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

Prime Video’s upcoming German film, The Calendar Killer (original title Sebastian Fitzeks Der Heimweg), will launch on January 16, 2025. Based on Sebastian Fitzek’s bestselling novel, Walk Me Home, the thriller follows Jules (Sabin Tambrea), who starts his shift on the escort phone, a telephone support line for women to get home safely. Everything looks like a quiet Saturday evening, until he receives a call from a young mother named Klara (Luise Heyer), who claims she will die that very night at the hands of a notorious female killer. So begins Klara’s desperate escape from the so-called Calendar Killer – with Jules on the phone, who is her only hope of salvation.

Gal Gadot has been set to star in The Runner, a London-set action thriller that will be directed by Kevin Macdonald. Amazon MGM Studios has acquired worldwide rights to the film which was developed and will be produced by David Kosse under the veteran exec’s new venture, Rockwood Pictures. Gadot plays a high-powered attorney who must race through London, following the cryptic commands of a mysterious Caller, as she fights against time to save her abducted son.

Charlotte Kirk (Duchess) is set to topline Myra, an indie drug thriller from action director R. Ellis Frazier. Currently in production in Tijuana, Myra follows an ex-gang member (Kirk) who escapes to Tijuana, Mexico with $2 million in bearer bond loot after a botched robbery in Los Angeles. When Tony (Gary Daniels), Myra’s gang leader and long-time lover, realizes he's been robbed, he goes hot on Myra’s trail. Myra has 36 hours to cash out the bonds, emancipate herself from the gang, and start her new life. However, Tony isn’t her only adversary. Also trailing her are local gang leader (Roberto Sanchez) and a corrupt cop (Corin Nemec), proving the time-honored point that blood money comes with a heavy price.

Zack Snyder is set to reteam with Netflix on an untitled project about the Los Angeles Police Department, in early development at the streamer. The film co-written by Snyder and Kurt Johnstad, longtime collaborators on projects like 300 and Rebel Moon, is set in a high-stakes world of life and death, watching as an elite LAPD unit is relentlessly confronted with the unforgiving collision of law and morality.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Acorn TV’s fan-favorite detective crime drama, Dalgliesh, returns on Monday, December 2 in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The third season, consisting of six episodes, is based on three of the novels from P.D. James’s bestselling murder mystery series featuring Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, with Bertie Carvel (The Crown) reprising his role as the enigmatic titular investigator. Season 3 is made up of three distinct mysteries, each two episodes long, with the first, Death in Holy Orders, premiering on Monday, December 2; the second, Cover Her Face, which marks Carvel’s directorial debut, premiering on Monday, December 9; and the third, Devices and Desires, premiering on Monday, December 16. Carlyss Peer (The Crown) and Alistair Brammer (House of the Dragon) both return to the series as Detective Sergeants (DS) Kate Miskin and Daniel Tarrant, respectively.

Acorn TV is also co-producing an adaptation of Reverend Richard Coles's bestselling book, Murder Before Evensong. The book was published in 2022 and introduces Canon Daniel Clement, a rector of Champton who becomes embroiled in a murder case when a cousin to a church patron is found stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs. Canon Daniel Clement has gone on to feature in three other of Coles’s cozy crime novels, including Murder at the Monastery and A Death in the Parish.

The new thriller series based on another book by Harlan Coben finally has a Netflix release date. The limited series, Missing You, which will be released on New Year’s Day, is the author’s latest on-screen collaboration with the streamer, following other series Stay Close, Fool Me Once, and The Stranger. Per the logline: Eleven years ago, Detective Kat Donovan’s fiancé, Josh — the love of her life — disappeared, and she hasn’t heard from him since. Now, swiping profiles on a dating app, she sees his face, and her world explodes all over again. Josh’s reappearance forces her to dive back into the mystery surrounding her father’s murder and uncover long-buried secrets from her past.

Gabriel Basso will return as Peter Sutherland in Netflix's The Night Agent for Season 2 on January 23. Based on the novel by Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent's freshman season followed low-level FBI agent Peter Sutherland who works in the basement of the White House, manning a phone that never rings — until the night that it does, propelling him into a fast-moving and dangerous conspiracy that ultimately leads all the way to the Oval Office. The Season 1 finale saw Peter take off from D.C. in a private jet on his first mission as a Night Action spy. Season 2 picks up as he’s shooting through the streets of an Asian city before he, returning Season 1 cast member Luciane Buchanan, and new series regular Amanda Warren, are seen against New York’s skyline in subsequent episodes. Warren will portray Catherine Weaver, a veteran of the top-secret Night Action investigative program, who trains and oversees various Night Agents.

CBS has set winter premiere dates for new and returning series on its 2024-25 primetime schedule, including Tracker, Matlock, Elspeth, The Equalizer, and the FBI and NCIS franchises, as well as the new medical drama, Watson starring Morris Chestnut, which premieres January 26 following the AFC Championship game.

CBS has revealed the series finale date for Blue Bloods, which is ending its run after 14 seasons, set to air on Friday, Dec. 13 at 10 p.m. on CBS. The finale will follow a retrospective special, Blue Bloods: Celebrating a Family Legacy, which will look back on 293 episodes of the beloved series, on Friday, Nov. 29 at 9 pm (also live and on-demand for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the special airs).

PODCASTS/RADIO

Crime Time FM's latest episode is a review show as host Paul Burke takes a look at a dozen different recent crime fiction releases.

On the latest Pick Your Poison podcast, Dr. Jen Prosser takes a look at a disease that affects both sea lions and humans and a toxin that inspired a horror film and has also been used as a deworming agent.

On Tipping My Fedora, Sergio Angelini was joined by author and critic, Mike Ripley. to look at a tale of two tigers, or rather, two versions of The Tiger in the Smoke: the original 1952 novel by Margery Allingham featuring her sleuth Albert Campion, and its film noir adaptation from 1956 that, despite being mostly very faithful, chose to completely eliminate her recurring protagonist.

Read or Dead's Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed their 2024 holiday gift guide featuring their picks of mysteries and thrillers.