Jonathan Lethem has been chosen as the recipient of the 2019 T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award for his novel, The Feral Detective, as announced at the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Awards luncheon. The other finalists this year were The Good Detective, by John McMahon, and The Border, by Don Winslow. At the event, SCIBA also announced the organization was dissolving with the hope that California booksellers could become part of a single independent booksellers association. Although there was no word specifically regarding how this will affect the SCIBA book awards going forward, (including the T. Jefferson Parker award), the SCIBA website is already soliciting nominations for 2020.
Ashley Harrison has won the Capital Crime New Voices Award at the recent inaugural Capital Crime Festival in London. Harrison won for The Dysconnect, with Victoria Goldman and Patti Buff were named runner-up at the festival’s opening night cocktail party. The 2019 Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards were also awarded on Saturday night, with Ian Rankin winning both Best Mystery and Best Crime Novel with In A House of Lies. Other winners included Best Thriller: Mick Herron's London Rules; Best e-Book: C.L. Taylor's Sleep; Independent Voice: Will Dean's Red Snow; Best Audiobook: Stuart Turton's The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, read by Jot Davies; Best Television Show: Killing Eve; and Best Feature Film: BlacKkKlansman. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)
Happy birthday to the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona, which turns 30 years old today. To celebrate, owner Barbara Peters and her staff will host a cake and champagne party featuring author Joe Hill (NOS4A2) in conversation with attorney and editor, Leslie Klinger. Other guests include John Sandford, author of the Prey series; James Rollins, author of the Sigma Force series; and Anne Perry, author of the Thomas Pitt and William Monk series. (HT to Shelf Awareness)
Washington D.C.'s Tenth Annual Noir at the Bar is headed to The Wonderland Ballroom on October 12. The event will be hosted by Ed Aymar and feature several crime authors reading from their work, including Kathleen Barber, John Copenhaver, James Grady, Cheryl Head, Alan Orloff, David Swinson, Art Taylor, and Erica Wright. The event is free and open to the public beginning at 6 p.m. for some brewskis and criminally good story-telling.
The Rap Sheet's Jeff Pierce urges you to "step up your reading pace," offering up a long list of some of the many upcoming crime novels through the end of the year in both the U.S. and the U.K. (And maybe a good speed-reading course might be in order!)
In another look at why libraries and librarians (even amateur ones) can help save the world, the NYT reported that in 2013 in the war-ravaged Syrian town of Daraya, people collected books after shelling and wrapped them in blankets to take them to a secret basement location. "The self-appointed chief librarian, a 14-year-old named Amjad, would write down in a large file the names of people who borrowed the books, and then return to his seat to continue reading. … The library hosted a weekly book club, as well as classes on English, math and world history, and debates over literature and religion."
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Secret Messages" by Charles Rammelkamp.
In the Q&A roundup, thriller writer Lee Child offered up some "inside scoop" about his billion-dollar Jack Reacher brand, for Forbes; Craig Sisterson's latest "9mm Interview" featured Kiwi storyteller Michael Botur, who has published five short story collections, as well as dozens of other stories often about crime, lowlifes, petty thieves, and other such characters; and Criminal Element chatted with Laura Childs and Terrie Farley Moran, about their collaborative New Orleans Scrapbooking series, featuring the upcoming Mumbo Gumbo Murder.
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