Mystery Melange

The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal awarded Attica Locke with the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Pleasantville as the best legal fiction "that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change." She will receive the prize on September 22 at the Library of Congress' Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D. C. during the National Book Festival.

The finalists for the 2016 T. Jefferson Parker Mystery and Thriller Award presented by the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association have been announced and include: Before the Fall by Noah Hawley; Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz; The Promise by Robert Crais.

Romance Writers of America (RWA) announced the winners of the 2016 RITA and Golden Heart Awards, including the categories of RITA Romantic Suspense (Flash Fire by Dana Marton) and Golden Heart Romantic Suspense ("In the Wrong Sights" by Tracy Brody).

Authors and readers of the cozy mystery genre have been hit recently with the loss of several series being dropped by Penguin Random House/Berkeley/NAL and Five Star. Several of these authors and their colleagues are teaming up for some giveaways to help promote and celebrate this more lighthearted side of crime fiction. One of the largest is a chance to win more than 40 cozy mystery novels from award-winning authors plus a Kindle Fire. (Hat tip to Nancy Cohen)

Starting this October, Hard Case Crime's Titan Comics imprint will bring Hard Case Crime's gritty, sexy, violent world to life with a brand new line of comic books. The first shots to be fired include Prohibition epic Triggerman by the legendary director of The Warriors, Walter Hill, and punky neo-noir Peepland from celebrated crime authors Christa Faust and Gary Phillips.

The next issue of Mystery Readers Journal (Volume 32:3) will focus on mysteries featuring Small Town Cops. Editor Janet Rudolph is seeking reviews, articles, and Author! Author! essays. Reviews: 50-250 words; Articles: 250-1000 words; Author! Author! essays: 500-1500 words.

Last week, I mentioned that Bouchercon was making nominees for the Anthony Best Short Story Award available online, and it appears that the Harrogate Crime Festival in the UK also featuring short stories ahead of the conference, with BBC Radio 4 sharing a series of audio stories written for the festival. First up is "The Queen of Mystery," by Ann Cleeves, with more to come from  Sarah Hilary, Val McDermid, and David Mark. But these are only up for a month, so better hurry and listen while you have the chance.

Aaron Sorkin, creator such shows as The West Wing, The American President, A Few Good Men, and The Social Network, is offering a five-hour screenwriting course on MasterClass. He'll cover “rules of storytelling, dialogue, character development, and what makes a script actually sell.”

Author John Verdon set out to compile a listing of the "10 Best Whodunits" for Publishers Weekly, but his choices may surprise you.

Fans of the TV show Get Smart from the 1960s will remember the bumbling Agent 86 (Maxwell Smart) and his "Cone of Silence." Now scientists say they have essentially created the real thing.

After 45 years, the FBI has finally closed the books on the still-unsolved case of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked a passenger plane and parachuted out to freedom with the ransom money, never to be seen again, allegedly. It remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the United States and has captured the American imagination through the years, inspiring songs, movies, TV shows, and books.

The BBC announced it had solved a mystery by getting to the bottom of a Lucian Freud painting puzzle. For years, experts believed it to be an original Freud despite the artist's claims that it wasn't his.

Meet the only library in the world that operates in two countries at once.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Is It So Hard" by Craig Faustus Buck, and the new story-of-the month at Beat to a Pulp is George R. Johnson's "A Well-Ordered Life." BTAP editor David Cranmer has a touching anecdote about the late George R. Johnson and how this story came to be published.

In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People welcomed Douglas Graham Purdy, who co-writes a series (with Thomas O’Malley) featuring Boston immigrants Cal and Dante, to chat about gun running, the IRA, loyalty, and the weight of one’s past; the MPs also grilled Peter Spiegelman about his new series featuring Skid Row's Dr. Knox; Ellie Alexander stopped by Criminal Element to chat about her new cozy mystery, Caught Bread Handed; the Mysteristas blog sat down with D.P. Lyle to talk about his Jake Longly series and numerous other works; Jason Michael took Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp, Interview" challenge; and Indianapolis Monthly spoke with Ben Winters about his new alternate history novel, Underground Airlines.