Mystery Melange

 

The Detective/Mystery Caucus of the Popular Culture Association announced its latest Dove Awardee: David Geherin, professor emeritus of English at Eastern Michigan University, who is an Edgar nominee in the Best Critical/Biographical category this year for Organized Crime on Page and Screen. He received earlier Edgar nominations for The Crime World of Michael Connelly: A Study of His Works and Their Adaptations (2022); Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction (2008; also nominated for a Macavity Award), and The American Private Eye: The Image in Fiction (1985). The award, given to individuals who have contributed to the serious study of mystery, detective, and crime fiction, honors well-known mystery scholar George N. Dove. Past recipients include Frankie Y. Bailey, Martin Edwards, Barry Forshaw, Douglas G. Greene, P.D. James, Christine Jackson, H. R. F. Keating, Margaret Kinsman, Maureen Reddy, Janet Rudolph, J. K. Van Dover, and Elizabeth Foxwell. (HT to Elizabeth Foxwell's Bunburyist blog)

C.J. Box, the award-winning author of over 30 novels including the highly acclaimed Joe Pickett series, will be the featured speaker at Jefferson County Public Library’s Spring Author Event from noon to 4 p.m., March 29 at Mile Hi Church, 9077 W. Alameda Ave. in Lakewood, Colorado. Box, a recipient of Edgar, Anthony, Macavity Award, and the Barry Awards, is known for his gripping crime fiction and compelling portrayals of the American West, and has also served as an executive producer for two television adaptations of his work. His latest novel, Battle Mountain, was released in February. The Spring Author Event will also include an author panel featuring Barbara Nickless, Manuel Ramos, Emily Littlejohn, Erika T. Wurth, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden, with Carter Wilson serving as the emcee.
 

Noir at the Bar returns March 22nd, 7pm, to the Los Angeles area at the Book Jewel in Westchester, 6259 W. 87th Street. The event will include readings from Adam Sikes, Caitlin Rother, Sean Jacques, DC Frost, John McMahon, Jeffrey Messineo and Eric Beetner, as well as celebrating the release of Eric's new book, Real Bad, Real Soon.

The next Mystery Writers of America's MWA University is scheduled for Tuesday, March 25 at 8 p.m. EDT via Zoom. The time is "Crime Is Kid’s Stuff," writing mysteries for middle-grade and YA. Join authors Michael Thomas Ford, Christina Diaz Gonzalez, and Fleur Bradley Visscher for a discussion about the ins and outs of writing YA/Juvenile mysteries, how to pick your crime, navigate difficult topics, and hone that elusive voice. There will also be time for Q&A with these award-winning MWA authors. Registration for the event is free for MWA members and $20 for non-members.

A two-part event on Tuesday, March 25th at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University, Belfast, Ireland, will feature crime fiction experts and novelists discussing the knotty issue of translation and influence. The first event, from 4-5pm, is "Translating the American Hardboiled Greats: Raymond Chandler, David Goodis and Horace McCoy," and includes Benoît Tadié in conversation with QUB’s Dominique Jeannerod and Andrew Pepper. Professor Tadié is the French translator of Raymond Chandler’s Le Grand Sommeil / The Big Sleep and a collection of Horace McCoy’s Black Mask short stories, Les Rangers du Ciel, for Gallimard’s world renowned Série noire, where he has also worked on some of the greatest US hard-boiled novels. From 5:30-7pm, Gerard Brennan, Sharon Dempsey, Brian McGilloway, and Anthony Quinn will discuss the current state of Irish / Northern Irish crime fiction, about how well and far their work travels to other places and cultures, and about the nature of their own reading tastes and influences.

On Saturday, March 29 at 2pm, in the UK's Wolfson Centre, Library of Birmingham, there will be a panel discussion with top crime and thriller authors, including former policeman Paul Finch and authors Andy Conway, AA Abbott, and Ryan Stark, who share how they craft page-turning mysteries, build suspense, and create unforgettable characters that keep readers hooked.

Leading up the Ngaio Marsh Awards are a couple of events featuring various aspects of crime/thriller writing. The first event takes place Thursday, April 3, at Old Masonic Hall, in Warkworth, New Zealand and includes Swedish-born bestselling author Madeleine Eskedahl (who sets her popular mysteries in the Matakana wine region) in conversation by past Ngaio Marsh Awards winner Fiona Sussman, TV producer and true crime writer Angus Gillies, and Hibiscus Coast author and first-time crime writer Robyn Cotton. The second event is April 10 at the Davis Library, in Whanganui, New Zealand, where Ngaio Best Novel winner Charity Norman will chair a fascinating panel discussion with pathologist and past Ngaio Best Non-Fiction finalist, Cynric Temple-Camp; Manawatū mystery writer and Queer Indie Award nominee, GB Ralph; and TV producer and past Ngaio Best First Novel finalist, Stephen Johnson.

A collaboration between researchers at Monash University and the University of Newcastle, Australia, in association with the Australian Research Council, is inviting crime fiction academics, authors, and fans to participate in a project on world crime fiction by completing a survey on the development of different crime fiction traditions. The project aims to produce an online map of the historical development of the genre around the world. This map will be publicly available and be a future resource for researchers and fans of this popular genre. The survey is anonymous and will take between 30 minutes and 1 hour to complete. You can answer as many or as few questions as you wish. You may also be offered the opportunity to take part in an optional follow-up interview.

Florida State University's London Study Centre is sponsoring a "Golden Age Crime Fiction and Trauma Conference" in London from September 12-13. They have placed a call for papers on the theme, "Silent Echoes: Golden Age Crime Fiction and Trauma." Papers should examine how, to what extent, and with what implications – textual, literary, sociocultural, political, medical, legal, and historical – the concept of trauma shaped crime writing between the 1910s and the 1950s. The conferences hopes to explore the influence of trauma on a variety of aspects (daily life, mental health, gender roles and relations, the environment, levels of violence, cultural memory, national identity, medical theory, and legal practice), examining how Golden Age crime fiction articulates the spatial, temporal, and psychic echoes of trauma.

In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover welcomed Miles Joyner, a new crime author based in Washington, DC, who is about to release his debut techno thriller, Bazaar, the first in a a proposed series; and Deborah Kalb chatted with Tess Gerritsen, author of the new novel, The Summer Guests, featuring retired CIA operative Maggie Bird.