Criminal Splatterings!

According to the BBC, Mark Ryland is due to play Thomas Cromwell in the Television adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bringing up the Bodies.  More information can be found here.  Mantel's Booker-winning novels follow Cromwell, Henry VIII's adviser, and his rise and fall in the Tudor court.  The books are being adapted for a six-part series due to be shown on BBC Two.

The BBC are also due to make two different dramas based on the Great Train Robbery.  The dramas will be told from the point of view of firstly the robbers who committed the offence and secondly the detectives as they solve the crime.  Entitled the Robbers Tale and The Coppers Tale the two 90 minute programmes are due to be shown on BBC One later on this year as part of the 50^th anniversary of the robbery.  More information can be found here.

As a result of the highly successful run of the first series of Father Brown based on the novels by G K Chesterton shown on BBC One, a second series has been commissioned.  The new series of ten forty-five minute episodes will begin shooting towards the end of May 2013.

The BBC have commissioned a new ten-part series on The Musketeers.  Set on the streets of 17th-century Paris where law and order is more an idea than reality, the series follows Musketeers Athos, Aramis and Porthos who are far more than King Louis XIII’s personal bodyguards.  The 10- part drama is due to be shown in 2014 and will feature Peter Capaldi best known for The Thick of It as Cardinal Richelieu.  More information can be found here.

Look out for Shetland a new crime drama based on the novels by “Vera” author Ann Cleeves.

Set against a stunning Scottish backdrop, Shetland, BBC One’s powerful new murder-mystery stars Douglas Henshall as Detective Jimmy Perez, a native Shetlander who has returned home after a long spell away and leads a murder investigation, uncovering secrets and lies from the past.  The first episode is due to be shown today on BBC One at 9:00pm.  An interview with Ann Cleeves can be read here and a clip can be seen here.  Ann also discusses Shetland in the Telegraph as well.

A new series of Perspectives is due to be shown on ITV starting with David Suchet setting out to unravel the mystery surrounding the life and work of Agatha Christie.  David Suchet: The Mystery of Agatha Christie is due to be shown on ITV on Sunday 17 March at 10:00pm.  More information can be found here.

In more Agatha Christie drama news, David Suchet, Pauline Moran, Hugh Fraser and Philip Jackson have been reunited once again in Agatha Christie’s The Big Four. Adapted by award-winning screenwriter and actor Mark Gatiss and actor Ian Hallard, The Big Four plunges Poirot into a world of global espionage where he uncovers a theatrical tale of murder, secrets, lies and love, set against the backdrop of the impending World War II.

The trailer for Iron Man 3 has been released and can be seen below.  It is due to be released on 25^th April in the UK.

And in more Christie news, according to Deadline.com and Empireonline, Paramount Pictures have bought the spec screenplay entitled Agatha.  The spec screenplay written by Allison Schroeder is based on a particular period in Agatha Christie’s life.

Congratulations go to David Hewson who is due to write the novelisation of The Killing III.  Hewson wrote the novelisation for The Killing II and according to the Bookseller, The Killing III is due to be published in February 2014.

Pan Macmillan have acquired two novels from debut author Clare Donoghue.  The first novel in series The Watcher is due to be published in March 2014.  The series is set in south London and features DI Mike Lockyer and DS Jane Bennett.  The Watcher follows the hunt for a serial killer preying on young women.

According to Booktrade.info, CSI Portsmouth the annual event that brings together top crime writers from around the UK to face a panel of crime experts have found themselves a new home.  The National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard is to be its new home.  This year the event is due to take place on Saturday 2nd November 2013 in The Princess Royal Gallery.  CSI Portsmouth is the brainchild of author Pauline Rowson whose books are set in Portsmouth.

If you have not seen or read it then there is a good article in the Guardian by Alison Flood who interviewed Ruth Rendell about her life in writing.  The article can be read here.  There is also an article in the Independent as well which is more personal and can be read here.

The Independent’s Invisible Ink: No 163 is on Sébastien Japrisot.  The full article can be read here.  Jasprisot is best known for his first crime novel published in 1950, The 10:30 From Marseilles

Interesting article in the Telegraph by Jake Kerridge who talks to French author Fred Vargas.  Whilst she still works as an archaeologist, she manages to writer her novels in three weeks!

Dennis Haysbert has booked a co-starring role in the CBS drama pilot Backstrom, from writer Hart Hanson, based on the Swedish book series that centres on Everett Backstrom, an overweight, hot-tempered detective who tries, and fails, to change his self-destructive behaviour.  Haysbert will play John Almond, a detective working with Backstrom.  Haysbert, most recently seen on the big screen in Sheldon Candis’ Luv, will next appear in a thriller titled Wards Island, alongside Ernie Hudson and Bill Duke, which centres on a viral outbreak in New York City that turns the infected into werewolves; and also he's replaced the late Michael Clarke Duncan in the follow-up film to the 2005 Robert Rodriguez-directed hit, Sin City, based on the comic by Franck Miller titled Sin City: A Dame To Kill For.