Mystery Melange

For the first time ever, audiences worldwide can watch the An Post Irish Book Awards ceremony as it happens – online via RTÉ Culture, on 25th November at 7:30 pm. RTÉ's Evelyn O'Rourke will announce the winners of each of the 16 categories, including Novel of the Year and Best Crime Fiction of the Year.

The Poisoned Pen Bookstore is sponsoring a live online event featuring James Patterson in conversation with Lee Child on Monday, December 7 at 7 pm EST. They'll be discussing two new Patterson releases: The Last Days of John Lennon, a true crime account of Lennon’s murder, and Deadly Cross, the new Alex Cross novel. Registration is required.

If you missed the recent virtual Bouchercon or Bloody Scotland conferences, video events are still available online. Check out the various panels and Q&As via the Bouchercon YouTube channel; and on Bloody Scotland's YouTube channel, you can catch Michael Connelly in conversation with Ian Rankin.

The call for papers was extended for the upcoming Mean Streets: A Journal of American Crime and Detective Fiction issue devoted to crime literature set in New York outside of New York City. Abstracts of 250 words with a proposed title should be emailed no later than November 30 to the editors: Rebecca Martin (doc.rmartin@gmail.com) and Walter Raubicheck (wraubicheck@pace.edu). Final papers of 7,000-8,000 words will be due by February 15, 2021, with publication anticipated in spring 2021. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which already owns publisher Harper Collins, made a bid for Simon & Schuster, which was put up for sale by CBS Viacom in March. It's unknown at this point how the sale would affect S&S titles going forward (except for the expected staff cuts). S&S has published books by such crime fiction authors as Megan Abbott, James Lee Burke, Mary Higgins Clark, John Connolly, Janet Evanovich, Walter Mosley, and hundreds more.

Following Quentin Tarantino's award-winning film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which followed a fading actor and his stunt double in 1969 Los Angeles as they cross paths with the Manson cult, the filmmaker is writing a novelization of the project. Harper Collins announced a two-book deal for both the novel of Tarantino's 2019 film and a "deep dive" into 1970s cinema.

Glen Erik Hamilton applied the Page 69 Test to his latest novel, A Dangerous Breed. A native of Seattle, Hamilton was raised aboard a sailboat and grew up around the marinas and commercial docks and islands of the Pacific Northwest. His novels have won the Anthony, Macavity, and Strand Magazine Critics awards, and been nominated for the Edgar, Barry, and Nero awards. 

The UK's Sherlock Holmes Magazine celebrated part 2 of the 25th anniversary issue, which is jam-packed with Holmesian goodies. Articles include a profile of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock; celebrating the wonder women of Sherlock (Molly, Mary, and Mrs. Hudson, as well as the new Enola Holmes series); a look at the TV series, Remembering Reichenbach; and more.

Matt Barton, curator of the Library of Congress's Recorded Sound Section, discussed author Rex Stout's roles on the radio that are reflected in more than 40 LOC holdings. These include various incarnations of Stout's sleuth Nero Wolfe, Stout's appearances on Information Please, his hosting duties for Speaking of Liberty, and his participation in an episode about the detective story on the NBC program, Conversation with critics Clifton Fadiman and Jacques Barzun. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell's Bunburyist blog)

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Viewers Like You" by Margot Douaihy.

In the Q&A roundup, Twin Cities crime novelist Priscilla Paton talked about inspiration, research, and Scandinavian noir with the Minnesota Daily; and Ruth Ware, author of Woman in Cabin 10, stopped by Shots Magazine to talk about her most recent thriller, One by One.