Mystery Melange

 

This week, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) announced the winners of the 2024 Audie Awards during a ceremony in Los Angeles for the 27 categories of prizes. Best Mystery went to Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto, narrated by Eunice Wong (Penguin Random House Audio). The Best Thriller/Suspense honor was snagged by All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby, narrated by Adam Lazarre-White (Macmillan Audio). You can check out all the finalists in those categories as well as the other genres via this link.

If you're in the Washington, DC, area this Saturday, March 9, join global bestselling Icelandic authors Ragnar Jónasson and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, known as the Queen and King of Icelandic crime fiction, for a conversation at the Beverly Snow about their novels and the literature festival they run as a side hustle. Ragnar Jónasson will be discussing Reykjavík, a crime novel he co-authored with Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir will discuss The Legacy, the first book in the Huldar and Freyja series.

It's always good news to hear about the advent of a new bookstore, and this week it was Criminally Good Books, an independent book store specializing in crime writing that opened its doors for the first time in Colliergate, York, in the UK. Owner Isla Coole said she "hoped to promote the best of the genre but also help publicise great books which perhaps did not benefit from a publisher's marketing budget and so might fall under the radar of readers." A range of events are already planned for the store including author book talks and signings.

The last major appearance of Dick Tracy in other media outside of comic books was the 1990 Dick Tracy feature film directed by and starring Warren Beatty. This year, Alex Segura, Michael Moreci, and Chantelle Aimée Osman, the holders of the Dick Tracy comic book rights, are looking to change all that with the launch of an all-new, ongoing Dick Tracy series from Mad Cave Studios. The book, written by Segura and Moreci and featuring art by Geraldo Borges, launches in April and will be a noir-tinged "Year One" approach to the famous trench coat-clad, fedora-wearing, intrepid police detective. Moreci noted, "This Dick Tracy is more complex, more modern, and a bit darker than what he's been before. But, and this goes to my second point, longtime Tracy readers will find plenty to love here."

Speaking of Alex Segura, he'll be joined by fellow authors Cassandra Khaw (The Salt Grows Heavy) and Cynthia Pelayo (Forgotten Sisters) for the genre author panel, "Mystery! Horror! Mayhem!" on Thursday, March 21 at Kew and Willow Books in Kew Gardens, New York.

Short Story Wednesday is a loosely organized group of bloggers who feature classic short stories each week (something I've been wanting to participate in, but haven't found the time just yet). Among this week's offerings are "Scab Painting" by Yoka Ogawa via Patti Abbott; The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories: Part XXXVII, via George Kelley; "Black Winter," by Ellen Gilchrist, via Todd Mason; and three Captain Leopold stories by Edward D. Hoch via Tracy K.

Jeff Pierce over at The Rap Sheet blog has an embarrassment of riches with a list of crime fiction titles being published March through May of this year in both the U.S. and the U.K. I'm still waiting for my reading clone to help me get through all of these, but they're certainly going to make a lot of ereaders and bookstores very happy.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton interviewed thriller author Piper Bayard about her new thriller co-authored with Jay Holmes, The Caiman of Iquitos, the second full-length novel in the Apex Predator series featuring retired CIA officer John Viera and his network of former military and intelligence operatives; and Cara Black, author of the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series and two World War II-set novels featuring American markswoman Kate Rees, spoke with Writers Read about what's on her reading list right now.