From the TV Front

• Deadline reports that “The BBC and BritBox International have landed on Endless Night as their latest Agatha Christie adaptation from Sarah Phelps. Set in 1967, the book is neither a Poirot [n]or a Marple but follows man-of-many-trades Michael Rogers, who finds himself working as chauffeur for the enigmatic designer du jour Rudolf Santonix. Transfixed by Santonix’s latest project, a beautiful house in the English countryside, Mike dreams of meeting the love of his life and taking up residence. But unbeknownst to Mike, the house that he has set his heart on has a dark past that goes back for centuries.” There’s no casting news yet, but filming is expected to begin later this year.

• With the debut of Netflix’s Department Q expected on May 29, a trailer for that crime drama—based on Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen’s police procedural series (The Keeper of Lost Causes, etc.)—was released earlier in the week. This British adaptation, set in Edinburgh, Scotland, follows a previous series of Danish films adapted from Adler-Olsen’s novels about a once-respected homicide cop, Carl Mørck, demoted to cold-case investigations. Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey, Ordeal by Innocence) stars in the new program as detective Morck (now without the “ø”). The International Movie Database (IMDb) says nine episodes will comprise Department Q’s opening season.

• We learned last fall that Scottish actress Phyllis Logan (another Downton Abbey regular) will play Cora Felton, the author of a syndicated puzzle column, in The Puzzle Lady from UK broadcaster Channel 5. As The Killing Times says, this six-episode mystery—derived from the late Parnell Hall’s eight Puzzle Lady books—“begins when a strange murder takes place in the sleepy market town of Bakerbury. The local police are baffled by a crossword puzzle left on the body. With their case going nowhere, they turn reluctantly to Cora Felton, a recent arrival in Bakerbury; whose fame as the eponymous Puzzle Lady suggests she can help DCI Hooper [to be played by Adam Best] and the Bakerbury police solve its first murder case. But the eccentric Cora isn’t who she claims to be, and as she throws herself into a murder case that has the town’s residents baffled, she starts to gather allies and enemies in equal measure.” No premiere date has been announced, but it’s expected to be sometime in 2025.

• And though this has sod all to do with crime fiction … Did you know that a third and last Downton Abbey theatrical release is coming in September of this year? I first heard about it while looking for information about Logan and The Puzzle Lady. With the exception of Maggie Smith, who died in late 2024, the majority of Downton cast members are to return in the coming movie, appropriately titled Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. While I was slightly disappointed in the second picture (2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era), you can bet that as a longtime fan of the original 2010-2015 TV program, I shall be buying tickets as soon as possible to see this third sequel.

Bullet Points: Tariffs-Free Edition

• Who should be the next cinematic Bond? With Daniel Craig having departed the role of James Bond following 2021’s No Time to Die, speculation on which actor might next play Ian Fleming’s famous British superspy has revolved at various times around Henry Cavill, Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Jack Lowden, and even 21-year-old Louis Partridge. CrimeReads’ Olivia Rutigliano has her own suggestion: “Joshua Bowman, the charming English actor who played Krasko on Doctor Who, and Daniel Grayson on ABC’s Revenge.” While I’m not yet on board with Bowman as Agent 007, I heartily endorse her idea that the next movie should be set in the 1950s, pre-Sean Connery. Remember that the ending of No Time to Die makes it pretty ridiculous to resurrect that protagonist for further feats in the 2020s. So why not return Bond to his roots, at the height of the Cold War? “It could be an origination story of the character,” writes Rutigliano, “rather like how Craig’s era rebooted the franchise with Casino Royale and used the Vesper Lynd love story as a consistent anchor for Bond’s choices, across multiple films. This could do something like that, with a nostalgic temporal re-contextualization that could stand out in a franchise that has historically insisted on contemporaneity.” Hey, everyone over at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Amazon (which now owns the intellectual property rights to Bond), are you listening?

• Meanwhile, The Spy Command’s Bill Koenig notes that “This year marks the 60th anniversary of Thunderball, the fourth Bond film and the apex of the 1960s spy craze.” He also alerts us to a Bond fan event, Gatherall at Goldeneye, set to take place in Jamaica this coming fall, and mentions that a new, expanded edition of Joseph Darlington’s 2013 book, Being James Bond: Volume One, is coming in August—though there’s not yet an Amazon “pre-order” link to share.

• Do you know the retro film and TV Web site Modcinema? I’ve ordered low-cost, made-on-demand DVD copies of forgotten small-screen features from that enterprise before, but its latest newsletter alerts me to a wealth of new offerings. Among them: the 1972 teleflick Assignment: Munich, which spawned Robert Conrad’s short-lived show Assignment: Vienna; a three-disc set containing all five episodes of the 1978 series Richie Brockelman, Private Eye starring Dennis Dugan; three episodes (including the pilot) of Cool Million, the James Farentino series that was one spoke of the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie “wheel series” (two additional eps can be found in this set); and Fame Is the Name of the Game, the 1966 made-for-television picture starring Tony Franciosa, which “served as the pilot episode of the subsequent series The Name of the Game.”

• As a longtime follower of Peter Falk’s NBC Mystery Movie series, I’m surprised this February release didn’t hit my radar before now: Columbo Explains the Seventies: A TV Cop’s Pop Culture Journey, by Glenn Stewart (Bonaventure Press). UPDATE: Stewart tells The Columbophile about what inspired him to write this book.

• My suspicion is there aren’t many people around these days boasting solid memories of the 1980 ABC-TV action series B.A.D. Cats. As Wikipedia recalls, that Douglas S. Cramer/Aaron Spelling production starred Asher Brauner and Steve Hanks as “two former race car drivers who joined the Los Angeles Police Department as part of the ‘B.A.D. C.A.T.’ Squad (a double acronym for ‘Burglary Auto Detail–Commercial Auto Theft’).” Then 21-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer appeared on the program too, playing Officer Samantha “Sunshine” Jensen, who “would occasionally lend a hand when a more feminine approach was called for.” B.A.D. Cats didn’t last long; it was cancelled in February 1980 after a pilot (which you can view here) and five other episodes had been broadcast. But as Vintage Everyday observes, the show was an important stepping stone on Pfeiffer’s path to Hollywood renown. A few days ago, that blog posted almost four dozen promotional photos of her from B.A.D. Cats, which it says demonstrated “Pfeiffer’s youthful charm and emerging star quality.” The actress would go on to play a different breed of bad cat in Batman Returns (1992).

• While I greatly enjoyed Netflix’s first two Enola Holmes movies (in 2020 and 2022), based on the middle-reader mysteries by Nancy Springer, I forgot there was to be another. Variety brings the news that its production is already well underway. “The third instalment,” that publication explains, “sees adventure chase Enola Holmes to Malta, where, according to the description, ‘personal and professional dreams collide on a case more tangled and treacherous than any she has faced before.’” As in the previous pictures, Millie Bobby Brown will play Sherlock Holmes’ teenage sister. There’s no release date yet.

• This item comes from In Reference to Murder:

Wallander, the globally acclaimed Swedish detective drama, is getting “a modernized and reimagined reboot” with Gustaf Skarsgård (Oppenheimer, Vikings) playing the iconic role. The first season of the new Swedish-language adaptation will comprise three 90-minute films and will see Kurt Wallander, now 42, recently separated, after two decades of marriage, and estranged from his daughter. On the edge as his life seemingly unravels, Wallander drinks too much, sleeps too little, and carries the weight of every unsolved case.

Penned by bestselling author Henning Mankell, the Wallander novels have sold over 40 million copies and been translated into more than 40 languages. The original Swedish series and film adaptations, which aired between 1994 and 2013, garnered wide international success and were followed by a British mini-series adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh that earned him a BAFTA for his portrayal of the detective.

• Sunday, June 15, will bring the return of Grantchester to PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! timeslot. Mystery Fanfare has the trailer for Season 10 of that historical whodunit.

• As Saturday Evening Post columnist Bob Sassone writes, “Dragnet’s Officer Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) was known for the food he ate, which often confused and worried his partner Joe Friday (Jack Webb). Barry Enderwick of the terrific Sandwiches of History decided to try it, at the suggestion of many of his fans.” Watch the video here.

• The small-screen period crime drama Peaky Blinders is coming back! So are the rebooted Bergerac and the Death in Paradise spin-off Return to Paradise (even though I haven’t seen either of their opening seasons yet). And Acorn TV has scheduled the two-episode premiere, on Monday, June 9, of Art Detectives, which “revolves around the Heritage Crime Unit, a [UK] police department hired to solve murders connected to the world of art and antiques.”

• I was a huge fan of Leverage, the 2008-2012 TNT-TV crime caper series starring Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Aldis Hodge, Christian Kane, and Beth Riesgraf. I must have watched every episode four times or more! Yet when that show was revived in 2021 as Leverage: Redemption, with Noah Wyle replacing Hutton, I hesitated tuning in, partly because I wasn’t sure I could believe the “gang” being a decade older and still as active. I think I’ve seen only two episodes of Redemption, and I completely missed the news that it had been renewed for a third season. The first three of 10 new installments aired on April 17, with more to come every Thursday through June 5. I guess it’s time I started catching up! See the trailer below.



• The Web site Geek Girl Authority (yeah, I’d never heard of it until today either) features a review of Leverage: Redemption, Season 3, plus this tribute to my favorite Leverage team member, Riesgraf’s prodigiously eccentric Parker, “truly the world’s greatest thief.”

• Speaking of TV trailers, CrimeReads has posted one for Season 2 of Poker Face, the crime comedy-drama starring Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, “a casino worker on the run who entangles herself into several mysterious deaths of strangers along the way.” That show will return to the streaming service Peacock on Thursday, May 8, with 12 new episodes (two more than were broadcast in 2023).

• And while you are at CrimeReads, enjoy these three other posts that went up there recently: Patrick Sauer’s salute to Tony Rome, the South Florida gumshoe introduced in 1960’s Miami Mayhem by Marvin H. Albert, and a character Frank Sinatra played in a couple of “groovy” films; Christopher Chambers’ case for reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (which celebrated its 100th anniversary earlier this month) as noir; and Scott Montgomery’s look back at the first quarter-century of Stark House Press’ efforts to return to print many hard-boiled authors and novels from the 1950s and ’60s.

• Thomas Pynchon has a new private-eye novel coming in October!

• National Public Radio weekend host Scott Simon interviews film historian Jason Bailey about his brand-new biography, Gandolfini: Jim, Tony and the Life of a Legend (Abrams Press). That book is being promoted as “a detailed and nuanced appraisal of an enduring artist,” Jim Gandolfini, who was apparently quite different from the New Jersey Mafia boss he played on HBO’s The Sopranos.

• Why can’t the United States have nice things like this? The British Writers’ Association and the Reading Agency, a UK charity, have jointly organized National Crime Reading Month (NCRM) in June. “This year,” says a press release, “it opens with an exclusive online panel, The Lives of Crime, featuring bestselling crime authors. On 4 June at 6 p.m., the CWA chair and bestselling author, Vaseem Khan, will host authors Fiona Cummins, Adele Parks, and Penny Batchelor in the free online panel event.” They’ll be talking about “the genre’s universal appeal—from psychological thrillers to cozy mysteries—and how it creates accessible pathways to reading for audiences who might otherwise never discover the joy of books.” (Click here to register.) Beyond that presentation, NCRM will offer “over a hundred local author events and talks that run throughout June across the UK and Ireland, which take place in libraries, theatres, bookshops and online.” A page devoted to keeping track of NCRM events is available at this link.

• I am way behind in reading Paperback Warrior’s occasional “primers” on vintage crime novelists and pulp-fiction characters. The latest entry in that series recalls Kendell Foster Crossen (1910-1981), who “wrote crime-fiction novels under the name of M.E. Chaber, a pseudonym he used to construct the wildly successful Milo March series from the mid-1950s through the 1970s.” Fun stuff! UPDATE: Another such primer has just “gone live,” this one relating the background of Charles Williams, who “authored 22 books and was one of the best-selling writers in the Fawcett Gold Medal stable.”

• Historical mystery novelist Jeri Westerson used to produce a blog called Getting Medieval, offering interviews and articles—only to suddenly delete that journal from the Web, leaving links at other sites broken. She says now that “it was too much work and social media was rising.” Recently, though, Westerson decided to return to blogging. She has subsequently posted several author exchanges of interest. Gary Phillips, James R. Benn, and Rebecca Cantrell have all fielded questions from her. I hesitate slightly to link to these conversations, leery of their also disappearing someday, but transience is unfortunately a Web foible.

• Is this creative or creepy? From The Hollywood Reporter:

BBC Studios, the commercial arm of British broadcaster BBC, and the Agatha Christie estate have teamed up to launch a writing course on education-focused streaming service BBC Maestro taught by Christie herself. Well, to be precise, it is taught by the queen of crime, brought to life by actress Vivien Keene and AI, using the author’s own words.

“In a world first, Agatha Christie—best-selling novelist of all time—will be offering aspiring writers an unparalleled opportunity to learn the secrets behind her writing, in her own words,’ the partners said. ‘Using meticulously restored archival interviews, private letters and writings researched by a team of Christie experts, this pioneering course reconstructs Christie’s own voice and insights, guiding you through the art of suspense, plot twists and unforgettable characters.”

James Prichard, Christie’s great-grandson and the CEO of Agatha Christie Limited, is quoted in The Guardian as saying that the educators and researchers behind this subscription-based video series “extracted from a number of her writings an extraordinary array of her views and opinions on how to write. Through this course, you truly will receive a lesson in crafting a masterful mystery, in Agatha’s very own words.” OK, maybe it’s creative, after all.

• I have given precisely zero thought to what might be the “best crime novels of 2025 … so far.” However, both The Times of London and The Week have already shared their favorites.

• Over at my Killer Covers blog, I’ve written a great deal about the American artist Robert McGinnis this year, both prior to his demise in March (at age 99!), and after. But author Max Allan Collins had his own memories to share, in this post that talks about how he scored an unusual number of McGinnis’ paintings for use on his novels about the hired killer known only as Quarry.

• Can we ever get enough of Belgian author Georges Simenon’s Jules Maigret mysteries? Penguin Books has been publishing paperback versions of them over the last decade, and has brand-new editions set to become available beginning in July. And now the U.S. imprint Picador is joining in the game, launching its own Maigret lineup this month. Over the next three years, Picador says, it too will reissue all 75 Maigrets, plus “thirty of his darker standalone ‘romans durs’ beginning March 2026.” Pietr the Latvian will reach stores on May 6, together with The Late Monsieur Gallet and The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, all of which originally saw print back in 1931. It may be time to clear some space on your bookshelves!

• This is a terrible loss—at least from my perspective. The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which celebrated appallingly bad initial sentences to (fortunately) never-to-be-completed books, is no more. Scott Rice, who, as an English professor at California’s San Jose State University, founded the competition in 1982, says he finds it “becoming increasingly burdensome and [I] would like to put myself out to pasture while I still have some vim and vigor!” The Rap Sheet has posted many of the winners over time, and we’re sorry not to be able to keep up that tradition for decades more to come.

• California author J. Sydney Jones produced half a dozen books in his Viennese Mysteries series, beginning with The Empty Mirror (2008) and ending—it was presumed—with The Third Place (2015). They were complicated and propulsive stories of crime in the Austrian capital that took place during the very early 20th century, had as their leads lawyer Karl Werthen and real-life criminologist Doktor Hanns Gross, and seemed to fare well in the marketplace. However, Jones writes in his blog, “The original series stopped after book six. I had originally planned it for another three to four installments. But other projects came up, other publishers.” The author nonetheless returned to that series during the COVID-19 pandemic, penning a “capstone” titled Lilacs of the Dead Land, which he published in February of this year—a novel that somehow managed to avoid my radar. He calls it “a stirring historical thriller set in Austria shortly after the German annexation, or Anschluss, of March 1938.” As one who very much appreciated his Viennese Mysteries, I’ll want to find a copy soon.

• It should be mentioned that one of those “other projects” Jones embarked upon was a new crime series, set on California’s central coast during World War II and adopting as its protagonist a wounded former New York City police detective, Max Byrns. The second Byrns book, Play It in Between (Werthen Press), debuted in April.

• April 17 brought the presentation, at New York City’s New School, of the 37th annual Publishing Triangle Awards celebrating “LGBTQ+ literary excellence.” During that event, Massachusetts author and creative writing professor Margot Douaihy was given the Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing for her second Sister Holiday novel, 2024’s Blessed Water (Zando/Gillian Flynn Books). Hansen, you will remember, penned a dozen novels in the late 20th century starring gay death claims investigator Dave Brandstetter.

• Just as “authors hitting the best seller list are approaching gender equality for the first time,” a new independent press in Great Britain proposes to center its business on male writers. Reporting on this development, Lit Hub’s James Folta acknowledges that “female authorship is on the rise, especially recently,” but he adds, “to conclude that men therefore need an urgent champion seems naïve and near-sighted. To look at this trend or, perhaps more accurately, to feel the vibes and conclude that male authors are in danger is pushing it. Male authors going from 80% to 50% of the market is far from a crisis in need of another intervening corrective.”

• And here’s one more instance of a blog rising from the dead. The Stiletto Gumshoe debuted back in November 2018, focusing on crime and mystery fiction and the artwork associated with same. But it went dormant just two years later, with its author, C.J. Thomas, apologizing that “some troubling ‘real-life’ issues need to be wrestled with right now, so there’ll be a break from blogging here for a while. Hope to be back soon …” Soon was not soon at all. When The Stiletto Gumshoe finally disappeared altogether from the Internet (forcing me to substitute links to its posts from The Wayback Machine), I struck it from this page’s lengthy blogroll, too. Then, just as abruptly as it was gone, Thomas’ creation returned! This last April 23, Thomas put up a tribute to Sergeant DeeDee McCall, the role Stepfanie Kramer played in the 1980s TV crime drama Hunter. He has followed that with posts about the 1950 film noir Where Danger Lives, J. Robert Lennon’s new Buzz Kill, French 1980s print ads from DIM Paris, and much more. Welcome back, C.J., I hope you can stick around this time.

Turning the Dial

Amid all of my (mostly self-imposed) reading responsibilities, I have not been keeping up with what television offers. Only recently, for instance, did I finally tune in the seven-episode, 2024 AppleTV+ adaptation of Laura Lippman’s novel Lady in the Lake. And last night, I began watching Season 3 of Prime Video’s Reacher, which stars the terrific Alan Ritchson and is based on Lee Child’s seventh Jack Reacher novel, Persuader. I’m hoping this latest eight-episode run of Reacher will combine humor, character development, and action in a manner similar to the balance achieved in Season 1.

Meanwhile, debuts steam ahead (or should that be “stream” ahead) without a moment’s concern for my schedule:

• Agatha Christie’s 1944 crime novel Towards Zero has been translated into a star-spangled three-part small-screen drama set to commence showing on the UK’s BBC One on Sunday, March 2. BritBox will carry it in the States, but at a not-yet-specified date.

• A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, with the captivating Lucy Boynton playing an “infamous murderess, the last woman to be hanged in the UK” in the mid-1950s), is headed to British boob tubes on Wednesday, March 5. I just read, though, that this four-part historical drama is already available via BritBox on this side of the pond! (See what I mean about not staying current?)

• Amanda Seyfried stars in Long Bright River as a Philadelphia police officer “determined to track down her missing, drug-addicted sister, while simultaneously untangling the mystery of who’s murdering young prostitutes in the district she patrols.” All eight installments of this show, based on Liz Moore’s 2020 novel of the same name, will drop on streamer Peacock come Thursday, March 13.

• The 2024 thriller A Remarkable Place to Die, starring Chelsea Preston Crawford as a police detective who, to quote Telly Visions, “returns to her home town of Queensland in New Zealand, which she both loves and hates,” debuted on Acorn TV on February 17. Four 90-minute installments will stream on Mondays through March 10.

• Last but certainly not least, British broadcaster ITV has commissioned a fifth season of Ben Miller’s Professor T before that mystery’s fourth series has even aired (on PBS-TV here in the States).

Bullet Points: Packed Potpourri Edition

• Audible, the online audiobook/podcast service, has chosen its “10 best mysteries and thrillers of 2024” (all of them Audible releases):

— 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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.

CrimeFest 2025 will take place in Bristol, England, May 15-18.

• 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.”

Bullet Points: Valentines Edition

Forgive me, dear readers, for I have sinned. It’s been three and a half months since my last “Bullet Points” news wrap-up. Which doesn’t mean I’ve been sitting on my ass in the meantime, doing nothing. In fact, the closing months of 2023 were some of last year’s busiest here at The Rap Sheet. But they were crammed full of “best books of the year” posts, leaving me little time to concentrate on compiling miscellaneous items related to this genre. Which is too bad, because I’ve always enjoyed producing pieces of this sort.

Long before The Rap Sheet existed, way back in my college days, I penned (actually, typed—on a manual typewriter!) a column of information and opinion for the school’s weekly newspaper called “In the Fast Lane.” Since that time, I’ve launched similar wrap-ups for the assorted publications at which I found employment (most of which no longer exist), from Oregon Magazine’s “Grapevine” and Monthly Detroit’s “Lip Service” to “Native Intelligence” (Washington Magazine) and a media-news compendium known as “Cuff Notes” (Seattle Weekly). While my journalism career has allowed me ample opportunities to compose longer, more in-depth pieces, I’ve never lost my taste for gathering together tidings of greater and lesser import, all for the education and entertainment of the reading public.

In that sense, “Bullet Points” might be thought of as the latest incarnation of an enterprise I’ve engaged in since I was too young to order bar service. Herewith, my first wrap-up of 2024.

• At almost 900 pages in length, there’s no question that The FBI Dossier: A Guide to the Classic TV Series Produced by Quinn Martin and Starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (Black Pawn Press), by Bill Sullivan with Ed Robertson, is the definitive resource for fans of ABC’s The FBI (1965-1974). It may also provide a supposedly large segment of modern society with an introduction—or reintroduction—to that hour-long law-enforcement procedural. Despite the broadcast having scored top-10 or at least top-20 ratings during most of its nine years on the boob-tube, Sullivan and Robertson quote one source as calling it “the most successful long-running show that no one seems to remember.” And they appear determined, with this paperback doorstopper, to overcome that astonishing cultural amnesia. The FBI Dossier isn’t merely an episode guide, though you can certainly find in its pages detailed material about all 241 installments of the series. It boasts, as well, a brief history of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation; listings of the various performers who trod across the program’s sets (Ed Asner, Suzanne Pleshette, Henry Darrow, Lindsay Wagner, Roy Thinnes, etc.); promotional materials and advertisements for The FBI; and a veritable flood of intriguing info about the show’s regulars (notably the friendship between Zimbalist and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover), its creators (Quinn Martin and Philip Saltzman), and its place in the history of American television. I was far from a loyal follower of The FBI, yet I found myself sitting for significant stretches of time recently with this book propped open on my lap, jumping randomly between its sections, enthralled throughout by the knowledge and insights its authors have to share. An index at the back might have made finding such particulars easier, but its lack isn’t a terrible knock on the product as a whole. As It’s About TV! blogger Mitchell Hadley wrote in his own critique of this work, “Don’t let the book’s size be daunting; if you’re a fan of The FBI—either from its original run or through the DVDs that Warner [Bros.] issued in the last few years—The FBI Dossier is a must-have. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, or have seen just a few episodes, you’ll find yourself wanting to read, and watch, more.”

• Remember A.J. Finn, otherwise known by his real moniker, Daniel Mallory? His 2018 psychological thriller, The Woman in the Window, became an international best-seller and was adapted into a 2021 film of that same name. But as The Real Book Spy’s Ryan Steck recalls, the book editor-turned-novelist’s skyrocketing renown took a severe hit in 2019, when The New Yorker published a “scathing and surgical takedown of Mallory/Finn, taking nearly 12,000 words to paint a full picture of Mallory’s antics—which range from ‘borrowing story ideas’ to lying about having brain cancer to lying about relatives dying to lying about his own background and education (specifically that he had a master’s degree from Oxford; he, apparently, does not) to lying about his past work history.” Only now, five years after The Woman in the Window debuted, does Finn have a second novel in the offing: End of Story, due out from William Morrow on February 20. Bookpage says that its story, “billed as “part Knives Out, part Agatha Christie, … centers on mystery novelist Sebastian Trapp, who invites Nicky Hunter, an expert on detective fiction, to his luxurious home to help draft his memoirs. But while there, Nicky becomes obsessed with solving the mysterious disappearance of Sebastian’s first wife and son.”

• Next Wednesday, February 14, will be Valentine’s Day. In anticipation of that, The Book Decoder has selected “10 Gripping Mystery Novels Where Romance Takes a Dark Turn.” And yes, before you ask, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is included.

• The blog Promoting Crime Fiction presents its own impressive aggregation of Valentine’s Day mysteries, while Janet Rudolph tenders a no-less-substantial list in Mystery Fanfare.

• U.S. publisher Soho Press is introducing a new horror-fiction imprint called Hell’s Hundred. “Named after the once bleak, now chic New York City neighborhood of SoHo—formerly known as ‘hell’s hundred acres’ for its grim industrial facades and deadly fires—Hell’s Hundred provides fertile ground for new nightmares to take root,” explains the imprint’s inaugral catalogue. Publishers Weekly adds: “The first two books from Hell’s Hundred will debut this summer. First up is youthjuice, by former beauty editor E.K. Sathue [the pseudonym of Erin Mayer], which Soho associate editor Taz Urnov bills as ‘a horror satire about the beauty industry that really puts the gore in gorgeous,’ slated for June. And in August, Soho Crime list stalwart Stuart Neville, whose noir mysteries often incorporate supernatural elements and regularly border on horror proper, will jump to the Hell’s Hundred list with Blood Like Mine, his tenth book for the publisher. Soho calls the novel ‘a chilling monster story about a mother and daughter on the run across the Southwest’ and ‘as much an inauguration of Hell’s Hundred as it is a new chapter in Neville’s oeuvre.’”

• Deadline notes that​, 30 years after his initial appearance on NBC-TV’s Law & Order, actor Sam Waterston is leaving the show. “Waterston’s final appearance as District Attorney Jack McCoy, whom he played across more than 400 episodes, will air on February 22,” we’re told. “As Waterston exits, the cast will be joined by Tony Goldwyn (Oppenheimer, Scandal), who will portray the new district attorney. Goldwyn has previously starred in the Law & Order spinoff Criminal Intent as Frank Goren, a character who died in the series. Goldwyn will be playing a new character on Law & Order.”

• Editor George Easter is out with the first issue of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine for 2024. Roughly the opening quarter of this 88-page PDF-only quarterly is devoted to “best crime fiction of 2023” lists, gleaned from DP’s own critics as well as those from assorted other sources (including The Rap Sheet). In addition, there are myriad reviews of new and soon-to-be-published fiction released on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as in Australia (thanks to contributor Jeff Popple), and a selection of the “most anticipated mysteries of 2024.” Robin Agnew’s “Historical Emporium” column of historical mysteries is always a DP go-to for me, and Easter introduces here “Ripster’s Revivals,” a new feature by Mike Ripley (also to be found in Shots) that focuses on crime novels and thrillers he’s been intending to read for years, but never quite got around to. Finally, Easter’s “Editor’s Message” contains tidbits of news about the health of people long involved with the magazine, including L.J. Roberts, who he says “has unfortunately not rebounded from her most recent health crisis and will have to discontinue her review column for the foreseeable future.” Click here to subscribe to Deadly Pleasures for $10 per annum.

• After many years as a journalist, I am naturally drawn to books and movies in which reporters play prominent roles. A few years back I wrote a CrimeReads piece about news gatherers involved in the solving of fictional mysteries. More recently, and for the same online publication, fellow ink-stained wretch Keith Roysdon dwelt upon the intersection of films and newspapers, while in an earlier piece author Tara Lush celebrated the appearance of reporters in cozy whodunits. It all makes me want to break out one of my old reporter’s notebooks and set to questioning somebody about something!

• If you’re already on the CrimeReads site, poking around, search out these three terrific February posts: “The 1931 Murder That Foretold a New Era of Crime and Corruption in New York City,” an excerpt from Michael Wolraich’s new non-fiction work, The Bishop and the Butterfly (which just happens to be the next book on my TBR stack); “Drama King: Hake Talbot and the Art of the Impossible,” Curtis Evans’ appreciation of “two cleverly deceptive tales by mystery's greatest showman”; and the latest fine entry in Neil Nyren’s “Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics” series, appraising the three-decades-long career of Laurie R. King, whose 18th Mary Russell book, The Lantern’s Dance, will be released next week by Bantam Books.

• Brydon Coverdale, a journalist based in Melbourne, has won the 2024 Louie Award, given by the Australian Crime Writers Association for best fast fiction (stories of up to 500 words in length). His entry, “Good Old Collingwood Forever,” followed this year’s theme of “artificial intelligence.” The ACWA also commended two other writers for their submissions: Catherine Craig for “Abe Taught Me,” and Brent Towns for “She Made Me.” According to a press notice, “The winner receives $500 cash and the two highly commended writers receive $125 each.” You will find links to all of their stories here.

• The Essential Chester Himes, a new Everyman’s Library collection of that author’s four best-remembered Grave Digger Jones/Coffin Ed Johnson novels, is prominently on my birthday wishlist this spring. So I was delighted to read, in advance, this adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s introduction to said work in The New York Times. “If Chandler is considered the poet of crime fiction and Hammett its great journalist,” Cosby opines, “then Himes is the songwriter of the downtrodden. His stories sing with a fire and light that comes from a simmering sense of loss. A loss of respect, of humanity, of honor.”

(Left) Toby Jones stars in Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office on PBS.

• My TV viewing habits have been all over the map so far in 2024. I really enjoyed watching former Happy Valley star Sarah Lancashire’s warm-hearted and multi-layered portrayal of cookbook author/cooking show chef Julia Child in HBO Max’s Julia, only to learn that series was cancelled after two seasons on the air. I’m four episodes into Monsieur Spade, which casts Clive Owen as Dashiell Hammett’s former San Francisco gumshoe, Sam Spade, in a complex yarn about slain nuns and a much-sought-after but mysterious boy. Owen is entirely credible as Spade, and the program’s periodic references to The Maltese Falcon just make me smile. Hulu-TV’s Death and Other Details, about a locked-room murder on board a luxury cruise line, I find far less captivating—and more than moderately confusing—but will try to stick with it through all 10 of its weekly installments. And now I’m looking forward to the U.S. presentation of Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office, set to premiere under PBS’ Masterpiece umbrella on Sunday, April 7. This four-part drama, based on a true story and aired originally on UK screens in January, isn’t crime fiction, but it is certainly rooted in wrongdoings. Here’s a plot synopsis supplied by PBS:

When money started to seemingly disappear from its local branches, [Great Britain’s] government-owned Post Office wrongly blamed their own managers for its apparent loss. For more than a decade, hundreds were accused of theft and fraud, and many were even sent to prison—leaving lives, marriages, and reputations in ruins. But the issue was actually caused by errors in the Post Office’s own computer system—something it denied for years. Revealing a shocking David vs. Goliath fight for justice, this is the story of the decent ordinary people who were relentlessly pursued, coerced and controlled by a powerful corporation, and their ongoing battle, against seemingly insurmountable odds, to right so many horrific wrongs.

Toby Jones (The Witness for the Prosecution, The Pale Blue Eye) leads the ensemble cast of this series, which The Guardian called “a devastating tale of a national scandal.”

• Oh, and I still haven’t seen all of Jodi Foster’s True Detective: Night Country. I tuned in to the first of its half-dozen episodes on HBO back in mid-January, but found the plot—with its supernatural elements—more than a tad confounding. Maybe I simply wasn’t in the right mood, or my workday had left me unable to relax and soak it in. Whatever the case might have been, I determined to wait until the final installment was broadcast on February 18, and then binge-watch this fourth season of True Detective over a week. I’ve done that on occasions when a show’s story is so involved that viewing one episode every seven days allows me time to forget plot nuances.

• A belated “happy birthday” to Batman co-creator Bill Finger!

• I came to Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen’s fiction fairly early, reviewing his first Department Q mystery, One Last Chance, for Kirkus Reviews back in 2011. Now The Killing Times brings word that Netflix is preparing a small-screen series based on those books, actually adapted from a succession of earlier Danish films and featuring British actor Matthew Goode (Downtown Abbey, The Crown) as homicide cop Carl Morck. This new show will be set in Edinburgh, rather than Copenhagen. The Killing Times offers the following summary of its storyline: “After a violent incident turns Morck’s life upside down, the emotionally scarred detective is charged with setting up a cold case unit, Department Q, upon his return to work. At first, the disillusioned cop is happy to waste his days away, but his detective instincts are ultimately reawakened and his new department becomes a magnet for a crew of misfits and mavericks.” There is as yet no reliable estimation of a debut date for this program.

• Speaking of forthcoming TV presentations, Deadline reports:

The BBC is keeping its Agatha Christie tradition alive by setting Towards Zero as its next adaptation of the great author’s work.

Following on from 2023’s limited series Murder Is Easy, the BBC has commissioned Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited to reimagine the writer’s 1944 novel.

Towards Zero unfolds around the murder of an elderly widow at a clifftop seaside house, linking a failed suicide attempt, a schoolgirl wrongfully accused of theft, and the romantic life of a famous tennis player.

• Neil Albert, author of the Dave Garrett detective series, has spent much of the last few years writing an excellent blog about another crime-fictionist, the renowned Ross Macdonald. However, he has determined that his multi-post approach to analyzing each of Macdonald’s books hasn’t been paying off in readership stats. So he announced recently that he’s changing his approach. “I will write one post per book, briefly summarizing the plot without spoilers,” he says. “I will start again at the beginning, with The Dark Tunnel. The follow-up posts, released every five days, will be posts on specific subjects related to the book under discussion. No more chapter-by-chapter summaries; if you want to see those, they will remain available and are searchable. I expect to have two or three follow-up posts per book. … I hope the readership finds it more agreeable. Ross Macdonald deserves to be remembered one way or another.” Do check out Albert’s endeavors here when you get a free moment or two.

• Should you happen by Chicago between March and October of this year, don’t miss the Museum of Science and Industry’s new exhibit, “007 Science: Inventing the World of James Bond.”

• The online platform Substack doesn’t draw a great deal of my attention, but I have become fond of one weekly offering there: “Secret Sleuths,” by British crime historian (and host of Murder by the Sea) Dr. Nell Darby. A source of fascination for those of us hungry for more unusual stories of crimes through time.

• R.I.P., Don Murray. The California-born actor, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance in the 1956 film Bus Stop, and who starred on TV in The Outcasts (1968-1969) and Knots Landing (1979-1981), died on February 2 at age 94. In addition to those better-known parts, Murray appeared in episodes of Amy Prentiss, Police Story, T.J. Hooker, Matlock, Murder, She Wrote, and Twin Peaks.

• It’s nice to see Christopher Huang’s second mystery, Unnatural Ends—one of my favorite books of 2023—selected by Cross-Examining Crime blogger Kate Jackson as her January “Book of the Month.” She observed recently that Unnatural Ends “is not an alibi-focused mystery, nor is it one in which lots of physical evidence is poured over for postmarks, fingerprints, or DNA. In that sense it reminds me of Five Little Pigs (1942) by Agatha Christie. It is a mystery of character and only by understanding the people involved and the past, will the truth emerge. You really get to know the characters, but it doesn’t drag as a book. I did anticipate the final solution, as it fits the characters perfectly, but I don’t think it was a cast-iron idea in my head—I did consider other possibilities as I went along. Given its character-driven nature, its dramatic secrets, and the engaging way the story is told, I think this would make for a great TV series.”

• Joe Peschi starred in a TV crime drama? Well, 1985’s Half Nelson was really more of a comedy-drama that found the pint-size Peschi portraying Rocky Nelson, described by Wikipedia as “a former New York City cop who moved to Beverly Hills, where he got a job at a private security service for the rich and famous, while attempting to make it as an actor. In addition to guarding celebrities, he also helps solve crimes.” Professional football players Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus, and singer-actor Dean Martin, helped fill out the cast of this show from producer Glen A. Larson. With such a lineup, you would have expected its run to be longer than six episodes. For the time being, you can watch the first episode of Half Nelson on YouTube.

Bullet Points: Info Dump Edition

• It’s only the third week of October, but already American bookseller Barnes & Noble has announced what it says are the “Best Mystery Books of 2023.” Here are that chain’s 10 selections:

— After That Night, by Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins)
— The River We Remember, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
— The Last Devil to Die, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
— The Raging Storm, by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur)
— The Only One Left, by Riley Sager (Dutton)
— Zero Days, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press)
— Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane (Harper)
— All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
— You Shouldn’t Have Come Here, by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone)
— Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide, by Rupert Holmes (Avid Reader Press)

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter observes that, in addition to those, B&N’s “Best Fiction of 2023 list [contains] two titles that some consider mystery fiction”: Bright Young Women, by Jessica Knoll (Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci); and I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makkai (Viking).

• Author Max Allan Collins spreads the word that actor Todd Stashwick, who commanded such attention as the irksome Captain Liam Shaw in Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, has been cast as Chicago private investigator Nathan Heller in the pilot for a podcast version of Collins’ longest-running crime series. Said pilot is adapted from Chapter 1 of Stolen Away (1991), the fifth Heller yarn.

• This page has frequently highlighted instances of stock photography being overused on crime and thriller novels. Here are two additional examples: Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen, by Sarah James (Sourcebooks Landmark, November 2024); Hard Girls, by J. Robert Lennon (‎Mulholland, February 2024).



Do publishers think readers don’t notice such blatant duplications, or that we just don’t care about them? I can’t decide.

• It’s sad to hear that the respected books Web site LitReactor is going out of business after a dozen years. Financing problems and the death of one of its co-founders are cited as reasons for LitReactor shutting down as of December 31. “The site will no longer be accessible after that,” we are informed. As it turns out, there were several links to LitReactor pieces in The Rap Sheet. I have already replaced those with archive pages from The Wayback Machine.

• Just in time for Halloween, Mystery Fanfare blogger Janet Rudolph has posted her updated (and remarkably lengthy) lists of mystery novels and short-story anthologies linked to that celebration.

• In a CrimeReads piece from 2019, Olivia Rutigliano argues that Bram Stoker’s 1897 horror novel, Dracula, is also “an incredibly complex, fascinating mystery.” Well, I for one am convinced.

• Longtime boob-tube fanatics should find more treats than tricks in this post from Comfort TV that sees David Hofstede digging up an assortment of haunted houses in classic television shows.

• And Caroline Crampton is back with the latest episode of her podcast, Shedunnit. The topic this time around is how “the supernatural and the rational come together in the murder mystery.” Works referenced include Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady, John Dickson Carr’s The Red Widow Murders, and Gladys Mitchell’s Wraiths and Changelings.

• Texas Monthly’s Chris Vognar profiles Houston’s Murder by the Book as part of the magazine’s Indie Bookstore Week salute, writing:

For all of the foreboding tales within, Houston’s Murder by the Book feels soft and inviting, with massive windows up front and plenty of places inside to kick back and dig into something grisly. With its coffee mugs and T-shirts shouting out famous crime-solving heroes (plenty of “Holmes& Watson& Marple& Poirot” merch), the place looks downright friendly. “There’s a lot of natural light and, depending on the time of day, natural darkness,” says Lou Berney, an Edgar-winning thriller author, who always looks forward to reading from his novels at the venerable crime bookstore. “Events start out cheerful and end up kind of ominous and spooky. I love that.”

Don Winslow, a dean of crime fiction, visits Murder by the Book whenever he’s on tour, including a recent stop to discuss his new novel, City of Dreams. The British thriller master Ruth Ware came through in June to promote Zero Days. Best-selling novelists Michael Connelly and James Lee Burke are regulars. The store, a Houston literary staple since 1980, draws throngs of crime aficionados to these events, and at four thousand square feet, it has plenty of room for them to roam.

Murder by the Book harvests a sort of glee in terrible doings. It serves up bloodshed not just with a smile, but also with a flurry of knowledgeable recommendations based on devoted clients’ interests. “I never get out of there without buying three or four excellent novels I wouldn’t have found otherwise,” Berney says. It’s like Cheers, but with poison in the beer.

(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

• Owlcation’s Ronald E. Franklin once more raises that eternal question: Were Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason and Della Street ever connected romantically? “The fact that his secretary never became Mrs. Della Mason,” he explains, “was certainly not due to lack of trying on Perry’s part—he proposed five separate times, but Della turned him down every time.” (Hat tip to The Bunburyist.)

• Speaking of Mason, a video games and sports Web site called JStationX has posted a piece about the 1960 Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Violent Village.” It’s pretty bland, overall, but mentions that Mason “made appearances in other novels written [by] Erle Stanley Gardner, such as the Cool and Lam series.” What? Thanks to an extraordinary bit of luck, I own all 30 of the Bertha Cool/Donald Lam detective novels. And though I haven’t worked my way through every single one of those yet, nowhere have I come across a cameo appearance by Los Angeles’ best-known fictional defense attorney. Can anyone tell me in which book Mason figures, if he does?

• Hard as this may be to believe, I completely failed to notice the 65th anniversary of 77 Sunset Strip’s ABC-TV premiere in 1958. Fortunately, blogger Terence Towles Canote’s did not.

• It was half a century ago this month that “Shaft made its move from big to small screen with the broadcast of ‘The Executioners’ as part of the CBS New Tuesday Night Movie series,” recalls Steve Aldous, author of The World of Shaft (2015). The show didn’t fare well in prime time, not well at all. “The series,” adds Aldous, “lasted for only seven feature-length episodes playing every third week as part of a rotating series with James Stewart’s country lawyer show Hawkins and a standalone CBS TV movie on a Tuesday night over five months.” A 111-day Hollywood writers strike in 1973 and an egregious watering-down of the sexy, ass-kicking protagonist Richard Roundtree had made famous in theaters were blamed for the show’s early demise.

• Meanwhile, Aldous has lately been stuffing his World of Shaft Facebook page with historical ephemera (newspaper clippings, magazine stories, etc.) related not only to the Shaft TV show, but also to the third and final Shaft film, Shaft in Africa, which marked its 50th anniversary this year, too.

• I’m only halfway through watching Season 3 of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. Yet already the streaming channel has picked up that mystery-comedy series for a fourth season.

• Season 8 of the BBC One TV series Shetland, with Scottish actress Ashley Jensen taking over as lead from Douglas Henshall (who left after seven seasons), is set to debut in the UK on Wednesday, November 1. You can watch a brief trailer below. So far, there hasn’t been any announcement of when the new set of episodes will reach American TV screens, but we are hoping to hear soon.



• This I didn’t see coming. From In Reference to Murder:

Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap and Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company are in talks to co-produce a remake of the classic 1934 comedy mystery, The Thin Man, after the rights recently became available. Previously, Rob Marshall and Johnny Depp were set to direct and star, respectively, in a remake, until Warner Brothers scrapped that project in 2012. Based on the Dashiell Hammett crime novel, The Thin Man is a murder mystery about a husband and wife who partner up to find a missing acquaintance, later discovered to be murdered. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the 1934 film starred William Powell as husband Nick Charles and Myrna Loy as wife Nora Charles and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture and best actor for William Powell. (It was followed by five sequels.)

• The graphic novel version of Agatha Christie’s 1934 Hercule Poirot whodunit, Murder on the Orient Express—adapted and illustrated by Bob Al-Greene—was released in September and has been enjoying favorable notices since. BOLO Books’ Kristopher Zgorski, for instance, calls it “a beautiful and faithful recreation of the narrative we all know and love in visual format.” His fellow critic Lesa Holstine opines, “This is an excellent way to introduce Agatha Christie to fans of graphic novels or new readers of the author.” I have a copy of that paperback book myself, and have been wending my way through it before bed each night. The fact that I know how the story ends doesn’t inhibit my relishing this new treatment; nor am I bothered by Al-Greene having condensed portions of the text for visual-storytelling purposes. Frankly, the only thing I find slightly jarring is the artist’s portrayal of Poirot as having a completely bald noggin and an imposing mustache that sweeps up to the tops of his ears (but is still less peculiar than the cookie duster Kenneth Branaugh sported in his three Poirot pictures). I don’t remember either of those from the many book-cover illustrations of Christie’s brilliant Belgian sleuth.

• Although you may not have noticed, I followed through on my commitment to give this page’s right-hand blogroll a trim. But one of the sites I’d targeted, Alpha-60 books, managed to stave off the knife by posting a new review (of William Campbell Gault’s 1958 Joe Puma novel, Night Lady) right before I began pruning.

• In The Girl with All the Crime Books, critic and blogger Louise Fairbairn interviews E.S. (Elaine) Thomson, whose fifth Jem Flockhart/Will Quartermain historical mystery, Under Ground, is new on shelves in Great Britain this month. (It’s not slated for distribution in the States until next March.)

• Young Depression-era robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow hold a prominent, infamous place in U.S. history. But how many remember Lucille Walker and Alexander Mackay, who “captured countless headlines as they led a six-week rampage of robberies across Los Angeles,” commencing in late 1930?

• Finally, let us pay our respects to California-born actress Suzanne Somers, who passed away on October 15. As A Shroud of Thoughts notes, she was most familiar for co-starring in the TV sitcoms Three's Company and Step by Step. However, my earliest memory of Somers comes from a 1974 Rockford Files episode, “The Big Rip-off,” that was broadcast three years before Three’s Company hit the airwaves, and in which the then-28-year-old blonde played a woman suspected of offing her husband. Her list of subsequent TV drama guest spots is short (Starsky and Hutch, The Six Million Dollar Man), but prior to Rockford she did have uncredited roles in the films Bullitt and Magnum Force. Eventually, Somers became a controversial spokesperson on subjects related to health and well-being. She died at age 76 after being diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. FOLLOW-UP: The Los Angeles Times says Somers “died of ‘breast cancer with metastasis to the brain,’ according to a report citing her death certificate.”