LEFTY AWARD WINNERS: Left Coast Crime 2025

The Lefty Awards were presented at Left Coast Crime 2025 tonight, Saturday, March 15, at the Westin Denver Downtown. Congratulations to all! 

Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

• Rob Osler, Cirque du Slay (Crooked Lane Books)

Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel
(Bill Gottfried Memorial) for books covering events before 1970

• John Copenhaver, Hall of Mirrors (Pegasus Crime)

Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery Novel

• Jennifer K. Morita, Ghosts of Waikiki (Crooked Lane Books)

Lefty Award for Best Mystery Novel
(not in other categories)

• James L’Etoile, Served Cold (Level Best Books)

CARTOON OF THE DAY: THE WRITER

 From the amazing Tom Gauld:

Who is Trisha Carson? Guest Post by Glenda Carroll

I’ve known Trisha Carson for at least twelve years. I first saw her on the beach at a Sierra mountain lake in northern California waiting for her sister to finish a two mile open water swim. She was almost like a ghost at that time – faceless, blending in with the people around her. 

That’s how my protagonist was born – a vision appeared based on where I spent so much of my time ... on beaches and in the water. When I started writing the Trisha Carson series, I knew little about Trisha, not even her name. I didn’t know what she looked like, what she enjoyed eating, if she had a significant other, even if she had a job. But I did know one thing about her, she was an amateur sleuth … a woman with no investigative training, but with good instincts and a fierce sense of responsibility to finish what she started. I wanted her to be normal. A person whose life had more than her shares of ups and downs. Someone who screwed up. Someone I could relate to. Creating a couture-wearing private investigator who only carried Hermes bags, wore Manolo Blahnik heels and lived in a penthouse overlooking San Francisco Bay was out of the question. I wouldn’t know where to start. Or a snappy, quick-witted, shrewd police detective seemed beyond my writing talent.

But if she was an older sister (I am one) whose father and husband walked out on her (didn’t happen to me), leaving her to raise her younger sister (I used to babysit way too much) and still grieving over a mother that died of cancer (my mom died peacefully in her sleep at 92), that I understood and could weave into a developing personality.

Since I wanted this character to be in her mid-forties when the series started, I looked up popular baby girl names in the late ‘70’s and found Trisha. Her sister, eight years her junior, took my mother’s name, Lena. As Dead in the Water, the first book in the series opened, Trisha returned to northern California and was living in the back bedroom of her family home that her sister now owns, wondering how things went so wrong. She tried to put her life back together and instead, found herself searching for the killer of an open water swimmer.  

As I was writing, her personality developed. She was noisy, pushy and bickered frequently with Lena. Not the cuddliest woman in the world. She found one job, thanks to her sister and then was fired. Although Trisha didn’t have a handle on her private life, she developed into a creative problem solver when it came to crime. I’m not sure what I expected as I constructed this character, but it wasn’t the Trisha that turned up on the page. She took over and told me who she was, whether I liked it or not.  I understood why some readers didn’t take to her. However, I did. And I gave her the freedom to develop into a strong female amateur sleuth, even while making huge mistakes, especially when it came to men.

Now in the fourth book, Better Off Dead, Trisha has mellowed as the years have passed. She’s softer around the edges and I think it’s due to her family’s influence.  To know Trisha is to know her younger sister, Lena, the swimmer in the family; Lena’s live-in boyfriend, Terrel Robinson, MD, an emergency room doctor in San Francisco, and finally her retired dad, Robert Shaver. What made a real difference was her love for Timmy or Little T, Lena and Terrel’s son.

Her confidence as a crime solver bloomed through the mystery series. She opened doors that no one would walk through; climbed in windows at midnight, hunted through trash cans surrounded by fog and found herself dumped in San Francisco Bay more than once. She’s become a good enough sleuth that the local police want her to join the force. 

Trisha Carson and her family have lived in my head for more than a decade. To me they are as real as my own family. What will happen next? Trisha will be the one to tell me and I’ll follow behind her writing it all down.

***

Glenda Carroll is the author of the Trisha Carson mystery series that’s set in and around the beautiful San Francisco Bay area. Her mysteries have an undercurrent of water flowing through them. She was a long-time journalist and a professional communications manager. Currently she tutors first-generation, low-income high schoolers in English and History. Carroll lives in San Rafael, CA with her pup, McCovey. 
 

 

  

Alfred Hitchcock Day!

Today is National Hitchcock Day. No apparent reason for this date as he wasn't born on this day, nor did he die on this day. Not sure who sanctions these "Holiday" dates, but here goes. Lots of Hitchcock stuff to do today.

1. See a Hitchcock Movie on Netflix, Prime, Hulu, or another streaming service --or buy the DVD Collection: Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (15).
2. Watch the TV series: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
3. Watch Sir Anthony Hopkins in Hitchcock.
4. Take a Train Trip. Be careful whom you talk to.
5. Try to Spot Alfred Hitchcock Cameos
6. Read a Book about Alfred Hitchcock: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho; Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light

7. Visit the Alfred Hitchcock Museum in Bodega, CA. Then drive out to the Coast and visit Bodega Bay where there are lots of 'birds.'

Alfred Hitchcock on how to Master Suspense:

Alfred Hitchcock on The Birds:

 

 The Trailer for Notorious

 

Cartoon of the Day: Little Library

 

ST PATRICK'S DAY CRIME FICTION // ST PATRICK'S DAY MYSTERIES

St. Patrick's Day figures in many mysteries. Here's my updated St. Patrick's Day Crime Fiction list. And, since Irish aka Emerald Noir is very popular right now, you can always add more titles to your TBR pile from the many Irish mystery crime writers. Although they may not take place specifically on St. Patrick's Day. Declan Burke had a great post on his blog several years ago CrimeAlwaysPays Overview: The St. Patrick's Day Rewind. 

Mystery Readers Journal has had two issues dedicated to Irish Mysteries. Irish Mysteries: 36:4 (2020) and  Irish Mysteries 24:2 (2008)  Both are still available as PDF download.

As always, I welcome comments and additions to this list. 

ST. PATRICK'S DAY CRIME FICTION

Susan Wittig Albert: Love Lies Bleeding
Jennifer S. Alderson: Death by Leprechaun 

Amy Alessio: Struck by Shillelagh
Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, & Marcia Talley (editors): Homicidal Holidays: Fourteen Tales of Murder and Merriment
Mary Kay Andrews (aka Kathy Hogan Trocheck): Irish Eyes
S. Furlong-Bollinger: Paddy Whacked

Harry Brandt (Richard Price): The Whites
MW Burdette: The St. Patrick Day Murders

Lynn Cahoon: Corned Beef and Casualties
Isis Crawford: A Catered St. Patrick's Day
P. Creeden: Murder on Saint Patrick's Day
Kathi Daley: Shamrock Shenanigans
Maddie Day: Four Leaf Cleaver

Nelson DeMille: Cathedral
Tom Dots Doherty: ShamrockSnake
Janet Evanovich: Plum Lucky
Sharon Fiffer: Lucky Stuff 
Bernadette Franklin: Shammed

S. Furlong-Bollinger: Paddy Whacked
Andrew Gonzalez: St. Patrick's Day
Andrew Greeley: Irish Gold
Jane Haddam: A Great Day for the Deadly
Lyn Hamilton: The Celtic Riddle
Jonathan Harrington: A Great Day for Dying
Lee Harris: The St. Patrick's Day Murder
Jennifer L. Hart: Sleuthing for the Weekend

Dorothy Howell: Duffel Bags and Drownings 
Carolyn Q. Hunter: Shamrock Pie Murder
Melanie Jackson: The Sham
Madison Johns: Lucky Strike
Diane Kelly: Love, Luck, and the Little Green Men 
Linda Kozar: St. Patrick's Secret
Amanda Lee: The Long Stitch Good Night; Four-Leaf Clover
Wendi Lee: The Good Daughter
Dan Mahoney: Once in, Never Out
Marion Markham: The St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Mystery (children's)
Ralph M. McInerny: Lack of the Irish
Leslie Meier: St. Patrick's Day Murder; Irish Parade Murder

Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, & Barbara Ross: Irish Coffee Murder (novellas)
Sharon Michaels: St. Patrick's Day Puzzle

Carlene O'Connor: Murder in an Irish Bookshop, Irish Milkshake Murder
Sister Carol Anne O’Marie: Death Takes Up A Collection
Mark Parker: Lucky You
Jack Pachuta: Murder Most Green

Christopher Ryan: Go Brath
Madelyn Scott: Suspicions and Shamrocks

Janet Elaine Smith: In St. Patrick's Custody
JJ Toner: St. Patrick's Day Special

Kathy Hogan Trochek (aka Mary Kay Andrews): Irish Eyes

Debbie Viguié: Lie Down in Green Pastures

Noreen Wald: Death Never Takes a Holiday; The Luck of the Ghostwriter

Check out Dublin Noir, a collection of short stories edited by Ken Bruen, published by Akashic Books in the US and Brandon in Ireland and the UK.

Read Val McDermid's take on the Popularity of Irish Crime Fiction.

Some Irish crime writers you might want to read: 

Tana French, Erin Hart, Benjamin Black, Conor Brady, Declan Hughes, Jane Casey, Brian McGilloway, Alan Glynn, John Brady, Stuart Neville, Adrian McKinty, John Banville (Benjamin Black), Ken Bruen, Jesse Louisa Rickard, Peter Tremayne, Gene Kerrigan, Stuart Neville, Liz Nugent, Eoin Colfer, John Connolly, Sinead Crowley, Olivia Kiernan, Brian McGilloway, Jo Spain, Jane Casey, Catherine Ryan Howard, Jess Kidd, Claire McGowan, Arlene Hunt, Michelle Duane, Zara Keane, Declan Hughes, Jess Kidd, Gemma O'Connor, Lisa McInerney, 

Who are your favorite Irish authors?

***

Crime Films set around St. Patrick's Day:

Between the Canals (2010), Irish crime film written and directed by Mark O'Connor
The Boondock Saints (1999) American crime film written and directed by Troy Duffy
State of Grace (1990) Neo-Noir Crime Film directed by Phil Joanou
The Fugitive (1993) American Crime Film directed by Andrew Davis

True Crime: 

9 Unbelievable St. Patrick's Day Crimes & Mishaps! 

May the road rise up to meet you, and the wind be always at your back!