Mystery Melange

The Edgar Awards were announced last week, with Best Novel nods going to Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger and Best First Novel to Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. For all the various book and media categories, check out the Mystery Writers of America website.

Congratuations also to this year's winners of the Agatha Awards, handed out at the annual Malice Domestic Convention. Best First Novel went to Death Al Dente by Leslie Budewitz; Best Historical Novel to A Question of Honor by Charles Todd; Best Contemporary Novel to The Wrong Girl by Hank Phillippi Ryan; Best Nonfiction to The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower; Best Short Story to "The Care and Feeding of House Plants" by Art Taylor; and Best Children's/YA to Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein.

Meanwhile, across the Pond, the longlist of finalists was announced for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Past winners Lee Child, Mark Billingham and Denise Mina return, but there are some new faces, too.  

Noir at the Bar is back in LA at the Mandrake on June 22, with a killer lineup including Johnny Shaw, Ivy Pochoda, Travis Richardson, Samuel Gailey and David Putnam. Plus, there will be a special tribute and memorial to writer Bill "A.J." Hayes. (The Thrillers, Killers & Chillers blog also had a tribute to A.J. back in March.)

The new issue of the San Francisco literary quarterly McSweeney's showcases crime fiction from Latin America.

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Ezine looks at crime convention season across the Pond, including CrimeFest and the new Dark and Stormy crime festival to be held in Brighton later this month. He also pays tribute to Roy Peter Martin, aged 83, the crime writer and reviewer better known under his writing names of James Melville and Hampton Charles.

The crime fiction blog roster is shrinking again. After recently losing Poe's Deadly Daughters, Top Suspense Group, The Outfit (a collection of Chicago crime fiction writers), Criminal Brief, The Lipstick Chronicles, Independent Crime, and The Little Blog of Murder (Ohio writers), The Crime Fiction Collective announced they, too, were closing down shop.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "To the Accused" by Matt Forrest Esenwine, and the featured story at Beat to a Pulp is "Hyperacusis" by J. M. Landon.

The Q&A this week includes Dick Holzhaus taking Paul D. Brazill's Short, Sharp Interview challenge; and Declan Burke grills author Lisa Alber.