In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

The Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans announced this year's winners of the Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction. The award was established in 2012 for women writers to honor the memory of Diana Pinckley (1952-2012), a longtime crime fiction columnist for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and her passion for mysteries. The Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work goes to C.S. Harris ( aka C.S. Graham and Candace Procter), while the Pinckley Prize for Debut Fiction goes to Angie Kim for her Edgar winning novel, Miracle Creek. New this year is the Pinckley Prize for True Crime Writing, won by Emma Copley Eisenberg for The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia. The prizes will be presented during the 2021 Bouchercon which takes place in New Orleans in August.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the finalists for this year's Derringer Awards for excellence in short crime fiction (Flash Fiction; Short Story; Long Story; Novelette). The announcement was made in the group's membership forum and as of the press time for this blog post hadn't been posted on the SMFS website just yet. But you can follow this link to my list of Recent Awards for the details.

The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) announced finalists in the prestigious IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award program, the association’s flagship book award program recognizing excellence and innovation in independent publishing. In the Mystery/Thriller category, the three finalists include: A Child Lost: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel by Michelle Cox (She Writes Press); Hanging Falls: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane); and Things to Do When You'd Rather Be Dead by Michael Guillebeau (Madison Press). One finalist in each of the various categories will be named a Gold winner during a set of four online ceremonies the evenings of May 11-14, 2021. The remaining finalists in each category will become Silver winners.

Mystery Readers Journal: Historical Mysteries is now available as a PDF and hardcopy. There are numerous Author! Author! essays, including two available online, "Why I Write Historical Mystery" by Rhys Bowen and "Quo Vadis, Mr. Saylor?" by Steven Saylor; articles including "Thomas Pynchon’s Take on 1970s California Noir" by Sean Day and "Crimes of Authority in Pious 19th Century Poland" by Jay Gertzman; and columns such as "Just the Facts: History’s First Detectives" by Jim Doherty.

Writing for the New York Times, Edmund White discussed the "Talented Mr. Ripley: a Shape-Shifting Protagonist Who’s Up to No Good," and how author Patricia Highsmith embedding her own repression, snobbery and sense of chaos into her psychological thrillers. This essay is part of T’s Book Club, a series of articles and events dedicated to classic works of American literature and will include a virtual conversation about "The Talented Mr. Ripley," to be led by Edmund White on April 22.

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog has seasonally themed mysteries for Passover (this year, March 27-April 4) and Easter (April 4).

Criminals are getting more creative all the time it seems; now they can pick your locks just by listening.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Wheelie Queen" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Allison Brennan chatted with the Wishful Endings blog about her latest thriller, Tell No Lies, centering on an edgy young female LAPD detective and an ambitious special agent, both part of a mobile FBI unit that is brought in to investigate the unsolved murder of a college activist and its alleged ties to high stakes crime in the desert Southwest; and Stephen Mack Jones was the latest 9mm interview for Craig Sisterson's blog, talking about his award-winning series featuring former marine sniper and Detroit cop, August Snow.

Mystery Melange

At the ceremony revealing the winners of 2022's An Post Irish Book Awards, it was announced the Crime Fiction Book of the Year was won by Breaking Point by Edel Coffey. The other finalists in the category include Remember My Name by Sam Blake; Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard; The Accomplice by Steve Cavanagh; The Interview by Gill Perdue; and Hide and Seek by Andrea Mara.

British author, Stuart Turton, was awarded Germany’s 2022 Viktor Crime Award for The Devil and Dark Water. Other shortlisted authors/titles included Kazltes Herz (Cold Heart) by Henri Faber and Horvath und die verschwundenen Schüler (Horvath and the Missing Students) by Marc Hofmann. The award has been handed out since 2018 and was announced at Mord am Hellweg, which has been dubbed "Europe’s largest international crime film festival.”

Icelandic crime novelist Ragnar Jónasson's novel, Snjóblinda (Snow Blind), was voted the best crime novel published in France in the last 50 years, by French book aficionados. Ragnar accepted the award last Wednesday in Paris. The French publisher, Points, which specializes in paperbacks, and the periodical, Le Point, decided to present special literary awards to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the magazine. In the literary works category, the winner was Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

Voting continues for the final round of the Goodreads Choice Awards competition, which includes ten titles in the Best Mystery & Thriller category. Readers can vote through December 4, with winners announced Thursday, December 8.

Submissions to the 2023 Louie Award competition, sponsored by the Australian Crime Writers Association, will be accepted through Friday, December 30. The Louie prize celebrates microfiction of less than 500 words that is focused on a specific theme, which this year is "Locked." ACWA members can entry for the chance to win a $750 cash prize. Last year's award was won by Hayley Young for her crime story, "I’m Not Telling." (HT to the Rap Sheet)

Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop will host a virtual cozy mystery event via Zoom on Sunday, December 4th, 2022, at 2:00 pm Eastern. Authors scheduled to participate include Marilyn Levison, Heather Weidner, Jackie Layton, Sarah E. Burr, and Alice Adler. This is a free event although reservations are required so that each person receives the code to sign in.

Kirkus Reviews released its Best Mysteries and Thrillers list for 2022. You can check out all ten titles via this link.

The multidisciplinary conference, Crime Fiction and Democracy, intends to explore the complex, multifaceted relationship between crime fiction and democracy from the late 19th century to the present. It's being organized by the Centre de Recherches Anglophones (Université Paris Nanterre) and Queen’s University Belfast, and will be held Université Paris Nanterre June 22-23, 2023. Conference organizers are inviting proposals for 20-minute papers, either in English or French, focusing on the multiple connections between democracy and crime fiction throughout the world, and seeking, if possible, a broad analytical approach rather than the analysis of single works. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Congrats to Elizabeth Foxwell, whose The Bunburyist blog passed its 1 millionth view since its debut in 2005. You can check out her top ten most-read blog entries, counting to #1, "The dozen best detective short stories ever written," as selected by author-critics such as Anthony Boucher, John Dickson Carr, August Derleth, Howard Haycraft, Ellery Queen, James Sandoe, and Vincent Starrett.


This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "After Party" by Katherine Heil.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton chatted with Mystery author Jessica Stilling about her new literary fiction, Between Before and After. Haselton also interviewed author Jennifer Juvenelle about her new psychological thriller, Daughter of Belial.

Mystery Melange - Thanksgiving Edition

Crime Reads featured an essay by D.M. Rowell about her path to writing a Native American mystery novel, Name the Dead. As a child, Rowell was heavily influenced by her traditional Kiowa Grandfather, C. E. Rowell. He was an artist, master storyteller, recognized Tribal Elder, and one of the last readers of the Sai-guats, winter count deerskin calendars that chronicled a hundred years of Kiowa history. Her grandfather’s stories, memories, and art instilled a deep respect and love for her Kiowa culture and traditions within Rowell. She’s also an award-winning and nominated producer/writer on several documentaries, including Vanishing Link: My Spiritual Return to the Kiowa Way seen on PBS, and winner of TrailDance 2007 Best Oklahoma Documentary.

Salon profiled the Francis writing family who have kept a horse-racing themed thriller series going for 60 years, thanks to the efforts of a talented lineage. The series, which started with Dick Francis's Dead Cert in 1962, was continued by Dick's son, Felix, after his father's retirement and eventual passing (in 2010). But Dick's wife, Mary, also played a large role in the success of the series as a researcher and editor, so much so that some critics often thought she deserved co-writing credit.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up featuring the Thanksgiving mystery short story, "They Shoot Pumpkins Don't They?" by Margaret S. Hamilton, as read by actor Donna Beavers.

Janet Rudolph has a running list of Thanksgiving-related mysteries on her Mystery Fanfare blog to keep you busy while you're recovering from gorging on your Thanksgiving feast.

Speaking of Thanksgiving reading, Jenn's Bookshelves will once again be hosting Thankfully Reading Weekend, November 23-27 (Wednesday through Sunday). There are no rules to the weekend, just a pledge to devote a good amount of time to reading, and perhaps meet some of your reading challenges and goals for the year. You can sign up to participate via Jenn's blog and share your reading progress via your own blog or by using the hashtag #thankfullyreading on social media sites.

The authors over at Mystery Lovers Kitchen have plenty of Thanksgiving recipes and reads for you, including Pumpkin Ginger Mousse from Leslie Budewitz; Easy Roasted Thanksgiving Vegetables via Lucy Burdette; and Cocoa Coffee Cake, courtesy of Vicki Delaney. Janet Rudolph also has an alternative to pie over on Mystery Fanfare, Chocolate Pecan Pie Truffles.

While we're on the subject of Thanksgiving fare, did you know that eels almost became the traditional Thanksgiving food instead of turkey?


This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Kitchen Peril" by Amy Ralston Seife.

In the Q&A roundup, since Thanksgiving weekend has always been a big one for Hollywood, I thought it would be appropriate to share a link to an interview at The New Yorker with Rian Johnson, director of Knives Out and the sequel, Glass Onion, which premieres in cinemas for one week only from Wednesday, November 23 - Tuesday, November 29. In the Q&A, Johnson explains that he's been an Agatha Christie fan since he was a kid and decided to set his movies in modern-day America to engage with the culture of today, something Christie did herself.

Mystery Melange

Six crime novels have been shortlisted for the 2022 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year in translation (either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia) published in the UK in the previous calendar year. The winning title will be announced on Thursday, December 8, and both author and translator of the winning title will receive a cash prize. This year's shortlist includes: Maria Adolfsson (Sweden) - Fatal Isles tr. Agnes Broomé; Helene Flood (Norway) - The Therapist tr. Alison Cullough; Ruth Lillegraven (Norway) - Everything is Mine tr. Diane Oatley; Anders Roslund (Sweden) - Knock Knock tr. Elizabeth Clark Wessel; Lilja Sigurðardóttir (Iceland) - Cold as Hell tr. Quentin Bates; and Antti Tuomainen (Finland) - The Rabbit Factor tr. David Hackston.

The Crime Bake conference in Maine held this past weekend awarded the annual Al Blanchard Short Story Award to "The Bookings" by Jason Allison. The Honorable Mentions were "Robin's Hope" by Avram Lavinsky; "Steer Clear of the Devil" by Kim Keeline; "The Tattletale Tattoo" by Karen Whalen; and "Seven Women" by Eleanor Ingbretson. (HT to Joseph S. Walker, one of the judges of this year's contest.) The Award is named after Blanchard, who in addition to being a writer himself served as President of MWA-NE Sisters in Crime and co-created the Crime Bake conference.

Over on the other side of the Atlantic on November 27, there's a crime wave in Torquay (the home of Agatha Christie) via Crime at the Coast: A SW Crime Writers’ Convention. Authors from the Crime Writers’ Association South West Chapter, will be talking about crime writing and the secrets of getting published at a special day-long event in support of the Torquay Museum. Participating athors will include Stephanie Austin, Margaret Barnes, Sam Carrington, Jane Corry, Helena Dixon, Elizabeth Ducie, Richard D Handy, S M Hardy, Michael Jecks, K J Maitland. Special guests also making an appearance include Ian Hobbs of the Devon Book Club, and the book blogger Cherry Smith of the Crimepedia podcast.

As we near the end of 2022, it's time for the inevitable "best of the year" lists to start bubbling up. One of the earliest is Amazon's Best mysteries and thrillers of 2022, with Don Winslow's City on Fire chosen as the best of the best. To check out the list of all twenty selected titles, click on over here.

Mystery Readers Journal has a call for articles (500-1,000 word), reviews (50-250 words), and author essays (500-1,000 words) about mysteries set in Africa. Author essays are first person, about yourself, your books, and the "African Mystery" connection. The deadline is January 5, 2023: Send to: Janet Rudolph, Editor, janet@mysteryreaders.org.

The Guardian reported on The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons, the next installment in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series and the first written by a woman. Swedish author Karin Smirnoff takes the reins from David Lagercrantz in continuing the late author's vision for a 10-book series. The first three books — The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest — were written by Larsson and published posthumously after his sudden death in 2004. The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons, which continues the adventures of hacker Lisbeth Salander and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist, was published in Swedish as Havsörnens Skrik last week, but Sarah Death’s English translation will not be out until August of next year.

The former New Forest retreat of Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has come on the market for just under £3-million. Bignell Wood, a sprawling rural mansion just outside of Cadnam, was owned by Sir Arthur until his death in 1930, and was a birthday present for his wife Jean. Sir Arthur is buried in nearby Minstead, which also featured in his 1891 historical series set in the 14th century, the White Company. The current owner, interior designer Jane McIntyre of Jane McIntyre Design, bought Bignell Wood in 2006 and has restyled the interior.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "It's the Husband" by Sharon Waller Knutson.

In the Q&A roundup, Publishers Weekly spoke with Benjamin Stevenson about his novel, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, where members of a family of killers gather at an Australian ski resort; and Jane Harper, bestselling author of The Dry, was interviewed by Australia's ABC News about exiles, writing in a pandemic, and the rural noir renaissance.

Mystery Melange

Sisters in Crime (SinC) announced the winner of the 2022 Pride Award for emerging LGBTQIA+ writers is Sarah St. Asaph of London, England. Her winning novel-in-progress is a contemporary medical-legal crime mystery where a young lawyer is given the chance to re-examine the evidence against a former hospital doctor that has been convicted as Britain’s worst ever female serial killer. The novel explores how women are treated within the criminal justice system and plays with the prejudices and preconceptions they face as perpetrators of crimes. The five runners-up, who will also be paired with an established Sisters in Crime member author to receive a manuscript critique, include C. Jean Downer, Diane Carmony, Roy Udeh-Ubaka, Marle Redfern, and Elaine Westnott-O’Brien.

Southern Independent Booksellers (SIBA) have selected the finalists for the 2023 Southern Book Prize, representing bookseller favorites from 2022 that are about the South or by a Southern writer. One of the titles included on that list is The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb, a conspiracy thriller about a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world. Winners will announced on February 14, Valentine’s Day after popular vote (participating bookstores promote the ballot to their customers, and submitted ballots are entered into a raffle to win a set of the finalist titles).

The 2022 Petrona Award Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year celebrates crime fiction from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden translated into English and published in the UK in the previous calendar year. Due to the increased number of qualifying entries, the award, which is now in its tenth year, is for the first time releasing a longlist of twelve titles that will be whittled down to a shortlist announced on November 16. The longlist contains a number of new faces as well as Petrona Award-winning authors, Jørn Lier Horst and Antti Tuomanen, and the previously shortlisted Kjell Ola Dahl and Thomas Enger. You can see all the 2022 longlisted titles via this link.

The Crime Fiction Lover website polled readers to help choose nominations for their second annual Crime Fiction Lover Awards and have posted the finalists in the categories of Best Crime Novel, Best Debut Crime Novel, Best Indie Crime Novel, Best Crime Novel in Translation, Best Crime Show, and Best Crime Author. Readers can vote for their favorites via this link through November 30.

After launching a successful writers conference in May, Maple Leaf Mystery is back with a virtual mini-event on December 3, headlined by authors Brenda Chapman, Ron Corbett, Vicki Delany, Mary Jane Mafini, Mike Martin, and Rick Mofina, along with other Canadian mystery authors. Panel topics will include Short Stories, Police Procedurals, Suspense, Light-Mysteries, and more. You can register here and look for teasers, author bios, and updates on Facebook.

Many aspects of in-person literary conferences benefit authors and fans alike, but virtual events have the edge when it comes to inclusivity and cost. I have to admit, I'm much more likely to attend a virtual than in-person event these days, something many of us got used to during the Zoom-Covid era. Washington Post Book Club editor, Ron Charles, noted there's a new app called Booky Call (that presents books with saucy profiles you can swipe left or right to make discovering your next book as fun as finding your next Tinder hookup). To celebrate their one-year anniversary, Booky Call is launching BookyCon, a virtual book festival on November 12 where 3,000+ participants can login and be taken to a 3D art deco auditorium to join author presentations including the Mystery/Thriller stage. As Charles added, the software platform "looks infinitely adaptable and could radically improve any online event that involves multiple speakers and could be useful for other virtual book events."

Fans of spy thrillers and everything "spy," take note:  until recently, the CIA Museum was one of the most mysterious collections of artifacts in the world, with access restricted to CIA officers and approved officials. But that's about to change, sort of, as curators begin to digitize the 3,500 objects in the museum collection and offer up digital access for the public in a virtual museum marking the agency’s 75th anniversary.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Aldebaron: Widows" by S.B. Watson.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with Lisa Unger, an internationally bestselling author and Edgar Award nominee, about her latest novel, Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six; Crime Fiction Lover spoke with Icelandic author, Jónína Leosdóttir, about her crime novel, Deceit, her 20th book but the first to be translated into English; Deborah Kalb interviewed D.M. Rowell, who hails from a family of Kiowa storytellers, about her new mystery novel, Never Name the Dead; Writers Who Kill snagged Christin Brecher to discuss Photo Finished, the first book in the new Snapshot of NYC Mystery series; and CrimeReads got a jump on the holidays by putting together a roundtable of authors to discuss Christmas mysteries.

Mystery Melange

When Women Kill by Chilean author, Alia Trabucco Zerán (translated by Sophie Hughes), has won the 2022 British Academy Book Prize. Novelist Zerán has long been fascinated not only with the root causes of violence against women, but by those women who have violently rejected the domestic and passive roles they were meant by their culture to inhabit. Choosing as her subject four iconic homicides perpetrated by Chilean women in the twentieth century—intertwining true crime, critical essays, and research diaries—she spent years researching this complex work of narrative nonfiction detailing not only the troubling tales of the murders themselves, but the story of how society, the media, and men in power reacted to these killings, painting their perpetrators as witches, hysterics, or femmes fatales.

The Japanese government said Wednesday that it will give the Medal of Honor to 717 people and 29 organizations this autumn, including novelist Arimasa Osawa. Osawa, 66, will be awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon, which is given to those with accomplishments in arts, education or sports. The author is known for his "Shinjukuzame" (Shinjuku Shark) mystery novel series, for which he won the Naoki Prize in 1994, but has also penned the private detective Ko Sakuma series as well as the Arbeit detective series. He has entertained readers for more than four decades with his various writing styles and publications.

On Saturday, November 5, the Chester NJ Library will hold a day of book talks and workshops with 25 or more local authors. Mally Baumel Becker will moderate the panel on mystery and suspense fiction with authors Andrew Anselmi, Liz Alterman, Carlotta Holton, Charles Levin, Lori Robbins, and Kris Waldherr, discussing what it is about murder, spies, and supernatural thrills that keeps them writing.

On November 19th at 1pm, the San Bernardino Public Library will present a Mystery Panel featuring authors Lance Charnes, Travis Richardson, Jeri Westerson, and Pamela Samuels Young. They'll discuss what it takes to write a novel and get it published as well as talking about their personal craft when it comes to writing mysteries.

From now through December 6, you can enter the 2022 MASTERPIECE Mystery! Sweepstakes via PBS. The Grand Prize consists of an original costume sketch from Miss Scarlet and The Duke autographed by actor Kate Phillips, costume designer Momirka Bailovic, and Rachael New (the show's creator, writer, and Executive Producer); a hardcover Magpie Murders book autographed by author Anthony Horowitz; DVDs of Miss Scarlet and The Duke, Magpie Murders, and Annika; and one pair of socks featuring Edward Gorey artwork from the MASTERPIECE Mystery! opening credits. In addition, nine runners-up will receive program DVDs.

Last month, Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore and Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore, the Minneapolis icons that burned down in May 2020, reopened, but with somewhat reduced stock. However, it appears that proprietor Don Blyly is getting close to having all the used mystery trade paperbacks listed on Abebooks.com on their shelves. It will be a lot longer before used mystery hardcovers return, but they're still accepting donations. (HT to the Rap Sheet.)

I suppose I may have known this fact at one time, but Minnesota is home to the world's largest Sherlock Holmes collection. The University of Minnesota's Elmer L. Andersen Library has more than 60,000 individual pieces related to Sherlock Holmes and the fictional detective’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The university amassed the treasures by acquiring several personal collections, as well as through donations. Works range from concept art for the many Sherlock Holmes films to book illustrations and cover art. Although public tours of the collection are not generally available, individual items are occasionally displayed at the Andersen Library or other sites, such as the Minnesota History Center. You may also request to view certain items through the collection’s catalog system.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Aldebaran: Ghost" by S.B. Watson.

In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover spoke with Joe R. Lansdale, author of the Hap and Leonard series, about his writing and his upcoming collection of 19 short stories entitled Things Get Ugly: The Best Crime Stories of Joe R Lansdale; The Guardian interviewed Iceland’s PM, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, a long-time crime fiction fan who has just published her first crime novel with the assistance of bestselling Icelandic author, Ragnar Jónasson; and Writers Digest interviewed bestselling author Robert Crais who discussed how he started from scratch with his new crime novel, Racing the Light.

Mystery Melange - Halloween Edition

 

Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka's acclaimed novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, has won the 2022 Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the English language. The book is a whodunit and a satire set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka's long-running civil war in the 1980s and '90s. The main character, Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems to be a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has "seven moons" to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Time is running out to apply for the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program for Unpublished Writers, sponsored by the Malice Domestic Conference. The Grant program is designed to foster quality Malice Domestic literature (think "Agatha Christie") and to assist mystery authors on the road to publication. The Grant may be used to offset registration, travel, or other expenses related to attendance at a writers’ conference or workshop within a year of the date of the award. In the case of nonfiction, the grant may be used to offset research expenses. The grant includes a $2,500 award plus a comprehensive registration for the upcoming convention and two nights’ lodging at the convention hotel, but does not include travel to the convention or meals. For more information and submission guidelines, follow this link, but hurry because the deadline is November 1.

BBC Maestro announced its latest course, Writing Popular Fiction, from multi-million bestselling author Lee Child. The course will cover a rare look into how Lee created his iconic Jack Reacher series, his unique creative process, and how he put as much thought into planning his career as an author as he did into his prose. Spanning over 6 hours and presented in Lee’s inimitable style, the 35 bespoke course lessons include: Ditch the Airs and Graces, Research is a Dish Best Served Cold, Don’t Fall in Love with Your Hero, How Not to Make Your Reader Seasick, If You Want to be a Writer, You Have to be a Reader First, and The Back End of a Big Machine.

Noir at the Bar LA is headed back to the Mandrake Bar November 6th at 7pm. Authors currently scheduled to read from their work include Rachel Howzell Hall, Sascha Rothchild, Adam Frost, August Norman, Jennifer J. Chow, Ashley Erwin, J. August Williams, Lawrence Allan, and Eric Beetner. There's something for everyone this time around, from hardboiled to cozy to suspense to grit lit.

Writing for The World of Chinese, writer Jesse Young investigated China’s long quest to produce a great crime novel.

We have to say good-bye to another mystery bookshop, it seems. The independent store, Number 10, in East Lancashire in the UK, closed its doors this past weekend. Owner, Zoë Channing, said it was a difficult decision to make. "Having survived the pandemic, illness, bereavement and Covid, this latest blow to indie retail is impossible to overcome." The book shop, which specializes in crime fiction, opened in 2019.

Author Ian Rankin (the Inspector Rebus series) has been honored as Beath High School has named its English faculty after the writer. Rankin attended Beath High as a youngster and following his knighthood this summer, the school decided to mark the achievement of its former pupil. Steve Ross, Rector, noted, "We already have the 'Sir James Black Science Faculty' in the school - it was a cause for real celebration when Sir Ian agreed to the naming of English after him." Rankin recently delivered a speech at Beath High's Senior Awards ceremony, where a plaque marking the Sir Ian Rankin English Faculty was unveiled.

Janet Rudolph updated her annual list of Halloween crime fiction for her Mystery Fanfare blog. The list includes mysteries that take place on or around Halloween. She also has a separate Day of the Dead list.

Kings River Life has some free online Halloween mystery stories to chill and thrill you, including "When a Prank Goes Bad" by John R. Clark; "Forever Yours" by James Patrick Focarile; and "Just Desserts" by S. Phillip Lenski.

Authors at the Mystery Lovers Kitchen blog offered up some Halloween recipes to spice up your holiday, including Butternut Squash Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake from Lucy Burdette; Red Lentil Soup with North African Spices courtesy of Molly MacRae; and Mini Pumpkin Pies by way of Terry Ambrose.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Aldebaran: Killer" by S.B. Watson.

In the Q&A roundup, this year's Noirwich 2022 featured Yelena Moskovich, an award-winning Soviet-Ukrainian American and French novelist of The Natashas, Virtuoso, and A Door Behind A Door, reflecting on the volatility and mutability of the written word and the world, and the question of what if crime wasn’t a story being told, but a language being spoken?; Author Interviews spoke with novelist, screenwriter, and TV creator, Jason Mosberg, about his new novel, Dirty California, in which a young man descends into the Los Angeles underworld to find his family’s killer—aided by a group of strangers with their own shadowy pasts; and E.B. Davis interviewed Carol J. Perry over at the Writers Who Kill blog about High Spirits, the second book in her Haunted Haven series.

Mystery Melange

The 2022 NoirCon returns this weekend, Friday, Oct. 21 through Sunday, Oct. 23, marking the first time the event has held a virtual conference. The three-day symposium celebrates noir in all its artistic incarnations with live and pre-recorded events, including panel discussions, award ceremonies, author talks, art exhibitions, movie screenings, and more. Registration includes access to the Accelevents platform for 30 days after the event, so attendees can re-watch events or catch up on panels they missed. The award winners this year include Megan Abbott, Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, and Sarah Weinman, and conference organizers will also be celebrating the 2018 award winners, Walter Mosley, Geoffrey O'Brien, Dana Polan, and Max Rudin after the biannual event was cancelled due to Covid.

Author and academic Preti Taneja has won the 2022 Gordon Burn prize for Aftermath, her "unflinching work of narrative non-fiction." The winning title is about the London Bridge stabbing in 2019, when 28-year-old terrorist, Usman Khan, attacked five people, two fatally. Taneja realized shortly afterwards that she had known Khan when he was a student in a creative writing class she had taught two years earlier in HMP Whitemoor, where he was incarcerated at the time. Guardian reviewer, Helen Pidd, praised Aftermath and the way the author "blends journalism, memoir, poetry and literary criticism in an attempt to process an event she will never truly understand." The genre-blurring book topped a six-strong shortlist that was judged by a jury chaired by crime writer, Denise Mina.

The ECPA announced the finalists for the Christy Awards for 2022. The award has been honoring and promoting excellence in Christian fiction since 1999. This year's finalists in the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category include Aftermath by Terri Blackstock; The Barrister and the Letter of Marque by Todd M. Johnson; and On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor by Jaime Jo Wright.

All About Agatha is a podcast I sometimes featured on my Media Murder for Monday blog posts. I had wondered why the podcast seemed to have stopped publishing new episodes in September, and I recently learned that one of the original co-host Catherine Brobeck, had passed away from a previously undetected genetic disorder just days after her 37th birthday. She and Kemper Donovan established the long-running podcast and set out to read and rank all of Christie's 66 mystery novels and discuss them in exhaustive detail. During their six-year odyssey, thousands of Agatha Christie enthuasists from around the world enjoyed what one listener described as a "joyfully geeky" take on the Queen of Crime's expansive canon. Donovan and Brobeck also lectured at the University of Cambridge on the collective catharsis of the denouement (when the detective gathers everyone in the drawing room to reveal the killer), gave media interviews on the steady stream of new Christie adaptations, and became beloved pillars of the close-knit community of devout Christie fans and scholars. At the time of Brobeck's death, she and Donovan had explored 60 novels. With just six left to review, Donovan decided to keep the podcast going. The final novel episode of "All About Agatha," released in September, was dedicated to Curtain, the last book published in Christie's lifetime.

The British Antique Museum in Kamakura City, Japan, includes a Sherlock Holmes Room that pays tribute to the Great Detective and features Victorian/Edwardian furnishings. It is modeled after the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, situated at 221B Baker Street, which, according to the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was where Holmes resided from 1881 to 1904. The rooms have been faithfully maintained to give visitors from all round the globe an insight into the life and stories of the world’s first consulting detective, and a memorable, authentic experience of Victorian London. The four-storey Georgian townhouse dates back to 1815 and once served for many decades as a lodging house, but is now listed to protect its architectural and cultural heritage, boasting a blue plaque to commemorate the period of Holmes’ residency. The Sherlock Holmes Museum opened its iconic front door in 1990, and now attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world making a pilgrimage to the home of their literary hero. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at the Bunburyist blog)

Here's a news item from the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department:  apparently, Oakland Cops hope to arm robots with lethal shotguns. What could possibly go wrong?

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Heave Ho" by Rena J. Worley.

Mystery Melange

 

Along with many other fans, I was saddened to hear that Angela Lansbury had taken her final curtain call, passing away just weeks shy of her 97th birthday. As The New Yorker observed, Lansbury's career, like the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, spanned so many decades and cultural upheavals "that she seemed as constant and as comforting as the blue sky above." She wowed fans beginning with her breakout role as the saucy Cockney maid in 1944's Gaslight—she was seventeen at the time and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress—to her role as a witch-in-training in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, to creating the role of Mrs. Lovett, the rolling-pin-wielding serial killer’s accomplice in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She received three Oscar nominations total, including her chilling role in The Manchurian Candidate, and won six Tony Awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement. I suspect that most people in the crime fiction community will always remember her best for her iconic role as amateur sleuth, Jessica Fletcher, on Murder She Wrote. There have been countless tributes, including this one from The Guardian that called her "a national treasure," and many more touting her warmth, kindness, and generosity. She was also a devoted mother and once managed to save her daughter from being under the spell of notorious cult leader and killer, Charles Manson. She will be sorely missed by family, friends, and fans, but her legacy will certainly live on for many years to come.

We also lost author Peter Robinson this past week when he died at the age of 72 after a brief illness. The British-born novelist whose work included poetry and short stories as well as his bestselling thrillers, will be remembered as a master of plot and character. Robinson was best known for his novels featuring Inspector Banks, the first of which was published 35 years ago. The books were adapted into the TV drama series, DCI Banks, which ran between 2010 and 2016 and starred Stephen Tompkinson in the titular role. A total of 8.75 million copies of Robinson's books have been sold by his U.K. publishers Hodder & Stoughton and Pan Macmillan, and his books have been translated into 19 languages.

Amazon’s Kindle Storyteller Award 2022 shortlist was announced and includes a couple of crime fiction titles, Ann Girdharry's psychological thriller, The Woman in Room 19, and JD Kirk's City of Scars, the 14th book in his DCI Logan Scottish crime fiction series. The award was established in 2016 to celebrate exceptional writing, giving both bestselling and emerging authors the chance to win a literary prize of £20,000. This year's winner will be revealed at a ceremony in London on October 24 by guest judge and bestselling author, Adam Kay.

Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. announced it will begin publishing James Bond books under its own imprint in spring 2023, touting the move as one that "marks an exciting future for 007." Fleming’s original Bond novels and short story collections will be available starting April 13, exactly 70 years to the day after Ian Fleming first introduced special agent 007 to the world with the publication of Casino Royale. The family company that owns the literary copyright to his literary works had partnered with Random House and Penguin for many years, but the new enterprise's managing director, Corinne Turner, explained that they felt it was time for a change of direction and "we hope our new editions will reach as wide an audience as possible, attracting long-time readers as well those who have yet to discover the Bond novels.” (HT to The Rap Sheet)

CrimeReads explored the literary blood feud between Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. As the article's author, Curtis Evans, explained, "Ironically, Chandler and Macdonald may have been in more aesthetic agreement than they deigned to realize. (Certainly they both hated the novels of Mickey Spillane.)." Both Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald hoped to make the hard-boiled crime novel a vehicle for serious exploration of the human condition, yet neither author was able in this respect to see himself mirrored in the other.

Recently featured at the Page 69 Test was Secrets of the Nile: A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander. In this homage to Agatha Christie, author Tasha Alexander sends Lady Emily to Egypt during British colonial rule to investigate a crime that leads back to the era of the Pharaohs.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Dead to Rights" by Tony Dawson.

In the Q&A roundup, E.B. Davis interviewed Alicia Beckman about her new novel, Blind Faith, over at the Writers Who Kill blog; and the Irish Times asked, "What compels Irish female crime writers to tackle such nightmarish topics?" with insights from crime authors such as Arlene Hunt, Andrea Mara, Claire Allan, Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin (who writes as Sam Blake), Patricia Gibney, Sinead Crowley, Louise Phillips, and more. As Phillips noted, “If crime fiction acts as a mirror on society and its cultural norms, then, I guess, there are many reasons why my writing tends to explore darker issues, and why female voices are currently being heard loud and clear.”

Mystery Melange

The Capital Crime Festival handed out its Fingerprint Awards this past weekend. Winner of Crime Book of the Year was Sarah Pearse for The Sanatorium; winner of Thriller Book of the Year was S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears; Laura Purcell took home the prize for Historical Crime Book of the Year for Shape of Darkness; and Abigail Dean’s Girl A won Debut Book of the Year. The Industry Award of the Year was won by HarperCollins for Girl A by Abigail Dean, and the Lifetime Achievement Award was posthumously awarded to editor, Thalia Proctor, who passed away earlier this year. For all the finalists in the various categories, follow this link.

In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, the Shirley Jackson Awards were established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. The Shirley Jackson Awards are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics in the categories of Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Fiction, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology. The 2022 finalists for Outstanding Novel include All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter; Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer; My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones; No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull; and Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw. For all the finalists in the various categories, click on over here.

The next issue of Mystery Readers Journal will focus on Legal/Law Mysteries, and editor Janet Rudolph has put out a call for reviews, articles, and Author! Author! essays. Reviews should be 50-250 words; articles, 250-1000 words; and Author! Author! Essays, which are first person pieces about yourself, your books, and your unique take on legal/law mysteries, should be 500-1000 words. Check out the full details here.

Did you know that Sherlock Holmes's creator opened a psychic bookstore? Despite Holmes's devotion to logic and reason in his detection, Sir Arthur Conan Boyle had a personal lifelong fascination with spiritualism and psychic phenomena.

Think you're an expert on all things James Bond? Try your hand at this quiz.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Insanity" by Teel James Glenn.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton welcomed authors Charles Breakfield and Rox Burkey to chat about their new techno-thriller, The Enigma Threat (book 12 of their Enigma Series), and also spoke with mystery author, Leah Cupps, about her new thriller, Never Play Fair.

Mystery Melange

 

Victor Pavic Lundberg’s Aftermath was crowned the winner of Gothenburg Book Fair’s Crime Time Award for Best Crime Novel Debut in an award ceremony this week. BookBeat’s award for Swedish Detective Writer of the Year went to Sofie Sarenbrant; Anders Sparring was awarded Children's Novelist of the Year; and Åsa Larsson also received an Honorary Award. For the eighth year in a row, the Crimetime Award was presented at Sweden’s largest detective festival, Crimetime, held as part of the Book Fair in Gothenburg. The Crimetime Awards were established in 2015 and have previously been awarded to authors such as May Sjöwall and Liza Marklundand.

Hachette UK’s Future Bookshelf announced the shortlist for the Mo Siewcharran Prize, including Arranged Murder by Faaiza Munir; Incarnations of an English Subject by Kalbinder Dayal; The Labelled Bones by Felicity Yeoh; The Search for Othella Savage by Foday Mannah; and Their Unseen Truth by Kingsley Pearson. Now in its third year, the Future Bookshelf launched the Mo Siewcharran Prize to help discover unpublished fiction writers from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. The initiative, named in memory of Nielsen Book’s former director of marketing and communications, aims to nurture talent from under-represented backgrounds writing in English. This year, the prize is hosted by Quercus Books and in a change from previous years, organizers were looking for fiction writing in the crime and thriller genre specifically.

Penguin Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House, revealed details of their new writers’ prize, the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers Prize, which aims to find new authors from underrepresented backgrounds who the division can bring to the widest possible readership. The inaugural prize (2022/2023) focuses on the crime and thriller genre, with budding writers being invited to submit tales of mysteries, crimes, jeopardy, action or adventure. The prize is aimed at unpublished writers aged 18 and over who are currently a resident in the UK or ROI, and who are from a background that’s currently underrepresented in publishing, which includes ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, disability or socio-economic background. Entries will be judged by a panel of judges led by PMJ’s Crime and Thriller publisher, Joel Richardson; bestselling author, Amy McCulloch; award-winning freelance crime fiction critic/commentator, moderator and blogger, Ayo Onatade; Waterstones’ Head of Fiction, Bea Carvalho; award-winning bookseller, owner of Goldsboro Books and agent at D H H Literary Agency, David Headley; and Syima Aslam, the founder and Director of the Bradford Literature Festival. The winner will receive a publishing contract with PMJ, worth at least £10,000, and representation by the DHH Literary Agency. For more information about applications, follow this link. The deadline for submissions is November 30, 2022, and the winner of the Prize will be announced in August 2023. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Noir at the Bar events are cranking up again with the return of autumn beginning tonight in Toronto at Duke of Kent at 7pm with readings by Lisa de Nikolits, John McFetridge, Scott McKinnon, Rob Brunet, Lynne Murphy, Amy Tector, and JJ Dupuis. Then on October 20, it moves to Hillsborough, NC, at Yonder Southern Cocktails & Brew with authors Natania Barron, Jesse Bullington, Rob Hart, Todd Robinson, and Endless Will. Finally, Noir at the Bar L.A. returns on November 6th at the Mandrake Bar with readings from Lawrence Allan, Eric Beetner, Jennifer J Chow, Ashley Erwin, Adam Frost, Rachel Howzell Hall, Katy Munger, August Norman, Eryk Pruitt, Sascha Rothchild, and J August Williams. There's something for everyone at these readings, with hardboiled, cozy, suspense, grit lit, and more. All events are free and open to the public.

Writing for Flatwater Free Press, Carson Vaughan profiled legendary crime writer, Jim Thompson (1906 to 1977), who has largely been neglected in his home state of Nebraska (a University of Nebraska-Lincoln alum who spent much of his childhood in Burwell). Seventy years ago this month, a 25-cent paperback by Thompson called The Killer Inside Me hit newsstands across the country. Featuring a shadowy montage of noir staples – a burning cigarette, a bottle of whiskey, a hint of cleavage and a pool of blood – the cover promised "a novel of murder unlike any you’ve ever read." Thompson’s novel has since become a staple of the genre and cult classic, with famed director, Stanley Kubrick, saying it was "probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered." Horror icon Stephen King, in his foreword to the latest reissue, called it "an American classic, no less, a novel that deserves space on the same shelf with Moby-Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Sun Also Rises, and As I Lay Dying." The book has now been published in more than twenty languages, and twice adapted for the silver screen.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Bomb Threat" by Robert Cooperman.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton interviewed mystery author, Frank Zafiro, about the newest book in his River City police procedural series, The Worst Kind of Truth; and on the Writers Who Kill blog, E. B. Davis interviewed Korina Moss, author of the cozy mystery, Gone for Gouda.