In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

The Australian Crime Writers Association has announced the shortlist for the Ned Kelly Awards 2019. Now in its 24th year, the awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious crime writing awards, with past winners including Jon Cleary, Peter Corris, Adrian McKinty, Jane Harper, Helen Garner, Peter Temple, and Michael Robotham. Here are the lists:

Best Fiction

Killshot by Garry Disher
Gone By Midnight by Candice Fox
The Spotted Dog by Kerry Greenwood
The Lost Man by Jane Harper
The Other Wife by Michael Robotham
Live and Let Fry by Sue Williams

Best first fiction

The Portrait of Molly Dean by Katherine Kovacic
The Yellow House by Emily O'Grady
The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan
Greenlight by Ben Stevenson

Best true crime

Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee
The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper
Siege: Inside the Lindt Cafe by Deborah Snow
Waiting for Elijah by Kate Wild

The winners will be announced Friday, September 6, in Sydney.

The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association has announced finalists for its 2019 book awards, winners of which will be celebrated at SCIBA's annual trade show, to be held September 27-28 in San Gabriel (HT to Shelf Awareness). The finalists in the T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award category include:

The Feral Detective, by Jonathan Lethem
The Good Detective, by John McMahon
The Border, by Don Winslow

The Capital Crime festival will host the inaugural New Voices Awards to champion the next generation of talent in the crime and thriller community. Entries will be uploaded to Capital Crime’s website, where festival pass holders can read and vote for their favorite entries. The authors of the ten highest placed entries will be revealed on September 19, and the winner, judged by the Capital Crime team from the top ten entries, will be announced at Capital Crime’s opening night cocktail party on September 26. Submissions close at midnight on September 18.

Investigative journalist and author Dylan Howard has formed a new true-crime imprint for Skyhorse and Start called Front Page Detectives. Its first title will be Howard's Diana: Case Solved, which the publisher calls "the definitive account" of Princess Diana's death that "proves what really happened" and will "smash wide open the conspiracy of silence." Howard is also creator and narrator of the recent podcast Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood. Start Publishing will publish e-book versions of Front Page Detectives books. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

Crime writer and criminal attorney Olly Jarvis is launching a new true-crime website on September 9, thecrimehub.com. Content will include a series of podcast stories recorded in Los Angeles, including Murder at the Palace by Gyles Brandreth, narrated by Stephen Fry, and The Plater by Ann Cleeves, narrated by Alfred Molina. The site will also bring readers true crime interviews with leading figures from the criminal justice system. Olly’s aim is to create a place online for audio crime content: "We wanted to create something that showcased the best thriller writers, but also gave a real insight into the real world of crime detection, evidence, and jury trials and the people who work within this fascinating world," he says. (HT to Crime Fiction Lover)

For fans of real-life criminal drama, Bookriot compiled a list of "Eighteen of the Best International True Crime Books You’ve Never Heard Of."

Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times arts critic, is throwing her hat into the ring of crime fiction news and reviews for the newspaper, joining long-time columnist Adam Woog who has compiled book reviews for several years. Macdonald's first column of “The Plot Thickens" shares a few of her favorite recent reads including bestselling titles from Attica Locke, Denise Mina, and Casey Cep.

The LA Review of Books profiled Anthony Horowitz, screenwriter and author of stand-alone mystery novels and YA series as well as his new "meta detective" series in which Horowitz himself becomes a character. Or as the article says about the second installment in that series, "There’s a reality television component to his story that’s oddly reassuring and agreeable."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Investment Banking" by Richard Spillman.

In the Q&A roundup, Karin Slaughter spoke with Parade Magazine about "Why We Really Love True Crime Thrillers; Australian crime writer Sarah Bailey, author of the bestselling The Dark Lake and Into the Night, chatted with the Sydney Morning Herald about books that "changed me"; and the New York Times Magazine snagged James Ellroy to chat about his life in crime, his imaginary dog, and the need to provoke.

Mystery Melange

Another batch of titles from Otto Penzler's famous private collection is going up for auction today via Phillip Weiss Gallery, featuring Ross MacDonald, Walter Brown, Gaston Leroux, and many others. Browse the collection here and be sure to bid online at 5 pm (this is an internet and absentee bid auction only). The second Heritage sale of Otto’s amazing collection, mostly British authors, will be held on Thursday, September 5th, including copies of Christie, Sayers, several Haycraft-Queen titles, and rare Queen’s Quorum titles.

William Morrow Paperbacks will release The Last Seance next month, a brand new collection of supernatural tales from Agatha Christie, the Queen of Mystery. The book collects Christie’s "spookiest and most sinister stories," including one that has never before been published in the United States. The Last Séance gathers twenty stories, some featuring Christie’s beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in one haunting compendium that explores all things occult and paranormal, including one Christie story never before published in the USA, "The Wife of Kenite!"

The next Literary Salon in Berkeley, California, will feature author Hallie Ephron on August 21. Ephron is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven suspense novels that reviewers call "deliciously creepy" and "Hitchcockian," including her latest, Careful What You Wish For, about a professional organizer married to a man who can’t pass a yard sale without stopping. This is a free event but you must RSVP to attend, as space is limited.

Lee Child has received an invitation to join the judging panel for the 2020 Booker Prize. Andy Martin, who has written a book about his time with the author called With Child: Lee Child and the Readers of Jack Reacher, told the Sunday Times: "Lee received an invitation to be part of next year’s judging panel and he has said he would like to, as long as he could do most of it from his homes in New York and Wyoming." The Booker Prize for Fiction is awarded each year for the best original novel written in the English language and published in the United Kingdom.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will take to the stage with Ian Rankin to interview the author at Bloody Scotland next month. A self-confessed crime fiction fan, the First Minister was last seen at the Harrogate Crime Festival singing backing vocals with the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers following their appearance at Glastonbury. Other author special guests scheduled to appear at Bloody Scotland include Lin Anderson, Chris Brookmyre, Michael Robotham, Alexander McCall Smith, Denise Mina, Mark Billingham, and more.

Kary Antholis, who stepped down as President of HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming in June after more than 25 years, has launched his new venture, Crime Story, a news and storytelling website dedicated to crime and justice stories. The website will feature original reporting on headline-making and lesser known court cases, with a special section about Los Angeles crime stories; columns by contributors, starting with exoneree Amanda Knox with her co-writer Christopher Robinson; crime news aggregation; as well as an interview podcast by Antholis. 

Janet Rudolph posted a sad bit of news over at Mystery Fanfare:  Lea Wait, best-selling author of the Mainely Needlepoint Mysteries series, the Shadows Antique Print mysteries, and the Maine Murder Mystery series, has passed away after a bout with pancreatic cancer.

Jessamyn West, a librarian who lives in central Vermont and serves on the board of the Vermont Humanities Council, reported for CNN Online about the fight surrounding e-book lending rights for libraries - and how readers will be the ultimate losers.

Author and mystery correspondent for Kirkus, Radha Vatsa, penned an essay titled, "Yes, Crime Fiction is Literature (and Other Observations on the Genre)," using Argentinian writer Jorge Louis Borges's essays on detective fiction as a launching point. He concludes that "when crime fiction is at its best, the distinction between it and literature vanishes."

Dwyer Murphy shared his appreciation for the work of Dorothy B. Hughes, the "queen of noir," and how she conjured up a "terrible, ineffable sense of dread."

Crime Reads offered up a list of the best books, essays, and films about the Charles Manson murders on the fiftieth anniversary of the infamous killings.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Whitey on the Lam" by Etta Abrahams.

In the Q&A roundup, Tana French spoke with The New Yorker about unreliable narrators, real-world sources, and the breakdown of genre boundaries in her work; John Parker interviewed John Connolly, who's promoting the Spanish version of his novel, A Game of Ghosts (El Frio de la Muerte) at the Celsius 232 festival; Jason Beech over at Out of the Gutter Magazine chatted with Paul D. Brazill about launching Punk Noir Magazine, as well as some of his own stories including one featuring aging long-time violent hitman, Tommy Bennett, in the new anthology, A Time for Violence; Alex Segura talked up "Miami, Music, and Celebrating Contemporary Crime Fiction" for Crimereads; and authors Steve Cavanagh and Adrian McKinty told Salon how growing up during "the troubles" in Northern Ireland shaped them and their writing.

Mystery Melange

 

The Deadly Ink Mystery Conference announced that the David Award Winner for the best mystery published in 2018 has been awarded to Yesterday's News by R.G. Belsky. The other finalists included Died in the Wool by Peggy Ehrhart; The Consultant by TJ O’Connor; Misty Treasure by Linda Rawlins; Second Story Man by Charles Salzberg; and Feral Attraction by Eileen Watkins. The award is named in memory of David G. Sasher, Sr., a great supporter of the mystery genre and a prime mover in the early days of Deadly Ink.

Women dominate the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award this year, making up five of the six-strong shortlist, which include three thrillers – the 2018 Man Booker longlisted Snap by Belinda Bauer; Our House by Louise Candlish, which won the British Book Award Crime & Thriller of the Year; and lone male author M W Craven’s CWA Gold Dagger-shortlisted The Puppet Show. The award celebrates the best storytelling across all genres of contemporary fiction, with the winner to be announced at the Goldboro bookshop on Monday, September 16.

Sisters in Crime (SinC) announced the 2019 winner of the annual Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award: Jessica Martinez of Orcutt, CA, for her novel-in-progress that features Teia Santiago, a police detective whose father-in-law blackmails her into kidnapping a textile manufacturing heiress—who also happens to be her sister-in-law.

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger Awards, which honor the very best in crime writing, has created a new Dagger category for the first time in over a decade. The new prestigious Dagger will be awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year, to be nominated by a representative group of leading book reviewers, booksellers, festival organizers, bloggers, literary agents and journalists.

Walter Mosley, whose new book on craft is titled Elements of Fiction, will be in conversation with fellow author Jonathan Santlofer for an event titled "Master Class — Walter Mosley on the Craft of Fiction, The event is scheduled for September 12 at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, NY. Walter Mosley is the author of more than fifty critically-acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins.

The Golden Age of Crime: A Re-Evaluation, a two-day international conference at the University of Chester April 3-4, 2020, has issued a call for papers. As well as interrogating the staples of "Golden Age" crime (the work of Agatha Christie and/or Ellery Queen, the puzzle format, comparisons to "the psychological turn"), this conference will look at under-explored elements of the publishing phenomenon. Organizers invite proposals for 20-minute papers or panel presentations of one hour, to be sent no later than December 15.  (HT to Shots Magazine)

Mystery Readers Journal: "Mystery Down Under" (Volume 35:2: Summer 2019) is available now as a PDF and hardcopy. This issue is also timely, as the Ngaio Marsh Award Nominees (New Zealand) and Ned Kelly Award Longlist have just been announced.

Mystery Readers Journal editor Janet Rudolph also shared some sad news about the passing of mystery author Orania Papzoglou aka Jane Haddam, who penned the Gregor Demarkian and Patience McKenna series.

Daily Beast editor Christopher Dickey wondered, "Did Novelist John Steinbeck Spy for the CIA in Paris?" During the same summer that he wrote The Amiable Fleas, now published in English for the first time, the American author also appears to have been gathering intel for the Agency.

An Agatha Christie-obsessed librarian helped solve a decades-old murder mystery:  four bodies of a woman and three young girls discovered in a New Hampshire park went unidentified for years, until Rebekah Heath looked into the case.

The most-borrowed book in the UK? According to figures released by UK public libraries, Night School by  Lee Child was the most borrowed library book of 2017/18, followed closely by John Grisham’s The Whistler. Michael Connelly had two books in the top five, with The Wrong Side of Goodbye at number three and The Late Show at number five, while James Patterson continued his overall domination as the most-borrowed author for the 12th year running.

Now this is what I call recycling! A retired Boeing 727 has been repurposed as a 21st-century library in Ciudad Hidalgo, Michoacán state, Mexico. Called Biblioteca en las Nubes, or Library in the Clouds, the plane's fuselage is equipped with high-speed internet, computers, and tablets so that students can conduct research. It also has a projector and screen to show educational films. The rear of the plane serves as a reading lounge, while in the cockpit students can try their hand at flying the plane using a virtual reality flight simulator.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Summer of '77" by John Kaprielian.

In the Q&A roundup, Ashley House chatted with Megan Goldin (author of The Escape Room); author Jo Nesbø discusssed what shapes Harry Hole mysteries, for the Indian Express; Rhys Bowen sat down with the E. B. Davis over at the Writers Who Kill blog to chat about Bowen's latest, Love and Death Among the Cheetahs, the thirteenth in the Royal Spyness mystery series; and S.J. Rozan spoke with The Mystery People about Paper Son, the latest outing for private eyes Lydia Chin and Bill Smith.

Mystery Melange

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) announced the shortlists for the prestigious CWA Dagger awards. The ten Daggers awarded annually by the CWA are regarded by the publishing world as the foremost British awards for crime-writing. The winners will be announced at the Dagger Award ceremony at the Grange City Hotel, London, on October 24, when Robert Goddard will also be presented with the 2019 Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, the highest honour in British crime writing. Shots Magazine has a handy reference of all the finalists.

The International Association of Crime Writers, North America announced the winner of this year's Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing, this year dedicated to the late longtime Executive Director Mary A. Frisque. The winning novel was November Road by Lou Berney, with the other finalists including William Boyle's The Lonely Witness; Robert Olen Butler's Paris in the Dark; Lisa Unger's Under My Skin; Sam Wiebe's Cut You Down.

The finalists for the Macavity Awards, nominated by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal and friends of MRI, were announced with winners to be handed out at opening ceremonies at Bouchercon in Dallas, TX, October 31. For all the nominees for Best Novel, Best First Novel, Best Nonfiction, Best Short Story, and the Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery, head on over to the Mystery Fanfare website.

The Australian Crime Writers Association has released the longlist for the 2019 Ned Kelly Awards, with winners to be announced September 6 during the BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival. To see the nominated titles in all three categories (Best Fiction, Best First Novel, and Best True Crime), follow this link.

The finalists for the 2019 Library of Virginia Literary Award were announced, including Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin, which also won the Edgar Award for Best Debut Novel.

Romance Writers of America announced the winners of the 2019 RITA Awards, including the Romantic Suspense category. The winner was Fearless by Elizabeth Dyer, with the other finalists including 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; Reckless Honor by Tonya Burrows; and Relentless by Elizabeth Dyer.

The Capital Crime festival announced the Amazon Publishing Readers Awards Shortlist, including in the Best Mystery, Best Thriller, and Best Crime Novel categories. Capital Crime festival pass holders will be able to vote for the winner in each category through 19th September. The winners of the awards will be announced at the festival on Saturday 26th September at a gala reception that marks the close of the event.

Sad news from the crime fiction community this past weekend: mystery author Sarah Andrews, her husband, and her son were killed in a plane crash in Nebraska. Andrews was a geologist who wrote 11 mysteries about forensic geologist Em Hansen. She also lectured part-time in the Geology Department at Sonoma State University and at public events and geological symposia. Andrews was 68. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Three articles of note from the New York Times (subscription required): They asked 13 Novelists, From Lee Child to Ruth Ware, "What’s the Best Murder You Ever Wrote?" (Karin Slaughter killed a character with antifreeze; Peter Swanson used cashews and a missing EpiPen); also, "What if Hercule Poirot Went Sleuthing on the L Train?" where Ali Fitzgerald imagines Agatha Christie’s famous detective on a hunt for clues through the New York City subways; and a listing of true-crime stories and books from every state.

For fans of forensics and true crime comes a tale with a bittersweet ending: using DNA, genealogists finally confirmed the identity of the "Belle in the Well," a mysterious woman found strangled 38 years ago.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Intuders in Akumal" by Clarinda Harriss.

In the Q&A roundup, The Bookseller had "Seven Questions" for David Baldacci; and over at the Mystery People blog, Billy Kring interviewed Stephen Hunter about his latest Bob Lee Swagger book, Game Of Snipers; Matthew McBride also sat down for a chat about his latest book, The End Of The Ocean, which takes place in Bali with an American who falls for an island woman and gets recruited by a drug-smuggling ring—in a country where drug trafficking is punishable by death.

Mystery Melange

At the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England, Irish author Steve Cavanagh won the 2019 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award for his latest book, Thirteen. This is the fifteenth year of the prize, which was created to celebrate the very best in crime fiction and is open to UK and Irish crime authors.
 

Also at the Theakston conference, the winners of the Dead Good Reader Awards were announced, including the Nosy Parker Award for Best Amateur Detective: The Suspect by Fiona Barton; The Jury’s Out Award for Most Gripping Courtroom Drama: Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh; the Dish Served Cold Award for Best Revenge Thriller: My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing; the Cancel All Plans Award for the Book You Can’t Put Down: Skin Deep by Liz Nugent; the Cat and Mouse Award for Most Elusive Villain: Last of the Magpies by Mark Edwards; and the Dead Good Recommends Award for Most Recommended Book: The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths. (Ht to Shots Magazine)

Sharon Bala won the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for her debut novel, The Boat People. Lee authorized the award, which was first handed out in 2011 and is sponsored by the ABA Journal and the University of Alabama School of Law, to be given "to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change."

The World Mystery Convention, Bouchercon, announced that Jenn and Don Longmuir are the recipients of the 2019 David Thompson Memorial Special Service Award. The honor is given by the Bouchercon Board to honor the memory and contributions to the crime fiction community of David Thompson, a beloved Houston bookseller who passed away in 2010. Recipients are recognized for their "extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field." The Longmuirs have been fixtures in the crime fiction community for more than a quarter-century, owning the Scene of the Crime Books in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, and have also served as book room organizers, book sellers, and attendees at mystery conventions across North America. Don also served on the Bouchercon Board for five years.

The Killer Nashville Conference announced the finalists for the various categories in its annual Silver Falchion Awards for excellence in crime writing in various categories. For all the lists, including those in the Cozy, Mystery, Procedural, Suspense, Thriller and more, head on over to the official website.

Sisters in Crime Australia likewise announced the twenty-five crime books shortlisted for Sisters in Crime’s 19th Davitt Awards for excellence in crime fiction by Australian authors. The shortlist includes nine adult novels, five young adult novels, five children’s novels, and six non-fiction books. Twelve are debut books and are also battling it out for the best debut book award.

Andrea Camilleri, beloved creator of Inspector Montalbano, had died at the age of 93.  One of Italy’s most popular authors, Camilleri wrote twenty-three novels starring his Sicilian detective, selling more than thirty million copies around the world that have been translated into 32 languages. The Potter’s Field, translated into English by Stephen Sartarelli, won Camilleri the International Dagger, the highest foreign honour of the British Crime Writers Association. 

Also last week, we lost Howard Engel, author of the beloved Benny Cooperman series of mysteries, who died at the age of 88. In addition to his Cooperman mysteries, Engel also wrote fiction and non-fiction, including a memoir, The Man Who Forgot How to Read, detailing his experience suffering alexia sine agraphia, a neurological condition that robbed him of the ability to read while retaining the ability to write. Engel was the recipient of the Arthur Ellis Award and in 2007, he was invested into the Order of Canada. He was also the recipient of the Grand Master Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, an organization he founded.

Independent press Urbane Publishers has pulled "experienced criminal profiler" Paul Harrison’s true crime book from sale, after his claims to have interviewed serial killers such as Ted Bundy and Peter Sutcliffe were questioned. Described as "the master of the true crime genre" by Martina Cole, Harrison has written more than 30 books mostly about true crime, including his latest, Mind Games, published by Urbane in October 2018. 

Writing for CrimeReads, Nile Cappello profiled Kate Warne, America's first female detective and spy, who thwarted an assassination plot on Lincoln.

Writing for Mystery Scene Magazine, Oline Cogdill offered up a timely listing of some mysteries that include immigrants in their plots.

CrimeReads has more travel-themed mysteries appropriate for summer reading, including a list of Bali: The Darker Side of an Island Paradise, as well as the Miami-themed crime fiction of Edna Buchanan; while Mystery Tribune chimed in with "Top 10 Great Brazilian Crime Fiction Books."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Playgiarhythm" by Jim George.

In the Q&A roundup, the Wall Street Journal (subscription) interviewed Kate Atkinson, whose Big Sky, the fifth of her novels to feature the gruff, melancholy private eye Jackson Brodie, was just released; and Salon talked to former Baltimore journalist turned acclaimed crime novelist, Laura Lippman, about true crime, newspapers and her new book, Lady in the Lake.

Mystery Melange

The International Thriller Writers (ITW) announced the winners of the Thriller Awards, handed out this past weekend at the annual Thrillerfest conference in New York City:

• Best Hardcover: Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier
• Best First Novel: The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor
• Best Paperback Original Novel: The Lost Man by Jane Harper
• Best Short Story: "Nana" by Helen Smith (in Killer Women: Crime Club Anthology #2)
• Best Young Adult Novel: Girl at the Grave by Teri Bailey Black
• Best E-book Original Novel: Pray for the Innocent by Alan Orloff

Previously announced awards included:

• ThrillerMaster: John Sandford
• Silver Bullet Award: Harlan Coben
• ThrillerFan Award: "Mystery Mike" Bursaw
  
  

During a cocktail party last week, The Strand Magazine announced the winners of its 2019 Strand Critics Awards. Best Mystery Novel was a tie: Transcription by Kate Atkinson and Sunburn by Laura Lippman. Best Debut Mystery Novel went to The Chalk Man, by C.J. Tudor. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

The David Award nominees for the best mystery are:  Yesterday's News by R.G. Belsky; Died in the Wool by Peggy Ehrhart; The Consultant by Tj O’Connor; Misty Treasure by Linda Rawlins; Second Story Man by Charles Salzberg; and Feral Attraction by Eileen Watkins. The award is named in memory of David G. Sasher, Sr., a great supporter of the mystery genre and of the early days of the Deadly Ink conference where the award is announced each year.

Ann Cleeves and Michael Fuller are among the writers added to this year's Killer Women Festival of Crime Writing and Drama line-up, as the event moves to a new date. Usually held in October, the next festival will take place on Sunday 15th March, 2020 at Brown’s Courtrooms, Covent Garden, London. Other special guests include Alison Levitt QC, chief counsel to the Crown Prosecution Service in the Savile enquiry; forensic scientist Dr Angela Gallop CBE; and top criminologist and TV presenter Professor David Wilson. The festival will also celebrate the Killer Women mentoring scheme, which was launched this year to find and encourage new female voices in crime fiction from BAME and low income or working-class backgrounds.

Entries are now open for the 2019 New England (Australia) Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing. All genres of crime writing are eligible, from hard-boiled to comic, paranormal to rural, historical to contemporary, noir to cozy. Entries welcome from anywhere in Australia, from published or unpublished writers. Deadline for entries is October 7 with winners announced in mid-November.

The Margery Allingham Society has agreed with the Crime Writers’ Association to continue the popular short mystery competition for at least another five years, until 2024. The Society, set up to honor and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author whose well-known hero is Albert Campion, works with the CWA to operate and fund the writing competition that opens for entries in the autumn on the CWA’s website and closes every February.  The short story can be up to a 3,500 words long and must echo Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery. (HT to Shots Magazine)

If you're a fan and collector of pulp fiction, check out this auction that ends on July 30. Items being offered up, from a Pleasant Valley, New York private collection of Pulp Art, include magazines such as Argosy,  Detective Fiction, Adventure, Street & Smith's Wild West Weekly, and more. The lot also features framed magazine covers, slides, posters, and photographs.

There's a call for papers for "The Absurdity of Racism: an International Chester Himes Conference" to be held June 4-5, 2020, at the American University of Paris. As the organizers note, "always controversial, combative and daring, Himes carved a niche for himself in the worlds of crime fiction and protest literature while negotiating the 'quality of hurt' of his black American and European expatriate worlds." Abstracts of 250 words, accompanied by a very brief bio, should be sent by October 15.

The summer edition of Suspense Magazine is out featuring new author interviews; articles by Dennis Palumbo, Ellen LaCorte, Natalie Walters, and Patricia Bradley; an Alan Jacobson piece with important information on author income trends ("Have You Heard?"); book excerpts (Patricia Bradley and Laura Elliot); plus authors Keith Raffel, Sheila Lowe and Sharon Love Cook share short stories, and there are also the latest book and movie reviews.

Dynamite Entertainments will continue the adventures of Agent 007 in graphic novel form by adapting Ian Fleming’s second Bond novel, Live and Let Die, with a publication date for this fall. Live and Let Die follows the successful Casino Royale release and agent 007 as he traces stolen pirate treasure from the smoky jazz clubs of Harlem all the way to the formidable shores of Jamaica. Writer Van Jensen returns for this entry following his critically acclaimed Casino Royale graphic novel with Dennis Calero, while Kewber Baal has been enlisted to provide art.

In more bucket-list items to consider for your travel plans this summer, if you find yourself in the rural Eifel area of Germany, check out the "Kriminalhaus" (House of Crime) in the small village of Hillesheim, near the famous racetrack Nuerburgring. Inside this old house there is a bookstore, a German crime fiction archive with over thirty thousand books, and the Cafe Sherlock decorated with memorabilia of Poirot, Mrs. Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Wallace, Alfred Hitchcock, and others. For more info and photos, click on over here.

In more travel things to do this summer, the Asiatic Library in Mumbai, one of the oldest literary societies of India, has been hosting "Night at the Library," a series of immersive experiences that will include readings, discussions, quizzes, and cosplay. On July 20, the subject will be Agatha Christie, with a torchlit tour of the library (which is also home to some priceless titles, like one of the only two original manuscripts of Dante’s Divine Comedy) and other events themed around Dame Agatha.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Scenes From an Ongoing Moment" by Ken Meisel.

In the Q&A roundup, The Guardian spoke with Adrian McKinty about his life-changing phone call that set him on the road to literary success after almost quitting writing altogether; Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo tells the Irish Times why "The details of a murder don’t really disturb me"; and Michael Connelly chatted with The Bronzeville Bee about his Harry Bosch series and his past as a crime beat reporter.

Mystery Melange

The Force by Don Winslow has won this year’s Falcon Award, presented by Japan’s Maltese Falcon Society annually to an outstanding work of crime fiction. This is Winslow's fifth Falcon Award in addition to Missing: New York (no English version); The Winter of Frankie Machine; The Power of the Dog; and A Cool Breeze on the Underground. Other previous Falcon recipients include Roger Hobbs, S.J. Rozan, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Lawrence Block, Sue Grafton, Michael Z. Lewin, Joe Gores, James Crumely, and Robert B. Parker. (HT to The Gumshoe Site)

The longlist titles were announced for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, awarded annually to an outstanding work of contemporary fiction in any genre. Crime fiction books on the list include Our House by Louise Candlish; Memo from Turner by Tim Willocks; The Puppet Show by M.W. Craven; The Poison Bed by Elizabeth Fremantle; Snap by Belinda Bauer; and The 7 ^1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. (HT to Ayo Onatade at Shots Magazine)

The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association has scheduled a July 21 walking tour of areas in South Berkeley, California, that are associated with mystery/sci fi author, editor, and critic Anthony Boucher (a/k/a William Anthony Parker White). The walk will be guided by Randal Brandt, a librarian who curates the California Detective Fiction Collection at the University of Southern California at Berkeley's Bancroft Library. The tour will also cover sites associated with Boucher’s fellow mystery writer Mary Collins, the California Writer’s Club, pioneering film critic Pauline Kael, and others. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

A set of "extremely rare" photographs showing crime writer Agatha Christie as a child is to go on public display in conjunction with the annual International Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay in September. The pictures, taken between 1895 and 1898, show Christie at her childhood home of Ashfield in Torquay, Devon, where the author spent much of her life.

Lola Okolosie has won the inaugural Novel Studio scholarship from City University for her novel-in-progress, Returnees. The award, sponsored by thriller writer and course alumna Harriet Tyce, was set up to support a talented writer from a low-income household. The Novel Studio is part of City University’s programmes of short courses and has been running since 2004. Each year, the Novel Studio takes on 15 students, who are helped to develop their novels by professional writers and editors.

Up-and-coming authors are being given the chance to take to the stage and share their work with international bestselling crime authors during the Granite Noir festival in February 2020 in Aberdeen, Scotland. Applications have now opened for the "locals in the limelight" program, and those interested in applying should send an extract of their work, a one-paragraph biography and their contact information by noon on September 2.

Clitheroe is now home to one of only two specialized crime bookshops in the UK. Number 10 on Castlegate was recently opened by crime fiction buff Zoe Channing, who has 30 years' experience working in arts development. Number 10 - in the shadow of the castle - will specialize in contemporary and classic crime fiction, murder mysteries, and thrillers. Channing is a Scandi noir fan and is also looking at introducing a new wave of European crime writers to readers, as well as planning to arrange author events ranging from book signings to talks. 

Crime writers didn't react positively to claims from organizers of the Staunch Prize, launched last year to award crime books with no violence against women, that their books could bias rape juries and trials. As Kaite Welsh added in an opinion piece in The Guardian, "I can’t write about a world without rape – because I don’t live in one," adding that women read and write crime fiction as a way to understand real experience. In more fallout, Staunch Prize founder Bridget Lawless defended the prize to The Bookseller, even as authors like Angela Clarke doubled down by saying "Though the original intentions may have been good, it now feels like this prize and their repeated vocal attacks on the crime writing community are yet another way to silence women and not let them talk about the things we suffer and face. It feels like censorship." 

Summer is the time for travel, and CrimeReads has "6 Mysteries That Capture the Essence of England's Capital" as well as crime fiction from Dubai.

Of course, if you're like Clea Simon, you might think that "political chaos and international threats create too much anxiety to make summer thrillers enjoyable."

Life imitates crime fiction: Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn has spoken out about her novel being used as a sensationalized motive in the disappearance of Connecticut mom Jennifer Dulos, who vanished after dropping her kids off at school on May 24. Flynn said she was "absolutely sickened" that lawyers for Dulos’s estranged husband and his girlfriend are using the book as a potential explanation for the disappearance. Both suspects have been charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in the case and have pleaded not guilty.

More life imitates crime fiction: The suspect in the gruesome slaying of Utah college student Mackenzie Lueck self-published a novel about a teenager who witnessed his friend and his neighbor burn to death, and began advertising the story one year before Lueck was killed.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Denkmal" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, the Sydney Morning Herald spoke with Mick Herron about his six Slough House spy thrillers and what it's like being compared to John le Carre; the Mystery People's Scott Butki chatted with Christina Alger, about her new novel, Girls Like Us, inspired by the real-life Gilgo Beach murders; Crime Fiction Lover welcomed Mike Craven, who had careers in the army, social work, and as a probation officer before turning his hand to a series of books about Cumbrian DI Avison Fluke; and Mark Billingham joined a Q&A with the Sunday Post, discussing how a chilling letter from killer Ian Brady sparked the idea for Billingham’s latest novel.

Mystery Melange

Organizers of this year’s Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival (September 20-22) announced the books nominated for two 2019 McIlvanney Prizes. There are 13 works vying for the main McIlvanney Prize and five shortlisted for the inaugural Debut Prize (two titles, by Claire Askew and M.R. Mackenzie, are on both lists). Three years ago the Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award was renamed the McIlvanney Prize in memory of William McIlvanney who is often described as the Godfather of Tartan Noir.

There will be a Murder Mystery Panel at Hooray 4 Books in Alexandria, Virginia, on Saturday, July 6 from 2-3:00 p.m. Four mystery authors, including Maya Corrigan (Five-Ingredient Mystery series), Sherry Harris (Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mystery series), Con Lehane (42nd Street Library Mystery series), and G.M. Malliet (Max Tudor Mystery series) will discuss what makes a compelling mystery and also sign their books. 

Janet Rudolph has compiled a listing of Fourth of July crime fiction just in time for the holiday.

Stuck inside for the Fourth? TV Guide has options for broadcast marathons, including a few crime dramas.

Writing for CrimeReads, Michael Gonzales compiled a "brief history of the heroes of black pulp."

Also on CrimeReads, a look at how "Charles Dickens Was Obsessed with Detectives, Too."

And as Camille Leblanc points out, this year marks the single greatest arrival of works into the public domain since before the start of the digital age, including "an injection of classic mysteries."

Over at the Do Some Damage blog, David Nemeth assembled a group of authors, including Jason Beech, author of City of Forts; Beau Johnson, author of The Big Machine Eats; and Tom Leins, Repetition Kills You, to discuss the indie crime scene with a focus on noir.

The Live and Deadly blog had an impassioned defense of crime fiction after a recent newspaper writeup that disssed the genre and took the Edinburgh Book Festival to task for including too many crime fiction events (or any at all, apparently).

Writing for the Washington Post, Radley Balko asked the question, "We need to fix forensics. But how?" This after the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific studies have found that expert witnesses had been vastly overstating the significance and certainty of their analyses.

The much-loved and much-parodied mystery board game, Clue, is turning seventy, and Mental Floss compiled ten facts you might not know about Clue.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "America" by Thom Young.

In the Q&A roundup, Ed Brubaker and Megan Abbott discussed comic conventions and criminals and Hollywood for Paste; the Mystery People chatted with Denise Mina about her new novel, Conviction, which is something of a departure for the author; and the Los Angeles Review of Books spoke with Tim Hennessey, editor of the upcoming Milwaukee Noir anthology.

Mystery Melange

Twenty-eight writers have made the Dead Good Reader Awards shortlists, following a record number of nominations. The awards, a mainstay of the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival, are now in their fifth year with six new categories including best amateur detective, best revenge thriller, and most recommended read. After being voted on by the community of crime fans in the UK, the winners will be announced on Friday July 19 at the Harrogate festival. Here's the link for readers to vote for their favorite shortlisted authors and books.

St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend announced a special prize to be awarded at the event, which takes place August 16-18. For the past few years the PD James dinner at the Crime Fiction Weekend has featured a specially written after-dinner play, challenging guests to figure out "whodunnit." This year the amateur sleuth to crack the mystery crafted by author Natasha Cooper (a Crime Weekend’s Emeritus Fellow) will win a subscription to Blackwell’s Crime Fiction Gift Club.

The Center for Fiction in New York City has a couple of crime fiction events coming up in July as part of the "Crime Fiction Masters" series. On July 10, authors Alison Gaylin and Alifair Burke will explore the themes of misunderstood women and dark family secrets, and on July 12, Harlan Coben and John Sandford will talk about the inspiration for their most recent books, their writing process, and answer audience questions.

In honor of June being LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, History took a look back at the 1940s, '50s and '60s when police arrested LGBTQ people based on an informal "three-article" rule.

Writing for the Washington Post, crime author Laura Lippman addressed the topic of white authors writing black characters.

The PBA Galleries is auctioning off a roster of "Fine Literature with Mystery & Detective Fiction" today, in 519 lots. One of the pricier items is a first edition, signed, of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, estimated at $3,000–5,000. Some of the crime fiction titles up for bidding include three wrapper-bound first editions of Raymond Chandler mysteries; a first edition of Ian Fleming's James Bond novel, Dr. No; a first edition of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock; several works by the "laureate of American lowlife," Charles Bukowski, and much more.

Publishers Weekly profiled Minotaur Books, the mystery imprint of St. Martin's Press that is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Summer means travel, and travel for many means beach reads and those beaches are often in Florida. Writing for Bookriot, Matt Coleman is touring the country by way of its best crime fiction, beginning with the Sunshine State.

Rapid DNA machines roughly the size of an office printer have helped solve rape cases in Kentucky, identified California wildfire victims, and verified family connections of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Now a state board in Texas has asked a growing government provider of the DNA equipment used in those high-profile projects to halt work amid concerns of potentially jeopardized criminal cases.

Fans of David Baldacci's thrillers, take note: you can enter for your chance to win the complete "Memory Man" series signed by Baldacci. The promotion ends July 7th.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "First Degree Murder" by Roseanne Fahey.

In the Q&A roundup, Writer's Digest interviewed Karin Slaughter, who talked about what led to her Save the Libraries nonprofit, social media for authors, and what the future holds for her beloved characters; The National Writers Series, a year-round book festival in Traverse City, welcomed authors Steve Hamilton, Bryan Gruley and Daniel H. Pink to the City Opera House stage, and the three participated in a Q&A online; Sisters in Crime Australia chatted with Joanne Baker about her latest book, The Slipping Place, a murder mystery about mystery.

Mystery Melange

The Finalists for the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction have been announced, and readers will now have a chance to vote. The prize, which was authorized by the late Harper Lee, was established in 2011 by the University of Alabama Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law and the ABA Journal to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. It's given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change. The books nominated for the ninth annual award are: The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey; Class Action, by Steven B. Frank; and The Boat People, by Sharon Bala.

The Maine Literary Awards were handed out at a ceremony held at the Bangor Public Library recently. This year's winner of the Book Award for Crime Fiction was Stowed Away by Barbara Ross.

Foreword Reviews announced the winners of the Foreword Indies Book Awards, celebrating the best from independent presses and authors. The winners in the Mystery category were:

Gold: One for the Rock by Kevin Major
Silver: A Gentleman's Murder by Christopher Huang
Bronze: Burning Ridge by Margaret Mizushima
Honorable Mention: Uncivil Liberties by Bernie Lambek

In the Thriller & Suspense category:

Gold: The Eighteenth Green by Webb Hubbell
Silver: Speed the Dawn by Philip Donlay
Bronze: The Astronaut's Son by Tom Seigel

Amazon announced its selections for the Best Books of the Year So Far, including those in the Mystery, Thriller & Suspense category. Check out the twenty books that made the list.

The Mystery Writers of America’s board of directors recently approved new procedures for selecting the Special Edgar Awards—including the Raven, the Ellery Queen, and the Grand Master awards. The new procedures are designed to make the process more open and transparent to the entire membership. They also encourage participation from all members of MWA, who are asked to submit nominations for all three awards by July 31.

A record $10,060 is up for grabs in Sisters in Crime Australia’s 26th Scarlet Stiletto Awards for best short crime and mystery stories by Australian women. For the first time there is an award that speaks directly to Australia’s criminal past – the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival Award for the Best Bushranger Story. The closing date for the awards is August 31, 2019. The Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival is a brand-new biennial celebration of crime fiction, to be held between October 31 and November 5 in Tasmania’s Huon Valley.

Crime author Linda Fairstein has been in the news lately after a rescinded Mystery Writers of America honor (hence the MWA rules change above) and the recent TV mini-series When They See Us that casts her in an unfavorable light as the prosecutor of the infamous Central Park Five rape case. The controversy has renewed cries of proseutorial injustice on Fairstein's behalf and has led to the author being dropped by her agent, publisher, and several boards on which she served. Sarah Weinman penned an article for The Washington Post, which offers up a more nuanced take on the case and Fairstein's role. Weinman concludes that "canceling Fairstein herself may be emotionally satisfying. But it doesn’t account for the very real change she helped bring about. And without concerted effort and work, it won’t prevent other prosecutors from making the same terrible decisions that inflicted such a dreadful cost on the Central Park Five and on Matias Reyes’s (the real rapist) other victims.

Peter Harrington, the UK’s largest rare bookseller, is celebrating its 50th anniversary by offering up for sale an exceptional collection of Ian Fleming material for £2.5m, which it will be exhibiting at this year’s Masterpiece London. It is the most significant Fleming Collection to ever appear on the market and contains inscribed first editions of every James Bond book published in the author’s lifetime. 

Is China about to witness a crime wave? CrimeReads notes that readers in China are showing an appetite for crime stories like never before, especially among younger audiences in China. Article writer Paul French adds that there was always an enthusiastic market for Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, but now Chinese fans are becoming more diversified in their crime tastes.

The Daily Mail reported on the real No. 1 Lady Detective, Maud West, a real-life female Sherlock Holmes who caught adulterers, blackmailers and thieves in early 20th century Edwardian London. Susannah Stapleton has a new book about the ground-breaking shamus, whose social circle is known to have included fellow crime writer Dorothy L. Sayers, creator of amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.

Jeff Pierce at the Rap Sheet has compiles his annual curated list of more than 400 books, all due to appear in stores (on both sides of the Atlantic) during the next three, warmer months⁠—just in time for beach-reading season.

The most controversial landmark in New York City may now be the Strand Bookstore.

The nation's capital of the U.S., Washington, D.C., may be known for its monuments and federal politics, but it's also the "City of Secrets": an estimated 10,000 people in DC are spies.


This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Nothing New Under the Sun" by Dan A. Cardoza.

In the Q&A roundup, crime writer Simon Kernick told the Daily Mail what book he'd take to a desert island; the Bath UK Magazine interviewed Mick Herron ahead of the publication of his latest spy thriller, Joe Country, about why he wouldn’t make a good spy, how he creates memorable characters and how writing feels like an addiction; Harlan Coben spoke to The Guardian about the book that explains why writers are "plain nuts," and the William Goldman novel that started him on his career path; Kate Atkinson also spoke with The Guardian about why she's enjoying writing more as she gets older – and the return of detective Jackson Brodie fter nearly 10 years in the novel, Big Sky; and Alexander McCall Smith, author of the From the beloved No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, spoke with CrimeReads about his new pivot to Scandi-Noir with The Department of Sensitive Crimes, the first in McCall Smith’s new series, where we meet a Ulf Varg, a Swedish detective who investigates particularly strange crimes in the city of Malm.