Mystery Melange

Tonight at the The Center for Fiction in New York City, Sara Paretsky, author of the iconic V. I. Warshawski series, will conduct a CFA Master Class at Crime Fiction Academy, starting at 7 p.m.

Congrats to this year's finalists for the Arthur Ellis Awards, handed out annually by the Crime Writers of Canada. The shortlist in the Best Novel category includes: Peggy Blair, Hungry Ghosts; John Farrow, The Storm Murders; Andrew Hunt, A Killing in Zion; Peter Kirby, Open Season; and Inger Ash Wolfe, The Night Bell. The CWC has a list of all the finalists in the various categories on their website.

CrimeFest also announced the finalists for their annual awards, including the categories of the Audible Sounds of Crime Award (audio books), the eDunnit Award (ebooks), Last Laugh Award (humorous crime novels), and the H.R.F. Keating Award (critical or biographical works).

Houston's Murder by the Book is asking for "an influx of sales" to help it through some difficult financial times following recent flood damage. Owner McKenna Jordan suggested supporters buy books or gift cards in store or online. "I have no intention of doing any type of crowdfunding campaign, as I strongly believe that bookstores are both cornerstones of their communities and businesses that should be self-sufficient. I don't expect charity in this situation." (Hat tip to Shelf Awareness.)

Gary Phillips, writing for the LA Review of Books, made note of "The Unacknowledged: Black Crime Fiction, the Roaring ’20s to the 1930s," hoping that the work of other crime writers from this group will be uncovered and more widely read.

Dean Street Press is releasing the first ten of the imprint's Patricia Wentworth reissues on May 2. This is part of a major project to republish all 33 of her non-Miss Silver mysteries, some of which haven't been in print or available for many decades (with the remaining 23 to be published in a further two batches in June and July). The first ten include the four Benbow Smith mysteries, featuring Foreign Office Agent Benbow Smith and his loquacious parrot Ananias.

Harper Lee's biographer, Charles J Shields, believes he's found a new previously unknown Harper Lee text, a feature article written for the March 1960 issue of the Grapevine, a magazine for FBI professionals. The article focused on the gruesome murder of Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their teenage children Nancy and Kenyon at their farmhouse in Kansas, the subject of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Lee accompanied Capote, her childhood friend, on his assignment for the New Yorker, reporting on how the community was reacting to the brutal murders.

If you're a fan of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, you'll enjoy this piece from Radio Times reporter Gary Rose, who takes a tour of Bosch's Los Angeles and winds up chatting with actor Titus Welliver, who plays Bosch in the Amazon TV series, and ultimately Connelly himself who talks up LA noir and his hero, Raymond Chandler.

Author Con Lehane took the Page 69 test for Murder at the 42nd Street Library, the first novel in a new series featuring Raymond Ambler, curator of the 42nd Street Library’s fictional crime fiction collection.

Author Laura Tillman picked a few of her favorite nontraditional true crime books for Publishers Weekly, including an orchid-poacher, a heroin dealer, the book that inspired The Wire, and more.

Alex Segura, author of the Miami crime novels featuring Pete Fernandez compiled a list of "8 Crime Fiction Characters From Florida" for Mental Floss.

If you're a fan of the Millennium Series created by Stieg Larsson and continued (upon the arrangement of his family) by David Lagercrantz, you may be scratching your head at this bit of news: the next sequel in the series by Lagercrnatz will be written in the style of American detective fiction a la Raymond Chandler. In an recent interview, Lagercrantz said finding his voice in this new style had proved tricky and "It's so much harder to write hard-boiled fiction than I thought."

30 Days at the 5-2 continues with the featured poem this week, "Any Second Now" by David Spicer, and check out the other entries here.

In the Q&A roundup, Anonymous-9 visits One Bite at a Time to discuss her short stories and novels and what she's working on now; Omnimystery News welcomed authors Kaylin McFarren (Banished Threads) and the sisters (Pam Burks and Lorraine Campbell) who write as Ellie Campbell, chatting about their new humorous PI mystery, Meddling with Murder; and Criminal Element has a Q&A with Katherine Hall Page, recipient of this year’s Agatha Lifetime Achievement Award from the Malice Domestic Convention.