In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

CrimeFest announced the winners for the 2020 CrimeFest Awards. The event, scheduled to take place in Bristol, UK from June 4 thru 7, was cancelled, but organizers announced award winners online at crimefest.com and via its social media pages on Tuesday July 7 (HT to Shots Magazine). Here are the winners (and you can see all the other finalists via this link):

• Debut Crime Novel Award: BLOOD & SUGAR, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
• Sounds of Crime Award: BLUE MOON, by Lee Child, read by Jeff Harding
• eDunnit Award: TO THE LIONS, by Holly Watt
• H.R.F. Keating Award: THE HOODED GUNMAN, by John Curran
• Last Laugh Award: WORST CASE SCENARIO, by Helen FitzGerald
• Best Crime Novel for Children Award: MALAMANDER, by Thomas Taylor
• Best Crime Novel for Young Adults Award: BEAUTY SLEEP, by Kathryn Evans
   

Jiro Kimura of The Gumshoe Site also noted that Walter Mosley's Down the River Unto the Sea has won the 2020 Falcon Award from The Maltese Falcon Society Japan for the best hardboiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year. Previous winners have included Don Winslow (a four-time winner), Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, and Robert Crais.

Killer Nashville is the latest event to announce it's cancelling for 2020 due to the pandemic due to the new travel bans and the recent upsurge of cases in Tennessee. They're going to postpone Killer Nashville 2020 and roll everyone's registrations forward to KN 2021 (August 19-22, 2021). Founder Clay Stafford added that "It was a hard choice, but the safety and well-being of our friends is our most important consideration. These are tough and uncharted times." This year's special guests were to be Lisa Black, J.T. Ellison, and Walter Mosley.

Although many mystery conferences are going online or being postponed until next year, Covid-19 has had its first permanent event casualty. Magna cum Murder announced on Facebook that because of deep budget cuts, the university has made the decision to close the E. B. & Bertha C. Ball Center where the annual festivities were held. This year's event was scheduled for October 23-25 in Indianapolis with Guest of Honor C.J. Box and International Guest of Honor Rt. Hon. David Trimble. The event has been frequently praised in the past by attendees and authors alike as more accessible and personable than many of the larger conferences.

The Guardian reported that crime fiction sales are booming during the pandemic. Readers have been "pouncing on stories of murder and revenge," with nearly 120,000 more crime and thriller books bought in the last two weeks of June compared to the same point last year. The genre became the UK’s most popular over the period, leapfrogging both general and children’s fiction, as readers snapped up titles including Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher thriller, Blue Moon, Lisa Jewell’s dark The Family Upstairs, and Peter May’s prescient Lockdown.

Bloomberg had a breakdown analysis of "Who Did What in Every Agatha Christie Murder Mystery Novel," divided into graphs by the killer's age, gender, profession, relationship, motive, and method.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Spent Casings" by Terry Dawley.

Mystery Melange

The UK’s book trade magazine, The Bookseller, announced this year's winners of the British Book awards, also known as the Nibbies. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite won top honors in the Crime & Thriller category, with the other finalists including The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley; How the Dead Speak by Val McDermid; The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides; Imposter by LJ Ross; and Blue Moon by Lee Child. Braithwaite was the first Black author to win her category, joining fellow authors Candice Carty-Williams and Bernardine Evaristo who became become the first Black authors to win top British Book awards for book of the year and author of the year, respectively.

Organizers of New Zealand’s annual Ngaio Marsh Awards for crime fiction announced their longlist of nominees for the 2020 best New Zealand crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing. You can check out all twelve titles on this list via this link. The finalists for both this Best Novel category and also Best First Novel will be announced later this year with the winners honored at this year’s WORD Christchurch Festival, held from October 29 to November 1.

On July 23, Mark Billingham will be in conversation with Ian Rankin in a special online event. Billingham will discuss the novel, Cry Baby, his 20th novel and the prequel to Sleepyhead, the first installment in the bestselling Tom Thorne series. You can register just for the event on its own or for a little extra, register for both a ticket and a signed copy of the book.

MurderCon organizer, Lee Lofland, announced that the event is going virtual, with two full days of live instruction featuring many of the same in-person event topics taught by the Sirchie’s expert instructors. Classes will include Fingerprints, Chemical Processing of Prints, Presumptive Blood/DNA, Blood Spatter, Footwear Evidence, Lifting Footwear, Homicide Investigations, Murder Case Studies, Toxicology, Forensic Geology, and Entomology, and much more. Full details, including how you can register to attend the 2020 Virtual MurderCon, will be available on the event's website by July 6. The registration period will be very brief and spots are limited on a first come, first served basis.

Austin Camacho, the director of Creatures, Crime & Creativity, made the very tough decision to cancel this year's conference. However, C3 2021 will be September 10th-12th at a new venue, the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Columbia, Maryland, with key note speakers to include bestselling mystery author, Hank Phillippi Ryan, and top fantasy author, Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Norlisha Crawford, associate professor emerita at University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, who guest edited the Clues issue on Chester Himes, will be teaching an online course on African American detective fiction in August via the Rosenbach in Philadelphia. Authors covered will include Himes, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Walter Mosley, and Nichelle D. Tramble. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at the Bunburyist Blog.)

A line of face masks from Out of Print (the Penguin Random House company that creates book-centric apparel and accessory items) and the American Booksellers Association has been the biggest new-product launch in Out of Print's 10-year history. The seven Out of Print Literary Masks sold more than 13,000 in their first week. They are available at outofprint.com and will begin selling at bookstores nationwide next week for $12 each. A portion of each sale is being donated to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) to assist bookstores affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Guardian featured a panel of authors titled "Me and my detective." Lee Child, Attica Locke, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Ann Cleeves, Amer Anwar, Ian Rankin, Sara Paretsky, Abir Mukherjee, Lynda La Plante, Michael Connelly, Mark Billingham, and Jo Nesbø revealed how they came up with their most famous creations, what it’s like to live with them over decades, and if they’ll last the distance.

Mystery Fanfare's Janet Rudolph compiled a listing of mysteries taking place during summer filled with murder and mayhem, whether it's on the beach, at the lake, or in the city.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "I Died a Thousand Times: Death #999" by Richie Narvaez."

In the Q&A roundup, Indie Crime Scene interviewed Michael Pronko, author of Tokyo Traffic; Karin Slaughter chatted with Woman and Home and revealed the secrets behind her best-selling books and her writing success; The Picky Bookworm welcomed Scottish author and former Detective Sergeant with the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, Ian Patrick, about his crime novels; CrimeReads spoke with Ottessa Moshfegh about her novel of metaphysical suspense, Death in Her Hands; and John Grisham had a video chat with The Mystery People to discuss his latest novel, Camino Winds.

Mystery Melange

Even though the Bloody Scotland conference is among the many conferences cancelled this year due to Covid-19, organizers have announced finalists vying for two honors that would have been celebrated at the live event, the McIlvanney Prize for Crime Book of the Year Award and the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize. Shortlisted debut books include Hold Your Tongue by Deborah Masson; The Crown Agent by Stephen O’Rourke; See Them Run by Marion Todd; and Pine by Francine Toon. You can read the longlist of twelve books nominated for the book of the year via this link. Finalists for the McIlvanney Prize will be revealed at the beginning of September and the winner of both prizes will be revealed on Friday 18 September. (HT to Shots Magazine)

The Scottish "Queen of Crime" author Val McDermid also unveiled the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival's "New Blood" authors for 2020, showcasing the year’s best breakout crime writing talent. Honorees include Deepa Anappara for Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line; Elizabeth Kay for Seven Lies; Jessica Moor for Keeper; and Trevor Wood for The Man on the Street.

Amazon announced its editorial choices for the Best Books of 2020 so far including in the Mystery & Thriller category. You can check out the nineteen featured titles via this link.

Once Upon a Crime bookstore and Astoria Bookshop are sponsoring Reading for Relief, an online event tonight and tomorrow night to raise funds for Minneapolis community non-profits. Join the participating fourteen talented Crime Writers of Color and hosts Jessica Lane and Angel Luis Colón beginning at 6pm CT/ 7pm ET each evening for readings and discussion.

A Virtual Noir at the Bar Toronto will also take place this evening, June 25, featuring readings by Ed Aymar, R. Daniel Lester, Tom Pitts, Eryk Pruitt, Peter Rozovsky, and Amy Stuart. Event hosts are Rob Bruner and Hope Thompson.

Coming up on Friday night it's the Queer Noir @ The Bar - Pride Month Edition. Featured authors that will join in the reading and conversation include Brenda Buchanan, John Copenhaver, Kelly J. Ford, Robyn Gigl, Cheryl Head, Greg Herren, Edwin Hill, Kristen Lepionka, Michael Nava, and J. M. Redmann. The event is raising money for Lambda Literary Foundation, an LGBT literary organization that aims to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual. and transgender literature through programs that encourage development of emerging writers

The latest Mystery Readers Journal is out with a focus on Italian mysteries. You can get a sneak peek with online articles by David Hewson ("Working in Italy"), James W. Ziskin ("Turn to Stone: Quarantined in Florence with Ellie Stone"), and Kate Derie ("Crime Seen: Guido and Salvo, the Two Commissari"). The issue is available in print or PDF versions.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Can a Virus Be Criminal" by J.H. Johns.

In the Q&A roundup, the Book People welcomed Steve Weddle and Nick Kolakowski, editors of Lockdown: Stories Of Crime, Terror, And Hope During A Pandemic, with proceeds going to BINC, which helps out independent booksellers; CrimeReads caught up with Leslie Klinger to discuss his "Sherlockian" approach to annotating Neil Gaiman's American Gods; and Writers Who Kill chatted with Nicole Leiren, who has been teaming up with author Elizabeth Ashby for the Danger Cove Mysteries, in the fourth of the Writers Who Kill series of interviews featuring authors who have taken a team approach. 

Mystery Melange

The winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing from the International Association of Crime Writers is Bluff by Jane Stanton Hitchcock. Also nominated this year: The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer; Blood Relations by Jonathan Moore; The Murals by William Bayer; Norco '80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History by Peter Houlahan. The location of the presentation is to be determined at a later time.

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards announced this year's winners, including in the Mystery Category. The Gold winner was Below the Fold by R. G. Belsky; Silver winner was A Plain Vanilla Murder by Susan Wittig Albert; and Bronze winner was Moonscape by Julie Weston. In the Thriller Catetory, the Gold winner was The Nine by Jeanne Blasberg; the Silver winner was The Unrepentant by E.A. Aymar; and the Bronze winner was Green Valley by Louis Greenberg. The Guilt We Carry by Samuel W. Gailey was also a Thriller Honorable Mention.

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers announced the nominees for the 2020 Scribe Awards. The winner in each category would have been announced at the San Diego ComicCon, but due to its cancellation, there will be an online ceremony on July 15. Particularly of interest is the Original Novel-General category which includes nods for The Bitterest Pill by Reed Farrel Coleman; Murder, My Love by Max Allan Collins; and Murder, She Wrote: A Taste For Murder by John Land.

The nominees for the Shirley Jackson Awards were also announced. The awards were established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic and include categories for best Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Criminal Element is offering a chance to win eight summer thrillers: The Half Sister by Sandie Jones; The Safe Place by Anna Downes; One Last Lie by Paul Doiron; Outsider by Linda Castillo; Cut to the Bone by Ellison Cooper; Hard Cash Valley by Brian Panowich; Reasonable Doubt by Philip Margolin; and Into the Fire by Gregg Hurwitz. Entries are open through June 28 (U.S. only).

Aretha Phiri, with Rhodes University, interviewed fellow professor and author, Sam Naidu, for The Conversation about how African crime and detective fiction reshapes the genre.

The latest in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series, edited by Elizabeth Foxwell, is Ian Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Erin E. MacDonald (who wrote the companion on Ed McBain/Evan Hunter). The volume delves into the life and works of Scottish novelist Rankin, the creator of Inspector John Rebus

Also via Elizabeth Foxwell's blog: The University of Minnesota Libraries have digitized the catalog from the 2007 exhibition "Victorian Secrets and Edwardian Enigmas," which featured re-creations of the sitting room at 221B Baker Street.

From necessity is the mother of invention department: The Story House in Rockville, Maryland is both a pop-up bookstore (with a location in the Dawson's Market) and a mobile bookstore in a converted tourist trolley. Owner Debbie Cohen began selling face masks, and the response has been tremendous. The masks, which she sews herself with the help of two seamstresses also now feature literary quotes. (HT to Shelf Awareness.)

Researchers at the University of Missouri and the University of Essex in the United Kingdom found boys' poor reading skills in adolescence, combined with the social attitudes about women attending college, can help explain why fewer men than women enroll in higher education or other types of post-high school education.These disparities continue into adulthood with women being more likely to read books than men. One way to combat this is to read to boys when they're young, and there are many mystery books that can help, including the Scholastic list, 10 Best Mystery Series for Boys. Scholastic also addressed how the suspense mature of whodunits makes them fun to read but are also great tools for skill-building.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Jury Rule" by Rena J. Worley.

In the Q&A roundup, the Songs of Spade blog welcomed John Ryder, the pen name of a British crimewriter who just came out with the first book in a new series of thrillers starring tough guy loner Grant Fletcher; Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis interviewed Kaye George about the second book in her Vintage Sweets mystery series, Deadly Sweet Tooth; Davis also chatted with Annette Dashofy about Til Death, the author's tenth novel in the Zoe Chambers mystery series; Crime Fiction Lover spoke with Paul D. Brazill about his noir-ish detective novel, The Blues Don’t Care, set in Los Angeles in the midst of World War II; and the Murder is Everywhere blog held a freewheeling NOT CrimeFest Indie Alternative panel with Elizabeth Hill, James D Mortain, Caroline Goldsworthy, and Dawn Brookes, as moderated by Zoë Sharp.

Mystery Melange

The shortlists were announced for the 2020 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year:

My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Worst Case Scenario by Helen Fitzgerald
The Lost Man by Jane Harper
Joe Country by Mick Herron
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
Smoke And Ashes by Abir Mukherjee

Readers can vote online for the novel they feel most deserves to be crowned the 2020 best of the best up through July 19, with the winner to be revealed in a digital awards ceremony on July 23.

Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, announced the nominees for its annual Anthony Award. Due to the cancellation of the conference in Sacramento, this year's voting will take place during Virtual Bouchercon, October 16–7, 2020, with the awards presented as part of an online ceremony on October 17. You can see all of the nominated books and authors via the official Bouchercon website, including those for Best Novel: Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha; They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall; Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman; The Murder List, by Hank Phillippi Ryan; and Miami Midnight, by Alex Segura.

The Private Eye Writers of America announced the Shamus Award Finalists for titles published in 2019. Winners will be determined from those listed in the categories of Best Original Private Eye Paperback, Best Private Eye Short Story, and Best Private Eye Novel. The ceremony is usually held in conjunction with the annual Bouchercon Conference, although since that event has been canceled due to the coronavirus, there will likely be a virtual ceremony later in the year.

Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Daggers, among the oldest awards in the genre, announced the longlists for 2020, with shortlists to be narrowed down later in the year before the awards ceremony takes place on October 22. The 2020 Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, the highest honor in British crime writing, has already been chosen and will be awarded to Martin Edwards on that night. The CWA has also announced that Della Millward won the 2020 CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize for "A Time to Confess." (Also "highly commended" were Lauren Everdell for "Voices" and Laila Murphy for "Sting in the Tail").

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone (the podcast team of Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste) are presenting The Locked Up Festival! online July 2-4, raising money for the Trussell Trust. There will be a host of panels, streamed live on Zoom, featuring the world's best crime writers including Anthony Horowitz, Val McDermid, Abir Mukherjee, Richard Osman, Ruth Ware, Don Winslow, Alex North, Mark Billingham, S J Watson, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Shari Lapena, Adrian McKinty, and Linwood Barclay, among others. The panels will include a few on the light-hearted side such as "The Worst Book Event of My Life," "TV Heaven and Hell," and "The Zoom of Blues." Tickets are limited, so to register, follow this link.

Sadly, we lost another member of the crime fiction community recently. Mystery author Grace Edwards published her first mystery when she 64 and went on to write five more detective stories set in Harlem against a backdrop of jazz, featuring a savvy, style-conscious amateur sleuth named Mali Anderson. Edwards was 87 and had suffered from declining health and dementia.

Book organizations and bookstores have been offering support during the recent black lives matter demonstrations. Jeannine Cook, owner of Harriett's Bookshop in Philadelphia, headed to City Hall to offer free books (Kate Clifford Larson's Bound for the Promised Land; Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero; and The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley) to the hundreds of protesters who poured into the streets. John Evans and Allison Reid, co-owners of DIESEL, A Bookstore highlighted numerous options for helping the cause, as well as some suggested reads and for those interested in donating, a list of organizations "that have maintained a mostly decades-long commitment to exactly these issues, working in the trenches to improve fatally unjust structures of our society." Publishers Weekly also has a list of black-owned bookstores you can help promote and support. (HT to Shelf Awareness)

The official Help Save Uncle Hugo's Fund has raised some $123,000 of its goal of $500,000 to help build Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore and Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore which were burned to the ground in the early days of the Minneapolis protests against the murder of George Floyd. The bookstore owner's son, Sam Blyly-Strauss, has been providing updates, noting that his father isn't sure yet whether he's going to rebuild on the same site, buy or rent a different building and relocate, or switch to a mail-order business from his home. Blyly-Strauss added that in the next week his father plans to start selling Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's T-shirts and sweatshirts that were ordered before the fire and arrived at his house this week.

The next issue of Mystery Readers Journal will focus on Senior Sleuths, and editor Janet Rudolph is seeking reviews, articles, and Author! Author! essays. The deadline for submissions is July 1st.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Edward G. Robinson in Public Domain" by Matthew Sorrento.

Mystery Melange

The Colorado Book Awards announced this year's winners at an online event this past Friday. The winner in the Mystery Category was Celtic Empire by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler, with the other finalists including Lost Lake by Emily Littlejohn and Tracking Game by Margaret Mizushima. In the Thriller Category, the winner was Black Pearl, A Cold Case Suspense by Donnell Ann Bell, with the finalists including The Extinction Agenda by Michael Laurence and The Dead Girl in 2A by Carter Wilson.

Lambda Literary, an organization supporting LGBTQ+ writers and championing LGBTQ+ literature, announced the winners of the 32nd Lambda Literary Awards in over 20 categories across a broad range of genres. The winner in the Lesbian Mystery was Galileo by Ann McMan, while the winner in the Gay Mystery category was Carved in Bone: A Henry Rios Novel by Michael Nava. You can see the lists of all the finalists in the various categories here.

CrimeFest, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, has announced the shortlists for its 13th annual awards honoring the best crime books released in 2019 in the UK. Winners will be chosen for Best Debut Crime Novel, Audible Sounds of Crime for audiobooks, the eDunnit Award for ebooks, the H.R.F. Keating Award for nonfiction, and the Best Books for Children and Young Adults. The awards were due to be presented at a Gala Dinner during the convention at the Bristol Mercure Grand Hotel this June, but due to Covid-19, the winners will be announced online at crimefest.com and via its social media pages on Tuesday July 7. You can find lists of all the finalists on the above official festival link.

The longlists were announced for Sisters in Crime Australia’s 20th Davitt Awards for the best crime and mystery books by Aussie women. This year a record 85 adult novels are in contention, with a third of those being debut novels. The official SinC-Australia website has the complete lists of the finalist for Best Adult Crime Novel, Best Young Adult Crime Novel, Best Children's Crime Novel, and Best Nonfiction Crime Books.

There will be a Virtual Noir at the Bar London today, Jun 3, 2020 07:30 PM. Authors scheduled to participate include Holly Seddon, Chris McDonald, Lizzy Barber, Emma Kavanagh, Danny Marshall, Jean Rafferty, Gillian McAllister, Theresa Talbot, Dave Sivers, and Phoebe Locke. Noir at the Bar has also compiled an anthology titled Noir from the Bar: 30 Crime and Mystery Shorts, with all proceeds to be donated to NHS charities in the UK.


Like many events, the Virginia Festival of the Book had to be canceled this year due to coronavirus concerns. But the festival has been offering up virtual events online via their SHELF LIFE series every Tuesday and Thursday at noon (EDT), livestreamed on Zoom and Facebook. Coming up on June 9th are crime writers Ellen Crosby (The Angels' Share) and Art Taylor (The Boy Detective & The Summer of '74 and Other Tales of Suspense) as they discuss their newest books, creating complex characters, and writing crime fiction. You can register for this free event here.

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is an annual grant of $2,000 for an emerging writer of color, offered through Sisters in Crime, although you don't have to be a member to apply. Applications are open through June 8, and although an unpublished writer is preferred, publication of several pieces of short fiction and/or up to two self-published or traditionally published books will not disqualify an applicant. The grantee may choose to use the funds for activities that include workshops, seminars, conferences, and retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of the work.

This past week during the riots in Minneapolis, several bookstores were targeted including Uncle Hugo’s, the oldest independent science fiction and fantasy bookstore in the US. Founded in 1974, the store also included Uncle Edgar’s bookstore (a specialty mystery, suspense, and thrillers shop housed within Uncle Hugo’s), but the entire building was completed gutted by fire, with the contents a complete loss. A GoFundMe page has been set up for those who wish to help out.

This weeks' featured crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Trump and Covid-19" by Robert Cooperman.

Mystery Melange

Crime Writers of Canada announced the winners of the 2020 Arthur Ellis Awards. The awards, established in 1984, are named after the nom de travail of Canada's official hangman and celebrate excellence in Canadian crime writing. The winners are listed below, and you can find all this year's finalists via this link.

Best Crime Novel: Michael Christie, Greenwood
Best Crime First Novel: Philip Elliott, Nobody Move
Best Novella: Wayne Arthurson, The Red Chesterfield
Best Short Story: Peter Sellers, "Closing Doors," Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Best French Book: Andrée Michaud, Tempêtes
Best Juvenile or YA Book: Tom Ryan, Keep This to Yourself
Best Nonfiction Book: Charlotte Gray, Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island
Unhanged Arthur Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript: Liz Rachel Walker, The Dieppe Letters

This evening, May 28, from 7-8 p.m. Eastern, Michael Connelly and CNN's Jake Tapper are teaming up for an online conversation that will benefit independent bookstores. The conversation will cover both authors' new books, the craft of writing, their move from journalism to fiction writing, how journalism informs fiction, and the importance of supporting independent bookstores now and always. Viewers will be encouraged to donate to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc). For more information about the free event on Crowdcast and to register, click here. (HT to Shelf Awareness.

The coronavirus is a crime for health and business, but one of its aspects, quarantine/lockdown, might wind up being the ideal setting for crime fiction. The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance is presenting the Two Minutes in Quarantine Flash Fiction contest which opens today for submissions from Maine writers. Author Julia Spencer-Fleming (of the Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne series) has provided the opening line, and you provide the rest of the story in only 500 words. The submissions deadline for the fee-free competition is June 15. The winning story will be published in the Maine Sunday Telegram, plus included in a reading with a stellar group of crime writers on 6/25 for Maine Crime Online.

Authors are finding ways to help promote their books and bookstores during the pandemic. Following proper safety guidelines, the Seminary Co-op in Chicago, Ill., welcomed local author Sara Paretsky into the store lobby last week to sign copies of her new V.I. Warshawsky novel, Dead Land, while Paretsky's beloved golden, Chiara, kept an eye out. The Seminary Co-op remains closed to the public, but is filling online orders.

Another convention has fallen to the coronavirus. This, from Mike Chomko, PulpFest Marketing & Programming Director: "Throughout the latter months of 2019, PulpFest was planning for a banner year. From our vivacious Guest of Honor — Eva Lynd — to a significant estate auction and our the plethora of 'B’s' in our theme — 'Bradbury, BLACK MASK, and Brundage,' with a touch of 'Burroughs, Brackett, Baum, and a couple of 'B' movies,' PulpFest 2020 was going to be one 'B'eautiful convention. Alas, it was not meant to be. Or should we say, 'B?' Or maybe it should be 'C'  for coronavirus. We regret to announce that PulpFest is being postponed until August 2021...it will now take place August 5 - 8, 2021 at the DoubleTree in Mars, PA."

Holland House Books has launched a new digital crime imprint, PM Press. Editors Phaidra Robinson and Mia Skevington are seeking most types of crime and thriller fiction, "from the classic English whodunit through to police procedurals, or classic noir through to mind-bending psychological thrillers." You can read more about submission guidelines here or via Holland's website.

It's nice to know NASA has a sense of humor and a bit of an interest in crime fiction. Mars is a long way from 221B Baker Street, but one of fiction's best-known detectives will be represented on the Red Planet after NASA's Perseverance rover touches down on Feb. 18, 2021. An instrument called SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) will, with the help of its partner-camera WATSON, hunt for signs of ancient life by detecting organic molecules and minerals. Together, they will study rock surfaces, mapping out the presence of certain minerals and organic molecules, which are the carbon-based building blocks of life on Earth.

Author and director of the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival and the Bute Noir fest, Craig Robertson, was asked to pick the ten best Scottish crime novels of all time for The Guardian, coming up with books that deliver all the gut-punch thrills of crime without forgetting its human cost.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "I Gave You Diamonds, You Gave Me Disease" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Michael Connelly stopped by the Los Angeles Times (reprinted in part here) to talk about "fake news"; Bosch; his newspaper reporter protagonist, Jack McEvoy; and the coronavirus. Over at the Writers Who Kill blog, E.B. Davis chatted with Bernard Schaffer about his Santero and Rein Thriller series which focuses on the crimes of those lost in criminal psychosis; Books & Beyond spoke with Paul Matthews, author of two comedy thriller-mystery series; and Jessica Riley Miller sat down with The Stiletto Gang's Paula Gail Benson to discuss her supernatural mysteries that are in the tradition of Charlaine Harris’s True Blood series.

Mystery Melange

The coronavirus pandemic continues to hit many of the crime fiction conventions, conferences, and festivals. One of the latest is St Hilda's Crime in the UK, although organizers announced that a virtual event will still go on with live broadcasts, Q&As, lectures, entertainment, and a packed Crime Fiction Festival on August 15. Participating authors already confirmed include: Val McDermid, Mick Herron, Sarah Hilary, Jill Dawson, Tom Wood, Mary Paulson Ellis, Anna Mazzola, Andrew Wilson, Sara Sheridan, Vassem Khan,
and Andrew Taylor.

Over the past few years, independent publishers have won prizes, engaged readers, and published innovative and important books. But a survey on the impact of Covid-19 on small presses, carried out by the Bookseller and writer development charity Spread the Word, reveals that 60% of the small presses polled fear they could be out of business by the autumn, 75% don’t know if they will make it beyond March next year, while 85% of the publishers have seen sales drop by more than half. A key takeaway here is: shop your local indie bookstores! Many have online ordering and home delivery or curbside pickup.


Not all bookselling news is bad during the coronavirus: Unit sales of print books continue to defy expectations that the coronavirus crisis will lead to a plunge in sales. Last week, unit sales of print books had their second consecutive week of double-digit growth over the previous week at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. For the week ended May 9, 2020, print units were up 10.5% over the prior week, and rose 9.9% over the week ended May 11, 2019. (This, despite a downturn in overall brick-and-mortar bookstore sales due to partial shutdowns.)

Even better, according to a study in the UK, reading books has surged in lockdown. The survey reported that time spent with books has almost doubled, with thrillers and crime the favorite genres. More than half (52%) of the respondents said they were reading more because they had more spare time, 51% said it was because they wanted to stay entertained, and 35% felt books were providing “an escape from the crisis."

In more UK book news, Lee Child's The Midnight Line is the UK's most often loaned library book of 2018/19. Child dominated the ten most loaned print books, with fellow Jack Reacher novels Night School – the previous year's most borrowed book – at number seven and Past Tense at number five. NYPD Red by James Patterson, Dead if You Don’t by Peter James, Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves, Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly, and Dan Brown's Origin rounded out the top ten in the list.

Edinburgh-based crime writer Val McDermid is offering readers the chance to have a character named after them in her upcoming new novel. The author has teamed up with her hometown football club Raith Rovers for an auction, with the chance to appear in her upcoming Karen Pirie thriller, Still Life, up for grabs. The football club will share the proceeds from the auction evenly with the Homeless World Cup Foundation.

Did Agatha Christie "borrow" the plot for her novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? Lucy Moffatt, a British translator living in Norway, has found a likely source for the famous solution to the murder in an early English magazine translation of a Stein Riverton story.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Ca" by Ron Riekki.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Book Series Binge chats continued with Archer Mayor on the Joe Gunther Series; E. B. Davis interviewed James M. Jackson about his new Seamus McCree novella for the Writers Who Kill blog; Book Savvy Reviews spoke with Merry Jones about her latest domestic suspense novel, What You Don't Know; and Kathy Reichs sat down with the CBC to talk about how Montreal shaped her approach to writing bestselling crime fiction, including her Bones series.

Mystery Melange

 

The University of Alabama School of Law has named the finalists for the 2020 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The three books chosen to compete for the prize are: The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey; The Hallows by Victor Methos; and An Equal Justice by Chad Zunker. The prize, previously authorized by Lee, is given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change. Candice Robbins, Assistant Dean for Advancement at the Law School, said "The books represent a diverse offering in legal fiction, from a historical mystery series written by Massey, to a sharp legal thriller by Methos, and, finally, a fast-paced novel that explores the crisis of homelessness in the United States by Zunker."

The shortlist was announced for the Glass Key Award. The award, named after the novel, The Glass Key, by American crime writer Dashiell Hammett, is a real glass key given every year by the members of the Crime Writers of Scandinavia to a crime novel written by a Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian or Swedish author. Each country's members put forth a candidate novel, making up the shortlist, which this year includes: Dødfunden (Found Dead) by Gretelise Holm (Denmark); Den åttonde tärnan (The Eight Bridesmaid) by Eva Frantz (Finland); Svik (Betrayal) by Lilja sigurðardóttir (Iceland); Kniv (Knife) by Jo Nesbø (Norway); and Skuggjägaren (Shadow Hunter) by Camilla Grebe (Sweden). The winner will be announced in August.

2020 Goldsbsoro Books Glass Bell Award shortlist includes a critically acclaimed debut, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s darkly comic My Sister, the Serial Killer, about a woman who must cover up her younger sister’s habit of killing her boyfriends. Also on the shortlist is Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, a historical thriller about the horrors of the slave trade. The prize rewards "compelling storytelling with brilliant characterisation and a distinct voice that is confidently written and assuredly realised" in all genres. The winner will be announced on Thursday, 2nd July and awarded £2,000 and a handmade, engraved glass bell.

The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance announced finalists for the Maine Literary Awards. This year, the awards will be live-streamed at 7 p.m. May 28 on Zoom. The alliance received more than 150 books and 135 short works, according to executive director Gibson Fay-LeBlanc. The Crime Fiction finalists are: Gerry Boyle, Random Act; Katherine Hall Page, The Body in the Wake; and Joseph Souza, Pray for the Girl.

The CWA have announced the longlist for the 2020 Margery Allingham Competition and will pare it down to the shortlist and the winner over the coming weeks. Their mission is to find the best unpublished short mystery, one that fits into legendary crime writer’s definition of what makes a great story: "The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it."

Due to the pandemic this year, International Thriller Writers canceled the in-person ThrillerFest Conference at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, but they just announced there will be a virtual conference July 6 - July 14. Attendees will be treated to an outstanding array of guests and publishing professionals, including a Free Debut Authors' Presentation, Free ITW Author Videos, and a Free Awards Presentation. The usual Mega CraftFest, Master Class, Pitching Sessions, Consulting Sessions, and CareerFest will also all be offered this July. For more information and to register, follow this link.

The Scottish National Library is lifting the lid on a vast archive donated by crime author Ian Rankin. The collection, which fills 77 boxes in the National Library’s collection centre, includes an unpublished first novel by Rankin, original manuscripts, song lyrics, poems, and more. Highlights from the collection will be showcased in a major exhibition next year. One fun fact: the documents reveal Rankin considered killing his iconic Inspector Rebus in the very first novel.

It's Crime Reading Month in the UK, but it's also Crime Writing Month in Canada. Here's a list of 22 Canadian thrillers and mysteries to read to celebrate.

From the growing ranks of the literary fraud world, we recently learned that a French serial-killer expert whose books about murderers have sold millions, admits serial lies, including the murder of an imaginary wife.

Does lockdown provide the perfect conditions for a murder? Agatha Christie's biographer, Laura Thompson, weighs in.

TV often shows psychopaths as being violent and deadly; but you may have one living next door and never know.

Apparently, virtual murder-mystery dinners during lockdown are a thing.

The Page 69 test this week featured Kate White's Have You Seen Me: A Novel of Suspense.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Flawless Conviction" by William L. Domme.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with Timothy Hallinan, who has been awarded the Lefty for Best Humorous Crime Novel and also nominated for the Edgar, the Macavity, the Nero, and the Shamus, about the ninth and final book in his Bangkok series, Street Music; the Irish Mirror spoke with Val McDermid on how observation is key to her success; Lesa's Book Critiques hosted Arthur Ellis Award winner, A.J. Devlin to chat about his new novel, Rolling Thunder; Abby L. Vandiver, writing as Abby Collette, discussed the first book in her new series, A Deadly Inside Scoop; and On the Bookshelf welcomed Hannah Mary McKinnon to talk about her new thriller, Sister Dear.

Mystery Melange

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year released the longlist for the UK and Ireland’s most prestigious crime novel award. Fans can vote on the eighteen finalists online, and the six books with the most votes will go forward onto the shortlist, which will be announced on June 8. Now in its 16th year, the award organizers received a record number of submissions, and the judges' list includes ten books by women; four former winners (Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, Val McDermid, and Lee Child); a Booker Prize contender (Oyinkan Braithwaite), and a couple of debuts to the list (Harriet Tyce, Laura Shepherd-Robinson).To vote, head on over to the official longlist website.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week. Along with the list of excellence in journalism reporting, the winner of the Fiction Award went to The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, which the committee called "a spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption." This is the author's second Pulitzer, winning in 2017 for The Underground Railroad.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society has awarded the annual Derringers for outstanding published crime fiction short stories. The winners included: Flash category (up to 1,000 words): Josh Pachter, "The Two-Body Problem," Mystery Weekly Magazine; Short category (1,001 to 4,000 words), John Floyd, "On the Road with Mary Jo," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine; Long Category (4,001 to 8,000 words), Sandra Murphy, "Lucy’s Tree," The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, Editor Michael Bracken; Novelette category (8,001 to 20,000 words), Brendan Dubois ,with "His Sister’s Secrets," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) announced the winners of the annual Ben Franklin Awards that recognize excellence in book editorial and design. The Gold Medal winner in the Mystery/Thriller category was A Veil Removed: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel by Michelle Cox (She Writes Press); the Silver Medal was won by The Last Getaway by Clay Savage (Ocean Park Press); and the Bronze Medal went to Bleed Through: Alex Greco, ADA Series Book 2 by Roger Canaff (Brooklyn Writers Press).

Minotaur Books and the Mystery Writers of America announced the winner of their First Crime Novel Competition for 2020. Kelley Ragland, Vice President, Associate Publisher for Minotaur Books, made the announcement following the MWA’s naming of their Edgar Award winners. The competition winner is Rebecca Roque, a nurse working in Arizona. Her winning novel, tentatively titled Till Human Voices Wake Us, will be published in 2021.

Tomorrow, Friday May 8, Mysterious Galaxy bookstore is celebrating its 27th birthday with a virtual event that will pay tribute to the store and its community. You can join in the fun by following them via social media @mystgalaxybooks on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with giveaways, games, surprises, and more.

Although the Malice Domestic conference had to cancel this year's event (and announced the Agatha Awards winner online last week), organizers are looking ahead to the future with the announcement of the dates for next year, April 30-May 2, 2020, as well as the featured authors: Guests of Honor, Julia Spencer-Fleming and Rhys Bowen; Toastmasters, Jeff Cohen and Barb Goffman; Lifetime Achievement Recipients, Ellen Hart and Walter Mosley; Fan Guests of Honor, Dina Wilner and Dru Ann Love; and International Guest of Honor, Sophie Hannah.

There's still time to register for two upcoming Virtual Noir at the Bar Queens events, one on Friday May 8 and the other on Friday, May 15. Alex Segura will host both events with a roster of some of today's bestselling authors stopping by online to read from their works. There will also be a chance to buy books via the indie bookstore, Kew & Willow Books in Kew Gardens.

Last week, we lost crime fiction trailblazer Maj Sjöwall, widely regarded as the godmother of modern Scandinavian crime fiction. Along with her partner-husband, Per Wahlöö (who died in 1975), the duo's books paved the way for the likes of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. Their ten detective stories featuring the Swedish policeman Martin Beck was as remarkable as much for the way they was written as for its impact on crime-writing internationally.

Another author we lost this week was Angela Zeman, wife of fellow writer, Barry T. Zeman, who succumbed to Covid-19. Zeman penned numerous crime short stories as well as a novel, The Witch and the Borscht Pearl, originally published by Pendulum Press. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Speaking of Scandinavian Noir, a la Maj Sjöwal and Per Wahlöö, the Paris Review featured a profile on "The Origins of Scandinavian Noir."

Many of the canceled crime fiction conferences due to the coronavirus are going into the virtual realm, and Crime Fiction Lover has a list of some of these to mark on your calendar. Most of these events also have plans to return again next year, circumstances (and viruses) willing.

Writing for CrimeReads, Guy Fraser-Sampson profiled England's four crime queens, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Josephine Tey. (As he notes, there was actually a fifth as well, Ngiao Marsh, but she has been often discounted since she was a New Zealander). The quartet of Crime Grandes Dames wrote mostly (but not entirely) during the "Golden Age," or the period between the two World Wars.

I've never been the biggest fan of the mass market paperback format, and older readers can find the smaller print to be a problem. Apparently, others feel the same way since traditional mass market paperback sales have been declining for years, but Kensington Publishing has a plan to change that. Beginning with titles going on sale on September 29 of this year, Kensington will replace the standard 4.125 by 6.75-inch mass market paperback with a larger 4.75 by 7-inch format called "Mass Max." They'll cost about a dollar more but the new format will feature an easier-to-read font and more spacing than current mass market titles. They're even being printed on trade presses rather than mass market equipment, according to Kensington CEO, Steve Zacharius.

The Mysterious Bookshop included a killer quiz in their latest newsletter, which you can take here. To signup for their newsletter, head on over here.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "When I Met Her in the Street" by Gabriel Hart.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Book Series Binge continued with Tasha Alexander on the Lady Emily Series, and the webzine also had an interview with R.G. Belsky, author of The Last Scoop with series protagonist, Clare Carlson; On the Bookshelf spoke with Hannah Mary McKinnon about her new thriller, Sister Dear; and Debra Purdy Kong chatted with Canadian author A.J. Devlin about his second mystery, Rolling Thunder, due out next week.