Crime Writers of Canada has announced its shortlists for the 2024 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing (former known as the Arthur Ellis Awards). Winners are to be announced on Wednesday, May 29. The Peter Robinson Award for Best Crime Novel: • The Drowning Woman, by Robyn Harding (Grand Central) • Everyone Here Is Lying, by Shari Lapena (Doubleday Canada) • Middlemen, by Scott Thornley (House of Anansi Press) • Sunset and Jericho, by Sam Wiebe (Harbour) • The Maid's Diary, by Loreth Anne White (Montlake) Best Crime First Novel: • The Bittlemores, by Jann Ar ..read more

Part of a series honoring the late author and blogger Bill Crider. The Ominous Orgy, by “Mallory T. Knight,” aka Bernhardt J. Hurwood (Award Books, 1969). Cover artist unidentified. This was the seventh of nine “sexpionage” novels by Hurwood (1926-1987), who was also a prolific writer of occult, erotica, and speculative fiction during the 1960s and ’70s. The Ominous Orgy stars Tim O’Shane, an agent for T.O.M.C.A.T. As blogger Randall Masteller explains in Spy Guys and Gals, [O’Shane] had been a Captain in the Marine Corps on special assignment to the Embassy in Paris in the fall of 1961 wh ..read more

Let us all celebrate three women authors as the latest recipients of the Pinckley Prizes in Crime Fiction. Those annual commendations are named in memory of Diana Pinckley (1952-2012), a longtime crime-fiction columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, and are given out in association with the Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans. Alafair Burke, author of the Samantha Kincaid and Ellie Hatcher crime series, and a six-time collaborator with Mary Higgins Clark on the Under Suspicion series, has won the 2023 Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work. Previous recipie ..read more

• Just two months after news broke that the Victorian TV crime series Miss Scarlet and the Duke would be losing actor Stuart Martin, who personated London police detective William “Duke” Wellington during that show’s initial four seasons, we learn from In Reference to Murder that “Tom Durant Pritchard (The Crown) has joined the cast of the Masterpiece drama”—to be retitled Miss Scarlet—“playing Alexander Blake, a handsome former soldier and respected detective inspector who joins the force at Scotland Yard after Wellington’s departure. He’s not particularly shocked by a woman working as a priv ..read more

The British Crime Writers’ Association has released 10 categories of longlisted nominees for the 2024 Dagger Awards. The CWA Dagger shortlists are scheduled to be announced on Friday, May 10, during this year’s CrimeFest, hosted in Bristol, England. Gold Dagger: • Over My Dead Body, by Maz Evans (Headline) • Dead Man’s Creek, by Chris Hammer (Wildfire) • A Bitter Remedy, by Alis Hawkins (Canelo) • Night Will Find You, by Julia Haeberlin (Michael Joseph) • The Secret Hours, by Mick Herron (Baskerville) • The White Lie, by J.G. Kelly (Hodder & Stoughton) • Death of a Lesser God, by Vaseem ..read more

Southern California author and creative writing teacher Ivy Pochoda has won the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, in the Mystery/Thriller category, for her “unique nail-biter” of a novel, Sing Her Down (MCD). That was one of more than a dozen awards given out last evening during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Also competing in the Mystery/Thriller classification were Dark Ride, by Lou Berney (Morrow); Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland); All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron); and Time’s Undoing, by Cheryl A. Head (Dutton). (Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site ..read more

Adding to the recent shower of prize nominations for crime, mystery, and thriller fiction come the 2024 CrimeFest Awards shortlists. The winners of these annual commendations will be announced and their awards presented during this year’s CrimeFest, scheduled to take place in Bristol, England, from May 9 to 12. Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award: • Death Under a Little Sky, by Stig Abell (Hemlock Press) • In the Blink of an Eye, by Jo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster) • The Messenger, by Megan Davis (Zaffre) • Thirty Days of Darkness, by Jenny Lund Madsen, translated by Megan Turney (Orenda ..read more

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine has announced that New Jersey author and former police chief David Dean has picked up first-place honors in its 2023 Readers Award contest. He won for his story “Mrs. Hyde,” which appeared in the publication’s March/April 2023 issue. “This is the third time David Dean has placed first in the Readers Award voting,” we’re told. “He’s been writing for EQMM for more than thirty years and his contributions to the magazine have been nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, Barry, and Derringer awards. The final of several collections of his stories from Genius Books, Shadow La ..read more

I wasn’t able to attend this year’s Left Coast Crime gathering, but Bay Area author and photographer Mark Coggins was in attendance. He sent back several of his favorite shots from the four-day event. (Above) Southern California writer Naomi Hirahara won the 2024 Bill Gottfried Memorial Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel for her most recent book, Evergreen. Friday evening saw Christa Faust interviewing Guest of Honor Megan Abbott (right) on stage. During their wide-ranging conversation, Abbott revealed that she is working on a TV series adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest (1929 ..read more

During a banquet last evening at the Left Coast Crime convention, being held this weekend in Bellevue, Washington (just east of Seattle), organizers presented the winners of the 2024 Lefty Awards. Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel: Cheap Trills, by Wendall Thomas (Beyond the Page) Also nominated: Hot Pot Murder, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley Prime Crime); The Great Gimmelmans, by Lee Matthew Goldberg (Level Best); A Sense for Murder, by Leslie Karst (Severn House); Hop Scot, by Catriona McPherson (Severn House); and Dying for a Decoration, by Cindy Sample (Cindy Sample) Bill Gottfried Me ..read more