BunzelGram

February 19, 2024    Issue #167

 

This Week's Thoughts on Mysteries, Thrillers, and All Things Crime

As we enter week three of Black History Month, I want to highlight the life and career of Pam Greer, an exemplary African American actress who got her start in 1971 in Roger Corman’s The Big Doll House (1971), followed by The Big Bird Cage (1972). She became a leading lady in such action flicks as Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), Friday Foster (1975), and Sheba, Baby (also 1975). During the ‘80s she was a regular on Miami Vice, and played a supporting role as an evil witch in Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). Perhaps her most iconic role was as the eponymous Jackie Brown (1997), directed by Quentin Tarantino and adapted from the Elmore Leonard classic Rum Punch. Ms. Greer truly is an American cinema legend, and IMHO can do no wrong.

— Reed Bunzel

The Con Artist Who Sold The Eiffel

Tower For Scrap Metal…Twice

     Victor Lustig is among the most skilled con artists in history. The notorious scammer even went so far as to convince someone to buy the Eiffel Tower for scrap — not once, but on two separate occasions. Lustig was born in Austria-Hungary in 1890, and spent the first several decades of his life swindling people for modest sums of money. In 1925, he took his conning to a whole new level, as he arrived in Paris with eyes set on the Eiffel Tower. Lustig assumed the identity of a French government official and even created fake stationery with a government emblem. He then invited several scrap metal dealers to the Hôtel de Crillon, where he announced that the Eiffel Tower was too expensive to repair and would instead be sold for scrap to the highest bidder.

     Lustig’s story convinced a man named André Poisson to pay 70,000 francs (upwards of $250,000 today) for the scrap. The con artist then fled to Austria with the money, and Poisson was so embarrassed that he never contacted the police. In the ensuing weeks, Lustig kept a close eye on Parisian newspapers and realized that his scheme was never reported, so he decided to attempt the scam once more. While he successfully convinced another buyer to close the deal, suspicions grew and police were finally alerted. By the time law enforcement attempted to capture Lustig, however, he had fled to America, where he continued conning people. He eventually was captured by U.S. federal officials in 1935, and sentenced to 20 years in Alcatraz prison.

 
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The Choreography Of Violence:

Step By Step, Blow By Blow

     As a writer of crime fiction, I’m always fascinated by the “process”—that thing through which we’re expected to bring readers into the middle of the action in a way that makes them feel involved. Author John Gilstrap recently wrote a blog about the technique of crafting a realistic fight scene, whether it’s mano a mano fisticuffs, or a major armed conflict with firearms and explosives. Just as a Broadway choreographer works out step-by-step staging for a dance number, a writer must do the same thing, line by line, punch by punch. There’s a particularly well-done scene in the first episode of the first season of Reacher, wherein he engages in a battle with a half dozen inmates in a prison shower. Each punch, each elbow, each head butt works because the scene has been choreographed with precision. Not so easy to do in a book or short story.

     “The choreography of violence is inherently confusing, so it’s easy to lose the reader,” Gilstrap says. “On film, a viewer can easily keep track of the different punches thrown, because our brains process imagery at the speed of light. On the page, though, there’s that extra filter in play that translates letters on paper into words and then those words into images that can be far more vivid than any movie adaptation—but that translation is as fragile as a single misplaced word. Throw in a bunch of different POV characters and the risk of losing your readers grows astronomically. But if you pick a single character from whose point of view to show the scene, you can give the reader a literal blow by blow description of that character’s corner of the fight. We feel his knuckles hurt when he throws a punch, and we feel the pain in his gut when he takes a body blow.”

 
Reacher Fight Scene

The WWII Treasure Map That

Caused A Modern Day Hunt

     The Dutch National Archives releases documents every new year with a “Revelation Day,” disclosing documents that have been sealed to the public for a 75-year confidentiality term. Among the thousands of documents released just last year was an actual, hand-drawn treasure map for valuables hidden by German soldiers at the end of World War II, with the spot where the loot was buried marked by an actual X. The Dutch village of Ommeren soon was inundated with hundreds of fortune seekers, digging so many holes that the local mayor begged them to stop. A full year later—and as is the case with the best treasure stories—the loot has still not been found.

     According to Atlas Obscura, in the fall of 1944 the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, a failed attempt to cross the Rhine in the Netherlands and push into northern Germany [later dramatized in the classic war movie A Bridge Too Far]. During the hostilities, an Allied bomb destroyed a bank building in Arnhem, scattering the contents of the safe on the street. Four German soldiers gathered what they could: gold coins, watches, jewels, diamonds, and other valuables. The Allies suffered heavy losses and retreated, but in April 1945, they were again approaching Arnhem and the four soldiers buried their loot for safekeeping.

     Nobody ever would have known about this had not one of the four soldiers drawn a map, and then testified to the Beheersinstituut, a Dutch institute tasked with managing the assets of people who had disappeared during the war. The map was used in 1946 and ’47 to try to locate the loot, but it never was found. The value of the treasure is estimated at $20 million in today’s money.

 
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True Detective Is Evolving Into

Something New. Does It Work?

     Relaunching a popular TV series is always a dicey proposition, especially if a new set of creatives are taking over for the original author. When True Detective—starring Jodie Foster [right]—recently launched its fourth season with an all-new showrunner and writers, the stakes were doubly high, given a rabid fanbase and the relatively short time since the show’s previous iterations.

As Nick Kolakowski recently wrote for Crime Reads, Issa López—the showrunner who wrote or co-wrote all the latest episodes—wisely takes much of what made the show’s first three seasons work so well, while tweaking other elements so it becomes her own beast. The action is set in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, which sits in darkness for much of the winter; several scientists disappear from a nearby research station, only to be rediscovered on the tundra, frozen into a gruesome sculpture.

     “Judged on its own, those supernatural elements bring this season more in alignment with Arctic and Antarctic horror flicks such as The Thing and 30 Days of Night," Kolakowski says. "The genre-blending doesn’t work for everyone; as Joyce Carol Oates tweeted, ‘True Detective commingling genres: mystery/crime/detection with horror/gothic/surreal. This merging is always to the detriment of the detective story since a police investigation depends upon scientific principles; once you introduce the supernatural, the story is in free fall.’”

 
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Malice Domestic Announces The

2024 Agatha Award Nominees

Malice Domestic last week announced the nominees for the Agatha Awards, which are bestowed on the authors of “traditional mysteries”—those books typified by the works of such writers as Agatha Christie [and others]. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence, and are not classified as “hard-boiled.”

Some of the nominees for novels published in 2023 are:

Best Contemporary Mystery:

• Wined and Dined in New Orleans, by Ellen Byron

• Helpless, by Annette Dashofy

• The Weekend Retreat, by Tara Laskowski

• Case of the Bleus, by Korina Moss

• The Raven Thief, by Gigi Pandian

Best Historical Mystery

• Death Among the Ruins, by Susanna Calkins

• Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord, by Celeste Connally

• I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died, by Amanda Flower

• Time's Undoing, by Cheryl Head

• The Mistress of Bhatia House, by Sujata Massey,

 
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ALSO:

 

Crime Novels That Have Successfully Made The Jump To TV

If you’re looking to binge-watch a crime show that has been adapted from a novel (or series), you may find the books on this list to be just as thrilling and intriguing as their streaming counterparts. [Novel Suspects]

 

10 Mystery, Crime, And Thriller Shows That Were Cancelled Too Soon

It's heartbreaking when an abrupt cancellation happens to any show, but then: boom...the show we love and have followed faithfully from its inception gets cancelled. If you're forever lamenting the one that got away, here’s a look back at some of the best mystery, crime, and thriller shows that got the axe all too soon. [Murder-Mayhem]

 

Some Highly Anticipated Mysteries And Thrillers For February 2024

Need a last-minute valentine, or are you treating yourself to one? Look no further than this most-anticipated list. With mysteries and thrillers galore, February has plenty of great books screaming to “be mine.” [Criminal Element]

Coming March 19

Beyond All Doubt

[Reed Bunzel writing as Hilton Reed]

 

“Beyond All Doubt is an edge-of-your-seat fast-moving thrill-ride, kicked off by the reappearance of a dead man and propelling the reader along to the final bullet—and beyond.”— S.J. Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors of New York

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“Beyond All Doubt is a taut, smart, and emotionally rich thriller. Reed has a sharp eye for character and a screenwriter's feel for action. This tale is sleek as a mink and fast as a bullet.”— T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Rescue

 

“Beyond All Doubt is not a 'who done it,' but a twisty, compelling 'who did what.' Cameron Kane is a sympathetic, yet unrelenting bulldog in his pursuit of the truth about his wife's death. Intriguing and intense, Beyond All Doubt is a winner!”—Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill crime novels

 

“In this action-packed and engrossing thriller, Reed masterfully balances between a husband’s drive to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and a father’s instinct to protect his family at all costs. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down!”— Matthew Farrell, bestselling author of The Woman at Number 6

 

“Beyond All Doubt has plenty of thrills—deadly snipers, false identities, shocking deaths—but at its heart, this book is about a grieving single father whose desperation propels the plot like a speeding car with its brake lines cut.”— Cayce Osborne, author of I Know What You Did

 
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