A Mix of Monday Mentions

• Although PBS-TV has not yet announced a U.S. debut date for this six-part series, Magpie Murders—adapted from Anthony Horowitz’s 2016 novel of the same name—was released on BritBox in the UK last Thursday. In his short review, British author and Detection Club president Martin Edwards writes: “I certainly wasn't disappointed. On the contrary, I enjoyed the TV version even more than the book. Although the same man wrote both versions of the story, I felt that his use of the flexibility of television worked to the story’s advantage. It also helps that Horowitz is even more experienced in the field of screenplay writing than he is as a detective novelist. Here he is on the top of his game. There is a slight dipping of tension in the fifth of the six episodes, as the pieces of plot are manoeuvred around the chessboard, but everything comes together quite triumphantly in the final instalment.” Watch a trailer for Magpie Murders here.

• Killer Covers celebrates Valentine's Day by significantly enlarging its collection of books with "kiss" in their titles.

• Last year’s 25th James Bond picture, No Time to Die, recently received three Oscar nominations, for best song, best visual effects, and best sound. However, as The Spy Command observes, this is also “the 40th anniversary of Bond’s biggest Oscar moment, the night the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences acknowledged the impact of the 007 film series” by giving Eon Productions co-founder Albert R. Broccoli the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement. Bond star Roger Moore presented that commendation, an event you can see again by clicking here.

• The release last week of Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, the latest film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel, has drawn considerable and not unexpected attention. Ah Sweet Mystery! blogger Brad Friedman counsels Hercule Poirot purists to stop their caviling over Branagh’s cartoon-large mustache and accept that this “interpretation of Death on the Nile has a lot going for it.” In CrimeReads, Marah Eakin (clearly less admiring of the film) recounts the scandals that have plagued its production. Meanwhile, Julia Sirmons writes in that same Webzine, “I hope the film’s release will lead people to read the source text, because Death on the Nile is one of her best detective novels. It has a diabolical, ingenious murder, but it is also one of [Christie’s] most heartfelt and emotional books.”

• This news comes from In Reference to Murder:

After pausing production in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, Tokyo Vice will land at HBO Max this spring, premiering with three episodes on Thursday, April 7, followed by two episodes airing every Thursday until the season finale on April 28. The series hails from creator and writer J.T. Rogers and stars Ken Watanabe and Ansel Elgort, with the pilot directed by Michael Mann. Tokyo Vice is loosely inspired by American journalist Jake Adelstein’s nonfiction firsthand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat and captures Adelstein’s (Elgort) daily descent into the neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo in the late '90s, where nothing and no one is truly what or who they seem. Watanabe will play Hiroto Katagiri, a detective in the organized crime division of the Tokyo Police Department who is also a father-figure to Jake throughout the series as he helps guide him along the thin and often precarious line between the cops and the world of organized crime.

• Author Margery Allingham is now a graphic-novel character.

• The Columbophile looks back at some of the swank and stylish vehicles seen on NBC-TV’s Columbo during the 1970s. “From Cadillacs and [Rolls-Royces] to Corvettes, Jags and even the humble VW Beetle,” it explains, “there are enough four-wheeled beauties to satisfy the cravings of any classic car enthusiast.

• I’m sorry to hear that Entertainment Weekly is disappearing (at least from newsstands, which are themselves disappearing). I subscribed to that magazine for many years, and found it useful in trying to keep up with popular culture. The age of print-magazine profusion—from which I benefited greatly—appears to be ending. I miss having a stack of new mags on my desk and teetering beside my bed. I used to subscribe to more than 20 slick periodicals, many of them regional journals (New England Monthly, Southern, California, Texas Monthly, etc.); nowadays, I receive but one, The Atlantic. It’s not that I am reading more online. Yes, I do now subscribe to the Web versions of both The New York Times and The Washington Post, but as publications shift to electronic transmission alone, I am generally letting them go. Although his doesn’t necessarily make me less informed about straight national news, it does deprive me of less-important feature stories having to do with events, history, and cultural nuances of interest in places where I don’t live. I miss the days when in any given week, I had to set aside time merely to make a dent in my magazine pile, being entertained the whole while.