Mystery Melange

 

On February 8, the Dallas Museum of Art will be hosting a virtual event with Walter Mosley in connection with his new novel, Blood Grove, the latest Easy Rawlins installment set among the sun-soaked streets of Southern California.

On Friday, March 5, NoirCon and The Projection Booth Podcast are teaming up to celebrate the birthday of noir icon David Goodis with a virtual watch party, celebrating the cinematic legacy of Goodis with a selection of films adapted from his books (and maybe a few TV shows, too).

On Tuesday, March 9, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, C.J. Box, heads to The Music Hall Loft's virtual stage as part of the Writers on in The Loft series, now being presented in an intimate, online format. Box will discuss his new mystery novel, Dark Sky, the latest adventure for Wyoming game warden, Joe Pickett.

As part of the virtual SleuthFest conference this year, there will be a Noir at the Bar on March 19. Co-hosts E.A. Aymar and Raquel V. Reyes will be joined by authors JD Allen, Kellye Garrett, Catriona McPherson, and Alex Segura who will share readings from their works.

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Patricia Highsmith at 100 (1921-1995), several essays and articles have been pouring in, including Crime Reads's look at Highsmith and the women who inspired The Talented Mr. Ripley; LitHub's take on Patricia Highsmith’s confessions and rebellions at Yaddo, the legendary writers' retreat; and Bookmarks' study of classic and contemporary reviews of five iconic thrillers by Highsmith. The Guardian had three different articles, the first on the author's "twisted brilliance," the second on the best film adaptations of Highsmith's works, and the third, a review of the new biography, Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith, by Richard Bradford.

Do you know what really happens inside a crime lab? In "Blood, Powder, and Residue," Beth A. Bechky offers an ethnography of the world of criminalists, who sort through the evidence from crime scenes.

Author Jeannie Mobley took the "Page 69 Test" for her novel, The Jewel Thief, which centers on the only daughter of the King's crown jeweler, Juliette, who is accused by Louis XIV of stealing his most precious diamond, the large blue stone known as The French Blue.

Kings River Life Magazine featured "Crime writers of color coming attractions," a list of new releases from January through March.

America Reads profiled "Top 10 Female Assassin Books," while Book Riot compiled a list of "15 of the best feminist mystery novels."

Several bloggers are participating in "Short Story Wednesday"; this week, they include Jerry House's take on "The Red Face of Feerish Ali" by James Francis Dwyer (from Collier's, March 9, 1912; and Patti Abbott's feature of "A Short Guide to the City" by Peter Straub. Award-winning short author and editor, Art Taylor, also put together a list of recommended short-story collections (which includes several crime fiction titles) for a new course he's teaching at George Mason University.

Meet the book club that's helping to vaccinate its town.

As Lesa Holstein reported, last week we lost Sharon Kay Penman, bestselling historical novelist and mystery author, after a bout with cancer. She's perhaps best known as the author of nine critically acclaimed historical novels, but she also penned four medieval mysteries including The Queen’s Man, a finalist for an Edgar Award for Best First Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Taserman" by Robert Cooperman.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with British-born Allie Reynolds, a former freestyle snowboarder and English teacher, about her debut crime novel, Shiver; and 5 thriller and mystery writers — Michael Connelly, John Lescroart, Lee Goldberg, Penny Warner, and Catriona McPherson — weighed in California’s murderous appeal.

 

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

Josh Hartnett is set to star opposite Jason Statham, Cary Elwes, and Aubrey Plaza in the latest Miramax/STX feature spy thriller from Guy Ritchie, which originally went by the title Five Eyes. The movie, which is now temporarily untitled, follows MI6 guns-and-steel agent (Statham) who is recruited by a global intelligence agency to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order. Reluctantly paired with a CIA high-tech expert, Fortune sets off on a globe-trotting mission where he will have to use all of his charm, ingenuity and stealth to track down and infiltrate a billionaire arms broker's network.

In other "Five Eyes" news, Hugh Grant is also in preliminary talks to join Guy Ritche’s action thriller, although the deal has not been finalized. One would think that would have to happen soon, though, since preliminary filming is already underway in Qatar and Turkey.

Four actors have been added to the cast of the Michael Bay-directed action thriller, Ambulance, with Garret Dillahunt, A Martinez, Keir O’Donnell, and Moses Ingram coming on board. The four join current cast members Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza Gonzalez in a feature that’s based off the original Danish film, Ambulancen. While the plot is being kept under wraps, the pic is said to be in the same vein as such 1990s action pictures, Speed and Bad Boys.

This isn't exactly crime drama, but interesting nonetheless; in an interview with People magazine, actor Liam Neeson said he'd been approached by Seth McFarlane and Paramount Studios to maybe resurrect the Naked Gun films, adding "It'll either finish my career or bring it in another direction. I honestly don't know." The original Naked Gun film series was from the late '80s and early '90s (based on the Police Squad! TV show) and followed Detective Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), a bumbling official who always seems to figure out the crime despite wisecracking hijinks.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Sony-backed Eleventh Hour Films has signed up The Crown star Lesley Manville to lead the cast of its PBS/BritBox crime series, Magpie Murders, with Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) set as the director. Manville will star as Susan Ryeland, an editor who is given an unfinished manuscript of author Alan Conway’s latest novel but has little idea it will change her life. The six-part series is based on Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling novel of the same name, with the author adapting his own work for the screen.

Don DeLillo’s novel, Libra, a speculative account of the plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy interwoven with the life story of his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, is being adapted for television. First published in 1988, Libra blends fact and fiction to tell the story of the JFK assassination, one of the most mythologized events in American history, and explores the U.S.’s obsession with and relationship to conspiracy. The book was shortlisted for the National Book Award, and the New York Times called it "DeLillo’s richest novel."

Channel 5 and Acorn TV have jointly commissioned new six part thriller, The Reluctant Madame Blanc (working title), written by Sally Lindsay and Sue Vincent. The new six-part series follows Jean White, a renowned and respected antiques dealer, running a successful business in leafy Cheshire with her husband, Rory. Jean learns that Rory has tragically died on his way home from their vintage treasure-trove stomping grounds in the South of France. Things take a darker turn when she discovers all of their money has disappeared, their shop re-mortgaged to the hilt, and their assets pawned off...except for their cottage in French antiques hub, Saint Victoire. She quickly realizes something is amiss and heads to Saint Victoire, but will Jean get the answers she's seeking?

Swedish crime drama, Bäckström, has been renewed for a second series. The series is based on the books by Leif GW Persso and premiered in Sweden before being picked up by Acorn TV for UK broadcast. It will once again see Kjell Bergqvist play the titular character of homicide detective, Evert Bäckström.

Hit BBC drama, Peaky Blinders, will end after its sixth and final season, but creator and writer Steven Knight has promised the story will "continue in another form." The series follows the story of Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and his notorious family’s rise to power against the backdrop of working class, post-WWI Birmingham.

AMC has acquired six-part British revenge thriller, The Beast Must Die. Based on the novel by Nicholas Blake (pen name of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, CBE), it stars Jared Harris and Cush Jumbo and tells the story of a grieving mother who infiltrates the life of the man she believes killed her son.
 

Matt Hamilton, Paul Campbell, and Cristina Rosato are set for recurring roles in Turner & Hooch, Disney+’s reboot of the classic 1989 buddy-cop comedy feature. The TV series, which has a 12-episode order, centers on Scott Turner (Josh Peck), who now is a U.S. marshal, versus the police detective played by Tom Hanks in the film. When the ambitious, buttoned-up marshal inherits a big, unruly dog, he soon realizes the dog he didn’t want might be the partner he needs.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Crime Cafe host, Debbi Mack, chatted with crime writer Cathi Stoler about her latest novel, Bar None, from the Murder on the Rocks mystery series.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Cecilia Ekbäck to discuss her new historical mystery, The Historians. The book is set in a Sweden rife with dangerous crosscurrents that young, well-connected Laura Dalgren gets caught up in when Britta Hallberg—her best friend from university—is found murdered. Did Britta sign her own death warrant with the subject of her post-grad thesis?

Meet the Thriller Author spoke with David Rohlfing about his debut crime novel, Deliberate Duplicity.

Queer Writers of Crime chatted with Timothy Jay Smith, who has turned his thrilling life into thrilling fiction.

Robert McCaw was the featured guest on Wrong Place, Write Crime, discussing his Hawaii-based series starring Detective Koa Kane, including the newest release, Death of a Messenger.

Robert Dugoni stopped by the My Favorite Detective Story podcast. The multiple-award-winning Dugoni is the author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle, the Charles Jenkins espionage series, and the David Sloane legal thriller series, among many more novels.

Enter the Edgars

 

The Mystery Writers of America announced the nominees for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2020. The 75th Annual Edgar® Awards will be celebrated on April 29, 2021.

BEST NOVEL

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
Before She Was Helen by Caroline B. Cooney 
Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
These Women by Ivy Pochoda 
The Missing American by Kwei Quartey
The Distant Dead by Heather Young 

BEST FIRST NOVEL

Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March 
Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen 
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas 
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden 
Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole
The Deep, Deep Snow by Brian Freeman 
Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey 
The Keeper by Jessica Moor 
East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman 

BEST FACT CRIME

Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America by Mark A. Bradley 
The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg 
Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic by Eric Eyre 
Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch 
Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wifeby Ariel Sabar

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club by Martin Edwards 
Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock by Christina Lane 
Ian Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery & Fiction by Erin E. MacDonald (McFarland)
Guilt Rules All:  Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction by Elizabeth Mannion & Brian Cliff 
This Time Next Year We'll be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear 

BEST SHORT STORY

"The Summer Uncle Cat Came to Stay," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Leslie Elman 
"Dust, Ash, Flight," Addis Ababa Noir by Maaza Mengiste 
"Fearless," California Schemin' by Walter Mosley (
"Etta at the End of the World," Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Joseph S. Walker 
“The Twenty-Five Year Engagement,” In League with Sherlock Holmes by James W. Ziskin 

BEST JUVENILE

Premeditated Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce 
Me and Banksy by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks 
Ikenga by Nnedi Okorafor 
Nessie Quest by Melissa Savage 
Coop Knows the Scoop by Taryn Souders

BEST YOUNG ADULT

The Companion by Katie Alender 
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes 
They Went Left by Monica Hesse 
Silence of Bones by June Hur
The Cousins by Karen M. McManus

TV EPISODE/TELEPLAY

“Episode 1, The Stranger” – Harlan Coben’s The Stranger, Written by Danny Brocklehurst (Netflix)
“Episode 1, Open Water” – The Sounds, Written by Sarah-Kate Lynch (Acorn TV)
“Episode 1, Photochemistry” – Dead Still, Written by John Morton (Acorn TV)
“Episode 1” – Des, Written by Luke Neal (Sundance Now)
“What I Know” – The Boys, Written by Rebecca Sonnenshine, based on the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (Amazon)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL

"The Bite,” Tampa Bay Noir by Colette Bancroft 

SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

Death of an American Beauty by Mariah Fredericks 
The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart 
The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day 
The First to Lie by Hank Phillippi Ryan 
Cold Wind by Paige Shelton 

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD

The Burn by Kathleen Kent 
Riviera Gold by Laurie R. King
Vera Kelly is Not a Mystery by Rosalie Knecht
Dead Land by Sara Paretsky
The Sleeping Nymph by Ilaria Tuti 
Turn to Stone by James W. Ziskin

GRAND MASTER

Jeffrey Deaver
Charlaine Harris

RAVEN AWARD

Malice Domestic

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD

Reagan Arthur, Publisher – Alfred A. Knopf

 

Mystery Melange

The Writers Police Academy is launching an online program with classes and workshops for writers featuring law enforcement and forensic procedures and the craft of storytelling. The first up will be on January 23, "Criminal Investigations: Writing Believable Make-Believe." This daylong live and interactive seminar features detailed instruction in cyber crime and security, crime scene mapping using lasers and drones, and sexual assault investigations. As a bonus, USA Today & Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Lisa Regan, tells how to use the elements of fiction to craft a gripping crime novel. You can register for than and other upcoming courses via this link.

Exactly a 100 years ago, on January 21, 1921, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first novel by Agatha Christie was published in the UK. There have been many tributes and essays penned about the centennary, but if you're a fan of Christie and geography, you might check out this article by Sebastian Beck and Dominique Jeannerod on the International Crime Fiction blog. It takes a closer look at the different dimensions of space in the 45 novels featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple and how the places where homicides were committed evolved over the course of Christie’s career.

If you're looking forward to staying inside with some good reading, the Rap Sheet blog has you covered with lists of new releases in the U.S. and UK for the first three months of 2021.

Netflix debuted its chilling true-crime documentary series, Night Stalker, on January 13, which tells the story of the law-enforcement officers who caught and apprehended Richard Ramirez, a serial killer and rapist who was active in California during the 1980s. As an adjunct to the series, The Wrap took a closer look at Frank Salerno, the detective who helped snag Ramirez in 1985.

Amazon.com and the "Big Five" publishers (Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster) have been accused of colluding to fix ebook prices, in a class action filed by the law firm that successfully sued Apple and the Big Five on the same charge 10 years ago. The lawsuit, filed in district court in New York a week ago by Seattle firm Hagens Berman, on behalf of consumers in several US states, names the retail giant as the sole defendant but labels the publishers "co-conspirators." It alleges Amazon and the publishers use a clause known as "Most Favored Nations" to keep ebook prices artificially high by agreeing to price restraints that force consumers to pay more for ebooks purchased on retail platforms that are not Amazon.com.

A couple of new essays at CrimeReads tackle the topics of mental illness, including Josh Stallings's piece on the need for "neurodiversity" in crime fiction since the human brain works in fascinating, diverse ways; and Frederick Weisel's deep dive into what the intersection of detective fiction and Alzheimer’s can tell us about the paths of mysteries and the course of this tragic disease.

Did you ever wonder where the tradition of bookplates came from? Wonder no more.

A new flash fiction story is up at Shotgun Honey, "Denied," by karen Harrington.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "January 6, 2021" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Murder Books welcomed Boston-based crime novelist Gabriel Valjan, author of the Roma Series, The Company Files, and the Shane Cleary mystery series, and a finalist for the Agatha and Anthony Awards; over at CrimeReads, Lee Child and Paraic O'Donnell discussed the history and significance of Jack Reacher in the context of "Moral Codes, Punching Nazis, and Human Evolution"; Lisa Haselton inverviewed cozy mystery author, G.P. Gottlieb, about her new culinary cozy novel, Smothered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery; and Ace Atkins, the author who has continued Robert B. Parker's series featuring the iconic P.I., Spencer, talked true crime and Spenser’s hidden Auburn connection with Alabama Life & Culture.

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

In a competitive situation, Paramount Players has won the adaptation rights to the new novel from bestselling author S.A. Cosby. Titled Razorblade Tears, the book is set for release this July and is described as a Southern noir about two men who team up to seek vengeance for their murdered sons in the face of intolerance and prejudice in the rural South, finding redemption along the way. Jerry Bruckheimer and Chad Oman are producing the feature, which has yet to attach a director.

Netflix has prevailed in a competitive auction for worldwide rights on Heart of Stone, the espionage thriller developed by Skydance Media with Gal Gadot starring. Tom Harper, who helmed The Aeronauts and Wild Rose, will direct the film that aspires to hatch a female-centric franchise with the action and global scale of film series like Mission: Impossible and James Bond. The script is by Greg Rucka (The Old Guard) and Allison Schroeder, the latter of whom was Oscar-nominated for Hidden Figures.

British rapper, Bugzy Malone, has joined Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, and Cary Elwes in Guy Ritchie’s untitled thriller movie currently filming in Qatar. The story centers on the MI6 "guns-and-steel agent," Orson Fortune (Statham), who is recruited by a global intelligence agency to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order. Reluctantly paired with CIA high-tech expert, Sarah Fidel, Fortune sets off on a globe-trotting mission where he will have to use his charm, ingenuity and stealth to track down and infiltrate the network of billionaire arms broker, Greg Simmonds. Ritchie will direct and produce from a screenplay written by Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies.

Warner Bros is moving The Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark, from March 12 to September 24. Alan Taylor directs from a script by Sopranos creator David Chase, with James Gandolfini’s son, Michael Gandolfini, playing the younger version of Tony Soprano, the role his father played.

James Bond is also on the move again. No Time to Die appears set to switch from its Easter weekend release of April 2 to some time in the fall, as the world waits for the pandemic to come under control. The film was originally slated for a fall 2019 release but has been moved several times since.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

This Is Us star, Justin Hartley, has teamed with the series’ director/executive producer, Ken Olin, to option the rights to Jeffery Deaver’s 2019 thriller novel, The Never Game. The story follows Colter Shaw (Hartley), who travels the country in his old-school RV to help police and private citizens solve crimes and locate missing persons, until his latest case finds him caught in a cat-and-mouse game, risking his own life to save the victims. Hartley’s Shaw is a reward seeker raised by survivalists off the grid and taught the rules of survival, or "The Never Game," as their father called it before he was murdered.

Netflix has given a series order to The Lincoln Lawyer, a drama based on Michael Connelly’s series of bestselling novels, from Big Little Lies and Big Sky creator, David E. Kelley and A+E Studios. This is a new incarnation of the project, which originally was set up at CBS with a series production commitment last season. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (The Magnificent Seven) has been tapped to play the titular character in the Netflix series as it honors the story’s Hispanic origins. The 10-episode first season is based on the second book in The Lincoln Lawyer series, The Brass Verdict.

ABC is moving forward with Sam Esmail’s procedural drama, Acts of Crime, handing the project a pilot pick-up. The network didn’t offer much detail of the project, which is described as a "unique spin" on the crime procedural.

Dawnn Lewis and Jude Elizabeth Mayer are set as series regulars opposite Tate Donovan and Melissa Leo in the Fox drama pilot, Blood Relative, in recastings. The forensic genealogy-themed crime drama is based on James Renner’s 2018 article "Beyond the Jungle of Bad: The True Story of Two Women from California Who Are Solving All the Mysteries." The article featured Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick and Dr. Margaret Press, who combined their genealogy expertise to push the boundaries of forensic science and help law enforcement identify Joe and Jane Does and track down serial killers.

Slumdog Millionaire star, Freida Pinto, is set to star in and executive produce Spy Princess, a limited series based on Shrabani Basu’s book, Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan. Noor was the first female wireless operator sent into occupied France in 1943 – a role with a life expectancy of just six weeks. She was the most unlikely heroine of World War II, a Sufi mystic who won’t use a gun and the daughter of a long-haired Indian Guru who preaches love and peace.

FX has opted not to move forward with Redeemer, a drama series that was to have reunited True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto and one of the series’ original stars, Matthew McConaughey. The project had landed a script-to-series commitment at the network in January but was axed after McConaughey decided to exit the project. Created by Pizzolatto and inspired by Patrick Coleman’s debut novel, The Churchgoer, Redeemer was to star McConaughey as a minister-turned-dissolute security guard whose search for a missing woman in Texas leads him through a corruption-steeped criminal conspiracy.

Demetrius "Lil Meech" Flenory Jr. and Da’Vinchi are set to star in Starz’s drama series, Black Mafia Family, from executive producer, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. Black Mafia Family is inspired by the true story of two brothers who rose from the decaying streets of southwest Detroit in the late 1980’s and created one of the most influential crime families in this country.

Showtime has set the cast of the upcoming Dexter revival. Julia Jones, Alano Miller, Johnny Sequoyah, and Jack Alcott have joined Michael C. Hall and Clancy Brown in the 10-episode limited series, which begins production next month in Massachusetts. The original series, which ran from 2008-13 and remains one of Showtime’s signature dramas, followed Dexter Morgan (Hall), a complicated and conflicted blood-spatter expert for the Miami Police Department who moonlighted as a serial killer.

CBS has dropped the trailer for Clarice, its Silence of the Lambs sequel series. The drama picks up with Clarice Starling (played by Rebecca Breeds) one year after the events of the 1991 film, in which the FBI agent-in-training (then played by Jodie Foster) seeks the assistance of cannibalistic serial killer, Hannibal Lecter, to catch another killer. As the trailer shows, things only get worse for Agent Starling as she returns to the field.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the first chapter of Dead to the Last Drop by Tonya Kappes, read by actor Ariel Linn.

Read or Dead looked ahead to the "Most Anticipated Releases of 2021."

Suspense Radio welcomed bestselling author, Brad Taylor, to talk about his latest book, American Traitor, book fifteen in the Logan Pike series.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Edwin Hill, the Edgar- and Agatha-award nominated author of Little Comfort, The Missing Ones, and Watch Her.

Wrong Place, Write Crime featured Alan Orloff talking about his books, including his new release, I Know Where You Sleep. Host Frank Zafiro also celebrated reaching the 100-episode milestone with some reminiscing and messages from past guests, including updates on what they're been doing since appearing on the show.

The Crime Writers of Color podcast interviewed David Heska Wanbli Weiden, author of Winter Counts, nominated for Best Debut Novel and Best Mystery & Thriller in the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards, and also nominated for Book of the Year by the Book of the Month Club.

Writers Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson. talked about how detectives find peoples’ addresses; detective caseloads and what happens during a murder investigation; and the differing responsibilities a detective may have based on duty assignments.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a "What we are reading" show, talking about books by Rosemary Simpson, Louise Penny, Mary Burton, Anna Lee Huber, and Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child.

Laudable Lefties

 

The Left Coast Crime Conference announced the finalists for the annual "Lefty" Awards. Because of the pandemic, the 2021 Left Coast Crime convention was rescheduled for 2022, but the Lefty Awards will go on, with titles honored in four categories: humorous, historical, debut, and best crime. The awards will be voted on virtually and presented online April 10, 2021. Here are all the nominees and congrats to each (with a HT to Mystery Fanfare):

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

Ellen Byron, Murder in the Bayou Boneyard (Crooked Lane Books)
Jennifer J. Chow, Mimi Lee Gets a Clue (Berkley Prime Crime)
Carl Hiaasen, Squeeze Me (Alfred A. Knopf)
Cynthia Kuhn, The Study of Secrets (Henery Press)
J. Michael Orenduff, The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing (Aakenbaaken & Kent)
Sung J. Woo, Skin Deep (Agora Books)

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (for books set before 1970)

Susanna Calkins, The Fate of a Flapper (Minotaur Books)
Dianne Freeman, A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Murder (Kensington Books)
Laurie R. King, Riviera Gold (Bantam Books)
Catriona McPherson, The Turning Tide (Quercus)
Ann Parker, Mortal Music (Poisoned Pen Press)
James W. Ziskin, Turn to Stone (Seventh Street Books)

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel

Daisy Bateman, Murder Goes to Market (Seventh Street Books)
Mary Keliikoa, Derailed (Camel Press)
Erica Ruth Neubauer, Murder at the Mena House (Kensington Books)
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club (Viking)
Halley Sutton, The Lady Upstairs (Putnam)
David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts (Ecco)

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories)

Tracy Clark, What You Don’t See (Kensington Books)
S.A. Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland (Flatiron Books)
Matt Coyle, Blind Vigil (Oceanview Publishing)
Rachel Howzell Hall, And Now She’s Gone (Forge)
Louise Penny, All the Devils Are Here (Minotaur Books)

Mystery Melange

 

Tonight, you can join in a webinar titled ''Murder for Sale: Raymond Chandler & James M. Cain Novels to Films," which begins at 8pm ET. Hosted by documentarian and author Steven C. Smith, the virtual experience will travel to sun-drenched California in the 1930s and '40s to explore the sinister origins of Cain and Chandler’s stories, which pitted Hollywood studio chiefs, screenwriters, and censors against one another over how to translate these explosive novels to the screen.

HarperFiction is launching Killing It: The Killer Reads Competition for Undiscovered Writers. The competition aims to open doors to crime writers who need a way into the publishing industry, and encourages submissions from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic writers in particular. Entrants are being asked to send the first 10,000 words of their crime, thriller or suspense novel, a short synopsis, and a bio by April 7, 2021. Three winners will be chosen to receive editorial reports from HarperFiction crime editors on their full manuscripts plus editorial mentoring (up to three one-hour sessions).

We lost crime fiction author, John Lutz, last week. John Lutz died at the age of 81 following a struggle will Lewy body dementia before he succumbed to Covid. Lutz was President of the Mystery Writers of America and the Private Eye Writers and won an Edgar winner for his short story, "Ride the Lightning." He also penned some fifty novels of political suspense, private eye novels, urban suspense, humor, occult, caper, police procedural, espionage, historical, futuristic, amateur sleuth, thriller and just about every mystery sub-genre. His book, SWF Seeks Same was adapted for the film, Single White Female, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh). Another novel, The Ex, became an HBO movie. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

We also mark the passing of Eric Jerome Dickey, the bestselling novelist who blended crime, romance, and eroticism in Sister, Sister, Waking With Enemies, and dozens of other stories about contemporary Black life, who has died at age 59. Dickey was an aspiring actor and stand-up comic who began writing fiction in his mid-30s and became known for his witty, conversational, and sometimes graphic prose style, which brought him a wide readership, including his Gideon crime fiction series such as Sleeping With Strangers and Resurrecting Midnight.

Publishers Weekly has launched a new US publishing trade fair, following the retirement of BookExpo at the end of 2020. The US Book Show will debut virtually from 26th to 28th May this year, with attendees to include booksellers, librarians, publishers and literary agents from the US and internationally. There will be around five hours of programmed content a day to facilitate networking and parties as well as to accommodate those tuning in across different time zones.

A lovely old cinema in Devon that once reserved a balcony for the crime writer Agatha Christie – and a second one for her butler – is to be restored to its former glory. The Paignton Picture House on the English Riviera has been awarded a £200,000 grant from Historic England to refurbish intricate stonework and stained glass windows. Christie, who was born in Devon and kept a holiday home in the area, watched films from her special seat as her butler served her drinks and is believed to have used a thinly veiled version of the cinema in her fiction, calling it The Gaiety.

A rare second-edition novel written by one of the most popular writers of the 18th century has mysteriously appeared at a Perth library. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) was described as a pioneer of gothic fiction and was one of the most popular writers of her time. A copy of her book, The Mysteries Udolpho, had a rather stranger and mysterious journey.

Writing for The Guardian, Carmen Maria Machado examined the "Twisted brilliance: Patricia Highsmith at 100," and the dark allure of the writer behind Ripley.

Writing for the Sunday Times, author Val McDermid explained why "Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage was my gateway drug."

In case you missed it, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting-rights advocate, Stacy Abrams, has a thriller being published in May. Abrams has already had romance novels published, but this will be her first crime fiction title, a Supreme Court thriller titled While Justice Sleeps, which is due out May 11.

Carolyn A. Conley, who spent her academic career at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a focus on criminal violence in the British Isles, applied the "Page 99 Test" to her new book, Debauched, Desperate, Deranged: Women Who Killed, London 1674-1913. The book is the first empirical, quantitatively- as well as qualitatively-based study of women and homicide from the seventeenth century to the twentieth.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Free Delivery" by Max Thrax.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with Monica Rodden about her debut, Monsters Among Us, and also spoke with Molly MacRae about her latest Highland Bookshop Mystery, Heather and Homicide; and over at the Writers Who Kill blog, E. B. Davis interviewed Jane Willan about Abide with Me, the third book in her Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn mysteries series.

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

Jovan Adepo is boarding FilmNation’s serial killer thriller, Misanthrope, starring opposite Shailene Woodley and Ben Mendelsohn. The movie follows a talented, but troubled cop, who is recruited by the FBI to help profile and track down a mass murderer. Adepo will play MacKenzie, a young FBI agent, who is deeply involved in hunting down the murderer. Damián Szifron is directing off a screenplay he co-wrote with Jonathan Wakeham.

Isabella Amara (Avengers: Infinity War) has joined the Blumhouse thriller, Vengeance, B.J. Novak’s directorial debut. Besides directing, Novak also penned the script and will star in the feature, along with Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher, and Boyd Holbrook. As is customary with any Blumhouse project, the logline is being kept under wraps.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

In a competitive situation, ABC has landed August Snow, a drama starring and executive produced by Keegan-Michael Key. Written by Paul Eckstein and based on Stephen Mack Jones’s "August Snow" novels, the drama centers on the titular character (Key), a biracial former detective who grew up in Detroit’s Mexicantown. After a distinguished military career, he joined the force like his father, only to be drummed out by a conspiracy led by corrupt cops and politicians. August becomes a private investigator, a Robin Hood from the hood, gathering a group of unexpectedly talented misfits to help him solve cases.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw is set to be cast as the lead in a four-part BBC adaptation of JP Delaney’s best-selling psychological thriller, The Girl Before. The novel was originally optioned for a feature by Universal Pictures in 2015 with Ron Howard attached to direct, but now looks set to make its screen debut on television instead in 2021. The Girl Before follows Jane, a traumatized woman who falls in love with an extraordinary minimalist house. But when she discovers that another damaged woman died in the same One Folgate Street property three years earlier, she starts to wonder if her own story is just a rerun of the girl before.

Oscar and Tony winner Catherine Zeta-Jones is set to star opposite Michael Sheen on the upcoming second season of Fox’s serial-killer thriller drama, Prodigal Son. Zeta-Jones will appear in the latter half of the season as Dr. Vivian Capshaw, Claremont Psychiatrics’s resident MD. Prodigal Son follows Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), a criminal profiler with a rare talent for getting inside the minds of killers. He learned how they think because his father, Martin Whitly (Sheen), was a notorious serial killer known as "The Surgeon." Now he’s using his twisted genius to help the NYPD solve their most puzzling murders. Bright’s team, led by his longtime mentor, NYPD Lieutenant Gil Arroya (Lou Diamond Phillips), includes Detectives Dani Powell (Aurora Perrineau), JT Tarmel (Frank Harts) and medical examiner Dr. Edrisa Tanaka (Keiko Agena).

Daniel Francis, the British actor who recently starred in Education, the fifth and final film of Steve McQueen’s hugely-celebrated Small Axe anthology series, has landed a recurring role in the Netflix drama, Stay Close, based on Harlan Coben's bestselling novel. A new eight-part thriller from the same team behind the Netflix series, The Stranger — also from Coben and released in early 2020 — the drama will co-star Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife, Vera), Richard Armitage (The Hobbit), James Nesbitt (Cold Feet) and Sarah Parish (Broadchurch). Adapted by Danny Brocklehurst, Stay Close flips the book's location from the U.S. to the U.K. and follows three people whose dark secrets resurface, threatening to rip their lives apart.

Clancy Brown is joining Showtime’s Dexter revival as a lead opposite Michael C. Hall. Brown will play villain, Kurt Caldwell, "a true man of the people. If he’s got your back, consider yourself blessed. But should you cross Kurt, or hurt anyone that he cares for… God help you." The original followed Dexter Morgan (Hall), who was a complicated and conflicted blood-spatter expert for the Miami Police Department but moonlighted as a serial killer.

Daytime Divas alumna, Camille Guaty, is set for a multi-episode arc on ABC’s The Rookie. Guaty will play Sandra De la Cruz, a businesswoman with nefarious connections who has been the target of a murder attempt. Her character will be introduced in the Sunday, January 17 episode titled "La Fiera." Created by Alexi Hawley, The Rookie stars Nathan Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie at the Los Angeles Police Department.

Rebekah Graf (S.W.A.T.) is set for a recurring role opposite Keegan Allen and Jared Padalecki in the CW’s Walker, a reimagining of CBS’s long-running 1990s action/crime series, Walker, Texas Ranger. Graf will play Crystal, a bright eyed, wild and charming woman, the type who married an unhinged criminal because he promised her an exciting life. She is reckless and lies with ease, but there is a humanity beneath her.

Two new documentaries about Agatha Christie are set to premiere on PBS this month. Inside the Mind of Agatha Christie airs Sunday, January 17, at 10PM ET, and Agatha Christie’s England premieres Sunday, January 24, at 10PM ET. (HT to Crime Fiction Lover)

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Speaking of Mysteries chatted with author Lee Goldberg about his thriller, Bone Canyon, the latest in a series featuring Eve Ronin, the youngest homicide detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Suspense Magazine welcomed bestselling author, John Connolly, to talk about his latest book, The Dirty South, which goes back to the very beginning of Private Investigator Charlie Parker's career.

My Favorite Detective Story host, John Hoda, chatted with British author, copywriter, and blues guitar-player Andy Maslen about his Detective Ford mystery series.

Marshall Thornton was the latest guest on the Gay Mystery Podcast; Thornton writes two popular mystery series, the Boystown Mysteries and the Pinx Video Mysteries, for which he has won three Lambda Awards.

The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast featured Terence Faherty reading his story, "The Noble Bachelor," from EQMM's January/February 2018 issue.

Author R&R with Edwin Hill

Edwin Hill is the author of the critically acclaimed Hester Thursby mystery series, the first of which, Little Comfort, was an Agatha Award finalist, a selection of the Mysterious Press First Mystery Club, and a Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books selection. The second installment, The Missing Ones, was also an Agatha Award finalist and a Sue Grafton Memorial Award nominee. Formerly the vice president and editorial director for Bedford/St. Martin's (Macmillan), he now teaches at Emerson College and has written for the L.A. Review of Books, The Life Sentence, Publishers Weekly, and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. He lives in Roslindale, Massachusetts with his partner Michael and their Labrador, Edith Ann.

Harvard librarian Hester Thursby is back in Watch Her, attending a gala at Prescott University’s lavish new campus along with fellow guest, Detective Angela White, when they are called to the home of the college’s owners, Tucker and Jennifer Matson. Jennifer claims that someone broke into Pinebank, their secluded mansion on the banks of Jamaica Pond. The more Hester and Angela investigate, the less they believe Jennifer’s story, leaving Hester to wonder why she would lie.

When Hester is asked by the college’s general manager to locate some missing alumni, she employs her research skills on the family and their for-profit university. Between financial transgressions, a long-ago tragedy, and rumors of infidelity, it’s clear that the Matsons aren’t immune to scandal or mishap. But when one of the missing students turns up dead, the mystery takes on new urgency. Hester is edging closer to the truth, but as a decades-old secret collides with new lies, a killer grows more determined to keep the past buried with the dead.

 

Edwin Hill stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching his books:

 

Finding the Pieces of a New Novel

Starting a new novel can be a daunting process, one that can sometimes feel like putting together a jigsaw puzzle not only without looking at the picture on the box, but also without looking at the colors or shapes on the pieces. I usually start a new novel with a vague concept, a blank Word document, and forty workdays in front of me where I force myself to write two thousand words a day, no matter how terrible they might be. If all goes right, at the end of the forty days I have eighty thousand words of drivel, and one or two good concepts or characters.

Once I finish the terrible first draft, I ask myself a few questions, one of which is “what do I need to know more about?” as I look at what I need to research before plunging into a second draft.

With my latest novel, Watch Her, a few areas stood out. The main character in the novel is a research librarian named Hester Thursby who works at Harvard’s Widener Library (or to be more precise, the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library). This is my third Hester Thursby novel, so I know the character pretty well, and with this novel I wanted to fill out her work life. I arranged to meet with the fantastic Odile Harter, an actual research librarian at Widener, who not only walked me through the library, but also a typical day in her work life, and I used that research to make Hester day-to-day work activities feel authentic. 

I also knew that I wanted to set the main action in Boston. I scouted around for interesting locations, and finally landed on Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood in Boston that is a mix of urban and residential, but that also has a large park with a pond at its center called Jamaica Pond. The more I read about Jamaica Pond, the more interesting it became. The pond is part of the Emerald Necklace, a park system designed by Frederick Olmsted at the turn of the twentieth century. At that time, Jamaica Pond was a summer resort of sorts for wealthy Boston families who would leave their houses on Beacon Hill and travel the six miles southwest to stay on the pond. When the city acquired the pond for the park, they demolished most of the houses, except one, called Pinebank Mansion.

Olmsted liked Pinebank Mansion so much he decided to work it into the park’s design, and for many decades the house was used by the city, as the Children’s Museum for a time, and then for offices and classrooms. Unfortunately fires at the mansion in the seventies rendered it uninhabitable, and by the time I began my research, it had been torn down. As I moved into the second draft of Watch Her, I was looking for interesting details about Jamaica Plain to bring into the story and Pinebank Mansion kept coming up in my imagination. Finally, I decided to resurrect the house for the story. What is the good of an imagination if you don’t use it, right? So now, Pinebank still sits on the shores of Jamaica Pond and it plays a major role in the novel.  

(You can learn more about Pinebank Mansion at the Jamaica Plain Historical Society: https://www.jphs.org/)

With my research done, I dove into a second draft, and when I finished that draft, I had another list of things I needed to learn about before heading into my final draft. You can learn about some of those in the acknowledgments of Watch Her.

 

Learn more about author Edwin Hill and his books via his website, and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Watch Her is available in digital, print, and audiobook formats from all major booksellers.

Mystery Melange

 

The winner of the 2020 Staunch Prize is Heaven My Home by Attica Locke. Now in its third year, the prize is awarded to a novel in the thriller genre in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered. The other finalists include The Coldest Warrior by Paul Vidich; The Burning Island by Jock Serong; Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu; Death in Her Hands by Otessa Moshfegh; and The Chemical Reaction by Fiona Erskine.

The latest issue of Suspense Magazine is out, featuring interviews with Vanessa Lillie, Victoria Thompson, and Lisa Gardner; the usual enlightening book reviews and essays; and also the annual “Best of” list, including the Crimson Scribe award winner for the best book of the year.

This is a fascinating story. Writing for CrimeReads, Kathy Peiss recounted learning that her uncle, a Harvard librarian, was quietly recruited by the OSS during World War II to save the scattered books of Europe.

The Telegraph celebrated "100 years of Hercule Poirot," raising a glass to Agatha Christie's immortal mustachioed detective, as Dame Agatha's first book celebrates its centenary.

The latest story up at Beat to a Pulp is "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," by Jeff Esterholm.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Driving Past the Oliver House" by Frederick Shiels.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews welcomed Monica Rodden to talk about her new thriller, Monsters Among Us, about a survivor of dating violence who uses her newfound awareness of everyday evil to hunt for a killer; Rich Leder stopped by the Indie Crime Scene blog to discuss his book, Cooking for Cannibals, which he describes as a "wild ride for Sci Fi fans and thriller fans and readers who love humour that crosses the line—or totally obliterates it."; Deborah Kalb interviewed Robert McCaw to discuss Death of a Messenger, the latest installment of Hawaii-set Koa Kane series; and CrimeTime UK's Paul Burke spoke with ex-US Special Forces Colonel-turned author Brad Taylor about American Traitor, the new Taskforce thriller featuring Pike Logan and his team.

 

Author R&R with David Rohlfing

David Rohlfing spent his career in the world of the retail automotive aftermarket business and has lived in every continent of the world but one. He has sat on boards of companies and organizations, been an advisor to companies and executives, and currently works as a consultant. He recently turned his hand to crime fiction with his debut title, Deliberate Duplicity, just published by River Grove Books.

Deliberate Duplicity is the first in a planned series featuring Illinois Detective Sasha Frank, who is plunged into a serial killer case after dead bodies are found one at a time along the Constitution Trail, where abandoned railroad tracks once ran through the "Twin Cities" of Bloomington-Normal. The bodies point to a meticulous, cold-hearted killer who poses their victims on the ground, making sure to leave the eyes wide open—silent witnesses to their own murder. As Sasha and his team investigate these gruesome killings, they end up with more questions than answers: What’s the killer’s motive? And how are the victims connected? As the once cool-headed Sasha unravels the tangled web of clues surrounding the murders, the pressure beings to chip away at his composed exterior. Will he be able to solve the mystery before time runs out and bring justice to all who were affected?

David Rohlfing stops by In Reference to Murder to discuss writing the book:

 

For the past ten years, I've written a blog that focuses on the business world, where I spent my career traveling to six continents and countless countries. A few years ago, while talking with a friend, he suggested I write a book about my business philosophy. I enjoy writing, so I thought I'd give it a try. However, since I'm now retired, I couldn’t get interested in writing about business and quickly found myself pivoting to thinking about writing a murder mystery novel instead.

I've been an avid reader of all types of books for my entire life, especially murder mystery novels. While reading a mystery, I always enjoy parsing through clues, trying to figure out which character is the antagonist. It would be a new endeavor for me to work backwards, building the type of story that would keep readers guessing.

First, I developed a lead character, Sasha Frank, a senior detective in Bloomington, Illinois. Many of the mystery novels I’ve read have been set in big cities, and I thought it would be interesting to place my detective in a more tight-knit community. As I worked on developing the plot for Deliberate Duplicity, I began introducing more characters to the storyline that was forming in my mind. It began as something simple: people start showing up dead, and Sasha Frank is to lead the investigation. Then I worked out the details: at first, two murder victims are found naked in a Bloomington park, marking the beginning of the Consititution Trail Murders.

The story's sequencing began to evolve, and I added and deleted entire chapters as I worked toward a final draft. With Deliberate Duplicity being my first book, I quickly learned that less is more during the writing and subsequent editing process. I found at first I provided too many details that didn't move the story along. In order to maintain the suspense and keep the reader searching for clues along with Sasha, large sections needed to be cut from the book—a good lesson for any aspiring writer.

Many of the fictitious characters in the book are actually composites of people I know. Their characteristics show up in how they interact with others, the things they say, or how they speak. To the surprise of my wife, family, and friends who've read Deliberate Duplicity, I also wrote characters with very dark minds responsible for grisly killings. That's not to suggest that these elements come from lived experience! I think that my reading, along with years of watching television shows, documentaries, and movies providing investigative details of murders, crime scene investigations, and the legal process of pursuing perpetrators, were helpful to me when creating these more intense elements.

I enjoyed writing the first book in the Detective Sasha Frank Murder Mystery Series, and I'm especially looking forward to it’s publication on January 5, 2021. I hope that readers will be compelled to follow Sasha and help him work the clues as he leads the investigation to find who is behind the Constitution Trail Murders. There are subtle hints that provide readers of Deliberate Duplicity that opportunity to discover who's responsible.

 

You can learn more about author David Rohlfing and the book via his website and also follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Deliberate Duplicity is now available via all major booksellers.