2018 Derringer Award Winners

2018 Derringer Award Winners announced by the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Congratulations to all!

For Best Flash (Up to 1,000 words) 

"Fishing for an Alibi" by Earl Staggs, Flash Bang Mysteries ed. Brandon Bourg (Fall 2017)

• Finalists:
• 
  
• "Cold Turkey" by Patricia Dusenbury, Flash Bang Mysteries ed. Brandon Bourg (Summer 2017)

• "Happy Birthday" by Alan Orloff, Shotgun Honey ed. Ron Earl Phillips (June 15, 2017)
• "Final Testimony" by Travis Richardson, Flash Fiction Offensive ed, Hector Duarte Jr. and Rob Pierce (July 10, 2017)
• "Flash Point" by Elizabeth Zelvin, A Twist of Noir ed. Christopher Grant (March 20, 2017)

For Best Short Story (1,001-4,000 words)

"The Cop Who Liked Gilbert and Sullivan" by Robert Lopresti, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #23, ed. Marvin Kaye, Wildside Press (October 2017)

Finalists:  

• "The Kids Keep Coming" by David H. Hendrickson, Fiction River: Tavern Tales ed. Kerrie L. Hughes, WMG Publishing Inc. (January 2017)
• "The New Score" by Alison McMahan, Fish Out of Water: A Guppy Anthology ed. Ramona DeFelice Long, Wildside Press (March 2017)
• "The Bank Job" by Stephen D. Rogers, Trigger Warning Short Fiction with Pictures ed. Eric Lindbom and John Skewes (March 16, 2017)
• "Every Picture Tells a Story" by Cathi Stoler, Where Crime Never Sleeps: Murder New York Style 4 ed. Elizabeth Zelvin, Level Best Books (September 2017)

For Best Long Story (4,001-8,000 words)  

"Death in the Serengeti" by David H. Hendrickson, Fiction River: Pulse Pounders: Andrenaline ed. Kevin J. Anderson, WMG Publishing, Inc. (July 2017)

Finalists:

• "El Asesino" by Rusty Barnes, BULL ed. Ben Drevlow (May 22, 2017)
• "The #2 Pencil" by Matt Coyle, Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea ed. Andrew McAleer and Paul D. Marks, Down & Out Books (January 2017)
• "Matricide and Ice Cream" by William Burton McCormick, The CWA Anthology of Short Stories: Mystery Tour ed. Martin Edwards, Orenda Books (November 2017)
• "The Drive-By" by Alison McMahan, Busted: Arresting Stories from the Beat ed. Verena Rose, Harriette Sackler, and Shawn Reilly Simmons, Level Best Books (April 2017)

For Best Novelette (8,001-20,000 words)  

"Flowing Waters" by Brendan DuBois, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine ed. Janet Hutchings, January/February 2017

Finalists:

• "Windward" by Paul D. Marks, Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea ed. Andrew McAleer and Paul D. Marks, Down & Out Books (January 2017)
• "King's Quarter" by Andrew McAleer, Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea ed. Andrew McAleer and Paul D. Marks, Down & Out Books (January 2017)
• "Kill My Wife, Please" by Robert J. Randisi, Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea ed. Andrew McAleer and Paul D. Marks, Down & Out Books (January 2017)
• "Trouble Like a Freight Train Coming" by Tina Whittle, Lowcountry Crime: Four Novellas ed. James M. Jackson and Jan Rubens, Wolf's Echo Press (February 2017)

Thanks to Kevin Tipple, President, Short Mystery Fiction Society

TOM WOLFE: R.I.P.

Tom Wolfe, an innovative journalist and novelist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattan’s moneyed status-seekers in works like The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, The Right Stuff and Bonfire of the Vanities, died on Monday in a Manhattan hospital. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by his agent, Lynn Nesbit, who said Mr. Wolfe had been hospitalized with an infection. He had lived in New York since joining The New York Herald Tribune as a reporter in 1962.

READ the NYT obituary HERE.

Cartoon of the Day: Perfect Reading Spots

From Grant Snider. What's your favorite Reading Spot?

2018 BRITISH BOOK AWARDS aka THE NIBBIES: Nominees

The 2018 British Book Awards aka The Nibbies were announced yesterday in several categories. Of interest to readers of this blog is the

Winner of the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year: 

The Dry by Jane Harper (Abacus)

Other nominees in the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year Category

• The Girl Before, by J.P. Delaney (Quercus)
• The Midnight Line, by Lee Child (Bantam Press)
• Behind Her Eyes, by Sarah Pinborough (HarperFiction)
• Spook Street, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• He Said/She Said, by Erin Kelly (Mulholland)

The British Book Awards are organized by the UK magazine The Bookseller.

HT: J. Kingston Pierce's The Rap Sheet

Mystery Readers Journal: GARDENING MYSTERIES (VOLUME 34:1)

The latest issue of Mystery Readers Journal: Gardening Mysteries is now available. Check out the Table of Contents and links below. Great articles and reviews by and about your favorite authors.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to make this such a terrific issue, especially Kate Derie, Associate Editor. 

MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL: 
Gardening Mysteries (Volume 34:1)

Buy this back issue! Available in hardcopy or as a downloadable PDF.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Where the Wild Things Are by Meredith Phillips
• Weeds in the Borders by Carol Harper

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

• Painting the Garden by Kerry J. Charles
• Gardening and Writing: A Natural Enterprise by Susan Wittig Albert
• Fourth-Generation Gardener by Amanda Flower
• Mischief and Mayhem in the Garden by Rosemary Harris
• I Wouldn’t Leave My Little Wooden Hut by Ann Granger
• Crisis and Opportunity by Julie Wray Herman
• Words of Green Wisdom from Mas Arai by Naomi Hirahara
• Signs of Spring by Hart Johnson
• Collecting the Seeds of Stories by Gin Jones
• Mysteries Inspired by Dirty Hands by Meera Lester
• Two-Faced Plants: Gardening, Poisons & Medicines by Linda Lovely
• It’s Not Always Sunny in Philadelphia… by Donna Huston Murray
• The Exploding Compost Heap by Cynthia Riggs
• Gardening and Me by Joyce Olcese
• A Rose Is a Rose — Unless It’s a Poison Apple by Susan C. Shea
• How Does Your Mystery Garden Grow? by Teresa Trent
• The Wrong Thumbs (But At Least They Can Google) by Art Taylor
• Ode to Her Garden by Wendy Tyson
• Volunteers of America by Nathan Walpow
• Trees, Flowers — Murder! by Marty Wingate

COLUMNS

• Murder in Retrospect: Reviews by L. J. Roberts and Dru Ann Love
• The Children’s Hour: Garden Mysteries by Gay Toltl Kinman
• In Short: Does Your Garden Grow Mysteries? by Marvin Lachman
• Crime Seen: In the Garden Plot by Kate Derie
• Real Gardening Crimes by Cathy Pickens
• From the Editor’s Desk by Janet A. Rudolph

Cartoon of the Day: Superhero Mom Gifts