Bullet Points: Something for Everyone Edition

• Every Secret Thing, the film based on Laura Lippman’s 2004 standalone novel of that same name, debuted at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival and is being prepared for a nationwide release on May 15. But until today, I hadn’t spotted a trailer for this picture starring Elizabeth Banks, Dakota Fanning, and Diane Lane. Click here to see the preview in Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare blog.

• The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books begins tomorrow on the University of Southern California campus and continues through Sunday. If I lived in L.A., I’d be present for all the festivities, especially since they’re free to the public. But at least I can report on the 2015 Times Book Prize competition, the winners of which will be announced on Saturday night. Here are the five contestants in the Mystery/Thriller category; a list of all the nominees is here.

• Earlier this week I was paging through The Seattle Times, when I happened onto this front-page story about Roy Price, the 47-year-old vice president of Amazon Studios, which you’ll know is behind the Michael Connelly-created crime drama Bosch (covered here and here). What most interested me, though, was this sentence: “His grandfather, Roy Huggins, was a legendary television writer who created such classic series as Maverick, The Fugitive, and The Rockford Files.” Holy crap! I’ve long been a fan of Huggins’ work, both his television projects and his early endeavors as a novelist. I didn’t know I was living in the same city--Seattle--where his grandson can often be found laboring over a desk. I might have to come up with some way to interview Price in the very near future …

• I need the first volume mentioned in this Bookgasm review!

• Bouchercon organizers announced on their Facebook page that they’ve chosen a “brand-new logo for Bouchercon National! Each year--including 2015 in Raleigh--will still have their own logo, but this one will cover the organization as a whole.” I’ve embedded that new artwork on the left.

• As somebody who was very fond of British author Paul Johnston’s series of near-future-set thrillers starring Edinburgh senior cop-turned-private eye Quintilian Dalrymple (last seen in 2001’s The House of Dust), it’s pretty exciting to know the author is returning with a new, sixth installment of that series, Head or Hearts, out this month in the UK from Severn House and due in U.S. stores come July. Euro Crime has posted a synopsis of the new yarn.

• By the way, if you haven’t read Ali Karim’s 2003 interview with Paul Johnston, in which they talk about the Quint books, do so now.

• I never owned a Pet Rock, but I do remember when those low-commitment companions first rolled onto the market in the mid-1970s. So I was saddened to hear that Gary Dahl, the creator of the Pet Rock fad (which Newsweek called “one of the most ridiculously successful marketing schemes ever”) died recently at age 78.

• Over in the Killer Covers blog, we have posted a look back at the “sexpionage” novels of Ted Mark, published mostly during the 1960s and ’70s, as well as the latest entry in our still-new “Friday Finds” series, which highlights “context-free covers we love.” Today’s pick: The Flesh and Mr. Rawlie (1963).

• Back in February, I mentioned that the blog Criminal Element was launching a regular short-story competition called “The M.O.” The initial deadline for tales was March 6 and the theme for all submissions was “Long Gone.” Readers of Criminal Element were asked to vote for their favorite entries. Today the blog has posted the winner of its first “M.O.” contest, “Fix Me,” by Los Angeles “writer and drummer” S.W. Lauden. According to its schedule, Criminal Element will announce its next short-story contest--with a new theme--on May 1.

• Honey West star Anne Francis melted hearts looking like this.

• MSNBC-TV host Rachel Maddow did an excellent interview last night with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), during which they talked about Reid’s long political history, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “historic candidacy” for president of the United States in 2016, and the current Republican leadership in Congress (“I think they’ve been absolute failures”). You can now watch it all here.

• These are some of the most spectacular aerial shots ever! They come from a Web site called AirPano, where you can find still more breathtaking photos. Copy them to your computer now!

• California author J. Sydney Jones has made an excellent reputation for himself over the last half-dozen years penning mystery novels set in early 20th-century Vienna. However his new release, Basic Law (Severn House)--the first entry in a trilogy--is a more contemporary thriller featuring “expat American journalist Sam Kramer.” To better acquaint readers with Kramer, he’s just posted “Body Blows,” a short story featuring the same protagonist.

• Author Declan Burke recently introduced me to a new blog called Crime Fiction Ireland, which he says “pretty much does exactly what it says on the tin. Edited by Lucy Dalton, the blog covers crime and mystery fiction of all hues, TV and film, provides author profiles and a ‘What’s On’ slot, and also offers a Short Fiction selection.” I’ve added Crime Fiction Ireland to The Rap Sheet’s selection of links.

• I haven’t yet seen any notices about PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! umbrella series picking up the concluding three-episode season of Foyle’s War, the wonderful Michael Kitchen/Honeysuckle Weeks period drama from British broadcaster ITV that debuted in 2002. That last season began showing in the UK back in January, and is available to people who subscribe to the online viewing service Acorn Media. (You’ll find all Foyle’s War episodes here.) National Public Radio’s John Powers posted a fine wrap-up of Foyle’s final run here, and you can purchase a DVD set of the series’ last three eps here. But for Americans like me who prefer to watch Kitchen’s show on Masterpiece for free, all of this just adds up to a painful reminder of what we’re missing. C’mon, PBS, step up and add this one last Foyle’s War run to your summer 2015 schedule!

• Here’s one reason why you can’t trust amateur online reviews.

• Finally, my old friend Matthew, who has spent years talking up Sinbad and Me, the 1966 adventure/mystery novel for children by Kin Platt (author of the Max Roper detective series), reports that the book is back in print this month after being commercially unavailable for decades. Sinbad and Me captured the 1967 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery Fiction. The new edition is available from Amazon in both hardcover and paperback, but Matthew--who shares my adoration for books--asked me to “encourage your readers to order from their local independent bookseller.” I can’t but endorse that suggestion. Amazon, for all the purchasing advantages it offers, has proved to be a killer of small neighborhood stores, whether they sell books or other goods. I provide links from The Rap Sheet to Amazon pages, but that’s simply for the convenience of my readers. I always try to buy from independent bookstores. And you should too.

“The Greater Good”

Although many TV viewers will be tuning in tonight for the series finale of AMC’s Breaking Bad, let me also note that this evening will bring to a close season seven of Foyle’s War, starring Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle Weeks. Omnimystery News has a preview:

In an episode titled “Sunflower,” Foyle is given the distasteful task of protecting art historian Professor Peter Van Haren, an undercover ex-Nazi and a valuable MI5 intelligence asset against the Russians. But when Van Haren lectures a group of students on the self-portraits of the artist Rembrandt, his presence causes a young man to suffer a frightening flashback which ends in tragedy.

You can enjoy a video preview of the episode here.

“Sunflower” will be broadcast as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! series, beginning tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

I wasn’t sure what would become of Foyle’s War, after that British show brought World War II to an end. But former Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Kitchen), currently living in London (not Hastings) in 1946, has made the most of his new career with MI5. His police experience, honesty, and take-no-bullshit style make him an interesting fit in the world of international spies and clandestine plotting. Meanwhile, Samantha “Sam” Stewart (Weeks)--now married to an ambitious but caring young politician--is demonstrating great savvy as his sleuthing associate. I hope that UK network ITV will commission still more Foyle for the near future.

If you need to catch up on the previous two episodes of season seven, before watching “Sunflower,” read Leslie Gilbert Elman’s critiques--here and here--in Criminal Element.

UPDATE: Leslie Gilbert Elman recaps “Sunflower.”

Short Notices

• This could be pretty interesting: Among the “scripted development projects” for American TV network TNT announced this week is a series based on Ross Macdonald’s string of Lew Archer private-eye novels. Less hopeful is a “re-imagining” of Peter Gunn, Blake Edwards’ iconic 1958-1961 series starring Craig Stevens. Really, does anyone believe that the original Gunn can be outdone?

• And this in indisputably good news: The Michael Kitchen-led historical mystery series Foyle’s War will return to PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! this coming September. Three new episodes, all of which are set in the post-World War II years of 1946-47 (and have already been broadcast in the UK), will be shown.

• Organizers of the 2013 Tony Hillerman Writers Conference, scheduled to take place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from November 7 to 9, put out the word this week that the faculty for this year’s event will feature authors Margaret Coel, Craig Johnson, and David Morrell, along with Kirk Ellis, Emmy-award winning writer of the HBO mini-series John Adams, James McGrath Morris, the recipient of two New Mexico Book Awards, and Hillerman’s author daughter, Anne.

• The next James Bond film won’t be out until 2015. At least.

• Among the latest “Top Notch Thriller” releases from Ostara Publishing is Tightrope, Antony Melville-Ross’ 1981 novel set in Britain and the United States. For added interest, sometime Rap Sheet contributor and Top Notch editor Mike Ripley notes that Melville-Ross had “a pretty thrilling family history (originally American) back to Moby Dick via Pancho Villa and a possible inspiration for Indiana Jones. I couldn’t make this up!”

• Ace Atkins’ second Spenser novel, Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, was only just published by Putnam, but already there’s word that Boston’s best-fed gumshoe will make an encore appearance this year in Silent Night, a holiday-theme work apparently left unfinished at the time of Parker’s death in early 2010. The book was completed by Helen Brann, Parker’s longtime literary agent. It’s due out in late October.

• Stephen King’s latest novel, Joyland, is being readied for paperback release by Hard Case Crime in early June. But “special limited editions” of the book, including one featuring “nine gorgeous illustrations from master artist Robert McGinnis and a map of the Joyland amusement park,” are also being made available. Presumably at a steeper price than the regular $12.95 edition.

• A few months back I wrote on this page about the failed 1972 TV pilot film A Very Missing Person, which sought to bring author Stuart Palmer’s “meddlesome old battleaxe” of an amateur sleuth, Hildegarde Withers, to small-screen audiences. Now comes word that publisher Mysterious Press/Open Road Media is releasing e-book versions of 17 Palmer novels, including such Withers outings as The Penguin Pool Murder (1931), Murder on Wheels (1932), and 1969’s Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene (from which A Very Missing Person was derived). Blogger Les Blatt, who has reviewed nine of Palmer’s novels within the last few years, describes the Withers books as “well-plotted and told with some nice humorous touches.” If you’d like to check out Open Road’s Palmer re-releases, click here.

• The Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of its 2013 Edgar Awards earlier this month. But now I see that it’s made videos of the individual prize presentations available on YouTube.

Just a Few Things Worth Knowing

• Good on star Kristen Bell and show creator Rob Thomas for raising $2 million in less than a day though Kickstarter--money to finance the production of a feature-film follow-up to the 2004-2007 TV series Veronica Mars. That picture is expected to be released early in 2014. (UPDATE: Wired has more to say on this subject here.)

• In advance of the return of Foyle’s War, Acorn Media has re-released DVD versions of the first six seasons of that popular World War II-era mystery series. Also on sale is a collector’s edition of the entire series thus far, Foyle’s War: The Home Front Files. According to an Acorn press release, Foyle’s War, starring Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle Weeks, will return to PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! this coming September with three new episodes. Hot diggity!

• Look for two newly released e-books by sometime Rap Sheet contributors: Gary Phillips’ The Essex Man: 10 Seconds to Death is an action-adventure novella introducing Luke Warfield (“part Shaft and part Batman sans the costume”) and boasting a fabulous cover by Carlos Valenzuela; while The Big O is the e-book reprint of Irish author Declan Burke’s first “screwball noir” novel.

• Phillips has more to say about black pulp fiction here.

• Kristopher Zgorski of BOLO Books recently interviewed Dana Cameron about her new Fangborn novel, Seven Kinds of Hell.

• For his blog, Woodcuttingfool, Los Angeles woodcut artist Loren Kantor has created a variety of original prints inspired by classic works of film noir. Among the more famous faces you’ll find on that site are those of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Peter Lorre, Jack Palance, and Edward G. Robinson.

• A preliminary schedule for this year’s Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, Maryland (May 3-5), has been released.

• And this was definitely one of my odder dreams.

Of Comebacks, Classics, and Commandments

• Tonight will bring Episode 2 of the latest Wallander series, “The Dogs of Riga,” starring Kenneth Branaugh. That 90-minute broadcast begins at 9 p.m. ET/PT as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery!

• Speaking of Masterpiece Mystery!: Three new installments of the very popular World War II-era crime drama Foyle’s War, starring Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle Weeks, are currently being filmed for Britain’s ITV and are expected to show in the States sometime next summer

under the Mystery! umbrella. Omnimystery News catches us up a bit on what to expect from those fresh episodes.

• It seems rather early to be announcing this, but registration is now open for ThrillerFest VIII, scheduled to take place from July 10 to 13, 2013, in New York City. According to a press release, “This year, spotlight guests will include 2013 ThrillerMaster Anne Rice, 2011 ThrillerMaster R.L. Stine, T. Jefferson Parker, and Michael Connelly.”

• Although it has zero to do with crime fiction, it’s worth noting that tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of M*A*S*H.

• Better late than never: Yesterday was the 79th birthday of Henry Darrow, described by the Los Angeles Times as “the first Puerto Rican star of an hour-long TV series, playing the charismatic and devilish Manolito Montoya on the 1967-71 NBC western The High Chaparral.” Many of us, though, will recall Darrow best for his role as San Diego Police Lieutenant Manuel “Manny” Quinlan on Harry O.

• Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai picks Hollywood’s top seven femmes fatales for The Huffington Post. In the course of it, he manages to promote only two of his popular line’s titles.

• As Shotsmag Confidential notes, British publisher Orion has launched The Murder Room, “a dedicated Web site which makes out-of-print and hard-to-find classic crime novels available as e-books.” A list of available titles can be found here.

• There certainly are plenty of supposed “commandments” in regards to the writing of crime, mystery, and detective fiction. Here are several such lists, none of which--in my humble opinion, anyway--need to be followed slavishly.

• In advance of Bouchercon, taking place this year in Cleveland, Ohio, from October 4 to 7, the blog Murder, Mystery & Mayhem recaps the lists of contenders for a wide variety of commendations to be given out during that convention.

• As part of its “Classics in September” series, the blog Crime Fiction Lover features an interview with editor, publisher, and bookstore proprietor Otto Penzler. His interrogator doesn’t ask enough questions, and Penzler is too brief in his responses, but the results are still worth reading here.

• Another installment of “Classics in September” is this new tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet.

• Blogger Rhian Davies reports that Charles Cummings has won the inaugural Scottish Crime Book of the Year award.

• It’s been a long while since I watched the pilot for the 1984-1986 private-eye TV series Riptide, starring Perry King, Joe Penny, and Anne Francis. But it has suddenly appeared on YouTube in its entirety, along with the introductory film for another Stephen J. Cannell series, Hardcastle & McCormick, and the pilot for the Cybill Shepherd/Bruce Willis series, Moonlighting. Sheesh! If you’re not careful, you could spend all day just watching old TV shows on the Web.

• Or maybe you’d prefer lower-tech entertainment.

• As a veteran newspaper guy, I’m glad to see that U.S. publishers remain optimistic about the future of their printed news medium. With the intent of helping out, I’ve recently returned to my tradition of spending a couple of hours just reading The New York Times on Sunday mornings. It’s much more peaceful than finding news online.

• And not long after I posted a list on this page of book-oriented blogs that deserve greater attention, the author of one such product--Jedidiah Ayres from Barnes & Noble’s Ransom Notes--wrote to tell me that “I got my pink slip this afternoon--no more Ransom Notes for me.” Ayres adds: “I’m not sore. Of course I’d rather continue with that gig, but I think they made a business decision and I couldn’t speak to the advisedness of that.” Well, at least Ayres still has his personal blog, Hard-boiled Wonderland.

Path Back to “War”

Following one abrupt cancellation by British network ITV (in 2007), a subsequent resurrection (brought about by viewer demand), and then a seeming conclusion to this TV series in 2010, Foyle’s War has won a brand-new season, which will offer a trio of two-hour episodes. Crime Time Preview’s Robin Jarossi reports today that

The setting for the much-loved period detective drama will shift from the war years to 1946-47, with Foyle in a new role of Senior Intelligence Officer on the trail of various traitors. The three stories--two written by author Anthony Horowitz, one by David Kane--will include Foyle [Michael Kitchen] tracking down atomic spies and a true tale of government corruption. “I have returned to Foyle’s War because there are still some amazing stories I want to tell,” says screenwriter and novelist Anthony. “The war may be over but Foyle’s career goes on.’ Honeysuckle Weeks should return as Samantha Stewart, who is now married.

An article posted on The Daily Mail’s Web page suggests that ITV’s willingness to invest in additional installments of Foyle’s War might be attributed, in part, to the remarkable success--on both sides of the Atlantic--of that network’s newer historical drama, Downton Abbey; ITV might be hoping, by bringing back the Kitchen show, to burnish its reputation for presenting high-quality period series. However, the revivification of Foyle’s War might have to do, as well, with the recent renown enjoyed by its creator, Horowitz, whose 2010 Sherlock Holmes novel, House of Silk, won numerous plaudits.

In any event, Jarossi says this new run of Foyle’s War will begin production in London this coming September. There’s no word yet on when the episodes might air, but we hope it will be soon.

READ MORE: “Foyle’s War Returns with Three New Films Slated for 2013,” by Robert Lloyd (Los Angeles Times); “Foyle’s War Returns ... and Transitions Into a Full-on Spy Show,” by Tanner (Double O Section).

Entitled Bond

While there’s been no word yet on a title choice for the next James Bond film, we do finally know the name of Jeffery Deaver’s “Project X,” his forthcoming James Bond novel for Simon & Schuster: Carte Blanche.

The Bond-oriented Web site MI6 reports that “Carte Blanche is due to be published by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK, a few days before [author Ian] Fleming’s birthday, on 26th May 2011. It has been commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.” Because part of the action in Deaver’s novel will take place in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, the announcement of its title was made there earlier today.

* * *

And the good news just keeps on coming.

In its own piece about Carte Blanche, BBC News adds that Anthony Horowitz, creator and writer of the justly acclaimed World War II-era TV mystery series, Foyle’s War, “has been chosen by the Conan Doyle Estate to write a new full-length Sherlock Holmes novel. ... The title and content of the book, which will be published in September, have not been revealed.” The BBC says this is “the first time the estate has given its seal of approval for a new Holmes work.”

No More Bombs, But Still Bombshells

Like many other fans of TV mystery series, I was saddened to hear in the summer of 2008 that Foyle’s War--the World War II-era drama starring Michael Kitchen as a steadfast and charismatic police detective in southeastern England--would no longer be shown after five seasons on the air. Commissioned by the UK’s ITV and carried in the States by PBS, the show’s 90-minute episodes were particularly well-scripted (primarily by author-screenwriter Anthony Horowitz), integrating plots rife with devilry, deceit, and persistent greed into the broader backdrop of a bombarded, beleaguered Britain. However, Foyle’s War also benefited from having three continuing characters who boasted emotional gravity as well as intriguing back stories: not only Kitchen’s Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Foyle, a fairly solitary widower with a dashing young son in the Royal Air Force; but also Honeysuckle Weeks who played his driver, the resourceful and mischievous vicar’s daughter, Samantha “Sam” Stewart, and Anthony Howell as the more restrained Detective Sergeant Paul Milner, a policeman who has returned to his former occupation after losing one of his legs in the Allied defense of Norway.

Unfortunately, ITV complained that staging this period police procedural was too significant a drain on its bottom line. So it was decided that Foyle’s War would finish with an episode (“All Clear”) set during the concluding week of the fighting on the British Home Front in 1945. And then the series would itself disappear into history.

Things didn’t quite work out that way, though. Viewership for those concluding episodes was especially high, persuading ITV execs that it would be a smart idea to revive the series. Within just a couple of months of the supposed finale of Foyle’s War, Ms. Weeks told Britain’s Daily Mail that negotiations were underway to bring Foyle, Stewart, and Milner back for more.

The first of three new, postwar installments of Foyle’s War will air tomorrow night, Sunday, May 2, as part of PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery! series. The show begins at 9 p.m. ET/PST on PBS. Two additional episodes will be broadcast on May 9 and 16.

As we rejoin the story, VE Day has come and gone, and so has much of the confidence in Britain that conditions will soon return to normal. Food shortages and other privations persist, families are still struggling to recoup after being torn asunder, and postwar poverty has brought an escalation in crime rates. More than ready to start afresh, the UK electorate has turned out the man who led them through the fighting--Prime Minister Winston Churchill--and replaced him in the 1945 general election with Labour Party leader Clement Attlee.

Meanwhile, after having maintained law enforcement in the southeast coastal town of Hastings, even as greater crimes were perpetrated on a worldwide scale, DCI Foyle is ready to do some moving on of his own. He’s determined to retire, to give up tracking killers and other malefactors in favor of wetting a fishing line, imbibing his share of good malt whiskey, and visiting America. At the same time, Sam Stewart has taken on duties as the housekeeper and secretary to Sir Leonard Spencer-Jones, an eminent local artist, and Milner has been promoted to the rank of detective inspector in nearby Brighton.

Tomorrow night’s episode, “The Russian House,” focuses on Russian soldiers who, at the height of the recent hostilities, switched to the side of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis rather than continue serving with the forces of the Soviet Union, a country allied with the UK. Following the war, such collaborators captured by the British Army were shipped back to England for processing and return transit to their home country. But rumors are circulating that this repatriation will result in execution for the soldiers, rather than family reunions. If they want to live, it’s said, the only hope for the Nazi collaborators is to escape to sanctuary at London’s mysterious, anti-Soviet Russian House. One such ex-soldier has been working on Sir Leonard’s estate. When he escapes in the wake of the painter’s slaying, he naturally becomes suspect number one in the crime--and it’s up to Foyle, with Sam’s assistance but some unexpected hindrance from DI Milner--to identify the real murderer.

The second episode is even more fascinating than the first. Titled “Killing Time,” it puts Hastings at the center of racial tensions facing U.S. soldiers returning from the battlefields. Prior to World War II, you’ll remember, the American military was segregated, just like most of the United States itself. African Americans could serve in the armed forces, but they were assigned duty mostly as truck drivers and stevedores, and there were pitifully few black officers. Not until 1948 did President Harry Truman, a child of the segregated South, order that the military be integrated. In “Killing Time,” it’s still 1945 and black GIs streaming through Great Britain on their way stateside chafe at being restricted from entering local clubs, especially when British law allows for no such discrimination. However, a black soldier named Gabe Kelly has fathered a child with Mandy Dean, a white Hastings girl who’s been banished by her family as a result of that birth and has moved into the rooming house where Sam Stewart now works. With animosities peaking, a murder is committed, and DCI Foyle must wrestle with military authorities to untwist the web of evidence suggesting Kelly’s guilt.

Finally, episode three of this new series, “The Hide,” finds Foyle retiring at last, only to become consumed by the case of a young man, James Deveraux--the scion of a distinguished local family--who’s on trial for having joined a German SS unit composed of British volunteers. Strangely, Deveraux refuses to defend himself, leading Foyle to suspect that there’s more to this case than anyone understands. Although it’s not clear at first why Foyle takes such an interest in Deveraux’s predicament, we eventually come to understand that he has a sad personal stake in the matter. There’s a personal stake, as well, in this episode’s parallel story, which has Sam and Adam Wainwright, the proprietor of the rooming house where she works, defending that property against developers who wish to raze it and many other Hastings abodes in order to construct new housing units for returning soldiers. If Sam and Wainwright needed anything else to convince them that they belong together, this fight against “progress” may be it.

There’s a strong suggestion in “The Hide” that this is not the ultimate appearance of Foyle’s War; there are simply too many questions deliberately left unanswered, especially regarding the former DCI’s purpose in traveling by sea to America. (Might it have something to do with a previous investigation?) Given the strong comeback of this award-nominated show, and the fresh story lines opened by the new life trajectories of its main characters, I won’t be at all surprised to hear sometime soon that Season VII is in the offing.

Let’s hope.

Foyle’s War and Peace

Rejoice, all you American fans of the British TV series Foyle’s War. That exceptional World War II-era crime drama will return to PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery! rotation on Sunday, May 2, with the first of three new, 90-minute episodes starring Michael Kitchen. The setup for this sixth season of Foyle’s War reads thusly:

It is June 1945, and VE Day has been celebrated in Britain. The state of the country, however, is far from jubilant in the aftermath of war. Keen to retire, but bound to his old job by the steep rise in violent crime that swept the country, Foyle is thrust into the dangerous worlds of international conspiracy and execution, military racism and national betrayal. He must feel his way through this new world as he faces some of his toughest challenges and gripping plots to date.

The series continues on May 9 and 16.

By the way, the summer schedule for Masterpiece Mystery! also promises new episodes of Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Lewis. That schedule is here.

“War” and “Peace”

Via Karen Meek’s Euro Crime blog comes some excellent and unexpected news for fans of the Michael Kitchen, World War II-era mystery series Foyle’s War, which recently ended its U.S. run on PBS-TV. Quoting from Britain’s Daily Mail:

The final episode of Foyle’s War may have ended conclusively with the characters celebrating VE Day--but it seems the much-loved ITV1 drama is set for a post-war revival.

In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, star of the show Honeysuckle Weeks reveals that Foyle’s War has given way to a new series entitled Foyle’s Peace.

Honeysuckle, who plays driver Samantha Stewart to Michael Kitchen’s Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle, said: ‘I have the contracts so they’ve got quite far with it and, although I haven’t seen scripts, the idea is that it’ll be set after the Second World War.’

The full Mail report, which includes several humorous statements from Weeks about the irritatingly prim nature of her Foyle’s character, can be found here.

Reasons to Love Sundays

For at least the time being, Sunday nights are proving to be unusually opportune occasions for television watching in America. The USA Network has fresh episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent running at 9 p.m. EST/PST, followed at 10 p.m. by In Plain Sight, the new Mary McCormack drama that finds her trying to balance her dysfunctional family life with her career as a U.S. marshal assigned to the federal witness protection program. I thought I’d had it with Sunday night television after The West Wing and Crossing Jordan were both canceled, but I guess I was wrong.

And then, of course, there’s Foyle’s War, the British-made series starring Michael Kitchen as a police detective in World War II-era East Sussex. The second of three final, 90-minute Foyle’s episodes shows tonight on PBS-TV, beginning at 9 p.m. on Masterpiece Mystery! The episode is titled “Broken Souls,” and is set in October 1944. A brief synopsis of the show reads:

In order to ease the boredom of the blackout, Foyle has taken up chess. His tutor is psychiatrist Dr. Josef Novak, a Polish Jew who works at Sackville House in Hastings. Sackville House has been requisitioned by the War Office for the rehabilitation of servicemen traumatised by war. Novak’s family in Poland were rounded up and sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis while Novak was out of the country. Unable to return home or help his family, Novak had no choice but to come to Britain as an exile.

When one of Dr. Novak’s colleagues, Julian Worth, is found murdered, Foyle is called upon to investigate. There’s no shortage of suspects as it becomes quickly apparent that Worth was not a well-liked man. Soon after the discovery of the body, Novak attempts suicide but is found just in time by Foyle and Milner. As he is carried to the ambulance, Novak implies that he was responsible for Worth’s murder. Foyle is not convinced.

News reaches Hastings Police station of a 14-year-old telegraph boy who is missing from his home in London. Tommy Crooks had been evacuated to Hastings earlier in the war and his father thinks he may have made his way back to the coast. When a German POW working on a farm near Sackville House is found dead, it is revealed that Tommy has good reason to hate the Nazis more than most and finding him becomes Foyle’s top priority.

I’ve been watching Foyle’s War ever since it debuted on U.S. television in, I believe, 2003. It hasn’t disappointed me yet. I shall be extremely sorry to see it end.

READ MORE: “Honeysuckle Had a Wonderful Foyle’s War but She Wishes Sam--and Her Knickers--Had Been Sexier,” by Richard Barber (The Daily Mail).

Foyle Foiled?

The three-episode “final season” of Foyle’s War, that extremely well-crafted British TV series starring Michael Kitchen as a police detective in World War II-era East Sussex, is scheduled to air in the States under PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery! umbrella on three successive Sundays in July, the 13th, 20th, and 27th. Meanwhile, Wikipedia leaves open the possibility that this won’t, in fact, mark the last appearance of Detective Inspector Christoper Foyle and his team:

After six series the show came to an end because it was getting too expensive. In April 2008, the final wartime chapter of Foyle’s story, “All Clear,” was aired. However, on 9 April 2008, [UK TV network] ITV announced that it was in talks with [Foyle’s War creator Anthony] Horowitz and Greenlit Productions to overturn the previous cancellation and revive the series, continuing Foyle’s adventures into peacetime, and some media observers saw high viewing figures for the penultimate episode (28% audience share) on April 13 ... as strengthening the case for a continuation. At the time the audience figures for the final episode were released (28% and an average of 7.3 million), ITV confirmed that it had entered and was continuing “early discussions” with Horowitz and Greenlit.

At a time when most shows on TV are unmitigated crap (and I say that in the kindest way possible), it would be a shame to see a crime drama as engaging as Foyle’s War disappear. My fingers are crossed for an agreement between all the parties that will let it continue.

Foyle’s War fans should know, too, that the fifth season of that series will become available on DVD come August 5.

And more news from the Mystery! schedule: Three more episodes of Inspector Lewis, the spinoff series from Inspector Morse starring Kevin Whately, are set to be broadcast on PBS right before Foyle’s War begins, on June 22 and 29, and July 6.

The War at Home

Tonight will bring the last installment of the current four-episode run of Foyle’s War, an exceptional World War II-era, Britain-set crime drama that’s part of PBS-TV’s Mystery! series summer schedule. If you haven’t been watching this show, starring Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle Weeks, you are definitely missing out. The write-up about tonight’s episode, “Casualties of War,” reads:

March, 1943. [Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher] Foyle’s life is turned upside down when his goddaughter and her seven-year-old son, James, turn up on his doorstep needing somewhere to stay. They have nowhere else to go. James has been severely traumatized by a bombing at his London school where most of his classmates and teachers were killed; he hasn’t spoken a word since. Soon after their arrival, Lydia disappears. Ably assisted by [Weeks’] Sam [Stewart], Foyle has to care for James until he can find Lydia and bring her safely home.

To add to the pressure, a series of sabotage cases is keeping Foyle very busy; something that isn’t pleasing his boss, Assistant Commissioner Parkins. Parkins would rather Foyle spend his time stamping out the increase in illegal gaming along the South Coast.

Sabotage and gambling come together when a local gambler is found murdered near a military research center. This military building is also the target of some internationally-funded saboteurs and Foyle enters the top secret arena of weapons research in his pursuit of the truth.

Foyle’s War begins at 9 p.m. EST/PST on PBS.

Let the Shelling and Sleuthing Resume

Just when I think there’s nothing new worth watching on American summertime television (National Bingo Night? Oh, pleeaassee!!), PBS suddenly bursts forth with another run of Foyle’s War, the World War II-era British serial starring Michael Kitchen. According to the PBS-TV site, the first of four new episodes will air tonight, with successive installments on Sunday evenings through July 8. (Check your local listings for the start time and channel.)

For those of you who’ve somehow missed taking in this rattling good British series up until now, it follows the investigations of Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, who pursues criminals in the south of England--even as far greater malfeasances and terrors are visited upon London and the European mainland. The patient, widowed, and dogged Foyle is played by Kitchen, who’s probably still best known to U.S. audiences as the eponymous monarch in To Play the King (1993), the second series sequel to Ian Richardson’s brilliant House of Cards (1990). Assisting Foyle here are the spirited Samantha “Sam” Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), Foyle’s young but hardly naïve driver, the daughter of a vicar; and Sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell), a former soldier who was sent home after losing part of a leg in battle. Created by Anthony Horowitz (who also now writes the Alex Rider series of young adult spy novels), Foyle’s War is a thoughtful, character-rich, and complex series, well backdropped by war but not overly insistent upon reminding viewers of that conflict’s nuances. Readers who’ve enjoyed Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books (March Violents, The One from the Other) and J. Robert Janes’ series pairing Sûreté detective Jean-Louis St. Cyr with Gestapo Oberdetektiv Hermann Kohler (Beekeeper, Flykiller) are likely to enjoy Foyle’s War.

This latest PBS run under the umbrella series title Mystery! combines what were originally, in the UK, two distinct sets of two episodes apiece, broadcast in 2006 and 2007. These four stories are set over the period from 1942 to early 1943. “Invasion” is the title of tonight’s episode, and it builds around two plots: efforts by American GIs to build an aerodrome on farmland near Hastings, England--an enterprise that’s rubbing locals the wrong way; and the horrific demise of Sergeant Milner’s friend, Will Grayson, who saved his life on the battlefield, only to die, drunk, in a house fire. Meanwhile, Sam is upset over a letter she’s received from her beau (and DCS Foyle’s son), Andrew. (For more information on this episode and those to come, click here.)

If you haven’t yet discovered Foyle’s War, now’s the time.

Hurray! Foyle’d Again

While yesterday brought a good bit of bad news about crime fiction on television, today offers up some compensatory good news: The combined fourth and fifth series of Foyle’s War, the World War II-era British serial starring Michael Kitchen, is due for a run under PBS-TV’s Mystery! umbrella in mid-June. According to the Mystery! site, four 90-minute episodes will be broadcast on successive Sunday nights, beginning on June 17.

To find a complete list of Foyle’s War eps, look here.

Foyle’d Again

Enthusiastic viewers (that would include me) of the British TV detective series Foyle’s War, set in Hastings, England, during World War II, will be interested in listening to a new radio interview with the series’ creator, Anthony Horowitz. Under questioning by Elizabeth Foxwell, the host of “It’s a Mystery,” a weekly production of WEBR in Fairfax, Virginia, Horowitz starts out talking about his Alex Ryder teenage spy series (Storm Breaker, Ark Angel), his early experience as a novelist (he wrote his first novel at age 17, but didn’t publish a book until the ripe old age of 22!), his efforts to make the Ryder books “believable,” and his use of Alfred Hitchcock film references. But he eventually turns to the subject of Foyle’s War, saying that he (like so many Brits) has always been fascinated by World War II, that he loves being able to use “the apparatus of war as red herrings,” and that something he finds particularly intriguing about creating these historical TV mysteries is “there were so many crimes committed during the Second World War which could only be committed then”--crimes such as desertion, hoarding, profiteering, etc. “Curiously,” Horowitz adds, “the only crime that was not very prevalent in the ’40s, although we don’t mention this to our viewers, was murder. Murder dropped during the course of the war.”

READ MORE: The Unofficial Foyle’s War Web Site.