The Illustrious Indies

 

This Saturday, April 25, will mark the thirteenth annual Independent Bookstore Day (or Indie Bookstore Day), a celebration of independent bookstores, booksellers, and their communities that was launched in 2013 as California Bookstore Day by writer and editor Samantha Schoech, and went national in 2014. This year's event marks the largest celebration yet, spanning independent bookstores in every US state and territory in 2,000+ locations. Participating stores will mark the occasion with exclusive merchandise, special programming, and one-of-a-kind in-store experiences that highlight what makes indie bookstores essential to their communities.

Indie Bookstore Day includes multi-stop bookstore crawls to lively street fairs, each reflecting the distinct personality of the bookstores behind them. Over 40 bookstore crawls are being hosted in more than half the states, many extending beyond a single day and rewarding readers the more bookstores they visit. The Indie Bookstore Day map serves as the ultimate guide to it all, spotlighting hundreds of events and experiences happening in communities nationwide on April 25. Whether readers are on the hunt for exclusive finds or planning a full day (or weekend) of bookstore hopping, the map is the go-to resource for making the most of Independent Bookstore Day.

American Booksellers Association partner, Libro.fm, is offering special promotions throughout the week including a new member offer, a week-long audiobook sale, and the Golden Ticket in-store giveaway for 12 audiobooks. Bookshop.org, where every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores, will celebrate Independent Bookstore Day with free standard shipping on all orders on April 25 and 26.

Last year Indie Bookstore Day brought something unexpected—a clash with Amazon, which held a last-minute major book sale that “unintentionally overlapped” with the annual event on the last Saturday of April (Amazon’s inaugural book sale in 2024 was held in May). Outrage from independent booksellers and their advocates about the overlapping events led to consumer backlash and the best sales day in history for many of the more than sixteen hundred stores that participated in the event. As a result, many shoppers who hadn’t planned to visit a bookstore said they came out specifically to support their local bookshop and protest what they saw as Amazon’s stepping on the indies. 

On a personal note (and for full disclosure), the first novel in my Scott Drayco mystery series, Played to Death, was chosen for inclusion in the Bookshop.org Indie Author Bookstore Day Adult Fiction free promotion.

Choice Canadian Crime

Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) announced the Shortlists for the 2026 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing. The CWC also revealed that the winner of the 2026 Grand Master Award, for a writer with a substantial body of work who has garnered significant national and international acclaim while demonstrating a steadfast commitment to the crime-writing community, is Rick Mofina. Since 1984, Crime Writers of Canada has recognized the best in mystery, crime, suspense fiction, and crime nonfiction by Canadian authors, including citizens abroad and new residents. Winners will be announced on Friday, May 29, 2026. 

The Peter Robinson Award for Best Crime Novel

With a $1000 prize

• Sue Hincenbergs, The Retirement Plan, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Jen Sookfong Lee, The Hunger We Pass Down, McClelland & Stewart
• Tamara L. Miller, Into the Fall, Thomas and Mercer
• Louise Penny, The Black Wolf, Minotaur Books
• Eddy Boudel Tan, The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, Viking Canada

Best Crime First Novel 

Sponsored by Melodie Campbell with a $1000 prize

• Ray Critch, The Beltane Massacre, Breakwater Books
• Jan Field, Yesterday’s Lies, La Cloche Publishing
• Joel Nedecky, The Broken Detective, Run Amok Crime
• David L. Tucker, A Painting to Die For, Otter & Osprey Press
• A.L. Wahdel, Too Dark For the Light, Butterfly 80 Publishing

Best Crime Novel Set in Canada

Sponsored by Shaftesbury with a $500 prize

• Lis Angus, That Other Family, Next Chapter
• Angela Douglas, Every Fall, Rising Action Publishing Co.
• Uzma Jalaluddin, Detective Aunty, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• C.S. Porter, Salt on Her Tongue, Vagrant Press
• Chevy Stevens, The Hitchhikers, St. Martin’s Press

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery

Sponsored by Jane Doe with a $500 prize

• Shelley Adina, The Engineer’s Nemesis, Moonshell Books
• Mel Anastasiou, Stella Ryman and the Search for Thelma Hu, Pulp Literature Press
• Alice Fitzpatrick, A Dark Death, Stonehouse Publishing
• Laury Silvers, Some Justice: A Ghazi Ammar Medieval Mystery, Independently Published
• Iona Whishaw, The Cost of a Hostage, TouchWood Editions

Best Crime Short Story

Sponsored by Crime Writers of Canada with a $200 prize

• Lis Angus, "Under the Circumstances," A Capital Mystery Anthology, Ottawa Press and Publishing
• Madeleine Harris Callway, "The Lost Diner," Pulp Literature Press (story on p.115)
• Barbara Fradkin, "Cold Shock," A Capital Mystery Anthology, Ottawa Press and Publishing
• Billie Livingstone, "The Headache," Dark Yonder (story on p.31)
• Sylvia Maultash Warsh, "Polly Wants a Freakin’ Cracker," Malice Domestic: Murder Most Humorous, Wildside Press

Best French Language Crime Book

Sponsored by Carrick Publishing with a $500 prize

• Chrystine Brouillet, Le regard des autres, Druide
• André Jacques, Jeux d’ombres, Druide
• Steve Laflamme, La mémoire du labyrinthe, Libre Expression
• Maureen Martineau, Une nuit d’été à Littlebrook, Héliotrope
• Martin Michaud, Delta Zéro, Libre Expression

Best Juvenile / YA Crime Book

Sponsored by Superior Shores Press with a $250 prize

• Charis Cotter The Mystery of the Haunted Dancehall, Tundra Books
• Vicki Grant, Death by Whoopee Cushion, Tundra Books
• Claire Hatcher-Smith, The Mizzy Mysteries: A Skeleton in the Closet, Tundra Books
• Tanya Lloyd Kyi, The City of Lost Cats, Tundra Books
• John Lekich, Bark Twice for Murder, Orca Book Publishers

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book

Sponsored by David Reid Simpson Law Firm (Hamilton) with a $300 prize

• Robert Cree with Therese Greenwood, The Many Names of Robert Cree: How a First Nations Chief, Brought Ancient Wisdom to Big Business and Prosperity to His People, ECW Press
• John L. Hill, Acts of Darkness: Notorious Criminals, Their Defenders, Prosecutors, and Jailers, Durvile & UpRoute
• Kathleen Lippa, Arctic Predator: The Crimes of Edward Horne Against Children in Canada’s North, Dundurn Press
• Lorna Poplak, On the Lam: Great (and Not So Great) Escapes from Prison, Dundurn Press
• Julian Sher & Lisa Fitterman, Hitman: The Untold Story of Canada’s Deadliest Assassin, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Best Unpublished Crime Novel manuscript written by an unpublished author

Sponsored by ECW Press with a $500 prize

• Anne Burlakoff, Val's Story
• William Hall, The Less You Know
• Francis K. Lalumière, Lens Flare
• Barbara Stokes, Death Scent
• Isabelle Zimmermann, Blistered 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Voice Out of Darkness

Ursula Reilly Curtiss (1923-1984) came into the world with fairly impressive crime-fiction genes. Her mother, Helen Reilly, her sister, Mary McMullen, and her brother, James Kieran, all wrote mysteries. Curtis didn't start out that way, working first as a columnist for the Fairfield, Connecticut News in 1942, at age 19, followed by a stint as a fashion copy writer. She began writing mystery/suspense novels, full-time at that, when she married John Curtiss in 1947 (the marriage no doubt helping her financial circumstances enough to give her that opportunity). Her first book, Voice Out of Darkness, won the Red Badge Award for the best new mystery of 1948.

Rather than penning police procedurals like her mother, Curtiss focused on the type of story where an innocent bystander gets pulled reluctantly into becoming an amateur sleuth — against a backdrop of seeming domestic calm, with layers of evil hiding behind family secrets and familiar faces. Her protagonists were usually female, except for works like 1951's The Noonday Devil where the main character is a man who learns his brother's death as a Japanese POW was carefully planned by a fellow prisoner.

Voice Out of Darkness falls into the female-protagonist camp, where we find that thirteen years prior to the events of the book, Katy Meredith lost her foster-sister, Monica, in a skating accident. Although Katy tried to save Monica, Monica's last words were "Katy pushed me." Katy thought she'd escaped both her home town and the horrors of Monica's death by moving to New York, until she starts receiving threatening notes in the mail. At first she wonders if someone else near the ice that day overheard Monica's words and is trying to blackmail her, but when Katy returns to her childhood home, she finds evidence of a calculating killer whose sights are now set on her.

Curtiss has moments of crisp observations in her writing, such as the following character study:

She was disconcerted, in the midst of her apologies for lateness, by Lieutenant Hooper's mild and wren-like appearance; he looked, she thought, like a portrait of a suburban traveller. Rubbers. Plaid woollen muffler, an air of having been assembled, eyed critically, and finally dismissed on the 8:32 by a bustling, dutiful wife. Except for his eyes: shrewd, steady, impartial as jewellers' scales.

or this excerpt about Fenwick, Connecticut, Katy's home town:

[It] had its replicas all over the New England coast. It lay sheltered in a tumble of windy hills, its architecture a blend of pure old Colonial and the raw new bones of housing developments. Its chief prosperity came from the summer visitors who came to splash and play in its wide blue crescent of Sound and laugh delightedly at its ancient moviehouse. Its chief crop was gossip, sown and grown with zest...

Curtiss' strengths are in her characterizations, setting and pacing, the novel being a quick read, which helps make the slight thinness and predictability of the plot (at least by 21st-century eyes looking backward), not much of a distraction. Curtiss later had two of her books, made into movies, I Saw What You Did from 1965, based on Curtiss' novel Out of the Dark, starring Joan Crawford, and 1969's What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, based on the author's novel The Forbidden Garden, featuring Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon. Curtiss also wrote the screenplays for a couple of television episodes of Detective and Climax Mystery Theater.

Mystery Melange

The Los Angeles Times announced the winners of the 46th annual Book Prizes in a ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The Times’ Book Prizes recognize outstanding literary achievements and celebrate the highest quality of writing from authors at all stages of their careers. Winners were announced in 13 categories for works published last year including in the Mystery/Thriller category, which went to Megan Abbott for El Dorado Drive (G.P. Putnam’s Sons). The other finalists include The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Company); Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Ace Atkins (William Morrow); King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar); and Crooks by Lou Berney (William Morrow).  


The shortlist for the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been announced. The award celebrates works of historical fiction set more than 60 years ago that were published during the last calendar year. The 2026 finalists include Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Benbecula, fresh off its announcement as a longlisted title for the Crime Writers Association's Historical Dagger award.


The longlist for the 2026 Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition was recently revealed. Every year since 2014, the Crime Writers Association and the Margery Allingham Society have jointly held an international competition for a short story of up to 3,500 words that fits into Golden Age crime writer Margery Allingham’s definition of what makes a great mystery story. The shortlist will be chosen from the 12 longlisted titles and announced later in the spring, with the winner honored May 30 at the NCRM launch at Criminally Good Books in York.


Mystery Writers of America (MWA) New York will present a panel on"Creating Unforgettable Characters" at the Tredyffrin Library in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on May 18 at 5pm. Moderated by Michael Bradley, the panel includes authors John Dobbyn (the Knight/Devlin legal thrillers), James McCrone (the thriller trilogy Faithless Elector, Dark Network and Emergency Power), and Jane Kelly (the Meg Daniels Mysteries).


In honor of National Library Week, Janet Rudolph compiled a listing of Library/Librarian Mysteries series.


Christina Hardyment of the UK newspaper, The Times, traveled from Dartmoor to the Highlands to find the landscapes loved by Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, PD James, and more.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Falling From the Sky" by Susan L. Pollet.


In the Q&A roundup, John B. Valeri interviewed Jane Harper about Australian crime fiction, settings, and crafting slow-burn suspense; Crime Fiction Lover chatted with Clifford Beal, who has written in various genres, about his first crime novel, Little Sins; and Ali Karin spoke with Michael Ridpath on The Rap Sheet blog about his latest historical thriller, Operation Berlin.

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

Bradley Cooper is set to write, direct, produce, and star in the Ocean’s 11 prequel also starring Margot Robbie. The film is currently set to release on June 25, 2027. Cooper and Robbie will play the parents of Danny Ocean (portrayed in the Steven Soderbergh Ocean’s trilogy by George Clooney). The movie follows a heist at the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix, before Danny Ocean ever set foot in Vegas, where two masterminds—his parents—taught him everything he knows, as they pull off an epic heist.


Matt Smith (Doctor Who, House Of The Dragon) and Imogen Poots (Chronology Of Water) are attached to star in the mystery-thriller, The Salamander Lives Twice. According to the synopsis, Smith will play a debonair stranger "who washes ashore on a remote island wearing a Rolex and holding a briefcase he can’t open, with no memory of who he is or why he is there. Taken in by the sole inhabitants – Iris, a glamorous wine-soaked matriarch, her erudite daughter Goggy (Poots), and Baby, their giant naked butler – he is drawn into their bizarre and decaying world. But this is no accident. And what begins as sanctuary turns into something far stranger, far darker – a world of pent-up revenge, sinister family betrayal and shocking violence."


Academy Award nominee Demi Moore has joined the cast of Tyrant, the culinary thriller from writer-director David Weil at Amazon MGM Studios. Moore is the latest addition to the ensemble led by Charlize Theron (Monster, Bombshell) and Julia Garner (Ozark). Plot details are being kept under wraps, but Tyrant is said to be a high-stakes thriller set within New York City’s elite fine-dining scene. Weil wrote the screenplay, which is based on a story by Weil and Cody Behan.


Two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton (The Serpent Queen) is set to headline the rescue thriller, Love And War, directed by Lisa Mulcahy (Lies We Tell), and written by Lisa Mulcahy and Elisabeth Gooch, Inspired by a true story, the film is about a mother forced to enter war-torn Syria to recover her young daughter after the child is taken across borders by her estranged husband. 


TELEVISION/STREAMING

Harlan Coben’s Final Twist has been renewed by CBS for a second season and will air as part of the network’s Fall 2026-27 schedule. The true-crime docuseries returns with new one-hour episodes following Coben as he guides audiences through gripping tales of murder to meticulously reveal hidden truths, deceptions, and lies. 


NBC‘s Law & Order: SVU, the venerable crime drama starring Mariska Hargitay, and the longest-running primetime drama on broadcast TV, will be back next fall for its 28th season. Although NBC had already announced the series’ pickup for the 2025-26 season, SVU had in reality received a two-season renewal, but the second year hadn't been made public. Michele Fazekas, who joined last season as SVU's first female showrunner, is expected to continue in the role. Defying gravity — and age — Law & Order: SVU is having its best season on Peacock and is NBC’s #1 drama among adults 18-49 in multi-platform viewing.


Meanwhile, Law & Order: Organized Crime, starring Christopher Meloni, won’t be returning for a sixth season on Peacock or NBC. Organized Crime follows Law & Order: SVU's Elliot Stabler (Meloni) in his return to the NYPD to work on the Organized Crime Task Force. With the Organized Crime cancellation, the only Law & Order spinoff that remains is the Law & Order: SVU renewal.
 

ABC has renewed its hit police drama, Will Trent, for a fifth season. Based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling book series, Special Agent Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was abandoned at birth. He endured a harsh coming-of-age in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system, alongside his on-and-off again love interest, Angie (Erika Christensen). Now, Will uses his unique point of view in the pursuit of justice and has the highest clearance rate in the GBI. In addition to Rodríguez and Christensen, the series stars Iantha Richardson as Faith Mitchell, Jake McLaughlin as Michael Ormewood, Sonja Sohn as Amanda Wagner, and Kevin Daniels as Detective Franklin Wilks.


CBS has a new NCIS spinoff series coming this fall. NCIS: New York will welcome back LL Cool J as NCIS Agent Sam Hanna (formerly starring in NCIS: Los Angeles), as he returns to his hometown of New York City to their field office, partnering with a roguish agent (Scott Caan) and helping lead a new team as they are tasked with high-stakes missions to defend one of the most vital cities and ports in the world. The series will air on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m., in between the flagship series NCIS and NCIS: Origins. NCIS: Sydney will join the lineup in midseason, replacing NCIS: Origins. 


Matt LeBlanc is set to lead the cast of the new crime drama, Flint, in development at CBS. The drama follows a burnt-out LAPD officer who, on the verge of retirement, is blindsided when the city extends his service by five years. Determined to get fired, he breaks rules and disobeys orders, which to his dismay, ends up making him a better cop.


Veteran ABC cop drama, The Rookie, which has emerged as a surprise hit with the under 18 crowd, thanks in major part to the show’s viral popularity on TikTok, has been renewed for a ninth season. The show follows John Nolan (Nathan Fillion), a man in his 40s, who becomes the oldest rookie at the Los Angeles Police Department, and is based on real-life LAPD officer William Norcross, who moved to Los Angeles in 2015 and joined the department in his mid-40s. In addition to Fillion, Melissa O’Neil and Eric Winter, The Rookie‘s main cast includes Alyssa Diaz, Richard T. Jones, Mekia Cox, Shawn Ashmore, Jenna Dewan, Lisseth Chavez, and Deric Augustine.  


Star Trek veteran Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek: Voyager) is leading an Irish TV series about a hard-nosed New York cop in Ireland, from Blue Lights producer Two Cities Television. Mulgrew, who is also known for playing Red in Orange is the New Black, is starring opposite Colm Meaney (Star Trek: The Next Generation; Gangs of London) in The Yank. The series is set on the west coast of Ireland and sees seasoned NYPD detective Nora Savage take a career break following a traumatic event and moving to her family home. Expecting a change of pace, Nora is unexpectedly pulled into a murder investigation involving a female climate activist. As the investigation builds to a tense and savage climax, it pushes Nora and the squad into a thrilling hunt for the killer. John Connors (The Gentlemen, Irish Blood), India Mullen (Normal People, Under Salt Marsh), Cillian O’Sullivan (Daredevil: Born Again, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) and Jack Rowan (A Town Called Malice, Wreck) star alongside Mulgrew and Meaney.


NBC will air the pilot of the Peacock drama series M.I.A. for a special telecast on Thursday, May 14 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, a cross-promotion that follows the series’ binge drop on Peacock a week earlier on May 7.  The drama hails from Ozark co-creator Bill Dubuque and stars Shannon Gisela as Etta Tiger Jonze. Restless in the Florida Keys, Etta dreams of a life in Miami’s glittering, sub-tropical kingdom. When her family’s drug-running business shatters in tragedy, however, Etta embarks on a dangerous journey through Miami’s neon-lit underbelly that will define who she is and what she’s ultimately capable of. The cast also includes Cary Elwes, Danay Garcia, Brittany Adebumola, Dylan Jackson, Alberto Guerra, Maurice Compte, Gerardo Celasco, and Marta Milans.


CBS announced its fall season, which includes four returning franchise blocks: FBI on Mondays, NCIS on Tuesdays, Fire Country on Fridays, and a Robert & Michelle King pair on Thursdays. Matlock and NCIS: Origins are being held for midseason. Tracker, in its third year, and freshman Marshals, which alternate as No.1 most watched series each week, are staying put on Sunday behind 60 Minutes. The new crime dramas next season include NCIS: New York, Cupertino, and Einstein.


MASTERPIECE PBS and Playground have renewed Maigret, the contemporary adaptation of Georges Simenon’s beloved novels about the French detective, for a second season. Benjamin Wainwright (Belgravia: The Next Chapter; Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim) reprises the titular role, and Stefanie Martini (The Gold, Last Kingdom) returns as Madame Louise Maigret. Kerrie Hayes (Blue Jean, Criminal Record), Shaniqua Okwok (The Flatshare, It’s a Sin) and Reda Elazouar (The Family Plan 2, Sex Education) are also back as “Les Maigrets,” Maigret’s loyal team of detectives. Other returning cast include Nathalie Armin (Showtrial, After the Flood) as Prosecutor Mathilde Kernavel; James Northcote (The Last Kingdom, The Imitation Game) as Joseph Moers; and Rob Kazinsky (Star Trek: Section 31 and Pacific Rim) as Inspector Justin Cavre. This season sees dramatic changes in La Brigade Criminelle, with the introduction of Maigret's boss and mentor, Director of Police Xavier Guichard, played by Nathaniel Parker (The Inspector Lynley Mysteries). Guichard has become suspicious of Maigret's growing fame and decides to "take him down a peg."


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Dan Bronson joined Write Place, Wrong Crime host Frank Zafiro to talk about his Jack Shannon series, including the new release, Shout at the Devil, and also shared some great Hollywood stories.


Spybrary host Shane Whaley was joined by Ayo Onatade, a crime fiction critic, commentator, blogger, and moderator, who has also served as judge and chair for some of the genre's most significant prizes, including the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, the Crime Wrtiers Association's award for best spy fiction. Ayo reveals her top five best spy novels, making a passionate case for each one — and her picks may surprise you.


House of Mystery Radio had interviews recently with three crime fiction authors: Faye Snowden, discussing her Southern gothic tale, Killing Breath, featuring homicide detective Raven Burns; A.L. Jensen, talking about Midsummer, Marriage, and Murder, featuring interior designer turned amateur sleuth Minna Halonen; and Erik D'Souza chatting about Death on the Rocks, a Suzanne Rickson mystery starring the senior sleuth.


On Crime Time FM, Paul Burke looked at new releases on the screen and fiction for April, 2026.

 
On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed some of the books nominated for the Edgar Awards.


Dr. Jen Prosser investigated a substance that causes "fire eaters' lung," what disease you can get from sitting in a hot tub, and how you can be poisoned by stealing gasoline, on the latest Pick Your Poison podcast.

Sunday Music Treat

Franz List as you wish you could hear his music played . . . by Bugs Bunny (and a friend). Enjoy!

 

 

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