Mystery Melange

 

The Southwest Florida Reading Festival in Fort Myers, Florida, this Saturday, March 1st, will feature several panels related to crime fiction. Tracy Clark and Stephen Mack Jones will start off at 10:30 by discussing the "Midwest Crime Scene," followed by Eli Cranor and R.J. Jacobs speaking on "It’s all in the Details." After lunch, Elinor Lipman and Annabelle Tometich will talk about "Misdemeanors, Felonies & Hilarious Hijinx," and then wrapping things up, Reed Farrel Coleman and Alison Gaylin will chat about "Mystery, Mayhem & Masterminds."

On Saturday, March 15th, the Tucson Festival of Books in Arizona has an all-start lineup of mystery and thriller authors, including Sandra Brown, Tess Gerritsen, Rachel Howzell Hall, JA Jance, Craig Johnson, William Kent Krueger, T. Jefferson Parker, Don Winslow, and more. General Admission and Fast Passes are still available.

If you find yourself Downunder over the next month or so, you can catch a couple of crime fiction panels. The first is March 4, Books in Bars - Criminal Minds author panel with Ashley Kalagian Blunt, Ali Lowe, B.M. Carroll, and Laura McCluskey in conversation with Kate Horan. The second takes place on Wednesday, May 14 in Cambridge, New Zealand, as Culprits in Cambridge - Mystery in the Library features two-time Ngaio finalist Nikki Crutchley chairing a panel with writers Zoë Rankin and Jen Shieff, and police detectives turned writers Angus McLean and Chook Henwood.

Fans of true crime, take note: Hosts of many popular true crime podcasts will headline a murder-themed cruise next year that's being billed as a first-of-its kind immersive mystery experience at sea. Currently scheduled to take part are America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh; Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala from RedHanded; Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi from Scamfluencers; Aaron Habel and Justin Evans from Generation Why; Carl Miller of Kill List; Hollywood & Crime host Tracy Pattin; and Chris Stewart from Law & Crime. The four-night cruise will sail from Miami, Florida, to Nassau, Bahamas in January 2026.

In honor of Mardi Gras, which this year falls on Tuesday, March 4, Janet Rudolph updated her list of Mardi Gras/Carnevale mysteries, mostly set in New Orleans, but with a few other countries and cities, as well.

On Art Taylor's blog, "The First Two Pages" (a feature originally created by the late B.K. Stevens) continues a celebration of the new—and eighth—Guppy Anthology, Gone Fishin’. Edited by James M. Jackson and published by Wolf’s Echo Press, the new collection features stories by members of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime. The book is subtitled Crime Takes a Holiday, and as the press materials clarify, crime also "Steals, Disrupts, Upends, Wrecks, Destroys and/or Shatters a Holiday" as well. After hosting Cindy Martin last week with an essay on her story, "Salt, Sand, Slay," Kate Fellowes is featured this week with her story, "Pier Pressure."

The Guardian reported on the CIA book smuggling operation that helped bring down communism.

In the stranger than life department, a clandestine workshop has been discovered in Rome where fakes of paintings by some of the world’s most famous artists, including Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt, were produced before being sold online.

In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover spoke with Simon McCleave about his Ruth Hunter series of police procedurals, which are being adapted for TV, and his latest novel, Marshal of Snowdonia, the first in a new series; debut thriller author R. John Dingle chatted with Lisa Haselton about his new psychological thriller, Karma Never Sleeps; and Lisa Black applied the Page 69 Test to the fourth title in the forensic Locard Institute series, Not Who We Expected.