Mystery Melange

 

This week marks the annual Banned Books Week, launched in 1982 by the American Library Association in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. There are hundreds, if not thousands of events scattered throughout the U.S. in support of the event, which this year takes on even more urgency in the face of recent politically motivated book bans. Florida implemented more bans than any other state in the country, accounting for more than 40% of all bans in the U.S, and yesterday several authors including Michael Connelly announced a drive to take a stand against censorship in the state's schools and libraries. Connelly, who was raised in Florida, invested $1 million to a new advocacy center PEN America hopes to open in Florida by the end of the year.

The Crime Fiction Lover Awards are back for the third year running, celebrating the best in crime fiction. Readers are encouraged to nominate your favorite books, authors, and shows across six main categories, including Book of the Year, Best Debut, Best in Translation, Best Indie Novel, Best Author, and Best Crime Show. This year will also see the debut of a new award chosen by the editorial team called the Life of Crime Award to an author who has made an outstanding contribution to the genre during their career.

The shortlists were announced for the Wodehouse comic fiction prize, which rewards witty writers with champagne and a pig named after their book. One of this year's contenders is Murder at Crime Manor, by Fergus Craig, a crime fiction parody and the follow-up to his 2021 book, Once Upon a Crime. Craig’s "detective Roger LeCarre is lovable, funny and absurd," said judge and broadcaster James Naughtie. "This book is Wodehousian in spirit and style. You laugh out loud, and you wonder how it is that in a staged country-house setting, where murder is done, you can still care. And then you realise that you’ve enjoyed it. A fictional romp to savour." The winner will be announced in November at a reception in London.

For the first time, Crime Time will bring its no-holds-barred Christmas Debate to a live audience, with Financial Times crime fiction critic and writer Barry Forshaw acting as Master of Ceremonies. The Crime Time Christmas Debate sees reviewers go head-to-head as they battle it out to choose the best crime novel of the year. Initially an online event, this year the illustrious panel will debate their top picks in front of a live audience at Waterstones Islington on November 9th. On the panel are: Guardian crime critic, Laura Wilson; Telegraph book critic, Jake Kerridge; Sunday Express deputy editor and crime fiction critic, Jon Coates; Sunday Times bestselling author and Crime Time FM presenter, Victoria Selman; Shots blog crime critic and festival organizer, Ayo Onatade; critic and ex-CWA Chair, Maxim Jakubowski; and critic and Crime Time FM presenter, Paul Burke. Tickets are £5 and available via this link.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Dorothy L Sayers novel, Whose Body?, which introduced her hero Lord Peter Wimsey, and launched a series of 11 novels that changed the detective genre forever. As The Telegraph noted in its tribute, "Sayers’s enchanted world of Bright Young Things and Bloomsbury Bohemians, a world in which a successful author could afford to take a six-month holiday, is now steeped in nostalgia. But she was also commenting on Britain in the 1930s; she sharply observes the poverty of the era, and the rise of both Communism and Fascism."

First edition crime novels owned by the late Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, were sold for record prices at auction. They included a first edition of the Sherlock Holmes tale, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, which sold for £214,200, setting a new world auction record for a printed book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The book was inscribed by a personal message on the title page from Conan Doyle himself, who wrote: "I perambulated Dartmoor before I wrote this book." (Watts lived 10 miles from the location of the book’s Devonshire setting.) Additionally, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s acclaimed novel, The Great Gatsby, first published in 1925, received the highest bid, at £226,800.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton interviewed thriller author Val Collins about the newest novel in her Aoife Walsh series, Dying to Tell; and Donna Leon spoke with The Washington Post about how she never planned to write crime fiction, and yet this year published her 32nd mystery novel featuring Venetian police detective Guido Brunetti.