Nero Knows Best

The Nero Award is one of two prizes given out annually by the New York City-based fan organization, the Wolfe Pack. It recognizes what members say is the best American mystery of the year written in the tradition of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories. For 2024, the winner is Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River, which unfolds a tale about rape and murder in a small Maine town during the late 18th century.

Meanwhile, says In Reference to Murder, “The Black Orchid Novella Award, presented jointly by The Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine to celebrate the novella format popularized by Stout, went to T.M. Bradshaw for her novella titled ‘Double Take.’ It will be published in the July 2025 issue of AHMM. Honorable mentions for the Black Orchid Novella Award include Peter Hoppock's ‘Precipice’; Andrew Kass’s ‘Deadline’; Jenny Ramaley’s ‘Workplace Rules for a Fire-Breathing Dragon’; and Ella Rutledge’s ‘Murder at the Y.T.D.’”

Congratulation to all of these honorees!

Love, Death, and Prizes

With the online voting finally over and the counting completed, the UK-based Web site Crime Fiction Lover has announced the winners of its 2024 Crime Fiction Lover Awards. There are six categories, and in each, the folks in charge of CFL have revealed not only the fan favorite, but their Editor’s Choice, as well.

Book of the Year: Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin

Also nominated: The Mercy Chair, by M.W. Craven; Guide Me Home, by Attica Locke; The Examiner, by Janice Hallett; The Death Watcher, by Chris Carter; and All the Colours of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker

Book of the Year Editor’s Choice: Guide Me Home, by Attica Locke

Best Debut Novel: The List of Suspicious Things, by Jennie Godfrey

Also nominated: Helle and Death, by Oskar Jensen; Knife Skills for Beginners, by Orlando Murrin; Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney; Crow Moon, by Suzy Aspley; and A Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman

Best Debut Editor’s Choice: Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney

Best in Translation: Death at the Sanatorium, by Ragnar Jónasson; translated by Victoria Cribb

Also nominated: Black Wolf, by Juan Gómez-Jurado, translated by Nicolas Caistor; The Snow Angel, by Anki Edvinsson, translated by Paul Norlen; The Lover of No Fixed Abode, by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini, translated by Gregory Dowling; The Kitchen, by Simone Buchholz, translated by Rachel Ward; and The Night of Baba Yaga, by Akira Otani, translated by Sam Bett

Best in Translation Editor’s Choice: The Night of Baba Yaga,
by Akira Otani, translated by Sam Bett

Best Indie Novel: A Killer of Influence, by J.D. Kirk

Also nominated: The Corpse with the Pearly Smile, by Cathy Ace; Bronco Buster, by A.J. Devlin; Westerwick, by George Paterson; Namaste Mart Confidential, by Andrew Miller; and Dying for Crystal, by Katherine Black

Best Indie Editor’s Choice: The Corpse with the Pearly Smile,
by Cathy Ace

Best Crime Show: Ludwig

Also nominated: Bad Monkey; Slow Horses, Season 4; Nordic Murders, Season 5; Rebus; and True Detective, Season 4

Best Crime Show Editor’s Choice: Slow Horses, Season 4

Best Author: Ian Rankin

Also nominated: Tana French; Attica Locke; Ace Atkins; Janice Hallett; and Abir Mukherjee

Best Author Editor’s Choice: Janice Hallett

Congratulations to all of this year’s nominees!

Casey and Close Emerge Victorious

A Stranger in the Family (Hemlock Press), by Irish-born London author Jane Casey, has won the 2024 Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year prize. That announcement was made this week in Dublin during a ceremony honoring the recipients of this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards competition. Stranger is the 11th title in Casey’s series starring ambitious London police detective Maeve Kerrigan.

Competing against Casey’s novel for Crime Fiction Book of the Year were Witness 8, by Steve Cavanagh (Headline); Where They Lie, by Claire Coughlan (Simon & Schuster); Someone in the Attic, by Andrea Mara (Bantam); Somebody Knows, by Michelle McDonagh (Hachette Ireland); and When We Were Silent, by Fiona McPhillips (Bantam).

There were numerous other categories of contenders for the 2024 An Post Irish Book Awards, sponsored by Ireland’s state-owned postal service. Click here to see a full rundown.

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In other European literary news, Ajay Close’s sixth novel, What Doesn’t Kill Us (Saraband), has been selected as this year’s Scottish Fiction Book of the Year. Her tale is described as a police procedural “based on the true events of the [1970s] Yorkshire Ripper murders and the feminist arson campaign it triggered targeting porn outlets.”

Other 2024 Scottish National Book Award winners are listed here.

READ MORE: “And the Winner of the Saltire Prize Is …,” by Ajay Close (Murder Is Everywhere).

Bullet Points: Memories and Merits Edition

• On the very same day, last weekend, that I posted in The Rap Sheet about Steve Aldous and Gary Gillies’ forthcoming release, The Harry O Viewing Companion: History and Episodes of the Classic Detective Series, I received in the mail a copy of a second non-fiction work dealing in part with that very same 1974-1976 TV private-eye drama. This one bears the name Men of Action, and comes from small-screen historian and radio talk show host Ed Robertson. In addition to David Janssen’s standout series, Men of Action—published in both hardcover and paperback by Lee Goldberg’s Cutting Edge Books—encompasses three other classic TV dramas: The Magician (1973-1974), The Untouchables (1959-1963; revived 1993-1994), and Run for Your Life (1965-1968). Robertson explains in his introduction that “the four series chronicled in this book … were all subjects of articles that I wrote for Television Chronicles,” a quarterly U.S. periodical that was published from April 1995 to January 1998. However, he has greatly expanded on his original research and writing, with subsequently gleaned quotes and episode guides added to form a more complete record of the shows’ development, evolution, and critical reception. For those of us who remember these shows well, Men of Action feeds our appetite for intriguing trivia, from Magician star Bill Bixby’s insistence that all the illusions in each show “be filmed in one take, without trick photography”—a time-consuming task—to the decision never to name the fatal malady destined to take down Ben Gazzara’s protagonist in Run for Your Life (“That’s because there is no such disease,” admitted executive producer Roy Huggins). Like Robertson’s previous titles, including 45 Years of The Rockford Files and The FBI Dossier, Men of Action is a must-have for any classic-TV history fan.

• Recipients of the 2024 Historical Writers’ Association Awards were announced last week, and The Tumbling Girl (Gallic), British author Bridget Walsh’s first Variety Palace Mystery, won for best debut novel. Tumbling introduced Victorian music hall scriptwriter Minnie Ward and her partner in crime-solving, private detective Albert Easterbrook. A sequel, The Innocents, reached print this last April.

• In Reference to Murder says, “the winner of the 2024 Pride Award for emerging LGBTQIA+ writers is Lori Potvin of Perth, Ontario, Canada. Potvin's winning novel-in-progress is a work of contemporary crime fiction. According to Potvin, ‘A Trail’s Tears follows the stories of two women who are strangers to each other—youth wellness worker Grace, who's looking for Sonny, a missing Indigenous teen mom, and Anna, a street-smart young woman caught in the trap of human trafficking and desperate to escape.’ Five runners-up were also chosen: Shelley Kinsman of Ashburn, Ontario; Erick Holmberg of Boston, Massachusetts; Emma Pacchiana of Norfolk, Virginia; Langston Prince of Los Angeles, California; and Shoney Sien of Aptos, California.” Congratulations to them all!

• We have already collected opinionated picks of the “best crime, mystery, and thriller novels of 2024” from The Washington Post (here and here), The Daily Telegraph, Amazon, Kirkus Reviews, Audible, and various other sources. Now comes Canada’s mighty Globe and Mail newspaper with its 10 favorites—all by women, oddly enough:

— Blood Rubies, by Mailan Doquang (Penzler)
— The Hunter, by Tana French (Viking)
— The Sequel, by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Faber & Faber)
— Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson (Bond Street)
— House of Glass, by Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s Press)
— Only One Survives, by Hannah Mary McKinnon (Mira)
— Guide Me Home, by Attica Locke (Viper)
— The Grey Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
— One Perfect Couple, by Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster)
— The Return of Ellie Black, by Emiko Jean (Simon & Schuster)

In addition, two works that have appeared on other crime-fiction “bests” lists are found in the Globe and Mail under best “International Fiction”: The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead); and Creation Lake, by Rachel Kushner (Scribner).

• BookPage has its own “Best Mystery & Suspense” list making the rounds. Here are the editors’ 10 choices:

— A Ruse of Shadows, by Sherry Thomas (Berkley)
— Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Henry Holt)
— Exposure, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
— Guide Me Home, by Attica Locke (Mulholland)
— Shanghai, by Joseph Kanon (Scribner)
— The Close-Up, by Pip Drysdale (Gallery)
— The Sequel, by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Celadon)
— Things Don’t Break On Their Own, by Sarah Easter Collins (Crown)
— Trust Her, by Flynn Berry (Viking)
— We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)

• CrimeReads’ Olivia Rutigliano delivers this excellent retrospective on “lady detectives” in Victorian and Edwardian literature.

• Another first-rate CrimeReads offering (originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) is Dean Jobb’s look back at “detective, swindler, accused killer, [and] spy” Gaston Means, “one of the Greatest Rogues in American History.” Jobb, you will recall, is also the author of this year’s A Gentleman and a Thief, which is likely to appear on my own “best of 2024” book list.

• What is it with British TV shows producing Christmas specials, anyway? Death in Paradise and its first spin-off, Beyond Paradise, have already announced holiday-themed episodes. Add to those now Acorn TV’s The Chelsea Detective, which has scheduled a Christmas installment of its own to drop on Monday, December 16. That series, which stars Adrian Scarborough and Vanessa Emme as unconventional police detectives working the upscale thoroughfares of London’s Chelsea neighborhood, will return in 2025 with three more 90-minute episodes comprising the balance of its third-season run.



• Before starring in the better-remembered Dan August or B.L. Stryker, actor Burt Reynolds won his first eponymous TV role in Hawk, a short-lived crime drama that aired on ABC from September 8, 1966, to December 29, 1966—17 episodes in all. “Hawk was historic,” writes Terence Towles Canote in A Shroud of Thoughts, “as the first American television show to centre on a Native American in a modern-day setting (it was preceded by Brave Eagle and Broken Arrow, which were both Westerns).” He goes on to note that Reynolds played

New York City police lieutenant John Hawk, who was full-blooded Iroquois. [Reynolds himself claimed to be of much-diluted Cherokee descent.] Hawk worked as a special investigator for the District Attorney's office. His partner was Dan Carter (Wayne Grice). Bruce Glover played Assistant District Attorney Murray Slaken, while Leon Janney played Assistant District Attorney Ed Gorton. …

Aside from featuring a lead character who was Native American, Hawk was a bit ahead of its time in other ways. The show was filmed on the streets of New York City. Only a few shows before Hawk, such as Naked City and Route 66 regularly shot on location, with most series during the 1966-1967 season still being shot on studio backlots. Hawk also had a grittier, more realistic feel than many police dramas of its time, and in some ways was closer to such Seventies movies as The French Connection (1971), Serpico (1973), and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974).

If you’re unfamiliar with this early Reynolds series, you can catch at least most of its episodes on YouTube—for now, that is.

• I haven’t even had an opportunity yet to watch the British TV drama The Day of the Jackal, which debuted in the States (on Peacock) earlier this month. But already, The Killing Times says it has been renewed for a second season. Jackal, of course, is a modern take on Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 political thriller of the same name.

• The Bunburyist’s Elizabeth Foxwell brings word that “Penguin Random House will publish a graphic novel version of Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business (1939) in May 2025 as part of the Pantheon Graphic Library.” The title offering in a 1950 collection of four short Chandler yarns starring Los Angeles gumshoe Philip Marlowe, “Trouble” finds Marlowe being “hired to scare away a disreputable woman from the adopted son of a wealthy businessman,” as blogger Paul Ferry recalls. “He’s no sooner started following this potential gold-digger before he stumbled across the first murder. From there, the bodies just keep piling up—but who’s responsible? Chandler cheekily waves suspects and red herrings in your face, so the reader—as well as Marlowe—hit many false leads before the final pay-off.” Foxwell explains that the graphic-novel version of this tale brings together writer Arvind Ethan David, illustrator Ilias Kyriazis, and colorist Cris Peter. (A concluding note: When published originally in Dime Detective magazine, “Trouble” starred a different Chandler sleuth, John Dalmas, but Dalmas was subsequently swept away to capitalize on Marlowe’s popularity.)

• By the way, if you would like to listen to a vintage radio dramatization of “Trouble Is My Business,” starring American actor Van Heflin, you can do that right here.

• I have added a new podcast to this page’s right-hand column inventory (scroll down to “Crime/Mystery Podcasts”). It’s called Tipping My Fedora, and comes from Sergio Angelini, who from 2011 to 2017, wrote a superior blog of that same name broadly focused on crime and mystery fiction. His new podcast, launched in early October, covers primarily film noir. Episodes thus far have featured British critics Barry Forshaw and Mike Ripley, as well as James Harrison, co-founder of Film Noir UK and director of its first festival, Film Noir Fest 2024; looked back at “William Friedkin’s 1985 dark and dazzling neo-noir, To Live and Die in L.A.”; and previewed the UK Blu-ray release of the 1954 drama Black Tuesday. Click here to access them all.

• Novelist Stephen Mertz, familiar for his “Cody’s Army” and “Cody’s War” novels, his contributions to Don Pendleton’s “Executioner” series, and numerous other books (many of them published under pseudonyms), died on November 5 at age 77. I didn’t know Mertz, but his friend and fellow novelist Max Allan Collins did. He observes that Mertz “had his cantankerous side but was cheerful and fun and funny even at his crankiest, and mostly he was a sunny presence, enthusiastic about writers whose work he loved and himself a dedicated professional. He was also a musician and a good one. He was a radio d.j. at times, and the kind of ideal presence you’d love to have with you pouring from the car radio on a long drive.” The folks at Wolfpack Publishing, who brought several of Mertz’s books to market, describe him on Facebook as “an extraordinary talent” whose “creativity, humor, and passion for storytelling will be deeply missed by his friends, colleagues, and countless fans.” Finally, another of Mertz’s friends, Ben Boulden, has reposted this interview he did with the author in 2016 to honor Mertz’s passing.

• There are many “words of the year” choices made every 12 months, by sources as varied as the American Dialect Society, Oxford University Press, Dictionary.com, and the folks behind the Collins English Dictionary. And while that last group chose “brat” as 2024’s “most important word or expression in the public sphere,” the Cambridge Dictionary folks have gone with “manifest,” after “celebrities such as pop star Dua Lipa and gymnast Simone Biles spoke of manifesting their success.” I can’t say “manifest” has been added in a big way to my own lexicon, but then I’m neither a singer-songwriter nor a champion Olympics performer.

“Dancing” All the Way to Victory

Dead Men Dancing, by Jógvan Isaksen, has won the 2024 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The 74-year-old Isaksen is a prolific writer living in the Faroe Islands, a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. The English translation of Dead Men Dancing was published last year by Norvik Press.

A congratulatory statement from the judges reads, in part:

Similar to the story of the ancient god Prometheus, a man has been shackled to rocks on the Faroe Islands, and left to drown on the beach. The discovery of his body throws the local community into an unsettling chaos, and as the journalist Hannis Martinsson investigates, he comes across evidence of similar deaths. He realises they are linked to the events in Klaksvík in the 1950s, and a local revolt which tore the community apart. As Martinsson digs into the troubled past, he learns about his country’s history, and also gives the reader a chance to discover what makes the Faroes intriguing and spellbinding.

Being a largely unknown territory to most, Dead Men Dancing includes a useful introduction to the modern reality of these islands by the CEO of the Faroese Broadcasting Corporation, mirrored by the social commentary that lies at the heart of the book itself, and the portrayal of the relationship with Denmark throughout the years.

This is only Isaksen’s second novel to be translated into English following Walpurgis Tide [Norvik Press, 2016]. This contemporary Faroese crime-fiction writer places his characters in the wild, beautiful, and unforgiving environment and allows them to search for truth. The judges found the location to be absolutely integral to the unfolding of the plot, and how the raw natural beauty of the Faroes served as a reflection of the thoughts and actions of the characters.

Dogged and uncompromising, Martinsson is a superb creation, similar in his ‘detective’ thinking and approach to Gunnar Staalesen’s lonely wolf PI Varg Veum, which the judging panel found very appealing. Martinsson’s gloomy demeanour and natural cynicism was beautifully balanced throughout with the more empathetic side of his nature, and in the age-old tradition of crime fiction his personal and professional relationships are fraught with tension.

The translation by Marita Thomsen is both accomplished and a little unusual, drawing as she does on the vernacular and intonation of the Scottish dialect. Again, the judges found this to be refreshingly different, and enjoyed the unique cadence and rhythm this gave to the book overall, an essential quality of any book in translation.

The annual Petrona Award was established in 2013 in memory of Maxine Clarke, a British editor and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction” who died in 2012. (Petrona was the name of her long-running blog). All entries “must be in translation and published in English in the UK during the preceding calendar,” and their authors “must either be born in Scandinavia or the submission must be set in Scandinavia.”

Also short-listed for the Petrona this year were The Collector, by Anne Mette Hancock, translated by Tara F. Chace (Denmark, Swift Press); Snow Fall, by Jørn Lier Horst, translated by Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph); The Girl by the Bridge, by Arnaldur Indriðason, translated by Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker); The Sins of Our Fathers, by Åsa Larsson, translated by Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press); and The Prey, by Yrsa Sigurðardottir, translated by Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton).

Congratulations to all of the 2024 nominees!

Bullet Points: Alarming Week Edition

After the horrific results of this week’s U.S. national elections, I’ve done my best to avoid major news sources. However, as always, I have kept my eyes open for developments in the world of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. Here are a few items worth sharing.

(Above) Author Paretsky, from her Facebook page.

• Sara Paretsky has been chosen to receive the 2025 Killer Nashville John Seigenthaler Legends Award. As In Reference to Murder notes, that prize—named for an ex-editorial director of USA Today—is “bestowed upon an individual within the publishing industry who has championed First Amendment Rights to ensure that all opinions are given a voice, has exemplified mentorship and example to authors, supporting the new voices of tomorrow, and/or has written an influential canon of work that will continue to influence authors for many years to come.” The Killer Nashville Web site relates some of the reasons Paretsky deserves this commendation:

Sara Paretsky revolutionized the mystery world in 1982 by introducing V.I. Warshawski in Indemnity Only. Paretsky challenged a genre in which women historically were vamps or victims by creating a detective with the grit and smarts to take on the mean streets. V.I. struck a chord with readers and critics; Indemnity Only was followed by twenty more V.I. novels. Her voice and world remain vital to readers; the New York Times calls V.I. “a proper hero for these times,” adding, “To us, V.I. is perfect.”

While Paretsky’s fiction changed the narrative about women, her work also opened doors for other writers. In 1986, she created Sisters in Crime, a worldwide organization that advocates for women crime writers. This organization earned her Ms. Magazine's 1987 Woman of the Year award. More accolades followed: the British Crime Writers awarded her the Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement; Blacklist won the Gold Dagger from the British Crime Writers for best novel of 2004, and she has received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from several universities.

Called “"passionate” and “electrifying,” V.I. reflects her creator’s passion for social justice. After chairing the school's first Commission on the Status of Women as a Kansas University undergraduate, Paretsky worked as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side during the turbulent race riots of 1966. Since then, Paretsky’s volunteer work has included advocating for healthcare for the mentally ill homeless, mentoring teens in Chicago's most troubled schools, and working for reproductive rights. Through her Sara & Two C-Dogs foundation, she also helps build STEM and arts programs for young people.

The author will be presented with her award during a special dinner at next year’s Killer Nashville conference, to be held in Nashville, Tennessee, from August 21 to 24.

• The shortlists have been announced of this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards contenders. 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 2024 Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year. They are:

— A Stranger in the Family, by Jane Casey (Hemlock Press)
— Witness 8, by Steve Cavanagh (Headline)
— Where They Lie, by Claire Coughlan (Simon & Schuster)
— Someone in the Attic, by Andrea Mara (Bantam)
— Somebody Knows, by Michelle McDonagh (Hachette Ireland)
— When We Were Silent, by Fiona McPhillips (Bantam)

Winners will be revealed during a ceremony in the Convention Centre Dublin on Wednesday, November 27.

• Elizabeth Foxwell points us toward this fascinating piece in Humanities Magazine, which recalls “how a copyright tussle between author Dashiell Hammett and Warner Bros. over his detective Sam Spade changed copyright law.”

• On this first day of Veterans Day Weekend, blogger-editor Janet Rudolph serves up a substantial list of mystery fiction related to this holiday. You will find works ranging from Rennie Airth’s River of Darkness and Susan Elia MacNeal’s Mr. Churchill's Secretary to Max Allan Collins’ The Million Dollar Wound, Elizabeth Speller’s The Return of Captain John Emmett, and Philip Kerr’s earliest Bernie Gunther yarns (March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem).

• Having himself penned a trio of James Bond continuation novels, it’s understandable that Anthony Horowitz might concoct a character in his own fiction who undertakes that same sort of assignment. And so he does in Marble Hall Murders, the forthcoming third entry in his Susan Ryeland/Atticus Pünd series (Magpie Murders, Moonflower Murders). This new work is due out in the UK in April 2025, and in the States come May. Here’s the plot summary from Amazon:

Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel, and her Greek boyfriend Andreas in search of a new life back in England.

Freelancing for Causton Books, she’s working on the manuscript of a novel, Pünd’s Last Case, by a young author named Eliot Crace, a continuation of the popular Alan Conway series. Susan is surprised to learn that Eliot is the grandson of legendary children’s author Marian Crace, who died some fifteen years ago—murdered, Elliot insists, by poison.

As Susan begins to read the manuscript’s opening chapters, the skeptical editor is relieved to find that Pünd’s Last Case is actually very good. Set in the South of France, it revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, who, though mortally ill, is poisoned—perhaps by a member of her own family. But who did it? And why?

The deeper Susan reads, the more it becomes clear that the clues leading to the truth of Marian Crace’s death are hidden within this Atticus Pünd mystery.

While Eliot’s accusation becomes more plausible, his behavior grows increasingly erratic. Then he is suddenly killed in a hit-and-run accident, and Susan finds herself under police scrutiny as a suspect in his killing.

Three mysterious deaths. Multiple motives and possible murderers. If Susan doesn’t solve the mystery of Pund’s Last Case, she may well be the next victim.

I very much enjoyed the first two Ryeland outings, so should be early in line to pick up a copy of this book as well.

• Mystery Fanfare brings word that the latest Death in Paradise Christmas special is coming to UK screens on December 25, courtesy of BBC-TV. That feature-length installment will star Don Gilét, who replaces Ralf Little as the British lead detective on the show. Series 14 of Death in Paradise is expected to debut on the opposite side of the Atlantic early in 2025. There’s no word yet on when it might be available to American viewers.

• Meanwhile, Series 3 of the Death spin-off series Beyond Paradise, featuring Kris Marshall and Sally Bretton, has its own Christmas special planned (the broadcast date will be December 25), with new episodes expected in the spring of next year. And a third spin-off, the Australia-set Return to Paradise, is scheduled to air in the UK beginning on November 22. Six episodes will be on offer this first season.

• Not only has the Prime Video series Reacher received an early fourth-season renewal (Season 3—based on Persuader, Lee Child’s seventh Jack Reacher novel—won’t even debut until 2025), but a spin-off drama is also in the works. As Deadline reports, it will find Danish actress Maria Sten reprising her “fan-favorite” role as Frances Neagley, a corporate security professional in Chicago who served with Reacher in the U.S. Army's 110th Special Investigations Unit. The blog In Reference to Murder says that in this spin-off’s first season, Neagley “learns that a beloved friend from her past has been killed in a suspicious accident, [and] becomes hell bent on justice. Using everything she’s learned from Jack Reacher and her time as a member of the 110th Special Investigators, Neagley puts herself on a dangerous path to uncover a menacing evil.” Look for Alan Ritchson, who plays Reacher in the original series, to guest star in the offshoot.

• They don’t amount to much, but The Killing Times has posted a handful of “first look” images from Series 6 of Strike, which BBC One promises to premiere in the UK next month. These latest episodes are adapted from the 2022 novel The Ink Black Heart, by “Robert Gailbraith” (aka J.K. Rowling), and will star Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger. The Web site TVDrama.com provides this plot synopsis:

In the new season, the co-creator of the popular [YouTube cartoon series] The Ink Black Heart shows up frantic at Cormoran Strike [Burke] and Robin Ellacott’s office because she is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure. Ellacott [Grainger] informs her that the agency is too busy to take on the case, but regrets doing so when, weeks later, she discovers that the cartoon co-creator has been murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart.

Ellacott and Strike are drawn into a quest to uncover the anonymous online figure who was tormenting the co-creator and are pulled into a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts.

Strike has previously aired in the States on HBO-TV, as C.B. Strike. But I have found no news yet of a U.S. debut for Series 6.

• One final boob tube-related item: The eight-episode Apple TV+ series Presumed Innocent is morphing into an anthology drama. Its acclaimed first season was of course based on Scott Turow’s 1987 novel of the same name, But, according to Deadline, the David E. Kelley-run production may take its sophomore-season inspiration from a legal thriller not even due for publication until 2026: Dissection of a Murder, by Jo Murray. It goes on to explain that Murray’s tale “follows Leila Reynolds who has just been handed her first murder case. She’s way out of her depth but the defendant only wants her—and to make matters worse, her husband is the prosecutor. Soon Leila is fighting to keep her own secrets buried too.”

• The British Crime Writers’ Association has brought on two new sponsors. The editorial consultancy Fiction Feedback, founded in 2008 by editor and former CWA secretary Dea Parkin, will support its Emerging Author Dagger prize. Writer/lecturer Morgen Witzel has volunteered to sponsor the Historical Dagger in memory of his wife, Dr Marilyn Livingstone, with whom—under the pseudonyms A.J. MacKenzie and R.L. Graham—he wrote 13 historical crime novels and thrillers. Livingstone passed away in September 2023.

• Scotland’s Glencairn Crystal Limited, which manufactures the famous Glencairn whisky glass and has for four years underwritten the McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing literary awards, is out with a new anthology, The Last Dram, that “features tales from 16 different authors, all of whom have previously entered the Glencairn Glass Crime Short Story competition over the last three years.” Among those writers, says The Bookseller, are “Allan Gaw (2022/23 runner-up, who has since gone on to win this year’s Bloody Scotland Debut Prize); Phillip Wilson (2023/24 winner); Elisabeth Ingram Wallace (2023/24 runner-up); Brid Cummings (2021/22 winner); Jennifer Harvey (2021/22 runner-up); Judith O’Reilly (2021/22 runner-up).” Funds raised through the sale of this anthology will go to Maggie’s, a network of cancer-care drop-in centers located across the United Kingdom.

• While re-reading The Little Sister, Raymond Chandler’s fifth Philip Marlowe novel, author Dana King finds himself surprised by the author’s “misogynistic tendencies.”

• As the DVD and Blu-ray editions of his latest indie film, Blue Christmas, are being readied for Christmastime sale, crime novelist Max Allan Collins reports that he and his fellow-author spouse, Barbara, recently celebrated the “world premiere” of a second new picture, Death by Fruitcake, with two showings in their home town of Muscatine, Iowa. Fruitcake brings to life the main characters in their almost two-decades-old Trash ’n’ Treasures mystery series, published under the nom de plume Barbara Allan. “The screenings weren’t flawless,” Collins writes. “These were our first showings anywhere other than on our computers, and Death by Fruitcake is primarily intended for television (streaming most likely) and physical media (Blu-ray and DVD). None of that marketing has begun, as the film is intended for a 2025 holiday release. So there were bumps, chiefly of the audio variety (softer image and audio on Friday, and still not ideal audio on Saturday). But they were eminently watchable and got a terrific reaction from both audiences, with lots of laughs and a good deal of fun at the red carpet event before and after …”

• I’m always a reluctant convention-goer, but I have promised to attend next year’s Bouchercon in New Orleans, during which my friend Ali Karim will serve as Fan Guest of Honor. And now I am giving serious thought to attending the Left Coast Crime get-together in late February 2026. It will be held in San Francisco, which is one of my favorite cities in the world, and feature as its Fan Guest of Honor Randal S. Brandt, a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library and an infrequent contributor to The Rap Sheet. For more info or to register for the ’26 LCC, click here.

• Let me wish fond farewells to two lately deceased performers who appeared over the years on many TV programs, including crime dramas: Teri Garr and Alan Rachins.

• And for the many millions of Americans traumatized by the prospect of convicted felon Donald Trump returning to the White House next year, MSNBC-TV’s Rachel Maddow offers this to-do list to defend the nation’s democracy from authoritarian assault.

Clever Claptrap

Every year since 2011 (and less consistently before then), I have reported on the winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical competition that glorifies terrifyingly bad opening sentences to (fortunately) never-to-be-completed books. However, the latest prize results—announced in August—passed me by completely.
So here I am with egg on my face, bringing you some of my favorites from among the 2024 victors in various tournament categories:

“She was poured into the red latex dress like Jello poured into a balloon, almost bursting at the seams, and her zaftig shape was awesome to behold, but I knew from the look on her face and the .45 she held pointing at me, that this was no standard client of my detective agency, but a new collection agency tactic to get me to pay my long-overdue phone bill.” — Jack Harnly, Sarasota, Florida (Winner, Crime & Detective division)

“Staring unblinkingly into the pleading, tear-filled eyes of yet another dame looking for me to solve all her problems, I sighed, stretched, scratched my whiskers, stuck my hind leg in the air and bent my spine at a 45-degree angle to reach down and lick my butt clean, then donned my fedora — Taco, Cat Detective, was officially on the case.” — Gwen Simonalle, Grenoble, France (Dishonorable Mention, Crime & Detective)<

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish, but as fish tend to live in the sea rather than in a skiff, he really had only himself to blame.” — Sam Wallington, London, England (Dishonorable Mention, Adventure)

“‘I do enjoy turning a prophet,’ said Torquemada, as he roasted the heretic seer on a spit.” — A.R. Templeton, Stratford, Canada (Winner, Vile Puns)

This year’s Grand Prize was given to Lawrence Person of Austin, Texas, for his splendidly vivid submission:

She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.

And the Grand Panjandrum's Special Award went to Joel Phillips of West Trenton, New Jersey, for the following:

Mrs. Higgins’ body was found in the pantry, bludgeoned with a potato ricer and lying atop a fifty-pound sack of Yukon golds, her favorite for making gnocchi, though some people consider them too moist for this purpose.

Named in dubious honor of Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), whose 1830 novel, Paul Clifford, began with the phrase, “It was a dark and stormy night,” this contest has been sponsored by the English Department at California’s San Jose State University ever since 1982. You can read all of the 2024 winners here.

Oh Yeah, About the Petrona …

As it turns out, I missed another crime-fiction awards announcement during my time away in Europe this month. Just a couple of weeks back, the Euro Crime blog reported that these six books are vying for the 2024 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year:

• The Collector, by Anne Mette Hancock,
translated by Tara F. Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)
• Snow Fall, by Jørn Lier Horst,
translated by Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph)
• The Girl by the Bridge, by Arnaldur Indriðason,
translated by Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker)
• Dead Men Dancing, by Jógvan Isaksen,
translated by Marita Thomsen (Faroe Islands, Kingdom of
Denmark, Norvik Press)
• The Sins of Our Fathers, by Åsa Larsson,
translated by Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press)
• The Prey, by Yrsa Sigurðardottir,
translated by Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)

This shortlist of the latest Petrona nominees has been culled from a previous longlist of works, all published in 2023.

The annual Petrona Award was established in 2013 in memory of Maxine Clarke, a British editor and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction” who died in 2012. (Petrona was the name of her long-running blog). All entries “must be in translation and published in English in the UK during the preceding calendar,” and their authors “must either be born in Scandinavia or the submission must be set in Scandinavia.” This year’s winner will be announced on November 14.

Macavity Check

For readers who wondered what had become of me over these past three weeks, the simple answer is, I was off vacationing in Paris and elsewhere in France, eating my body weight in pain au chocolates and duck confit, and imbibing rather liberally of the local vinos. (More about that later, perhaps.) I’d reasoned that the first part of October would be a relatively safe time to travel, work-wise, as little book-related news was expected. What I had not forseen was that prolific author Robert J. Randisi, a dedicated advocate of detective fiction who founded the Private Eye Writers of America in 1981, would die during my absence (more about that later, almost certainly); or that the winners of the 2024 Macavity Awards would be announced in the very week I departed. Historically, those prizes have been handed out at Bouchercon, but they were not this year.

For the record, and despite my being so tardy in posting this information, you will find the latest winners of the Macavitys below.

Best Mystery:
All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)

Also nominated: Dark Ride, by Lou Berney (Morrow); Hide, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer); Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim (Hogarth); Murder Book, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press); and Crook Manifesto, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Best First Mystery:
The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (Atria)

Also nominated: The Golden Gate, by Amy Chua (Minotaur); Scorched Grace, by Margot Douaihy (Zando/Gillian Flynn); Murder by Degrees, by Ritu Mukerji (Simon & Schuster); Dutch Threat, by Josh Pachter (Genius); and Mother-Daughter Murder Night, by Nina Simon (Morrow)

Best Mystery Short Story:
“Ticket to Ride,” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, (from Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter; Down & Out)

Also nominated: “Real Courage,” by Barb Goffman (Black Cat Mystery Magazine #14, October 2023); “Green and California Bound,” by Curtis Ippolito (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023); “Pigeon Tony’s Last Stand,” by Lisa Scottoline (Amazon Originals); and “One Night in 1965,” by Stacy Woodson (from More Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, edited by Michael Bracken; Down & Out)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery:
The Mistress of Bhatia House, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

Also nominated: Time's Undoing, by Cheryl Head (Dutton); Evergreen, by Naomi Hirahara (Soho Crime); The River We Remember, by William Kent Krueger (Atria); Our Lying Kin, by Claudia Hagadus Long (Kasva Press); and The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride (Riverhead)

Best Mystery-related Non-fiction/Critical:
Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction, by Anjili Babbar (Syracuse University Press)

Also nominated: Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction, by Max Allan Collins & James L. Traylor (Mysterious Press); A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Mark Dawidziak (St. Martin’s Press); Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, by Zeke Faux (Crown Currency); and Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Robert Morgan (LSU Press)

The Macavity Awards are named for T.S. Eliot’s “mystery cat” (in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats). Winners are selected by members of Mystery Readers International and subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal. Lists of previous recipients can be found here.

Ned Masters

The Australian Crime Writers Association has announced the winners of its 2024 Ned Kelly Awards (the “Neddies”), in four categories.

Best Crime Fiction:
Darling Girls, by Sally Hepworth (Pan Australia)

Also nominated: Killer Traitor Spy, by Tim Ayliffe (Simon & Schuster Australia); Dark Corners, by Megan Goldin (Canelo); Dark Mode, by Ashley Kalagian Blunt (Ultimo Press); The Seven, by Chris Hammer (Allen & Unwin); Ripper, by Shelley Burr (Hachette Australia); The Tea Ladies, by Amanda Hampson (Penguin); and Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect, by Benjamin Stevenson (Michael Joseph)

Best Debut Crime Fiction:
Murder in the Pacific: Ifira Point, by Matt Francis (Big Sky)

Also nominated: Four Dogs Missing, by Rhys Gard (Echo); Gus and the Missing Boy, by Troy Hunter (Wakefield Press); Lowbridge, by Lucy Campbell (Ultimo Press); The Fall Between, by Darcy Tindale (Penguin); The Beacon, by P.A. Thomas (Echo); and Violet Kelly and the Jade Owl, by Fiona Britton (Allen & Unwin)

Best True Crime:
Crossing the Line, by Nick McKenzie (Hachette Australia)

Also nominated: Killing for Country, by David Marr (Black Inc); The Murder Squad, by Michael Adams (Affirm Press); Reckless, by Marele Day (Ultimo Press); and The Teacher’s Pet, by Hedley Thomas (Macmillan Australia)

Best International Crime Fiction:
The Only Suspect, by Louise Candlish (Simon & Schuster UK)

Also nominated: Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton (Granta); Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin); Resurrection Walk, by Michael Connelly (Orion); The Search Party, by Hannah Richell (Simon & Schuster UK); and Zero Days, by Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster UK)

A video revealing each of this year’s winners and including acceptance speeches by the victors can be enjoyed here.

The Ned Kelly Awards were inaugurated in 1995 and, as the ACWA explains, are named for “the nation’s most infamous villain, bushranger Ned Kelly from the Kelly Gang.”

Brookmyre Grabs the Crown

Glasgow-born novelist Chris Brookmyre has won the 2024 McIlvanney Prize for his most recent standalone mystery, The Cracked Mirror (Abacus). That announcement was made on Friday, September 13—the opening night of the Bloody Scotland Festival.

Also shortlisted for this award: Past Lying, by Val McDermid (Sphere); Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage); A Spy Like Me, by Kim Sherwood (HarperCollins); and A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Pan Macmillan).

Presented annually since 2012, the McIvanney Prize is named in honor of Scottish author William McIlvanney, who passed away in 2015. Previous recipients include Charles Cumming, Peter May, Denise Mina, Francine Toon, and Alan Parks.

ADDENDUM: I neglected to mention there was a second prize winner declared during this year’s Bloody Scotland Festival. The Silent House of Sleep (SA Press), by UK “doctor and medical pathologist” Allan Gaw, was chosen to receive the 2024 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.

Contending for that commendation, as well, were the novels Crow Moon, by Suzy Aspley (Orenda); Dark Island, by Daniel Aubrey (Harper North); Blood Runs Deep, by Doug Sinclair (Storm); and Double Proof, by Martin Stewart (Polygon).

Nordic Nominees

Organizers of the annual Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year earlier today posted their shortlist of 10 nominees for the 2024 prize. They are:

• You Will Never Be Found, by Tove Alsterdal,
translated by Alice Menzies (Sweden, Faber & Faber)
• The Collector, by Anne Mette Hancock,
translated by Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)
• Snow Fall, by Jørn Lier Horst,
translated by Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph)
• Stigma, by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger, translated by
Megan E. Turney (Norway, Orenda)
• The Girl by the Bridge, by Arnaldur Indriðason,
translated by Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker)
• Dead Men Dancing, by Jógvan Isaksen,
translated by Marita Thomsen (Faroe Islands, Norvik Press)
• The Sins of Our Fathers, by Åsa Larsson,
translated by Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press)
• White as Snow, by Lilja Sigurðardottir,
translated by Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda)
• The Prey, by Yrsa Sigurðardottir,
translated by Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Girl in the Eagle's Talons, by Karin Smirnoff, translated by Sarah Death (Sweden, MacLehose Press)

A shortlist of nominees is due for release on October 10.

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.”

This year’s full list of entrants can be found here.

The Scottish Players

About two and a half months after announcing their longlist of nominees for the 2024 McIlvanney Prize, organizers of the annual Bloody Scotland international crime-writing festival have released their shortlist of five contenders:

• Past Lying, by Val McDermid (Sphere)
• The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre (Abacus)
• Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage)
• A Spy Like Me, by Kim Sherwood (HarperCollins)
• A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Pan Macmillan)

This year’s McIlvanney recipient will be revealed on the festival’s opening night, which is Friday, September 13.

Presented annually since 2012, the McIvanney Prize is named in honor of Scottish author William McIlvanney, who passed away in 2015. Previous recipients include Charles Cumming, Peter May, Denise Mina, Francine Toon, and Alan Parks.

Music City Raves

The Tennessee capital, Nashville, hosted not just one, but two crime-fiction conventions recently: Bouchercon and Killer Nashville. We’ve already talked about the award winners produced by that former assembly; now let’s recap those coming out of the latter.

This year’s Silver Falchion Awards celebrated published works in 17 categories, not all of them crime-fiction related. Below, though, are a few division winners of potential interest to Rap Sheet readers.

Best Action Adventure:
Hanging the Devil, by Tim Maleeny (Poisoned Pen Press)

Best Investigator:
Vessels of Wrath, by Thomas Holland (Independently published)

Best Mystery:
Indigo Road, by Reed Bunzel (Coffeetown Press)

Best Thriller:
Breaking Apart, by Wanda Venters, M.D. and Mary Rae, M.D.
(Written Dreams)

Best Cozy:
Trust the Terrier, by D.L. Mitchell (Black Rose)

In addition, Killer Nashville organizers handed out 17 Claymore Awards for unpublished manuscripts. Among the works honored were:

Best Action Adventure: The Aviatrix, by Christopher Boswell

Best Investigator: The Scent of Sunday, by Patricia Thorpe

Best Mystery: What They Buried, by P.J. McAvoy

Best Thriller: Electric Sky, by Peter Miller

Best Cozy: Pontoon, Romance, Boats, and Bad Business in the Wisconsin Northwoods, by T.K. Sheffield

Finally, the John Seigenthaler Legends Award went to “Charles Todd,” aka David Watjen, who with his mother, Carolyn Watjen, created the Inspector Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford historical mystery series.

To see a complete list of the 2024 Silver Falchion and Claymore winners, you need only click here.

Bonus Barrys

In addition to announcements regarding the latest winners of the Shamus Awards and Anthony Awards, last week’s Bouchercon in Nashville brought news of the 2024 Barry Award recipients.

Best Mystery or Crime Novel:
Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane (Harper)

Also nominated: Dark Ride, by Lou Berney (Morrow); All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron); Ozark Dogs, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime); Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland); and The Detective Up Late, by Adrian McKinty (Blackstone)

Best First Mystery or Crime Novel:
The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (Atria)

Also nominated: Better the Blood, by Michael Bennett (Atlantic Monthly Press); The Bitter Past, by Bruce Borgos (Minotaur); The Golden Gate, by Amy Chua (Minotaur); Age of Vice, by Deepti Kapoor (Riverhead); Mother-Daughter Murder Night, by Nina Simon (Morrow); and City Under One Roof, by Iris Yamashita (Berkley)

Best Paperback Original Mystery or Crime Novel:
Who the Hell Is Harry Black? by Jake Needham (Half Penny)

Also nominated: Murder and Mamon, by Mia P. Manansala
(Berkley); Everything She Feared, by Rick Mofina (Mira); Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Sutanto (Berkley); Expectant, by Vanda Symon (Orenda); and Lowdown Road, by Scott Von Doviak (Hard Case Crime)

Best Thriller: The Secret Hours, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)

Also nominated: Burner, by Mark Greaney (Berkley); Moscow Exile, by John Lawton (Atlantic Monthly); Going Zero, by Anthony McCarten (Harper); Drowning, by T.J. Newman (Avid Reader Press); and Zero Days, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press)

The Barrys are sponsored annually by Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. They take their name from the late Barry Gardner, described by that publication’s editor, George Easter, as “arguably the best fan reviewer on the planet.”

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Touted in Tennessee

Last evening, during Bouchercon in Nashville, the winners of this year’s Anthony Awards were announced.

Best Hardcover Novel:
All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)

Also nominated: Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland); Time’s Undoing, by Cheryl A. Head (Dutton); Face of Greed, by James L'Etoile (Oceanview); and The Last Devil to Die, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)

Best Paperback:
Hide, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)

Also nominated: No Home for Killers, by E.A. Aymar (Thomas & Mercer); Because the Night, by James D.F. Hannah (Down & Out); The Taken Ones, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer); Magic City Blues, by Bobby Matthews (Shotgun Honey); and Lowdown Road, by Scott Von Doviak (Hard Case Crime)

Best First Novel:
Mother-Daughter Murder Night, by Nina Simon (Morrow)

Also nominated: The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (Atria); Play the Fool, by Lina Chern (Bantam); Scorched Grace, by Margot Douaihy (Zando/Gillian Flynn); and City Under One Roof, by Iris Yamashita (Berkley)

Best Children’s/Young Adult: Enola Holmes and the Mark of the Mongoose, by Nancy Springer (Wednesday)

Also nominated: Finney and the Secret Tunnel, by Jamie Lane Barber (Level Elevate); Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers); The Sasquatch of Hawthorne Elementary, by K.B. Jackson (Reycraft); and The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle, by Taryn Sounders (Sourcebooks Young Readers)

Best Critical/Non-fiction: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy Egan (Viking)

Also nominated: Finders: Justice, Faith and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction, by Anjili Babbar (Syracuse University Press); Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction, by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor (Mysterious Press); A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Mark Dawidziak (St. Martin’s Press); Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Robert Morgan (LSU Press); Agatha Christie, She Watched: One Woman's Plot to Watch 201 Christie Adaptations Without Murdering the Director, Screenwriter, Cast, or Her Husband, by Teresa Peschel (Peschel Press); and Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy, by Steven Powell (Bloomsbury)

Best Anthology/Collection: Killin’ Time in San Diego: Bouchercon Anthology 2023, edited by Holly West (Down & Out)

Also nominated: School of Hard Knox, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor (Crippen & Landru); Here in the Dark, by Meagan Lucas (Shotgun Honey); Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter (Down & Out); and The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions, by Art Taylor (Crippen & Landru)

Best Short Story: “Ticket to Ride,” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski (from Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter; Down & Out)

Also nominated: “Real Courage,” by Barb Goffman (Black Cat Mystery Magazine, October 2023); “Knock,” by James D.F. Hannah (from Playing Games, edited by Lawrence Block; Subterranean Press); “Green and California Bound,” by Curtis Ippolito (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023); and “Tell Me No Lies,” by Holly West (from Shotgun Honey Presents: Thicker Than Water, edited by Ron Earl Phillips; Shotgun Honey)

Bouchercon and the Anthony Awards are named in honor of Anthony Boucher (aka William Anthony Parker White), a critic, novelist, and one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America.

Congratulations to all of the 2024 Anthony nominees!

Shamus Successes

Bouchercon 2024 kicked off earlier this week in Nashville, Tennessee, and is set to conclude tomorrow. Concurrent with those festivities, the Private Eye Writers of America presented this year’s set of Shamus Awards, in three categories.

Best Hardcover P.I. Novel:
Heart of the Nile, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Hard Rain, by Samantha Jayne Allen (‎Minotaur); Go Find Daddy, by Steve Goble (Oceanview); The Mistress of Bhatia House, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime); and The Bell in the Fog, by Lev AC Rosen (Forge)

Best Original Paperback P.I. Novel:
Liar’s Dice, by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best)

Also nominated: Drums, Guns ’n’ Money, by Jonathan J. Brown (Down & Out); Gillespie Field Groove, by Corey Lynn Fayman (Konstellation Press); The Truth We Hide, by Liz Milliron (Level Best); and Bring the Night, by J.R. Sanders (Level Best)

Best P.I. Short Story:
“Errand for a Neighbor” by Bill Bassman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], January/February 2023)

Also nominated: “Beyond Belief” by Libby Cudmore (Tough, May 2023); “The Soiled Dove of Shallow Hollow” by Sean McCluskey (EQMM, January/February 2023); “Imperfect Data” by Bob Tippee (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January/February 2023); and “Making the Bad Guys Nervous” by Joseph S. Walker (Black Cat Weekly, #102)

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Ngaios Champs Named

OK, I guess my late-summer break is finally over. Today brings word of which books and authors have won New Zealand’s 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards. There were three categories of nominees this year.

Best Novel: Ritual of Fire, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)

Also nominated: Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin); The Caretaker, by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins); Pet, by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press); Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson (Black & White); Going Zero, by Anthony McCarten (Macmillan); and Expectant, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

Best First Novel: Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)

Also nominated: El Flamingo, by Nick Davies (YBK); Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson (Black & White); A Better Class of Criminal. by Cristian Kelly (Cristian Kelly); and Mama Suzuki: Private Eye, by Simon Rowe (Penguin)

Best Kids/YA: Miracle, by Jennifer Lane (Cloud Ink Press)

Also nominated: Caged, by Susan Brocker (Scholastic); Katipo Joe: Wolf’s Lair, by Brian Falkner (Scholastic); Nikolai’s Quest, by Diane Robinson (Rose & Fern); and Nor’east Swell, by Aaron Topp (One Tree House)

A press release quotes Ngaios founder Craig Sisterson as saying, “I’m stoked we have a special award this year recognising writers of crime, mystery, and thriller tales for younger readers. Many of us owe any lifelong passion for books, and all the good that comes along with that, to the children’s authors we read when we were youngsters ourselves. Aotearoa has amazing kids authors, across many genres. In future we plan to award our Best Kids/YA Book prize biennially, alternating with our Best Non-fiction prize that returns in 2025.”

This year’s prize recipients were announced during a special event at the WORD Christchurch Festival. The Ngaios are named in honor of Dame Ngaio Marsh, the creator of “gentleman detective” Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Lists of previous recipients can be found here.

Ngaios Results on the Horizon

From Australia, where this year’s nominees for the Ned Kelly Awards were recently named, we move across the Tasman Sea (aka “the Ditch”) to New Zealand. There, organizers of the Ngaio Marsh Awards have announced their 2024 finalists in three categories.

Best Novel:
• Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)
• The Caretaker, by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins)
• Ritual of Fire, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)
• Pet, by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
• Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson (Black & White)
• Going Zero, by Anthony McCarten (Macmillan)
• Expectant. by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

Best First Novel:
• Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)
• El Flamingo, by Nick Davies (YBK)
• Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson (Black & White)
• A Better Class of Criminal. by Cristian Kelly (Cristian Kelly)
• Mama Suzuki: Private Eye, by Simon Rowe (Penguin)

Best Kids/YA:
• Caged, by Susan Brocker (Scholastic)
• Katipo Joe: Wolf’s Lair, by Brian Falkner (Scholastic)
• Miracle, by Jennifer Lane (Cloud Ink Press)
• Nikolai’s Quest, by Diane Robinson (Rose & Fern)
• Nor’east Swell, by Aaron Topp (One Tree House)

The Ngaio Marsh Awards (originally just a single commendation, given for Best Novel) were launched in 2010 by Craig Sisterson. They honor Dame Ngaio Marsh, the creator of “gentleman detective” Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Previous recipients are named here.

This year’s prize winners are to be made known during a special event at the WORD Christchurch Festival on Wednesday, August 28.

Last of the Neddies

Another day, another shortlist of contenders for Australia’s distinguished Ned Kelly Awards (the “Neddies”). This time, the category is Best Crime Fiction, and the nominees are …

• Killer Traitor Spy, by Tim Ayliffe (Simon & Schuster Australia)
• Dark Corners, by Megan Goldin (Canelo)
• Dark Mode, by Ashley Kalagian Blunt (Ultimo Press)
• Darling Girls, by Sally Hepworth (Pan Australia)
• The Seven, by Chris Hammer (Allen & Unwin)
• Ripper, by Shelley Burr (Hachette Australia)
• The Tea Ladies, by Amanda Hampson (Penguin)
• Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect, by Benjamin Stevenson
(Michael Joseph)

Actually, this is the last such line-up for 2024, following shortlists for Best Debut Crime Fiction, Best True Crime, and Best International Crime Fiction. The Australian Crime Writers Association, which sponsors these prizes, will identity the winners in September.