— Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera
— First Lie Wins, by Ashley Elston
— We Play Games, by Sarah A. Denzil (Audible Original)
— The Teacher, by Freida McFadden
— The Sequel, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
— All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker
— We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman
— The Safe Man, by Michael Connelly (Audible Original)
— After You’ve Gone, by Margot Hunt (Audible Original)
(Hat tip the Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.)
• CrimeReads seems to have launched what has become its annual rollout of top crime- and mystery-fiction picks, unaccompanied by fanfare, starting with Molly Odintz’s rundown of what she says are the 10 “Best Gothic Novels of 2024.”
• Mick Herron, author of the Slough House spy novels (from which Apple+ TV’s Slow Horses is being adapted) has been tapped as programming chair for the 2025 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, set to take place in Harrogate, England, from July 17 to 20.
• The third season of Dalgliesh, the fine British TV crime drama based on novels by P.D. James and starring Bertie Carvel, is scheduled to start airing on both sides of the Atlantic in early December. Click here to watch a trailer. The Killing Times explains that the three books being adapted this time are Death in Holy Orders, Cover Her Face, and Devices and Desires. “Each story will be a two-parter, mirroring previous series’ approach. In the first, [Detective Chief Inspector Adam] Dalgliesh travels to a remote seminary overlooking a windswept lake, where a body has been found gruesomely murdered, while the second will see him look into a murder in the Essex home of a staggeringly wealthy family with connections to the British government.” This third go-round for Dalgliesh will begin in the States on Acorn TV come Sunday, December 2, and in the UK on December 5.
• Meanwhile, UK broadcaster ITV has ordered up a second series of After the Flood, with Sophie Rundle set to reprise her lead role as small-town English copper Joanna Marshall. Six new episodes will find “newly promoted detective Jo Marshall on the trail of a baffling murder investigation,” reports The Killing Times. “As tensions simmer in Waterside amid the rising threat of moorland fires and the subsequent risk of further flooding, a body is discovered in bizarre circumstances. Jo’s race to stop the killer will put her in opposition to dark, influential forces within the town, and ultimately take her on a much more personal investigation. One that will require her to operate in secret if she is to have any hope of rooting out the corruption that has blighted the town’s police force—and her own family—for decades. Philip Glenister is also back as Jack Radcliffe and Lorraine Ashbourne is confirmed to return as Jo’s mother, Molly.”
• Harry O fans, rejoice! Steve Aldous and Gary Gillies’ book, The Harry O Viewing Companion: History and Episodes of the Classic Detective Series (McFarland), is due out in early February of next year.
I knew this work was in progress, but only just learned of its imminent publication. Here’s a contents description from Amazon:
In the golden era of 1970s TV detective shows, Harry O stood out. David Janssen, already renowned for his role in The Fugitive, played Harry Orwell, a San Diego cop who retired after being shot in the back. The chemistry between Janssen and Anthony Zerbe, who delivered an Emmy-Award winning performance as Lt. K.C. Trench, captivated viewers and contributed to the show's popularity. While Harry O was largely character-driven, it also featured compelling plots that retained the show's audience throughout its two seasons.This book’s British co-author, Aldous, is an occasional Rap Sheet contributor, who previously penned The World of Shaft: A Complete Guide to the Novels, Comic Strip, Films, and Television Series (McFarland, 2015). Gillies is a Scottish musician and record producer, as well as the co-creator of a theatrical production called Alien War. I’m dearly hoping to rope at least one of them into an interview for this blog, sometime closer to when their new book hits print.
In this viewing companion to Harry O, all episodes are covered, along with information about cast, crew, locations, and story analysis. The book contains examinations of archival material, including series creator Howard Rodman's papers. It also features new interviews conducted by the authors, providing insight into the creation of the series [plus an introduction by Les Lannom, who played private-eye wannabe Lester Hodges]. From the filming of the pilot episodes in 1972 to the show's cancellation in '76, the book offers a comprehensive history of each step in the show's development.
• If you would care to revisit a Harry O tribute I wrote for CrimeReads a few years back, you will find that right here.
• Slate columnist Laura Miller disparages the clichés that riddle Amazon Prime’s new thriller TV series Cross, starring Aldis Hodge, yet she applauds that show’s racial awareness. “Apart from a few higher-ups in the police brass, all the significant characters in [Alex] Cross’ life are Black,” she writes, “and their social world—from family karaoke nights to house parties—feels warm, rich, and authentic.”
• Need more cozy crime in your life? Deadline brings word that streamer Acorn TV and Paramount‘s Channel 5 “are co-producing an adaptation of Reverend Richard Coles‘ bestselling book Murder Before Evensong. … Murder Before Evensong was published in 2022 and introduces Canon Daniel Clement, a rector of Champton who becomes embroiled in a murder case when a cousin to the church’s patron is found stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs.”
• Mark this down on your calendar: The Series 5 debut of Miss Scarlet (formerly Miss Scarlet and the Duke) to PBS-TV’s Masterpiece lineup will come on Sunday, January 12, 2025—though it will be accessible earlier (on December 8) to PBS Passport subscribers. With the departure of Stuart Martin, who played struggling London sleuth Eliza Scarlet’s childhood friend and sometimes rival in this show’s initial four seasons, Detective Inspector William “Duke” Wellington, we find Miss Scarlet (played by Kate Phillips) now returned to her own, finally thriving detective agency, but with a new Scotland Yard antagonist and potential love interest, Alexander Blake (Tom Durant Pritchard). Synopses of the new episodes, as well as a Season 5 trailer, can be found on the Masterpiece Web site.
• And on December 11, the Scottish crime drama Shetland will kick off its ninth-season run on streamer BritBox. That BBC One-originating series, which stars Ashley Jensen as Detective Inspector Ruth Calder and Alison O'Donnell as Detective Sergeant Alison “Tosh” McIntosh, has already been showing in the UK for the last two weeks. Mystery Fanfare says the latest half-dozen episodes will focus on “a double missing person’s case that ‘blurs the lines between the personal and the professional, as Calder and Tosh are drawn into a labyrinthine investigation’ … When Tosh’s friend, Annie Bett (Sarah MacGillivray), goes missing, Ruth Calder—now living in Shetland—has no time to recover from a life-threatening ordeal of her own, and instead teams with Tosh to search for Annie and her young son, Noah (Jacob Ferguson).” I don’t know whether I am ready for more of Shetland. The show started to change, to grow darker, after its sophomore season, when episodes were no longer being adapted from Ann Cleeves’ Jimmy Perez novels, and were instead scripted exclusively for the small-screen. Star Douglas Henshall giving up his role as Perez after the seventh season left a hole in the cast that hasn’t adequately been filled by Jensen, who plays yet another troubled/damaged TV police detective. I may have to move on.
• I don’t know much about this yet, only what I have read in Ayo Onatade’s Shotsmag Confidential blog:
CrimeFest, one of the UK’s leading crime fiction conventions, will feature an exclusive John le Carré event featuring the author’s two sons.CrimeFest 2025 will take place in Bristol, England, May 15-18.
Considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era, the ‘Ghost of Honour’ panel sees le Carré’s son, Nick Harkaway, discuss his latest novel, Karla’s Choice. In the book, Nick brought back one of his father’s most famous literary creations—George Smiley.
The panel also welcomes Le Carre’s older son, the film producer Simon Cornwell, who is the CEO and co-founder of the independent studio, The Ink Factory. He is currently executive producing the much-anticipated second season of The Night Manager for Amazon and the BBC, starring Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman.
• Editor George Easter this week e-mailed the Fall 2024 edition of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine to online subscribers. Its contents include a cover feature about UK novelist Jo Callaghan (Leave No Trace), plus extensive lists of other recent and recommended crime/thriller novels from across the pond; Mike Ripley’s latest “Ripster Revivals” column, weighing “the joys and disappointments of rediscovering books I should have read many years ago,” among them Morris West’s The Big Story (1957) and Gavin Lyall’s The Conduct of Major Maxim (1982); and a wide variety of new-book reviews by contributors Kevin Burton Smith, Meredith Anthony, Ted Hertel, Robin Agnew, Hank Wagner, and others. I’m always impressed by how much content Easter manages to squeeze into every issue of DP! Subscription information is available here.
• For fans of William Lindsay Gresham, best known for his 1946 novel, Nightmare Alley, Mystery*File editor Steve Lewis offers this interesting interview with the author’s stepson, Bob Pierce (no relation to yours truly). “In our interview,” Lewis writes, “Bob recalls growing up with Gresham, and some memories of spending time with Gresham’s sons, David and Douglas, in 1952-1953 before they moved away with [Gresham’s first wife, Joy] Davidman.”
• Finally, this might make a good present for the young readers (4-8 years old) on your Christmas list: a condensed 32-page version of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie’s 1920 Hercule Poirot whodunit. The well-illustrated work is being touted as “the first in a series of interactive picture book mysteries for children.”
Thrilled to see Shetland returning. With so many of the shows I watch taking off for the holidays, I hope to play catchup on a lot of British crime TV.
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