The Nero Award, presented each year to an author for the best American mystery written in the tradition of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories, was announced at the recent Black Orchid Banquet in New York City. The "Nero," considered one of the premier awards granted to authors of crime fiction, this year goes to Al Lamanda for With 6 You Get Wally. The other finalists were Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon; Home by Harlen Coben; and Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr.
The 2017 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards included the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Novel of the Year, which went to The Therapy House, by Julie Parsons. The other finalists included Can You Keep A Secret? by Karen Perry; Here and Gone, by Haylen Beck; Let the Dead Speak, by Jane Casey; One Bad Turn, by Sinéad Crowley; and There Was a Crooked Man, by Cat Hogan. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)
International bestseller Tess Gerritsen received the Robert B. Parker award this year at the sixth annual New England Mobile Book Fair Mystery Gala. The annual crime fiction party at the Newton, Massachusetts indie bookstore also hosted more than 30 other authors along with Gerritsen's honor, with additional seasonal festivities for book lovers.
ThrillerFest organizers announced the featured authors for the 2018 conference, held at the Grand Hyatt, New York City from July 10-14, including 2018 ThrillerMaster George R.R. Martin; 2018 Silver Bullet Award James Rollins; 2017 ThrillerMaster Lee Child; and 2017 Silver Bullet Award Lisa Gardner.
The Granite Noir crime festival will return to Aberdeen in 2018, with headliners including authors Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid. As well as Cleeves - who has had Shetland and Vera adapted for television - other big names for 2018 include Christopher Brookmyre, Hugh Fraser and Robert Daws. Chaired by BBC Scotland's Fiona Stalker, the three-day event will run from 23-25 February and include authors from Scandinavia to talk to audiences about their novels, as well as a slate of film screenings and workshops for children.
Crime Fiction Lover profiled new, strong female voices "that we expect to light the way in 2018."
The end of the year lists continue with this one from the Washington Post book editors and their choices of "The 10 best thrillers and mysteries of 2017." Also, Marilyn Stasio's list for the New York Times of "The Best Crime Novels of 2017" has ten additional featured titles, and as The Rap Sheet notes, Adam Woog of the Seattle Times has also been busy compiling his own top picks. Across The Pond, The Guardian posted its "Bests of 2017," The Telegraph celebrated "A criminally good year: the best thrillers and crime fiction of 2017," and Declan Burke and Declan Hughes, writing for the The Irish Times, featured "Deadly fiction: the 20 best crime books of 2017."
I missed this bit of sad news: mystery author Joan Hess passed away at the age of 68. Hess was the author of the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the Arly Hanks Mysteries, formally known as the Maggody Mysteries, and won the American Mystery Award, the Agatha Award (for which she had been nominated five times), and the Macavity Award.
Kid power! When third graders at Tomoka Elementary School in Florida learned the local Barnes & Noble would likely close at the end of the year, they wrote CEO Demos Parneros a letter "in colorful penmanship" on poster-sized paper, begging him not to close the store and suggesting other sites. They even invited him to visit their town to see alternative locations. Apparently, the letter did the trick, and B&N renewed the store's lease for another year. (HT to Shelf Awareness)
Writing for the Irish Times, Declan Burke profiled the Irish spy novel as it "comes in from the cold."
Thrillers took the majority of the top spots on the 2017 Apple iBooks bestseller lists, including three psycholoogical thrillers that took the top spots, Michelle Frances’ The Girl Friend; Lies by T M Logan; and The Girl Before by J P Delaney.
As it turns out, Iceland’s new Prime Minister is an expert on crime thrillers.
Just in time for Christmas shopping, Book Riot has a list of good mystery books for teens.
Bad news for Barnes & Noble, but ultimately good news for book lovers: Barnes & Noble sales fell 7.9% in the second quarter that ended October 28, and B&N noted that half the decline was due to the lack of a bestseller (like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child which was selling well during that same period last year), but the rest of the decline was attributed to non-book products. CEO Demos Parneros noted that "book sales continued to strengthen, and as a result of the improving trends, we will continue to place a greater emphasis on books, while further narrowing our non-book assortment. We expect these improvements to continue as we head into the holiday season." (HT to Shelf Awareness)
They say no publicity is bad, even bad publicity (for authors, anyway), so "congrats" to American author Christopher Bollen whose thriller The Destroyers has generally won critical praise - but was also just awarded the dreaded Bad Sex in Fiction Prize for a passage comparing a male character’s genitalia to a billiard rack. The prize is a compliment in a way, as it's only given to an"outstandingly bad" sex scene "in an otherwise good novel." Books that are meant to be primarily erotic or pornographic aren't considered. And Bollen is hardly alone. Previous winners of the award, now in its 25th year, include such notaries as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and John Updike (who received a special "lifetime achievement award").
Forensic scientists behaving badly: Hannah Devlin and Vikram Dodd report that ten thousand criminal cases in England and Wales have to be reviewed following an alleged manipulation at a forensics lab in Manchester, UK.
But the forensic science news isn't all bad; an Australian team found that blowfly feces contains human DNA for two years – and could be even more vital evidence than previously thought. Plus, forensic technology developed at Loughborough University will make it “impossible” for criminals to destroy fingerprint evidence.
And yet more forensic good news: you might not have heard of Thomas Hargrove, but as The New Yorker notes in a recent profile they titled "The Serial Killer Detector," the unassuming former journalist, equipped with an algorithm and the largest collection of murder records in the country, finds patterns in crime.
If you live in an earthquake-prone area, you might consider this - a wall-to-wall bookshelf made to withstand temblors.
If you're not familiar with The Onion and its news parodies, this is a good time to take a look at a tongue-in-cheek bit of advice to stay mentally sharp as you age.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Broken Sky" by Carlton Johnson.
In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People chatted with Layton Green, author of their Pick Of The Month, Written in Blood, and also with Matt Coyle who "brings that classic trope of the tarnished knight/errant private eye" to his Rick Cahill series; the Criminal Element spoke with Joanna Schaffhausen about her debut thriller, The Vanishing Season; the Seattle PI sat down with Sheila Lowe, author of the Forensic Handwriting Mysteries; Crime by the Book welcomed Ragnar Jonasson for a discussion of the latest in his Dark Iceland series, Nightblind; Paul D. Brazill offered up two "Short, Sharp Interivews" with K.S. Hunter and Jack Strange; and Omnimystery News spoke with Mary Cunningham, who introduces travel agent and sometime amateur sleuth Andi Anna Jones in Margaritas, Mayhem & Murder.
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