In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mystery Melange

Karys Frank's Stone Cold Truth has won the 2023 Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction. The literary prize, now in its fifth year, aims to celebrate the outstanding crime and thriller storytelling of those who are from, or whose work celebrates, the North East England. Frank's winning thriller novel tell the story of a daughter who flees her narcissistic mother’s suffocating love, only to run into her mother’s net from which she can’t escape. As the winner of the prize, Karys will receive a £2,500 cash prize to support the development of her work, alongside funding for membership of the Society of Authors (SoA) and the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).

The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers announced the 2023 Colorado Gold Rush Winners, including the Mystery/Thriller Category, which was won by What Survives the Fire by Maria St Louis Sanchez. The other finalists were Speaking in Tongues by D Gonzales Montano and Killing Every Alice by JV Reed.

Six books have been chosen as Richard and Judy (Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan) picks for the autumn Book Club in the UK, including three crime fiction titles. Mystery writer Janice Hallett’s The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels features on the list, a book that Finnegan describes as "creepy and complicated" and lays out a new story in the author’s "inimitable cosy style of dossiers, emails, texts and recorded phone calls." Also chosen was the thriller, The Traitor, by former crime reporter and civil servant, Ava Glass, and Gregg Hurwitz's thriller, The Last Orphan, marking the author's third time on the list. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Elaine's in Alexandria, Virginia, will host its inaugural Noir at the Bar this evening, September 21, at 7:00 pm. Authors schedule to read from their writing include E.A. Aymar, S.A. Cosby, Adam Meyer, Eliza Nellums, Kathryn O'Sullivan/Paul Awad, Josh Pachter, and Stacy Woodson.

And yet more authors are suing ChapGPT. In a grievance filed with the Authors Guild, the authors accuse the A.I. company of infringing on authors’ copyrights, claiming it used their books to train its ChatGPT chatbot. Some of the high-profile crime fiction authors involved with the Authors Guild suit include Michael Connelly, David Baldacci, Douglas Preston, and John Grisham.

Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime That Captivated a Nation by Bruce Dorsey was featured at the Page 99 Test. About the book, from the publisher: a master storyteller presents a riveting drama of America's first "crime of the century," from murder investigation to a church sex scandal to celebrity trial, and its aftermath.

Jessica would be proud. A "Murder, She Wrote" picket from the WGA is planned for Fox today, which actually makes a lot of sense considering Jessica Fletcher was a professional writer. It’s the brainchild of strike captain Tyler Ruggeri, who surveyed his followers on Twitter about the possibility before making it a reality. He’s also asking members to wear their best J-Fletch outfits to walk the line.

In the Q&A roundup, mystery novelist Nancy M Bell chatted with Lisa Haselton about her new historical novel, Discarded, set in Winnepeg in the 1800s; over at the Writers Who Kill blog, E. B. Davis interviewed author Kait Carson about Death Dive, the third book in the Hayden Kent mystery series set in the Florida Keys; and Lou Berney spoke with The Orange County Register about his new thriller, Dark Ride, which centers around a theme park scare actor and cannabis-consuming twentysomething underachiever named Hardy “Hardly” Reed.

Mystery Melange

The Black Spring Crime Series announced that the inaugural judge for its new crime-mystery prize will be Lee Child, best-selling author of the Jack Reacher series. The Big Bang: Black Spring's Best Opening to a Crime/Thriller Prize is open to anyone over the age of 18 who wants to write in the English-language and has an interest in crime, thriller or mystery novels. Organizers are looking for the best 50-200 words of an opening for a crime-mystery-thriller novel/story. The work must be never-before-published (including online), original to the author, and ideally written for this prize. It need not be connected to a completed book, and it's hoped the prize encourages people to start a novel, with this first page – and maybe go on to complete it. Writers can enter as many times as they want. The contest opened on September 7th and will close on December 7th. (HT to Shots Magazine)

A group of authors including Michael Chabon (The Yiddish Policemen's Union) have filed suit in federal court against OpenAI, alleging the company unfairly used their copyrighted works to teach its chatbots how to respond to written prompts. The suit notes that responses from a model like OpenAI’s ChatGPT are “entirely and uniquely dependent on the text contained in its training dataset,” adding that the chatbot can generate summaries and in-depth analysis of themes in the authors’ copyrighted works.

The American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) has a call for papers for an interesting and unusual topic. This seminar takes the global environmental crisis as a starting point to consider the ways that global crime fiction has sought to expose, mitigate, reflect, and reconfigure impending catastrophe. Contributions are invited that consider how or how well "the (crime) genre’s central ideological concerns with culpability and criminality" align to the climate crisis. Interested authors can submit individual paper abstracts by September 30, with the conference scheduled to place at the Palais des congrès de Montréal in Montreal, March 14-17, 2024. (Hat tip to Shots Magazine)

A life-sized bronze statue of Agatha Christie was unveiled by Christie’s grandson, Mathew Prichard, in the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford, near where the iconic novelist resided for more than forty years. Sculptor Ben Twiston-Davies, who also designed the Agatha Christie memorial in London, explained that it shows her "looking out as if she’s seen a clue for one of her stories." Christie bought Winterbrook House, located on the banks of the River Thames near Wallingford, in 1934. Many of her books were written at the house, and it remained her primary residence until she died there in 1976. She is buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, Cholsey, just south of Wallingford.

Gentle Readers, start your to-be-read-pile engines. The Rap Sheet posted a list of choice crime novels being released in fall and early winter 2023.

Janet Rudolph has a list of mysteries set during the days of awe: Rosh Hashanah (September 15-17) through Yom Kippur (September 24-25).

An early Van Gogh worth €3m-€6m (£2.6m-£5.2m) stolen from a Dutch museum three years ago was being passed around the criminal world like a hot potato, according to art detective Arthur Brand, who had a hand in the return of the painting Monday night. Brand, who is most famous for having recovered the "Hitler’s Horses" bronze statues, a Picasso painting and a ring that once belonged to Oscar Wilde, told The Guardian that such a famous stolen item had become "a headache" and that the man who eventually handed it over had nothing to do with the theft.

In the Q&A roundup, Indie Crime Scene interviewed Maggie Giles, whose novel Twisted has its debut on September 19; and Writers Who Kill's Grace Topping chatted with Frances Brody about her historical Kate Shackleton mysteries set in various locations in Yorkshire, England.

Mystery Melange

I'm a little late posting this week's "Mystery Melange," but unfortunately Typepad has been down. And thus it is with online services these days.

Anyway, without further ado, the Bouchercon conference in San Diego wasn't the only hotspot for crime fiction awards this past week, with the Anthony, Shamus, and Barry Awards. Australia was a close second, with winners named for the 2023 Davitt Awards (from Sisters in Crime Australia for best crime books by Australian women), and the 2023 Ned Kelly Awards (given by the Australian Crime Writers Association).

Ned Kelly winners:

• Best debut crime fiction: Wake by Shelley Burr (Hachette)
• Best crime fiction: Exiles by Jane Harper (Macmillan)
• Best true crime: Betrayed by Sandi Logan (Hachette)
• Best international crime fiction: The Lemon Man by Keith Bruton (Cutting Edge)

Davitt Award winners:

• Adult novel: All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien (HQ Fiction)
• Young adult novel: Seven Days by Fleur Ferris (PRH)
• Children’s novel: The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-bottomed Boat by Charlie Archbold (Text)
• Nonfiction book: Out of the Ashes by Megan Norris (Big Sky)
• Debut book: Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor (Macmillan)
• Readers’ choice: The Unbelieved by Vikki Petraitis (A&U)

 

The shortlist for the 2023 McIlvanney Prize for Scotland's prestigious annual crime writing award was also announced. The Prize is named in memory of the "Godfather of Tartan Noir," the late William McIlvanney. The finalists and authors shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize will lead a torchlit procession from Stirling Castle to the Albert Halls on Friday, September 15, when winner will be revealed. This year's finalists include:

• Squeaky Clean by Callum McSorley (Pushkin)
• The Second Murderer by Denise Mina (Vintage)
• Cast a Cold Eye by Robbie Morrison (Macmillan)
• The Devil's Playground by Craig Russell (Little, Brown)
  
  

Seven crime novels from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland have been shortlisted for the 2023 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The winning title will be announced on 5th October 2023. The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year. Here are this year's contenders:

• Femicide by Pascal Engman tr. Michael Gallagher (Sweden, Legend Press)
• The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)
• The Axe Woman by Håkan Nesser tr. Sarah Death (Sweden, Mantle)
• Land of Snow and Ashes by Petra Rautiainen tr. David Hackston (Finland, Pushkin Press)
• Kalmann by Joachim B Schmidt tr. Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland, Bitter Lemon Press)
• Red as Blood by Lilja Sigurðardóttir tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda Books)
• Bitter Flowers by Gunnar Staalesen tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books)
   

But wait, there's more! The Capital Crime conference revealed winners of its Fingerprint Awards at Capital Crime 2023 in London. 

• Crime Novel of the Year: Elly Griffiths for Bleeding Heart Yard
• Thriller Book of the Year: Gillian McAllister for Wrong Place Wrong Time
• Historical Crime Book of the Year: Tom Hindle for A Fatal Crossing
• Genre-Busting Book of the Year: Erin Keely for The Skeleton Key
• Debut Book of the Year: Nita Prose for The Maid
• Audiobook of the Year: Adele Parks, narrated by Kristin Atherton for One Last Secret
• The Thalia Proctor Lifetime Achievement Award for her invaluable contribution to fiction publishing: Jane Wood
• Publishing Campaign of the Year 2023: Viking BooksUK for The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman.
   

Mystery Fanfare reported on the sad news that crime writer, Les Edgerton, passed away this past week at the age of 77. Les Edgerton published 23 books, including Adrenaline Junkie and the comedy crime novel, The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping (both from Down&Out Press) and Bomb! (Gutter Press). One of his most popular books is the writer's text, Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go. Les taught creative writing for the UCLA Extension Writer's Program, Trine University, St. Francis University, the New York Writer's Workshop, and was Writer-in-Residence for the University of Toledo. Before turning his hand to writing, Edgerton had an unusual background that included a stint in the U.S. Navy as a cryptographer but also two years in prison for burglary. Edgerton's fiction has been nominated for or won the Pushcart Prize, O. Henry Award, Edgar short story award, and more.


Featured at the Page 69 Test recently was Rusted Souls: A Tom Harper Mystery (#11) by Chris Nickson, set in 1920 Leeds. About the book, from the publisher: Retirement beckons for Chief Constable Tom Harper. Can he stop a spiraling crime spree involving love letters, robbery, and murder before he hangs up his boots for good?

Forensic science is turning to bees for inspiration. George Mason University Professor Mary Ellen O’Toole, who worked as an FBI profiler for twenty-eight years on cases including the Unabomber, Natalee Holloway, the Green River Killer, Golden State Killer, Zodiac Killer, and more, is the lead researcher on a project that will test a theory that bees can help find decomposing bodies.


Crime fiction fans planning a trip to Savannah, Georgia, might want to head to the North Historic District and check out at Agatha’s Coffee and Tea House. After decades of dreaming and coordinating, the cafe is an homage to the work of best-selling author Agatha Christie, complete with books, antiques, jazz, and employees dressed in period costumes.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Something Fishy" by J.H. Johns.

In the Q&A roundup, Indie Crime Scene interviewed Mark Pawlosky, whose novel Friendly Fire, the second novel in the Nik Byron Investigation series, was released in March; Lynda La Plante spoke with The Guardian about learning to read with dyslexia, the book that made her want to be a writer, and how Raymond Chandler's books made her laugh out loud; Lee Goldberg, who's penned many TV shows as well as the Eve Ronin mystery book series, chatted with Deborah Kalb about his new novel, Malibu Burning; and Author Interviews spoke with James R. Benn, author of Proud Sorrows, the eighteenth installment in the Billy Boyle World War II historical mysteries set within the Allied High Command during the Second World War.

Mystery Melange

The recipients of this year’s Silver Falchion Awards were handed out during the recent Killer Nashville convention in Tennessee. There were some two dozen categories of contestants, but the main crime fiction-related winners included Best Cozy: Murder in Third Position, by Lori Robbins; Best Historical: Murder at the Galliano Club, by Carmen Amato; Best Investigator: Dead Drop, by James L'Etoile; Best Mystery: The Bone Records, by Rich Zahradnik; Best Thriller: One of Us Is Dead, by Jeneva Rose. In addition, the winner of the Claymore Award for best unpublished manuscript was Francois Roberge – The Fixer by Les Edgerton.

The winners were announced for the 2023 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Founded in 1982 at San Jose State University in California, the competition challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels. Of interest to crime fiction fans is the Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, which went to Daniel Bradford of Lexington, KY: "It was a sunny day in Los Angeles, hot and bright, and I was in my office, playing Mahjong against myself and losing, when she walked in, 120 pounds of dynamite, a blonde with legs that began at her ankles and ended in trouble." Julian Calvin of Atlanta, Georgia, won the Crime & Detective category for her offering, "The tall, slender seductress had Tom Pauley wrapped around her little finger, and she had James McGee hanging from a necklace, but the police were still waiting for the lab results to determine whose body parts she had used to make her earrings and that stunning tennis bracelet." You can read all the category winners and "dishonorable mentions" here.

Noir at the Bar returns Sept 24 at the Mandrake Bar in Los Angeles. Host Eric Beetner will be joined by authors Halley Sutton, Lawrence Allan, Amulya Malladi, Pamela Samuels Young, Howard Kaplan, Ilyn Welch, and more as they read from their work.

Crime Reads featured Karen Pierce, author of a new cookbook that looks at Agatha Christie's characters and their relationship to food (with recipes!).


This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Queen's Hawker" by Rena J. Worley.

In the Q&A roundup, bestselling author Kathy Reichs spoke with The Globe and Mail about writing while working full time, forensic science and how her Temperance Brennan series might end; and crime writer Steve Cavanagh chatted with the Irish Examiner about his latest novel, Kill For Me, Kill For You, and the nature of revenge.

Mystery Melange

 

Scottish author Claire Wilson has won the inaugural Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers Prize for her debut novel, Five by Five. The prize, launched in 2022, aims to discover new writers from underrepresented backgrounds in publishing and focuses on a different genre each year, with the first year dedicated to crime fiction. Wilson, who works as an intelligence analyst in a Scottish prison, impressed the judges with her thriller which follows a protagonist on the trail of a corrupt prison officer who might be her lover. Wilson will receive a publishing contract with Penguin Michael Joseph, worth at least £10,000, and representation by the DHH Literary Agency. All shortlisted writers will also receive one-to-one editorial feedback and guidance from an editor or agent.

Noir at the Bar heads to Cleveland at the Music Box Supper Club on August 31 with drinks, dinner, and readings by crime fiction authors J.D. Belcher, Angela Crook, Miesha Wilson Headen, Dana McSwain, Susan Petrone, D.M. Pulley, Michael Ruhlman, Thrity Umrigar, and Abby L Vandiver. Following the readings, there will be a large book market so you can meet the authors, purchase their latest books, and get them signed.

In what is good news for the Irish Book Awards, An Post has extended its sponsorship for two more years. Now in its 18th year, the An Post Irish Book Awards celebrate and promote Irish writing to the widest range of readers possible, in various categories including the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Novel of the Year. A shortlist for the 2023 awards will be announced on October 19, with winners revealed on November 22 at The Convention Centre Dublin. The 2022 Crime Fiction Novel winner was Breaking Point by Edel Coffey.

Black Spring Press has announced the Black Spring Crime Series, which will be curated by Luca Veste (author of books including The Game and The Bone Keeper) and will comprise an initial run of 10 novels over the next 10 months. The first book in the series is A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands by serving FBI agent Zephaniah Sole, published in June, and the second will be The Scotsman by Rob McClure, out in September. Three more as-yet-unannounced books will be published by the end of 2023. Veste said of the series, which has been endorsed by Lee Child, Mark Billingham, Ian Rankin, and Val McDermid: "This is an incredibly exciting time to be involved with an independent press such as Black Spring. The vision we have is to release excellent novels that cover the wide variety we see in crime fiction. From police procedurals, to thrillers, to historical crimes, it is a privilege to be bringing these novels to a wider audience."

Mystery Readers Journal editor, Janet Rudolph, reported that due to an overwhelming number of articles, author essays, and reviews for the Animals in Mysteries theme, they are dividing the material into two issues (Volume 39: 3 & 4), the first of which will be out in October. This means that anyone who didn't send an article initially still has time to contribute to the second issue by sending in a submission by October 15. Mystery Fanfare has more information.

Harlem World profiled Rudolph John Chauncey Fisher (1897–1934), a physician and radiologist. But he also had a successful writing career, penning journal articles, short stories, and The Conjure Man Dies, dating from 1932, the first novel with a black detective as well as the first detective novel with only black characters (although Pauline Hopkins and John E. Bruce had serialized novels in journals prior).

From the truth is stranger than fiction department, a bizarre case in Australia has enthralled people all across the globe—involving mushroom poisoning, a series of deaths, a tearful interview and now reports of a past mystery illness.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "The Crowbar" by Tom Barlow.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton chatted with author Charlene Bell Dietz about her new historical mystery, The Flapper, the Impostor, and the Stalker; Writers Who Kill's E. B. Davis interviewed Barbara Ross about Hidden Beneath, the eleventh book in the Maine Clambake mystery series; and the Irish Times interviewed Andrea Carter about her legal background, writing advice, and why the Inishowen peninsula is so special.

Mystery Melange

A "Noir at the 'Voir" event is coming up Tuesday, August 22 at The Boathouse at Sunday Park in Midlothian, Virginia. Host Josh Pachter will be joined by authors Maya Corrigan, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Ken Lawrence, Hugh Lessig, Shawn Reilly Simmons, and Lane Stone in reading from their works. Attendees can also enjoy dinner, cocktails, and the view of the beautiful Swift Creek Reservoir. Come early to make sure you get a seat and a ticket for a free raffle, with bags of books donated by event co-sponsors, including Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Crippen & Landru Publishers, Destination Murders, Genius Book Publishing, Atria Books, the Lifelong Learning Institute in Chesterfield, and more.

Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival, Tasmania's International Crime and Mystery Festival, returns Thursday, October 26 to Sunday, October 29 at the Kermandie Hotel in Port Huon. This year's theme is Tassie Vice (think 80s detective shows, the rise of the amateur sleuth, and How to Host a Murder dinners). The panels will include featured authors such as Ann Cleeves, Garry Disher, Vanda Symon, David Owen, and a host of others. The event is partnering with the Way Down South Arts production team and is supported by Regional Arts Australia, RANT Arts, the Tasmanian Government, and the Australian Government.

Murder by the Book, a crime fiction-focused independent bookstore in Houston, TX, is partnering with Abby Endler from Crime By The Book to curate a new book subscription service. Crime by the Box will deliver a hand-selected, newly-released signed hardcover mystery, thriller, or suspense novel to readers on a monthly basis plus some little extras like further reading recommendations and exclusive author content. As an added bonus, Murder by the Book will also host in-store events with each of the Crime by the Box featured authors.

Seiichi Morimura was a Japanese author reported to have written about 300 books, nearly all of them mystery novels. But he might be most widely known for his 1981 nonfiction book, Akuma no Hoshoku (The Devil’s Gluttony), a searing exposé of the Japanese Army’s secret biological warfare program during WWII. The New York Times had an obituary of Morimura, who died this month at the age of 90.

The Bookseller reported that Severn House has scooped Playing Dead, a new anthology from members of the Detection Club, including Ann Cleeves, Elly Griffiths, Felix Francis and Lynne Truss, edited by novelist Martin Edwards. The anthology is due to be published in spring 2025 in celebration of the 80th birthday of the Detection Club’s seventh president, Simon Brett. Edwards is the eighth and current president of the Detection Club, the world’s oldest social network of crime writers, formed in 1930. Previous members include Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, G K Chesterton, and John le Carré.

The blog, Beneath the Stains of Time, compiled an overview of "The Locked Room Mystery & Impossible Crime Story in the 21st Century: A Brief Historic Overview of the First Twenty (Some) Years." Although the crime fiction subgenre dates all the way back to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), the Covid-era lockdowns prompted a bit of a resurgence.

Writing for The Daily Yonder, Keith Roysdon turned a spotlight on rural crime fiction, while Molly Odintz over at CrimeReads looked outward for "The Best International Crime Fiction of August 2023."

I'm a member of several writer forums, and the hottest topic these days is artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential impact it will have—and is already having—on writing and publishing. It's a very controversial and highly charged issue, with a case in point being Death of an Author, a crime novel "written" almost entirely by three different AI programs (ChatGPT, Sudowrite and Cohere). The Sydney Morning Herald wonders if this is the beginning of the end for human authors.

If you have a New York Times subscription, check out the essay by Amor Towles, "All Hail the Long-Suffering Cadaver." Once at the center of the murder mystery, Towles argues that the cadaver has become increasingly incidental to the action and now figures as little more than a prop.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Thoughts and Prayers" by Jennifer Lagier.

Mystery Melange

A M Heath literary agency, the Orion Publishing Group and Crime Monthly have teamed up to launch Criminal Lines 2023, a new £3,500 crime writing prize open to unagented debut (i.e. no traditionally published crime novel) authors, born or resident in the UK and Ireland who are 18 and over. From psychological thrillers, to cozy crime, to serial killer thrillers, entrants are invited to submit the opening 5,000 words of a novel with "criminal intent" plus a synopsis of no more than 1,000 words. Entries close on December 7, 2023. The winner will be selected by a panel of judges including A M Heath agents Euan Thorneycroft and Oli Munson, Crime Monthly assistant editor Lisa Howells, Orion Fiction editors Leodora Darlington and Sam Eades, and authors Vaseem Khan and Mari Hannah. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Five writers have been shortlisted for the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction, currently in its fifth year after being established by LJ Ross, writer of the North East-based DCI Ryan series. The prize aims to celebrate outstanding crime and thriller storytelling of those who are from, or whose work celebrates, the North East of England. This year's finalists include Robert Meddes, Those Men, Those Faces; Sarah Jeffery, The Perfect Alibi; Alan Sendall, Double Infidelity; Karys Frank, Stone Cold Truth; and Sarah Williams, Vacancy for Murder. The winner will be announced on September 6 and will receive a cash prize to support the completion of their work, alongside funding for membership of the Society of Authors (SoA) and the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLI).

Twelve crime novels from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland have made the longlist for the 2023 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The longlist contains a mix of new and established authors including previous Petrona Award winner, Gunnar Staalesen. The shortlist will be announced on September 7, 2023. The Petrona Award was established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in December 2012. Maxine, whose online persona and blog was called Petrona, was passionate about translated crime fiction but in particular that from the Scandinavian countries. The award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.

Antony Johnston’s cozy crime murder mystery, The Dog Sitter Detective, has won the Barker Book Award for fiction. Antony’s previous work includes the film Atomic Blonde and the Brigitte Sharp spy thrillers, which are being developed for TV. The Dog Sitter Detective is the first in a series of mysteries starring semi-retired actress Guinevere "Gwinny" Tuffel and a varied cast of dogs, with a different breed planned to feature in each book. Now in their second year, the Barker Book Awards are billed as "The bark of excellence for dogs in literature." This year’s head judge is the actor and animal advocate Peter Egan, famous for his roles in Downton Abbey and Ever Decreasing Circles. The fiction award includes prize money of £2,000 and encompasses all genres, not only crime.

HitchCon '23 is an international Alfred Hitchcock conference to be held October 7-8, both online and in person at Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, NY. The organizers are planning a weekend of all-new insights from leading Hitchcock experts "that will change the way you look at film and provide inspiration to improve your own creative skills." There will be talks and panels, Q&A sessions, breakout groups, social events and networking both in person and online, and film screenings including an 80th anniversary screening of Shadow of a Doubt. Special guests include authors William Rothman, Murray Pomerance, Thomas Leitch, Richard Allen, and Paula Marantz Cohen. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

The inaugural Chiltern Kills festival heads to Gerrards Cross in the UK on Saturday, October 7, featuring 70 of the industry’s best crime fiction authors delivering 20 panels and talks. Special guests include Frederick Forsyth, Ruth Ware, Mark Billingham, and Sarah Pinborough, who will be joined by celebrity names from TV moderating panels, as well as real-life professionals from the world of law and order, and many more. Visitors to the festival can also enjoy a specially written play written by and starring the authors themselves; karaoke led by writer Mark Edwards; one-to-one interviews; signed books; a one-off festival short story anthology; a beer tent; and a huge array of food and drink stalls. All ticket sales in aid of Centrepoint, a youth homeless charity.

An imprint of Disney Publishing Worldwide, Hyperion Avenue, is debuting new fiction under Marvel Crime. The new endeavor will feature three original novels by bestselling authors S.A. Cosby, Lisa Jewell, and Alex Segura. The stories will be gritty crime novels geared towards adults and will use familiar Marvel characters. The first, due out in 2024, will be written by Jewell and is inspired by Jessica Jones. Cosby’s Luke Cage book and Segura’s Daredevil will both be released out in 2025. Sven Larsen, Vice President of licensed publishing at Marvel, said, "We are always looking for new ways to tell stories about Marvel’s beloved superheroes, and working with Hyperion Avenue on the Marvel Crime novels will showcase these characters in an exciting new light. We know that lifelong Marvel fans and crime fiction enthusiasts alike will enjoy this inventive new series."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "L.A. Nocturne" by Libby Cudmore.

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Rhys Bowen, author of the the Molly Murphy historical mystery series, about her new historical novel, The Paris Assignment; and Lisa Haselton welcomed Thriller Award-nominated author Allen Wyler to chat about his new medical thriller, Dead End Deal.

Mystery Melange

The Gotham Writers Genre Fiction Conference will take place mostly on Zoom, August 12-13, 2023. There will be at least one pitching roundtable in NYC. On Day 1, there are four panels and presentations, each designed to give you a peek behind the genre fiction book publishing curtain. You’ll hear from agents, editors, and writers, all offering their insight into the process of getting your genre fiction book out to the world. On Day 2, there are Pitching Roundtables where pre-selected writers spend the day at a table with two agents who specialize in the field that matches the writers’ book projects (fantasy, science fiction, mystery, thriller, horror). 

Otto Penzler announced that he has formed Crime Ink, a new imprint at his publishing company, Penzler Publishers, which will focus on publishing literary true crime. Tom Wickersham, formerly the manager of The Mysterious Bookshop, will head the imprint as its editor. Charles Perry will be the Publisher, a position he currently holds with The Mysterious Press, American Mystery Classics, Scarlet, and MysteriousPress.com, an electronic book publisher—the other imprints of Penzler Publishers. Luisa Smith will oversee as Editor-in-Chief of Penzler Publishers. The Crime Ink imprint plans to publish four to six books in its first year, starting in the Winter of 2024. Crime Ink will be distributed by W. W. Norton and Company, which also distributes The Mysterious Press, Scarlet, and American Mystery Classics.

In 1970, a gay detective debuted in the novel Fadeout by author Joseph Hansen, who took a risk creating Dave Brandstetter. But fifty years later, there's a Netflix series in development and new book editions offering new opportunities to shine a light on Hansen’s work. Hansen was a serious writer, a poet published in The New Yorker, a journalist, and an author of novels and stories beyond crime fiction. But he is most celebrated for the elegant, literary mystery novels featuring the 40ish investigator Brandstetter, who was smart, observant, compassionate and gay. Although not as famous as perhaps he should be, the Private Eye Writers of America awarded Brandstetter The Eye, the group’s lifetime achievement award, and he received the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Mystery for the last Brandstetter novel, A Country of Old Men. 

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is getting a trigger warning from publisher house Vintage. The 1939 novel The Big Sleep, considered among the greatest works of crime fiction, has been reprinted with a cautionary note by publishing house Vintage. Would-be readers of Chandler’s most famous work are now warned that the book may contain "outdated language and cultural representations." The note addressed to the "dear reader" cautions that while the story centered on Los Angeles detective Philip Marlowe is an outstanding example of crime fiction, it is nevertheless "firmly of its time and place."

Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction: When an early draft of Emma Rosenblum’s debut murder mystery was leaked to the inhabitants of Fire Island where it’s set, events there began to take a weirder turn.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Ballad of Menstruation & Crime" by Sylvia Wenmackers.

In the Q&A roundup, Ken Jaworowski, an editor at the New York Times, chatted with Author Interviews about his debut thriller, Small Town Sins; Lisa Haselton welcomed mystery author Dale T. Phillips to talk about his new mystery and crime anthology, Crime Time; the blog Indie Crime Scene interviewed Lynn Slaughter about her debut crime novel, Missed Cue; Deborah Kalb spoke with Rachel Howzell Hall, author of the new novel What Never Happened, and also Gillian McAllister, whose new novel Just Another Missing Person was recently released; and Laura Lippman stopped by The Guardian to discuss her latest novel, Prom Mom, which delivers her most political novel to date about a teen with an unwanted pregnancy.

Mystery Melange

M.W. Craven has been announced as the winner of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2023, presented by Harrogate International Festivals, for The Botanist, the latest thriller featuring D.S. Washington Poe. A record-smashing 14,110 readers voted for the winner this year from among the other shortlisted authors: Elly Griffiths (The Locked Room), Doug Johnstone (Black Hearts), Fiona Cummins (Into the Dark), Ruth Ware (The It Girl), and Gillian McAllister (Wrong Place Wrong Time). The judges, including Simon Theakston, Steph McGovern, Matt Nixson from the Daily Express, journalist Joe Haddow, Lisa Howells and Gaby Lee from Waterstones, decided the winner, with the public vote counting as the seventh judge on the panel. Elly Griffith was given a "Highly Commended" nod (essentially runner-up) for The Locked Room, and Ann Cleeves was awarded the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her impressive writing career.

The Public Safety Writers Association announced the winners of the PSWA awards at the organization's annual conference. The Public Safety Writers Association is open to both new and experienced, published and not yet published writers, with members including police officers, civilian police personnel, firefighters, fire support personnel, emergency personnel, security personnel and others in the public safety field. Also represented are those who write about public safety including mystery writers, magazine writers, journalists, and those who are simply interested in the genre. You can see the full list of award winners in finalists in all of the various categories here, including The Marilyn Meredith Award for Excellence in Published Book-Length Fiction, which was won by James L’Etoile for Dead Drop, and The Marilyn Meredith Award for Excellence in Published Book-Length Non-Fiction, won by William Soldato for Under Too Long.

The finalists were announced for The Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, honoring the Best Books of 2022. The conference also revealed the finalists for The Claymore Award for the best first 50 pages of an unpublished manuscript at the time of entry into the competition. Winners in each of the 17 categories for both published and unpublished entries will be announced at the 2023 Killer Nashville Awards Dinner on Saturday, August 19, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Karen Meek posted on EuroCrime the 43 titles eligible for the 2023 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. Titles must be in translation and published in English in the UK during the preceding calendar year; the author of the submission must either be born in Scandinavia or the submission must be set in Scandinavia; and the submission must have been published in its original language after 1999. The winner of the 2022 Award was Fatal Isles by Maria Adolfsson, translated from the Swedish by Agnes Broomé and published by Zaffre.

LA-based publisher Sumerian is lining up a comic book series based by the 2000 thriller movie classic, American Psycho, which starred Christian Bale as iconic madman Patrick Bateman. Drawn from the original novel and characters by Bret Easton Ellis, the four-issue comic book series, publishing later this year, will have a dual narrative, one showing a different perspective of Bateman’s killing spree (with a notable "twist"), and another revealing a modern day arc with surprising connections to the past, focusing on an all-new psychopath--social media obsessed millennial, Charlie (Charlene) Carruthers, who embarks on a downward spiral filled with violence.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "A Crime Unspoken" by J.H. Johns. On a related note, 5-2 editor, Gerald So, indicated that the site will be closing to submissions for good after this year (sooner, if he doesn't receive enough poems to complete the year), although all previously published poems will be available in the archives.

In the Q&A roundup, Laura Lippman spoke with The Guardian about her latest psychological thriller, Prom Mom, Lippman's most political novel to date that centers around a teen with an unwanted pregnancy; Eli Cranor interviewed fellow Arkansas crime writer, Kelly J. Ford, about her latest thriller, The Hunt; and James Lee Burke stopped by CrimeReads to discuss his new novel, Flags On the Bayou, as well southern history and the hatred burning through America.

Mystery Melange

Waterstones announced the shortlist for the bookstore chain's Debut Fiction Prize, an award for exceptional first novels voted on by booksellers. Celebrating debut fiction in all its forms, "the prize highlights the importance of discovering and championing new talent and acts as an extension of the alchemy of bookseller word-of-mouth recommendation." Two crime-themed titles on the list include Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, about two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own, and Kala by Colin Walsh, in which former friends, estranged for twenty years, reckon with the terrifying events of the summer that changed their lives. The winner will be announced on Thursday, August 24, 2023.

The year 2023 marks 120 years since the birth of Georges Simenon, and in celebration, the Liège's Grand Curtius Museum is mounting the exhibition "Simenon: Images of a World in Crisis" featuring photographs taken by Georges Simenon on his extensive travels in the 1930s. Between 1931 and 1935, Georges Simenon, an author best known for his detective Jules Maigret series, traveled the world and brought back reports, novels and thousands of photographs, often of very high quality. A selection of them is on display at the Grand Curtius, dotted along a tour that asks the following question: what does Simenon the photographer tell us about Simenon the novelist and reporter? How do the pictures complement or illuminate his writing? These photographs thus show Simenon immersed in his era and as an observer of history in the making, while providing the true setting for some of his greatest novels, such as Tropic Moon, The Window over the Way, and Avrenos’ Customers. Other events have also included literary readings, projection of films at the Les Grignoux cinema, and a symposium. (HT to The Bunburyist)

Thousands of writers including Nora Roberts, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Michael Chabon, and Margaret Atwood have signed a letter asking artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI and Meta to stop using their work without permission or compensation. It's the latest in a flurry of efforts the literary world has launched in recent weeks against AI, although as NPR noted, protecting writers from the negative impacts of these technologies is not an easy proposition. According to a forthcoming report from The Authors Guild, the median income for a full-time writer last year was $23,000, and writers' incomes declined by 42% between 2009 and 2019. The advent of text-based generative AI applications like GPT-4 and Bard, which scrape the Web for authors' content without permission or compensation and then use it to produce new content in response to users' prompts, is giving writers across the country even more cause for worry.

In more of a "locked house" scenario, over 100 people were trapped for several hours in Greenway, the former home of famed British mystery writer Agatha Christie, in the English countryside on Friday. In a series of events which could have been lifted straight out of the pages of one of Christie’s mystery novels, the group of tourists were left stranded after stormy weather knocked down a tree, blocking the road leading down to the property in the county of Devon, southwest England. The stranded tourists kept themselves busy, drinking cups of tea in the houses’ tearoom and playing rounds of croquet on the lawn. I have a feeling Dame Agatha would approve, even if no bodies were to be found.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Midsummer Mischief!" by Sarah Das Gupta.

In the Q&A roundup, Colson Whitehead spoke with The Guardian about writing a sequel to Harlem Shuffle, the influence of Stephen King’s Carrie, and why he no longer makes fried chicken; Lisa Haselton chatted with thriller author Robert Creekmore about his new grit lit fantasy noir, Prophet’s Lamentation; and Elly Griffiths discussed embracing politics in her teens, discovering the thrill of George Eliot, and learning from Wilkie Collins for The Guardian's "Books in My Life" series.