Whatsup?

A couple of things. Firstly, I wonder how many of you will be attending Crime Fest in Bristol next month 5 – 8 June 2008? It would be good to say hello to you.

At Crime Fest I am moderating two panels. On Thursday it’s researching the National Archives with Peter Guttridge, Vicki Blake, Alanna Knight and Keith Miles. Saturday morning (0900) I’m on How to Write a Thriller and the panel consists of Meg Gardner, “Kate Westbrook”, Charles Cumming, Tom Cain and me old mate, Nick Stone. Also two other members of the Shots team are moderators of other panels – Ali Karim and Ayo Onatade. Hope we can count on your support.

Secondly, can I draw your attention to the website and its updates. New features and interviews with: Martin Walker, Nicola Upson, Edgar Wallace, Ray Banks, Louise Penny (+ a comp to win a signed copy of The Cruellest Month), Jason Pinter (+ competition to win a signed copy of his debut The Mark) and Mike Ripley’s appreciation of the late R.D. Wingfield.

And finally, if you are a member of the newsletter all the above is not news to you. However if you sign up now there is an exclusive competition. The prize is one book per month for one year. It will be a mixed bag of hardbacks and paperbacks and worth up to £156.00. All you need to do is get five other people to sign up to the newsletter – as simple as that. The deadline is 31st May 2008. To sign up for the newsletter just go to the homepage and the entry field is on the left hand side.
Hope to see some of you in Bristol.

If you are in the UK on June 3rd make a date in your diary to come along to see Andrea Maria Schenkel At The Goethe Institute. Andrea Maria Schenkel is appearing on stage with Anthea Bell, the translator, at 7.00pm on Tuesday, 3rd June. They will do readings and then be interviewed by Peter Guttridge. They will then take questions.Admission is free.The Goethe Institute is at 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Rd., London SW7,Tel: 0207 596 4000.
Andrea has won the German Krimi Preis for both The Murder Farm (now published by Quercus) and Ice Cold, an unprecedented achievement. She topped the German bestseller lists for many weeks with these two books.

FILM NEWS:

Leonardo DiCaprio may star as Ian Fleming in a biopic of the James Bond creator.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the actor's production company Appian Way recently jumped on board to produce the film, based on the script Fleming by Damian Stevenson.
Producer Andrew Lazar said a film about the life of Fleming had the potential to be "fascinating".
"It's going to be very different from the Bond films," Lazar commented. "There are a lot of different ways to crack biopics, but we're not trying to emulate a Bond movie... The idea that this guy's life informed the James Bond character is pretty fascinating."
Stevenson, whom DiCaprio will replace with a new writer, researched the script by looking through out-of-print biographies at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library.
"It's the real James Bond," Stevenson said. "In England, Ian Fleming's exploits are much better known. Talking to people out here [in the US], no one had any idea that M was based on a real person, Miss Moneypenny was based on a real person."
The story begins on the eve of Fleming's wedding in 1952 - before his first Bond novel Casino Royale was published - then flashes back to his days as a Reuters journalist and Naval Intelligence Commander.

Dutch filmmaker Jan De Bont will direct a follow-up to Point Break, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Asia-based sequel, titled Point Break: Indo, takes place 20 years after the events of the first film, which starred Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent who takes up surfing to catch a group of bank robbers led by Patrick Swayze.The sequel, written by the first film's screenwriter W. Peter Iliff, will shoot in Singapore and Southeast Asia.

Nicolas Cage is to star in a remake of 1992 crime drama Bad Lieutenant.
Werner Herzog will direct the movie for Nu Image/Millennium Films, reports Variety. The production will be announced at the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off today.
The original movie starred Harvey Keitel as a New York cop who is involved in drugs, gambling, sex and stealing. He vows to change his ways while investigating the rape of a young nun. TV writer Billy Finkelstein, whose previous credits include Murder One, Law & Order and NYPD Blue, will pen the remake. It is scheduled to start filming during the summer.