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.