Mystery Melange

The Ghosts of Altona by Craig Russell won the fourth annual Scottish Crime Book of the Year, as announced this past weekend at the Bloody Scotland conference. (HT to Craig Sisterson.)

The celebrations in honor of the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth continue around the world and the Web. Three original recordings of plays by Agatha Christie, thought lost for 50 years, have been rediscovered in the BBC Archives and will be published on CD and via digital download as "The Lost Plays." They include Butter in a Lordly Dish, Murder in the Mews, and Personal Call and were were first broadcast between 1948 and 1960.

The 23rd METU British Novelists Conference is to be center on "Agatha Christie and Her Work.” The two-day conference will take place at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, on April 5-6, 2016. Event organizers are inviting proposals for 20-minute presentations on any aspect of Agatha Christie’s life and work. (HT to Shots Magazine.)

Deutche Welle had an online feature titled "The world's best detectives: 125 years of Agatha Christie; and The Irish Times asked the question "Agatha Christie: genius or hack?", enlisting crime writers John Banville, Sinead Crowley, Liz Nugent, Sophie Hannah, Val McDermid, Christie scholar John Curran and many more crime writers to pass judgment and pick their favorites.

The first issue of Crime Scene Magazine has a preview of the Sherlock Christmas special, secrets from Series 4, and an exploration of the world of Sherlock Holmes; Dexter creator Jeff Lindsay tells us how it feels to create a monster, while legendary author James Ellroy talks exclusively about LA noir and his life in crime; there's a look at the 25 greatest TV detectives of all time (as voted for by readers); an exploration of Nordic Noir; and an article written exclusively for Crime Scene by Steven Moffat. Plus, there's the latest news and previews of TV shows and DVD releases as well a reviews of new book releases. Crime Fiction Lover has another look and a review.

In early October, Dean Street Press will reissue four novels by the long-lost queen of crime, Annie Haynes. She was the only female crime novelist published in the twenties by the Bodley Head, except for one other, Agatha Christie. Her work has been out of print for more than eighty years, and has grown increasingly rare. Dean Street will eventually re-publish all 12 of her mysteries, beginning with the four featuring the engaging Inspector Stoddart of Scotland Yard.

Edgar Award-winning author Megan Abbott explained "Why Women Love to Read About Crime" in an essay for New York Magazine. She posits that something approaching an answer "lies not in the present, but in the past: the eternals of the genre that reveal its enduring appeal," as seen in the new two-volume set Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels From the 1940s & 50s edited by Sarah Weinman.

Steven Gore penned a lengthy review and essay focusing on Nathan Ward’s new biography, The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett, which includes commentary on Ward's claims about Hammett's many personal failings that may be unknown to many readers and fans - claims Gore answers by saying he finds much of what has been written about Hammett and Sam Spade to be histrionic and overblown. Regarding Spade, Gore concludes that Hammett chose to create a character who has no inner life because he was creating "a character for his era, at a time, typified by World War I, when reason had failed and thinking seemed impotent."

Writing for The New Yorker, Jon Michaud took a look at the forgotten crime novels of Herbert Asbury,  The Devil of Pei-Ling and The Tick of the Clock.

Minnesota Public Radio online wondered, "Do real spies write the best spy novels?"

Some good news for bookstores and book lovers: bookstore sales had one of there best monthly performances in years in July when sales rose 5.9% over July 2014.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 is "Post-Frame-Up Friction" by David S. Pointer.

In the Q&A roundup this week, Matt "M.J." Arlidge was the latest 9MM Interview guest at Kiwi Crime, taking about his debut Eeny Meeny and other topics; Brad Parks spoke with The Daily Press about his Carter Ross mystery series; Sherry Knowlton stopped by Omnimystery News to discuss her second mystery to feature attorney Alexa Williams; the Mystery People snagged Reed Farrel Coleman to talk about his second outing writing Robert Parker’s character Jesse Stone in The Devil Wins; Aidan Thorn is the latest subject of Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview"; and Val McDermid joins the Crime Fiction Lover blog to discuss her new book Splinter the Silence, the ninth in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series.