The organizers of the annual Bloody Scotland international crime-writing festival announced their shortlist of five titles for this year's McIlvanney Prize, including: A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Pan Macmillan); The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre (Sphere); Past Lying, by Val McDermid (Sphere); Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage); and A Spy Like Me, by Kim Sherwood (HarperCollins). The finalists, and also authors shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize, will lead a torchlit procession from Stirling Castle to the Albert Halls on the festival’s opening night of Friday, September 13, where the winner will be revealed. Presented annually since 2012, the McIvanney Prize is named in honor of Scottish author William McIlvanney, who passed away in 2015, with previous recipients including Chris Brookmyre, Peter May, Denise Mina, Alan Parks, and last year's winner, Squeaky Clean by Calum McSorley.
The longlist was revealed for the Petrona Award 2024, which honors the best crime fiction from Scandinavia. This year, ten crime novels from Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden will be competing for the title, including a mix of newer and more established authors, including previous Petrona Award winners, Jørn Lier Horst and Yrsa Sigurðardottir.
Registration is now open for Mystery Writers of America's MWA-U October 9th online Zoom session with Jeffery Deaver, who will be discussing "Writing a Commercial Thriller." The event is free to current MWA members and offered to nonmembers for $20. Jeffery Deaver is the author of 48 novels, 100 short stories, a nonfiction law book, who has received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His book A Maiden’s Grave was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin (retitled Dead Silence). His novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. NBC television recently aired the nine-episode prime-time series, Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector, based on Deaver's book series, and the new CBS show, Tracker, is based on his novel, The Never Game, featuring his character Colter Shaw.
A group of 20-plus bestselling crime fiction authors are teaming up for a free online event as they talk about their books and answer your questions about their careers, books, or writing habits. Viewers can view the event live on YouTube Wednesday, September 18th at 5 PM PT/8 PM ET. Anyone who signs up beforehand can let them know if you have a question for one of the participating authors, including Megan Abbott, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosely and more. Note that this is also a politically-themed event, which is why it's titled "Crime Fiction for Harris."
The publisher Hard Case Crime announced that the story of iconic fictional sleuth, Sam Spade, will be continued by prize-winning crime writer Max Allan Collins. The Return of the Maltese Falcon will be released in January 2026, when the original Dashiell Hammett classic featuring Spade, The Maltese Falcon, enters the public domain. Hammett's novel, released in 1930, is known to movie fans for the 1941 adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart and is widely regarded as a model for the modern hard-boiled detective novel. According to Hard Case Crime, Collins’s new book will bring back Spade and Joel Cairo among other Hammett characters, and "a mysterious new femme fatale." Collins, whose Road to Perdition was adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, has a long history of working with famous literary detectives. He took over the Dick Tracy comic strip in the late 1970s after creator Chester Gould retired, and he was later authorized to continue Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer series. Jeff Pierce over at The Rap Sheet blog, has more about Collins and his other various latest endeavors.
It's long been a mystery of sorts that the creator of the scientifically minded Sherlock Holmes was also fascinated with the paranormal. Recently, six handwritten letters and notes from Arthur Conan Doyle to Captain John Allen Bartlett sold for £2,800 plus buyers premium of 30% at auction. The archive variously discussed spiritual matters, including one which references a letter to Captain Bartlett from Harry Houdini (1874-1926), and Conan-Doyle's reaction to it. Bartlett used the pseudonym John Alleyne when writing his poetry, lyrics and short stories, and was also an active spiritualist. It was his belief in psychic or paranormal phenomenon that linked Bartlett to Conan-Doyle and Houdini, with whom he almost certainly attended some seances. It was around this time that Houdini was unsuccessfully trying to convince Conan-Doyle that the seances were a magician's "allusions not the conversations with the dead he wanted to believe."
In the Q&A roundup, Matthew D. Saeman chatted with Lisa Haselton about his new suspense thriller, To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, featuring NASA geologist Terrence Sullivan; the New York Times (paywall) interviewed Liane Moriarty, author of the bestselling Big Little Lies and Apples Never Fall, both adapted for television; and Self Publishing Review spoke with Karl Wegener, a former Russian linguist, intelligence analyst, and interrogator who served in the U.S.military and the Intelligence Community during the Cold War, about his new novel, Operation Nightfall: The Web of Spies.
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