Mystery Melange

Another crime fiction conference has had to cancel due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bloody Scotland, which was scheduled for September 18-20, will not take place this year in order to maintain safety for staff and participants. A note on the event website added that "Though we will greatly miss celebrating the finest local and international crime writing at the festival, we hope to bring you a wee taste of that classic Bloody Scotland atmosphere in the form of online events which we are currently in the process of plotting." More details about that will be announced on a later date.

NoirCon 2020, previously scheduled to take place in L.A. from September 10 to 13, has also been canceled because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. NoirCon organizer Lou Boxer, added that "NoirCon will rise again and provide a forum for sharing new ideas, work, and our collective passion for all things noir."

This year's National Crime Reading Month during May has now been moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Co-ordinated by the Crime Writer's Association (CWA) and Crime Reader's Association (CRA), the annual festival promotes authors at live events across the UK. The month-long virutal event this year will include crime authors posting vlogs and blogs on the website crimereadingmonth.co.uk and there will also be the launch of a selection of short stories free to read on the website.

Newcastle Noir has moved its crime fiction festival online, now scheduled for May 1st. Conference organizers are putting together six of the panels that would have taken place this year, inviting questions from their audiences which will go online as a taster of the Festival. Panelists will include Robert Scraggs with Rob Parker; LJ Ross' Judith O’Reilly with Trevor Wood; Mari Hannah with Jane Casey; Adam Peacock with Chris McGeorge; and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir with Liz Nugent. The events will be accessible via the event's YouTube channel.

A Virtual Noir at the Bar Queens will take place on Friday, May 15 beginning at 7pm. Hosted by Alex Segura, the roster of authors scheduled to appear online for readings include Meg Gardiner; Vanessa Lillie; Jess Lourey; Jason Pinter; Amy Gentry; Rachel Howzell Hall; Kristen Lepionka; Cate Holahan; Rob Hart; Catriona McPherson; Alison Gaylin; Halley Sutton; Mia P. Manansala; Steph Post; Andrea Bartz; Elizabeth Little; SA Crosby; and Heather Harper Ellett.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine announced the results of the 2019 Readers Award contest. First-place winner is David Dean for his historical mystery "The Duelist" (May/June 2019). Tied for second were Paul D. Marks for "Fade-Out on Bunker Hill" (March/April 2019) and Doug Allyn for his Civil War era tale "The Dutchy" (November/December 2019), a sequel to his Edgar Award winning tale "The Scent of Lilacs." Third place went to G.M. Malliet for "Whiteout" (January/February 2019). The Short Mystery Fiction Society has a list of the top ten finalists.

Bookriot profiled the resurgence of indie bookstores that fought their way back after years of losing to the big-box bookstores and online stores by becoming part of their local community in a way that big companies couldn’t. Ryan Raffaelli, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School explained that “…rather than trying to compete with Amazon on unlimited inventory and price, they actually think about … curat[ing], an inventory of books and other articles that are very specific to the individual’s taste, often linked to the tastes of those in the community.” But the coronavirus has put new pressures on indies, and James Patterson and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (BINC) have partnered for Save Indie Bookstores to raise funds. If you're looking for more ways to help, here's a list of "An Ever-Expanding List of Ways to Support Your Local Independent Bookstore."

Some sad news to report this week as we recently lost two of the crime fiction community. Sheila Connolly passed away after a bout with cancer in her beloved adopted home of Ireland. Sheila was the author of numerous novels and short stories incuding The County Cork Mysteries, The Orchard Mysteries,The Victorian Village Mysteries, The Relatively Dead Series, and The Museum Mysteries. Her latest book, Fatal Roots, was published by Crooked Lane Books in January. She was a member of Mystery Lovers' Kitchen and Poe's Deadly Daughters blogs. And we also learned of the death from cancer of Karen Harper, author of over 70 novels including The South Shores Series, The Cold Creek Trilogy, the Maplecreek Amish Trilogy, and more. Karen Harper won the Mary Higgins Clark Award, and her latest mystery, Deep in the Alaskan Woods, was just published this week. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

CrimeReads published the first of two parts of oundtable discussions with the nominees for the Mystery Writers of America's 2020 Edgar Awards. In the first installment, nominees react to the extraordinary events of the year so far, and reflect on the genre at large; in the second installment, nominees will give writing advice, talk big breaks, and think back on the little details and small moments that make the grand project of writing worth all the effort.

A new biography of the late crime writer H.R.F. Keating (1926-2011) is being published by Level Best Books this monh. Keating's widow, actress Sheila Mitchell, has written HRF Keating: A Life of Crime, which charts Keating's 50-year career in crime writing. As executor of her husband's will, she discovered a wealth of material in his study, where the majority of his books had been written; diaries, notebooks of research into each book, unpublished manuscripts and the thorough plotting of an unwritten novel. The new biography coincides with the reprinting by Severn House of Keating's most famous series featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay police.

This month also saw the publication of The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe, edited by Josh Pachter, a collection of two dozen pastiches and literary tributes to one of crime fiction’s most beloved sleuths, Nero Wolfe. The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe includes a classic 1947 pastiche penned by award-winning crime writer Thomas Narcejac, as well as Nero Wolfe tales by Lawrence Block and Loren D. Estleman. The collection will also introduce readers to new stories by Michael Bracken and Robert Lopresti, chapters from Robert Goldsborough’s continuations of the character, and a reminiscence from Rex Stout’s daughter.

Writing for MS Magazine, Jennifer Hillier compiled a list of "Suspense, Mystery and Thriller Must-Read Books by Women Writers of Color to Read in 2020" from Silvia Moreno-Garcia to Isabella Maldonado.

Looking around the global crime fiction scene, a new indie publisher, Corylus, is set to translate Romanian crime novels into English. First on the roster from Corylus Books will be Sword by Bogdan Teodorescu followed by titles from Teodora Matei and Bogdan Hrib. And moving further downunder, Crime Fiction Lover has a list of "13 Australian crime writers to try."

For a little pandemic diversion, check out Philip Marlowe ... in the age of Covid-19.

In honor of April being National Poetry Month (as established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996), the 5-2 Crime Weekly wraps up its "Thirty Days of the Five-Two" this week, including the featured poem, "You Can't Quarantine Crime" by Peter Gordon.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with Sam Wiebe (author of the Vancouver crime novels Cut You Down, Invisible Dead, and Last of the Independents), about his latest novel, Never Going Back; Esther Newton spoke with J.F. Burgess about latest release, A Place of Reckoning, the second book in the DI Tom Blake series; and Criminal Element's Book Series Binge continued with Lindsey Davis on the Flavia Albia Series.