Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

David Cornwell, the British spy better known to the world under his pen name John le Carré, reveals secrets of his extraordinary life in a documentary directed by nonfiction filmmaking legend Errol Morris. The Pigeon Tunnel, from Apple Original Films and The Ink Factory, is set to premiere on Apple TV+ on October 20. Following a career in Britain’s MI5 and MI6 in the 1950s and '60s, Cornwell became the mega-bestselling author of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Night Manager, and The Constant Gardener, all of which were successfully adapted by Hollywood. His fictional creation, George Smiley, the veteran intelligence officer who appears in many of those books, has been played on screen by James Mason, Alec Guinness, Denholm Elliott, and Gary Oldman. The documentary is set against the turbulent backdrop of the Cold War leading into the present day and spans six decades as le Carré delivers his final and most candid interview, punctuated with rare archival footage and dramatized vignettes.

The Gray House, a Civil War spy drama series that is being produced by Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman, is the latest high-profile project to land an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA. Paramount Global Content Distribution is set to distribute the six-part series, which does not currently have a U.S. network or streamer attached. The Gray House tells the story of the three women General Ulysses S. Grant credited as helping the North win the Civil War: a Richmond Socialite and her daughter, a formerly enslaved African-American, and a courtesan, who built the first successful female spy ring, operating right under the noses of the Confederate High Command. They risk life and liberty to help win the war and preserve American Democracy. The series is based on an original script by Leslie Greif, Darrell Fetty, and Oscar-nominated John Sayles, with another Oscar-nominee, Roland Joffe, set to direct.

Shout! Studios has set a September 28th nationwide theatrical release date for The Kill Room, the darkly comedic thriller that marks the first re-team for Pulp Fiction stars Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson in decades. Joe Manganiello (Magic Mike) also stars in the pic directed by Nicol Paone from Jonathan Jacobson’s script. The project tells the story of an art dealer (Thurman) who teams with a hitman (Manganiello) and his boss (Jackson) for a money laundering scheme that accidentally turns the hitman into an overnight Avant-Garde sensation, forcing the dealer to play the art world against the underworld.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is back with all new episodes on August 8, and the first trailer for Season 3 sets up a new mystery. Following the shocking death of actor Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd) in the Season 2 finale, Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) are investigating the tragedy that took place behind the scenes of Oliver’s Broadway show. Aided by co-star Loretta Durkin (Meryl Streep), the trio discovers this case is a tougher nut to crack than the Arconia murders but remain optimistic they will find who killed Oliver’s leading man as he also attempts to put his show back together.

Channel 4 has set the cast for The Gathering, which is award-winning novelist Helen Walsh’s debut TV script. The Gathering centers on the violent attack on a teenage girl in a tidal islet on Merseyside and a group of teens from disparate backgrounds, each of whom could have committed the crime – along with their parents, who give equal cause for suspicion. BIFA-winner Vinette Robinson will play pushy mother, Natalie, and is joined by leads Eva Morgan and Sadie Soverall, who play Kelly and Jessica respectively. Also aboard are Warren Brown as Kelly’s hard working single parent, Paul, and Richard Coyle as successful solicitor Jules, along with Sonny Walker, Luca Kamleh-Chapman, and Hebron Tedros.

RIP Jerome Coopersmith, who died this past week at the age of 97. After earning a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge in 1945, Coopersmith turned to writing for Hollywood, counting among his projects more than 30 installments of the classic 1960s-70s police drama, Hawaii Five-O. He also received a Tony Award nomination for his book for the 1965 Harold Prince-directed Sherlock Holmes musical, Baker Street.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Denise Mina, whose two titles, The Second Murderer, a Phillip Marlowe novel, and Three Fires, the story of 15th-century Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola, will both be published on the same date, August 1, 2023.

Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed literary crime fiction on Read or Dead.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured Stuart Gibbs, an American author who has written mostly mystery and humor books that are aimed for tweens and teens, and his latest book, Spy School.

Crime Time FM's Paul Burke profiled crime fiction titles released this month, a selection heavy on noir and psychological thrillers with a couple of in translation novels and a de rigeur pulp.

On the Writers Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardson talked about a DA Investigator moving over to a police department as a detective; the legalities of making a warrantless arrest inside a suspect's home; and how to conduct a cover-up.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up featuring the mystery short story "Swan Song" written by Donalee Moulton and read by actor Sean Hopper.

Sunday Music Treat

July marks the birth anniversary of Hungarian composer, pianist, and conductor, Ernst von Dohnányi (July 27, 1877 - February 9, 1960). Although he wrote in various genres, he composed primarily for the piano, including the witty Variations on a Nursery Tune for piano and orchestra, which was used in the most recent Scott Drayco mystery (Melody of Murder). Here's a recording of the composer himself playing the work at the age of 79 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Adrian Boult conducting: 

Mystery Melange

M.W. Craven has been announced as the winner of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2023, presented by Harrogate International Festivals, for The Botanist, the latest thriller featuring D.S. Washington Poe. A record-smashing 14,110 readers voted for the winner this year from among the other shortlisted authors: Elly Griffiths (The Locked Room), Doug Johnstone (Black Hearts), Fiona Cummins (Into the Dark), Ruth Ware (The It Girl), and Gillian McAllister (Wrong Place Wrong Time). The judges, including Simon Theakston, Steph McGovern, Matt Nixson from the Daily Express, journalist Joe Haddow, Lisa Howells and Gaby Lee from Waterstones, decided the winner, with the public vote counting as the seventh judge on the panel. Elly Griffith was given a "Highly Commended" nod (essentially runner-up) for The Locked Room, and Ann Cleeves was awarded the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her impressive writing career.

The Public Safety Writers Association announced the winners of the PSWA awards at the organization's annual conference. The Public Safety Writers Association is open to both new and experienced, published and not yet published writers, with members including police officers, civilian police personnel, firefighters, fire support personnel, emergency personnel, security personnel and others in the public safety field. Also represented are those who write about public safety including mystery writers, magazine writers, journalists, and those who are simply interested in the genre. You can see the full list of award winners in finalists in all of the various categories here, including The Marilyn Meredith Award for Excellence in Published Book-Length Fiction, which was won by James L’Etoile for Dead Drop, and The Marilyn Meredith Award for Excellence in Published Book-Length Non-Fiction, won by William Soldato for Under Too Long.

The finalists were announced for The Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, honoring the Best Books of 2022. The conference also revealed the finalists for The Claymore Award for the best first 50 pages of an unpublished manuscript at the time of entry into the competition. Winners in each of the 17 categories for both published and unpublished entries will be announced at the 2023 Killer Nashville Awards Dinner on Saturday, August 19, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Karen Meek posted on EuroCrime the 43 titles eligible for the 2023 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. Titles must be in translation and published in English in the UK during the preceding calendar year; the author of the submission must either be born in Scandinavia or the submission must be set in Scandinavia; and the submission must have been published in its original language after 1999. The winner of the 2022 Award was Fatal Isles by Maria Adolfsson, translated from the Swedish by Agnes Broomé and published by Zaffre.

LA-based publisher Sumerian is lining up a comic book series based by the 2000 thriller movie classic, American Psycho, which starred Christian Bale as iconic madman Patrick Bateman. Drawn from the original novel and characters by Bret Easton Ellis, the four-issue comic book series, publishing later this year, will have a dual narrative, one showing a different perspective of Bateman’s killing spree (with a notable "twist"), and another revealing a modern day arc with surprising connections to the past, focusing on an all-new psychopath--social media obsessed millennial, Charlie (Charlene) Carruthers, who embarks on a downward spiral filled with violence.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "A Crime Unspoken" by J.H. Johns. On a related note, 5-2 editor, Gerald So, indicated that the site will be closing to submissions for good after this year (sooner, if he doesn't receive enough poems to complete the year), although all previously published poems will be available in the archives.

In the Q&A roundup, Laura Lippman spoke with The Guardian about her latest psychological thriller, Prom Mom, Lippman's most political novel to date that centers around a teen with an unwanted pregnancy; Eli Cranor interviewed fellow Arkansas crime writer, Kelly J. Ford, about her latest thriller, The Hunt; and James Lee Burke stopped by CrimeReads to discuss his new novel, Flags On the Bayou, as well southern history and the hatred burning through America.

Davitt Delights Downunder

Sisters in Crime Australia has announced its shortlist for its 23^rd Davitt Awards for the best crime and mystery books – eight adult novels, four YA adults, three children’s novels, three non-fiction books, and six debut novels (most of which are nominated in other categories). The winners will be revealed at a gala dinner on Saturday 2 September by award-winning journalist, true-crime author, and television producer, Debi Marshall. Congrats to the shortlisted titles!

Adult novels

• Lucy Christopher, Release (Text Publishing)
• Aoife Clifford, When We Fall (Ultimo Press)
• Margaret Hickey, Stone Town (Penguin Random House Australia)
• Tracey Lien, All That’s Left Unsaid (HQ Fiction) Debut
• Dinuka McKenzie, The Torrent (HarperCollins Publishing Australia) Debut
• Vikki Petraitis, The Unbelieved (Allen & Unwin) Debut
• Hayley Scrivenor, Dirt Town (Pan Macmillan Australia) Debut
• Emma Styles, No Country for Girls (Sphere, an imprint of Hachette Australia) Debut

Young Adult novels

• Louise Bassett, The Hidden Girl (Walker Books) Debut
• Sarah Epstein, Night Lights (Fourteen Press)
• Fleur Ferris, Seven Days (Penguin Random House Australia)
• Ellie Marney, The Killing Code (Allen & Unwin)

Children’s novels

• Deborah Abela, The Book of Wondrous Possibilities (Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia)
• Charlie Archbold, The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-bottomed Boat (Text Publishing)
• Lian Tanner, Rita’s Revenge (Allen & Unwin)

Non-fiction books

• Wendy Davis, Don’t Make a Fuss: It’s only the Claremont Serial Killer (Fremantle Press) Debut
• Katrina Marson, Legitimate Sexpectations: The power of sex-ed (Scribe Publications)
• Megan Norris, Out of the Ashes (Big Sky Publishing)

Debut books

• Maryrose Cuskelly, The Cane (Allen & Unwin)
• Tracey Lien, All That’s Left Unsaid (HQ Fiction)
• Dinuka McKenzie, The Torrent (HarperCollins Publishing Australia)
• Vikki Petraitis, The Unbelieved (Allen & Unwin)
• Hayley Scrivenor, Dirt Town (Pan Macmillan Australia)
• Emma Styles, No Country for Girls (Sphere, an imprint of Hachette Australia)

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Under a SAG Interim Agreement, certain independent movie productions (with no affiliation to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) are being allowed to continue, including the crime drama, King Ivory, from writer-director John Swab. Based on extensive research involving Oklahoma law enforcement and active gang members, King Ivory offers a never-before-seen, authentic look inside the underworld of fentanyl trafficking from gangs inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester, a.k.a. "Big Mac." With potency 100 times that of heroin and nearly undetectable at the border, the drug nicknamed King Ivory has flooded the market, triggering a tidal wave of overdoses, crime, and addiction. The film chronicles the efforts of a joint local, state, and federal task force, led by Layne West (James Badge Dale), Ty (George Carroll), and Beatty (Rory Cochrane), to prevent trafficking by the Irish Mob’s George "Smiley" Greene (Ben Foster), his mother Ginger (Melissa Leo), and uncle Mickey (Ritchie Coster), in partnership with the Indian Brotherhood’s Holt (Graham Greene) and the New Generation Mexican cartel’s Ramón (Michael Mando).

Jason Mitchell has signed on to star in the feature thriller, Black Heat, directed by Wes Miller from a script he wrote. Joining Mitchell in the project are rappers Tabatha "Dreamdoll" Robinson and NLE Choppa, in his first big-screen appearance. Billed as a roller coaster story of "suspense, drama, and unexpected twists," the story follows the broken lives of two parents portrayed by Mitchell and Robinson. After failing to get help from authorities, the pair go on a suicide mission to rescue their fifteen-year-old daughter, who’s under the control of the enigmatic King David, played by NLE Choppa.

Kenneth Branagh returns as Detective Hercule Poirot to solve a chilling supernatural mystery after a séance goes wrong in the first full A Haunting in Venice trailer. Set in post-Second World War Venice, a retired Poirot is summoned to attend a séance by an old friend, played by Tina Fey, to see if a psychic (Michelle Yeoh) is a fake. When one of the séance guests in the decaying, haunted Venice palazzo is murdered, Poirot steps in to identify the killer, only to face a world of supernatural shadows and secrets.

A North American distribution deal with Canadian outfit Swapna Scarecrow was struck for the action thriller, MR-9: Do Or Die, with a scheduled release in 150 U.S. and Canadian screens on August 25. Based on the popular Bangladeshi spy novel series, Masud Rana, the film charts the story of spy MR-9 (played by ABM Sumon), a skilled and veteran spy with a muddled past, who's chosen to join forces with an elite group of international agents. Together they must stop a terror attack aimed at Las Vegas, organized by tech villain Roman Ross (Frank Grillo).

TELEVISION/STREAMING

NBC streamer, Peacock, announced the John Wick prequel series, The Continental, will premiere on September 22 with the first episode of the three-part event titled "Night 1." Episode 2 will debut on September 29, and the final episode will hit the streamer on October 6. The Continental stars Colin Woodell as a young Winston Scott—the hotel manager at The Continental. It will explore the origin behind the iconic hotel-for-assassins centerpiece of the John Wick universe through the eyes and actions of Woodell’s young Winston, as he’s dragged into the Hell-scape of 1970’s New York City to face a past he thought he’d left behind. Winston charts a deadly course through the hotel’s mysterious underworld in a harrowing attempt to seize the hotel where he will eventually take his future throne.The cast also includes Ayomide Adegun, who will portray a young Charon; Peter Greene, who plays Uncle Charlie; Mel Gibson as Cormac; Ben Robson as Frankie; Hubert Point-Du Jour as Miles; Jessica Allain as Lou; Mishel Prada as KD; and Nhung Kate as Yen.

The dual Hollywood actors' and writers' strikes may result in a rather barren landscape for the fall television season, at least as far as scripted series are concerned. So, NBC made some scheduling changes to accommodate that dark reality by slotting the second half of season five of Magnum P.I, which was originally intended for mid-season, to debut in the fall on Wednesday nights. It will be joined by a couple of other series with episodes already in the can, including a 13-episode season for the Shanola Hampton-fronted missing persons drama, Found, and also The Irrational, a procedural starring Jesse L. Martin. The rest of NBC's lineup will include some unscripted programs, already produced episodes of the medical drama, Transplant, and reruns of Law & Order.

After the success of the Indian version of The Night Manager (which emerged as the most watched series ever across all specials on Indian streamer, Disney+ Hotstar), The Ink Factory is planning further Indian adaptations of John le Carré novels. The Ink Factory manages the 25 novels under Carré's estate, and executive producer Tessa Inkelaar, who oversees the company’s Asia slate, told Variety, "We are in the process of adapting one, which is in a relatively late stage of adaptation and one, which is at an early stage. We’re very keen to bring more le Carré to India."

ABC News Studios has dropped a full trailer for Mother Undercover, which will stream on Hulu on July 27. The four-part docuseries follows four mothers on a mission to save or get justice for their children. In incidents of murder, international kidnapping, mass suicide, and judicial corruption, the group transform into undercover detectives, mounting covert operations, and taking matters into their own hands. Mother Undercover marks the third title in ABC News Studios’ true crime summer slate, following The Ashley Madison Affair and Betrayal: The Perfect Husband.

The streamer BritBox International has added a pair of British dramas for broadcast in the U.S. to its August slate: the detective drama, Granite Harbour, will launch on August 1, and the psychological thriller, The Ex-Wife, will premiere on August 10. Granite Harbour stars Romario Simpson as Lance Corporal Davis Lindo, who envisions becoming a Scotland Yard detective after completing his tour with the Royal Military Police, only to find himself training in Aberdeen in northeast Scotland. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with his mentor, DCI Lara "Bart" Bartlett, played by Hannah Donaldson, and the duo find themselves in a bit of a corporate power struggle when a wealthy and notable citizen dies under suspicious circumstances. The Ex-Wife is based on Jess Ryder’s hit psychological thriller novel of the same name and follows Tasha (Celine Buckens), whose perfect family life turns into a nightmare when her husband (Tom Mison) is threatened by his ex-wife (Janet Montgomery), who won’t leave them alone and seems intent on staying in the picture.

Prime Video has released several first-look images for Marnie Dickens’ Wilderness, from Firebird Pictures. Written and created by Dickens and based on B.E. Jones’s novel of the same name, Wilderness is a twisted love story, where a dream holiday and a supposedly "happily-ever-after" life quickly turn into a living nightmare. Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen star as Liv and Will, a happy British couple who seem to have it all until Liv learns about her husband's affair. Enter the American road trip Liv’s fantasized about since she was little, from Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon, on through Yosemite, ending up with a hedonistic weekend in Las Vegas to blow off the dust and sweat. For Will, it’s a chance to make amends, for Liv, it’s a very different prospect—a landscape where accidents happen all the time, the perfect place to get revenge.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed S.A. Cosby to discuss his latest novel, All the Sinners Bleed, which features Sheriff Titus Crown, making the choice to live in a no-man’s-land between people who believe in him, people who hate him because of his skin color, and people who believe he is a traitor to his race. As tough as he is, though, nothing—even his experience as an FBI agent—could have prepared him for the evil he uncovered.

On the Spybrary podcast, intelligence historian Michael Smith revealed more about his latest book, The Real Special Relationship – The True Story of How the British and US Secret Services Work Together.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with thriller author, Karin Slaughter; remembered literary great Cormac McCarthy; and discussed authors whose deaths range from the gruesome to the downright bizarre...including death by flying tortoise.

Vern Smith chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about his crime novel, Scratching the Flint; editing the anthology, Jacked; Toronto; corruption; and policing.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured the third vacation episode for the summer holiday, with Misty Simon reading the first chapter of the book, All That Glitters Isn't Old, by her namesake Gabby Allan, which releases 7/25. Whit is up to her ears in this one with Goldy wanting a friend from the past cleared of a murder Whit isn't certain he didn't commit. Things are shady on Catalina Island right now and Whit has to figure out whodunnit before they do it again.

Pick Your Poison's topic this week was a type of poison that affects three million people each year and what this poison has to do with chemical weapons; plus, a toxin so potent it can kill lions in just a few steps.

Sunday Music Treat

This week marks the anniversary of the passing of one of the world's greatest composers (and one of Scott Drayco's favorites), Johann Sebastian Bach, who died on July 28 in 1750. One of the most iconic performers of Bach's piano music in the modern era is Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould, whose career really skyrocketed with his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. In October 13, 1957, Gould was featured in an address and Music for the Queen, performing movements from Bach's Concerto No. 5 in F Minor for Piano and Orchestra with the CBC Orchestra - thus making the following excerpt also poignant for its connections to the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth: 

Macavity Magic

The finalists for the 2023 Macavity Awards were announced this morning by Mystery Readers Journal editor, Janet Rudolph. The honorees are nominated and voted on by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI. Winners will be announced at opening ceremonies at the San Diego Bouchercon conference in late August. Congratulations to all!

 

 

Best Mystery Novel
 
Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King (Bantam)
Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (MCD)
A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
Secret Identity by Alex Segura (Flatiron Books)
 

Best First Mystery

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz (Atria/EmilyBestler) 
Five Moves of Doom by A.J. Devlin (NeWest Press)
Shutter by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
Devil’s Chew Toy by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane Books)
The Verifiers by Jane Pek (Vintage Books)
The Maid by Nita Prose (Ballantine)
 
 
Best Mystery Short Story
 
“The Landscaper’s Wife” by Brendan DuBois (Mystery Tribune, Aug/Sep 2022)
“Beauty and the Beyotch” by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Jan 2022)
“First You Dream, Then You Die” by Donna Moore (Black is the Night, Titan Books)
“Schrödinger, Cat” by Anna Scotti (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mar/Apr 2022) 
“Stockholm” by Catherine Steadman (Amazon Original Stories)
“The Angel of Rome” by Jess Walter (The Angel of Rome and Other Stories, Harper)
“My Two-Legs” by Melissa Yi (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Sep/Oct 2022)
 
 
Best Mystery Critical/Biographical
 
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie edited by Mary Anna Evans & J.C. Bernthal (Bloomsbury Academic)
The Crime World of Michael Connelly: A Study of His Works and Their Adaptations by David Geherin (McFarland)
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Crime)
 
 
Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery
 
The Lindbergh Nanny by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson (Hodder & Stoughton)
Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris (William Morrow)
The Secret in the Wall by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press)
One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips (Soho Crime)
Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen (Forge)

Mystery Melange

Waterstones announced the shortlist for the bookstore chain's Debut Fiction Prize, an award for exceptional first novels voted on by booksellers. Celebrating debut fiction in all its forms, "the prize highlights the importance of discovering and championing new talent and acts as an extension of the alchemy of bookseller word-of-mouth recommendation." Two crime-themed titles on the list include Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, about two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own, and Kala by Colin Walsh, in which former friends, estranged for twenty years, reckon with the terrifying events of the summer that changed their lives. The winner will be announced on Thursday, August 24, 2023.

The year 2023 marks 120 years since the birth of Georges Simenon, and in celebration, the Liège's Grand Curtius Museum is mounting the exhibition "Simenon: Images of a World in Crisis" featuring photographs taken by Georges Simenon on his extensive travels in the 1930s. Between 1931 and 1935, Georges Simenon, an author best known for his detective Jules Maigret series, traveled the world and brought back reports, novels and thousands of photographs, often of very high quality. A selection of them is on display at the Grand Curtius, dotted along a tour that asks the following question: what does Simenon the photographer tell us about Simenon the novelist and reporter? How do the pictures complement or illuminate his writing? These photographs thus show Simenon immersed in his era and as an observer of history in the making, while providing the true setting for some of his greatest novels, such as Tropic Moon, The Window over the Way, and Avrenos’ Customers. Other events have also included literary readings, projection of films at the Les Grignoux cinema, and a symposium. (HT to The Bunburyist)

Thousands of writers including Nora Roberts, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Michael Chabon, and Margaret Atwood have signed a letter asking artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI and Meta to stop using their work without permission or compensation. It's the latest in a flurry of efforts the literary world has launched in recent weeks against AI, although as NPR noted, protecting writers from the negative impacts of these technologies is not an easy proposition. According to a forthcoming report from The Authors Guild, the median income for a full-time writer last year was $23,000, and writers' incomes declined by 42% between 2009 and 2019. The advent of text-based generative AI applications like GPT-4 and Bard, which scrape the Web for authors' content without permission or compensation and then use it to produce new content in response to users' prompts, is giving writers across the country even more cause for worry.

In more of a "locked house" scenario, over 100 people were trapped for several hours in Greenway, the former home of famed British mystery writer Agatha Christie, in the English countryside on Friday. In a series of events which could have been lifted straight out of the pages of one of Christie’s mystery novels, the group of tourists were left stranded after stormy weather knocked down a tree, blocking the road leading down to the property in the county of Devon, southwest England. The stranded tourists kept themselves busy, drinking cups of tea in the houses’ tearoom and playing rounds of croquet on the lawn. I have a feeling Dame Agatha would approve, even if no bodies were to be found.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Midsummer Mischief!" by Sarah Das Gupta.

In the Q&A roundup, Colson Whitehead spoke with The Guardian about writing a sequel to Harlem Shuffle, the influence of Stephen King’s Carrie, and why he no longer makes fried chicken; Lisa Haselton chatted with thriller author Robert Creekmore about his new grit lit fantasy noir, Prophet’s Lamentation; and Elly Griffiths discussed embracing politics in her teens, discovering the thrill of George Eliot, and learning from Wilkie Collins for The Guardian's "Books in My Life" series.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news. Of course, these news items and others could be affected by the SAG-AFTRA and Writers' Guild strikes, so this information could easily change.

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson have been cast as leads in the feature thriller, Lips Like Sugar, which will be directed by Grammy winner Brantley Gutierrez and written by Anthony Tambakis (Warrior). Set during the 1984 Olympic Games in L.A. and loosely based on a true story, the coming-of-age thriller is set against the backdrop of the punk and skate worlds of West Los Angeles. As the new friendship of two teenage girls from different walks of life unfolds and city officials focus on the Olympics, the lives of two former detectives (Harrelson and Wilson) become intertwined when one of the girls goes missing.

Samara Weaving is set to star in the 20th Century heist thriller, Eenie Meanie, which Shawn Simmons is directing. Simmons also penned the script with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick producing the project, which will likely premiere on Hulu. The film follows a former teenage getaway driver who is dragged back into her unsavory past when a former employer offers her a chance to save the life of her chronically unreliable ex-boyfriend.

Republic Pictures has snapped up rights to The Image of You, a thriller starring Sasha Pieterse (Pretty Little Liars) in dual roles playing twins Anna and Zoe, who share a bond so close that nothing — and no one — can tear them apart. While Anna is romantic and trusting, her sister Zoe is daring and dangerous. When Anna meets charismatic Nick (Young), an ambitious stock trader, she thinks he’s perfect. But Zoe, who has seen Anna betrayed by men before, doesn’t trust him. She’s determined to discover the truth about Nick, no matter who stands in the way. Mira Sorvino and Nestor Carbonell play the twins’ wealthy parents, Alexia and David, who are harboring secrets of their own, with Michele Nordin playing Nick’s sister, Rebecca.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Filming has begun in Scotland on Murder is Easy, a major new adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel by Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited for BBC One and iPlayer, in a co-commission with BritBox International. The two-part thriller is adapted by Siân Ejiwunmi-Le Berre and directed by Meenu Gaur (Zinda Bhaag, World on Fire). David Jonsson plays lead character Fitzwilliam, who meets Miss Pinkerton (Penelope Wilton) on a train in 1954 England. Miss Pinkerton tells him a killer is on the loose in the sleepy village of Wychwood under Ashe. Though the locals believe the deaths are accidents, Miss Pinkerton knows better and is soon found dead on her way to Scotland Yard. Fitzwilliam is convinced he has to find the killer before the killer strike again.

As filming gets underway on the ninth season of the hit Masterpiece and ITV show, Grantchester, lead actor Tom Brittney has confirmed that Season 9 will be his last. Tom, who has played the much-loved character Reverend Will Davenport since 2019, is stepping back from his role to focus on new projects. But it was announced that Rishi Nair (Hollyoaks, Count Abdulla) will take over as charismatic vicar, Alphy Kotteram. Nair will be the third vicar character in the series following Brittney and the original, James Norton, who was featured from 2014-2019. Robson Green, who has played the various vicars' police counterpart, Detective Inspector Geordie Keating, will return once again. The series is based on The Grantchester Mysteries, collections of short stories written by James Runcie.

Netflix has dropped the trailer for the second half of the second season of The Lincoln Lawyer, which shows that Mickey Haller has survived that brutal beating from the previous episode cliffhanger. But will he win the case involving the gorgeous restaurant owner played by Lana Parrilla? In a departure from the first season, Netflix released five episodes from the second season this month, with plans to stream the remaining five on Aug. 3. Season 2 is based on Michael Connelly’s fourth book in the Lincoln Lawyer series called The Fifth Witness. Created for TV by Ted Humphrey and David E. Kelley, The Lincoln Lawyer tells the story of Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia Rulfo), who runs his legal practice from the back of his Lincoln Town Car.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On the latest Crime Time FM, CWA Diamond Dagger Winner, Walter Mosley, chatted with Paul Burke about Every Man a King; Mosley's writing, characters, and personal inspiration; American politics; good thoughts for writers; and hope & belief.

This latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Addison McKnight, the pen name for co-authors Nicole Moleti and Krista Wells, whose debut novel is called An Imperfect Plan.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the first chapter of Messenger Bags and Murder by Dorothy Howell as read by actor Ren Burley.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club continued their summer short story series with an offering from Charles Dickens, "The Trial for Murder," which invokes the quiet terror that follows seeing what we know we should not be able to see.

On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discuss their most anticipated books for the second half of 2023.

On Writers Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardson talked about the new THREADS app; whether detectives can find out if someone is listed as a beneficiary on a life insurance policy; victim notifications when an inmate is released from prison; confidential name changes; and violating protective orders.

On the latest Criminal Mischief, Dr. D.P. Lyle investigated "15th Century Blood Transfusions" and the history of transfusions and DNA.

Shamus Supremacy

Via PWA Awards Chairperson John Shepphird, the Private Eye Writers of America announced the finalists for the 2023 Shamus Awards. The annual awards celebrate crime fiction that features as a main character a person paid for investigative work but not employed for that work by a unit of government. These include traditionally licensed private investigators; lawyers and reporters who do their own investigations; and others who function as hired private agents. Congratulations to all this year's finalists!

BEST PI HARDCOVER

• The Wheel of Doll by Jonathan Ames (Mulholland Books)
• The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)
• The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide (Mulholland Books)
• Holmes Coming by Kenneth Johnson (Blackstone Publishing)
• The Blackmail by M. Ravenel (Chikara Press)

BEST ORIGINAL PI PAPERBACK

• Quarry’s Blood by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)
• DoubleBlind by Libby Fischer Hellmann (The Red Herrings Press)
• Canary in a Coal Mine by Charles Salzberg (Down & Out Books)
• Dead-Bang Fall by J.R. Sanders (Level Best Books)
• Hush Hush by Gabriel Valjan (Historia/Level Best Books)

BEST FIRST PI NOVEL

• Big Fat F@!k-up by Lawrence Allan (M.S. Wooten Press)
• Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen (Minotaur Books)
• Foote by Tom Bredehoft (West Virginia University Press)
• What Meets the Eye by Alex Kenna (Crooked Lane Books)
• The Goldenacre by Philip Miller (Soho Crime) 

BEST  PI SHORT STORY

• “No Place for a Dame" by Lori Armstrong (Edgar & Shamus Go Golden/Down & Out Books)
• “Charlie’s Medicine” by Libby Cudmore (Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon/Down & Out Books)
• “A Jelly of Intrigue” by O’Neil De Noux (Edgar & Shamus Go Golden/Down & Out Books)
• “The Pearl of Antilles” by Caroline Garcia-Aguilera (Edgar & Shamus Go Golden/Down & Out Books)
• “Bad Actor” by Elliot Sweeney (Nov/Dec 2022, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

Mystery Melange

The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers president Jonathan Maberry today announced the nominees for the Scribe Awards for superior works published in 2022. The IAMTW’s Scribe Awards honor licensed works that tie in with other media such as television, movies, gaming, or comic books. There are some honorees of interest to the crime fiction community, including in the General/Adapted Novel category: Murder She Wrote: Death on the Emerald Isle by Terrie Moran, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Firewall by James Swallow (which was also nominated in the Audiobook category). The winners will be announced at San Diego Comic-Con on July 21. 

Submissions are now open for the 30th Sisters in Crime’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards for best short crime and mystery stories, with a record $12,720 in prizes. The closing date for the awards is August 31, 2023, with an entry fee of $25 (or $20 for Sisters in Crime members), and a maximum length of 5,000 words. The competition is open to all women, whether cisgender, transgender, or intersex, who are citizens/residents of Australia. The first prize winner takes home $2,000, donated by Swinburne University of Technology, plus the coveted trophy, a scarlet stiletto shoe with a steel stiletto heel plunging into a mount. The shortlist will be announced in October, with the awards being presented at a gala ceremony in Melbourne in late November. In the lead-up to the ceremony, all of the winning stories over the past 30 years are being narrated by Susanna Lobez for Sisters in Crime’s very first podcast – Scarlet Stiletto Bites: Scintillating stories by Australian women. The podcast is free and a new episode is available weekly on Fridays on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Google, and other services.

Volume 13 in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series, edited by Elizabeth Foxwell, will be on James Sallis (author of Drive, creator of detective Lew Griffin, biographer of Chester Himes, critic, poet, and cross-genre writer). The author of the retrospective is University of East Anglia's Nathan Ashman, who is also editing the Routledge Handbook to Crime Fiction and Ecology. The McFarland Companions book is expected to be issued in fall 2023.

The late Charlie Watts, longtime drummer for The Rolling Stones, was a passionate reader and book collector. Hundreds of his rare books will be put up for sale this autumn, representing the "best collection of modern first editions" to come to Christie's auctions in over 20 years. The offerings include a first edition of The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, inscribed inside the front cover to "the original Gatsby," Harold Goldman, a screenwriter friend of Fitzgerald’s in the 1930s, expected to fetch between £200,000 and £300,000; and a first edition of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles with an inscription reading, "I perambulated Dartmoor before I wrote this book." Conan Doyle’s inscriptions are "often very formulaic," said Mark Wiltshire, a books and manuscripts specialist at Christie’s, making this "really quite special."

Here's something to consider for your summer travel plans, via the World of Footprints - Exploring the World of Crime Fiction: Unveiling the Best Destinations for Thriller Enthusiasts From London to Los Angeles, Stockholm to New Orleans, to Baltimore, and more.

And if you need another travel idea, there's the Sherlock Holmes Museum in Lucens, Switzerland, which the International Diplomat recently profiled.

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

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Siena Sterling about her new novel, The Game She Plays, and also with L.R. Dorn (the pseudonym of screenwriters Matt Dorff and Suzanne Dunn) about the new novel, With a Kiss We Die; S. J. Parris stopped by Crime Time to discuss her new book, Alchemy; and multi-award-winning author Reed Farrel Coleman was featured at Author Interviews, discussing his writing and new novel, Sleepless City, featuring NYC "fixer" Nick Ryan.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Apple has dropped a new trailer for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, following its premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Adapted from David Grann’s best-selling book and inspired by a true story, the project is told through the improbable romance of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone) against the backdrop of a series of Oklahoma murders in the Osage Nation during the 1920s after oil was discovered on tribal land. The film also stars Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, and Sturgill Simpson. The film will be released in select theaters on October 6 and wide on October 20 in partnership with Paramount Pictures before streaming globally on Apple TV+. 

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Nadia Parkes is leading the BBC’s upcoming drama about the terrifying kidnapping of British model Chloe Ayling. Parkes will portray Ayling in the six-parter Kidnapped [working title], and is joined by Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Lindsay, Olive Gray, Eleanor Romandini, Julian Swiezewski, and Christine Tremarco. Further casting will be announced at a later date. Based on Ayling’s book, the series follows her abduction in Italy and subsequent bravery and resilience in captivity, followed by a court case that put her kidnappers in jail. Yet despite their convictions, Chloe faced headlines accusing her of faking her own kidnapping, and found herself at the center of a media storm.

The Patricia Arquette-fronted comedy drama, High Desert, is ending after one season with Apple axing the series, which launched on May 17 and ran through June 21. Arquette plays Peggy, an addict who decides to make a new start by becoming a private investigator after the death of her beloved mother with whom she lived in the small California desert town of Yucca Valley. It also stars Brad Garrett, Weruche Opia, Bernadette Peters, and Rupert Friend with Christine Taylor, Matt Dillon and Eden Brolin among those recurring. Arquette revealed the news on Instagram, adding, "A lot of you have asked about High Desert and if there was going to be a second season, we just found out that it won’t be coming back. That’s a sad bummer for all of us."

Phoenix Waters Productions has released the first trailer for Hong Kong crime drama, Forensic Psychologist, starring Jeannie Chan, and confirmed its world premiere as an official selection at the Festival of Cinema NYC (to be held August 4-13, 2023 at the UA Midway Theater). Set in Hong Kong, the Cantonese-language series stars Chan as a psychologist who investigates suspects to determine if they are mentally fit to stand trial. As she delves into the minds of people charged with heinous crimes, her personal and professional lives start to blur. The 12-episode series also has an English-language version in development.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Alison Gaylin about continuing the story of PI Sunny Randall in Robert B. Parker’s Bad Influence and having Sunny jump into the world of social media with both feet when she’s hired to protect two Instagram influencers and their manager from a series of violent threats.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with Clay Stafford, author and driving force behind the crime fiction conference, Killer Nashville.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured the first of their series of Vacation Short Stories, "Sand Bar," by Ang Pompany, read by Ann Dark. The story was first published in Stone Cold: The Best New England Crime Stories.

The Spybrary podcast welcomed special guest, David Clark, who worked as a Special Advisor to former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. David has an intellectual and professional interest in intelligence, making him the perfect guest for the episode's theme:  Revealing his 5 Best Spy Books.

Red Hot Chili Writers chatted with historical crime writer, Ambrose Parry; discussed Shakespeare's grammatical legacy; and briefly dissected a game show that is effectively a sort of nude "blind date."

On Crime Time FM, Paul Burke and Victoria Selman spoke with the shortlisted authors for the Crime Writers Association's John Creasey New Blood Dagger.

The Pick Your Poison podcast featured a poison that's more potent than cyanide and the famous explorer who survived his exposure to it.

Dazzling Daggers

The Crime Writers Association (CWA) announced the Dagger Awards Winners last night. The prestigious CWA Daggers are the oldest awards in the genre and have been synonymous with quality crime writing for over half a century. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

 

Diamond Dagger (previously announced):  Walter Mosley

Gold Dagger: The Kingdoms of Savannah, by George Dawes Green (Headline)

Other finalists:

The Lost Man of Bombay, by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)
A Killing in November, by Simon Mason (Riverrun)
The Clockwork Girl, by Anna Mazzola (Orion)
The Winter Guest, by W.C. Ryan (Zaffre)
The Silent Brother, by Simon Van der Velde (Northodox Press)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: Seventeen, by John Brownlow (Hodder & Stoughton)

Other finalists:

Take Your Breath Away, by Linwood Barclay (HQ)
The Botanist, by M. W. Craven
The Ink Black Heart, by Robert Galbraith
Alias Emma, by Ava Glass (Century)
May God Forgive, by Alan Parks (Canongate)

John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger:  Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor

Other finalists:

Breaking by Amanda Cassidy 
The Local, by Joey Hartstone (Pushkin Vertigo)
London in Black, by Jack Lutz (Pushkin Vertigo)
No Country for Girls, by Emma Styles (Sphere)
Outback, by Patricia Wolf (Embla)

Historical Dagger:  The Darkest Sin, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)

The Clockwork Girl, by Anna Mazzola (Orion)
The Homes, by J.B. Mylet (Viper)
The Bangalore Detectives Club, by Harini Nagendra (Constable)
Blue Water, by Leonora Nattrass (Viper)
Hear No Evil, by Sarah Smith (Two Roads)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction: Unlawful Killings: Life, Love and Murder: Trials at the Old Bailey, by Wendy Joseph (Doubleday)

Other finalists:

The Poisonous Solicitor: The True Story of a 1920s Murder Mystery, by Stephen Bates (Icon)
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators, by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)
Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession and the Birth of the Lie Detector, by Amit Katwala (Mudlark)
To Hunt a Killer: How I Brought Melanie Road’s Murderer to Justice, by Julie Mackay and Robert Murphy (Harper Element)
About A Son: A Murder and A Father’s Search for Truth, by David Whitehouse (Phoenix)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger: Even the Darkest Night, by Javier Cercas, translated by Anne McLean (MacLehose Press)

Other finalists:

Good Reasons to Die, by Morgan Audic, translated by Sam Taylor (Mountain Leopard Press)
The Red Notebook, by Michel Bussi, translated by Vineet Lal (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Bad Kids, by Zijin Chen, translated by Michelle Deeter (Pushkin Vertigo)
The Bleeding, by Johana Gustawsson, translated by David Warriner (Orenda)
The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter (Michael Joseph)

Short Story Dagger: “Cast a Long Shadow,” by Hazell Ward (from Cast a Long Shadow, edited by Katherine Stansfield and Caroline; Honno Welsh Women’s Press)

Other finalists:

“The Disappearance,” by Leigh Bardugo (from Marple; HarperCollins)
“The Tears of Venus,” by Victoria Dowd and Delilah Dowd (from Unlocked; The D20 Authors)
“The Beautiful Game,” by Sanjida Kay (from The Perfect Crime)
“Paradise Lost,” by Abir Mukherjee (from The Perfect Crime)
“Runaway Blues,” by C.J. Tudor (from A Sliver of Darkness, by C.J. Tudor; Michael Joseph)

Best Crime & Mystery Publisher Dagger: Viper (Profile Books)

Other finalists:

 

Harper Fiction (HarperCollins)
Mantle (PanMacmillan)
Michael Joseph (Penguin Random House)
Pushkin Vertigo (Pushkin Press)
Quercus (Hachette)

 

Debut Dagger:  Sideways, by Jeff Marsick

 

Other finalists:

 

Bulldog Murphy, by Chris Corbett

Male, Unknown, by Chris Griffiths

Heist, by James Pierson

The Line of Least Resistance, by Jeff Richards

Cradle of Storms, by Margaret Winslow

Dagger in the Library for Body of Work:  Sophie Hannah

Other finalists:

 

Ben Aaronovitch
Mick Herron

Capital Crime's Fingerprint Awards

The shortlist for the second Fingerprint Awards, the international book awards held as part of the Capital Crime festival, was revealed yesterday. Readers can vote on their favorites via the form on this link, with winners to be announced at the festival on Thursday, August 31st.

Here are the finalists:

The Crime Book of the Year:

• The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell
• Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths
• The Botanist by M W Craven
• The It Girl by Ruth Ware
• The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

Thriller of the Year:

• A Good Day to Die by Amen Alonge
• Truly Darkly Deeply by Victoria Selman
• Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett
• Do No Harm by Jack Jordan
• Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

Historical Crime Novel of the Year:

• The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan
• The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola
• Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
• Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare
• A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle

Debut Crime Novel of the Year:

• Death and the Conjuror by Tom Mead
• A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle
• Wahala by Nikki May
• That Green-Eyed Girl by Julie Owen-Moylan
• The Maid by Nita Prose

Genre-Busting Novel of the Year:

• Suicide Thursday by Will Carver
• The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly
• Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May
• The Houses of Ashes by Stuart Neville
• The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

Theakston Shortlist

A shortlist has been released for this year's Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, which "celebrates crime fiction at its very best" by U.K. and Irish authors. The prize is run by Harrogate International Festivals and sponsored by T&R Theakston. The public can now vote on the books via this link. The winner, to be named July 21 on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, will receive £3,000 and a handmade, engraved beer cask provided by T&R Theakston.

Here are this year's shortlisted titles:

• The Botanist by M.W. Craven (Little, Brown Book Group; Constable)
• Into The Dark by Fiona Cummins (Pan Macmillan; Macmillan/Pan)
• The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• Black Hearts by Doug Johnstone (Orenda Books)
• Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister (Penguin Random House; Michael Joseph)
• The It Girl by Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster)

Mystery Melange

S.J. Rozan has won the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award, given by the members of the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan for the best hardboiled novel published in Japan. It's for Paper Son, which was published in the U.S. in 2019 but only recently was published in Japan. This is Rozan's second appearance on that list, having won in 2009 for Winter and Night. Other previous winners include Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, Robert Crais, Walter Mosley, and C.J. Box among others. Rozan is one of only three female authors to have won the award, in addition to Sue Grafton and Nanami Wakatake.

The longlist was announced for the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards, which celebrate excellence in New Zealand crime, mystery, and thriller writing. They are named for Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, who penned bestselling mysteries that entertained millions of global readers from her home in the Cashmere Hills. You can check out the list of fourteen titles here, which are currently being considered by an international judging panel of crime and thriller writing experts from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The finalists for Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Non-Fiction will be announced in August, with the finalists celebrated and the winners announced as part of a special event held in association with WORD Christchurch later in the year.

Thirty-three books have made it to Sisters in Crime’s longlist for its 23rd Davitt Awards for the best crime and mystery books published by Australian women in 2022. Six Davitt Awards will be presented at a gala dinner at South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel on Saturday, September 2, by award-winning investigative journalist and true-crime author, Debi Marshall: Best Adult Novel; Best Young Adult Novel; Best Children’s Novel; Best Non-fiction Book; Best Debut Book (any category); and Readers’ Choice (as voted the 600+ members of Sisters in Crime Australia).

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation announced the winners in each category of the 2023 Locus Awards on June 24, 2023, during the Locus Awards Weekend. There are a few crime fiction-themed books among the finalists including Katherine Addison's The Grief of Stones (The Cemeteries of Amalo Book 2) in the Best Fantasy category, which centers on Thara Celehar, who can speak to the recently departed and works to find the killers of the murdered; and The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal, in the Best Science Fiction category, which follows a brilliant inventor and heiress on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner when her husband is arrested for murder.

HQ, an imprint of HarperCollins, has announced the launch of a new £10,000 competition to find an unagented author writing Scotland-set crime novels. A search to discover the next Ian Rankin or Val McDermid has begun via the literary competition, which offers budding crime writers a book deal, a £10,000 advance, and representation by an agent. Any author who is born or raised in Scotland, is a permanent resident, or has a strong and enduring connection with the country can enter with a synopsis and the first 5-10,000 words of their manuscript.

Independent publisher Black Spring Press is launching a new imprint, Black Spring Crime, following the hire of consultant crime editor Luca Veste. The new imprint will publish one crime title a month for the first year beginning with Zephaniah Sole’s A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands, a novel "dripping with rich reality" and fantastical elements. Sole’s novel will be followed by Rob McClure’s "hard-hitting" detective novel, The Scotsman, later this month; J K Nottingham’s Jasper’s Brood, publishing in September 2023; and Clare Grant’s historical crime novel, The Winter of Shadows, publishing in November 2023.

ITW's 10th Annual Online Thriller School begins September 12, with a ten-week program focusing on the craft of thriller writing. Each instructor will teach an aspect of craft during a live Zoom session, will provide written materials for further reading along with study suggestions (when applicable), and will offer live Q&A with the attending students. Classes will be held every Tuesday at 1:00pm Eastern. The series also includes two bonus panels: a Q&A with bestselling authors Clare Mackintosh and Ruth Ware, and "What Makes a Literary Agent Go 'Wow'" with Jenny Bent, Jeff Kleinman, and Barbara Poelle. For more information and registration, follow this link.

Hachette India is spearheading a revival of the legendary Yellowbacks series, first published a century ago by Hodder & Stoughton in the iconic yellow book jackets. Thomas Abraham, the managing director of Hachette India, has personally curated the list of nearly 200 titles over a period of seven years, with the aim of leading readers on a journey through the history of crime and detective fiction—from the 18th century to the golden age of the 1950s and ’60s. A second release, with another 50 to 70 titles, will be announced at the end of this year (with extensions beyond crime fiction to other categories).

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Osip" by Paul Hostovsky.

Mystery Melange

S.J. Rozan has won the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award, given by the members of the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan for the best hardboiled novel published in Japan. It's for Paper Son, which was published in the U.S. in 2019 but only recently was published in Japan. This is Rozan's second appearance on that list, having won in 2009 for Winter and Night. Other previous winners include Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, Robert Crais, Walter Mosley, and C.J. Box among others. Rozan is one of only three female authors to have won the award, in addition to Sue Grafton and Nanami Wakatake.

The longlist was announced for the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards, which celebrate excellence in New Zealand crime, mystery, and thriller writing. They are named for Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, who penned bestselling mysteries that entertained millions of global readers from her home in the Cashmere Hills. You can check out the list of fourteen titles here, which are currently being considered by an international judging panel of crime and thriller writing experts from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The finalists for Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Non-Fiction will be announced in August, with the finalists celebrated and the winners announced as part of a special event held in association with WORD Christchurch later in the year.

Thirty-three books have made it to Sisters in Crime’s longlist for its 23rd Davitt Awards for the best crime and mystery books published by Australian women in 2022. Six Davitt Awards will be presented at a gala dinner at South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel on Saturday, September 2, by award-winning investigative journalist and true-crime author, Debi Marshall: Best Adult Novel; Best Young Adult Novel; Best Children’s Novel; Best Non-fiction Book; Best Debut Book (any category); and Readers’ Choice (as voted the 600+ members of Sisters in Crime Australia).

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation announced the winners in each category of the 2023 Locus Awards on June 24, 2023, during the Locus Awards Weekend. There are a few crime fiction-themed books among the finalists including Katherine Addison's The Grief of Stones (The Cemeteries of Amalo Book 2) in the Best Fantasy category, which centers on Thara Celehar, who can speak to the recently departed and works to find the killers of the murdered; and The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal, in the Best Science Fiction category, which follows a brilliant inventor and heiress on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner when her husband is arrested for murder.

HQ, an imprint of HarperCollins, has announced the launch of a new £10,000 competition to find an unagented author writing Scotland-set crime novels. A search to discover the next Ian Rankin or Val McDermid has begun via the literary competition, which offers budding crime writers a book deal, a £10,000 advance, and representation by an agent. Any author who is born or raised in Scotland, is a permanent resident, or has a strong and enduring connection with the country can enter with a synopsis and the first 5-10,000 words of their manuscript.

Independent publisher Black Spring Press is launching a new imprint, Black Spring Crime, following the hire of consultant crime editor Luca Veste. The new imprint will publish one crime title a month for the first year beginning with Zephaniah Sole’s A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands, a novel "dripping with rich reality" and fantastical elements. Sole’s novel will be followed by Rob McClure’s "hard-hitting" detective novel, The Scotsman, later this month; J K Nottingham’s Jasper’s Brood, publishing in September 2023; and Clare Grant’s historical crime novel, The Winter of Shadows, publishing in November 2023.

ITW's 10th Annual Online Thriller School begins September 12, with a ten-week program focusing on the craft of thriller writing. Each instructor will teach an aspect of craft during a live Zoom session, will provide written materials for further reading along with study suggestions (when applicable), and will offer live Q&A with the attending students. Classes will be held every Tuesday at 1:00pm Eastern. The series also includes two bonus panels: a Q&A with bestselling authors Clare Mackintosh and Ruth Ware, and "What Makes a Literary Agent Go 'Wow'" with Jenny Bent, Jeff Kleinman, and Barbara Poelle. For more information and registration, follow this link.

Hachette India is spearheading a revival of the legendary Yellowbacks series, first published a century ago by Hodder & Stoughton in the iconic yellow book jackets. Thomas Abraham, the managing director of Hachette India, has personally curated the list of nearly 200 titles over a period of seven years, with the aim of leading readers on a journey through the history of crime and detective fiction—from the 18th century to the golden age of the 1950s and ’60s. A second release, with another 50 to 70 titles, will be announced at the end of this year (with extensions beyond crime fiction to other categories).

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Osip" by Paul Hostovsky.