Mystery Melange

The 2026 winners of The British Book Awards (aka "The Nibbies") were announced on Tuesday. A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith (Raven Books) won in the Crime and Thriller category, besting the other finalists which included Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall (Penguin); The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (The Borough Press); The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman (Viking); The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown (Bantam); and The Tenant by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press). Another crime fiction title was among among the finalists in the Audiobook category, Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, narrated by Richard Armitage and Tuppence Middleton (Macmillan).


CrimeCONN returns this Saturday, co-sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, and the Ferguson Library in Stamford, CT.  The event offers both an in-person and a virtual attendance option. The headliner this year is bestselling author Alafair Burke, in conversation with John Valeri, acclaimed mystery reviewer and online host. Hank Phillippi Ryan will hold this year’s one-hour writers workshop, as well as appear on a panel led by Reed Farrel Coleman. Other bestselling and award-winning authors joining panels include Alison Gaylin, Lynne Constantine, Peter Blauner, Kate White, and Hilary Davidson. CrimeCONN also features a perennial favorite, Michelle Clark’s forensic science panel.


The Gaithersburg, Maryland Book Festival is also being held this Saturday, and includes some panels of interest to crime fiction fans, held appropriately in the Dashiell Hammett Pavilion. Kicking things off at 12:15, Dan Fesperman (Pariah) and Nick Petrie (The Dark Time) will be in conversation by I.S. Berry in the appropriately named Dashiell Hammett Pavilion. At 1:15, Sujata Massey (The Star from Calcutta) and Kate Hilton (City of the Muse) will be in conversation with Nicole Hertvik. Then at 2:15, George Packer (The Emergency) will be interviewed by Samuel Ashworth. At 3:15, Jennifer Van Der Kleut (The Better Mother) and Finlay (The Anniversary) will be on a panel moderated by K.T. Nguyen. And at 4:15, Rader-Day (Wreck Your Heart) and Susan Coll (The Literati) are interviewed by Laura Scalzo.


In celebration of the recent ThrillerFest convention, readers in the U.S. and Canada can enter to win all ten nominees for Best Standalone and Best First Novel from the Thriller Awards. You'd better hurry, though, as the deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, May 18, 2026. Note that there is a limit of one entry per person and per email address.


The print edition is now available for Mystery Readers Journal: Fairs, Fêtes, & Festivals in Mysteries (42:1). There are a few "teaser" essays and columns you can read 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.

 
This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Nolo Contendere" by Ed Robson.


In the Q&A roundup, writer and publisher Charles Ardai spoke with CrimeReads about noir fiction and the ongoing adventures of Hard Case Crime, which continues to carry the mantle for classic crime fiction; Andrew Welsh-Huggins applied the Page 69 Test to the new book in the Mercury Carter thriller series, The Delivery; and The Dark Phantom blog interviewed Tucker May, author of The Lemon House Murders.