Mystery Writers of America BARBARA NEELY GRANTS

Mystery Writers of America announced the 2024 recipients of the Barbara Neely Grants: Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier and Audrea Sallis. The grant comes with a $2000 award to assist each recipient with any aspect of their career as they see fit. 

Barbara Neely was the author of the “Blanche” series, one of the first crime fiction series to feature a Black woman as the protagonist. In just four books, Ms. Neely became both a role model and a major influence for an entire new generation of Black women. Mystery Writers of America named her a Grand Master in November of 2019 to recognize her enormous contributions to the genre as well as her impact on the crime fiction community. Sadly, Ms. Neely passed away before she could accept the honor in person in April 2020 at the Edgars presentation and in 2021, MWA created a scholarship program for Black crime fiction writers in her name; one for an already published author, and another for one just getting started in publishing.

Ashley-Ruth Bernier’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Stone’s Throw, The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023, and other places. She was the 2022 winner of the Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize from the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and has been a finalist for the Derringer Award, the Claymore Award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award. She received a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Originally from St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, she is a writer of Caribbean mysteries. Bernier lives with her husband and four children in North Carolina, where she teaches first grade and finds few things more valuable than uninterrupted writing time.

Audrea Sallis is an accomplished technical professional transitioning to creative writing. She’s passionate about mysteries, writing, and promoting books—a creative writer with an eye for detail and passion for crafting stories. A graduate of Western Kentucky University, Sallis now lives in South Dakota, and is currently working on an amateur sleuth mystery series featuring a woman relocating from Chicago to a small fictional town in South Dakota.

Who Da Thunk It? Guest Post by Elizabeth Crowens

One wouldn’t necessarily correlate a modern-day slang expression like, “Who da thunk it?” with America in the 1940s, but that was the first knee-jerk reaction that came to mind. When writing my recently released historical, humorous soft-boiled mystery, Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles, Book One in the Babs Norman Golden Age of Mystery series by Level Best Books, tackling serious societal issues wasn’t my original MO. My primary goal: laugh-out-loud entertainment, combining a newly-created character loosely inspired by a dear late friend and linking her to Basil Rathbone, well known at the time for his role as Sherlock Holmes. Since both were dog lovers, I had Basil go through the heartbreak of someone stealing his dog. To ramp up the tension, I added another missing pooch who was a celebrity unto himself, Asta from The Thin Man films, a dog everyone would recognize and also connected to another famous detective team, Nick and Nora Charles.

Yet, it was only after the book had been published and Shawn Reilly Simmons (one of my publishers) interviewed me on her podcast, 5 Compelling Questions, that I realized one of the main issues in my novel—dognapping—is actually a growing crime in this day and age. Many of you probably saw in national news when someone had stolen Lady Gaga’s two French Bulldogs and shot her dog walker who tried to stop the thieves. She posted a five-hundred-thousand dollar reward for their safe return with no questions asked. The dog walker survived. Somehow, the dogs made it back home, but who would commit such a heinous crime?

Once again in Los Angeles, a suspect grabbed Robert Marinelli’s French Bulldog, Luca, who required special care and daily medication, and fled in a getaway car. While trying to rescue Luca, the car dragged Marinelli, which caused injuries to his back and legs and head. Neighborhood surveillance caught the crime on camera. The Los Angeles Police Department investigated the incident as an assault and robbery case.

In another dog theft, Ron York, a terminally ill cancer patient, left a doctor’s appointment in Beverly Hills with his 12-year-old Frenchie, named Albert, when two armed men attacked him.

One gunman pointed the weapon at York and said, “Let go of the dog or I’ll shoot you!”

“I pulled out pepper spray, the big one, the illegal one, and started spraying them,” said York in an interview with Los Angeles magazine. “There was no way I was letting go of Albert’s leash, not a chance.”
“One had a gun to my face, the other one started punching me in the face and the head. He unleashed my dog — I wasn’t letting go. The neighbors heard me screaming and called the police,” York remembered. “The duo then darted toward a beat-up Honda with Albert and squealed off.”

In the article, it explained that his dog had been accompanying his owner to chemotherapy treatments to keep him in good spirits, but for other patients as well. “He brought a lot of joy to many people, and now he was with these lowlifes. Cancer was nothing compared to losing him.”

Stolen dogs, depending upon the breed, have wound up in dogfighting rings or for sale on Craigslist. 

Many dognappers make a living by collecting reward money from the desperate owners. People have hired pet detectives and even pet psychics who offer their services to track down missing canines.

In Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles, however, my protagonist and her partner are full-fledged, licensed private eyes. Getting involved with dog disappearances was outside the realm of their normal caseload. Since dognapping, rather than murder, was the major focus of my mystery novel, some people could consider the book to fall more into the category of a cozy, but no matter how you look at it, losing one’s precious pet is no light-hearted matter.

***

Elizabeth Crowens has worn many hats in the entertainment industry in NY and LA for over 25 years. Writing credits include short stories and articles in  Black Belt, Black Gate, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery magazines, stories in Hell’s Heart and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated A New York State of Fright, and three alternate history/SFF novels, which she self-publishes under the name of Atomic Alchemist Productions.

Recipient of the MWA-NY Leo B. Burstein Scholarship, NY Foundation of the Arts grant to produce a self-published, photo-illustrated anthology, a Glimmer Train Honorable Mention, an Eric Hoffer First Prize, two Grand Prize and four First Prize Chanticleer Review awards.

Level Best Books recently gave her a three-book deal. Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles, a Golden Age of Hollywood humorous soft-boiled mystery was published on March 5, 2024.

IN PRAISE OF NOSY NEIGHBORS: Guest Post by Freya Sampson

The “nosy neighbor” has long been a popular character in mystery novels. Ever since Miss Marple sat in her front window, binoculars in hand as she solved the countless murders in her village, fiction has loved a busybody neighbor whose spying helps them to catch a criminal. These characters are often reclusive or hiding a secret of their own, such as in AJ Finn’s The Woman in the Window or Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, and when they witness a crime, they’re almost always ignored or disbelieved by the authorities, meaning they have to solve it themselves. 

My latest novel, Nosy Neighbors, is about Dorothy Darling, a 77-year-old woman who spends her days spying on and complaining about her neighbors, in particular 25-year-old Kat Bennett. But the pair are forced to become unlikely allies when their building is threatened with demolition, and even more unlikely amateur sleuths when one of their fellow residents is violently attacked in his home. Although the novel is a work of fiction, it was inspired by my own experiences: both of living with a nosy neighbor, and as I’m about to confess publicly for the first time, being a nosy neighbor myself!
It all started when I was in my early twenties and living in a rented house with friends. There was a lady who lived across the street from us who used to sit at her front window all day and stare into our house, occasionally shouting at one of us for being too noisy or blocking her gate. At the time we found her amusing, if a little irritating, but I never stopped to think about why she was so interested in our lives, and I certainly never made any attempt to talk to her.

Fast forward to 2020, and I was living in a different part of London when the pandemic hit and lockdown was imposed in the UK. Like millions of others, I suddenly found myself trapped in my home with my family, unable to leave other than for essential tasks. Up until this point, I’d never paid much attention to my neighbors; but now, stuck in my house, I found myself becoming fascinated with them. What was going on with the young man who lived across the road, who I’d see sitting topless at his computer screen all-day, talking into a headset? What about the couple next door I’d hear arguing through the wall, or the older man on the other side who I never saw step outside his front door. For the first time ever, I started watching the people who lived around me and wondering about their lives. Reader, I had become a nosy neighbor.

During that time, I thought back to the woman I’d dismissed as a busybody neighbor two decades previously, and started to wonder why she’d been so interested in me and my house mates. Was she simply annoyed by us and looking for excuses to complain, as we’d always thought? Or, as I now began to suspect, had she been lonely and deeply isolated, watching us because we were the only people she had in her life? I rang my old housemate and asked her if she remembered the shouting lady from number 32, and she reminded me of a story I’d forgotten. When our house had been broken into one night while we were out, it was the woman across the road who’d seen someone jimmy open our window and called the police. Her ‘nosiness’ had prevented the criminal from robbing our home.

Shortly after that conversation, I came up with the idea for my newest book, and in particular the main character Dorothy Darling. On the outside she’s seen as nosy and vindictive, and she’s deeply unpopular with her fellow residents because she’s always complaining about them. But through Dorothy, I wanted to explore the reasons why someone might become a ‘nosy neighbor’: the secrets in their past that tie them to their home, their motives for spying on their fellow residents, and the ways in which their ‘nosiness’ might actually be their gift that brings people together.

My own experience of being a nosy neighbor during the pandemic has definitely changed the way I think about the people I live amongst. Now, I make more of an effort to talk to my neighbors, in particular those who live alone or are newly arrived on the street. And if the lady from Tremadoc Road ever reads this, please know that I’m grateful for you keeping an eye us, and I’m sorry I never took the time to ring on your doorbell and say hello.

***

Freya Sampson works in television as a creator and executive producer. Her credits include two documentary series for the BBC about the British royal family as well as a number of factual and entertainment series. She studied history at Cambridge University and in 2018 was short-listed for the Exeter Novel Prize. She lives in London with her husband, two young children, and an antisocial cat https://freya-sampson.com/

Dee and Lao, John and Me: An Origin Story — Guest Post by SJ Rozan

This is a wonderful account of all the serendipitous moments behind-the-scenes as SJ Rozan & John Shen Yen Nee brought The Murder of Mr. Ma to life — they went from total strangers to writing collaborators, they went through mountains of reading & research, and they found the right people at just the right time to get over a hurdle. The Murder of Mr. Ma launches today.

***

S. J. Rozan: 

Mid-2020, a couple of months into the pandemic, I get a phone call from my agent, Josh Getzler. He's working from home, I'm working from home, everyone's working from home. The isolation is beginning to grate, even on writers, who, like moles, spend much of our lives alone. Josh has just spoken to a guy, he informs me, a friend of Alex Segura's, another of Josh's clients and The Man Who Is Everywhere. The guy's name is John Nee, Josh was on the phone with him for an hour and a half, and he came to two tentative conclusions about him: One, he might be crazy; and Two, even if one is true, he might have a project that's perfect for me. Would I talk to this John Nee?

Now, at this point in the pandemic, I'm talking to the cat, I'm talking to the walls. Someone I don't l know, with a project I know nothing about? Of course I'll talk to him. So John calls me. We talk for an hour and a half, and I come to a definite conclusion: Josh is right on both counts.

Count Two, the project, is so intriguing that I don't care about Count One. John has imagined a multi-book series starring Judge Dee Ren Jie, a Chinese jurist from the Tang Dynasty. Not that he wants to write about the Tang Dynasty, which ran from roughly 600-900 AD. In the grand tradition of historical fiction, he wants to bring Judge Dee into the 20^th century. Specifically, to start, London, 1924, and then after awhile, through the years. Well, why not? And he wants to hook him up with another real-life historical figure, the Chinese writer Lao She, who came to London in the twenties to teach. Lao will become Dee's Watson, the series narrator, while Dee charges around London, investigating murders and doing a lot of kung fu. Dee, in the stories about him (some Chinese oral history, some written by Robert Van Gulik in the 1940's, published in the 1950's), had a team, a supporting cast. They'd gradually be assembled and everyone would go forth solving mysteries and kung fu fighting.

What John needs is a novelist. His mind's like a Roman candle factory, spinning off ideas right and left. As an exec at both DC and Marvel he's used to handing off projects to writers and artists. He doesn't spend hours in a solitary mole hole choosing one word to put after another. I, of course, do. I love to. So John sends me his outline for Book One. It's sixteen single spaced pages and contains not only the kitchen sink but all the sinks from all the buildings on the block. Some, er, ah, pruning is needed.

There's another issue, too. While I know Judge Dee and have read his stories, I've heard of Lao She but not read him. The engine of this book is the Chinese Labour Corps in France during World War One. The what? I'm way behind. Don't worry, says John, I'll send some books.

This I take to mean, books from his home library that will get me up to speed. It does. It also means books from Bookshop.org, BetterWorldBooks.com, and that other behemoth online bookseller. Every time I turn around books are dropping into my mailbox. About the Chinese Labour Corps, about Chinese modern history, about Lao She, by Lao She. So I sit and I read and I read.

A second problem is, London, 1924 is also not my expertise. Who you gonna call? Laurie King, of course. Another box of books, old maps, old guidebooks shows up on my doorstep. I read some more.

Finally I'm ready to write a sample chapter. This is a fraught moment. If John doesn't like the voice, game over. It's how Lao She has spoken in my head, after all I've read by and about him. You writers out there will recognize this: once the voice has arrived, there's no changing it.

I chew my nails.

John loves it!

And we're in business.

One more snag, though. In the mists of the ancient past I studied tae kwon do. Thus Lydia Chin's skill in that form. In 1924, though, tae kwon do hadn't been invented, and if it had been, no Chinese jurist would have been practicing it. Kung fu is one more thing I know nothing about. That's okay, John says, we'll get a consultant.

Not so easy. Kung fu choreographers abound, but they work largely in the movies, where they get a bunch of actors together, choregraph on them, and charge $10,000 a scene. Nice for the movies. This is publishing. Not happening. So the fight scenes are languishing behind the rest of the book, which I'm writing and every couple of chapters sending to John for review. And here we have an example of what people mean when they say, If you put it out into the universe you'll get your answer. I never really believed that. But I'm at a birthday party and a friend asks how the new project's going. I tell him great, except we have a real problem because we can't find a kung fu consultant. The guy behind me, another friend, Henry, taps me on the shoulder. He apologizes for eavesdropping but says he studied kung fu for awhile with a guy down in Chinatown, Sifu (Master) Paul Koh. Probably, says Henry, this is a gig Sifu Koh would love.

So I call Sifu Koh. I send him the outline, I go meet with him and his assistant, Kristen Rosenfeld, at the Bo Law Kung Fu School. And he's fabulous.

Now we're really in business. The result of the business is THE MURDER OF MR. MA. And this is a business I hope to be in for a long, long time.

2024 DERRINGER AWARD NOMINATIONS

The Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the nominations for the 2024 Derringer Awards. I Congratulations to all. Click to read the nominations below. 

APRIL FOOL'S DAY CRIME FICTION

April Fool's Day Mysteries: I love any chance to celebrate a 'holiday,' so even April Fool's Day fits the bill! Here's a short list full of foolish and not so foolish mystery and murder that takes place on and around April Fool's Day! As always, let me know if I've forgotten a title!

The first of April, some do say,
Is set apart for All Fools' Day.
But why the people call it so,
Nor I, nor they themselves do know.
But on this day are people sent
On purpose for pure merriment.

--Poor Robin's Almanac, 1790 
 
APRIL FOOL'S DAY CRIME FICTION

The Marsh Madness by Victoria Abbott
Maple Fools' Day by Virginia K. Bennett

The Case of the April Fools by Christopher Bush
April's Fool by Edna May Ciesclwicz 
A Body on April Fool's Day by Steve Demaree

April Fool by William Deverell 
The April Fool by Robert J. Fields
April Fool's Day by John Greenwood
April Fools’ Day Murder by Lee Harris
April Fool Dead by Carolyn Hart 
A Remarkable Case of Burglary by H. R. F. Keating
April Fools by Jess Loury
The Confidence Man by Herman Melville
April Fool’s Day A Novel by Josip Novakovich (not quite a mystery but with mystery elements)
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
April Fool's Day by Jeff Rovin

Short Stories:
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 3: The April Fool’s Day Adventure and The Strange Adventure of the Uneasy Easy Chair by Anthony Boucher and Denis Green.

YA:  
The April Fool's Day Mystery by Marion Markham

Children's:  
April Fool's Day by Carolyn Keene (Book #19 of Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew)

Meg Mackintosh and The April Fools' Day Mystery by Lucinda Landon