Mystery Melange

A dozen works have been longlisted for the 2018 McIlvanney Prize, which recognizes “excellence in Scottish crime writing.” Interestingly, one of the finalists is Liam McIlvanney, the winner of New Zealand’s 2014 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel and son of the late author after whom this commendation was named, William McIlvanney. Finalists for the award will be revealed in early September with the winner announced on September 21 during opening ceremonies for the Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival in Stirling, Scotland. (HT to the Rap Sheet)

The Wolfe Pack announced the 2018 finalists for the Nero Award, an annual honor presented to an author for literary excellence in the mystery genre. The award is presented at the Black Orchid Banquet held on the first Saturday in December in New York City. This year's contenders include The Dime by Kathleen Kent; The Lioness is the Hunter by Loren D. Estelman; Gone to Dust by Matt Goldman; August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones; and Blood for Wine by Warren C. Easley.

The Macavity Award finalists were announced this past week. Voted on annually by Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI, the awards celebrate the best in the past year's crime fiction novels, nonfiction and short stories, with winners to be honored at opening ceremonies at Bouchercon in St Petersburg, FL, in September. This year's Best Mystery Novel contenders include The Marsh King's Daughter, by Karen Dionne; Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz; Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke; Glass Houses, by Louise Penny; The Old Man, by Thomas Perry; and The Force, by Don Winslow. To see all the finalists, head on over to the Mystery Fanfare blog.

Amazon Books announced its selections for the Best Books of the Year, So Far. Amazon Books editors picked their favorite breakout titles of 2018 and offered them as reading recommendations for summer. You can check out the twenty titles included in the Mystery/Thriller/Suspense category via this link.

The Writers’ Police Academy is continuing its fun Golden Donut Short Story contest in 2018. The rules are simple—write a story about the photograph provided using exactly 200 words, including the title. But you'd better hurry, as the deadline is July 1.

David Barnett's piece in The Guardian takes a look at the writers who are helping to diversify detective fiction and broadening the horizons of a traditionally very white genre.

Writing for the LA Times, author Megan Abbott wondered why readers, especially women, seem to love true crime stories, a topic particularly relevant during the era of the #Metoo moment.

Max Allan Collins, Christa Faust and Gary Phillips discussed the beginnings of noir and recent developments in neo-noir for the online magazine Crixeo.

Cult New York photographer Weegee (the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968) was often found at crime scenes before the police, and his stark pictures gained him notoriety and ultimately fame in the art world. As The Guardian reported, his work has now been turned into the graphic novel Weegee: Serial Photographer by Max de Radiguès and Wauter Mannaert.

For fans of both crime fiction and soccer (a/k/a football to most of the world), Crime Reads has a list of one crime novel for every country in the World Cup, as it celebrates its annual spectacle through July 15.

Crime writers have a hard time keeping up with the latest in forensic technology, but many of those new techniques are potentially helpful to law enforcement, such as a new blood test that could be performed at a crime scene - and help determine the age of a suspect or victim within just an hour.

Speaking of forenscis (or a form thereof), meet the world's "top art forgery detective."

The latest poem at the 5-2 crime poetry weekly is "Life Is Sacred" by Abbey-Rose Chivers.

In the Q&A roundup, Publishers Weekly spoke with Louise Candlish about her upcoming domestic thriller Our House, in which a woman returns to her family’s South London townhouse one day to discover that her estranged husband has stolen it out from under her; Lesa Holstine interviewed Cara Black for the Poisoned Pen blog, to chat about the latest installment in her Aimee Leduc series, Murder on the Left Bank (complete with some of her research photos); the Mystery People spoke with with Jay Brandon about writing a legal thriller and his latest novel, Against the Law; and Parade Magazine quizzed Vera and Shetland creator Ann Cleeves about crime writing, hit television shows, and creative tips.