The Killer Nashville conference announced the twenty finalists for the annual Claymore Award. The honor goes to an unpublished crime fiction manuscript, with the winner receiving discounted admission to the conference and a potential publishing contract. According to conference organizers, almost all top finalists usually land a publishing contract within the next year, most through contacts made at Killer Nashville.
Jack Reacher author Lee Child is being made a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for services to literature. Child has written twenty-three thrillers featuring American hero Jack Reacher, with sales somewhere around the 100 million mark. He was also named author of the year at the British Book Awards in May.
The owner of the Waterstones bookstore chain in the UK, the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp., is buying U.S. bookstore chain Barnes & Noble. Elliott is likely to maintain Barnes & Noble and Waterstones as two separate companies, with Waterstones Chief Executive James Daunt leading both. Under Mr. Daunt's direction, Waterstones rebounded from a period of losses and has even been opening new stores, which it fashions to feel like independent shops. Among the changes he implemented at Waterstones: restructuring duties so that booksellers can spend more time selling books; making bookshops more reflective of their distinct communities; instituting campaigns to promote specific titles chosen by its booksellers; and de-emphasizing front-of-shop co-op campaigns.
In other bookstore news, The Guardian reported on why customers are returning to small bookstores and purchasing more print books.
And in even more good book "store" news, retired teacher Melanie Moore founded The Book Bus, a mobile bookstore based in Cincinnati, Ohio, that she built out of a 1962 VW Transporter truck. The bus sells new and gently used books, and Moore uses a portion of all the profits made from the Book Bus to purchase new books for children and classrooms in low income areas. Depending on the weather, Moore typically sets up shop at farmers markets, flea markets or other outdoor events, and when the weather isn't favorable, she can most often be found at area coffee shops.
Slate wrote about a debut author controversy surrounding the new Scarlet suspense imprint from Pegasus Books aimed at a primarily female audience. Was this new author actually real? Or just a front for a male author taking on a female pseudonym? The Twitterverse was thick with intrigue.
Via Atlas Obscura, a fascinating look at pioneering criminologist Alphonse Bertillon, who turned everyone into voyeurs at the end of the 19th century.
Cambridge University archivists are cataloguing records of the Isle of Ely courts, revealing offenses ranging from the tragic to the ridiculous, dating from 1557 to 1775. The database of charges and convictions, which the archivists hope to make available soon online, includes witchcraft, murder, highway robbery, forgery, trespass, and vagrancy. (A potentially helpful resource to authors of historical fiction.)
If you find yourself in Scotland this summer (or just want to visit vicariously), author Val McDermid listed her "top Scottish crime fiction locations."
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Rusty" by Wayne F. Burke.
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