Mystery Melange

The Bouchercon Conference Board announced that Sara Paretsky is this year's winner of the David Thompson Special Service Award, given to honor the memory and contributions to the crime fiction community of David Thompson, a beloved Houston bookseller who passed away in 2010. Recipients are recognized for their extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field. As the Board noted, "Sara's contributions as a founder of Sisters In Crime; as a leader in helping to lay the publishing groundwork for women authors of mystery and crime fiction, and as an ongoing literacy activist, have been phenomenal." The award will be presented during the General Members Meeting at the Bouchercon 2023 convention in San Diego.

The second annual Motive: Crime & Mystery Festival, an adjunct of the Toronto International Festival of Authors, takes place at Harbourfront this weekend, Friday through Sunday. Following last year’s inaugural event, one of the first in-person literary festivals after the COVID-19 lockdowns, the format will once again include a combination of readings, panel conversations and master classes focusing on the craft of writing in the crime genre. Among those authors scheduled to participate are Canadians Linwood Barclay, Margaret Cannon, Maureen Jennings, and Sheena Kamal, as well as many others from countries including Scotland, Britain, Iceland, and the U.S.
 

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has appointed Vaseem Khan as its first non-white chair in the organization's 70-year history. Khan, who is the author of two crime series set in India and also co-hosts the Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast with fellow author Abir Mukherjee, said he aimed to make the CWA "a home for all crime writers." He takes over the role of chair from author, editor, publisher and critic Maxim Jakubowski. Previous chairs include Ian Rankin, Dick Francis, Peter James and Lindsey Davis.

Now in their sixth year, the Danger Awards continue to honor books featuring Australia as a setting for stories about crime and justice. At BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival in November 2023, three awards will be presented: one for crime fiction, one for crime non-fiction and thanks to the generous sponsorship of OverDrive Australia, for the first time a People’s Choice award will be presented covering both categories. The winners will each receive $1000 In prize money, a Danger Award trophy and be invited to speak at BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival 2023. Organizers will be accepting submissions, of both crime fiction and non-fiction books that explore and shed light on crime and justice issues in Australia, by no later than 5pm on June 10th. All books must have been first published between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022.

Andrew Gulli, editor-in-chief of Strand Magazine, announced that the periodical will publish for the first time a "lost" short story by James M Cain, one of the greats of American noir, and a "poet of the tabloid murder," whose works made famous on film include The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce. Gulli made the discovery simply by asking the Library of Congress to look in its Cain papers, and he found the unfamiliar title and story, which he dates to the late 1950s. The newly discovered story, "Blackmail," is set in Washington, DC, and concerns a blind Korean war veteran tormented by his sister-in-law.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "The Dream" by Adam Stemple.

In the Q&A roundup, Alison Goodman was interviewed by E. B. Davis about her fiercely feminist historical mystery series including The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies; and Lisa Haselton chatted with suspense author Regina Buttner about her new domestic suspense, Down a Bad Road.