• I’m not sure I have ever watched the original series, but I hope to sample this new version sometime. From In Reference to Murder:
Bergerac is returning with a 2025 makeover and plenty of global networks are welcoming the iconic detective back. The original series starred John Nettles as the titular crime fighter, Jim Bergerac, and ran for nine seasons between 1981 and 1991. Unlike that show, which had a new storyline in each episode, the modern series from writer Toby Whithouse follows one character-led murder mystery. Bergerac begins the series as a broken man, grappling with grief and alcoholism following his wife’s death. His mother-in-law (Zöe Wanamaker) is concerned he is not putting his daughter (Chloé Sweetlove) first, and when a woman from a wealthy Jersey family is murdered, he has to go through personal struggles to become the formidable investigator he was. Philip Glenister also stars.Wikipedia says this six-episode show will air in Britain “on U&Drama and be available to stream for free on U in February 2025.” There’s no word yet of an American presentation. Amazon Prime and BritBox already stream the Nettles series. (UPDATE: George Easter, the editor of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, suggests I remind readers that venerable British author Andrew Taylor composed half a dozen tie-in novels to Nettles’ Bergerac back in the late 1980s, using the pen name Andrew Saville. Those books are now out of print, but Easter says, “I picked three of them up on a trip to England in the 1980s and was impressed by them. I didn’t find out until later that they were written by Andrew Taylor.”)
• Timothy Olyphant, of Deadwood and Justified fame, is slated to star alongside Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit) in Lucky, a forthcoming limited series for Apple TV+ based on Marissa Stapley’s 2021 novel of that same name. According to publisher Simon & Schuster’s description of Lucky’s plot, the story follows Lucky Armstrong (to be played here by Taylor-Joy), “a tough, talented grifter who has just pulled off a million-dollar heist with her boyfriend, Cary. She’s ready to start a brand-new life, with a new identity—when things go sideways. Lucky finds herself alone for the first time, navigating the world without the help of either her father or her boyfriend, the two figures from whom she’s learned the art of the scam. When she discovers that a lottery ticket she bought on a whim is worth millions, her elation is tempered by one big problem: cashing in the winning ticket means she’ll be arrested for her crimes. She’ll go to prison, with no chance to redeem her fortune. As Lucky tries to avoid capture and make a future for herself, she must confront her past by reconciling with her father; finding her mother, who abandoned her when she was just a baby; and coming to terms with the man she thought she loved—whose dark past is catching up with her, too.” Deadline notes that Olyphant has been cast in this mini-series as Lucky’s father.
• The online entertainment publication Collider reminded us recently that, decades before Justified hit the airwaves in 2010, another neo-Western cop drama, this one starring Dennis Weaver, was a huge success for NBC-TV: McCloud. That NBC Mystery Movie offering, writes Michael John Petty, “ran for seven seasons in the 1970s … and featured plenty of exciting (and often mysterious) adventures. If you’re looking for a new Western to binge that feels a bit more modern in nature, then look no further than McCloud.”
• All of which brings to mind another Mystery Movie segment, Richard Boone’s Hec Ramsey, which as Collider explains, “followed an old gunslinger as he sought to use more modern methods of criminal investigation to solve crimes on the open frontier. In a way, it was sort of like NCIS meets the Wild West.” Did you know that Rick Lenz, who played by-the-book police chief Oliver Stamp during Hec Ramsey’s two seasons (1972-1974) and has since appeared in both films and small-screen series, is also an author? Now 85 years old, he has what I believe is his fourth novel due out from Chromodroid Press later this month. Mit Out Sound is not a work of crime fiction, but instead tells the story of an aspiring movie producer who sets out to complete a legendary, long-lost film starring James Dean and John Wayne.
• I didn’t realize that author Tom Robbins had turned 92 years old last July! However, the fact that he’d achieved such longevity doesn’t make his passing this week any easier to accept. I met Robbins only once, in Seattle, and later sought his contribution to a magazine I was editing at the time. But his books were a significant feature of my young life. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), Still Life with Woodpecker (1980), Skinny Legs and All (1990)—I devoured every one of those at some point or another. I realize now, though, that I never got around to reading Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994). So let me add that to the list of present ideas for my upcoming birthday.
• And as tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, Janet Rudolph has updated her lists of both crime fiction related to this annual celebration of affection and of the genre’s many “sweetheart sleuths.”
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