A Mystery Lover’s Mishmash

• B.V. Lawson’s In Reference to Murder alerts us to the winners of this year’s Foreword Indies Book Awards, presented by Foreword Magazine and “honor[ing] the very best of indie publishing” for 2018. Here’s the quartet of recipients in the Mystery category:

— Gold: One for the Rock, by Kevin Major (Breakwater)
— Silver: A Gentleman’s Murder, by Christopher Huang (Inkshares)
— Bronze: Burning Ridge, by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane)
— Honorable Mention: Uncivil Liberties, by Bernie Lambek (Rootstock)

There were also prizes given out in the Thriller & Suspense category, but you should click through to Lawson’s blog to find them.

• A couple of months ago I remarked on the coming Epix cable-TV drama series Pennyworth, which will star Jack Bannon as Alfred Pennyworth, better known as the faithful butler to Bruce Wayne, aka Batman. Set in 1960s London, this 10-episode spy series finds Pennyworth as “a former British SAS soldier in his 20s,” working in a private security consultant capacity for youthful American billionaire Thomas Wayne, destined to become Bruce’s father. Back then, I could point you only to a 17-second trailer for the show, but now the blog Double O Section features a more satisfying two-minute version. Pennyworth is scheduled to premiere on July 28.

• Sometime Rap Sheet contributor Mark Coggins (whose seventh August Riordan detective novel, The Dead Beat Scroll, is due out from Down & Out this fall) attended a recent bookstore event in honor of James Ellroy. He came away from it with this memorable story.

• I’ve already mentioned on this page 11 of my favorite new reads from the first half of this year. But now comes Omnivoracious: The Amazon Book Review with its own selections, including Alex Michaelides’ The Silent Patient, which it applauds as “a debut that just might be the thriller of 2019.”

• Wow! They sure don’t build towers like this anymore.

• Finally, Crime Fiction Lover identifies “10 Crime Shows That Time Forgot”—most of which I would contend aren’t forgotten at all, at least not by those of us with long memories. Mentioned among the bunch are McMillan & Wife (1971-1977), McCloud (1970-1977), and the BBC’s Lord Peter Wimsey (1972-1975).