Mystery Melange

As announced at the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, CB McKenzie’s Bad Country won the Tony Hillerman Prize for best first mystery set in the Southwest. Also, the 2013 Leaphorn Award was presented to radio personality Mary-Charlotte Domandi for her work in promoting authors and reading.

The New Mexico Book Award Winners included Best Mystery/Suspense title, The Lone Wolf Agenda by Joseph Badal.

Susan Thibadeau has won this year's Black Orchid Novella Award from The Wolfe Pack. (Hat tip to Sandra Seamans and Rob Lopresti.)

Simon & Schuster is sponsoring a contest to win a trip to Florida in January to attend book launch on a yacht with authors Lisa Unger and Michael Connelly The contest’s grand prize includes a three-night stay in a hotel and round-trip airfare from any state in the connected 48 states, plus the winner will get to share a cocktail with the authors before the book launch begins. But you'd better hurry, as the deadline for entries is December 15th.

Mystery Scene's Holiday Issue #132 has a profile of Alexander McCall Smith by Oline Cogdill; Jon L. Breen offers a roundup of terrific legal mysteries; Joseph Goodrich profiles Peter Quinn about his New York-set Fintan Dunne PI novels; Jake Hinkson considers the celebrated television series Breaking Bad; Lynn Kaczmarek interviews Aimée and David Thurlo about their Ella Clah Navajo series; and Kevin Burton Smith rounds up "Gifts for Mystery Lovers."

Suspense magazine's December issue includes their "Best of List" for the year, including the "Crimson Scribe" award for the best book of the year to M.J. Rose for Seduction. The issue also has partnered with Sara Paretsky for a final chapter not found in the pages of her latest novel, Critical Mass. 

Mike Ripley's Christmas edition of his "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine includes the usual entertaining mix of London crime fiction events and book reviews; a look at the Murder Room project by Orion to get out-of-print classic crime novels available in eBook format; and the Ripster's "Shots of the Year" Awards.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Chris Knopf, chatting with the Sag Harbor Express about his books featuring amateur detective Sam Acquillo; James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell visit Mina's Bookshelf to to dicuss Innocent Blood, the latest installment in their Order of the Sanguines series; Luca Veste, Jon Bassoff, and Al Leverone are the latest "Short, Sharp Interviews" at Paul D. Brazill's blog; and short story writer Anonymous 9 chatted with The Mystery People.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Stranger," by Kathleen Shaw (as read by Clare Toohey). The featured story over at Beat to a Pulp is "Circling" by Jen Conley. 

RIP, author British author Colin Wilson, who wrote in various genres, including crime fiction, with his the Inspector Gregory Saltfleet series and more. Wilson was 82.