Mystery Melange, Pre-Christmas Edition

Christmas tree book sculpture by James Downing

Open Road Media via NetGalley is offering excerpts from Christmas mysteries and thrillers, including classic favorites, contemporary bestsellers, and little-known gems.

Janet Rudolph keeps expanding her comprehensive listing of Christmas-themed mysteries via her blog, Mystery Fanfare. The list is so extensive, it's broken down into several sections, including A-D; E-H; I-N; and M-Z.

Cressida Cowell, author of the How to Train Your Dragon novels, launched the UK Christmas Mini-Challenge scheme to encourage children to read over the holidays. Similar to summer reading challenges, the program rewards kids for reading and reviewing books and "keeps them in touch with what's happening at their local library," according to Lynne Taylor of the Reading Agency, the group that runs both programs.

Mystery Scene posted some holiday gift book ideas, including one seasonal title, the recently-released Big Book of Christmas Mysteries edited by Otto Penzler.

The authors over at Mystery Lovers Kitchen have several holiday offerings for you, including Florentines and angel wing cookies.

If you like your holiday celebrations with a touch of mayhem, Criminal Element's Dave Richards listed the top Christmas films with explosions.

Or, if you like your holiday celebrations with mayhem in graphic novel form, Dave Richards notes "5 Warped, Weird & Wonderful Christmas Graphic Novels."

The "Best of the Year" book awards keep on coming. NPR created an App (that you can use online) including their picks in various categories, including Best Mysteries & Thrillers.

The 2013 Specsavers National Book Award winners were announced during a ceremony held at London’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel last week. Popular Fiction Book of the Year was given to An Officer and a Spy, by Robert Harris; Crime & Thriller Book of the Year went to The Carrier, by Sophie Hanna; the International Author of the Year is Gillian Flynn for Gone Girl; and the Waterstones UK Author of the Year is Kate Atkinson for Life After Life. (Hat tip to the Rap Sheet.)

The Swedish publisher of the best-selling The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy says it has hired author David Lagercrantz to write a sequel to the series by Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004. The title will be a new story about journalist Mikael Blomqvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander that doesn't include any material from the fourth book in the series Larsson was writing when he died.

The weekly crime poem over at the 5-2 is "Stealing Band-Aids from Hospitals" by Paul Hostovsky; and the featured Beat to a Pulp short story is "155 Rounds" by Mike Miner.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Michael Connelly, interviewed by the New York Times; Mike Lawson, who visits the Seattle Mystery Bookshop blog; also stopping by the Seattle blog was Carola Dunn, talking about her Daisy Dalrymple series; Steve Weddle takes Paul Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge; Luca Vesta drops by Declan Burke's blog; and Todd Robinson answers "Twenty Questions" from Dana King.