What Are the Next Biggest Crime and Detective Fiction Series?
Here Are a Few Possible Contenders
Online streaming platforms, traditional television, and film have helped the crime and detective drama genres to flourish in our contemporary age. In the past few years, new crime fiction series like Elsbeth, Harry Wild, Only Murders In the Building, and countless others have kept viewers hooked. There are even current-day reenactments of amazing mystery classics from Agatha Christie and the like.
But in many ways, doesn’t the world of books constantly dwarf audiovisual and streaming media? There may be hundreds or more books for every crime/legal series or film. Let me share some of my favorite crime or mystery novel series that I would love to see become the next television or streaming sensation.
A Different Type of PI
Can the worst crimes stunt your growth, cool your affair, or spoil your appetite? Not quite for the protagonist in Selma Eichler’s Murder Can series. Imagine if we could sign into our Amazon Prime streaming service or turn on the television to see a PI who makes up in roundness what she lacks in height. Viewers would fall in love with Private Investigator Desirae Shapiro so much that they'd simply laugh every time she misses a clue to chow down an irresistible dish or savor the riches of a delectable dessert.
PI Shapiro is no superwoman bodybuilder who is about to chase down anyone unless they have stolen her creme brule. Also, let’s be honest that she is not always in the same league as Agatha Christie’s greats. However, she always manages to follow cases through and solve some of the most unimaginable crime mysteries ever. Author Selma Eichler brings unmatched humor and unrelenting complexity to Shapiro’s character on every page, and with titles like Murder Can Cool Off Your Affair or Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite, how could bringing Shapiro’s world to the screen not captivate viewers? Sadly, a new addition has not been published since 2008 so a streaming deal may not come anytime soon. However, readers can pick up any of the PI series and find themselves fully engrossed in
Booking It To the Screen
Imagine a series based on books (and crime). Meet John Dunning’s protagonist Cliff Janeway, a cop based in Denver, Colorado who also happens to be an expert in rare books. When Janeway loses his job as a cop in the debut novel Booked To Die, he opens up a full-time book shop and becomes fully entangled in a murder mystery surrounding books. This is just the first of multiple bookish mysteries that readers will find Janeway cataloging and solving over five novels.
John Dunning was a master storyteller and book expert in his own right. Since the Cliff Janeway books debuted in the early nineties when the Internet was just sprouting up, this series would nicely merge the old and new. Classic and vintage hard-cover books mixed with good old crime, mystery, and other savory ingredients? Sadly, the late John Dunning did not ever seem to pursue bringing Cliff Janeway to video or streaming. However, this need not stop readers from encountering these amazing worlds in print form.
First Daughter’s Executive Mysteries
President Harry Truman’s daughter Margaret Truman was an amazing soprano, biographer, and best-selling mystery fiction writer. Her series, Capital Crime Mysteries, offers readers a rare glimpse into the U.S. federal government with dozens of murder mysteries occurring in every corner of Washington D.C. and Capitol Hill. Although Truman passed away in 2008, many ghostwriters whom she collaborated with have continued the series into 2022. How amazing that readers can enter into an alternate fiction version of the U.S. capitol and follow leading detectives as they solve prolific cases in the White House, Supreme Court, the National Cathedral, and even the Watergate Hotel(as though Nixon’s missteps weren’t enough). The good news is that these adventures may soon make their way to a mystery series. However, readers need not wait until some unknown airing to immerse themselves in these amazing adventures. Currently, thirty-two novels are available for them to savor.
Hulu, Amazon Prime, Peacock, Acorn+, and many other platforms have brought the best and brightest of crime and detective fiction into our contemporary age. Additionally, film and television still keep the genre rolling. Yet as we have only briefly explored, the galaxies of books show countless worlds never making their way to screen or streaming. Who knows what unconsidered dust-laden volumes might become the next biggest online streaming hit? The sky is certainly the limit.
