Mystery Melange

Martina Cole is the latest recipient of the highest honor in British crime writing, the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger. The long-reigning Queen of Crime Drama has written 25 novels and become Britain’s bestselling female crime writer and the first British female adult audience novelist to break the £50 million sales mark. Her books have been translated into 31 languages and adapted for multiple stage plays and television series. Previous Diamond Dagger winners include Ruth Rendell, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Ian Rankin, PD James, Colin Dexter, Reginald Hill, Lindsey Davies, Peter Lovesey, and John Le Carré.

The nominees for the 2021 Norwegian Silver Knife for outstanding crime fiction have been announced. The contenders include The Assistant by Kjell Ola Dahl; So It Got Cold by Frode Eie Larsen; and Fate Stone by Sven Petter Næss. The winner will be announced on 16 March 2021. (HT to Shots Magazine) Previous winners include Lars Helle (2018), Kurt Aust and Kin Wessel (2019) and Agnes Matre (2020).

In an email this week, the Malice Board of Directors announced they'd decided to postpone Malice 32/33 to 2022. Instead of a live event in 2021, they will be sponsoring MORE THAN MALICE, a virtual (online) festival to be held on July 14 - 17, 2021. The event will feature special guests, unique panels, the Agatha Awards, and much more. Agatha Award nomination forms will also be sent out this week to everyone who is currently registered for Malice Domestic.

Hillary Clinton is teaming up with award-winning author, Louise Penny, to write an international political thriller in which a secretary of state joins the administration of "a president inaugurated after four years of American leadership that shrank from the world stage." The book will be published in the UK and worldwide by Pan Macmillan, and by Simon & Schuster and St Martin’s Press in the US. In a statement, Clinton described writing with Penny as "a dream come true." The move follows a partnership between President Bill Clinton and James Patterson to pen the thriller, The President is Missing.

Scotland's Granite Noir conference just wrapped up February 19-21, and organizers have put online several of the virtual author events, with sign language included for the hearing impaired. Participating authors include Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride, Attica Locke, Jo Nesbo, David Baldacci, and more.

On Al-Fanar Media, M. Lynx Qualey chatted with Nadia Ghanem, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at University of London's SOAS, about the evolution of crime fiction in the Maghreb (discussing, for example, works by authors from Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia). (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

Mystery Writers of America shared the sad news that Margaret Maron (1938-2021), a past president, former Grand Master, Edgar winner, and a truly kind and generous writer, has passed away from a stroke. Maron is the author of numerous short stories and more than twenty mystery novels, including the Judge Deborah Knott series and another series with Sigrid Harald, a loner lieutenant in the NYPD whose policeman father was killed in the line of duty when she was a toddler. Maron was also one of the founders of Sisters in Crime and the American Crime Writers' League.

Featured at the Page 69 Test was The Missing Passenger by Jack Heath. From the publisher: Jarli only narrowly escaped death after his world-shattering app made him infamous. Now there’s a new foe afoot and Jarli is far from safe in this thrilling sequel to The Truth App.

If you're like moi and many others, the pandemic lockdowns have led to quite a bit of comfort-food noshing. So it's probably appropriate that Criminal Element's Amy Pershing took on the topic of mysteries in which food, both for good and evil, features so prominently that it’s virtually a character itself—or at least a character witness. Perhaps it’s because food (the cooking of it, the eating of it, the sharing of it) offers so many lovely options for the mystery writer. Apparently, classic crime fiction was also obsessed with fashion.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "The Snap" by James Lilley.

In the Q&A roundup, Dana Stabenow chatted with Criminal Element about her long-running Kate Shugak series and also a series with Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell; the Sons of Spade blog welcomed Alexandra Amor, a podcaster and author of the Freddie Lark series, to chat about her work and PI fiction in general; and Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis spoke with Barbara Ross about Shucked Apart, the ninth book in the Maine Clambake mystery series.

Audio Accolades

The Audio Publishers Association released the list of finalists for the annual Audie Book Awards. The honorees include:

Mystery

• A Bad Day for Sunshine, by Darynda Jones, narrated by Lorelei King, published by Macmillan Audio
• Confessions on the 7:45, by Lisa Unger, narrated by Vivienne Leheny, published by HarperAudio
• Fair Warning, by Michael Connelly, narrated by Peter Giles and Zach Villa, published by Hachette Audio
• The Guest List, by Lucy Foley, narrated by Chloe Massey, Olivia Dowd, Sarah Ovens, Rich Keeble, Aoife McMahon, and Jot Davies, published by HarperAudio
• Trouble Is What I Do, by Walter Mosley, narrated by Dion Graham, published by Hachette Audio           

Thriller/Suspense

• If It Bleeds, by Stephen King, narrated by Will Patton, Danny Burstein, and Steven Weber, published by Simon & Schuster Audio
• The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones, narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett, published by Simon & Schuster Audio
• The Sentinel, by Lee Child and Andrew Child, narrated by Scott Brick, published by Penguin Random House Audio
• When No One Is Watching, by Alyssa Cole, narrated by Susan Dalian and Jay Aaseng, published by HarperAudio
• Yard Work, by David Koepp, narrated by Kevin Bacon, published by Audible Originals
  
  

In addition, there were also some crime drama nods in other categories, including Best Male Narrator: All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny, narrated by Robert Bathurst, published by Macmillan Audio, and Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen, narrated by Scott Brick, published by Penguin Random House Audio; as well as Best Female Narrator, One by One by Ruth Ware, narrated by Imogen Church, published by Simon & Schuster Audio.

 

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 Writers Guild of America unveiled the movie nominations for its 2021 WGA Awards, honoring outstanding achievement for original and adapted screenplays and documentary films during 2020. Winners will be announced March 21 in a virtual ceremony. Among the crime drama nods in the Best Original Screenplay category are Judas and the Black Messiah, written by Will Berson & Shaka King, and The Trial of the Chicago 7, written by Aaron Sorkin.

Amazon Studios is taking on an adaptation of All the Old Knives, based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Olen Steinhauer, who also wrote the screenplay. The film stars Chris Pine and Thandie Newton as ex-lovers Henry and Celia, one a CIA spy, the other an ex-spy, who meet over dinner in Carmel-by-the-Sea to reminisce about their time in Vienna. As the conversation continues, it becomes clear that one of them is not going to survive the meal.

Daisy Ridley is attached to star in the psychological thriller, The Marsh King’s Daughter, that will be directed by Divergent filmmaker, Neil Burger. The film is based on Karen Dionne’s 2017 book of the same name and tells the story of Helena, who was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands. Following years of trying to escape her past, she must now hunt her father down after he escapes from prison.

Tom Hardy is set to star in the Netflix action film, Havoc, from Gareth Evans, the director of the critically acclaimed martial arts film, The Raid. Hardy stars as a bruised detective who, after a drug deal gone wrong, must fight his way through a criminal underworld to rescue a politician’s estranged son. In doing so, he unravels a deep web of corruption and conspiracy that ensnares his entire city.

After playing an FBI agent in Judas and the Black Messiah, Jesse Plemons is looking to stay in the bureau, joining the film, Killers of the Flower Moon. Based on David Grann’s bestseller set in 1920s Oklahoma, the story depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a time that came to be known as the Reign of Terror. Martin Scorsese is directing, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro in lead roles. Plemons will play the lead FBI agent investigating the murders

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Benedict Cumberbatch will star in a limited series update of the classic thriller, The 39 Steps, inspired by John Buchan’s novel, which was turned into the 1935 film classic by Alfred Hitchcock. The TV project of The 39 Steps is being described as "a provocative, action-packed conspiracy thriller series that updates the classic novel for our times. An ordinary man, Richard Hannay, becomes an unwitting pawn in a vast, global conspiracy to reset the world order."

Producers Webster Stone and Robert Stone have acquired rights to Anthony Bourdain’s crime novel, Gone Bamboo, for a scripted series based on a TV pilot. The 1997 book was the celebrity chef’s second published work of fiction. Set on the island of St. Martin, Gone Bamboo follows sharpshooting hedonistic assassin Henry Denard, who botches a career-capping hit. Denard must enlist the help of his skilled, stunning, and volatile wife to save their skins, dispatch the villains, and keep the peace — at all costs — in their tropical paradise. Bourdain, who died in 2018, also wrote several episodes of David Simon’s HBO series, Treme.

CBS is developing a third “FBI” series based on Dick Wolf’s crime drama franchise, this one set within the bureau’s many international branches. The series has a working title FBI: International and is in the early stages of development, according to Deadline. Longtime Dick Wolf vet, Derek Haas, is the writer and executive producer on the series; Haas was recently co-executive producer on the flagship FBI and created Wolf’s Chicago Fire NBC series, which birthed its own “Chicago” franchise. If it goes forward, it would be the third “FBI” series on the network, joining the original series and FBI: Most Wanted.

CBS is also looking to expand its lucrative “NCIS” franchise with a fourth series, this one set in Hawaii, according to TVLine. The network is closing in on a straight-to-series order for a spinoff set in the youngest U.S. state, which would be led by NCIS: New Orleans showrunner, Chris Silber.

Meanwhile, NCIS: New Orleans, the youngest series in CBS’s long-running NCIS franchise factory, is coming to an end. The current seventh season will be the drama’s last, with the series finale slated for May 16, the show’s 155th episode. The NCIS offshoot stars and is executive produced by Scott Bakula and revolves around the local field office that investigates criminal cases involving military personnel in the Big Easy, a city known for its music, entertainment and decadence.

Paramount+ is eyeing a comeback for the popular long-running CBS procedural, Criminal Minds. According to Deadline, the idea is in very early discussions, and a creative team is currently being assembled. Created by Jeff Davis, Criminal Minds aired on CBS for 15 seasons from 2005 to 2020 and followed a group of criminal profilers who work for the FBI as members of its Behavioral Analysis Unit. Over the course of its run, cast members included Mandy Patinkin, Shemar Moore, Joe Mantegna, Aisha Tyler, Matthew Gray Gubler, Thomas Gibson, Lola Glaudini, Adam Rodriguez and Paget Brewster, among others. The show spawned two spinoffs, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.

A new Constantine series is in the works at HBO Max and J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot company. British novelist Guy Bolton is attached to write the script. First introduced in The Saga of Swamp Thing in 1985, John Constantine is an occult con man and detective, a character brought to life on screen twice before, with Keanu Reeves portraying him in a 2005 film and Matt Ryan leading a series reboot at The CW in 2014.

AMC+ has picked up a trio of foreign crime dramas to premiere in the U.S. on the streaming service. The first, Kin, stars Charlie Cox, Clare Dunne, and Aidan Gillen and charts the lives of a fictional Dublin family embroiled in a gangland war. The second, Too Close, stars Chernobyl alum Emily Watson as Emma Robinson, a forensic psychologist who falls victim to a criminal suspect’s insightful and manipulative nature. Finally, Cold Courage, starring John Simm, Caroline Goodall, and Arsher Ali, is an adaptation of the series of novels by Finnish journalist Pekka Hiltunen and centers on Mari, a fierce psychologist, and Lia, a shy graphic artist, who are drawn together through the “Studio” — a clandestine group of like-minded people operating off the grid, dedicated to righting the wrongs of the powerful, influential and corrupt.

Billy Campbell has been tapped as the lead in National Parks, ABC’s drama pilot from executive producer, Kevin Costner. Co-written by Costner, Aaron Helbing, and Jon Baird and set to be directed by Anthony Hemingway, National Parks follows a small group of elite national parks service agents as they solve crimes while protecting the parks — which, while being known for their sweeping, beautiful landscapes, also attract a vast array of criminal activity. Campbell plays Cal Foster, an experienced ISB special agent who has worked in the field for years but is now stepping into a new leadership role.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Suspense Magazine's podcast interviewed Vincent Zandri, winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, about his latest book, The Girl Who Wasn’t There.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone were back after a hiatus with an interview with Linwood Barclay, talking about his early life, his background's influence on his novels today, trains, and much more.

Writer Types welcomed author Julia Dahl (writer of the Rebekah Roberts series) as co-host to talk with Dana Stabenow (the Kate Shugak series and Liam Campbell series); cold war spy novelist Paul Vidich; and author and forensics expert Jennifer Graeser Dornbush (Hole In The Woods). Plus the Malmons reviewed the latest from Jess Lourey and Matthew Iden.

The latest guest on Queer Writers of Crime was Rick R. Reed, bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction and a Lambda Literary Award finalist.

Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Charles Finch about his latest novel, In An Extravagant Death, featuring his English protagonist Charles Lenox on a road trip (an ocean voyage, actually) to America.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Sebastian Fitzek, one of Europe’s most successful authors of psychological thrillers.

TG Wolf‪f‬ stopped by Wrong Place, Write Crime to discuss Suicide Squeeze, her latest book in her Diamond mystery series, as well as her Cleveland-based procedural series; her love of puzzles; how waste water gets cleaned; and her podcast that features musically backed readings of mysteries.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club continued their conversation with Dr. Mark Aldridge about Agatha Christie, including her abilities to cement characters.

Mystery Melange

 

Will Rogers was a respected writer and cowboy entertainer whose work embodied the traditions of the American cowboy. The Will Rogers Medallion Award was originally created to recognize quality works of cowboy poetry that honored the Will Rogers heritage, but has expanded to include other works of Western literature and film. Winners of the 2020 awards include fiction winner, Land of Wolves: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson; a second place tie for The Last Warrior: The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, by W. Michael Farmer, and Blood-Soaked Earth: The Trial of Oliver Lee, by W. Michael Farmer; third place to Death Stalks Apache Oro by Sam Judd Fadala; fourth place to Cut Nose by Ron Schwab; and fifth place to Promised Land: Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey by Mark Warren. For all the finalists in the various categories, click on over here.

On February 22, the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut will offer the virtual "Script in Hand: A Sherlock Carol," a reading of a play by Mark Shanahan in which Tiny Tim asks the Great Detective to look into the death of Ebenezer Scrooge. If you can't make the live event, you catch the show on-demand from February 23 through February 28. (Ht to Elizabeth Foxwell)

On February 27, Left Coast Crime will present four virtual panels to introduce the 2021 Lefty Award Nominees and their books. This Zoom Webinar is free, but advance registration is required. Participating authors will include nominees for the Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel, Best Novel, Best Historical Novel, and Best Humorous Novel.
 

Hosted by NY Times bestselling author, Lisa Black, a virtual Noir at the Bar on March 12 will showcase ten Sisters in Crime authors offering readings from the darker side of crime fiction. Noir a the Bar is presented by the Florida Gulf Coast Sisters in Crime chapter as a Main Stage event of Southwest Florida Reading Festival, hosted by Lee County Library System.

After a thirty-three year run (1988-2021) as crime fiction critic for the New York Times, Marilyn Stasio is stepping down. Blogger, reviewer, and nonfiction author/editor, Sarah Weinman, is taking the reins from Stasio with her first column reviewing new releases by Walter Mosley, Belinda Bauer, Catie DiSabato, and Elle Cosimano. The column will run every other week. Stasio said in her email newsletter "The Crime Lady" that "There isn’t enough gratitude to express, stepping in the shoes of Stasio (who will still write for the paper after an iconic 3-decade-plus run with the column), 'Newgate Callendar' (aka Harold C. Schonberg), Allen Hubin, and Anthony Boucher, the original 'Criminals At Large' columnist."

Over at the Venetian Vase blog, James Ellroy aficionado, Jason Carter, continued his fascinating series exploring the connections between Ellroy and the true crime history of Wisconsin.

In honor of President's Day, Janet Rudolph compiled a listing of Presidential Crime Fiction, and also a list of mysteries for the Chinese New Year, while the Indie Crime Scene put together a roundup of "Indie Mardi Gras Mysteries."

The latest "victim" of the Page 69 test is Emilya Naymark, author of Hide in Place. The story follows a former NYPD undercover cop who escaped the Big Apple when her cover was blown only to land in a small town where she takes on a case that could expose her identity to her old enemies.

Experts have devised a novel approach to selecting photos for police lineups that helps witnesses identify culprits more reliably.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "I Want a Film Noir Femme Fatale" by Peter M. Gordon. The 5-2 Weekly editor, Gerald So, is also seeking new poems and poem critiques to help celebrate National Poetry Month coming up in April.

In the Q&A roundup, NPR spoke with law professor and human rights activist, Rosa Brooks, whose new memoir, Tangled Up in Blue: Policing The American City, details how she volunteered to join the police force in order to understand police reform; Author Interviews chatted with Allison Epstein about her Elizabethan mystery, A Tip for the Hangman; Author Interviews also welcomed Gwen Florio about her new book, Best Laid Plans, the first installment of a new mystery series featuring Nora Best as she flees her old life and cheating husband and takes to the road with an Airstream trailer; Lida Sideris was interviewed by Grace Topping for Writers Who Kill to discuss her book, Slightly Murderous Intent: A Southern California Mystery; Laura Shepherd-Robinson, author of the award-winning debut novel, Blood & Sugar, stopped by the Shots Magazine blog to talk about her latest book, Daughters of the Night; and Scottish crime writer, Val McDermid, told The Guardian why "To survive, you had to be twice as good as the guys."

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

Veteran producers Bruce Hendricks and Galen Walker have optioned the rights to the late Stanley Kubrick’s unmade film, Lunatic At Large, and have plans to bring the film-noir storyline to the big screen. The project was one of three film stories found in Kubrick’s archives after his death. Production is expected to start this fall.

Several studios got into a bidding war over a flight attendant's first novel. According to the flight attendant, T.J. Newman, she wrote the thriller, Falling, on the backs of airplane napkins and on iPads during her red-eye route. The story follows 140-plus passengers on a crowded flight from New York to LA who don’t yet know that a half-hour before takeoff, their pilot’s family was kidnapped. Now, in order for his family to live, the pilot must follow orders and crash the plane. While much of the story takes place in the air, there is also said to be a relentless FBI agent trying to save the family on the ground. Falling is already being described as "Speed at 35,000 feet."

Paul A. Kaufman is set to adapt the screenplay and direct Nicole Trope’s novel, The Boy in the Photo. The story is a gripping psychological thriller which centers on Megan, whose life was turned upside down when her ex-husband kidnapped their six year old son, Daniel. Six years later, a twelve-year-old boy shows up claiming to be Megan’s missing child, following his father being killed in a deadly fire. As Megan tries to bond with Daniel, he is not the sweet little boy that she lost. Instead, he’s terse, erratic, condescending and dangerous. Fear strikes as she struggles with strange things happening around her while she begins to doubt Daniel is her real son. As Daniel holds a very dark secret and things escalate, can Megan find out the truth and save herself?

Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs Kong) has been hired to direct a reboot of John Woo’s 1997 action hit, Face/Off. The original Face/Off starred John Travolta as Sean Archer, a federal agent bent on revenge after terrorist, Castor Troy (Nicholas Cage), killed his son. After another incident puts Troy in a coma, Archer agrees to a bizarre plan that involves using experimental surgery to give him Troy’s body, face, and voice, and then going to a max security prison to convince Troy’s partners to reveal the location of a bomb.

Sandra Bullock is the latest star to come aboard Sony Pictures’s action thriller, Bullet Train. She joins an ensemble cast jam-packed with stars, including Brad Pitt, Joey King, Lady Gaga, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Zazie Beetz, Logan Lerman, Bad Bunny, Andrew Koji, Brian Tyree Henry, Masi Oka, Michael Shannon, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Karen Fukuhara. The details of Bullock’s role in the film are currently unknown. Based on the novel, Maria Beetle, by Kotaro Isaka, Bullet Train follows five assassins who find themselves on a bullet train in Japan and realize that their assignments are related. David Leitch (John Wick) is set to helm the film from a screenplay by Zak Olkewicz.

Lily Gladstone is set to star in Apple Original Films’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro also are attached to star in the pic, with Martin Scorsese directing. Based on David Grann’s praised best-seller and set in 1920s Oklahoma, Killers of the Flower Moon depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror. Gladstone will play Mollie Burkhart, an Osage married to Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), who is nephew of a powerful local rancher (De Niro).

The James Bond film, Die Another Day, introduced Halle Berry’s Giacinta Johnson as a Bond woman who would help save the day in Pierce Brosnan’s final film as the superspy. A spin-off was being developed for her character, better known to her friends/foes as Jinx, and while it never happened, the scrapped script for the film has apparently made its way online.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

FX has picked up a pilot for a series adaptation of Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door. The 1969 novel tells the fictional story of the first Black CIA officer hired by the agency in the late 1960s. It was previously adapted for the screen in 1973, with Lawrence Cook starring as the novel’s protagonist, Dan Freeman.

True Lies, a TV series adaptation of James Cameron’s hit 1994 action comedy movie, has taken a major step toward becoming a reality. CBS has given a pilot order to the project, which is from the team of Cameron, the director McG, and Burn Notice creator Matt Nix. Shocked to discover that her bland and unremarkable computer consultant husband is a skilled international spy, an unfulfilled suburban housewife is propelled into a life of danger and adventure when she’s recruited to work alongside him to save the world as they try to revitalize their passionless marriage.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover are rebooting the feature film Mr. & Mrs. Smith as a television series for Amazon. The pair revealed via Instagram stories that they were working on the project for 2022. The 2005 feature film starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a married couple who were rival spies.

James Graham, writer of the Emmy-nominated, Brexit: The Uncivil War, has created a crime drama titled Sherwood for the BBC. Inspired in part by real events, the six-part series is set in the Nottinghamshire mining village where Graham grew up. The contemporary series sees two murders shatter an already fractured community leading to one of the largest manhunts in British history. Suspicion is rife and the tragic murders threaten to inflame historic divisions sparked during the miners’ strike that tore families apart three decades before.

Guy Pearce will reunite with his Mildred Pierce co-star, Kate Winslet, for another upcoming HBO miniseries, Mare of Easttown. Pearce will co-star alongside Winslet, who plays Mare Sheehan, a small-town Pennsylvania detective whose life crumbles around her as she investigates a local murder.

Carla Gugino, who recently starred in The Haunting of Bly Manor, will front Leopard Skin, a television crime thriller for AGC Television. The cast also includes Amelia Eve, Gentry White, Philip Winchester, Margot Bingham, Gaite Jansen, Nora Arnezeder, and Ana de la Reguera. Leopard Skin kicks off when a criminal gang fleeing a botched jewelry heist is forced to hide out in a beachside estate where two women live in seclusion. Their world turns into a tension filled hothouse of secrets, betrayal and desire — all of which will come to the surface as the gang awaits their fate.

HBO Max has opted not to proceed with Red Bird Lane, its drama pilot starring Susan Sarandon. Written by Sara Gran and directed by David Slade, the project is a psychological thriller that follows eight strangers who arrive at an isolated house, all for different reasons. Upon their mysterious and coincidental arrival, the strangers realize that something sinister and terrifying awaits them.

Paula Newsome, Matt Lauria, and Mel Rodriguez have been cast as leads in CSI: Vegas, which is nearing a formal straight-to-series order at CBS. William Petersen and Jorja Fox are finalizing their deals to star in the project, which serves as a sequel to the mothership series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (reprising their roles as Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle, respectively). While billed as an event series, reports indicate it could become an ongoing series running for multiple seasons. CSI: Vegas opens a new chapter in Las Vegas, the city where it all began. Facing an existential threat that could bring down the Crime Lab, a brilliant team of forensic investigators must welcome back old friends and deploy new techniques to preserve and serve justice in Sin City.

This isn't exactly a live-action crime drama per se, but it's an interesting move on Fox's part: the network is developing an animated series based on the iconic board game, Clue. Clue is conceptualized on the murder of Mr. Boddy, the host of the game’s "dinner party," during which players must untangle various clues to determine who among the party’s six guests — Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlett, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green and Dr. Orchid — committed the crime. Clue was also being rebooted for the big screen with Ryan Reynolds attached to star and executive produce, although there hasn't been much of a progress report on that project lately.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest Mystery Rats Maze podcast features an excerpt from Leave It to Cleaver by Victoria Hamilton, as read by actor Ariel Linn.

Read or Dead discussed reads that feature true crime and social justice, honoring Black History Month.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Paul Vidich to chat about his fourth novel, The Mercenary.

Joseph Rei‪d stopped by Wrong Place, Write Crime to discuss his latest Seth Walker thriller, Departure.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with Mark Aldridge, a senior lecturer at Solent University, Southampton, about his new nonfiction book, Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World.

The featured guest on Queer Writers of Color was Steve Neil Johnson, the author of the bestselling Doug Orlando mysteries.

Mystery Melange

Registration is open for the Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival, which goes all digital this year for the all-day event on March 6. There will be live panels on topics from "Humor Has It: Keeping the Fun in Mystery" to "A Song of Ice and Fire: Writing Strong Women," with close to forty authors participating.

Submissions for the McIlvanney Prize / Scottish Crime Book of the Year are also now open, with a deadline of Friday, April 9. The winner of Crime Book of the Year will receive £1,000, while the winner the Debut of the Year will receive £500. Entries come from full length novels first published in the United Kingdom between August 1 2020 and July 31, 2021. When considering the entries the judges will take into account quality of writing, originality of plot and potential durability in the crime genre.

Take the upcoming long weekend to apply to PEN America's Writing for Justice Fellowship, which commissions writers to create written works of lasting merit that illuminate critical issues related to mass incarceration and catalyze public debate. Submissions close on February 15.

Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies has a call for papers on the topic of "Giallo! The Long History of Italian Television Crime Drama." The special issue will be edited by Luca Barra (Università di Bologna) and Valentina Re (Link Campus, Rome) who are seeking abstract submissions through April 30. There's more info on the Shots Magazine blog, including some suggested topics for consideration.

Shots also took a look ahead at the Chester Himes - Harlem Detective Series being released by Penguin Modern Classics on March 25, 2021. The stories of the pathbreaking Himes, one of crime fiction’s most overlooked writers, take the reader through the criminal underbelly of New York alongside hardboiled Harlem detectives "Coffin" Ed Johnson and "Grave Digger" Jones.

Valentine's Day isn't always about love, as Janet Rudolph's updated Valentine's Day Crime Fiction list will attest.

Writing for The Guardian, Alison Flood investigated "Why Sherlock Holmes Has Become One Of Our Most Enduring Literary Characters." She takes note of some of the more recent entries, including Anthony Horowitz’s sequels; Andrew Lane’s tales of a teenage Holmes; basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's novels about Holmes’s older brother Mycroft; Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books, giving Holmes and Mycroft a younger sibling; James Lovegrove's combining the worlds of Holmes and HP Lovecraft in the Cthulhu Casebooks; Nicholas Meyer’s forthcoming The Return of the Pharaoh, drawn "from the Reminiscences of John H Watson, MD"; and Bonnie MacBird’s The Three Locks, a new Holmes adventure, which is out in March.

In Valerie Stivers’s Eat Your Words series for the Paris Review, she cooks up recipes drawn from the works of various writers. In her latest installment, she tackles Inspector Montalbano, the creation of one of Italy’s best-loved contemporary authors, Andrea Camilleri (1925–2019).

Over at the Venetian Vase blog, Steven Powell continued his series examining the musical influences in James Ellroy’s work, this time focusing on a single novel, Because the Night, Ellroy’s second novel in his Lloyd Hopkins trilogy.

Allison Epstein applied the Page 69 Test to her debut historical thriller, A Tip for the Hangman, which centers on Christopher Marlowe, a brilliant aspiring playwright, who is pulled into the duplicitous world of international espionage on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I; and Gwen Florio also applied the same test to Best Laid Plans, the first installment of a new mystery series.

The trend of celebrities writing crime fiction seems to have no end in sight, it seems. Even astronauts are jumping into the act.

If you're a fan of Nordic Noir novels, check out this list from Forbes on "Nordic Noir Travel: Scandinavia’s Top Crime Fiction Locations."

Here's a little throwback for you spy fans: a new phishing attack uses Morse code to allow hackers to hide malicious URLs.

Speaking of spying, one man learned the hard way that if you're going to commit a crime, you might be a little more aware of the apps you load onto your cellphone.

Ever wonder about where the term "bookworm" came from?

Will artificial intelligence ever take over the jobs of authors?

The latest flash fiction story at Shotgun Honey is "Remittences" by Pamela Ebel

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Anything Goes" by Tom Barlow.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews's Marshal Zeringue spoke with Jeri Westerson, the author of fifteen Crispin Guest Medieval Noir novels, and also chatted with former teacher and linguist, Carol Wyer, about her new novel, An Eye for an Eye, which introduces DI Kate Young; and Walter Mosley offered up some background on his first thriller and how he went from working as a computer programmer in 1980's New York City to writing the iconic Devil in a Blue Dress.

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:

AWARDS

The Golden Globe Awards announced the nominees for 2021, in a year severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and theatre closings/production delays. There weren't a lot of crime drama nods among the film selections, although The Trial of the Chicago 7 made the list for Best Drama, with Aaron Sorkin also nominated for Best Director. The dark comedy thriller, Promising Young Woman, also was nominated for Best Drama, as was its director, Emerald Fennell, and lead actress, Carey Mulligan. The other Best Actress nods included Andra Day for The United States vs. Billie Holiday, in which the FBI launches an undercover sting operation against the legendary jazz singer, and on the Best Actor side, Tahar Rahim was nominated for his role in The Mauritanian, a true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi's experience of being held for fourteen years without charge in Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The TV side also had a few crime drama honors, notably Ozark and Ratched for Best Drama Series, and the dark crime comedy, The Flight Attendant, for Best Musical/Comedy Series. For Best Actor in a Drama Series, Bryan Cranston was nominated (Your Honor) as was Hugh Grant (The Undoing). Best Actress in a Drama Series nods included Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Laura Linney (Ozark), and Sarah Paulson (Ratched). 

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) also announced the nominees for their annual awards. Among the crime/thriller dramas there are Da 5 Bloods and The Trial of the Chicago 7 competing for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, and on the TV side, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series includes Better Call Saul and Ozark.

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Following the successful launch of The White Tiger, filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, author Aravind Adiga, and Netflix have set their next collaboration for the big screen, Adiga's 2020 novel, Amnesty. Set in Australia, the story centers on Danny, an undocumented immigrant who cleans houses and realizes he has information about the murder of one of his employers. Over the course of one tense summer day, Danny plays a cat-and-mouse game with the man he suspects to be the murderer, but he realizes that if he speaks up, he will be deported.

Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and New Republic Pictures (NRP) have signed on to produce Queen Bitch & The High Horse, which will be directed by the female writing/directing team Bert & Bertie. The project is inspired by the largest municipal fraud in American history and follows Penny Banks, an ambitious woman whose passion for civic duty was eclipsed by her love for horses. As she rises the ranks of city hall, she embezzles millions to fund a show horse empire.

Ruth Wilson is set to co-star in Searchlight’s untitled murder mystery, to be directed by Tom George and to co-star Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, David Oyelowo, and Adrien Brody. Written by Mark Chappell, the script is set in 1950s London where a desperate Hollywood film producer sets out to turn a popular West End play into a film. When members of the production are murdered, world-weary Inspector Stoppard (Rockwell) and overzealous rookie Constable Stalker (Ronan) find themselves in the midst of a puzzling whodunit within London’s glamorous Theatreland and sordid underground.

Jennifer Lopez is reteaming with Netflix to star in and produce the action feature, The Mother, which Mulan director Niki Caro is in talks to direct. Lopez will play a deadly female assassin who comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men. 

Warner Bros. has announced that Those Who Wish Me Dead, a neo-Western film starring Angelina Jolie, has slotted its release date for May 14 (debuting both in theaters and on HBO Max). Based on Michael Koryta’s 2014 novel of the same name, the film follows a teenager who witnesses a murder and finds himself being pursued by twin assassins in the Montana wilderness. Though there is a survival expert tasked with protecting him, a forest fire threatens to destroy them all.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Fox has put in development Red Widow, a one-hour CIA thriller based on Alma Katsu’s forthcoming book. The story revolves around the lives of two female CIA agents that become intertwined around an internal threat to the Agency’s Russia Division, as they navigate the mostly male world of intelligence. Author and former NSA/CIA senior intelligence analyst, Katsu, is attached as an executive producer

Stone Village Television has acquired TV rights for Alex Michaelides' second thriller, The Maidens, which will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in June 2021. The Maidens is said to weave together Greek mythology, psychology, and murder to deliver a "spellbinding" literary thriller. Michaelides first novel, The Silent Patient, debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list at No.1 in 2019.

Amazon has commissioned its first true-crime series, Gefesselt (working title). Produced by Neue Bioskop and directed by Florian Schwarz, the six-part show describes the search for the so-called "acid barrel killer," who terrorized Hamburg between 1986 and 1992. He was finally hunted down only by the courageous efforts of a woman who was not part of the actual investigating team, but who, as a contact person for the relatives of the victims, picked up the trail of the perpetrator and had to assert herself against resistance within the police.

ABC has handed a pilot order to National Parks, a drama written by actor Kevin Costner, Aaron Helbing, and author Jon Baird. The one-hour drama, formerly known as ISB, follows a small group of elite National Park Service agents as they solve crimes while protecting the parks — which, while being known for their sweeping, beautiful landscapes, also attract a vast array of criminal activity.

In her broadcast debut, two-time Oscar winner, Renée Zellweger, is set to headline and executive produce the limited series, The Thing About Pam, which has been greenlighted by NBC with a six-episode straight-to-series order. The project is based on the real-life murder of Betsy Faria, which resulted in her husband Russ’s conviction. He always insisted that he did not kill her, and his conviction was later overturned as the brutal crime set off a chain of events exposing a diabolical scheme involving Pam Hupp (Zellweger).

Becki Newton is set as a lead opposite Manuel Garcia-Rulfo in The Lincoln Lawyer, Netflix’s drama series based on Michael Connelly's bestselling novels. Additionally, Jazz Raycole and Angus Sampson, who had been cast in the project’s previous incarnation at CBS, have made deals to continue in their roles on Netflix. The moves round out the main adult cast, which also includes Neve Campbell, who had started the casting process with an offer for the CBS pilot. The Lincoln Lawyer revolves around Mickey Haller (Garcia-Rulfo), an iconoclastic idealist, who runs his law practice out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles.

Eddie Izzard, Jo Joyner, and Andi Osho are joining Cush Jumbo and James Nesbitt in the cast of Harlan Coben’s Netflix drama, Stay Close. Other previously announced cast members include Richard Armitage, Sarah Parish, Daniel Francis, Bethany Antonia, Rachel Andrews, Poppy Gilbert, and Hyoie O’Grady. The eight-part drama will follow three key characters whose dark secrets resurface and set off a chain of events that threatens to destroy their lives.

Newcomer Candace Grace has been tapped as the lead in Sam Esmail’s ABC drama pilot, Acts of Crime. Also joining as series regulars are Molly Price, Peter Mark Kendall, and newcomer Josiah Cross. Written and directed by Esmail, Acts of Crime is described as "a unique spin on the crime procedural," although no other details have been revealed. Grace will play Vivien Lamonte, a Black police detective working homicide in suburban New Jersey, whose early years were spent on the wrong side of the law. Price plays Captain Gunn, while Kendall will play Todd, a spry rookie detective who went to law school but decided that he wanted to "catch the bad guys" instead of prosecuting them.

Bones alumna Tamara Taylor is set as a lead opposite Christopher Meloni and Dylan McDermott in Law & Order: Organized Crime, NBC’s Law & Order: SVU spinoff series slated to premiere later this year. In Law & Order: Organized Crime, Elliot Stabler (Meloni) returns to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. Stabler will aim to rebuild his life as part of a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one. NBC has set April 1st as the premiere date, which is a two-hour crossover with SVU.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest Crime Writers of Color podcast featured E. A. Aymar (a/k/a E. A. Barres), author of They’re Gone, as interviewed by Robert Justice.

Meet the Thriller Author's special guest this week was Walter Mosley, whose books have won numerous awards and have been translated into more than twenty languages. Mosley is the author of the acclaimed Easy Rawlins series of mysteries.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime writer, James H. Roby, a former Air Force officer and author of the Urban Knights thriller series, for the Crime Cafe podcast.

Writer Types chatted with German best seller, Sebastian Fitzek, about his new novel, The Package and Isabella Maldonado about her new series starter, The Cipher; debut author Fiona King Foster also chatted about her novel, The Captive; and in a new segment, Jason Pinter and Nick Petrie discussed long-running series and how to keep up the quality.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Daniel Pyne to dicsuss his new thriller, Water Memory, featuring former black ops expert turned private security contractor, Aubrey Sentro.

Suspense Magazine's podcast sat down with Victoria Thompson, as she talked about her latest book, City Of Schemes, the fourth installment in her Counterfeit Lady series.

The featured guest on My Favorite Detective Stories was James D.F. Hannah, Shamus Award-winning author of the Henry Malone series, as well as the novel, The Righteous Path.

Mick Herron returned to the Spybrary Podcast to discusses his latest novel, Slough House, which takes a look at the corrupt web of media, global finance, spycraft, and politics that power our modern world.

Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Lawrence Maddo‪x about his new novella, The Down and Out.

Queer Writers of Crime welcomed Edwin Hill, the author of critically-acclaimed crime novels Watch Her, The Missing Ones, and Little Comfort. He has been nominated for Edgar and Agatha Awards and was recognized as one of "Six Crime Writers to Watch" in Mystery Scene magazine

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club podcast offered a roundup of romantic suspense titles.

The latest episode of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's podcast included a story by Edward D. Hoch, who had a thirty-five-year streak of unbroken publication in each issue of Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine until his death in early 2008. EQMM editor Janet Hutchings read his story "The Man Who Drowned in Champagne," from the April 1998 issue.

On The Writer's Detective Bureau, host and veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, talked about transporting an inmate from federal custody to testify in state court, creating realistic clandestine drug lab scenes, and the realities of cops using drones for an aerial search.

Mystery Melange

 

The organizers of Granite Noir have announced that Aberdeen’s crime fiction festival will return between February 19-21, 2021 as an online celebration of the very best of home grown and international crime writing. The lineup includes Jo Nesbo and Camilla Lackberg who will lead the Nordic contingent, as well as Scottish authors Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride and Peter May, and American authors David Baldacci from Virginia and Attica Locke in Los Angeles. There will be additional authors, bloggers, and podcasters joining in, and a Bold New Voices Panel featuring the ones to watch. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Also on February 19, a panel called "Criminal Minds" (part of the 2021 Auckland Fringe Festival) will present 10 crime writers in 100 thrilling minutes on Facebook Live. Covering a criminally large range of small town crime to international espionage and finishing with a sliver of paranormal tension, these ten authors represent some of New Zealand’s best crime writers. Those scheduled to appear include John Ling, Ngaio Marsh Award finalists Nathan Blackwell and Nikki Crutchley, ex Police Officer Ian Austein, Amazon bestseller Kirsten McKenzie, emerging author Madeleine Eskedahl, comic horror author Andrene Low, serving police officer Angus McLean, award winner Michael Bennett, and more.

The Romantic Novelists’ Association announced the shortlists for their prestigious 2021 Romantic Novel Awards. The winners of the awards will be presented by actor and presenter Larry Lamb in a digital event on Monday 8th March. Among the nominees are those in the Jackie Collins Romantic Thriller Award:

The Forgotten Sister, Nicola Cornick, HQ
The House by the Sea, Louise Douglas, Boldwood Books
Death Comes to Cornwall, Kate Johnson, Dash Digital, Orion
The Twins, Jane Lark, One More Chapter, HarperCollins
Escape to the Little Chateau, Marie Laval, Choc Lit

Combined print book and e-book sales hit 942 million units in 2020 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan (for the US market), a 9% increase over 2019 and the most unit sales recorded in a single year by BookScan since the service was created in 2004. In a webinar held last week, Kristen McLean, executive director of NPD Books, said the gain was due to a combination of strong sales of both print and digital books. While this is good news for some publishers due to online sales, the news for shuttered and/or partially opened brick-and-mortar bookstores hasn't been as rosy.

For those fans of U.S. football, Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog gets ready for the "big game" with a list of "Murder at the Super Bowl and other Football Mysteries."

Sara Driscoll, the pen name of Jen J. Danna and Ann Vanderlaan who co-author the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries and the FBI K-9s series, applied the Page 69 Test to their latest FBI K-9s novel, Leave No Trace.

Via the Spybusters blog, "The Darwin Award for spying goes to..."

From the mysteries of science department comes this bit of fun news: Meet YInMn, the first new blue pigment in two centuries, created accidentally in 2009 by chemists at Oregon State University.

The featured monthly story at All Due Respect is "Any Deadly Thing" by Emily Bay Moore.

There's also a new story up at Punk Noir Magazine, "Shattered Delusions" by John Patrick Robbins.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Five Lips Kissing Back" by B. Frederick Foley.

In the Q&A spotlight, Joanna Schaffhausen, who holds a doctorate in psychology, stopped by Writer Interviews to reflect on her long-standing interest in the brain and to discuss her new novel, the fourth book in her Ellery Hathaway mystery series, Every Waking Hour.

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.

Gerard McMurray, who directed Burning Sands for Netflix, is set to return to the studio to direct The Formula, starring John Boyega and Robert De Niro. The Formula follows a Formula One racing prodigy who is forced to become a getaway driver to save the only family he has left.

Alyssa Milano will star in Netflix's feature film adaptation of Nora Roberts's romance thriller, Brazen Virtue. Milano plays Grace, a prominent mystery writer and crime expert, who hurries back to her family home in Washington, D.C., after her estranged sister summons her. When her sister is killed and her double life as a webcam performer is revealed, Grace ignores the warnings of a cool-headed detective and gets involved in the case. Unfortunately, the casting choice of Milano caused a bit of controversy that Roberts felt compelled to defend publicly.

Taylor John Smith and Harris Dickinson are set to join Daisy Edgar-Jones in the film adaptation of the bestselling novel, Where The Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens. Set up at Sony, the film is being directed by Olivia Newman from a screenplay written by Oscar-nominated scribe Lucy Alibar. The story takes place in the mid-20th century South and centers on Kya, a young woman who is abandoned by her family and has to raise herself all alone in the marshes outside of her small town. However, when her former boyfriend is found dead, Kya is thrust into the spotlight, instantly branded by the local townspeople and law enforcement as the prime suspect for his murder.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The Critics Choice Association, the largest critics organization in the U.S. and Canada, representing more than 400 television, radio and online critics and entertainment reporters, announced the nominees for the 26th annual Critics Choice Awards for television (the film nominees will be revealed on February 8). Crime dramas nominated in the Best Drama Series category include Better Call Saul (AMC), The Good Fight (CBS All Access), Ozark (Netflix), and Perry Mason (HBO). Best Actor noms include Jason Bateman for Ozark; Bob Odenkirk for Better Call Saul; and Matthew Rhys for Perry Mason. Best Actress nominees include Christine Baranski for The Good Fight (CBS All Access) and Laura Linney for Ozark.

HBO has acquired the rights to adapt Alex Marzano-Lesnevich's book, The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, as a limited series. Jeremiah Zagar (Hustle) will co-write the script, exec produce, and direct. The drama revolves around a young lawyer whose opposition to the death penalty is shaken when she's assigned the case of a child murderer—whose complicated life story parallels the long-suppressed trauma of her past.

Dylan McDermott is heading to New York to star in Law & Order: Organized Crime. McDermott, best known for his role on ABC’s long-running drama, The Practice, will star alongside Christopher Meloni in the NBC drama. Meloni is reprising his role as Elliot Stabler, who returns to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. Stabler will aim to rebuild his life as part of a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.

French mystery thriller, Lupin, is returning to Netflix for its second half of season one this summer. The series has become a surprising hit for the streamer, with 70M households projected to watch since its launch on January 8, making it easily Netflix's biggest French original. The project is a contemporary adaptation of the novels penned by French writer Maurice LeBlanc and stars Omar Sy as Assane Diop, who uses the world famous gentleman thief and master of disguise, Arsène Lupin, as his inspiration as he tries to get revenge on those responsible for his father's death.

Jamie Dornan has been cast as the lead of The Tourist, a limited series from BBC One and HBO Max. Along with Dornan, the six-episode show will star Danielle Macdonald, Shalom Brune-Franklin, and Hugo Weaving. The Tourist centers on a British man (Dornan) who finds himself in the heart of the Australian outback being pursued by a vast tank truck trying to drive him off the road. An epic cat and mouse chase unfolds and the man later wakes in the hospital, hurt, but somehow alive. Except he has no idea who he is. With merciless figures from the man’s past pursuing him, his search for answers propels him through the vast and unforgiving outback.

The Canadian legal drama, Diggstown, is heading to the U.S. after Fox acquired the series. Diggstown follows Marcie Diggs (Vinessa Antoine Antoine), as a corporate lawyer who reconsiders her priorities and moves to work in a legal-aid office after her beloved aunt takes her own life following the pressures of a malicious prosecution. 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.

lan Cumming has been tapped for a recurring role opposite Michael Sheen and Tom Payne on Fox’s serial-killer thriller drama, Prodigal Son. The series follows Malcolm Bright (Payne), son of "The Surgeon" (Sheen), who as a child was responsible for enabling the police to arrest his father. Now a profiler, who formerly worked for the FBI until he was fired, he currently consults for the New York Police Department. Bright is forced to confront his father after a copycat serial killer uses his father's methods of killing, and then uses his father's insights to help the police solve particularly horrible crimes and battle his own inner demons.

Scandal actor, Dan Bucatinsky, is returning to ABC’s Thursday lineup, joining the cast of ABC’s new Katey Sagal-starring series, Rebel, which was slotted in the Thursday 10 PM slot starting April 8. Created by Krista Vernoff and inspired by the life of Erin Brockovich, Rebel centers on Annie "Rebel" Bello (Sagal), a blue-collar legal advocate without a law degree. She’s a funny, messy, brilliant and fearless woman who cares desperately about the causes she fights for and the people she loves. Bucatinsky will play Jason Erickson, an edgy, somewhat bitter university professor from whom Rebel (Sagal) seeks help.

Jen Landon (Yellowstone, Animal Kingdom) is set for a recurring role opposite Yaya Gosselin on the second season of CBS’s drama series FBI: Most Wanted. Landon will play Sarah Allen, Tali’s (Gosselin) riding instructor. The FBI spinoff, from Universal Television and Wolf Entertainment, stars Julian McMahon, Kellan Lutz, Roxy Sternberg, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Nathaniel Arcand.

David E. Kelley’s hit freshman ABC drama series, Big Sky, continues to bulk up its cast with the addition of five high profile recurring guest stars, Michelle Forbes, Britt Robertson, Michael Raymond-James, Ryan Dorsey and Omar Metwally. They join recently cast new series regular Ted Levine, who plays powerful ranch owner Horst Kleinsasse, and Kyle Schmid, who will recur as his second-born son John Wayne Kleinsasse. The crime thriller series, created by Kelley based on C.J Box’s book, follows private detective Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) and ex-cop Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) who join forces to search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. But when they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another woman is taken.

Netflix’s drama-thriller series, Pieces of Her, starring Oscar nominee Toni Collette and Bella Heathcote, has added Jessica Barden, Omari Hardwick, David Wenham, Joe Dempsie, and Jacob Scipio to its ensemble cast. The series adaptation is based on the author Karin Slaughter’s thriller novel of the same name. Pieces of Her will be set in a sleepy Georgia town where a random act of violence sets off an unexpected chain of events for 30-year-old Andy Oliver (Heathcote) and her mother Laura (Collette). Desperate for answers, Andy embarks on a dangerous journey across America, drawing her towards the dark, hidden heart of her family.

David Magidoff has been added to the cast of Showtime’s Dexter revival set in the upstate New York town of Iron Lake. He will co-star opposite Michael C. Hall, Clancy Brown, Julia Jones, Alano Miller, Johnny Sequoyah, and Jack Alcott in the 10-episode limited series, which begins production next month in Massachusetts. Magidoff will play Teddy, a quirky new cop who is a little scared of his boss, Police Chief Angela Bishop (Jones). The original series, which ran from 2008-13, followed Dexter Morgan (Hall), a complicated and conflicted blood-spatter expert for the Miami Police Department who moonlighted as a serial killer.

Apple TV+ has renewed its first non-English language original series, the Israeli espionage thriller drama, Tehran, for a second season. Tehran tells the story of Mossad agent, Tamar Rabinyan, who goes deep undercover on a dangerous mission in Tehran that places her and everyone around her in dire jeopardy.

Just three episodes into The Blacklist’s eighth season, NBC’s long-running drama has been picked up for a ninth season. The series stars James Spader as Raymond "Red" Reddington, a former U.S. Navy officer turned high-profile criminal who voluntarily surrenders to the FBI after eluding capture for decades. The cast also includes Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, Amir Arison, Hisham Tawfiq, Laura Sohn, and Harry Lennix.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, featuring the mystery short story, "The Bucket List," written by Ang Pompano and read by actor Teya Juarez.

Read or Dead discussed books that make use of unique formats to tell their story.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Gregg Hurwitz, bestselling author of 22 thrillers including the ORPHAN X series.

Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed Julie Holmes to discuss her novel, Murder in Plane Sight.

On the latest It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club, New York Times bestseller author, Ellery Adams, stopped by for a look at Ink and Shadows, No. 4 in her Secret, Book & Scone Society Series.

The featured guests on Queer Writers of Crime were authors C.S. Poe and Gregory Ashe, who put their heads together and co-wrote A Friend in the Dark (An Auden O'Callaghan Mystery).