And Furthermore …

It happens almost every time: I publish one of my “Bullet Points” posts, only to realize soon afterward that I left out a few newsy items. So consider this an addendum to yesterday’s wrap-up.

• The Killing Times brings news today that 40-year-old Scottish actor Richard Rankin (The Crimson Field, Outlander, Trust Me) will fill the role of Detective Inspector John Rebus in a new small-screen adaptation of Ian Rankin’s novels, titled simply Rebus. The Nordic streaming service Viaplay, “recently launched in the UK,” has commissioned the forthcoming series. That streamer says Rebus will find its protagonist “at a personal crossroads after a fight with a notorious mobster in Edinburgh. He struggles with the job that is increasingly controlled by business-driven technocrats, while realising that he is living in an unhealthy relationship that he should end and that he has more or less been replaced in the role of father in his daughter’s life by his ex-wife’s new, wealthy husband. Now he must find his new position, both privately and professionally. In a world that is increasingly governed by politics and class differences, he feels that the system is becoming increasingly watered down. And if no one else follows the rules, why should he?” Viaplay will reportedly serve up the first six-episode season of Rebus in 2024.

• This from Deadline: “A second season of smash John le Carré adaptation The Night Manager is in the works at Amazon Prime Video and the BBC, with Tom Hiddleston set to reprise his role as protagonist Jonathan Pine. Under the codename Steelworks, Deadline understands Season 2 will film later this year in London and South America. Although it is yet to be formally greenlit by Amazon and the BBC, we hear that it is set to receive a two-season order.”

• Meanwhile, Season 3 of the ITV crime drama Grace, starring John Simm and based on Peter James’ books about Brighton police detective Roy Grace, will debut this coming Sunday, March 19, in Britain. The stories told in these latest three episodes are drawn from James’ novels Dead Like You, Dead Man's Grip,  and Not Dead Yet.

• The streaming-TV service Peacock has announced that Tony Shalhoub will return to his role as “defective detective” Adrian Monk in a new movie scripted by Monk series creator Andy Breckman.

• During an interview with Crimespree Magazine, in which author Charles Todd talks about The Cliff’s Edge (Morrow), the 13th and last Bess Crawford mystery he composed with his mother, Caroline (who died in 2021), Todd explains that his next novel with be the 25th installment in their series starring Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge. “I am putting quality over quantity so I might not put out a book every six months,” he explains. “As soon as I get one book done, I start on the next one. I will not find another writer to work with me, because no one can automatically pick up where my mom left off. The next Ian book is with my agent, and we will see what happens from there, since my contract is up, but it will go on to some publisher. I am also writing a short story, part of an anthology, based on titles of songs of the entire album, ‘Back in Black’ by AC/DC. Each author wrote a story based on one of these songs.”

• In a Facebook post, author-screenwriter Lee Goldberg draws my attention to a March 28 non-fiction release titled Music for Prime Time: A History of American Television Themes and Scoring (Oxford University Press). Its author is Jon Burlingame, hailed as “one of the nation’s leading writers on the subject of music for films and television.” Library Journal notes in its review of this $35 book that it’s “a revised, updated, and expanded version of Burlingame’s Sound and Vision of 2000 … Burlingame comprehensively documents the themes and soundtracks that have become earworms for many TV viewers … [He] highlights theme song composers such as Nelson Riddle (Route 66), Lalo Shifrin (Mission: Impossible), Neal Hefti (Batman; The Odd Couple), Mike Post (Rockford Files; Hill Street Blues), and many talented but less heralded composers.” Goldberg enthuses: “I've been looking forward to this book for years.” Being another fan of classic film and TV themes, I’ll likely be ordering my own copy.

• Speaking of Oxford University Press, it has just published handsome new paperback editions of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories through its Oxford World’s Classics imprint. For various reasons, says blogger Kate Jackson at Cross-Examining Crime, these reprints “are a great choice if you are looking to upgrade your existing cop[ies] or you are wanting to dig deeper into the canon.”

• If you’re wondering what has become of the blog Bookgasm, you’re not alone. It’s been offline since December—long enough that I was worried whether it was coming back. But according to editor Rod Lott, the dysfunction is only temporary. “Some issue with the SSL certificate,” he informed me in mid-February. Then, just yesterday—with the site still inaccessible—Lott wrote to say: “Since we last spoke, I hired a professional, who confirmed it got hacked. The site has been successfully cleaned of all the malware, as of today. Now it’s just a matter of him restoring the content, which he believes can be done.” I, for one, look forward to celebrating Bookgasm’s return—and seeing all of my links to it from The Rap Sheet operating again.

• And Republican right-wingers in the States are frothing at the mouth about the damage caused by “woke” politics. You’d think they would have come up with a solid definition of the term by now. Instead, says Salon, it’s become a “choose your own bigotry” label.