Mystery Melange

Are you a fan of reading challenges? It's a fun way for many readers to motivate themselves to read more books in the coming year. Here are some of the challenges I've come across that you might enjoy: My Reader's Block celebrates the vintage mystery with categories such as Golden Age Mysteries or "Silver Age Mysteries," which John at Pretty Sinister Books summarizes nicely; Mysteries in Paradise also notes The A-Z Mystery Challenge being run at Red Headed Book Child; if you're an Agatha fan, check out the Agatha Christie monthly reading challenge; there's a Short Story Reading Challenge; and one of my personal favorite ideas is The Banned Book Challenge. For more challenges, check out this website.

The new issue of Thuglit is available for your criminal pleasure. Check out the new stories from Max Sheridan, Eddie McNamara, Harry St. John, R.J. Martin Jr., Rob W. Hart, Jen Conley, Adam McFarlane and Stuart Smith and Stephen Zippill.

Pulp Metal Magazine has also started publishing stories online again, with two new offerings for the new year, "The Colors Of Fall" by B. R. Stateham and "The Weather Prophet" by Paul D. Brazill.

Bouchercon 2014 has issued a call for short story submissions for a conference-related anthology to be edited by Dana Cameron. Stories should be between 3,500 and 5,500 words, with a deadline of March 31.

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine includes the usual fun roundup of news and reviews, including two new private-eye novels and a look at the Essex Book Fest.

The long-running (in Internet terms) blog, Poe's Deadly Daughters, will be closing down shop on Poe's birthday later this month. The seven authors involved—Julia Buckley, Sharon Wildwind, Sandra Parshall, Elizabeth Zelvin, Sheila Connolly, Jeri Westerson, Darlene Ryan (aka Sofie Kelly), and Lonnie Cruse—will be taking this opportunity to devote more time to writing. We'll miss their posts, but wish them all the best.

Editor/authors Adrian McKinty and Stuart Nevill announced they'd delivered Belfast Noir to publisher Akashic Books for one of the next installments in their "city noir" series. The new anthology will include stories from from Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Arlene Hunt, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Arlene Hunt, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar and Gerard Brennan.   

Do you enjoy reading both crime fiction and science fiction? Mulholland Books has some suggestions of interesting books that blend the best of both worlds.

In the Q&A roundup this week, Declan Burke interviews fellow author Michael Connelly about his two interlinked series featuring police detective Harry Bosch and lawyer Mickey Haller; and the Sons of Spade blog welcomed Zachary Klein to chat about the new publication of his Matt Jacob novels.