The Los Angeles Times announced the 2019 Book Prize winners, including Best Mystery/Thriller which went to Oyinkan Braithwaite for My Sister, the Serial Killer. The other finalists were Megan Abbott, Give Me Your Hand; Kent Anderson, Green Sun; Lou Berney, November Road; and Leila Slimani, The Perfect Nanny.
Eighteen authors made it to this year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel longlist, which sees the return of previous shortlisted authors such as Val McDermid, Belinda Bauer, and Stuart Turton, as well as first-timers. The shortlist of six titles will be announced on May 19th, with the winner announced at an award ceremony on July 18th on the opening night of the festival at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. Celebrating its 15th year, the £3,000 prize was created to celebrate the very best in crime fiction and is open to UK and Irish crime authors whose novels were published in paperback from 1st May 2018 to 30th April 2019.
The Crime Writers of Canada released the shortlists for the annual Arthur Ellis Awards for excellence in Canadian crime fiction. The nods for Best Crime Novel include: Ron Corbett, Cape Diamond; Anne Emery, Though the Heavens Fall; Lisa Gabriele, The Winters; Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind; and Loreth Anne White, The Girl in the Moss. For all of the shortlists, head on over to the official CWC website.
The Bloody Words Mini-Con 2019 announced the finalists for the Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award, an annual juried literary prize for a “book that makes us smile.” The contenders include Alan Bradley, The Grave’s a Fine and a Private Place; Vicki Delany; A Scandal in Scarlet; Elizabeth J. Duncan, The Marmalade Murders; Mike Martin, Darkest Before the Dawn; and Auralee Wallace, Haunted Hayride with Murder.
The Romance Writers of America released the list of finalists for this year’s RITA Awards including the Romantic Suspense category: The Bastard’s Bargain, by Katee Robert; Before We Were Strangers, by Brenda Novak; Consumed, by J.R. Ward; Cut and Run, by Mary Burton; Fearless, by Elizabeth Dyer; Reckless Honor, by Tonya Burrows; and Relentless, by Elizabeth Dyer.
Also, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers announced this year's Scribe Awards finalists, celebrating excellence in licensed tie-in novels and audio dramas based on TV shows, movies, and games. Although most are related to science fiction, the Original Novel - General category includes Mike Hammer: Killing Town by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins; Narcos: The Jaguar’s Claw by Jeff Mariotte; and Tom Clancy Line of Sight by Mike Madden. The Young Adult category also includes The Lucy Wilson Mysteries: Curse of the Mirror Clowns by Chris Lynch.
Tomorrow night, Elizabeth Foxwell, Managing editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection, along with Kim Sherwood (University of the West of England and author of Testament), Elizabeth Cuddy (Hampton University), and Christine A. Jackson (Nova Southeastern University), will present the paper “A Necessary Clue: The Mysteries of Isaac Asimov” at the Popular Culture Association conference in Washington, DC. The panel attempts to refute the perception of Asimov as merely a purveyor of gimmicks in his mysteries and stumps for his neglected mainstream mystery debut, The Death Dealers (aka A Whiff of Death, 1958).
Elizabeth Foxwell also announced that “Genre Bending: Crime's Hybrid Forms” is a new call for papers for a themed issue of the crime fiction literary journal Clues that will be guest edited by Maurizio Ascari (University of Bologna). The submission deadline is October 1, 2019.
Scottish crime authors, take note: April 26 is the deadline for the McIlvanney Prize for Crime Fiction and the brand-new debut prize for crime fiction. The awards are part of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival which will take place September 20-22 in Sterling, Scotland. Click here for more information about submission guidelines. (HT to Ayo Onatade at Shots Magazine.)
J. Kingston Pierce is celebrating the 70th anniversary (which he explains here) of the publication of Ross Macdonald's original Lew Archer private eye novel, The Moving Target. Pierce penned two tributes at Crimereads, including interviewing Macdonald historian and biographer Tom Nolan, and taking a look at the many covers of The Moving Target through the years.
Writing for Crime Fiction Lover, Sonja van der Westhuizen offered up a list of “Twelve South African Crime Writers to Add to Your Reading List,” noting that “one of the biggest challenge South African crime writers face is finding a way to write for and engage with an audience desensitised by violence.”
The latest issue of the online 'zine Yellow Mama is out, bring readers the “ultimate noirfest,” with new stories, poetry, and illustrations.
Thriller author Robert Dugoni, creator of the Tracy Crosswhite series, was featured taking the Page 69 Test for his novel, The Eighth Sister.
The “Cozy Mystery Bundle for Charity” event is taking place again this year. If you love clean, fun mysteries, you can pre-order the 14-book set, Summer Snoops Unleashed, for 99¢ and help countless animals. Last year the same group raised nearly $7,000, and this year the bundle includes all-new stories and three new animal charities.
From the life is stranger than fiction department (take note, crime writers), police in Oregon received a call about a burglar. Instead, they found a rogue Roomba.
The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is “Dear Bully” by Erin Bryant.
In the Q&A roundup, Jacqueline Seewald interviewed Keith Steinbaum, who turn his hand from poetry and writing song lyrics to penning novels including The Poe Consequence, a modern day supernatural thriller/human drama, and a new Beatles-themed whodunit murder mystery; Gerald So is interviewing Derringer Award short story finalists on his blog, the latest being Travis Richardson; Sandra Ruttan chatted with Dea Poirier about her debut novel, Next Girl to Die; and Deborah Kalb spoke with Deborah Hopkinson about her new middle grade novel for kids, How I Became a Spy.
