Mystery Melange

 

The winners of the 2024 Historical Writers Association (HWA) Crown Awards were announced, celebrating the best in recent historical writing, fiction, and non-fiction. The 2024 Gold Crown Award was won by Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle, based on the life of Artemisia Gentileschi—the greatest female painter of the Renaissance; the Non-fiction Crown Award was Four Shots In the Night: A True Story of Stakeknife, Murder and Justice in Northern Ireland by Henry Hemming; and the Debut Crown Award went to The Tumbling Girl: Variety Palace Mysteries Book 1 by Bridget Walsh. You can read about the other finalists in each category here.

Eddie Muller will host NOIR CITY Xmas at Oakland's historic Grand Lake Theatre, Wednesday, December 18, 7:30 pm. To darken your yuletide spirit, the Film Noir Foundation is presenting Who Killed Santa Claus? (L'Assassinat du père Noël), a 1941 French mystery. The evening will also feature the unveiling of the program for NOIR CITY 22, the 22nd year of the world's most popular film noir festival, coming to the Grand Lake Theatre January 24 - February 2, 2025. Tickets for NOIR CITY Xmas are now available online from Eventbrite for $15 and can also be purchased at the theatre box office on the day of the show. Doors will open at 6:30 pm on the day of the event.

Janet Rudolph posted an updated Thanksgiving Crime Fiction list on the Mystery Fanfare blog, featuring novels and short stories with a mix of cozy, noir, and whodunits. King's River Life also has a few Thanksgiving food-themed mysteries for you to chew on.

The authors at the Mystery Lovers Kitchen blog have some reads and recipes to be thankful for, including Libby Klein's Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Pot Pie; Molly MacRae's Red Wine Honey Cake; Cleo Coyle's Dairy-Free Pumpkin Cupcakes; and the infamous Turducken, courtesy of Maya Corrigan.

I'm a sucker for astronomical mysteries, and Phil Plait, writing for Scientific American, has a fun lesson on why the sky is dark at night and how Edgar Allan Poe figured into the answer to that long-standing riddle.

I'm also a fan of classical music mysteries (and this one hits particularly close to him as it ties in with one of the elements of my own novel, Played to Death): A curator in New York City has identified a lost waltz by Frédéric Chopin, marking the first discovery of music by the renowned 19th-century composer since the 1930s. But is it really Chopin?

In the Q&A roundup, Suspense Magazine spoke with author Jacqueline Bublitz about her latest thriller, Leave the Girls Behind; Writers Who Kill chatted with Jennifer K. Morita about her debut mystery novel, Ghosts of Waikīkī; and Lisa Haselton interviewed Mark L Dressler about his detective mystery novel, Dying for Fame.