Mystery Melange - Halloween Edition

Gold medallion recipients of the 2023 Will Rogers Medallion Awards (WRMA) were announced during the organization’s annual awards banquet in Fort Worth’s fabled Stockyard District this past weekend. Among the highest honors was the Golden Lariat, awarded to Craig Johnson for outstanding service and dedication to the art of storytelling about the American West through his Walt Longmire mystery novels. Also, in the Western Mystery category, the Gold Winner was The Secret in the Wall by Ann Parker (Sourcebooks); the Silver went to Funeral Train by Laurie Loewenstein (Akashic Books); and the Bronze was awarded to Hardly Any Shooting Stars Left by B.K. Froman (Iron Stream Media).

The shortlists have been announced for this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards. There are half a dozen candidates for the 2023 Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year, including the finalists The Lock-Up, by John Banville; The Close, by Jane Casey; Kill for Me, Kill for You, by Steve Cavanagh; No One Saw a Thing, by Andrea Mara; Strange Sally Diamond, by Liz Nugent; and The Trap, by Catherine Ryan Howard. The books now go to a public vote, with winners announced at The Convention Centre Dublin on November 22.

The Midwest Mystery Conference is back for a one-day, in-person event on November 11, from 9-5 at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois. With a single track of panels, keynote conversations, plus opening remarks from conference organizers Dana Kaye, Lori Rader-Day, and Tracy Clark, the Midwest Mystery Conference is a great opportunity to connect with your favorite authors, and meet a few new ones. The venue is fully accessible and registration includes a tote bag full of books and goodies.

HarperFiction publisher Julia Wisdom is to lead a new imprint, Hemlock Press, to "intrigue the mind and thrill the senses," featuring A J Finn and Abigail Dean alongside new voices in mystery fiction. Hemlock will showcase espionage fiction, literary crime thrillers and historical suspense, with the logo being unveiled at the 2023 Frankfurt Book Fair this week. Launching in spring 2024, the list will be headed by Wisdom with a newly promoted commissioning team including senior commissioning editor Kathryn Cheshire and assistant editor Lizz Burrell. HarperFiction said: "Hemlock Press is a curated list for those seeking literary quality alongside intriguing plots, vividly realized worlds and characters that live with you long after the final page."

El Pais profiled the new book, El monstruo y el asesino en serie. De Frankenstein a Hannibal Lecter, by co-authors Vicente Garrido (a criminology professor) and Virgilio Latorre, (a criminal lawyer), which explores how 19th century Gothic literature helped scientists identify the characteristics of a serial killer.

Is Taylor Swift a secret spy novelist? Her fans are convinced she's the mysterious author who wrote the book Argylle (attributed to "Elly Conway"), which is perplexing the literary world and being made into a film by Matthew Vaughan.

Elizabeth Foxwell's Bunburyist blog brings word of "Edgar Allan Poe: The Exhibit," an art exhibition inspired by the author's stories, quotes, and passages from his many literary works, which opens on November 16 at Orlando's City Arts venue and runs through December 17. Poe’s exploration of all aspects of the human psyche has appealed to modern artists through the present day, including those associated with the Symbolist movement, German Expressionism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism. In that vein, the exhibit features art works created for the event with prizes handed out to four winning artists.

Foxwell is an editor for McFarlane books and also noted a sale on horror books via the publisher's website using coupon code HALLOWEEN2023 through October 31.

Janet Rudolph has expanded her Mystery Fanfare blog's Halloween-themed crime fiction list, which you can check out here. She'll have a separate Day of the Dead list, and while you're waiting, you can check out the titles from last year.

The authors at Mystery Lover's Kitchen are offering up some mysteriously good Halloween recipes, including Leslie Karst's Pumpkin Soup with Brown Butter and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds; Two-Ingredient Chocolate Fudge Halloween Cookies from author Cleo Coyle; Vampire Cake, courtesy of Peg Cochran, and more.


In the Q&A roundup, E. B. Davis over at Writers Who Kill interviewed Heather Weidner about her cozy mystery, Christmas Lights and Cat Fights; Martin Patience spoke with Crime Time about his latest novel, The Darker the Night, a dark political thriller set during a referendum on Scottish independence; and Russell Wate, author of the DCI McFarlane Crime Series, chatted with Indie Crime Scene about the third and latest installment in that series, Death at Chateau Peveril.

Mystery Melange

Emma Styles won the £10,000 Wilbur Smith adventure writing prize with her "impressive" and "adrenaline-fuelled" debut novel, No Country for Girls. The Thelma and Louise-styled adventure thriller was also shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award, the Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Novel, and the Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. The annual Prize has three distinct categories designed to provide opportunities to published, unpublished and young writers. It is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English. Across the categories, the Prize received over 1,000 submissions from 67 different countries. (HT to Shots Magazine)

Texas Monthly profiled Houston's Murder by the Book, one of the nation's oldest and largest mystery specialty bookstores, established in 1980 by Martha Farrington and purchased by McKenna Jordan in 2009. The store also hosts bestselling authors on book tours, such as Don Winslow and Lou Berney and has a book subscription service. McKenna Jordan has a theory about the current popularity of crime fiction, or at least of “cozies,” mystery novels that tend to be less explicit and more old-fashioned, in which the nasty stuff occurs off the page. “Sales uptick in more difficult times, when maybe the overall climate that you’re living in is more stressful,” she says.

Speaking of cozies, Jane Sullivan, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, offered up another opinion piece about whether Richard Osman’s cozy books a boon or disaster for crime fiction (after a BBC editorial expressed the same reservations, which I noted back in September), but the subgenre has been steadily gaining new fans over the past several years. The Critic magazine argued that the cozy side of crime fiction, as reflected in the Golden Age of "traditional" crime stories, was actually more authentic than its “gritty” successors. Meanwhile, Forbes Magazine recently offered up a list of "5 Cozy Mystery Series To Satisfy Your Wanderlust."

A new anthology of crime fiction is raising funds for polio eradication. The idea for the anthology of short stories, published in July 2023 as An Unnecessary Assassin, came to former librarian Lorraine Stevens last year at a literary festival in Yorkshire, England. The project includes stories by Ann Cleeves, Lee Child, David Penny, G.L. Waring, Chris McGeorge, Robert Scragg, F.D. Quinn, Judith O’Reilly, and Jim Taylor. Proceeds will be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


In the Q&A roundup, The Express chatted with Scottish author Val McDermid about her latest novel featuring cold case investigator Karen Pirie; the roots of her tabloid nickname; why Big Daddy might have regretted taking her on; and the vile abuse of women in the public eye. Lisa Haselton interviewed co-authors Breakfield and Burkey (Charles Breakfield and Rox Burkey) about their new technothriller, Enigma Tracer, the first of a planned trilogy in the "Enigma Heirs" series. Victoria Dowd spoke with Crime Time about her novel, Murder Most Cold, inspired by Golden Age Detective novels, Agatha Christie, and locked room mysteries. And The Real Book Spy welcomed New York Times bestselling author Simon Gervais to discuss The Last Guardian, his latest thriller featuring former secret service agent, Clayton White.

Mystery Melange

The winner of the Petrona Award 2024, announced today, goes to Pascal Engman for Femicide tr. Michael Gallagher (Sweden). The Petrona Award was established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in December 2012. Maxine, whose online persona and blog was called Petrona, was passionate about translated crime fiction but in particular that from the Scandinavian countries. The award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year. The other shortlisted authors and titles include Anne Mette Hancock – The Corpse Flower tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark); Håkan Nesser – The Axe Woman tr. Sarah Death (Sweden); Petra Rautiainen – Land of Snow and Ashes tr. David Hackston (Finland); Joachim B Schmidt – Kalmann tr. Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland); Lilja Sigurðardóttir – Red as Blood tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland); and Gunnar Staalesen – Bitter Flowers tr. Don Bartlett (Norway).

The New England Clam Bake, one of the last mystery writer/fan conferences of the year, is headed to Boston November 10-12. The Guest of Honor this year is Deborah Crombie, with other featured authors to include EA Aymar, Kate Flora, Hallie Ephron, Doug Grad, Naomi Hirahara, Gabino Iglesias, BJ Magnani, Paula Munie, Cythina Pelayo, Barb Ross, and Hank Phillippi Ryan. The interviews and panels will include a mix of virtual online events and in-person events. For more information or to register, follow this link.

A few other one-day conferences of note in November: Men of Mystery returns to Long Beach, California on November 4, with special guests Matthew Quirk, Marc Cameron, Joe Ide, Leslie S. Klinger, and Matt Coyle; and the Midwest Mystery Conference (formerly Murder and Mayhem in Chicago) arrives in the Windy City on November 11. Plus Iceland Noir heads to Reykjavík November 15-18, with a special appearance by Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny (co-authors of State of Terror) on November 19.

CrimeFest, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, is offering a bursary for a crime fiction writer of color to attend its festival next May. The bursary will cover the cost of a full weekend pass to the convention, a night’s accommodation at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel, and a guaranteed panel appearance. Eligible authors must have published at least one English language book in traditional print by a British commercial publisher. CrimeFest launched the bursary in 2021 with the first award going to Saima Mir to attend the 2022 convention, for her debut novel, The Khan, which was a Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Year.

James Patterson is once again supporting independent booksellers through his Holiday Bookstore Bonus Program. This year the bestselling author has increased his contribution, pledging $300,000 to be distributed in $500 increments to 600 booksellers from ABA member bookstores. Nominations can be made through an online nomination form that asks the question: "In 250 words or less, why does this bookseller deserve a holiday bonus?" Booksellers can self-nominate to be considered for a bonus, or they can be nominated by bookstore customers, owners, employees, managers, fellow booksellers, publishing professionals, or authors. The deadline to nominate is November 15, with bonuses to be distributed in December.


In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton interviewed thriller author Austin S. Camacho about his new Hannibal Jones Mystery, Subtle Felonies; and Agatha Award-nominee Allison Brook spoke with Writers Who Kill's E.B. Davis about her Haunted Library mysteries.