Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Dancing Man

Philip Maitland Hubbard, better known as P.M. Hubbard (1910-1980) studied at Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize for English verse in 1933.  From Oxford he moved into the Indian Civil Service in northwest India, returning to England in 1947 to work for the British Council. Hubbard then turned to freelance writing — at first, short stories and poetry for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, some articles and, oddly, Parliamentary reports to Punch magazine, before finally focusing on writing novels full time. He penned 16 suspense/mystery titles from 1963 to 1977 with modest success, although one of his novels, High Tide, was adapted for television as part of the ITV network's Armchair Thriller series in 1980.

Hubbard's work is particularly known for his settings, mostly small rural villages or lonely isolated houses in places like secluded woods, along the coast, or in the Highlands. Hubbard once wrote that "As to my planning of a book, the plain answer is that I don't. I have some general theme in my head, and I marry that to a place (always imaginary, but imagined to the last detail and compass-point). The place is generally in fact the principal character in the book, because, again, places mean more to me than people. However, I start with the one or two characters necessary to carry the theme, and then I just start writing and see what happens."

His writing style is direct, minimalist and terse, which Anthony Boucher once noted: "Avoiding clichés as much as possible, interested in people yet devoid of sentimentality, without even any overt physical action, Hubbard can suggest untold horror in a few deft passages." Some may find this type of writing to be slow by today's standards, as Hubbard draws out the suspense quietly and gradually, like slowly playing out a guide rope until it suddenly snaps.

Hubbard didn't create any series characters or detectives, using only three or four main characters in each story, with little dialogue and large chunks of interior monologue narration from the POV character.  The Dancing Man, from1971, is what Tom Jenkins of Mystery File noted was the epitome of Hubbard's style:  a limited cast of characters, his sparse dialogue, and his plot complexities, all woven into the settings of an isolated Victorian house in Wales, a ruined Cistercian abbey and a Neolithic ring larger than Avebury and older than Stonehenge.

The lead character of The Dancing Man is Mark Hawkins, engineer, cynic and loner, who has always resented his adventurer-archaeologist brother, Dick. Then Dick vanishes, allegedly dead in a climbing accident. A reluctant Mark starts investigating the site his brother was excavating, a Cistercian monastery, and meets three strange souls who were the last to see his brother alive — gruff professor Roger Merrion, who has more than an academic interest in the ruins, his fearful young wife, and his enigmatic virginal sister, whom Mark starts to fall for.  The Dancing Man of the title is a pornographic carving at the ancient ruins that begins to exert an influence on Mark, but is it witchery, as a mysterious old man he meets tells him, or is something altogether real, but equally sinister? And why was his brother working at an 11th-century monastery, when his specialty was Neolithic archaeology?

It's definitely not the type of novel for fans of more modern, fast-paced punchy fiction, but if you're in the mood for a dark psychological story, then you can allow The Dancing Man to reel you in slowly as you become immersed in the almost claustrophobic pull of the protagonist's frame of mind as he gets closer to a murderous secret.

Mystery Melange

Bloody Scotland revealed the shortlist for the 2026 McIlvanney Prize. The finalist titles will be promoted in bookshops throughout Scotland until the Friday, September 18, when the winner will be announced on the opening night of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival. This year's finalists include The Hollow Boys by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper); 138 Main Street by Gavin Bell (S&S); A Bad, Bad, Place by Frances Crawford (Bantam); The Diary of Lies by Philip Miller (Polygon); and The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin (Viper). (HT to Shotsmag Confidential)

The longlist for this year’s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction books was recently announced. Several crime-themed titles were among the honorees, including Murder in Paris ’68: A True Story of Death and Glamour by Edward Chisholm (Bloomsbury); The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World by Bojan Pancevski (Penguin Random House); Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macintyre (Penguin Random House); London Falling: and A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe (Penguin Random House). The winner will receive £50,000, with the shortlist of six announced on October 1, and the winner on November 4.

The California Independent Booksellers Alliance (CALIBA) presents the Golden Poppy Awards in recognition of the most distinguished books written and illustrated by creators who have made California their home. Committees for each category are made up of booksellers throughout the state tasked with developing a list of five finalists and one winner. This year's finalists in the Mystery category include A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper (Mulholland Books); Get Lost by Justin Halpern (Cardinal); The Cormorant Hunt by Michael Idov (Scribner); The Tree of Light and Flowers by Thomas Perry (The Mysterious Press); and The Haul by Gary Phillips (Soho Crime).


This weekend, from September 12-13, Herne Bay in southeast England will host its first-ever literary festival, Crime by the Sea, bringing renowned authors, lively discussions and literary events to venues across the town. Presented by The Herne Bay Literary Festival and The Little Green Bookshop, Crime by the Sea will celebrate crime, mystery and thriller writing with special guests including Sophie Hannah (continuation author of Agatha Christie's Poirot series); Jess Kidd (Nora Breen Investigates series); Ian Moore (the Follet Valley cozy crime series); Louise Doughty (Apple Tree Yard and Platform Seven); Cathy Rentzenbrink (The Agatha Christie Cure); Julie Wassmer (Whitstable Pearl mysteries); and Lucy Strange (the Mulberry Hill Murders series). More information, including registration, can be found here.


Also opening this week, from September 12-26, is the annual International Agatha Christie Festival, in Torquay, UK. Highlights will include a special event benefiting the British Red Cross and the Agatha Christie Festival Charity entitled, "What Agatha Did in the Great War." It offers a rare opportunity to step inside the historic Assembly Rooms at Torquay Town Hall, where Agatha Christie served as a nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment for the British Red Cross during WWI. Plus, there will be a performance of The Mousetrap as part of the play's 75th Anniversary Tour, with other events focused on "The Forensic Fashion of Agatha Christie"; "A Century of Agatha Christie on Screen"; "Agatha the Photographer"; Roger Ackroyd Day, in celebration of 100 years since the publication of Agatha Christie's classic novel; and lots more.

The Desert Sleuths chapter of Sisters in Crime is presenting WriteNOW! 2026, Friday-Saturday, September 18 & 19. This virtual mystery/crime writers conference for authors, readers, and enthusiasts welcomes writers from all genres. Registration for the CraftNOW! workshop with Clay Stafford, the EditNOW! workshop with Terri Bischoff, Jay Hartman and Anne Rainbow, and the PitchNOW! sessions with Elizabeth Guthrie and Gina Panettieri closes on September 16, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.


Clues: A Journal of Detection has a call for papers on mid-twentieth century American women's crime writing. Guest editors Erin A. Smith (University of Texas at Dallas) and Clare Rolens (Palomar College) welcome proposals for the themed issues that focuses on fostering scholarship on the lesser-known women writers from the 1940s to the 1960s. Potential authors might include (but are by no means limited to) Charlotte Armstrong, Leigh Brackett, Vera Caspary, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Dorothy Cameron Disney, Doris Miles Disney, Helen Eustis, Leslie Ford, Patricia Highsmith, Dolores Hitchens, Dorothy B. Hughes, Shirley Jackson, Margaret Millar, Helen Nielsen, Ann Petry, Evelyn Piper, Craig Rice, and Elisabeth Sanxay. Of interest are inter-sectional analyses of how gender/sexuality, social class, and race/ethnicity are represented in these works. Also welcome are explorations of how these writers navigated various historical traditions of crime writing (noir, the cozy, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century domestic detective fiction, the gothic, etc.) and how they remade or reworked these forms. Proposals are due January 15, 2027, with full essays of 5,000 to 6,000 words due August 1, 2027. Elizabeth Foxwell over at The Bunburyist has more information.


For more news about the latest in short mystery fiction this week, check out Kevin Tipple's Thursday Treats blog, the Short Mystery Fiction Society blog, and also Art Taylor's The First Two Pages blog, which includes the latest features from Hooked on Urban Legends—And Murder! edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley. Plus, catch the latest crime poem, "But Was It Murder?" by Robert Donohue, over at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly.


In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover had three recent interviews: they spoke with DS Butler about Lie to Me, that latest in her series featuring Karen Hart, a detective sergeant with the Lincolnshire Police; they also chatted with Christopher Harris about his new novel, Pound Foolish, his second novel to feature Mouse Morrison, an NFL pro who is now a detective; and they interviewed Teresa Solana, whose newly translated crime novel, The Butterfly House, featuring the half-Catalan, half-British police detective, Norma Forester, will be released on September 12. Plus, Promoting Crime Fiction welcomed British author Dave Sivers, whose books include the Archer and Baines contemporary crime novels, the DI Nathan Quarrel series, and the Lowmar Dashiel crime fantasy novels.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:


THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Michael Keaton is set to direct and star opposite Morgan Freeman in Rode to Ruin, an original Western thriller written by R. Dean McCreary. Keaton will portray retired Marshal Henry Tillman, and Freeman is a wanted outlaw named Joseph Mulberry. The U.S. Marshal searched forty years for his wife’s killer, and the cold trail finally heats up and leads him to an aging outlaw losing his memory – and to a buried truth neither man may survive. Their reunion marks the first time in nearly four decades that the two acclaimed actors have shared the screen (they did Clean and Sober together in 1988).


Florian Zeller’s upcoming psychological thriller, Bunker, starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, is set to world premiere in competition at the Venice International Film Festival on September 8. The film, which Zeller wrote, produced and directed, follows the emotional and moral challenges faced by a couple in an increasingly uncertain world. Bardem plays Miguel, a successful London architect, who considers a prestigious offer to build a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire. The project causes his wife Sofia (Cruz) to question their relationship of seventeen years as they are drawn deeper into a life of extreme wealth, paranoia, and fear. The intrusion of an unsettling neighbor becomes another source of anxiety.

A first trailer was released for the action-thriller film, Father Joe, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Al Pacino, and teen Ever Anderson, daughter of Milla Jovovich and filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson. Sutherland plays “a man of faith who wages a violent war against Manhattan’s criminal underworld, putting him on a collision course with a powerful mob boss while guiding a young woman caught between danger and redemption.” As with the thriller Bunker, referenced above, the film is premiering this week at the Venice Film Festival.


Principal photography has just completed in and around Norfolk, Virginia, on the dark thriller, America’s Favorite, starring Dane DeHaan (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), Maddie Hasson (Malignant), Paul Roffman (Girl), Greg Kinnear (Black Bird), and Dennis Quaid (Reagan). The film will follow Peter Bale (De Haan), a reporter-turned TV host who tries to revive his career by investigating a series of murders during a live broadcast, only to uncover a deeper conspiracy tied to a powerful media mogul. 


TELEVISION/STREAMING

ABC is developing The Undertaker, a police procedural based on the Swiss series, Der Bestatter, from writer Gabriel Garza (The Winchesters, The Flash), director Hanelle M. Culpepper (Paradise, Star Trek: Picard), 20th Television, and Elevate Entertainment. The Undertaker will follow Luke Conrad, a former police detective who takes over his family’s funeral home business and can’t resist investigating the deaths that come through the door. Garza will serve as writer and executive producer, with Culpepper directing and executive producing.


CBS's Elsbeth is gearing up for its Season 4 premiere on October 8 with the first list of guest stars, including Nicole Scherzinger (The Masked Singer), Nicholas Braun (Succession), New York Knicks star OG Anunoby, and Jemima Kirke (Girls). Carrie Preston returns as Elsbeth Tascioni, the brilliant yet unconventional consent decree attorney working with the NYPD, led by her boss, Captain C.W. Wagner (Wendell Pierce), to track down New York’s most entitled murderers utilizing her unique, intuitive point of view. Scherzinger will appear in the Season 4 premiere as Serena Collyer, a popular and highly paid relationship counselor whose torrid affair with an old love leads to murder.


CBS unveiled the first trailer for Season 2 of the procedural, Marshals, which stars Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton. Marshals returns on October 4, and the show has some new cast members, including Marque Richardson as Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Burns, while Morgan Lindholm’s role as Maddie, the bartender at the local watering hole Bullet ’N Barrel and daughter of Cal, is being expanded.


Paramount+ has officially renewed MobLand for a third season ahead of the crime drama’s Season 2 premiere on Sept. 18. Also confirmed is the return of Tom Hardy as the Harrigan family’s loyal fixer Harry da Souza, alongside Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren as the crime family’s patriarch and matriarch, Conrad and Maeve Harrigan. MobLand was renewed for a second season last year but temporarily derailed by a behind-the-scenes drama involving Hardy, who seemed to be on his way out after friction between him and the series’ writer, executive producer, and showrunner Jez Butterworth. Season 2 also stars Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Mandeep Dhillon, Jasmine Jobson, Teddie Allen, Emmett J. Scanlan, Johnny Flynn, Ophelia Lovibond, Janet McTeer, and Toby Jones.


David Zayas is returning to his fan-favorite role of Angel Batista for the second season of Showtime's Dexter: Resurrection. However, it is unknown how Batista will be brought back after his tragic Season 1 demise. In the second season of the series, Dexter is caught between two killers – one notorious and the other terrorizing New York in ways no one ever anticipated – all while battling his greatest enemy yet: a midlife crisis. Meanwhile, Dexter's son, Harrison (Jack Alcott), continues his own pursuit of justice as father and son face their darkest chapter. Brian Cox stars as The New York Ripper; Dan Stevens as The Five Borough Killer; and Gabriel Luna as Ray Ballard, who operates under the name The Sleepy-Eyed Stranger.


Production has officially begun in Prague on the new Netflix TV series adapted from the Dan Brown novel, The Secret of Secrets, featuring Morgan Spector as Robert Langdon. In addition to Spector, the series regular cast includes Rebecca Hall as Katherine Solomon, Cherry Jones as Heide Nagel, Corey Stoll as Everett Finch, Rob Delaney as Jonas Faukman, and Abbey Lee as Sasha Vesna. Additional casting was announced this past week, including Mamadou Athie, who recurs as Michael Harris, and Ben Levi Ross as Alex Conan, also in a recurring role. They will be joined by Anamaria Marinca, who will play Dr. Gessner; Richard Sammel, who will play Karl Muller; and Elena Saurel, who will play Susan Housemore. In Brown’s novel, symbologist Robert Langdon races against ancient forces and time to rescue a missing scientist and her groundbreaking manuscript whose discoveries have the power to forever change humanity’s understanding of the mind.  


Ireland’s RTÉ will explore one of the most talked-about murders of recent Irish history in the drama series, The Murder of Mr. Moonlight, which has been pre-bought by the BBC. Malcolm Campbell (What Richard Did) is adapting Catherine Fegan’s book of the same name, with Meadhbh McHugh and Paul Howard also writing. The series focuses on the disappearance and murder of Bobby Ryan, known locally as "Mr. Moonlight," and the events that would lead to one of Ireland’s longest-ever murder trials. Brendan Coyle (Toxic Town) stars as Bobby Ryan, with Owen McDonnell (Killing Eve) as Patrick Quirke, who was ultimately found guilty of the killing and sentenced to life imprisonment.

USA Network's The Rainmaker is kicking off promotions for Season 2 with first-look photos of Merle Dandridge and Richard Kind, both new additions to the legal drama, which will return with new episodes in October. Based on the John Grisham novel of the same name, The Rainmaker follows Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) who, fresh out of law school, goes head-to-head with courtroom lion Leo Drummond (John Slattery) and his law school girlfriend Sarah Plankmore (Madison Iseman). In Season 2, Rudy, Deck (P.J. Byrne), and Bruiser face old adversaries and new ones in a case where the lives of hundreds of children hang in the balance, and where winning might be just as dangerous as losing. In addition to Dandridge and Kind, Austin Nichols has been announced as joining the cast in Season 2.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO/SHORT FORMS

Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa will star in UnderGround Zero: 9/11 & The Mob, a podcast series recounting the untold story of how the New York Mafia made millions in the aftermath of the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Two more alums from The Sopranos, Ray Abruzzo and Arthur Nascarella, also star. Stephen Kronish (The Kennedys, 24) is the writer of the drama, which is based on real events. It bowed on iHeartPodcasts and audio platforms this weekend. 


On the Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, Barbara Peters was in conversation with Jennifer Hillier about her latest psychological thriller, Heart of Glass, in which a woman must confront her traumatic past after a body washes up on the shores of her seaside town and a serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a string of murders.


Barbara Peters also spoke with Tess Gerritsen and her publisher and editor, Gracie Doyle, about Gerritsen's latest novel, The Shadow Friends, the third installment in the tight-knit band of former spies known as the Martini Club who investigate when a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine.


On the Femmes Detectives podcast, host Sue Hinkin spoke with Nichelle Seeley about her book, A Vision of Violence, featuring former cop-turned private investigator Audrey Lake, who reluctantly teams up with the public defenders’ office and gets drawn into a murder case in Oregon.


The Writers Journey interviewed Dervla McTiernan, author of award-winning novels including What Happened to Nina? and The Murder Rule, both New York Times thrillers of the year, about her latest psychological thriller, Three Reasons for Revenge.

Sunday Music Treat

Mars has been in the news a lot lately, with the movie The Martian based on Andy Weir's book, as well as continued missions such the continuing work of the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. In honor thereof, I think it's fitting we hear the "Mars" section from The Planets by Gustav Holst, always one of my favorite pieces, played here by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Sir Charles Mackerrras:

 

 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Speaking of Murder

We owe many thanks to Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg for the variety of collections and anthologies they've edited through the years. I looked at bibliographies and counted at least 53 edited by Ed Gorman, and one source said Greenberg had edited over a thousand books. Ed is also one of the regular contributors to the Friday's Forgotten Books feature, as well as being an accomplished, award-winning author in his own right.

One of the Gorman/Greenberg collaborations were two books of interviews with well-known crime fiction authors, Speaking of Murder: Interviews with the Masters of Mystery and Suspense, published in July 1998, and Speaking of Murder II, which came out the following year.

I don't have the second volume, but the first is introduced by Ed, who tells the story of how a Chicago talk show producer once told him that writers made dull guests. Ed allowed as how he agreed, since "compared to cross-dressing prostitutes, mothers who sleep with their daughter's boyfriends, and UFO abductees who have mysteriously started to dress like Elvis, I guess most of us writers do lead pretty uneventful lives." He goes on to add that writers are interesting because they're quiet and introspective.

The 21 interviews in volume one include some of the best-known names in the genre, Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, Ed McBain, Elizabeth George, Marcia Muller, Mickey Spillane, Ian Rankin, Tony Hillerman Sue Grafton, Anne Perry, each offering up insights into their inner world as well as their personal take on the writing process.

I'm always particularly fascinated by the early stages of a writer's career before they were successful, because that's the "danger time," the period when a writer is most likely to get discouraged and give up. From Carolyn G. Hart we learn that despite having 13 books published ("nothing exciting happened with any one of them") and teaching journalism, she was depressed and felt like an enormous failure. One agent told her no one was buying mysteries, but after a Mystery Writers of American seminar, she decided she was going to write the mystery she wanted to anyway, the result being her wildly popular Death on Demand series.

Tony Hillerman worked as a journalist for 17 years and taught for 21 years, writing a lot of nonfiction. One day he decided he wanted to write the great American novel and decided to start with a mystery because he didn't know if he could do characters or plotting well. He knew he could do descriptions, though, and chose the most beautiful setting he could think of so the readers would at least enjoy the background. He wrote it off and on, thinking it wasn't good enough to be published, until he finally got tired of it and sent it off to an agent. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Other random tidbits: From Bill Pronzini, "Critical, editorial and/or peer misunderstanding or dismissal of my work only makes me more determined to hang around."

From Mickey Spillane: "If you are a writer and you do a scene ten times, the last one probably will sound like the first one, and you're not going to get any better as you revise. The best stuff you put down comes right off the typewriter, bam! ... I don't have a big garbage problem."

From Ian Rankin: "I remember an early attempt at research (at Leith Police Station)...They asked me what the book was about, I said a child killer. What I hadn't realized was that a child had just been abducted in Leith and a murder room had been set up. So they took down my details and added me to their computer. I became suspect number 350 and spent more time answering their questions than they did mine."

From Sharyn McCrumb: "Storytelling was an art form that I learned early on. When I was a little girl, my father would come in to tell me a bedtime story, which usually began with a phrase like, 'Once there was a prince named Paris, whose father was Priam, the king of Troy . . . .' thus I got the Iliad in nightly installments, geared to the level of a four-year-old's understanding."

From Sue Grafton:  "I love mystery; it is my favorite form. It is sublimely difficult, and for my money, it encompasses everything that is interesting about writing because you need a strong story, strong characters, and mood and atmosphere. It is also the perfect vehicle for social commentary. Mysteries are about the psychology of crime and the psychology of human nature. It is a form so difficult that I know I'll never conquer it. So it's the perfect place to keep throwing myself into the abyss."

Mystery Melange

This weekend, from September 4-6, St. Hilda's Mystery & Crime Conference returns to Oxford, England. The 33rd Crime Fiction Weekend explores "Bad Apples," the dark core of these characters, and discusses why we love them – or love to hate them – so much. The Guest of Honor is Andrew Taylor, winner of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger (for lifelong excellence in the genre), whose works include The American Boy, the Roth Trilogy (filmed for TV as Fallen Angel), and the Lydmouth detective series set in the 1950s. Other speakers scheduled to appear include Jo Callaghan, Ajay Chowdhury, Abigail Dean, Vaseem Khan, Remi Kone, Simon Mason, Ayo Onatade, Hallie Rubenhold, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Sarah Vaughan, and Martyn Waites. The full program is available via this link.


On Thursday, September 10, the Mechanics’ Institute in San Francisco, California, is hosting a panel of historical fiction mystery authors featuring Cara Black (the Aimée Leduc series), Rob Osler (Harriet Morrow series), and Naomi Hiraha (Mas Arai mystery series), moderated by Gigi Pandian (Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries). The event kicks off with a murder mystery themed cocktail hour at 5:30, followed by the panel at 6:30 pm. For registration, follow this link.


Murder & Mayhem is sponsoring a giveaway where three lucky winners will receive a set of all nine of Mick Herron’s novels in his Slough House Series, which inspired the Apple TV series Slow Horses. Enter with email address by September 7, 2026, at 11:59:59 pm ET. (The Sweepstakes is open to all legal residents of the 50 United States and Washington, DC, who are 18 years of age or older.)


When Dolly Parton passed away last week, her family asked for donations to Parton's Imagination Library rather than flowers in her memory. Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995 to encourage a love for reading and learning among the children of Sevier County, Tennessee, where she was raised. But between its founding and her death, it grew into something much bigger, giving away over 330 million books through five different countries. The Dollywood Foundation said in a statement that her legacy will continue "when a child opens a book addressed especially to them; when a parent and child read a favorite story together; and when a young person begins to imagine a future bigger than the circumstances into which they were born." For more information and to donate, you can visit the official website.


Bookshop.org has officially surpassed $50 million in donations to independent bookstores. The site was founded in January 2020 with the goal of bolstering independent bookselling as many stores struggled to stay afloat, and when the pandemic hit two months later it became a lifeline, with 80 percent of its profit margin going to independent bookstores. “We’re so excited to announce that we’ve officially raised $50 million for independent bookstores, supporting their ability to thrive, grow, and keep their doors open for the communities that love them,” the site said in a statement. “We know that bookstores don’t just sell books: They take care of their neighbors, provide a safe space for anyone who needs it, and cultivate a sense of curiosity and a love of reading within their doors. We can’t thank you all enough for supporting bookstores over billionaires.”


This coming Monday is Labor Day in the U.S., and Janet Rudolph has a list of mysteries set on or around that holiday, as well as some crime fiction with a labor union theme.


Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog featured Pat Remick with an essay on her story, "Screaming Jenny," from the new anthology, Hooked on Urban Legends—And Murder!, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley.


Kevin Tipple's Thursday Treats blog has news of new short crime fiction via The Yard, Pistol Jim Press, the anthology, Mystery, Crime and Spring Break, and much more.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "The People - The Unnamed Ex-Con" by J.H. Johns.


In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews welcomed Kate Westbury to talk about her new novel, The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies; James R. Benn. author of the Billy Boyle World War II spy novels, applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Ninth Circle, the twenty-first installment of the Boyle series; ALLi's Howard Lovy spoke with David Barbur, a former law enforcement officer who now writes wilderness mysteries inspired by his interests in hiking, tracking, survival skills, and the natural world; and Deborah Kalb chatted with Hank Phillippi Ryan about her new psychological thriller, Mother Daughter Sister Stranger.