Delayed but Still Well-Received

Seven months have passed since The Strand Magazine spread word of its nominees for two annual Critics Awards. Expectations were that the winners’ identities would be broadcast long ago, but editor Andrew Gulli told me recently that the announcement was delayed by difficulties in arranging for all of the relevant parties to participate.

Only last evening, during a Zoom presentation (which I missed due to work duties), were the following recipients of the 2023 Strand Magazine Critics Awards finally named.

Best Novel: Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)

Also nominated: Anywhere You Run, by Wanda M. Morris (Morrow); Back to the Garden, by Laurie R. King (Bantam); Desert Star, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown); Her Last Affair, by John Searles (Mariner); and A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Best Debut: A Flicker in the Dark, by Stacy Willingham (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Jackal, by Erin E. Adams (Bantam); Before You Knew My Name, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Atria/Emily Bestler); Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime); and Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)

In addition, the magazine gave out not one, but two Lifetime Achievement Awards, to authors James Lee Burke and Lee Child. And Dan Smetanka, vice president and editorial chief of Counterpoint Press, was declared 2023’s Publisher of the Year.

Congratulations to all of the nominees!

Weisel, Cudmore Share Wolfe Glory

Two morsels of news from Jiro Kimura’s The Gumshoe Site:

On December 2 at the Black Orchid Banquet held in New York City, the Wolfe Pack, the official Nero Wolfe literary society, announced that The Day He Left, by Frederick Weisel (Poisoned Pen Press, 2022), won the 2023 Nero Award. The winning novel was the second in the Santa Rosa Violent Crime Investigations Team Mystery.

On the same night, “Alibi in Ice,” by Libby Cudmore​, received the 2023 Black Orchid Novella Award. Banquet. The winning novella will be published in the July 2024 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

Congratulations to both of this year’s recipients!

Rejoicing in Christchurch

Although slightly delayed this year, news of the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award winners is still welcome. As Mystery Fanfare reports, the recipients were announced in New Zealand last evening “following a special Ngaios-WORD Christchurch ... event and pub quiz emceed by Kiwi crime queen Vanda Symon.”

Best Non-fiction (a biennial prize):
Missing Persons, by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins)

Also nominated: A New Dawn, by Emeli Sione (Mila’s Books); The Devil You Know, by Dr. Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne (Faber); Downfall: The Destruction of Charles Mackay, by Paul Diamond (Massey University Press); and The Fix, by Scott Bainbridge (Bateman)

Best First Novel:
Better the Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated: One Heart One Spade, by Alistair Luke (Your Books); Too Far from Antibes, by Bede Scott (Penguin SEA); Surveillance, by Riley Chance (CopyPress); The Slow Roll, by Simon Lendrum (Upstart Press); and Paper Cage, by Tom Baragwanath (Text)

Best Novel:
Remember Me, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)

Also nominated: Exit .45, by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin); Blue Hotel, by Chad Taylor (Brio); The Doctor’s Wife, by Fiona Sussman (Bateman); Better the Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster); Blood Matters, by Renée (The Cuba Press); and The Slow Roll, by Simon Lendrum (Upstart Press)

The Ngaio Marsh Awards, named in honor of New Zealand mystery writer and theater director Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982), were established in 2020 by journalist Craig Sisterson to recognize and celebrate the best of New Zealand crime, mystery, and thriller fiction.

Tena koe to all of this year’s winners and nominees!

Lauding Irish and Historical Fiction

Two small book-prize updates to begin this Thanksgiving Day.

First off, In Reference to Murder reports that organizers of the annual Irish Book Awards have “announced the winners of the various categories including Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year, awarded to Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. The other finalists [were] The Lock-Up by John Banville; The Close by Jane Casey; Kill for Me, Kill for You by Steve Cavanagh; No One Saw a Thing by Andrea Mara; and The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard.”

Secondly, Britain’s Historical Writers’ Association last evening made known the recipients of its 2023 Crown Awards. Taking home the Gold Crown for fiction was The Colour Storm, by Damien Dibben (Michael Joseph), which some critics have categorized as mystery fiction. Among the contenders for this year’s Debut Crown Award was Tom Mead’s Death and the Conjuror (Head of Zeus), which certainly qualifies as a mystery. However, that particular commendation was snapped up in the end by The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, by Paterson Joseph (Dialogue). The longlists of nominees for these three Crown prizes can be found here.

Your Votes Are Requested

Based on nominations from its readers, the British Web site Crime Fiction Lover today announced its lists of nominees for the 2023 Crime Fiction Lover Awards. There are six categories of contenders, covering both print books and televised crime dramas:

Crime Book of the Year:
• All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Faber and Faber)
• Kill For Me, Kill For You, by Steve Cavanagh (Headline)
• Strange Sally Diamond, by Liz Nugent (Sandycove)
• The Last Remains, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, by Janice Hallett (Viper)

Best Debut Crime Novel:
• City Under One Roof, by Iris Yamashita (Berkley)
• Lies After Death, by K.J. Dando (Cahill Davis)
• You’d Look Better as a Ghost, by Joanna Wallace (Viper)
• Squeaky Clean, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (Atria)
• The Trial, by Rob Rinder (Century)

Best Crime Novel in Translation:
• Murder at the Residence, by Stella Blómkvist,
translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus)
• Red Queen, by Juan Gómez-Jurado, translated by Nicholas Caistor (Macmillan)
• Thirty Days of Darkness, by Jenny Lund Madsen,
translated by Megan E. Turney (Orenda)
• The Collector, by Anne Mette Hancock,
translated by Tara Chase (Swift Press)
• The Mill House Murders, by Yukito Ayatsuji,
translated by Ho Ling Wong (Pushkin Press)
• The Sins of Our Fathers, by Åsa Larsson,
translated by Frank Perry (MacLehose Press)

Best Indie Crime Novel:
• Sunset and Jericho, by Sam Weibe (Harbour)
• The Associate, by Victoria Goldman (Three Crowns)
• Scratching the Flint, by Vern Smith (Run Amok Crime)
• The Forcing, by Paul E. Hardisty (Orenda)
• The Man in the Corduroy Suit, by James Wolff (Bitter Lemon Press)

Best Crime Show:
• Happy Valley, Season 3 (Apple TV+)
• Only Murders in the Building, Season 3 (Hulu)
• Black Snow (Stan)
• Crime (aka Irvine Welsh’s Crime), Season 2 (BritBox)
• Slow Horses: Dead Lions, Season 2 (Apple TV+)
• Astrid: Murder in Paris, Season 2 (France 2)

Best Crime Author:
• Michael Connelly
• Jordan Harper
• Janice Hallett
• S.A. Cosby
• Mick Herron
• Joanna Wallace

Mystery, crime, and thriller enthusiasts are now invited to vote for their favorites among these contenders. You have until noon GMT on Monday, December 4, to cast your ballot. The winners in this third-annual Crime Fiction Lover Awards competition are expected to be declared soon after that.

Recipients of the 2022 Crime Fiction Lover Awards are here.

A Bit Tardy, but Still Welcome

Those of us who attended this year’s Bouchercon in San Diego were surprised to hear that no announcement of the 2023 Macavity Award winners would be made during the convention, even as several other types of prizes were dispensed. This was because Janet Rudolph, the editor of Mystery Readers Journal and director of Mystery Readers International, which sponsor those annual honors, could not make it to San Diego due to illness. We were told, instead, that the latest Macavity recipients would be named at a future date.

Well, apparently that date is today, and the 2023 winners are ...

Best Mystery Novel:
A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Back to the Garden, by Laurie R. King (Bantam); Two Nights in Lisbon, by Chris Pavone (MCD); A Heart Full of Headstones, by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown); Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley); and Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)

Best First Mystery:
The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)

Also nominated: Before You Knew My Name, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Atria/Emily Bestler); Five Moves of Doom, by A.J. Devlin (NeWest Press); Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime); Devil’s Chew Toy, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane); and The Verifiers, by Jane Pek (Vintage)

Best Mystery Short Story: “Beauty and the Beyotch,” by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, January 2022)

Also nominated: “The Landscaper’s Wife,” by Brendan DuBois (Mystery Tribune, August/September 2022); “First You Dream, Then You Die,” by Donna Moore (from Black Is the Night: Stories Inspired by Cornell Woolrich, edited by Maxim Jakubowski; Titan); “Schrödinger, Cat” by Anna Scotti (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2022); “Stockholm,” by Catherine Steadman (Amazon Original Stories); “The Angel of Rome,” by Jess Walter (from The Angel of Rome and Other Stories, by Jess Walter; Harper); and “My Two-Legs,” by Melissa Yi (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September/October 2022)

Best Mystery Critical/Biographical:
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators, by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)

Also nominated: The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie, edited by Mary Anna Evans and J.C. Bernthal (Bloomsbury Academic); The Crime World of Michael Connelly: A Study of His Works and Their Adaptations, by David Geherin (McFarland); and Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Crime)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery:
Lavender House, by Lev A.C. Rosen (Forge)

Also nominated: The Lindbergh Nanny, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur); In Place of Fear, by Catriona McPherson (Hodder & Stoughton); Anywhere You Run, by Wanda M. Morris (Morrow); The Secret in the Wall, by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press); and One-Shot Harry, by Gary Phillips (Soho Crime)

As the Mystery Readers International Web site explains, “The Macavity Award derives its name from the ‘mystery cat’ of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats).”

Commending Irish and Adventure Fiction

The shortlists have been announced for this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards. Categories range from Popular Fiction, Non-fiction, and Cookbook to Poetry, Short Story, Newcomer, and Teen and Young Adult. There are also half a dozen candidates for the 2023 Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year. They are:

• The Lock-Up, by John Banville (Faber and Faber)
• The Close, by Jane Casey (Harper Fiction)
• Kill for Me, Kill for You, by Steve Cavanagh (Headline)
• No One Saw a Thing, by Andrea Mara (Bantam)
• Strange Sally Diamond, by Liz Nugent (Sandycove)
• The Trap, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Bantam)

Two of those same authors are in contention to be named as this year’s Library Association of Ireland Author of the Year:

• Sebastian Barry (Faber and Faber)
• Claire Keegan (Faber and Faber)
• Liz Nugent (Sandycove)
• Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)
• Lucinda Riley (Pan Macmillan)
• Catherine Ryan Howard (Bantam)

Readers are invited to vote for their favorites from any or all of the shortlists. Division winners will be declared on November 22.

As the awards Web site explains, these prizes (dispensed annually since 2007) “are dedicated to the celebration of the best Irish writers and writing across all genres of publishing.” Sponsor An Post is “the state-owned provider of postal services in Ireland.”

* * *

Meanwhile, news regarding the recipient of the 2023 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize has also reached us.

That honor goes to Australian-born UK writer Emma Styles for her debut novel, No Country for Girls (Sphere). Amazon describes her tale as “Thelma & Louise for a new generation ... a gritty, twisty road-trip thriller that follows two young women on the run across the harsh, unforgiving landscape of Australia.” In Reference to Murder notes that No Country for Girls “was also shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award, the Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Novel, and the Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction.”

Endangered Women Thriller Wins Petrona

Swedish journalist-turned-fictionist Pascal Engman’s Femicide (Legend Press, 2022), translated by Michael Gallagher, has won the 2023 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. A press release notes that “Engman will receive a trophy, and both the author and translator will receive a cash prize.”

The statement from Petrona judges describes Engman’s book as “a page-turning, absorbing and uncomfortable Swedish thriller. Femicide tells of a young woman, Emilie, who is found murdered in her Stockholm apartment in the same week that her violent ex-boyfriend is released from prison. Detective Vanessa Frank is assigned the case. Meanwhile, we hear the story of young journalist Jasmina, the survivor of a recent, severe sexual assault. Author Pascal Engman dives into the world of incels through Tom, a very believable character who is part of a weaponised gender war brought about by, amongst other things, misguided hatred, feelings of being ignored by society, and sexual frustration. Femicide comes to a pinnacle as the attacks against women escalate on a huge scale.”

Also shortlisted for this year’s Petrona were The Corpse Flower, by Anne Mette Hancock, translated by Tara F. Chace (Denmark, Swift Press); The Axe Woman, by Håkan Nesser, translated by Sarah Death (Sweden, Mantle); Land of Snow and Ashes, by Petra Rautiainen, translated by David Hackston (Finland, Pushkin Press); Kalmann, by Joachim B. Schmidt, translated by Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland, Bitter Lemon Press); Red as Blood, by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, translated by Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda); and Bitter Flowers, by Gunnar Staalesen, translated by Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda).

The Petrona Award, established back in 2013, takes its name from the blog operated by Maxine Clarke, a British editor and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction,” who’d died the year before that. As award organizers explain, “The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you wonder why you’ve heard Pascal Engman’s name recently, it’s because he has been caught up in the ghostwriting controversy surrounding fellow Swedish writer Camilla Läckberg.

Nailing Down the Ngaios

There appears to be some confusion regarding when an announcement will be made about the winners of New Zealand’s 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards for crime, mystery, and thriller writing. Because it was reported that said announcement would come during an event held “in association with WORD Christchurch,” the annual literary festival—which took place in August—it was presumed that the Ngaio Marsh recipients would be made known then. That didn’t happen.



So when can we expect to hear who won? I asked awards founder Craig Sisterson this morning to set the record straight. His reply:

The Ngaios have been presented in association with [WORD Christchurch, formerly the Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival] since 2010—often at the ‘festival’ proper on those years [before 2021, when the festivities were held biennially], then a standalone event in association with the wider body on the ‘off’ years. Things got really messed up with COVID, and coupled with the fact that often our standalone events seemed to go better anyway (some of our events started to get a little lost in the bigger festival programme), we’re kinda doing a standalone event even in a festival year, this year. Clear as mud? as my dad used to say.

But its still in association with WORD Christchurch (the organisation/body, not its semi-annual festival).

Sisterson explains that the timing of this year’s Ngaio Marsh Awards event is still somewhat up in the air, but that it “is likely to be mid-November.” We’ll bring you the results whenever we get them.

The finalists for the 2023 Ngaios are listed here.

Brushing Up on the Latest News

• Several months ago we mentioned that British actress Lucy Boynton had been signed to play Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom (back in 1955), in a four-part ITV-TV drama simply titled Ruth. The Killing Times now brings word that Toby Jones, Laurie Davidson, Mark Stanley, Juliet Stevenson, and others have been added to the cast. Still no news about a broadcast date, though.

• We finally have a new date for the previously delayed, fourth-season premiere of HBO-TV’s uneven anthology series, True Detective. This latest story, subtitled Night Country, will be set in Alaska and star Jodie Foster. The Killing Times says we should expect its U.S. run to begin on Sunday, January 14, on HBO, and adds that it will be simulcast in the UK at 2 a.m. on Monday, January 15.

• Hulu-TV will commence streaming remastered episodes of Moonlighting on Tuesday, October 10. As Mystery Fanfare recalls, that 1985-1989 comedy-detective series starred Cybill Shepherd as ex-fashion model Maddie Hayes, who, after going bankrupt, “finds that one of her few remaining assets is ownership of the Blue Moon Detective Agency” in Los Angeles. “[S]he’s tempted to liquidate it until she meets the quirky employees”—among them Bruce Willis’ David Addison Jr.—“and gets involved in their even quirkier cases.”

• From the British online newspaper The Independent:

First edition copies of The Hound of the Baskervilles and Agatha Christie’s The Thirteen Problems, which once belonged to late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, set two world auction records on Thursday (28 September).

The musician’s extensive collection of first edition books went under the hammer at British auction house Christie’s as part of a specialised sale, which saw F Scott Fitzgerald’s acclaimed novel The Great Gatsby, first published in 1925, receive the highest bid, at £226,800. ...

Elsewhere, a first edition of Sherlock Holmes tale The Hound of the Baskervilles sold for £214,200, which set a new world auction record for a printed book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This surpasses the previous record $201,600 (£165,279) for The Sign of Four, which was sold in 2022.

• Forward discovers that, even at “97-and-a half,” Oscar-winning actress and director Lee Grant is “just as feisty as ever.”

• And this book does not belong on the crime- or mystery-fiction shelves, but still I must note that Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel, When We Were Birds, “a mythic love story set in Trinidad and Tobago” and published by Hamish Hamilton, has won the 2023 Glass Bell Award, again sponsored by London-based Goldsboro Books. There was one crime novel among this year’s longlisted contenders—the Edgar-winning Notes on an Execution, by Danya Kukafka (Phoenix)—but along with 10 others, all released in 2022, it did not capture the prize.

“Truth” Be Told

Just over a month ago, we brought you news about five books shortlisted for the 2023 Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction, which celebrates “outstanding crime and thriller storytelling of those who are from, or whose work celebrates, the North East of England.” Now we have word that Penrith, Cumbria, resident Karys Frank has won the Lindisfarne for her story Stone Cold Truth.

The Web site of author LJ Ross, who founded this annual literary honor, explains that “Stone Cold Truth follows the story of a daughter who flees her mother’s suffocating love, only to run into her mother’s net from which she can’t escape. Karys says the story came about by magnifying characteristics she found in herself both as a daughter and mother and hoped it would resonate with others. The judges praised Karys for her ‘clever storytelling’, ‘fantastic character development’ and ‘terrific writing’ in her ‘fresh, new and different’ submission exploring the relationship of a narcissistic mother and daughter.”

“As the winner of the prize,” reports the blog In Reference to Murder, “Karys will receive a £2,500 cash prize to support the development of her work, alongside funding for membership of the Society of Authors (SoA) and the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).”

McSorley, Foster Saluted in Stirling

Among this evening’s events at the annual Bloody Scotland international crime-writing festival in Stirling, Scotland, were the announcements of two much-anticipated award winners. First off, the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year was given to Glasgow’s Callum McSorley for Squeaky Clean (Pushkin).

Previously shortlisted for that very same commendation were The Second Murderer, by Denise Mina (Vintage); Cast a Cold Eye, by Robbie Morrison (Macmillan); and The Devil’s Playground, by Craig Russell (Little, Brown).

In addition, Edinburgh journalist Kate Foster’s The Maiden (Mantle) received this year’s Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.

Vying as well for this 2023 honor were Unsolved, by Heather Critchlow (Canelo); The Things We Do to Our Friends, by Heather Darwent (Penguin); Squeaky Clean, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin); and The Unforgiven Dead, by Fulton Ross (Inkshares).

The Bookseller reports that “The finalists for both prizes led the torchlit procession from Stirling Castle through the historic old town [tonight] …, accompanied by the pipes and drums of the Stirling and District Schools Pipe Band.” Sounds like fun!

READ MORE: “Bloody Scotland 2023 – McIlvanney Prize Winners Revealed,” by Jen Lucas (Jen Med’s Book Reviews).

What About the Davitts, Dammit?

I apparently missed mentioning one in my rush to wrap-up the numerous prizes that had been dispensed during my time away at Bouchercon in San Diego. Sisters in Crime Australia last week announced the winners of its 2023 Davitt Awards, which are meant to celebrate “the best crime and mystery books by Australian women.”

Adult Novel:
All That’s Left Unsaid, by Tracey Lien (HQ Fiction)

Young Adult Novel:
Seven Days, by Fleur Ferris (Penguin Random House Australia)

Children’s Novel:
The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-bottomed Boat, by Charlie Archbold (Text Publishing)

Non-fiction Book:
Out of the Ashes, by Megan Norris (Big Sky)

Debut Book:
Dirt Town, by Hayley Scrivenor (Macmillan)

Readers’ Choice:
The Unbelieved, by Vikki Petraitis (Allen & Unwin)

This annual commendation is named for Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), Australia’s first crime novelist.

(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

Bad Prose Inspires Good Chuckles

Every year I think what fun it would be to submit a kernel of corny creative writing to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, but I have never actually done so. Although I haven’t given up hope of entering. Someday. Maybe. If I’m in the proper playful mood.

This tongue-in-cheek competition was launched in 1982 and is sponsored by the English Department of San Jose State University in San Jose, California. As Wikipedia explains, it takes its moniker from “English novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the much-quoted first line ‘It was a dark and stormy night,’” Entrants are encouraged to submit especially cringe-worthy opening lines (single sentences only) to never-to-be-completed books. The competition’s renown has grown greatly over the decades.

There were reportedly more than 600 entries to the 2023 contest in a dozen categories, from Adventure and Fantasy & Horror to Science Fiction and Purple Prose. The Grand Prize was captured by Maya Pasic of New York City for this cosmetological curiosity:

She was a beautiful woman; more specifically she was the kind of beautiful woman who had an hourlong skincare routine that made her look either ethereal or like a glazed donut, depending on how attracted to her you were.

Meanwhile, the Grand Panjandrum’s Special Award went to Daniel Bradford of Lexington, Kentucky, for an opening that might have been plucked from a comic crime novel:

It was a sunny day in Los Angeles, hot and bright, and I was in my office, playing Mahjong against myself and losing, when she walked in, 120 pounds of dynamite, a blonde with legs that began at her ankles and ended in trouble.

Of interest to Rap Sheet readers as well should be this winner in the Crime & Detective division, from Atlanta resident Julian Calvin:

The tall, slender seductress had Tom Pauley wrapped around her little finger, and she had James McGee hanging from a necklace, but the police were still waiting for the lab results to determine whose body parts she had used to make her earrings and that stunning tennis bracelet.

These two other “dishonorable mentions” from the same category struck decisive blows against my funny bone:

Elsie was seated by the window overlooking the deserted boardwalk (the crime scene in this saga) holding the hand of her beloved Jeremy (the soon-to-be unwitting accomplice), when George (who you will soon learn is the murderer), suddenly opened the door to their cozy loft holding a cup of coffee and said, “This cup is for you, Elsie”—and this cup would of course be her last … but you do not know any of this yet. — Frederick Ankowski, Santa Monica, California

Officer Meyer Briggs burst into the bedroom and saw Professor Rorschach standing over the body of his mother, bloody knife in hand, “I swear it’s not what it looks like!” Rorschach exclaimed. — Justin C. McCarthy, Cranston, Rhode Island

Click right here to read all of this year’s winners and runners-up. And if you’re interested, the rules for entering this contest can be found here. The next submission deadline is June 30, 2024.

In Quest of Scandi Stature

Organizers of the annual Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year today released their shortlist of seven nominees for the 2023 prize. They are:

• Femicide, by Pascal Engman,
translated by Michael Gallagher (Sweden, Legend Press)
• The Corpse Flower, by Anne Mette Hancock,
translated by Tara F. Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)
• The Axe Woman, by Håkan Nesser,
translated by Sarah Death (Sweden, Mantle)
• Land of Snow and Ashes, by Petra Rautiainen,
translated by David Hackston (Finland, Pushkin Press)
• Kalmann, by Joachim B. Schmidt,
translated by Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland, Bitter Lemon Press)
• Red as Blood, by Lilja Sigurðardóttir,
translated by Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda)
• Bitter Flowers, by Gunnar Staalesen,
translated by Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda)

A winner is expected to be declared on October 12.

The Petrona Award, established back in 2013, takes its name from the blog operated by Maxine Clarke, a British editor and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction,” who’d died the year before that. As a press release explains, “The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.”

Click here to see the longlist of contenders for this year’s Petrona.

Dusting for Fingerprints

(Above) Adele Parks picked up the Audiobook of the Year honor for her 2022 thriller, One Last Secret.

By Fraser Massey
Delighted crime-fiction fans and avid literary festivalists in London, England, learned last week that they won’t have to wait another whole year for the next Capital Crime three-day extravaganza. The festival’s co-founder, David Headley, announced that Capital Crime 2024 will take place in just eight months, from May 30 to June 1.

He made his declaration amid the presentation of the Fingerprint Awards on August 29, the opening night of Capital Crime 2023. After all of those prizes had been handed out, festival director Lizzie Curle revealed that the scheduling move from the fall to the spring next year was “all down to a certain Mr. Osman.”

This year’s festival, and the dates on which it has been held in the past, were timed to be close to “Super Thursday,” the traditional day each September when the bulk of new books from all genres are published in the UK to get them into the shops in plenty of time for Christmas gift-buying.

But the demand in recent Super Thursdays for each new mystery by British TV quizmaster-turned-mystery-novelist Richard Osman (The Thursday Murder Club, The Last Devil to Die, etc.) has reached such a pitch that interest in other crime-fiction titles has suffered by comparison. “The publishing industry responded to this by bringing out their books earlier in the year,” explained Curle. With authors and their publishers preferring to promote their latest works at a time when they’ve freshly arrived in bookshops, she added, it made sense for the Capital Crime organizers to bring forward next year’s event.

(Right) British mystery-fiction publishing heavyweight Richard Osman.

One benefit of this change will be that authors and readers will no longer have to choose between going to Bouchercon or Capital Crime, as they did this year. Elly Griffiths was among the new crop of Fingerprint Award recipients who couldn’t be there in person to pick up her Capital Crime trophy. She’d decided to go to Bouchercon instead, and was in San Diego when she discovered that Bleeding Heart Yard had been chosen as Crime Book of the Year in London.

In a message read out by her UK publisher Jane Wood—herself one of the ceremony’s award winners—Griffiths said she was particularly proud to have scored the Capital Crime commendation, as Bleeding Heart Yard is her only novel set in the UK’s capital.

This year’s Fingerprint Awards were broken down into eight categories.

Crime Book of the Year:
Bleeding Heart Yard, by Elly Griffiths (Mariner)

Also nominated: The Botanist, by M.W. Craven (Constable); The It Girl, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press); The Family Remains, by Lisa Jewell (Atria); and The Twist of a Knife, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)

Thriller Book of the Year:
Wrong Place Wrong Time, by Gillian McAllister (Morrow)

Also nominated: Like a Sister, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland); Do No Harm, by Jack Jordan (Simon & Schuster); Truly Darkly Deeply, by Victoria Selman (Union Square); and A Good Day to Die, by Amen Alonge (Quercus)

Historical Book of the Year:
A Fatal Crossing, by Tom Hindle (Penguin)

Also nominated: The Lost Man of Bombay, by Vaseem Khan (Hodder); The Clockwork Girl, by Anna Mazzola (Hachette); Miss Aldridge Regrets, by Louise Hare (Berkley); and Shrines of Gaiety, by Kate Atkinson (Anchor)

Genre-Busting Book of the Year:
The Skeleton Key, by Erin Kelly (Mobius)

Also nominated: The House of Ashes, by Stuart Neville (Soho Crime); The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd (Morrow); Wild and Wicked Things, by Francesca May (Redhook); and Suicide Thursday, by Will Carver (Orenda)

Debut Book of the Year:
The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)

Also nominated: Wahala, by Nikki May (Mariner); That Green-Eyed Girl, by Julie Owen-Moylan (Penguin); A Fatal Crossing, by Tom Hindle (Penguin); and Death and the Conjuror, by Tom Mead (Mysterious Press)

Audiobook of the Year:
One Last Secret, by Adele Parks, narrated by Kristin Atherton (Harlequin Audio)

Also nominated: The Ink Black Heart, by Robert Galbraith, narrated by Robert Glenister (Mulholland); The Skeleton Key, by Erin Kelly, narrated by Helen Keeley (Hodder & Stoughton); The Twyford Code, by Janice Hallett; narrated by Thomas Judd (Simon and Schuster Audio); and Better the Blood, by Michael Bennett, narrated by Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are (Recorded Books)

The Thalia Proctor Lifetime Achievement Award:
Jane Wood, fiction publisher at Quercus

Publishing Campaign of the Year 2023:
Viking Books UK for The Bullet that Missed, by Richard Osman

Keeping Current with the Kudos

September always brings with it a profusion of news about crime-fiction prizes, but this last week seems to have exceeded expectations. In addition to the Bouchercon prize results, we now have the shortlist of contestants for Scotland’s 2023 McIlvanney Prize:

• Squeaky Clean, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin)
• The Second Murderer, by Denise Mina (Vintage)
• Cast a Cold Eye, by Robbie Morrison (Macmillan)
• The Devil’s Playground, by Craig Russell (Little, Brown)

The three-times-as-lengthy longlist of contenders, released back in mid-June, can be revisited here.

As Mystery Fanfare explains, the latest McIlvanney Prize recipient will be declared during the latest Bloody Scotland festival, scheduled for September 15-17 in Stirling, Scotland. This award is named in honor of William McIlvanney, author of the novel Laidlaw.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Australian Crime Writers Association last week announced the recipients of its 2023 Ned Kelly Awards (aka “Neddies”) in four different categories.

Best Crime Fiction: Exiles, by Jane Harper (Pan Macmillan Australia)
Best Debut Crime Fiction: Wake, by Shelley Burr (Hachette Australia)
Best International Crime Fiction (published in Australia): The Lemon Man, by Keith Bruton (Brash)
Best True Crime: Betrayed, by Sandi Logan (Hachette Australia)

In case you would like to look back, this year’s longlists of Neddie nominees are still available here.

(Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site.)

Abundant Bouchercon Winnings

I’ll have more to say (and show) regarding this last weekend’s Bouchercon in San Diego. But for now, let’s at least run through the awards given out during that delightful five-day event.

To begin, here are the winners of the 2023 Anthony Awards, named for author-critic Anthony Boucher and chosen by Bouchercon attendees.

Best Hardcover:
Like a Sister, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland)

Also nominated: The Devil Takes You Home, by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland); The Bullet That Missed, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman); A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny (Minotaur); The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine); and Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)

Best Paperback/E-book/Audiobook:
The Quarry Girls, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer)

Also nominated: Real Bad Things, by Kelly J. Ford (Thomas & Mercer); Dead Drop, by James L’Etoile (Level Best); Hush Hush, by Gabriel Valjan (Historia); and In the Dark We Forget, by Sandra S.G. Wong (HarperCollins)

Best First Novel:
The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)

Also nominated: Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime); Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime); The Bangalore Detectives Club, by Harini Nagendra (Pegasus); and Devil’s Chew Toy, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane)

Best Historical:
Anywhere You Run, by Wanda M. Morris (Morrow)

Also nominated: The Lindbergh Nanny, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur); In Place of Fear, by Catriona McPherson (Mobius); Danger on the Atlantic, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington); Under a Veiled Moon, by Karen Odden (Crooked Lane); and Lavender House, by Lev A.C. Rosen (Forge)

Best Humorous:
Scot in a Trap, by Catriona McPherson (Severn House)

Also nominated: Bayou Book Thief, by Ellen Byron (Berkley); Death by Bubble Tea, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley); A Streetcar Named Murder, by T.G. Herren (Crooked Lane); and Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking, by Raquel V. Reyes (Crooked Lane)

Best Short Story:
“Beauty and the Beyotch,” by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, February 2022)

Also nominated: “Still Crazy After All These Years,” by E.A Aymar (from Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, edited by Josh Pachter; Down & Out); “The Impediment,” by Bruce Robert Coffin (from Deadly Nightshade: Best New England Crime Stories 2022, edited by Christine Bagley, Susan Oleksiw, and Leslie Wheeler; Crime Spell); “The Estate Sale,” by Curtis Ippolito (Vautrin Magazine, Summer 2022); and “C.O.D.,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Low Down Dirty Vote, Volume 3: The Color of My Vote, edited by Mysti Berry; Berry Contest)

Best Anthology:
Crime Hits Home: A Collection of Short Stories from Crime Fiction’s Top Authors, edited by S.J. Rozan (Hanover Square Press)

Also nominated: Low Down Dirty Vote, Volume 3: The Color of My Vote, edited by Mysti Berry (Berry Contest); Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon, edited by Libby Cudmore and Art Taylor (Down & Out); Land of 1,000 Thrills: Bouchercon Anthology 2022, edited by Greg Herren (Down & Out); and Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, edited by Josh Pachter (Down & Out)

Best Critical/Non-fiction:
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators, by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)

Also nominated: The Alaska Blonde: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story That Shocked America, by James T. Bartlett (Terrirory); American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper, by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur); Promophobia: Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Crime Fiction, edited by Diane Vallere (Sisters in Crime); Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free, by Sarah Weinman (Ecco); and Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Crime)

Best Children’s/Young Adult:
Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade, by Nancy Springer (Wednesday)

Also nominated: In Myrtle Peril, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers); Daybreak on Raven Island, by Fleur Bradley (Viking Books for Young Readers); #Shedeservedit, by Greg Herren (Bold Strokes Press); The New Girl, by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Sourcebooks Fire); and Vanish Me, by Lee Matthew Goldberg (Wise Wolf)

The Anthonys were handed out amid much applause on Saturday, September 2, following a special awards banquet.

* * *

This year’s Shamus Awards, sponsored by the Private Eye Writers of America, and recognizing “outstanding achievement in private eye fiction,” were presented on Friday evening, September 1. The ceremony took place at a restaurant away from the convention hotel.

Best P.I. Hardcover:
The Wheel of Doll, by Jonathan Ames (Mulholland)

Also nominated: The Big Bundle, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime); The Goodbye Coast, by Joe Ide (Mulholland); Holmes Coming, by Kenneth Johnson (Blackstone); and The Blackmail, by M. Ravenel (Chikara Press)

Best P.I. Paperback:
Dead-Bang Fall, by J.R. Sanders (Level Best)

Also nominated: Quarry’s Blood, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime); DoubleBlind, by Libby Fischer Hellmann (Red Herrings Press); Canary in a Coal Mine, by Charles Salzberg (Down & Out); and Hush Hush, by Gabriel Valjan (Historia/Level Best)

Best First P.I. Novel:
The Goldenacre, by Philip Miller (Soho Crime)

Also nominated: Big Fat F@!k-up, by Lawrence Allan (M.S. Wooten Press); Pay Dirt Road, by Samantha Jayne Allen (Minotaur); Foote, by Tom Bredehoft (West Virginia University Press); and What Meets the Eye, by Alex Kenna (Crooked Lane)

Best P.I. Short Story: “Charlie’s Medicine,” by Libby Cudmore (from Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon, edited by Libby Cudmore and Art Taylor; Down & Out)

Also nominated: “No Place for a Dame,” by Lori Armstrong (from Edgar & Shamus Go Golden: Twelve Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Master Detection from the Golden Age of Mystery and Beyond, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer; Down & Out); “A Jelly of Intrigue,” by O’Neil De Noux (from Edgar & Shamus Go Golden); “The Pearl of Antilles,” by Caroline Garcia-Aguilera (from Edgar & Shamus Go Golden); and “Bad Actor,” by Elliot Sweeney (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November/December 2022)

A list of previous Shamus recipients can be found here.

* * *

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine bestowed its 2023 Barry Awards upon three novels during Bouchercon’s opening ceremonies, on Thursday, August 31. As Mystery News once explained, the Barry Awards are named in honor of Barry W. Gardner, a longtime “friend of mystery fiction,” who died “while reading in his easy chair at his Dallas home on July 19, 1996.” There were three categories of winners

Best Mystery or Crime Novel:
Desert Star, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)

Also nominated: The Accomplice, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion); The Dark Flood, by Deon Meyer (Atlantic Monthly Press); Shifty’s Boys, by Chris Offutt (Grove Press); Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron); and City on Fire, by Don Winslow (Morrow)

Best Debut Mystery or Crime Novel:
The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)

Also nominated: Before You Knew My Name, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Atria/EmilyBestler); Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime); Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime); Blood Sugar, by Sascha Rothchild (Putnam); and Dirt Creek, by Hayley Scrivenor (Flatiron)

Best Thriller:
Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

Also nominated: 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); and Goering’s Gold, by Richard O’Rawe (Melville House)

Don Sandstrom Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom: Mike Bursaw, the owner of Mystery Mike’s in Indianapolis, Indiana

Deadly Pleasures editor George Easter had previously announced there would be no Best Paperback Original prize given out in 2023 (“[It’s] more and more difficult to come up with a good list that the nominating committee members have read, so at least this year,” he said, “we included the good ones in the longlists for the other categories.”). He added, however, that if a paperback original had been honored last week, his preferred beneficiary would’ve been Pesticide, by Kim Hays (Seventh Street).

* * *

Finally, three additional commendations were conferred during the Thursday-night opening ceremonies.

Star Award: Marvin Lachman, author of The Heirs of Anthony Boucher: A History of Mystery Fandom (who could not attend).

Dotty Award: Dotty Morefield, for her longtime volunteer activities at various mystery-fiction conventions.

David Thompson Special Service Award: Sara Paretsky, the creator of private eye V.I. Warshawski, for her “extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the mystery and crime fiction field.”

And Another Thing …

• The recipients of this year’s Silver Falchion Awards, given out during the recent Killer Nashville convention in Tennessee, have been announced. There were more than two dozen categories of contestants, but below are five winners that may be of particular interest to Rap Sheet readers.

— Best Cozy: Murder in Third Position, by Lori Robbins (Level Best)
— Best Historical: Murder at the Galliano Club, by Carmen Amato (Laurel & Croton)
— Best Investigator: Dead Drop, by James L'Etoile (Level Best)
— Best Mystery: The Bone Records, by Rich Zahradnik (1000 Words A Day Press)
— Best Thriller: One of Us Is Dead, by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone)

A full list of the 2023 Silver Falchion winners is here.

• Scottish writer Claire Wilson’s first novel, Five by Five, has won the inaugural Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers Prize. As In Reference to Murder explains, “The prize, launched in 2022, aims to discover new writers from underrepresented backgrounds in publishing and focuses on a different genre each year, with the first year dedicated to crime fiction. Wilson, who works as an intelligence analyst in a Scottish prison, impressed the judges with her thriller which follows a protagonist on the trail of a corrupt prison officer who might be her lover. Wilson will receive a publishing contract with Penguin Michael Joseph, worth at least £10,000, and representation by the DHH Literary Agency. All shortlisted writers will also receive one-to-one editorial feedback and guidance from an editor or agent.”

• Six years after its original publication, Karen Dionne’s best-selling novel, The Marsh King’s Daughter, has been adapted to the silver screen and is set to debut in U.S. theaters on October 6. It stars Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn. Here’s a plot synopsis from distributors Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions:

In the tense thriller The Marsh King’s Daughter, a woman with a secret past will venture into the wilderness she left behind to confront the most dangerous man she's ever met: her father. In the film, Helena’s seemingly ordinary life hides a dark and dangerous truth: her estranged father is the infamous Marsh King, the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. When her father escapes from prison, Helena will need to confront her past. Knowing that he will hunt for her and her family, Helena must find the strength to face her demons and outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the wild.

• Occasional Rap Sheet contributor Randal S. Brandt writes in CrimeReads about the “fascinating and complicated life” of Lange Lewis (aka Jane de Lange Lewis), whose fourth novel about Los Angeles police lieutenant Richard Tuck, The Birthday Murder (1945), has been reissued as part of the American Mystery Classics line.

• Finally, Sweet Freedom’s Todd Mason brings the welcome news that Into the Night, author Cornell Woolrich’s final novel—unfinished at the time of his demise in 1968, but completed by Lawrence Block for publication in 1987—has been purchased by Hard Case Crime and is slated for re-release in May 2024, with beautiful cover art by Gregory Manchess. “Is it the best [Woolrich] ever wrote? No,” says HCC editor Charles Ardai. “But I do feel it deserves to be in print, and at its best I feel it’s a potent distillation of his themes and obsessions.”

Bullet Points: Broadcast Beat Edition

• Season 3 of Van der Valk, the British-made crime drama starring Marc Warren as Nicolas Freeling’s fictional Amsterdam cop, Piet Van der Valk, is set to premiere as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece series on Sunday, September 3. As The Killing Times explains, three new 90-minute episodes will find Commissaris Van der Valk facing “a new set of murders to solve, and as with seasons one and two all sorts of unusual angles and strange characters come into play. In the first episode, a European freerunning champion is gunned down by a sniper as he’s about to head to Paris for a competition. The maverick detective and his team uncover a link between the freerunners in the Netherlands and drug trafficking but there’s something more involved … The second case is pertinent if you’ve been following news stories about the British Museum and crimes taking place therein. An employee in an Amsterdam museum is murdered, which links to a case about the return of artefacts to their countries of origin that Van der Valk worked on early in his career. Finally, episode three of season three involves the death of someone taking part in a ritual to … um … summon a demon. Yes. You read that right.” Also starring in Van der Valk are Maimie McCoy as Inspecteur Lucienne Hassell and Darrell D'Silva as police forensic pathologist Hendrik Davie.

• While we’re on the subject of small-screen mysteries, let me tell you that Season 2 of Professor T, the UK adaptation of a popular Belgian program of the same name, will also debut as part of Masterpiece on September 3 (one hour earlier than Van der Valk, at 8 p.m. ET/PT). Ben Miller, formerly of Death in Paradise, stars as Professor Jasper Tempest, “a genius University of Cambridge criminologist with obsessive–compulsive personality disorder,” to quote from Wikipedia. Mystery Fanfare’s Janet Rudolph gives us the scoop on what to expect from this season: “Across six episodes, the Professor and the team untangle a series of knotty crimes ranging from an unexplained fire in a student block to the mystery of an entire family found dead in their home. From the blossoming affair between the two young detectives, Lisa and Dan, to the start of an exciting new liaison for Police chief DCI Christina Brand, nothing is quite what it seems. Meanwhile, Professor T is dominated and perplexed by the women in his life. As he attempts to improve his relationships with everyone from his mother to the love of his life Christina, he takes the monumental step of seeing a therapist. His sessions with Dr. Helena are painful for the Professor and his mother as they delve deep into his past and chip away at the secrets of his childhood.”

• And I’ve never listened to the BBC Radio 4 comedy-mystery series Mrs. Sidhu Investigates, but I may just have to tune in for the Acorn-TV adaptation of that series, which presents the first of four episodes on Monday, September 18. According to a press release, this show features English comedian Meera Syal (The Kumars at No. 42, The Split, The Devil’s Hour), who also voiced Mrs. Sidhu on the radio airwaves, as “a high-end caterer with a taste for crime. Recently widowed, she juggles her new catering business with encouraging her wayward son Tez (Gurjeet Singh, Ackley Bridge) to find his passion, all while serving up justice to those who believe they are above the law. Her forays into sleuthing see her form unofficial partnership with long-suffering divorcee DCI Burton [Craig Parkinson, familiar from Line of Duty and Grace] who reluctantly accepts that together they’re an unbeatable crime-fighting duo, much to the bemusement of his partner, DS Mint (Naana Agyei-Ampadu, Industry).”

• Another interesting note, this one from a recent post of B.V. Lawson’s In Reference to Murder:

Paramount+ released the first teaser trailer for Taylor Sheridan’s Lawmen: Bass Reeves, which stars David Oyelowo as the titular character. Reeves (Oyelowo), a former slave, was known as the greatest frontier hero in American history, working in the post-Reconstruction era as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory and capturing over 3,000 of the most dangerous criminals without ever being wounded. Future iterations will follow other iconic lawmen and outlaws who have had an impact on history.

Wikipedia offers more of Reeves’s story here.

• Please excuse the tardiness of my mentioning this news, but the recent brutal summer heat here in Seattle seemed to steal away all of my energy. Anyway, I want to note that author Sara Paretsky has been chosen to receive the 2023 David Thompson Special Service Award, a commendation recognizing “extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field.” She will be given that prize during the coming Bouchercon in San Diego (August 30-September 3). Thompson was a “beloved” Houston, Texas, bookseller who passed away in 2010. Previous winners of the award include Les and Leslie Blatt, Janet Rudolph, and The Rap Sheet’s own Ali Karim.

• Paretsky talks about that new award, as well as her overdue return to Bouchercon, in this 11.5-minute YouTube video.