Mystery Melange

The nominees for the annual Anthony Awards were announced yesterday. The winner will be handed out at the annual Bouchercon conference in November, this year held in Long Beach, CA. The shortlist for Best Novel includes Robert Crais, Suspect; Sara J. Henry, A Cold and Lonely Place; William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace; Hank Phillippi Ryan, The Wrong Girl; and Julia Spencer-Fleming, Through the Evil Days.  Check out the Bouchercon 2014 blog for the shorlists for Best First Novel, Best Paperback Original, Best Short Story, Best Critical Work, Best YA, Best TV Episode, and Best Audio Book.

Awards galore were also front and central at the CrimeFest convention in the UK over the weekend. Mystery Fanfare posted a listing of all the nominees on the Crime Writers Association shortlists for the International Dagger, Historical Dagger, Non-Fiction Dagger and Short Story Dagger, and Martin Edwards was honored with the inaugural CWA Margery Allingham Prize.

Also announced at the CrimeFest Saturday's Gala Dinner was the winner of the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year to Linda, As in the Linda Murder, by Leif G.W. Persson; the Audible Sounds of Crime Award was given to The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith, read by Robert Glenister; the eDunnit Award for ebook went to Norwegian by Night, by Derek B. Miller; and Miller's book also won the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award for best humorous crime published in the UK. For the full list of nominees, check out the Crimefest website.

The new Spring issue of Mystery Fanfare is out, with a focus on Canadian crime fiction and is filled with essays, reviews and articles.

The latest edition of The Big Click was also released, an ezine published bimonthly. Their mission is "to find the best of new crime fiction in a variety of modes—we are especially interested in noir, confessional, weird and 'literary' fiction that depict and interrogate crime and social trespass." The new issue includes short stories from Heather L. Nelson and Gary Phillips and various reviews of new books.

Lit Reactor has announced their writing challenge for 2014. The 2012 challenge sought horror stories, while the 2013 event centered on sci-fi. The 2014 challenge is to be themed around crime fiction, with the Grand Prize winning story published in Thuglit, edited by Todd Robinson. The rules mandate stories of between 3,000 and 5,000 words, and although all subgenres are welcome, there are a few tropes that are not: no talian mafia, no hitmen, no sex crimes, and no serial killers.

Crime Fiction Lover has a guide to the works of John Connolly, who introduced his beloved character Charlie Parker in 1999's Every Dead Thing (which won the Shamus for best debut novel and also LA Times Book of the Year).

A sad bit of news: Author Martin Meyers passed away last week. As fellow author and friend Parnell Hall posted on Facebook, "Marty was the author of the Patrick Hardy series under his own name, and, with his wife, Annette Meyers, co-authored a series of historical mysteries under the name Maan Meyers, beginning with The Dutchman, set in New Amsterdam in 1664. Marty's short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen, as well as anthologies edited by Robert J. Randisi and Charlaine Harris. In 2002, Marty and Annette served as toastmasters at Malice Domestic."

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Concerned About the 'How'" by Ann Clark, and the featured pulp of the week story at Beat to a Pulp is "No Hard Feelings" by Alec Cizak.

The Q&A roundup this week includes an interview with Reed Farrel Coleman over at the Mystery People; and the Sons of Spade blog welcomed author and former law enforcement officer David Putnam.