Mystery Melange

The North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers have announced the nominees for their annual Hammett Prize for a work of literary excellence in the field of crime writing by a US or Canadian author. The finalists include       

• William Landay, Defending Jacob: A Novel (Delacorte)
• Jim Lynch, Truth Like the Sun: A Novel (Knopf)
• Howard Owen, Oregon Hill (Permanent)
• Kurt Palka, Patient Number 7 (McCelland & Stewart)
• G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen (Emblem/Canada; Grove/US)
  

It's Noir at the Bar time again in Los Angeles. Sunday night, March 24th at 7:00 pm at The Mandrake Bar (2692 S La Cienega Blvd), several authors will read from their noirish works, including Todd Morr (Captain Cooker), Josh Stallings (All the Wild Children), Todd Robinson (The Hard Bounce) and Stephen Blackmoore (Dead Things).

There's a new poem up on the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly website, the "The Girl in the American Apparel Ad" by J.D. Debris.

Patti Abbott has another intriguing flash fiction challenge on her blog;
write a story about a man in a white van in 1,000 words and have it
completed by March 13th. If you're interested, click on Patti's blog link for more details and to indicate your participation in the comments section.

Omnimystery News posts its monthly posting of new hardcover mysteries, with this listing of books scheduled for publication in March 2013. Starting off the roster are M. C. Beaton with her 29th Hamish Macbeth story, Cara Black with her 13th Aimée Leduc, Rhys Bowen with the 12th Molly Murphy and C. J. Box with his 13th Joe Pickett installment.

The headliners for the 2013 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival were announced by Programming Chair Val McDermid. Special Guest authors on the Yin side will include Kate Atkinson (the Jackson Brodie series); Ruth Rendell (Chief Inspector Wexford); Charlaine Harris (whose Southern Vampire Mysteries inspired TV's True Blood); and The Woman in Black's Susan Hill. The Yang contingent features Inspector Rebus creator, Ian Rankin; award-winning crime novelist and poet, William McIlvanney; and Lee Child (the Jack Reacher novels, including the recent film starring Tom Cruise).

There's a new crime-related 'zine from the UK titled Prohibition Magazine, billing itself as "Britain's best true crime and showbiz magazine." It aims to cover crooks to celebrities, gangsters to goodies, dames to druglords, actors to assassins, talking to the men and women who commit murder and mayhem and the stars who portray them on television and screen. They also go behind the scenes to discover what makes gangsters tick, why they risk life and liberty in pursuit of riches and what they tell her indoors when they go home. There's a print version and also a digital one.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Terrence P. McCauley joining Paul D. Brazill over at his blog for a "Short, Sharp Interview"; plus, here's an oldie-but-goodie, courtesy of Crimespree Magazine, with a conversation between Marcus Sakey and Sean Chercover.

The Strathmore Concert Hall in Bethesda, Maryland, is sponsoring a "murder mystery tea" version of its weekly afternoon tea events. It's a Strathmore-style whodunit, as actors from Catholic University look for motives and clues all over the tea room. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, April 2 at 1:00 p.m. in the Georgian Mansion at Strathmore.