Mystery Melange

Libby, the leading library reading app, unveiled the winners of the third annual Libby Book Awards. Celebrating the best in digital reading, the awards recognize outstanding ebooks and audiobooks across a variety of genres, highlighting the most compelling, thought-provoking, and widely loved titles of the year. Titles are selected by Libby's on-staff librarians, and the finalists and winners are voted on by public libraries across North America. The Best Mystery nod went to The Librarians by Sherry Thomas, with the runner-up being Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman. Liann Zhang's Julie Chan Is Dead snagged the Best Thriller award, with runner-up honors going to The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. 

The latest recipient of the Dove Award is Stewart King, associate professor of European languages at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), a specialist in Spanish and Catalan crime fiction who has edited or co-edited six books, as well as serving as co-editor of the journal Crime Fiction Studies.The Dove Award, established in 1986 and named after George N. Dove, past President of the Popular Culture Association and author of numerous articles and books on detective fiction, is presented each year by the PCA Mystery and Detective Fiction Area for outstanding contributions to the serious study of mystery/detective/crime fiction. Previous winners include Barry Forshaw, Martin Edwards, Janet Rudolph, P.D. James, H.R.F. Keating, Julian Symons, and more. (HT to The Bunburyist)


Sisters in Crime has two upcoming online sessions via Zoom for members and the general public. The first, on March 15th, is titled "Why You Should Write Short Stories," with Ashley-Ruth Bernier, Barb Goffman, and P.M. Raymond, where attendees will learn how writing short stories can help them develop their craft as well as their career. The second, on March 17th, covers "Business of Writing: Indie Publishing," a panel discussion with three successful indie published authors who will explore the business side of indie publishing, covering topics such as finding copyeditors and cover artists, promotional schedules, direct sales, working with libraries and booksellers and more. The sessions are free for SinC members and $15 for the nonmembers.

This coming Monday, March 16, there will be a Noir at the Bar event in Kittery, Maine at The Dance Hall, 7 Walker St, with doors opening at 6pm. Literally Kittery bookstore is co-sponsoring and will provide books for signing. Authors scheduled to appear include:  Allison Keeton, Brenda Buchanan, Carolyn Wilkins, Gabriela Stiteler, Gregory Bastianelli, John Nardizzi, Matt Cost, Rebecca Turkewitz, Sarah Lamagna, and Zakariah Johnson. Drinks (wine and beer) will be available for purchase, and there will be complimentary snacks to keep you fortified between frights. Tickets are $10.


About 10,000 writers published an "empty" book in protest over AI using their work without permission or compensation. Titled Don’t Steal This Book, the only content is a list of their names. Copies of the work are being distributed to attenders at the London book fair on Tuesday, a week before the UK government is due to issue an assessment on the economic cost of proposed changes in copyright law. Several crime fiction authors have contributed to the copyright protest, including Slow Horses author, Mick Herron, and Richard Osman (of the Thursday Murder Club series). Publishers will also launch an AI licensing initiative at the London book fair.


Writing for the Promoting Crime Fiction blog, Lea O'Harra profiled Japanese crime fiction, which has  been enjoying a renaissance of late, even then only a tiny percentage have been translated into English. The American-born O'Harra did her postgraduate work in Britain and then worked full-time for thirty-six years at a Japanese university. She notes that the detective novel or, in Japanese, Tantei Shosetsu, is one of the most popular literary genres in Japan and one of the oldest, and offers up a brief history of the genre in that country.


Lisa Under gathered a panel of crime fiction authors for Crime Reads to discuss "The Greatest Dangerous Female Characters in Literature." In addition to her own picks, Unger snagged input from Megan Abbott, Ace Atkins, May Cobb, Laura Lippman, Kate White, Heather Gundenkauf, Alafair Burke, and Ruth Ware.


In the Q&A roundup, Isabel Booth, the pen name of Karen Jewell, a former trial attorney and now a writer, applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Then He Was Gone; on Promoting Crime Fiction, Dot Marshall-Gent was in conversation with Carol Westron about her writing career, her Galmouth Mystery series, and more; and Writer Interviews chatted with Lyla Lane about her new mystery, The Best Little Motel in Texas.