Six Appeal

It was only a month ago that the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival brought us its longlist of contestants for the 2020 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. That roster of 18 works has now been pared down to a shortlist of just six:

• My Sister the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic)
• Worst Case Scenario, by Helen Fitzgerald (Orenda)
• The Lost Man, by Jane Harper (Little, Brown)
• Joe Country, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• The Chain, by Adrian
McKinty (Orion)
• Smoke and Ashes, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)

From now through Friday, July 19, you’re invited to go online and vote for your favorite work from among this half dozen. Due to the cancellation of the 2020 Theakston Festival, the winner will be announced during a “digital awards ceremony” on July 23.

Keeping Abreast of the Anthonys

Unfortunately, I was absent from my office yesterday when the lists of nominees for the 2020 Anthony Awards were announced. So only this morning am I catching up with that news.

Best Novel:
• Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (Ecco)
• They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge)
• Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• The Murder List, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)
• Miami Midnight, by Alex Segura (Polis)

Best First Novel:
• The Ninja Daughter, by Tori Eldridge (Agora)
• Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Sarah Crichton)
• One Night Gone, by Tara Laskowski (Graydon House)
• Three-Fifths, by John Vercher (Agora)
• American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson (Random House)

Best Paperback Original:
• The Unrepentant, by E.A. Aymar (Down & Out)
• Murder Knocks Twice, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)
• The Pearl Dagger, by L.A. Chandlar (Kensington)
• Scot & Soda, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)
• The Alchemist’s Illusion, by Gigi Pandian (Midnight Ink)
• Drowned Under, by Wendall Thomas (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Naming Game, by Gabriel Valjan (Winter Goose Press)

Best Critical Non-fiction Work:
• Hitchcock and the Censors, by John Billheimer (University
Press of Kentucky)
• The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of the Collins Crime Club, by John Curran (Collins Crime Club)
• The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women, by Mo Moulton (Basic)
• The Trail of Lizzie Borden: A True Story, by Cara Robertson
(Simon & Schuster)
• The Five: The Untold Stories of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Best Short Story:
• “Turistas,” by Hector Acosta (from ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!: Stories to Benefit the People of Puerto Rico, edited by Angel Luis Colón;
Down & Out)
• “Unforgiven,” by Hilary Davidson (from Murder a-Go-Gos: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Go’s, edited by
Holly West; Down & Out)
• “The Red Zone,” by Alex Segura (from ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!)
• “Better Days,” by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May/June 2019)
• “Hard Return,” by Art Taylor (from Crime Travel, edited by Barb Goffman; Wildside Press)

Best Anthology or Collection:
• The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, edited by Michael Bracken (Down & Out)
• ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!: Stories to Benefit the People of Puerto Rico, edited by Angel Luis Colón (Down & Out)
• Crime Travel, edited by Barb Goffman (Wildside Press)
• Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible, edited by Verena Rose, Rita Owen, and Shawn Reilly Simmons (Wildside Press)
• Murder A-Go-Go’s: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Go's, edited by Holly West (Down & Out)

Best Young Adult:
• Seven Ways to Get Rid of Harry, by Jen Conley (Down & Out)
• Catfishing on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen)
• Killing November, by Adriana Mather (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• Patron Saints of Nothing, by Randy Ribay (Kokila)
• The Deceivers, by Kristen Simmons (Tor Teen)
• Wild and Crooked, by Leah Thomas (Bloomsbury YA)

(The news release about these awards notes: “This year, there are two categories with more than five nominees. This is the result of a tie for fifth place. When this occurs, according to Bouchercon standing rules, all of the authors who have tied become nominees.”)

Due to the pandemic-caused cancellation of this year’s Bouchercon—during which the Anthony Awards would normally have been presented—the winners of these prizes will be declared online on October 17 as part of a Virtual Bouchercon.

Congratulations to all of the 2020 contenders!

PaperBack: “The Girl in the Gold Leather Dress”

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



The Girl in the Gold Leather Dress, by Victoria Kelrich Morhaim (Signet, 1961). Morhaim penned at least one other novel, the similarly titled The Girl Who Had Everything (1962). Cover illustration by Barye Phillips.

Hitchcock’s Winning Hand

Washington, D.C., author Jane Stanton Hitchcock will be given the 2019 Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing for her comic crime novel, Bluff (Poisoned Pen Press). Where that presentation will be made is still to be decided.

The Hammett Prize is bestowed annually by the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers. Also vying for the 2019 award were The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols, by Nicholas Meyer (St. Martin’s Press); Blood Relations, by Jonathan Moore (Mariner); The Murals, by William Bayer (Severn House); and Norco ’80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History, by Peter Houlahan (Counterpoint Press).

(Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site.)

Evidence of Excellence

We can’t say we weren’t warned. Late last week, the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) said it would announce its longlists of nominees for the 2020 Dagger Awards today—and now we have those, nine categories of books, authors, and publishers deemed by judges to be the best on offer in the United Kingdom.

CWA Gold Dagger:
• What You Pay For, by Claire Askew (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by Gary Bell (Raven)
• November Road, by Lou Berney (Harper)
• Black Summer, by M.W. Craven (Constable)
• Forced Confessions, by John Fairfax (Little, Brown)
• The Guest List, by Lucy Foley (Harper)
• The Lantern Men, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• Silver, by Chris Hammer (Wildfire)
• Joe Country, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• The Bear Pit, by S.G. MacLean (Quercus)
• Throw Me to the Wolves, by Patrick McGuinness (Jonathan Cape)
• Death in the East, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
• The Whisper Man, by Alex North (Michael Joseph)
• That Left Turn at Albuquerque, by Scott Phillips (Soho Crime)
• Good Girl, Bad Girl, by Michael Robotham (Sphere)
• No One Home, by Tim Weaver (Michael Joseph)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:
• November Road, by Lou Berney (Harper)
• This Is Gomorrah, by Tom Chatfield (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Keep You Close, by Karen Cleveland (Bantam Press)
• One Way Out, by A.A. Dhand (Bantam Press)
• Between Two Evils, by Eva Dolan (Raven)
• Perfect Kill, by Helen Fields (Avon)
• A Shadow Intelligence, by Oliver Harris (Little, Brown)
• The River, by Peter Heller (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Cemetery Road, by Greg Iles (Harper)
• Cold Storage, by David Koepp (HQ)
• The Chain, by Adrian McKinty (Orion)
• The Whisper Man, by Alex North (Michael Joseph)
• The King’s Evil, by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins)

John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger:
• Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (Faber and Faber)
• Trust Me, I'm Dead, by Sherryl Clark (Verve)
• My Lovely Wife, by Samantha Downing (Michael Joseph)
• Little White Lies, by Philippa East (HQ)
• Whirligig, by Andrew James Greig (Fledgling Press)
• This Dark Little Place, by A.S. Hatch (Serpent’s Tail)
• A Death in the Medina, by James Von Leyden (Constable)
• Hold Your Tongue, by Deborah Masson (Corgi)
• Black Sun, by Owen Matthews (Bantam Press)
• The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, by Felicity McLean (Point Blank)
• The Wreckage, by Robin Morgan-Bentley (Trapeze)
• The Man on the Street, by Trevor Wood (Quercus)

Sapere Books Historical Dagger:
• In Two Minds, by Alis Hawkins (The Dome Press)
• Metropolis, by Philip Kerr (Quercus)
• The Bear Pit, by S.G. MacLean (Quercus)
• Death in the East, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
• The Serpent’s Mark, by S.W. Perry (Corvus)
• The Anarchists’ Club, by Alex Reeve (Raven)
• Liberation Square, by Gareth Rubin (Michael Joseph)
• The Bone Fire, by S.D. Sykes (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The King’s Evil, by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins)
• The Man That Got Away, by Lynne Truss (Raven)
• Sorry for the Dead, by Nicola Upson (Faber and Faber)
• The Paper Bark Tree Mystery, by Ovidia Yu (Constable)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger:
• The Catholic School, by Edoardo Albinati;
translated by Anthony Shugaar (Picador)
• Summer of Reckoning, by Marion Brunet;
translated by Katherine Gregor (Bitter Lemon Press)
• The Godmother, by Hannelore Cayre;
translated by Stephanie Smee (Old Street)
• Like Flies from Afar, by K. Ferrari;
translated by Adrian Nathan West (Canongate)
• November, by Jorge Galán;
translated by Jason Wilson (Constable)
• Blood Song, by Johana Gustawsson;
translated by David Warriner (Orenda)
• The Cabin, by Jørn Lier Horst;
translated by Anne Bruce (Michael Joseph)
• The Fragility of Bodies, by Sergio Olguin;
translated by Miranda France (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Grab a Snake by the Tail, by Leonardo Padura;
translated by Peter Bush (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Little Siberia, by Antti Tuomainen;
translated by David Hackston (Orenda)

Short Story Dagger:
• “Dead Weight,” by Fiona Cummins (from Exit Wounds, edited by
Paul B. Kane and Marie O’Regan; Titan)
• “Connecting the Dots,” by Jeffery Deaver (from Invisible Blood, edited by Maxim Jakubowski; Titan)
• “The Bully,” by Jeffery Deaver (from Exit Wounds)
• “The New Lad,” by Paul Finch (from Exit Wounds)
• “The Washing,” by Christopher Fowler (from Invisible Blood)
• “Bryant and May and The Devil’s Triangle,” by Christopher Fowler (from Bryant and May: England’s Finest, by Christopher Fowler; Doubleday)
• “#Me Too,” by Lauren Henderson (from Invisible Blood)
• “The Recipe,” by Louise Jensen (from Exit Wounds)
• “Kittens,” by Dean Koontz (from Exit Wounds)
• “Easily Made,” by Syd Moore (from The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas, by Syd Moore; Point Blank Press)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction:
• Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,
by Casey Cep (William Heinemann)
• Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists,
by Julia Ebner (Bloomsbury)
• Corrupt Bodies: Death and Dirty Dealing in a London Morgue,
by Peter Everett (Icon)
• Honour: Achieving Justice for Banaz Mahmod,
by Caroline Goode (Oneworld)
• Red River Girl: A Journey into the Dark Heart of Canada, by Joanna Jolly (Virago)
• She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (Bloomsbury Circus)
• The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury, by Sean O’Connor
(Simon & Schuster)
• The Professor and the Parson: A Story of Desire, Deceit and Defrocking, by Adam Sisman (Profile)
• The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective, by Susannah
Stapleton (Picador)
• Dead Fashion Girl: A Situationist Detective Story, by Fred Vermorel (Strange Attractor Press)
 
Dagger in the Library:
• Benjamin Black
• Christopher Brookmyre
• Jane Casey
• Paul Finch
• Alex Gray
• Mick Herron
• Quintin Jardine
• Lisa Jewell
• Erin Kelly
• Adrian McKinty
• Denise Mina
• James Oswald

Debut Dagger:
• Lowlands, by Barbara Austin
• The Spae-Wife, by Anna Caig
• Undercut, by Loraine Fowlow
• Whipstick, by Leanne Fry
• Pesticide, by Kim Hays
• Blogger’s End, by Jack Kapica
• Emergency Drill, by Nicholas Morrish
• Revolution Never Lies, Josephine Moulds
• Bitter Lake, by Michael Munro
• Grim Fairy Tale, by Karen Taylor
• Dark Pastimes, by Jane Wing
• A Generation of Vipers, by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
 
Publishers’ Dagger:
• Allison & Busby
• Bitter Lemon
• Harvill Secker
• Head of Zeus
• HQ
• Michael Joseph
• Orenda
• Orion
• Pushkin Vertigo
• Raven
• Severn House
• Sphere

A shortlist of nominees is expected sometime later this year, to be followed by the actual awards presentation on October 22 (either a traditionally glitzy public gathering or, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, an online-only function). During that same ceremony, Martin Edwards will receive the 2020 Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, “the highest honour in British crime writing.”

Meanwhile, the CWA wants it known that “Della Millward has won the 2020 CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize for A Time to Confess. She receives £500, a selection of Margery Allingham books and two passes to the international crime writing convention CrimeFest in 2021. Highly commended were Lauren Everdell for Voices and Laila Murphy with Sting in the Tail. The Margery Allingham Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author, works with the CWA to operate and fund the writing competition.”

“The Uncles” Consumed by Flames

My best friend from college, Byron Rice, lives with his family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Over the decades, every time I’ve visited Byron there, he and I have made a special point of swinging by Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore (at 2864 Chicago Avenue South) to browse and, more often than not, buy fistfuls of books. While the ridiculously overstuffed shop offered new books, it was usually the old paperbacks that drew my attention. Thanks to Uncle Edgar’s, my collection has beefed up to include vintage yarns by Robert Terrall, Thomas B. Dewey, Harold Q. Masur, Richard Dougherty, and many other writers.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic pretty much shut down air travel worldwide, I’d been planning to fly out to Minneapolis early this month and spend a week there. Trips to Uncle Edgar’s as well as to Once Upon a Crime were, of course, on the agenda. Needless to say, I had to scrap those plans altogether as the pandemic worsened.

(Right) Uncle Edgar’s stuffed its shelves full of wonders.

And now comes worse news, from The Gumshoe Site: “Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore and its sister store, Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore, two of the most famous genre bookstores in America, were torched and burned down by rioting vandals (not protesters) in the very early morning of Saturday, May 30, in … the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.” The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal points out that those twin shops, located in the same modest “century-old commercial storefront,” were “located on Chicago Avenue just one block north of Lake Street and about nine blocks north of the intersection where Floyd died.” As Byron informs me, such a location put them too near the protest zone to be safe from spillover violence.

Publishers Weekly provides this account of the destruction:

On Saturday, owner Don Blyly posted on the store’s website under the headline, “Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s Foully Slain,” the same statement he sent employees and posted on Facebook earlier that day: vandals had broken all the windows in the two stores and then squirted accelerant through them. By the time he arrived on the scene in the wee hours of Saturday morning, both stores were too full of smoke for him to save anything. Buildings on both sides of the street were burning as “dozens of people were dancing around.”

“No sign of any cops, national guard troops, or any help,” Blyly wrote. “I’m pretty sure the insurance policy excludes damage from a civil insurrection, so I suspect I won’t get a cent for either the building or the contents.”

Blyly founded Uncle Hugo’s in 1974, and six years later opened Uncle Edgar’s. They eventually became major attractions for readers.

The Business Journal explains: “‘The Uncles,’ as Blyly refers to the stores, contained over 100,000 used and new volumes when they burned. There were rare signed editions and decades of collectibles. He estimated the retail value at around $1 million.” That publication adds that even before the recent Minneapolis riots, Blyly’s business was in trouble. “Like many retailers, Blyly was already struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic, which had prevented him from opening his stores to walk-in traffic since March. Four of his six employees had gone on unemployment, returning to work not long before the stores were destroyed. While Blyly worked long hours to fill mail orders alone during the shutdown, cashflow was limited. He estimated he owes publishers about $50,000 for books delivered before the fire.”

It’s not yet clear whether Blyly will rebuild his conjoined bookstores. However, he’s been told that—fortunately—his insurance policy for the structure and its inventory will indeed cover his loss, though it may not provide him with sufficient funds for reconstruction. “In the meantime,” the Business Journal reports, “Blyly plans to run a small mail-order business out of his home. He’ll start by selling Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s branded T-shirts and sweatshirts; he recently ordered a two-year supply.” A GoFundMe campaign (with a whopping $500,000 goal!) has also been launched to assist Blyly in whatever direction he decides to take his business.

Check the stores’ Facebook page for news updates.

Thrills to Be Had in Your Armchair

Let me offer just a quick reminder that, despite the cancellation of this year’s 15th annual ThrillerFest (due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis), convention organizers are going ahead with a Virtual ThrillerFest, scheduled to roll out between July 6 and 14.

A statement from the International Thriller Writers (ITW) says events will include “Mega CraftFest, Pitching and Consulting Sessions, CareerFest, Master Class, a Debut Author Presentation, the Thriller Awards, and a host of other activities. We are full speed ahead for our usual July celebration, working to support thriller enthusiasts worldwide.” An announcement of this year’s Thriller Award winners is expected on the afternoon of Saturday, July 11.

Mystery Scene’s Web site features a list of Virtual ThrillerFest highlights, while Rap Sheet correspondent Ali Karim notes in Shotsmag Confidential that “There are many within the crime and thriller community, helping provide content for ITW that can be viewed, interacted with, and debated for this event. I was flattered to be asked by author and ITW technical bloke Jeff Ayers to participate. I enjoyed recording amusing and insightful sessions with award-winning authors Michael Robotham in Sydney, Australia, as well as Jeffery Deaver, in North Carolina—while seated in England.”

Full registration information and prices can be found here.

Sleuth Standouts

The Private Eye Writers of America organization has announced its nominees for the 2020 Shamus Awards, in three categories.

Best Original Private Eye Paperback:
• The Skin Game, by J.D. Allen (Midnight Ink)
• Behind the Wall of Sleep, by James D.F. Hannah (Self-published)
• Paid in Spades, by Richard Helms (Clay Stafford)
• Ration of Lies, by M. Ruth Myers (Self-published)
• The Bird Boys, by Lisa Sandlin (Cinco Puntos Press)

Best Private Eye Short Story:
• “The Smoking Bandit of Lakeside Terrace,” by Chad Baker
(Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], May/June 2019)
• “Sac-A-Lait Man” by O’Neil De Noux (EQMM, September/
October 2019)
• “The Dunes of Saulkrasti,” by William Burton McCormick
(EQMM, September/October 2019)
• “The Fourteenth Floor,” by Adam Meyer (from Crime Travel, edited by Barb Goffman; Wildside Press)
• “Weathering the Storm” by Michael Pool (from The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, edited by Michael Bracken; Down & Out)

Best Private Eye Novel:
• The Tower of Songs, by Casey Barrett (Kensington)
• Lost Tomorrows, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview)
• The Shallows, by Matt Goldman (Forge)
• Below the Line, by Michael Gould (Dutton)
• The Cold Way Home, by Julia Keller (Minotaur)

(There will not be a prize given this time around for Best First Private Eye Novel. The PWA Web site explains that it “is currently on hiatus while we search for a new sponsor.”)

During any normal year, the Shamuses would be presented during an off-site banquet held in association with Bouchercon. However, this is not a normal year: Bouchercon 2020 has been cancelled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. PWA executive director Robert J. Randisi says, “This year we’ll be announcing the winners before the end of June, as soon as they appear in our newsletter. The plaques will then be mailed to the winners. And we’ll see everyone next year [at Bouchercon] in New Orleans.”

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

A Convergence of Coincidences

By Jim Napier
British crime writer Mike Ripley continues to add arrows to his already impressive quiver with his latest addition to the Albert Campion canon. To the delight of the members of the Margery Allingham Society, he has now published his sixth Campion novel. Mr. Campion’s Séance (Severn House) follows Mr. Campion’s War (2018), Mr. Campion’s Abdication (2017), Mr. Campion’s Fault (2016), Mr. Campion’s Fox (2015), and Mr. Campion’s Farewell (2014), all of which have earned this author high praise from both Allingham devotees and the wider reading public. Mr. Campion’s Séance will likely add to that renown.

London, toward the end of World War II: Best-selling crime writer Evadne Childe (born Evadne Walker-Pyne) has published a novel in which the rather disreputable owner of one of the city’s speakeasies (known as “bottle clubs” in London) is robbed and slain. The extraordinary parallels between the plot of that yarn, The Bottle Party Murder, and a recent, real-life homicide at the Grafton Club in Soho raise eyebrows at Scotland Yard. Yet no one is arrested for the bottle club crime.

A full six years later, yet another killing takes place. This one too shares eerie similarities with another novel written by Evadne Childs. The police are again baffled, but can make no headway in the case.

Now fast-forward several more years, and a daring robbery is committed in the heart of London. A postal van is stopped in broad daylight, breeched, and its contents taken away by thieves in front of startled passers-by. The heist had been previously described in one of Evadne Childe’s novels—a work that is still in the hand of her publishers, and has not yet been released! Once again the police look into the matter, but they are unable to establish any link between the author and the crime itself.

Aristocratic amateur sleuth Albert Campion takes up the formidable task of solving these puzzles, assisted by a colorful cast of characters including his manservant (a former burglar), Magersfontein Lugg, his wife, Lady Amanda Fitton, and their precocious 4-year-old son, Rupert. Victims and suspects include Tony Valetta (the late nightclub owner), the intriguingly-named “Rags” Donovan (a former cigarette girl who has taken over the running of the club), two mysterious Belgians, and a spiritualist or medium named Miss Kitto. Campion is further aided in his investigation by the familiar-to-Allingham-readers Superintendent Stanislaus Oates, Detective Superintendent Yeo, and Charles Luke, all of Scotland Yard. This is an ambitious and far-reaching tale, but Ripley carries it off with his characteristic panache.

In the original Campion canon, humor and social commentary were very much a part of Allingham’s style, and Ripley lends it his own special flavor. There are improbably named characters such as Thaddeus P. Honeycutt, and of course, Magersfontein Lugg. And there is no shortage of wit of the nudge-nudge-wink-wink variety, as when author Childe signs into a seedy nightclub as “Mrs. Agatha Leigh Sayers,” or when she is described as “a neighbor of D. Sayers and M. Allingham.” When Lugg expresses his dislike for Belgium—acquired, it seems, during the First World War—Campion inquires why this is so, and Lugg acerbically replies, “I only went once and they started shooting at me. No inclination to go back there.” Often the butt of Campion’s jests, when the sleuth apologizes for his manservant Lugg he says, “he can only read in short bursts because his lips get tired.”

In Mr.Campion’s Séance Mike Ripley undertakes a wide-ranging narrative. Undaunted by the complexity of his project, he seamlessly transports the reader between times and places that would challenge a lesser author. Throughout this novel, Ripley’s affection for Allingham and her characters is apparent, and he never fails to do her work justice. Mr. Campion’s Séance has a cracking good puzzle at its core, and has earned a rightful place on the shelf alongside Allingham’s original works. It will not disappoint Ripley’s readers, either.

(Editor’s note: Mr. Campion’s Seance will be released in the United States, again by Severn House, this coming August.)

* * *

Since 2005 Jim Napier’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in several Canadian newspapers and on various crime-fiction and literary Web sites, including his own award-winning review site, Deadly Diversions. His debut crime novel, Legacy, was published in the spring of 2017, and the second entry in that series, Ridley’s War, is scheduled for release in the fall of 2020.

There’s Still More Awards News

Two items from In Reference to Murder. First:

The longlists were announced for Sisters in Crime Australia’s 20th Davitt Awards for the best crime and mystery books by Aussie women. This year a record 85 adult novels are in contention, with a third of those being debut novels. The official SinC-Australia website has the complete lists of the finalists for Best Adult Crime Novel, Best Young Adult Crime Novel, Best Children’s Crime Novel, and Best Nonfiction Crime Books.

And let’s not forget about this:

Lambda Literary, an organization supporting LGBTQ+ writers and championing LGBTQ+ literature, announced the winners of the 32nd Lambda Literary Awards in over 20 categories across a broad range of genres. The winner in the Lesbian Mystery was Galileo by Ann McMan, while the winner in the Gay Mystery category was Carved in Bone: A Henry Rios Novel by Michael Nava. You can see the lists of all the finalists in the various categories here.

CrimeFest Pushes Through the Pandemic

This year’s CrimeFest—which was to have taken place in Bristol, England, from June 4 to 7—may have been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped organizers from announcing their nominees for a series of traditional, annual awards—plus a new commendation: the Specsavers Crime Fiction Debut Award. The winners of all these prizes are to be announced via social media on Tuesday, July 7. Congratulations to all of the nominees!

Specsavers Crime Fiction Debut Award:
• The Chemical Detective, by Fiona Erskine (Point Blank)
• Evil Things, by Katja Ivar (Bitter Lemon Press)
• The Conviction of Cora Burns, by Carolyn Kirby (No Exit Press)
• The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides (Orion)
• Blood & Sugar, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle)
• To the Lions, by Holly Watt (Raven)

Audible Sounds of Crime Award:
• Big Sky, by Kate Atkinson, read by Jason Isaacs (Penguin
Random House Audio)
• My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite, read by
Weruche Opia (W.F. Howes)
• Winter Dark, by Alex Callister, read by Ell Potter (Audibe Studios)
• Blue Moon, by Lee Child, read by Jeff Harding (Penguin
Random House Audio)
• The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell, read by Tamaryn Payne, Bea Holland, and Dominic Thorburn (Penguin Random House Audio)
• The Holiday, by T.M. Logan, read by Laura Kirman (Zaffre)
• The Man with No Face, by Peter May, read by Peter Forbes (Quercus)
• The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides, read by Louise Brealey and Jack Hawkins (Orion)

eDunnit Award:
• Worst Case Scenario, by Helen FitzGerald (Orenda)
• Never Be Broken, by Sarah Hilary (Headline)
• The King’s Evil, by Andrew Taylor (HarperFiction)
• The Maltese Herring, by L.C. Tyler (Allison & Busby)
• To the Lions, by Holly Watt (Raven)
• The Border, by Don Winslow (HarperFiction)

H.R.F. Keating Award:
• Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan, by
Ursula Buchan (Bloomsbury)
• The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of Collins Crime Club, by John Curran (HarperCollins Crime Club)
• Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide, by Barry Forshaw (No Exit Press)

Last Laugh Award:
• A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, by William Boyle (No Exit Press)
• Tidings of Death at Honeychurch Hall, by Hannah
Dennison (Constable)
• Worst Case Scenario, by Helen FitzGerald (Orenda)
• Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour, by Christopher Fowler (Transworld)
• Little Siberia, by Antti Tuomainen (Orenda)
• The Maltese Herring, by L.C. Tyler (Allison & Busby)

Best Crime Novel for Children (ages 8-12):
• The Great Brain Robbery, by P.G. Bell (Usborne)
• The Steam Whistle Theatre Company, by Vivian French (Walker)
• Potkin and Stubbs, by Sophie Green (Bonnier)
• The Garden of Lost Secrets, by A.M. Howell (Usborne)
• The Haven, by Simon Lelic (Hodder Children’s Books)
• Malamander, by Thomas Taylor (Walker)

Best Crime Novel for Young Adults (ages 12-16):
• Beauty Sleep, by Kathryn Evans for (Usborne)
• Theodore Boone: The Accomplice, by John Grisham
(Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Peculiar Peggs of Riddling Woods, by Samuel J. Halpin (Usborne)
• Hey Sherlock! by Simon Mason (David Fickling)
• Heartstream, by Tom Pollock (Walker)
• The Boxer, by Nikesh Shukla (Hodder Children’s Books)

Revue of Reviewers, 5-28-20

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

Daggers Details Due

I don’t remember, if I ever knew, what it was like in the era before so many awards were given out annually for crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. These days, it seems we’re constantly absorbing news of another book, another author, another publisher being commended for having delivered above-average reading material to the masses. It is hard to be excited about each and every such notice.

Building up anticipation for this sort of news may be one way to increase attention. And may explain why the British Crime Writers’ Association announced today that it will be making public its longlists of nominees for the 2020 Dagger Awards next Friday, June 5, in 10 categories. Here’s part of the CWA press release:

Judging year 2019-2020 has seen a major reorganisation of the Daggers’ judging panels with an infusion of new blood to create a diverse cross-section of jurors.

CWA Honorary Vice Chair, Maxim Jakubowski, said the refreshed juries were to “move with the times and reflect the diversity of tastes and choices of the reading public.”

Linda Stratmann, Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, added: “It’s been an exciting period after a recent review and refreshing of the judging panels with existing judges moved to different categories, and new judges brought in. We are committed to ensuring the awards remain exciting, relevant and independent.”

New judges include former Guardian crime correspondent turned author, Duncan Campbell, leading book blogger and Daily Express reviewer Anne Cater, popular culture chronicler Woody Haut, broadcaster Angela Rippon and head reviewer for Love Reading, Liz Robinson.

Under normal circumstances, the CWA would’ve divulged these Dagger longlists during CrimeFest. However, that annual convention was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So instead, the news will be posted on the CWA Web site, as well as on that organization’s Facebook and Twitter pages, and its YouTube channel.

PaperBack: “The Terrible Night”

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



The Terrible Night, by Peter Cheyney (Avon 1959). This “thrilling” novel was originally published in 1947 as Dark Interlude. Cover illustration by by Ernest Chiriacka (aka Darcy).

A Bony to Pick

Because of so many other things going on here recently, I missed noticing the announcement last Friday morning of the 2020 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award winner. As Mystery Fanfare notes, the prize goes to Liz Freeland for Murder in Midtown (Kensington Books), the sophomore installment in her Louise Faulk historical mystery series.

“The Bony Blithe is an annual Canadian award that celebrates traditional, feel-good mysteries …,” explains the Web site of its sponsor, the Bloody Words Mini-Con. “Now in its sixth year, the award is for a ‘mystery book that makes us smile’ and includes everything from laugh-out-loud to gentle humour to good old-fashioned stories with little violence or gore—in short, books that are fun to read.”

Montreal author Freeland should have received her prize last week, during the mini-con in Toronto. However, that event was cancelled as a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Next year’s convention—the 10th such gathering—has been scheduled for Friday, May 28.

A Stumble, Rather Than a Fall

Yesterday marked 14 years since I began writing and editing The Rap Sheet as a blog. (It had previously been a newsletter distributed by January Magazine.) When I first accepted the challenge of commenting on, recording, and occasionally helping to better illuminate the history and evolution of crime fiction, I had no realistic understanding of the time and commitment all of that would require. I had no idea of the friendships composing this blog would bring into my life, or the rewards and frustrations it would offer.

The frustrations have seemed overwhelming of late. As I noted recently, almost all of the videos I’ve uploaded to my blog-publishing service—Blogger—since 2006, suddenly disappeared in mid-April. Efforts to solve this mystery and undo the damage in a comprehensive fashion have been unsuccessful. The most likely explanation seems to be a technical one: Blogger has made so many platform changes over the years, that those video uploads of mine are finally no longer acceptable via my version of the software. Which may also explain why I am unable to upload new videos to Blogger.

I have been reduced to relocating the original videos, either online or on my computer (thank heavens I’m a pack rat about these things!), and re-embedding them or—the worst-case scenario—installing them on YouTube so that I can then “share” them to The Rap Sheet. Ironically, the reason I took Blogger up on its offer to let me upload videos directly to its platform in the first place, was that YouTube has been an unreliable partner in the past, capriciously deleting videos to which I wished to link. I thought I was being clever in avoiding such failures, but instead set myself up for a worse result.

There was a point, shortly after this catastrophic failure of my video clips, that I considered shutting down The Rap Sheet. The thought of having to reconstruct so much of what already existed before April seemed daunting. This spell of intense discouragement lasted for more than a week, as I struggled to shrug off my despair and ignore the many gaping holes in past blog posts, kept plugging away at work, and eventually reached the stage where my long passion for blogging here, and my determination not to be defeated by electronic snags, overcame my impulse to just give up and do something else. I feel odd admitting this, but it was largely thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent slack it created in my work schedule that I found time enough to begin the rebuilding process.

As my grandfather always used to say, when facing large and small hurdles, “It could be worse.” And I suppose that’s true.

I realized long ago that I am rather proud of The Rap Sheet, and that I want it to be part of my writing legacy. I want it to be a permanent Internet fixture, if that is possible. Although I try to be conscientious about fixing or eliminating broken links (caused when a Web site, blog, or single Web page ceases to exist), I can’t completely overcome those problems. But I don’t want to see this page riddled with “Video Is Unavailable” notices where film and TV clips belong. So, although it will take time and diligence, I am determined to repair all of the chaos caused by this season’s apparent technical issues.

Meanwhile, thank you for sticking with The Rap Sheet all this time. I hope that by the blog’s 15th birthday, both the novel coronavirus and these aggravating computer obstacles will be well behind us.

Canadian Crime Makes a Splash

I’m still hunkered down in my office, working to finish a longish piece for another publication. But I want to make sure everyone knows which books and authors have won the 2020 Arthur Ellis Awards. The announcement was made last night by the Crime Writers of Canada.

Best Crime Novel:
Greenwood, by Michael Christie (McClelland & Stewart)

Also nominated: Fate, by Ian Hamilton (House of Anansi Press); Hideaway, by Nicole Lundrigan (Penguin Random House Canada); The Last Resort, by Marissa Stapley (Simon & Schuster Canada); and In the Dark, by Loreth Anne White (Montlake Romance)

The Angela Harrison Memorial Award for Best Crime First Novel: Nobody Move, by Philip Elliott (Into the Void Press)

Also nominated: Blindshot, by Denis Coupal (Linda Leith); and Past Presence, by Nicole Bross (Literary Wanderlust)

Best Crime Novella: The Red Chesterfield, by Wayne Arthurson (University of Calgary Press)

Also nominated: Blood Ties, by Barbara Fradkin (Orca); Too Close to Home, by Brenda Chapman (Grass Roots Press); The Goddaughter Does Vegas, by Melodie Campbell (Orca); and The Woman in Apartment 615, by Devon Shepherd (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, January/February 2019)

Best Crime Short Story: “Closing Doors,” by Peter Sellers (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2019)

Also nominated: “In Plain Sight,” by Y.S. Lee (from Life is Short and Then You Die, edited by Kelley Armstrong; Macmillan); and “The Dead Man's Dog,” by Zandra Renwick (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, January/February 2019)

Best French Crime Book:
Tempêtes, by Andrée Michaud (Éditions Québec Amériques)

Also nominated: Les offrandes, by Louis Carmain (VLB Éditeur); Ghetto X, by Martin Michaud (Libre Expression); Le tribunal de la rue Quirion, by Guillaume Morrissette (Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur); and Le cercle de cendres, by Félix Ravenelle-Arcouette (Héliotrope)

Best Juvenile or Young Adult Crime Book:
Keep This to Yourself, by Tom Ryan (Albert Whitman)

Also nominated: Tank & Fizz: The Case of the Tentacle Terror, by Liam O’Donnell and Mike Dean, Orca); The Grey Sisters, by Jo Treggiari (Penguin Teen); and Ghosts, by David A. Robertson (HighWater Press)

Best Non-fiction Crime Book:
Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise, by Charlotte Gray (HarperCollins)

Also nominated: The Missing Millionaire: The True Story of Ambrose Small and the City Obsessed with Finding Him, by Katie Daubs (McClelland & Stewart); The Billionaire Murders, by Kevin Donovan (Penguin Random House); The Court of Better Fiction, by Debra Komar (Dundurn Press); and The Forest City Killer: A Serial Murderer, a Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice, by Vanessa Brown (ECW Press)

The Unhanged Arthur Award for Best Unpublished Crime Manuscript: The Dieppe Letters, by Liz Rachel Walker

Also nominated: Bert Mintenko and the Serious Business, by B.L. Smith; Henry’s Bomb, by K.P. Bartlett; One Bad Day After Another, by Max Folsom; and The River Cage, by Pam Barnsley

Grand Master Award: Peter Robinson

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Setting Up Lee and Allingham Rivalries

This week brings the announcement, from the University of Alabama School of Law, of the three books that have been named as finalists for the 2020 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. They are:

• The Satapur Moonstone, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
• The Hallows, by Victor Methos (Thomas & Mercer)
• An Equal Justice, by Chad Zunker (Thomas & Mercer)

“We are pleased to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Prize with the selection of these finalists,” Candice Robbins, assistant dean for advancement at the Law School, is quoted in a news release as saying. “The books represent a diverse offering in legal fiction, from a historical mystery series written by Massey, to a sharp legal thriller by Methos, and, finally, a fast-paced novel that explores the crisis of homelessness in the United States by Zunker.”

The media alert adds that the Harper Lee Prize “is given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.”

* * *

Also recently came word of which as-yet-unpublished works have been longlisted in the 2020 Margery Allingham Short Story Competition. That annual contest is sponsored by the Margery Allingham Society and the British Crime Writers’ Association. Here are the latest nominees:

• “The Boy from Galway Bay,” by Sally Bothroyd
• “The Last Letter,” by Antony M. Brown
• “The Nantes Affair,” by Briony Cameron
• “Prey,” by Amelia Coulon
• “Voices,” by Lauren Everdell
• “The Jewish Laundry,” by Michael Hare
• “One Bright Blue Day in Amsterdam,” by Jennifer Harvey
• “A Time to Confess,” by Della Millward
• “Sting in the Tail,” by Laila Murphy
• “A Death in the Library,” by Emily Organ
• “F8,” by Alexandra Pendjiky
• “Morning Murder,” by Wendy Swarbrick

As In Reference to Murder reminds us, this competition's intent “is to find the best unpublished short mystery, one that fits into [the] legendary crime writer’s definition of what makes a great story: ‘The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.’”

A shortlist of 2020 contenders is expected within weeks.

Enjoyment Found in a “Lost” Thriller

By Jim Napier
Originally released as a hardcover work in 1990 in the UK, and now reissued in 2020, Ian Rankin’s Westwind offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a very talented, and ultimately world-class novelist who was struggling to understand and give direction to his craft in the nascent days of his career.

Rankin is candid about his state of mind at the time. Lamenting the fact that Westwind initially garnered but one scant review, he admits in an introduction to this new edition, that he was not “in a good place” in those days. His first novel starring Edinburgh police detective John Rebus, Knots & Crosses, had been published three years earlier. Rankin was living in London’s Tottenham district and working as an assistant at the National Folktale Centre, housed in a nearby polytechnic. He struggled to get to the point where he could quit his day job and devote all of his time and creative energy to his first love: becoming a novelist. It was against that background that Rankin decided, rather rashly, to try and compose a best-selling techno-thriller of the sort to be found on the shelves of airports and railway stations. It was not to be the emerging writer’s most felicitous idea.

The yarn captures Britain in the waning days of the Cold War, when Europeans are less than happy about hosting a formidable U.S. military presence in their own backyard, and the Americans are reluctantly withdrawing their troops to friendlier environs. Working at a small satellite tracking station in the UK, protagonist Martin Hepton is witness to a double disaster. First the ground station temporarily loses contact with a key British surveillance satellite code-named Zephyr. Then a space shuttle goes awry, plunging to earth with its crew of six astronauts, five Americans and a single Briton. Shortly thereafter, one of the ground technicians responsible for monitoring the satellite also disappears. The explanation—that he had become ill and been taken to hospital—is dismissed by Hepton: that these three events are unrelated seems to stretch the bounds of credulity.

Miraculously, one of the crew has survived the shuttle crash. It is the sole Brit, Major Michael Dreyfuss. He has been found unconscious, with the hands of a dead astronaut around his throat; but before he can be questioned he is whisked away to a hospital in America, where he faces hostile questioning by a high-ranking U.S. military officer.

And so begins the young Ian Rankin’s foray into the fast-moving world of techno-thrillers. Standing on the shoulders of his literary forebears (notably John le Carré and Ian Fleming), Rankin weaves a plausible tale of international tensions, conspiracy plots, larger-than-life villains, chase scenes, and attempted assassinations across the British landscape, with occasional side-trips to the continent and America.

Prior to its most recent incarnation, Westwind was given a light and sympathetic edit, but Rankin says it is essentially the same book he published three decades earlier. Not surprisingly, the characters in Westwind are less nuanced than those we have come to expect in Rankin’s later writing, for this novel is very much a child of its times. More seriously, the tale never quite manages to stand on its own; the reader is constantly aware of stories by other writers of the day that manage to carry readers to a higher level.

Yet, although it is not up to the standards of Rankin’s Rebus books (nor should we expect it to be), Westwind remains a revealing portrait of—dare I say it?) —The Artist as a Young Man, and offers a few glimpses of the master wordsmith he would become. Since 1990, of course, Rankin has gone on to become one of the finest writers of contemporary crime fiction, all but inventing the sub-genre known as Tartan Noir, and receiving an OBE and more honorary degrees than will fit in this review. Westwind is Rankin’s gift to aspiring writers everywhere, who hope someday to rise to his literary heights, and who can learn much from his early efforts. This novel remains an interesting read, and will undoubtedly be welcomed to the bookshelves of Rankin’s legion of fans.

* * *

Since 2005 Jim Napier’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in several Canadian newspapers and on various crime-fiction and literary Web sites, including his own award-winning review site, Deadly Diversions. His debut crime novel, Legacy, was published in the spring of 2017, and the second entry in that series, Ridley’s War, is scheduled for release in the fall of 2020.

Glass Acts

Recently we brought you all the nominees for this year’s Glass Key Award. Today we are offering the shortlist of contenders for the 2020 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. Rather surprisingly, all of the books in this latter bunch were composed by women, and two of them (marked below with asterisks) were obviously or at least arguably plucked from the crime/mystery stacks.

— Blood & Sugar, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle)*
— Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Cornerstone)
— Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton)
— The Lost Ones, by Anita Frank (HQ)
— My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic)*
— The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker)

The Glass Bell Award, sponsored by London bookseller Goldsboro Books, celebrates “the best storytelling across contemporary fiction.” This year’s winner will be announced on July 2.

(Hat tip to Shotsmag Confidential.)