HOT READ

15th Affair (Women’s Murder Club) by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro:

Detective Lindsay Boxer has everything she could possibly want. Her marriage and baby daughter are perfect, and life in Homicide in the San Francisco Police Department is going well. But all that could change in an instant.

Lindsay is called to a crime scene at the Four Seasons Hotel. There is a dead man

in one of the rooms, shot at close range. The man checked in under a false name with no ID on him, so the first puzzle will be finding out who he is.

In the room next door are a dead young man and woman, also shot. They are surrounded by high-tech surveillance equipment. Could they have been spying on the man now dead in the room next to them?

And in the utilities cupboard down the hall is the dead body of a housemaid. The murders are all clearly linked and professionally executed. But what is the motive behind it all? Lindsay will need to risk everything she has to find out.

AMERICAN CRIME STORY

American Crime Story has landed.

The 10-part television series, from the team behind American Horror Story, Scream Queens and Glee, has already screened its first episode across the pond and will be broadcast on BBC2 later this month.

It’s based on Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson and revolves around the murder trial of the former NFL player.

Featuring an all-star cast including Cuba Gooding, Jr. (O.J. Simpson), Sarah Paulson (Marcia Clark), David Schwimmer (Robert Kardashian), Selma Blair (Kris Jenner), Connie Britton (Faye Resnick), Nathan Lane (F. Lee Bailey), John Travolta (Robert Shapiro) and Courtney B. Vance (Johnnie Cochran) to name but a few, this show is my new Making a Murderer.

Although not a documentary, the storyline revolves around the real-life murder of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

I was a teenager when all this went down back in June 1994.

I remember watching a news report on the infamous highway pursuit of Simpson before his arrest and the subsequent “trial of the century”.

Although the majority of viewers like myself will know the final outcome, the drama within the show is watching all the wheelings and dealings behind-the-scenes that we’ve never seen before.

I’ve watched the first episode and it’s started with a bang. The cast is flawless and as always my woman Sarah Paulson is knocking it out the park.

TWIN PEAKS

Naomi Watts is set to reunite with director David Lynch for Showtime’s Twin Peaks revival.

Although I already knew Watts from Tank Girl (1995) and Strange Planet (1999), and from being Nikki Kidman’s pal, she didn’t get her big Hollywood break until she was 32-years-old in Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001).

As I’ve written before, I was too young to appreciate or understand Twin Peaks when it originally aired in the early 90s.

When I was about 12-years-old I watched Fire Walk with Me before I’d seen the actual show. Not realising it was a companion movie to the series I didn’t have a clue what the heck was going on. That mistake would later ruin Twin Peaks for me as it revealed who Laura Palmer’s (Sheryl Lee) killer was.

I’m intrigued to see how Lynch will continue the story and I’m super excited with the addition of Watts to the cast.

OITNB

Orange Is The New Black has received a lengthy prison sentence.

The award-winning Netflix show has been renewed for a further three seasons following its fourth.

The Litchfield inmates recently picked up Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series at this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Uzo Aduba also took home Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her portrayal as Suzanne ‘Crazy Eyes’ Warren.

GHOST IN THE SHELL

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Pitt will play The Laughing Man in the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie.

The Hannibal and Boardwalk Empire actor – who will always be Henry from Dawson’s Creek to me – will star as the manga story’s main baddie opposite Scarlett Johansson’s special-ops cyborg Motoko Kusanagi.

The film recently jumped studios from Disney to Paramount, but is still on schedule to premiere in March 2017.

PAUL FEIG

Paul Feig is set to be the first man ever honoured by the female-focused Athena Film Festival.

The writer-director-producer will receive the first Athena Leading Man award, celebrating his longstanding, outspoken support for women in film.

Feig has championed strong, funny women in his hit comedies Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy and the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot.

He said: “There is nothing more important to me than creating meaningful, diverse and three-dimensional roles for women in front of the camera and doing whatever I can to help move the industry toward complete equality for their creative visions and voices behind the camera.

“So, to be named as Athena’s first male honouree means more to me than I can ever express. I am truly honoured."

This is well deserved. I love Paul’s comedies and what he’s trying to do for women in film.

He’s also my new best pal. I stuck up for him against a Twitter troll who was slagging the new Ghostbusters reboot. He sent me a couple of lovely messages thanking me for the support.

As I told him – it’s no problem. I’ve been waiting on female Ghostbusters since the 80s.

MUSICAL DELIGHT

Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are teaming up for an untitled musical comedy.

The film from Universal will be produced by Marc Platt, the man who brought Wicked to Broadway.

Gordon-Levitt helped to formulate the idea for the script, which reportedly revolves around the mishaps of two pilots. It will be written by Michael Bacall.

Bacall has worked with the two heartthrobs before in 21 Jump Street and Manic respectively.

Tatum and Gordon-Levitt will also be reuniting after starring together in 2008’s Stop-Loss.