Mystery Melange

Amazon's editorial staff chose its "Best Books of 2014" including those in the Mystery/Thriller/Suspense Category. You can check out all of the twenty chosen titles via this link.

Five authors were shortlisted for the CWA 2014 Dagger in the Library award, which honors an author’s body of work to date. The top vote-getters include Sharon Bolton, Elly Griffiths, Mari Hannah, James Oswald, and Mel Sherratt.

John Fortunato's Dark Resrvations won the 2014 Tony Hillerman Prize for a best first mystery novel set in the desert southwestern U.S. (Hat tip to Ali Karim.)

The deadline for submission to the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program for Unpublished Writers has been extended to December 15, 2014. (HT to Donna Andrews.)

Via Mystery Fanfare: If you're going to the Bouchercon crime fiction conference this weekend, you can download the official Bouchercon app for Android and iPhones.

One thousand International Thriller Writers authors are donating a book so that lucky winners can read a book each week for a year. Simply sign up on the ITW website to receive The Big Thrill magazine, and you'll be be entered to win. Winners drawn November 30, 2014 (and prizes mailed in time for holiday gift giving, if you prefer to share the spoils).

Joshua Rothman takes on "A Better Way to Think About the Genre Debate" in fiction, noting the "genrification" of fiction today and how it remains unclear exactly what the terms “literary fiction” and “genre fiction” mean.

Charles Finch chose "Classic mysteries every fan should read" for USA Today.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against heirs of Arthur Conan Doyle over a copyright battle in a decision expected to clear way for wave of new Sherlock spin-offs.

RIP to Seymour Shubin, 93, who died this past week. He was a best-selling author of 15 mystery novels and won numerous awards, including the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award.

The featured crime poem at the 5-2 this week is "Felony Adultery" by Robert Cooperman.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Terry Shames chatting with The Mystery People; John Connolly discussed his Charlie Parker series with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune; Raymond Benson was interviewed at Omnimystery News abou his fifth and final book in The Black Stiletto series, Endings & Beginnings; Lawrence Block talked with the UK's The Skinny publication about his life and writing career; The Independent took on the "the self-styled 'Demon Dog' of American crime fiction," James Ellroy.