In its annual awards ceremony held this week, the British Book Awards, a/k/a "The Nibbies," announced winners in the various categories. The top book in the Crime & Thriller category went to the late William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin for The Dark Remains. Rebus creator Rankin finished the incomplete novel, a prequel to McIlvanney's Laidlaw mysteries, left by the revered Scottish crime writer upon his death in 2015. Also making the shortlist this year were 1979 by Val McDermid; A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins; Girl A by Abigail Dean; The Appeal by Janice Hallett; and The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced the winners of the 57th Annual Nebula Awards. The Nebula Award for Best Novel went to A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark, which follows an agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities who has to investigate the gruesome mass murder of members of a secret society dedicated to "uncovering the wisdom" of a missing wizard. The Nebula for Best Novella was won by Premee Mohamed's And What Can We Offer You Tonight, about a woman who's shaken when her friend is murdered by a client, but somehow comes back to life, leading the duo to get revenge by confronting the limits of loyalty, guilt, and justice. For all this year's winners, follow this link.
In a virtual awards ceremony held the afternoon of May 24, Publishers Weekly editorial director, Jim Milliot, named The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas as PW Bookstore of the Year. Authors, booksellers, and publishing professionals testified how The Raven supported authors and books during the pandemic and that their actions helped sustain the indie bookstore industry itself. The Raven Book Store was founded in 1987 as a mystery-specialty store, and it retains a strong mystery section to this day, with additional specialties in fiction, poetry, current events, and environmental writing.
If you're a fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and the Reacher Amazon Prime television series, here's a rare opportunity for you: Lee Lofland announced that the Writers’ Police Academy is offering the chance via auction for one lucky person to win "the opportunity to join Lee Child on the set for Amazon’s Reacher Season Two, sometime in the fall, and (hopefully!) show up as a background extra in the show." You do not have to attend the Writers’ Police Academy event to enter your bid. To submit your bid by email, enter REACHER BID in the subject line and in the body of the email include your bid (in U.S. dollar amount), your name, address, and phone number. Then send the email to Lee at [email protected]. Bidding ends on June 19, 2022 at midnight EST, and the winner will be notified on June 21, 2022. (Sealed bids will also be accepted in-person at the June 2-5, 2022 Writers’ Police Academy conference.)
Fans of thriller author, Karin Slaughter, will be happy to hear that her "Slaughterfest" is back for 2022 on Wednesday, June 22 at Waterstones, London - Piccadilly. Slaughter, herself, who is known for her Will Trent series currently being developed as an ABC pilot, will be in conversation with bestselling thriller writer, Simon Toyne. There will also be a panel with some of crime writing’s rising stars (Nadine Matheson, Sam Holland, Rahul Raina, and Robert Gold), as well a panel titled "Destination: Murder" with bestsellers Erin Kelly, Lucy Clarke, Adele Parks and Lucy Foley.
In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series "The First Two Pages," hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. Following her passing, the blog series relocated to Art Taylor's website, with the latest guest, Sarah M. Chen, joining in to continue a series of essays celebrating the release earlier this month of Low Down Dirty Vote, Volume 3. Edited by Mysti Berry, this new volume centers on the theme "The Color of My Vote" and features contributions from 22 authors. Proceeds will benefit Democracy Docket, "an organization that is successfully fighting against voter suppression in the United States."
Every week, the Library of America publishes a selection from one of their collections on their website. This week's offering is "Creeping Siamese" from Dashiell Hammett: Crime Stories and Other Writings. Published originally in the March 1926 issue of The Black Mask, this was the last Hammett story to appear under the editorship of Philip C. Cody. In the wake of the box-office success of the 1941 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, King Features licensed several early Hammett stories for republication, hence the collection. The illustration accompanying the story online is by Stuart Hamilton for the reprint edition distributed by King Features Syndicate to newspapers for their Sunday supplements in 1942 (provided by Davy Crockett’s Almanack).
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Take No Prisoners" by Tad Tuleja.
In the Q&A roundup, Alex Segura spoke with Hilary Davidson on the Criminal Element blog about his new novel, Secret Identity, a rollicking literary mystery set in the world of comic books; also at Criminal Element, J.B. Stevens interviewed Peter Farris, author of The Devil Himself, a southern noir novel first published in France with enormous critical acclaim and which has won multiple literary awards; Rose Kerr stopped by The Stiletto Gang to discuss her new book, Death on the Set, the first book in the Brenna Flynn Mystery Series; and Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis chatted with Annette Dashofy about Fatal Reunion, the eleventh book in Dashofy’s Zoe Chambers mystery series.
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