Since 1986, the Netherlands has awarded an annual "Gouden Strop" ("Golden Noose") to the year's best Dutch-language crime novel and the "Schaduwprijs" ("Shadow Prize") to the best debut crime novel. Three years ago, they also introduced the "Zilveren Strop" ("Silver Noose") for the best Dutch-language short story, and last year that award was renamed the Goeken Prize (after Paul Goeken, who wrote six novels under his own name and nine as Suzanne Vermeer before he passed on in 2011). This year's winners of the Golden Strop and the Shadow Prize were announced late last month at the Neude Library in Utrecht, including Mathijs Deen, who won the Golden Strop 2024 with The Diver, and Lex Noteboom, who was awarded the Shadow Prize 2024 for his thriller, The Man with a Thousand Faces. The Silver Noose winner was revealed online yesterday as "Doodweer" ("Dead Weather") by Jolanda Treffers. The other four finalists (with titles translated into English) were "The Execution" by Marius van Bruggen; "A Short Frenzy" by Josh Pachter; "Walk with Premeditation" by Mark Posma; and "Mise-en-scene" by Patricia Bouwhuis-Ooyevaar. (HT to Josh Pachter via social media)
Noir at the Bar heads to Elaine's, 208 Queen Street, Alexandria, VA, this Friday, June 21, at 7:00 pm. The event will feature award-winning authors reading their eight-minute short stories, including Brendan DuBois, Jackie Sherbow, LynDee Walker, Joe Walker, Stacy Woodson, Adam Meyer, and Tom Milani. On the other side of the Pond, Noir At the Bar, Edinburgh celebrates National Crime Reading Month on Thursday, June 27, at Canons' Gait Pub, with a lineup featuring Guy Hale, Ann Bloxwich, Cristine Tait, Adrian Searle, Rob Briggs, Fiona Quinn, Sandra Ireland, Gillian Duff, and Daniel Aubury.
As part of Dallas-Forth Worth Smith Public Library's summer theme of Only Murders in the Library, there will be a Crime Time Author Panel & Book Signing this Saturday at 2 pm. You can hear mystery and thriller authors talk about the howdunit in whodunits, ask your burning questions about the life of a writer, and help out the library at the same time, with book sale proceeds to benefit the Friends of the Library. The event also includes giveaways and a book signing afterwards with in-person authors Sara Rosett, L. A. Starks, Liese Sherwood-Fabre, and Leanne Kale Sparks. Other authors appearing "virtually" are Carolyn Haines and Carmen Amato.
Details about the upcoming UK Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in July continue to be rolled out, with Orion announcing that its immersive events space, The Incident Room, will be returning to the festival on Friday, July 19th for its eighth year. The space will deliver exclusive events for festival attendees including a celebration of the publication of Murder in Harrogate, a collection of crime short stories edited by Vaseem Khan, publishing with Orion in July. There will also be an Agatha Christie quiz, a live Crime Writers Room and an in-conversation event with Julian Clary about his crime fiction debut, Curtain Call to Murder. The line-up will also include M J Arlidge, Julia Crouch, Steph Broadribb, Vaseem Khan, Elly Griffiths, Ruth Ware, M W Craven and Mark Billingham, alongside other Orion authors. Orion will also provide a limited Harrogate at Home exclusive package for those unable to attend The Incident Room in-person.
Bookselling giant Barnes & Noble is set to become the next owner of Denver bookstore Tattered Cover, marking the end of its 53-year run as an independent business. Tattered Cover filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October and was due to hold an auction last Wednesday to hear bids to buy the bookstore and its assets, but it canceled the event at the last minute. A source familiar with the matter told Denverite last week that Tattered Cover has received three serious bids of varying amounts, but Barnes & Noble won with a bid of $1.8 million to obtain Tattered Cover’s five existing locations and its inventory. Under the agreement, Barnes & Noble will continue to operate the stores under the Tattered Cover moniker and will continue to employ "substantially all" of its current employees. The store has hosted and supported many crime fiction authors through the years, including most recently, Craig Johnson and Elin Hilderbrand.
"Murder Takes a Holiday," the latest issue of Mystery Readers Journal, is out on virtual newsstands. Each quarterly thematic review contains articles, reviews, and author essays on a specific theme, as well as special columns and other mystery related material. You can read the table of contents and learn about subscriptions via this link. There are also a couple of free sample articles from the issue there, including "Please Proceed to Your Gate—To Begin Your (Murderous) Journey" by Cathy Ace; "How I Learned to Write More Than Thirty Pages" by Simon Brett; and "Have Pen, Will Travel" by Tom Straw.
Writing for CrimeReads, James Queally has a retrospective on the late, great crime fiction magazine, ThugLit, and its founder, Todd "Big Daddy Thug" Robinson. The 'zine, self-described as "best damn crime fiction on the planet," lasted for eleven years and was the launching pad for some of the biggest names in crime fiction today.
In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with Justine Pucella Winans about her YA mysteries; Author Interviews also spoke with Rob Hart, author of the Ash McKenna crime series, a novella with James Patterson, and more, about his latest novel, Assassins Anonymous; E.J. Copperman (aka Jeff Cohen), applied the Page 69 Test to the second installment of his light-hearted cozy mystery series, Same Difference, which sees private investigators Fran and Ken Stein on the trail of a missing nineteen-year-old trans woman; Alex Michaelides chatted with the Hindustan Times about his books, screenwriting, and crime fiction in general; and the Irish Examiner interviewed Jo Spain about her latest novel, The Trial, a big-pharma medical thriller with a different kind of trial.
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