Recently, Park Square’s Mystery Writers Producer’s Club had a virtual cocktail party with playwright Joe Goodrich (The Red Box, Might As Well Be Dead, Panic). Joe introduced his new book Unusual Suspects: Selected Nonfiction published by Perfect Crime Books. This scintillating collection runs the gamut from cozy to noir and celebrates the achievements and personalities of mystery writers working in print, film, television and radio. The collection concludes with a biographical study of Derek Marlowe, forgotten author of the 1960s espionage classic, A Dandy in Aspic.
Mystery writer and playwright Joseph Goodrich.
“‘She’d been impressed by expatriate bookseller Sylvia Beach, founder of the original Shakespeare & Co in Paris, and Beach’s example offered a way out of Madison Avenue. ‘I’ll open a bookstore, and call it Murder Ink,’ Winn said. ‘That was on a Wednesday. I found the store on Thursday, and signed the lease Friday. I opened six weeks later.'”
Back in 1976 Murder Ink offered a “Magical Mystery Tour” to London for only $800 that included meetings with authors and “cocktails with firearms experts.” Alas, the packet of information she mailed to young Joe in Minnesota “went missing.” (The chief suspects being Mr. and Mrs. Goodrich who most likely thought a London adventure was too much for a 13-year-old boy who’d never been further away than Sioux Falls.)Before the Zoom call ended, club members did a “round robin” to share what everyone was reading or watching. The list below is mostly mysteries to read, watch or listen to, but there are also a couple of other topics thrown in for variety.
First on the list, of course, is Joe Goodrich’s Unusual Suspects: Selected Nonfiction which can be ordered from the Twin Cities’ own brick and mortar bookstore dedicated to mysteries: Once Upon a Crime, in Minneapolis.
Cozy Recommendations from the Mystery Writers Producers’ Club
- Anything by Anthony Horowitz, whose works include the Alex Rider series, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond pastiches Midsomar Murders, and Foyle’s War.
- Agatha Christie’s first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which Jeffrey Hatcher will adapt for Park Square Theatre when live theatre returns.
- Timothy Hutton is fantastic as Archie Goodwin in the Nero Wolfe TV Series (and read the books by Rex Stout)!
- Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night. A Lord Peter Wimsey mystery with Harriet Vane.
- The Absent One (Danish: Fasandraeberne). A 2014 Danish crime mystery film directed by Mikkel Nørgaard and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, based on Jussi Adler-Olsen’s novel of the same name. It is the second film in the Department Q trilogy.
- Works of Edgar Allen Poe – one MYPC member is reading them aloud and relishing the language! Did you know both of his parents were professional actors?
- The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry (no, not a mystery, but so timely).
- Columbo!
- Mortgaging the American Dream: What Were We Thinking? by R. Michael Conley (not a mystery, just to be clear)!
- The Laurie King mysteries set in San Francisco. She also writes the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series.
- From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon by Mattias Boström, translated from the Swedish by Michael Gallagher. Explores the history of Sherlock Holmes fandom.
- Enola Holmes on Netflix. Action packed fun with Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) as Sherlock’s sister.
- Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series. He likes to drink beer and be honest!
- The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities by Stephen Breyer (again, not a mystery).
- Phoebe Reads a Mystery. The host of the podcast, Criminal, reads a chapter a day from a mystery novel.
Two men stood outside the door of the Hansen-Clarey home. The glow from the front porch light revealed one man to be rather neatly and nattily dressed; the other, a bit more bohemian and slightly disheveled. They were Michael-jon Pease and Richard Cook, the executive director and artistic director of Park Square Theatre respectively. Why had they come? What was on their minds?
And the Mystery Writers Producers’ Club was born!
In the 2013-2014 season, the Mystery Writers Producers’ Club presented its first world premiere commission, The Red Box, adapted by playwright Joseph Goodrich from the fourth of 33 Nero Wolfe mysteries written by Rex Stout from the 1930s to 1970s. Peter Moore directed The Red Box, and actor E. J. Subkoviak perfectly embodied the role of the brilliant and eccentric armchair detective.
Audiences were then treated to the musical mystery, Murder for Two, in the middle of the 2015-2016 season. Directed by Randy Reyes, this unique production featured just two talented actors on stage, Nic Delcambre and Andrea Wollenberg, playing all the roles.
