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.