Mystery Melange

Butterfly book sculpture by Cara Barer

The nominees for the 2014 Agatha Awards were announced last week. Handed out at the Malice Domestic Convention each year, the awards celebrate "cozy" and traditional mysteries. The Best Contemporary Novel category nods include Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming (Minotaur Books); Pagan Spring by G.M. Malliet (Minotaur Books); How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books); Clammed Up by Barbara Ross (Kensington Books); and The Wrong Girl by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books)

David Cranmer announced that Beat to a Pulp is back with a revamped website (the archives of past stories is in the works) and a new editor added to the team, Chad Eagleton. The first featured story of 2014 is "Life of Salvage" by Frank Bill.

This week's crime poem over at the 5-2 is "In Memoriam: Ex-KGB Agent Complains..." by Elizabeth Lash. Website editor Gerald So also put out a call for original poems by an Irish poet or about Irish crime to be published the week of St. Patrick's Day, as well as any crime-themed poems for April, National Poetry Month.

You've still got a few days left to vote in The Rap Sheet's "You Pick 'Em: Best Crime Covers of 2013" poll. Voting will remain open through midnight on Friday, February 7th.

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine includes a host of new thrillers coming out in the next three months, as well as the usual reviews and news from the crime fiction social scene across the Pond.

Open Road Media just announced that twenty-two works by pioneering crime writer Dorothy Salisbury Davis will now be available as ebooks. Davis was a contemporary of Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Dashiell Hammett and a recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, as well as lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic.

Meanwhile, Penguin announced that they plan to reissue all 75 Inspector Maigret Mysteries by Georges Simenon. (Hat tip to Janet Rudolph.) The first two volumes are already available, beginning with the very first book in the series to feature the Paris police inspector, Pietr the Latvian.

The University of Portsmouth UK is seeking proposals of no more than 300 words for papers to present at its June symposium, "Detecting Objects: The Material Item and Detective Fiction." The description adds that pioneering works in the field of "thing theory" have sought to reconceptualise the roles of objects in fiction, and this conference will consider the ways in which objects have always been of crucial importance to the popular genre of detective fiction, as either clues, weapons, or as other embodiments of history.

Adrian McKinty chose his "top 10 locked-room mysteries" for The Guardian.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Thomas Pluck, speaking with The Mystery People about his novels with Iraqi war veteran and former MMA fighter, Rage Cage Reeves; and Barbara Levinson joined Make Mine Mystery to chat about the writing life and her latest novel, Outrageous October.