The annual Malice Comestic conference Agatha Award nominations were announced last week, including Best Contemporary Novel category nods to Body on the Bayou by Ellen Byron; Quiet Neighbors by Catriona McPherson; A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny; Fogged Inn by Barbara Ross; and Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan. For all the various lists and nominees, click on over to the Malice Comestic official website. Mystery Fanfare also has links where you can read all the Agatha-nominated short stories.
Starting this evening and running through Friday, lectures at several San Francisco libraries will help put perspective on modern Sweden through today's popular crime thrillers. Dr. Jim Kaplan, professor emeritus at Minnesota State University-Moorhead, will discuss Jar City by Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason, Occupied by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, with film clips from internationally recognized main characters Lisbeth Salander, Kurt Wallander and Harry Hole. The programs are free and open to the public. For dates, times, and more information, check out this link.
Meanwhile, in New York City tonight at the Scandinavia House, Icelandic author Ragnar Jonasson and Danish author Sara Blædel delve into the world of Scandinavian crime fiction in a discussion of their latest novels, moderated by Icelandic author, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.
Join Mystery Readers NorCal for a Literary Salon on February 2 in Berkeley, California, with John Lescroart, who's written twenty novels in the San Francisco based Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series and three in the Wyatt Hunt series. The event is open to all, but you must RSVP to attend.
Top names in crime and thriller publishing will share their expertise at a Crime Club Masterclass on Monday, March 20 in the UK. The panel will include novelist and professor Henry Sutton; spy thriller author Charles Cummin; literary agent Jane Gregory; editor Julia Wisdom; and Sophie Hannah who writes the Agatha Christie estate's continuance Hercule Poirot series. (HT to Ayo Ontade at Shots Magazine.)
Author Graham Moore, the author of The Sherlockian, profiled Arthur and Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes by Michael Sims, taking at a look at how Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes and why the character has stayed with us.
Sadly, we lost Mary Tyler Moore last week at the age of 80. Although best known for her roles in the Dick Van Dyke Show and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I didn't know (or had forgotten) that she also starred as "Sam" in the 1959 series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, although it was more a heard-but-not-seen role, since Sam was the detective's sexy receptionist, whose face we never see and who minds the office while Diamond solves his cases.
We also two actors last week: Mike Connors, who died at the age of 91, and was perhaps best known for his role playing the good-guy titular private detective on the long-running 1970s action series Mannix on CBS (Connors received four Emmy nominations for the role from 1970-73 and six Golden Globe noms from 1970-75); and also Barbara Hale, known for playing Della Street on Perry Mason, who passed away at the age of 94.
The editors of Plots with Guns announced on Facebook that they are suspending publication as of now and thanked everyone "who has written for us, submitted to us, and read PwG." They left open the door, however, for the zine to continue if someone else is willing to take over the reins.
Washington, D.C., is going to be getting a new museum — Planet Word, an interactive museum of language. Led by philanthropist Ann B. Friedman (wife of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman), Planet Word will be an interactive center dedicated to language arts, in the same vein as the National Museum of Mathematics in New York.
Crimezine profiled "The big six books that made Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer" on his way to distilling hardboiled crime fiction into something new and addictive for the pulp crime market.
Fans of true crime stories (and the books and movies/television that were inspired by them) might be interested in a recent article in the Los Angeles Magazine titled "A Complete Guide to the 100 Most Unforgettable Crimes in L.A. History." These are crimes "both solved and unsolved, killers and victims both famous and unknown. They span more than a century and run the gamut from bank shootouts to insurance scams, gangsters on the lam to murderers so sadistic judges are devoid of words to describe their actions."
Cracked had some fun taking a look at "7 True Crimes Solved By Twists Too Ridiculous For Network TV." Although there is some of the usual "stupid criminal" aspect involved, the article also takes note of some fascinating forensics at work.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "War" by Thom Young.
In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People welcomed Patti Abbott to talk about her second novel, Shot in Detroit, which was recently named a finalist for an Edgar Award in the Best Paperback Original category; and author Deborah Kalb interviewed Peter Swanson (The Girl with a Clock for a Heart) about his new psychological thriller Her Every Fear.
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