Mystery Melange

Cat Art Print Dandy Cat With Mustache and Monocle by Colla

Congratulations go to Tana French for winning the 2017 Strand Magazine Critics Award for her novel, The Trespasser, and for Heather Young, who won Best Debut award for The Lost Girls. For all the finalists in both categories, head on over to the Strand website. (HT to the Gumshoe Site)

Congrats also to this year's winners of the ITW Thriller Awards announced at the annual Thrillerfest in New York City. Best Hardcover Novel went to Noah Hawley, Before the Fall; Best First Novel, Nicholas Petrie, The Drifter; Best Paperback Original, Anne Frasier, The Body Reader; Best Short Story, Joyce Carol Oates, "Big Momma"; Best YA Novel, A.J. Hartley, Steeplejack; Best E-Book Original Novel, James Scott Bell, Romeo's Way; Thriller Legend Award to Tom Doherty; and Silver Bullet Literary Award for charitable work to Lisa Gardner.  (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Also just announced was the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction handed out this year to James Grippando for his book Gone Again, the 12th in the Jack Swyteck series, about the adventures of a Miami criminal defense attorney.

A new writers festival celebrating the crime genre will be held in Sydney September 2-3, 2017. The two-day festival, BAD, is founded by Denis Tracey and writer Michael Duffy, and will feature speakers from crime writing, film, investigative journalism, forensic psychology, legal experts, and law enforcement. Special guest Lee Child will discuss his Jack Reacher series in a session via Skype, with other authors scheduled to appear in person including Michael Finnane, Nikki Gemmell, Caroline Overington, James Phlan, and Michael Robotham. 

Previously unseen Agatha Christie letters, to be exhibited at the upcoming Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate July 20-23, reveal the author's temper, including disputes with her publisher and how she hated unflattering author photos. Letters between Christie and William Collins, former chairman and publisher of Collins, also discuss jacket designs, plots and publishing schedules, showing a relationship that lasted 50 years, until the author’s death in 1976.

Stuart Neville looks at the "big twist" in crime novels and wonders if or when twist fatigue will set in.

If you're a Kathy Reichs fan, Random House is celebrating the release of Two Nights by the bestselling author (best known for her Bones series) with a chance to win a storied stay in Charleston, S.C., where the novel’s mystery unfolds. The sweepstakes ends on ends on July 28, 2017. For more information, click on over here.

Global English Editing compiled a listing of which country reads the most in a study of global reading habits that also include time spent reading around the globe and other worldwide reading facts. Think the U.S. comes out in first? You might be surprised.

Ever wonder where the term "smoking gun" came from? According to Smithsonian Magazine, we might have Sherlock Holmes to thank.

Did librarians lose something special when they did away with card catalogs?

This week, the featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Persona" by Karen Peterson.

In the Q&A roundup, Radio Times welcomed Mark Billingham on how being taken hostage informed his crime writing and the process of adapting his novels into a BBC drama series; Tom Leins takes Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview Challenge"; the Huffington Post spoke with award-winning Walter Mosley about writing imagination, inspiration, and his literary creation, Easy Rawlins; HuffPo also also sat down for a conversation with Richard Lange (Angel Baby, The Smack; the LA Review of Books chatted with Kristen Lepionka about her debut mystery, The Last Place You Look; Rachel Amphlett interviewed fellow author Michael Robotham about his distinguished career spanning journalism, ghost writing, and author of bestselling crime fiction; Marcus Sakey joined Criminal Element for a discussion of his new book, Afterlife; and the Mystery People snared Ace Atkins for a Q&A about his latest, The Fallen.