In this issue of the Blood-Letter: a preview of Bloody Thursday celebration of 2012 Spotted Owl Award winners, we see the 2012 Anthony Award Nominees, and check out mysteries from around the world!

September 2012
CONTENTS:

 


BLOODY THURSDAY September 27, 2012: The Spotted Owl Award Winners

Friends of Mystery and the Spotted Owl Committee are pleased to welcome as speakers the authors selected as our 2012 award winners.

Bill CameronBill Cameron is the winner of The Spotted Owl Award for County Line, the fourth book in his series which features irascible Portland homicide cop Skin Kadash. His other books in the series, Lost Dog, Chasing Smoke, and Day One were all Spotted Owl award finalists.

Cameron’s short story, “The Princess of Felony Flats,” was nominated for a 2011 CWA Short Story Dagger Award. His short fiction has appeared in Portland Noir, Spinetingler Magazine, The Killer Year and First Thrills anthologies, as well as on Lit 103.3: Fiction for the Ears. In 2011, a pair of Skin Kadash stories appeared in the anthologies West Coast Crime Wave and Deadly Treats.

Bill lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon. He enjoys travel and is an avid bird-watcher. He also serves as the FOM webmaster. He is currently working on his next mystery.

Johnny ShawJohnny Shaw is the winner of the Stan Johnson Award for Dove Season. This year the award is for the best debut mystery.

Shaw was born and raised on the Calexico/Mexicali border, the setting of Dove Season. He has been writing for over twenty years, and this was the first time he revisited/explored the people and places of the Imperial Valley, California, and the Desert Southwest. He returns to the area in his new novel, Big Maria, a raucous adventure set in Blythe, California and Arizona’s Chocolate Mountains. In a starred review in Booklist, the reviewer states “Comic thrillerdom has a new star.”

Shaw received his MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA , and over the course of his writing career has seen his screenplays optioned, sold and produced. For the last ten years, he has taught screenwriting and lectured at both Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara.

Johnny lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, artist Roxanne Patruznick (the painter of the author’s portrait shown.)

The program will begin at 7:30 pm at Terwilliger Plaza, preceded by a reception at 7:00 pm. The meeting is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in the employee parking lot across 6th Avenue from the lower level entrance. Handicapped parking is available at the upper level entrance. Tri-Met bus #8, Jackson Park, stops just in front of the lower level entrance. Learn more at our Bloody Thursdays page.

Date: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 7:00pm

Location: Terwilliger Plaza, 2545 SW Terwilliger Blvd, Portland, OR

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2012 Anthony Award Nominations

The Anthony Awards will be presented on October 6th at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

BEST NOVEL

  • The End of Everything — Megan Abbott
  • Hurt Machine — Reed Farrel Coleman
  • The Drop — Michael Connelly
  • A Trick of the Light — Louise Penny
  • One Was a Soldier — Julie Spencer-Fleming

BEST FIRST NOVEL

  • Learning to Swim — Sara J. Henry
  • Nazareth Child — Darrell James
  • All Cry Chaos — Leonard Rosen
  • Who Do, Voodoo? — Rochelle Staab
  • The Informationist — Taylor Stevens
  • Purgatory Chasm — Steve Ulfelder
  • Before I Go to Sleep — S.J. Watson

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

  • The Company Man — Robert Jackson Bennett
  • Choke Hold — Christa Faust
  • Buffalo West Wing — Julie Hyzy
  • Death of the Mantis — Michael Stanley
  • Fun & Games — Duane Swieczynski
  • Vienna Twilight — Frank Tallis

BEST SHORT STORY

  • “Disarming” – Dana Cameron, EQMM June ’ll, p. 24
  • “The Case of Death and Honey” – Neil Gaiman, A Study in Sherlock, p. 167
  • “Palace on the Lake” – Daryl Wood Gerber, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology, p. 184
  • “Truth and Consequences” – Barb Goffman, Mystery Times Ten, p. 121
  • “The Itinerary” – Roberta Isleib, MWA Presents The Rich and The Dead, p. 189
  • “Happine$$” – Twist Phelan, MWA Presents the Rich and the Dead, p. 276

BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION WORK

  • Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure — Leslie Budewitz
  • Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets from Her Notebooks — John Curran
  • On Conan Doyle: or, the Whole Art of Storytelling — Michael Dirda
  • Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film — Philippa Gates
  • The Sookie Stackhouse Companion — Charlaine Harris, ed.

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Mysteries Set Around the World

As summer comes to an end, the time is ripe for settling into your armchair and traveling to some exotic lands via mysteries set all over the world.

BRAZIL

A Vine in the Blood: A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation, by Leighton Gage. It is the eve of the FIFA World Cup, the globe’s premier sporting event. Just three weeks before the first game the star player’s mother is kidnapped. Can Chief Inspector Silva get her back?

SOLOMON ISLANDS

One Blood: A Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella Mystery, by Graeme Kent. Kella is called to investigate acts of sabotage , meanwhile an American tourist is murdered in the mission church Sister Conchita is running. They join forces to uncover links between these events and an upsurge of interest in John F. Kennedy, who was once a wartime U.S. naval officer in the area but now, in 1960, is about to become the 35th American President.

CAIRO, EGYPT

The Golden Scales: A Makana Mystery, by Parker Bilal. Makana is a former police inspector who fled for his life from his native Sudan seven years ago. Down on his luck and haunted by the past, he lives on a rickety Nile houseboat. When the notorious and powerful Saad Hanafi hires him to track down a missing person Makana is in no position to refuse him. But why should the city’s most powerful man hire its lowliest private detective?

ST. LUCIA

The Fallen: A Jade De Jong Investigation, by Jassy MacKenzie. P.I. Jade de Jong is on a scuba diving holiday when a scuba diving instructor is found brutally stabbed to death. She was a most unlikely candidate for murder – a quiet and intelligent woman who until a few months ago had a career as an air traffic controller. Can Jade and Superintendent David Patel solve the crime?

GIBRALTAR / MOROCCO

Shadow of the Rock: A Spike Sanguinetti Novel, by Thomas Mogford. Gibraltar lawyer Spike Sanguinetti is asked to defend an old school friend who is accused of murdering a Spanish girl in Tangiers. Spike travels to Tangiers, and as he uncovers the truth he finds himself drawn deeper into a world of secrets, corruption, and murderous lies.

TOKYO, JAPAN

The Thief, by Fuminori Nakamura. The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly he sometimes doesn’t even remember the snatch. He has no family, no friends, no connections…

But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him.

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Submissions Needed

Members and readers are encouraged to submit book or film reviews, comments on authors, and recommendations for books to read or questions about mysteries, crime fiction and fact. You can mail these to our PO Box 8251, Portland, Oregon 97207 or send to our email address at info@friendsofmystery.org.

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