Mystery Melange

Ana Ballabriga and David Zaplan's Ningún Escocés Verdadero—a thriller that involves religion, mystery, art and deception—has won the Third Indie Literary Prize for Spanish-language authors worldwide, awarded by Amazon. More than 1,400 authors from 39 countries participated using Amazon’s self-publishing service Kindle Direct Publishing platform.

While we're on the subject of Spanish crime fiction, The Mystery People's "Director of Suspense," Molly Odintz, noted that 2016 has been a prolific year for crime fiction set in Spain, ranging from tales of 16th century rebellion against the Inquisition to 1970s punk protests of Franco’s fascist regime, which make fascinating backdrops to murder.

The Black Week Festival returns to Istanbul this December 1-3 for its second year of celebrating crime fiction. Last year's event was in honor of Agatha Christie, while this year's fest will commemorate Georges Simenon. The setting will be the historic and luxirious Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah, where Simenon stayed in 1933 on a visit that impressed him so much, he wrote two novels set in Turkey.

Moving over to India, Arjun Raj Gaind posits that "Indian historical crime fiction has come of age, as these sleuths prove."

The November issues of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine are now available. The EQMM issue, the penultimate in the 2016 celebration of the 'zine's 75th anniversary, honors those who have contributed to the mystery-fiction world in areas other than fiction writing: the historians, critics, reviewers, and biographers of the field; and AHMM offers up the theme of criminals and writers who employ misdirection, as a number of this month’s stories demonstrate.

The holiday season is a time for being thankful and giving to others, so you might take a look at Bookriot's list of "Bookish Charities You Can Donate to Right Now."

UK law enforcement officer Stefan Kyriazis pointed out "Seven huge mistakes crime novels make" regarding police procedures.

If you're a fan of mysteries, the UK, and remote settings, you'll have fun with a list compiled by author Ann Cleves of "Britain's 10 most mysterious islands."

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "There is a Thief Amongst Us" by J.H. Johns, and the featured story at Beat to a Pulp is an excerpt from Christmas in the Lone Star State by Jason Manning.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element spoke with Rebecca Zanetti, author of Deadly Silence; SFF World talked with Bullet Gal author Andrez Bergen about the work, originally a 12-issue comic series that was turned into a novel; Benedict J. Jones took Paul D. Brazill's Short, Sharp Interview challenge about his latest book The Devil's Brew; Timothy Hallinan stopped by Julia Buckley's blog, Mysterious Musings, to discuss his Christmas mystery, Fields Where They Lay, featuring his burglar/private eye protagonist, Junior Bender; Big Issue North snagged writer, musician and journalist Doug Johnstone for a chat about his new novel, Crash Land; and the Mystery People welcomed Lance Hawvermale to discuss his new thriller Face Blind.