Mystery Melange

 

Each year, the Bouchercon Crime Fiction Conference Board selects a recipient of the 2024 David Thompson Special Service Award to honor the memory and contributions to the crime fiction community of David Thompson, a much beloved Houston bookseller who passed away in 2010. Winners are lauded for their "extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field." This year's recipient(s) are Crime Writers of Color, and its founders, Kellye Garett, Walter Mosley, and Gigi Pandian. The award presentation will be part of the Bouchercon 2024 Opening Ceremony in Nashville August 28-September 1, 2024.

Winners of the 2024 Colorado Book Awards were announced, including those in the Mystery and Thriller categories. Best mystery was won by Blood Betrayal: A Detective Inaya Rahman Novel by Ausma Zehanat Khan (Minotaur Books). The other finalists were Standing Dead by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane Books) and Take the Honey and Run: A Beekeeping Mystery by Jennie Marts (Crooked Lane Books). The thriller winner was No Child of Mine by Nichelle Giraldes (Sourcebooks). The other thriller finalists include Once Upon a Lie by Rebecca Taylor (Ophelia House) and The Girls in the Cabin by Caleb Stephens (Joffe Books).

Applications are open for Sisters in Crime's SinC Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers, which includes a grant of $2,000. Interested applicants need to submit an unpublished work of crime fiction that may be a short story or first chapter of a manuscript in-progress of 2,500 to 5,000 words, a resume or biographical statement, and a cover letter that gives a sense of the applicant as an emerging writer in the genre and briefly states how the award money would be used. (Writers submitting work should have published not more than ten pieces of short fiction or up to two self-published or traditionally published books.) One year after their win, the award winner will be asked to share thoughts on the impact the award has made, and also will be asked to serve as a member of the award selection committee for the year after their win, alongside volunteer judges. For more information, check out the official SinC award website.

The crime fiction festival "Murder Most Yorkshire" is headed to Harrogate in the UK from July 4-6. This is a free event with author panels, interviews, book signings, writing workshops, open mic, and writing challenges. Over a dozen authors are scheduled to attend and participate in such panels as "Tea and Trenchcoats," "Crime by Degree," "Not so Line of Duty," and more.

Kronos Records has scheduled a July release of the soundtrack to the film noir, Cop Hater (1958), the film based on the first 87th Precinct novel by Ed McBain (1956) featuring Robert Loggia, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, and Vincent Gardenia. The music was written by composer Albert Glasser (Motorcycle Gang; The Big Caper; The Cisko Kid Returns, and various others), and is rich in both big orchestral moments and jazzy and big band swing style tunes. The CD is strictly limited to 300 copies. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell at The Bunburyist)

Craig Sisterson offers up "13 fresh, exciting antipodean crime writers to try" if you're interested in checking out crime fiction from Aussie and New Zealand authors.

If you're a fan of both science fiction and crime fiction, Reactor Mag has one list of "5 Underrated Weird Mysteries" and another titled "Five Murder Mysteries Featuring SFF Authors and Fans."

Think you're an expert at femme fatales in crime fiction? Then try your hand at this quiz via Olivia Rutigliano at CrimeReads.

In April 2015, B.K. (Bonnie) Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. After Bonnie's death in November 2017, the blog series relocated to Art Taylor's website. This week and next, he'll be hosting Julie Hastrup and Kevin Tipple, both contributors to the new anthology, Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery and Suspense, edited by Judy Penz Sheluk, which was published this past week.

In the Q&A roundup, E. B. Davis interviewed Molly MacRae for Writers Who Kill, about Come Shell or High Water, the first book in MacRae’s Haunted Shell Shop mystery series; Crime Fiction Lover chatted with British author Tracy Buchanan about her latest crime novel, Venom in the Blood, which features the forensic entomologist Dr. Vanessa Marwood; and Shots Magazine spoke with Kia Abdullah, whose 2019 debut crime novel, Take It Back, was critically acclaimed, and whose third novel, Next of Kin, was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger.