Mystery Melange

The shortlist for the Ireland AM Crime Book of the Year was announced last week (hat tip to The Rap Sheet). The finalists include:

• Even the Dead, by Benjamin Black
• Freedom’s Child, by Jax Miller
• Are You Watching Me? by Sinéad Crowley
• Only We Know, by Karen Perry 
• The Game Changer, by Louise Phillips 
• After the Fire, by Jane Casey

Nominations are now open for the Crime Writers Association’s 2016 Dagger in the Library Award, where the winner is chosen by readers. As Crime Fiction Lover explains, it’s a unique part of the Dagger awards because it celebrates an author’s entire body of work rather than just one book. You can nominate up to three authors between now and March 1, 2016. You can also nominate your favorite library, with the library receiving the most votes also in line for some prizes.

An American Writers Museum is in the planning stages for Chicago, which would make it the only museum in the world dedicated to American writers. The museum was dreamed up by founder and president Malcolm E. O'Hagan, an east-coast engineer and book lover inspired by visits to the Dublin Writers Museum in his native Ireland. Its mission is to "engage the public in celebrating American writers and exploring their influence on our history, our identity, our culture and our daily lives," and organizers hope for an opening in 2017.

Speaking of American writers, the Morgan Library is hosting an exhibit called “Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars.” Items on display include early short stories, notebooks, manuscripts, pictures, and letters between the Nobel Prize-winning author and other writers such as Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The closing date has been set for January 31, 2016.

The Library Journal turned its spotlight on Titan Books, which started out in the graphics novel business but expanded in 2009 to include a fiction line emphasizing sf and fantasy, crime, and horror. After the company bought Hard Case Crime in 2011, their line has expanded to the point they will issue forty brand-new fiction titles in 2016, with a focus on crime fiction.

The Mystery People have been celebrating the fifth anniversary of the blog with authors offering up their "best book" lists. And now, the Mystery People have compiled their own choices for Top 100 Suspense & Crime Novels.

The Sidney Morning Herald profiled Pierre Lemaitre, a crime fiction author who recently won France's greatest literary prize with The Great Swindle (published in French as Au revoir la-haut).

Some good magazine news and some not-so-good: Thuglit is again open to submissions, seeking hardboiled stories of around 3,000-6,000 words; but we also got the sad news that Crossed Genres is closing up shop due to some staff issues, but mostly due to financial reasons. They'll still print up the December issue, but that will be the last.

Writing for The Guardian, novelist Jonathan Lee chose his favorite "Top 10 assassination plots in fiction," from Hilary Mantel to Ian Fleming.

In light of the release of the new James Bond movie, Mashable offered up all 193 gadgets James Bond has used - every Bond gadget ever. They also posted a list of 007 destinations where you can travel like the suave spy.

The new crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Not So Super" by John Grey.

The Q&A roundup includes Joelle Charbonneau stopping by Publishers Weekly to talk about her latest suspense YA novel where an anonymous social network claims it can fulfill the deepest desires of its users in exchange for the completion of several seemingly benign tasks; Sophie Masson returned to Omnimystery News to discuss the second book in her Trinity occult thriller series, The False Prince; Pulp Curry interrogated Eddie Muller, sometimes known as "the Czar of Noir," who is the founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation; over at The Rap Sheet, Ali Karim profiled and interviewed horror writer turned crime fictionist Conrad Williams; and Scott Butki interviewed Robert Crais for the Mystery People.