Mystery Melange

Robert J. Randisi is the recipient of the 2016 Killer Nashville John Seigenthaler Legends Award. He's written over 650 novels in the western, mystery, sci-fi, horror, and spy genres under different pseudonyms and has been tireless in advocating, encouraging, and featuring other genre writers. He's edited over 30 short-story anthologies and collections (in which numerous authors found their first breaks), founded The Private Eye Writers of America, and co-founded the American Crime Writers League.

The winners of the Left Coast Crime awards, "The Leftys," were handed out at the annual conference this past weekend. The Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel went to Donna Andrews for Lord of the Wings; Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel went to Rhys Bowen for Malice at the Palace; Lefty for Best LCC Regional Mystery Novel went to Gigi Pandian for The Accidental Alchemist; and the Lefty for Best World Mystery Novel (set outside LCC Geographic Region) went to Louise Penny for The Nature of the Beast.

Also announced this week were the finalists for the Derringer Awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society. For all the nominees in the categories of Best Flash Story, Best Short Story, Best Long Story, and Best Novelette, check out the SMFS link.

A new conference, Murder and Mayhem in Chicago, is set to launch on March 11, 2017 at Roosevelt University. Dana Kaye and Lori Rader-Day were inspired to form the new event by the annual Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee Conference. Like its cousin, the Chicago venture will be a one-day event filled with panels and interviews with talented mystery authors. Sara Paretsky has already signed on, with many more authors slated to appear.  (HT to Janet Rudolph.)

Deal Noir in the UK is gearing up for its second day-long Crime Fiction convention. The April 2 event will feature best-selling authors speaking on crime fiction in all its forms from dark psychological thrillers through historical fiction to light-hearted romps, as well as Interactive panel discussions. Shots Magazine's Ayo Onatade has more details on the zine blog.

Thanks also to Ayo for noting the upcoming Newcastle Noir event April 30 through May 1, with pre-conference workshops also planned. The Festival will be launched by Ann Cleeves who will be talking about and reading from her work, with panels on Icelandic Noir, Novellas and Short Stories, Historical Mysteries, Thrillers, and more.

The Once Upon a Crime bookstore in Minneapolis has changed owners for the fourth time, with new propriertors, Dennis Abraham and Meg King-Abraham, taking over on April 1, which also happens to be the bookstore 29th anniversary. Previous owners Pat Frovarp and Gary Shulze said they'll miss the store, but "plan to be there on a regular basis for several months for training purposes. Just thinking about all the details and bookselling wisdom we need to provide and impart makes our heads spin." In 2011, Once Upon a Crime won the Raven Award, for outstanding contributions to the genre, from the Mystery Writers of America. (HT via Shelf Awareness.)

The Nation profiled the late author Ruth Rendell and the British crime novelist's acuity of psychological perception, or as article author Charles Taylor noted, "some novelists write comedies of manners. Ruth Rendell wrote autopsies of manners."

The Men's Journal picked a list of "The Best Old-School Noir Novels."

Author Brad Meltzer, whose list of books range from political thrillers, to inspirational nonfiction, to comic books, and the kidlit "Ordinary People Change the World" picture book biography series, has been chosen as the first Literary Ambassador for Montage Hotels & Resorts. The program will focus on Meltzer's children's books, with guests with young children who check into any of Montage’s five hotels receiving a copy of one of four titles in Meltzer’s series.

Last week, I noted Five Star was dropping its mystery novel line, and now Classic Mysteries’ Les Blatt has reported that the Boulder, Colorado-based independent publisher Rue Morgue Press has gone out of business. Blatt note, "Tom Schantz and his late wife, Enid, were pioneers in republishing some of the great—and often little-known—classic authors and their works, long before many of today’s smaller presses got into the business. RMP was responsible for republishing several of the finest John Dickson Carr mysteries, but they also specialized in other first-rate, if often obscure, mysteries." (HT to the Rap Sheet.)

Martin Edwards, via his blog Do You Write Under Your Own Name, also posted the sad news that crime writer Stuart Pawson has died. Pawson created a series featuring Detective Inspector Charlie Priest and was a member of the Crimewriters’ Association and the Murder Squad in the UK.

Scott Adlerberg penned an essay for The LA Review of Books about the first full-fledged, non-serialized detective novel by an African American to be published, Rudolph Fisher’s The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem (1932). As Adlerberg notes, Fisher’s influence cannot be underestimated in "how he created his rich, funny mini-world of Harlem, with its myriad types and characters from up and down the social and economic ladder, he paved the way for the Harlem novels of Chester Himes."

The Page 69 test this week featured J. Aaron Sanders, is Associate Professor of English at Columbus State University, whose first novel, Speakers of the Dead: A Walt Whitman Mystery features a young Walt Whitman’s as he finds himself in the middle of body-snatchers, medical students, and the law.

The Guardian took a visit to the oldest bookstore in the United States - the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is still thriving 270 years after its founding - and its resident ghost.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 this week is "Mistrust" by Nancy Smahl-Syrop.

In the Q&A roundup, Lawrence Block spoke with the Oregonian about his readers' love for one of his most beloved characters, the introspective assassin, Keller; Chris Jane snagged Barry Eisler for Jane Friedman's blog to discuss his writing and the world of publishing; the Mystery People welcomed Trudy Nan Boyce, whose debut novel, Out Of The Blues, follows newly minted Atlanta homicide detective Sarah Alt (nicknamed Salt) as she stumbles into a cold case that unlocks secrets involving race and city politics; Crime Fiction Lover grilled Dolores Redondo about her Baztan trilogy, set in Northeast Spain's Basque country; and Craig McDonald chatted with The Venetian Vase about his award-winning Hector Lassiter series.