Thursday, February 06, 2025

Whose Town Is It Anyway?

By Mark Coggins
Raymond Chandler, who along with Dashiell Hammett perfected the American hard-boiled detective story, is best known for his well-regarded novels set in Los Angeles, The Big Sleep (1939) and The Long Goodbye (1953) among them. Hammett, on the other hand, made his bones with the masterworks he wrote and set in San Francisco, The Maltese Falcon (1930) being the most famous.

Given the close association of Chandler with L.A. and Hammett with San Francisco, would you be surprised to learn that Chandler lived and worked in “the city that knows how” before Hammett? It’s true.

Upon Chandler’s return to the United States, following his service with the Canadian Army in France during World War I, he lived in San Francisco in 1919 and worked briefly at two banks—the Anglo and London Paris National Bank and the Bank of British North America. That predates Hammett’s arrival in town by two years.

(Above) Anglo and London Paris National Bank building in 1981.


While researching Chandler’s time in San Francisco, I learned that the Bank of British North America was located at 260 California Street in 1918, although by 1919 it had apparently merged with the Bank of Montreal.* (The property, the Newhall Building, now contains a Citibank branch.) I more readily found the location of the Anglo and London Paris National Bank, not far away at the intersection of Sutter and Sansome streets. This is currently home to One Sansome Street, a 42-story office tower, and the conservatory of the new building is actually the façade of the old Anglo and London structure (built in 1910). The original cornice and columned archways, in particular, were preserved to bound the glass-roofed courtyard/conservatory.

Given the Anglo and London’s status as “historically significant,” the developers were required to preserve more than just the building’s granite-clad façade prior to breaking ground for the new skyscraper back in the early 1980s. They documented the appearance and design of the former bank as completely as possible, and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) of the Library of Congress retains that documentation, including original blueprints and photographs taken before demolition.

The accompanying report provides background on the structure’s prolific Mexican-born American designer:
The Anglo and London Paris National Bank was designed by Albert Pissis in 1908 … He was among the chief exponents of what was then called “modern architecture” with its structure derived from the new-invented steel frame, and its imagery inspired by the buildings of ancient Rome and Renaissance …

Many of Pissis’ most noted works survive in San Francisco. The Emporium (835-865 Market Street) and the James Flood Building (870-898 Market Street) were his two largest commissions.
Since the publication of that HABS report, the Emporium (erected originally in 1896, but rebuilt in 1908 after the city’s great earthquake and fire) has been razed to make room for a one-million-square-foot addition to the San Francisco Centre. Yet a portion of Pissis’ work survives once more. The building’s dome was retained to cap the new structure through an impressive feat of hydraulic engineering.

(Right) Flood Building, photo by Mark Coggins.

Just across Market Street, Pissis’ other large commission—the Flood Building—stands today looking much as it did in 1904 when it opened. One of the early tenants of the building was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. And one of the employees of that agency was none other than Dashiell Hammett. In 1915 he had joined “the Pinks” as a clerk, working first in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, and later being assigned to the San Francisco office.

All of which leads us to a hard-boiled epiphany: Hammett and Chandler, the two masters of the American detective story, both worked in San Francisco buildings designed by Albert Pissis!

I’ll leave you with a shot of the interior of the Anglo and London Bank. Can you imagine Raymond Chandler there in 1919 waiting for you behind the teller window as you rush in to deposit your weekly paycheck? Maybe he’d greet you with one of his famous Chandlerisms:

“If you’re looking for trouble, I come from where they make it.”

Interior of the Anglo and London Paris National Bank building.

* This information was updated thanks to help from Randal and Maria Brandt.

Goodis Times

Damn! I wish I could be in Philadelphia next month for this event:
Noir Con is sponsoring Dancing on the Edge of the Abyss: Goodisville 2025, to be held on Sunday, March 2nd, from 12 noon to 5:30 pm ET. David L. Goodis was a prolific writer, churning out numerous novels, movies, screenplays, pulps, and short stories. He is considered to be one of the greatest noir masters that include Jim Thompson, Chester Himes, and Charles Willeford, with work characterized by a gritty, cynical, and often fatalistic tone, exploring themes of despair, loneliness, and the underbelly of his favorite city, Philadelphia. Participants will gather at Philadelphia's Fishtown Crossing, with a bus ride to some of Goodis’s favorite haunts and his final resting place, special guest appearances, birthday cake, door prizes, Special Commemorative Goodis Swag, and more.
The above item comes from In Reference to Murder.

Tuesday, February 04, 2025

Revue of Reviewers: 2-4-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.



















Marveling at McGinnis

My Killer Covers blog is now in day two of a series celebrating the 99th birthday of American artist-illustrator Robert McGinnis. Find my introduction here, and the first follow-up post here. Enjoy!

Domestic Showdown

I was away from my office yesterday, when organizers of the Malice Domestic conference announced their finalists for the 2025 Agatha Awards, celebrating “the traditional mystery.” But I don’t want to fail in broadcasting this news. Below are the contenders, in six categories.

Best Contemporary Novel:
A Collection of Lies, by Connie Berry
A Midnight Puzzle, by Gigi Pandian
A Very Woodsy Murder, by Ellen Byron
Fondue or Die, by Korina Moss
The Dark Wives, by Ann Cleeves

Best Historical Novel:
Hall of Mirrors, by John Copenhaver
The Last Hope, by Susan Elia MacNeal
The Paris Mistress, by Mally Becker
The Wharton Plot, by Mariah Fredericks
To Slip the Bonds of Earth, by Amanda Flower

Best First Novel:
A Deadly Endeavor, by Jenny Adams
Ghosts of Waikīkī, by Jennifer K. Morita
Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles, by Elizabeth Crowens
Threads of Deception, by Elle Jauffret
You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen

Best Short Story:
“A Matter of Trust,” by Barb Goffman (from Three Strikes—You’re Dead, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley)
“Reynisfjara,” by Kristopher Zgorski (from Mystery Most International, edited by Rita Owen, Verena Rose, and Shawn Reilly Simmons)
“Satan’s Spit,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Tales of Music, Murder and Mayhem: Bouchercon 2024, edited by Heather Graham)
“Sins of the Father,” by Kerry Hammond (from Mystery Most International)
“The Postman Always Flirts Twice,” by Barb Goffman (from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer)

Best Non-fiction:
Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, by Greg Lilly
Agatha Christie, Marple: Expert on Wickedness, by Mark Aldridge
Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers, by Chris Chan
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, by Evan Friss
Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft, edited by Phyllis M. Betz

Best Children’s/YA Mystery:
First Week Free at the Roomy Toilet, by Josh Pachter
Sasquatch of Harriman Lake, by K.B. Jackson
Sid Johnson and the Well-Intended Conspiracy, by Frances Schoonmaker
The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui, by K.B. Jackson
The Sherlock Society, by James Ponti

(Note: It is my preference to include the names of publishers when listing books that are in contention for prizes. But the Malice Domestic folks failed to provide that information, and there are simply too many titles here for me to look up each one in a timely fashion.)

Everyone who is registered for the 2025 Malice Domestic gathering, scheduled for April 25-27 in Bethesda, Maryland, will be eligible to vote in this race. The winners are to be declared during a banquet on the 26th. Congratulations to all of the nominees!

Sunday, February 02, 2025

Group Efforts

A change has been made in the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s annual Derringer Awards program. In addition to the usual prizes for Best Flash Story, Best Short Story, Best Long Story, and Best Novelette, there’s now a fifth category: Best Anthology. According to the SMFS Web site, “This is being done on a two-year trial basis. If there are no significant problems or objections from the membership, the award will become permanent with the awards presented in 2027.”

There are six finalists for the inaugural Best Anthology honor:

Devil’s Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024, edited by Susan Oleksiw, Ang Pompano, and Leslie Wheeler (Hale Street Press)
Friend of the Devil: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead, edited by Josh Pachter (Down & Out)
Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense, edited by Judy Penz Sheluk (‎Superior Shores Press)
Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman (Level Short)
New York State of Crime: Murder New York Style 6, edited by D.M. Barr and Joseph R.G. De Marco (Down & Out)
The 13th Letter, edited by Donna Carrick (Carrick)

We still await the shortlists of contenders for the original Derringers. The judging is currently underway, with results scheduled to be announced on Tuesday, April 1.

Saturday, February 01, 2025

Taking a Spin Through the Blogosphere

• Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare blog has been positively rampant with news—good and bad—about TV crime series lately. On the good side: Season 14 of Death in Paradise, introducing Don Gilet as Detective Inspector Mervin Wilson, is set to commence streaming via BritBox come Wednesday, February 19; the third and concluding season of Bosch: Legacy, starring Titus Welliver, will debut on Prime Video on Monday, March 27; PBS-TV’s Masterpiece has commissioned an adaptation of UK author Anthony Horowitz’s Marble Hall Murders, the third and last Susan Ryeland/Atticus Pünd novel (which is to be released in the States in mid-May); and we can look forward to a 10-episode fourth season (maybe later this year?) of The Lincoln Lawyer. Now for the bad news: ITV’s McDonald & Dodds, the Bath, England-set whodunit starring Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins, has been cancelled after what I thought were four outstanding seasons.

• Weep not for Watkins, though. Late last year it was announced that he and Grantchester co-star Robson Green would play the leads in Catch You Later, a new Channel 5 (UK) crime drama from Death in Paradise director Toby Frow. Digital Spy describes the show as a cat-and-mouse thriller about “a police detective named Huw Miller (Watkins) who is haunted by a case he failed to solve: a stalker in his town who toyed with his victims before murdering them.
Per the synopsis: “As Huw attempts to settle into retirement, the case is never far from his mind – and when new neighbour Patrick Harbottle (Green) moves in and utters the chilling phrase ‘catch you later’–the sign-off the stalker used to taunt Huw during the investigation–Huw is determined he’s finally got his man. What follows is a high stakes game of psychological chess between the two neighbours as Huw’s world begins to crumble around him.

“Unable to bear the guilt of the stalker taking another victim under his nose, Huw risks everything to unearth the truth. But has he set his sights on the right man, or is his obsession pushing him ever closer to the brink?”
Catch You Later is expected to air before this year is over.

• I evidently missed seeing that the Audio Publishers Association announced its finalists for the 30th annual Audie Awards. There are 28 competitive categories—too many to consider here. Below, though, are the contenders for best mystery audiobook of 2024:

Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera; narrated by Will Damron and January LaVoy (Macmillan Audio)
The Midnight Feast, by Lucy Foley; narrated by Joe Eyre, Sarah Slimani, Roly Botha, Laurence Dobiesz, and Tuppence Middleton (HarperAudio)
Rough Pages, by Lev AC Rosen; narrated by Vikas Adam
(Macmillan Audio)
Still See You Everywhere, by Lisa Gardner; narrated by Hillary
Huber (Hachette Audio)
This Is Why We Lied, by Karin Slaughter; narrated by Kathleen
Early (HarperAudio)

The winners will be revealed in New York City on March 4, during a ceremony hosted by actress-comedian Amy Sedaris.

• Author and friend of The Rap Sheet Mark Coggins recently sent along the photo below together with a note reading: “I happened to be in the Manoa Chinese Cemetery in Honolulu and came across the grave of Chang Apana, who supposedly was the inspiration for Charlie Chan.”



• Since January 24, 2025, marked 100 years since Earl Derr Biggers’ The House Without a Key began its serialization in The Saturday Evening Post—introducing Chan to the reading public—this seemed like a good time to post Coggins’ shot. You can learn more about Chan’s literary introduction here and here.

• As we jump into this new month, it might be worth your while to spend a few moments looking back at The Rap Sheet’s extensive roster of crime, mystery, and thriller novels due out during the first quarter of 2025. Since that list went up in mid-January, I’ve added at least a dozen titles, with more to come before the end of March.

• This last January 8, Japanese crime-fiction critic and writer Jiro Kimura kicked off his 30th year (!) in charge of The Gumshoe Site, one of the longest-running Web sources of news regarding crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. (By comparison, The Rap Sheet will celebrate its 20th year in business in 2026.) I last interviewed Kimura when his blog was just 15 years old; you’ll find the results of our exchange here.

• Four interviews worth finding: Crime Fiction Lover talks with Ken Harris about The Ballad of the Great Value Boys (Black Rose), his fourth novel featuring witty Baltimore, Maryland, private detective Steve Rockfish. Meanwhile, renowned American spy novelist Robert Littell sits for conversations with both National Public Radio’s Scott Simon and New York Times book critic Sarah Weinman about Bronshtein in the Bronx (Soho Press), his new historical novel about Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. And And for CrimeReads, Peter Handel quizzes Thomas Perry about his 32nd novel, Pro Bono.

• “Science,” writes James Folta in Literary Hub, “has backed up what many of us have long been saying: the library rocks. A study from the New York Public Library surveyed 1,974 users on how the library makes them feel and how it affects their lives, and the results are overwhelmingly positive.”

• Finally, welcome back, John Norris, the host at Pretty Sinister Books! When that blog appeared to go dark in September 2023, it was a sad day, because for the previous dozen years Norris had presented readers with interesting material having to do with classic mystery, adventure, and supernatural fiction. But then suddenly, this last January 16, he was back, first wrapping up his last year of reading (see here and here), and then moving on to other subjects. Let’s hope Norris’ batteries are now recharged, and he will continue updating his blog for many years to come.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

PaperBack: “One Grave Too Many”

Part of a series honoring the late author and blogger Bill Crider.



One Grave Too Many, by Ron Goulart (Ace, 1974). The last of four novels featuring Southern California private eye John Easy.

Cover illustration by Tom Adams.

Bluesky Dreaming

I’ve had it with Elon Musk. Since his acquisition of the social networking site Twitter (sometimes known as X) in 2022, the South African billionaire car-maker and conspiracy nut has turned what was once a useful Web service into a haven for right-wing hatemongers and disinformation purveyors. His reprehensible embrace of convicted felon and sexual predator Donald Trump in last year’s U.S. presidential race, and his efforts ever since (as some kind of unelected co-president) to undermine our nation’s democratic processes, have turned many stomachs, my own included.

Other than by voting and by protesting (both collectively and singularly), there’s sadly little I can do to stop Musk’s destructive endeavors. But I don’t have to support them—and I would be doing so were I to remain a contributor to Twitter.

I joined Twitter years ago, together with Facebook and Google+ (the last of which shut down in 2019). Although I’m not a busy social-media user (I don’t post my favorite recipes or cute photos of cats), I thought those sites might help me to promote the latest additions to my Rap Sheet and Killer Covers blogs. Back then, Twitter was a relatively more responsible platform, willing to prevent or at least flag the dissemination of propaganda. I found it even brought some new readers to my blogs. However, Musk’s purchase of the site and his subsequent elimination of guardrails curtailed my interest. The last time I posted to The Rap Sheet’s X page was in April 2024, and I won’t be putting up anything else while Musk is in charge.

This week I debuted a new Rap Sheet page on Bluesky, a rival “microblogging service” that was launched in 2019 and has grown dramatically since Musk assumed control of Twitter. It claims to have more than 29 million users so far. That’s far fewer than the 106 million Americans said to spend time on X, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at. And visiting Bluesky doesn’t make me want to take a shower afterward. It’s actually very muck like pre-Musk Twitter, but with a more upbeat air, fewer trolls, and less political rancor. (There are still those pesky cat shots, though. They’re inescapable!)

Undoubtedly, there will be naysayers. People who contend that Musk and his agitprop machine simply cannot be beaten, and that alternatives on the order of Mastadon, Threads, Bluesky, and others will eventually lose their value as draws for dissenters. They may be correct. In the meantime, though, there’s plenty of space on the Internet for these services to take their shots at success.

I’ve posted only a handful of things on The Rap Sheet’s Bluesky page to date, mostly links to stories that have already appeared in the blog. As with every new toy, though, one can’t help playing with it, experimenting to see what it can do, so expect more from it in the near future. Thus far, the page has only 21 followers, a fraction of the 581 who were keeping track of the old Twitter page. But abandoning Musk in his hour of greed is well worth that loss!

Come join me, if you’d like!

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Herron’s Genre Contributions Recognized

(Above) Mick Herron at CrimeFest, 2014. (Photo by Ali Karim)


Mick Herron, who’s given us the popular Slough House series, as well as other mystery and thriller novels, has been named as the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Diamond Dagger winner for 2025. A CWA press release explains that this prize “recognises authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre.”

Herron is quoted as saying: “I’ve spent the best part of my life—not the majority of it; just the best part—in the crime writers’ community, and to receive this accolade from these friends and colleagues is both a career highlight and a personal joy. I’m touched and thrilled beyond measure, and will try to live up to the honour.”

Past Diamond Dagger honorees include Ian Rankin, Lynda La Plante, Walter Mosley, Ann Cleeves, Andrew Taylor, Lindsey Davis, Michael Connelly, Val McDermid, and John le Carré.

The Guardian has more to report on this development.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Eager for the Edgars

Earlier today, the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) announced the nominees for its 2025 Edgar Allan Poe Awards. There are nine categories of contenders. The winners will be revealed and their commendations presented during a special ceremony on Saturday, May 1, at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square.

Best Novel:
The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey)
Rough Trade, by Katrina Carrasco (MCD)
Things Don’t Break on Their Own, by Sarah Easter Collins (Crown)
My Favorite Scar, by Nicolás Ferraro (Soho Crime)
The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera (Celadon)
The In Crowd, by Charlotte Vassell (Doubleday)

Best First Novel by an American Author:
Twice the Trouble, by Ash Clifton (Crooked Lane)
Cold to the Touch, by Kerri Hakoda (Crooked Lane)
The Mechanics of Memory, by Audrey Lee (CamCat)
A Jewel in the Crown, by David Lewis (John Scognamiglio)
The President’s Lawyer, by Lawrence Robbins (Atria)
Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best Paperback Original:
The Paris Widow, by Kimberly Belle (Park Row)
The Vacancy in Room 10, by Seraphina Nova Glass (Graydon House)
Shell Games, by Bonnie Kistler (Harper Paperbacks)
A Forgotten Kill, by Isabella Maldonado (Thomas & Mercer)
The Road to Heaven, by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson (Dundurn Press)

Best Fact Crime:
Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers, by Frank
Figliuzzi (Mariner)
The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective, by Steven Johnson (Crown)
A Devil Went Down to Georgia: Race, Power, Privilege, and the Murder of Lita McClinton, by Deb Miller Landau (Pegasus Crime)
The Amish Wife: Unraveling the Lies, Secrets, and Conspiracy that Let a Killer Go Free, by Gregg Olsen (Thomas & Mercer)
Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America's Second Slavery, by Earl Swift (Mariner)
The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age, by Michael Wolraich (Union Square)

Best Critical/Biographical:

James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, by Nathan
Ashman (McFarland)
American Noir Film: From The Maltese Falcon to Gone Girl, by M. Keith Booker (Rowman & Littlefield)
Organized Crime on Page and Screen: Portrayals in Hit Novels, Films, and Television Shows, by David Geherin (McFarland)
On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett, by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State University Press)
Ian Fleming; The Complete Man, by Nicholas Shakespeare (Harper)

Best Short Story:
“Cut and Thirst,” by Margaret Atwood (Amazon Original Stories)
“Everywhere You Look,” by Liv Constantine (Amazon
Original Stories)
“Eat My Moose,” by Erika Krouse (from Conjunctions, Spring 2024 “Works and Days” issue; Bard College)
“Barriers to Entry,” by Ariel Lawhon (Amazon Original Stories)
“The Art of Cruel Embroidery,” by Steven Sheil (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July-August 2024)

Best Juvenile:
The Beanstalk Murder, by P.G. Bell (Feiwel & Friends)
Mystery of Mystic Mountain,by Janet Fox (BFYR)
Mysteries of Trash and Treasure: The Stolen Key, by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Quill Tree)
The Spindle of Fate, by Aimee Lim (Feiwel & Friends)
Find Her, by Ginger Reno (Holiday House)

Best Young Adult:
Looking for Smoke, by K.A. Cobell (Heartdrum)
The Bitter End, by Alexa Donne (Random House Books for
Young Readers)
A Crane Among Wolves, by June Hur (Feiwel & Friends)
Death at Morning House, by Maureen Johnson (Harper Teen)
49 Miles Alone, by Natalie D. Richards (Sourcebooks Fire)

Best Television Episode Teleplay:
“Episode Five,” Rebus, written by Gregory Burke (Viaplay)
“Episode One,” Monsieur Spade, written by Tom Fontana and
Scott Frank (AMC)
“Episode One,” Moonflower Murders, written by Anthony Horowitz (Masterpiece PBS)
“Mirror,” Murderesses, written by Wiktor Piatkowski, Joanna Kozłowska, and Katarzyna Kaczmarek (Viaplay)
“Episode Two,” The Marlow Murder Club, written by Robert Thorogood (Masterpiece PBS)

* * *

The MWA also gives out several additional annual prizes, for which this year’s contenders were also made known this morning.

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award:
“The Legend of Penny and the Luck of the Draw Casino,” by Pat Gaudet (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], May-June 2024)
“Head Start,” by Kai Lovelace (EQMM, September-October 2024)
“Murder Under Sedation,” by Lawrence Ong (EQMM,
March-April 2024)
“The Jews on Elm Street,” by Anna Stolley Persky (EQMM, September-October 2024)
“Sparrow Maker,” by Jake Stein (EQMM, November-December 2024)

The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award:
The Rose Arbor, by Rhys Bowen (Lake Union)
The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco, by Michelle
Chouinard (Minotaur)
The Mystery Writer, by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press)
Return to Wyldcliffe Heights, by Carol Goodman (Morrow Paperbacks)
Death in the Details, by Katie Tietjen (Crooked Lane)

The G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award:
Disturbing the Dead, by Kelley Armstrong (Minotaur)
A Game of Lies, by Clare Mackintosh (Sourcebooks Landmark)
Proof, by Beverly McLachlin (Simon & Schuster Canada)
A World of Hurt, by Mindy Mejia (Atlantic Monthly Press)
All the Way Gone, by Joanna Schaffhausen (Minotaur)
The Comfort of Ghosts, by Jacqueline Winspear (Soho Crime)

The Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award:
The Murders in Great Diddling. by Katarina Bivald
(Poisoned Pen Press)
Death and Fromage, by Ian Moore (Poisoned Pen Press)
Booked for Murder, by P.J. Nelson (Minotaur)
Murder on Devil’s Pond, by Ayla Rose (Crooked Lane)
The Treasure Hunters Club, by Tom Ryan (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Laura Lippman and John Sandford (aka John Roswell Camp) were already chosen as this year’s MWA Grand Masters, while the 2025 Raven Award will go to Face in a Book Bookstore & Gifts, in El Dorado Hills, California. Peter Wolverton, executive editor and vice president of St. Martin’s Press, has picked up the 2025 Ellery Award.

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Revue of Reviewers: 1-19-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.