LEFTY AWARD NOMINATIONS: Left Coast Crime 2019

Left Coast Crime announced the nominees for the Lefty Awards. The Lefty awards will be voted on at the convention and presented at a banquet on Saturday, March 30, at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver, during Left Coast Crime. Congrats to all!

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel. The nominees are:

• Ellen Byron, Mardi Gras Murder (Crooked Lane Books)
• Kellye Garrett, Hollywood Ending (Midnight Ink)
• Timothy Hallinan, Nighttown (Soho Crime)
• Leslie Karst, Death al Fresco (Crooked Lane Books)
• Cynthia Kuhn, The Spirit in Question (Henery Press)
• Catriona McPherson, Scot Free (Midnight Ink)

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander Memorial) for books covering events before 1960. The nominees are:

• Rhys Bowen, Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding (Berkeley Prime Crime)
• David Corbett, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday (Black Opal Books)
• Laurie R. King, Island of the Mad (Bantam Books)
• Sujata Massey, The Widows of Malabar Hill (Soho Crime)
• Ann Parker, A Dying Note (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Iona Whishaw, It Begins in Betrayal (Touchwood Editions)

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel. The nominees are:

• Tracy Clark, Broken Places (Kensington Books)
• A.J. Devlin, Cobra Clutch (NeWest Press)
• A.J. Finn, The Woman in the Window (William Morrow)
• Dianne Freeman, A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder (Kensington Books)
• Aimee Hix, What Doesn’t Kill You (Midnight Ink)
•  Keenan Powell, Deadly Solution (Level Best Books)
• J.G. Toews, Give Out Creek (Mosaic Press)

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories). The nominees are:

• Lou Berney, November Road (William Morrow)
• Matt Coyle, Wrong Light (Oceanview Publishing)
• Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind (Minotaur Books)
• Lori Rader-Day, Under a Dark Sky (William Morrow Paperbacks)
• Terry Shames, A Reckoning in the Back Country (Seventh Street Books)
• James W. Ziskin, A Stone’s Throw (Seventh Street Books)

Cartoon of the Day: Clue

Michael Chabon's YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION to be TV Drama

I really enjoyed Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union when it came out in 2007.  It's a smart and quirky thriller/mystery/speculative novel. This alternate history mystery has Alaska as the home of a big Jewish settlement after WWII and the holocaust.

From Deadline:

CBS TV Studios, Nina Tassler and Denise DiNovi’s PatMa Productions and Keshet Studios have acquired a spec drama script by husband-and-wife writing duo Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. The project will be taken out shortly to premium cable and streaming networks. 

Based on Chabon’s novel and developed for television by Chabon and Waldman, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a darkly comedic murder mystery and political thriller. In Chabon’s alternative history, Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Europe found unlikely refuge on the Alaskan panhandle. In the present day of this world, as the community faces yet another exile, Homicide Detective Meyer Landsman must overcome the shambles of his broken life and marriage to solve a mysterious murder with profound political and religious ramifications.

Yiddish Policemen’s Union, published in 2007 by HarperCollins, has received the Hugo, Sidewise, Nebula and Ignotus awards. Chabon’s other notable books include Wonder Boys (1995), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), Telegraph Avenue (2012), and Moonglow: A Novel (2016). He received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001.

Waldman, who worked for three years as a federal public defender, penned The Mommy-Track Mysteries, a series of seven mystery novels, along with novels Love and Other Possible Pursuits, Bad Mother, Motherlove and A Really Good Day.

Read more here.

HT: J. Kingston Pierce -  TheRapSheet