Mystery Melange

The Crime Writers Association announced the winners for five Dagger Awards categories: Historical Dagger: The Devil in the Marshalsea, by Antonia Hodgson; International: The Siege, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, translated by Frank Wynne; Non-fiction: The Seige, by Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark; Short Story: "Fedora," by John Harvey (from Deadly Pleasures, edited by Martin Edwards; and the Debut Dagger: The Movement, by Jody Sabral. Simon Brett also received 2014 the Diamond Dagger, which celebrates an author with an outstanding body of work in crime fiction. For the complete list of nominees, check out the Rap Sheet – and congratulations to them all.

The shortlist for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2014 was announced last week: The Red Road by Denise Mina; The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter by Malcolm Mackay; The Chessmen by Peter May; Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer; Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths; and Eleven Days by Stav Sherez.

The Wolfe Pack announced the 2014 finalists for the Nero award, presented each year to an author for literary excellence in the mystery genre. The award is presented at the Black Orchid Banque on Saturday, December 6, 2014. The finalists include: Ask Not, Max Allan Collins; Three Can Keep a Secret, Archer Mayor; Murder as a Fine Art, Charles Morrell; A Study in Revenge, Kieran Shields; and A Question of Honor, Charles Todd. Previous winners have included Lee Child, Walter Mosley, and Linda Fairstein.

PulpFest 2014 announced the list of eight nominees for the Munsey Award, presented to a deserving individual who has given of himself or herself for the betterment of the pulp fiction community. The conference organizers also nominated J. Barry Traylor for the Rusty Hevelin Service Award, designed to recognize individuals within the pulp community who work long and hard "with little thought for individual recognition." Winners will be presented on Saturday, August 9, during the PulpFest conference in Columbus, Ohio.

The next Noir at the Bar event in the U.S. of A will take place in Austin, Texas, Monday, July 7th at Opal Divine’s. Authors on hand will include Dan O’Shea talking his latest novel Greed, featuring detective John Lync; Tim O’Mara, whose ex-cop turned teacher Raymond Donne appears in his new ovel Crooked Numbers; and Jonathan Woods, author of the story collections Bad JuJu and Phone Call From Hell.

Akashic Books announced the latest in its "city noir" series will be Prison Noir, stories of prison literature edited by Joyce Carol Oates.  As the publisher notes, "Some prisoners are encouraged to write, but few are encouraged to write crime fiction set behind bars—in some institutions, doing so is even prohibited. With Prison Noir, Joyce Carol Oates has done an outstanding job of curating a top-notch collection of stories that evokes an absolutely new perspective on prison literature."

The Guardian took at look at why women are such fans of crime fiction in the piece, "Women's appetite for explicit crime fiction is no mystery." One of the reasons, according to article author Melanie McGrath, is due to the fact in part "because we understand what living with fear feels like so much better than men."

Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away with Murder" column for Shots Magazine shows the Ripster is living the high life across the Pond, attending a "More Bloody Foreigners" panel led by Jake Kerridge at the London Review Bookshop, and a champagne reception for Lisa Jackson in honor of her new novel Deserves to Die. Coming up later this month, the "What’s Your Poison?" summer Crime Party at Heffers Bookshop in Cambridge. The column also has the usual books news and reviews.

Hey Dead Guy's Jessy Randall continues with the "Reference Book Grudge Match." In the third installment, she compares Sleuths, Sidekicks and Stooges: An Annotated Bibliography of Detectives, Their Assistants and Their Rivals in Crime, Mystery and Adventure Fiction, with Google searches.

Crimespree Magazine posted a guide to Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, U.K., coming up July 17-20. As the article noted, "The atmosphere at Harrogate is quite special, with authors mingling between panels and more fascinating conversations than you can shake a stick at."

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Left Hook Tony" by Catfish McDaris.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Alison Gaylin chatting with The Mystery People and Omnimystery News about her series featuring Brenna Spector, a missing persons investigator; Meg Gardiner also joined TMP for a discussion of her latest, Phantom Instinct.