Mystery Melange, Christmas Edition

Several bloggers banded together to create a poll for readers to vote on the best reprint nominations of the year. The Kate Jackson, aka Armchair Reviewer over at Cross Examining Crime has posted the poll which includes the 23 nominations, 3 of which were randomly selected from the nominations put forward by blog readers. The list reflects a variety of writing styles from the mysteries, most of which were originally published in the 1930s and 1940s. Three authors managed to get two books into the poll: John Dickson Carr, Erle Stanley Gardner (one under the pen name of A. A. Fair). and Clifford Witting. You can add your vote now for up to 3 titles.

Janet Rudolph has been busy updating her ever-growing list of Christmas mysteries over at her Mystery Fanfare blog. In fact, the list is so long, it's broken down into alphabetical chunks, starting with Authors A-E; followed by Authors F-L; and finally, Authors M-Z. She's even compiled a roster of Christmas mystery novellas and short story anthologies and has a Winter Solstice list, to boot.

This is one holiday tradition we simply must start in the United States. It's time once again for Jolabokaflod, which roughly translates from Icelandic as "Christmas book flood." In this decades-old tradition, friends and loved ones in Iceland give each other a book on the night before Christmas and then spend the rest of the night curled up with that book, ideally with a cup of hot cocoa (or something stronger). But that's to be expected, I suppose from a literary country: the island nation has the most authors per capita in the world and publishes the most books per capita in the world (with five titles published for every 1,000 Icelanders). Some have even called reading a "national sport" in the country, as over half the population finishes eight or more titles a year. Even Katrin Jakobsdottir, the country’s current prime minister, literally published a crime fiction novel while in office.

"Reindeer noir" is the name given for the Finnish crime sub-genre influenced by Santa’s home town. As reported in The Guardian, books, films, and plays set in Lapland often have a "hint of dark humour" where the landscape is a looming presence.

A little bit south of Finland and Iceland, Atlas Obscura zooms in on "How Christmas Murder Mysteries Became a U.K. Holiday Tradition," with tales in which Santa has a very low survival rate.

Writing for The New York Times, Isabella Kwai says to forget Halloween and bring ghost stories back to Christmas, adding that "If your idea of festive joy is being haunted by past memories or driven insane by mysterious specters, have we got the tradition for you."

To further darken your Yuletide spirit, if you happen to be in New York tonight, head on over to Oakland's historic Grand Lake Theatre for NOIR CITY XMAS. The Film Noir Foundation is presenting in 35mm Cover Up, a 1949 noir film recently restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive, starring William Bendix, Dennis O'Keefe, and Barbara Britton. Starting off the evening is a book signing by Eddie Muller with three of his latest works: Kid Noir: Kitty Feral and the Case of the Marshmallow Monkey; Eddie Muller's NOIR BAR: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir; and Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir.

Most Christmas movies are more in the family-friendly vein, and a former church in Ohio houses what's believed to be the world's largest privately owned collection of Christmas movie memorabilia.

The murder mystery puzzle book, Murdle, has topped the UK Christmas bestseller chart. GT Karber’s book of challenges beat out Richard Osman’s mystery novel, The Last Devil to Die, as well as Guinness World Records to notch the top spot. Murdle is based on the daily puzzle website Karber developed in 2021, and across the book’s 100 challenges, readers must use codes and maps to decipher who the killers are. It has sold more than 200,000 copies since its publication in June.

The UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has released what has become an annual Christmas Codebreaking Challenge. Although it's aimed at young people and designed to test skills such as codebreaking, math, and analysis, adults might have some fun with it, too.

The authors at Mystery Lovers Kitchen are celebrating the season with a host of recipes and reads. You can check out a Gluten-Free Jelly Donuts recipe by Libby Klein; Cleo Coyle's Eggnog Shorbread Cookies; Apricot Pinwheels by Leslie Budewitz; Stained Glass Window Cookies via Peg Cochran; Pumpkin Chiffon Pie from Ellen Byron; and Rack of Lamb by Maya Corrigan.

The Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast has two holiday offerings. The first is the initial chapter of "Peppermint Barked" by Leslie Budewitz, a Christmas mystery read by actor Ariel Linn. The other features the Christmas mystery short story, "Santa's Helper," by John M. Floyd, read by Ren Burley.

In the Q&A roundup, Catriona McPherson, author of Dandy Gilver historical detective stories, the Last Ditch mysteries, set in California, and a strand of contemporary standalone novels, took the Page 69 Test for her novel, Hop Scot; and Lisa Haselton chatted with Tony Brenna about his new thriller, Honey Trap.

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

After a bidding war, 20th Studios has bought the Kevin McMullin short story, "BOMB," an action thriller with franchise potential, and brought Ridley Scott on board to direct. The short story is a template for an action thriller in the vein of Dog Day Afternoon and Speed. Frankie Ippolito is a hostage negotiator called into duty the night before his wedding in London. A man who has parked himself in a construction site in Piccadilly Circus is standing on a newly uncovered, unexploded bomb from WWII. He tells local law enforcement he will only speak with Frankie, and this sets off a chain of events in which Frankie is drawn into an overnight struggle to stop the bomber with whom he has a past.

Netflix has acquired an untitled Ryan Reynolds-led heist dramedy that was the focus of yet another bidding frenzy. The project uses an international setting and is said to have "great parts for an ensemble in the spirit of an Oceans Eleven." Shawn Levy will helm the film, with Dana Fox (Lost City) set to write the script.

Filming has begun in London on the action thriller, Bad Day At The Office, starring John Hannah (The Mummy), Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill), and Tamer Hassan (Layer Cake). The film opens with Karl Davis (Hannah) waking in a wrecked hotel room with no memory of what’s happened, where he is, or even who he is. When he discovers a dead body in the bathtub, and two police officers soon knock at his door, it sets into motion a terrifying and explosive series of events that force Karl and hotel maid Molly on a blind descent into a deceptive world of confusion and conspiracy and at the same time with a price on his head and half the city in murderous pursuit. Karl will need to draw on his forgotten skill sets if he has any hope of survival as he and Molly endeavor to unravel the mystery that took his memories.

Production has also launched in New Jersey on One Stupid Thing, a suspense/drama directed by Linda Yellen, and written by Yellen and Michael Leeds. The film stars Corey Fogelmanis, Jack Wright, Sky Katz, Shelby Simmons, and Alfredo Narciso. Three high school friends (Wright, Fogelmanis, and Simmons) share a deeply bonded friendship, until one winter night on a Nantucket rooftop, a harmless game takes a fatal turn, and the course of their lives changes forever. For nearly a year, they keep what they did a secret until the following winter break when they meet a girl (Katz) with her own dark past who helps them uncover what really happened that night – and who is behind it.

Shelley Hennig (Teen Wolf), Shiloh Fernandez (Evil Dead), and Tyrese Gibson (Fast & the Furious) are leading the thriller, Fluxx, which has recently wrapped filming in the U.S. The psychological thriller charts the story of a Hollywood actress who is intent on finding her famous missing husband, despite the fact that she cannot willingly leave her Malibu home. Co-written by Keyaunte Mayfield and Brendan Gabriel Murphy, the film's cast also includes Henry Ian Cusick (Lost), Charlotte McKinney (Baywatch), Jeff Perkins (Echo Boomers), Lance Paul (Never and Again), Michael A. Milligan (Outer Banks) and Tanner Beard (We Summon the Darkness).

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

Netflix has confirmed it picked up a new adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith classic character, Tom Ripley, from Academy Award–winning screenwriter-filmmaker Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List, The Irishman). The streaming service also released some first-look imagery, featuring Sherlock actor Andrew Scott in the lead role. The eight-episode series, which is called Ripley, also stars Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning. It doesn't currently have a release date but Netflix says it will stream in 2024.

Alexander Skarsgård will star and executive produce a new ten-episode TV adaptation of the sci-fi crime series, Murderbot, for Apple TV+ from creators and directors Chris and Paul Weitz. Based on Martha Wells’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning book series, "The Murderbot Diaries," the TV series will center on a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable "clients." The official logline is as follows: "Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe."

Mad Men star, Jon Hamm, will lead the Apple TV+ drama series, Your Friends and Neighbors. Hamm stars as Coop, a recently divorced hedge fund manager who, after being fired, resorts to stealing from the wealthy residents in his tony upstate New York suburb in order to keep his family’s lifestyle afloat. These petty crimes begin to reinvigorate him until he breaks into the wrong house at the wrong time. Warrior creator Jonathan Tropper developed the series and will serve as showrunner.

CBS is looking to turn another successful drama into a franchise by introducing a new character in an episode from Fire Country's upcoming second season. Casting is currently underway for the role, a female sheriff, which is an episodic guest star with an option to become a series regular. Sources caution that this is not a formal backdoor pilot order, and CBS could go different routes with the new character if the episode is well received, spinning off the character into her own series or adding the actress to the cast of the Fire Country mothership.

Peacock has ordered Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist starring Kevin Hart as a limited drama series. The story is based on the infamous armed robbery that happened the night of Muhammad Ali’s historic 1970 comeback fight. Set in Atlanta, the series follows the heavyweight fight and criminal underground heist that introduced the world to the city dubbed "the Black Mecca” and the cop and the hustler at the center of it all.

Fox has picked up the psychological crime drama, Murder in a Small Town, starring Rossif Sutherland (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), for the 2024-25 season. Based on the Edgar Award-winning, nine-book "Karl Alberg" series by the late Canadian author L.R. Wright, Murder in a Small Town follows the title character (Sutherland), who moves to a quiet coastal town to soothe a psyche that has been battered by big-city police work. But this gentle paradise has more than its share of secrets, and Karl will need to call upon all the skills that made him a world-class detective in solving the murders that, even in this seemingly idyllic setting, continue to wash up on his shore. Kreuk stars as Cassandra, a local librarian who becomes Alberg’s muse, foil, and romantic interest.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer, S.J. Rozan, author of the Bill Smith and Lydia Chin Mysteries and recipient of the Edgar, Anthony, Shamus, Nero, and Macavity Awards as well as the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

The Axe Files podcast host, David Axelrod, spoke with author Sara Paretsky who said it was her summer in Chicago volunteering during the civil rights movement in 1966 that marked the "defining experience" on her life. Sara joined David to talk about her family history, the recent rise in antisemitism, using her writing to give voice to the marginalized, the creation of V.I. Warshawski, and Sara’s work on abortion and women’s rights.

Criminal Mischief with Dr. D.P. Lyle discussed "Humor in Crime Fiction."

Terry Hayes chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about The Year of the Locust; off-Earth mining; epic adventure tales; the limits in fiction; screenwriting; and whether there'll be a Pilgrim II.

Read or Dead hosts Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed their favorite books of 2023.

The Pick Your Poison podcast discussed a substance called the disease of kings, the toxic plant used to treat it, and the prehistoric animal that also suffered from this disease.

Mystery Melange

I apologize for the slight delay with this week's Mystery Melange, but we're dealing with a bit of family Covid right now. But without further ado:

The Crime Fiction Lover blog announced the winners of the third annual Crime Fiction Lover Awards, culled from shortlists nominated by readers, who also voted for the winners. Within each of the six categories, the team also selected an Editor’s Choice Award and this year added a lifetime achievement award, the "Life of Crime Award," which was bestowed upon James Ellroy. The Book of the Year was The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths. Book of the Year Editor’s Choice: Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. Best Debut Winner: You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace. Best Debut Editor’s Choice: City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita. Best in Translation Winner: Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen, translated by Megan E Turney. Best in Translation Editor’s Choice: The Sins of our Fathers by Åsa Larsson, translated by Frank Perry. Best Indie Novel Winner: Scratching the Flint by Vern Smith. Best Indie Novel Editor’s Choice: The Associate by Victoria Goldman. Best Crime Show Winner: Only Murders in the Building S3. Best Crime Show Editor’s Choice: Happy Valley S3. Best Crime Author Winner: Michael Connelly. Best Crime Author Editor’s Choice: Mick Herron.

After two separate rounds of voting, the Goodreads Choice Awards announced the winners for 2023 in various categories. The Mystery & Thriller category winner was The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden, which collected 86,468 votes. You can see the full list of Mystery & Thriller nominees via the above link and winners in all the other categories here.

If you're an unpublished crime fiction author, you have one day left to submit a manuscript to the 2024 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition, sponsored by Minotaur Books and Mystery Writers of America (MWA). Entrants should complete an online entry form and upload an electronic file of your manuscript by 11:59pm EST on December 15, 2023. The winner will receive an offer from Minotaur Books for publication and an advance against future royalties of $10,000.

Harrogate International Festivals has announced that international bestselling novelist, Ruth Ware, will serve as Festival Programming Chair in 2024, when the world’s largest and most prestigious celebration of crime fiction, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, returns with a world class line-up of authors and special guests. The acclaimed crime writer will follow in the footsteps of such stellar predessors as Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Elly Griffiths, Denise Mina, Lee Child, and Vaseem Khan.

A literary magazine is printing a previously unpublished work by the novelist Raymond Chandler, and it's not a hard-boiled detective story. Strand Magazine announced that its latest issue will include a poem by Chandler written around 1955 that shows the "softer, sensitive side" of the writer known for his pulp fiction hits such as The Big Sleep. Andrew Gulli, managing editor of Strand, explained, "He wrote the poem after his wife had passed away and this poem also serves as a love letter to her," noting it was the first time Chandler wrote a poem as an adult. Chandler's wife, Cissy, died in 1954, after which the author grew depressed and attempted suicide one year later.

Chanukah (aka Hanukah or Hanukkah) began December 7 and continues through December 15. Over at Mystery Fanfare, Janet Rudolph has updated her lists of Chanukah-themed crime fiction titles.

Did you ever wonder where the word "shamus" comes from?

In the Q&A roundup, Jacqueline Seewald spoke with Kathleen Marple Kalb, an award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, who also pens novels including The Stuff of Murder and the upcoming Ella Shane mystery, A Fatal Reception; Publishers Weekly spoke with Laurie R. King and how the latest entry in her Mary Russell series mines new corners of Sherlockian lore and offers glimpses into the author’s own life; and Catherine Ryan Hyde took the Page 69 Test for her new novel, A Different Kind of Gone, in which the truth behind a teenage girl’s disappearance becomes something to conceal "in a gripping novel about justice, lies, and impossible choices."

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

Following their work together on the 2013 Best Picture-nominated crime comedy, American Hustle, Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale are in talks to re-team on Best of Enemies, a new film based on the book Best of Enemies: The Last Great Spy Story of the Cold War by Eric Dezenhall and Gus Russo. The story follows CIA agent Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko, new entrants to the Washington, D.C. intelligence scene back in 1978. The pair were involved with solving some of the most famous spy stories of the 20th century, including the rooting out of Soviet mole Robert Hanssen. While Vasilenko spent some time in a Soviet prison after it came to the government’s attention that he’d been working as a double agent for the U.S., he was ultimately freed with help from the CIA during the Spy Swap of 2010. Among other advocates during his period of incarceration was none other than American Hustle's Robert De Niro. Sources say Cooper will play Platt, with Bale as Vasilenko.

Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon will star in Nuremberg, a historical thriller set in post-World War II Germany. James Vanderbilt, who wrote David Fincher’s Zodiac and the two Murder Mystery movies for Netflix, will write and direct, with production slated to begin in February 2024. It is based on the 2013 book, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII, by Jack El-Hai. Malek plays American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who, according to the official synopsis "is tasked with determining whether Nazi prisoners are fit to stand trial for their war crimes, and finds himself in a complex battle of wits with Hermann Göring (Crowe), Hitler’s right-hand man." Shannon has been tapped to play Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials.

After a fierce bidding war between multiple major studios, Apple Original Films has emerged victorious in acquiring the package Two for the Money, a heist thriller set to star Charlize Theron and Daniel Craig with Justin Lin attached to direct and produce. Dan Mazeau, who previously collaborated with Lin on the Fast X screenplay, has been tapped to write the script. Though the plot is being kept under wraps, the story will center on the relationship between two seasoned professional thieves spanning three high-stakes heists.

Al Pacino, Diego Boneta, Xolo Maridueña, KiKi Layne, Alexander Ludwig, Ron Livingston, Kendrick Sampson, Nicole Beharie, Logan Marshall Green, and Titus Welliver will star in the spy thriller, Killing Castro. Eif Rivera will direct the movie from a script by Leon Hendrix, Thomas DeGrezia, and Colin Bateman. Based on true events, the film is set in 1960 shortly after Fidel Castro won the Cuban revolution and traveled to New York City to deliver his first speech to the United Nations. When faced with hostility at his original hotel, Castro meets Malcolm X who invites him to stay at famed Hotel Theresa in Harlem. With the eyes of the world watching, a rookie undercover FBI agent originally assigned to investigate Malcolm X suddenly becomes the FBI’s most valuable asset, and is tasked with keeping Castro from being eliminated by the CIA and the Italian mafia, by any means necessary.

Paramount Global Content Distribution has acquired worldwide rights to the film, Depravity (previously known as Sic), the directorial debut of screenwriter, Paul Tamasy, who also wrote the script. The thriller stars actress and singer Victoria Justice (The Tutor), model and actress Devon Ross (Irma Vep), Taylor John Smith (Where The Crawdads Sing), Sasha Luss (Anna), and Dermot Mulroney (Ghosts of Beirut). The story follows three residents of an old apartment building who suspect their creepy neighbor is a serial killer, and after acting on their suspicions, stumble upon an art heist worth millions.

Oscar winner J.K. Simmons has joined the cast of Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 at Warner Bros. In the Jonathan Abrams penned movie, family man Justin Kemp, while serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict — or free — the wrong killer. Simmons will play a juror and joins the ensemble cast that counts Nicholas Hoult (Justin Kemp, juror), Toni Collette (prosecutor), Gabriel Basso (accused), Zoey Deutch (Kemp’s wife), Leslie Bibb (juror), Chris Messina (public defender) and Kiefer Sutherland (Kemp’s AA sponsor).

Eric Dane (Euphoria), Maia Mitchell (Good Trouble), Tyriq Withers (Atlanta), and Thomas Doherty (Gossip Girl) have been set to star in the thriller, Family Secrets. Currently in production in Montenegro, the film follows a charming young man (Withers) who makes himself part of a destination wedding to exact revenge on the family’s patriarch (Dane) by seducing his affluent goddaughter (Mitchell) and befriending the groom-to-be (Doherty). But as their relationship gets steamier, the truth gets closer to the surface, forcing the question of whether anyone is safe… and who is conning whom?

John Patton Ford is set to direct an untitled film for Netflix which follows a mysterious Union spy named James Andrews. Along with infantry volunteers, Andrews stole a Confederate steam engine and planned to destroy the entire Confederacy’s supply line to end the war by gutting tracks and shutting down communications via cutting telegraph lines. The six surviving raiders became the first to receive the Medal of Honor, awarded by Abraham Lincoln. The caper also would be the historical basis for Buster Keaton’s 1926 silent film, The General. Ford will write and direct the drama, which is based on his idea and is part of a package that includes Russell Bonds’s seminal Civil War book, Stealing the General.

Veteran action icon Jean-Claude Van Damme is set to star in Kill 'Em All 2, which will shoot on the Caribbean island of Antigua beginning in January. Following the events that unfolded in Kill 'Em All (2017), the sequel will see Phillip (Van Damme) and Suzanne retired from the spy game, living peacefully off the grid. That’s until their whereabouts are discovered by Vlad, the vengeful brother of their target from the first film. Bianca Brigitte Van Damme will star in the film alongside her father.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

Priority Pictures, the production company of Emmy-winning producers Lizzie Friedman, Karen Lauder, and Greg Little, has optioned Douglas Brunt‘s NYT bestseller, The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel, and will develop it for the screen. It’s not clear at this point whether the adaptation will be for film or TV. Also recently named a Best of 2023 Staff Pick by Apple Books, The Mysterious Case tells the true story of Rudolf Diesel, one of history’s greatest inventors, who vanished into thin air on the eve of World War I. His revolutionary invention, the Diesel engine, was highly sought after by global industries and political figures around the world. It had the power to threaten empires and change the fate of nations, turning him and his technology into both a prized asset and a potential threat.

Jason Priestley has boarded the upcoming CBC drama, Wild Cards, playing lead character Max’s father and master conman George in the series launching January 10 in Canada. It will later debut January 17 on The CW in the U.S. followed by Family Law at 9 pm on the network. Set in Vancouver, Wild Cards follows the unlikely duo of Ellis (Grey’s Anatomy's Giacomo Gianniotti), a gruff, sardonic cop and Max (Riverdale's Vanessa Morgan), a spirited, clever con woman.

Prime Video is rounding out the guest stars for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, its re-imagining of New Regency’s 2005 Doug Liman-directed action comedy film that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Joining the eight-episode series, which stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine in the title roles, are Alexander Skarsgård, Eiza Gonzalez, Sarah Paulson, Sharon Horgan, Ron Perlman, Billy Campbell, and Ursula Corbero. The new additions join previously announced guest stars Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, John Turturro, Parker Posey, and Wagner Moura.

ITV dropped the first trailer for Mr, Bates vs the Post Office. It stars Toby Jones, Monica Dolan, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Lia Williams, Alex Jennings, Ian Hart, Katherine Kelly, Shaun Dooley, Will Mellor, Clare Calbraith, Lesley Nicol, Amit Shah, and Adam James, and is written by acclaimed screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes. The drama tells the story of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history when hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting due to a defective IT system. Many of the wronged workers were prosecuted, some were imprisoned for crimes they never committed, and their lives were irreparably damaged by the scandal.

A trailer was also released for the crime drama, The Brothers Sun. Michelle Yeoh stars as Eileen, head of the Jade Dragons gang in Taipei, living in America, and mother to one notorious killer, Charles (Justin Chien), and one completely in-the-dark teenaged son, Bruce (Sam Song Li). In the trailer, Eileen appears to be interrogated by a man from a rival faction, one wanting to seize the crime ring crown by going after Bruce — who's not quite clued into his family's secret lives. Charles decides it's time for Bruce to get briefed and trained up, despite his younger brother's protests. The Brothers Sun is streaming on Netflix Jan. 4.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On NPR's Fresh Air, critic Maureen Corrigan reviewed new mysteries by Alexis Soloski and Nita Prose.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe featured Debbi Mack's interview with author and screenwriter, Michael Farris Smith. Two of his previous novels, Desperation Road and Rumble Through the Dark, have been adapted for film, with both released this year.

On the Spybrary podcast, host Adam Brookes was joined by Stuart Reid, executive editor at Foreign Affairs and author of The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination. They delved into the fascinating and shocking story of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo crisis of 1960, and the CIA's role in Lumumba's assassination.

On Crime Time FM, Tom Mead chatted with Paul Burke about his books The Murder Wheel and Death and the Conjuror, featuring sleuthing stage magician Joseph Spector; the Golden Age era; true crime; and theatre, magic and illusion.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with barrister and author, Imran Mahmood, about his latest thriller, Finding Sophie; discussed the height of author winterwear as modeled by your hosts; and dissected the most famous tea party in fiction.

Mystery Melange

Renita D’Silva’s psychological thriller, The Neighbour, has won the Joffe Books Prize for Crime Writers of Colour 2023. The prize was established in response to "the paucity of diverse voices being published in crime fiction," with an aim to seek out writers from communities that are underrepresented in the genre and support them in building sustainable careers. The judges, including author Nadine Matheson, literary agent Nelle Andrew, and Joffe Books editorial director, Emma Grundy Haigh, praised D'Silva's book for its "wide ranging, ambitious cast of characters and stories that interlock but don’t overwhelm."

This past weekend, at the annual Black Orchid Banquet held in New York City, the Wolfe Pack (the official Nero Wolfe literary society), announced that The Day He Left, by Frederick Weisel won the 2023 Nero Award for best crime novel. "Alibi in Ice," by Libby Cudmore, also received the 2023 Black Orchid Novella Award and will be published in the July 2024 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Honorable mentions for the Black Orchid Novella Award include Paul A. Barra's "Death of a Papist," Lawrence Coates's "Jimtown," and Tom Larsen's "El Cazador."(HT to The Rap Sheet)

The end of the year "best" lists just keep coming, with the latest being from several newspaper compilations. Oline H. Cogdill's list for The Sun-Sentinel narrowed down her 120 reads to 18, noting that major trends in the genre continued to be diversity, regional stories, veterans and domestic suspense. Over at The Guardian, Laura Wilson curated her list of the best, which unsurprisingly tilted more toward European crime fiction authors, while Alison Flood picked five of her own. New York Times writer-at-large, Sarah Lyall, chose six titles for her Best Thrillers list, including an espionage caper, the tale of a murderous librarian and a high-stakes adventure that takes place inside the various stomachs of a whale. NYT regular crime columnist, Sarah Weinman, chose a mix of traditional mysteries and thrillers, from the U.S. to Scandinavia, as her picks for "The Best Crime Novels of 2023." And the Washington Post's Karen MacPherson shone the spotlight on her top 10 best mystery novels of 2023.

Kate Jackson, a/k/a the "Armchair Sleuth" also put together a list of her picks for the best Classic Crime Reprints of 2023 by publishers such as American Mystery Classics, British Library Crime Classics, and Galileo Publishing. The recommendations range from titles like The Wheel Spins (1936) by Ethel Lina White to Suddenly at His Residence (1947) by Christianna Brand, to Four Days Wonder (1933) by A. A. Milne (also known as the creator of Winnie the Pooh).

Writing for Mental Floss, April Snellings profiled the iconic UK institution, The Detection Club, from its founding in 1930 through the evolution of the mystery novel. But the article notes some of the lesser-known tidbits such as the club’s headquarters being originally located between an oyster bar and a brothel, and a group of members enlisting the head of Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department to help them break into the club’s headquarters to retrieve materials for a new member induction after they'd all forgotten their keys. While the club initially formed as a social group for writers of detective fiction, it did have an official purpose: to uphold a rigid set of standards for crime fiction, and weed out any potential members who wouldn’t agree to meet them.

As historian Lucy Worsley notes, Arthur Conan Doyle secretly hated his creation Sherlock Holmes and blamed the cerebral detective character for denying him recognition as the author of highbrow historical fiction, which laid around unread. "Arthur must have hated himself. And he would have hated the fact that today, 93 years after his death, his historical novels lie unread, while his ‘cheap’ – but beloved – detective lives forever on our screens."

In the Q&A roundup, spy novelist Mick Herron spoke with The Daily Mail about his latest book, The Secret Hours, and the TV adaptation of his successful "Slough House" series set in a place where MI5 puts "failed" spies; and SJ Rozan, who has won practically every major award for Best Novel and the Best Short Story (and is also the recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award and Life Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America), applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Mayors of New York.

Author R&R with Michael J. Cooper

MICHAEL J. COOPER emigrated to Israel in 1966 and lived in Jerusalem during the last year the city was divided between Israel and Jordan. He studied and traveled in the region for eleven years and graduated from medical school in Tel Aviv. Now in retirement after a forty year practice of pediatric cardiology, Cooper lives in Northern California and is able to devote more time to volunteer missions and to writing.

His debut novel, Foxes in the Vineyard, set in 1948 Jerusalem, won the grand prize in the 2011 Indie Publishing Contest. His second novel, The Rabbi’s Knight, set in the Holy Land at the twilight of the Crusades in 1290, was finalist for the Chaucer Award for historical fiction. His just-completed third novel, Wages of Empire, is set in Europe and the Middle East during WWI and won the 2022 CIBA Rossetti Award for YA fiction along with first-place honors for the 2022 CIBA Hemingway award for wartime historical fiction. All three novels stand-alone, though they’re connected by the common threads of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the St. Clair/Sinclair bloodline and the subversive notions of coexistence and peace.

Wages of Empire begins in the summer of 1914, when sixteen-year-old Evan Sinclair leaves home to join the Great War for Civilization. Little does he know that, despite the war raging in Europe, the true source of conflict will emerge in Ottoman Palestine, since it's from Jerusalem where the German Kaiser dreams to rule as Holy Roman Emperor. Filled with such historical figures as Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Faisal bin Hussein and Chaim Weizmann, Wages of Empire follows Evan through the killing fields of the Western Front where he will help turn the tide of a war that is just beginning, and become part of a story that never ends.

Michael Cooper stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing his books:

 

For writers of historical fiction, research is a paramount. To be sure, writing any type of fiction requires research, but with a historical, and especially one set in a remote time and place, the writer must be positioned to inform the reader about every detail of the setting and time period. To “get things right,” or even close to “right,” a massive amount of research is required. And to make things even more challenging, the research shouldn’t show; the weaving of historical detail into the story should be so subtle as to be invisible. Nothing wakes the reader more rudely from the dream of a good story than a ham-handed display of detail. Or, to put it simply, the writer must be able to show without showing off.   

In referring to requisite research as “massive,” the task appears exhausting and thoroughly unpleasant. Clearly, if one only follows the adage of “write what you know,” only minimal research might be required. However, if we are drawn to write outside of ourselves, outside of the confines of our known world, we have no choice but to do a prodigious amount of research. But the secret of doing this, and actually enjoying it, can be encapsulated in an alternate adage: “Write what you love.”

And that’s been my joy in researching and writing my series—having spent my formative years living in Israel, I actually look forward to returning there in my mind, to a land where history waits for you around every corner— remembering the quality of light in early morning and toward evening, tasting the freshness of mountain air and the sun-heated warmth of the desert, or the joy of floating in the Sea of Galilee at night beneath a sky crowded with stars. 

Likewise, it’s been invigorating to select interesting historical characters and to create compelling fictional characters—for their nobility, humor, and brilliance; for their passions, human failings, and for their interesting, ingenious, and sometimes evil designs. And then, there are those wondrous times when a historical or fictional character takes over, dictating the action and dialogue, and all one has to do is sit back and transcribe. 

The other thing about writing in this genre is the wonderful way that historical events and, indeed the historical characters provide the scaffolding for stories that are, at once, very old, and still being written. Also, as I researched and wrote all my books, I was often astonished by fascinating elements of hidden history, unsolved mysteries, and unbelievably engaging and bizarre characters that insisted on being included in the final draft. In this genre, storylines arise organically from the historical timeline, and from the historical characters themselves—creating a portrait that is enhanced by the fictional characters who allow for additional surprises, plot twists, betrayals, loves and alliances. And, as each book progresses, I love watching the weave tighten as storylines are drawn together.

And historical novels set in wartime offer the writer an even richer buffet—with all the elements for compelling stories; drama, heroism, conflict, tension, intrigue, action, heartbreak, and perhaps romance. And the effect of armed conflict on history is itself dramatic since war is an accelerant to history, and often with dramatic changes in human and natural topography.

Lastly, as writers of history, we also seek out the compelling tension between knowing and unknowing—to engage with our historical characters in the grip of their threatening present, infused with their anxiety at the uncertainty of outcome, the unknowable future. And we, knowing their future, are touched by the poignancy of their ignorance.

But now, it’s our turn to be anxious in our ignorance in a time of great uncertainty—with war in Ukraine, the Middle East, and in a time of civil strife in our own country bordering, it often seems, on civil war. Now it’s our turn to share the anxiety of having no idea as to the outcome of all this conflict.

Clearly, Wages of Empire is a novel about war in a time of war, holding up a mirror to time past that reflects on present uncertainties and current wars. And so we ask the obvious questions—what do present wars have to do with the past? What do our present travails have to do with history? In a word? Everything. 

 

You can read more about Michael Cooper and his writing via his website and follow him on Goodreads. Wages of Empire is now available via Koehler 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

Sidney Flanigan (Never Rarely Sometimes Always) has signed on to star opposite Sofia Yepes in The Low End Theory, an indie thriller based on Yepes’s script, which she co-wrote with director Francisco Ordoñez. Billed as a film noir set in the Latinx and LGBTQ+ world of Los Angeles, The Low End Theory centers on Raquel (Yepes), an aspiring beats producer in the low-budget hip-hop world moonlighting as a drug money launderer, who ends up stealing from her crime-lord boss to pay off debts owed by the woman with whom she is having an obsessive affair. Flanigan plays Raquel’s troubled lover, Veronica.

Saban Films has acquired the U.S. rights to Knox Goes Away, a film directed by and starring, Michael Keaton. Al Pacino, James Marsden, Marcia Gay Harden, Suzy Nakamura, John Hoogenakker, Joanna Kulig, Ray McKinnon, and Lela Loren also star. Knox Goes Away, written by Gregory Poirier, premiered earlier this year at the Toronto International Film Festival and, according to the official synopsis, "follows John Knox (Keaton), a contract killer with a rapidly evolving form of dementia, who is offered the opportunity to redeem himself by saving the life of the adult son from whom he had been estranged." Saban is targeting a 2024 first quarter release.

Quiver Distribution has picked up North American rights to the action thriller, Wanted Man, co-written, directed by and starring Dolph Lundgren, for release in select theaters and on VOD on January 19, 2024. Also starring Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) and Christina Villa (The Wedding in the Hamptons), the film centers on Johansen (Lundgren), an aging detective whose outdated policing methods have given the department a recent public relations problem. To save his job, he is sent to Mexico to extradite a female witness (Villa) to the murders of two DEA agents. Once there, he finds not only his old opinions challenged, but that bad guys on both sides of the border are now gunning for him and his witness.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

MarVista Entertainment, the Fox-owned studio, is turning Seraphina Nova Glass's thriller novel, On A Quiet Street, into a television series. Set in an exclusive Oregon coast community, the story follows two female best friends, Paige and Cora. Cora thinks her husband, Finn, is cheating – she just needs to catch him in the act. That’s where Paige comes in. Paige lost her son to a hit-and-run accident last year, and she’s drowning in the kind of grief that makes people do reckless things like spying on the locals, searching for proof her son’s death was no accident…and agreeing to Cora’s plan to reveal what kind of man Finn really is. All the while, their reclusive new neighbor, Georgia, is acting stranger and stranger every day. But what could such a lovely young mother possibly be hiding?

Amazon’s Prime Video has renewed Reacher for a third run ahead of the debut of season 2 on December 15. Alan Ritchson, who plays the title character, revealed the news from the set of season 3 during a panel at CCXP in São Paulo, Brazil. He also debuted an extended trailer for the second season. The series is based on Lee Child’s novels with the second season based on the 11th book in the series, Bad Luck and Trouble.

The BBC ordered a second season of the heist drama, Gold, based on the infamous real-life events of the Brink’s-Mat robbery and the decades-long chain of events that followed. First-season cast members Hugh Bonneville, Charlotte Spencer, Emun Elliott, Tom Cullen, Stefanie Martini, and Sam Spruell are confirmed for season 2. The season 2 plot will follow what happened to the half of the Brinks-Mat gold stolen in the daring 1983 raid, after police realize those they convicted didn’t have all of it.

Kelli Giddish‘s former Detective Amanda Rollins will return for the Season 25 premiere of Law & Order: SVU. Giddish exited the series midway through Season 24 and last appeared in a guest-starring role in the Season 24 finale, which was part of a three-way crossover among Law & Order, SVU and Organized Crime. In that episode, Giddish’s character Rollins married ADA Sonny Carisi Jr (Peter Scanavino) and revealed she was on a new career path and had accepted a teaching job at Fordham University.

Found and The Irrational have been renewed for second seasons at NBC, the network announced this past week. In Found, Shanola Hampton stars as PR specialist Gabi Mosely, whose crisis management team is determined to share the stories of the hundreds of thousands of people of color who go missing each year in the U.S. The Irrational is based on Dan Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational, and stars Jesse L. Martin as prolific behavioral science professor Alec Mercer, whose unique expertise lends itself to high-stakes cases across governments, law enforcement and corporations.

Andrew Koji (Warrior), Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones), and T’Nia Miller (Fall of the House of Usher) have boarded the upcoming third season of Gangs of London, joining fellow actors, Phil Daniels and Ruth Sheen. Created by Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery, the Sky and AMC+ series follows the struggles between rival gangs and other criminal organizations in present-day London. Koji will play an unnamed assassin at the heart of the unfolding mystery; Dormer will play Cornelius Quinn, a face from the past whose arrival awakens old rivalries; and Miller takes on the role of the formidable new Mayor of London set to wreak havoc for the gangs. Season 3 kicks off with ex-undercover cop Elliot Carter, played by Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísu, now operating as a top-level criminal alongside the Dumanis, but their business is thrown into chaos when their shipment of cocaine is spiked, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians all over London.

The first trailer for the Apple TV+ series Criminal Record has been released. Criminal Record will premiere the first two episodes on January 10 followed by new episodes dropping weekly, every Wednesday through February 21. The new eight-episode, one-hour crime thriller stars Peter Capaldi (Dr. Who) and Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife) as detectives in a tug-of-war over a historic murder conviction.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Dateline NBC is set to launch its 15th original podcast Mortal Sin, to be reported by Dateline correspondent Josh Mankiewicz. The first two episodes will be available for download and streaming for free across podcast platforms on December 5; the remaining three will drop over the following two weeks. Mortal Sin investigates how the death of a pastor’s wife after a house fire uncovers a web of sex, murder, and deception.

On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed mystery books for Native American Heritage Month.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, the first of three Christmas episodes over the next few weeks, this one featuring the mystery short story "Christmas Cookie Caper" written by Margaret S. Hamilton and read by actor Donna Beavers.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Liz Alterman about her new thriller novel, The Perfect Neighborhood.

On Crime Time FM, Paul Burke reviewed a selection of November crime fiction releases, including author elevator pitches from CL Pattison, Jane Jesmond, Alexandra Benedict, Paul Durston, and Stephen Ronson.

The latest Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine podcast featured "The Green Man" by James G. Tipton, a mystery story with Sherlock Holmes's friend and confidant Dr. John H. Watson. This time around, Dr. Watson travels to coal-mining country in northern Wales to investigate corrupt railroad barons.

On the most recent Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast, Andrew Welsh-Huggins, nominated for Shamus, Derringer, and ITW Thriller awards, read his story, "Home for the Holidays," a Christmastime thriller from the Jan/Feb 2020 issue.

Pick Your Poison featured a poison that causes blindness, which is also why some prison commissaries don’t stock fruit, and how toxins were intentionally used to adulterate alcohol during Prohibition.