Media Murder for Monday

 

MOVIES

Director Martin Scorsese is reportedly eyeing Jo Nesbo's thiller The Snowman for an upcoming movie project. Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom) is in talks to adapt the screenplay of Nesbo's book, which centers on Detective Harry Holes' investigation of a serial killer after women go missing on the day of a first snowfall.

Director George Isaac is taking on the film project All Things to All Men, billed as a fast-paced, London-based crime thriller, with one character trapped in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game between a police chief and a crime lord. The cast includes Rufus Sewell as the maverick law enforcement official and Gabriel Byrne as the sadistic crime boss.

The novel Strip by Thomas Perry is being adapted for film by Aaron Stockard (Gone Baby Gone, The Town). It's about a strip club owner robbed by a masked gunman who takes revenge on his attacker—only he targets an innocent man, who tries to turn the tables and ends up in the middle of a brewing gang war. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Ben Affleck is set to direct his friend Matt Damon in a biopic of notorious South Boston crimelord Whitey Bulger, with Sopranos writer Terence Winter writing the screenplay. Boston locals reacted to the news with mixed feelings, some worrying the film will glamorize Bulger and his gang.

Ed Brubaker is adapting his own noir graphic novel Coward for Jamie Patricof's Hunting Lane Films. It's the story of a professional pickpocket and legendary thief named Leo who ends up on the run from the cops and criminals who double-crossed him. Director David Slade said, Coward is "a great modern story. It harkens back to an era of crime stories where there's really a gritty reality to it, but there's a kind of underworld haze of noir."

TV

NBC has been trying to compete, mostly unsuccessfully, with the CBS crime drama juggernaut. Their latest effort appears to be a reboot of 80s TV series Wiseguy by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo. Wiseguy featured a disgraced cop (played by Ken Wahl) who makes a deal to work undercover as part of the fictional FBI division the Organized Crime Bureau in exchange for time off his jail sentence. The new series will be penned by Alex Cary (of Showtime's Homeland).

Another new NBC purchase is Afterthought, described as "a closed-ended procedural in the vein of CSI by way of Inception and The Cell." The concept has an unconventional team within the FBI using the six-hour window between clinical death and cellular death to solve murders by entering the memories of the recently deceased. The pilot was created by writers Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman) and Melissa Rosenberg (The Twilight Saga).

Ellen Pompeo, star of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, started her own production company Calamity Jane that has sold an untitled crime-related drama to the network. The plot surrounds diplomatic security/special agents who follow American officials around the world in order to keep them safe.

Showtime has renewed freshman drama Homeland for a second season. The series centers on Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody, who returns home eight years after going missing in Iraq, and Carrie Anderson, a driven CIA officer who suspects Brody might be plotting an attack on America.

The Hollows series of novels by Kim Harrison, detailing the misadventures of a witch who works as a runner (private investigator) in Cincinnati, may be heading to television. Producer Carol Mendelsohn (CSI) is developing the series for CW, with a pilot written by Jordan Hawley (Smallville, Moonlight).

PODCASTS/RADIO

Val McDermic chatted with the BBC on camera about violence in her books and whether there are lines she will not cross.

THEATER

If you live in the northern Ohio area, there are several crime drama theatrical productions to choose from. Clague Playhouse in Westlake is featuring A Christmas Cactus, Eliott Byerrum's detective comedy about a struggling female private eye Cactus O'Riley, who has a bad case of the holiday blues; the Workshop Players in Amherst are producing Murder by the Book, in which a thriller writer indulges in bitter word duels with his estranged wife until she shoots him, and an amateur detective from the next flat attempts to solve the murder; and the Huntington Playhouse in Bay Village is offering Sherlock Holmes: the Final Adventure.

The Fountain Hills Theater in Fountain Hills, Arizona, has a new production of the cat-and-mouse play Sleuth.

GAMES

Ubisoft is behind video game versions of popular TV shows including CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. Now the company is creating a full suite of social online games using Facebook and based on NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles and House, M.D. for starters. Facebook games based on NCIS: Los Angeles and CSI
: New York will follow in late 2012.

Operation Warrior Library

When novelist Paul Malmont received fan email from a soldier shipping out to Iraq and hoping for a signed bookplate before he left, Malmont decided to ship boxes of his books to troops, with the help of his publisher. That gave him the idea to get other authors to donate boooks, and he got the support of the Army for the project, dubbed Operation Warrior Library. Now Malmont is adding to that effort by launching a holiday book drive to send books to troops overseas. They're looking for boxes of new books from authors and publishers, and audiobooks are also welcome for injured soldiers in hospitals. If you are an author/publisher and can help, send an e-mail to warriorlibrary@gmail.com. Other folks can help, too, by buying books from authors involved in the project from the Operation Warrior Library Shop, where all proceeds go to cover OWL costs.

Mystery Melange

 

Quebec is hosting its first (but hopefully annual) crime fiction festival this week. The event, called QuebeCrime, features a workshop on "CSI: Wrong Watson! Chemistry for Justice," as well as various panels with authors Lawrence Block, John Brady, Hilary Davidson, Anne Emery, Trevor Ferguson, Tom Henighan, Ian Hamilton, Craig McDonald, Denisa Mina, Louise Penny, Andrew Pyper, Ian Rankin, Simon Toyle and Daniel Woodrell.

Several authors gathered together to write short stories featuring a Navy SEAL hero. It all started with a photo in the New York Times of U.S. Navy SEALs as they prepared for a night mission to capture Iraqi insurgent leaders near Fallujah, Iraq. The result is SEAL of My Dreams, to be released in paperback and eBook formats on 11/11/11 (Veteran's Day) with proceeds from sales of the anthology pledged to the Veterans Research Corporation, a non-profit foundation supporting veterans medical research

Attorney Leslie Budewitz has been assisting authors for years with getting legal details in fiction just right, primarily through her website. But now she's added to that pedigree with her new Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately about Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure. The Five Scribes blog has a Q&A with Leslie, where she says the book will help writers use the law accurately while telling a good story and learn how to use legal issues to develop plots, character and setting.

Issue #8 of Crimefactory has new stories and features from Julia Madeleine, Seth Harwood, Heath Lowrence, Matthew C. Funk, and many more. And in case you missed it, issue #45 of Noir Journal is featuring its No Frills Book Review Marathon, Part 1.

The Wolfe Pack is holding its 34th annual Black Orchid Banquet and Weekend December 2-4. The event has an added significance this year, since December 1, 2011 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Rex Stout, and several members of the author's family will attend the banquet. The finalists for this year's Nero Award for best novel of the year, to be presented at the banquet, are Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen; The Book of Spies by Gayle Lynds; Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny; The Midnight Show Murders by Al Roker & Dick Lochte; and Think of a Number by John Verdon. For more information about how to register visit The Wolfe Pack's web site.

As blogger Nathanael Booth notes, if you're an Ellery Queen fan, Otto Penzler's Mysterious Press acquired the rights to issue Calamity Town and The Roman Hat Mystery in e-book format, and they're available for pre-order now on Amazon.

Media Murder for Monday

 

MOVIES

American director James Mangold is eyeing a drug thriller titled City State that he hopes to develop and direct. It would be a remake of Icelandic writer-director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson's original film, which follows four strangers involved with Iceland's criminal underworld—both criminals and cops—who find their lives connected once a mafia syndicate tries to take over Iceland's drug trade.

Producers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith have bought movie rights to Alive in Necropolis, the 2008 debut noirish detective story by Doug Dorst set in the real-life cemetery-filled town of Colma, California. According to Grahame-Smith noted, "The book is about a murder mystery, told through the eyes of a young detective who may or may not be going crazy, and may or may not be seeing ghosts that are helping him."

An American version of Occupied, the European TV series based on author Jo Nesbo's novels, is possibly in the works. Although the Norwegian TV original has yet to be filmed, Swedish producer Marianne Gray hinted that it would include American actors and a director in order to make it more "transferrable" to U.S. television later. Gray added that the new strategy in Hollywood seems to be to identify bestselling crime novel series and then convert them into high-end television drama, often giving them a theatrical outing first.

Writer-director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) is teaming up with Fox Searchlight to direct and adapt The Man In The Rockefeller Suit, based on the nonfiction book by Mark Seal about a German-born conman who passed himself off as a member of the Rockefeller clan for decades.

George Clooney is out and Bradley Cooper is in as Napoleon Solo in Steven Soderbergh's film adaptation of the iconic 1960s TV series Man from U.N.C.L.E. Glooney had to withdraw due to back problems. In the original series, Robert Vaughn played expert spy Solo, with David McCullum ("Ducky" on NCIS) playing his partner Illya Kuryakin. No word yet on who will play Illya in the movie version.

Here's another trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes sequel, again starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson. And let's hope the movie is successful, because Warner Brothers has already hired Drew Pearce to write the third installment in the franchise, even before the open of this second movie, titled Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, on December 16

Cinema Blends also has a preview of the film London Boulevard based on the novel by Ken Bruen. It was released in November 2010 in the UK, but will finally get a limited release run in the U.S. starting November 11 of this year.

TV

A true-life crime fiction subject, if there ever was one: HBO is planning a movie about Bernie Madoff starring Robert De Niro as the disgraced financier.

Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica, Law and Order: UK) will appear in a multi-episode arc on Body of Proof, playing Scott Decker, a potential love interest for medical examiner Dr. Megan Hunt (Dana Delany). Perhaps this will soften the blow after he landed the lead role in Ron Moore's fantasy drama pilot 17th Precinct, which failed to picked up by NBC.

A&E renewed The Glades for a third season. The cop series starring Matt Passmore as Jim Longworth, a brilliant Chicago homicide detective forced to relocate to the sleepy, middle-of-nowhere town of Palm Glade near the Florida Everglades.

It appears that Person of Interest and Unforgettable are doing well enough in the ratings that CBS is eyeing a full-season rollout for both of the freshmen crime drama series. Person of Interest stars Jim Caviezel as an ex-CIA hitman who teams with a scientist (played by Michael Emerson) to prevent crimes before they happen. Unforgettable stars Poppy Montgomery as a police detective who has a rare medical condition that gives her the ability to remember everything

Fox has acquired an hour-long drama pilot from from Criminal Minds veteran Ed Bernero and ABC Studios. It's based on the Marvel Comics character Punisher, a police procedural with Frank Castle as an NYPD homicide detective by day, vigilante seeking justice by night. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

PODCASTS/RADIO

Keith Rawson interviewed James Sallis at the Poisoned Pen bookstore, discussing his latest novel, The Killer is Dying, as well as the  release of the film adaptation of his novel Drive.

George Smiley fans, rejoice: As Elizabeth Foxwell notes, this week BBC Radio 4 Extra features The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. Go here for the schedule (episodes can usually be heard online for up to a week after broadcast).

THEATER

Seattle's ACT Theatre is l
aunching a new stage production of Double Indemnity, based on the James M. Cain novel that also inspired the 1944 noir film classic directed by Billy Wilder. The play opens this Thursday under the direction of Kurt Beattie and runs through November 20th.

Learn From the Best

If you are serious about learning the craft of writing crime fiction and have the time and money, the new Crime Fiction Academy may be just for you. The Center for Fiction in New York City is launching the academy in February 2012 to include a 14-week workshop, a monthly Master Class, a Crime Fiction Reading seminary, special lectures and discussions with editors and agents, and access to the Center's book collection (which received a Raven Award for its comprehensive library of mystery and thriller titles). The admission process is fairly rigorous and limited to a few participants, the organizers prefer a year's commitment, and the workshop costs $2,800. However, if you're accepted, you'll be taught by the likes of Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Thomas H. Cook, Linda Fairstein, Susan Isaacs, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, Joyce Carol Oates, SJ Rozan, Jonathan Santlofer, Karin Slaughter and more. Give it a shot, but make sure all application materials are received by November 28th.

Mystery Melange

 

The latest issue of Mystery Readers Journal: Animal Mysteries is now available to PDF subscribers, with the hardcopy out late this week. Animal fans rejoice: there are "lots of dogs and cats, but some birds, pigs, horses and insects." Three online articles you can read to whet your appetite include Watching Eagles Soar by Margaret Coel, When Wild Pigs Fly by Bill Crider and Animals In and Out of Books by Deborah Crombie.

Janet Rudolph, the editor of Mystery Readers Journal, is also the driving force behind the Mystery Fanfare blog and offers up a list of Halloween mysteries for you.

Patti Abbott posted a flash fiction challenge on her blog for stories based on Reginald Marsh paintings. The results are in, and Patti has links to all 23 stories.

If you're not familar with the magazine Yellow Mama, check out their latest issue for October with offerings from the likes of Richard Godwin and AJ Hayes. The online zine publishes cutting edge, hardboiled, horror, literary, noir and psychological/horror short stories and poems and book reviews, too. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans.)

As Terrie Moran notes, fellow author/blogger Ed Gorman just released his latest Sam McCain novel, Bad Moon Rising. Set in a 1968 hippie commune just outside Sam’s hometown of Black River Falls, the plot involves the murder of troubled daughter of a prominent citizen with the social and moral upheavals of the day.

Another fellow writer/blogger, Nigel Bird, released a digital collection of his short stories earlier this year, titled Dirty Old Town (And Other Stories), downloadable from Smashwords and Amazon. He also has a print version available via the art house press KUBOA. If you're on Goodreads, you can enter by the end of the month to win a print copy of the collection. The giveaway celebrates the arrival of Nigel's debut novella, "Smoke", a spin off of a story included in this year's Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime.

Early bird registration is now open for both Thrillerfest and Malice Domestic conferences for 2012. For Thrillerfest, scheduled for July 11-14 in NYC, this includes the CraftFest writers workshop and AgentFest pitch sessions, as well as the regular conference with special guests Jack Higgins, R.L. Stine, Lee Child, John Sandford and Catherine Coulter. You have until December 31st to register for Malice Domestic and still get the cheapest registration rate, as well as a nomination form for the Agatha Awards. You can also register from now through January to get an early-bird discount for the Public Safety Writer's Conference held in July.

The Q&A roundup this week includes author Denise Mina (The End of the Wasp Season), who was interviewed by fellow author Kate Atkinson (Case Histories and Started Early, Took my Dog) talking about genre, character and the best place to write.

The Appalachian Prison Book Project is a program trying to rehabilitate inmates by giving them free books to read. Unfortunately, their funding was cut. The West Virginia University Department of English is accepting donations on the program's behalf, with the most requested books being dictionaries, auto repair manuals, psychology textbooks and fiction (for security purposes, all donations must be paperback).

Monkey Justice: New Crime to Kindle Your Fancy

If you've been following the weekly Friday's "Forgotten" Books feature on this blog, you'll know that it was the brainchild of blogger Patti Abbott, who coordinates all the entries. But Patti is also a very fine writer of short crime fiction and has a new collection of twenty-three of her stories all in one place from Snubnose Press, titled Monkey Justice.

Patti passed along the following note about her brand-new project:

I want to thank Bonnie for inviting me to say a few words about my collection of stories, Monkey Justice, on her blog.  In Reference to Murder is a daily stop for my on blog travels. This is also a good opportunity to thank Bonnie for her support of Forgotten Friday books reviews with such wonderfully researched reviews.

I had never given too much thought to putting a collection of stories together until Brian Lindenmuth, publisher of the newly created SNUBNOSE PRESS, contacted me about it. Before ebooks, it was unlikely a press would be interested in publishing a collection of stories that had mostly appeared online. And also a collection from a writer who had not published a novel. I did not feel particularly sad about this, but once the opportunity arose, I was pretty excited and grateful that Brian was interested. Zines come and go, so many of my stories only exist as a memory now, but this would allow them to perhaps have a permanent home online. It was fun choosing the stories and hopefully they are representative without them being too similar.

“The Tortoise and the Tortoise” is one of my favorites. I have rarely written about my family (although my husband’s shows up fairly regularly) because my family was so ordinary. But a few years ago, my father was facing a peculiar situation in the assisted living facility where he lived. As one of the few men ambulatory and with his wits still somewhat intact, he had been cock of the walk at the place for a year or so. Women clambered to sit next to him and he led their Mardi Gras parade. He was catered to for the first time in his life (he was one of nineteen children). My father, at 95, was still good looking and in fact, looked a decade younger.

And then, it all changed. The room next door became vacant and before he knew it, he had a new neighbor.

His new neighbor inspired even more attention. He was a priest who’d suffered a stroke leaving him mute and somewhat helpless. Suddenly the nurses and aides were at his beck and call. He had only to lift his hand in the dining room and someone rushed over.  A constant stream of visitors turned up and my Dad could hear their jabber through the wall.

My Dad could never understand any of this. Especially not as his dementia grew worse. He couldn’t understand that the man raised his hand in the dining room because he couldn’t speak, not because he thought he was the Pope. That’s what Dad always said, “He thinks he’s the pope.” It also bothered him that so many women flocked to his room.

 “They’re nuns who worked with him,” I told Dad repeatedly.

“Then why don’t they dress like nuns,” he would say.

“Because nuns don’t wear habits anymore,” I would tell him but he wasn’t having any of it. He had lost his role as the cock of the walk—and only the man’s eventual death restored it.

“Something’s going on in there,” he stubbornly insisted.

Of course, writing this story for Pulp Pusher, I needed a more dramatic ending. So in the story “Dad” took matters into his own hands. Literally.

Thanks for asking me here, Bonnie and thanks to those who bought the book or read my stories online. I do love writing them.

The collection is getting rave reviews, too:
"Patricia Abbott proves that there are many shades of noir as she expertly layers her stories with melancholy, loss and the frailness of the human psyche" – Dave Zeltserman

"Patti Abbott is a master when it comes to short stories." - Anne Frasier

"In this collection of short contemporary noir fiction, Patti Abbott distinguishes herself as an extraordinary storyteller of the dark recesses of the human heart. Abbott’s characters hit hard, fight dirty, and seek a brand of hardscrabble justice that will leave you both wincing and wishing for more." – Sophie Littlefield

"There are few writers who have been more instrumental in my development as a short story writer as Patti Abbott. Her dark, explosive, and yet intensely humane stories leave me breathless and Monkey Justice is nothing less than brilliant." - Keith Rawson

I'm getting ready to download a copy, and you can too.