Janelle Monáe To Star In True Crime Adaptation! + More Exciting Mystery News
I’ve rounded up a bunch of things to know if you’re a mystery fan, from exciting adaptation news to Louise Penny announcing a U.S. boycott!
Super Excited!
Tanya Smith’s true crime memoir, Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System—and Pocketed $40 Million, was on my Best of 2024 list, and I love Janelle Monáe (Glass Onion; Hidden Figures) as a musician and actor so this is the best news: Janelle Monáe will produce and star in the film adaptation of Never Saw Me Coming.
Robert De Niro to star in thriller adaptation!
Alex North’s The Whisper Man is getting the Netflix film adaptation treatment with Robert De Niro to star. Since it’s still in the development stage and we’re just getting the announcements (Robert De Niro Is Hunting Down The Whisper Man), you have plenty of time to read the book, which is for fans of fictional serial killers, past and present mysteries, and father-son relationships.
A sequel!
If you are of a certain generation, Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game may have been a big part of your mystery-loving childhood. And, it may be one of those books you’ve spent your life trying to recreate the reading experience of. If so, here is very good news: a literary estate managing company has acquired the late author’s estate, which has an unfinished manuscript for The Westing Game sequel that will get “another iconic middle grade author” to help get it published.
There is also an almost finished new novel that she was working on when she died in 1984, A Murder for Macaroni and Cheese, which “…awaits a final polish and a worthy collaborator to bring it to a finale, which is at the top of our to-do list.”
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How is everyone not already in the streets?
Louise Penny, Canadian author of the very popular Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series, posted on Facebook that she will not be visiting the U.S. because “of an unprovoked trade war against Canada by the U.S. president…” Even though she’s done U.S. book tours for 20 years and had an upcoming event, “launching THE BLACK WOLF in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center, I will be doing the event in my nation’s capital, Ottawa, at the National Arts Centre. It will be on Tuesday, October 28. Tickets can be purchased here.” May more people take note, stop complying in advance, and stand up.
If you want a book club picked mystery/thriller
Women.com chose their 5 Best Thriller & Mystery Picks From Reese’s Book Club. I’m using this list to bump up Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng on my TBR. The only reason I didn’t read the galley was I didn’t think I could do a dystopian during the pandemic, but seeing as we just keep moving from one dystopian thing to another, I’m not waiting for “the right time” to read (or do) things anymore.
Author Interviews
- Gigi Pandian — co-founder of Crime Writers of Color — returns to talk with Robert Justice about the latest installment of the Secret Staircase Mysteries. Plus, we get an update on her Accidental Alchemist and Jaya Jones series.
- Language as protagonist in Cristina Rivera Garza’s newly translated novel (Death Takes Me)
- Art ‘plays an important role in people remembering the atrocities’ (The Man Nobody Killed by Elon Green)
- GVN Interview With ‘How To Survive A Slasher’ Author Justine Pucella Winans (How To Survive A Slasher)
- Deanna Raybourn On “Kills Well With Others” (Kills Well With Others)
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2025 releases, and mysteries from 2024 and 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations! Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Goodreads, Litsy, and Substack.
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