Mystery Melange

 Author James Sallis passed way last week after a long illness. Sallis was 81 years old. He began writing science fiction for magazines in the late 1960s and later branched out into crime fiction, penning a series of novels featuring the detective character Lew Griffin set in New Orleans, and the 2005 novel Drive, which was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name. He received the Grand Prix de Littérature policière (for 2012's The Killer is Dying), a Bouchercon lifetime achievement award, and the Hammett Award for literary excellence in crime writing.


The inaugural Newberry Crime Writing Workshop (NCWW), an intensive 4-week writers’ workshop for developing crime and mystery authors, will take place July 6-31, 2026, on the historic campus of Newberry College in Newberry, SC. Applications are open through March 15. This year's instructors are Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Bracken, Cheryl Head, and Warren S. Moore III. To apply, complete the workshop application form and pay the application fee; more information is available via this link.


International bestselling crime writer, Denise Mina, has been revealed as the guest programmer for the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival 2026, which will return to the historic city of Stirling from September 18-20. She follows the success of Sir Ian Rankin, who as the first ever guest programmer brought a host of big names to the 2025 festival including Kate Atkinson, Kathy Reichs, and the Reverend Richard Coles. Denise is working alongside festival director, Bob McDevitt, and the programming team of fellow authors, Abir Mukherjee, Lin Anderson, Craig Robertson, and Gordon Brown, to bring another world class line-up of authors and special guests to the prestigious Festival. The complete program will launch in June 2026.


Harrogate International Festivals have announced the full lineup of Special Guest headliners for the 2026 UK Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, taking place July 23-26 2026. Ann Cleeves, Brenda Blethyn, Anthony Horowitz, Holly Jackson, Chris Brookmyre, Chris Whitaker, Jane Harper, and LJ Ross join previously announced headliners Nadine Matheson, Gillian McAllister, Steve Cavanagh, Alice Feeney and David Baldacci in a line-up of crime writing legends and international bestsellers from the UK, Australia, Ireland and the US, curated by 2026 Festival Programming Chair, Lisa Jewell. An unmissable event for Vera fans will be writer Ann Cleeves and actor Brenda Blethyn, who played DCI Vera Stanhope for fourteen years, taking an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the much-loved TV series, as Cleeves unveils her latest Vera Stanhope novel. Plus Festival Chair Lisa Jewell will be conversation with Lee Child, iconic creator of the Jack Reacher novels.


The deadline for scholarships to this year's Thriller Fest, which takes place May 5 – May 9, 2026 at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City, is coming up soon. The Fresh Perspectives Scholarship is offered to any underrepresented author, published or unpublished, while the Undiscovered New Voices Scholarship is for any unpublished author who is writing a mystery/thriller novel (80-100k words). Plus, there's a new opportunity this year, the Poisoned Pen / Barbara Peters Scholarship, which is open to any International Thriller Writer member (full members only) who has, at the time of submission to the scholarship, been published or is under contract for at least one novel of at least 80K words and has no more than three published novels. The deadline for all three scholarships in February 15th. For more information, check out the Thriller Fest website via this link.


The Museum of the Moving Image will pay tribute to HBO‘s iconic mob drama The Sopranos with an exhibition, opening February 14 in the NYC Museum’s Amphitheater Gallery, and three special screenings featuring showrunner and series creator David Chase and cast members Steven Van Zandt, Dominic Chianese, Edie Falco, and Annabella Sciorra. Stories and sets for The Sopranos will trace how the series’ narrative and visual worlds were established. Drawing from Chase’s personal archive, the exhibition features scripts, notes, and research that document the development of the series’ story arcs and character trajectories as it moved from a pilot into the first season. It also examines the design of the four principal sites where the series’ central action was set —Dr. Melfi’s office, the Soprano home, the Bada Bing strip club, and Satriale’s Pork Store—through concept art, construction drawings, and ground plans by production designers Edward Pisoni (pilot) and Dean Taucher (season one) .


In honor of Super Bowl this Sunday, Janet Rudolph posted a list of some Super Bowl and football (American style) themed mysteries.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Break the Cycle: A Fibonacci Poem" by F.I. Goldhaber.


In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with Robert Dugoni (author of the Tracy Crosswhite mysteries) about his new novel, Her Cold Justice, the latest in the Keera Duggan series; writer and former police officer and attorney, Terrence P. Dwyer, chatted with Lisa Haselton about his new true crime memoir, The Badge Between Us: Duty, Marriage, and Family; and Simon Lewis spoke to Crime Time about No Exit: An Inspector Jian Novel, the latest in his series featuring a Chinese policeman in London.