The winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing from the International Association of Crime Writers is Bluff by Jane Stanton Hitchcock. Also nominated this year: The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer; Blood Relations by Jonathan Moore; The Murals by William Bayer; Norco '80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History by Peter Houlahan. The location of the presentation is to be determined at a later time.
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards announced this year's winners, including in the Mystery Category. The Gold winner was Below the Fold by R. G. Belsky; Silver winner was A Plain Vanilla Murder by Susan Wittig Albert; and Bronze winner was Moonscape by Julie Weston. In the Thriller Catetory, the Gold winner was The Nine by Jeanne Blasberg; the Silver winner was The Unrepentant by E.A. Aymar; and the Bronze winner was Green Valley by Louis Greenberg. The Guilt We Carry by Samuel W. Gailey was also a Thriller Honorable Mention.
The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers announced the nominees for the 2020 Scribe Awards. The winner in each category would have been announced at the San Diego ComicCon, but due to its cancellation, there will be an online ceremony on July 15. Particularly of interest is the Original Novel-General category which includes nods for The Bitterest Pill by Reed Farrel Coleman; Murder, My Love by Max Allan Collins; and Murder, She Wrote: A Taste For Murder by John Land.
The nominees for the Shirley Jackson Awards were also announced. The awards were established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic and include categories for best Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology. (HT to Shots Magazine)
Criminal Element is offering a chance to win eight summer thrillers: The Half Sister by Sandie Jones; The Safe Place by Anna Downes; One Last Lie by Paul Doiron; Outsider by Linda Castillo; Cut to the Bone by Ellison Cooper; Hard Cash Valley by Brian Panowich; Reasonable Doubt by Philip Margolin; and Into the Fire by Gregg Hurwitz. Entries are open through June 28 (U.S. only).
Aretha Phiri, with Rhodes University, interviewed fellow professor and author, Sam Naidu, for The Conversation about how African crime and detective fiction reshapes the genre.
The latest in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series, edited by Elizabeth Foxwell, is Ian Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Erin E. MacDonald (who wrote the companion on Ed McBain/Evan Hunter). The volume delves into the life and works of Scottish novelist Rankin, the creator of Inspector John Rebus
Also via Elizabeth Foxwell's blog: The University of Minnesota Libraries have digitized the catalog from the 2007 exhibition "Victorian Secrets and Edwardian Enigmas," which featured re-creations of the sitting room at 221B Baker Street.
From necessity is the mother of invention department: The Story House in Rockville, Maryland is both a pop-up bookstore (with a location in the Dawson's Market) and a mobile bookstore in a converted tourist trolley. Owner Debbie Cohen began selling face masks, and the response has been tremendous. The masks, which she sews herself with the help of two seamstresses also now feature literary quotes. (HT to Shelf Awareness.)
Researchers at the University of Missouri and the University of Essex in the United Kingdom found boys' poor reading skills in adolescence, combined with the social attitudes about women attending college, can help explain why fewer men than women enroll in higher education or other types of post-high school education.These disparities continue into adulthood with women being more likely to read books than men. One way to combat this is to read to boys when they're young, and there are many mystery books that can help, including the Scholastic list, 10 Best Mystery Series for Boys. Scholastic also addressed how the suspense mature of whodunits makes them fun to read but are also great tools for skill-building.
The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Jury Rule" by Rena J. Worley.
In the Q&A roundup, the Songs of Spade blog welcomed John Ryder, the pen name of a British crimewriter who just came out with the first book in a new series of thrillers starring tough guy loner Grant Fletcher; Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis interviewed Kaye George about the second book in her Vintage Sweets mystery series, Deadly Sweet Tooth; Davis also chatted with Annette Dashofy about Til Death, the author's tenth novel in the Zoe Chambers mystery series; Crime Fiction Lover spoke with Paul D. Brazill about his noir-ish detective novel, The Blues Don’t Care, set in Los Angeles in the midst of World War II; and the Murder is Everywhere blog held a freewheeling NOT CrimeFest Indie Alternative panel with Elizabeth Hill, James D Mortain, Caroline Goldsworthy, and Dawn Brookes, as moderated by Zoë Sharp.
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