




















In the tense thriller The Marsh King’s Daughter, a woman with a secret past will venture into the wilderness she left behind to confront the most dangerous man she's ever met: her father. In the film, Helena’s seemingly ordinary life hides a dark and dangerous truth: her estranged father is the infamous Marsh King, the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. When her father escapes from prison, Helena will need to confront her past. Knowing that he will hunt for her and her family, Helena must find the strength to face her demons and outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the wild.• Occasional Rap Sheet contributor Randal S. Brandt writes in CrimeReads about the “fascinating and complicated life” of Lange Lewis (aka Jane de Lange Lewis), whose fourth novel about Los Angeles police lieutenant Richard Tuck, The Birthday Murder (1945), has been reissued as part of the American Mystery Classics line.
Paramount+ released the first teaser trailer for Taylor Sheridan’s Lawmen: Bass Reeves, which stars David Oyelowo as the titular character. Reeves (Oyelowo), a former slave, was known as the greatest frontier hero in American history, working in the post-Reconstruction era as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory and capturing over 3,000 of the most dangerous criminals without ever being wounded. Future iterations will follow other iconic lawmen and outlaws who have had an impact on history.Wikipedia offers more of Reeves’s story here.
Five writers have been shortlisted for the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction, currently in its fifth year after being established by LJ Ross, writer of the North East-based DCI Ryan series. The prize aims to celebrate outstanding crime and thriller storytelling of those who are from, or whose work celebrates, the North East of England. This year’s finalists [are] Robert Meddes, Those Men, Those Faces; Sarah Jeffery, The Perfect Alibi; Alan Sendall, Double Infidelity; Karys Frank, Stone Cold Truth; and Sarah Williams, Vacancy for Murder.Last year’s Lindisfarne Prize recipient was The Children of Gaia, by Bedlington writer Jacqueline Auld,
The winner will be announced on September 6 and will receive a cash prize to support the completion of their work, alongside funding for membership of the Society of Authors (SoA) and the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLI).
Entertainment 360 joins as a producer with Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger producing with Guymon Casady producing for Entertainment 360. Benjamin Forkner and Ken F. Levin will also produce. Collins will executive produce, with Jane Spillane serving as co-producer. Carin Sage will oversee the project for Skydance. ...As savvy Rap Sheet followers know, Spillane batted out 13 Mike Hammer novels during his 88 years on Earth, from I, the Jury (1947) to Black Alley (1996). Iowa author Collins, to whom Spillane entrusted his unpublished and unfinished works, released his first “collaborative” Hammer novel, The Goliath Bone, in 2008. Since then, he’s completed another 13 novels, plus a 2016 collection of Hammer short stories, A Long Time Dead. His latest joint venture with Spillane is Dig Two Graves, which was originally due out this month from Titan Books, but has been postponed until mid-September.
The producers have the rights to the Hammer catalog which includes dozens of stories, books and graphic novels authored by Mickey Spillane as well as those co-authored by Spillane and his friend the best-selling author Collins ...
Cassie Stewart (Nicola Walker) was tragically killed in an RTA at the end of season four leaving her number two, DI Sunny Kahn (Sanjeev Bhaskar) bereft. Now her replacement has arrived but it’s all sandpaper between DCI Jessica James (Sinéad Keenan) and the normally empathetic and easy-going Sunny.Watch the new season trailer at the Killing Times link above.
When a body is discovered inside a bricked in fireplace in an old London townhouse, DCI James isn’t even sure she wants to take the case. Police budgets. But the team quickly show that this was a murder and start generating leads, with connections stretching right up into the British government and across the Thames into the down-and-out squats inhabited by heroin addicts and petty thieves.
Text © 2006-2025 by The Rap Sheet or its individual contributors.
Rap Sheet logo by David Middleton.