Taylor, Barnstrom Secure Wolfe Approval

In Reference to Murder reports that Vermont author Sarah Stewart Taylor has won the Nero Award for her 2024 novel, Agony Hill (Minotaur), which introduced series detective Franklin Warren. The Nero is given out annually by the Wolfe Pack, a New York-based literary society, to “the best American mystery written in the tradition of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories.”

Additionally, news comes that “The Troubling Mr. Truelove,” by Pete Barnstrom (to be published in the July 2026 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine), has picked up this year’s Black Orchid Novella Award, sponsored by the Wolfe Pack and AHMM “to celebrate the novella format popularized by Stout.” Several other short works were given Black Orchid honorable mentions:  Paul A. Barra’s “Beauty and Buford,” Craig H. Bowlsby’s “Last Train to Medicine Hat,” Libby Cudmore’s “Piano Man,” Tom Larsen’s “The Sheriff of Alabama Street,” Josh Pachter’s “Melancholia,” and Daniel Peyton’s “A Noir Satyr: Follow That MacGuffin.” Congratulations to them all!

Cast Your Irish “Ayes” Here

Organizers of the annual An Post Irish Book Awards have announced their shortlisted nominees for this year’s prizes. There are 18 categories of nominees in total, but here are the eight contenders for Crime Fiction Book of the Year:

• Two Kinds of Stranger, by Steve Cavanagh (Headline)
• Burn After Reading, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Bantam)
• The Secret Room, by Jane Casey (Hemlock Press)
• It Should Have Been You, by Andrea Mara (Bantam)
• The Killing Sense, by Sam Blake (Corvus)
• The Stranger Inside, by Amanda Cassidy (Canelo Crime)
• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Picador)
• The Stolen Child, by Carmel Harrington (Headline Review)

The reading public is invited to vote here for their favorite among these works. Winners will be announced on November 27.

(Hat tip to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.)

Prized Talents

We have two new bits of crime-fiction awards news.

First off, Scottish author Peter May has won France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policiere 2025 for his novel The Black Loch (Loch Noir), the unexpected fourth installment in his much-acclaimed Lewis Trilogy, set on an island off the northern coast of Scotland. He is one of two recipients of this prize, which is given out annually to both a French author and a foreign author. The second winner is Mathilde Beaussault, being honored for her debut novel, The Willows (Les Saules).

Second, In Reference to Murder brings word that this year’s PRIDE Award for emerging LGBTQIA+ writers, presented by Sisters in Crime, has gone to Lizabeth Engelmeier of Southern Illinois for her novel-in-progress, Soft Little Monsters. It further explains that “Engelmeier will receive a $2,000 grant to support activities related to career development, including workshops, seminars, conferences, retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of her work.” Runners-up for the prize were Shelley Kinsman of Toronto, Ontario; Derek Puddester of Vancouver, British Columbia; Bryn and Rebecca Michelson-Ziegler of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; A. Mitchell of Detroit, Michigan; and Taryn Stickrath-Hutt of Chicago, Illinois.

Passing the Word Around

• Yesterday brought news that The Clues in the Fjord, by Finnish author Satu Rämö, has won the 2025 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. That book, which judges described as “a sophisticated and atmospheric police procedural with a pleasingly unpredictable dark and twisty plot,” was translated by Kristian London and published in Britain by Zaffre. Also nominated for the Petrona were Dead Island, by Samuel Bjørk, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Norway, Bantam); The Widows, by Pascal Engman, translated by Neil Smith (Sweden, Legend Press); Deliver Me, by Malin Persson Giolito, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Sweden, Simon & Schuster UK); The Dancer, by Óskar Guðmundsson, translated by Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus); The Sea Cemetery, by Aslak Nore, translated by Deborah Dawkin (Norway, MacLehose Press); and Pursued by Death, by Gunnar Staalesen, translated by Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda). Incidentally, the annual Petrona Award memorializes Maxine Clarke, the British editor, crime-fiction blogger, and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction” who passed away in December 2012 (Petrona was the name of her long-running blog).

• And so it begins—the annual roll out of “best books of the year” lists. First up comes Publishers Weekly, which today revealed its dozen favorite mystery and thriller novels of 2025:

— Cape Fever, by Nadia Davids (Simon & Schuster)
— Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
— The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
— Fever Beach, by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
— The Human Scale, by Lawrence Wright (Knopf)
— Listen, by Sacha Bronwasser (Viking)
— A Murder in Paris, by Matthew Blake (Harper)
— Saint of the Narrows Street, by William Boyle (Soho Crime)
— Salt Bones, by Jennifer Givhan (Little, Brown)
— The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Ron Currie (Putnam)
— We Don’t Talk About Carol, by Kristen L. Berry (Bantam)
— Your Steps on the Stairs, by Antonio Muñoz Molina (Other Press)

I have read only a few of those, but own a couple more that I should probably now move up in my TBR stack.

• Variety reports that BAFTA nominee John Hannah (The Last of Us, Rebus, Four Weddings and a Funeral) will lead a new, Death in Paradise-like detective drama titled Death in Benidorm, expected to debut next year on the Paramount Skydance-owned UK network Channel 5. This six-part series finds Hannah playing Dennis Crown, “a former detective trying to escape his past who swaps the chaos of the UK for a quieter life running a bar in Benidorm [on Spain’s Mediterranean coast]. But when tourists start turning up dead, he’s reluctantly drawn back into detective work — egged on by his barmaid Rosa, a crime drama superfan. … [W]ith Dennis’ real-world experience and Rosa’s encyclopaedic TV knowledge, ‘each episode sees the duo tackling a new murder in paradise, whilst trying to remain on the right side of the local Spanish cops.’” Spanish actress Carolina Bécquer (8 años, On/Off) has the role of Rose, with Ariadna Cabrol Damian Schedler Cruz also helping to fill out the cast.

• Speaking of television, I’m currently watching Season 2 of Keri Russell’s political thriller The Diplomat on Netflix, and will soon sign up for BritBox in order to see the six-episode third season of Kris Marshall’s Beyond Paradise. But I’m looking forward as well to the Season 2 premiere—on Thursday, November 20—of A Man on the Inside. You’ll recall that it stars Cheers alumnus Ted Danson as Charles Nieuwendyk, a retired and widowed college engineering professor who works undercover for a San Francisco private investigator. The opening season of this half-hour Netflix comedy-drama found Nieuwendyk trying to solve mysteries at an assisted-living facility on Nob Hill. The latest batch of eight episodes will send him to probe dubious doings on a college campus. Danson’s real-life wife of three decades, Mary Steenburgen, is among the guest stars we will see this time around.

• I’d never heard of M.M. Bodkin’s Victorian “lady detective,” Dora Myrl, until Olivia Rutigliano wrote about her in CrimeReads.

• The location for Left Coast Crime 2027 has been chosen, and it’s … Santa Fe, New Mexico, which last hosted that convention in 2011.

• With Halloween coming right up, on Friday, October 31, I’ve noticed some new attention being paid to American artist Edward Gorey, famous for his oft-macabre pen-and-ink illustrations. Clues magazine editor Elizabeth Foxwell recently posted in her blog about visiting the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, which she says a docent quipped was “the house that Dracula built.” Meanwhile, Ohio’s Ironton Gazette notes that Gorey, who died back in 2000 at age 75, had his ashes interred in that southern Ohio town’s Woodland Cemetery (near his maternal ancestors), but only recently has the gravesite been given “its first proper marker.” The white, two-part headstone features an appropriate quote, taken from Gorey’s 1969 surrealist country-house mystery, The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley: “The monuments above the dead / Are too eroded to be read.”

Bullet Points: No Shutdown Here Edition

• I mentioned last spring on this page that Raymond Benson, the author of several James Bond continuation novels published between 1997 and 2003, had penned a thrilling adventure for Ian Fleming Publications (IFP) titled The Hook and the Eye, set back in 1952 and centered on ex-CIA op Felix Leiter. A Bond cohort familiar from several of Fleming’s novels, Leiter has become, in Benson’s yarn, a Pinkerton detective tangling with spies in Manhattan and tasked with safely transporting an “impossibly beautiful and impossibly secretive” woman to Texas. Hook was originally intended for release in 10 digital installments, beginning in May, and was then supposed to debut in print in October—this month. So far, however, it seems to be available in book form only for direct purchase from IFP. I don’t see the same edition listed on Amazon in either the United States or the UK, though that online retailer is still satisfying orders for the Kindle version. I asked Benson for an update on this situation. Here’s his reply:

IFP became their own publisher recently and they wanted Hook to be exclusive from them (for the time being). So, yes, right now, while the e-book is on Amazon and other retailer outlets, the print book can only be ordered from IFP. They will likely expand this rollout in the future like the old roadshow movie attractions, slowly offering it on Amazon and such, an audiobook, maybe a U.S. publication, maybe a limited-edition hardcover. It’s all new to them and they’re trying things out, like the e-book serialization that ultimately didn’t work technically (so they released the full e-book at once).

As to the possibility of The Hook and the Eye becoming the initial entry in a whole new Leiter series, Benson answers only, “Not known yet.” That isn’t a “no,” so keep your fingers crossed.

(Above) The full paperback cover of Raymond Benson’s The Hook and the Eye, designed by Thomas Gilbert.

• By the way, Terrance Layhew recently spoke with Benson about The Hook and the Eye for his podcast, Suit Up!

• I missed this news, so thanks to In Reference to Murder for bringing it to my attention. Writes B.V. Lawson: “The winners of the 2025 Lambda Literary Awards (fondly known as the Lammys), established in 1989 to garner national visibility for LGBTQ books, were announced this past weekend. The winner of the Best LBGTQ+ Mystery was Rough Trade by Katrina Carrasco (MCD). The other finalists include: Charlotte Illes is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel (Kensington); One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole (William Morrow); Rough Pages by Lev AC Rosen (Tor Publishing Group); and The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani, translated by Sam Bett (Soho Crime).”

• Chicago Review of Books last week announced its shortlist of contenders for the 2025 Chicago Review of Books Awards (what other name did you think they would have?), and among the five fiction rivals is one that might be especially interesting to this blog’s readers: Vanishing Daughters (Thomas & Mercer), by Cynthia Pelayo, a novel of psychological suspense focusing on a Chicago journalist haunted—in more ways than one—by mysteries surrounding her mother’s death and her own hunt for a fiendishly successful serial killer.

• On October 1, Crime Writers of Canada opened the submissions process for its 2026 CWC Awards of Excellence, “celebrating the best in Canadian crime, mystery, and suspense writing.” Eligible for consideration are works published in 2025 by Canadian citizens and permanent residents. There are 10 award categories:

— The Peter Robinson Award for Best Crime Novel ($1,000 prize)
— Best Crime First Novel ($1,000)
— Best Crime Novel Set in Canada ($500)
— The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery ($500)
— Best Crime Short Story ($200)
— The Best French Language Crime Book ($500)
— Best Juvenile/YA Crime Book ($250)
— The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Non-fiction Crime Book ($300)
— Best Unpublished Crime Novel Manuscript written by an
unpublished author ($500)

Submission deadlines are here. Shortlisted nominees will be publicized next April 24, with the winners to be announced on May 29.

• Meanwhile, writers hoping to contribute articles or reviews to the Winter 2025 edition of Mystery Readers Journal will want to get cracking: the deadline is November 1. This will be the second issue in a row devoted to Northern California mysteries, tying them both in nicely to next year’s Left Coast Crime convention, which is set to take place in San Francisco from February 26 to March 1, 2026.

• Max Allan Collins has been noodling for years with a novel that would embroil his famous series private eye, Nathan Heller, in a 1960s-era investigation involving both labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He’s even suggested that such a book might be the last one he writes about Heller. Now, though, Collins says he “might not write it at all,” or might instead pen two more Hellers. He explains the situation in his blog:

I was watching TV and saw Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and
wondered if he had, if not damaged, the Kennedy name, brought it into a kind of doubt. He strikes me as a crank, and a dangerous one; some smart people disagree, but enough people share that view—that as Secretary of Health and Human Services he is a threat to health and human services—that the Robert F. Kennedy name is not something I dare, at the moment, hang a Heller on. It may already have hurt Too Many Bullets [2023], my Heller RFK assassination novel.

I don’t do this lightly. I first asked [my wife] Barb if she agreed that this was a bad time to embark on an RFK novel (the theme was to be RFK/Hoffa, as my previous Kennedy-oriented novels have more than hinted at). She immediately agreed and said, “Write something else.” I called my editor, Charles Ardai, at Hard Case Crime and asked if he thought I should do a different, non-Kennedy novel instead of the one we’d been planning (and that I was contracted to deliver). He was thrilled I was setting that subject aside (for now anyway). I asked my longtime researcher, George Hagenaur, what he thought. He, too, said it was a bad time to do a Kennedy book.

So. I am instead going to write [an early 1970s] Watergate novel, which was already one of two Heller novels I was considering doing, for quite a while now. It seems like a good time to deal with a cover-up.

Indeed, revisiting the paranoia and drive for power that led to the 1972 burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate complex and Republican President Richard M. Nixon’s subsequent concealment of that crime, would draw obvious parallels to Donald Trump’s paranoia, corruption, and autocratic scheming. Personally, I prefer to see Collins’ Heller tackling older cases (the 1934 murder of bank robber John Dillinger, the 1937 disappearance of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, Los Angeles’ 1947 Black Dahlia murder, etc.), and Too Many Bullets did imply that an RFK/Hoffa story was next. Yet any new Heller novel is better than none.

• With The Last Death of the Year, her sixth Hercule Poirot novel, coming out on both sides of the Atlantic later this month, British author-poet Sophie Hannah talks to CrimeReads “about how she writes the Poirot novels, the taunting challenge at the beginning of this new novel, and what crime fiction and poetry have in common.”

• And the Web site Spybrary mentions that John le Carré’s fourth son, who pens fiction as “Nick Harkaway,” is encouraging other writers to “continue the adventures of his father’s famed spymaster George Smiley, opening the way for a potential new wave of espionage novels. Harkaway, who has already published one continuation novel, Karla’s Choice, and has another due next year, said the morally ambiguous world created by le Carré was ‘richer and wider than the original books ever had a chance to show.’ He urged writers to enter the Smiley universe ‘with due deference and due fearlessness.’”

• We’ve known for some while that a spin-off from Reacher, the Amazon Prime TV series based on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, was in the works and that its protagonist would be Frances Neagley (played by Maria Sten), once a member of Reacher’s army special-investigations unit and now a partner with a Chicago private security firm. But not until the author was interviewed by Shots had we heard a recent update on that program’s development. Child revealed that Season 4 of Reacher, based on his 2009 novel, Gone Tomorrow, “is almost done … and the Neagley spin-off is almost through post-production.” As to Neagley’s Season 1 plot, Wikipedia says it will find the character “seek[ing] the truth after an old friend dies in a suspicious accident.”

• Since we’re talking TV, note that Season 2 of Karen Pirie, the ITV show based on Val McDermid’s now eight books about a young Scottish police investigator, will have its U.S. premiere on BritBox come Thursday, October 2. This new season will comprise three 90-minute episodes and is adapted from the second of McDermid’s Pirie tales, A Darker Domain. Mystery Fanfare provides a trailer.

• Lauren Lyle, who plays Karen Pirie, also headlines The Ridge, a six-part drama coming to BBC Scotland and Sky Open on Tuesday, October 21. The Killing Times explains that The Ridge “sees Lyle in the lead role of Mia, who is fleeing addiction and leaving behind a professional life in tatters in Scotland. She accepts a wedding invitation from her estranged sister in New Zealand—only to find the would-be-bride dead upon arrival. Caught up in grief and pulled by a dark attraction to her late-sister’s fiancé Ewan, played by New Zealand star Jay Ryan, Mia soon finds that familiarity among a small community breeds secrets and tensions, endangering the brittle fabric of the town itself.”

• Man From U.N.C.L.E. fans, pay attention! Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has scheduled eight telefilms, all edited from that 1964-1968 TV series but frequently boasting extra footage, to show back to back on Monday, October 13. Click here to learn more.

• One hundred fifty years after Edgar Allan Poe was reburied in Baltimore, Ed Simon considers his legacy, his interest in premature burials, and his Americanism in this splendid essay for Literary Hub.

• Included among Columbia University linguist John McWhorter’s choices of “10 Old Television Series Every Kid Needs to Watch”—prepared partly with his “tween daughters” in mind—is CBS’s Mannix (1967-1975). “Weird choice, I know,” he remarks in The New York Times. “But my girls should know the conventions of the once ubiquitous hourlong private-eye genre, including the way it reduced female characters to just dolls. I found that weird even when I was a kid, and I want my girls to see what we have gotten at least partly beyond. Plus, the look and sound of Mannix were a delight. The fashions, sets and even jazzy three-quarter waltz time theme song are groovy. Especially after the first season, when [Joe] Mannix has left a detective agency and goes it alone, the episodes are pleasingly interchangeable; choose the one with your favorite guest star.”

• “Why Do Priests and Vicars Make Perfect Detectives?” asks a headline in the TV-oriented blog The Killing Times. Editor Paul Hirons submits that it’s because mystery-solving clergy—whether G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, Sidney Chambers in Grantchester, or Daniel Clement in Murder Before Evensong—“offer not just the satisfaction of seeing a puzzle solved, but a meditation on what it means to be good, or to fall short. The crimes may change, but the questions of conscience, guilt and grace remain timeless.”

• We have a cover already for Hurricane Room, Kim Sherwood’s third and final Double O novel. Its tagline is certainly suggestive: “James Bond Is Alive.” Hurricane Room is being readied for release in the States and UK next May.

• Whenever I order something online from Blackwell’s Books in England (as I do rather frequently), I am impressed by an incidental legal notation at the bottom of its Web pages that reads, “©1879-2025 Blackwell’s.” In an era when bookshops struggle to stay afloat, you have to love an operation that’s been around for 146 years!

• Finally, let us wish a tardy but justly appreciative farewell to Ann Granger, the Portsmouth, England-born author of more than three dozen books in four different mystery series (her first being 1991’s Say It With Poison). She was 86 years old at the time of her death on September 7. An obituary in The Daily Telegraph observes that “Ann Granger’s mysteries were popular with British readers, but she secured her largest readership abroad, feeding the voracious global appetite for the gentle English style of violent crime. Translated into 10 languages, her novels were especially popular in Germany—where she sold millions of copies, with some 30 of her books entering the top-five bestseller list—and the United States. “The village mystery plot should be ingenious, the style witty, the setting picturesque and the characters amusingly idiosyncratic,” the New York Times Book Review declared in 1995. “Ann Granger knows the drill so well she could write a manual.” According to the Web site Fantastic Fiction, she has one further entry—currently untitled—in her series starring Victorian police inspector Ben Ross that’s still in the publishing pipeline.

The Macavitys Are Here!

Janet Rudolph, the editor of Mystery Readers Journal and the blog Mystery Fanfare, brought the announcement this morning of this year’s Macavity Award winners, in five categories.

Best Mystery Novel:
California Bear, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

Also nominated: Hall of Mirrors, by John Copenhaver (Pegasus Crime); Served Cold, by James L’Etoile (Level Best); The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead); The In Crowd, by Charlotte Vassell (Doubleday); and All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Crown)

Best First Mystery:
Ghosts of Waikiki, by Jennifer K. Morita (Crooked Lane)

Also nominated: Outraged, by Brian Copeland (Dutton); A Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman (Headline); You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton); The Expat, by Hansen Shi (Pegasus Crime); and Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best Mystery Short Story: “Home Game,” by Craig Faustus Buck (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024)

Also nominated: “The Postman Always Flirts Twice,” by Barb Goffman (from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer; Down & Out); “Curse of the Super Taster” by Leslie Karst (Black Cat Weekly, February 23, 2024); “Two for One,” by Art Taylor (from Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman; Level Short); “Satan’s Spit,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham; Down & Out);
and “Reynisfjara,” by Kristopher Zgorski (from Mystery Most International, edited by Rita Owen, Verena Rose, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Short)

Best Historical Mystery: Fog City, by Claire Johnson (Level Best)

Also nominated: The Wharton Plot, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur); An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington); The Murder of Mr. Ma, by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan (Soho Crime); The Bootlegger’s Daughter, by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union); and A Grave Robbery, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

Best Non-fiction/Critical:
Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, by Greg Lilly (History Press)

Also nominated: Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft, edited by Phyllis M. Betz (McFarland); Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers, by Chris Chan (Level Best); Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice, by Alex Hortis (Pegasus Crime); The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective, by Steven Johnson (Crown); and On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett, by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State University Press)

Nominees and winners of the annual Macavity Awards are chosen by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and “friends of MRI.” The prizes take their name from Macavity the Mystery Cat, the main protagonist in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939).

One More for Moore

The International Association of Crime Writers (IACW), North American Branch has given its 2024 Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing to author Liz Moore for The God of the Woods (Riverhead). This is just the latest win in that novel’s streak; it previously picked up the Anthony Award for Best Hardcover Novel and the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Mystery & Thriller.

Also vying for the Hammett were Broiler, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime); Rough Trade, by Katrina Carrasco (MCD); Crooked, by Dietrich Kalteis (ECW Press); and The Long-Shot Trial, by William Deverell (ECW Press).

As Wikipedia explains, the Hammett Award—established in 1991—is given out annually “to a Canadian or U.S. citizen or permanent resident for a book in English in the field of crime writing.” Congratulations to all of this year’s nominees!

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Stars of the Southern Hemisphere

During a special event held last evening in Christchurch, New Zealand, the winners of the 16th Ngaio Marsh Awards were announced.

Best Novel:
Return to Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated: A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan); Woman, Missing, by Sherryl Clark (HarperCollins); Home Truths, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin); 17 Years Later, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette); The Call, by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin); and Prey, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

Best First Novel:
The Defiance of Frances Dickinson, by Wendy Parkins (Affirm Press)

Also nominated: Dark Sky, by Marie Connolly (Quentin Wilson); Lie Down With Dogs, by Syd Knight (Rusty Hills); A Fly Under the Radar, by William McCartney (Independently published); The Call, by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin); and Kiss of Death, by Stephen Tester (Heritage Press)

Best Non-fiction:
The Crewe Murders: Inside New Zealand’s Most Infamous Cold Case, by Kirsty Johnstone and James Hollings (Massey University Press)

Also nominated: The Trials of Nurse Kerr: The Anatomy of a Secret Poisoner, by Scott Bainbridge (Bateman); The Survivors, by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins); The Last Secret Agent: The Extraordinary Story of a WW2 Spy in Her Own Words, by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin); Gangster’s Paradise, by Jared Savage (HarperCollins); and Far North, by David White and Angus Gillies (Upstart Press)

In a wrap-up post on Facebook, Craig Sisterson, the founder of this annual prize contest, called the 2025 Marsh Awards season “by far our longest and most full-on ever, including 30+ events around Aotearoa showcasing a huge range of #yeahnoir storytellers and supporting local libraries, and a very tough judging year too.”

This group of awards takes its name, of course, from Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh, a prominent crime writer during the 1920s and ’30s, the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction. She’s recognized principally for her more than 30 novels starring Inspector Roderick Alleyn, a “gentleman detective” with London’s Metropolitan Police.

* * *

While we’re focused on the world’s Antipodean extremes, note as well that the Australian Crime Writers Association today revealed the recipients of its 2025 Ned Kelly Awards, in four categories.

Best Crime Fiction:
The Creeper, by Margaret Hickey (Random House Australia)

Also nominated: Shadow City, by Natalie Conyer (Bonnier Echo); Sanctuary, by Garry Disher (Text); Unbury the Dead, by Fiona Hardy (Affirm Press); Cold Truth, by Ashley Kalagian Blunt (Ultimo Press); Highway 13, by Fiona McFarlane (Allen & Unwin); 17 Years Later, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette Australia); and Storm Child, by Michael Robotham (Hachette Australia)

Best Debut Crime Fiction:
All You Took From Me, by Lisa Kenway (Transit Lounge)

Also nominated: Down the Rabbit Hole, by Shaeden Berry (Bonnier Echo); A Town Called Treachery, by Mitch Jennings (HarperCollins); The Chilling, by Riley James (Allen & Unwin); Everywhere We Look, by Martine Kropkowski (Ultimo Press); and Those Opulent Days, by Jacquie Pham (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best True Crime:
A Thousand Miles from Care, by Steve Johnson (William Collins)

Also nominated: They’ll Never Hold Me, by Michael Adams (Affirm Press); The Kingpin and the Crooked Cop, by Neil Mercer (Allen & Unwin); Meadow’s Law, by Quentin McDermott (HarperCollins); and The Lasting Harm, by Lucia Osborne-Crowley (HarperCollins)

Best International Crime Fiction:
A Case of Matricide, by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Text)

Also nominated: Return to Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster UK); Leave the Girls Behind, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Allen & Unwin); The Waiting, by Michael Connelly (Allen & Unwin); Moscow X, by David McCloskey (Swift Press); and Home Truths, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)

A video of that announcement can be enjoyed here.

Since we explained the source of the Ngaio Marsh Awards moniker, let us do the same with the annual “Neddies.” They are named after Edward “Ned” Kelly, one of Australia’s last 19th-century “bushrangers” (robbers and outlaws operating in that country’s extensive bush lands), “known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout with the police,” as Wikipedia explains.

Congratulations to the nominees for all of these commendations!

Treats in Translation

I was out of town when this news broke on Thursday, so only now am I catching up with it. Anyway, seven books from Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden have been shortlisted for the 2025 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year:

• Dead Island, by Samuel Bjørk,
translated by Charlotte Barslund (Norway, Bantam)
• The Widows, by Pascal Engman,
translated by Neil Smith (Sweden, Legend Press)
• Deliver Me, by Malin Persson Giolito,
translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Sweden, Simon & Schuster)
• The Dancer, by Óskar Guðmundsson,
translated by Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus)
• The Sea Cemetery, by Aslak Nore,
translated by Deborah Dawkin (Norway, MacLehose Press)
• The Clues in the Fjord, by Satu Rämö,
translated by Kristian London (Finland, Zaffre)
• Pursued by Death, by Gunnar Staalesen,
translated by Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda)

Word of the winner is expected on Thursday, October 16. You can read the judges’ comments about each finalist by clicking here.

Hurrah for Scottish Crime!

The 2025 Bloody Scotland international crime-writing festival began yesterday in Stirling, Scotland, and will continue into Sunday afternoon. Last evening brought the announcements of which books and authors have won that convention’s two annual awards.

First off, Tariq Ashkanani’s The Midnight King (Viper) has been given this year’s McIlvanney Prize, named in honor of the late novelist William McIlvanney. The four other 2024 novels in contention were The Good Father, by Liam McIlvanney (Bonnier); Paperboy, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Press); The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Vintage); and Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin (Orion).

In addition, David Goodman has been proclaimed the winner of the 2025 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize for his novel, A Reluctant Spy (Headline). Also vying for that accolade were The Malt Whisky Murders, by Natalie Jayne Clark (Polygon); The Search for Othella Savage, by Foday Mannah (Quercus); Five by Five, by Claire Wilson (Michael Joseph); and The Unrecovered, by Richard Strachan (Raven).

Congratulations to all of the nominees!

Big Easy Pickings

I returned home last evening from New Orleans, where I attended this year’s Bouchercon, “Blood on the Bayou: Case Closed” (September 3-7). There are many photos and memories from those days away that I am hoping to share on this page, but first, let’s recap the announcements of prize winners delivered at the conference.

ANTHONY AWARDS
The Anthonys are named for Anthony Boucher (aka William Anthony Parker White), a prominent 20th-century author, editor, and crime-fiction critic. Anthony nominees and recipients are selected by Bouchercon attendees. The 2025 winners were announced during a special evening ceremony on September 6.

Best Hardcover Novel:
The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead)

Also nominated: Missing White Woman, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland); The Grey Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur); Alter Ego, by Alex Segura (Flatiron); and California Bear, by Duane Swiercynski (Mulholland)

Best First Novel:
You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton)

Also nominated: The Mechanics of Memory, by Audrey Lee (CamCat); Ghosts of Waikiki, by Jennifer K. Morita (Crooked Lane); Good-Looking Ugly, by Rob D. Smith (Shotgun Honey); and Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best Paperback/E-book/Audiobook:
Echo, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)

Also nominated: The Last Few Miles of Road, by Eric Beetner (Level Best); Served Cold, by James L’Etoile (Level Best); Late Checkout, by Alan Orloff (Level Best); and The Big Lie, by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best/Historia)

Best Historical: The Murder of Mr. Ma, by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan (Soho Crime)

Also nominated: The Lantern’s Dance, by Laurie R. King (Bantam); The Witching Hour, by Catriona McPherson (Mobius); The Bootlegger’s Daughter, by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union); and The Courtesan’s Pirate, by Nina Wachsman (Level Best/Historia)

Best Paranormal:
A New Lease on Death, by Olivia Blacke (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Five Furry Familiars, by Lynn Cahoon (Kensington Cozies); Exposure, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime); Lights, Cameras, Bones, by Carolyn Haines (Minotaur); and Death in Ghostly Hue, by Susan Van Kirk (Level Best)

Best Cozy/Humorous:
Cirque du Slay, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane)

Also nominated: A Cup of Flour, a Pinch of Death, by Valerie Burns (Kensington Cozies); A Very Woodsy Murder, by Ellen Byron (Kensington Cozies); Ill-Fated Fortune, by Jennifer J. Chow (Minotaur); Scotzilla, by Catriona McPherson (Severn House); and Dominoes, Danzón, and Death, by Raquel V. Reyes (Crooked Lane)

Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel:
When Mimi Went Missing, by Suja Sukumar (Soho Teen)

Also nominated: The Big Grey Men of Ben MacDhui, by K.B. Jackson (Reycraft); The Sasquatch of Harriman Lake, by K.B. Jackson (Reycraft); First Week Free at the Roomy Toilet, by Josh Proctor (Level Elevate); and The Sherlock Society, by James Ponti (Aladdin Paperbacks)

Best Critical/Non-fiction: The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, by Katherine Ramsland and Tracy Ullman (Crime Ink)

Also nominated: Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft, edited by Phyllis M. Betz (McFarland); Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers, by Chris Chan (Level Best); On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett, by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State University Press); and Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, by Greg Lilly (History Press)

Best Anthology/Collection:
Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham (Down & Out)

Also nominated: Murder, Neat: A Sleuthslayer’s Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman (Level Short); Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House, edited by Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson (Down & Out); Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir, edited by Tod Goldberg (Soho Crime); and Friend of the Devil: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead, edited by Josh Pachter (Down & Out)

Best Short Story:
“Something to Hold Onto,” by Curtis Ippolito (from Dark Yonder, Issue 6, edited by Katy Munger and Eryk Pruitt; Thalia Press)

Also nominated: “A Matter of Trust,” by Barb Goffman (from Three Strikes—You’re Dead, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley; Wildside Press); “Twenty Centuries,” by James D.F. Hannah (from Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir, edited by Tod Goldberg; Soho Crime); “Satan’s Spit,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham; Down & Out); and “Reynisfjara,” by Kristopher Zgorski (from Mystery Most International, edited by Rita Owen, Verena Rose, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Short)

Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient:
Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire series

David Thomas Memorial Special Service Award Recipients:
Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich, for their efforts on behalf of the annual Left Coast Crime convention, their management of the Web site Stop, You’re Killing Me!, and their other contributions to the crime-fiction field.

BARRY AWARDS
The Barrys are sponsored by Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine and have been dispensed annually since 1997. Winners are determined by a vote of the magazine’s subscribers and other readers. These prizes, as well as the rest of the awards listed in this post, were given out on September 4, during Bouchercon’s opening ceremonies.

Best Mystery Novel: The Waiting, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)

Also nominated: Spirit Crossing, by William Kent Krueger (Atria); The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead); Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin (Mulholland); California Bear, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland); and All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Crown)

Best First Mystery Novel: Ordinary Bear, by C.B. Bernard (Blackstone)

Also nominated: The Expectant Detectives, by Kat Ailes (Minotaur); Paper Cage, by Tom Baragwanath (Knopf); In the Blink of an Eye, by Jo Callaghan (Random House); First Lie Wins, by Ashley Elston (Pamela Dorman); and Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera (Celadon)

Best Paperback Original Mystery Novel: Double Barrel Bluff, by Lou Berney (Morrow Paperbacks)

Also nominated: All the Rage, by Cara Hunter (Morrow Paperbacks); Smoke Kings, by Jahmal Mayfield (Melville House); Someone Saw Something, by Rick Mofina (Mira); Wordhunter, by Stella Sands (Harper Paperbacks); and Sin City, by James Swain (Independently published)

Best Action Thriller: Hero, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press)

Also nominated: Assassin Eighteen, by John Brownlow (Hanover Square Press); First Strike, by Stephen Leather (Independently published); The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey (Norton); Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Mulholland); and The Price You Pay, by Nick Petrie (Putnam)

Click here to learn about previous Barry Award recipients.

SHAMUS AWARDS
Given out by the Private Eye Writers of America ever since 1982, the Shamuses honor the finest detective novels and short fiction published during a given year. Winners are selected by PWA members.

Best P.I. Hardcover:
Trouble in Queenstown, by Delia Pitts (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Kingpin, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press); The Hollow Tree, by Phillip Miller (Soho Crime); Farewell, Amethystine, by Walter Mosley (Mulholland); and Death and Glory, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)

Best Original P.I. Paperback:
Call of the Void, by J.T. Siemens (NeWest Press)

Also nominated: Geisha Confidential, by Mark Coggins (Down & Out); Quarry’s Return, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime); Not Born of Woman, by Teel James Glenn (Crossroad Press); Bless Our Sleep, by Neil S. Plakcy (Samwise); and The Big Lie, by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best)

Best First P.I. Novel:
Twice the Trouble, by Ash Clifton (Crooked Lane)

Also nominated: The Devil’s Daughter, by Gordon Greisman (Blackstone); Fog City, by Claire M. Johnson (Level Best); The Road to Heaven, by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson (Dundurn Press); and Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best P.I. Short Story:
“Deadhead,” by Tom Andes (Issue 10.1: A Case of KINK—Cowboy Jamboree Magazine)

Also nominated: “Alibi in Ice,” by Libby Cudmore (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024); “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” by M.E. Proctor (from Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith, edited by Michael Bracken; White City Press); “Under Hard Rock,” by Ed Teja (Black Cat Weekly #164); and “The Five Cent Detective,” by S.B. Watson (from Crimeucopia: Great Googly-Moo!; Murderous Ink Press)

The Eye Lifetime Achievement Award:
Christine Matthews (aka Marthayn Pelegrimas), author and wife of the late Robert J. Randisi, a PWA co-founder.

Past Shamus Award winners are listed here.

DERRINGER AWARDS
“Since 1998, the Short Mystery Fiction Society has awarded the annual Derringers—[named] after the popular pocket pistol—to outstanding published stories and people who've greatly advanced or supported the form,” reports the SMFS Web site. Its 2025 Derringer Award winners in four categories were announced in May, but the recipients’ medals were not handed out until last week’s Bouchercon.

Caledonian Corrivals

The 2025 Bloody Scotland international crime-writing festival is coming up this weekend in Stirling, Scotland. In advance of that, organizers have released the list of finalists for this year’s McIlvanney Prize (formerly the Bloody Scotland Prize for Scottish Crime Writing):

• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• The Good Father, by Liam McIlvanney (Bonnier)
• Paperboy, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Press)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Vintage)
• Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin (Orion)

Click here to see the previous longlist of nominees. The McIlvanney Prize is named in honor of novelist William McIlvanney (Laidlaw).

In addition, five books have been shortlisted for the festival’s 2025 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize:

• A Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman (Headline)
• The Malt Whisky Murders, by Natalie Jayne Clark (Polygon)
• The Search for Othella Savage, by Foday Mannah (Quercus)
• Five by Five, by Claire Wilson (Michael Joseph)
• The Unrecovered, by Richard Strachan (Raven)

The winners of both these commendations will be revealed on Friday, September 12—the opening day of this year’s Bloody Scotland celebration. Congratulations to all of the nominees!

(Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site.)

Doling Out Davitts

During my time away over the last several days, attending Bouchercon in New Orleans (more on that later), Sisters in Crime Australia announced the winners of this year’s Davitt Awards for the best crime books written by Australian women. There were six categories of recipients. Below are the results for Adult Crime Novel.

Winner: To the River, by Vikki Wakefield (Text)

Also nominated: The Rewilding, by Donna M. Cameron (Transit Lounge); Safe Haven, by Shankari Chandran (Ultimo Press); What I Would Do to You, by Georgia Harper (Random House Australia); and Highway 13, by Fiona McFarlane (Allen & Unwin).

To see the complete Davitt results, click here or here.

The Davitt Awards are named for Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), Australia’s first crime novelist. Previous winners are recorded here.

Volunteer State Veneration

A number of things seem to have slipped past my notice lately, among them the announcement of which books and authors won the 2025 Silver Falchion Awards and Claymore Awards. Those prizes—including a few that honor works in the crime, mystery, and thriller fiction category—were dispensed during this year’s Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, which took place in Tennessee from August 21 to 24. Click here to see all of the results.

Approbation in Aotearoa

I just arrived back at my office after a few days spent away to discover that New Zealand’s 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists have been announced, in three categories.

Best Novel:
• Return to Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)
• A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)
• Woman, Missing, by Sherryl Clark (HarperCollins)
• Home Truths, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
• 17 Years Later, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette)
• The Call, by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
• Prey, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

Best First Novel:
• Dark Sky, by Marie Connolly (Quentin Wilson)
• Lie Down With Dogs, by Syd Knight (Rusty Hills)
• A Fly Under the Radar, by William McCartney (Independently published)
• The Defiance of Frances Dickinson, by Wendy Parkins (Affirm Press)
• The Call, by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
• Kiss of Death, by Stephen Tester (Heritage Press)

Best Non-fiction:
• The Trials of Nurse Kerr: The Anatomy of a Secret Poisoner, by Scott Bainbridge (Bateman)
• The Survivors, by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins)
• The Crewe Murders: Inside New Zealand’s Most Infamous Cold Case, by Kirsty Johnstone and James Hollings (Massey University Press)
• The Last Secret Agent: The Extraordinary Story of a WW2 Spy in Her Own Words, by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin)
• Gangster’s Paradise, by Jared Savage (HarperCollins)
• Far North, by David White and Angus Gillies (Upstart Press)

The winners will be named and celebrated on Thursday, September 25, during a special event held in connection with this year’s WORD Christchurch festival.

Missed Matches

With so much prize-related news of late (including announcements of nominees for this year’s Petrona and Ned Kelly awards), is it any wonder that we overlooked a couple of things?

There are six nominees for the inaugural SpyMasters Book Prize, sponsored by the British SpyMasters podcast and its hostess, writer-journalist Antonia Senior. Pared down from a longlist of 21 espionage thrillers, the following remain in contention:

• The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (No Exit Press)
• Gabriel’s Moon, by William Boyd (Viking)
• Spy Hunter, by H.B. Lyle (Hodder Paperbacks)
• Honour Among Spies, by Merle Nygate (No Exit Press)
• Midnight in Vienna, by Jane Thynne (Quercus)
• Shadow of Poison, by Peter Tonkin (Independently published)

The winner is to be revealed during a special event on the evening of September 3. He or she will receive a cash prize of £500.

And I wasn’t even aware that Australia had an annual Bad Sydney Crime Writers Festival. Yet In Reference to Murder brings word that festival organizers have released their “2025 Danger Awards Shortlist in the categories of Crime Fiction, Debut Crime Fiction and Crime Non-fiction, for books … featuring Australia as a setting for stories about crime and justice. Plus, the People’s Choice Award is back, with all titles across the three categories eligible. Fans can vote for their favorite before the poll closes on Monday, September 1.”

All of the latest Danger Award winners are to be declared at the festival on its final day, Saturday, September 13.

Crime With a Scandinavian Accent

Organizers of the 2025 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year received 31 publisher entries to their competition. From those, judges have developed the following longlist of a dozen nominees representing Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden:

• Dead Island, by Samuel Bjørk,
translated by Charlotte Barslund (Bantam)—Norway
• Murder Under the Midnight Sun, by Stella Blómkvist,
translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus)—Iceland
• The Widows, by Pascal Engman,
translated by Neil Smith (Legend Press)—Sweden
• Deliver Me, by Malin Persson Giolito,
translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Simon & Schuster)—Sweden
• The Dancer, by Óskar Guðmundsson, translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus)—Iceland
• Victim, by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger,
translated by Megan E Turney (Orenda)—Norway
• Blood Ties, by Jo Nesbø,
translated by Robert Ferguson (Harvill Secker)—Norway
• The Sea Cemetery, by Aslak Nore,
translated by Deborah Dawkin (MacLehose Press)—Norway
• Shrouded, by Sólveig Pálsdóttir,
translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus)—Iceland
• The Clues in the Fjord, by Satu Rämö,
translated by Kristian London (Zaffre)—Finland
• Ghost Island, by Max Seeck,
translated by Kristian London (Mountain Leopard Press)—Finland
• Pursued by Death, by Gunnar Staalesen,
translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda)—Norway

This year’s shortlist of candidates is expected on September 18.

The Petrona Award memorializes Maxine Clarke, the British editor, crime-fiction blogger, and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction” who passed away in December 2012 (Petrona was the name of her long-running blog). Previous recipients include Jógvan Isaksen’s Dead Men Dancing (2024), Pascal Engman’s Femicide (2023), Maria Adolfsson’s Fatal Isles (2022), and Mikael Niemi’s To Cook a Bear (2021).

For more about this prize, refer to the Petrona Award Web site.

Finalizing the Neddies

Since I reported over this last week on the first three shortlists of nominees for Australia’s 2025 Ned Kelly Awards (aka the “Neddies”), it seems only right that I mention the final set of contenders. The following works are vying for Best Crime Fiction honors:

• Shadow City, by Natalie Conyer (Bonnier Echo)
• Sanctuary, by Garry Disher (Text)
• Unbury the Dead, by Fiona Hardy (Affirm Press)
• The Creeper, by Margaret Hickey (Random House Australia)
• Cold Truth, by Ashley Kalagian Blunt (Ultimo Press)
• Highway 13, by Fiona McFarlane (Allen & Unwin)
• 17 Years Later, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette Australia)
• Storm Child, by Michael Robotham (Hachette Australia)

The Australian Crime Writers Association will announce the winners of its latest Ned Kelly Awards in September.

Bullet Points: Seeking Sanity Edition

• Chan authority Lou Armagno notes that this coming Friday, August 15, fans are invited to mark “the 100th anniversary of author Earl Derr Biggers’ literary and film creation, Detective Charlie Chan.” There are two public events scheduled in Biggers’ birthplace of Warren, Ohio, to commemorate the publication of the first Chan novel, The House Without a Key, in 1925. A free panel discussion titled “A Century of Charlie Chan” will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Warren-Trumbull Country Public Library. Then hop over to the historic Robins Theatre to take in a big-screen showing of what Armagno says is “one of the most intriguing of the 40-plus Chan films, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, 1939,” starring Sidney Toler. The Robins’ doors will open at 7 p.m. Tickets go for $9.25 apiece.

These events are actually part of a four-day Chan celebration in Warren, August 14-17, organized by followers of Rush Glick’s Web site, The Charlie Chan Family Home. A complete schedule can be found here. If others would like to participate further, Armagno suggests they show up at the library at 2 p.m. on Friday, and let Rush Glick, Dr. Mike Votta, or Barbara McNeal—“the regulars”—know of their interest.

• Following up on a recent post, the Australian Crime Writers Association has now released two new shortlists of contenders for the 2025 Ned Kelly Awards. First, the nominees for Best True Crime:

— They’ll Never Hold Me, by Michael Adams (Affirm Press)
— A Thousand Miles from Care, by Steve Johnson (William Collins)
— The Kingpin and the Crooked Cop, by Neil Mercer (Allen & Unwin)
— Meadow’s Law, by Quentin McDermott (HarperCollins)
— The Lasting Harm, by Lucia Osborne-Crowley (HarperCollins)

Now, the candidates for Best International Crime Fiction:

— Return to Blood, by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster UK)
— Leave the Girls Behind, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Allen & Unwin)
— The Waiting, by Michael Connelly (Allen & Unwin)
— A Case of Matricide, by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Text)
— Moscow X, by David McCloskey (Swift Press)
— Home Truths, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)

The winners of these commendations, along with that for Best Crime Fiction, will revealed in September.

• I neglected to mention that the latest edition of Frank Gregorsky’s free, PDF-formatted Web quarterly called Detective Drama Gems (dated Spring 2025) is now available. Contents include a thorough analysis of “Deal With the Devil,” the January 11, 1972, installment of The Mod Squad, and looks back at episodes of two Hawaii-based crime dramas: Magnum, P.I., and Hawaiian Eye.

• Also now to be had: the Summer 2025 issue of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. Its cover feature is devoted to Lisa Gardner’s Frankie Elkin series, as well as other novels starring finders of missing persons. In addition, editor George Easter has filled his 80 electronic pages with myriad reviews of new and upcoming crime titles; news of “Mystery” Mike Bursaw’s retirement from selling books at Bouchercon; an interview with Australian author Geoff Parkes (When the Deep Dark Bush Swallows You Whole); Mike Ripley’s new “Ripster’s Revivals” column; and much more. Deadly Pleasures is published quarterly, only in an electronic edition, for an annual price of $10. Learn more here.

• This was unexpected. The Associated Press has announced it is discontinuing its weekly reviews of books at the end of August. Anthony McCartney, the AP’s global entertainment and lifestyle editor, explained in a note to the news agency’s regular critics that “This was a difficult decision but one made after a thorough review of AP’s story offerings and what is being most read on our website and mobile apps as well as what customers are using. Unfortunately, the audience for book reviews is relatively low and we can no longer sustain the time it takes to plan, coordinate, write and edit reviews. AP will continue covering books as stories, but at the moment those will handled exclusively by staffers.” I have often referenced AP critiques in The Rap Sheet’s “Revue of Reviewers” posts, and other publications have been in the habit of reprinting those literary assessments whole, giving them greater influence. It’s sad to see them disappearing.

• And on the same day that Saturday Evening Post columnist Bob Sassone advocated for writers to “bring back blogs,” the book-review blog Only Detect suddenly kicked into life once more. Its author, identified only as “Mike,” had seemed to cease his postings in April 2021, when he published this analysis of Isaac Asimov’s 1957 science-fiction whodunit, The Naked Sun. But just last week, he returned with two smart new classic-mystery critiques—of John Dickson Carr’s The Mad Hatter Mystery (1933) and Baynard Kendrick’s Blind Man’s Bluff (1943). Let’s hope this portends more good things to come!

News of a More Salutary Sort

• The Australian Crime Writers Association has announced its shortlist of half a dozen nominees for the 2025 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction:

— Down the Rabbit Hole, by Shaeden Berry (Bonnier Echo)
— A Town Called Treachery, by Mitch Jennings (HarperCollins)
— The Chilling, by Riley James (Allen & Unwin)
— All You Took From Me, by Lisa Kenway (Transit Lounge)
— Everywhere We Look, by Martine Kropkowski (Ultimo Press)
— Those Opulent Days, by Jacquie Pham (Atlantic Monthly Press)

A press release explains that these diverse stories cover “the claustrophobia of an Antarctic winter, the crippling effects of anaesthesia and memory, a deeply funny and tender portrayal of rural life, a sharp commentary on the social impact after a teen goes missing, the nuances of friendships after partner violence, and the opulence and staggering poverty of colonial-era Vietnam.”

Other Ned Kelly categories still to have their contenders declared this year: Best True Crime, Best International, and Best Crime Fiction. All of the winners are to be revealed in September.

• We heard last November that the family of author Bill Crider (who died in 2018) was planning to release new editions of his 25 police procedurals starring Dan Rhodes, “the thoughtful, hard-working sheriff of [fictional] Blacklin County, Texas.” Now the first entry in that series, Too Late to Die—which won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel in 1987—has been made available again, in both mobile formats and an audio version, with fresh cover art. In a video available here, Tom Neary, Crider’s son-in-law, explains the thinking behind this repackaging. Additional “refreshed” installments are expected every four to six weeks. There’s no word on new print editions of these yarns, but those of us who eschew electronic versions can only hope they’ll become available in that classic format soon. (Hat tip to Lesa Holstine.)

• Max Allan Collins reports that Death by Fruitcake, an indie film that brings to life the main characters in the Trash ’n’ Treasures mystery series he writes with his wife, Barbara, has “won Best Feature Film at the Star City Film Festival at Waukon, Iowa.” That picture has not yet been generally released, but Collins says to expect more publicity and an official opening in time for the late 2025 holidays.

• Mystery Fanfare reminds us that the new two-hour Netflix movie, The Thursday Murder Club, based on Richard Osman’s popular 2020 novel of that same name about elderly amateur detectives at an English retirement home, is to debut on Thursday, August 28. Starring in the picture are Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie, Ben Kingsley, and Daniel Mays.

• And the 1991 NBC-TV film White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd has suddenly shown up on YouTube. That 90-minute feature cast WKRP in Cincinnati’s Loni Anderson (who just recently passed at age 79) as Todd, an American comedic actress and restaurateur whose 1935 murder in Los Angeles spawned countless headlines. White Hot attracted its own attention, some of it negative, but I remember enjoying its re-creation of the circumstances behind Todd’s death, and look forward to watching it again.