Foreword Reviews announced the winners of this year's INDIES Book of the Year Awards. In the Thriller/Suspense Category, The Leonardo Gulag by Kevin Doherty was the Gold Winner, followed by Tokyo Traffic by Michael Pronko, which took the Silver Award, and Dead Air by Michael Bradley, which took the Bronze. The Spiderling by Marcia Preston also received an Honorable Mention. In the Mystery Category, the Gold Winner was A Child Lost by Michelle Cox, followed by Silver Winner, The Burn Patient by Sue Hinkin, and Bronze Winner, Glass Eels, Shattered Sea by Charlene D'Avanzo. An Honorable Mention also went to Red Canavas by Andrew Nance.
The UK's Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has announced the winner of its Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize. Camilla Macpherson beat out strong competition with her short story, "Heartbridge Homicides." The competition celebrates the classic mystery story, and entries had to adhere to Allingham’s definition of a mystery.
A 12-title longlist has been released for the 2021 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, which celebrates "a compelling novel with brilliant characterization and a distinct voice that is confidently written and assuredly realized." The shortlist will be announced August 5 and the winner on September 30. This year's longlisted titles include the crime-themed novels The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi; Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby; The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel; The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant; Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton; The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman; Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi; The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton; and People of Abandoned Character by Clare Whitfield.
The New Blood with Val McDermid 2021 panel will return at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, July 22-25 at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate. McDermid revealed her top four new authors to watch, all of whom will join her coveted "New Blood" panel at the festival on July 24. The chosen titles/authors include: Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan; One Night, New York by Lara Thompson; The Colours of Death by Patricia Marques; and Tall Bones by Anna Bailey. Previous "New Blood" alumni include Clare Mackintosh, SJ Watson, Stuart MacBride, Liam McIlvanney, and Belinda Bauer, as well as two of the authors vying for the title of Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021: Abir Mukherjee and Trevor Wood.
Sisters in Crime will award research grants of $500 for the purchase of books to support research projects that contribute to our understanding of the role of women or underrepresented groups in the crime fiction genre. This may include but is not limited to research on women mystery writers, on the position of women writers in the crime fiction marketplace, or on gender, race, or ethnicity as an aspect of crime fiction. Grant proposals must be received by July 15, 2021, and the recipient(s) will be notified by August 15, 2021.
One bit of sad news, especially for the younger set, that I missed back in May: Robert Quackenbush, creator of Animal Detective Stories, has died at the age of 91. His many characters included Detective Mole, Sherlock Chick, and Miss Mallard, an inquisitive duck who solves crimes around the world in plots that resemble Agatha Christie capers and also got her own television series. For his work on Detective Mole, who wears a trench coat and houndstooth deerstalker hat, he received an Edgar Allan Poe Award for best juvenile mystery in 1982.
John Murray Press is establishing a "distinctive new crime and thriller imprint" titled Baskerville, and has hired Jade Chandler away from Harvill Secker to head up the new division. Chandler has worked with bestselling author Jo Nesbo, award-winning Abir Mukherjee, Costa Prize-shortlisted Denise Mina and Emily Koch, whose debut If I Die Before I Wake was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. In 2018, Chandler also set up the Harvill Secker/Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Award to find the most exciting new crime fiction by writers of color.
Mystery Readers Journal editor, Janet Rudolph, issued a call for submissions for an upcoming issued of crime fiction themed around Texas. As always, short reviews and articles focusing on the theme of the issue are welcome, as well as author essays. Reviews of a single book should be 200 words or less, articles around 1000 words, author essays 500-1000 words.
Featured at the Page 69 Test - Dream Girl: A Novel by Laura Lippman
UK libraries and museums unite to save an "astonishing" lost library from private buyers.
One of the newsletters that arrive in my inbox reminded me of a study back in 2016 that provided another reason to read books: there is an association between book reading with longevity (with a survival advantage significantly greater than that observed for reading newspapers or magazines). Even just thirty minutes a day can stimulate the two cognitive processes the study found affected by reading, "deep reading" and empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence.
I found this story rather sweet and amusing: award-winning author William Kent Krueger was recently given the distinct honor of being tapped to be the Grand Marshal for Perham, Minnesota’s annual Turtle Fest Parade.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "A Split Mind is Convenient to Hide the Axe" by Richard Krause.
In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton chatted with novelist Hugh Fritz about his new fantasy thriller, Mystic Rampage Part 2: Public Display of Aggression; and S.A. Cosby joined Angel Luis Colon at Do Some Damage to chat about what he's up to, his thoughts on his recent success, and the challenge of writing cops in crime fiction in the very current (and historical) climate of the American police state.
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