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.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones) is set to join the cast of the crime drama, The Killer, and will star opposite Omar Sy in a leading role. The two are headlining the reimagining of the 1989 John Woo film, which the director is returning to helm and produce. The original film starred Chow Yun Fat and follows an assassin who takes one last assignment in order to use his earnings to pay for the surgery that will restore the sight of a singer he blinded. The screenplay was penned by writing partners Matthew Stuecken and Josh Campbell, as well as Eran Creevy and Brian Helgeland.

Tyrese Gibson (The Fast and Furious franchise) and Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs) have signed on to star in the action thriller, The Wrecker, currently shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. Filmmaker Art Camacho is directing from an original screenplay by Niko Foster, who also stars in the film. The plot follows a dishonorably discharged ex-marine named Tony, now turned car mechanic, whose life takes an unexpected turn when his reckless brother makes a bad decision gaining the unwanted attention of a notorious crime boss.

RLJE Films has acquired the psychological thriller, Sympathy for the Devil, and will distribute the film in North America, the U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, with a release date set for July 28, 2023. Starring Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman, the project tells the story of a man (Kinnaman) who is forced at gunpoint to drive a strange passenger (Cage) in a game of cat and mouse where everything is not as it seems. Yuval Adler (Bethlehem; The Operative) directed from a debut script by Luke Paradise.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Viaplay has found its Inspector Rebus for the latest adaptation based on author Sir Ian Rankin's novels. Outlander star, Richard Rankin (no relation to the author), will play the lead in the Nordic streamer’s debut UK original, titled Rebus. Richard Rankin follows in the footsteps of fellow Scottish actors John Hannah and Ken Stott, who led the ITV version 20 years ago. Viaplay’s reboot, which is planned as a returning series and will soon unveil more of the cast, follows 40-year-old Inspector John Rebus at a psychological crossroads following an altercation with an infamous Edinburgh gangster. At odds with a job increasingly driven by technocrats, involved in a toxic affair he knows he needs to end, and all but supplanted in his daughter’s life by his ex-wife’s wealthy new husband, Rebus begins to wonder if he still has a role to play – either as a family man or a police officer.

Newly minted Oscar winner Ed Berger, director, co-writer and producer of All Quiet On the Western Front, is set to direct and executive produce Helltown, currently in development at Amazon. Oscar Isaac is in discussions to lead the series. According to the logline, the hour-long, eight-episode crime thriller follows the life of Kurt Vonnegut before he became known to the world as a renowned author. Per Amazon, "In 1969 Kurt was a struggling novelist and car salesman living life with his wife and five children on Cape Cod. When two women disappear and are later discovered murdered underneath the sand dunes on the outskirts of Provincetown, Kurt becomes obsessed and embroiled in the chilling hunt for a serial killer and forms a dangerous bond with the prime suspect." Based on the book of the same name written by Casey Sherman, the series comes from Severance co-Executive Producer, Mohamad El Masri, who will also serve as showrunner and writer.

A Monk follow-up movie is coming to Peacock. The NBCUniversal streamer has ordered Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, starring Tony Shalhoub in a reprisal of his titular role from the USA series, along with original series cast members Ted Levine, Traylor Howard, Jason Gray-Stanford, Melora Hardin, and Hector Elizondo. In the follow-up movie, Monk, a brilliant San Francisco-based detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder, returns to solve one last, very personal case involving his beloved stepdaughter Molly, a journalist preparing for her wedding.

Christopher Reich’s Simon Riske book series is headed to the small screen on Netflix. Oscar-winning director Edward Berger is set to helm the international spy thriller, which is being written by Rowan Joffe (Tin Star; The Informer). Described as being in the vein of The Day of the Jackal and The Bourne Identity, the first season will be based on the first book in the series, The Take, centering on Simon Riske, a freelance industrial spy. Riske lives largely under the radar above his auto garage in London until he gets involved in the chase for a stolen letter that could upend the balance of power in the Western world, set against the backdrop of the greatest street heist in the history of Paris.

Amazon Prime Video has canceled Three Pines after just one season. Based on the novels by Louise Penny, the series starred Alfred Molina as Inspector Armond Gamache as he investigates cases beneath the idyllic surface of the Quebec village of Three Pines. The series had been left on a cliffhanger, with Gamache’s life on the line as his team tried to find him. The project also starred Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and the show had garnered praise for its nuanced portrayal of Indigenous people and issues.

CBS is getting a head start on boosting the profile of its new Justin Hartley drama, now named Tracker. Previously known as The Never Game, the series is scheduled to air during the 2023-24 broadcast season, but the network’s marketing department plans to kick off the drama’s promotional campaign this Thursday during March Madness. Tracker, based on the bestselling novel, The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver, follows a lone-wolf survivalist named Colter Shaw (Hartley), who roams the country as a "reward seeker," using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries while contending with his own fractured family. Robin Weigert, Abby McEnany, Eric Graise, and Fiona Rene also star.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with three of the four crime writers who've published a novel under the name Lee Anne Post, the pen name for co-authors Cathy Baldau, Tara Bell, Ginny Fite and K.P. Robbins. They've worked as reporters and editors covering various types of topics, and they have written a highly relevant novel that entertains and raises important issues, Thoughts & Prayers.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Alma Katsu to discuss her book, Red London, the follow-up to Red Widow. Mildly disgraced CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan is working to rehabilitate her reputation by taking an assignment in London sussing out a potential Russian defector, until she’s loaned out to MI6 in an effort to befriend the wife of a Russian oligarch and convince her to flip on her husband. The clock is ticking though, Putin’s successor in the Kremlin might have a more permanent solution

Kate Hamer, Peter Swanson, Tove Alsterdal, and Charlotte Vassell chatted with Paul Burke for a special episode of Crime Time FM featuring the four Faber authors, who have each just published a new thriller/crime novel.

On the latest Writer's Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardrson answered questions about financial crimes, how a detective could go about becoming a police chief in another state, and he explained what it means to be a percipient witness.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with crime writer John Lincoln Williams about his new novel, punk rock [sic]; interviewing Great American Crime Writers; and his biography of pop legend, Shirley Bassey. They also talked about writers who were terrible people.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club visited with Wendy Sand Eckel about her book Mystery at Windswept Farm, the third book in the Rosalie Hart Mystery Series.

Edith Maxwell, who also writes under the name Maddie Day, is the Agatha-winning author of the Quaker Midwife Mysteries. On the latest Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine podcast, she read her story "Peril in Pasadena," which features 1920s private eyes Dorothy Henderson and Ruth Skinner in a case involving a woman astronomer.

Mystery Melange

The International Association of Crime Writers, North America announced the 2022 Hammett Prize Shortlist. This year's honorees include: Copperhead Road, by Brad Smith; Gangland, by Chuck Hogan; Don’t Know Tough by Eli Cranor; Pay Dirt Road, by Samantha Jayne Allen; and What Happened to the Bennetts, by Lisa Scottoline. The Hammett Prize is given for literary excellence in crime writing published in the English language in the U.S. or Canada. The winner will be announced Summer 2023. Past winners have included Elmore Leonard, Alice Hoffman, James Lee Burke, Margaret Atwood, Mary Willis Walker, Martin Cruz Smith, Gil Adamson, Megan E. Abbott, George Pelecanos, Howard Owen, Lisa Sandlin, and others.

The 2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards finalists were announced late last week. More than 2,500 entries spread across 55 genres were submitted for consideration, with finalists determined by Foreword Magazine’s editorial team. You can see all the categories here, and also check out the finalists in the Mystery Category and in the Thriller & Suspense Category. Winners in each genre—along with Editor’s Choice Prize winners and Foreword’s Independent Publisher of the Year—will be announced June 15, 2023.

The Lambda Literary Awards (or "Lammys") announced this year's finalists for the finest LGBTQ books of the previous year. The nods in the 2023 Best LGBTQ+ Mystery category include: A Death in Berlin by David C Dawson; And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling; Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan; Dirt Creek: A Novel by Hayley Scrivenor; and Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen. Finalists and winners for the 35th annual Lammy Awards will be celebrated in live in New York at the Edison Ballroom as well as in an immersive virtual platform on Friday, June 9th.

Glencairn Crystal, sponsor of the McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime writing awards, announced the winners of this year's crime short story competition, which had the theme of "Scottish Crime," meaning the story must be set in Scotland. More than 100 stories were entered in the competition, each containing no more than 2,000 words. First place went to "Dummy Railway" by Francis Crawford, and the runner up was "The Last Tram to Gorbals Cross" by Alan Gaw. Crawford receives £1,000 and publication in the May issue of Scottish Field Magazine, while Gow receives £500. Both authors will also receive a set of six bespoke engraved Glencairn glasses.

Writers Digest is sponsoring their 9th Annual Mystery and Thriller Virtual Conference March 25-26. The event aims to help authors learn the finer points of how to write within the mystery and thriller genres. The bestselling authors scheduled to lead workshops include Kate White, Jessica Strawser, Jaime Lynn Hendricks, Hank Phillipi Ryan, Jeffery Deaver, Chris Mooney, and Jesse Q. Sutanto, on such topics as "Master Pacing" and "Visual Storytelling. For more information, follow this link.

Good publishers can lift up not only authors and readers, but the entire industry, as well. A case in point is Dean Street Press, which was established in 2015 and specializes in literary, general and crime fiction, particularly golden age mysteries. The company was founded by Richard Heath, who tragically died of a heart attack last week following the death of his wife from cancer. He was only 54. Curtis Evans had a personal remembrance of Heath on Evans's crime fiction blog, The Passing Tramp.

The New York Times has a series called "Overlooked No More," a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. One of the most recent features was for Dilys Winn, who opened Murder Ink, believed to be the nation’s first mystery bookstore, and brought fans together through interactive whodunits and other events. Winn was also the author of Murder Ink, which included offbeat essays by established figures and Winn herself (under various nom de plumes), along with character studies, photographs, quizzes and more. In 1978, the Mystery Writers of America conferred an Edgar Allan Poe award on Winn, and the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association established a Dilys Award in 1992, presented annually to the mystery title its member booksellers most enjoyed selling (an award unfortunately discontinued after 2014).

Do you recall that recent news story about a mysterious thief who stole more than 1,000 unpublished manuscripts from various publishers? Once the thief was found and charged, many people in the industry wondered about the motive since the manuscripts were never sold or published. According to court filings, the thief says he merely wanted to read books before they hit stores.

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

In the Q&A Roundup, Joyce St. Anthony spoke with E. B. Davis at Writers Who Kill about her latest book, Death on a Deadline, the second book in the author's Homefront News mystery series set during WWII; and Criminal Element featured a Q&A with P. J. Tracy, author of the Detective Margaret Nolan Series.

Mystery Melange

Pulitzer Prize finalist, Megan Kate Nelson, and Emmy Award-winning director, Walter Hill, are among the 2023 Spur Award winners announced by Western Writers of America at the Tucson Festival of Books. Among the crime-themed honorees was the winner of the Original Mass-Market Paperback Novel, Dead Man’s Trail by Nate Morgan (Pinnacle/Kensington); and winner of the Traditional Novel category was The Secret in the Wall: A Silver Rush Mystery by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press). Presentations are scheduled during WWA’s convention June 21-24 in Rapid City, S.D. For more details about all the winners and finalists, head on over here.

As part of the annual Oxford Conference for the Book on the University of Mississippi campus, there will be a "Noir at the Bar" March 31 at Ajax Diner. Ace Atkins will discuss crime fiction with authors Megan Abbott, S.A. Cosby, Eli Cranor, and Tyler Keith, a Southern studies alumnus who will perform with Teardrop City afterward.

Some sad news to share: Christopher Fowler, author of the Bryant & May series of detective novels, has died at the age of 69, having been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer three years ago. Fowler was best known for his Bryant & May thrillers, featuring the veteran detectives solving unusual crimes in London from the second world war to the present day. The series began with Full Dark House in 2003, and 17 more novels followed, most recently London Bridge Is Falling Down, published in 2021. Fowler's final words on his blog were: "All fun things have to come to an end. I love you all. Except for that horrible old troll – are there any other kind? There, now you have a smidgen of extra time on your hands, go have fun … and read a book.”

Cara Black, award-winning author of the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, applied the Page 69 Test to Night Flight to Paris, the latest installment in her World War II-set novels featuring American markswoman, Kate Rees.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "The Six-Shooter" by Tony Dawson.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element interviewed Alex Finlay, author of Every Last Fear, which was a Goodreads Choice nominee for Best Mystery and Thriller, about his latest release, What Have We Done; and Lisa Haselton spoke with crime author, Wendy K. Koenig, about her new thriller, On The Sly, which follows a young bar owner, also the daughter of a small-town cop, who becomes the suspect in a murder investigation.

Mystery Melange

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine announced the Barry Award Nominations for 2023 in the categories of Best Mystery or Crime Novel, Best Debut Mystery Novel, and Best Thriller. Winners, which are voted on by the readers of Deadly Pleasures, will be announced at the Opening Ceremonies of the Bouchercon Conference in San Diego, California on August 31, 2023.

The Audio Publishers Association‘s announced the finalists for the annual Audie Awards, which recognize distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. There are 26 categories this year, including Best Mystery and Best Thriller, but you'll also find some crime fiction-themed titles in the various other categories. For a look at the full list, click on over here. The winners ceremony will be streamed online from Chelsea Piers’ Sixty in New York City on March 28.

"The Mysterious Mrs Christie: Evidence, Elusion, Afterlives" is the theme of an upcoming international conference at the University of Exeter September 12-13, 2023. Keynote Speakers include Dr. Mark Aldridge of Solent University and Prof. Michelle M. Kazmer of Florida State University. For this seventh international Agatha Christie conference, organizers are seeking research and/or creative papers that consider under-explored aspects of Christie’s work, life, and legacies. Interested participants should submit a short (up to 200 words) abstract for a 20-minute presentation and a brief biographical note to [email protected] no later than 1 May 2023. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Mystery Readers Journal has issued a call for articles on the topic of Hobbies & Crafts in Mysteries. They're looking for articles (500-1,000 words), reviews (50-250 words), and author essays (500-1,000 words) about mysteries that focus on Hobbies & Crafts. The deadline is April 10, 2023. Send to: Janet Rudolph, Editor.

A second John le Carré biography, The Secret Life of John le Carré, is in the works from Adam Sisman, who previously published an authorized biography in 2015. As The Guardian reported, Sisman promises "a hidden life of secrecy, passion and betrayal" focusing on the turbulent private life of crime writer John le Carré. Sisman added that the new book will include information that he was "obliged to withhold" from the previous book when Le Carré was "very much alive and looking over my shoulder." It is being published with the approval of Le Carré’s estate and will be released in October this year by independent publisher Profile Books. Le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, died in 2020, aged 89, of pneumonia. He was famous for spy novels including those featuring the character George Smiley, such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series "The First Two Pages," hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. After her death in 2017, the blog series relocated to Art Taylor's website, and Taylor is "taking host’s prerogative" to write a First Two Pages essay on his own most-recent story—the title novella of Taylor's new collection, The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions. The new collection is available now from Crippen & Landru.

James Bond is getting "censored, not stirred." We'll have to see if this literary news generates the same controversy and pushback from all sides that an announcement about similarly edited versions of Roald Dahl's books recently did. Protests about the latter forced the publisher, Penguin Random House, to partially back down by announcing it would publish "classic" unexpurgated versions along with the new versions that removed passages relating to weight, mental health, gender, and race. Ian Fleming Publications, the company that owns the literary rights to Fleming’s James Bond novels and other works, commissioned a review by "sensitivity readers," and decided to remove a number of racial references in the new editions.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is " With All My Heart I Still Love the Man I Killed" by Shirley J. Brewer.

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb welcomed Rick Bleiweiss, who has worked as a record company executive, music producer, musician, songwriter, activist, and journalist before turning his hand to writing his Pignon Scorbion mystery series; and thriller author Sean M. Christopher joined Lisa Haselton to discuss his new novel, The White House, about a terrorist attack occurs at an Ivy League university.

Mystery Melange

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes announced this year's honorees, highlighted by the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement recipient, James Ellroy. The award is given to an author with a substantial connection to the American West whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition. Ellroy is perhaps best known for his Los Angeles-based crime novels such as L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia. The finalists in the Mystery/Thriller category also include Rachel Howzell Hall, We Lie Here; Laurie R. King, Back to the Garden; Tracey Lien, All That’s Left Unsaid; Alex Segura, Secret Identity; and Peng Shepherd, The Cartographers.

CrichtonSun, the estate of Michael Crichton led by the author's widow, Sherri Crichton, has made a seven-figure deal with Blackstone Publishing to acquire the worldwide print, eBook and audiobook rights to Crichton’s first series of novels, which he wrote under the pseudonym John Lange. The books were penned long before Jurassic Park and include the unconnected Odds On (1966), Scratch One (1967), Easy Go (1968), Zero Cool (1969), The Venom Business (1969), Drug of Choice (1970), Grave Descend (1970) and Binary (1972). All the books are set in the late 1960s and 1970s and were Crichton's tribute to Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and to one of his favorite Alfred Hitchcock films, To Catch a Thief. The subjects range from secret treasures to heists, archaeology, unlikely heroes, classic villains and seductive and at times treacherous lovers. Sherri Crichton said. “In these eight early adventure books, Michael was honing his skills and themes that would later make him one of the most successful authors of all time. It is such an honor and pleasure to see the John Lange books freshly and newly published by Blackstone, to reintroduce these books to fans and also present them to a whole new generation of readers.” The titles will also be shopped to studios and streamers for potential film/television adaptations.

Last week, the Theakston Old Peculier crime fiction conference announced its headliners, and this week, CrimeFest 2023 announced Mark Billingham and Elly Griffiths will be the Featured Guests at the CrimeFest conference, one of Europe’s biggest crime fiction conventions. CrimeFest, sponsored by Specsavers, will take place from May 11-14 at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel in the UK, with up to 150 total authors currently scheduled to take part in over 50 panels. Billingham worked as an actor and stand-up comedian before publishing his first crime novel Sleepyhead in 2001, and his novels have now sold over 6 million copies. He has had 21 Sunday Times bestsellers and two TV series have been made of his books, Thorne on Sky starring David Morrissey, and In the Dark by the BBC. Griffiths is best known for her Dr. Ruth Galloway series as well as The Brighton Mystery series, set in the 1950s and 1960s. Also returning is last year’s featured guest, Andrew Child, brother of Lee Child and co-writer of the iconic Jack Reacher series.

The Back Room, an online program of virtual author panels spearheaded by Karen Dionne and Hank Phillippi Ryan during the pandemic lockdowns, will continue with new presentations this spring including bestselling and debut authors. The new lineup begins March 5 at 7 PM ET with a panel on "Bestselling Suspense" with Lyn Liao Butler, Eli Cranor, Adele Parks, and Shelby Van Pelt. These free events begin with authors playing a quick "get to know you" game of 20 questions, followed by the authors’ book recommendations, and then attendees are divided into 4 breakout rooms with one author assigned to each room. Attendees remain in their breakout room for the rest of the program, while the authors rotate through each room in turn. You’ll get fifteen minutes with each author to chat about whatever you like, similar to a virtual cocktail party. For more information and to register, head on over to the official website.

New York Times bestselling author Kyle Mills, who first took over the late Vince Flynn’s iconic Mitch Rapp series in 2015 and has since contributed eight consecutive bestsellers, is set to depart the Mitch Rapp franchise following his ninth and final book in the series, Code Red, later this year. Taking over franchise duties will be Don Bentley, who has a background in both the army and FBI, and is best known in crime fiction for his own Matt Drake series and the work he’s done in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Jr. series. As Mills noted on his Twitter feed and website, Mills wants to devote time to a new project based on his 2003 book, Fade, featuring former Navy SEAL Salam al-Fayed.

I've written about Cain's Jawbone before, the 1934 puzzle book dreamed up by The Observer’s first cryptic crossword inventor, Edward Powys Mathers, which requires sleuths to place its out-of-order 100 pages in the right order to solve six murders depicted within. The puzzle has only been successfully solved four times, and the most recent solver, John Finnemore, is penning his own murder-mystery sequel. It's currently known as "Untitled Mystery," though people who pledge during the crowdfunding campaign will learn what the actual title of the book. Finnemore's version, according to The Guardian, is a locked-room mystery that challenges readers to rearrange one hundred picture postcards to explain why a person was found dead in a locked study of a complete stranger. For those readers who don't want to take the time to solve the original, an official Cain's Jawbone Handbook will come out in late 2024 or 2025 with step-by-step instructions for solving the puzzle.

What to do if you're an author who spent fourteen years writing a crime novel that finally got published with Thomas & Mercer—but only sold a handful of copies? Turns out, it helps if you have a daughter who is active on TikTok.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Gather Together Who I Am" by Faye Turner-Johnson.

In the Q&A roundup, Thomas White, author of mystery/horror titles, chatted about his latest, The Siren’s Scream, on the Dark Phantom blog; and Author Interviews chatted with Peggy Rothschild about her new novel, Playing Dead.

Mystery Melange

A new Bouchercon Scholarship Award Program has been established to help mystery fans and writers with a financial subsidy. This subsidy covers registration fees for the annual Bouchercon convention, scheduled to be held in San Diego in 2023, as well as travel and lodging costs, reimbursed up to $500.00 (for up to five awardees). Interested applicants will need to write a 300 to 500 word essay on the applicant’s interest in attending Bouchercon and in the mystery genre and be willing to volunteer for no less than four hours at the event. The deadline is May 1st, with scholarship winners announced June 1.

Harrogate International Festivals revealed the Festival Programming Chair and Special Guests for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2023, July 20-23. Multi award-winning crime novelist Vaseem Khan will be acting as this year’s Festival Programming Chair, following in the footsteps of Ian Rankin, Elly Griffiths, Denise Mina, and Lee Child. Vaseem is known for his Baby Ganesh Agency series set in modern Mumbai and the Malabar House historical crime novels set in 1950s Bombay. Special guests include Val McDermid, Lee Child, Andrew Child, Lisa Jewell, Ruth Ware, Ann Cleeves, Jeffery Deaver, Lucy Worsley, S. A. Cosby, and Chris Hammer.

US publisher Inkshares is launching its UK imprint this summer with two new crime novels by Fulton Ross (The Unforgiven Dead) and Christopher Huang (Unnatural Ends). Founded in 2014, Inkshares uses a "community analytics model," in which readers provide feedback on incomplete manuscripts, to source literary début novels for publication. Over the past 10 years, the independent publisher said it has had single title sales of more than 100,000 units and sold to the major houses for translation in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. Later this year, its first completed adaptation will stream on Apple TV, Mrs. American Pie, based on the 2018 novel by Juliet McDaniel, and starring Laura Dern, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Bibb, Allison Janney, Ricky Martin, Josh Lucas and Carol Burnett.

Here's an exhibit you don't see every day: a "Scooby-Doo Mansion Mayhem" exhibition at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, in Dearborn, Michigan, where visitors can solve mysteries alongside Scooby, Shaggy, and gang through April 9, 2023. A jewel-thieving ghost has dodged the police and was last seen in this spooky mansion. Can you meddling kids (and grown-ups, too!) help the gang solve the mystery in this immersive exhibit? (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell)

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Valentine's Day Blind Date - Paulie" by Robert Cooperman.

Mystery Melange

 

Walter Mosley is the 2023 recipient of the Diamond Dagger, the highest honor in crime writing from the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). Mosley receives the award in the CWA’s 70th Jubilee year (the CWA was founded in 1953). The Diamond Dagger recognizes authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre. Mosley is the author of more than 60 critically acclaimed books across a wide range of genres including his popular series featuring private detective, Easy Rawlins. Previous winners of the award have included Ruth Rendell, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Ian Rankin, PD James, Colin Dexter, Reginald Hill, Peter Lovesey, John Le Carré, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block, Eric Ambler, Ed McBain, and CJ Sansom.

The Mavens of Mayhem, the Upper Hudson Chapter of Sisters in Crime, are sponsoring the virtual writers' conference, Murderous March 2023 on March 10-11. There will be a Master Class with Guest of Honor Deborah Crombie on "How to Keep Your Series Alive and Your Readers Coming Back for More," as well as a Pitch Workshop with Edwin Hill; a discussion by Retired Detective Sergeant Bruce Robert Coffin on police procedure, murder investigations and more; plus various other panels. For more information and to register, check out this link.

Submissions for the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award are open through March 31. Although the award is sponsored by Sisters in Crime, applicants do not need to be a member of SinC to submit materials. The $2,000 grant is intended to support the recipient in crime fiction writing and career development activities. The grantee may choose to use the grant for activities that include workshops, seminars, conferences, retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of the work.

Clues journal has a call for submissions on the topic of BIPOC Female Detectives. Guest Editor, Sam Naidu with Rhodes University in South Africa, is seeking articles that focus on female detectives who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color); span eras, genres, and geographical locations; and appear in texts, TV programs, films, and other media. Of particular interest are intersections among race, indigeneity, gender, age, class, or sexuality in these works, as well as projects that center BIPOC scholarship. Submissions should include a proposal of approximately 250 words and a brief biosketch and are due by April 30 to [email protected]. Accepted full manuscripts of approximately 6,000 words will be due by September 30.

Over at the Rap Sheet blog, guest Steven Powell, a British author and scholar, gave some insight and background into his new biography, Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy. Powell has become something of a dedicated documentarian of Ellroy's fiction in such previous books as Conversations with James Ellroy (2012), James Ellroy: Demon Dog of Crime Fiction (2015), and The Big Somewhere (2018). Some readers of this blog may also know Steven Powell as the creator of the crime fiction blog, The Venetian Vase.

A new full-length biography of Mickey Spillane, one of the most popular and influential mystery writers of his era, was released this week via Mysterious Press. Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor bills itself as the definitive biography (and the first full biography of the author), which contains a detailed account of Mickey Spillane's life and literary career, illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Collins became Spillane's friend and collaborator, continuing the Mike Hammer series for years after the author's death, building upon unfinished manuscripts the writer left behind.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is the author of the popular Morland Dynasty novels and contemporary Bill Slider mystery series, as well as her recent series, War at Home, which is an epic family drama set against the backdrop of World War I. Harrod-Eagles applied the Page 69 Test to the new Bill Slider mystery, Before I Sleep.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Victimless" by Eric D. Goodman.

In the Q&A spotlight, Walter Mosley (see Diamond Dagger announcement above) spoke with The New York Times about the publishing world’s idea of "representation"; what to make of the cultural dominance of the Marvel Universe; his new book, Every Man a King; and why he thinks America is getting dumber.

Mystery Melange

In addition to the announcement of the Edgar Awards by Mystery Writers of America, various other tributes also related to Edgar Allan Poe transpired around his birthday anniversary this month. The decades-long "Poe Toaster" Baltimore tradition continued at Westminster Presbyterian Church in which an unnamed man paid tribute at Poe's gravesite with flowers, words in Latin, and a toast. Several publications also contributed to the lore, as in the Washington Post's look at Poe's brief military journey; and Raidió Teilifís Éireann's take on how Poe became the darling of the maligned and misunderstood. Untapped New York listed "10 Places to Remember Edgar Allan Poe in NYC." And if you want to own a piece of Poe memorabilia all your own, you can bid on a rare signed letter by Poe at the online Bonhams Skinner's Fine Books and Rare Manuscripts Sale. Plus, coming up Feb 16 – Mar 2 at the 92 Street Y in NYC, Warburg Institute Professor and author John Tresch will conduct a mini-workshop on a lesser-known side to Poe: a man of science who was an avid consumer of scientific developments.
 

Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog is celebrating the Chinese New Year with a look back at Mystery Readers Journal: Mystery in Asia (Volume 34: 3: 2018), and a list of mysteries that take place during the Lunar New Year.

The Mystery Writers of America Midwest chapter is sponsoring Queering the Crime Genre, a panel discussion with Greg Herren, John Copenhaver, JM Redmann, and Robyn Gigl, hosted by Anne Laughlin and Meredith Doench. This an online event on February 9 at 6:00pm Cental / 7:00pm Eastern, and you can register for free to attend via this link.

A Katonah Village Library mystery and thriller writers panel will be held Thursday Feb. 2, at 6:30 p.m. Fran Hauser will moderate the panel featuring authors Wendy Corsi Staub, Katie Sise, Wendy Walker, and Liao Butler discussing their latest releases. The event in Katonah, New York, is free and open to the public with no advance registration required.

More and more crime conferences are returning to in-person events after going online only during Covid. The California Crime Writers Conference (CCWC) will also be back with an in-person, two-day event to be held June 10-11, 2023 at the Hilton Los Angeles (Culver City). This year’s Guests of Honor are Deborah Crombie, bestselling and award-winning author of the Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James detective series, and critically acclaimed crime novelist Rachel Howzell Hall.

Twenty years after the end of the iconic television series Columbo, featuring Peter Falk as the seemingly bumbling but shrewd Los Angeles homicide detective, Tumblr users have rediscovered "the ultimate comfort TV show" and turned it into one of the internet's new darlings.

Writing for Book Riot, Adam Rizer investigated the history of "the Butler Did It" trope in crime fiction.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Allison Brennan, applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Don't Open the Door.

If you're currently part of the dating scene and also love mysteries, you might want to help this guy out.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Roe vs. Wade Falls" by Jennifer Lagier.

In the Q&A roundup, Indie Crime Scene interviewed Chad Boudreaux, whose debut novel, Scavenger Hunt, will be published on January 31, 2023; Writers Who Kill spoke with Annette Dashofy about the first book in her new series featuring photographer Emma Anderson and police detective Matthias Honeywell, Where the Guilty Hide; and Nerd Daily spoke with thriller author Allison Brennan about Don’t Open The Door, the second installment in her Regan Merritt series and follows Regan and her husband, Grant, seeking justice for their murdered 10 year-old son.

Mystery Melange

Joffe Books announced the shortlist for the Joffe Books Prize for Crime Writers of Colour 2022. This year's pool of entries covered the gamut of gritty police procedurals to wrenching domestic suspense, evocative historical mysteries to page-turning cosies. Out of the longlist of twenty, five stood out, forming the official shortlist: The Labelled Bones by FQ Yeoh; Everyone Is Going To Know by Kingsley Pearson; The Smiling Mandarin by Mai Le Dinh; Red Obsession by Rose Lorimer; and Savage Territory by Sam Genever. The winner will be announced in January 2023.

More sad news for fans of mystery-themed bookstores, as Toronto’s Sleuth of Baker Street, announced it is closing. After forty years, owners Marian Misters and J.D. Singh have decided to retire from both work and bookselling. As Marian noted, "Spending forty years doing something we love has been a great pleasure, but the time has come for other things. There will be a transition period, naturally. What the transition will look like exactly, or how long the transition period will be, is not perfectly clear in our minds—there are a few moving parts and after forty years, it’s with considerable trepidation that we undertake this last, final, turn to our bookselling career—but our need and desire to do this is quite clear. We’ll stumble through this and make decisions as they need to be made."

The 15th year of Writers' Police Academy will once again offer hands-on training classes and sessions taught by leading law enforcement and forensics experts, scientists, and other industry professionals. This year's they've also added a special focus on homicide investigations that includes classes taught by top homicide and crime scene investigators, a coroner who’s also a flight nurse and author, evidence experts, SWAT team members, narcotics experts, behavioral health professionals, use of force and tactical response experts. This year's Guest of Honor is Hank Phillippi Ryan, and the special guest presenters include photojournalist Mike De Sisti, homicide detective/TV personality Steven Spingola (Cold Justice), and renowned serial killer expert Dr. Katherine Ramsland. Registration for the 2023 Writers’ Police Academy is scheduled to open February 1, 2023. 

There will be an exhibition featuring Sherlock Holmes materials from Occidental College's Ned Guymon Collection of Mystery and Detective Fiction during the 55th California International Antiquarian Book Fair held February 10–12 in Pasadena. The collection, one of the world's largest in the genre, is composed of some 16,000 items including such Holmesian treasures as an 1887 copy of A Study in Scarlet and other first edition books, magazines, and rare, fascinating ephemera.  (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at The Bunburyist)

As crime fiction continues to dominate sales and its critical reception grows, it has become an increasingly important part of Creative Writing courses. Clues: A Journal of Detection is looking for 500-750 word contributions for a new regular feature for the journal, a forum on teaching. Accounts from all classroom spaces (college, high school, graduate school, prisons, etc.) and teachers at all stages of their careers are welcome, as well as student voices.  Submissions are due February 1, 2023. For more information or to submit essays, please contact Jamie Bernthal- Hooker ([email protected]).

On January 26, Penguin Modern Classics will publish three well-regarded novels from the father of the spy thriller, Eric Ambler (1909-1998), including Passage of Arms, The Light of Day, and A Kind of Anger. Ambler is often said to have invented the modern suspense novel, and his disciples include John le Carré, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and Len Deighton. (HT to Shots Magazine) 

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "George Santos, Republican Representative-Elect From New York's Third Congressional District" by Robert Cooperman.

In the Q&A roundup, thriller author MHR Geer joined Lisa Haselton to talk about Geer's new suspense novel, Assumed; Grace Topping chatted with Kait Carson at Writers Who Kill to discuss the reissue of her book, Death by Blue Water; and Thomas Perry took the Page 69 test about his latest thriller, Murder Book.

Mystery Melange

ITW is awarding two separate scholarships for ThrillerFest 2023: One scholarship to a BIPOC author writing a thriller manuscript featuring a BIPOC protagonist and one scholarship to an unpublished author who is writing a mystery/thriller novel (80-100k words). Each scholarship recipient will receive a $1000 (USD) stipend and a free pass to attend ThrillerFest XVIII, which takes place May 30 - June 3, 2023 in New York City. A panel of esteemed judges will review the submissions. Applications must be submitted by March 20, 2023 by 11:59pm EST.

From Friday, April 21 to Sunday, April 23, fans of crime fiction from around the world will finally be able to join international bestselling crime authors at the Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival, the first in-real-life gathering since it was launched online in 2021. Due to the Covid pandemic and social distancing restrictions, a second online event took place in 2022, featuring more than a dozen panels with more than 30 authors, over six crime fiction-filled evenings.

Murderous March 2023 is scheduled for March 10-11, sponsored by The Uppder Hudson Chapter of Sisters in Crime. In addition to a Master Class by Guest of Honor, bestselling author Deborah Crombie, there will be a Pitch Workshop with Edwin Hill, a Master Class with Bruce Robert Coffin, plus various panels. All panels are live and will be offered virtually online only.

Although every year brings hope for new beginnings, goals, and dreams, the end of a year is time to reflect on those who have left the stage. Jeff Pierce over at The Rap Sheet blog has a list of notable deaths specifically within the crime-fiction community with the note that "Our lives and world were improved by the presence of the people mentioned below, and have been diminished by their loss."

Mystery Readers Journal has a call for articles on the upcoming themed issue, "Mysteries Set in Africa." Editor Janet Rudolph is seeking articles, reviews and Author! Author! essays (500-1,000 words) about mysteries set in Africa. The deadline is January 15, 2023, and materials (including title and 2-3 sentence bio/tagline) can be sent to [email protected].

Issue 36 of the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine, Noir City, sees the passing of the torch as editor Vince Keenan hangs up his editing pencils. The issues has the usual fine essays, reviews, film reviews, and more—including the farewell edition of Keeenan's Cocktails & Crime column, with one last libation for the road.

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series "The First Two Pages," hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, when the blog series relocated to Art Taylors website. The latest offering is via "Scars of Love" by Brendan DuBois.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "Getting Even and Getting Ahead" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis interviewed Sherry Harris about Rum and Choke, the fourth book in the Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon mystery series. Davis also spoke with V. M. (Valerie) Burns about Bookclubbed to Death, the eighth book in her Mystery Bookshop Mystery series.