B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 106

Anthony Admiration

In addition to the Barry Awards and Macavity Awards, this weekend's virtual Bouchercon Conference also saw the announcement of the winners of the annual Anthony Awards, named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), American author, critic, editor, and one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America. The 2020 honorees include:

Best Novel: The Murder List, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)



Also nominated: Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (Ecco); They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge); Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman (Morrow); and Miami Midnight, by Alex Segura (Polis)



Best First Novel: One Night Gone, by Tara Laskowski (Graydon House)



Also nominated: The Ninja Daughter, by Tori Eldridge (Agora); Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Sarah Crichton); Three-Fifths, by John Vercher (Agora); and American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson (Random House)



Best Paperback Original: The Alchemist’s Illusion, by Gigi Pandian (Midnight Ink)



Also nominated: The Unrepentant, by E.A. Aymar (Down & Out); Murder Knocks Twice, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur); The Pearl Dagger, by L.A. Chandlar (Kensington); Scot & Soda, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink); Drowned Under, by Wendall Thomas (Poisoned Pen Press); and The Naming Game, by Gabriel Valjan (Winter Goose Press)



Best Critical Non-fiction Work: The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women, by Mo Moulton (Basic)



Also nominated: Hitchcock and the Censors, by John Billheimer (University Press of Kentucky); The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of the Collins Crime Club, by John Curran (Collins Crime Club); The Trail of Lizzie Borden: A True Story, by Cara Robertson (Simon & Schuster); and The Five: The Untold Stories of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)



Best Short Story: "The Red Zone," by Alex Segura (from ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!: Stories to Benefit the People of Puerto Rico, edited by Angel Luis Colón; Down & Out)



Also nominated: "Turistas," by Hector Acosta (from ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!); "Unforgiven," by Hilary Davidson (from Murder a-Go-Go’s: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Go’s, edited by Holly West; Down & Out); "Better Days," by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May/June 2019); and "Hard Return," by Art Taylor (from Crime Travel, edited by Barb Goffman; Wildside Press)



Best Anthology or Collection: Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible, edited by Verena Rose, Rita Owen, and Shawn Reilly Simmons (Wildside Press)



Also nominated: The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, edited by Michael Bracken (Down & Out); ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!: Stories to Benefit the People of Puerto Rico, edited by Angel Luis Colón (Down & Out); Crime Travel, edited by Barb Goffman (Wildside Press); and Murder A-Go-Go’s: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Go’s, edited by Holly West (Down & Out)



Best Young Adult: Seven Ways to Get Rid of Harry, by Jen Conley (Down & Out)



Also nominated: Catfishing on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen); Killing November, by Adriana Mather (Knopf Books for Young Readers); Patron Saints of Nothing, by Randy Ribay (Kokila); The Deceivers, by Kristen Simmons (Tor Teen); and Wild and Crooked, by Leah Thomas (Bloomsbury YA)

            

The Barry Best

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine announced the winners of this year’s Barry Awards during the Virtual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention this weekend. The awards are named for fan reviewer Barry Gardner and honor the best works being published in the field of crime fiction each year. The 2020 winners include:

Best Mystery/Crime Novel: The Lost Man, by Jane Harper (Flatiron)



Also nominated: If She Wakes, by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown); Metropolis, by Philip Kerr (Putnam); The Border, by Don Winslow (HarperCollins); Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (Ecco); and Thirteen, by Steve Cavanagh (Flatiron)



Best First Mystery/Crime Novel: The Chestnut Man, by Søren Sveistrup (Harper)



Also nominated: The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides (Celadon); American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson (Random House); Save Me from Dangerous Men, by S.A. Lelchuk (Flatiron); Scrublands, Chris Hammer (Atria); and To the Lions, by Holly Watt (Dutton)



Best Paperback Original Mystery/Crime Novel: Missing Daughter, by Rick Mofina (Mira)



Also nominated: The Godmother, by Hannelore Cayre (ECW); Winner Kills All, by R.J. Bailey (Simon & Schuster UK); Killing Quarry, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime); Fate, by Ian Hamilton (Spiderline); and No Good Deed, by James Swain (Thomas & Mercer)



Best Thriller: The Chain, by Adrian McKinty (Mulholland)



Also nominated: Mission Critical, by Mark Greaney (Berkley); Backlash, by Brad Thor (Atria/Emily Bester); The Burglar, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press); True Believer, by Jack Carr (Atria/Emily Bester); and White Hot Silence, by Henry Porter (Mysterious Press)



Best Mystery/Crime Novel of the Decade: Suspect, by Robert Crais (Putnam)



Also nominated: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn (Crown); November Road, by Lou Berney (Morrow); The Dry, by Jane Harper (Flatiron); The Blackhouse, by Peter May (Quercus); and The Cartel, by Don Winslow (Knopf)

           Related StoriesNed Kelly Awards Shortlist2020 Strand Critics AwardsMacavity Magic 

Macavity Magic

The Macavity Awards were handed out at the opening cermonies of this year's virtual Bouchercon Conference. The awards are named for the "mystery cat" of T.S. Eliot (from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats). Each year the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in five categories. The 2020's honorees include:



Best Mystery Novel: Adrian McKinty: The Chain (Mulholland)

Also nominated:  Steph Cha: Your House Will Pay (Ecco); William Kent Krueger: This Tender Land (Atria); Laura Lippman: Lady in the Lake (Wm. Morrow); Hank Philippi Ryan: The Murder List (Forge); James Sallis: Sarah Jane (Soho Crime);

Best First Mystery: Tara Laskowski: One Night Gone (Graydon House);

Also nominated: Tori Eldridge: The Ninja Daughter (Agora Books); Samantha Downing: My Lovely Wife (Penguin); Angie Kim: Miracle Creek (Sarah Crichton Books); J.P. Pomare: Call Me Evie (G.P. Putnam’s Sons); Lauren Wilkinson: American Spy (Random House)

Best Mystery Short Story: Art Taylor: “Better Days” (EQMM, May/June 2019)

Also nominated: Michael Chandos: “West Texas Barbecue” (The Eyes of Texas, edited by Michael Bracken—Down & Out Books); Barb Goffman: “Alex’s Choice” (Crime Travel, edited by Barb Goffman—Wildside Press); Terence Faherty: “The Cardboard Box” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Jan/Feb 2019); G.M. Malliet: “Whiteout” (EQMM, Jan/Feb 2019); Dave Zeltserman: “Brother’s Keeper” (EQMM, May/June 2019)

Best Mystery Nonfiction/Critical: John Billheimer: Hitchcock and the Censors (University Press of Kentucky)

Also nominated: Laird R. Blackwell: Frederic Dannay, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and the Art of the Detective Short Story (McFarland); Ursula Buchan: Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan (Bloomsbury); Peter Houlahan: Norco ’80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History (Counterpoint); Mo Moulton: The Mutual Admiration; Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women (Basic Books); James Polchin: Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall (Counterpoint Press)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery: Lara Prescott: The Secrets We Kept (Vintage)

Also nominated: Susanna Calkins: Murder Knocks Twice (Minotaur); L.A. Chandlar: The Pearl Dagger (Kensington); Dianne Freeman: A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder (Kensington); Sujata Massey: The Satapur Moonstone (Soho Crime); Edith Maxwell: Charity’s Burden (Midnight Ink)

           Related StoriesThe Barry BestNed Kelly Awards Shortlist2020 Strand Critics Awards 

Quote of the Week

           Related StoriesQuote of the Week 

FFB: Anthony Awards Back to the Future

In honor of the Bouchercon mystery conference, I thought I'd step back in time to 1997 and take a look at books honored with Anthony Awards at an earlier Boucheron, which have fallen off the radar.

Bouchercon XXVIII was held in 1997 in Monterey, California. The Guest Of Honor that year was Sara Paretsky, Toastmaster was Julie Smith, and the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Donald Westlake. When the Anthony Awards were announced, there was a tie for Best First Novel between Death In Little Tokyo by Dale Furutani and Somebody Else's Child by Terris McMahan Grimes (the latter of which also won the Best Paperback Original Award). The Best Critical/Biographical award that year went to Detecting Women II by Willetta Heising. (Best novel, by the way, went to a book by that guy you might have heard a thing or two about, Michael Connelly, for The Poet.)

Death in Little Tokyo, Dale Furutani's first novel, not only won the Anthony in 1997, that same year it won a Macavity Award as well as being nominated for an Agatha. It introduced Ken Tanaka, the first Japanese-American amateur sleuth mystery series written by a Japanese-American. Tanaka isn't a real P.I. but poses as one for his weekend mystery club, printing up phony business cards, renting a storefront office, and buying a trench coat and fedora, until he gets some real business in the form of a woman who offers him $500 to help extricate her from a blackmail scheme. Death in Little Tokyo was one of only two novels in that series, although Furutani went on to write the Samurai Mystery Trilogy, the last of which was published in 2000.

Somebody Else's Child, by Terris McMahan Grimes, introduced Theresa Galloway, the plus-sized "intrepid soul sister," state employee and married mother of two. When amateur sleuth Galloway learns of a murder and kidnapping in her elderly mother's hometown, she's goaded by her mother into prowling the streets of Sacramento in search of the killer and the dead woman's missing grandchild. Grimes published two additional titles in the Galloway series, the second in 1997 and the last in 2000. Although she hasn't published any further installments, Grimes has remained active in literacy programs in her home state of California.

Willetta Heising's Detecting Women II was the latest in a series of mystery reader's guides by Willetta Heising, which also included the first Detecting Women, as well as the later books Detecting Men; Willetta's Guide to Private Eye Series; and Willetta's Guide to Police Detective Series. Detecting Women II is a database of mystery series written by women (up to that point, of course), with a ist of more than 500 authors, 675 series characters and 3,600 titles. There's a short biography and bibliography for each writer, a brief description of detectives in each series, publication dates and awards won. Another section of the book provides lists by mystery type (police procedural, amateurs, or PIs), character, setting, title, and author pseudonym. 

This year's Anthony Awards will be handed out virtually this year during the online conference which begins today and runs through tomorrow, October 17. You can check out the shortlists here, and look for the winners to be announced via social media on Saturday.

            

Mystery Melange

The Australian Crime Writers Association have announced the winners of this year's Ned Kelly Awards virtually via social media. The winner for Best Crime Fiction went to Christian White for his novel, The Wife and the Widow; Adrian McKinty became a three-time winner of the Best International Crime Fiction Award, this year for his novel, The Chain; Natalie Conyer won Best Debut Crime Fiction for her novel, Present Tense; and Dan Box won Best True Crime for Bowraville. For all the shortlisted titles as well as previous award winners, follow this link.

 



The Capital Crime conference announced the winners of the 2020 Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards as voted on by the public. Crime Book of the Year goes to Without a Trace by Mari Hannah; Mystery Book of the Year, The Mist by Ragnar Jónasson; Thriller Book of the Year, Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton; Debut Book of the Year, Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi; Ebook of the Year, Death in the East by Abir Mukherjee; and Independent Voice Book of the Year, Beast by Matt Wesolowski. The award for Best Crime Movie was won by Knives Out, and Crime TV Show, The Liar.

The shortlist was announced for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize, established in 1994 to honor a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection. This year, it includes a couple of titles of interest to crime fiction fans, including Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson, which is part literary Western and part historical mystery, and The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, a psychological mystery inspired by Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of the Book will be celebrating its 25th anniversary with several online events spread out over four weeks starting Sunday. Coming up on Friday, October 23, from 6:00pm - 7:00pm, there will be a panel moderated by James Queally on "Crime Fiction: The Dark Side," featuring authors Attica Locke, Ivy Pochoda, and Rachel Howzell Hall.

Next weekend, it's the Toronto International Festival of Authors' turn, with several events online from October 22-November 1. Q&As of interest to crime fiction fans will include Scott Turow on October 24; Val McDermid on October 25; Harlan Coben in conversation with Linwood Barclay on October 29; Carl Hiaasen on October 30; and Ann Cleves and Ian Rankin on November 1.

MWA NorCal Mystery Week is going all-virtual this year with free online events for writers and readers. The seven-day event from October 24-30 will include various panels on topics like "Crime Through Time: Writing the Historical Mystery"; "A Highly Suitable Job for a Woman: The Female Sleuth in Mystery Fiction:; and "A Bit of This, a Lot of That: Mixing Up Genre." The 40+ authors participating include Cara Black, Rhys Bowen, Laurie King, Jacqueline Winspear, and more. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

The full program for the 2020 Bad Sydney Crime Writers Festival, which will run in-person on 7–8 November at the State Library of NSW, has been announced. Festival guests appearing in front of a live audience include journalists Jess Hill, Gary Jubelin, Kate McClymont and Mark Morri; novelists Tom Keneally, Garry Disher, Caroline Overington and Chris Hammer; and Jana Wendt in conversation with former NSW deputy police commissioner Nick Kaldas. Other sessions include "The Crime of Modern Slavery" with Justine Nolan, Martijn Boersma and Jennifer Burn, and "Auschwitz in Fiction after 75 Years" with Alan Gold, Suzanne Leal, Diane Armstrong and Michaela Kalowski. New trends in crime writing will also be examined by Benjamin Stevenson, Greg Woodland and Petronella McGovern in Fresh Blood, New Writing."

Novelist James Ellroy’s handwritten manuscript of his 1992 book, White Jazz, is heading to auction for the first time. The fourth and final installment in the so-called L.A. Quartet is being sold off from the collection of Otto Penzler, along with over two dozen more of Penzler's rare books, via Heritage Auctions October 15-16. Among the crime fiction items are a signed presentation copy of PD James' Cover Her Face and first editions of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books, Fer-De-Lance and The Red Box.

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has revealed that she is planning on branching out into the world of fiction writing. In an interview with RÚV last week, Katrín and best selling author Ragnar Jónsson talked about their planned collaboration on an upcoming crime novel.

While we're on the topic of politicians as authors, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, will release a thriller novel about the Supreme Court next year. The book, While Justice Sleeps, is set for release May 25, and follows a clerk for a Supreme Court justice who uncovers evidence of a possible conspiracy involving Washington, D.C.’s "highest power corridors."

The latest issue of Switchblade is out, with new short fiction from Robert Ragan, David Harry Moss, Gene Breaznell, Serena Jayne, Brian Beatty, Elliot F. Sweeney, Stanton McCafferey, Danny Sophabmisay, Andrew Bourelle, George Garnet, David Rachels, Elliot F. Sweeney, and Alec Cizak.

This week's new crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Unanswered Asked Question" by Charles Rammelkamp.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews chatted with Avery Bishop, the pseudonym for a USA Today bestselling author of over a dozen novels, about Bishop's new thriller, Girl Gone Mad; Elizabeth White spoke with Libby Fischer Hellman about her latest, A Bend in the River, which follows the saga of two Vietnamese sisters as they struggle to cope with the Vietnam War and its aftermath; and mystery author Margi Preus discussed her new middle grade novel, The Silver Box, part of the Enchantment Lake mystery series, with Lisa Haselton.

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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

Academy Award-winner, Kate Winslet, will star in and produce Fake!, a movie about the OneCoin Ponzi scheme. The project will reteam Winslet with writer/director, Scott Z. Burns, who worked with the actress on Contagion, the 2011 pandemic thriller. Fake! is based on the upcoming book of the same name by Jen McAdam with Douglas Thompson and tells the true-life story of McAdam and her involvement with the OneCoin Ponzi scheme where she served as a whistleblower on the international cryptocurrency scam.

Alexis Louder (Watchmen) has joined the cast of the Joe Carnahan-directed action thriller, CopShop, which just resumed production in Georgia after being temporarily halted when crew members tested positive for COVID-19. Carnahan penned the most recent draft based on the original screenplay by Kurt McLeod. The plot centers on a small-town police station that becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Gerard Butler), a smart rookie female cop (Louder), and a double-crossing con man (Frank Grillo) who seeks refuge behind bars with no place left to run.

The trailer was released for 355, the female-led spy thriller, which shows Jessica Chastain as a wild-card agent, who must join forces with other skilled agents when a top-secret weapon is obtained by a mercenary. Her team is rounded out by a marquee roster of talent including Lupita N’yongo, Penelope Cruz, and Diane Kruger.

A trailer was also released for the action-comedy Fatman, which stars Mel Gibson as a very atypical Santa, who works the heavy bag, drinks tequila, and knows his way around a gun. After declining interest in Christmas has Santa considering retirement, Chris Cringle partners with the U.S. military in order to save his business.





TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Author James Patterson has inked a first-look deal with Sharp Objects studio eOne and has set an adaptation of his upcoming novel, The Noise, as the first project. He has signed the deal via his production company James Patterson Entertainment (which has previous credits on series including the CBS dramas, Instinct and Zoo, and Netflix’s recent Jeffrey Epstein mini-series). The Noise, a thriller surrounding a deadly scientific mystery, is told through the eyes of two young sisters living in the Oregon wilderness and the brilliant doctor trying to save them as a destructive force threatens humanity as we know it.

Charter Communications’ Spectrum Originals and ITV are co-producing Angela Black, a Hitchcockian psychological thriller starring Downton Abbey's Joanne Froggatt. The six-part series features Froggatt as Angela Black, a woman with an apparently idyllic life, who is actually being tormented by her husband, Olivier (played by Game Of Thrones star Michiel Huisman). Angela is approached out of the blue by Ed (Dr. Who's Samuel Adewunmi), a private investigator, who divulges Olivier’s darkest secrets. When faced with some horrifying truths about her husband, a stunned Angela is left reeling. Can she really trust Ed? Can she leave behind her life as she knows it and finally free herself from Olivier?

The CW network is developing the mystery drama, Pandora’s Box and Ship, from Life Sentence creators Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith. The show follows the selfish and sarcastic Lou Tucker, a grifter whose latest scam is stealing from packages at the Box and Ship where she works to make ends meet. When she opens a package that contains Pandora’s actual Box, she inadvertently unleashes all of the mythological evils of the ancient world into our modern one. And, unfortunately for humanity, it’s going to be up to her and a bookish Professor of Greek Mythology, along with a group of unqualified misfits, to put them all back in.

Black Bear Televison has partnered with Crazy Heart writer-director, Scott Cooper, to develop the limited dramatic series, Angels & Demons. Making his television debut, Cooper will write and direct all the episodes. The drama is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning St. Petersburg Times article by Thomas French, a powerful and personal true crime drama examining the tragic murder of three women whose bodies were found floating in the shallow tidewaters of Tampa Bay.

Susan Sarandon has been cast as the lead of HBO Max’s, Red Bird Lane, a psychological thriller pilot from John Wells. Other actors joining the project include Kiersey Clemons, Isidora Goreshter, Danny Huston, Ash Santos, Fiona Dourif, Dizzie Harris, and Tara Lynne Barr. Red Bird Lane follows eight strangers who arrive at an isolated house, all for different reasons, and quickly realize that something sinister and terrifying awaits them.

Will Sharpe, who starred in the Netflix/BBC drama, Giri/Haji, and directed the quirky British comedy, Flowers, is taking over directing duties from Alexander Payne for Landscapers. The  drama, which is inspired by real events, tells the story of killers Susan and Christopher Edwards, who murdered Susan's parents, buried their bodies in the garden, and then spent 15 years looting their bank accounts to spend on Hollywood memorabilia.

Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick) has been cast as the co-lead alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in a still-untitled global spy adventure series, which is in the works at Skydance Television. Created by Nick Santora (Scorpion), the series has a father (Schwarzenegger) and daughter (Barbaro) at the center of the story.

ABC has set a quartet of recurring guest stars (Brooke Smith, Jeffrey Joseph, Gage Marsh, and Gabriel Jacob-Cross) for the network’s upcoming David E. Kelley thriller series, Big Sky, which is based on the book series by C.J. Box. The new ABC series sees private detectives Cassie Dewell (played by Kylie Bunbury) and Cody Hoyt (Ryan Phillippe) team with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) to search for two sisters mysteriously kidnapped by a truck driver in Montana. Upon learning that the kidnapping isn’t an isolated incident, the law officials must race against the clock to prevent any more abductions.

Three and a half years after her Blue Bloods exit, Amy Carlson is returning to CBS with a recurring role on the upcoming second season of FBI: Most Wanted. She is one of two major new recurring additions to the Wolf Entertainment series, along with Lost alum Terry O’Quinn. (Production for Season 2 of the FBI spinoff started earlier this week in New York City.) Carlson plays Jackie Ward, a veteran bounty hunter who has crossed paths with Jess before and is a thorn in the team’s side. O’Quinn plays Byron Lacroix, who has a troubled past with Jess.

Demore Barnes has been promoted to series regular for the upcoming 22nd season of NBC’s Law & Order: SVU. Barnes will continue in the role of Deputy Chief Christian Garland, a forthright, analytical and charismatic leader, eager to apply more contemporary principles to the NYPD while navigating its political minefields along with Capt. Benson (Mariska Hargitay). He was introduced early last season and appeared in more than a third of the episodes. Law & Order: SVU started production on Season 22 Sept. 14 in New York.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone (Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste) were joined by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, author of the award winning novel, Blood and Sugar, to talk about her previous career in politics, writing historical crime, how to appeal to contemporary readers, and more.

Debbi Mack interviewed crime and suspense writer, Wendy Hewlett, on the Crime Cafe podcast.

The new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "Killer At the Door," by Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson, as read by local actor Suzanne Grazyna.

Read or Dead hosts, Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham, had some good news to share and got into the fall spirit with some dark, creepy campus novels.

Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Brian Freeman, author of psychological thrillers, including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, welcomed Stephanie Kane to talk about her latest book, Automat.

The Gay Mystery Podcast's featured guest was Lev Raphael, author of Dancing on Tisha B'Av, which won a Lambda Award.

The Tartan Noir Show welcomed Michael J. Malone to talk about his latest novel, A Song of Isolation, and about his move from prize-winning poetry to crime fiction.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Mark Billingham, whose series of novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has twice won him the Crime Novel Of The Year Award, as well as the Sherlock Award for Best British Detective, and also been nominated for seven CWA Daggers.

THEATRE

A star-studded lineup will take part in a benefit series of new, livestreamed stage-reading productions of works by such major playwrights as Gore Vidal, David Mamet, Kenneth Lonergan, and Donald Margulies. The weekly Spotlight On Plays will be part of a web series at the recently launched Broadway’s Best Shows website, with proceeds from ticket sales donated to The Actor’s Fund. Productions are all-new and performed remotely, with directors including Mamet, Phylicia Rashad, and Daniel Sullivan given leeway in how to present their shows. They include David Mamet’s social-crime drama, Race, on October 29, starring David Alan Grier, Ed O’Neill, Alicia Stith, and Richard Thomas, as directed by Phylicia Rashad.

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Quote of the Week

            

FFB: Los Alamos

Since the hubster has a physics background and has long been fascinated with the Manhattan Project, it seemed like a good parallel to read the book Los Alamos by Joseph Kanon. Although the novel was a bestseller and received the Edgar for Best First Novel in 1998, I was unaware of it until digging into projects for Friday's "Forgotten" Books.

Kanon certainly wasn't shy about taking on some of the darkest days and most pivotal moments in the planet's history as the background for a mystery. And I say mystery, because although it's been classified as a "thriller," it really doesn't fit the current style of thrillers; it's relatively slow-paced through the first half, the murderer isn't known until near the end, and the writing style pays as much homage to a "literary" work as it does a typical spy thriller.

In an interview as to why he chose the setting, Kanon said, "What fascinated me was that the place didn't officially exist. I thought:  What would happen if there were a crime in a place that didn't exist?" And so the story hinges on a fictional protagonist, civilian intelligence liaison Michael Connolly, brought in to investigate the murder of a Los Alamos security officer, his face bashed in and his pants pulled down. Connolly is asked to discover whether the crime is more than the violent sex crime it appears to be, even while those associated with the project, paranoid over security leaks and the specter of Communists everywhere, would prefer it be just that. Nice and tidy. Of course it isn't nice and tidy, and Connolly's dogged determination to pursue the truth to the bitter end, no matter how bitter it turns out to be, carries him through acts of betrayal from all sides and his own growing interest and eventual affair with the wife of one of the Los Alamos scientists.

The more restless and impatient readers will get a bit bogged down in Kanon's occasionally dense prose, but he has some nice evocations of the tug-of-war of emotions that existed between the project's scientists and their almost abstract view of the war and the ultimate horror of the project's true purpose. But many of those same scientists had fled the Nazis in Europe, so they knew of more personal horrors they'd left behind. Connolly at one point thinks,

Europe seemed to him now like a vast funhouse, dark and grotesque and claustrophobic. You were jerked along from one startling exhibit of horror to the next, rocking in alarm, squirming. Skeletons dangled, monsters leaped out, horrible mechanical scream tore the air, and you would never get out.

At another point, where he attends one of the many parties that were organized to keep everyone grounded, Connolly notes that

The whole party seemed improbable. The ordinary people stumbling out of time to country music had won Nobel prizes. The young American kid in cowboy boots might be an expert in quantum mechanics. The man in the boxy suit holding a brownie might be--what? A chemist, a metallurgist, a mathematician?...Nothing was farfetched here. People lived in an air as rarified as the altitude. And it must be just as exhilarating for them. Their ideas could leap from one mind to another, racing with the excitement of meeting none of the usual resistance of the ordinary world. The army had strung wires around them to keep the rest out, and it had worked...Everybody was intelligent, everything was possible. Something as ordinary as a murder victim seemed almost vulgar, an unfair intrusion.

To be honest, the plot was fairly easy to figure out, at times almost taking a back seat to the setting. And some might quibble with the love interest feeling a bit unnecessary, while a few of the local characters lean a tad toward the cliched. But the setting, in both New Mexico and Los Alamos, is very detailed and well researched (although I'll have to wait until the physics hubster reads the book to let me know about scientific errors). The most enjoyable aspect in many ways is the interaction between Connolly as a fictional character with the real-life Oppenheimer and General Groves, woven together neatly within the framework of the events leading up to the Trinity test in the desert on that fateful day on July 16, 1945.

            

Mystery Melange

The Capital Crime conference announced the shortlists for the 2020 Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards. The awards are a celebration of the crime and thriller genre and recognize excellence in film and television as well as books. The shortlists were decided by Capital Crime’s advisory board of authors, industry leaders and reviewers, but it's readers who will have the final say on who wins in each category. This is the second year for the awards, with authors Ian Rankin, Oyinkan Braithewaite, and C L Taylor among the 2019 winners. Shots Magazine has a list of all the finalists in the various categories.

The Crime Writers Association (CWA) Debut Dagger Writing Competition 2021 has opened for entries. Created in 1955, the Daggers are the oldest and among the most regarded awards in the genre, and for over two decades the CWA has been encouraging new writing with its Debut Dagger competition for unpublished writers. Submissions are judged by a panel of top crime editors and agents, and all shortlisted entries then sent to UK agents and publishers of crime fiction. Anyone is eligible who hasn't had a full-length novel published by a traditional publisher and who, at the time of the competition closing, doesn't have a contract with a publisher or literary agent. (HT again to Shots Magazine)

Although the traditional week of in-person gatherings will not take place this year, the Kentucky Book Festival will carry on the celebration of reading, writing and all things bookish in the Bluegrass State with a virtual lineup of author discussions. Events of note to crime fiction fans include special guest John Grisham discussing his latest book, A Time for Mercy with best-selling author Kim Edwards, and a panel with mystery/thriller authors David Bell, Rea Frey, Dana Ridenour, and Andrew Welsh-Huggins talking about what it takes to write the perfect crime.

Obscure works by Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie were published this week, but it might not be what you think. Both involve humor, as with Chandler's rarely seen "Advice to an Employer, a list of suggestions for how you can ruin the day for those stuck on your payroll," and an amusing Hercule Poirot Christmas story from Christie. Both pieces appeared in the new issue of Strand Magazine, and managing editor Andrew Gulli explained, "We decided early on that we needed to publish an issue that will provide something light-hearted for our readers."

Mike Ripley's latest Getting Away with Murder newsletter is out with a report that William Hjortsberg, the New York City-born Montana novelist who died in 2017, has a brand-new book—Angel’s Inferno—due out in Britain at the end of this month. The novel, which is a sequel to the author's Edgar-nominated Falling Angel (the basis for the classic cult film Angel Heart), is being published posthumously by No Exit Press using the author's edits and notes he was working on up until his death. (HT to The Rap Sheet.)





Some sad news from the crime fiction magazine world, as BJ Bourg announced the end of Flash Bang Mysteries, with the Fall/October 2020 the last issue. BJ worked in law enforcement for over 25 years before turning his hand to writing crime stories and had previously edited the 'zines Mouth Full of Bullets and BJ Bourg's Mystery Mag. Flash Bang Mysteries was co-edited with BJ's son, Brandon Bourg, since its inception in October 2015. I had the pleasure of working with BJ on stories for both Mouth Full of Bullets and Flash Bang Mysteries, and here's hoping he'll be back with new periodical projects in the future.

Apparently, although most of the Sherlock Holmes canon is now in the public domain, you can still be sued if you write Holmes smiling. The Holmes Estate has sued the author of the Enola Holmes books (as well as publisher Penguin Random House) and the new Netflix movie based on the book series, claiming the brilliant detective didn’t exhibit his friendlier side until Conan Doyle published his final 10 stories, which are still under copyright. This would basically mean that the Conan Doyle Estate still owns Sherlock Holmes’s "warmth and emotion." Penguin Random House and series author Nancy Springer are fighting back, and they may have a case:  Springer’s first Enola Holmes novel was published in 2006 to critical acclaim (including an Edgar Award in 2007), nearly fifteen years before this suit was filed. Others have noted that the timing of the lawsuit is also suspect since the final Sherlock Holmes story authored by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was published in 1927, meaning that in two years time – 2022 – none of his works or characters will be subject to copyright laws.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "A Love Story" by Tom Barlow.

In the Q&A roundup, Benjamin Black, a/k/a John Banville, chatted with the New York Times about why he chose the Black pseudonym for his crime novels, and why he's decided to keep writing those novels but under his Banville name; Indie Crime Scene interviewed E.A Aymar, author of They're Gone (written under his pseudonym E.A. Barres); Writers Who Kill spoke with M. E. Browning, a retired police captain and author of Shadow Ridge, the first book in the new Jo Wyatt mystery series; and Author Interviews snagged Robert Dugoni, author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle, about his writing process and influences.

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