Mystery Melange

The Hollywood Creative Alliance, a professional organization composed of critics, journalists, creators, and industry professionals dedicated to celebrating excellence in film, television, podcasts, and emerging storytelling mediums, announced the finalists for their inaugural Astra Book Awards. The shortlisted authors in the MysteryThriller category include Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden; My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney; Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson; and Strange Buildings by Uketsu. The Best Debut category also included one crime-related title, One Fall by Joe Maldonado (author) and Alien Buddha (contributor). The winners will be revealed at an Awards Ceremony on Monday, April 20, in Los Angeles, California.


The Publishing Triangle, a community of queer professionals (editors, agents, booksellers, designers, publicists, sales staff, educators, librarians, freelancers, writers, and readers) dedicated to advancing books and other works by LGBTQ authors or with LGBTQ themes, has announced the finalists for the 2026 Publishing Triangle Awards, honoring the best LGBTQ+ books published in 2025. The finalists in the Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing include:  Crime Ink: Iconic, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater Books); Mirage City by Lev AC Rosen (Minotaur Books); A Murderous Business by Cathy Pegau (Minotaur Books); The Smallest Day by J. M. Redmann (Bold Strokes Books); and The Tiger and the Cosmonaut by Eddy Boudel Tan (Viking Canada). Winners will be announced Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 6:30 PM during an in-person ceremony at The New School (66 West 12th Street, New York City).  


The Romantic Novelists Association also announced their 2026 finalists, including those in the Romantic Thriller category:  Encore For Murder by T.A. Belshaw (Independently published); Acting the Nabob by Caitlyn Callery (The Wild Rose Press);  He’s To Die For by Erin Dunn (Pan Macmillan); The Greek House by Dinah Jefferies (HarperCollins); We Both Have Secrets by Emma Robinson (Bookouture); and A Family Affair by Joy Wood (Independently published).


Elizbeth Foxwell, over at The Bunburyist blog, posted about the American Literature Association conference taking place at Chicago's Palmer House on May 20–23, 2026. There will be several presentations that might be of interest to fans of crime fiction and true crime, including several on Edgar Allan Poe and Don DeLillo, and “The Rise of the Working-Class Cop in the Novels of Ed McBain,” via Joseph George (North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University). For more information about the conference and registration fees, head over to this link.


With the 50th anniversary of Agatha Christie's death this year, the Iceland Noir conference is scheduling an Agatha Christie Day, to be held on Thursday, November 12, 2026. Special guests will include James Prichard, Chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Limited (ACL) and Agatha Christie's great grandson; bestselling author Lucy Foley, one of 12 authors who penned a new collection of short stories featuring legendary detective Miss Marple, published in 2022, and will be publishing the first Marple continuation full-length novel, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, 50 years after Agatha Christie's last Miss Marple novel was published; Dr. John Curran, author of Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks (2009); and Chris Chibnall, creator of the new Netflix series, Seven Dials, based on Christie's 1929 novel. For ticket information, check out this link.


As The Rap Sheet blog noted, April 1 marked the 28th anniversary of Kevin Burton Smith launching the essential online crime-fiction resource, The Thrilling Detective website. His page went live on that date back in 1998 and has been a faithful supporter of detective fiction ever since.


Ron Earl Phillips posted on Bluesky about another anniversary, the 15th for Shotgun Honey. The website has been on a bit of a hiatus the last three months while it was undergoing some restructuring, but it's coming together. As Phillips noted, "Somedays, I’ll admit, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t raised my hand and offered to help Kent Gowran, who brought this beautiful thing to life. The idea of it wasn’t new, but at the time it was needed. And it has been a thrill to work with so many writers and contributors over the years, both as a flashzine and as a publisher/imprint..."


Mystery Readers Journal has published its new edition themed around "Fairs, Fêtes, & Festivals in Mysteries," edited by Janet Rudolph. There are a couple of free "teaser" samples online, including "The Welsh Have a Word for It…" by Cathy Ace; "It Takes a Village Fair: Setting the Stage for Murder" by Paula Munier; and "Crime Seen: Fun—and Fear—at the Fair" by Kate Derie. The issue includes articles, "Author, Author!" essays, columns, and reviews from Lesa Holstine and Aubrey Nye Hamilton.


Janet Rudolph also announced a call for articles, reviews, and author essays about crime fiction set in France for an upcoming issue of Mystery Readers Journal, with a deadline: May 20, 2026. If you have a mystery that fits this theme, you are invited to consider writing an Author! Author! essay: 500–1500 words, first person, up-close and personal about yourself, your books, and the theme connection. There's also a need for reviews and articles.


On Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog feature, he continues the focus on Hot Shots: Celebrating Thirty Years of the Short Mystery Fiction Society with an essay by Doug Allyn, called by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine “one of the best short story writers of his generation—and probably of all time.”  Doug discusses his story “Famous Last Words,” which won the 2010 Derringer Award for Best Long Story.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Basal Cleavage of a Drugstore Dollar" by Hana Kelly.


In the Q&A roundup, Ed Lin, a journalist turned author, applied the Page 69 Test to The Dead Can't Make a Living, the fifth title in the Taipei Night Market series; Leslie Karst also took the Page 69 Test challenge to Murder, Local Style, the third Orchid Isle mystery; Crime Fiction Lover chatted with Steve Higgs, author of the cozy crime series, Albert Smith’s Culinary Capers; and Deborah Kalb spoke with Luke Goebel about his new literary thriller, Kill Dick.