Before I Forget …

A few additions to yesterday’s wrap-up of crime-fiction news.

• The Spy Command reports that the as-yet-untitled 25th James Bond movie has “found its replacement director and will be pushed back to early 2020 … The new director is Cary Joji Fukunaga, who replaces Danny Boyle who departed the project last month. Filming now is scheduled to start March 4, 2019, according to the announcement. The previous start date was Dec. 3.” FOLLOW-UP: Variety writer Brent Lang says it’s a “risky bet” to give “true auteur” Cary Joji Fukunaga directing responsibilities on the next Bond picture.

• Los Angeles writer Ryan Gattis (Safe) has an interesting new piece out this week in CrimeReads about what he calls the “gang procedural. A story that focuses almost exclusively on gang- or mafia-related criminals trying to solve a crime themselves—without the aid of the state.” This concept brings to mind Day of the Moon (1983), an underappreciated novel by Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey Wallmann (writing jointly as “William Jeffrey”) that uses as its private eye-like protagonist a guy in San Francisco named Flagg, who works as a troubleshooter for the mob, investigating thefts, hijacking, and other offenses against that widespread criminal organization.

• For The Paris Review, teacher-turned-private investigator Anne Diebel examines Dashiell Hammett’s unusual and unlikely path toward a fiction-writing career.

• Really, there’s going to be a Twilight Zone reboot?

• Two different authors supply background to their latest novels: For Shotsmag Confidential, American storyteller Andrew Gross explains what led him to write The Last Brother (published in the States as Button Man). And in The Guardian, the UK’s Dominick Donald talks about incorporating the real-life serial killer John Christie and London’s Great Smog of 1952 into his debut thriller, Breathe.

• Sad but true: I just discovered that Edward Biddulph has decided to “call it a day with James Bond Memes,” the blog he’s been writing for eight years. However, he assures us that “James Bond Memes will stay on the air, and so all my articles will remain available to read.”

• Finally, In Reference to Murder brings news that “The city of Wallingford in the UK may be getting its own Agatha Christie statue. The Queen of Crime lived in town, and the Wallingford Museum sponsors an annual Agatha Christie festival in the author's honor. Now, the same artist who created a memorial to Agatha Christie in London (a memorial in the form of a large bronze book, featuring the crime writer’s face) is being asked to complete a similar tribute in Wallingford which will likely take the form of the author seated on a bench reading a book.”