Best Paperback Original: Fatal Truth by Robin Burcell (Avon)

Best Critical: They Died in Vain: Overlooked, Underappreciated And Forgotten Mystery Novels, edited by Jim Huang (Crum Creek Press)
Best Short Story: "Too Many Cooks" by Marcia Talley (Much Ado About Murder, edited by Anne Perry, Berkeley Prime Crime)
Best Cover Art: Measures of Poison, edited by Dennis McMillan (Dennis McMillan Publications), Jacket Design by Michael Kellner

Best Mystery Novel: Winter and Night by S.J. Rozan (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Best First Mystery Nove: In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Best Bio/Critical Mystery Work: They Died in Vain: Overlooked, Underappreciated, and Forgotten Mystery Novels edited by Jim Huang (Crum Creek Press)
Best Mystery Short Story: "Voice Mail" by Janet Dawson (Scam and Eggs, Five Star)

10/17/2003

Best P.I. Novel: Blackwater Sound by James W. Hall (St. Martin's)
Best First P.I. Novel: The Distance by Eddie Muller (Scribner)
Best Paperback Original P.I. Novel: The Poisoned Rose by D. Daniel Judson (Bantam)
Best P.I. Short Story: "The Second Coming" by Terence Faherty (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 2002)

The Eye, the PWA's award for lifetime achievement, was presented to Sue Grafton

10/16/2003

Greetings from Bouchercon. Tonight the Barry Awards were presented at the Opening Night Reception. The Don Sandstrom Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom was presented to Maggie Mary Mason. The Barry Awards were presented as follows:

10/15/2003

Our signing schedule for Bouchercon 2003 is now posted here. Please join us at our table in the book dealer's room to meet & greet some of our (and your) favorite authors.

Some Bouchercon news - the organizers of Bouchercon 36 (2005 in Chicago) have announced that Dennis Lehane will be the Guest of Honor and that Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini will be honored for their body of work. As previously noted, Mystery News contributor Beth Fedyn will be the Fan Guest of Honor.

S.J. Rozan has won the 2003 Nero Award and will be the Guest of Honor at Left Coast Crime 2005 in El Paso TX. You can read about it on her website -- just click here.

10/14/2003

Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River, was interviewed on Fresh Air on Friday, October 10. You can hear the interview here.

Al Hubin's amazing Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography 1749-2000, a completely revised and updated edition will be published in December 2003 in the form of five folio hard covers in black cloth volumes: The set ISBN 1-55246-501-2. Price: $400.00.

This final edition of "Crime Fiction" is the culmination of more than thirty years of bibliographic research into crime (mystery/detective/suspense/spy/thriller) fiction by Allen J. Hubin. Previous editions of this massive reference work were praised by everyone who reviewed them and were featured on Booklist's list of the Best Books of the 1980s. Now expanded and updated through 2000.

Features:

* Authors arranged alphabetically (with complete cross-reference to pseudonyms and real names).
* More than 109,000 titles listed.
* First U.S. publisher/date and or first British publisher/date given (or other country publisher/date when not issued in either U.S. or Britain).
* Series characters identified with the stories in which they appear (more than 8600 series/author pairs identified).
* Principal settings given for thousands of titles (480 different settings listed in the much expanded settings index).
* Individual story titles given for 7300 collections.
* Film adaptations identified by studio, year, screenwriter and director (more than 4480 films listed).
* Birth and death dates of authors given, where available, and links to other major reference works provided.
* Alphabetical title, series character, setting, film, screenwriter and director indexes.

About the author: Allen J. Hubin was founder and editor of The Armchair Detective"; recipient of two Edgar Allan Poe awards from the Mystery Writers of America, mystery fiction reviewer (New York Times Book Review, 1968-1971, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 1982-1988, and elsewhere), and anthologist.

For additional information, contact the publisher:
George A. Vanderburgh
The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box (TM)
fax: (519) 925-3482
email: gav@bmts.com

There will also be a CD-ROM version available for $49.95 (pre-publication price of $45 is good until 11/1/2003) from Locus Online. Click here for info and order form.

10/13/2003

Part of the short list for the CWA Debut Dagger Awards (posted a few days ago) got garbled -- the correct works and authors are Speak No Evil by Avril Genesen and On the Albino Farm by Otis Twelve. Thanks to our old (okay, longtime) friend Kay Mitchell for pointing this out to us. Kay is the organizer for this year's Debut Dagger Awards, and was one of the group of mystery-lovers (and authors) who congregated on the CompuServe Literary Forum where Lynn and I (and MN contributors Steve Miller, Dave Magayna and Sharon Zukowski) first met.

10/12/2003

Carolyn Heilbrun, who wrote the Kate Fansler mystery series under the pseudonym of Amanda Cross, died on Thursday, apparently a suicide. You can read the Newsday obituary here and the NY Times obit here. My favorite Fansler mystery has always been The Theban Mysteries, which takes place a a girls' high school that reminded me of my own alma mater.

Congratulations to our fantastic contributor Beth Fedyn, who will be the Fan Guest of Honor at Bouchercon 36 in Chicago. The dates for this Bouchercon will be September 1-4, 2005 (Labor Day weekend).

Updated the conventions page with the Bouchercon 36 dates, with information on a Cornell Woolrich centenary event to be held in NY on December 5th, and to remove outdated listings.

10/10/2003

The Crime Writers' Association has announced its short lists for its Daggers Awards 2003. Winners will be announced and the Daggers presented at the CWA 50th Jubilee Dagger Awards Lunch in London on November 13, 2003.

Gold and Silver Daggers for fiction (The winner of the Gold Dagger also receives a cash prize of £3000, of the Silver Dagger £2000.)

Gold Dagger for non-fiction (The winner also receives a cash prize of £2000.)

The CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger (For first books by previously unpublished writers. This award is sponsored by BBC Audio. The winner also receives a cash prize of £1000.)

The CWA Short Story Dagger (The winner also receives a cash prize of £1500.)

CWA Dagger in the Library (This award is sponsored by Random House. Nominated and judged by librarians: the dagger is awarded to an author for a body of work, not one single title. The winner also receives a cash prize of £1500.)

The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger (For thrillers. This award is sponsored by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. The winner also receives a cash prize of £2000.)

The CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger (This award is sponsored by the estate of Ellis Peters and her publishers, Headline and Little Brown. The winner will be announced at the Savoy on the evening of Wednesday 22 October. The winner also receives a cash prize of £3000.)

The CWA Debut Dagger (This award, for unpublished books, was set up to encourage new writers. It is sponsored by Orion and awarded on the basis of one chapter and a synopsis. The winner also receives a cash prize of £250.)

10/7/2003

The latest issue of Plots with Guns includes new stories by Steve Hamilton, Lauren Henderson, Laura Lippman, Eddie Muller, Chris Niles, and Kent Harrington as well as a lot of other great stuff. Click here to read it now.

Great news for fans of British crime TV -- new US-format DVDs of the first season of Cracker and of The Wire in the Blood: The Mermaids Singing will be released this month.I'll be first in line for these two. I don't think I've mentioned the Homicide:Life on the Street first & second season DVD. Watching those early episodes reminded me what a fantastic breath of fresh air TBDSoTV was. The good news is that the DVD of season three will be available at the end of the month

Removed outdated listings from the conventions page..

9/29/2003

The movie version of Mystic River opens the New York Film Festival this coming Friday night, October 3, opens in theaters in "selected cities" on October 8 and October 15 nationwide. Click here for the movie's website.

Added Murder in the Magic City and the LA Times Festival of Books to the conventions page.

9/27/2003

To our subscribers and bookstore customers: due to the combination of Bouchercon and travel for the day job, it's looking as though the October/November issue of Mystery News will be published and mailed a couple of weeks late, in the last week of October. Lynn and I regret this but it seems inevitable at this time. We are not expecting this to delay the December/January issue at all. I'll post an update after Bouchercon.

In the Believe it or Not department, the Library Hotel in New York is being sued by the company that owns the Dewey Decimal System. Really and truly. Read about it in this NY Times article. (Note - the NYT requires registration, which is free)

Belated congrats to Tony Shalhoub for his Emmy for his performance in Monk. Although some of the plots have seemed a bit lame, this series has been an enjoyable addition to the TV schedule.

I discovered that CSPAN2's Book TV program has a web site that includes the TV schedule. You can find it here or on our general mystery links page.

The September 22 issue of Publishers Weekly has a brief interview with mystery writer Rochelle Krich. Click here to read it.

The Mystery Writers of America site has a listing of events for Kids Love a Mystery month. Click here.

Added the 2004 Harrogate Crime Writing Festival to the conventions page and removed outdated listings.

9/16/2003

The panel schedule for Bouchercon is up. Find it by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the page. I will be moderating a panel called High Stakes! Gambling As A Writer -- Taking risks with your characters. What are the odds? The panelists are Carole Epstein, Kate Flora, Gregg Hurwitz, Jutta Motz and Jason Starr. We'll be in the Royale 5 Room on Thursday, October 16 at 2:30 pm. What a diverse and talented grou of writers! I hope you will join us.

Mystery News will have a table in the book dealer's room and as we have done in previous years, we are setting up a schedule of "Meet & Greet" signings with some of the authors who've been featured in our pages, as well as some of our contributors. We'll be posting a schedule here and we'll have copies at the table. Please stop by to introduce yourself and say hello. Lynn and I would love to meet you.

Publishers Weekly stirs the pot in this week's issue with an article called "Religion Update: It's No Mystery—These Books Sell" by Marcia Ford. Click here to read it.

Updated the conventions page to include Mayhem in the Midlands, which will take place May 27 - 30 in beautiful Omaha, Nebraska and St. Hilda's Crime & Mystery Weekend, which will take place next year August 20 - 22 in Oxford.

9/7/2003

The September 1, 2003 issue of Publishers Weekly includes a roundup of Fall 2003 Book Festivals. We include a few in our conventions listings and you can see the full article at this link. PW also has a mini-interview of Jim Fusilli, whose third PI novel, Tribeca Blues, will be out in October. Click here to read it.

Is anyone else watching Mystery! The Inspector Lynley Mysteries 2? I'm not thrilled with the casting - the actors are great but they just don't look like Tommy and Havers. Still I keep watching..

Updated conventions page to include AZ Murder goes...Britcon, sponsored by The Poisoned Pen bookstore the weekend after Bouchercon, October 25. Attending authors include Mark Billingham, Stephen Booth, Caroline Carver, Lesley Horton, Jane Jakeman, Simon Kernick, Gemma O’Connor, Danuta Reah, Zoe Sharp. For information, call 888 560-9919 or email joanne@poisonedpen.com. Also added a listing for Love is Murder, which will be held February 6 - 8, 2004 in Chicago. Special guests will include Walter Mosley, Robert W. Walker, David Morrell, F. Paul Wilson, and honoree for Lifetime Achievement, Warren B. Murphy. Among the attending authors is Rob Kantner, a personal favorite of mine.

We've added some new reviews that are exclusive to our Web site and will not appear in the printed version of Mystery News. We hope you enjoy them, and we thank our contributors for allowing us to share them with you on www.blackravenpress.com.

9/1/2003

What's New? is back again! Chris here -- I extend my sincere apologies to our readers who've been looking for updates here. I have been traveling for my day job at a back-breaking pace (can you believe 12 nearly-week-long trips since my last updates in early May?) and have just not been able to keep up. I am updating throughout this Labor Day weekend, and will find a way to stay more up to date going forward.

The August/September 2003 issue of Mystery News was mailed on Monday, August 18th. It features interviews with G.M. Ford (by Lynn Kaczmarek), Carole Nelson Douglas (by Virginia R. Knight), and Rich Barre (by Gary Warren Niebuhr). Steve Miller's "In the beginning" column focuses on Martha Conway, author of 12 Bliss Street, which was published in June by St Martin's Minotaur. The subject of Marv Lachman's "Out of the Past" column is Ngaio Marsh, one of my personal favorite Golden Age writers. Dave Magayna contributes audio reviews of recent books by Robert Crais, John Lescroart and Stuart Woods.

This just in -- a correction to the listing in this issue for next year's Mayhem in the Midlands. the charming and talented Susan McBride will be the Toastmaster, not the Fan Guest of Honor. Sheesh, I knew that, but my brain was apparently not working properly when I wrote the wrong stuff. My apologies to Susan and to Sally Fellows & the other organizers of Mayhem, which is a wonderfully small and friendly convention that packs a lot of fun in one small weekend. Susan McBride is the author of Overkill, And Then She Was Gone and Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery, due out in February 2004 from Avon.

The North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers announced in June that the annual Hammett Prize for a work of literary excellence in the field of crime writing by a US or Canadian author was awarded to Owen Parry for Honor's Kingdom, published by Morrow. See the full list of nominees here.

Nominations for the Anthony, Shamus, Macavity, and Barry awards (all to be presented in Las Vegas in October) can be found on our awards page here.

Val McDermid is editing an on-line anthology of short stories for the Arts Council England's campaign to Save Our Short Story. At the site, you can read the August stories, Carol's Gift by Denise Mina and The Education Officer by Ali Smith, and sign up to have future stories emailed to you.

Jason Starr is the featured author on the Noir Originals Zine site -- click here to read.

Click here for a cool article on Laura Lippmann at the Baltimore City Paper on-line site.

Found a great Nero Wolfe database, courtesy of a post on DorothyL by Sue Kamm. Click here. And another, suggested by Tom Bonsall, is here.

Tom Fontana, creator of Homicide: Life on the Street and Oz was interviewed on Fresh Air back in May. Click here to listen.

Routine updates include the Authors, General Mystery Links and Back Issues pages, as well as the Conventions page

Some sad news...I was very saddened to read of the passing of Carole Anne Nelson, a longtime mystery fan who was very involved with Malice Domestic, who died a week ago as a result of a reoccurence of breast cancer. Her contributions over many years helped to make the annual Malice Domestic convention the vibrant and fun event that it is today. In recognition of her many contributions, Carole Anne has been named Special Fan Guest of Honor at this years Malice Domestic XVI, April 30-May 2, 2004. She was also the Program Chair for the 2001 Bouchercon. Carole Anne's memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, September 6 at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3799 East-West Highway, Hyattsville, MD 20782. The church phone number is 301-277-2302. In lieu of flowers, Carole Anne asked that any contributions in her memory be made to Redeemer Lutheran Church and marked for "The Carole Anne Nelson Missionary Fund". Expressions of condolences may be sent to her son, Matthew Facas, 2114 Queens Chapel Road, Hyattsville, MD 20782. A personal note - in addition to her mystery and crime fiction life, Carole Anne was a prolific crossword puzzle constructor whose puzzles were frequently published in the Washington Post. She also taught a class in construction for Prince George's Community College's evening education program. She will be missed in both the mystery and cruciverbalist communities.

The June/July 2003 issue of Mystery News was mailed on Monday, June 16th. It features interviews with Marcia Muller (by Lynn Kaczmarek), Elizabeth Peters (by Virginia R. Knight), Richard Barre (by Gary Warren Niebuhr), and Ray Bradbury (by Thomas McNulty). Steve Miller's "In the beginning" column focuses on Olen Steinhauer, author of The Bridge of Sighs, which was published in February by St Martin's Minotaur. The subject of Marv Lachman's "Out of the Past" column is Mildred Davis, winner of the Edgar for Best First Novel of 1948. Dave Magayna contributes four audio reviews.

5/5/2003

Malice Domestic has announced the winners of this year's Agatha Awards, which were presented at the Malice Domestic banquet on May 3, 2003 in Arlington, VA.

Also added a new web link for Cluefest 12, and deleted past events.

If you love film noir and can be in LA in early April, you're in for a treat. American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre presents Side Streets and Back Alleys: The 5th Annual Festival of Film Noir April 4-16, sponsored by the Lloyd E. Rigler - Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation. The Festival kicks off with a special in-person Tribute to one of the most acclaimed actors of the noir era, Farley Granger, who’ll be making a very rare Los Angeles appearance with screenings of the Alfred Hitchcock classics STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and ROPE, Nicholas Ray’s THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, and Mark Robson’s EDGE OF DOOM. Up-and-coming mystery author Eddie Muller is one of theFestival programmers. Click here for more info.

Updated the Conventions page to delete past events.

The Lefty, for the most humorous mystery novel published in the U.S. in 2002.For a list of the Lefty and Arty nominees, click here.