Mystery Melange

 

The Colorado Book Awards were handed out recently, with Dead Stop by Barbara Nickless winning the Mystery category. The other finalists were Fractured Families: A Lottie Albright Mystery by Charlotte Hinger, and Hunting Hour: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima. The Thriller category was won by Trafficked: A Mex Anderson Novel by Peg Brantley, who edged out the other two finalists, Broken Slate: A Sean Coleman Thriller by John A. Daly and Red Sky: A Thriller by Chris Goff.

Harvill Secker is launching a competition in partnership with Bloody Scotland to find a debut crime writer from a BAME (black, Asian, minority ethnic) background. The contest will be judged by award-winning authors Abir Mukherjee and Ann Cleeves, as well as Sarah Shaffi (co-founder of BAME in Publishing), and Harvill Secker Editorial Director Jade Chandler. Entrants can enter the competition online by submitting the first 5,000 words of their crime novel and a full plot outline. Submissions are open from 9th July until 9th September 2018, with the winner, announced in November 2018, receiving a book deal with Harvill Secker and an advance of £5,000. 

The Belfast Book Festival's Crime at the Crescent on June 16 will feature a panel of Brian McGilloway, Anthony J Quinn, Claire Allan, Sharon Dempsey, Andrea Carter. They will discuss whether crime writing reflects society, explore issues of political, economic and moral weight, and how writing about traumatic events can be used to reflect and heal.

There is a new annual prize for the best TV series, book or film about crime and Sydney, Australia: The Danger Prize, which is an initiative of BAD: Sydney Crime Writers Festival. The Daily Telegraph is the major sponsor of the prize which will be presented by Laurie Oakes at this year’s festival launch at the Justice & Police Museum on August 31. Mark Morri, Daily Telegraph crime editor and chair of the judges’ panel, says, “A city with Sydney’s rich criminal history deserves a prize like this. You can’t understand the place if you don’t understand the part crime has played. It will help us make sense of ourselves.”

A new Call for Papers has been posted for a themed issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection on the topic of "Interwar Mysteries: The Golden Age and Beyond," to be guest edited by University of Leicester's Victoria Stewart. Although the period between the World Wars is known as the Golden Age of traditional mystery fiction, other literary forms such as the hard-boiled subgenre, true crime, and noir emerged that often reflected a grimmer reality. Articles of between 3,300 and 6,000 words are sought that examine this important crossroads in mystery, detective, and crime fiction, with a deadline of Oct 12, 2018. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell's Bunburyist blog)

Last week, noted chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain committed suicide, which was a great loss to his family, friends, and fans. But as Sarah Weinman noted, he was also a great crime novelist, publishing two novels and a story collection that was " funny, witty, and had zinging prose."

The Rap Sheet's Jeff Pierce has compiled a very detailed list of upcoming crime fiction titles this summer "Sunny Days Are Best with Dark Fiction"

Last week, I pointed out a list of cool Canadian crime titles, and this week, America Reads drops us much farther south for "Twelve of the Best Miami Crime Novels."

If you're more interested in a European tour, the Seattle Times will help with "If You Can't Get to France, Maybe these Set-in-France Crime Novels Will Tide You Over."

Audiobook sales are doing well these days as the Guardian notes in the article "Audio is publishing’s new star as sales soar across genres." In fact, thriller writer Brian Freeman has given up on print entirely for his 19th novel, out out next year, which will appear only as an audiobook. “We haven’t even thought about print,” he said. Just 15 years ago, hardly any of his readers chose audio versions of his books. “Now I hear about them all the time. It made sense to do something specifically for the audio market.”

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Sending Fido Home" by Zakariah Johnson.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element spoke with Lis Wiehl about her new collaborative book with Caitlin Rother titled Hunting Charles Manson, a painstaking reexamination of the notorious crimes and their cultural context; and Literary Rambles blog welcomed debut author Kit Frick to share news about her contemporary thriller See All the Stars.