Mystery Melange

The Long Drop by Denise Mina has won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year. The prize was renamed in 2016 in memory of William McIlvanney, often described as the Godfather of Tartan Noir, and is awarded annually at the Bloody Scotland crime fiction conference.

From La Vanguardia, Irish writer John Banville has won the XI RBA Crime Fiction Prize with his novel Pecado, written under the pen name of Benjamin Black with which he signs his crime fiction books.

Some of the authors who will be appearing at the upcoming Noirwich Crime Writing Festival spoke with Crime Time about their take on the event.

Some sad news this week via Mystery Fanfare: Ron Tierney passed away on September 2. Ron wrote 18 mysteries including the Deets Shanahan Mysteries, the Carly Paladino and Noah Lang mysteries, the Peter Strand Mystery Novellas, and also stand-alone crime fiction titles.

Crime writers who invent intricate and illegal plots are perfectly capable of becoming criminals, as evidenced by Tim Watson-Munro who first went to prison when he was 25 – as a prison psychologist. Two decades later he was booted out of the profession for drug offenses, and in his new book, Dancing with Demons, he explains that really there is no such thing as the criminal mind any more than there are criminal classes: there is the potential for criminality in every single one of us.

True crime fans should also head on over to the Criminal Element blog where Philip Jett shared his family's experiences with murder and discussed whether violence can be genetic and Inherited. You can also win a copy of his new book, The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty.

For feline addicts, Sofie Kelly shared a list of her favorite Cat Detectives.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Under the Bridge of Sighs" by Peter Magliocco.

In the Q&A roundup, David Lagercrantz talked about continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, including the latest installment released this month; Graham Smith takes Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge; South Africa's Deon Meyer, the author of more than a dozen bestselling thrillers and short-story collections stopped by the Globe & Mail to discuss his latest novel, Fever; and Reed Farrel Coleman stopped by Shots Magazine to chat with Ayo Onatade about his latest work, Debt to Pay.