Laura Lippman and Denise Mina have been announced as the Featured Guests at CrimeFest, one of Europe’s biggest crime fiction conventions. Canadian mystery writer, Cathy Ace, will be the Gala Dinner’s "Leader of Toasts," and the convention has also announced a homage to PD James, known as the "Queen of crime fiction," who is the creator of the Adam Dalgliesh series. CrimeFest, sponsored by Specsavers, is hosted from May 9 to 12, 2024 at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel in Bristol. Up to 150 international authors are scheduled to appear in over 50 panels, and the convention also features the annual CrimeFest Awards. (HT to Shots Magazine)
There has been concerning news recently about a possible volcanic eruption on Iceland which prompted the island nation's government to declare a state of emergency and evacuate residents. The annual Iceland Noir conference is scheduled for this weekend, November 16-18, and there was some confusion and concern about that event's status in light of the situation. But organizers posted on Twitter that the conference is still on since Reykjavik is sixty kilometers (roughly 37 miles) away from the potentially affected towns. However, they did encourage participants from outside the country to check on their airline status, just in case there are cancellations of certain flights. This year's special guests include Richard Armitage, Dan Brown, Neil Gaiman, Lisa Jewell, Louise Penny and Hilary Clinton, C.J. Tudor, and Irvine Welsh.
Also being celebrated this weekend is Perth Noir, jointly hosted by Perth’s two publishing companies, Rymour Books and Tippermuir Books. The one-day event will take place Saturday November 18 at the Subud Centre, St Leonard’s Bank. If you happen to be Downunder and have the weekend free, register via this link.
Next up for Noir at the Bar is at 3rd Turn Brewing in Lousiville, KY, on November 18 at 7:00. Authors scheduled to read from their works include S.A. Cosby, Wesley Browne, Ashley Erwin, James D.F. Hannah, David Joy, JH Markert, Bobby Mathews, Eryk Pruitt, and J. Todd Scott.
The Grolier Club in New York City is set to explore a history of detective stories and murder mysteries in the exhibition Whodunit? Key Books in Detective Fiction. On view from Nov. 30 to Feb. 10, Whodunit features more than 90 detective novels from the 19th and early 20th centuries by Francois Vidocq, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Anna Katherine Green, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Rare items include a four-volume set of the Newgate Calendar (1824), a sensationalist publication on criminal activity; the first American edition of The Memoirs of Francois Vidocq (1834), the world’s "first" detective; the first collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (1892); and Agatha Christie’s first novel, featuring the debut appearance of "the little Belgian," Hercule Poirot (1920).
Fans of thriller writer David Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré, may have despaired they'd seen the last of George Smiley when the author died in 2020. But the beloved spy is set to return next autumn, this time penned by Cornwell’s son. Penguin Random House announced a currently untitled novel by Nicholas Cornwell, who writes as Nick Harkaway, set during the decade that passes between the end of le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and the beginning of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. "Smiley is woven into my life," Harkaway said. "Tinker Tailor was written in the two years after I was born and I grew up with the evolution of the Circus, so this is a deeply personal journey for me, and of course it’s a journey which has to feel right to the le Carré audience." Though this is the first time anyone has sought to continue le Carré’s work posthumously, Harkaway was involved in bringing his father’s book Silverview to publication in 2021, a novel that le Carré had completed before he died.
The Crime Fiction Lover Awards has posted the finalists for the third annual event, where readers get to nominate and vote on the winners. There are six categories including Crime Book of the Year, Best Debut Crime Novel of 2023, Best Crime Novel in Translation of 2023, Best Indie Crime Novel of 2023, Best Crime Show of 2023, and Best Crime Author of 2023. Voting closes at noon GMT on Monday December 4, 2023.
Likewise, the Goodreads Choice Awards is now open for you to vote on the best mysteries and thrillers of the year, with the opening round for the top sixteen continuing through November 26. The final round will commence November 28 through December 3, and the finalists will be announced on December 7.
The yearly Crime Time debate on the best crime fiction of the year featuring the critics of the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Express, Shotsmag, and the Financial Times (Barry Forshaw), took place at Waterstones Islington on November 9. As Forshaw noted, there was healthy agreement and healthy disagreement as usual, with the top six and individual choices listed on Crime Time's website.
Over at The Rap Sheet blog, Jeff Pierce has been keeping track of the dizzying release of other end-of-the-year "best" crime fiction lists, which are almost too numerous to follow. (Thanks, Jeff! And also a HT to George Ester of Deadly Pleasures magazine). Here's one from the London Times (with 44 titles!); the Washington Post for both thrillers and mysteries; Kirkus Reviews; and Amazon.
In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton spoke with cozy mystery author Emma Dakin about her new novel, Shadows in Sussex, book 5 in the British Book Tour Mysteries series; and Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davids interviewed Lisa Malice about her psychological thriller, Lest She Forget, in which a woman with amnesia is haunted by a forgotten past and hunted by a ruthless killer with no one to save her but herself.
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