Mystery Melange

Book art by Frank Halmans

The Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival announced the winners of two crime fiction prizes this past weekend. The winner of the Debut Prize was A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman; the other finalists include Natalie Jayne Clark, The Malt Whisky Murders; Foday Mannah, The Search for Othella Savage; Richard Strachan, The Unrecovered; and Claire Wilson, Five by Five (Michael Joseph). The 2025 McIlvanney Prize Scottish Crime Novel of the Year went to The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani; the other finalists are The Good Father, by Liam McIlvanney; Paperboy, by Callum McSorley; The Good Liar, by Denise Mina; and Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin.

Seven crime novels from Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have been shortlisted for the 2025 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The titles include: Samuel Bjørk – Dead Island tr. Charlotte Barslund (Norway, Bantam); Pascal Engman – The Widows tr. Neil Smith (Sweden, Legend Press); Malin Persson Giolito – Deliver Me tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles (Sweden, Simon & Schuster); Óskar Guðmundsson – The Dancer tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus Books); Aslak Nore – The Sea Cemetery tr. Deborah Dawkin (Norway, MacLehose Press); Satu Rämö – The Clues in the Fjord tr. Kristian London (Finland, Zaffre); Gunnar Staalesen – Pursued by Death tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books). The winning title will be announced on October 16, 2025.

Shortlists were also announced for The Speakies, new awards in the UK dedicated to celebrating excellence in audiobooks and audio drama, sponsored by The Bookseller and The Stage. It's the first such dedicated awards for audiobooks and drama in the UK and mirrors The Audies in the U.S. The finalists in the Crime & Thriller category include: Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent (Zaffre), narrated by Louise Brealey; Him by JD Kirk (Audible Originals), narrated by David Tennant, Louise Brealey; Lovers of Franz K by Burhan Sönmez (Oakhill), narrated by various; Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz (Penguin Random House Audio), narrated by Lesley Manville, Tim McMullan; Panic by LJ Ross (WF Howes), narrated by Richard Armitage; and The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer (Gallery), narrated by Bob Mortimer, Paul Whitehouse, Sally Phillips, Julie Maisey. The awards ceremony and announcement of winners is slated for November 24th.

Desert Sleuths is presenting its Annual Writers Conference this Friday and Saturday. Registration is still open for Saturday's portion of this virtual event, which will feature Wendy H. Jones talking about self-editing; a panel on keeping the creative juices flowing, with Rhys Bowen (moderator), Edith Maxwell, Catriona McPherson, and Lois Winston, and a workshop titled, "Is it Thriller, Mystery, or Suspense?" with Allison Brennan, among others.

The Mysterious Press has reported the passing of Thomas Perry (1947-2025), who died suddenly on September 15. His first book, The Butcher’s Boy, won the Edgar award in 1983, and he later launched his popular and critically acclaimed series about Jane Whitefield in 1995 with Vanishing Act, chosen as one of the “100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century” by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. The last book in the series, The Tree of Light and Flowers, will be published in March 2026. Many of his books have been adapted by Hollywood studios, most recently The Old Man, a limited-run television series starring Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow in 2022 (a second series made its debut in 2024), and his novel Strip has completed filming as Bear Country, starring Russell Crowe. (HT to The Rap Sheet)

Edgar Allan Poe is best remembered for his tales of psychological terror, but he was also acclaimed in his own day for his satires, mysteries, science fiction, literary criticism, and lyric poetry. Europeans regarded him as America’s first internationally influential author, and Lord Tennyson deemed him as "America’s most original creative genius." What some may not know is that apparently, there were real-life inspirations behind some of his famous stories.

A mansion where a legendary crime writer penned her first murder mystery novel has hit the market for £10million. The elegant seven-bedroom townhouse on St George's Square in the upmarket Pimlico area of London is believed to have once been the home of Dorothy L Sayers, said to have taken a top-floor flat in the building during the early 1920s, where she wrote her first crime novel Whose Body?, published in 1923. Sayers, then 27, rented a room in the townhouse while she was also working as a copywriter for an advertising agency in London and studying for a masters degree at the University of Oxford. Whose Body? introduced her primary recurring character Lord Peter Wimsey, an aristocratic amateur sleuth.

And if you have enough money to buy that house, then you probably have enough to also purchase a copy of Dame Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, once owned by the late actor Lord Richard Attenborough, which is on view at Shapero Rare Books and carries an asking price of £7,500. The inscription reads: "For dear Dickie on our sixth birthday in grateful appreciation of your 'Sergeant Trotter' from Agatha." The book was gifted to Lord Attenborough on the sixth anniversary of the original West End production, which opened in 1952. Attenborough was in the original cast with his wife Sheila Sim, who played the owner of Monkswell Manor, Mollie Ralston.

Over at Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages," he posted the first of three essays from authors whose stories were included in the new anthology, The Most Dangerous Games, edited by Deborah Lacy. (Disclosure note: I have a story in that anthology, as well). L.L. Kaplan starts off first with a discussion of her story, "The Hack Job."

This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "A Different Cash Dispenser" by Tom Docherty.

In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado, authors of the new novel, The Grave Artist, a followup to their book, Fatal Intrusion; Lisa Haselton chatted with suspense author Kimberly Lee about her new thriller, Have You Seen Him; and Writers Who Kill interviewed James M. Jackson, author of the Seamus McCree mystery series, about Niki Undercover, the first in a brand new series.