The Force by Don Winslow has won this year’s Falcon Award, presented by Japan’s Maltese Falcon Society annually to an outstanding work of crime fiction. This is Winslow's fifth Falcon Award in addition to Missing: New York (no English version); The Winter of Frankie Machine; The Power of the Dog; and A Cool Breeze on the Underground. Other previous Falcon recipients include Roger Hobbs, S.J. Rozan, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Lawrence Block, Sue Grafton, Michael Z. Lewin, Joe Gores, James Crumely, and Robert B. Parker. (HT to The Gumshoe Site)
The longlist titles were announced for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, awarded annually to an outstanding work of contemporary fiction in any genre. Crime fiction books on the list include Our House by Louise Candlish; Memo from Turner by Tim Willocks; The Puppet Show by M.W. Craven; The Poison Bed by Elizabeth Fremantle; Snap by Belinda Bauer; and The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. (HT to Ayo Onatade at Shots Magazine)
The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association has scheduled a July 21 walking tour of areas in South Berkeley, California, that are associated with mystery/sci fi author, editor, and critic Anthony Boucher (a/k/a William Anthony Parker White). The walk will be guided by Randal Brandt, a librarian who curates the California Detective Fiction Collection at the University of Southern California at Berkeley's Bancroft Library. The tour will also cover sites associated with Boucher’s fellow mystery writer Mary Collins, the California Writer’s Club, pioneering film critic Pauline Kael, and others. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)
A set of "extremely rare" photographs showing crime writer Agatha Christie as a child is to go on public display in conjunction with the annual International Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay in September. The pictures, taken between 1895 and 1898, show Christie at her childhood home of Ashfield in Torquay, Devon, where the author spent much of her life.
Lola Okolosie has won the inaugural Novel Studio scholarship from City University for her novel-in-progress, Returnees. The award, sponsored by thriller writer and course alumna Harriet Tyce, was set up to support a talented writer from a low-income household. The Novel Studio is part of City University’s programmes of short courses and has been running since 2004. Each year, the Novel Studio takes on 15 students, who are helped to develop their novels by professional writers and editors.
Up-and-coming authors are being given the chance to take to the stage and share their work with international bestselling crime authors during the Granite Noir festival in February 2020 in Aberdeen, Scotland. Applications have now opened for the "locals in the limelight" program, and those interested in applying should send an extract of their work, a one-paragraph biography and their contact information by noon on September 2.
Clitheroe is now home to one of only two specialized crime bookshops in the UK. Number 10 on Castlegate was recently opened by crime fiction buff Zoe Channing, who has 30 years' experience working in arts development. Number 10 - in the shadow of the castle - will specialize in contemporary and classic crime fiction, murder mysteries, and thrillers. Channing is a Scandi noir fan and is also looking at introducing a new wave of European crime writers to readers, as well as planning to arrange author events ranging from book signings to talks.
Crime writers didn't react positively to claims from organizers of the Staunch Prize, launched last year to award crime books with no violence against women, that their books could bias rape juries and trials. As Kaite Welsh added in an opinion piece in The Guardian, "I can’t write about a world without rape – because I don’t live in one," adding that women read and write crime fiction as a way to understand real experience. In more fallout, Staunch Prize founder Bridget Lawless defended the prize to The Bookseller, even as authors like Angela Clarke doubled down by saying "Though the original intentions may have been good, it now feels like this prize and their repeated vocal attacks on the crime writing community are yet another way to silence women and not let them talk about the things we suffer and face. It feels like censorship."
Summer is the time for travel, and CrimeReads has "6 Mysteries That Capture the Essence of England's Capital" as well as crime fiction from Dubai.
Of course, if you're like Clea Simon, you might think that "political chaos and international threats create too much anxiety to make summer thrillers enjoyable."
Life imitates crime fiction: Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn has spoken out about her novel being used as a sensationalized motive in the disappearance of Connecticut mom Jennifer Dulos, who vanished after dropping her kids off at school on May 24. Flynn said she was "absolutely sickened" that lawyers for Dulos’s estranged husband and his girlfriend are using the book as a potential explanation for the disappearance. Both suspects have been charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in the case and have pleaded not guilty.
More life imitates crime fiction: The suspect in the gruesome slaying of Utah college student Mackenzie Lueck self-published a novel about a teenager who witnessed his friend and his neighbor burn to death, and began advertising the story one year before Lueck was killed.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Denkmal" by Charles Rammelkamp.
In the Q&A roundup, the Sydney Morning Herald spoke with Mick Herron about his six Slough House spy thrillers and what it's like being compared to John le Carre; the Mystery People's Scott Butki chatted with Christina Alger, about her new novel, Girls Like Us, inspired by the real-life Gilgo Beach murders; Crime Fiction Lover welcomed Mike Craven, who had careers in the army, social work, and as a probation officer before turning his hand to a series of books about Cumbrian DI Avison Fluke; and Mark Billingham joined a Q&A with the Sunday Post, discussing how a chilling letter from killer Ian Brady sparked the idea for Billingham’s latest novel.
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