Mystery Melange

Bouchercon 2016 announced the finalists for this year's Anthony Awards, to be handed out at the annual conference held this year in New Orleans. Congrats to all the finalists in the various categories, which you can find via the official conference link.

The Portland, Oregon-based fan group Friends of Mystery announced this year's recipient of the Spotted Owl Award, given out annually to a mystery novelist whose primary residence is in the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, or Idaho, or in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The top honor went to author and Seattle Times economics columnist Jon Talton for his novel High Country Nocturne, but you can check out the other nine finalists via this link. (With a hat tip to the Rap Sheet.)

Austin Noir At The Bar is moving to a new location, Threadgills's, on May 12th, with readings by Con Lehane, Jordan Harper, Les Edgerton, and Jesse Sublett.

In honor of Short Story Month, the Short Mystery Fiction Society blog is highlighting one or more members' online stories per day. Head on over to the blog link for all the entries (including my stories "Gun Love" to be featured May 15 and "Wrong Side of the Bed" on May 29).

Mulholland Books unveiled the Strand Originals Publishing Program in conjunction with Strand Magazine. Strand Originals will consist of twenty of the best and most popular Strand Magazine short stories of all time, now being published by Mulholland Books as simultaneous e-book and audio digital downloads. The debut of Strand Originals begins with the publication of “Where the Evidence Lies” by Jeffery Deaver, “Meet and Greet” by Ian Rankin, “Jacket Man” by Linwood Barclay, “The Voiceless” by Faye Kellerman, and “Start-Up” by Olen Steinhauer, all published on April 19th, 2016.

If you like to play murder mystery games, Criminal Element has one for you - as part of their Tuesday lineup over the next few weeks, they're offering up CrimeHClue where readers choose the murderer, the murder weapon, and the location of the murder. Once the cards are set, they’ll hide the answers to the clues throughout our social media channels for a lucky winner to win a prize.

Fans of psychological thrillers (or those readers wanting an introduction to the subgenre), can check out Bookriot's listing of "32+ favorites."

If you can't make it to Book Expo America (again) this year, fear not: PBS' Book Now feature is going to cover quite a bit of the festivities from the event held in Chicago May 12-14.

CSI: The Experience, a traveling exhibition about crime lab forensic science and technology (developed by the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, in partnership with CBS and the National Science Foundation) is heading to China for the first time. Budding young Chinese forensic scientists will be able to take part in two separate crime labs ("trace evidence" and "forensic analysis") and an autopsy room where they can explore the technology used in evidence analysis.

A good private eye is worth his or her weight in gold, but stock photos of P.I.s don't do them much justice, as the "10 Most Clichéd Photos of Private Investigators" attest.

Traditionally publishers long considered novellas a costly affair, but Australian author Nick Earls makes the case that all that has changed with the book industry’s move to digital.

Can an author's prejudices ruin a book or is it "just" something you take in stride, especially when considering works by writers from previous time periods? The Guardian's Imogen Russell Williams takes on that subject, especially regarding some of the Golden Age detective fiction she grew up reading.

Unsolved cases often become the stuff of legend, and this list offers up ten of the "most unsolvable" of the unsolved.

Speaking of true crime, it appears that the old trope of a victim being waded down with cement shoes isn't just a fictional device, after all.

The crime poem of the week over at the 5-2 is "Domestic Disturbance" by Abigail George, and the new story-of-the-month at Beat to a Pulp is "Yolo" by Libby Cudmore.

In the Q&A roundup, USA Today sat down with Clare Mackintosh to talk about her latest psychological thriller, I Let You Go; the MomTrends blog welcomed Elaine Viets to talk about her Dead-End Job Mystery Series; Criminal Element spoke with Robert Goldsborough about continuing Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series; and the Mystery People snagged Paul Charles to discuss his Inspector Starrett series, religion, and writing.