Mystery Melange

This Saturday, August 8, award-winning short crime fiction writers Barb Goffman, Josh Pachter, and Michael Bracken will lead the free online panel, “The Keys to Writing and Editing Outstanding Short Stories,” a discussion hosted as part of the Grand Canyon Writers Sisters in Crime chapter's monthly meeting. You can learn more and register via this link. Michael Bracken will also be teaching a class on how to write gripping short stories for publication via a zoom talk, "Writing for Anthologies: How to Slip Between the Covers," .August 18 at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET. For more information that program and to register, follow this link.


Bantam Books has acquired two new thrillers by author Lee Child featuring Frances Neagley, the iconic former U.S. Army Master Sergeant, from the bestselling Jack Reacher novels. The first novel, Zero Margin, will be co-written with Yasmin Angoe and be published in March 2027. Yasmin Angoe is the author of the critically acclaimed international espionage thriller, Her Name Is Knight, the domestic psychological suspense novels, Not What She Seems and Behind These Four Walls, and the young adult fantasy horror novel, She Drinks the Light. The news follows on the heels of the new Neagley Amazon Prime Video television series, starring Maria Sten, which debuts in September on Amazon Prime.


News of a less-successful book deal broke this past week, in which a high-profile publishing deal (with substantial Hollywood interest) for a debut crime novel, Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body by Nigerian author Jerry Falade, was withdrawn from sale by its agent. This, despite reportedly receiving an offer for more than $2m from Minotaur as part of a 14-way auction, with a plan to publish it in 2028. The reason? The publishers could not 100% verify the work didn't use AI in its creation. Allegedly, halfway through the submissions process, an editor raised concerns that the book had signs of potential AI use, and after “aspects of [Falade’s] story changed.” the agency decided to cut ties, citing the “need to have total faith." Falade, who is Black, rejected claims he had used AI and said the response reflected racial bias in publishing. The agent and editor, however, are standing firmly behind their decision.


There is a new call for papers for a Clues: A Journal of Detection themed issue on the work of mid–twentieth-century American female crime writers. The guest editors are Erin A. Smith (University of Texas at Dallas) and Clare Rolens (Palomar College).  Proposals are due January 15, 2027, with full essays of 5,000 to 6,000 words due 1 August 2027. (HT to The Bunburyist)


Congrats to the Mystery Lovers' Kitchen blog, which was named one of the Best Culinary Blogs to follow by the blog aggregator, FeedSpot. Blogs are curated and ranked "based on multiple factors, including content relevancy, subject expertise, posting frequency, and freshness of content."


Kevin Tipple's  Thursday Treats has news of the latest short crime fiction from Guilty Crime Story Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, a reissue of Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun: Private Eyes in the Material World, the upcoming SMFS Mystery Magazine (which I have referenced here before) and much more.


Speaking of short crime fiction, Joseph S. Walker, the current president of the Short Fiction Mystery Society, has posted all the latest news from various corners of the mystery story realm, as well as a couple of essays on related topics.


Some sad news this week:  author Sunny Frazier passed away following persistent health issues after a bout with Covid. Frazier trained as a journalist and wrote for a city newspaper, military, and law enforcement publications, and worked for 17 years with the Fresno Sheriff’s Department on an undercover narcotics team. After turning her hand to writing mysteries, she penned novels featuring Christy Bristol, astrologer and clerk in the San Joaquin Valley, California, Sheriff's Department, as well as various mystery short stories and also served as acquisitions editor for Oak Tree Press.


Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog featured an essay by Daniel Bartlett, discussing his short story, “A Complicated History,” first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and later selected for one of EQMM‘s anthologies, Twisted Voices.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Wound Us All" by Craig Kirchner.


In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with J.T. Ellison about her new thriller, You Know Why, a suspenseful domestic thriller about identity, revenge, and the dangerous secrets kept hidden from the ones we love most; Rachel Peterson applied the Page 69 Test to Killing Sadie, new new young adult thriller that unspools the truth behind a tragic murder through multiple unreliable narrators who all have secrets to keep; Katie Tallo applied the Page 69 Test to Where Her Secrets Lie, moody thriller about a reclusive grandmother forced to confront her darkest fears to protect her family from a ruthless foe; and Hungarian author Daniel Laz chatted with Crime Fiction Lover about his latest mystery, VOSS: Scene Documentation: Saint Petersburg, and how he approaches things slightly differently in his series asking not "who did it?" but "what does the evidence actually tell us?" as his protagonist Frankie Voss, a forensic consult, determines whether events are supported by the evidence.