Mystery Melange

The typewriter of celebrated murder mystery author Dame Agatha Christie will be featured in a new exhibition celebrating her life later this year at the British Library. Marking 50 years since her death, "Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery," will showcase personal items, many of which have never been publicly displayed. The exhibition aims to explore how the author’s life, travels, and interests inspired her work and the creation of iconic characters, including detective Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. In addition to the typewriter, exhibits will include personal and professional correspondence with other writers, family photographs, and original notebooks and scripts for her novels. The London exhibition opens on October 30 and will run until June 20 next year.


The National Crime Reading Month annual campaign, taking place each June in the UK, will launch on May 30 at Criminally Good Books, an independent crime-only bookshop in York. Sponsored by the Crime Writers' Association, the event will include a Noir at the Bar and the announcement of the Margery Allingham Winner. There will also be a free virtual launch on June 7, with the theme of "Reading and Writing Crime in Difficult Times." Scottish thriller author, Emma Christie, will lead a conversation with fellow leading crime authors Victoria Dowd, Penny Batchelor, Heather Critchlow, and top forensic scientist Professor Jim Fraser about why people love to read crime in a dangerous world. You can learn more and check out all the other various events throughout the month via the official link.


CrimeReads profiled Elaine’s Restaurant and Literary Salon in Alexandria, Virginia, owned by Jeffrey James Higgins and his wife, Cynthia Higgins. The venue hosts book launches, author events, and signings, and conducts author interviews before a live audience for a future podcast. Several crime fiction authors have been hosted there, including Mark Greaney, Hank Philippi Ryan, John Gilstrap, S. A. Cosby, Tom Straw, and I.S. Berry. The Mid-Atlantic Chapter of Mystery Writers of America has held numerous events at Elaine’s including an F. Scott Fitzgerald festival in 2025 on the 100th anniversary on the publication of The Great Gatsby. Coming up on June 5 there will be a Noir at the Bar the night before ShortCon. Authors scheduled to participate include Art Taylor, Chris Dreith, Debra H. Goldstein, Jeffrey James Higgins, Avram Lavinsky,  Liza Parfomak, Gary Phillips, Ed Ridgley, Brayden Whisler.



The 2026 Maine Crime Wave will happen on Saturday, May 30 at Mechanics’ Hall in Portland, and on Friday night beforehand, there will be a Noir at the Bar hosted by Matt Cost and Jule Selbo. The criminally phenomenal line up of writers will include Tess Gerritsen, Allison Keeton, Travis Kennedy, Robert Kelley, Joanna Schaffhausen, James Ziskin, Zakariah Johnson, Gabriela Stiteler, Mo Drammeh, and Rebecca Turkewitz.


Newcastle Noir International Crime Writing Festival, one of the North East UK’s longest-running crime fiction events, announced a "time out" for 2026, with a return planned for May 2027. Festival organizers noted this pause will "allow time to develop a renewed future vision, while maintaining the continued appeal of the festival." Established in 2014 by academic and crime fiction aficionado Dr Jacky Collins (aka Dr. Noir), Newcastle Noir has brought together writers, readers, publishers and volunteers for a vibrant program celebrating all things crime fiction. Authors who had agreed to appear at the 2026 event will be given first refusal for 2027.


Good Housekeeping magazine listed twenty-one cozy crime novels, or "heirs to Agatha Christie," a round-up of the best comforting mystery novels to read right now.


Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog featured Susan Alice Bickford discussing another of her stories from The Saturday Evening Post, entitled "Trust."


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Donald Trumpsky" by Charles Rammelkamp.


In the Q&A roundup, CrimeReads spoke with Howard A. Rodman about his historical adventure-thriller,  The Great Eastern, which pits Melville’s Captain Ahab and Verne’s Captain pitted together on a collision course across the Atlantic; Author Interviews chatted with K.M. Colley about hew debut mystery novel, The Roaring Ridleys, set in Jazz Age New York where a shocking murder shatters the privileged life of the city’s most elite family; Scottish crime fiction author Andrew Raymond spoke with Crime Fiction Lover about his new novel, The Long Isle; John Connolly was interviewed by John Parker for Shots Magazine about his writing and his latest novel, A River Red With Blood; Deborah Kalb spoke with Paul A. Barra, author of the new novel Quo Vadis, Deputy?; John Katzenbachm, reporter and author of such novels as the Edgar Award-nominated In the Heat of the Summer, adapted for the screen as The Mean Season, applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Architect; and E. B. Davis interviewed Krista Davis for Writers Who Kill, to talk about her Domestic Diva mystery series.