Hammett's Highlights

 

The International Association of Crime Writers, North American Branch announced this year’s finalists for the Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing. After examining approximately two hundred fiction and nonfiction books with a 2025 copyright and crime as their theme, the judges chose the following five titles:

• El Dorado Drive – by Megan Abbott (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
• Party of Liars – by Kelsey Cox (Minotaur)
• The Big Empty – by Robert Crais (G. P. Putnam's Sons)
• The Savage Noble Death of Babs Dionne – by Ron Currie (G. P. Putnam's Sons)
• The Lizard – by Domenic Stansberry (Molotov Editions)

The winner will be revealed later this summer and receive the Hammett trophy, designed by artist Peter Boiger, which depicts a falcon-headed figure based on a celebrated photograph of author Dashiell Hammett, for whom the award is named.

 

Awesome Aussies

 

Sisters in Crime Australia revealed the 2026 Davitt Awards Shortlists, culled from 126 books entered across four categories, reflecting the best of crime fiction published in the past year by Australian women crime writers. The winners will be announced on Friday, September 12th at an awards ceremony in Melbourne. Congrats to all!

Adult Fiction

• Shaeden Barry, At Café 64, (Echo Publishing)
• Zeyneb Gamieldien, Learned Behaviours, (Ultimo Press)
• Fiona Hardy, Unbury The Dead, (Affirm Press)
• Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel, (Macmillan Australia)
• Joanna Jenkins, The Bluff, (Allen & Unwin)
• Angie Faye Martin, Melaleuca, (HQ Fiction) Debut

Non-Fiction

• Sonia Orchard, Groomed, (Simon & Schuster)
• Lucy Sussex & Megan Brown, Outrageous Fortunes, the biography of Mary and Geroge Fortune, (Black Inc Books)
• Kate Wild, The Red House, (Allen & Unwin) 

Young Adult

• Amy Doak, What Have They done to Liza McLean?, (Penguin Randon House Australia)
• Kate Emery, A Murder Is Going Down, (Allen & Unwin)
• Carla Salmon, We Saw What You Started, (Pan Macmillan Australia) Debut 

Children's Books

• Sarah Armstrong, Run, (Hardie Grant Children’s)
• Jacqueline Harvey, The Girl and the Ghost, (Penguin Randon House Australia)
• Amelia Mellor, Oceanforged: The Wicked Ship, (Simon & Schuster Australia)
• Gisela Ervin-Ward, True South, (Midnight Sun) Debut

Daphne Delights

 

The Kiss of Death Chapter of Romance Writers of America announced the winners of the 2026 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. The honor is named for Daphne du Maurier, the author of Rebecca, a suspense novel with romantic and gothic overtones and a precursor to today’s romantic suspense. The writing contest is for published and unpublished authors of mystery, suspense, and thrillers with or without romantic subplots. Congrats to all the winners (listed in order of placement).

PUBLISHED CATEGORY

Overall Winner:   Rena Koontz

Cozy Mystery/Suspense

1. In$urance Blues (A John Smith Mystery) — Charlotte Stuart
2. Meringues, Matrimony & Murder — Polly Holmes
3. Death Upon A Star — Amy Patricia Meade

 Historical Mystery/Suspense

1. A Murder Of Convenience — Kathleen Buckley
2. Two Secrets To Surrender — Grace Callaway
3. Shadow Of The Mill — Helena Smrcek

 Long Romantic Mystery/Suspense

1. Philly — Tamsen Schultz
2. Perfect Vengeance — Tee O’Fallon
3. Monk — Tamsen Schultz

 Mainstream Mystery/Suspense

1. Chasing Justice — Rena Koontz
2. Shaw Connolly Lives To Tell — Gillian French
3. All That Lies Beneath — D.L. Wood

 Short Romantic Mystery/Suspense

1. "Fighting For Berlin" — Katie Reus
2. "Wyoming Double Jeopardy" — Juno Rushdan
3. "Escaping The Wilderness" — Carrie Stuart Parks
    
   

UNPUBLISHED CATEGORY

 Overall Winner:  Coby Nicole Sauce

 Mainstream Mystery/Suspense

1.  Forever Everly — Coby Nicole Sauce
2. What He Saw In The Darkness — D.S. Mori
3. Blind Side Of The Sun — Michael Nikitin

 Romantic Mystery/Suspense

1.  Veilbound — Cat St. Martin
2. Mind Linkers — Michele Wyan
3. Chained — Jennifer Estes

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

Josh Lucas is set to star opposite Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning in the legal drama series, Discretion, based on the short story of the same name by Chandler Baker. Paramount+ handed the series an eight-episode order with production slated to begin later this year. Lucas will play Greg, a lawyer and the husband of Kidman’s powerful and formidable corporate law partner at the same prestigious firm entangled in a dark web of NDAs. Fanning plays Lenny, a summer associate who realizes she is bound by the exact non-disclosure agreement she is investigating, upending her mentor-protégé dynamic with Kidman’s character.


Josh Duhamel (Ransom Canyon), James Franco (127 Hours), Paula Patton (Precious), and Summer H. Howell (Amazon’s upcoming Carrie TV series) have wrapped up production on Runaway, a new indie action-thriller from director James C. Clayton and IndustryWorks Studios. Runaway follows veteran detective Lou Coleman (Duhamel), who takes a solitary drive into the wilderness after the death of his estranged daughter. But when Lou chooses to protect a teenage runaway (Howell) carrying evidence that could expose the town’s crimes, he soon finds himself the target of a corrupt small-town sheriff (Franco) and his militia. Runaway also stars Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers) and Alex Essoe (Doctor Sleep).


AnnaSophia Robb (I Play Rocky) is set to join Will Smith in the Amazon MGM Studios and Miramax thriller, Supermax, which David Gordon Green is directing. Robb is set to play Smith’s young partner in the film as the two detectives enter the depths of a supermax prison to solve a mysterious murder. Amazon MGM Studios closed a deal for worldwide distribution rights for the film, which will be available in more than 240 countries and territories on Prime Video.

 
TELEVISION/STREAMING

Following the announcement that Chloe Fineman was leaving Saturday Night Live, she has officially set up her next role, co-starring in Netflix‘s Myron Bolitar as Parker Quinn, a reporter for a major sports publication who has built a stellar reputation through hard work and an undeniable passion for the game. Based on the books by Harlan Coben, Myron Bolitar follows the title character (Colin Woodell), a former NBA hopeful who reinvents himself as a sports agent — using charm, smarts and a ruthless partner to navigate the high-stakes and dirty world of sports, where saving his clients often means risking himself. Also in the cast are KJ Apa as Win Lockwood, Bolitar's right-hand man; Diane Guerrero as Esperanza Diaz, Myron’s right-hand woman; Jabari Banks as Dwayne Richmond, a charismatic tennis prodigy; Jamie McShane as Detective Ray Dimonte, a seasoned NYPD homicide detective; and Ben McKenzie as Gavin Pierce, one of the biggest agents in sports. David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) and Kyle Long (Suits) will co-showrun, write, and executive produce the series.


Lewis Pullman (Remarkably Bright Creatures, Lessons in Chemistry) is returning to television and to Apple TV with a starring role opposite Julia Garner in Guilty Creatures, a thriller drama from director Craig Gillespie, showrunner Stuart Zicherman, and Tomorrow Studios. Adapted for the screen by Sarah DeLappe from Mikita Brottman's true-crime book, Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida, the series is set against a backdrop of violence in the Florida panhandle. It delves into the psychology of a torrid romance and subsequent act of murder between two young, adulterous but God-fearing lovers — believed to be played by Garner and Pullman — unraveling their complex lives and the emotional toll of living as killers for 18 years.


AMC+ has landed exclusive rights to Kill Jackie, an adaptation of Aidan Truhen’s "gonzo thriller," The Price You Pay. The series stars Catherine Zeta-Jones is Jackie Price, who has lived a wealthy, luxurious existence for the last 20 years – traveling the world, selling fine art using sophisticated tax loopholes and, above all, trying to stay anonymous after escaping a dangerous past as an international cocaine dealer. But just as life starts to feel a little boring, it takes a sudden lethal turn when she discovers The Seven Demons, a squad of the world’s most terrifying hitmen, have been hired to kill her. The series is a gender swap from the novel, whose lead is called Jack Price.


After a lengthy development process, Amazon MGM Studios has greenlit Robocop, a series based on the MGM movie franchise, from showrunner Peter Ocko and Blumhouse Atomic Monster. The series started to take shape in 2024 when veteran Ocko (Lodge 49) was tapped as writer, executive producer, and showrunner, with horror master James Wan on board to executive produce. In Robocop, a giant tech conglomerate convinces the city to place a powerful robot on its police force – a robot implanted with the consciousness of a beloved, fallen officer.


Reid Scott, who has played Senior Detective Vincent Riley for the past three seasons, is leaving Law & Order. Taking his place on the crime drama is James Badge Dale (13 Hours, 1923), who is set to play a new Senior Detective. For Scott, who is believed to have one more year on his contract, the departure is said to be his decision, related to the strain caused by the cross-country commute and being away from his family for nine months of the year while filming Law & Order in New York. Det. Riley will get a proper ending as Scott is back on the set, filming a few episodes to wrap the character’s arc before Dale is introduced. Dale is joining returning cast members David Ajala, Tony Goldwyn, Hugh Dancy, Maura Tierney, and Odelya Halevi. Season 26 premieres Oct. 8 at 10 PM, behind the season opener of Law & Order: SVU.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Debbi Mack's latest guest on the Crime Cafe podcast was poli-sci professor and crime writer Caleb McGee Husmann.


On Murder Junction, screenwriter turned crime author Tim Sullivan chatted about his DS George Cross series and the time he told legendary Hollywood director Ron Howard how to fix his film script.


On the Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, Kit Gray (The Black Cat Detectives) and Stacie Ramey (Spellbound by Murder) were in conversation with host John Charles.


CRIMINAL MISCHIEF welcomed former DEA Supervisory Special Agent Jeffrey James Higgins, who writes thrillers (including the Nathan Burke international series), short stories, creative nonfiction, and essays.


The very first episode of the Femmes Detectives podcast with host, Sue Hinkin, spoke with Kathleen Donnelly, a retired K-9 handler and author of the K-9 Justice series.

 
Elaine's Literary Salon welcomed Lynda Allen to discuss her Liv Wilde Mysteries, including the newest title, Flashes of Fire and Fury.

Your Sunday Music Treat

It's hard not to be cheered by this video featuring Luciano Pavarotti (who was one of my favorites) and an unusual singing partner:

 

 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Death of a Busybody

In her 67 years, California author Elizabeth Linington (1921-1988) wrote some 82 crime fiction novels, published between 1955 and 1990, under her own name as well as the pen names Anne Blaisdell, Lesley Egan, Egan O'Neill, and Dell Shannon. She started out writing radio and stage dramas in the 1940s, switched to historical novels and finally to mysteries in 1960, winning three Edgar Award nominations almost back to back, in 1960, 1962, and 1963.

Perhaps it was due to her own family's 19th-century Irish immigrant background that many of her protagonists had strong ethnic identities, including an Italian rose-fancier, Glendale police Detective Vic Varallo; New England Sergeant Andrew Clock of the LADP and his sidekick, the Jewish lawyer and amateur detective Jesse Falkenstein, who quotes the Talmud; and Sergeant Ivor Maddox, a Welsh bachelor assigned to Hollywood's Wilcox Avenue station.

Her most successful creation was written under her Dell Shannon name, the dapper Mexican-American LAPD Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, who first appeared in Case Pending, as well as one of her other Edgar-nominated works, Knave of Hearts. Sometimes called the "Queen of the Procedurals," Lininger/Shannon among the first women to write in the police procedural genre, as well as one of the first to feature a Latino police officer.

Some critics have pointed out that Linington/Shannon's earliest works were her best, with more attention to detail and craft, but as she started cranking out as many as four books a year, the quality began to suffer, throwing in more cliches and pot-boiler touches. George N. Dove, author of such nonfiction books as The Reader and the Detective Story, pointed out that Linington/Shannon eventually settled down into a formula characterized by a remarkable number of storylines representing the number of cases on which her police officers like Mendoaza are employed (as many as 24 in Spring of Violence), with one main case surrounded by the other unrelated ones in various stages of investigation.

Mendoza is a single detective, just shy of middle age, when he makes his first appearance in Case Pending, but his character is developed throughout the thirty-eight books published over twenty-seven years. He has an inexplicable attraction to women, since he's not unusually handsome, and often finds their attention to be a personal and professional nuisance. He grew up poor and became a gambler to survive before he ultimately joined the police and was surprised by inherited wealth from his miser grandfather. He has a fondness for racy cars, high-stakes poker, and his Abyssinian cat, Bast, eventually settling down to marry Alison Weir in the early novels (Shannon wasn't shy about killing off characters, so suffice it to say, the cast of characters surrounding him tends to change).

In Death of a Busybody (first published in 1963, but reissued as a Mystery Guild selection by Doubleday in 1988), Margaret Chadwick is the snoop in question, a serious flaw for someone who had money and a pedigree. When she turns up dead, no one seems to care, something Mendoza begins to understand more clearly as he realizes the extent of the damage this one women did—pitting husbands against wives, children against parents, and sewing seeds of jealousy, suspicion and hatred like other people sew tulips and daffodils. But when a second body turns up, killed on the same night in the same way, things get a little murkier. Unlike her later "formulaic" novels, Busybody focuses on one case only, and even has Mendoza pull the main players together at the end for the "reveal," deciding he "wants to handle it the way they do in the detective novels."

Shannon may have been called the "Queen of the Proceedurals" and compared to masters such as Ed McBain and John Creasey, but by her own admission, she based her knowledge of police routine and law not on direct experience but on the basic texts used by police departments themselves and took plots from detective magazines. By today's standards, that makes for a more genteel investigation, but she manages some interesting character development and snappy dialogue. It's interesting to see her multi-layered handling of racial, gender and sexual prejudices and roles, themes that are just as prevalent and volatile today as they were back when she was writing this, some sixty years ago in 1962-63.