Mystery readers also will be able to see some favorites on the screen.
Jonathan Lethem
The film version of Jonathan Lethem’s compelling 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn is set to have its New York premiere during the closing night of the 2019 New York Film Festival on October 13.
The official trailer also has been released.
The trailer looks good and the movie has a good pedigree.
Edward Norton wrote, directed and stars in Motherless Brooklyn.
The Motherless Brooklyn cast also includes Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, Michael Kenneth Williams, Leslie Mann, Ethan Suplee, Dallas Roberts, Josh Pais, Robert Ray Wisdom, Fisher Stevens, Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe.
Set in 1950s New York, the very noir film revolve around lonely private detective Lionel Essrog (Norton) who has Tourette syndrome. With scant clues and his own obsessive mind, Lionel investigates the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Willis). As the case takes several twists, Lionel uncovers myriad secrets of the city.
Tragedy struck the filming of Motherless Brooklyn during March 2018 when a fire broke out below the set that engulfed the building. New York City firefighter Michael R. Davidson died after he was separated from his fellow firefighters in the thick smoke.
Residents of the Harlem building sued Norton's production company Class 5 Films and the property's owner for $7 million each, claiming claimed that the production company kept highly flammable equipment in the building's basement. The New York Fire Department ultimately determined that a boiler venting heat was the cause of the fire, according to news reports.
Lisa Lutz
Fox Entertainment has acquired the rights to The Spellman Files, Lisa Lutz’s highly entertaining six novels about the Spellmans, a family of private investigators.
The novels, which were launched in 1997, are to be developed as a drama series. No word, yet, as to the progress of this deal or when it might be filmed, or who might play Isabel Spellman.
Lutz’s novels are a fine mix of solid plotting and wry humor, especially in the character of Isabel, a 28-year-old private investigator whose past includes many romantic mistakes, excessive drinking and a bit of creative vandalism. She also is addicted to Get Smart reruns and is quite adapt at entering homes through windows.
Isabel is a juicy part and there are many young up-and-coming actresses who could nail this role.
Lutz’s latest novel is The Swallows, about a New England teacher who starts a gender war at the prep school where she works.
Emily St John Mandel
Readers may be familiar with Emily St John Mandel’s first four books—Last Night In Montreal, The Singer’s Gun, The Lola Quartet and Station Eleven, which was nominated for a National Book Award and won the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
But her fifth novel The Glass Hotel already is causing a buzz, and it won’t be out until March 2020 from Knopf.
The Glass Hotel may become a television series as NBCUniversal International Studios has acquired the rights.
Mandel will write the pilot, her first television screenplay.
In The Glass Hotel, the disappearance of a woman from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania eventually leads to a massive ponzi scheme New York that destroys many fortunes and lives. The action moves from Manhattan to northern Vancouver Island. The novel is described as a dark look at “greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts,” according to a press release.
