Mystery Melange

Edgar Allan Poe book sculpture by Raidersofthelostart

The Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival announced the shortlist for the third annual Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year, including: Chris Brookmyre, Flesh Wounds; Neil Broadfoot, Falling Fast; Natalie Haynes, The Amber Fury; Peter May, Entry Island; Louise Welsh, A Lovely Way To Burn; and Nicola White, In The Rosary Garden. (Hat tip to EuroCrime.)

Meanwhile, as Mystery Fanfare reports, the organizers of  the Iceland Noir festival in Reykjavik announced the finalists for the inaugural Icepick Award celebrating translated crime fiction.

If you happen to be in Melbourne, Australia, next Thursday, U.S. crime writer Karin Slaughter will be featured in conversation with Aussie true crime author Vikki Petraitis in an event sponsored by Sisters in Crime Australia and the Athenaeum Library.

Three Finnish crime authors will be in Minneapolis in August to participate in Finnfest USA. Even if you don't have tickets to that event, you can catch Antti Tuomainen (author of the dystopian-romantic-noirish novel The Healer), Jarkko Sipila (author of the Helsinki Homicide police procedural series), and Jari Tervo (whose first English-language translation was just publised) at the Once Upon a Crime bookstore on August 9th.

The summer issue of Suspense Magazine features interviews with bestselling authors Craig Johnson, Camilla Läckberg, Marcus Sakey, Amanda Kyle Williams, and Maegan Beaumont; another edition of "Face-Off" with Steve Berry vs. James Rollins; the ITW Reader's Corner, which gets invaded by Meg Gardiner; "Across the Pond" guest author AJ Waines; forensics with D.P. Lyle; and Sheila Lowe uncovers handwriting mysteries.

Speaking of Dr. D.P. Lyle and forensics, he penned an article titled "Don’t Do This: The 3 Most Common Medical Mistakes Writers Make" for The Thrill Begins Blog.

Amy Gentry of the Austin Chronicle profiled Patricia Highsmith with a look at her style and themes and the continued revival of interest in her works, incuding two new upcoming films based on her books.

Lee Goldberg and Joel Goldman are launching Brash Books in September with twenty-eight reprints and two original novels, including works by such authors as Bill Crider, Gar Anthony Haywood, Tom Kakonis, Dick Lochte, and Michael Stone. (Hat tip to Gerald So.)

Untreed Reads posted a call for submissions for a new upcoming anthology, "Haystacks and Homicide: Short Tales of Farmland Crime." As the title suggests, stories of between 1,500-5,000 words must take place on a farm or be farm related.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is  "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Paul Hostovsky, and the featured story at Beat to a Pulp is "Cigarettes" by Keith Rawson.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Belinda Bauer, in conversation with The Independent; BBC crime correspondent and detective writer Simon Hall chats with the North Devon Journal's Lyn Callaghan; and Chip Hughes stopped by Songs of Spade to talk about his his surfing detective Kai Cooke.