Bullet Points: Channel Surfing Edition

• Comic-actor Bill Cosby is now an understandably controversial figure, thanks to multiple women having levied sexual assault allegations against him over the last decade. However, he was once beloved, in part because of his live and recorded comedy routines (my father was a big listener to his 1973 stand-up comedy album, Fat Albert) and also his starring roles on television and in films. One of his less successful small-screen efforts was The Cosby Mysteries, which debuted in September 1994—two years after his long-running The Cosby Show ended—and was cancelled in April of the following year, with just 19 episodes having aired. Created in part by William Link, who had given us Columbo, the show found Cosby playing Guy Hanks, “a New York City Police Department criminalist, who retired from the police force after winning $44 million in the lottery.” Wikipedia adds that “Link developed the series at Cosby’s request, as Cosby wanted to make an intelligent, character-driven mystery series that did not rely on graphic violence.” I remembered it with a mix of nostalgia (having enjoyed Cosby’s performances at times, but also those of James Naughton as police detective Adam Sully and Rita Morena as his feisty, health-conscious housekeeper, Angie Corea) and disappointment that Link & Co. hadn’t managed to do more with that crime drama. However, I hadn’t actually seen the show since the ’90s. That changed three weeks ago, when a poster to YouTube began uploading all 19 eps, one per day. I wound up rewatching the 90-minute pilot, which was broadcast originally on January 31, 1994, and have since taken in two or three more installments. At least currently, all are available here. One thing I’d forgotten is that Lee Goldberg, who’d previously penned scripts for Spenser: For Hire and Dick Van Dyke’s Diagnosis: Murder, wrote as well for The Cosby Mysteries. He and his former UCLA classmate William Rabkin later also served as supervising producers on the show. He evidently noticed YouTube’s surprising resurrection of the show as well. In a post on his Web site last week, he gave some background on the April 5, 1995, episode “Goldilocks,” which he and Rabkin wrote jointly with Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, The Wolf of Wall Street):

Cosby called two days before we wrapped the episode and asked us to add ninja assassins to the finale … “with those flying stars and everything.” We thought he was joking. He wasn’t. When we told him there was nothing remotely related to ninjas in the episode, he said “there is now.” So we wrote the damn ninjas into the episode. But when he got the pages, he said it was obviously not our best work, and he wasn’t going to show up to shoot the finale.

So … the bad guys basically out themselves for the crime and then “Cosby” just shows up to arrest them. We used Cosby’s stunt double and footage from another episode to cobble together the incoherent ending.

NBC took one look at the rough cut and said, you know, this is insane, let’s end our misery. We couldn’t agree more. They cancelled the show and we were paid off for the remaining four or five unproduced episodes.

Since I’ve now poured through “Goldilocks” several times, and can spot nary a sign of flying stars (shuriken), I can only assume that in the end, Goldberg, Rabkin, and Winter had their way, and those Japanese concealed weapons were excised from the plot.

• Speaking of my friend Lee, he reports that 26-year-old actress Madison Lintz, late of Prime Video’s Bosch: Legacy, will star in a TV adaptation of his series about Eve Ronin, the Los Angeles County Sherif’s Department’s youngest-ever homicide detective. “I am beyond thrilled to bring Eve Ronin to life,” Lintz is quoted by Variety as saying. “From the moment I picked up Lee’s books, I knew this was a character and a story I needed to be a part of. Eve’s determination, complexity, and resilience make her a dream role, and I am honored to take on this challenge on both sides of the camera.” Ronin was introduced in the 2020 novel Lost Hills and is set to make her sixth appearance in Fallen Star, due out from Thomas & Mercer in October.

• Ballard, based on Michael Connelly’s six novels about L.A. homicide detective Renée Ballard, debuted earlier this week on TV streamer Amazon Prime. All 10 episodes of Season 1 have dropped. Polish-Vietnamese actress Maggie Q (neé Margaret Quigley) headlines this hour-long police procedural, which also stars Courtney Taylor, Michael Mosley, and John Carroll Lynch. A press release explains that Ballard finds Q leading “the LAPD’s new and underfunded cold case division, tackling the city’s most challenging long-forgotten crimes with empathy and relentless determination. As she peels back layers of crimes spanning decades, including a serial killer’s string of murders and a murdered John Doe, she soon uncovers a dangerous conspiracy within the LAPD. With the help of her volunteer team and retired detective Harry Bosch [Titus Welliver, reprising his role from Bosch: Legacy in a trinity of this season’s episodes], Detective Ballard navigates personal trauma, professional challenges, and life-threatening dangers to expose the truth.” I have not yet watched Ballard, but will correct that situation as of this evening.

• The Killing Times' Paul Hirons considers the question of “Where Ballard Fits in Amazon’s Expanding Crime Universe.”

• Meanwhile, Season 2 of The Marlow Murder Club is set to debut in the States on Sunday, August 24, as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! lineup. (It already aired in the UK this last spring.) Season 1 principals Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, Cara Horgan, and Natalie Dew are all back for more cozy but engaging antics in six new episodes. A one-minute trailer can be enjoyed here.

• Here’s one more trailer worth watching, for She Rides Shotgun. That two-hour film—slated for theatrical release on August 1—has been adapted from Jordan Harper’s propulsive and moving 2017 novel of the same name about “a recently released ex-con who finds himself protecting his estranged 11-year-old daughter Polly against a corrupt sheriff and a brutal gang leader.” Taran Egerton, Ana Sophia Heger, Rob Yang, and (again!) John Carroll Lynch lead the cast.



• American author Martin Cruz Smith, most widely recognized for his novels about Russian police investigator Arkady Renko, died last night at 82 years of age. His 11th Renko yarn, Hotel Ukraine—about the slaying of a deputy defense minister at the outset of Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion—was published only just last week. The son of a jazz musician, Smith was a journalist before he began composing fiction in the 1970s, often under pseudonyms, many of his early paperbacks now forgotten. Several of Smith’s works issued under his own moniker, though, were nominated for Edgar Awards, and he twice picked up the Dashiell Hammett Award from the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers—first for the standalone historical mystery Rose (1996), and then for his fourth Renko thriller, Havana Bay, in 1999. The author was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in his mid-50s, but only in 2013 did he begin speaking publicly about it. I’ve read every one of Smith’s Renko tales, my favorites being the first, Gorky Park (1981), along with the aforementioned Havana Bay, Wolves Eat Dogs (2004), Tatiana (2013), and Hotel Ukraine, which takes its title from a Moscow luxury property but also sends the sleuth to the embattled nation of Ukraine, which previously featured in his 2023 novel, Independence Square (the same story in which Renko was told that he, too, has Parkinson’s). Smith announced in the latest novel’s Acknowledgements that it would be his final Renko thriller, but until today’s notice that he died, there still seemed hope he might relent and produce another. Sadly, that is now not to be.

• Maybe I should be reading more James Hadley Chase.

• Although The Rap Sheet has carried a profusion of other awards news lately, I missed mentioning the winner of this year’s Margery Allingham Short Story Competition. Fortunately, B.V. Lawson at In Reference to Murder was more on top of things. Her notice:

The CWA [Crime Writers Association] and the Margery Allingham Society have jointly held an annual international competition since 2014 for a short story of up to 3,500 words. The goal is to find the best unpublished short mystery that fits into Golden Age crime writer Margery Allingham’s definition of what makes a great mystery story: “The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.” The 2025 winner is Helen Gray for “Unsupervised Dead Women.” The other finalists include: “The Human Imperative” by Michael Bird; “Best Served Cold” by Ajay Chowdhury; “The Treasure Hunter” by Jane Corry; “Only Forward” by Hayley Dunning; and “A Woman of No Consequence” by Laure Van Rensberg.

• And isn’t this a very familiar debate, examined most recently on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Saturday program: “Does listening to an audiobook count as reading?”

Yes, That’s Me Behind the Mic

Evidently not everyone knows this about me, but I absolutely hate speaking in public. The very notion makes me break out in flop sweat. Every time I stand up before a crowd waiting for wisdom to pour forth from my mouth, my mind goes utterly blank. When I was asked years ago to give an address to a train load of history buffs, bound from Seattle, Washington, to Portland, Oregon—my subject being the Olmstead Brothers’ landscaping work in the Pacific Northwest—the only way I could do it was by printing out my remarks and then reading directly from those pages. More than one person reassured me afterward that I hadn’t completely embarrassed myself.

Despite all of this, when Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter invited me to take part in a panel presentation at Bouchercon in New Orleans this coming September, I said “yes.” I must have been in a good mood that day. Or maybe a suicidal one. Regardless, George convinced me, along with several other U.S. crime-fiction critics, to join in what I hope will be a lively discussion about our favorite works in this genre, old as well as new. On the panel, too, will be Meredith Anthony and Larry Gandle, both from Deadly Pleasures, and Oline H. Cogdill of the South Florida Sun Sentinel; George is set to moderate. The hour-long event is titled “Crime Rave: Mystery Reviewers Talk About Their Favorite Crime Fiction,” and it’s scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, September 5, in Salons F-H at the New Orleans Marriott Hotel on Canal Street.

George hasn’t told me yet how he’d like to structure these deliberations, or how many books we should each have prepared for presentation. But I’ve already started amassing “favorites,” based in part on the many “best of the year” lists I have published over the last two decades (some such picks being compiled here). I don’t want to limit myself to releases of recent memory, though. Yarns by Ross Macdonald, Erle Stanley Gardner, Ethel Lina White, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Thomas Dewey, Vera Caspary, Ellery Queen, Celia Fremlin, Arthur Lyons, and others are no less deserving of mention. Maybe we can hand out lists of other books we haven’t time to honor in 60 minutes’ time.

Over the next month and a half, I will likely over-prepare by re-reading some of the tales I plan to recommend. And of course, I shall fill up 3x5 cards with notes. Enough to save me during that instant when the audience’s focus turns my way ... and everything I know about crime, mystery, and thriller fiction is suddenly forgotten.

Wish me luck!

* * *

On the topic of this year’s Bouchercon, I received word today that Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich have won the 2025 David Thompson Memorial Special Service Award, “for their extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field.” That prize will be presented during the convention’s opening ceremonies.

The couple are responsible for the valuable Web resource Stop, You’re Killing Me!, which was created by Bonny Brown in 1998; Surber (a former educator) and Ulrich (a retired lawyer) took it over in 2006. In addition, they’ve been involved with Bouchercon organizing since 2007, and are described in a press release as being “the driving force” behind the annual Left Coast Crime convention.

The David Thompson Award is named after a beloved Houston bookseller who passed away in 2010. Previous winners include Crime Writers of Color, Les and Leslie Blatt, Janet Rudolph, Bill and Toby Gottfried, and The Rap Sheet’s own Ali Karim.

Vicar and Cop Make a Slow Exit

Today brings the announcement that Grantchester, the British TV mystery series set during the 1950 and early ’60s in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester, has been renewed for an 11th season. Unfortunately, that will also be its last season.

The show, which currently stars Robson Green as Detective Inspector Geordie Keating and Rishi Nair as the Reverend Alphy Kotteram, debuted on ITV in the UK and as part of PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery! lineup in the States back in 2014-2015. Since then, Green has remained a fixture of the crime drama, but Nair is the third actor to play a local Anglican vicar prone to helping him solve crimes. The first clergyman, Sidney Chambers, was portrayed by James Norton; Tom Brittney replaced him in Season 4 as William “Will” Davenport.

Green is quoted in a press release as saying:

“From the very beginning, I have had the incredible fortune to be part of this extraordinary team of talented, passionate, and dedicated individuals who have become more than colleagues. They have become family. I have made friendships forged through shared laughter, challenges, and triumphs. The bonds we’ve formed extend far beyond the camera lens, and I know that they will endure long after the final scene within the Grantchester world has been filmed. Thank you to everyone who has been part of this incredible journey. [Producer] Emma Kingsman-Lloyd and [series developer] Daisy Coulam ... from that very first day you gave me the extraordinary opportunity to be part of this experience It has been an honour to share in the magic of Grantchester, and I am forever grateful for the memories, the friendships, and the love that this journey has given me. I hope I made you proud.”

Grantchester is based on The Grantchester Mysteries, a seven-book succession of works by James Runcie. The first of those works was 2012’s Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death.

Season 10 of TV’s Grantchester was shown earlier this year.

READ MORE: “Grantchester to End After 11th Season,” by Paul Hirons (The Killing Times).

Griffiths Receiving Her Due

British crime novelist Elly Griffiths, the author most recently of The Frozen People, will be given the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award “in recognition of her remarkable crime fiction writing career and ‘unwavering commitment to the genre.’”

Griffiths, whose real name is Domenica de Rosa, is best known for writing two series, one about forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway, the other starring Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto. She will be presented with her Contribution Award this coming Thursday, July 17, during the four-day Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England.

Her 2024 yarn, The Last Word, the fourth in a series based around Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur, is among six nominees for the 2025 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

Shotsmag Confidential notes that “Elly Griffiths is the latest in a line of acclaimed authors to have received the coveted Outstanding Contribution Award, with previous winners including Sir Ian Rankin, Lynda La Plante, James Patterson, John Grisham, Lee Child, Val McDermid, P.D. James, Michael Connelly, Ann Cleeves and last year’s recipient, Martina Cole.”

Revue of Reviewers: 7-5-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.

Always an Ace in My Book

I have been a follower of Ace Atkins’ fiction from White Shadow forward, and including his 10 Spenser novels. So I was pleased to read this news item from In Reference to Murder:

Author Ace Atkins will receive the 2026 Harper Lee Award, organizers of the Monroeville Literary Festival have announced. The elite club of previous winners includes E.O. Wilson, Winston Groom, Rick Bragg, and Fannie Flagg. According to festival organizers, the award “recognizes the lifetime achievement of a writer either born in Alabama or strongly connected to the state.” A former Auburn Tiger and sports and crime reporter, Atkins published his first crime novel, Crossroad Blues, in 1998. He’s since published several novels in the Nick Travers and Sheriff Quinn Colson series, as well as standalone titles and a series of ‘Spenser’ novels, continuing the franchise launched by the late Robert B. Parker. The festival and award presentation will take place Feb. 26-28, 2026.

Atkins’ next novel, “a rollicking comedic thriller” titled Everybody Wants to Rule the World, is due out from William Morrow in December.

Yet Another Spade Showing

We last heard from longtime friend of the site Mark Coggins, the creator of series private eye August Riordan, earlier this year, after his surprising acquisition of Raymond Chandler’s Olivetti Studio 44 typewriter. But he contacted us again this week, to say he has a new short story available that connects him to yet another prominent developer of American detective fiction:

The Maltese Falcon [1930], by Dashiell Hammett, entered the public domain on January 1st of this year. This means that other authors are free to take the character of Sam Spade and the story of the Falcon and run with it. In fact, crime-fiction publisher Hard Case Crime has already announced plans to release Return of the Maltese Falcon, by Max Allan Collins, in January of 2026. The new book promises to pick up “where legendary author Dashiell Hammett left off, telling the story of iconic private eye Sam Spade and the quest for the priceless Maltese Falcon.”

I, like Collins, have long had a fascination with the book, and I, too, have been interested in trying my hand at a Sam Spade story. I’m pleased to announce that my attempt at such a story, “Mockingbird,” has been published in the July/August 2025 issue of Eclectica Magazine. You can read it here.

Collins and I share the same middle name (mine being spelled “Alan”) and have the same initials (MAC). Even our last names are pretty damn similar, so perhaps it’s fitting we both took a whack at answering the question, “What happen to the Falcon?”

Mark mentions that he is currently working on another Spade investigation—“a sequel to a sequel, if you will”—tentatively titled “The Russian Egg.” We look forward to reading that tale as well, perhaps while we await the release of Collins’ Return.

Collecting Their Daggers

During a “gala dinner” held tonight at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in London, the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) announced the winners of its 2025 Dagger Awards, in 12 categories.

KAA Gold Dagger: The Book of Secrets, by Anna Mazzola (Orion)

Also nominated: A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan); The Bell Tower, by R.J. Ellory (Orion); The Hunter, by Tana French (Penguin); Guide Me Home, by Attica Locke (Profile); and I Died at Fallow Hall, by Bonnie Burke-Patel (Bedford Square)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: Dark Ride, by Lou Berney (Hemlock Press)

Also nominated: Nobody’s Hero, by M.W. Craven (Constable); Sanctuary, by Garry Disher (Viper); Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill & Secker); Blood Like Mine, by Stuart Neville (Simon & Schuster); and City in Ruins, by Don Winslow (Hemlock Press)

ILP John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger: All Us Sinners, by Katy
Massey (Sphere)

Also nominated: Miss Austen Investigates, by Jessica Bull (Michael Joseph); Knife River, by Justine Champine (Manilla Press); Three Burials, by Anders Lustgarten (Hamish Hamilton); A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder, by Gay Marris (Bedford Square); and Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Zaffre)

Twisted Dagger (for “psychological and suspense thrillers”): Nightwatching, by Tracy Sierra (Viking)

Also nominated: Emma, Disappeared, by Andrew Hughes (Hachette Ireland); Beautiful People, by Amanda Jennings (HQ); The Stranger in Her House, by John Marrs (Thomas & Mercer); The Trials of Marjorie Crowe, by C.S. Robertson (Hodder & Stoughton); and Look in the Mirror, by Catherine Steadman (Quercus)

Whodunnit Dagger (for “cosy crime, traditional mysteries, and Golden Age crime” stories): The Case of the Singer and the Showgirl, by Lisa Hall (Hera)

Also nominated: A Death in Diamonds, by S.J. Bennett (Zaffre); Murder at the Christmas Emporium, by Andreina Cordani (Zaffre); A Good Place to Hide a Body, by Laura Marshall (Hodder & Stoughton); A Matrimonial Murder, by Meeti Shroff-Shah (Joffe); and Murder at the Matinee, by Jamie West (Brabinger)

Historical Dagger: The Betrayal of Thomas True, by A.J. West (Orenda)

Also nominated: A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan); Banquet of Beggars, by Chris Lloyd (Orion); The Book of Secrets, by Anna Mazzola (Orion); and Poor Girls, by Clare Whitfield (Head of Zeus/Aries)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger: The Night of Baby Yaga, by Akira Otani, translated by Sam Bett (Faber & Faber)

Also nominated: Dogs and Wolves, by Hervé Le Corre, translated by Howard Curtis (Europa Editions UK); Going to the Dogs, by Pierre Lemaitre, translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose Press); The Clues in the Fjord, by Satu Rämö, translated by Kristian London (Zaffre); Butter, by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton (4th Estate); and Clean, by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated by Sophie Hughes (4th Estate)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction: The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place, by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury Circus)

Also nominated: Unmasking Lucy Letby: The Untold Story of the Killer Nurse, by Jonathan Coffey and Judith Moritz (Seven Dials); The Lady in the Lake: A Reporter’s Memoir of a Murder, by Jeremy Craddock (Mirror); Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions, by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey (Hodder & Stoughton); The Criminal Mind, by Duncan Harding (Michael Joseph); and Four Shots in the Night: A True Story of Stakeknife, Murder, and Justice in Northern Ireland, by Henry Hemming (Quercus)

Short Story Dagger: “A Date on Yarmouth Pier,” by J.C. Bernthal (from Midsummer Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards; Flame Tree)

Also nominated: “The Glorious Twelfth,” by S.J. Bennett (from Midsummer Mysteries); “Why Harrogate?” by Janice Hallett (from Murder in Harrogate, edited by Vaseem Khan; Orion); “City Without Shadows,” by William Burton McCormick (from Midsummer Mysteries); “A Ruby Sun,” by Meeti Shroff-Shah (from Midsummer Mysteries); and “Murder at the Turkish Baths,” by Ruth Ware (from Murder in Harrogate)

Dagger in the Library (“for a body of work by an established crime writer that has long been popular with borrowers from libraries”): Richard Osman

Also nominated: Kate Atkinson, Robert Galbraith, Janice Hallett, Lisa Jewell; and Edward Marston

Publishers’ Dagger (“awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year”): Orenda Books

Also nominated: Bitter Lemon Press, Faber & Faber, Pan Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster

Emerging Author Dagger (“for the opening of a crime novel by an unpublished writer,” formerly called the Debut Dagger): Joe Eurell, Ashland

Also nominated: Loftus Brown, Bahadur Is My Name; Shannon Chamberlain, Funeral Games; Hywel Davies, Soho Love, Soho Blood; Shannon Falkson, The Fifth; and Catherine Lovering, Murder Under Wraps

Finally, Mick Herron, author of the Slough House series, had previously been declared this year’s recipient of the CWA Diamond Dagger.

An Initial Cut of the Falchions

Organizers of this year’s Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference (August 21-24) have released their list of finalists for the 2025 Silver Falchion Awards. There are 17 categories of nominees, but below are two of particular interest to Rap Sheet readers.

Best Investigator:
• The Things That Cannot Be Forgotten, by Peter W.J. Hayes
(Level Best)
• Last Dog Out, by Candace Irving (Blind Edge Press)
• Black & White, by Justin M. Kiska (Level Best)
• Tiger Claw, by Michael Allan Mallory (Booklocker.com)
• Murder Outside the Box, by Saralyn Richard (Palm Circle Press)

Best Mystery:
• Drop Dead Sisters, by Amelia Diane Coombs (Mindy's Book Studio)
• Obey All Laws, by Cindy Goyette (Level Best)
• At First I Was Afraid, by Marty Ludlum (Babylon)
• A World of Hurt, by Mindy Mejia (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Scorched: Burn Me Once…, by Cam Torrens (Black Rose)

A full list of Silver Falchion contenders can be found here.

The winners are to be announced during the Killer Nashville Awards Dinner on Saturday, August 23, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Book You Have to Read: “Running Wild,” by J.G. Ballard

(Editor’s note: This is the 189th installment in The Rap Sheet’s continuing series about great but forgotten books.)

By Peter Handel
English novelist and short-story author J.G. Ballard (1930–2009) left behind a body of work that encompasses a range of motifs, his vast imagination reflected in the variety of genres he wrote in, from science fiction to semi-autobiographical novels such as Empire of the Sun (based in part on his childhood experiences, and made into a film by Steven Spielberg), and distinctly edgy and unnerving works such as Crash, about “the psychosexuality of car-crash enthusiasts.”

He also wrote several books deconstructing contemporary Western life and the alienation that permeates it. Running Wild, a novella published in the UK in 1988, and in the United States a year later, is a concise, barely 100-page illustration of that concept, which, in Ballard’s singular hand, is at once a searing critique of upper-class family life and a rich comedic parody.

Set in the upper-crust, gated suburban London estate of Pangbourne Village, Running Wild is a first-person recounting of a mass murder at the estate, as told by one Dr. Richard Greville, deputy psychiatric adviser to London’s Metropolitan Police.

Greville opens his account of the killings—all of the casualties being parents, most of them successful professionals—with the puzzling question of why such kind, caring residents were so ruthlessly (and creatively) slaughtered, and who could have done it? The investigation has the authorities stymied, because all 13 of the victims’ children who lived at Pangbourne have disappeared without a trace. “[T]hey’ve vanished through some window of time and space,” Greville observes, quoting the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office on the matter of these unbelievable circumstances. “Not a ransom demand, or even a simple threat to kill them ...”

It’s not a spoiler to mention right off, that only one explanation, an explanation that eludes the authorities—so deluded by their own biases—can be plausible. It was the children who rid themselves of their apparently despised parents. (The cover of the UK edition—shown below—makes this clear, with Janet Woolley’s evocative illustration of the youths, all of whom are holding weapons.)



Greville, recounting the theories of police, runs down a lengthy inventory of what else might have happened—who could have accomplished such mass carnage. Some of those hypotheses are borderline hilarious: perpetrators might have been “Soviet Spetnaz commandoes,” or “an experimental nerve-gas projectile fallen from an RAF or USAF military aircraft”; perhaps “the murdered residents and their children were, unknown to themselves, deep-cover agents of a foreign power.” But why stop there? It could have been “terrorists,” “thrill killers,” “organized crime.” The list goes on.

Ballard is seldom without a satirical sense of humor or embrace of the absurd. For example, consider the name of his gated community, “Pangbourne.” Pang is a “sharp feeling of pain,” or “a sudden sharp feeling of emotional distress.” Bourne, while defined as “a boundary or goal or destination,” may simply be a play on words for “born.”

It’s only Greville and a single policeman, Sergeant Payne, who see that forest for the trees.

Ballard clearly takes delight in describing the manner(s) of death discovered by the police. One victim, for instance, is Roger Garfield, the wealthy parent of a now-missing 16-year-old son, whose body is captured in his car by a police video of the scene—“a merchant banker in his mid-fifties ... sits in the rear seat, head leaning against the off-side stereo speaker as if to catch some fleeting grace note. He is a large-chested man with a well-lunched midriff and strong legs that have spent agonizing hours on an exercise cycle. He has been shot twice through the chest with a small-caliber handgun. Almost as surprising, he is wearing no trousers, and blood-stained footprints emerging from the house indicate that he was shot while dressing after his morning shower. He somehow managed to walk downstairs and take refuge in his car. Perhaps his clouding mind still assumed that he would be driven to his office in the City of London.”

Other death scenes show that “husbands and wives were shot down across their still-warm beds, stabbed in shower stalls, electrocuted in their baths or crushed against their garage doors by their own cars. In a period generally agreed to be no more than twenty minutes, some thirty-two people were savagely but efficiently done to death.”

But, but: As the lucky “domestic servants” who had that particular day off testified, “the murder victims were enlightened and loving parents, who shared liberal and humane values which they displayed almost to a fault. The children attended exclusive private days schools near Reading [a London suburb], and their successful academic records reveal a complete absence of stress in their home lives. The parents (all of whom, untypically, for their professional class, seem to have objected to boarding schools) devoted long hours to their offspring, even to the extent of sacrificing their own social lives.”

Ballard continues to pick at this seemingly attractive scab of a life, and the jokes, as they are, come with rapid frequency. Pangbourne Village is variously described as a place where happiness is practically compulsory, where “social engineering is built into the estate’s design,” and as “a warm, friendly, junior Alcatraz.” (!)

As Greville and Sergeant Payne peruse the bedroom of 17-year-old Jeremy Maxted, Greville finds a stack of Playboy and Penthouse magazines in the youth’s dresser drawer. “Playboy, Sergeant—the first crack in the façade?” Payne replies, “I wouldn’t say so, sir. … If you want to find the real porn, have a look underneath.” At which point Greville “lifted out the top three magazines. Below them were a dozen copies of various gun and rifle publications, Guns and Ammo, Commando Small Arms, The Rifleman, and Combat Weapons of the Waffen SS. I flipped through them, noticing that the pages were carefully marked, with appreciative comments written in the margins. Mail-order coupons were missing from many of the pages.” Adds Greville: “The real porn? I agree.”

Eventually, one child, an 8-year-old girl, Marion Miller, is discovered hiding “in a skip loaded with overnight mail on Platform 7 at Waterloo Railway Station.” But she’s of no help—“[she] was unable to give her name. Exhausted by her ordeal, Marion was sunk in a state of immobility, now and then emitting a strange hissing noise as if she were imitating a pet cat.”

Greville’s want to interview Marion is thwarted by the Home Office. “I requested permission to see the child,” he tells us, “and attached a brief report of my visit to Pangbourne, in which I described certain curious features, such as the mutilated copy of Piaget’s classic text on the rearing of children.” So much for expert advice on the stages of development!

(Left) Author J.G. Ballard.

Although the “authorities” will forever remain unconvinced that the children did away with their parents, Greville eventually figures it out. As he and Sergeant Payne have a conversation about the “mystery,” Payne (who refers to the rest of the missing Pangbourne children as “a Baader-Meinhof for the day after tomorrow”) says, “But one last question. I agree the children killed their parents, and that they carefully planned it together. But why? There was no evidence of sexual abuse, no corporal punishment getting out of control. The parents never raised a hand against the children. If there was some kind of tyranny here it must have been one of real hate and cruelty. We haven’t found anything remotely like that.”

Retorts Greville, “And we never will. The Pangbourne children weren’t rebelling against hate and cruelty. The absolute opposite, Sergeant. What they were rebelling against was a despotism of kindness. They killed to free themselves from a tyranny of love and care.”

In an interview dating back to 1971, many years prior to his writing this novella, the ever-prescient Ballard stated: “Violence is probably going to play the same role in the ’70s and ’80s that sex played in the ’50s and ’60s. ... [O]ne’s more and more alienated from any kind of direct response to experience.”

Running Wild packs the same existential punch today that it surely did when it was originally published more than three decades ago. A remarkable “forgotten book.”

Outro for a Maestro

Let us now praise Lalo Schifrin, the Argentina-born jazz musician and composer who gave us the soundtracks to films such as Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt, and Dirty Harry, and the themes for TV series including The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, and Mannix. He passed away yesterday at age 93 of “complications from pneumonia.”

Deadline recalls in its obituary that

Schifrin won four Grammys on 19 career nominations spanning 40 years and was a six-time Academy Award nominee for The Sting II, The Competition, The Amityville Horror, Voyage of the Damned, The Fox and Cool Hand Luke. He received an Honorary Oscar at the 2019 Governor Awards, one of only three composers ever so honored along with Ennio Morricone in 2006 and Quincy Jones in 2024.

He earned three consecutive Grammy noms for the stirring, dramatic, 5/4-time Mission: Impossible theme from 1967-69, and variations of his composition have appeared in all of Tom Cruise’s M:I movies. Among those who worked on versions of the theme for those films are Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, U2’s Larry Mullin Jr & Adam Clayton and Limp Bizkit.

In all, Schifrin penned more than 100 scores for film and television including Mannix, Bullitt, THX 1138, Enter the Dragon, The Four Musketeers, The Eagle Has Landed, Tango, Bringing Down the House, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, After the Sunset and Abominable.

To honor Schifrin’s memory, The Killing Times has posted several of his compositions, featured in the main titles sequences from U.N.C.L.E., the original M:I, and Starsky and Hutch. But let me add two more gems to that bunch: the openings from T.H.E. Cat, Robert Loggia’s 1966-1967 NBC-TV series about a reformed cat burglar, and from Petrocelli, the 1974-1976 NBC legal drama starring Barry Newman as a hard-charging Manhattan lawyer who relocates to the American Southwest.





I hope to be reminded of more of his work as this day goes on.

LISTEN UP: “Mission: Impossible Composer Lalo Schifrin Dies at 93,” by Bob Mondello (National Public Radio); “Lalo Schifrin, Accomplished Composer, Dies,” by Bill Koenig (The Spy Command).

Tip-offs and Trifles

• French-Canadian director and screenwriter Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Dune and Dune: Part Two) has been tapped to helm the next, 26th James Bond film. “Some of my earliest movie-going memories are connected to 007,” he is quoted as saying. “I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since Dr. No with Sean Connery. I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory. I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come. This is a massive responsibility, but also, incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor.” As The Spy Command observes, this will be “the first Bond movie since Amazon gained creative control of the franchise earlier this year.” There’s no word yet on a title for this picture or when it might be released to theaters.

• In Reference to Murder reports that

Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) will lead Apple’s legal drama Presumed Innocent for Season 2. The series hails from multi-Emmy Award winners David E. Kelley and J.J. Abrams, and executive producers Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel Rusch Rich, Erica Lipez, and Matthew Tinker. Led by Gyllenhaal, Season 1 was inspired by Scott Turow’s courtroom thriller of the same name and tells the story of a horrific murder that upends the Chicago Prosecuting Attorney's office when one of its own is suspected of the crime. The book was published in 1987 and was turned into a 1990 feature starring Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, the same role Gyllenhaal took on. As reimagined by Kelley, Presumed Innocent will explore obsession, sex, politics, and the power and limits of love, as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.

• A hat tip to that same blog for sharing the news that Matthew McConaughey “is in talks to star in Skydance’s feature film based on the iconic private eye, Mike Hammer, from a script by Nic Pizzolatto, who collaborated with the actor in True Detective.” Deadline adds, “Skydance acquired the rights to Mickey Spillane’s and Max Allan Collins’ Mike Hammer franchise with plans to develop and produce the bestselling book series into a feature film. … Collins [who continued the Hammer series after Spillane’s death in 2006], will executive produce with Jane Spillane [Mickey’s widow] serving as co-producer.”

• R.I.P., Terry Louise Fisher, the co-creator of L.A. Law.

• Since May, when I mentioned on this page that host Barry W. Enderwick showcased the Officer Bill Gannon Sandwich (of Dragnet fame) on his YouTube series, Sandwiches of History, I have been checking up on Enderwick’s channel, well, pretty much every day. His latest episode takes us back to Dragnet, this time to sample the Officer Bill Gannon Garlic Nut Butter Sandwich.

• The New York Times asks, “What’s a ‘book boyfriend’?”

• Finally, Lee Child will headline England’s inaugural Whitby Literary Festival, to be held in that North Yorkshire seaside town from November 6 through 9. During a public interview with TV personality and author Rob Rinder, Child plans to talk about Exit Strategy, the 30th Jack Reacher novel (penned with his brother, Andrew Child), set for publication on both sides of the Atlantic come November 4. Also up for discussion will be Child’s “first-ever autobiographical collection,” Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories, due out on September 9.

Bell Commends Brilliance

Three arguable thrillers and one coming-of-age tale with a serial-killing spree as its backdrop are among the dozen novels longlisted for the 2025 Glass Bell Award. This commendation, sponsored by London-based Goldsboro Books, has been given out every year since 2017 to one “outstanding work of contemporary fiction, rewarding quality storytelling in any genre.”

• The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden (Century)
• The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands, by Sarah Brooks (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• The Book of Doors, by Gareth Brown (Bantam)
• James, by Percival Everett (Mantle)
• The List of Suspicious Things, by Jennie Godfrey (Hutchinson Heinemann)*
• The Silverblood Promise, by James Logan (Arcadia)
• Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)*
• Berlin Duet, by S.W. Perry (Corvus)
• A Little Trickerie, by Rosanna Pike (Fig Tree)
• There Are Rivers in the Sky, by Elif Shafak (Viking)
• The Kellerby Code, by Jonny Sweet (Faber & Faber)*
• All the Colours of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Orion)*

(Asterisks identify the four crime-related works.)

If things go as usual, we can expect the release of a shortlist later this summer, with the winner to be announced in September.

For the Thrill of It

During an event held last evening in New York City as part of ThrillerFest XX, the International Thriller Writers (ITW) organization announced the winners of its 2025 Thriller Awards.

Best Standalone Thriller Novel:
The Last One at the Wedding, by Jason Rekulak (Flatiron)

Also nominated: The Paris Widow, by Kimberly Belle (Park Row); The Chamber, by Will Dean (Emily Bestler); Worst Case Scenario, by T.J. Newman (Little, Brown); and The Truth About the Devlins, by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam)

Best Standalone Mystery Novel:
Missing White Woman, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland)

Also nominated: Negative Girl, by Libby Cudmore (Datura); The Night We Lost Him, by Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster); The Life and Death of Rose Doucette, by Harry Hunsicker (Oceanview); What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan (Morrow); and Lake County, by Lori Roy (Thomas & Mercer)

Best Series Novel:
To Die For, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)

Also nominated: The Last Few Miles of Road, by Eric Beetner (Level Best); The Dark Wives, by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur); Shadowheart, by Meg Gardiner (Blackstone); Flashback, by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen (Grand Central); and A Forgotten Kill, by Isabella Maldonado (Thomas & Mercer)

Best First Novel:
Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Henry Holt)

Also nominated: Rabbit Hole, by Kate Brody (Soho Crime); After Image, by Jaime deBlanc (Thomas & Mercer); The Astrology House, by Carinn Jade (Atria); and Blood in the Cut, by Alejandro Nodarse (Flatiron)

Best Audiobook: No One Can Know, by Kate Alice Marshall; narrated by Karissa Vacker (Macmillan Audio)

Also nominated: Darling Girls, by Sally Hepworth, narrated by Jessica Clarke (Macmillan); Hollywood Hustle, by Jon Lindstrom, narrated by Jon Lindstrom (Dreamscape Media); Beyond All Doubt, by Hilton Reed, narrated by George Newbern (Dreamscape Media); and Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera, narrated by January LaVoy and Will Damron (Macmillan)

Best Young Adult Novel:
Darkly, by Marisha Pessl (Delacorte)

Also nominated: Influencer, by Adam Cesare (Union Square); The Other Lola, by Ripley Jones (Wednesday); 49 Miles Alone, by Natalie Richards (Sourcebooks Fire); and Girls Like Her, by Melanie Sumrow (Balzer + Bray)

Best Short Story:
“Jackrabbit Skin,” by Ivy Pochoda (Amazon Original Stories)

Also nominated: “Not a Dinner Party Person,” by Stefanie Leder (from Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir, edited by Tod Goldberg; Soho Crime); “Double Parked,” by Twist Phelan (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November/December 2024); “The Doll’s House,” by Lisa Unger (Amazon Original Stories); “And Now, an Inspiring Story of Tragedy Overcome,” by Joseph S. Walker (from Three Strikes—You're Dead!, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley; Wildside Press)

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Macavity Kudos

Nominations for the 2025 Macavity Awards were announced this morning, in five categories. The winners will be chosen by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI, and declared in September.

Best Mystery Novel:
• Hall of Mirrors, by John Copenhaver (Pegasus Crime)
• Served Cold, by James L’Etoile (Level Best)
• The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
• California Bear, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)
• The In Crowd, by Charlotte Vassell (Doubleday)
• All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Crown)

Best First Mystery:
• Outraged, by Brian Copeland (Dutton)
• A Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman (Headline)
• Ghosts of Waikiki, by Jennifer K. Morita (Crooked Lane)
• You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton)
• The Expat, by Hansen Shi (Pegasus Crime)
• Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best Mystery Short Story:
• “Home Game,” by Craig Faustus Buck (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024)
• “The Postman Always Flirts Twice,” by Barb Goffman (from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer; Down & Out)
• “Curse of the Super Taster” by Leslie Karst (Black Cat Weekly, February 23, 2024)
• “Two for One,” by Art Taylor (from Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman; Level Short)
• “Satan’s Spit,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham; Down & Out)
• “Reynisfjara,” by Kristopher Zgorski (from Mystery Most International, edited by Rita Owen, Verena Rose, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Short)

Best Historical Mystery:
• The Wharton Plot, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
• Fog City, by Claire Johnson (Level Best)
• The Murder of Mr. Ma, by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan
(Soho Crime)
• The Bootlegger’s Daughter, by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union)
• A Grave Robbery, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

Best Non-fiction/Critical:
• Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft, edited by Phyllis M. Betz (McFarland)
• Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers, by Chris Chan (Level Best)
• Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice, by Alex Hortis (Pegasus Crime)
• The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective, by Steven Johnson (Crown)
• On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett, by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State
University Press)
• Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, by Greg Lilly (History Press)

I am especially pleased to see Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark among these contenders, as that was unquestionably my favorite crime/mystery novel published last year.

Distinguished Dicks

The Private Eye Writers of America has announced its finalists for the 2025 Shamus Awards, in four categories.

Best P.I. Hardcover:
• Kingpin, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Hollow Tree, by Phillip Miller (Soho Crime)
• Farewell, Amethystine, by Walter Mosley (Mulholland)
• Trouble in Queenstown, by Delia Pitts (Minotaur)
• Death and Glory, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)

Best Original P.I. Paperback:
• Geisha Confidential, by Mark Coggins (Down & Out)
• Quarry’s Return, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)
• Not Born of Woman, by Teel James Glenn (Crossroad Press)
• Bless Our Sleep, by Neil S. Plakcy (Samwise)
• Call of the Void, by J.T. Siemens (NeWest Press)
• The Big Lie, by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best)

Best First P.I. Novel:
• Twice the Trouble, by Ash Clifton (Crooked Lane)
• The Devil’s Daughter, by Gordon Greisman (Blackstone)
• Fog City, by Claire M. Johnson (Level Best)
• The Road to Heaven, by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson (Dundurn Press)
• Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best P.I. Short Story:
• “Deadhead,” by Tom Andes (Issue 10.1: A Case of KINK—Cowboy Jamboree Magazine)
• “Alibi in Ice,” by Libby Cudmore (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024)
• “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” by M.E. Proctor (from Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith, edited by Michael Bracken; White City Press)
• “Under Hard Rock,” by Ed Teja (Black Cat Weekly #164)
• “The Five Cent Detective,” by S.B. Watson (from Crimeucopia: Great Googly-Moo!; Murderous Ink Press)

All of the winners will be announced on September 4 during Bouchercon 2025’s opening ceremonies, to be held at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Revue of Reviewers: 6-11-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.