Newsy Stuff - Good News and Bad News

The Good News

There will be a number of well-known Russian authors attending the London Book Fair later on this year. According to the press release (via Booktrade info) The programme will feature 49 authors, poets, critics and academics, representing Russia and will be bringing the best in contemporary Russian writing and publishing to London in April and through a series of high-profile trade and public events will foster mutual understanding between Russia and the UK through literature and help facilitate long-term partnerships. Amongst those due to attend will be Boris Akunin. He will be London Book Fair's Market Focus Author of the Day on Tuesday 12th April. Boris Akunin is one of the most widely read authors in Russia and his Erast Fandorian novels have sold over eighteen million copies in Russia alone.

The Los Angeles Times have announced the 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists.

The authors in the Mystery and Thriller category are –

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (William Morrow)

Faithful Place by Tana French (Viking)

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman (William Morrow)

Collusion by Stuart Neville (SoHo Press)

City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley (Minotaur Books/A Thomas Dunne Book)

The full list of nominees can be found here.

The 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes will be awarded April 29, 2011, in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Times building.

No Exit Press have according to the Bookseller acquired The Killer is Dying by James Sallis. The book follows three characters: a hitman on his final job, a detective caring for his ill wife and a young boy living on the streets, and how their lives are linked despite them never meeting. Sallis is also the author of the acclaimed novel Drive which has been made into a film featuring Ryan Gosling and is due to be released in September 2011.

According to the Bookseller Headline have acquired The God of Gotham, a novel set in 19th-century New York. Set in 1845 during the establishment of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the potato famine in Ireland, the novel follows a fledgling police officer's investigation into a murderer intent on fanning the flames of anti-Irish immigrant sentiment.

Headline’s fiction publisher at large Martin Fletcher has also acquired two sets of acquisitions. The first is a two-book deal by Cityboy author Geraint Anderson. His debut novel Just Business will be published in June 2011. The second is two novels by thriller writer Steven Dunne. Dunne is moving from HarperCollins as part of the deal. The first book entitled Deity, is about five college students who appear to have committed suicide. It will be published in May 2012.

Orion have launched a new imprint. The new imprint to be known as Swordfish will publish a wide range of commercial non-fiction as well as a small selection of fiction. The fiction selection will be aiming for "big, distinctive thrillers". The first fiction title will be Spartan by Matthew Dunn, a début thriller by the ex-MI6 field operative.

Gordon Ferris’s novel The Hanging Shed has received some rave reviews on its early release as an ebook.

However, according to The Daily Record some readers are having problem with The Hanging Shed because they can’t understand the Ayrshire and Glaswegian slang in the novel.

And the Bad news ---

Is that the BBC have decided to axe the excellent crime series Zen. According to the Guardian BBC 1 Controller Danny Cohen has decided not to renew the series despite the excellent reviews that it received. Not sure what this is about as Zen was one of the better crime dramas to be shown earlier this year. It is a shame and I hope that this decision will be reviewed.

Robin Jarossi's Criminal Acts for JANUARY 2011

TAGGART
ITV1, Tuesday, 11 January, 9pm


STV’s Taggart is pushing 30, making it easily the longest-running crime series on British television.

Which is no great mystery. While it has never been ground-breaking or captured the imagination in the way Prime Suspect or Cracker did, it does do the basics well – gritty stories and good characters.

And just as Britain has changed beyond recognition since 1983, so has Taggart. The original star, former boxer Mark McManus, died in 1994, of course, and is still fondly remembered.

His successor, Mike Jardine (actor James MacPherson), moved on in 2002, when Taggart became the ensemble piece it is today.

Irascible DCI Matt Burke (Alex Norton), DS Jackie Reid (Blythe Duff) and DI Robbie Ross (John Michie) all return for this new series. They are joined by a new recruit, pathologist Duncan Clark (Davood Ghadmi), while Siobhan Redmond is on hand as Chief Supt Karen Campbell to give Burke a hard time.

In the opener, Bad Medicine, a tortured body is found in an abandoned warehouse. It turns out the victim, Scott Clarkson, was finished off with a nail gun. The team discover that he was a newly qualified doctor who had manufactured and sold Ecstasy to pay his way through university.

Adding a great twist of antagonism to this story is the arrival from London of two cocksure detectives who also have a nail-gun victim – DI Casey (Reece Dinsdale), an old mate of Burke’s, and DS Morretti (Steve John Shepherd).

Cross-border harmony is nowhere in sight as the two teams lock horns with snide comments, mistrust and back-stabbing. It’s a hard-hitting start to the new series, which the producers have been keen to freshen up.

STV’s head of drama, Margaret Enefer, explains: ‘Taggart remains a classic whodunit but, additionally, all three lead characters now have their own stories. The first episodes concentrate on Burke’s dilemma regarding where his career is going and whether he should move on or retire. The middle two feature Jackie taking stock, and the last two focus on Robbie’s life and problems. We felt that although you still don’t go home with the characters, if more was known about them as human beings then it would help relate the stories better.’

Producer Marcus Wilson adds, ‘You’ll see the Taggart you recognise but it’s grittier, bolder, fast-paced and a bit bloodier. It’s a treat stuffed with crime stories and fascinating characters. These six episodes will run as a series and this is the first time Taggart has been shot in HD with a more vibrant camera style, including a lot of Steadicam work. So it’s a much more modern style of shooting.’


KIDNAP & RANSOM
ITV1, Thursday, 13 January, 9pm

Trevor Eve stars in and is the executive producer of this pretty decent hostage thriller. He plays Dominic King, a private kidnap and ransom negotiator called in to retrieve businesswoman Naomi Shaffer (Emma Fielding), who’s been snatched while working in South Africa.

King thinks he’s up against an amateur bunch of chancers and beats down the ransom. As we see him meeting Naomi’s wife and daughter, and her employer in the UK, however, we begin to suspect he may be wrong about that.

Filmed in Africa and the UK, this is a tense, polished three-part drama, but what really sets it apart is that the characters are well developed, so that we feel we know them. Credit for this must go to acclaimed scriptwriter Patrick Harbinson, who has written for 24, Law and Order and ER.

We also get a good look into King’s personal demons, the fact that he seems to be losing his touch and recently lost his first hostage, whose body is handed over to him in a tense opening sequence. King’s boss, Angela Beddoes (Helen Baxendale), is soon on his case.

King’s wife, Sophia (Natasha Little), wants him to step back from field work and support her political career, and King also seems to be out of touch with his teenage daughter.

The opening episode ends explosively when King goes out to Cape Town to hand over the ransom for Naomi. In part two John Hannah appears as a far bigger problem for King deal with.

If you’re not a fan of Trevor Eve and his other hit crime series, Waking the Dead, Kidnap & Ransom is still worth a look. Eve fits into a good cast here, and the story is genuinely fraught and absorbing.

ZEN – RATKING
BBC1, Sunday, 16 January, 9pm

The last of the initial three – and very successful – adaptations of Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen mysteries is already with us.

Made by Left Bank Pictures for the Beeb, the same folk who produced Kenneth Branagh’s Wallander, Zen has had more pizzazz and attitude than virtually any series since the late 60s, when shows like The Avengers sent us all a-tingle.

Beautifully filmed and with terrific music by Adrian Johnston, Zen has been a joy to watch. But there has been substance with the style.

Rufus Sewell has stayed unflustered and cool despite exceedingly tricky cases thrown at him and the close proximity of the jaw-dropping beauty of Caterina Murino.

The stories have intrigued as Zen probed corruption and crime in the land of backhanders and nepotism – and that’s just at the Questura.

In Ratking, drawn from the story that was Dibdin’s first Zen novel, a powerful industrialist called Ruggerio Miletti is kidnapped. This being Italy, Miletti’s family would rather deal with the criminals directly themselves than let the police see that justice is done.

When Miletti’s lawyer is murdered while making an illegal ransom payment, Zen finds out that the kidnappers are only part of the problem.

Zen’s opening episode, Vendetta, got 5.1m viewers, beating Marple’s 4.3m.

Which is no surprise. Zen is a Ferrari against Marple’s Fiat Panda.

Taggart and Kidnap & Ransom (Photos © ITV).

• Robin Jarossi is a TV journalist and the editor of CrimeTimePreview.com

Robin Jarossi's CRIMINAL ACTS December 2010

DIRK GENTLY
Thursday, 16 December, 9pm, BBC Four

(C) BBC/ITV STUDIOS.

Christmas in TV land in not the season for ground-breaking new crime series. But lighter detective fare is allowed, and so this year we have a glut of new Agatha Christie dramas from ITV1 and the BBC’s sprightly Dirk Gently adaptation.

Green Wing’s Stephen Mangan follows in the footsteps of performers such as Harry Enfield (on Radio 4) in playing the holistic sleuth whose MO is to examine evidence in terms of the ‘connectedness of all things’.

And Mangan has the right blend of charlatan and inspired amateur to bring author Douglas Adams’s oddball detective to life – not that he bears much physical relation to the pudgy man with thick metal-rimmed glasses described in the two published books.

But that, and other changes from the novels, should only upset Adams obsessives. This hour-long adaptation is slick, succinct and has a very watchable cast.

Helen Baxendale has a great sitcom track record with Cold Feet and Friends on her CV, as well as straight roles in crime dramas such as Lewis and Marple. She plays Susan, the no-nonsense voice of reason, believing Dirk’s theories to be ‘crap’.

Richard MacDuff, Gently’s old uni friend and Susan’s on-off boyfriend, is played by Darren Boyd (Rev, Whites), while Doreen Mantle is Mrs Jordan, the old dear who gives Dirk his first case.

Finding Henry is the mission – ‘He’s all I have,’ says Mrs J. Henry is, of course, her moggy. How are Henry, Susan and her long-ago boyfriend Gordon, MacDuff and Mrs Jordan all interconnected?

It takes the chaotic, disreputable Gently and his theory that ‘every particle in the universe affects every other particle’ to form the incoherent clues into a case that wouldn’t stand up in a court, but should amuse fans and newcomers to the world of Douglas Adams.


Agatha Christie Galore

No one could say ITV1 hasn’t celebrated 2010’s glut of Agatha Christie anniversaries in style.

To continue Julia McKenzie and David Suchet’s residencies as Marple and Poirot – and bring cheer to the Dame’s huge fanbase on the 120th anniversary of her birth, the 80th anniversary of Marple’s first appearance and the 90th for the Belgian sleuth – the network has three new adaptations in the run-up to Christmas.

The stand-out drama is definitely Murder on the Orient Express, one of Christie’s best-loved mysteries.
(C) ITV Plc.

ITV1 has lavished on it a good production and international cast, including Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey) as Edward Masterman, David Morrissey (Thorne, State of Play) as Colonel John Arbuthnott, and Barbara Hershey (Portrait of a Lady) as Mrs Hubbard. Serge Hazanavicius (I’ve Loved You So Long) is Xavier Bouc, Denis Ménochet (Inglourious Basterds) is Pierre Michel, and Dame Eileen Atkins (Cranford) is Princess Dragomiroff.

Suchet, after 22 years in the role, finally gets to play Poirot in his most iconic case. And the actor says, ‘It's an honour to have such a wonderful international cast on board for this world famous murder mystery. Writer Stewart Harcourt, has created an exquisite script. His attention to detail is impeccable.’

And a sign of just how big a deal this is in the Christie firmament comes from the Chairman of Agatha Christie Ltd, Mathew Prichard, who says, ‘It’s high time that Agatha Christie fans had another interpretation of my grandmother’s wonderful Murder on the Orient Express to enjoy, and I’m delighted that this one has attracted so many well known names.’

Of this adaptation, Suchet adds, ‘We’re not doing it as a remake of the film, Stewart [Harcourt] has approached it from a very interesting and tantalising point of view.

‘This is more of a psychological drama. We are, right from the beginning, faced with Poirot in a different frame of mind to how we’ve ever seen him before.’

Murder on the Orient Express is ITV1’s two-hour blockbuster for Christmas night, going out at 9pm.

And then there are the two Marple mysteries. The first is The Secret of Chimneys (Monday, 27 December, 9pm), with Edward Fox (Lord Caterham), Ruth Jones (Miss Blenkinsopp), Dervla Kirwan (Bundle) and Michelle Collins (Treadwell) among the star-studded suspects.

Chimneys is, of course, a grand house once known for its diplomatic gatherings. Lord Caterham is planning to sell it, but an important guest, Austrian Count Ludwig, is found shot dead. To solve the crime, Miss Marple has to weigh up the dead man’s long affair with a mystery woman at Chimneys and the discovery of the bones of a young servant murdered there two decades before…

Finally, there’s Marple’s investigation of The Blue Geranium case (Wednesday, 29 December, 9pm). Here she needs the help of Sir Henry Clithering (Donald Sinden) to stop a court hearing because she has new evidence about the death of wealthy, unpopular Mary Pritchard, who died when the geraniums in her wallpaper turned blue.

(C) ITV Plc.

At least Julia McKenzie feels she has cracked the mystery of how to play Marple. She says, ‘I feel pleased with the way my Marple has been received. I’m enjoying it immensely. I was rather in shock in the first couple of films because I did take over the role very quickly. I was just so surprised to get the part, added to which was the trepidation of taking over such an iconic role. I feel now that I’m much more secure in the characterisation.

‘Obviously, it was a bit worrying when the first few films came out. I wasn’t sure how they would be received. But now I feel I’ve settled into it and would like to play her for the rest of my working life if there are enough stories to go round.

‘The Blue Geranium is a short story and it’s the first time anyone has adapted an Agatha Christie short story for television. Stewart Harcourt [the screenwriter] has done it brilliantly. It’s quite an intriguing tale. One of the treats of playing Marple is that you get new inspectors all the time and finding a way through how they accept Marple. And I had a lot of fun with Kevin McNally [Detective Inspector Somerset]. His detective was, as Miss Marple points out, a bit of a drinker and she gets round him that way. She always finds their Achilles heel.’


2011 Will Be Murder

It all gets more edgy once the New Year has been toasted. January promises fewer cosies and laughs, more drama and gore. Here’s a round-up.

Zen – Vendetta

(C) BBC/Left Bank Pictures

(BBC1, first week of January, date and time to be confirmed) is Rufus Sewell’s much-anticipated debut as Michael Dibdin’s Italian detective, Aurelio Zen. Italian actress Caterina Murino is his love interest. In this opener, Zen has to investigate a multiple murder, that of flash millionaire Oscar Faso and his guests.

Forensic drama Silent Witness is back for series 14 (BBC1, again first week of January, but date and time to be confirmed). In a two-part story, A Guilty Mind, three patients die suddenly on the same ward of a London hospital. Emilia Fox, William Gaminara and Tom Ward return.

Hustle, the light-hearted and frothy take on a gang of scamsters who dish out expensive retribution to the corrupt and powerful, also returns (BBC1, first week of January, date and time to be confirmed). This time Albert, played by Sixties smoothy Robert Vaughn, has three new marks for the tricksters – an arrogant aristo, a bent MP, and a shady judge.

Four Weddings actress Andie MacDowell will be Patricia Cornwell’s District Attorney Monique Lamont in a couple of new US dramas on the crime channel Alibi. Patricia Cornwell: At Risk is on Sunday, 2 January at 9pm, and Patricia Cornwell: The Front on Saturday, 8 January, 9pm.

Looking further ahead, the Beeb has announced a new thriller starring Damian Lewis called Stolen. It’s a story of modern child slavery and Lewis, taking a break from his US projects such as the TV series Life, plays Detective Inspector Anthony Carter, who works in the Human Trafficking Unit and tries to save stolen children.

With new ITV crime dramas later in the year, such as Vera and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, 2011 could be a bit special, if bloody.

Happy New Year!

• Robin Jarossi is a TV journalist and the editor of CrimeTimePreview.com