Monday, 28 January 2019

The 2018 Agatha Award Nominees


Malice Domestic have announced the 2018 Agatha Award nominees.
Best Contemporary Novel
Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
 Beyond the Truth by Bruce Robert Coffin (Witness Impulse)
 Cry Wolf by Annette Dashofy (Henery Press)
 Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
 Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)

Best Historical Novel  
Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding by Rhys Bowen (Berkley)
 The Gold Pawn by LA Chandlar (Kensington)
 The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
 Turning the Tide by Edith Maxwell (Midnight Ink)
 Murder on Union Square by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)

Best First Novel
A Ladies Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
 Little Comfort by Edwin Hill (Kensington)
 What Doesn't Kill You by Aimee Hix (Midnight Ink)
 Deadly Solution by Keenan Powell (Level Best Books)
 Curses Boiled Again by Shari Randall (St. Martin's)

Best Short Story
"All God's Sparrows" by Leslie Budewitz (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)
 "A Postcard for the Dead" by Susanna Calkins in Florida Happens (Three Rooms Press)
 "Bug Appetit" by Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)
"The Case of the Vanishing Professor" by Tara Laskowski (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)
 "English 398: Fiction Workshop" by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Best Young Adult Mystery
Potion Problems(Just Add Magic) by Cindy Callaghan (Aladdin) Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (Henry Holt)
 A Side of Sabotage by C.M. Surrisi (Carolrhoda Books)

Best Non-fiction
Mastering Plot Twists by Jane Cleland (Writer's Digest Books)
Writing the Cozy Mystery by Nancy J Cohen (Orange Grove Press)
 Conan Doyle for the Defense by Margalit Fox (Random House)
 Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)
 Wicked Women of Ohio by Jane Ann Turzillo (History Press)

The Agatha Awards will be presented on 4 May 2019 during Malice Domestic 31.    Congratulations to all of the nominees!

A Night with Crime Novelist Bernard Minier 7 February 2019

Meet Bernard Minier, one of the most applauded contemporary French crime novelists and discover his best-selling novel, Night, just launched in the UK by Mulholland Book Trade Paperpack. Night follows detective Kirsten Nigaard and commandant Martin Servaz on a terrifying chase. Winner of the prestigious Prix Polar at the Cognac Crime Festival and translated into twenty languages, Bernard Minier became a sensation in France when his first novel GlacĂ© (The Frozen Dead, 2013) was published. It was made into a very successful television series now available on NETFLIX.

Chaired by Ayo Onatade, freelance crime fiction critic and Associate member of the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.

More information can be found here.

Tickets can be bought here.

Night by Bernard Minier (Mulholland Books) Published 7 February 2019

When a body is found in a church in the far north of Norway, the trail leads to an offshore oil rig. Searching the rooms of one of the rig workers, detective Kirsten Nigaard finds a pile of photos taken with a long-lens camera. The subject of the photos is Martin Servaz. And someone has been watching him.  Signs suggest the killer is none other than Julian Hirtmann, a serial murderer on the run. Martin, after all, has a long and painful history with Hirtmann. Now it seems he has struck again.  Their one clue is in amongst the photos. A picture of a young boy in a beautiful Austrian village, and on the back of it, the name 'Gustav'. Martin and Kirsten set off on the trail and soon find themselves in a terrifying cat-and-mouse chase, not knowing who is chasing whom, and which of them might pay the ultimate price.

Saturday, 26 January 2019

Killer Women Panel - The Unstoppable Appeal of Crime Fiction


What is it about crime that makes so many people choose to read and watch it? Join on 5 February 2019 a killer panel of authors, featuring Alison Joseph, Mel McGrath, Kate Rhodes and Laura Wilson, as they discuss the huge, unstoppable appeal of crime fiction and the role that jeopardy so often plays in good storytelling.

Tickets are priced at £6 in advance and can be bought here.

Friday, 25 January 2019

2019 St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend

We are pleased to announce that the 2019 St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend 16/17/18 August is now open for booking.

Our theme this year is 'Gamechangers: writers who have transformed the genre' and our already splendid line-up of authors and their subjects includes:
Graeme Macrae Burnet (Georges Simenon)
Prof Niamh Nic Daeid (Forensics)
Will Dean (Scandi Noir)
Mary Paulson-Ellis (Kate Atkinson)
Nicci French (Suspense Thrillers)
Mick Herron (Reginald Hill)
Sarah Hilary (Patricia Highsmith)
Val McDermid (New Wave Feminists)
Andrew Taylor (Josephine Tey)

We are delighted to confirm that Natasha Cooper will chair and that our Guest of Honour will be Denise Mina.

More authors and programme details to come!

Booking details can be found here.

As regular supporters of the Conference we warmly invite you to take advantage of the early booking offer, otherwise confined to Alumnae

You will see that, as last year, accommodation is separately, and directly, bookable through the Conference Office. This means that the most efficient booking method will be online. If, however, you require a hard copy booking form please contact Triona Adams at triona.adams@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

Thursday, 24 January 2019

Books to Look forward to from Sandstone Press

February 2019
This thriller brilliantly evokes 1973 Moscow and a world of diplomacy and counter-espionage. Escaping failure as an undergraduate and a daughter, not to mention bleak 1970s England, Martha marries Kit - who is gay. Having a wife could keep him safe in Moscow in his diplomatic post. As Martha tries to understand her new life and makes the wrong friends, she walks straight into an underground world of counter-espionage. Out of her depth, Martha no longer knows who can be trusted. The Wolves of Lennisky Prospekt is by Sarah Armstrong.

April 2019
Death at the Plague Museum is by Lesley Kelly.  Edinburgh is in the grip of a deadly flu pandemic.  One Friday, three key civil servants working on Virus policy hold a secret meeting at the Museum of Plagues and pandemics.  By Monday, two are dead and one is missing.  Mona, Bernard, and their other colleagues at the North Edinburgh Health Enforcement Team set out to find the missing bureaucrat, their investigation bedevilled by political interference.  The museum has a few deadly secrets of its own.  But not to worry – Bernard is a card-carrying Museum member.

May 2019
July 1932. When a drowned man is found in a freight elevator in Haus Vaterland, the giant pleasure palace on Potsdamer Platz, Inspector Gereon Rath is called in to investigate. It's not that Rath hasn't problems enough. His hunt for a mysterious contract killer has been stalled for weeks, and his on-off lover, Charlotte Ritter, has just begun her probationary year with Berlin CID. The corpse in Haus Vaterland looks to be part of a series of murders whose trail leads eastwards to the Polish border - and beyond.  The Fatherland Files is by Volker Kutscher.

June 2019
Finer Things is by David Wharton.  London: 1963. The lives of a professional shoplifter and a young art student collide. Delia needs to atone for a terrible mistake; Tess is desperate to convince herself she really is an artist. Elsewhere in London, the Krays are on the rise and a gang war is in the offing. Tess's relationship with her gay best friend grows unexpectedly complicated, and Delia falls for a man she's been paid to betray. At last, the two women find a resolution together - a performance that is both Delia's goodbye to crime and Tess's one genuine work of art.


Wednesday, 23 January 2019

2019 Barry Award Nominations

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine announced the Barry Award Nominees. Winners will be announced on October 31 at the Dallas Bouchercon Opening Ceremonies. Congratulations to all!

Best Novel
November Road by Lou Berney,(Morrow) 
Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly, (Little, Brown)
The Shadow We Hide by Allen Eskens, (Mulholland)
Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson, (Viking)
Leave No Trace by Mindy Mejia,(Atria)
A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee, (Pegasus)

Best First Novel
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite,(Doubleday)
Need to Know by Karen Cleveland, (Ballantine)
Dodging and Burning by John Copenhaver,(Pegasus)
Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear, (Harper)
Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin, (Ecco)
The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor (Crown)

Best Paperback Original 
A Sharp Solitude by Christine Carbo, (Atria)
Dead Pretty by David Mark, (Blue Rider Press)
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan, (Penguin)
The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas,(Berkley)
Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic, (Pushkin Vertigo)

Best Thriller
The Terminal List by Jack Carr, (Atria)
Safe Houses by Dan Fesperman,(Knopf)
London Rules by Mick Herron, (Soho)
Forever and  a Day by Anthony Horowitz, (Harper)
Light it Up by Nick Petrie, (Putnam)
The King Tides by James Swain, (Thomas & Mercer) 

Tuesday, 22 January 2019

MWA Edgar Award Nominees

Mystery Writers of America announced the Nominees for the 2019 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honouring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2018. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at the Gala Banquet, on April 25, 2019 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. 

BEST NOVEL
The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard (Blackstone Publishing)
House Witness by Mike Lawson (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)
A Gambler’s Jury by Victor Methos (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley (Hachette Book Group - Mulholland)
Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne (Penguin Random House – Hogarth)
A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn (Penguin Random House – Berkley)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
A Knife in the Fog by Bradley Harper (Seventh Street Books)
The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut (HarperCollins Publishers - Ecco)
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs (Simon & Schuster - Touchstone)
Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (HarperCollins Publishers - Ecco)
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin Random House – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
Hiroshima Boy by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park Books)
Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani (Penguin Random House – Penguin Books)
Under My Skin by Lisa Unger (Harlequin – Park Row Books)

BEST FACT CRIME
Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge First and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. Fieseler (W.W. Norton & Company - Liveright)
Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal by Jonathan Green (W.W. Norton & Company)
The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure by Carl Hoffman (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Penguin Random House - Viking)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (HarperCollins Publishers - Harper)
The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia by Alex Perry (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICALThe Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories and Other Detective Fiction by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland Publishing)
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession by Alice Bolin(HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks)
Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s by Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus Books)
Mark X: Who Killed Huck Finn's Father? by Yasuhiro Takeuchi (Taylor & Francis - Routledge)
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)

BEST SHORT STORY
Rabid – A Mike Bowditch Short Story” by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books)
Paranoid Enough for Two” – The Honorable Traitors by John Lutz (Kensington Publishing)
Ancient and Modern” – Bloody Scotland by Val McDermid (Pegasus Books)
English 398: Fiction Workshop” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Art Taylor (Dell Magazines)
The Sleep Tight Motel” – Dark Corners Collection by Lisa Unger (Amazon Publishing)

BEST JUVENILE
Denis Ever After by Tony Abbott (HarperCollins Children’s Books – Katherine Tegen Books)
Zap! by Martha Freeman (Simon & Schuster – Paula Wiseman Books)
Ra the Mighty: Cat Detective by A.B. Greenfield (Holiday House)
Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (Macmillan Children’s Publishing Company – Henry Holt BFYR)
Otherwood by Pete Hautman (Candlewick Press)
Charlie & Frog: A Mystery by Karen Kane (Disney Publishing Worldwide – Disney Hyperion)
Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground by T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
Contagion by Erin Bowman (HarperCollins Children’s Books - HarperCollins)
Blink by Sasha Dawn (Lerner Publishing Group – Carolrhoda Lab)
After the Fire by Will Hill (Sourcebooks – Sourcebooks Fire)
A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma (Algonquin Young Readers)
Sadie by Courtney Summers (Wednesday Books)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAYThe Box” - Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Teleplay by Luke Del Tredici (NBC/Universal TV)
Season 2, Episode 1” – Jack Irish, Teleplay by Andrew Knight (Acorn TV)
“Episode 1” – Mystery Road, Teleplay by Michaeley O’Brien (Acorn TV)
“My Aim is True” – Blue Bloods, Teleplay by Kevin Wade (CBS Eye Productions)
The One That Holds Everything” – The Romanoffs, Teleplay by Matthew Weiner & Donald Joh (Amazon Prime Video)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
How Does He Die This Time?” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Nancy Novick (Dell Magazines)
 
THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur Books)
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Publishing)
Bone on Bone by Julia Keller (Minotaur Books)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Press – Soho Crime)
A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier (Minotaur Books)

Congratulations to all! 

Saturday, 19 January 2019

6th Annual Conference of the International Crime Fiction Association

Captivating Criminality 6: Metamorphoses of Crime: Facts and Fictions - 12-15 June 2019
G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy

Call for Papers

The Captivating Criminality Network is delighted to announce its sixth conference, which will be held in Italy. Building upon and developing ideas and themes from the previous five successful conferences, Metamorphoses of Crime: Facts and Fictions will examine the ways in which Crime Fiction as a genre incorporates elements of real-life cases and, in turn, influences society by conveying thought-provoking ideas of deviance, criminal activity, investigation and punishment.

Since its inception, the genre has drawn inspiration from sensational crime reports. In early nineteenth-century Britain, for example, Newgate novels largely drew on the biographies of famous bandits, while penny dreadfuls popularized the exploits of criminals and detectives to appeal the taste for horror and transgression of their target audience. In similar ways, notorious cases widely reported in the mid-Victorian press, such as the Road Murder (1860) or the Madeleine Smith trial (1857), exerted a significant influence on the imagination of mid- to late-Victorian novelists, including early practitioners of the sensation genre who laid the premises for the creation of detective fiction. In other cases, criminal actions were triggered by literary texts or turned into appealing fictions by journalists. Suffice it to consider the sensation created by Jack the Ripper’s murders in late-Victorian Britain or the twentieth-century recent cases of murders committed by imitators of criminals and serial killers featured in novels like A ClockWork Orange (1962), The Collector (1963), Rage (1977), and American Psycho (1991). In more recent times, the interaction between reality and other media (TV series, films, computer games, websites, chats, etc.) has raised the question of how crime continues to glamorize perturbing, blood-chilling stories of law-breaking and law-enforcement.

In addition to exploring these complex relations between facts and fictions, the conference will focus on the metamorphoses of crime across media, as well as cultural and critical boundaries. Speakers are invited to explore the crossing of forms and themes, and to ascertain the extent to which canonized definitions suit the extreme volatility of a genre that challenges categorization. From an ideological viewpoint, moreover, crime fiction has proved to be highly metamorphic, as it has been variously used to challenge, reinforce or simply interrogate ideas of ‘law and order’. The enduring appeal of the genre is also due to its openness to historical and cultural movements – such as feminism, gender studies, queer politics, postmodernism – as well as to concepts drawn from specific fields of knowledge, such as sociology and psychology. Similarly relevant to the ‘metamorphoses of crime’ are cultural exchanges among remote areas of the world, which add new perspectives to the genre’s representation of customs and ethnical issues.

Scholars, practitioners and fans of crime writing are invited to participate in this conference that will address these key elements of crime fiction and real crime, from the early modern to the present day. Topics may include, but are not restricted to:
• True Crime, Fictional Crime
• Crime Reports and the Press
• Real and Imagined Deviance
• Adaptation and Interpretation
• Crime Fiction and Form
• Generic Crossings
• Crime and Gothic
• The Detective, Then and Now
• The Anti-Hero
• Geographies of Crime
• Real and Symbolic Boundaries
• Ethnicity and Cultural Diversity
• The Ideology of Law and Order: Tradition and Innovation
• Gender and Crime
• Women and Crime: Victims and Perpetrators
• Crime and Queer Theory
• Film Adaptations
• TV series
• Technology
• The Media and Detection
• Sociology of Crime
• The Psychological
• Early Forms of Crime Writing
• Eighteenth-Century Crime
• Victorian Crime Fiction
• The Golden Age
• Hardboiled Fiction
• Contemporary Crime Fiction
• Postcolonial Crime and Detection

Plenary speakers will be Eric Peter Sandberg (City University of Hong Kong) and Maurizio Ascari (University of Bologna).

Please send 200 word proposals to Professor Mariaconcetta Costantini and Dr Fiona Peters to the following email account: captivatingcriminality6@unich.it by 15th February 2019.

The abstract should include your name, email address, and affiliation, as well as the title of your paper. Please feel free to submit abstracts presenting work in progress as well as completed projects. Postgraduate students are welcome. Papers will be a maximum of 20 minutes in length.

Proposals for suggested panels are also welcome.

Thursday, 17 January 2019

Harvill Secker acquires new political thriller from A D Miller


Liz Foley, Publishing Director at Harvill Secker, has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) to Independence Square by A.D Miller, from ZoĂ« Waldie at Rogers, Coleridge and White.  It will be published by Harvill Secker in February 2020.

A young woman scrambles up the icy hill above Independence Square in Kiev, desperate to avert the bloody crackdown that threatens the protesters below. The outcome of a revolution, and her brother’s safety, depend on her.  Though neither of them realise it, so does the fate of the man she is frantic to see.

A decade later, Simon Davey, a disgraced British diplomat, follows Olesya Zarchenko into the Tube in London, convinced she was responsible for his ruin. When he tracks her to a riverside mansion he begins to see that Olesya’s life has not been what he thought it was, and neither has his own.

Independence Square is the story of a man struggling to understand his past and of a country striving to escape its history. It is about grand upheavals of state, agonising affairs of the heart and how they intersect.  It is also a story of how we live now: about thwarted idealism, money and corruption, and where, in the 21st century, power really lies.

Liz Foley, Publishing Director at Harvill Secker, says: ‘At Harvill Secker we’ve long admired A.D. Miller’s work and his command of pace, character and theme in Independence Square makes it both an utterly compelling and deeply thought-provoking read. It is a novel that illuminates both personal and political relationships and reflects powerfully on the world we are living in now. We are over the moon to welcome such an exceptional writer to the Harvill Secker list.’  

A.D. Miller says: Since my time as a foreign correspondent, I've wanted to set a novel during a revolution--with all the vertigo and hope, wild gambles and urgent moral choices that are involved. "Independence Square" is a story about people caught up in that euphoria, and in its aftermath. I'm thrilled to be telling it with Liz Foley and her great team at Harvill Secker, and to be joining their fantastic, worldly list.  

A.D. Miller studied literature at Cambridge and Princeton. His first novel, Snowdrops — a study in moral degradation set in modern Russia — was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, the James Tait Black Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, the CWA Gold Dagger and the Galaxy National Book Awards; it has been translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist he travelled widely across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor and is based in London.

For more information contact:
Bethan Jones, Head of Publicity, Vintage
Tel: 020 7840 8543 / email: bjones@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk 

Wednesday, 16 January 2019

Fuller Award: Sara Paretsky

Huge congratulations go to Grand Master and Cartier Diamond Dagger Winner (CWA) Sara Paretsky for being given the prestigious Fuller Award by the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. The award was created to acknowledge Chicago's greatest living writers.

Sara Paretsky will be officially honoured on at a reception on Thursday 9 May 2019 at Ruggles Hall

More information can be found here.

Sara Paretsky also won a CWA Gold Dagger Award in 2004 for Blacklist and was also honoured in 2011 with an Anthony Award Lifetime Achievement Award.  

Her most recent book Shell Game was published in 2018.

More information about Sara Paretsky and her work can be found on her website

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

Left Coast Crime - 2019 Lefty Award Nominees


The Left Coast Crime “Lefty” Awards are fan awards chosen by registered members of the Left Coast Crime convention. Nominations for awards to be presented at each annual convention are made by people registered for that convention and also the immediately prior convention. A ballot listing the official nominees is given to each registrant when they check in at the convention, and final voting takes place at the convention. The ballots are tabulated and that year’s Lefty Awards are presented at the Awards Celebration.

Left Coast Crime 2019 will be presenting four Lefty Awards at the 29th annual LCC convention in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Lefty awards will be voted on at the convention and presented at the Awards Banquet on Saturday, March 30, 2019, at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver.

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel
Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
Hollywood Ending by Kellye Garrett (Midnight Ink)
Nighttown by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime)
Death al Fresco by Leslie Karst (Crooked Lane Books)
The Spirit in Question by Cynthia Kuhn (Henery Press)
Scott Free by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander Memorial) for books covering events before 1960
Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding by Rhys Bowen (Berkeley Prime Crime)
The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday by David Corbett (Black Opal Books)
Island of the Mad by Laurie R King (Bantam Books)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
A Dying Note by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press)
It Begins in Betrayal by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Editions)

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel
Broken Places by Tracy Clark (Kensington Books)
Cobra Clutch by A J Devlin (NeWest Press)
The Woman in the Window by A J Finn (William Morrow)
A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Books)
What Doesn’t Kill You by Aimee Hix (Midnight Ink)
Deadly Solution by Keenan Powell (Level Best Books)
Give Out Creek by J G Toews (Mosaic Press)

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel
November Road by Lou Berney (William Morrow)
Wrong Light by Matt Coyle (Oceanview Publishing)
Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books)
Under a Dark Sky by Lori-Rader-Day (William Morrow Paperbacks)
A Reckoning in the Back Country by Terry Shames (Seventh Street Books)
A Stone’s Throw by James W. Ziskin (Seventh Street Books)

To be eligible, titles must have been published for the first time in the United States or Canada during 2018, in book or ebook format. (If published in other countries before 2018, a book is still eligible if it meets the US or Canadian publication requirement.)

Nomination forms will be emailed to all 2018 and 2019 LCC registrants by January 1, 2019. Only nominations received between January 1st and January 14th will be tabulated. The Lefty Award nominees will be announced on January 16, 2019. Final voting will be by paper ballot at the convention in Vancouver.

Monday, 14 January 2019

Facing 2019 with Peter May



It has become a tradition for London’s literary critics [who appreciate Crime and Thriller Fiction], to usher a new year with the release of a novel from Peter May.

We’d gather in London’s West-End, to break bread with Peter May; all thanks to Quercus Publishing’s Hannah Robinson, Publisher Jon Riley, facilitied by our very dear bibliophile friend Sophie Ransom.

Over wine we would discuss the books we’d read over the Christmas break, discussing what was coming in terms of exciting work, as well as catching up on our lives, as we’ve all known each other for many years.

We’d also chat about what Peter May had been up to, and as a raconteur he would make us laugh, as we shared tales of the surreal, the curious and the weird.

In previous years, I would record the events, online at both Jeff Peirce’s The Rap Sheet [for US readers] and [via my work with my writing partner Mike Stotter] at Shots Magazine for UK Readers.

In 2014, Peter told us about the Award-Winning ENTRY ISLAND, and you can read more HERE and HERE

In 2015 it was Peter’s RUNAWAY, and you can read more HERE

In 2016, we travelled with Peter on COFFIN ROAD and you can catch us HERE

In 2017, Peter’s novel was CAST IRON and you can read more HERE

Last year, in January 2018 Peter published I’LL KEEP YOU SAFE which is HERE


All the above are now available in Paperback, from the Quercus Imprint riverrun, both US and Europe; as are all of Peter May’s backlist – and remember there is more to Peter May’s work than THE LEWIS TRILOGY that he’s probably best known for, due to the awards those books received, including the Barry Award, presented in 2013 at Bouchercon Albany, by George Easter [as voted for by the readers of Deadly Pleasures Magazine]. I was in the audience when Peter accepted the Barry, and a video clip is available HERE

The gathering Publisher Jon Riley and Hannah Robinson of Quercus / riverun organised, for Peter May’s 2019 novel was most eclectic, and amusing. As avid bibliophiles, writers, journalists, literary people, we often live within our ‘heads’ as well as staring at a PC screen; so when we meet-up in the real world, it is a delight.


To read the full report click here.


Photos © 2019 A Karim, Quercus Publishing, BBC Films [The ABC Murders], Miramax [Rounders] and Baby Films [Ripley's Game]

Saturday, 12 January 2019

New Edinburgh University Press Journal Crime Fiction Studies.

Call for Papers: Crime Fiction Studies 

Volume 1, Issue 1: Why Crime Fiction Today?

We are delighted to announce the call for papers for the first issue of our brand-new Edinburgh University Press journal Crime Fiction Studies. Arising out of Bath Spa University’s very successful Captivating Criminality conferences, organised by Fiona Peters, and the establishment of the International Crime Fiction Association in 2016, this journal is the first British university press journal focussing on the broad field of crime fiction studies. Crime Fiction Studies will be the newest addition to EUP’s stable of prestigious journals, and two issues will be published both in print and online each year. The inaugural issue will set the agenda for discussion of the most pressing issues in contemporary crime fiction studies, providing space for reflection on the ways in which this hugely popular, rapidly developing, and extremely influential genre – and the field of study itself – is changing in the twenty-first century. In the issues that follow, we will be encouraging exploration of diverse aspects of this increasingly important field of cultural production. As editors we believe that there is a real need for a new journal in this area to encourage high-calibre research, engender debate, and forge new directions in crime fiction studies.

We are thus asking for abstracts for the inaugural issue of Crime Fiction Studies that provide thought-provoking, innovative answers to the question ‘why crime fiction today?’ We expect contributions to be theoretically and critically informed, and to engage with current scholarly debates in the field.

Possible areas of focus for the first issue include, but are not limited to:
• True crime
• Gender and queer studies
• New approaches to historical crime fiction
• Crime fiction and science
• Crime fiction in the digital age
• Fandom and fan culture
• Generic and cultural status of crime fiction
• Crime fiction on screen
• New forms of crime fiction
• Ethnicity and crime fiction
• Re-Imagining classic/historic crime 
• Detectives and detection in the twenty-first century

Abstracts of 400 words are due by 31 January 2019 and finished articles of 7500 words will be due by 1 July 2019. This issue will be published in 2020.

Please send abstracts and a biographical statement of 150 words to the editors; Fiona Peters (editor), Eric Sandberg (assistant editor) and Ruth Heholt (assistant editor) using the email address: crimefictionstudies@gmail.com.


Friday, 11 January 2019

Danish Criminal Academy Awards

Crimean author Jesper Stein has won the Harald Mogensen Award, which The Danish Criminal Academy is awarding for the best crime of the year. The prize goes to Stein's Crimea novel "Solo", which is the sixth volume in his popular and critically acclaimed crime scene with police officer Axel Steen as the protagonist.

The Danish Criminal Academy's debut award goes this year to Søren Sveistrup for the thriller novel "Kastanjemanden" (The Chestnut Man) Søren Sveistrup has also been the creator and author of, among other things, three seasons of "The Crime".  Both "Solo" and "The Crime" have been published by Politikens Forlag.

Credit Mark DeLong Photography
Finally, the Academy has awarded the American writer Michael Connelly the so-called Palle Rosenkrantz Award for this year's best foreign thriller novel for his book "Two Kinds of Truth" which is published by Klim.

All the awards are presented during the Crimean Fair in Horsens on the first weekend in April

The Palle Rosenkrantz Prisen recognizes the best crime fiction novel published in Danish. It is named in honour of Palle Rosenkrantz (1867-1941), who is considered the first Danish crime fiction author; his novel Mordet i Vestermarie (Murder in Vestermarie) was published in 1902. The Harald Mogensen Prisen recognizes the best thriller. It is named after Harald Mogensen (1912-2002), a Danish editor, in recognition of his contribution to the field of literary crime.

Thursday, 10 January 2019

CFP: Agatha Christie: Investigating the Queen of Crime

5-6 September 2019, Solent University, Southampton UK

The bestselling novelist of all time, Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is increasingly being recognised in scholarship and popular culture as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. In response to what Martin Edwards calls the ‘lazy critical clichĂ©’ of branding Golden Age Detective Fiction as ‘cosy’, this conference will investigate the significance of the Queen of Crime and her writings within academia and popular culture. In line with previous Agatha Christie conferences, the 2019 conference will further establish and extend Christie Studies as an academic discipline, across and beyond the humanities. 

Responding to Christie’s ever-increasing popularity are the annual television adaptations such as 2018’s The ABC Murders, alongside a growing pool of continuation novels and fiction based around Christie’s life and work. Equally, we have academic texts in the new interdisciplinary field of Agatha Christie Studies, such as Agatha Christie Goes to War (2019). In short, as the centenary of her first novel approaches, Agatha Christie remains a phenomenon. All of this calls for an investigation into the Queen of Crime herself, her fictional works and her legacy. 

We invite 300-word proposals for 20 minute papers. Suggested topics include, but are certainly not limited to: 

• Examining Christie in the context of Golden Age crime fiction
• Analysing the meaning of ‘Queen of Crime’
• Screen adaptations
• The life and person of Agatha Christie 
• The role and influence of religion
• New theoretical perspectives on Christie as a writer of crime fiction
• Agatha Christie’s influence in popular culture
• Agatha Christie positioned against her modernist contemporaries
• Continuation novels and rewriting
• The influence of Christie on her crime writing contemporaries and beyond
• The Detection Club and its influence on the role, writing and significance of Christie
• The context, significance, and influence of war
• Intertextuality and metanarrative
• Reading, studying, and teaching Agatha Christie
• New directions in research and scholarship

In addition to traditional academic paper proposals, we welcome creative presentations and panel proposals.

Please send your 300 word proposal with a short biographical note to agathachristieconference@gmail.com no later than 31 March 2019. Please direct all queries and enquiries to the same address.

Tuesday, 1 January 2019

Books I am looking forward to the first half of 2019.


Shadows of Athens (Orion) is by J M Alvey.  The Persian War is over and an unaccustomed decade of peace has come to ancient Athens. Philocles, an aspiring comic playwright, is making his living as a writer for hire; but this year is the highlight of his career - he has a play in the drama competition at the prestigious Dionysia Festival. The last thing he wants to find on his doorstep the day before is a body with its throat cut.  Just who is this dead man? Is it just a robbery gone wrong? With the play that could make his name on the horizon, Philocles must find out who this man is, why he has been murdered - and why the corpse was in his door way. He soon realises that he has been caught up in something far bigger than he could have imagined, and there are players in this game who don't want him looking any further...

After a hectic morning involving two rather irritating cases of mistaken identity, Inspector Montalbano finally arrives in his office ready find out what's troubling Vigata this week. What he discovers is unnerving. A woman on her way home from work has been held up at gunpoint, chloroformed and kidnapped, but then released just hours later - unharmed and with all her possessions - into the open countryside.  Later that day, Montalbano hears from Enzo, the owner of his favourite restaurant, that his niece has recently been the victim of the exact same crime. Before long, a third instance of this baffling overnight kidnapping has been reported.  As far as Montalbano can tell, there is no link between the attacker and the victims. So what exactly is this mystery assailant gaining from these fleeting kidnappings? And what can he do to stop them? Montalbano must use all his logic and intuition if he is to answer these pressing questions before the kidnapper finds his next victim . .The Overnight Kidnapper (Pan Macmillan) is by Andrea Camilleri.

This Body’s not Big Enough for Both of Us (Titan Books) is by Edgar Cantero. In a dingy office in Fisherman’s Wharf, the glass panel in the door bears the names of A. Kimrean and Z. Kimrean, Private Eyes. Behind the door there is only one desk, one chair, one scrawny androgynous P.I. in a tank top and skimpy waistcoat. A.Z., as they are collectively known, are twin brother and sister. He’s pure misanthropic logic, she’s wild hedonistic creativity. The Kimreans have been locked in mortal battle since they were in utero, which is tricky because they, very literally, share one single body. That’s right. One body, two pilots. The mystery and absurdity of how Kimrean functions, and how they subvert every plotline, twist, explosion, and gunshot – and confuse every cop, neckless thug, cartel boss, ninja, and femme fatale – in the book is pure Cantero magic.  Someone is murdering the sons of the ruthless drug cartel boss known as the Lyon in the biggest baddest town in California: San Carnal. The notorious A.Z. Kimrean must go to the sin-soaked, palm-tree-lined streets of San Carnal, infiltrate the Lyon’s inner circle, and find out who is targeting his heirs, and while they are at it, rescue an undercover cop in too deep, deal with a plucky young stowaway, and stop a major gang war from engulfing California. They’ll face every plot device and break every rule Elmore Leonard wrote before they can crack the case, if they don’t kill each other (themselves) first.  This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of Us is a brilliantly subversive and comic thriller celebrating noir detectives, Die Hard, Fast & Furious, and the worst case of sibling rivalry, that can only come from the mind of Edgar Cantero.

Ray Celestin heads to New York City, for the third book in his award-winning City Blues quartet, The Mobster's Lament (Pan Macmillan).  Fall, 1947. New York City.  Private Investigator Ida Davis has been called to New York by her old partner, Michael Talbot, to investigate a brutal killing spree in a Harlem flophouse that has left four people dead. But as they delve deeper into the case, Ida and Michael realize the murders are part of a larger conspiracy that stretches further than they ever could have imagined.  Meanwhile, Ida's childhood friend, Louis Armstrong, is at his lowest ebb. His big band is bankrupt, he's playing to empty venues, and he's in danger of becoming a has-been, until a promoter approaches him with a strange offer to reignite his career . . .  And across the city, nightclub manager and mob fixer Gabriel Leveson's plans to flee New York are upset when he's called in for a meeting with the `boss of all bosses', Frank Costello. Tasked with tracking down stolen mob money, Gabriel must embark on a journey through New York's seedy underbelly, forcing him to confront demons from his own past, all while the clock is ticking on his evermore precarious escape plans.

A Book of Bones  (Hodder & Stoughton) is by John Connolly.  He is our best hope.  He is our last hope.  On a lonely moor in the northeast of England, the body of a young woman is discovered near the site of a vanished church. In the south, a girl lies buried beneath a Saxon mound. To the southeast, the ruins of a priory hide a human skull.  Each is a sacrifice, a summons.  And something in the darkness has heard the call.  But another is coming: Parker the hunter, the avenger. From the forests of Maine to the deserts of the Mexican border, from the canals of Amsterdam to the streets of London, he will track those who would cast this world into darkness. Parker fears no evil.  But evil fears him . .

A Dangerous Man  (Simon & Schuster) is by Robert Crais.  Joe Pike didn't expect to rescue a woman that day. When Isabel Roland, the lonely young teller at his bank, steps out of work on her way to lunch, Joe Pike witnesses her attempted abduction. Thanks to his quick thinking, the two men are arrested.   But the men soon make bail... and not long after, they're found murdered. The police suspect Pike and Isabel had a hand in it, especially when Izzy disappears. Convinced that she has been abducted again, Pike realises it is time to call on Elvis Cole to discover the truth.  And then all hell breaks loose. 

A Capital Death (Hodder & Stoughton) is by Lindsey Davis.  A tragic accident . . . or was it? Emperor Domitian has been awarded (or rather, has demanded) yet another Triumph to celebrate two so-called victories. Preparations are going smoothly until one of the men overseeing arrangements for the celebration accidentally falls to his death from a cliff on the symbolic Capitoline Hill.  But Flavia Albia suspects there's more to the incident than meets the eye, as there are plenty of people who would have been delighted to be rid of the overseer. He was an abusive swine who couldn't organise a booze-up in a winery and was caught up in a number of scams, including one surrounding the supply of imperial purple dye and a family of shellfish-boilers.  As Flavia finds herself drawn into a theatrical world of carnival floats, musicians, incense and sacrificial beasts, can she see to the heart of the matter and catch those responsible for the unpopular man's untimely death?

This Storm (Cornerstone) is by James Ellroy.  New Year's Eve 1941, war has been declared and the Japanese internment is in full swing. Los Angeles is gripped by war fever and racial hatred. Sergeant Dudley Smith of the Los Angeles Police Department is now Army Captain Smith and a budding war profiteer. He's shacked up with Claire De Haven in Baja, Mexico, and spends his time sniffing out fifth column elements and hunting down a missing Japanese Naval AttachĂ©. Hideo Ashida is cashing LAPD paychecks and working in the crime lab, but he knows he can't avoid internment forever. Newly arrived Navy Lieutenant Joan Conville winds up in jail accused of vehicular homicide, but Captain William H. Parker squashes the charges and puts her on Ashida's team. Elmer Jackson, who is assigned to the alien squad and to bodyguard Ashida, begins to develop an obsession with Kay Lake, the unconsummated object of Captain Parker's desire. Now, Conville and Ashida become obsessed with finding the identity of a body discovered in a mudslide. It's a murder victim linked to an unsolved gold heist from '31, and they want the gold. And things really heat up when two detectives are found murdered in a notorious dope fiend hangout.

In Which Mr May Makes A Mistake And Mr Bryant Goes Into The Dark On a rainy winter night outside a run-down nightclub in the wrong part of London, four strangers meet for the first time at 4:00am. A few weeks later the body of an Indian textile worker is found hanging upside down inside a willow tree on Hamstead Heath. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to investigate. The victim was found surrounded by the paraphernalia of black magic, and so Arthur Bryant and John May set off to question experts in the field. But the case is not what it appears. When another victim seemingly commits suicide, it becomes clear that in the London night is a killer who knows what people fear most. And he always strikes at 4:00am. In order to catch him, the PCU must switch to night shifts, but still the team draws a blank. John May takes a technological approach, Arthur Bryant goes in search of academics and misfits for help, for this is becoming a case that reveals impossibilities at every turn, not least that there's no indication of what the victims might have done to attract the attentions of a murderer that doesn't seem to exist. But impossibilities are what the Peculiar Crimes Unit does best. As they explore a night city where all the normal rules are upended, they're drawn deeper into a case that involves murder, arson, kidnap, blackmail, bats and the psychological effects of loneliness on Londoners. It's a trail that takes them from the poorest part of the East End to the wealthiest homes in North London - an investigation that can only end in tragedy...  The Lonely Hour (Transworld) is by Christopher Fowler.

Out of the Dark (Penguin Random House) is by Gregg Hurwitz. As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from the orphanage he called home and inducted into a top secret Cold War programme. Trained as a lethal weapon, he and his fellow recruits were sent round the world to do the government's dirty work. But the programme was rotten to the core. And now the man responsible needs things to be nice and clean. All evidence must be destroyed. That includes Evan. To survive, Evan's going to have to take the fight to his nemesis. There's just one problem with that. Jonathan Bennett is President of the United States and Evan isn't his only victim. To save himself - and the country - Evan is going to have to figure out how to kill the most well-protected man on the planet...

Plotters are just pawns like us. A request comes in and they draw up the plans. There's someone above them who tells them what to do. And above that person is another plotter telling them what to do. You think that if you go up there with a knife and stab the person at the very top, that'll fix everything. But no-one's there. It's just an empty chair.  Reseng was raised by cantankerous Old Raccoon in the Library of Dogs. To anyone asking, it's just an 
ordinary library. To anyone in the know, it's a hub for Seoul's organised crime, and a place where contract killings are plotted and planned. So it's no surprise that Reseng has grown up to become one of the best hitmen in Seoul. He takes orders from the plotters, carries out his grim duties, and comforts himself afterwards with copious quantities of beer and his two cats, Desk and Lampshade  But after he takes pity on a target and lets her die how she chooses, he finds his every move is being watched. Is he finally about to fall victim to his own game? And why does that new female librarian at the library act so strangely? Is he looking for his enemies in all the wrong places? Could he be at the centre of a plot bigger than anything he's ever known?  The Plotters (Harper Collins) is by Un-su Kim.

The New Iberia Blues (Orion) is By James Lee Burke. Detective Dave Robicheaux first met Desmond Cormier on the backstreets of New Orleans. He was a young pretender who dreamt of stardom whilst Robicheaux had his path all figured out. Now, twenty-five years later, their roles have reversed. When Robicheaux knocks on Cormier's door, he sees a successful Hollywood director.  It seems dreams can come true. But so can nightmares.  A young woman has been crucified, wearing only a small chain on her ankle, and all the evidence points to Cormier. Robicheaux wants to believe his old friend wouldn't be capable of such a crime - but Cormier's silence is deafening. And he isn't the only ghost from Robicheaux's past which comes back to haunt him...

The Feral Detective (Atlantic Books & Corvus) is by Jonathan Lethem.  Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She's looking for her friend's missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist - a laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer - to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble - caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe's trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous...

The year is 1793, Stockholm. King Gustav of Sweden has been assassinated, years of foreign wars have emptied the treasuries, and the realm is governed by a self-interested elite, leaving its citizens to suffer. On the streets, malcontent and paranoia abound. A body is found in the city's swamp by a watchman, Mickel Cardell, and the case is handed over to investigator Cecil Winge, who is dying of consumption. Together, Winge and Cardell become embroiled in a brutal world of guttersnipes and thieves, mercenaries and madams, and one death will expose a city rotten with corruption beneath its powdered and painted veneer.  The Wolf and the Watchman (Hodder & Stoughton) is by Niklas Natt och Dag.

It's been a year since Leo Stanhope lost the woman he loved, and came closing to losing his own life. Now, more than ever, he is determined to keep his head down and stay safe, without risking those he holds dear. But Leo's hopes for peace and security are shattered when the police unexpectedly arrive at his lodgings: a woman has been found murdered at a club for anarchists, and Leo's address is in her purse. When Leo is taken to the club by the police, he is shocked to discover there a man from his past, a man who knows Leo's birth identity. And if Leo does not provide him with an alibi for the night of the woman's killing, he is going to share this information with the authorities. If Leo's true identity is unmasked, he will be thrown into an asylum, but if he lies... will he be protecting a murderer?  The Anarchists’ Club (Bloomsbury) is by Alex Reeve.

Six confined psychopaths. A killer on the loose.  1935. As Europe prepares itself for a calamitous war, six homicidal lunatics - the so-called 'Devil's Six' - are confined in a remote castle asylum in rural Czechoslovakia. Each patient has their own dark story to tell and Dr Viktor Kosarek, a young psychiatrist using revolutionary techniques, is tasked with unlocking their murderous secrets.  At the same time, a terrifying killer known as 'Leather Apron' is butchering victims across Prague. Successfully eluding capture, it would seem his depraved crimes are committed by the Devil himself.  Maybe they are... and what links him with the insane inmates of the Castle of the Eagles?  Only the Devil knows. And it is up to Viktor to find out.The Devil Aspect (Little, Brown) is by Craig Russell.

Blood & Sugar (Pan Macmillan) is the debut historical crime novel from Laura Shepherd-Robinson.  June, 1781. An unidentified body hangs upon a hook at Deptford Dock - horribly tortured and branded with a slaver's mark.  Some days later, Captain Harry Corsham - a war hero embarking upon a promising parliamentary career - is visited by the sister of an old friend. Her brother, passionate abolitionist Tad Archer, had been about to expose a secret that he believed could cause irreparable damage to the British slaving industry. He'd said people were trying to kill him, and now he is missing . . .  To discover what happened to Tad, Harry is forced to pick up the threads of his friend's investigation, delving into the heart of the conspiracy Tad had unearthed. His investigation will threaten his political prospects, his family's happiness, and force a reckoning with his past, risking the revelation of secrets that have the power to destroy him.  And that is only if he can survive the mortal dangers awaiting him in Deptford .

What is the secret which grips Corvus Hall?  Visiting the Great Exhibition to view the wax anatomical models of the famous but reclusive Dr Merlin Strangeway, Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain find a severed arm, perfectly dissected and laid out amongst the exhibits. Assuming it to be a prank by medical students, they return it to Dr Strangeway, who works at Corvus Hall, a private anatomy school run by Dr James Crowe - one of  Edinburgh's most revered surgeons and teachers of anatomy. Jem's persistence reveals that a body does indeed lie in the school's mortuary, minus its right arm. But the body has no provenance. More macabre still, its face has been dissected, making identification impossible. Dr Strangeway denies all knowledge, and Dr Crowe seems unwilling to pursue the matter.  At Corvus Hall, Will is employed to illustrate Dr Crowe's new anatomy handbook. Soon, it becomes evident that all is not as it should be. Dr Crowe's daughter, Lilith, visits the mortuary in the dead of night and her twin sisters, Sorrow and Silence - one blind and one deaf - exert a malign influence over the students. Organs, freshly dissected, appear in the anatomy museum. Fear grips lecturers and students, even as something unseen binds them in a bloody pact of silence.  In a mystery that ranges from the wynds of Burke and Hare's Edinburgh to the dissecting tables of London's notorious anatomy schools, Jem and Will find that the stakes have never been higher. Surgeon’s Hall (Little, Brown) is by E S Thomson. 

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They're the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions. Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . . Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.  Muscle (Faber & Faber) is by Alan Trotter