In Reference to Murder

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Benedict Cumberbatch’s spy drama, Ironbark, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, has been given a theatrical release date and a new title. Lionsgate will release the Cold War espionage film as The Courier in theaters on August 28, 2020. The Dominic Cooke-directed thriller is based on the true story of Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch), an unassuming British businessman who is recruited into one of the greatest international conflicts in history. At the behest of the UK’s MI-6 and a CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan), he forms a covert, dangerous partnership with Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) in an effort to provide crucial intelligence needed to prevent a nuclear confrontation and defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis.

David Ayer is set to write, direct, and produce with Chris Long (through their Cedar Park banner) an adaptation of the Harlan Coben bestseller, Six Years, for Netflix. The title refers to the number of years that passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Brokenhearted, he throws himself into his career as a college professor while keeping a promise to leave her alone while he simmers in a slow building rage. His hopes rise when he reads that her husband died, and unable to help himself, he goes to the funeral. But he discovers the wife of the deceased man isn’t the woman he fell in love with and becomes determined to find her and get the truth.

Netflix’s film division also won a very competitive auction for the Simon Kinberg speculative script, Here Comes The Flood, Kinberg’s first original screenplay since Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Deadline reported there is currently no talent attached to the project, but it holds promise for the kind of roles that attract stars. The storyline is described as "an elevated, character-driven love-story heist movie, with the heist playing out in increments."

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Chris Pratt is heading to the small screen for Amazon Prime Video to star in the conspiracy thriller series, The Terminal List. Based on Jack Carr's bestselling novel of the same name, the story follows Pratt's character Reece, a Navy SEAL whose entire platoon of Navy SEALs is ambushed during a high-stakes covert mission. Reece returns home to his family with conflicting memories of the event and questions about his culpability. However, as new evidence comes to light, Reece discovers dark forces working against him, endangering not only his life but the lives of those he loves.

Nicolas Cage is set to star in a scripted series centered on Joe Exotic, the subject of the Netflix docuseries, Tiger King. The eight-episode series is being produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios and is based on the Texas Monthly article, "Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild," by Leif Reigstad.

The recent Chris Hemsworth-starring movie, Extraction, is on track to become Netflix's biggest movie ever, which of course means there will be a sequel. Joe Russo has now closed a deal to write the sequel, although details of the plot are sketchy. (SPOILER ALERT: Although Hemsworth's character appeared to perish in the film, the ending nonetheless left open the possibility for a return, and there are also opportunities for prequels.)

CBS renewed eighteen series including the crime dramas All Rise; Blue Bloods; Bull; FBI; FBI: Most Wanted; MacGyver; Magnum P.I.; NCIS; NCIS: Los Angeles; NCIS: New Orleans; Seal Team; and S.W.A.T. The network also canceled four shows including Edie Falco’s Tommy, about a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female police chief of Los Angeles.

Despite the coronavirus shutting down production on the majority of pilot season, CBS ordered three new series for next season, including its Silence of the Lambs sequel from Alex Kurtzman and also Queen Latifah’s reboot of The Equalizer. The "Lambs" sequel, titled Clarice, will follow Clarice Starling six months after the events of the movie, with Rebecca Breeds taking over the role famously played by Jodie Foster in the 1991 film. Kal Penn, Nick Sandow, and Michael Cudlitz were also recently added to the cast. The Equalizer will see Queen Latifah step into the lead role (played by Edward Woodward in CBS’ 1980s version and Denzel Washington in a pair of movies) of a retired intelligence agent with a mysterious past who exacts justice on behalf of innocent people trapped in dangerous circumstances.

In more news on The Equalizer front, the Law & Order and Sex and the City alum, Chris Noth, is set to co-star opposite Queen Latifah in the reboot. Noth will play William Bishop, a quirky ex-CIA director who was Robyn’s first handler and has a father-daughter relationship with her.

Eric Lange (Escape at Dannemora) is set to co-star opposite Courtney B. Vance and Tosin Cole in AMC’s courtroom drama series, 61st Street, from BAFTA-winner Peter Moffat (Criminal Justice, The Night Of) and executive producer Michael B. Jordan. 61st Street follows a promising, black high school athlete who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system. Taken by the police as a supposed gang member, he finds himself in the eye of the storm as police and prosecutors seek revenge for the death of an officer during a drug bust gone wrong. Lange will play Lieutenant Tardelli, a supervisor at the police department.

The Blacklist is finding an unusual way to finish off its season after production stopped due Covid-19 shutdowns: it's using a live-action/animation hybrid episode for the finale, scheduled to air Friday, May 15. Cast members recorded dialogue from their homes for the animated scenes as editors and animators worked remotely. The thriller centers on one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives, Raymond "Red" Reddington (James Spader), who offers to help the authorities if a specific rookie agent, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), partners with him. The cast also includes Diego Klattenhoff, Amir Arison, Hisham Tawfiq and Harry Lennix.

A&E ordered 160 more episodes of Live PD, hosted by Dan Abrams with analysis from Tom Morris Jr. and Sgt. Sean "Sticks" Larkin. Live PD showcases the policing of America, following diverse police departments from across the country in real time as they patrol their communities. Using dash cams along with fixed rig and handheld cameras, the series captures the work of urban and rural police forces on a typical Friday and Saturday night.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone welcomed Fiona Cummins to talk about her favorite crisps, favorite chocolate, being a journalist, the difficult decisions to make post-lockdown, and what question she'd ask in a government briefing.

Special guest co-host, Erica Ruth Neubauer, joined Writer Types's Eric Beetner for a chat with authors Marcia Clark (Final Judgement), Jason Pinter (Hide Away), and Andrew Mayne (The Girl Beneath The Sea).

Read or Dead hosts, Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham, discussed the Edgar Award winners, Tana French’s new book, and celebrated the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie's first novel.

Mariah Fredericks stopped by Speaking of Mysteries to talk about Death of an American Beauty, the third installment in the series about hardworking lady’s maid, Jane Prescott, that takes place in New York City during the second decade of the 20th Century

On the latest Criminal Mischief podcast, Dr. D.P. Lyle tackled the topic of "Identifying Skeletal Remains."

Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed Brenda Chapman to discuss her novels and educate host Frank Zafiro about some Canadian history.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club interviewed Ann Cleeves about The Long Call, the first book in the Two Rivers Series.

The Tartan Noir Show spoke with writer Denzil Meyrick, the creator of the DCI Jim Daley series and also heard from the American superstar of crime writing, David Baldacci, talking about his novel, One Good Deed, and his long writing career.

FFB: The Laughing Policeman

This past week, we lost author Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020), who along with her common-law partner and co-author, Per Wahlöö were credited with creating Scandinavian noir through their series featuring the Swedish policeman Martin Beck. They also greatly influenced the likes of Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbø, and Henning Mankell.

In the 1960s, Sjöwall and Wahlöö set about to write 10 books in 10 years, each 30 chapters long, which they plotted and researched together, then wrote alternate chapters. Because they intended the books as a critique of capitalist society, all the books in their original editions were given the subtitle "Report of a Crime" as a politically double-entendre phrase.

According to Wahlöö, their intention was to "use the crime novel as a scalpel cutting open the belly of the ideological pauperized and morally debatable so-called welfare state of the bourgeois type." The books follow the exploits of detectives from the special homicide commission of the national police, centered around the character of Superintendent Martin Beck of the Homicide Squad. About their main policeman, Ms. Sjöwall said, "We wanted a credible, trustworthy Swedish civil servant with empathy and real concern." The books really should be read in sequential order because the characters of Beck, his family, and Beck's police colleagues change throughout the series.

The Laughing Policeman was the only one in the series to win an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Novel, an honor bestowed in 1971. At the beginning of the book, police are off fighting peaceful Vietnam demonstrators and casually molest a girl demonstrator on her thirteenth birthday. Soon afterward, nine bus riders are gunned down by an unknown assassin on a cold and rainy Stockholm night. Unfortunately for Beck, the two inept patrolmen who stumbled upon the crime scene destroyed much of any useful evidence. The frenzied press, fishing for an explanation for the seemingly random crime, quickly dubs the killer a madman.

With his usual dogged determination, Beck suspects the culprit isn't a madman, after all, upon discovering the apparently motiveless killer has managed to target one of Beck′s best detectives, Ake Stenstrom. But far too many question remain: why was Stenstrom on that particular bus that night? Why was he sitting next to a young, female nurse? After Beck works with the murdered detective's girlfriend, he's able to piece together his activites right before his murder. Soon enough it becomes clear that Stenstrom was working off the books, and that the attack may be connected to an unsolved cold case.

The Beck novels are filled with brooding, multi-dimensional characters and the settings are equally gritty and dour, pointing out the dark underbelly of Swedish culture and clearly foreshadowing Larsson. There are also other parallels: Sjöwall/Wahlöö and Larsson wrote against the sub-class treatment of women in society, as well as the failings of the capitalistic system to protect its most vulnerable citizens.

Tragically, like Larsson, who died at age 50 of a heart attack, Wahlöö had an untimely death in 1975 from cancer at the age of 48. Also, since Sjöwall and Wahlöö never married and he never legally adopted her daughter, the daughter hasn't earned any royalties from the books, in the same way Larsson's common-law partner of 30 years, Eva Gabrielsson, has been shut out of any money from Larsson's estate.

But the writing duo's legacy continues to live on as the Beck series continues with global publication in various forms. And all of the novels were adapted into films between 1967 and 1994, six of which featured Gösta Ekman as Martin Beck. Between 1997 and 2018 there were also 38 films (some only broadcast on television) based on the characters, with Peter Haber as Martin Beck. The Laughing Policeman was adapted to film in 1973, with Walter Matthau in the lead role. (However, his character was renamed "Jake Martin," the action was relocated to San Francisco, California, and much of the novel's plot was altered.)

Mystery Melange

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year released the longlist for the UK and Ireland’s most prestigious crime novel award. Fans can vote on the eighteen finalists online, and the six books with the most votes will go forward onto the shortlist, which will be announced on June 8. Now in its 16th year, the award organizers received a record number of submissions, and the judges' list includes ten books by women; four former winners (Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, Val McDermid, and Lee Child); a Booker Prize contender (Oyinkan Braithwaite), and a couple of debuts to the list (Harriet Tyce, Laura Shepherd-Robinson).To vote, head on over to the official longlist website.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week. Along with the list of excellence in journalism reporting, the winner of the Fiction Award went to The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, which the committee called "a spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption." This is the author's second Pulitzer, winning in 2017 for The Underground Railroad.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society has awarded the annual Derringers for outstanding published crime fiction short stories. The winners included: Flash category (up to 1,000 words): Josh Pachter, "The Two-Body Problem," Mystery Weekly Magazine; Short category (1,001 to 4,000 words), John Floyd, "On the Road with Mary Jo," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine; Long Category (4,001 to 8,000 words), Sandra Murphy, "Lucy’s Tree," The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, Editor Michael Bracken; Novelette category (8,001 to 20,000 words), Brendan Dubois ,with "His Sister’s Secrets," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) announced the winners of the annual Ben Franklin Awards that recognize excellence in book editorial and design. The Gold Medal winner in the Mystery/Thriller category was A Veil Removed: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel by Michelle Cox (She Writes Press); the Silver Medal was won by The Last Getaway by Clay Savage (Ocean Park Press); and the Bronze Medal went to Bleed Through: Alex Greco, ADA Series Book 2 by Roger Canaff (Brooklyn Writers Press).

Minotaur Books and the Mystery Writers of America announced the winner of their First Crime Novel Competition for 2020. Kelley Ragland, Vice President, Associate Publisher for Minotaur Books, made the announcement following the MWA’s naming of their Edgar Award winners. The competition winner is Rebecca Roque, a nurse working in Arizona. Her winning novel, tentatively titled Till Human Voices Wake Us, will be published in 2021.

Tomorrow, Friday May 8, Mysterious Galaxy bookstore is celebrating its 27th birthday with a virtual event that will pay tribute to the store and its community. You can join in the fun by following them via social media @mystgalaxybooks on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with giveaways, games, surprises, and more.

Although the Malice Domestic conference had to cancel this year's event (and announced the Agatha Awards winner online last week), organizers are looking ahead to the future with the announcement of the dates for next year, April 30-May 2, 2020, as well as the featured authors: Guests of Honor, Julia Spencer-Fleming and Rhys Bowen; Toastmasters, Jeff Cohen and Barb Goffman; Lifetime Achievement Recipients, Ellen Hart and Walter Mosley; Fan Guests of Honor, Dina Wilner and Dru Ann Love; and International Guest of Honor, Sophie Hannah.

There's still time to register for two upcoming Virtual Noir at the Bar Queens events, one on Friday May 8 and the other on Friday, May 15. Alex Segura will host both events with a roster of some of today's bestselling authors stopping by online to read from their works. There will also be a chance to buy books via the indie bookstore, Kew & Willow Books in Kew Gardens.

Last week, we lost crime fiction trailblazer Maj Sjöwall, widely regarded as the godmother of modern Scandinavian crime fiction. Along with her partner-husband, Per Wahlöö (who died in 1975), the duo's books paved the way for the likes of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. Their ten detective stories featuring the Swedish policeman Martin Beck was as remarkable as much for the way they was written as for its impact on crime-writing internationally.

Another author we lost this week was Angela Zeman, wife of fellow writer, Barry T. Zeman, who succumbed to Covid-19. Zeman penned numerous crime short stories as well as a novel, The Witch and the Borscht Pearl, originally published by Pendulum Press. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Speaking of Scandinavian Noir, a la Maj Sjöwal and Per Wahlöö, the Paris Review featured a profile on "The Origins of Scandinavian Noir."

Many of the canceled crime fiction conferences due to the coronavirus are going into the virtual realm, and Crime Fiction Lover has a list of some of these to mark on your calendar. Most of these events also have plans to return again next year, circumstances (and viruses) willing.

Writing for CrimeReads, Guy Fraser-Sampson profiled England's four crime queens, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Josephine Tey. (As he notes, there was actually a fifth as well, Ngiao Marsh, but she has been often discounted since she was a New Zealander). The quartet of Crime Grandes Dames wrote mostly (but not entirely) during the "Golden Age," or the period between the two World Wars.

I've never been the biggest fan of the mass market paperback format, and older readers can find the smaller print to be a problem. Apparently, others feel the same way since traditional mass market paperback sales have been declining for years, but Kensington Publishing has a plan to change that. Beginning with titles going on sale on September 29 of this year, Kensington will replace the standard 4.125 by 6.75-inch mass market paperback with a larger 4.75 by 7-inch format called "Mass Max." They'll cost about a dollar more but the new format will feature an easier-to-read font and more spacing than current mass market titles. They're even being printed on trade presses rather than mass market equipment, according to Kensington CEO, Steve Zacharius.

The Mysterious Bookshop included a killer quiz in their latest newsletter, which you can take here. To signup for their newsletter, head on over here.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "When I Met Her in the Street" by Gabriel Hart.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Book Series Binge continued with Tasha Alexander on the Lady Emily Series, and the webzine also had an interview with R.G. Belsky, author of The Last Scoop with series protagonist, Clare Carlson; On the Bookshelf spoke with Hannah Mary McKinnon about her new thriller, Sister Dear; and Debra Purdy Kong chatted with Canadian author A.J. Devlin about his second mystery, Rolling Thunder, due out next week.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Daisy Ridley is in talks to star in the psychological thriller, The Ice Beneath Her, that STX Entertainment acquired in a bidding war and will finance. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and Chad Villella — the filmmaker trio collective known as Radio Silence behind the 2019 thriller, Ready or Not — will direct and produce. The Ice Beneath Her is based on a 2015 novel by Swedish author Camilla Grebe and follows a criminal profiler brought in to help solve a murder case that bares a resemblance to a previously unsolved murder from 10 years earlier.

Signature Entertainment has acquired global rights, excluding North America, to the crime-thriller, Blood And Money, starring Oscar-nominee Tom Berenger (Platoon). The story centers on a retired veteran who discovers a dead body and a bag full of cash while he's hunting in the snowy outback of Northern Maine. Violence quickly escalates when a group of hardened criminals in search of the loot turn the hunter into the hunted in an already stark and deadly wilderness.

Director-screenwriter-producer James Wan is prepping a film adaptation of Frank M. Robinson’s time travel story, Hunting Season, with Transformers producer Don Murphy and John Wick franchise writer Derek Kolstad on board to script. The story follows a law officer who is sent back to the past where he must acclimate in order to survive after he's deemed an enemy of the state and faces execution.

Manhunt co-creator Andrew Sodroski has been hired to adapt the screenplay (based on a pitch from Past Midnight writer T.J. Fixman) for the action-thriller, Rogue, which Dean Israelite (Power Rangers) is set to direct. The film project revolves around a deep-cover CIA operative who is on the longest night of her life.

Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment have picked up North American distribution rights to Becky, a thriller starring Lulu Wilson, Kevin James, and Joel McHale. Originally set to premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival from April 15-26 (before its cancellation due to the pandemic), it will now get a digital and on-demand release on June 5. Directed by Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott, the plot centers on spunky and rebellious Becky (Wilson) who is brought to a weekend getaway at a lake house by her father Jeff (McHale) in an effort to try to reconnect. The trip immediately takes a turn for the worse when a group of convicts on the run, led by the merciless Dominick (James), suddenly invade the lake house.

Film premiere dates keep slipping due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Among the latest changes are John Wick 4, which will no longer open on May 21, 2021 but rather on May 27, 2022, Memorial Day weekend; and the Deon Taylor-directed Hilary Swank thriller, Fatale, which will stay in 2020 but switch from June 19 to Oct. 30. Wick 4 will continue the adventures of Keanu Reeves's hitman saga, while Fatale centers on a married man who finds himself living a nightmare as he is relentlessly compromised, out-witted, and morally manipulated by a mysterious woman with whom he had a wild one-night stand.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

In a big shocker, The Lincoln Lawyer is not moving ahead at CBS. The high-profile legal drama from The Practice creator David E. Kelley, based on Michael Connelly’s series of bestselling novels, had sold to the network a year ago and was in final stages of pre-production with the cast assembled and two scripts written. Once CBS settles the penalty for cancellation, the producers will likely shop the series elsewhere. The Lincoln Lawyer centers on Mickey Haller, an iconoclastic idealist, who runs his law practice out of the back of his Lincoln Town Car, as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles.

STX is developing Fast and Loose with 87North, the production label of Hobbs & Shaw director David Leitch and EP Kelly McCormick. The project follows a man who wakes up in Tijuana after being left for dead with absolutely no memory. As he follows a string of clues to uncover his identity, he discovers that he’s been living two different lives: one, as a super-successful Crime Kingpin, surrounded by beautiful women, expensive toys, and a lavish lifestyle, and the other as an undercover CIA agent, but with a puny salary, no family or home life whatsoever and zero trappings of success. The problem is, he can’t remember which of these two personas is his true identity.

Netflix and SF Studios have set the cast for the streamer’s first Swedish feature, the action-thriller Red Dot, which will star Nanna Blondell, Anastasios Soulis, Tomas Bergström, Kalled Mustonen, Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Thomas Hanzon, and Anna Azcárate. Set in the Swedish mountains, the film follows David (Soulis) and Nadja (Blondell), a couple in their late twenties, who’ve been struggling with their marriage and try to rekindle their romance in the north of Sweden with a ski hike. But a quarrel with two local hunters turns into a nightmare as the couple is forced to flee into the unforgiving wilderness pursued by reckless shooters.

There will not be a second season of the USA drama series Dare Me after the network opted to cancel the series. Producer UCP is said to be shopping the series to other outlets. Based on the novel by Megan Abbott, who serves as writer and executive producer along with Gina Fattore, Dare Me is described as an unflinching exploration of teen angst, jealousy, loyalty, and the dynamics of power in a small Midwestern town.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast included the first chapter of "They Tell Me You Are Cunning" by David Hagerty, read by actor Thomas Nance.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast featured the story “Collector’s Find” by V. S. Kemanis, a former lawyer with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office who often writes fiction with legal themes.

On the latest edition of Writer Types, special guest co-hosts E.A. Aymar and Sarah Chen spoke with authors Sheena Kamal (Never Go Back) and Matthew Quirk (Hour of the Assassin).

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Andrew Mayne to chat about The Girl Beneath the Sea, his new novel featuring Sloan McPherson, an evidence-recovery diver for Lauderdale Shores PD.

Beyond The Cover spoke with #1 Bestselling Author Charlaine Harris.

Meet the Thriller Author featured Jason Pinter, bestselling author of Hide Away, the first Rachel Marin novel, as well as five novels in his Henry Parker thriller series and the standalone novel The Castle.

Chris Rhatigan stopped by The Wrong Place, Write Crime podcast to discuss the fine art of editing crime fiction.

Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, tackled questions about police officers carrying their own firearms on-duty and how a victim might get special protection.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed two Agatha Award nominees, Gabriel Valjan and Connie Berry.

The latest guest on The Tartan Noir show was James Oswald (of the Inspector McLean series and The Ballad of Sir Benfro series), talking about splitting his time between writing and farming; the show also spoke with Peter Robinson, Mari Hannah, and MW Craven about their detectives and story locations.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone celebrated their one hundredth episode with guest author Val McDermid, discussing how to reach readers in different ways, being in the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers, hearing voices, and more.

The Agatha Awards Arrive

This year's Malice Domestic conference may have been canceled, but event organizers announced the winners of the annual Agatha Awards in a live event today online. Congrats to all winners and nominees:

Best Contemporary Novel

WINNER:  The Long Call by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur)
Fatal Cajun Festival by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
Fair Game by Annette Dashofy (Henery Press)
The Missing Ones by Edwin Hill (Kensington)
A Better Man by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)

Best First Mystery Novel

WINNER:  One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski (Graydon House, a division of Harlequin)
A Dream of Death by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane Books)
Murder Once Removed by S. C. Perkins (Minotaur)
When It’s Time for Leaving by Ang Pompano (Encircle Publications)
Staging is Murder by Grace Topping (Henery Press)

Best Historical Mystery

WINNER:  Charity’s Burden by Edith Maxwell (Midnight Ink) 
Love and Death Among the Cheetahs by Rhys Bowen (Penquin)
Murder Knocks Twice by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)
The Pearl Dagger by L. A. Chandlar (Kensington)
The Naming Game by Gabriel Valjan (Winter Goose Publishing)

Best Nonfiction

WINNER:  The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women by Mo Moulton (Basic Books)
Frederic Dannay, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and the Art of the Detective Short Story by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland)
Blonde Rattlesnake: Burmah Adams, Tom White, and the 1933 Crime Spree that Terrified Los Angeles by Julia Bricklin (Lyons Press)
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep (Knopf)
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt)

Best Children/Young Adult

WINNER:  The Last Crystal by Frances Schoonmaker (Auctus Press)
Kazu Jones and the Denver Dognappers by Shauna Holyoak (Disney Hyperion)
Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen MacManus (Delacorte Press)
Top Marks for Murder (A Most Unladylike Mystery)
by Robin Stevens (Puffin)
Jada Sly, Artist and Spy by Sherri Winston (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)

Best Short Story 

WINNER:  "The Last Word" by Shawn Reilly Simmons, Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible (Wildside Press)
"Grist for the Mill" by Kaye George in A Murder of Crows (Darkhouse Books)
"Alex’s Choice" by Barb Goffman in Crime Travel (Wildside Press)
"The Blue Ribbon" by Cynthia Kuhn in Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible (Wildside Press)
"Better Days" by Art Taylor in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

FFB: The Adventures of Romney Pringle

British author R. Austin Freeman (1862-1943) primarily wrote detective stories and is best known for his legal/forensic investigator Dr. John Thorndyke, using Freeman's early experiences as a colonial surgeon to help inspire and inform his work. That same military experience left Freeman a semi-invalid from malaria and blackwater fever but also gave him time to write.

For Freeman's first works, he used the pen name Clifford Ashdown and collaborated with Dr. John James Pitcairn, a medical officer at Holloway Prison. These were a series of stories published in such magazines as Cassell's that featured gentleman con man Romney Pringle. The Adventures of Romney Pringle from 1902 collected the first six cases of Pringle; first editions of this work are so rare today, Elizabeth Foxwell reported in 2009 that one sold for over $3,000 at Sotheby's (if you see a copy like the one to the right and it's a bargain, grab it.)
 
Freeman is credited with inventing the inverted detective story, where the identity of the criminal is shown from the beginning, demonstrated in some of the stories included in this volume:

"The Assyrian Rejuvenator"
"The Foreign Office Despatch"
"The Chicago Heiress"
"The Lizard's Sacle"
"The Paste Diamonds"
"The Kailyard Novel"

As Bob Schneider noted for GA Detection, Romney Pringle lives by his wits and keen observational powers, being a consummate student of human nature. The "gentleman" moniker is relevant to the handsome, charming Pringle because runs a pseudo literary agency, eschews violence and—when not participating in his criminal pastimes of patent medicine fraud, forgery or burglary—enjoys fine art, bicycling and boating. He's also a master of disguises and has skills that help him track down his prey, usually other criminals, including experience in chemistry and gemology.

Freeman had a detailed and personal knowledge of the backstreets of London, Highgate and Hampstead in the years prior to World War II, and his descriptions are one of the most charming aspects of his writing, counting no less than T.S. Eliot and Raymond Chandler as fans. There are criticisms, too, including Freeman's tendency to be repetitive in certain catch-phrases, dialogue, settings and character types, but such quibbles can be overlooked in the grander scheme of Freeman's storytelling.

One of Freeman's other well-known contributions is his essay "The Art of the Detective Story," included in  Detection Medley, book of essays published by the Detection Club in the UK in 1939. Freeeman is fairly critical of the standard of detective fiction writing in his day and includes such observations as the following, which seems as relevant now as it did over 70 years ago:

The rarity of good detective fiction is to be explained by a fact which appears to be little recognized either by critics or by authors; the fact, namely, that a completely executed detective story is a very difficult and highly technical work, a work demanding in its creator the union of qualities which, if not mutually antagonistic, are at least seldom met with united in a single individual. On the one hand, it is a work of imagination, demanding the creative, artistic faculty; on the other, it is a work of ratiocination, demanding the power of logical analysis and subtle and acute reasoning; and, added to these inherent qualities, there must be a somewhat extensive outfit of special knowledge. Evidence alike of the difficulty of the work and the failure to realize it is furnished by those occasional experiments of novelists of the orthodox kind which have been referred to, experiments which commonly fail by reason of a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the work and the qualities that it should possess.