Mystery Melange

North American writer Dennis Lehane has won the 2017 Pepe Carvalho Award. The prize is given by the Barcelona City Council and aims to give particular recognition to prestigious national and international crime fiction writers.

The tenth annual Crime & Justice Festival starts tomorrow in Melbourne with panels on Scandinavian Noir, Aussie Noir, Asian Noir, The Law on the Page, and more.

Coming on the 18th of this month, Australia will also be the home to the Sisters in Crime Australia SheKilda 3: One Day Crime Spree. The event features more than 40 leading novelists, true-crime writers, screenwriters, producers, publishers, lawyers, and scholars participating in writing workshops, author panels, book launches, publisher pitching sessions, and the great Dames versus Dicks debate.

Leïla Slimani, a French-Moroccan novelist, was awarded France's top literary accolade, the Prix Goncourt, on Thursday for her book Chanson Douce (Sweet Song), a thriller that opens with the killing of two young children by their caretaker. The novel, which draws on elements from the real story of a nanny from the Dominican Republic who has been accused of killing two children under her care in New York in 2012, pieces together disparate events that culminate in a nightmarish outcome.

The Iceland Noir crime fiction festival will take place on November 17-20 in Reykjavik. Iceland Noir was born in 2013 over a curry in one of Reykjavík’s Indian restaurants when Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Ragnar Jónasson and Quentin Bates wondered why Iceland had never had its own crime fiction festival. The idea morphed into the Iceland Noir event which this year includes authors Val McDermid, Leena Lehtolainen, Viveca Sten, Sara Blædel, Alexandra Sokoloff, John Gilstrap, William Ryan, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Zoe Sharp, and more.

The crime and noir independent publisher, No Exit Press, has launched a new classics imprint noeXit2. The new imprint plans for around four new titles a year featuring Ace Double editions (two books in one volume) from iconic authors in an upside down and back to front style known as tête-bêche. The new imprint will give titles "a new lease of life" in this format, according to No Exit Press, hoping to introduce its authors to new audiences while attracting authors to the list. It will launch this series with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Robert Olen Butler’s Severance / Intercourse on December 5.

Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin is planning a Rebus Festival to celebrate his most famous creation, planned for 2017. The author added, "I’d like to have a Festival in Edinburgh one weekend in June as part of it. I’m still working on it but I could do some talks, we’d have some music and maybe get some of the actors who’ve done it on TV or radio to come along."

The Independent concludes that "Unlike the unfortunate victims who haunt its pages, Irish crime fiction is in great health, and it is women who are leading the way."

The Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading, which will present more than 50 authors November 12 at the University of South Florida, asked Ace Atkins, Tim Dorsey, Michael Koryta, Lisa Unger to explain what books led them to write crime fiction.

Martin Edwards has been helping to spearhead a series of reissued classics via the Classic British Library Crime Classic series. Last week saw the latest installment, Crimson Snow, an anthology of winter mysteries Edward put together on behalf of the Library.

Writing for the New Yorker, John Lanchester takes a look at "How Jack Reacher was Built."

Lisa Rosman makes a good case for "Why It’s the Right Time for an Easy Rawlins Film Franchise."  

Although many people may not be aware of it, there is a crime fiction tradition in West Africa, which Professor Lindsey Green-Simms discusses in an online article with books and resources.

Elizabeth Foxwell has the interesting story of the mystery novel penned by a silent film actor.

The Guardian checked into "Dining with death: crime fiction’s long affair with food," noting that from Sherlock Holmes to Inspector Maigret, fictional detectives often have healthy appetites, while "culinary cozy" combines murders with recipes.  

Book Riot compiled a list of 100 Must-Read Works of Noir during Noirvember.  

Writing for The Strand magazine, Rebecca Top looked at the more dangerous end of the traditional mystery set with  "A Cozy Author Goes Dark: Ten Dark Mystery Favorites."

The spy-oriented blog The Double O Section is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a list of the  "Top 10 Spy Novels of the Past Decade."

With the objective to make reading a daily habit for its citizens, the United Arab Emirates announced a new "national law of reading" earlier this week. The law will give government employees dedicated time to read during work hours, as well provide "knowledge briefcases" of books to children at birth, among other measures intended to encourage a love of reading.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "One Gunman's God" by Ted Davis.

In the Q&A roundup, Ben Winters interviewed fellow crime author Joe Ide about his new novel IQ, which has been getting lots of buzz; Omnimystery News welcomed back author Kim Krisco to talk about his new book Irregular Lives that takes a fascinating look at the Baker Street Irregulars; ON also sat down with David Hagerty to chat about the second in his trilogy of crime novels featuring Illinois governor Duncan Cochrane, They Tell Me You Are Crooked; E. B. Davis of the Writers Who Kill blog interviewed Susan Van Kirk about her new book Marry in Haste that tells the story of two lives over a hundred years apart in the same small town; and over at the Femmes Fatales blog, Jean Rabe, who is an accomplished SF/F writer, stopped by to discuss her first mystery, Dead of Winter, featuring Piper Blackwell.