For over 30 years, the Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”) have identified and honored the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books. The organization recently announced the finalists of the 31st Lammys, culled from over 1,000 book submissions by 300 publishers, with winners to be announced at the Awards Ceremony and Gala the evening of Monday, June 3, 2019 in New York City. Here are the finalists for best Lesbian Mystery and Best Gay Mystery:
Lesbian Mystery
- A Matter of Blood, Catherine Maiorisi
- A Study in Honor: A Novel, Claire O’Dell
- A Whisper of Bones: A Jane Lawless Mystery, Ellen Hart
- Alice Isn’t Dead: A Novel, Joseph Fink
- Gnarled Hollow, Charlotte Greene
- The Locket, Gerri Hill
- Secrets of the Last Castle, A. Rose Mathieu
- Stolen: A Kieran Yeats Mystery, Linda J. Wright
Gay Mystery
- Black Diamond Fall, Joseph Olshan
- Boystown 11: Heart’s Desire, Marshall Thornton
- Death Checks In, David S. Pederson
- Dodging and Burning: A Mystery, John Copenhaver
- The God Game: A Dan Sharp Mystery, Jeffrey Round
- Late Fees: A Pinx Video Mystery, Marshall Thornton
- Somewhere Over Lorain Road, Bud Gundy
- Survival Is a Dying Art: An Angus Green Novel, Neil S. Plakcy
Friends of Mystery, a non-profit literary organization headquartered in Portland, Oregon, announced its list of 10 finalists for the 2019 Spotted Owl Award. For a book to be considered, the author must have primary residence in the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, or the Province of British Columbia. The winner will be awarded later this month from among the nominees:
- Baron Birtcher – Fistful of Rai
- Robert Dugoni – A Steep Price
- Warren Easley – Moving Targets
- G.M. Ford – Soul Survivor
- Elizabeth George – The Punishment She Deserves
- Stephen Holgate – Madagascar
- Mike Lawson – House Witness
- Martin Limon – The Line
- John Straley – Baby’s First Felony
- Jon Talton – The Bomb Shelter
Foreword Magazine released the list of finalists for the 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, including the fifteen titles in the Mystery category and the thirteen books in the Thriller category.
This coming Saturday, March 16th, the Murderous March 2019 Writers’ & Readers’ Confab, hosted by the Mavens of Mayhem (Sisters in Crime, Upper Hudson chapter) and the East Greenbush Community Library will take place in East Greenbush, New York. Canadian author Vicki Delany is the keynote speaker, with other featured authors to include Edwin Hill, Frankie Y. Bailey, Catherine Bruns, Debi Chowdhury, Denis Foley, and Kathleen J. Kaminski.
Portland, Maine’s Brownville Free Public Library will host a series of discussions themed around “Detective Fiction in the 20th Century: A Notion of Evil,” from April 16 - June 11, 2019. This series examines the enormous popularity of mystery/detective fiction and at the same time “provides a highly entertaining platform to consider the nature of a specific literary genre.” Organizers also hope participants will experience how literature grows out of and is changed by the cultural climate and historical moment from which it springs.
Yes Weekly profiled the “six-gun sisters and future female private eyes,” a/k/a the diverse pulp fiction of Nicole Givens Kurtz, whose novels include a rare black female protagonist in pulp fiction.
A literary mystery solved? It's well known that literature was almost exclusively the realm of monasteries in medieval times, but it was primarily thought to involve male scribes. However, analysis of the fossilized dental plaque of a medieval woman reveals lapis lazuli, suggesting she was an accomplished painter of illuminated manuscripts. Christina Warinner of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, senior author on the paper about the discovery, added, “This woman's story could have remained hidden forever without the use of these techniques. It makes me wonder how many other artists we might find in medieval cemeteries - if we only look.”
Mardi Gras 2019 may be history, but you can still check out more lists of the crime fiction of New Orleans and Carnival, courtesy of Crime Reads.
The Spectator has regular writing challenges for their readers, and the latest was to submit a short story in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction set in the corridors of power. According to the editors, “Raymond Chandler cast a long shadow over an entry bristling with stinging one-liners, dames, black humour and grandstanding similes laid on with a trowel. The mean streets of Westminster were the most popular setting, though there were glimpses of Brussels and the Oval Office too.”
Speaking of hard-boiled, Crime Reads offered up a list of “The 10 Best and Pulpiest Mickey Spillane Covers” in honor the iconic crime fiction author's birthday.
Folks in relatively low-crime areas often find entertainment from reading the local police blotter. YouTuber Michael McCurdy recently took this to another level and made a video featuring animated selections from the police blotter for Port Townsend, Washington, and surrounding Jefferson County. Watch as a tough local cop rescues an otter from a garbage can. Just another day on the job.
NPR has a series of puzzles online, and a recent one was based on the names of famous writers of mysteries, crime fiction, and spy novels, with their last names anagrammed. If you’re familiar with classic crime fiction, this should be a piece of cake (or cafe coke pie, if you prefer).
The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is “The Good, the Kind, the Peaceful” by David Cranmer.
In the Q&A roundup, David Roy of the Irish Times chatted with novelist Anthony Horowitz about his best-selling teen spy series Alex Rider and what it’s like penning new adventures for Ian Fleming’s James Bond; Donna Leon, author of the Guido Brunetti series, was the latest to participate in the New York Times's By the Book Q&A; Don Winslow was interviewed by GQ Magazine to chat about his latest novel (the third in his cartel trilogy), Trump, and becoming an accidental activist; Ann Cleves spoke with the Belfast Telegraph about the pain of losing her husband, what she makes of TV series inspired by her work and how commercial success hasn’t changed her; and William Kent Krueger sat down with the Minnesota Sun Sailor about the inspiration for his latest mystery and how his sense of rebellion still finds its way into his books.
Comments