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

Emmy and Honorary Oscar winner, Tyler Perry (A Jazzman’s Blues), has set another new film, titled Mea Culpa, starring Kelly Rowland (Think Like A Man), Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight), Sean Sagar (The Gentlemen), Nick Sagar (The Princess Switch trilogy), and RonReaco Lee (Nappily Ever After). The film, which is written, directed, and produced by Perry for Netflix, follows a criminal defense attorney who, in the hopes of becoming partner, takes on the case of an artist who may or may not have murdered his girlfriend.

Prime Video has secured the return of Dave Bautista (Knock at the Cabin), Chloe Coleman (Avatar: The Way of Water), Kristen Schaal (What We Do in the Shadows), Ken Jeong (The Afterparty) and others for their My Spy sequel, My Spy: The Eternal City. The original My Spy told the story of JJ (Bautista), a hardened CIA operative who found himself at the mercy of precocious nine-year-old Sophie (Coleman), after being sent undercover to surveil her family. Schaal played JJ’s tech specialist colleague Bobbi, with Jeong as his boss, David. In the sequel from Amazon Studios, a now-teenage Sophie convinces JJ to chaperone her school choir trip to Italy where they both unwittingly end up pawns in an international terrorist plot targeting CIA Chief, David Kim, and his son, Collin — who also happens to be Sophie’s best friend.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Author Harlan Coben is back at Netflix with his fifth novel adaptation, as the streamer takes on Fool Me Once for a limited thriller series starring Michelle Keegan, Richard Armitage, and Joanna Lumley. The story follows Maya Stern (Keegan), a woman who is trying to come to terms with the brutal murder of her husband Joe (Armitage). But when Maya installs a nanny-cam to keep an eye on her young daughter, she is shocked to see a man she recognizes in her house — her husband. Detective Sergeant Sami Kierce (Adeel Akhtar) is leading the homicide investigation into Joe’s death while grappling with secrets of his own. Meanwhile, Maya’s niece and nephew, Abby and Daniel, are trying to find the truth about their mother’s murder, several months earlier, and uncovering the possible connections between both cases. In keeping with previous Coben adaptations, Fool Me Once will relocate the story from the U.S. to the U.K.

The BBC has unveiled a two-part adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy. The thriller, which will get two hour-long episodes, will film this summer and be adapted by screenwriter Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre and directed by Meenu Gaur (Zinda Bhaag, World on Fire). Casting details will be announced later. The story is set in 1954 on a train to London, where a man going by the name of Luke Fitzwilliam meets Miss Pinkerton, who tells him that a killer is on the loose in the sleepy English village of Wychwood under Ashe. The villagers believe the deaths are mere accidents, but Miss Pinkerton knows otherwise – and when she’s later found dead on her way to Scotland Yard, Luke feels he must find the killer before they can strike again.

Mandalay Television has optioned Mike Grist’s series of action thriller novels, including Saint Justice, for television. The six-book series follows ex-CIA operative Christopher Wren, as he chases down the worst cult leader in history who is trying to destroy American democracy by dividing and pitting the US population against each other. Only Wren can stop the anarchism when he discovers the leader of the cult is his father, whom he escaped from as a young teenager. Wren’s internal battlefield leads him to finding redemption and atoning for the dark events of his own past.

Sweden’s Jens Jonsson will direct The Doctrine, a political thriller series adapted from Magnus Montelius’s novel, Eight Months. The novel, published in 2019, presented a then-far-fetched idea that Sweden would join NATO; given world events, the premise is now eerily contemporary. Jonsson said the series was a spy thriller about "how Russia could infiltrate Swedish politics." The cast will feature Anna Sise, Josefine Neldén, and August Wittgenstein.

In a competitive situation, Hae Wons’s bestselling Korean novel, Sad Tropic, will be adapted as a TV series in the U.S. This comes on the heels of the novel being adapted as a Web Toon in Korea. The action-packed, female-centric novel follows Sunny Kwon, a North Korean defector and decorated assassin, who double crosses a crime syndicate to rescue a child from her abusive captors. Now the two of them are on the run from the world’s most dangerous organization.

CBS has renewed its flagship drama series NCIS, along with NCIS: Hawai’i and CSI: Vegas for the 2023-2024 season. They join previously announced renewals for drama series Fire Country, The Equalizer, FBI, FBI: International, and FBI: Most Wanted. The renewals also follow the new-series order for The Never Game, based on the novels of Jeffery Deaver and starring Justin Hartley as a lone-wolf survivalist, who roams the country as a "reward seeker."

The Flight Attendant star, Deniz Akdeniz, has been cast as a series regular opposite Kaitlin Olson and Daniel Sunjata in ABC's character-based procedural drama pilot based on TF1’s popular detective series HPI ("High Intellectual Potential"). The untitled HPI remake centers on Morgan (Olson), a single mom with three kids and an exceptional mind who helps solve an unsolvable crime when she rearranges some evidence during her shift as a cleaner for the police department. When they discover she has a knack for putting things in order because of her high intellectual potential she is brought on as a consultant to work with a by-the-book seasoned detective, Karadec (Sunjata), and together they form an unusual and unstoppable team

ITV has ordered a second season of Karen Pirie, based on Val McDermid’s books and starring Lauren Lyle as the young and fearless Scottish investigator with a quick mouth and tenacious desire for the truth. Series Two will be based on A Darker Domain, with Karen reopening the investigation into the unsolved kidnapping of a wealthy young heiress and her baby son back in 1985.

Nordic programmer Viaplay has launched a subscription streaming service in the U.S., delivering subscribers thousands of hours of programming including so-called "Nordic noir" series like Trom, a crime drama starring Ulrich Thomsen (The Blacklist, Banshee), and the Norwegian thriller, Furia. Subtitles will be provided for the series, films, and documentaries on the platform, and new subscribers will be eligible for a 7-day free trial. The offering, which is available across an array of digital platforms and connected-TV providers, will expand to Canada on March 7.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On Read or Dead, hosts Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester featured crime books by Black authors.

Esme Addison was interviewed by Robert Justice on Crime Writers of Color about her Enchanted Bay Mysteries, a seaside cozy series full of humor and heart, mermaids and magic.

Chris Lloyd stopped by Crime Time FM to chat with Paul Burke about his new historical thriller, Paris Requiem; Eddie Giral; wartime Paris; living in Catalonia; and the little people of history.

Criminal Element featured a video talk by Mark Greaney, author of Burner (the Gray Man series), as he discussed research into money laundering, foreign intelligence operations, visiting sites on location across the globe, and more.

On Meet the Thriller Author, Freida McFadden, a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels, discusses her latest novel, The Housemaid's Secret.

Dr. DP Lyle has started a new series for his Criminal Mischief podcast titled Forensics For Crime Writers, discussing various aspects of forensic science and how it might be used in crime fiction. The first episode deals with the coroner.

On the latest episode of It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club, author Ann Claire chatted about her book, Dead and Gondola, the first in her Christie Bookshop Mystery series.

Mystery Melange

 

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes announced this year's honorees, highlighted by the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement recipient, James Ellroy. The award is given to an author with a substantial connection to the American West whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition. Ellroy is perhaps best known for his Los Angeles-based crime novels such as L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia. The finalists in the Mystery/Thriller category also include Rachel Howzell Hall, We Lie Here; Laurie R. King, Back to the Garden; Tracey Lien, All That’s Left Unsaid; Alex Segura, Secret Identity; and Peng Shepherd, The Cartographers.

CrichtonSun, the estate of Michael Crichton led by the author's widow, Sherri Crichton, has made a seven-figure deal with Blackstone Publishing to acquire the worldwide print, eBook and audiobook rights to Crichton’s first series of novels, which he wrote under the pseudonym John Lange. The books were penned long before Jurassic Park and include the unconnected Odds On (1966), Scratch One (1967), Easy Go (1968), Zero Cool (1969), The Venom Business (1969), Drug of Choice (1970), Grave Descend (1970) and Binary (1972). All the books are set in the late 1960s and 1970s and were Crichton's tribute to Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and to one of his favorite Alfred Hitchcock films, To Catch a Thief. The subjects range from secret treasures to heists, archaeology, unlikely heroes, classic villains and seductive and at times treacherous lovers. Sherri Crichton said. “In these eight early adventure books, Michael was honing his skills and themes that would later make him one of the most successful authors of all time. It is such an honor and pleasure to see the John Lange books freshly and newly published by Blackstone, to reintroduce these books to fans and also present them to a whole new generation of readers.” The titles will also be shopped to studios and streamers for potential film/television adaptations.

Last week, the Theakston Old Peculier crime fiction conference announced its headliners, and this week, CrimeFest 2023 announced Mark Billingham and Elly Griffiths will be the Featured Guests at the CrimeFest conference, one of Europe’s biggest crime fiction conventions. CrimeFest, sponsored by Specsavers, will take place from May 11-14 at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel in the UK, with up to 150 total authors currently scheduled to take part in over 50 panels. Billingham worked as an actor and stand-up comedian before publishing his first crime novel Sleepyhead in 2001, and his novels have now sold over 6 million copies. He has had 21 Sunday Times bestsellers and two TV series have been made of his books, Thorne on Sky starring David Morrissey, and In the Dark by the BBC. Griffiths is best known for her Dr. Ruth Galloway series as well as The Brighton Mystery series, set in the 1950s and 1960s. Also returning is last year’s featured guest, Andrew Child, brother of Lee Child and co-writer of the iconic Jack Reacher series.

The Back Room, an online program of virtual author panels spearheaded by Karen Dionne and Hank Phillippi Ryan during the pandemic lockdowns, will continue with new presentations this spring including bestselling and debut authors. The new lineup begins March 5 at 7 PM ET with a panel on "Bestselling Suspense" with Lyn Liao Butler, Eli Cranor, Adele Parks, and Shelby Van Pelt. These free events begin with authors playing a quick "get to know you" game of 20 questions, followed by the authors’ book recommendations, and then attendees are divided into 4 breakout rooms with one author assigned to each room. Attendees remain in their breakout room for the rest of the program, while the authors rotate through each room in turn. You’ll get fifteen minutes with each author to chat about whatever you like, similar to a virtual cocktail party. For more information and to register, head on over to the official website.

New York Times bestselling author Kyle Mills, who first took over the late Vince Flynn’s iconic Mitch Rapp series in 2015 and has since contributed eight consecutive bestsellers, is set to depart the Mitch Rapp franchise following his ninth and final book in the series, Code Red, later this year. Taking over franchise duties will be Don Bentley, who has a background in both the army and FBI, and is best known in crime fiction for his own Matt Drake series and the work he’s done in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Jr. series. As Mills noted on his Twitter feed and website, Mills wants to devote time to a new project based on his 2003 book, Fade, featuring former Navy SEAL Salam al-Fayed.

I've written about Cain's Jawbone before, the 1934 puzzle book dreamed up by The Observer’s first cryptic crossword inventor, Edward Powys Mathers, which requires sleuths to place its out-of-order 100 pages in the right order to solve six murders depicted within. The puzzle has only been successfully solved four times, and the most recent solver, John Finnemore, is penning his own murder-mystery sequel. It's currently known as "Untitled Mystery," though people who pledge during the crowdfunding campaign will learn what the actual title of the book. Finnemore's version, according to The Guardian, is a locked-room mystery that challenges readers to rearrange one hundred picture postcards to explain why a person was found dead in a locked study of a complete stranger. For those readers who don't want to take the time to solve the original, an official Cain's Jawbone Handbook will come out in late 2024 or 2025 with step-by-step instructions for solving the puzzle.

What to do if you're an author who spent fourteen years writing a crime novel that finally got published with Thomas & Mercer—but only sold a handful of copies? Turns out, it helps if you have a daughter who is active on TikTok.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Gather Together Who I Am" by Faye Turner-Johnson.

In the Q&A roundup, Thomas White, author of mystery/horror titles, chatted about his latest, The Siren’s Scream, on the Dark Phantom blog; and Author Interviews chatted with Peggy Rothschild about her new novel, Playing Dead.

 

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

Golden Globe nominee, Aaron Eckhart, is set to lead Midair, an action thriller set in the skies, which starts production in July. Magnus Martens (SAS: Red Notice), is directing from a script penned by George Mahaffey (Chief of Station; Heatseekers). After flying rogue missions for the CIA, a cargo pilot’s flight goes haywire when he’s stalked, midair, by a terrorist who forces him to overcome a series of deadly obstacles. To outsmart him and keep everyone alive, he must outmaneuver the terrorist and uncover the truth.

Director James Hawes has found his next major studio project, boarding the 20th Century thriller, Amateur, starring Oscar winner Rami Malek. The story follows a CIA cryptographer whose wife is tragically killed in a London terrorist attack. When he demands his bosses go after them, it becomes clear they won’t act due to conflicting internal priorities. So he blackmails the agency into training him and letting him go after the terrorists himself.

Universal Pictures has acquired Too Dead to Die, the forthcoming graphic novel from renowned writer/artist team Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin. A prolific screenwriter, showrunner, and producer outside of his comic book and graphic novel credits, Guggenheim has also signed on to adapt the screenplay, as well as executive produce. The story centers on Simon Cross, who in the 1980s was America’s top super spy. But that was long ago, in a very different world. His allies have forgotten him, but his enemies never will. Uncertain of the future and confronted by a past come back to haunt him, a legend of espionage comes out of retirement for one final adventure.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Universal Television is developing a TV adaptation of the novel, Stone Cold Fox, by Rachel Koller Croft, who will also pen the series. The novel is about an ambitious woman, raised by a con artist mother, who wants to escape her dark past for good. As she aims to marry into a classic American dynasty for one last con, unexpected opponents could threaten everything she’s worked so hard to achieve.

Patrick Radden Keefe’s The Snakehead, a book based on real events and described as "a mix between The Godfather and Chinatown," could be heading to the small screen after A24 won the rights in a bidding war. The Snakehead investigates the secret world run by a surprising criminal, the charismatic middle-aged grandmother, Sister Ping, from New York’s Chinatown, who manages a multi-million dollar business smuggling people and providing safe passage to America. Keefe's book recounts the decade-long FBI investigation that eventually brought her down. It also follows an often incompetent and sometimes corrupt INS as it pursues desperate immigrants risking everything to come to America, and along the way, paints a portrait of a generation of illegal immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them.

Social Distance creator, Hilary Weisman Graham, has been brought in as executive producer and co-showrunner of the new CBS drama series, The Never Game, starring and executive produced by Justin Hartley. Graham will share showrunning duties with executive producer, Ben H. Winters (author of The Last Policeman), who wrote the pilot based on the bestselling novel by Jeffery Deaver. The Never Game, slated for launch during the 2023-24 season, features Hartley as lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw, who roams the country as a "reward seeker," using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries while contending with his own fractured family. In addition to Hartley, the cast also includes Robin Weigert, Abby McEnany, Eric Graise, and Fiona Rene.

Rachel Hilson (The Good Wife; This is Us) will star alongside Josh Holloway in J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan’s period drama, Duster, after HBO Max handed the project an official series order. Hilson will portray Nina, the first Black female FBI agent, who in 1972 heads to the Southwest and recruits a gutsy getaway driver (Holloway), the first in a bold effort to take down a growing crime syndicate. Keith David, Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez, and Benjamin Charles Watson also star.

The Resident creator, Amy Holden Jones, is turning to crime. Holden Jones, whose medical drama has just finished its sixth and possibly final season on Fox, has teamed up with The Gifted and Burn Notice creator, Matt Nix, to develop a new crime procedural for the network. Archie & Pete follows an explosive, rule-breaking, and fearless female detective who solves cases for the Los Angeles Violent Crimes Unit with the help of a polite and gentle brainiac who studies the biology of evil.

NBC has commissioned writers rooms for two hourlong crime drama projects, Grosse Pointe Garden Society (from Good Girls creator Jenna Bans and her frequent collaborator Bill Krebs), and The Hunting Party (from writer-producer JJ Bailey). Grosse Pointe Garden Society follows four members of a suburban garden club, all from different walks of life, who get caught up in murder and mischief as they struggle to make their conventional lives bloom. The Hunting Party revolves around a small team of investigators who are assembled to track down and capture the most dangerous killers our country has ever seen, all of whom have just escaped from a top-secret prison that’s not supposed to exist. Bans and Krebs also have the crime drama, Murder by the Book starring Good Girls' Retta, in the works at NBC.

A new version of the 1970s buddy cop series Starsky & Hutch is in the works at Fox, with a female twist: the modern re-imagining will revolve around two female detectives, Sasha Starsky and Nicole Hutchinson. The duo solve crimes in the offbeat town of Desert City "while staying true to their friendship, their awesomeness, and somehow also trying to unravel the mystery behind who sent their fathers to prison 15 years ago for a crime they didn’t commit." The original series, which aired on ABC from 1975-1979, centered on two detectives — the streetwise David Michael Starsky (played by Paul Michael Glaser) and the by-the-book Kenneth Richard "Hutch" Hutchinson (David Soul) — traversing the streets of the fictional Bay City, California in a two-door Ford Gran Torino.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a lively interview with Gregg Hurwitz, author of The Last Orphan, #8 in the Orphan X series.

On the Writers Detective Bureau podcast, Detective Adam Richardson did a deep dive into why your character might want to be a police detective; plus he discussed police batons and martial arts in law enforcement.

On Crime Time FM, Simon Mason spoke with Paul Burke about his new novel, A Broken Afternoon: a DI Ryan Wilkins Mystery; Oxford; Morse; and publishing.

The Red Hot Chili Writers chatted with bestselling crime writer Laura Wilson; discussed Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival; and looked at the ins and outs of French publishing.

Mystery Melange

 

A new Bouchercon Scholarship Award Program has been established to help mystery fans and writers with a financial subsidy. This subsidy covers registration fees for the annual Bouchercon convention, scheduled to be held in San Diego in 2023, as well as travel and lodging costs, reimbursed up to $500.00 (for up to five awardees). Interested applicants will need to write a 300 to 500 word essay on the applicant’s interest in attending Bouchercon and in the mystery genre and be willing to volunteer for no less than four hours at the event. The deadline is May 1st, with scholarship winners announced June 1.

Harrogate International Festivals revealed the Festival Programming Chair and Special Guests for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2023, July 20-23. Multi award-winning crime novelist Vaseem Khan will be acting as this year’s Festival Programming Chair, following in the footsteps of Ian Rankin, Elly Griffiths, Denise Mina, and Lee Child. Vaseem is known for his Baby Ganesh Agency series set in modern Mumbai and the Malabar House historical crime novels set in 1950s Bombay. Special guests include Val McDermid, Lee Child, Andrew Child, Lisa Jewell, Ruth Ware, Ann Cleeves, Jeffery Deaver, Lucy Worsley, S. A. Cosby, and Chris Hammer.

US publisher Inkshares is launching its UK imprint this summer with two new crime novels by Fulton Ross (The Unforgiven Dead) and Christopher Huang (Unnatural Ends). Founded in 2014, Inkshares uses a "community analytics model," in which readers provide feedback on incomplete manuscripts, to source literary début novels for publication. Over the past 10 years, the independent publisher said it has had single title sales of more than 100,000 units and sold to the major houses for translation in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. Later this year, its first completed adaptation will stream on Apple TV, Mrs. American Pie, based on the 2018 novel by Juliet McDaniel, and starring Laura Dern, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Bibb, Allison Janney, Ricky Martin, Josh Lucas and Carol Burnett.

Here's an exhibit you don't see every day: a "Scooby-Doo Mansion Mayhem" exhibition at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, in Dearborn, Michigan, where visitors can solve mysteries alongside Scooby, Shaggy, and gang through April 9, 2023. A jewel-thieving ghost has dodged the police and was last seen in this spooky mansion. Can you meddling kids (and grown-ups, too!) help the gang solve the mystery in this immersive exhibit? (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Valentine's Day Blind Date - Paulie" by Robert Cooperman.

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

Oscar winner Helen Mirren is set to star as celebrated author Patricia Highsmith in the new movie, Switzerland, with filmmaker and celebrated music video director, Anton Corbijn, on board to direct. In Switzerland, Highsmith’s late-life solitude in the Swiss Alps is interrupted by Edward, a young literary agent sent by the writer’s publishing company to convince her to pen one last novel in her wildly popular Ripley series (which includes the classic The Talented Mr. Ripley). Highsmith uses her famously macabre imagination to scare Edward away, but before they know it, a collaboration ensues, leaving the world they’ve constructed indistinguishable from their own. The script comes from Melbourne-based playwright, screenwriter, and novelist, Joanna Murray-Smith, based on her play of the same name.

As his next project, actor-turned-filmmaker, Alex Winter, is tackling the murder mystery, The Adults, starring Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld), Josh Gad (Avenue 5), and Anthony Carrigan (Barry). The film, penned by novelist Michael M.B. Galvin (who has previously adapted his own works Fat Kid Rules the World and Freak Talks About Sex for the big screen) follows siblings Megan (Wood) and Nathan (Gad), who are barely hanging on in present-day America. Their lives are completely upended when they discover a dead body long buried in their parent’s basement, sending them down a rabbit hole of crime and murder.

Two-time Oscar winner, Anthony Hopkins, will team with Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell in Locked, a remake of the Argentinian action thriller, 4X4, with David Yarovesky set to direct, and Michael Arlen Ross (Oracle) writing the script. Locked is described as "an intense, character-driven thriller about a thief who breaks into a luxury SUV, only to realize that he’s stumbled into a complex and deadly trap set by a mysterious figure." 

Liam Neeson (Taken, Schindler’s List) is set to re-team with director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) on the upcoming thriller, The Riker’s Ghost. Neeson will play a convict set for release who is forced to break a terrorist out of prison. Sean O’Keefe (Spenser Confidential) and Brian Rudnick (Dungeons & Dragons) wrote the script. Jordan said of the project, "This is a unique take on the prison escape. A bare knuckle ride from incarceration to freedom, by someone who just wants to finish his term."

Netflix has released the official trailer for Luther: The Fallen Sun, its long-in-the-works Luther stand-alone follow-up movie that returns Idris Elba as John Luther, the complicated detective behind the crime drama that ran for five seasons on the BBC. The plot: A gruesome serial killer is terrorizing London while brilliant but disgraced detective John Luther sits behind bars. Haunted by his failure to capture the cyber psychopath who now taunts him, Luther decides to break out of prison to finish the job by any means necessary. Andy Serkis also stars as the tech mogul serial killer, David Robey.

Bridgerton actress, Phoebe Dynevor, will lead the thriller, Witchita Libra, as a woman trying to solve a dark historic crime that tore apart her family and rural Kansas hometown. The triple murder caused her to flee to Chicago and start a new life. A decade later, she is drawn back home after her brother’s death to decode a cryptic letter he left behind, suggesting the wrong man was charged with the crime and that an anonymous missing woman could clear his name.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books are finally being adapted for the small screen as a series, starring Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in the title role and Oscar nominee Jamie Lee Curtis as the famous forensic pathologist’s flighty sister, Dorothy. The drama, from writer-showrunner Liz Sarnoff (Barry) and Blumhouse Television, is reportedly nearing a two-season straight-to-series order at Prime Video. Kidman’s Kay Scarpetta is a brilliant forensic pathologist, inspired by former Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Marcella Farinelli Fierro, who uses forensic technology to solve crimes.

Ripley, an upcoming drama starring Andrew Scott, was initially scheduled for streaming on Showtime but has instead found a new home at Netflix. The limited series from The Night Of’s Steven Zaillian, which is based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling quintet of Tom Ripley novels, is still targeting a late 2023 or early 2024 launch. The eight-episode Ripley, based primarily on the The Talented Mr. Ripley novel, was designed as a limited series, but there is a possibility to go beyond the first installment if it’s a hit. Ripley follows Tom Ripley (Scott), a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, who is hired by a wealthy man to try to convince his vagabond son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), who is living a comfortable, trust-funded ex-pat life in Italy, to return home. Tom’s acceptance of the job is the first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder. Dakota Fanning will play Marge Sherwood, an American living in Italy who suspects darker motives underlie Tom’s affability.

Expanding TV universes are definitely a hot trend at the moment. Bosch is the latest example following its initial spin-off, Bosch: Legacy, as two more police dramas inspired by the work of bestselling author Michael Connelly are in development at Amazon Studios. The first, the "Untitled J. Edgar" project, follows Harry Bosch’s former partner, Detective Jerry Edgar, who is tapped for an undercover FBI mission in Little Haiti, Miami. Jamie Hector, who starred opposite Titus Welliver on the original Bosch series, is in talks to reprise his role in the offshoot. The second drama, the "Untitled Renee Ballard" project, centers around a character that has not appeared on the two Bosch series to date, Detective Renee Ballard, who is tasked with running the LAPD’s new cold case division. Beyond simply investigating unsolved crimes, Renee is dedicated to bringing credibility to the department and justice to the community. Having learned from retired ally and mentor Harry Bosch, Renee does things her way – solving cases in unconventional ways while navigating the politics of being a woman on the rise in the LAPD.

It appears that the Dexter franchise is also expanding with the potential addition of three new series. Alongside the currently titled Dexter: Origins series, which will follow a young Dexter Morgan as he transitions into the notorious serial killer he would eventually become, Showtime also announced it is developing a new version of Dexter: New Blood, which centers on Dexter’s son Harrison as he reckons with his father’s sinister past. The streamer is also considering another Dexter prequel series about the Trinity Killer, focusing on the makings of the notorious serial killer played by John Lithgow in the original series.

Showtime has given a straight-to-series order to the political thriller series, The Department, with George Clooney attached to direct. The show is based on the French series, Le Bureau des Legendes. Per the official logline, the original show centers on "the daily life and missions of agents within France’s principal external security service," specifically the "Bureau of Legends," responsible for training and handling deep-cover agents on long-term missions in areas with French interests.

Prime Video has renewed The Terminal List, the conspiracy thriller headlined by Chris Pratt, for a second season and also ordered an untitled prequel series focusing on fan-favorite Ben Edwards, portrayed by Taylor Kitsch. Season 2 of The Terminal List, whose first installment was based on Jack Carr’s bestseller of the same name, will be based on Carr’s novel True Believer. The untitled prequel is described as an elevated espionage thriller that takes viewers on Edwards’ journey from Navy SEAL to CIA paramilitary operator, exploring the darker side of warfare and the human cost that comes with it.

Hugh Laurie (The Night Manager and House, M.D.) is headed to Tehran after the Israeli espionage drama was renewed for a third season by Apple TV+. He’ll play a South African nuclear inspector. The show follows Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan) as a hacker agent who infiltrates Iran’s capital Tehran under a false identity.

Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Peaky Blinders) has been tapped to star opposite Annette Bening in Peacock’s upcoming limited series, Apples Never Fall, based on author Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel. Apples Never Fall centers on the Delaneys, who from the outside appear to be an enviably contented family. Former tennis coaches Joy (Bening) and Stan (Neill) are parents to four adult children. After decades of marriage, they finally have sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. But after Joy disappears, her children are forced to re-examine their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh eyes.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Thrilled No More" by Chuck Brownman, read by actor Theodore Fox.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured the Mike O’Shea Series by Desmond P. Ryan, who served as a Detective with the Toronto Police Service for three decades before turning his hand to writing crime fiction.

On the latest Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's podcast, Susan Breen read her story from the May/June 2022 issue, "Detective Anne Boelyn," where she brings one of the most iconic figures in English history to life.

Katja Ivar spoke with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about her new novel Trouble, the third Hella Mauzer mystery; growing up in Russia and the US; Finland; and women in the police force.

Mystery Melange

Walter Mosley is the 2023 recipient of the Diamond Dagger, the highest honor in crime writing from the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). Mosley receives the award in the CWA’s 70th Jubilee year (the CWA was founded in 1953). The Diamond Dagger recognizes authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre. Mosley is the author of more than 60 critically acclaimed books across a wide range of genres including his popular series featuring private detective, Easy Rawlins. Previous winners of the award have included Ruth Rendell, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Ian Rankin, PD James, Colin Dexter, Reginald Hill, Peter Lovesey, John Le Carré, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block, Eric Ambler, Ed McBain, and CJ Sansom.

The Mavens of Mayhem, the Upper Hudson Chapter of Sisters in Crime, are sponsoring the virtual writers' conference, Murderous March 2023 on March 10-11. There will be a Master Class with Guest of Honor Deborah Crombie on "How to Keep Your Series Alive and Your Readers Coming Back for More," as well as a Pitch Workshop with Edwin Hill; a discussion by Retired Detective Sergeant Bruce Robert Coffin on police procedure, murder investigations and more; plus various other panels. For more information and to register, check out this link.

Submissions for the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award are open through March 31. Although the award is sponsored by Sisters in Crime, applicants do not need to be a member of SinC to submit materials. The $2,000 grant is intended to support the recipient in crime fiction writing and career development activities. The grantee may choose to use the grant for activities that include workshops, seminars, conferences, retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of the work.

Clues journal has a call for submissions on the topic of BIPOC Female Detectives. Guest Editor, Sam Naidu with Rhodes University in South Africa, is seeking articles that focus on female detectives who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color); span eras, genres, and geographical locations; and appear in texts, TV programs, films, and other media. Of particular interest are intersections among race, indigeneity, gender, age, class, or sexuality in these works, as well as projects that center BIPOC scholarship. Submissions should include a proposal of approximately 250 words and a brief biosketch and are due by April 30 to s.naidu@ru.ac.za. Accepted full manuscripts of approximately 6,000 words will be due by September 30.

Over at the Rap Sheet blog, guest Steven Powell, a British author and scholar, gave some insight and background into his new biography, Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy. Powell has become something of a dedicated documentarian of Ellroy's fiction in such previous books as Conversations with James Ellroy (2012), James Ellroy: Demon Dog of Crime Fiction (2015), and The Big Somewhere (2018). Some readers of this blog may also know Steven Powell as the creator of the crime fiction blog, The Venetian Vase.

A new full-length biography of Mickey Spillane, one of the most popular and influential mystery writers of his era, was released this week via Mysterious Press. Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor bills itself as the definitive biography (and the first full biography of the author), which contains a detailed account of Mickey Spillane's life and literary career, illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Collins became Spillane's friend and collaborator, continuing the Mike Hammer series for years after the author's death, building upon unfinished manuscripts the writer left behind.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is the author of the popular Morland Dynasty novels and contemporary Bill Slider mystery series, as well as her recent series, War at Home, which is an epic family drama set against the backdrop of World War I. Harrod-Eagles applied the Page 69 Test to the new Bill Slider mystery, Before I Sleep.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Victimless" by Eric D. Goodman.

In the Q&A spotlight, Walter Mosley (see Diamond Dagger announcement above) spoke with The New York Times about the publishing world’s idea of "representation"; what to make of the cultural dominance of the Marvel Universe; his new book, Every Man a King; and why he thinks America is getting dumber.

Author R&R with Patrick H. Moore

Patrick H. Moore is a Los Angeles based Private Investigator, Sentencing Mitigation Specialist, and crime writer. He has worked in virtually all areas including drug trafficking, sex crimes, crimes of violence, and white-collar fraud. Patrick holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from San Francisco State University where he graduated summa cum laude in 1990. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, he was lead vocalist and played rhythm guitar for Crash Carnival, a San Francisco rock ‘n roll band, and experienced the "naked lunch" of life on the streets for more than a decade. In February of 2013, Patrick started All Things Crime blog, a true crime and crime fiction website, which for several years was one of the most popular crime blogs in the U.S.

 

In 27 Days, Patrick's first traditionally published thriller, it's the spring of 2019 and veteran LA PI Nick Crane is on the run in the Pacific Northwest, pursued by a cabal of wealthy right-wing power brokers and domestic terrorists (the "Principals") led by Marguerite Ferguson and Desmond Cole. Things get worse when Nick’s close friend and business partner Bobby Moore is kidnapped by Marguerite and the Principals. Nick is then informed that he has twenty-seven days to surrender to Marguerite. If he does not turn himself in, Bobby will be sent to Scorpion prison in Egypt to be tortured and murdered, but if Nick surrenders, Bobby will be released. Help appears in the form of a young, idealistic female FBI agent named Carrie North who wants to arrest Marguerite for conspiring to commit domestic terrorist operations against the United States. Nick and Carrie join forces, and the race against time to rescue Bobby Moore begins.

 

Patrick stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about his work and writing:

 

The Making of 27 Days

by Patrick H. Moore

It is of course a curious thing that writers are able to take the wisp or thread of an idea and turn it into a full-length novel. I imagine every writer has his or her own distinctive method of moving from start to finish. In the case of 27 Days, my new Nick Crane thriller, I combined my own “lived history” with knowledge I accrued working as a Sentencing Mitigation Specialist for a PI firm in Los Angeles for the last 19+ years.

My Lived History

During my formative years, I spent a great deal of time roaming around the hardscrabble streets of California. This period of “in person” research was instrumental in giving me many of the necessary tools to write thrillers and crime fiction.

What did I learn on the streets? First, I learned that the world is full of colorful, eccentric characters––the sort of folks who do not appear in polite sit-coms or attend PTA meetings. I learned that many of these characters have utter disrespect for law enforcement and little respect for the ordinary mores of middle-class society. At the personal level, I learned that the cops are often not to be trusted. I also developed a great love for the vernacular of the streets.

At the age of 30, I made the decision to go to college. I had always wanted to be a writer, and while in college I wrote a couple of decent books including the memoirs of a PTSD Vietnam veteran named Warren Larry Foster. Warren became the inspiration for Bobby Moore, my protagonist Nick’s Crane’s sidekick and loyal friend. I met Warren in 1982 in an English class at Foothill Community College in tony Los Altos, CA. There he was, a big, tough muscular badass wearing shorts and a pink prosthesis on his right leg, which had been amputated just below the knee due to a war wound. Looking like he chewed nails for breakfast, Warren stood out like a sore thumb.

I was scared, I kid you not. Imagine my surprise when Big Warren insisted that we become pals. I got to know him and within a year I was writing his Vietnam memoirs. Based on the strength of this work, I landed an East Coast agent who shopped our book around New York unsuccessfully for the next two years.

My Legal Work and Education in Criminal Matters

Fast forward 20 years. In 2003, I moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles to take a job as an investigator and sentencing mitigation specialist at a small LA firm. Here, on the job, I met scores of serious and accidental criminals of all stripes. As a sentencing mitigation guy, I learned the Law at both the state and federal level as it pertains to criminal matters. Over the last 19 years I’ve personally handled literally hundreds of federal criminal cases ranging from fraud to drug offenses to sex crimes. In the course of my LA education, I’ve learned that there are dirty cops everywhere and that the best thing a person can do is to simply give them a wide berth. Yet, I’ve also learned that at the individual level, most cops are good guys. I’ve represented plenty of them (after they’ve taken a fall, of course).

One of the most important things I’ve learned is how wicked and violent this world can be. One of my early cases was representing a dude facing serious federal charges for smuggling heroin into a state prison. As part of my workup, I interviewed him extensively at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. I learned his mother was a raging alcoholic and his father was a most cruel junky. I learned the local cops shot and killed his older brother after a ruckus at a house party. All of this was fascinating, but perhaps the single most interesting tidbit was this: One day when he was about 17, he and his homies got loaded on PCP and went out shooting. Shooting, you say? Yes, shooting, but not at a gunnery range. Rather, they grabbed a couple of handguns and went driving around town firing randomly into other vehicles and at passing strangers. According to my client, they shot at 18 different groups of people that afternoon. Damn, that’s a lot of lead flying around town!

27 Days

This brings us to my current novel, 27 Days, which is a political thriller in which my protagonist Nick Crane is locked in a life and death struggle with “the principals,” an alt-right group of domestic terrorists. 27 Days is part of a series. Its prequel, Rogues and Patriots, will probably be published in sometime in 2024. I chose this basic set-up because I found it intriguing and highly relevant to our world.

In planning 27 Days, I made two important decisions. First, I decided to put my protagonist Nick Crane in a truly impossible situation. His partner Bobby Moore has been kidnapped by Marguerite Ferguson, a fiendish member of “the principals” who despises Nick. He is given 27 days to turn himself into Marguerite, who will then torture him as a prelude to execution. If he doesn’t surrender, Bobby Moore will be sent to the infamous Scorpion Prison in Cairo, Egypt, to be tortured and murdered. It is the devil’s own choice.

This led me to my second decision. Nick knows he needs help. He joins forces with an idealistic young FBI agent named Carrie North who is obsessed with bringing the evil Marguerite to justice. Thus, we have a sincere young FBI agent, who naturally tends to do things “by the book,” locked in uneasy alliance with Mr. Crane, who does virtually nothing “by the book.” Yet they need each other and learn, at first grudgingly, to work together. Over the course of a few short and desperate weeks, they learn to respect and even like one another.

In Conclusion

To conclude, 27 Days was made possible by my early years on the mean streets of America, my 19 years of working in criminal defense in Los Angeles, my belief that the alt-right poses a clear and present danger to the United States, and my decision to put my protagonist in such a treacherous position that he has no choice other than to make common cause with a certain progressive faction within the FBI.

 

You can learn more about Patrick Moore and his books via Down & Out Books, and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and the All Things Crime blog. 27 Days is available today via Down & Out Books and all major booksellers.

 

Media Murder for Monday

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

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot banner have teamed up with Warner Bros. for the feature adaptation of Stephen King’s 2021 novel, Billy Summers. A year ago, Bad Robot was developing the project as a limited television series, but the focus has changed to the big screen. The story centers on a 44-year-old hitman, the eponymous Billy Summers, who is considering retirement when he accepts one last job from a regular client. Taking up a cover story that he is a novelist, Summers ensconces himself in a small town as he preps for the hit, and in his spare time actually begins to write a novel, which turns into his life story, from his little sister being killed by their mother’s boyfriend to him becoming a decorated sniper. The hit goes awry when the regular client doesn’t pay and Summers escapes a trap. His life gets even more complicated when he finds out there’s a bounty on his head, and he saves a rape victim named Alice. Summers and Alice then end up on a cross-country journey to rectify the hitman’s many wrongs.

Jude Law (Fantastic Beasts) and Nicholas Hoult (X-Men franchise) have been set to lead the true-crime movie, The Order, which acclaimed Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel (Macbeth) will direct. Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated writer Zach Baylin (King Richard) wrote the screenplay based on The Silent Brotherhood, the book by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. The tale chronicles the escalating crimes of the titular white supremacist domestic terror group, who in 1983 was responsible for a series of increasingly violent bank robberies, counterfeiting operations, and armored car heists that frightened communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. As baffled law enforcement agents scrambled for answers, a lone FBI agent (Law), stationed in the sleepy, picturesque town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, came to believe the crimes were not the work of traditional, financially motivated criminals but a group of dangerous domestic terrorists, inspired by a radical, charismatic leader (Hoult), plotting a devastating war against the federal government of the United States.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Four new projects have been ordered from CBS Studios, including three crime dramas, a Matlock reboot starring Kathy Bates; a project based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries; and a Carrie Preston-led spinoff of The Good Wife. The latter will follow Elsbeth Tascioni (Preston), an astute but unconventional attorney who uses her singular point of view to make unique observations and corner brilliant criminals alongside the NYPD. The Matlock reboot is centered on Madeline Matlock, a brilliant septuagenarian who rejoins the work force at a prestigious law firm, where she uses her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases and expose corruption from within. The new series is said to have a tie to the original Matlock that starred Andy Griffith as criminal defense attorney Ben Matlock, a renowned, folksy and popular, though cantankerous, attorney. The last project, Watson, focuses on Holmes’s friend Dr. John Watson. After Holmes’ death, Watson continues his medical career as the head of a clinic committed to treating rare genetic disorders. However, he uncovers a startling secret that puts him in the crosshairs of Moriarty once again.

Entertainment One (eOne) has acquired the rights to Janice Hallett’s bestselling novel, The Twyford Code, to be spearheaded by BAFTA award winning film and television writer, director, and producer, Paul Andrew Williams. The Sunday Times bestseller is told via automatic transcriptions of recordings made by Steven Smith, a former prisoner determined to discover what happened to his English teacher, Miss Iles, who vanished on a school trip in 1983 after becoming convinced there were hidden codes in the work of a disgraced children’s author. The Sunday Times called it "A modern Agatha Christie," where Hallett "has constructed a fiendishly clever, maddeningly original crime novel for lovers of word games, puzzles, and stories of redemption."

Annette Bening has signed on to star in the upcoming Peacock limited series, Apples Never Fall, based on the Liane Moriarty domestic thriller novel of the same name. Per the official logline, the series "centers on the Delaneys, who from the outside appear to be an enviably contented family. Former tennis coaches Joy (Bening) and Stan are parents to four adult children. After decades of marriage, they have finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. But after Joy disappears, her children are forced to re-examine their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh eyes." Apples Never Fall is the latest of Moriarty’s books to be adapted for the screen, which have included the HBO adaptation of Big Little Lies, which won multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Awards, and Nine Perfect Strangers, adapted into a series for Hulu.

Amazon Studios is finalizing deals for Criminal, a TV adaptation of Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips’ bestselling crime comic book series. Details are scarce for the project, but it's described as an interlocking universe of crime stories that tell the interweaving saga of several generations of families tied together by the crimes and murders of the past. As Brubaker explained in a 2019 interview. "One of the big events in many of these characters’ pasts, which has been referenced since the very first Criminal story, was the death of Teeg Lawless. Before we even met Teeg, we knew that he had died when his son was a teenager, but other than the identity of his killer, we have never told the rest of that story. It’s just been a ghost haunting the series, as Teeg Lawless has become one of the most popular characters in the comic.”

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Michael Hearns (the Cade Taylor series), who also spent 27 years working as a South Florida police officer and detective and has worked as a technical advisor in film and television.

In honor of Black History Month, It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured a two-parter (part one here and part two here) taking at look at four books by Black authors S. A. Cosby, Abby Collette, Valerie (V. M.) Burns, and Faye Snowdon.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with crime writing legend Peter May about his new novel in which crime fiction meets climate change. They also discussed Friday the 13th, superstitions, and how numerology often trumps rational decision-making.

On Crime Time FM, Louise Candlish chatted with Paul Burke about her new thriller drama, The Only Suspect, unlovable characters, twists and reveals, instant fame after fifteen years of hard craft, and seeing your work on TV.

The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's podcast featured the work of Twist Phelan, winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence and an International Thriller Award, reading from two of her shorter-length stories: "Used to Be" and "It's A Small World (After All)."