HQ Fiction (a commercial fiction imprint of Harper Collins UK) is launching a competition in partnership with The Times and The Sunday Times in Scotland, Bloody Scotland, and 42 Management and Production to find an unagented Scottish author writing Scotland-set crime novels. For the purposes of the prize, a crime novel is eligible if the author was born, raised, is a permanent resident in, or has a strong and enduring connection to Scotland. Authors can enter the competition by submitting a 500-word synopsis along with the first 5,000-10,000 words of the manuscript and a 200-word author biography to [email protected]. Submissions are open from July 1st 2023 until 30th November 2023. The six-strong shortlist will be announced in January 2024, with the winner due to be announced in March 2024. The winner will have their book published by HQ and receive a £10,000 advance, and also representation from 42. (HT to Shots Magazine)
Eddie Muller, host of TCM's Noir Alley, cocktail connoisseur, and one of the world's leading authorities on film noir, will share his expertise for the program, Noir Bar: Film Classics and Cocktails with Eddie Muller on October 5 at 7 p.m. at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. Muller will discuss a range of classic movies, including some with Mob themes, while demonstrating how to create a few of his own craft cocktails. A book signing of Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir will follow the program.
Seacoast Noir at the Bar, hosted by Zakariah Johnson, heads to Book and Bar in Portsmouth, NH, Sunday, October 22, 2023. Joining Johnson to read excerpts from their works in progress are authors Lara Bricker, Brenda Buchanan, Dick Cass, Ted Flanagan, Kate Flora, Gledé Browne Kabongo, Edith Maxwell, Dale T. Phillips, Lynne Reeves, Barbara Ross, Bonnar Spring, and Chris Holm.
Level Best Books co-owners Shawn Reilly Simmons and Verena Rose announced the addition of Michael Bracken as a consulting editor for the Level Short imprint. He will edit or co-edit two anthologies for the imprint in 2024 and four anthologies each year beginning in 2025. An Anthony-nominated anthologist, Bracken's first two Level Short projects, scheduled for release in 2024, are Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, co-edited with Barb Goffman, and Wish Upon a Crime, co-edited with Stacy Woodson. Bracken has edited or co-edited 28 published or forthcoming anthologies, and he serves as the editor of Black Cat Mystery Magazine and as an associate editor of Black Cat Weekly. Stories from Bracken's projects have won or been short-listed for the Anthony, Derringer, Edgar, Macavity, Shamus, and Thriller awards and have been selected for inclusion in and/or made the extended list of best stories of the year in The Best American Mystery Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, and The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories. Woodson, a multi-award-winning short story writer who received The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award for her first published story, is co-editing one of Bracken's first two anthologies for Level Short and will co-edit additional anthologies going forward.
Publishers Weekly noted that genre fiction remains extremely popular, and publishers have been increasing their output to meet the demand in recent years. BrocheAroe Fabian, who lives in Wisconsin and owns the online bookstore River Dog Book Co., is also a marketing consultant and manager at Sourcebooks, which has moved aggressively into publishing genre fiction in recent years. Emphasizing that she pays close attention to literary trends, Fabian pointed out that genre fiction has always had its readers, particularly since such stories “have been inclusive for a long time.” She added, “If you wanted to read diverse books, you read genre fiction.” Fabian connects the growing interest in genre fiction to the success of literary thrillers like Gone Girl and The Woman in the Window.
In an essay for the BBC, David Barnett reflected on the phenomenon of "cosy crime," investigating whether the recent popularity of books by the likes of Richard Osman are "brilliant entertainment or 'twee and insipid'."
A warren of tunnels beneath central London, once used by the spies who inspired the creation of James Bond, has been bought by a fund manager with a £220 million ($269 million) plan to turn them into an immersive tourist attraction "as iconic as the London Eye." The Kingsway Exchange Tunnels, some 40 meters below Chancery Lane tube station in High Holborn, were built in the 1940s to shelter Londoners from the Blitz bombing campaign during World War II. That was the last time they were open to the general public. Their next wartime role was as the home of Britain’s top-secret Special Operations Executive, an offshoot of MI6 and the real-life inspiration for James Bond’s Q Branch.
In the Q&A roundup, Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø spoke with The Guardian about his early influences ("Tom Sawyer was my first murder mystery"), changing tastes, and the age-limit for enjoying Hemingway; and William Kent Kruger chatted with The Chicago Tribune about his Cork O’Connor mystery series at a recent book signing at The Book Stall in Winnetka.
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