Mystery Melange

Killer Nashville announced that Walter Mosley is the 2020 recipient of the Killer Nashville John Seigenthaler Legends Award. A Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, he has won numerous previous accolades, including an Edgar Award for best novel, the Anisfield-Wolf Award, a Grammy, a PEN USA's Lifetime Achievement Award, and several NAACP Image awards. The conference is currently scheduled for August 20-23, 2020 (although in light of other conference cancellations, it would be prudent for registered attendees to keep checking the website for updates).

Although the Left Coast Crime conference was canceled (right as it was already underway, I might add), organizers announced the winners of the Lefty Awards in a virtual ceremony. Here are the finalists and winners:

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

• WINNER:  Catriona McPherson, Scot & Soda (Midnight Ink)
• Ellen Byron, Fatal Cajun Festival (Crooked Lane Books)
• Leslie Karst, Murder from Scratch (Crooked Lane Books)
• Cynthia Kuhn, The Subject of Malice (Henery Press)
• Wendall Thomas, Drowned Under (Poisoned Pen Press)

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel

• WINNER:  Sujata Massey, The Satapur Moonstone (Soho Crime)
• Susanna Calkins, Murder Knocks Twice (Minotaur Books)
• L.A. Chandlar, The Pearl Dagger (Kensington Books)
• Dianne Freeman, A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder (Kensington Books)
• Jennifer Kincheloe, The Body in Griffith Park (Seventh Street Books)

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel

• WINNER: Matt Coyle, Lost Tomorrows (Oceanview Publishing)
• Steph Cha, Your House Will Pay (Ecco)
• Tracy Clark, Borrowed Time (Kensington Books)
• Rachel Howzell Hall, They All Fall Down (Forge Books)
• Attica Locke, Heaven, My Home (Mulholland Books)

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel

• WINNER:  Carl Vonderau, Murderabilia (Midnight Ink)
• Tori Eldridge, The Ninja Daughter (Agora Books)
• Angie Kim, Miracle Creek (Sarah Crichton Books)
• Tara Laskowski, One Night Gone (Graydon House)
• John Vercher, Three-Fifths (Agora Books)

 

The British Book Awards announced this year's shortlists, including the Crime and Thriller Book of the Year. The finalists include:

• My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic Books)
• The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins)
• How The Dead Speaks by Val McDermid (Little Brown)
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (Orion)
• The Imposter by L J Ross (Dark Skies Publishing)
• Blue Moon by Lee Child (Bantam Press)
  
  

Foreword Reviews announced the finalists in several categories for their annual Foreword INDIES Book of the Year. Winners in each genre—along with Editor’s Choice Prize winners and Foreword’s INDIE Publisher of the Year—will be announced June 17, 2020.

The shortlists for Best Mystery include:

• Gumshoe Rock by Rob Leininger (Oceanview Publishing)
• Moonscape by Julie Weston (Five Star)
• The Suicide Sonata by BV Lawson (Crimetime Press)
• A Plain Vanilla Murder by Susan Wittig Albert (Persevero Press)
• Below the Fold by R.G. Belsky (Oceanview)
• Boxing the Octopus by Tim Maleeny (Poisoned Pen Press)
• In the Clutches of the Wicked by David Carlson (Coffeetown Press)
• Survival Can Be Deadly by Charlotte Stuart (Amphorae Publishing Group)
• This Will Destroy You by Pedram Navab (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing)
• Treacherous Strand by Andrea Carter (Oceanview)

The shorlists for Best Thriller/Suspense include:

• Green Valley by Louis Greenberg (Titan Books)
• Looking for Garbo by Jon James Miller (Blank Slate Press)
• A Cross to Kill by Andrew Huff (Kregel Publications)
• Angel in the Fog by TJ Turner (Oceanview)
• High Stakes by John F Dobbyn (Oceanview)
• Passport to Death by Yigal Zur (Oceanview)
• Rag and Bone by Joe Clifford (Oceanview)
• The Guilt We Carry by Samuel W. Gailey (Oceanview)
• The Nine by Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg (She Writes Press)
• The Unrepentant by E.A. Aymar (Down & Out Books)
  
  

BookExpo is one of the latest conferences to fall victim to the coronavirus outbreak, but they decided to postpone the event instead of canceling it outright. It had been scheduled to take place from May 27th to 31st, but it's now been pushed back to July 22nd to 26th at the Jarvis Center in New York City. Event director Jenny Martin did not rule out a further delay, saying if the situation changes between now and July "we will run with it."

Unfortunately, the Malice Domestic Conference, which had originally decided to simply postpone the conference, has canceled the event for 2020. Despite not having an in-person event this year, the Agatha Awards will go on, with electronic voting to take place on the dates it would have during the conference. Winners will then be announced during a special live streamed event.

The Key West Fest has also canceled its event (slated for June 26) this year, although the 2020 Whodunit Writing Contest will go on as planned. The deadline for entries is April 15. For more information, head on over to the official website.

Sharon Tucker, a former faculty at the University of Memphis, offered up an appreciation of the late mystery author, Mary Higgins Clark.

Over at CrimeReads, Karen Dietrich has a celebration of the 21st century masters of misdirection with a sampling of authors who excel at red herrings in crime fiction.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "I Gave Her the Gun" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Elements continued its "Book Binge Series," welcoming Ann Cleeves, author of the Vera Stanhope series, and Phillip Margolin, author of the Robin Lockwood Series.