Mystery Melange

The nine finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel were just announced, and you can check out the longlist via this Facebook link or courtesy or this one, courtesy of the Rap Sheet. The award is named after the author of the Roderick Alleyn mystery series and celebrates excellence in crime, mystery and thriller writing by New Zealand authors.

The Audio Publishers Association released its list of finalists for the 2015 Audie Awards, including the categories of Mystery and Thriller/Suspense. 

The International Thriller Writers has limited space available for their upcoming online Thriller School. Paid participants can take part in the seven-week program, which begins March 2nd, learning the craft with seven bestselling thriller writers. Each instructor will teach an aspect of craft though a podcast, written materials that include further reading and study suggestions, and an entire week of on-line Q&A with the registered students. For more information, check out the ITW website.

Shots Magazine is sponsoring an online contest to win a signed copy of the Amazon Prime promotion brochure for Bosch signed by both Michael Connelly and Titus Welliver. But hurry, because closing date for entries is February 20.

Criminal Element's Jake Hinson has a series on author Margaret Millar in honor of the centennial of her birth. Millar published 27 books in her career, won the Edgar for best novel twice, served as president of the Mystery Writers of America, and won the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. As Hinson notes, "All of which makes it remarkable that Millar isn’t as well known today as she should be."

Ed Gorman is editing an anthology of stories for PS Publishing culled from the pulp-style girlie magazines of the sixties and seventies and is seeking any authors who have such stories from their past to contribute. He has more details on his blog.

Reviewer Sarah Ward picked her "Top 10 Scandinavian Crime Novels in Translation."

Test your noir knowledge with Declan Burke's "devious" crime fiction quiz, created for The Irish Times.

If you're not already a fan of the regular Omnimystery News Mystery Godoku puzzles, hop on over to to this week's version, whose feature clue comes via Lori Rader-Day's 2014 thriller set in a Chicago college.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 this week is "Still Waters" by Phyllis Wax, and the latest story-of-the-month at Beat to a Pulp is "The Hard Side of Heartbreak: A Joe Hannibal Story" by Wayne D. Dundee.

The Q&A roundup includes JD Robb (a/k/a Nora Roberts) chatting with the New York Times; mystery author Lauren Carr stops by Omnimystery News; Lou Berney and Bill Loehfelm visit The Mystery People; and Lawrence Block talked about The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons, the latest in his well-known "Burglar" books series.