Mystery Melange

 

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year released the longlist for the UK and Ireland’s most prestigious crime novel award. Fans can vote on the eighteen finalists online, and the six books with the most votes will go forward onto the shortlist, which will be announced on June 8. Now in its 16th year, the award organizers received a record number of submissions, and the judges' list includes ten books by women; four former winners (Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, Val McDermid, and Lee Child); a Booker Prize contender (Oyinkan Braithwaite), and a couple of debuts to the list (Harriet Tyce, Laura Shepherd-Robinson).To vote, head on over to the official longlist website.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week. Along with the list of excellence in journalism reporting, the winner of the Fiction Award went to The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, which the committee called "a spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption." This is the author's second Pulitzer, winning in 2017 for The Underground Railroad.

The Short Mystery Fiction Society has awarded the annual Derringers for outstanding published crime fiction short stories. The winners included: Flash category (up to 1,000 words): Josh Pachter, "The Two-Body Problem," Mystery Weekly Magazine; Short category (1,001 to 4,000 words), John Floyd, "On the Road with Mary Jo," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine; Long Category (4,001 to 8,000 words), Sandra Murphy, "Lucy’s Tree," The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, Editor Michael Bracken; Novelette category (8,001 to 20,000 words), Brendan Dubois ,with "His Sister’s Secrets," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) announced the winners of the annual Ben Franklin Awards that recognize excellence in book editorial and design. The Gold Medal winner in the Mystery/Thriller category was A Veil Removed: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel by Michelle Cox (She Writes Press); the Silver Medal was won by The Last Getaway by Clay Savage (Ocean Park Press); and the Bronze Medal went to Bleed Through: Alex Greco, ADA Series Book 2 by Roger Canaff (Brooklyn Writers Press).

Minotaur Books and the Mystery Writers of America announced the winner of their First Crime Novel Competition for 2020. Kelley Ragland, Vice President, Associate Publisher for Minotaur Books, made the announcement following the MWA’s naming of their Edgar Award winners. The competition winner is Rebecca Roque, a nurse working in Arizona. Her winning novel, tentatively titled Till Human Voices Wake Us, will be published in 2021.

Tomorrow, Friday May 8, Mysterious Galaxy bookstore is celebrating its 27th birthday with a virtual event that will pay tribute to the store and its community. You can join in the fun by following them via social media @mystgalaxybooks on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with giveaways, games, surprises, and more.

Although the Malice Domestic conference had to cancel this year's event (and announced the Agatha Awards winner online last week), organizers are looking ahead to the future with the announcement of the dates for next year, April 30-May 2, 2020, as well as the featured authors: Guests of Honor, Julia Spencer-Fleming and Rhys Bowen; Toastmasters, Jeff Cohen and Barb Goffman; Lifetime Achievement Recipients, Ellen Hart and Walter Mosley; Fan Guests of Honor, Dina Wilner and Dru Ann Love; and International Guest of Honor, Sophie Hannah.

There's still time to register for two upcoming Virtual Noir at the Bar Queens events, one on Friday May 8 and the other on Friday, May 15. Alex Segura will host both events with a roster of some of today's bestselling authors stopping by online to read from their works. There will also be a chance to buy books via the indie bookstore, Kew & Willow Books in Kew Gardens.

Last week, we lost crime fiction trailblazer Maj Sjöwall, widely regarded as the godmother of modern Scandinavian crime fiction. Along with her partner-husband, Per Wahlöö (who died in 1975), the duo's books paved the way for the likes of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. Their ten detective stories featuring the Swedish policeman Martin Beck was as remarkable as much for the way they was written as for its impact on crime-writing internationally.

Another author we lost this week was Angela Zeman, wife of fellow writer, Barry T. Zeman, who succumbed to Covid-19. Zeman penned numerous crime short stories as well as a novel, The Witch and the Borscht Pearl, originally published by Pendulum Press. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Speaking of Scandinavian Noir, a la Maj Sjöwal and Per Wahlöö, the Paris Review featured a profile on "The Origins of Scandinavian Noir."

Many of the canceled crime fiction conferences due to the coronavirus are going into the virtual realm, and Crime Fiction Lover has a list of some of these to mark on your calendar. Most of these events also have plans to return again next year, circumstances (and viruses) willing.

Writing for CrimeReads, Guy Fraser-Sampson profiled England's four crime queens, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Josephine Tey. (As he notes, there was actually a fifth as well, Ngiao Marsh, but she has been often discounted since she was a New Zealander). The quartet of Crime Grandes Dames wrote mostly (but not entirely) during the "Golden Age," or the period between the two World Wars.

I've never been the biggest fan of the mass market paperback format, and older readers can find the smaller print to be a problem. Apparently, others feel the same way since traditional mass market paperback sales have been declining for years, but Kensington Publishing has a plan to change that. Beginning with titles going on sale on September 29 of this year, Kensington will replace the standard 4.125 by 6.75-inch mass market paperback with a larger 4.75 by 7-inch format called "Mass Max." They'll cost about a dollar more but the new format will feature an easier-to-read font and more spacing than current mass market titles. They're even being printed on trade presses rather than mass market equipment, according to Kensington CEO, Steve Zacharius.

The Mysterious Bookshop included a killer quiz in their latest newsletter, which you can take here. To signup for their newsletter, head on over here.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "When I Met Her in the Street" by Gabriel Hart.

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Book Series Binge continued with Tasha Alexander on the Lady Emily Series, and the webzine also had an interview with R.G. Belsky, author of The Last Scoop with series protagonist, Clare Carlson; On the Bookshelf spoke with Hannah Mary McKinnon about her new thriller, Sister Dear; and Debra Purdy Kong chatted with Canadian author A.J. Devlin about his second mystery, Rolling Thunder, due out next week.