Fans of Bill Crider are offering up their remembrances following the author's death after a bout with cancer in home hospice. Crider, best known for his Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, was also a huge advocate and promoter of crime fiction, a fixture at Bouchercon conferences, and most recently, a social media icon via his pop culture blog and Facebook presence where he chronicled his life with the three adopted Very Bad Kitties (VBKs). You can read some of the tributes from The Rap Sheet, Evan Lewis, Jayme Lynn Blaschke, and Crimespree, with more to come. Even those of us who never had the good fortune to meet him in person feel like he was a friend, and he will be sorely missed.
Ayo Onatade has a handy listing of all the events coming up during the Granite Noir festival in Aberdeen, Scotland, February 23-25. Val McDermid and Anne Cleeves will be featured in separate conversations, plus there is a plethora of crime fiction-themed panels for aspiring writers including one for kids aged 8-10, as well as screenings of Double Indemnity, The Big Clock, and the Big Easy; an exhibition of crime scene and police photography; an interactive tour of sites associated with medieval and beyond crime and punishment in Aberdeen; a Noir at the Bar; the Crime Writers Pub Quiz; and much more.
Mystery Writers of America NorCal is holding a Master Class on Writing Commercial Fiction with Jeffery Deaver on March 10 from 10 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. in Oakland, CA. This event, which will include lunch, conversation, handouts, a lecture on specific goals and techniques, is free but exclusive to MWA NorCal members. However, if you're in the area, you can join MWA and reap many year-round benefits, as well. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)
Del Sol Press is holding a first novel competition and seeking to publish exceptional work by both new and recognized writers, with an emphasis is on original, unique, and accessible work with an edge. The 2018 competition invites submissions of literary and upmarket fiction, general fiction, serious women's fiction, SFF with a literary edge or fiction with a catalytic speculative element (e.g., Time Traveler's Wife), as well as mystery, crime, or suspense fiction.The competition is open to all authors writing in English regardless of nationality or residence, and is available to published and unpublished authors alike. The winner will receive a $1,500 honorarium and book publication by Del Sol Press, and finalist manuscripts will also be considered for publication. The submission deadline is May 15, 2018.
Fahrenheit Press founder Chris McVeigh announced that as of this month the press has joined with Number Thirteen Press to form a new imprint called Fahrenheit 13. Fahrenheit Press Senior Editor Chris Black noted that the imprint will highlight the finest hard-boiled noir and experimental crime fiction, or, as he puts it, "hardboiled, pulp, crossover, literary, neo- or classic noir, everything goes." The original Fahrenheit Press will continue to publish a blend of traditional crime fiction from established and debut novelists
The Ian Fleming estate has authorized Anthony Horowitz to once again write an official James Bond novel, this time a prequel to the first ever James Bond novel, Casino Royale. Forever and a Day, Horowitz's second 007 continuation novel, will make use of material left behind by Ian Fleming to imagine Bond’s first mission.
The Washington Post announced its new bestselling books charts. The Post (owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) had previously used data from Nielsen Bookscan for its best-seller list that only provided data on print sales and was an incomplete view of the market. The new lists factor in Amazon's ebook sales and reads in Kindle Unlimited and will allegedly "more accurately reflect what people are reading instead of editor-influenced lists like the New York Times." The Post’s lists are backed by a new in-house technology called Bradbury, which enables automatically imported data from multiple sources and will be used to generate a data-driven weekly synopsis detailing movement on the list from the week prior such as fastest rising titles, authors, new additions, and historic performance.
Mystery Fanfare has a list of Olympics-themed crime fiction you can read while waiting for your favorite Winter Games athletes to complete. And for those of you who celebrate Mardi Gras, there's a list of mysteries and thrillers on that theme, too.
Jen Gann takes a look at how "A New Crop of Mom Thrillers Taps Into Our Worst Fears."
This is the kind of heart-warming news that's good to see: Garbage collectors in the Turkish capital have opened a public library comprised entirely of books once destined for the landfills. The library, located in the Çankaya district of Ankara, was founded after sanitation workers started collecting discarded books. For months, the garbage men gathered forsaken books. As word of the collection spread, residents also began donating books directly. The collection grew so large the library now loans the salvaged books to schools, educational programs, and even prisons.
Big Brother meets high-tech law enforcement: Chinese police are using dark sunglasses equipped with facial recognition technology to spot criminal suspects. The glasses, which are being worn by police at a busy train station ahead of the Chinese New Year travel rush, are linked to a central database which contains details of criminal records. Wearing the technology, police can almost instantly view an individual's personal details, including name, ethnicity, gender and address.
In an interesting study, new research from a memory expert at James Cook University in Australia shows there may be a simple way to help eyewitnesses of crimes remember more about what they have seen - and it's a lot simpler than you'd think.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Surprise Me Deadly" by Michael A. Arnzen.
In the Q&A roundup, The Crime Warp's Liz Mistry interviewed Sharon Thompson about her debut novel, The Abandoned; Deborah Kalb chatted with Maureen Johnson, the author of the new young adult mystery novel Truly Devious; Craig Sisterson's first 9mm Interview for the year featured French crime writer Johana Gustawsson whose debut, Block 46, was an international bestseller that won both the Balai de la Découverte and Nouvelle Plume d’Argent awards in 2016; the Mystery People's Scott Montgomery grilled Don M. Patterson about his novel Sierra Blanca that features Texas native and CIA operative Hank Copeland; the Sunday Guardian Live spoke with Swedish author Carin Gerhardsen, who specializes in writing "socially-engaged crime novels"; and Laura Lippman was the guest of Matthew Turbeville over at the Mystery People blog, discussing her newest book, Sunburn, which she has said might be her favorite book she's written so far.
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