Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Monday, January 15, 2024
2024 Left Coast Crime “Lefty” Award Nominations
Left Coast Crime 2024 will be presenting four Lefty Awards at our 34th annual convention, to be held this April in Bellevue, Washington: Humorous, Historical, Debut, and Best. The awards will be voted on at the convention and presented at a banquet on Saturday, April 13, at the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue.
The Lefty nominees have been selected by convention registrants, and LCC is delighted to announce the 2024 Lefty Award nominees for books published in 2023:
Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel. The nominees are:• Jennifer J. Chow, Hot Pot Murder (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Lee Matthew Goldberg, The Great Gimmelmans (Level Best Books)
• Leslie Karst, A Sense for Murder (Severn House)
• Catriona McPherson, Hop Scot (Severn House)
• Cindy Sample, Dying for a Decoration (Cindy Sample Books)
• Wendall Thomas, Cheap Trills (Beyond the Page Books)
Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel for books set before 1970 (The Bill Gottfried Memorial). The nominees are:
• Cara Black, Night Flight to Paris (Soho Crime)
• Bruce Borgos, The Bitter Past (Minotaur Books)
• Susanna Calkins, Death Among the Ruins (Severn House)
• Dianne Freeman, A Newlywed’s Guide to Fortune and Murder (Kensington)
• Cheryl A. Head, Time’s Undoing (Dutton)
• Naomi Hirahara, Evergreen (Soho Crime)
Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel. The nominees are:
• Lina Chern, Play the Fool (Bantam)
• Margot Douaihy, Scorched Grace (Gillian Flynn Books)
• Josh Pachter, Dutch Threat (Genius Book Publishing)
• Ana Reyes, The House in the Pines (Dutton)
• Nina Simon, Mother-Daughter Murder Night (William Morrow)
Lefty for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories). The nominees are:
• Tracy Clark, Hide (Thomas & Mercer)
• S.A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed (Flatiron Books)
• Matt Coyle, Odyssey’s End (Oceanview Publishing)
• Jordan Harper, Everybody Knows (Mulholland Books)
• James L’Etoile, Face of Greed (Oceanview Publishing)
• Gigi Pandian, The Raven Thief (Minotaur Books)
The Left Coast Crime Convention is an annual event sponsored by mystery fans, both readers and authors. Held in the western half of North America, LCC’s intent is to host an event where readers, authors, critics, librarians, publishers, and other fans can gather in convivial surroundings to pursue their mutual interests. Lefty Awards have been given since 1996.
In 2020, Left Coast Crime received the Raven Award from Mystery Writers of America, for “outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing.”
The 34th annual Left Coast Crime Convention will take place in Bellevue, Washington, April 11-14, 2024. This year’s Guests of Honor are authors Megan Abbott and Robert Dugoni. Fran Fuller is the Fan Guest of Honor, and author Wanda Morris will serve as Toastmaster.
Left Coast Crime is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation holding annual mystery conventions in the West. Each LCC convention raises money to support a local literary organization, and is staffed entirely by volunteers.
For more information on Left Coast Crime 2024, please visit https://leftcoastcrime.org/2024/
Lucinda Surber & Stan Ulrich, Lefty Awards Co-Chairs
For more information on Left Coast Crime 2024, please visit https://leftcoastcrime.org/2024/
Lucinda Surber & Stan Ulrich, Lefty Awards Co-Chairs
Sunday, January 14, 2024
MONSIEUR SPADE NOW STREAMING ON ACORN
Spade is a retired ex-pat in the 1960s. Monsieur Spade has six episodes, each running 40-60 minutes. It premieres today, January 14, 2024 with new episodes streaming weekly on Sundays, at 9 pm ET/PT, on AMC, AMC+, and Acorn TV, until its finale on February 18, 2024.
Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade remains one of the most popular American sleuths of the 20th century. This famous private eye makes his first television appearance in AMC’s Monsieur Spade. Set in 1963, the plot follows the famous private detective during his retirement days in the tranquil French community of Bozouls. But the return of an old adversary and the murders of six nuns in the town spoils his serene life.
Monsieur Spade is based on the detective created by Hammett and his novels. Monsieur Spade is created, written, and executive produced by Emmy-winning Scott Frank of The Queen’s Gambit fame and Tom Fontana from City on a Hill. Monsieur Spade was shot in France.
I haven't seen it yet. Stay tuned for a review, or let me know what you think. Make a comment below.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Friday, January 12, 2024
MWA 2024 Grand Master and Ellery Queen Award Recipients
Katherine Hall Page and R.L. Stine as the 2024 Grand Masters
Michaela Hamilton of Kensington Publishing will receive the Ellery Queen Award.
Awards will be given at the 78th Annual Edgar Awards Ceremony, which will be held May 1, 2024, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York City.
“Mystery Writers of America is delighted to announce the recipients of our 2024 special awards. Our Grand Masters, Katherine Hall Page and R.L. Stine, have given so much to our genre—not just through their writing, but also through their generosity to other writers, their hard-working professionalism, and their boundless enthusiasm for the written word,” said MWA Executive Vice President Donna Andrews.
MWA’s Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality.
On being notified of the honor, Katherine Hall Page said, “I joined MWA in 1989, over a third of a century ago. In so doing I immediately felt a part of a supportive community and formed deep, long lasting friendships. And membership has also bestowed a link to MWA’s extraordinary past, beginning in 1945. The first Grand Master was Agatha Christie in 1955. I am stunned to be standing in her—and all the other’s—shoes. Thank you MWA for the thrill of a lifetime.”
MWA’s Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality.
On being notified of the honor, Katherine Hall Page said, “I joined MWA in 1989, over a third of a century ago. In so doing I immediately felt a part of a supportive community and formed deep, long lasting friendships. And membership has also bestowed a link to MWA’s extraordinary past, beginning in 1945. The first Grand Master was Agatha Christie in 1955. I am stunned to be standing in her—and all the other’s—shoes. Thank you MWA for the thrill of a lifetime.”
Page wrote her first mystery, The Body in the Belfry, while living in France for year during her husband’s sabbatical from MIT. It was the 1991 Agatha Award winner for Best First Mystery Novel. The 15th in the series, The Body in the Snowdrift, won the 2006 Agatha Award for Best Mystery Novel. Page was also awarded the 2001 Agatha for Best Short Story for “The Would-Be Widower” in the Malice Domestic X collection and received three more Agatha nominations, including one for her series cookbook, Have Faith in Your Kitchen, in the nonfiction category, making her the first author to be nominated or win in four different Agatha categories. She was an Edgar nominee for her juvenile mystery, Christie & Company Down East. The Body in the Lighthouse (2003) was one of three nominees for The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award. The Body in the Boudoir was a finalist in the 2013 Maine Literary Awards. Page received the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from Malice Domestic and Crime Master for her work from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. The Body in the Web is out now from William Morrow in hardcover, paperback, large print, E-book, and audio editions.
R.L. Stine is one of the best-selling children’s authors in history. Goosebumps, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, has more than 400 million books in print in 32 languages. An all-new New York Times bestselling Goosebumps series, House of Shivers, debuted in September 2023, with two more books to be published in 2024.
The Goosebumps series made Stine a worldwide publishing celebrity (and Jeopardy answer). His other popular children’s book series include Fear Street, (recently revived as a feature film trilogy), The Garbage Pail Kids, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room, and Rotten School. Other titles include It's The First Day of School Forever, A Midsummer Night's Scream, Young Scrooge, Stinetinglers, and three picture books, with Marc Brown—The Little Shop of Monsters, Mary McScary, and Why Did the Monster Cross the Road (2023).
On learning of the honor, Stine said, “Tony Hillerman. Elmore Leonard. Mickey Spillane. Ruth Rendell: Those were the MWA Grand Masters when I first started attending the Edgar Awards over 30 years ago. If you had told me then I’d be on that list someday, would I have believed you? I don’t think so. I’m surprised and truly honored.”
The Ellery Queen Award was established in 1983 to honor “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry.” This year the Board chose to honor Michaela Hamilton, executive editor at Kensington and editor in chief of Citadel, which she joined after a 25-year career in publishing. Her importance in the discovery of new writers and emphasis on publishing traditional mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels cannot be underestimated.
The Goosebumps series made Stine a worldwide publishing celebrity (and Jeopardy answer). His other popular children’s book series include Fear Street, (recently revived as a feature film trilogy), The Garbage Pail Kids, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room, and Rotten School. Other titles include It's The First Day of School Forever, A Midsummer Night's Scream, Young Scrooge, Stinetinglers, and three picture books, with Marc Brown—The Little Shop of Monsters, Mary McScary, and Why Did the Monster Cross the Road (2023).
On learning of the honor, Stine said, “Tony Hillerman. Elmore Leonard. Mickey Spillane. Ruth Rendell: Those were the MWA Grand Masters when I first started attending the Edgar Awards over 30 years ago. If you had told me then I’d be on that list someday, would I have believed you? I don’t think so. I’m surprised and truly honored.”
The Ellery Queen Award was established in 1983 to honor “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry.” This year the Board chose to honor Michaela Hamilton, executive editor at Kensington and editor in chief of Citadel, which she joined after a 25-year career in publishing. Her importance in the discovery of new writers and emphasis on publishing traditional mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels cannot be underestimated.
Hamilton acquires and edits commercial fiction and nonfiction including thrillers, true crime, and cozy mysteries. She has worked with authors including John Gilstrap, Gregg Olsen, M. William Phelps, Caitlin Rother, Barbara Allan, John Lutz, Lynn Cahoon, Nancy Coco, Rick Reed, and Leo J. Maloney. Her lifelong love of suspense fiction began in childhood, when she skipped the Nancy Drew mystery series in favor of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels, which she read clandestinely after finding her father’s copies in the bathroom. She likes her thrillers violent, her cozies amusing, and her beer well chilled.
Previous Ellery Queen Award winners include The Strand Magazine, Juliet Grames, Reagan Arthur, Kelley Ragland, Linda Landrigan, Neil Nyren, Charles Ardai, and Janet Hutchings.
“Michaela Hamilton has worked with dozens of new and seasoned writers over the decades,” Andrews said, “not only making Kensington a powerhouse in the mystery and thriller field, but also giving genre lovers hundreds of books—and thousands of hours of reading pleasure.”
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