Mystery Melange

The Mystery Writers of America named Max Allan Collins and Ellen Hart as the 2017 Grand Masters, an honor that celebrates "the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality." MWA also announced the winner of the Raven Award for "outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing," which will be presented to Dru Ann, as well as the winner of the Ellery Queen Award for "outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry" to be given to Neil Nyren, Editor-in-Chief of G.P. Putnam's Sons. They will be honored at the 71st annual Edgar Awards Banquet in New York City on April 27.

The Mystery People's Scott Montgomery and Molly Odintz will join other community voices for the panel discussion "Social Justice in Crime Fiction" at a KAZI Book Review event on December 3 at Huston-Tilletson University in Austin, Texas.

The Murder on the Beach Mystery Bookstore in Delray Beach, Florida, is getting ready to celebrate its tenth anniversary with a grand celebration on Friday, January 8, 2017, from 6-9 p.m. The party will feature appearances by authors Hank Phillippi Ryan, Charles Todd, and PJ Parrish, and the public is invited to "chat with your favorite authors, have some wine and munchies, and get an autograph or two or ten."

The American Literature Association Symposium "Criminal America:  Reading, Studying and Teaching  American Crime Fiction" has announced a call for papers on the topic. The event will take place March 3-4 in Chicago and feature as Keynote Speaker author and professor Charles Rzepka of Boston University (read more about one of his works here). The organizers also hope to produce an edited volume made up of the best work presented at the conference.

It's not too early to be planning your crime fiction conference schedule for next year, and St. Hilda's College Mystery and Crime Conference 2017 announced the lineup for the UK conference scheduled for August 18-20. Natasha Cooper will take the Chair with featured conference speakers including Val McDermid, Andrew Taylor, and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, "Queen of Nordic Noir." (HT to Shots Magazine.)

The holiday issue of Mystery Scene Magazine features Oline Cogdill's interview of Lee Child; a profile of cozy mystery author Joanne Fluke; an essay by Lawrence Block who considers the series character; a look at a new radio dramatization of the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, and much more.

Rap Sheet blogger J. Kingston Pierce chose his list of the "10 year's finest criminous tales" for Kirkus Reviews.

The North Carolina Literary Awards included the Sir Walter Raleigh Award won by Terry Robers' That Bright Land, a novel described as a "Southern Gothic thriller" following the hunt for a serial killer in the North Carolina mountains after the Civil War. Established in 1952, the award has gone to such writers as Reynolds Price, Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, Doris Betts, Charles Frazier, Kay Gibbons and John Ehle.

If you're an unpublished Canadian crime fiction author, here's an opportunity for you to gain a publication credit: the Mesdames of Mayhem are planning their third collection of crime fiction stories, which will be released next fall, with one spot reserved for a story by a Canadian writer who has never been published in the crime fiction genre. For more information and submission deadlines, check out this link.

A newly-discovered HG Wells ghost story is to be published for first time in The Strand magazine. "The Haunted Ceiling," a macabre story of strange goings-on in an old house, is thought to have been written in the mid-1890s.

Fans of the TV crime thriller The Blacklist may be happy to know that the first graphic novel based on the series has been released. Penned by Steve Piziks, the graphic novel story reveals a new Blacklister known as The Bodysnatcher, who "brings abduction to a whole new level and into an art form."

A website founded by the author of the most authoritative book on D.B. Cooper, Geoffrey Gray, is releasing hundreds of FBI investigative documents related to the case. The Cooper case is one of America's most enduring mysteries — the only unsolved hijacking of a commercial airliner in the country's history by a man known as "D.B. Cooper."

If you're a devotee of the reading challenges that pop up toward the end of each calendar year, check out this vintage mystery scavenger hunt for something a little bit different.

A recording of one of the world’s earliest audiobooks has been discovered by a Canadian collector. The 1935 recording of an audio version of the novella "Typhoon" by Joseph Conrad was the world’s first audiobook of a long general fiction work, although a Bible recording and one of an Agatha Christie mystery novel had already been released.

Mystery author Sandra Balzo is the latest "victim" to take the Page 69 Test, sharing an excerpt from her new novel To The Last Drop.

A new bookstore themed hostel awaits your visit to Japan:  Book and Bed has branches in Tokyo and Kyoto and features "5,000 books for guests to read, a special bar stocked with local beers, and bunks inside the shelves to sleep in."

This week's featured
crime poem at the 5-2 is "Detached Member" by Bonnie Stanard.

In the Q&A roundup,the latest 9MM Interview over at Crime Watch showcased Neil Broadfoot chatting about his series featuring journalist Doug McGregor; Erik Arenson took Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp Interview" challenge to discuss his new collection The Throes of Crime; the eBook Nerd Reviews blog snagged author Caytlyn Brooke to talk about her new YA thriller that follows two girls as they fight for their freedom during a high-stakes adventure in the Louisiana swamps; and Alison Gaylin stopped by Shots Magazine to discuss her latest work, What Remains of Me.