Mystery Melange

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare has a lengthy listing of Thanksgiving mysteries you can settle down with while in the midst of your post-feast food coma.

Mystery Writers of American announced that the 2012 Grand Master is Martha Grimes. The honor is given each year to an author who represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing. The MWA's Raven Award for outstanding individual supporting mystery books goes to M is for Mystery in San Mateo and Molly Weston of Meritorious Mysteries. The 2012 Ellery Queen Award will be given to Joe Meyers of the Connecticut Post/Hearst Media News Group for his generous and wide-ranging support of the genre.

Arne Dahl won the Swedish crime fiction award with Viskelen (Chinese Whispers), although as yet there are no US or UK rights or editions for the novel. The author's first book in English, Misterioso is finally being released in the U.S. after a long delay. (Hat to Crime Scraps Review.) Meanwhile, the Ireland AM Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year went to Bloodland by Alan Glynn, and over in Japan, Don Winslow's The Winter of Frankie Machine was named winner of the 2011 Maltese Falcon Award, given to the best hardboiled/private eye novel published in the previous year in Japan.

Andrew Hunt, professor of history at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, is the winner of the 2011 Tony Hillerman Prize for best first mystery novel. Hunt's book, City of Saints, introduces a Mormon sleuth investigating a crime in 1930s Utah and will be published by St. Martin's Press. Sherida Stewart of Farmington, New Mexico, won the 2011 Tony Hillerman Mystery Short Story Contest for her mystery "Turquoise Remembrance."

The latest short story offering on Beat to a Pulp is titled "Stalker," and was written by award-winning author, faithful blogger and all-around nice guy Ed Gorman.

Noir Nation is starting a series of international weekly posts focusing on a different country or region, with fans and followers invited to pitch in and help with your recommendations and contributions. This week, it's crime writers from India; post a top 10 or 20 list, or just a name or two.

You can register now for the  Mystery Writers of Ameria New England University, scheduled for Saturday, February 11, 2012,  at the Sheraton Boston. It features a day of top-notch classes including:  "After the Idea" with Jess Lourey; "Dramatic Structure & Plot" with Laura DiSilverio; "Setting & Description" with Daniel Stashower; "Character & Dialogue" with Reed Farrel Coleman; "Writing as Re-Writing" with Hallie Ephron; and "The Writing Life" with Hank Phillippi Ryan.

As the lists for "best of" books published during 2011 begin to pour in, Spinetingler is keeping track and has a scoresheet of sorts for you. What's interesting to me is the diversity in the lists thus far, with very little overlap. Does this mean there were more good books published last year, and thus it's harder to choose? At any rate, lots of good reading material there for you.