Sunday, 19 March 2023

Left Coast Crime 2023 Left Award Winners

 


The Lefty Awards were announced on Saturday night at the Left Coast Crime Convention in Tucson, Arizona. 

Lefty Nominees for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

    Bayou Book Thief  by Ellen Byron (Berkley Prime Crime)

Lefty Nominees for Best Historical Mystery Novel (The Bill Gottfried Memorial) for books set before 1970

    Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris (William Morrow)

Lefty Nominees for Best Debut Mystery Novel

    Shutter by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)

Lefty Nominees for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories)

    Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland Books)

Congratulations to all the winners and the nominated authors.

Saturday, 18 March 2023

CrimeFest Programme

 

The Crimefest Programme has been announced. The full programme can be found here.

Thursday 11 May 2023

13:30 – 14:20

Police Procedurals: Getting it Right and Making it Real

14:40 – 15:30 

Protagonists Under Pressure: Putting your Characters in Danger (Panel 1)
Telling Tales: Keeping Secrets and Telling Lies (Panel 2)

15:50 – 16:40 

High Octane: A Thrills and Spills Ride (Panel 1)
Partners in Crime: When Two (or more) Heads are Better than One (Panel 2)

17:00 – 17:50 
Authors Remembered (Panel 1)

A Twist in the Tale: Turning the Plot on its Head (Panel 2)

20:00 – 21:30:

 CRIMEFEST Pub Quiz, with crime writer and critic Peter Guttridge as Inquizitor. Prizes to be won!

LOCATION: TBA.

Friday 12 May 2023

09:00 – 09:50
Keeping it Cosy: The Gifted Amateur (Panel 1)

All in the Mind: Psychological Thrillers (Panel 2)

10:10 – 11:00
Dark Times: Crime Fiction Set in and Around WWII (Panel 1)

This is a Modern World: Crime in the Digital Age (Panel 2)

11:20 – 12:10
More than One: Serial Killers and Multiple Murderers (Panel 1)
A Captive Audience: Locked Rooms and Limited Suspects (Panel 2)
The Ones You Least Expect: Keeping the Reader Guessing (Panel 3)

12:30 – 13:20 
Humanity in the Darkness: Finding Hope in Crime Fiction (Panel 1)

New Golden Age? Today’s Mystery Fiction (Panel 2)

Keeping Them Close: How Well Do You Know Your Friends? (Panel 3)

13:40 – 14:30

Unspeakable: When Bad Things Happen (Panel 1)

Science Fact and Science Fiction (Panel 2)

Guilt and Innocence (Panel 3)

14:50 – 15:40

Location, Location, Location: The Importance of Setting (Panel 1)

Job Titles: Choosing What Your Protagonist Does For a Living (Panel 2)

A Little Bit Spooky: Adding a Sprinkle of the Supernatural (Panel 3)

16:00 – 16:50

Historical Crime Fiction: Today Reflected in History? (Panel 1)

It’s Personal: The Private Lives of Police Protagonists (Panel 2)

Spying For A Living (Panel 3)

17:10 – 18:00
Cat and Mouse (Panel 1)

A Battle Between Good and Evil?: Protagonist vs Antagonist (Panel 2)

PALM COURT
18:30 – 19:30
CrimeFest hosts the Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger Announcement Reception


Saturday 13 May 023

09:00 – 09:50

Debut Authors: An Infusion Of Fresh Blood (Panel 1)

Close to Home: Murder in the Family (Panel 2)

10:10 – 11:00
Featured Guest Interview

11:20 – 12:10
High Stakes: Risking it All (Panel 1)

Black is the Night: Cornell Woolrich (Panel 2)

Historical Crime Fiction: Choices, Research and Making It Work (Panel 3)

12:30 – 13:20 

TBC

3:40 – 14:30
A Stranger in Our Midst: The Danger of the Outsider (Panel 1)

Greed, Power, Money, Revenge…: Motives for Murder (Panel 2)

Evening All: the Enduring Allure of Police Procedurals (Panel 3)

14:50 – 15:40
FEATURED GUEST Interview

16:00 – 16:50

Humour: When Murder Makes us Laugh (Panel 1)

Society: What Crime Fiction Says About Us (Panel 2)

English Riviera: It’s not all Sunshine and Ice Cream (Panel 3)

17:30 – 18:15: 

Pre-Gala Dinner Reception (All Full Pass holders welcome)
18:15: 

CRIMEFEST Awards Dinner– ticket holders only


Sunday 13 May 2023

09:30 – 10:20
Debut Authors: An Infusion Of Fresh Blood (Panel 1)

The Indie Alternative (Panel 2)

10:40 – 11.30
TOASTMASTER INTERVIEW – PETER GUTTRIDGE (Panel 1)

Tight Knit: Where Everyone Knows Your Business (Panel 2)

11:50 – 12:40
Criminal Mastermind Quiz

Friday, 17 March 2023

2023 ITW Thriller Award nominations

 

Best Hardcover Novel

The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson (Del Rey)

Things We Do in The Dark by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur)

The Fervor by Alma Katsu (Penguin/Putnam)

The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon (Simon & Schuster)

Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (MCD)

Sundial by Catriona Ward (Macmillan)

Best Audiobook

Young Rich Widows by Kimberly Belle, Fargo Layne, Cate Holahan, Vanessa Lillie (Audible) Narrated by Dina Pearlman, Karissa Vacker, Helen Laser, Ariel Blake

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark (Audible) Narrated by Anna Caputo, Amanda Dolan

The Photo Thief by J. L. Delozier (CamCat Publishing) Narrated by Rachel L. Jacobs, Jeffrey Kafer

Things We Do in The Dark by Jennifer Hillier (Macmillan Audio) Narrated by Carla Vega

The Silent Woman by Minka Kent (Blackstone Publishing) Narrated by Christine Lakin, Kate Rudd

Best First Novel

The Resemblance by Lauren Nossett (Flatiron Books)

Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild (Penguin/Putnam)

Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor (Dirt Creek)

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham (Minotaur)

The Fields by Erin Young (Flatiron Books)

Best Paperback Original Novel

The Lies I Told by Mary Burton (Montlake Romance)

No Place to Run by Mark Edwards (Thomas & Mercer)

Unmissing by Minka Kent (Thomas & Mercer)

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (Grand Central Publishing)

Anywhere You Run by Wanda Morris (William Morrow)

The Couple Upstairs by Holly Wainwright (Pan Macmillan)

The Patient's Secret by Loreth Anne White –(Montlake Romance)

Best Short Story

Russian for Beginners by Dominique Bibeau (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

The Gift by Barb Goffman (Down & Out Books)

Publish or Perish by Smita Harish Jain (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

33 Clues into the Disappearnce of My Sister by Joyce Carol Oates (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Schrödinger, Cat by Anna Scotti (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Stockholm by Catherine Steadman (Amazon Original Stories)

Best Young Adult Novel

Our Crooked Hears by Melissa Albert (Flatiron Books)

Sugaring Off by Gillian French (Algonquin Young Readers)

Daughter by Kate McLaughlin (Wednesday Books)

What's Coming to Me by Francesca Padilla (Soho Teen)

I'm the Girl by Courtney Summers (Wednesday Books)

Best E-Book original

Evasive Species by Bill Byrnes (Self-published)

The Couple at Causeway Cottage by Diane Jeffrey (HarperCollins)

The Seven Truths of Hannah Baxter by Grant McKenzie (Self-published)

The Hollow Place by Rick Mofina (Self-published)

Fatal Rounds by Carrie Rubin (Self-published)

ITW will announce the winners at ThrillerFest XVIII on Saturday 3 June 2023 at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, New York City.

Congratulations to all the finalists!




The British Book Awards shortlists 2023

 

The British Book Awards shortlists have been announced!

The complete shortlists can be found here

Crime and Thriller shortlist 

Bamburg by L J Ross

Murder Before Evensong by Reverend Richard Coles

The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister


Thursday, 16 March 2023

Charlotte Duckworth on The inspiration behind The Wrong Mother


The Wrong Mother is my fifth psychological suspense. Since my first novel, The Rival, was published, I’ve released a new novel every year. Unsurprisingly, it becomes more challenging, the more novels you have written, to come up with ideas and concepts that feel fresh. There are so many brilliant suspense novels published every year and every author I know lives in dread of accidentally copying someone else’s premise.

I’m fortunate that I do have a loose ‘theme’ connecting all my novels – they all examine a different aspect of contemporary parenting. The Rival explores one high-flying woman’s devastation when she loses her job while pregnant; Unfollow Me explores the obsession some people have with ‘mummy influencers’; The Perfect Father examines the downfall of a stay-at-home dad who kidnaps his own daughter, and The Sanctuary follows five pregnant women as they head off for a pre-natal yoga retreat. 

So when I came to write my fifth book, I knew I wanted to stick to exploring the myriad ways people parent today. And it was pure serendipity that I came across an article in the Guardian, talking about the rise of ‘co-parenting agencies’. I couldn’t believe such a thing existed, but they do – agencies which aim to match up men and women who want to have children but are single, and don’t necessarily want to wait to find the perfect romantic partner before becoming a parent.

To me, this theme felt very much in line with my other novels, and so, the decision was made. But as any writer will tell you, having a theme or an idea is only the starting point. There’s always that crucial question: and then what? 

A man and woman get paired up on a co-parenting app… and then what?

The helpful thing about having had four novels published already is that I can look back at my reviews, and take advice from my readers about what they enjoyed and what did and didn’t work for them. I knew from my bestseller, The Perfect Father, that people really enjoyed having their opinions of a character change dramatically throughout the course of a novel. I decided this was a trope I wanted to incorporate in this book too.

I also knew that they love a midpoint twist. There’s a huge twist in The Perfect Father, and I decided again to try to pull off something similar in The Wrong Mother. I can’t tell you much more without filling this piece with spoilers but I knew I wanted to write about two women, and have the readers’ opinion of them both change drastically throughout the book. I also wanted there to be at least one moment when the reader is stunned enough to have to read the page twice.

And so, we have Faye and Rachel. Faye is 39 and single and desperately wants a child of her own – desperately enough to sign up to a co-parenting app, where she’s matched up with wealthy Louis. The pair embark on the quest to have a baby together. 

But a year later, Faye is on the run from Louis with the baby in tow. Meanwhile, Rachel is in her 60s and lives alone, but rents out a room in her small cottage. Faye responds to Rachel’s room advert, hoping to have found a safe sanctuary. Faye and the baby move in, and everything starts to unravel for them all…

The final piece of the puzzle for the novel was the setting. I started writing the first draft in October, and my deadline was the middle of December. I thought it might be fun to set the novel at the same time – and thus I got to write about Bonfire Night, that peculiarly British event where we burn effigies and send fireworks up into the sky.

I also knew that I didn’t want to set this book solely in London. I lived in London for many years and now live just outside of it, but I want my novels to explore all parts of the UK. The Sanctuary is set in Devon, but for The Wrong Mother I thought it would be fun to set most of the action in a remote Norfolk village.

I absolutely loved writing these two characters, and playing with the reader’s perception of them both. It was immense fun to write this book, and I hope the reader will experience the same joy when they read it. 


The Wrong Mother by Charlotte Duckworth (Quercus Publishing) Out Now 

One mother on the run. A safe place to hide. But you can't escape the past forever . . . Faye is 39 and single. She's terrified she may never have the one thing she always wanted: a child of her own. Then she discovers a co-parenting app: Acorns. For men and women who want to have a baby, but don't want to do it alone. When she meets Louis through it, it feels as though the fates have aligned. But just one year later, Faye is on the run from Louis, with baby Jake in tow. In desperate need of a new place to live, she contacts Rachel, who's renting out a room in her remote Norfolk cottage. It's all Faye can afford - and surely she'll be safe from Louis there? But is Rachel the benevolent landlady she pretends to be? Or does she have a secret of her own?

You can find out more information about Charlotte and her books on her website. You can also follow her on Twitter @charduck and on Instagram @charduck. 




“She looked a right miserable cow in that photo” - Behind the celebrity headlines we love! ny L C North

I’ve always had a certain fascination with celebrities. The who is dating who, going where, doing what, lure of glossy magazines. And based on the millions of weeklies sold every year, not to mention the tabloid headlines, and click-bait websites promising to tell all, I’m not the only one. 

And yet, alongside my fascination is an awareness of how strange the concept of a celebrity is, and how this group of individuals are treated in society. We place them on a pedestal and applaud their status in one breath, and in the very next, we seem to take great pleasure in pulling them back down. We consider them not like us. Not human. But delight in their mistakes. When they act human.

Weight gain woes

Too skinny

Did you see those spots?

Outfit malfunction

What was she thinking?

Miserable cow.

Every story comes with a sense that perhaps they deserve it. They chose to step into the spotlight, that harsh media glare, didn’t they? An entire grotesque industry has grown out of this twisted obsession. Paparazzi, editors, journalists and a whole lot more. But it isn’t just the magazines and tabloids anymore, it’s social media too. It’s not one headline, one story, but thousands and thousands of people commenting, sharing, chatting in tweets and posts, painting their own versions of the story, without ever considering the person underneath the sheen of that celebrity status. 

And let’s be honest, do any of us stop to consider how much truth there is behind the headlines? 

“Officially photos of Melanie Lange were hot property. Unofficially photos of Melanie looking miserable, upset or angry were the money shots”

Bill Cutting, former paparazzi photographer

This is a quote from my novel, The Ugly Truth. Bill isn’t real, but his words and the sentiment came from an interview with a paparazzi photographer who built his entire career following Britney Spears, snapping the “money shots” that will pay his bills. 

Let’s think about that for a moment. Rarely do we see a story about a celebrity popping into their local supermarket to buy groceries – that’s far too mundane. Far too normal. It’s the scowling red face of rage, the fuming set of a mouth, the teary fight with a boyfriend that hits the front pages. 

But peel that headline back and we might see a woman out to buy some flowers for her friend’s birthday. It’s a normal day. She’s running errands, getting on with life just like you and me. When suddenly, ten people with cameras appear and start shouting at her. 

“Melanie, Melanie, Melanie”

“Is it true you’re sleeping with your personal trainer?”

“Give us a smile”

“Where are you going? Meeting a boyfriend? A girlfriend?”

She tries to ignore it, telling herself - just as we do - that she signed up for this. But the group of photographers are all men and they surround her. Nowhere to go now. It’s intimidating. Scary. She starts to panic and has to push to get away. The flowers get squashed and now she’s upset and scared and angry, and she throws the ruined bouquet at the group and runs away.

The headline reads: MELANIE LANGE IN TEMPER TANTRUM, and the accompanying article tells us about a celebrity who snatched up a bouquet of flowers and threw them at an unsuspecting shop keeper. If we cared to look beyond the story (and that’s what it is) we’d see a work of fiction, and it was this concept of what lies behind the headlines that formed the inspiration for The Ugly Truth

I wanted to see the person and the truth beneath the celebrity and the headlines about them. The main character in The Ugly Truth is Melanie Lange. She is a fictional celebrity thrust into the spotlight at fifteen years old when she becomes one of Britain’s most sort after models. The two decades she spends in the spotlight draw parallels to the people and stories we know well. Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Cheryl Cole, and countless more. 

Imagine trying to balance on that pedestal day after day after day while the world around you throws rocks, grabs at you, tries desperately to pull you down. What do daily attacks do to someone’s mindset? What chance do their relationships stand of surviving? And who can they trust in a world where everyone is out to make money from them, including their families? 

When Melanie Lange disappears, her father, Sir Peter Lange, says she is being cared for in a private mental health clinic. But her ex-husband and best friend say she’s been kidnapped. The media will say whichever gets them the most views.

Told in the same Tweets, documentary transcripts and headlines we expect from celebrity news, The Ugly Truth asks whose side are you on? #SaveMelanie #HelpPeter


The Ugly Truth by L.C. North (Transworld Publishers Limited) Out Now

Melanie Lange has disappeared. Her father, Sir Peter Lange, says she is a danger to herself and has been admitted to a private mental health clinic. Her ex-husband, Finn, and best friend, Nell, say she has been kidnapped. The media will say whichever gets them the most views. But whose side are you on? #SaveMelanie #HelpPeter

More information can be found on her website.

You can follow the author on Twitter @Lauren_C_North and on Facebook.


Photo credit ©Ross Dean Photography

Tuesday, 14 March 2023

CrimeFest Announce 2023 Award Shortlists

 

CrimeFest, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, has announced the shortlists for its annual awards.

Now in its 16th year, the awards honour the best crime books released in 2022 in the UK.

The awards feature the hotly-contended Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award which offers a £1,000 cash prize.

This year sees former detective turned advisor, Graham Bartlett, on the debut shortlist. Bartlett is known for advising some of the biggest authors in the crime genre, including Peter James, Mark Billingham, and Elly Griffiths, to help inject reality into their plots involving a crime or police officer. Now, Bartlett has put himself on the line with his debut, Bad for Good.

He's not the only former member of the police on the shortlist. John Sutherland served in a variety of ranks for the Met Police before he retired in 2018, and is shortlisted for his debut, The Siege.

They face strong competition from six other shortlisted authors, including Canada’s vice president and editorial director of the publishing house Simon & Schuster, Nita Prose, with her debut The Maid, which was a No.1 New York Times bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and has already picked up the Ned Kelly Award for Best International Crime Fiction.

The eDunnit Award for the best e-book, sees giants of the genre in contention, including Ian Rankin for A Heart Full of Headstones, Sara Gran for The Book of the Most Precious Substance, Michael Connelly with Desert Star and Chris Brookmyre for The Cliff House.

The H.R.F Keating Award for best biographical or critical book on crime fiction sees TV’s Queen of History, Lucy Worsley, take on the Queen of Crime with Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman.

A Private Spy, The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020, edited by Tim Cornwell, is also shortlisted, as is crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw’s Simenon, The Man, The Books, The Films: A 21st Century Guide on the legendary and influential crime writer.

The Last Laugh Award sees Mick Herron’s Bad Actors on the shortlist. The Jackson Lamb series of dysfunctional British intelligence agents has become a major adaptation for Apple TV, starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman. Herron’s up against Elly Griffiths with The Locked Room, Antti Tuomainen with The Moose Paradox, and the late Christopher Fowler for Bryant and May’s Peculiar London.

Elly Griffiths also features in the Best Crime Novel for Children (aged 8-12) shortlist with A Girl Called Justice: The Spy at the Window. She’s up against the acclaimed Anthony Horowitz for Where Seagulls Dare: A Diamond Brothers Case and M.G. Leonard’s Spark.

Nominees for the Best Crime Novel for Young Adults (aged 12-16) include Holly Jackson with Five Survive, Finn Longman’s The Butterfly Assassin and Sophie McKenzie’s Truth of Dare.

Adrian Muller, Co-host of CrimeFest, said: “The Specsavers Debut Novel Award has become one of the most coveted, and we’d like to thank Specsavers for their on-going support in celebrating new talent. We are also proud to be one of the few genre awards that recognise and celebrate e-books, humour, children, and Young Adult crime fiction novels. Our inclusive awards reflect the values of our convention, and showcase the incredible diversity and reach of the genre which dominates today’s cultural landscape.

Hosted in Bristol, CrimeFest is one of the biggest crime fiction events in Europe, and one of the most popular dates in the international crime fiction calendar, with circa 60 panel events and 150 authors attending over four days.

Featured Guests at the convention this May are Mark Billingham and Elly Griffiths.

Leading British crime fiction reviewers and reviewers of fiction for children and young adults, alongside the members of the School Library Association (SLA), form the CrimeFest judging panels.

CrimeFest was created following the hugely successful one-off visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast Crime convention. It was established in 2008. It follows the egalitarian format of most US conventions, making it open to all commercially published authors and readers alike.

 All category winners will receive a Bristol Blue Glass commemorative award.

The 2023 Shortlists in full

SPECSAVERS DEBUT CRIME NOVEL AWARD

In association with headline sponsor, the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award is for debut authors first published in the United Kingdom in 2022. The winning author receives a £1,000 prize.

- Amen Alonge for A Good Day to Die (Quercus)

- Graham Bartlett for Bad for Good (Allison & Busby)

- Nita Prose for The Maid (HarperCollins)

- Oriana Rammuno (translator: Katherine Gregor) for Ashes in the Snow (HarperCollins)

- Joachim B. Schmidt (translator: Jamie Lee Searle) for Kalmann (Bitter Lemon)

- Hayley Scrivenor for Dirt Town (Macmillan)

- John Sutherland for The Siege (Orion Fiction)

- Stacy Willingham for A Flicker in the Dark (HarperCollins)


 

eDUNNIT AWARD

The eDunnit Award is for the best crime fiction ebook first published in both hardcopy and in electronic format in the United Kingdom in 2022.

- Chris Brookmyre for The Cliff House (Abacus)

- Michael Connelly for Desert Star (Orion Fiction)

- M.W. Craven for The Botanist (Constable)

- Sara Gran for The Book of the Most Precious Substance (Faber & Faber)

- Ian Rankin for A Heart Full of Headstones (Orion Fiction)

- Peter Swanson for Nine Lives (Faber & Faber)

H.R.F. KEATING AWARD

The H.R.F. Keating Award is for the best biographical or critical book related to crime fiction first published in the United Kingdom in 2022. The award is named after H.R.F. ‘Harry’ Keating, one of Britain’s most esteemed crime novelists, crime reviewers and writer of books about crime fiction.

- J.C. Bernthal & Mary Anna Evans for The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie (Bloomsbury Academic)

- John le Carré (edited by Tim Cornwell) for A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020 (Viking)

- Martin Edwards for The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators (Collins Crime Club)

- Barry Forshaw for Simenon: The Man, The Books, The Films (Oldcastle Books)

- Sian MacArthur for Gender Roles and Political Contexts in Cold War Spy Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan)

- Lucy Worsley for Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman (Hodder & Stoughton)

 LAST LAUGH AWARD

The Last Laugh Award is for the best humorous crime novel first published in the United Kingdom in 2022.

- Christopher Fowler for Bryant & May's Peculiar London (Doubleday)

- Elly Griffiths for The Locked Room (Quercus)

- Mick Herron for Bad Actors (Baskerville)

- Cara Hunter for Hope to Die (Viking)

- Mike Ripley for Mr Campion's Mosaic (Severn House)

- Antti Tuomainen for The Moose Paradox (Orenda Books)


BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR CHILDREN

This award is for the best crime novel for children (aged 8-12) first published in the United Kingdom in 2022.

 - Elly Griffiths for A Girl Called Justice: The Spy at the Window (Quercus Children's Books)

- Anthony Horowitz for Where Seagulls Dare: A Diamond Brothers Case
(Walker Books)

- Sharna Jackson for The Good Turn (Puffin)

- M.G. Leonard for Spark (Walker Books)

- Robin Stevens for The Ministry of Unladylike Activity (Puffin)

- Sarah Todd Taylor for Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble (Nosy Crow)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR YOUNG ADULTS

This award is for the best crime novel for young adults (aged 12-16) first published in the United Kingdom in 2022.

- Holly Jackson for Five Survive (Electric Monkey)

- Patrice Lawrence for Needle (Barrington Stoke)

- Finn Longman for The Butterfly Assassin (Simon & Schuster Children's)

- Sophie McKenzie for Truth or Dare (Simon & Schuster Children's)

- Ruta Sepetys for I Must Betray You (Hodder Children's Books)

- Jonathan Stroud for The Notorious Scarlett and Browne (Walker Books)

CrimeFest runs at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel from 11-14 May, 2023. For details and to book, go to: https://www.crimefest.com/


 


 


Sunday, 12 March 2023

2022 Hammett Prize Shortlist

 


The International Association of Crime Writers, North America have announced the 2022 Hammett Prize Shortlist. 

The Hammett Prize is given for literary Excellence in Crime Writing. Books must be published in the English language in the U.S. or Canada. 

Copperhead Road, by Brad Smith (At Bay Press)
Gangland, by Chuck Hogan (Grand Central)
Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
Pay Dirt Road, by Samantha Jayne Allen (Minotaur)
What Happened to the Bennetts, by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam)

Congratulations to al the nominated authors. The winner will be announced Summer 2023.

Sunday, 5 March 2023

Crime Programme at the FT Oxford Literary Festival

 

The Oxford Literary Festival once have again got a crime fiction programme. The programme can be found here.

The highlights include

Simon Mason and Cara Hunter – Chaired by Peter Guttridge

Writing in the Shadow of Morse on Saturday 25 March 2023 at 10:00am in the Weston Lecture Theatre.

Val McDermid and Sue Black:- 

The Facts of Fiction: The Author and the Forenscis Anthopologist on Saturday 25 March 2023 at 12:00pm in the Sheldonian Theatre.

Cara Hunter, Andrew Thompson and Joey Giddings:-

Ask the Experts: Everything you Wanted to Know about Crime Investigations on Saturday 25 March 2023 at 4:00pm at the Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room.

Anthony Horowitz:-

Thrills and Spills:From the Diamond Brothers to Alex Rider on Sunday 26 March 2023 at 10:00am in the Sheldonian Theatre.

Mick Herron interviewed by Chris Pattern

The Chancellor's Lecture: A Life of Crime on Wednesday 29 March 2023 at 6:00pm in the Sheldonian Theatre.

Friday, 3 March 2023

Barry Award Nominations 2023

 

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine have announced the Barry Award Nominations for 2023. 

Novels in each category are arranged in alphabetical order based on the author’s last name.

Best Mystery or Crime Novel

The Accomplice by Steve Cavanagh (orion)

Desert Star by Michael Connelly (Little,Brown) 

The Dark Flood, Deon Meyer (Atlantic Monthly)

Shifty’s Boys by Chris Offutt (Grove Press)

Secret Identity by Alex Segura (Flatiron Books)

City on Fire by Don Winslow (William Morrow)

Best Debut Mystery or Crime Novel

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz (Atria/Emily Bestler)

Don’t Know Tough by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)

Shutter by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)

The Maid by Nita Prose (Ballantine)

Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild (Putnam)

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor (Flatiron)

Best Thriller

In the Blood by Jack Carr (Atria/Emily Bester)

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)

Sierra Six by Mark Greaney (Berkley)

Bad Actors by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)\

Goering’s Gold by Richard O’Rawe (Melville House)

Congratulations to all the nominated authors and books. Winners will be announced at the Opening Ceremonies of Bouchercon San Diego on 31 August 2023

The Hotel That Inspired the Kind Worth Saving by Peter Swanson

A few years ago, I spent three nights by myself at an old resort hotel in Maine. The reason I was at this hotel (the name of which I’ll leave unsaid) was fairly complicated. The short story version is that I was helping a friend transport his kids to and from a nearby summer camp. The interesting part of the story, at least to me, was that the hotel was once a grand resort getaway, the kind of place where people spent their summers, taking the waters, getting out of the heat of the city. 

The bones of that original hotel were still evident in the wrap-around porch, the enormous dining room, a sloping lawn dotted here and there with cupolas and shuffle board courts, but everything was a little bit run-down and shabby. The families had been replaced by golfers enticed by the cheap drinks from the bar and the buffet dinners, and I’d say the average age of the clientele was around the three-quarters of a century mark.

I enjoyed my time there despite what was a notable hospital smell in the hallways and bedrooms. I discovered a musty library on the third floor filled with donated books from vacations past. I found an adjacent game room with stacked board games, the most recent of which was probably the original Trivial Pursuit from the 1980s. And did I mention the drinks were cheap? This wasn’t that long ago but mixed drinks were at most about four dollars apiece.

Along with the senior set, there were a few miserable teenagers at the hotel, brought along by parents or grandparents, and the expressions on their faces reminded me of pictures I’d seen of prisoners of war. There were so few young people at the hotel that I did wonder if they’d gravitate toward one another in solidarity. This thought led to an idea for a story. I imagined a hotel like this one, and two teenagers, each brought there against their will for an extended stay. These teens would recognize each other as coming from the same town, although they’d never spoken before. The girl would be a star gymnast and popular and the boy would be a strange loner.

In any other circumstance they would never become friends but these two kids, eventually named Joan and Richard, become not just friends but partners in crime. The library from the real hotel made it into my imagined hotel—the Windward Resort in Kennewick, Maine—and my two young people use it to meet in secret, have long conversations, and hatch a plot to remove a common enemy.

There’s a moment after coming up with a new idea when I need to decide what length of story that idea will justify. In other words, am I writing a short story, or a novella, or do I have enough story to write an entire book? At first, I didn’t think that Joan’s and Richard’s secret and murderous friendship was quite enough for a full novel, but then I thought of a way to bring two more characters into the tale. 

These characters were familiar to me, already, because they were from my second novel, The Kind Worth Killing. I’d always wanted to return to my detective character, Henry Kimball, and to the antihero from that book, Lily Kintner. I realized that Joan and Richard would continue their relationship long after leaving the Windward Resort and that there was a way in which both Henry and Lily could become part of their story. And that’s when I realised that I was writing a novel, and not just a novel, but a sort of sequel to The Kind Worth Killing.

So I’d like to thank that old resort hotel in Maine for bringing me both Joan and Richard, and for bringing me back to my old friends Henry Kimball and Lily Kintner. As a writer you never know where you are going to get stories from; it’s both the joy and the haphazardness of the profession. Maybe I’ll go back to that hotel someday, maybe to celebrate the release of The Kind Worth Saving. The rooms might be musty but the drinks are cheap.

The Kind Worth Saving by Peter Swanson is out now (Faber, £14.99)

The ingenious sequel to The Kind Worth Killing finds private detective and former teacher Henry Kimball embroiled in a labyrinthine mystery involving the infidelity of one of his ex-pupils' husbands.Two's company, three's fatal. 'Do you remember me?' She asked, after stepping into my office. When private detective and former teacher Henry Kimball is hired to investigate an ex-pupil's cheating husband, he senses all is not quite what it seems, and before he knows it he's gotten far too close to the other woman. As the case gets ever stranger, he turns to the only person he can trust, Lily Kintner, someone with dark secrets of her own.

More information about Peter Swanson and his work can be found on his website. He cn also be found on Twitter @PeterSwanson3, on Instagram @peterswanson and on Facebook.