Mystery Melange

Editor/Publisher Charles Ardai announced that after more than nine years of detective work and negotiation, Hard Case Crime has found a lost novel by James M. Cain (Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice) and secured the rights to publish the book. Titled The Cocktail Waitress, it's scheduled for a fall 2012 release and tells the story of beautiful young widow Joan Medford, whose husband died under suspicious circumstances. Desperate for cash, she takes a cocktail waitress gig then marries a rich, ailing older man. But when she falls for a handsome young schemer, things take a typical noirish Cain turn.

Publisher Crippen and Landru, a company that specializes in making out-of-print and neglected works available for new audiences as part of their "Lost Classics" series, announced that due to popular demand, they will reissue Vincent Cornier’s Barnabas Hildreth stories. Ellery Queen called them "one of the great series of modern detective stories," but after their original publication in a British magazine in the 1930s, they all but disappeared. They feature Hildreth solving such mysteries as a bullet fired three centuries earlier that wounded a man; an ancient Egyptian curse that strikes the members of an archeological expedition; a man transformed into stone; and an ancient Aztec laughing cloak.

In the review roundup this week, The Rap Sheet's Jeff Pierce has a Q&A with Kelli Stanley, the author of City of Dragons (recent winner of the Macavity Sue Feder Award for Historical Mystery), and her latest novel, City of Secrets, both featuring 940s San Francisco private eye Miranda Corbie. Stanley draws parallels between the early 20th century political climate and today.

Crime fiction authors Mark Billingham, John Harvey, Michael Ridpath and Pauline Rowson are teaming up with law enforcement experts for "CSI Portsmouth," part of the 2011 Portsmouth, England, BookFest on November 5th. The authors will join police from the Major Crime Unit and Crime Scene experts from Hampshire Constabulary; Dr Claire Nee, Director of the International Centre for Research in Forensic Psychology at Portsmouth University, and Paul Smith, an expert in Crime Scene Investigation. There will even be a panel on Victorian Crime.

If you are an unpublished Canadian novelist, dust off that manuscript and send it to the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Unpublished First Crime Novel, awarded by the Crime Writers of Canada. The competition is open to (1) Canadian citizens, no matter where they are living, and to writers, regardless of nationality, who have Permanent Resident status in Canada, and (2) who have never had a novel of any kind published commercially.

I don't often mention writing contests that include a fee (especially ones with such a large number of entries), but the Writers Digest contests have large prizes, so if you want to give it a shot, both the Thriller and Crime short story competitions have deadlines coming up soon (October 1 and 22, respectively). Stories must be 4,000 words or less.

Been wanting to try eBooks? The Criminal Element blog is running a contest to win an eReader of your choice. All you have to do is register (for free).