• Like so many other people, I suspect, I started watching Season 2 of The Lincoln Lawyer—based on Michael Connelly’s 2011 novel, The Fifth Witness, and starring Manuel Garcia Rulfo as Los Angeles attorney Mickey Haller—with the assumption that it would run only five episodes in length, as opposed to last year’s 10; after all, that’s how many installments dropped at once onto its Netflix page on July 6. Also like so many others, I was surprised to discover that those comprised only half the story. “I thought it was a good idea,” co-showrunner/co-creator Ted Humphrey told Deadline recently. Well, I for one object. The second five episodes aren’t slated to drop until Thursday, August 3. By then, I’ll surely have forgotten some of the plot nuances from the initial set, and will have to review. Sigh … At least this season’s second-part trailer (above) makes me want to see more.
• This item comes from In Reference to Murder:
As filming gets underway on the ninth season of the hit Masterpiece and ITV show, Grantchester, lead actor Tom Brittney has confirmed that Season 9 will be his last. Tom, who has played the much-loved character Reverend Will Davenport since 2019, is stepping back from his role to focus on new projects. But it was announced that Rishi Nair (Hollyoaks, Count Abdulla) will take over as charismatic vicar, Alphy Kotteram. Nair will be the third vicar character in the series, following Brittney and the original, James Norton, who was featured from 2014-2019. Robson Green, who has played the various vicars’ police counterpart, Detective Inspector Geordie Keating, will return once again. The series is based on The Grantchester Mysteries, collections of short stories written by James Runcie.• Nathan Ward, who penned the 2015 Dashiell Hammett biography The Lost Detective, recently had a captivating piece posted in CrimeReads, recalling the circumstances of a 1902 shipboard murder. At the end of that article, it mentions that Ward has a new book coming out in September: Son of the Old West (Atlantic Monthly Press), about Old West lawman, bounty hunter, and Pinkerton detective Charlie Siringo. That’s definitely being added to my must-read list.
• Although I never got around to watching the 2014-2016 BBC One TV crime drama The Missing, I did enjoy its 2019-2021 spin-off, Baptiste, starring Turkish-born French performer Tchéky Karyo as police detective Julien Baptiste, a role he had created for the previous series. So I was intrigued to learn that UK author David Hewson—who previously adapted the Danish TV drama The Killing as a trilogy of books—has produced a prequel novel to Baptiste. Titled Baptiste: The Blade Must Fall, it is due out from UK publisher Orion in November of this year. A press release offers the following plot synopsis:
Julien Baptiste is an intelligent but somewhat naïve detective, sent to work in Clermiers, a town filled with corruption. A girl goes missing, presumed dead after bloody clothes are found close to an illicit party near an abandoned chateau. Baptiste believes he’s nailed the culprit, the eccentric Gilles Lellouche. When he appears in court, the public call for the guillotine—and that’s the sentence Lellouche gets. But as Lellouche awaits an appeal for clemency, he asks to see Baptiste, who’s still haunted by the fact the girl’s body remains missing. As the clock ticks towards execution hour, Baptiste begins to realise he may have made a terrible mistake …• A rather belated congratulations to Elizabeth Foxwell, the managing editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection, who has replaced the eminent, now retired Jon L. Breen as a “Jury Box” columnist for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. As she explains, “I am the first woman to write the column--I think I’ll be writing one column per year.” Foxwell’s initial submission features in EQMM’s July/August issue.
• Here’s another book treat for you: Lou Armagno, who masterminds the Charlie Chan-focused blog The Postman on Holiday, will soon release a new non-fiction work about that renowned Hawaiian detective. The Wisdom Within Earl Derr Biggers’ Charlie Chan: The Original Aphorisms Inside the Charlie Chan Canon (BookBaby) is set to premiere as an e-book on August 26 (the 139th birthday of Chan creator Biggers), with the print edition due out September 4. “Through the years,” remarks Armagno in his blog, “I’ve read many books on the aphorisms of Charlie Chan. However, all concentrated on the sayings found in films—never those inside the novels. And Ohio author Earl Derr Biggers worked hard to entwine the words of great philosophers into his stories for
meaning and enlightenment. So this book is just ‘to set the record straight’ …” Armagno very kindly asked yours truly for a back-cover blurb, along with editor/bookseller Otto Penzler and attorney/writer Leslie S. Klinger. I look forward to procuring a finished copy of this delightful collection.• Martin Edwards reports in his blog on a delightful visit he made to the “150-year-old coach house” home of novelist Peter Lovesey, in historic Shrewsbury, England. “‘Never meet your heroes’ is one of those ‘rules’ in life that has some merit,” is how Edwards introduces his post, “but there are also various exceptions to it. Perhaps it depends on the hero!”
• It appears that Terry Hayes, the English-born Australian screenwriter and author whose first suspense novel, I Am Pilgrim, came out in 2014 to a widespread chorus of acclaim, finally has a second (and, it should be mentioned, much delayed) book teed up and ready to go. The Real Book Spy says The Year of the Locust, “sure to be one of the biggest releases next year,” is set for release next February from Atria/Emily Bestler Books.
• I missed drawing attention to the nominees for this year’s Scribe Awards, organized by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers and intended to honor “licensed works that tie in with other media such as television, movies, gaming, or comic books.” Blogger B.V. Lawson observes that “There are some honorees of interest to the crime fiction community, including in the General/Adapted Novel category: Murder She Wrote: Death on the Emerald Isle by Terrie Moran, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Firewall by James Swallow (which was also nominated in the Audiobook category).” Winners are to be declared on July 21 during San Diego Comic-Con.
• Mark your calendars: Murder One, Ireland’s International Crime Writing Festival, will return to a venue outside Dublin during the weekend of October 6-8. Among the authors taking part will be Tana French, Jane Casey, Steve Cavanagh, Sophie Hannah, and Alice Feeney, This press bulletin lays out more details.
• And I was saddened to read that American singer Tony Bennett, who had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, died yesterday at age 96. Although for a long time I ignored his work, as I grew more mature, I came to appreciate it greatly. I own a number of his CDs, and was hoping to one day see him perform live. (The closest I ever got was in 2006, when Bennett was invited to attend the 100th anniversary commemoration of San Francisco’s great earthquake and fire. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it.) While I knew that he’d guested as himself in a variety of TV presentations (including one I remember distinctly: a 1997 episode of the Brooke Shields sitcom Suddenly Susan), I wasn’t aware that his screen credits also included parts on both 77 Sunset Strip and Remington Steele. Live and learn.
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