Mystery Melange

The winner and runner-up were announced for this year’s Glencairn Glass Crime Short Story Competition, held in partnership with the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival. Kathy Schilbach – also writing under the name Kate Finnemore – has been named the overall winner for her dark and disturbing story, "Making Friends." Ross Alexander was selected as runner-up for his compelling story, "Life Wasted." Kathy receives the £1,000 first prize and a guest appearance at the Bloody Scotland Festival in September. Ross receives £500, and both winning stories will be published on the Bloody Scotland and Glencairn Glass (whiskyglass.com) websites.


Art Taylor will lead Kaye George, John Betancourt, Leslie Budewitz, and Richie Narvaez in a short story panel, "Why Short Stories?" What is it about reading and writing short stories that appeals to mystery lovers? What makes a good short story? What are the key differences in structuring a short story and a novel? The panel will discuss these and other questions, offering advice for others who would like to try their hand at short story writing. The event s sponsored by the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. For more information and to register, follow this link.


On Wednesday, September 16th at 5:30 p.m., the Literary Guild of Orange County will present a Fall Literary Salon featuring Naomi Hirahara, Rachel Howzell Hall, and Mary St John Putnum at the Mission Viejo Country Club in Mission Viejo, CA. For registration and ticketing information, follow this link.


The organizers of the Malice Domestic conference, held annually in Bethesda, Maryland, announced a new virtual event, Malice with Friends, a unique virtual crime fiction experience. Four different online sessions will take place from September through February, with various levels of registration options, including "pay what you can." The schedule kicks off Sept. 20 at 3 p.m. ET with  Mindy Quigley in conversation with Kathleen Marple Kalb. Other authors taking part include Kelly Oliver, Alan Gordon/Allison Montclair, Adrian Andover, Catriona McPherson, Deborah Crombie, and Connie Berry.


Elzbieta Foeller-Pituch (Northwestern University) will be teaching the Newberry Library online course "The Golden Age of Mystery Fiction: Soft-Boiled and Hard-Boiled," which will run from Oct 14–Nov 11, 2026 and will "explore the role of popular culture in both exposing and containing societal anxieties and aspirations." Books expected to be covered are Vera Caspary's Laura; Agatha Christie's The Labors of Hercules and The 13 Problems; Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Boscombe Valley Mystery, "The Red Headed League," and "Silver Blaze"; and Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon. (HT to The Bunburyist)


The New York Times profiled the research of novelist Michael Connelly (of the Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series) into the Black Dahlia case and how he has come to believe the co-called Zodiac Killer was behind the infamous crime. Connelly knows he is putting his reputation on the line with his theories, as laid out in the podcast Killer in the Code, but despite some skepticism, he finds the evidence "completely convincing."


Editor George Easter announced that Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine will now be freely available without a subscription and that he'll be adding free copies of back issues shortly. Approximate dates of the publication are February 10, May 10, August 10, and November 10.  Deadly Pleasures also hands out the annual Barry Awards for the best crime fiction titles of the previous year, and this year's winners will be announced at the Opening Ceremonies of Bouchercon (Calgary, Canada) on October 22, 2026. 


Short crime fiction sometimes gets short shrift, so it's nice to see it getting some love thanks to Crime Reads, where Olivia Rutigliano compiled a list of "The Best Crimey Short Story Collections in Recent Years," and Gigi Pandian and Tom Mead wrote about "Murder in Miniature: The Very Best Short Mystery Fiction."


The New York Times penned an essay about Iceland, a Nordic nation with very few homicides, yet where crime fiction is its favorite literary genre. That means writers such as Ragnar Jónasson and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir face a challenge: making murder feel believable in the safest country in the world.


Here's a fun trend in South Korea that I'd be glad to see spread far and wide: book lovers recently flocked to buy cover art, collectibles, and even literary buns as part of  part of “Beyond the Sentence,” a temporary pop-up store by Minumsa, one of Korea’s best-known publishers,


Kevin Tipple's Thursday Treats blog has news of some of the latest short crime fiction publications include Literary Garage, WayWords, Legends: Monsters that Go Bump in the Night, Black Cat Weekly, Midnight Mousers: 12 Original Cat Tales, two new Canadian anthologies, and more.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "A Matter of Privilege" by F.I. Goldhaber.


In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover spoke with Jessica Housand about her debut novel, the "narco thriller," Blood Gilt;  CFL also chatted with James B Petrie, a licensed PI in Cary, North Carolina, who published his debut novel, Dig Deeper, featuring Joe MacGregor mystery, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer turned private eye; Writers Who Kill welcomed James M. Jackson to talk about his latest political thriller, Niki Unbound; the Maine Crime Writers spoke with Bruce Robert Coffin about his his latest book, Dark Harbor, featuring Detective Brock Justice and his rookie partner Detective Chloe Wright; Deborah Kalb interviewed Tess Gerritsen, author of the new novel The Shadow Friends, the third in her Martini Club series; and Debbie Burke spoke with Rick Bleiweiss about his upcoming novel, The Cupid Killer and Other Murderers, part of the Pignon Scorbion historical mystery series and the first novel published under Blackstone’s new imprint, WhoopInk, led by Whoopi Goldberg.