At a banquet last evening, the Crime Writers Association announced more of its annual Dagger Awards. The International Dagger went to Camille, by Pierre Lemaitre, translated by Frank Wynne; the Short Story Dagger was handed out for “Apocrypha,” by Richard Lange (from Sweet Nothing: Stories, by Richard Lange; Mulholland Press); The Non-fiction Dagger: In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile, by Dan Davies; The Endeavour Historical Dagger: The Seeker, by S.G. MacLean; The Debut Dagger: Last of the Soho Legends, by Greg Keen; and the Dagger in the Library for body of work went to Christopher Fowler. (Hat tip to The Rap Sheet.)
Foreword Reviews announced the winners in its 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards, including the mystery and thriller categories.
The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is an annual grant of $1,500 for an emerging writer of color, sponsored by the Sisters in Crime organization. An unpublished writer is preferred, although publication of one work of short fiction or an academic work won't disqualify an applicant. This grant is intended to support the recipient in activities related to crime fiction writing and career development. Deadline for applications is July 5, with the winner to be selected and announced in the fall.
Seattle Mystery Bookshop announced the sad news that the shop's founder, William D. Farley, died this week. Farley and his wife B Jo opened the bookshop in the summer of 1990. As the store blog noted, "It was his intention that the Seattle Mystery Bookshop be a place where readers and writers could meet, that it be a resource for those with questions or simply looking for a new author to read, that it be a place for someone new to the novels as well as the serious buyers looking to extend their collections."
The latest edition of Thuglit is out and available for download for the Kindle. Check out new original short fiction from Michael Pool, Mike Madden, Matthew J. Hockey, Dan J. Fiore, Joseph Rubas, Amanda Marbais, Luis Colón, Garnett Elliott.
Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine includes a wrap-up of the annual Crime in the Court party thrown by Goldsboro Books, plus a look at recent awards and the usual variety of book reviews and news.
Crime fiction author James Patterson has been making headlines donating money to bookstores and libraries. The efforts include a $1.75m program to help fund school libraries and independent booksellers, and he recently announced the first round of awardees for those grants.
Since we're on the topic of bestselling crime fiction authors making donations, Peter James has donated £15,000 to a Sussex Police crime prevention campaign aimed at highlighting the danger of cyber crime and how the public can keep themselves safe.
The Indiana University library at Bloomington has a little exhibit they're featuring this summer. Titled "Death by Gimmick!," the four cases display gimmicks that pushed the fiction of some authors into the territory of the bizarre. Mapbooks are there, as is Dennis Wheatley's Crime Dossiers, which included print material such as cablegrams and transcripts of interview to each reader to help them solve the crime.
The Guardian picked a list of the top ten books about the mafia, "some fact, some myth, and some both."
The island country of Malta decided that one way to boost the country's profile was to have crime thrillers set there. So, the Malta Tourism Authority spent a week hosting authors Chris Kuzneski, Boyd Morrison and Graham Brown in hopes they'll help promote the Maltese islands in the U.S. market by using the archipelago as a backdrop in their books.
The Sydney Morning Herald profiled the new book Blockbuster! The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Lucy Sussex. It details the story of Ferguson's 1886 crime thriller set in Melbourne and how it became a global publishing phenomenon. (WaPo discussed it last year, and it was one the subject of an IRTM Friday's "Forgotten" Book.)
The Guardian examined the Sherlock Holmes canon via a series of charts to help explain his enduring appeal. Meanwhile, the Den of Geek blog profiled "10 Offbeat Takes" on Sherlock Holmes.
In more classic crime fun, the International Crime Fiction Resesarch Group blogged about the "Semantics of murder: A look at the titles of the 66 novels by Agatha Christie."
Mashable offered up a list of "10 influential pulp novels that are criminally good," from the pulp tradition of the early 20th century, from Doc Savage to Raymond Chandler, to Dashiell Hammett.
You've heard that no two fingerprints are alike, but now scientists think that each person may have a unique sense of smell. They hope that a sort of "olfactory fingerprint"' test will not identify individuals but rather may help with everything from an early diagnosis of degenerative brain disorders to a non-invasive test for matching donor organs.
It's official: "twerking," the dance movement popularized by Miley Cyrus, has been officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary. But, surprise! The OED editors say that "twerk" actually dates back to 1820 when it was spelled "twirk," meaning a twisting or jerking movement or twitch.
The new poem at the 5-2 is "Elegy for a Lost War" by Dennis Weiser.
In the Q&A roundup this week, the latest "9mm interview" from Crime Watch featured Rosie Claverton, author of a series of cybercrime thrillers and an in-progress historic fantasy mystery set in Victorian times; mystery author Channing Whitaker stopped by Omnimystery News to talk about his new supernatural mystery; Jame DiBiasio took Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge to discuss the sequel to his debut thriller, Gaijin Cowgirl; and the Mystery People snared Don Winslow to talk about his new drug-trafficking novel, Cartel.
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