Mystery Melange

The LAMBDA Literary Awards honoring excellence in LGBT fiction announced finalists in various categories, including mysteries. For all the nominees, check out the Lamba Literary website.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society also announced finalists for excellence in short crime fiction, divided into Flash Fiction, Short Stories, Long Stories, and Novelettes. I am humbly grateful to be one of those finalists this year, especially when included on a list of so many fine writers. Check out the full listing here (although there may be an amendment announcement coming soon).

This Saturday, March 7, the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature will include a panel discussion about the global appeal of the crime and mystery-fiction genre, from the perspective of British authors Stuart MacBride and Sophie Hannah, Canada’s Peter Robinson and Iceland’s Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.

International bestselling author Jo Nesbo will appear on April 8 at the Old Swan Hotel for a special event to launch the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, including the reveal of the full 2015 festival program. (Hat tip to Ayo Anatade via Shots Magazine.)

Soho Press has partnered with independent bookstore Politics & Prose to send one lucky winner on a trip to Paris hosted by New York Times bestselling mystery author Cara Black. The winner will join Cara and a group organized by Politics & Prose on a guided tour of Paris exploring some of the most memorable scenes associated with the cases private investigator Aimée Leduc has solved in several books. For more information on how to enter, check out the Paris is for Murder website.

It's time to bid another long-running blog a fond farewell. It's a crime! (Or a mystery…) has been focusing on reviews and news in the crime and thriller fiction arena since 2005. Rhian Davies posted a note on the blog that this Friday will be the blog's last post.

Margaret Lucke takes a look at some overlooked female PIs that paved the way for the better-known creations from Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton.

Elizabeth Foxwell, editor of the crime fiction journal Clues, announced that Editorial Board members Rachel Schaffer and John Scaggs are coediting the McFarland essay collection "Wanted, Read or Alive" on Craig Johnson's novels with Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire and the Longmire TV series. The submission deadline for papers is June 1, 2015.

The latest issue of Crimespree Magazine includes Q&A's with F. Paul Wilson, Charles Todd, Sophie Hanna, Duane Swierczynski, and Terry hayes; a look at Sleuthfest and Reed Farrel Coleman's first of a four-book deal featuring Paradise police chief Jesse Stone; Gerald So's review of Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot; new fiction from Patrick Shawn Bagley, and much more.

Thuglit's Issue #16 has "eight new tales of murder, misdeeds, mayhem, and misdemeanors" from Eric Beetner, Devon Robbins, Ed Kurtz, Erik Arneson, Bracken MacLeod, Mark Rapacz, Scott Loring Sanders, and Rob Hart.

The new edition of All Due Respect, edited by Chris Rhatigan and Mike Monson, includes an Q&A with Steve Weddle and excerpt from his novel Broken Prayer, as well as new fiction from Keith Rawson, Paul D. Brazill, Angel Luis Colon, Garnett Elliot, Gabino Iglesias and Joe Sinisi.

The March/April issue of The Big Click kicks off with new fiction from Trent Zelazny, titled "Parts Unknown." Barry Graham will have an essay titled "Lucha Noir: How Christa Faust Wrestles with Reality in Hoodtown" available for reading on March 10, with more fiction and book reviews coming out later this month.

Jack Hardway's March-April Crime Magazine features five new short stories; The Big Caper, a full-length pulp novel by a master of the caper, Lionel White; an episode of Suspense!; and D.O.A., a crime movie from the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, "with a grabbing opening sequence and fast-paced plot concerning a poisoned man on an odd quest."

Are women hardwired to love thrillers? Rebecca Whitney makes the case for The Telegraph.

Fancy some Scottish crime fiction, but don't know where to start? The Lancaster Guardian featured "Ten top Scottish crime series."

If you read print books exclusively, or at least mostly, you'll be happy to know you're not alone. The latest Pew Internet Research study found that e-reading is on the rise but still vastly eclipsed by the continuing popularity of print.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 is "Passing on a Possible Career-Enhancing Interview Façade" by David S. Pointer.

The Q&A roundup includes Les Roberts talking with the Sandusky Register about his Milan Jacovich series; Damien Seaman chatted with Nigel Bird about his novel The Killing Of Emma Gross and the new novella, Berlin Burning; and Adam Christopher takes Craig Sisterson's "9mm interview challenge" about his new novelization of the hit US television series Elementary.