Mystery Melange

 

Renita D’Silva’s psychological thriller, The Neighbour, has won the Joffe Books Prize for Crime Writers of Colour 2023. The prize was established in response to "the paucity of diverse voices being published in crime fiction," with an aim to seek out writers from communities that are underrepresented in the genre and support them in building sustainable careers. The judges, including author Nadine Matheson, literary agent Nelle Andrew, and Joffe Books editorial director, Emma Grundy Haigh, praised D'Silva's book for its "wide ranging, ambitious cast of characters and stories that interlock but don’t overwhelm."

This past weekend, at the annual Black Orchid Banquet held in New York City, the Wolfe Pack (the official Nero Wolfe literary society), announced that The Day He Left, by Frederick Weisel won the 2023 Nero Award for best crime novel. "Alibi in Ice," by Libby Cudmore, also received the 2023 Black Orchid Novella Award and will be published in the July 2024 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Honorable mentions for the Black Orchid Novella Award include Paul A. Barra's "Death of a Papist," Lawrence Coates's "Jimtown," and Tom Larsen's "El Cazador."(HT to The Rap Sheet)

The end of the year "best" lists just keep coming, with the latest being from several newspaper compilations. Oline H. Cogdill's list for The Sun-Sentinel narrowed down her 120 reads to 18, noting that major trends in the genre continued to be diversity, regional stories, veterans and domestic suspense. Over at The Guardian, Laura Wilson curated her list of the best, which unsurprisingly tilted more toward European crime fiction authors, while Alison Flood picked five of her own. New York Times writer-at-large, Sarah Lyall, chose six titles for her Best Thrillers list, including an espionage caper, the tale of a murderous librarian and a high-stakes adventure that takes place inside the various stomachs of a whale. NYT regular crime columnist, Sarah Weinman, chose a mix of traditional mysteries and thrillers, from the U.S. to Scandinavia, as her picks for "The Best Crime Novels of 2023." And the Washington Post's Karen MacPherson shone the spotlight on her top 10 best mystery novels of 2023.

Kate Jackson, a/k/a the "Armchair Sleuth" also put together a list of her picks for the best Classic Crime Reprints of 2023 by publishers such as American Mystery Classics, British Library Crime Classics, and Galileo Publishing. The recommendations range from titles like The Wheel Spins (1936) by Ethel Lina White to Suddenly at His Residence (1947) by Christianna Brand, to Four Days Wonder (1933) by A. A. Milne (also known as the creator of Winnie the Pooh).

Writing for Mental Floss, April Snellings profiled the iconic UK institution, The Detection Club, from its founding in 1930 through the evolution of the mystery novel. But the article notes some of the lesser-known tidbits such as the club’s headquarters being originally located between an oyster bar and a brothel, and a group of members enlisting the head of Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department to help them break into the club’s headquarters to retrieve materials for a new member induction after they'd all forgotten their keys. While the club initially formed as a social group for writers of detective fiction, it did have an official purpose: to uphold a rigid set of standards for crime fiction, and weed out any potential members who wouldn’t agree to meet them.

As historian Lucy Worsley notes, Arthur Conan Doyle secretly hated his creation Sherlock Holmes and blamed the cerebral detective character for denying him recognition as the author of highbrow historical fiction, which laid around unread. "Arthur must have hated himself. And he would have hated the fact that today, 93 years after his death, his historical novels lie unread, while his ‘cheap’ – but beloved – detective lives forever on our screens."

In the Q&A roundup, spy novelist Mick Herron spoke with The Daily Mail about his latest book, The Secret Hours, and the TV adaptation of his successful "Slough House" series set in a place where MI5 puts "failed" spies; and SJ Rozan, who has won practically every major award for Best Novel and the Best Short Story (and is also the recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award and Life Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America), applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Mayors of New York.