Links to her books
https://cozy-mystery.com/camille-minichino.html
http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/M_Authors/Minichino_Camille.html
Today is Kentucky Derby Day, as in the Kentucky Derby. There will be people cheering, betting on the horses, women in big hats, and Bourbon tipplers all around as they celebrate. I've dusted off last year's list of Kentucky Derby mysteries and added a few more titles. You can also read horse-racing mysteries to celebrate the Derby -- or you can watch the movie The Kentucky Derby (1922). It's full of grit and crime. Have a piece of Derby Pie (recipes on DyingforChocolate.com), filled with chocolate, bourbon and nuts. Or make some Mint Julep Truffles or Kentucky Derby Bourbon Truffles.
Kentucky Derby Short Stories
"The Gift" by Dick Francis is set at the Kentucky Derby. It is in the collection Field of Thirteen. "The Gift" first appeared as "A Day of Wine and Roses" in Sports Illustrated, 1973.
Derby Rotten Scoundrels: A Silver Dagger Anthology, edited by Jeffrey Marks
Low Down and Derby, a collection of fast paced mystery stories
set around the Kentucky Derby, by fifteen authors from the Ohio River
Valley Chapter of Sisters in Crime, edited by Abigail Jones.
Murder at the Races, a collection of Short Stories including "A Derby Horse," edited by Peter Haining.
Great Horse Racing Mysteries: Tales from the Track by John McEvoy
Dancer's Image: The Forgotten Story of the 1968 Kentucky Derby (and 5 other non-fiction books about Thoroughbread racing and equine law) by Milton Toby
The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told: A True Tale of Three Gamblers, the Kentucky Derby, and the Mexican Cartel by Mark Paul
And there once was a thorough-bred named Mystery Novel. He did not win the Kentucky Derby.
Movies
The Kentucky Derby (1922)
Authors who Write Horse Mysteries
(not necesssarily about the Kentucky Derby)
Gabriella Herkert, Scasser Hill, Jo Banister, Ben Petersen, Sasscer Hill, Kit Ehrman, Jody Jaffe, Bruce Alexander, Fern Michaels, Jody Jaffe, Carolyn Banks, Michele
Scott, Dick Francis, Laura Crum, J.R. Lindermuth, William Murray, Mary Monica Pulver, Rita Mae Brown, Janet Dawson,
Maggie Estep, Dick Francis, John Francome, Alyson Hagy, Michael Kilian,
Peter Klein, Lynda La Plante, Holly Menino, John McEvoy, Jassy Mackenzie, Robert Nicholas Reeves,J. R. Rain, Bill Shoemaker, Laura Young, Lyndon
Stacey, JD Carpenter, Lisa Wysocky, Sally Wright, James Ziskin, Leigh Hearon, Gabriella Herkert, Michele Scott, Annette Dashofy, D.C. Alexander,
Other Horse Mystery Short Stories
Murder at the Racetrack, edited by Otto Penzler
Field of Thirteen by Dick Francis
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo: Read a Mystery!
***
And a few Mexican crime writers who set their mysteries in Mexico but not on Cinco de Mayo. They have not all been translated into English.
Mexican Crime Writers:
Paco Ignacio Taibo II The Uncomfortable Dead (and numerous other novels)
Eduardo Monteverde
Juan Hernandez Luna
Martin Solares
Elmer Mendoza
Hardboiled Fiction on the Mexican-US Border or involved with the drug trade:
Carlos Fuentes: Cabeza de la Hidra (The Hydra Head)
Joaquin Guerrero-Casaola: The Law of the Garrotte
Sam Hawken: The Dead Women of Juarez; Tequila Sunset
Rolando Hinojosa: Partners in Crime, Ask a Policeman
Elmer Mendoza: Silver Bullets; Kiss the Detective
Gabriel Trujillo Munoz (known for his science fiction and literary criticism, also writes detective fiction):Mesquite Road, Tijuana City Blues Don Winslow: The Cartel; The Power of the Dog; The Border; and more
Other Crime Fiction set in Mexico
Want to find out more?
Read G.J. Demko's Landscapes of Crime: Mysteries in Mexico
"Mexican Detective Fiction" by Jose Ignacio Escribano on A Crime is Afoot
Read Lucha Corpi's: La Bloga on Chicana Crime Fiction: Where to?
Read an essay
by Jennifer Insley "Border criminals, border crime: hard-boiled
fiction on the American Frontier in Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de
Cultura y Literatura
YA Literature? You Don't Have a Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens, edited by Sarah Cortez (Arte Publico Press)
Interested in Crime for the Holidays? Check out Mystery Readers Journal, Volume 25:1.
And a fun fact:
Five most popular Tequilas in the U.S.
1. Jose Cuervo
2. Patron
3. Sauza
4. Herradura
5. Cabo Wabo
And, here's one of my favorite roses: Cinco de Mayo! a repeat bloomer with a unique shape, color, and scent!
Swiss soldiers exist even though Switzerland has been a neutral country for centuries, belonging to neither the European Union nor NATO; it only joined the United Nations in 2002 by a slim majority of the popular vote. Tradition has it that Swiss neutrality was born on September 15, 1515, at the Battle of Marignano in northern Italy. A young Francis I of France was trying to conquer the duchy of Milan, and the soldiers of the Swiss confederacy were fighting for the Milanese in hopes of expanding Switzerland further into Italy. More than half of the thousands of soldiers on both sides were killed in that one battle, and Francis I would probably have been defeated if 12,000 troops from Venice had not arrived in time to fight on his side.
Out of this war, which the Swiss lost, came a treaty with France in which Switzerland swore never to fight against the French again or allow Swiss mercenaries to be hired to fight against French troops. In return, Switzerland got its Italian-speaking canton of Ticino and plenty of new trade rights. It is said that the devastation at Marignano convinced the Swiss never to attack their neighbors again. Officially, though, the country’s neutrality, along with its independence as a confederation, wasn’t recognized by Europe until three hundred years later in the 1815 Treaty of Paris, signed after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.
Neutral or not, the newly recognized confederation decided it needed an army, and when Switzerland became a modern federal state in 1848, every Swiss man was required to defend his country. During the First and Second World Wars, this militia-style army was mobilized to protect the nation. Historians now agree that Hitler’s respect for Switzerland’s neutrality had more to do with the Swiss banks—and perhaps the Swiss Alps—than the Swiss army, but at the time, the country’s 4.2 million people were very grateful to the up-to-850,000 sons, fathers, and brothers guarding its borders.
Between 1961, at the height of the Cold War, and 2024, Switzerland’s militia army dropped from 625,000 men aged 18 to 50 to 100,000 men (and some women) aged 18 to 30 (not including senior officers). The series of government reforms that streamlined the Swiss army also did away with the nation’s strictly enforced jail sentence for conscientious objectors.
Soon after turning eighteen, Swiss men are ordered to spend three days at a military center to evaluate their fitness for army service. Until recently, those deemed fit went into Rekrutenschule or basic training, followed by further military service; those judged not suited to soldiering were drafted into protecting the Swiss population in other ways—for example, in cases of flooding or rock slides. For the last fifteen years, however, young men who’ve passed all their fitness tests have had the option of doing thirteen months of social service rather than learning to be soldiers. This choice is called the Civilian Service, and the young men who do it are nicknamed Zivis in Swiss German—I’ve called them Civis in my book.
Andrea Eberhart, the murder victim in my new Polizei Bern mystery, had a job advising Swiss Civis. If you want to learn more about what that means and about the extraordinary range of jobs Civis do, I suggest you read A Fondness for Truth!
***
Kim Hays, a citizen of Switzerland and the United States, has made her home in Bern for thirty-six years since marrying her Swiss husband. Before that, she lived in San Juan, Vancouver, Stockholm, Cambridge, MA, and Berkeley, CA. Kim has worked at many jobs, including factory forewoman, lecturer in sociology, and cross-cultural trainer. Pesticide, the first book in her Polizei Bern series featuring detectives Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli, was published by Seventh Street Books in 2022 and was a finalist for the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award and the Falchion Award for Best Mystery. The second book in the series, Sons and Brothers, came out in 2023, and the third, A Fondness for Truth, in April 2024.
BEST NOVEL
Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
(Penguin Random House - Berkley)
BEST FACT CRIME
Crooked: The Roaring '20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal
by Nathan Masters (Hachette Book Group – Hachette Books)
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy
by Steven Powell (Bloomsbury Publishing - Bloomsbury Academic)
BEST SHORT STORY
"Hallowed Ground," by Linda Castillo (Macmillan Publishers – Minotaur Books)
BEST JUVENILE
The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto by Adrianna Cuevas
(Macmillan Publishers – Farrar, Straus and Giroux BFYR)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
Girl Forgotten by April Henry (Hachette Book Group – LBYR – Christy Ottaviano Books)
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
“Escape from Shit Mountain” – Poker Face,
Written by Nora Zuckerman & Lilla Zuckerman (Peacock)
* * * * * *
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
“The Body in Cell Two,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May-June 2023 by Kate Hohl
(Dell Magazines)
THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
Presented on behalf of Simon & Schuster.
Play the Fool by Lina Chern (Penguin Random House - Bantam)
THE G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD
Presented on behalf of G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
An Evil Heart by Linda Castillo (Macmillan Publishers – Minotaur Books)
THE LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN MEMORIAL AWARD
Endowed by the estate of Lilian Jackson Braun.
Glory Be by Danielle Arceneaux (Pegasus Books – Pegasus Crime)
SPECIAL AWARDS
GRAND MASTER
Katherine Hall Page
R.L. Stine
ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
Michaela Hamilton, Kensington Books
Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel
The Moonlit Door by Deryn Lake
May Day by Jess Lourey
May Might Mean Murder by Bill McGrath
A Hearse on May-Day by Gladys Mitchell
May Day in Magadan by Anthony Olcott
--Rosemary Edghill, mystery writer, in Book of Moons
Morris Dancing Mysteries
Death of a Fool (Off with his Head) by Ngaio Marsh
Dead Men's Morris by Gladys Mitchell
The Death-Cap Dancers by Gladys Mitchell
The Lazareth Pit by Elizabeth Patterson
All of a Winter's Night by Phil Rickman
***
May Day also has a more Activist meaning. For more information and a great list, check out Molly Odintz's Radical Noir: 26 Activist Crime Novels on CrimeReads.
Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins will return in the title roles. Other series characters alsoreturn, and this season there will be a new detective with Bhavik C. Pankhania in the role of DC Lee, plus a few guest stars.
Livestream Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards: May 1. 8:30
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg704Luzy4EKA85E9vv2toQ
or
Best Contemporary Novel
THE WEEKEND RETREAT, Tara Laskowski
Best Historical Novel
THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE, Sujata Massey
Best First Novel
CRIME AND PARCHMENT, Daphne Silver
THE 2024 AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE SHORTLISTS
The Peter Robinson Award for Best Crime Novel sponsored by Rakuten Kobo, with a $1000 prize
Best Crime First Novel, sponsored by Melodie Campbell, with a $1000 prize
The Howard Engel Award for Best Crime Novel Set in Canada, sponsored by Charlotte Engel and Crime Writers of Canada, with a $500 prize
The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery sponsored by Jane Doe, with a $500 prize
Best Crime Short Story
The Best French Language Crime Book (Fiction and Nonfiction)
Best Juvenile/YA Crime Book, sponsored by Shaftesbury Films with a $500 prize (Fiction and Nonfiction)
Best Unpublished Crime Novel manuscript written by an unpublished author