for staff and participants. A note on the event website added that "Though we will greatly miss celebrating the finest local and international crime writing at the festival, we hope to bring you a wee taste of that classic Bloody Scotland atmosphere in the form of online events which we are currently in the process of plotting." More details about that will be announced on a later date.

NoirCon 2020, previously scheduled to take place in L.A. from September 10 to 13, has also been canceled because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. NoirCon organizer Lou Boxer, added that "NoirCon will rise again and provide a forum for sharing new ideas, work, and our collective passion for all things noir."

This year's National Crime Reading Month during May has now been moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Co-ordinated by the Crime Writer's Association (CWA) and Crime Reader's Association (CRA), the annual festival promotes authors at live events across the UK. The month-long virutal event this year will include crime authors posting vlogs and blogs on the website crimereadingmonth.co.uk and there will also be the launch of a selection of short stories free to read on the website.

Newcastle Noir has moved its crime fiction festival online, now scheduled for May 1st. Conference organizers are putting together six of the panels that would have taken place this year, inviting questions from their audiences which will go online as a taster of the Festival. Panelists will include Robert Scraggs with Rob Parker; LJ Ross' Judith O’Reilly with Trevor Wood; Mari Hannah with Jane Casey; Adam Peacock with Chris McGeorge; and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir with Liz Nugent. The events will be accessible via the event's YouTube channel.

A Virtual Noir at the Bar Queens will take place on Friday, May 15 beginning at 7pm. Hosted by Alex Segura, the roster of authors scheduled to appear online for readings include Meg Gardiner; Vanessa Lillie; Jess Lourey; Jason Pinter; Amy Gentry; Rachel Howzell Hall; Kristen Lepionka; Cate Holahan; Rob Hart; Catriona McPherson; Alison Gaylin; Halley Sutton; Mia P. Manansala; Steph Post; Andrea Bartz; Elizabeth Little; SA Crosby; and Heather Harper Ellett.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine announced the results of the 2019 Readers Award contest. First-place winner is David Dean for his historical mystery "The Duelist" (May/June 2019). Tied for second were Paul D. Marks for "Fade-Out on Bunker Hill" (March/April 2019) and Doug Allyn for his Civil War era tale "The Dutchy" (November/December 2019), a sequel to his Edgar Award winning tale "The Scent of Lilacs." Third place went to G.M. Malliet for "Whiteout" (January/February 2019). The Short Mystery Fiction Society has a list of the top ten finalists.

Bookriot profiled the resurgence of indie bookstores that fought their way back after years of losing to the big-box bookstores and online stores by becoming part of their local community in a way that big companies couldn’t. Ryan Raffaelli, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School explained that “…rather than trying to compete with Amazon on unlimited inventory and price, they actually think about … curat[ing], an inventory of books and other articles that are very specific to the individual’s taste, often linked to the tastes of those in the community.” But the coronavirus has put new pressures on indies, and James Patterson and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (BINC) have partnered for Save Indie Bookstores to raise funds. If you're looking for more ways to help, here's a list of "An Ever-Expanding List of Ways to Support Your Local Independent Bookstore."

Some sad news to report this week as we recently lost two of the crime fiction community. Sheila Connolly passed away after a bout with cancer in her beloved adopted home of Ireland. Sheila was the author of numerous novels and short stories incuding The County Cork Mysteries, The Orchard Mysteries,The Victorian Village Mysteries, The Relatively Dead Series, and The Museum Mysteries. Her latest book, Fatal Roots, was published by Crooked Lane Books in January. She was a member of Mystery Lovers' Kitchen and Poe's Deadly Daughters blogs. And we also learned of the death from cancer of Karen Harper, author of over 70 novels including The South Shores Series, The Cold Creek Trilogy, the Maplecreek Amish Trilogy, and more. Karen Harper won the Mary Higgins Clark Award, and her latest mystery, Deep in the Alaskan Woods, was just published this week. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

CrimeReads published the first of two parts of oundtable discussions with the nominees for the Mystery Writers of America's 2020 Edgar Awards. In the first installment, nominees react to the extraordinary events of the year so far, and reflect on the genre at large; in the second installment, nominees will give writing advice, talk big breaks, and think back on the little details and small moments that make the grand project of writing worth all the effort.

A new biography of the late crime writer H.R.F. Keating (1926-2011) is being published by Level Best Books this monh. Keating's widow, actress Sheila Mitchell, has written HRF Keating: A Life of Crime, which charts Keating's 50-year career in crime writing. As executor of her husband's will, she discovered a wealth of material in his study, where the majority of his books had been written; diaries, notebooks of research into each book, unpublished manuscripts and the thorough plotting of an unwritten novel. The new biography coincides with the reprinting by Severn House of Keating's most famous series featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay police.

This month also saw the publication of The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe, edited by Josh Pachter, a collection of two dozen pastiches and literary tributes to one of crime fiction’s most beloved sleuths, Nero Wolfe. The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe includes a classic 1947 pastiche penned by award-winning crime writer Thomas Narcejac, as well as Nero Wolfe tales by Lawrence Block and Loren D. Estleman. The collection will also introduce readers to new stories by Michael Bracken and Robert Lopresti, chapters from Robert Goldsborough’s continuations of the character, and a reminiscence from Rex Stout’s daughter.

Writing for MS Magazine, Jennifer Hillier compiled a list of "Suspense, Mystery and Thriller Must-Read Books by Women Writers of Color to Read in 2020" from Silvia Moreno-Garcia to Isabella Maldonado.

Looking around the global crime fiction scene, a new indie publisher, Corylus, is set to translate Romanian crime novels into English. First on the roster from Corylus Books will be Sword by Bogdan Teodorescu followed by titles from Teodora Matei and Bogdan Hrib. And moving further downunder, Crime Fiction Lover has a list of "13 Australian crime writers to try."

For a little pandemic diversion, check out Philip Marlowe ... in the age of Covid-19.

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly wraps up its "Thirty Days of the Five-Two" this week, including the featured poem, "You Can't Quarantine Crime" by Peter Gordon.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with Sam Wiebe (author of the Vancouver crime novels Cut You Down, Invisible Dead, and Last of the Independents), about his latest novel, Never Going Back; Esther Newton spoke with J.F. Burgess about latest release, A Place of Reckoning, the second book in the DI Tom Blake series; and Criminal Element's Book Series Binge continued with Lindsey Davis on the Flavia Albia Series.

Author R&R with Lis Wiehl

Lis Wiehl is the former legal analyst for Fox News and the O’Reilly Factor, and has appeared regularly on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Lou Dobbs Tonight, and the Imus morning shows. The former co-host of WOR radio's WOR Tonight with Joe Concha and Lis Wiehl, she has served as legal analyst and reporter for NBC News and NPR’s All Things Considered, as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s office, and was a tenured professor of law at the University of Washington. She appears frequently on CNN as a legal analyst.

Hew new true-crime book is Hunting the Unabomber, which meticulously reconstructs the white-knuckle, tension-filled hunt to identify and capture the mysterious killer, Theodore Kaczynski. For two decades, Kaczynski had masterminded a campaign of random terror, killing and maiming innocent people through bombs sent in untraceable packages. The FBI task force charged with finding the perpetrator of these horrifying crimes grew to 150 people, yet his identity remained a maddening mystery. Then, in 1995, a "manifesto" from the Unabomber was published in the New York Times and Washington Post, resulting in a cascade of tips--including the one that cracked the case.

 

Lis Wiehl stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing the book:

 

Most people have heard of Ted Kaczynski, aka, the Unabomber, but few know the herculean effort that went on behind the scenes to identify, locate and apprehend this serial bomber responsible for 16 attacks perpetrated over nearly two decades. Before he was done, Ted Kaczynski had killed three and injured 23 others. And thousands had worked as part of the federal UNABOM Task Force to track him down and finally bring him to justice.

Over the years, there had been countless books, TV docuseries, magazine and newspaper articles done on the case, but many of them rang hollow to me. In all the accounts that I’d read and watched, I never got the sense that the media truly had a handle on what happened in the massive and unprecedented effort to track him down. I was determined to find a way to shed new light on the hunt for Ted Kaczynski. I just couldn’t rehash old and tired accounts. How could I tell the story of the more than 500 law enforcement officials aided by countless others that comprised the task force? After many months of research, I finally found a way in.

My quest to bring the story behind the Unabomber Task Force to life took me to the mountains of New Hampshire, where I found former supervisory special agent Patrick Webb, an FBI bomb technician and one of the longest serving members of the UNABOM Task Force. It was there, in his remote country home at the end of a muddy and rutted path, that I found someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the case—and a treasure trove of task force documents. Of all the law enforcement officials who’d worked on the case, Webb stood out because he’d been involved longer than most and knew the full breadth and scope of the task force’s efforts. I became convinced that Webb was my way into the story; he gave me not just the original research materials that I needed but the color and drama that accompanied those documents.

For days, I sat with Webb in a pair of overstuffed chairs by his fireplace, as he described the Task Force’s work and painted a picture of some of the key individuals he’d worked with. He also went out of his way to introduce me to other key players who shared their knowledge of the team’s work. Webb proved to be an unusual find because he’d spent more than a decade on the case. Even some of the most senior members of the UNABOM Task Force were surprised by some of the details Webb was able to offer.

As my research continued, II learned not just about their actions but about the tremendous stress that drove the agents forward day after day. Some of the stress came from senior leaders of the FBI and other federal agencies who were determined to find Kaczynski; but the worst stress came from the agents themselves as they continued to labor even as their investigations failed to turn up anything of use. Task force members plugged away week after week, month after month. They wrote countless reports and investigated thousands of leads. Finally, there was a breakthrough in the case that led them to the Unabomber in his nondescript cabin in the hills of Lincoln, Montana.

In writing Hunting the Unabomber, I sought to take the reader inside the investigation and make them observers of task force meetings where strategy was plotted out, and take them to crime scenes where Webb and other bomb technicians analyzed the devices that had been carefully handcrafted by Kaczynski from bits of pieces of wood and metal that he’d collected. As a former federal prosecutor, I also delve into some of the legal nuances of the case and the efforts that agents went to in creating the intricate case against Kaczynski.

What made the task force’s job all the more incredible to me was that almost all its work took place before the advent of modern computers, video surveillance and other contemporary law enforcement tools. Agents had no choice but to spend countless man hours investigating leads and writing reports. The bombings happened in jurisdictions across the country and involved law enforcement officers, agents and investigators from local, state and federal agencies. I was stunned at just how many leads were followed over the course of this nearly two decades long investigation.

The involvement of so many different investigative agencies made collecting, organizing and synthesizing crime scene evidence, thousands of witness interviews and paramount. It was the UNABOM Task Force that created the FBI’s first-ever unified database—used to identify, locate and capture this serial bomber.

We will forever be indebted to Patrick Webb and the other investigators for helping us to finally bring this story to life. And we firmly believe that even the most avid true crime followers will find something new in this painstakingly researched work.

 

For more information about Lis Wiehl and the book, check out her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Hunting the Unabomber is available via Thomas Nelson books and all major booksellers.

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Florence Pugh, Shia LaBeouf, and Chris Pine will star in the psychological thriller, Don’t Worry Darling, set in an isolated, utopian community in the 1950s California desert. The project is being spearheaded by Olivia Wilde, who will produce and direct the feature for New Line Cinema, as well as star in a key supporting role. Katie Silberman, who co-wrote Booksmart and penned the Netflix rom-com, Set it Up, will rewrite the original script draft by Shane and Carey Van Dyke.

The next two Mission: Impossible installments have been pushed back on the release schedule. Originally, the plan was for Mission: Impossible 7 to be released in July of 2021, with Mission: Impossible 8 following in August of 2022. However, Paramount Pictures has announced that the seventh installment of the franchise will now come out on November 19, 2021, with entry #8 arriving on November 4, 2022.

RLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has acquired the North American rights to The Owners, a thriller starring Game of Thrones's Maisie Williams. The debut film of writer and director, Julius Berg, stars Williams as part of a group of friends who think they found the perfect, easy score – an empty house with a safe full of cash. But when the elderly couple that lives there comes home early, the tables are suddenly turned. As a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, the would-be thieves are left to fight to save themselves from a nightmare they could never have imagined.

LA-based producer Clear Horizon is lining up a historical drama about the Symbionese Liberation Army and its kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst. Mizmoon will tell the story of Patricia "Mizmoon" Soltisyk, the radicalized college co-ed who co-founded the terrorist group with her lesbian lover and an escaped convict with an obsession for guns and explosives. The group famously carried out bank robberies and murders in the 1970s and kidnapped heiress Hearst, the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Back in 2018, it was announced that a new film adaptation of The Saint was in the works with Chris Pratt in talks to star. Now it seems that another Chris, Chris Pine, is being eyed to take on the titular role. The Saint refers to Simon Templar, the literary character created by Leslie Charteris in 1928, a Robin Hood-like thief who holds many aliases and leaves a stick figure calling card at the sites of his crimes. Simon has been played by numerous actors over the decades, including Roger Moore in a 1960s TV series and Val Kilmer in a 1997 movie.

Netflix has acquired global rights to director Harry Bradbeer’s Enola Holmes from Legendary Entertainment. The film, based on author Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes mystery series, will star Millie Bobby Brown, Sam Claflin, Adeel Akhtar, Fiona Shaw, Louis Partridge, Burn Gorma, Susan Wokoma, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter. BAFTA and Tony Award winner Jack Thorne (The Aeronauts) wrote the screenplay that tells the story of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’s rebellious teen sister Enola who lands in the middle of a conspiracy that could change political history.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

IMDb TV, Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service, has ordered a reboot of Leverage, the cult 2008 crime drama series. The sequel is a described as a "fresh update of the original concept, about reformed crooks using their unique skills to right corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on common citizens." The series will introduce new characters, including one played by five-time Emmy nominee Noah Wylie, who also will direct two of the thirteen episodes. Original cast members will also return, including Beth Riesgraf, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, and Aldis Hodge. One original actor who will not be returning is Timothy Hutton, who recently faced sexual assault allegations (which the actor has denied).

AMC has put in development The Burying Place, a thriller drama series based on Brian Freeman’s novel, from writer Kelly Masterson (Killing Kennedy), director David Semel (Goliath), and producer Aaron Kaplan. The Burying Place is set in the haunting North Country of Minnesota, where a baby vanishes from her lakeside home the same night a rookie policewoman stumbles onto a serial killer. Against a ticking clock, Detective Jonathan Stride, haunted by demons of his own, leads fellow Detectives Serena Dial and Maggie Bei as they struggle to unravel the seemingly unrelated mysteries in a suspenseful game of cat and mouse.

HBO Max, the cable network's digital platform, is developing an adaptation of The Hellfire Club, the first novel by CNN’s Jake Tapper, with The Revenant co-writer Mark L. Smith. The book tells the story of Charlie Marder, a young freshman congressman who arrives in 1950s Washington D.C. after the mysterious death of his predecessor. Finding himself thrust into the dangerous waters of politics at the height of Joe McCarthy’s "Red Scare," he and his zoologist wife, Margaret, get drawn into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a plot that could change the course of history.

U.S. streamer BritBox has set a fall launch for the British crime drama Honour. The two-parter stars Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) in the real-life story of Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Goode’s passionate search to discover the fate of missing 20-year old Banaz, the young Londoner murdered by her own family for falling in love with the wrong man.

The Canadian legal drama series, Diggstown, has been added to BET+’s original programming lineup. The six-part series stars Vinessa Antoine as Marcie Diggs, a lawyer who leaves her high-powered corporate job to work for a legal aid clinic in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, after her aunt commits suicide. The team of lawyers that Marcie works with are a curious band of do-gooders, cynics, and scrappers – messy souls struggling to keep personal disappointment and demons out of their practice. The cast also includes Natasha Henstridge, C. David Johnson, Stacey Farber, Brandon Oakes, Shailene Garnett, Tim Rozon and Dwain Murphy.

The Irishman and Boardwalk Empire star, Stephen Graham, has landed a role in another gangster drama, joining the cast of Peaky Blinders.  Set in Birmingham, England, the series follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family in the direct aftermath of the First World War. The fictional family is loosely based on a real 19th century urban youth gang of the same name, who were active in the city from the 1890s to the early twentieth century.

Cinemax released a trailer for the South African crime drama, Trackers. An adaptation of Deon Meyer’s novel of the same name, the series stars Ed Stoppard, Sandi Schultz, Brendon Daniels, Trix Vivier, Thapelo Mokoena, and Sisanda Henna. Trackers interweaves three story strands into a sophisticated action-packed thriller set in Cape Town involving organized crime, smuggled diamonds, state security, black rhinos, the CIA, and an international terrorist plot.

Netflix has revealed the official trailer for a Spanish mystery thriller called The Silence of the Marsh, which is already available to watch on the streaming service this week. While researching corruption for his new book, a successful crime novelist blurs the line between fiction and reality, uncovering the corrupt ties between politicians and the local mafia in Valencia, Spain. This project stars Pedro Alonso, Nacho Fresneda, Carmina Barrios, José Ángel Egido, Àlex Monner, Raúl Prieto, and Maite Sandoval.

HBO released the first look at the thriller, The Head. The six-part series follows events at an international research station in Antarctica, after the long dark winter months, when the commander returns to find most of the crew of scientists murdered.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Writer Types host Eric Beetner spoke with authors Amy Engel (The Familiar Dark), Michael Ledwidge (Stop At Nothing) and ML Huie (Spitfire). 

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham decided to tackle some of the oldest mystery and true crime books on their TBR list while they are self-quarantining.

Marcia Clark, who has a new novel titled Final Judgment, featuring Clark's protagonist Samantha Brinkman, was the featured guest on Speaking of Mysteries and Meet the Thriller Author.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro chatted with author James L'Etoile about his novels and his long career in corrections.

Mugshots: My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Dr. Katherine Ramsland, who teaches Forensic Psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania and has written on the subjects of serial killers, crime scene investigations, forensic science, mass murder, and sex offenders.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured Ang Pompano and Shawn Reilly Simmons interviewing Agatha Award nominees.

Beyond the Cover spoke with Mark Greaney about his latest Grey Man novel, One Minute Out.

Mystery Melange

The Los Angeles Times unveiled the winners of its 40th Annual Book Prizes on Twitter rather than at the customary ceremony that usually launches the newspaper’s annual Festival of Books (due to the coronavirus). This year's winner in the Mystery/Thriller category was Steph Cha for Your House Will Pay. The other finalists included Michael Connelly, The Night Fire; Jane Harper, The Lost Man; Laura Lippman, Lady in the Lake; and Attica Locke Heaven, My Home.

Washington, D.C.'s 2nd Virtual Noir at the Bar will feature a fundraiser for Kramerbooks this Friday at 8 p.m. Authors scheduled to take part include Mark Bergin, Caroline Bock, Austin Camacho, Nik Korpon, Tara Laskowski, Greer Macallister, Sujata Massey, Adam Meyer, and David Stewart. E.A. Aymar takes on hosting duties, with music from Sara Jones.

Another Virtual Noir at the Bar will return to Boston on Wednesday, April 29, with a slate of crime fiction authors to include hosts, Edwin Hill and David Pezza, and readings from authors Tracy Clark, Daniel Ford, Kelly J. Ford, Vanessa Lillie, Hannah Mary McKinnon, and Gabriel Valjan.

Cara Black will be in a virtual conversation with Jacqueline Winspear as the two masters of crime fiction discuss the writing of fiction that takes place in World War Two Europe. They'll explore topics that closely parallel many of the issues of the day as well as discussing the challenge and complexities of placing one's writing in a dynamic historic period. Sponsored by San Francisco's City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, the event is scheduled for Tuesday, May 19 from 7-8:30 (PT), 10-11:30 pm (ET).

The Mystery Writers of America posted on social media that they will be announcing the 74th annual Edgar Allan Poe Award winners via the Twitter handle @EdgarAwards next Thursday, April 30th, beginning at 11 a.m. That's the same date the winners would have been announced at the honors banquet that was canceled due to the coronovirus.

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, sponsored by Sisters in Crime, is still taking submissions through June 8. The event provides an annual grant of $2,000 for an emerging writer of color. Online Cogdill, writing for Mystery Scene Magazine, profiled the awards program with input from previous winner Mia P. Manansala, whose Filipino American culinary cozy series set in a fictional Midwestern town was acquired by Berkley/Penguin Random House.

Due to the pandemic, SEMWA and SinC-Palmetto Chapter have changed the July 25th Mystery in the Midlands conference (normally held in Columbia, SC) to a virtual event and will make it free to all SEMWA and SinC members. The free event will feature Charlaine Harris as guest of honor and be moderated by Dana Kaye. Other panelists include John Floyd, Tara Laskowski, and Art Taylor (short stories), Alexia Gordon, Toni L.P. Kelner, and Gigi Pandian (paranormals), and Charlaine Harris, Dana Cameron, and Jeffery Deaver (novels to screenplays).

Writing for CrimeReads, Sarah Weinman profiled four women—Isabelle Taylor, Lee Wright, Marie Rodell, and Joan Kahn—who were at the center of the mystery world for four decades. These influential editors built careers, discovered legends, and shaped a genre.

Suspense Magazine published its spring issue, with profiles of authors Ang Pompano, DV Berkom, Betty Webb, Steven F. Havill, Jonathan Maberry, Joseph Finder, Brad Taylor, and Rhys Bowen; plus there are articles from Joseph Badal and Janet Rogers, pages of reviews, short stories, and much more

Noir City magazine's latest issue is the first under the helm of new Editor-in-Chief, Vince Keenan, with a a stem-to-stern redesign courtesy of colleague Michael Kronenberg. The issue includes Imogen Sara Smith’s two-part cover story on the extraordinary life and films of Jose Giovanni; a look at noir’s favorite cad, Zachary Scott; a look back at the overlap of film noir and advertising aimed at women in the 1940s; an interview with Motherless Brooklyn writer/producer/director/star, Edward Norton; Ray Banks on the many big-screen iterations of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley; a fun and inventive 5 Favorites from the gifted poet Chelsey Minnis; and more.

J. Kingston Pierce's Killer Covers blog wraps up its series saluting artist-illustrator Mitchell Hooks (1923-2013). The Detroit-born Hooks left an indelible mark on the look of crime fiction, and Killer Covers featured 57 paperback fronts and movie posters painted by Hooks including his 1970s line of covers for Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer novels.

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly continues its "Thirty Days of the Five-Two" this week. In addition to the usual Poems of the Week (this week: "Autobiography of Ursula" by Margot Douaihy), organizer Gerald So is still encouraging readers to link to any Five-Two poems you enjoy on your social media.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element continues its Book Series Binge with Tasha Alexander about her Lady Emily series; Author Interviews welcomed William Boyle, shortlisted for a Dagger Award and Hammett Prize, to chat about his newest novel, City of Margins; Shots Magazine had a Q&A with Craig Sisterson, author of Southern Cross Crime; and Max Allan Collins chatted with Criminal Element about Masquerade for Murder, his latest Mickey Spillane/Mike Hammer novel.

2020 Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Canadian Crime Shortlists

The Crime Writers of Canada announced the shortlists for the 2020 Arthur Ellis Awards, which celebrate the best of Canadian crime fiction writing in several categories:

Best Crime Novel sponsored by Rakuten Kobo with a $1000 prize

Michael Christie, Greenwood, MacClelland & Stewart
Ian Hamilton, Fate, House of Anansi Press
Nicole Lundrigan, Hideaway, Penguin Random House Canada
Marissa Stapley, The Last Resort, Simon & Schuster Canada
Loreth Anne White, In the Dark, Montlake Romance

The Angela Harrison Memorial Award for Best Crime First Novel sponsored by Maureen Jennings with a $500 prize

Philip Elliott, Nobody Move, Into the Void Press
Denis Coupal, Blindshot, Linda Leith Publishing
Nicole Bross, Past Presence, Literary Wanderlust

Best Crime Novella sponsored by Mystery Weekly with a $200 prize

Barbara Fradkin, Blood Ties, Orca Book Publishers
Brenda Chapman, Too Close to Home, Grass Roots Press
Melodie Campbell, The Goddaughter Does Vegas, Orca Book Publishers
Devon Shepherd, The Woman in Apartment 615, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

Best Crime Short Story sponsored by Mystery Weekly with a $300 prize

Y.S. Lee, "In Plain Sight," Life is Short and Then You Die, Macmillan Publishers
Peter Sellers, "Closing Doors," Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Zandra Renwick, "The Dead Man's Dog," Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

Best French Crime Book

Louis Carmain, Les offrandes, VLB Éditeur
Andrée Michaud, Tempêtes, Éditions Québec Amériques
Martin Michaud, Ghetto X, Libre Expression
Guillaume Morrissette, Le tribunal de la rue Quirion, Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur
Félix Ravenelle-Arcouette, Le cercle de cendres, Héliotrope

Best Juvenile or YA Crime Book sponsored by Shaftesbury with a $500 prize

Liam O'Donnell & Mike Dean, Tank & Fizz: The Case of the Tentacle Terror, Orca Book Publishers
Jo Treggiari, The Grey Sisters, Penguin Teen
Tom Ryan, Keep This to Yourself, Albert Whitman & Company
David A. Robertson, Ghosts, HighWater Press

Best Nonfiction Crime Book

Katie Daubs, The Missing Millionaire: The True Story of Ambrose Small and the City Obsessed with Finding Him, MacClelland & Stewart
Kevin Donovan, The Billionaire Murders, Penguin Random House
Debra Komar, The Court of Better Fiction, Dundurn Press
Vanessa Brown, The Forest City Killer: A Serial Murderer, a Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice, ECW Press
Charlotte Gray, Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

The Unhanged Arthur Award for Best Unpublished Crime Manuscript sponsored by Dundurn Press with a $500 prize

B.L. Smith, Bert Mintenko and the Serious Business
K.P. Bartlett, Henry's Bomb
Max Folsom, One Bad Day After Another
Liz Rachel Walker, The Dieppe Letters
Pam Barnsley, The River Cage

The Crime Writers of Canada also announced its 2020 Grand Master Award which will be presented to Peter Robinson. The Grand Master Award is presented biennially to recognize a Canadian crime writer with a substantial body of work who has garnered national and international recognition. 

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Producer Ben Shields Catlin has teamed with screenwriters Evan Parter and Paul Hilborn to develop a feature adaptation of the memoir, I Escaped From Auschwitz, by Rudi Vrba. It details Vrba’s experience in a concentration camp as well as his harrowing escape and eventual return to his Slovakia home where he would write the first eyewitness accounts of the death camps.

Saban Films has acquired the Robin Pront-directed crime thriller, The Silencing, which was written by Micah Ranum and slated to debut at the now-canceled SXSW Festival. The Silencing follows a reformed hunter (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) living in isolation on a wildlife sanctuary who becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he and the local sheriff (Annabelle Wallis) set out to track a vicious killer who may have kidnapped his daughter years ago.

Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are encouraging people to donate to the All In Challenge to help those in need during the COVID-19 crisis. Those who donate will get a chance for a walk-on role in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming feature production, Killers of the Flower Moon, as well as meet the actors and the director and attend the world premiere. An adaptation of the nonfiction book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon tells the true crime story of multiple murders of members of the Osage Indian tribe in 1920s Oklahoma that occurred after they found oil on their lands.

Paris Jackson, the 22-year-old daughter of Michael Jackson, is set to star as Jesus Christ in a new crime film called Habit opposite Bella Thorne. The thriller stars Thorne as a street smart, party girl with a Jesus fetish who gets mixed up in a violent drug deal and finds a possible way out by masquerading as a nun. Jackson then appears several times throughout the film to Thorne’s character as Jesus. Janell Shirtcliff is directing the film, with a script written by Shirtcliff and Suki Kaiser.

The Handmaid Tale's Emmy-winning director, Reed Morano, is in talks to helm the Jennifer Lopez feature The Godmother. Lopez plays real-life notorious Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco a/k/a "The Godmother," who outsmarted and outhustled the men around her to rise from an impoverished childhood and become one of the world’s biggest drug lords.

A trailer was released for The Quarry, based on the novel by Damon Galgut. Michael Shannon stars as a small-town sheriff who grows suspicious of the town's new preacher, David Martin, who isn't what he appears to be.

A trailer also dropped for Made You Look, Barry Avrich’s documentary about the largest art fraud In American history where an unassuming couple flooded the art market with a collection of fake art sold for millions. The film opens the virtual Hot Docs at Home festival this week.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Filming is underway on a charitable, filmed-from-home pilot starring Brian Cox, Claes Bang, and Mariella Frostrup, among others. UK producer Maggie Monteith has enlisted an all-female, transatlantic team of writer-directors for the whodunnit, The Agoraphobics Detective Society, whose proceeds will go to UK and U.S. film and TV freelancers impacted by coronavirus. The pilot for the eight-episode show will see a distraught group of patients band together to find a renowned expert psychiatrist who disappears without explanation.

Amazon Studios has put in development The Star Chamber, a thriller drama inspired by the 1983 Michael Douglas film of the same name. The Star Chamber series gives the movie a gender twist and follows a revered female federal appellate court judge in San Francisco who leads a shadowy group of judges that decide to right the wrongs of the broken legal system.

J.J. Abrams has set his first three series at HBO Max, including the crime project Duster, to be co-written by Abrams and LaToya Morgan (The Walking Dead, Parenthood). The project is set in the 1970s Southwest and revolves around the life of a gutsy getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate who goes from awful to wildly, stupidly, dangerously awful.

Levantine Films has acquired small screen rights to Rodney Barnes’s and Jason Shawn Alexander’s best-selling graphic novel series Killadelphia: Sins of the Father. Done in crime horror noir style, the story follows a Baltimore street cop who returns to his home town of Philadelphia to bury his estranged father, a revered detective in his own right. In so doing, the son discovers his father’s journal, which details his last case about a series of mysterious murders possibly supernatural in nature—following the clues down a macabre rabbit hole filled with horror and mystery.

HBO dropped a trailer for its Perry Mason series and gave the series a premiere date of June 21. The trailer for the reboot of the classic courtroom drama sees Matthew Rhys taking on Raymond Burr's role from the long-running CBS drama in an origin story of the famed criminal defense attorney set amid the crosscurrents of 1931 Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

Fox Entertainment continues with its early renewals, picking up flagship drama series 9-1-1 for a fourth season and its breakout spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star for a second.

Director Josh Trank released the first look at Tom Hardy as the legendary gangster Al Capone in his film Capone, showing Hardy as an old man suffering from dementia but still dangerous and full of mystery.

A trailer was released for James Cameron’s documentary, Akashinga: The Brave Ones, set to premiere on National Geographic in honor of Earth Day. It sheds light on the all-female vigilante group trained to face down poachers and save wildlife at a moment’s notice, revolutionizing the way animals are protected and communities are empowered.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Simpsons’s Yeardley Smith is co-hosting a new true crime podcast, Small Town Dicks, which features identical-twin detectives Dan and Dave some of their investigations.

WFME's Intersection podcast featured Don Winslow talking about his new book, Broken, a collection of novellas. He also discusses what he’s reading and watching during the stay at home order and the impact of the pandemic on his creativity.

The podcast Seize the Yay chatted with author Harlan Coben about his novels, Netflix, and normalcy in New Jersey.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro spoke with Paul D. Marks about his books White Heat, Broken Windows, and the forthcoming, The Blues Don't Care.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze podcast features the first chapter of "Staging is Murder" by Grace Topping, read by actor Ariel Linn.

Writer's Detective Bureau podcast host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, tackled the topics of "Sex Registrants, Trust Issues, and Re-Interviewing a Witness."

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured two more Agatha Nominee interviews: Mo Moulton, nominated for Best non-fiction The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women; and Frances Schoonmaker, nominated for Best Middle Grade/Young Adult Mystery for the third installment of her Last Crystal Trilogy.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone featured a two hour retrospective of the "glorious acting history of bestselling authors Mark Billingham and Martyn Waites."

On the latest episode of Partners in Crime, hosts Bob Daws and Adam Croft discussed Quiz, Killing Eve, how coronavirus is changing fiction writing, lockdown with Lynda La Plante, what they’ve been reading, and the fallout of episode 100.

On the Tartan Noir Show, Douglas Skelton dropped by to chat with Theresa Talbot about his varied career, his second book in the Rebecca Connolly series, The Blood is Still, and his recommended book, The Devil Aspect, by Craig Russell.

Mystery Melange

 

The International Thriller Writers organization announced the finalists for the 2020 Thriller Awards for Best Hardcover Novel, Best First Novel, Best Paperback Original, Best E-Book Original, Best Short Story, and Best Young Adult Novel. The winners are usually announced at the annual Thrillerfest in New York City, but unfortunately that conference has fallen to the coronavirus like so many other events this year. However, organizers plan on holding a virtual conference in July that you can enjoy from the safety of your own home, which will include PitchFest, ConsultFest, Master Class, the Debut Author Breakfast, and the awards presentation.

Sadly, another major crime fiction conference, Bouchercon, has had to cancel this year's event due to the coronavirus outbreak. Although scheduled for October 15-18, organizers decided that, with no way of knowing what the balance of this year holds for groups of people gathering or what the state of travel will be, they are canceling "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the health and safety of our community." The Anthony Awards will go on in some form, and there will be efforts to find other ways to present a traditional Bouchercon experience, possibly going online as other conferences have done.

Sales at Bookshop.org continue to grow, with founder Andy Hunter noting that the site is selling about 8,000 books a day and has more than 450 bookstores on the platform. Sales have risen 2,000% in a month, and Bookshop has raised more than $400,000 for distribution to independent bookstores. Hunter added that "We basically experienced two years' worth of normal growth in about three weeks."

In other indie book news, Independent Bookstore Day, which was originally scheduled for Saturday, April 25, and postponed until "late summer or early fall," has a new date: Saturday, August 29. And there are signs of life among stores outside the U.S., with Canadian bookstore chain Indigo Books & Music rehiring about 545 of its retail staff, two weeks after the government announced subsidies to help businesses pay wages amid the coronavirus crisis; and Italy announcing "a modest loosening, with bookstores, stationery stores and clothing stores for children allowed to reopen."

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly continues its "Thirty Days of the Five-Two" this week. In addition to the usual Poems of the Week (most recently, "Prom Queen" by Tom Barlow), organizer Gerald So is encouraging readers to link to any Five-Two poems you enjoy on your social media.

CrimeReads continues its series of entertaining articles with a look at "The New Wave of California Crime Fiction," which looks at the intersection of race, class, gender, and community; and "10 Must-Read Crime-Fighting Duos," from Sherlock and Watson to Rizzoli and Isles.

Featured at the Page 69 Test this week: Three Hours in Paris by Cara Black, the first standalone spy thriller from the bestselling author of the Aimée Leduc series. In June of 1940, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Hitler spent a total of three hours in the City of Light—abruptly leaving, never to return. To this day, no one knows why, but Black reimagines history in her pulse-pounding tale of one young woman with the temerity—and drive—to take on Hitler himself.

In the Q&A roundup, Gerald So (of the Five-Two Weekly crime poetry site and a former Short Mystery Fiction Society president) has been interviewing finalists for the Derringer Awards; Criminal Element's Book Series Binge continues with Kate Mosse on The Burning Chambers series; and over at the Writers Who Kill blog, E.B. Davis interviewed Edgar Award winner Art Taylor about his short stories and why he sets many of them in North Carolina.

 

Mystery Melange

The Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the finalists for this year's Derringer Awards for excellence in crime-themed short stories. Winners will be announced on May 1. For all the nominees in the Flash Story, Short Story, Long Story, and Novelette categories, head on over to the official SMFS website.

The shortlist for the International Booker Prize was announced in London today and features a couple of books of interest to crime fiction readers, including Hurricane Season by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor (translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes) about a series of tragedies and violence that follows the discovery of a corpse by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals; and The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder), a haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance.

Goldsboro Books announced the finalists for the Glass Bell Award, given annually to an outstanding work of contemporary fiction, rewarding quality storytelling in any genre. The list of twelve books includes crime titles My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite; The Second Sleep by Robert Harris; The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides; Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson; and Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver

Another Virtual Noir at the Bar is heading to your computer on April 13 straight from Boston area. Hosts Daniel Ford of Writers Bone and Edwin Hill will emcee a night of reading and conversation with Boston-area crime authors including Bruce Robert Coffin, Elisabeth Elo, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Joanna Schaffhausen, Sarah Smith, and Peter Swanson.

The U.K.'s World Book Night celebrations, scheduled for April 23, will go to a digital format due to Covid-19. The Bookseller noted that authors will broadcast excerpts from their books on social media, and there will be a reading hour, inviting the public to recommend or share a book with a friend using the hashtag #ReadingHour. Among the featured books for this year's event are the crime titles A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee; Death in the Dordogne by Martin Walker; Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie; Darkness Rising by A. A. Dhand; The Dead Ex by Jane Corry; and East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman.

Sadly, another major crime fiction conference has made the decision to cancel this year's event. The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which would have celebrated it’s 17th year in 2020 from July 23-26, will not be held this year. The event will launch the HIF Player to allow everyone a virtual festival experience at home. This free, online hub is packed with archive event recordings, digital book clubs, and learning resources and activities for children, and will be regularly updated with new content to keep audiences entertained.

Author James Patterson is spearheading a group that includes actress Reese Witherspoon, Reese’s Book Club, the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc), and the American Booksellers Association in an effort to raise millions of dollars to help save independent bookstores from closing permanently due to the pandemic. Money is being collected at the website www.saveindiebookstores.com and the campaign is expected to run at least through April 30, at which point Binc will distribute the total funds raised to eligible independent bookstores.

The Atlantic noted how America’s public libraries have led the ranks of “second responders,” stepping up for their communities in times of natural or manmade disasters, like hurricanes, floods, shootings, fires, and big downturns in individual lives.

Mystery Readers Journal is soliciting essays having to do with Italian mysteries for its next issue. Editor Janet Rudolph is looking for Reviews, Articles, and Author! Author! essays (first person, about yourself, your books, and your unique take on mysteries set in Italy connection). The deadline is April 20.

Kings River Life has some food & drink mysteries for your Easter feast, and Mystery Fanfare also has a list of Passover-themed crime novels.

Elle Marr applied the Page 69 Test to her new thriller novel, The Missing Sister, about a woman whose twin sister has vanished, leaving behind three chilling words: Trust no one.

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly is presenting its annual "Thirty Days of the Five-Two." In addition to the usual Poems of the Week (this week: "I Died a Thousand Times: Death #4" by Richie Narvaez), organizer Gerald So is encouraging readers to link to any Five-Two poems you enjoy on your social media.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Book Series Binge interviews continued with Julia Spencer-Fleming on the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series; Kelley Armstrong on the Casey Duncan novels; Leonard Goldberg on the Daughter of Sherlock Holmes series; and Eve Calder on her Cookie House Mystery series. Criminal Element also chatted with Donna VanLiere, author of The Time of Jacob's Trouble, and Crime Reads snagged Don Winslow to discuss socially-engaged crime fiction, surf stories, breakfast burritos, and returning to life on the coast.

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

The recent Fast & Furious action-thriller spinoff, Hobbs & Shaw, was met with solid reviews and box office success, making it a given there would be a sequel. Now, the project's co-star, Dwayne Johnson, has now provided confirmation via Instagram that the sequel has indeed been given the green light by Universal. Hobbs & Shaw followed Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw after the events of 2017’s The Fate of the Furious. In the film, the two are forced to team up to take down Idris Elba’s Brixton, a cyber-genetically enhanced terrorist. Along the way, the heroes also join forces with Deckard’s MI6 Agent-sister Hattie, played by Vanessa Kirby.

When Austin's annual South by Southwest festival (SXSW) was canceled early last month in response to the coronavirus pandemic, it was one of many blows to the movie industry. But now Amazon Prime is partnering with SXSW to make the event happen. In lieu of the festival taking over Austin, Texas from March 13 to 22 as planned, it will now take place via Amazon Prime for ten days sometime in late April. The online festival will be a "one-time event" that will be free to all audiences, as opposed to being exclusively for Amazon Prime members.

If you're going through James Bond withdrawal after the postponement of the latest superspy's adventure from April to the fall, Cinema Blend has "12 Behind-The-Scenes Facts You Might Not Know About The James Bond Movies" to provide a little "fix."

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Spectrum Originals is developing Tinseltown, a period drama series based on William J Mann’s 2014 bestselling book, Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, And Madness At The Dawn of Hollywood. Tinseltown is set against the seamy, glamorous backdrop of the silent film era. It explores the lives of four pioneer women filmmakers whose careers were threatened by the brutal patriarchy of Hollywood’s nascent studio system as well as the scandalous murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association.

Nicole Kidman is set to star in and produce a series adaptation of Janelle Brown’s upcoming novel, Pretty Things, which is in development at Amazon Studios. Reed Morano (Handmaid’s Tale, The Power) will serve as director and executive producer. Pretty Things follows two brilliant, damaged women who "try to survive the greatest game of deceit and destruction they will ever play" when one of them, a reluctant grifter, befriends the other, a wealthy influencer, on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Hulu has boarded the drama, The Sister, an adaptation of Neil Cross's thriller novel, Burial. The project is headlined by The Years & Years star, Russell Tovey, with a cast that also includes Bertie Carvel (Doctor Foster), Amrita Acharia (Game of Thrones), Nina Toussaint-White (GameFace) and Paul Bazely (Benidorm) in the four-part series. Tovey plays well-meaning but directionless Nathan, a man trying to escape a terrible secret he’s long prayed would stay buried. Almost a decade into his new and devoted married life, Nathan is rocked to the core when Bob, (Carvel), an unwelcome face from the past, turns up on his doorstep with shocking news, triggering a series of catastrophic decisions.

A beloved TV character is coming back:  NBC gave a 13-episode series order to a new crime drama series starring Christopher Meloni, reprising his Law & Order: SVU role as Elliot Stabler. The SVU spinoff drama will revolve around the NYPD organized crime unit led by Stabler. Like Law & Order: SVU, headlined by Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson, the new drama is set in New York, allowing for potential seamless crossovers with SVU and for Benson-Stabler reunions.

Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are cutting their seasons short as a result of the coronavirus outbreak (via Deadline, which has an updated listing of all the NBC shows affected and their last new episode date for this season).

Although many shows on the CW were forced to shut down production due to the coronavirus, there were still some CW shows that have new episodes to air. Last week, the network announced when those new episodes would be returning, including Nancy Drew (April 8) and the season 2 premiere of In the Dark on April 16.

Fox has canceled the freshman police drama, Deputy, starring Stephen Dorff. The series, which debuted in January as a midseason replacement, centered on Dorff’s Deputy Bill Hollister, a career lawman who becomes acting sheriff of Los Angeles County when the previous sheriff suddenly drops dead. Will Beall, former LAPD detective and showrunner on Fox’s short-lived Training Day adaptation, served as creator and executive producer on the drama

NBC has set Thursday, April 30 at 10 pm for the premiere of the 13-episode fifth and final season of the thriller drama series, Blindspot. The show, starring Sullivan Stapleton and Jaimie Alexander, will move to its normal 9 pm time slot the following week on May 7.

Killing Eve star Jodie Comer’s breakthrough drama, Thirteen, is being adapted in Japan by Tokai Television Broadcasting. The drama centers on a young woman who escapes the clutches of her kidnapper after thirteen years being held captive. It follows her story as she tries piecing back together the version of family life that existed before her ordeal.

The CW has set season premiere dates for its summer series including the dramas Burden of Truth (May 21) and Bulletproof (June 17). Burden of Truth stars Joanna Chang (Kristin Kreuk) and Billy Crawford (Peter Mooney), partners in law and life whose romantic relationship seems as tenuous as their financially strained firm. Bulletproof follows two undercover cops, Bishop (Noel Clarke) and Pike (Ashley Walters) as they chase down hardened criminals in London’s East End.

CBS All Access released a trailer for season 4 of The Good Fight, in which Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart are trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious "Memo 618," which, as Diane (Christine Baranski) explains, "seems to allow rich and powerful people not to comply with judicial rulings."

Need some streamable diversions? TV Guide offered up a list of "The Best British Murder Mystery Shows to Stream Right Now."

If you're wondering about the status of your favorite shows, TV Guide also has an updated list of TV show premiere dates delayed, affected, or rescheduled due to the coronavirus.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Scottish podcast network, The Big Light, is launching The Tartan Noir Show, a brand new crime fiction podcast celebrating the gritty world of "Tartan Noir," the internationally-acclaimed and increasingly popular Scottish crime writing genre. Presented by crime writer and broadcaster, Theresa Talbot, the first guest is "Queen of Crime" Val McDermid, as she discusses the very essence of the tartan noir genre, including her own favorite crime author, William McIlvanney, whose seminal novel, Laidlaw, is often cited as the book that started the whole genre.

Meet the Thriller author was joined by Dean Koontz to discuss his latest book, Devoted, his legendary career, and the surreal experience of going viral for supposedly "predicting" the Coronavirus pandemic.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone welcomed internationally bestselling author Adrian McKinty to talk about escaping New York City, the nutritious value of squirrels vs chipmunks, a 10lb bag of rice, and if he has swapped one nightmare for another.

Writer Types spoke with author Scott Phillips (That Left Turn at Albuquerque), James Queally (Line of Sight), and highlighted indie bookstores and publishers still open for business during the lockdown.

The Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast featured "Father of the Corpse" by Department of First Stories author Cecilia Fulton.

A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story "Two Hundred Miles" by Margaret Lucke, as read by actor Teya Juarez.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a review of The Shaker Mystery Series by Elenor Kuhn and The Other Gloria by L.A. Villafane, as well as a Q&A with Lorie Lewis Ham about the mystery podcast Mystery Rat Maze.

John Hoda (Mugshots: My Favorite Detective Stories) and host Frank Zafiro (Wrong Place, Write Crime) simulcast an "interview each other" episode of their respective podcasts to discuss their professional and writing journeys, including how the job influences the writing career and the ever-changing publishing market.

Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered reader questions about " MasksForDocs, Inmate Release After Acquittal, and CSI the TV Show."

Listening to the Dead host Lynda La Plante tackled the topic of "Forensic Pathology."

Crime Time: A Crime Fiction Podcast discussed Shalini Boland's psychological thriller, The Marriage Betrayal.