Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Revue of Reviewers: 7-29-25
Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.
Saturday, July 26, 2025
Cosby Now Owns Double Raptors
Japanese crime-fiction critic and writer Jiro Kimura reports in The Gumshoe Site that S.A. Cosby has won the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan’s 2024 Maltese Falcon Award for All the Sinners Bleed (Flatiron, 2023). This is the Virginia novelist’s second Falcon victory; his 2021 work, Razorblade Tears, picked up the Falcon last year.
The Falcon prize is “a wood-crafted Falcon statuette,” a copy of which is given annually to “the best hard-boiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year.” Previous recipients include S.J. Rozan, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow, Dennis Lehane, and Michael Connelly.
The Falcon prize is “a wood-crafted Falcon statuette,” a copy of which is given annually to “the best hard-boiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year.” Previous recipients include S.J. Rozan, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow, Dennis Lehane, and Michael Connelly.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Booth’s Coppers Win Screen Time
Stephen Booth spent more than two dozen years as a journalist in England, before becoming a full-time novelist. Between 2000 and 2018, he penned 18 mysteries, the first two of which—Black Dog (2000) and Dancing with the Virgins (2001)—picked up Barry Awards for Best British Crime Novel. All of those yarns starred what I described, in a 2002 January Magazine interview with Booth, as “an odd police couple—the congenitally empathetic Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry, his attractive yet designedly severe superior—based in the East Midlands town of Edendale.”
Now comes RadioTimes with the news that Channel 5 in Britain is adapting this author’s stories for the small screen:
I have read almost all of Booth’s Cooper and Fry tales, and can easily picture James-Collier as Ben Cooper, though I always thought of him as being younger than that actor’s 48 years. My mind is having a bit harder time wrapping itself around the idea of Gill portraying Fry, but that’s largely because she’s described by one male chauvinist character in Black Dog as being “a bit of a hard-faced cow. Could be a looker … but she doesn’t bother. Blonde, but has her hair cut short. Too tall, too skinny, no make-up, always wears trousers. A bit of a stroppy bitch.” It seems unlikely that the dimpled, Anglo-Indian Gill, almost a dozen years younger than James-Collier, would ever be described by any sane person as “a bit of a hard-faced cow.” I look forward to seeing how they’ll embody Booth’s crime-solving police partners.
Now comes RadioTimes with the news that Channel 5 in Britain is adapting this author’s stories for the small screen:
The new TV series, titled Cooper and Fry, will be made up of 4 two-hour episodes, will be set in the Peak District, and will follow two mismatched young detectives.RadioTimes goes on to say, “Each of the episodes is set to adapt one of Booth’s novels, with this first season taking on Black Dog, Dying to Sin [2007], Blind to the Bones [2003] and Dancing with the Virgins.”
One of these detectives is Ben Cooper, an affable local who is played by Downton Abbey and The Inheritance star Robert James-Collier. Meanwhile, the other is Diane Fry, a guarded newcomer played by Doctor Who and Curfew star Mandip Gill.
The synopsis for the series says: “Thrown together to investigate a string of mysterious deaths they must learn to work together to get results. As their personal lives begin to intertwine, a unique friendship begins to form ... but it won’t always be easy.”
I have read almost all of Booth’s Cooper and Fry tales, and can easily picture James-Collier as Ben Cooper, though I always thought of him as being younger than that actor’s 48 years. My mind is having a bit harder time wrapping itself around the idea of Gill portraying Fry, but that’s largely because she’s described by one male chauvinist character in Black Dog as being “a bit of a hard-faced cow. Could be a looker … but she doesn’t bother. Blonde, but has her hair cut short. Too tall, too skinny, no make-up, always wears trousers. A bit of a stroppy bitch.” It seems unlikely that the dimpled, Anglo-Indian Gill, almost a dozen years younger than James-Collier, would ever be described by any sane person as “a bit of a hard-faced cow.” I look forward to seeing how they’ll embody Booth’s crime-solving police partners.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
A Quarter-Century’s Worth of Crime
I got to know actor-turned-author Tom Nolan in 1999, when I interviewed him for January Magazine on the subject of his then-new book, Ross Macdonald: A Biography. Since that time, we have corresponded occasionally, and I’ve tried to keep up with his career as mystery-fiction critic for The Wall Street Journal. Yet I have never been a Journal subscriber (disagreeing as I do with that paper’s politics), so I usually miss reading Nolan’s excellent criticism.
Today, though, former college professor and book collector George Kelley posted in his blog a list Nolan made up for the Journal, purporting to name what its headline says are “The 25 Best Mystery Novels of the Past 25 Years.” The original piece appeared in Saturday’s edition of the newspaper, and can be found online here (behind a paywall). Kelley’s text-only version of Nolan’s list is here, including the columnist’s comments on each of these 25 choices:
• All Things Cease to Appear, by Elizabeth Brundage (2016)
• Big Sky, by Kate Atkinson (2019)
• Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton (2023)
• Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke (2017)
• Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny (2010)
• Dark Sacred Night, by Michael Connelly (2018)
• Death of a Red Heroine, by Qiu Xiaolong (2000)
• Elegy for April, by John Banville writing as Benjamin Black (2010)
• Find You First, by Linwood Barclay (2021)
• The Hunter, by Tana French (2024)
• IQ, by Joe Ide (2016)
• The It Girl, by Ruth Ware (2022)
• The Last Equation of Isaac Severy, by Nova Jacobs (2018)
• The Long Drop, by Denise Mina (2017)
• Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (2016)
• One-Shot Harry, by Gary Phillips (2022)
• The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz (2021)
• Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby (2021)
• Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane (2023)
• A Talent for Murder, by Peter Swanson (2024)
• The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman (2020)
• The Turnout, by Megan Abbott (2021)
• The Twenty-Year Death, by Ariel S. Winter (2012)
• What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman (2007)
• Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (2019)
As with any such selections, arguments are bound to be aroused. I’ve read about half of the works Nolan cites. Some of those I found disappointing, and a couple I very much disliked (due to their violent content). Yet his choices of Magpie Murders, One-Shot Harry, and The Twenty-Year Death, for instance, win my enthusiastic approval. Had I been choosing, I might have included Peter May’s The Blackhouse (2011), Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End (2021), Derek B. Miller’s Norwegian by Night (2013), Jane Harper’s The Dry (2016), Martin Cruz Smith’s Wolves Eat Dogs (2004), Oriana Ramunno’s Ashes in the Snow (2022), Max Allan Collins’ Angel in Black (2001), Philip Kerr’s The Other Side of Silence (2016), Steven Price’s By Gaslight (2016), Dervla McTiernan’s The Ruin (2018), Thomas Mullen’s Darktown (2015), and … well, let’s just say it would be a very different list. But every reader has his or her own tastes, and I shan’t begrudge Nolan’s his.
Today, though, former college professor and book collector George Kelley posted in his blog a list Nolan made up for the Journal, purporting to name what its headline says are “The 25 Best Mystery Novels of the Past 25 Years.” The original piece appeared in Saturday’s edition of the newspaper, and can be found online here (behind a paywall). Kelley’s text-only version of Nolan’s list is here, including the columnist’s comments on each of these 25 choices:
• All Things Cease to Appear, by Elizabeth Brundage (2016)
• Big Sky, by Kate Atkinson (2019)
• Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton (2023)
• Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke (2017)
• Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny (2010)
• Dark Sacred Night, by Michael Connelly (2018)
• Death of a Red Heroine, by Qiu Xiaolong (2000)
• Elegy for April, by John Banville writing as Benjamin Black (2010)
• Find You First, by Linwood Barclay (2021)
• The Hunter, by Tana French (2024)
• IQ, by Joe Ide (2016)
• The It Girl, by Ruth Ware (2022)
• The Last Equation of Isaac Severy, by Nova Jacobs (2018)
• The Long Drop, by Denise Mina (2017)
• Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (2016)
• One-Shot Harry, by Gary Phillips (2022)
• The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz (2021)
• Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby (2021)
• Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane (2023)
• A Talent for Murder, by Peter Swanson (2024)
• The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman (2020)
• The Turnout, by Megan Abbott (2021)
• The Twenty-Year Death, by Ariel S. Winter (2012)
• What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman (2007)
• Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (2019)
As with any such selections, arguments are bound to be aroused. I’ve read about half of the works Nolan cites. Some of those I found disappointing, and a couple I very much disliked (due to their violent content). Yet his choices of Magpie Murders, One-Shot Harry, and The Twenty-Year Death, for instance, win my enthusiastic approval. Had I been choosing, I might have included Peter May’s The Blackhouse (2011), Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End (2021), Derek B. Miller’s Norwegian by Night (2013), Jane Harper’s The Dry (2016), Martin Cruz Smith’s Wolves Eat Dogs (2004), Oriana Ramunno’s Ashes in the Snow (2022), Max Allan Collins’ Angel in Black (2001), Philip Kerr’s The Other Side of Silence (2016), Steven Price’s By Gaslight (2016), Dervla McTiernan’s The Ruin (2018), Thomas Mullen’s Darktown (2015), and … well, let’s just say it would be a very different list. But every reader has his or her own tastes, and I shan’t begrudge Nolan’s his.
Friday, July 18, 2025
Revue of Reviewers: 7-18-25
Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.
In the Theakston Winner’s Circle
Abir Mukherjee’s sixth novel, Hunted (Harvill Secker), a standalone modern conspiracy thriller, has been named as the 2025 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. That announcement was made earlier this evening in Harrogate, England, on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.
Hunted already won top honors in the Crime and Thriller category of this year’s British Book Awards. It has also has been nominated for the 2025 Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, the Barry Award for Best Thriller, and the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award.
Shortlisted as well for the Old Peculier prize were The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre (Sphere); The Mercy Chair, by M.W. Craven (Constable); The Last Word, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus); Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Zaffre); and All the Colours of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Orion).
Tonight’s Theakston festival opening ceremonies brought the further news that David Goodman’s A Reluctant Spy (Headline) has captured the 2025 McDermid Debut Award, named for renowned Scottish crime writer Val McDermid. The five other novels competing for that accolade were Sick to Death, by Chris Bridges (Avon); I Died at Fallow Hall, by Bonnie Burke-Patel (Bedford Square); Her Two Lives, by Nilesha Chauvet (Faber & Faber); Isolation Island, by Louise Minchin (Headline); and Black Water Rising, by Sean Watkin (Canelo).
Finally, Elly Griffiths, author of the Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries and other series, was given the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her best-selling career in crime fiction and her “unwavering commitment to the genre.”
Hunted already won top honors in the Crime and Thriller category of this year’s British Book Awards. It has also has been nominated for the 2025 Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, the Barry Award for Best Thriller, and the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award.
Shortlisted as well for the Old Peculier prize were The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre (Sphere); The Mercy Chair, by M.W. Craven (Constable); The Last Word, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus); Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Zaffre); and All the Colours of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Orion).
Tonight’s Theakston festival opening ceremonies brought the further news that David Goodman’s A Reluctant Spy (Headline) has captured the 2025 McDermid Debut Award, named for renowned Scottish crime writer Val McDermid. The five other novels competing for that accolade were Sick to Death, by Chris Bridges (Avon); I Died at Fallow Hall, by Bonnie Burke-Patel (Bedford Square); Her Two Lives, by Nilesha Chauvet (Faber & Faber); Isolation Island, by Louise Minchin (Headline); and Black Water Rising, by Sean Watkin (Canelo).
Finally, Elly Griffiths, author of the Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries and other series, was given the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her best-selling career in crime fiction and her “unwavering commitment to the genre.”
From Spy to Sleuth
In May we learned that Apple TV+ would be adapting the late Philip Kerr’s series of World War II-era crime novels for the small screen. Now comes word that 35-year-old Scottish actor Jack Lowden, who currently stars as once-up-and-coming MI5 agent River Cartwright on Slow Horses (another Apple TV+ production), will lead this coming program’s cast as German cop-turned-shamus Bernie Gunther.
As RadioTimes reports:
(Above) Jack Lowden as River Cartwright in Slow Horses.
I admit, I’m having some trouble imagining Lowden as Bernie Gunther. I might have hired somebody a bit bigger and beefier for the role, to better fit my image of the character. But then, I didn’t think sexagenarian actress Lesley Manville was right for the part of book editor-cum-sleuth Susan Ryeland in Magpie Murders, the 2022 retailoring of Anthony Horowitz’s novel of that same name for television—and boy, was I wrong. So I am more than ready to give Lowden a chance here. I’m just glad to finally see Kerr’s heavy-drinking, heavy-smoking, and enthusiastically womanizing gumshoe finally make it to the small screen!
As RadioTimes reports:
The first season is expected to be based on Kerr's [2019] novel Metropolis, the last book published in the series but set [in 1928] before all the others and providing the origin story for Bernie Gunther, the character Lowden is set to play.Deadline adds that “BAFTA nominee Tom Shankland will direct as well as executive produce the Apple TV+ series … Peter Straughan, who won the Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Conclave, will serve as showrunner as well as adapt the script and executive produce. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman will also exec produce through their Playtone banner. Playtone and Apple most recently teamed on the World War II series Masters of the Air. The new series will be filmed in Berlin.”
The synopsis for the series, which is currently untitled, says: “Bernie is a police officer, newly promoted to the intimidating and elite Berlin Murder Squad, and must investigate what seems to be a serial killer targeting victims on the fringes of society.
“Bernie’s Berlin is a city of unprecedented freedom and dizzying turbulence, the Nazis just a distant nightmare waiting in the wings. With the political and social world shifting to a new norm, we see Bernie fighting for truth, whatever the cost.”
(Above) Jack Lowden as River Cartwright in Slow Horses.
I admit, I’m having some trouble imagining Lowden as Bernie Gunther. I might have hired somebody a bit bigger and beefier for the role, to better fit my image of the character. But then, I didn’t think sexagenarian actress Lesley Manville was right for the part of book editor-cum-sleuth Susan Ryeland in Magpie Murders, the 2022 retailoring of Anthony Horowitz’s novel of that same name for television—and boy, was I wrong. So I am more than ready to give Lowden a chance here. I’m just glad to finally see Kerr’s heavy-drinking, heavy-smoking, and enthusiastically womanizing gumshoe finally make it to the small screen!
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Picking Just One Won’t Be Easy
Fifteen years after the establishment of New Zealand’s Ngaio Marsh Awards, organizers of those annual commendations for crime, mystery, and thriller fiction today released a 2025 longlist of Best Novel nominees that is—what else?—15 books long.
• Return to Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)
• The Hitchhiker, by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins)
• A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)
• Leave the Girls Behind, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Allen & Unwin)
• Woman, Missing, by Sherryl Clark (HQ Fiction)
• Hell’s Bells, by Jill Johnson (Black & White)
• The Mires, by Tina Makereti (Ultimo Press)
• A Fly Under the Radar, by William McCartney (Self-published)
• Home Truths, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
• 17 Years Later, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette)
• Ōkiwi Brown, by Cristina Sanders (Cuba Press)
• A House Built on Sand, by Tina Shaw (Text)
• The Call, by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
• Prey, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)
• The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone, by Gareth and
Louise Ward (Penguin)
Craig Sisterson, who launched these prizes in 2010, applauds the “diverse array of characters and stories” represented by these latest nominees. As he notes, they include “a Māori sleuth trying to leave policing behind, a New York bartender with an entourage of dead girls, a colonial Wellington tale entwined with infamous Edinburgh body-snatchers, a gay investigator in Renaissance Florence, a probation officer whose beloved husband is sucked into the pit of internet disinformation, and a couple of bookselling former British coppers.”
The finalists for Best Novel, as well as for this year’s Best First Novel and Best Non-fiction awards, are to be announced in mid-August. Winners of the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards will be revealed on Thursday, September 25, during the WORD Christchurch literary festival.
• Return to Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)
• The Hitchhiker, by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins)
• A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)
• Leave the Girls Behind, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Allen & Unwin)
• Woman, Missing, by Sherryl Clark (HQ Fiction)
• Hell’s Bells, by Jill Johnson (Black & White)
• The Mires, by Tina Makereti (Ultimo Press)
• A Fly Under the Radar, by William McCartney (Self-published)
• Home Truths, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
• 17 Years Later, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette)
• Ōkiwi Brown, by Cristina Sanders (Cuba Press)
• A House Built on Sand, by Tina Shaw (Text)
• The Call, by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
• Prey, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)
• The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone, by Gareth and
Louise Ward (Penguin)
Craig Sisterson, who launched these prizes in 2010, applauds the “diverse array of characters and stories” represented by these latest nominees. As he notes, they include “a Māori sleuth trying to leave policing behind, a New York bartender with an entourage of dead girls, a colonial Wellington tale entwined with infamous Edinburgh body-snatchers, a gay investigator in Renaissance Florence, a probation officer whose beloved husband is sucked into the pit of internet disinformation, and a couple of bookselling former British coppers.”
The finalists for Best Novel, as well as for this year’s Best First Novel and Best Non-fiction awards, are to be announced in mid-August. Winners of the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards will be revealed on Thursday, September 25, during the WORD Christchurch literary festival.
Monday, July 14, 2025
Bloody and Belated to Boot
Amid all of this month’s personal and professional hubbub, I seem to have missed seeing that the longlist of contenders for the 2025 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year was announced. Below are those lucky 13 nominees.
• Whispers of the Dead, by Lin Anderson (Macmillan)
• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• The Dying Light, by Daniel Aubrey (HarperNorth)
• Carnival of Lies, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)
• Unsound, by Heather Critchlow (Canelo)
• The Moon’s More Feeble Fire, by Allan Gaw (Polygon)
• The Good Father, by Liam McIlvanney (Bonnier)
• Paperboy, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Press)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Vintage)
• Gunner, by Alan Parks (John Murray)
• Death of Shame, by Ambrose Parry (Canongate)
• Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin (Orion)
• A Thief’s Blood, by Douglas Skelton (Canelo)
The McIlvanney Prize, named in honor of William McIlvanney, author of the novel Laidlaw, will be presented on Friday, September 12, during this year’s Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival. Previous winners include Chris Brookmyre, Craig Russell, Francine Toon, Peter May, and Charles Cumming.
• Whispers of the Dead, by Lin Anderson (Macmillan)
• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• The Dying Light, by Daniel Aubrey (HarperNorth)
• Carnival of Lies, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)
• Unsound, by Heather Critchlow (Canelo)
• The Moon’s More Feeble Fire, by Allan Gaw (Polygon)
• The Good Father, by Liam McIlvanney (Bonnier)
• Paperboy, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Press)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Vintage)
• Gunner, by Alan Parks (John Murray)
• Death of Shame, by Ambrose Parry (Canongate)
• Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin (Orion)
• A Thief’s Blood, by Douglas Skelton (Canelo)
The McIlvanney Prize, named in honor of William McIlvanney, author of the novel Laidlaw, will be presented on Friday, September 12, during this year’s Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival. Previous winners include Chris Brookmyre, Craig Russell, Francine Toon, Peter May, and Charles Cumming.
Saturday, July 12, 2025
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 Moreno 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):
• 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:
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 Moreno 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.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.
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.
• 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?”
Tuesday, July 08, 2025
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!
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.
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:
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).
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.”
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.”
Saturday, July 05, 2025
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.
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