September 2025

In this issue of The Blood-Letter from Friends of Mystery: Bloody Thursday guest Marc Cameron, awards, and new books.

CONTENTS:

• On September 25, 2025 Friends of Mystery Welcomes Spotted Owl Winner Marc Cameron
• In Memoriam
• Awards and More Awards
• New and Noteworthy
• New Mailing Address
• Member News
• Buy Books by FOM Speakers at Annie Bloom’s
• Membership Renewal
• Submissions Needed

BLOODY THURSDAY

On September 25, 2025 Friends of Mystery Welcomes Spotted Owl Winner Marc Cameron

Friends of Mystery is pleased to welcome two-time Spotted Owl Award-winning author Marc Cameron. He won the award for the second year in a row for Bad River, the 6th book in his Arliss Cutter series. His most recent book in the series is Dead Line, which came out this summer.

Author of the New York Times bestselling Jericho Quinn Thriller series, Marc Cameron’s short stories have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and BOYS LIFE magazine. He has also written books in the Tom Clancy JackRyan/Campus Thriller series.

Cameron is a retired Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal who spent nearly thirty years in law enforcement. His assignments have taken him from Alaska to Manhattan, Canada to Mexico and dozens of points in between. He holds a second-degree black belt in Jujitsu and is a certified scuba driver and man-tracking instructor.

Originally from Texas, Cameron is an avid sailor and adventure motorcyclist. His books often feature boats and bikes including OSI Agent Jericho Qouinn’s beloved BMW GS Adventure. Cameron lives in Alaska with his wife and BMW GS motorcycle. He enjoys hearing from his readers.

Bill Cameron will be interviewing Marc via Zoom. The meeting will open at 6:45 pm, with the formal programming beginning at 7:00 pm. Please join us on Zoom for the new FOM 2025-2026 year!

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In Memoriam

Frederick Forsyth

August 25, 1938 – June 9, 2025

Forsyth was a former fighter pilot, journalist and spy. He was the author of 24 books, including 14 novels, selling more than 75 million copies. Among his best-known works were The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, and The Dogs of War. Penguin Random House will be publishing a sequel to The Odessa File, called Revenge of Odessa in November. Mr. Forsyth wrote the book with Tony Kent. He was the winner of several Edgar Awards, including the Edgar for Best Novel, and was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger.

Greg Iles

April 8, 1960 – August 15, 2025

Iles was the author of 17 novels, including the Natchez Burning Trilogy (Natchez Burning, The Bone Tree, and Mississippi Blood). His most recent novel was Southern Man.

Martin Cruz Smith

November 3, 1942 – July 11, 2025

Smith wrote under many pen names but was best known for his eleven books featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko, including Gorky Park, Havana Bay and Polar Star. His most recent novel was Hotel Ukraine. He was twice the winner of the Dashiell Hammett Award and was an Edgar Grand Master.

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Awards and More Awards…

CRIME WRITER’S ASSOCIATION

July 6, 2025 – London

Diamond Dagger
Mick Herron

Gold Dagger
The Book of Secrets, by Anna Mazzola

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
Dark Ride, by Lou Berney

First Novel Dagger
All Us Sinners, by Katy Massey

Historical Dagger
The Betrayal of Thomas True, by A.J. West

Crime Fiction in Translation
The Night of Baba Yaga, by Akira Otani

Non-Fiction Dagger
The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place, by Kate Summerscale

Short Story Dagger
“A Date on Yarmouth Pier”, by J.C. Bernthal

Whodunnit Dagger
(cosy crime, traditional mysteries, and Golden Age crime)
The Case of the Singer and the Showgirl, by Lisa Hall

Twisted Dagger
(psychological and suspense thrillers)
Nightwatching, by Tracy Sierra

OLD PECULIER CRIME WRITING FESTIVAL – HARROGATE

Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2025
Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee

The McDermid Debut Award
The Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman

Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award
Elly Griffiths

INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS

Best Standalone Thriller Novel
The Last One at the Wedding, by Jason Rekulak

Best Standalone Mystery Novel
Missing White Woman, by Kellye Garrett

Best Series Novel
To Die For, by David Baldacci

Best First Novel
Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney

Best Audiobook
No One Can Know, by Kate Alice Marshall

Best Young Adult Novel
Darkly, by Marisha Pessl

Best Short Story
“Jackrabbit Skin’, by Ivy Pochada (Amazon Original Stories)

THE PRIVATE EYE WRITERS OF AMERICA – SHAMUS AWARDS

September 4, 2025

Best P.I. Hardcover
Trouble in Queenstown, by Delia Pitts

Best Original P.I. Paperback
Call of the Void, by J.T. Siemens

Best First P.I. Novel
Twice the Trouble, by Ash Clifton

Best P.I. Short Story
“Deadhead”, by Tom Andes
(Cowboy Jamboree Magazine, Fall 2024)

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New and Noteworthy…

(summaries provided by the publishers)

What the Night Brings by Mark Billingham

A killer is targeting the police. Is it payback? And worse, is it justified?

“Three dead coppers, Tom, maybe four by lunchtime…”

The targeted murder of four officers is only the first in a series of attacks that leaves police scared, angry and, most disturbingly of all, vengeful.

As Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner dig into the reasons for the violence, a deeper darkness begins to emerge: the possibility that these murders are payback. The price paid for an unspeakable betrayal.

To uncover the truth, Thorne will be forced to question everything he stands for. He can trust nobody, and the shocking secrets revealed by one terrible night will fracture his entire world.

Jenny Cooper Has a Secret by Joy Fielding

Reeling from her husband’s death and best friend’s dementia diagnosis, seventy-six-year-old Linda Davidson feels lost and alone. Her beloved daughter Kleo and son-in-law Mick have moved into her house to keep her company, but the constant bickering quickly turns their presence into yet another worry on Linda’s long list.

Eager to escape the tension at home, Linda goes to visit her friend at Legacy Place, a memory care facility for the elderly, where she meets Jenny Cooper, a ninety-two-year-old dementia patient who makes a shocking confession: she kills people.

Linda dismisses the so-called secret as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid during their visits as she recounts stories of her many victims – mostly men who’d hurt her. Then a fellow patient at Legacy Place dies. Everyone else sees it as the natural death of a sick old man, but Linda can’t help but wonder: is there any chance Jenny’s telling the truth?

Knave of Diamonds by Laurie R. King

When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years, and she assumed that his ne’er-do-well ways had brought him to a bad end somewhere—until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place. He was involved—somehow—in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from an impregnable safe in Dublin Castle.

It was a theft that shook a government, enraged a kind, threatened the English establishment—and baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And, now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? To slip away with him, not telling Holmes what she’s up to? Knowing that the theft—unsolved, hushed-up, scandalous—must have involved Mycroft Holmes as well?

Naturally, she can do nothing of the sort. Siding with her uncle, even briefly, could only place her in opposition to both her husband-partner and his secretive and powerful brother. She has to tell Jake no.

On the other hand, this is Jake –her father’s kid brother, her childhood hero, the beloved and long-lost survivor of a much-diminished family.

Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe deceptions: sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.

The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter by Peter Orner

Jed Rosenthal hasn’t published a book in fourteen years, the mother of his child left him in a “trial separation” that has stretched on indefinitely, and he struggles to navigate the daily sorrows of their co-parenting arrangement. But the implosion of Jed’s family is simply a footnote in the larger history of the Rosenthal family’s decline.

Just days after the JFK assassination, Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet was found dead in her Hollywood apartment. The press reported that the twenty-two-year-old was strangled, yet unanswered questions linger to this day. Cookie’s parents—Chicago royalty Irv and Essee Kupcinet—had been close friends with Jed’s grandparents, but in the aftermath of her death, their friendship abruptly and inexplicably ended. Decades later, Jed pores over family stories, newspaper archives, old photos, and crime scene notes, believing that if he can divine the truth of Cookie’s death—whether it was suicide, murder, or part of a larger conspiracy – it might shed light on a mystery closer to home.

The White Crow by Michael Robotham

Philomena McCathy has defied the odds to become a young officer with the Metropolitan Police despite her father and uncles being notorious London gangsters. On patrol one night, Phil finds a barefoot child, covered in blood, who has wandered away from the scene of a deadly home invasion. Meanwhile, three miles away, a prominent jeweler is found strapped to an explosive in his ransacked store.

The crimes are linked, and all the evidence points to Philo’s father as the mastermind, threatening her career, her new marriage, and her life. In too deep, and falling further as her two worlds collide, Phil must decide whom she can trust—the badge or her own blood—and on what side of the thin blue line she wants to live.

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New Mailing Address

Friends of Mystery has a new mailing address. We will be keeping our old address for a couple of months, but if you need to contact us by mail, the new address is:

Friends of Mystery
P.O. Box 332
Sherwood, Oregon 97140

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Member News

The second book in Friends of Mystery member Emmeline Duncan’s Halloween Bookshop Mystery Series, Mayhem at a Halloween Wedding, came out on July 29th. She’ll be at the Cedar Hills Powell’s Books on September 18th.

It’s Halloween year-round in Elyan Hollow, Oregon, where Bailey Briggs sells the latest tomes of frights and fears at the bustling Lazy Bones Books—when she’s not uncovering deadly secrets and mysteries that haunt the town . . .

Learn more at emmelineduncan.com.

Share Your Member News

Friends of Mystery is happy to publish news and press releases from our members in our Member News section, with the following considerations:

• The news must be related to mystery or true crime writing, films, and television, as well as non-fiction examinations of the mystery genre.
• Friends of Mystery will not be able to edit announcements, and will publish them as provided.
• Friends of Mystery will include one image with each announcement, if provided.
• Friends of Mystery is not responsible for the content of news announcements, and we reserve the right to not publish any announcements which we feel will reflect poorly on the organization and do not advance the organization’s mission.

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Buy Books by Friends of Mystery Speakers Online at Annie Bloom’s Books

If you want to order any of our speaker’s books, you can find them at our special Friends of Mystery page at Annie Bloom’s Books!

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Membership Renewal

It’s never too late to consider renewing your membership to Friends of Mystery! Dues are $20.00 annually. FOM is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. Dues and additional donations are deductible to the full extent of the law. Please mail your check, made out to Friends of Mystery, to P.O. Box 332, Sherwood, OR 97140. Your newsletter will be sent electronically unless otherwise requested.

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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. If you have suggestions of mysteries worth sharing, please contact the editor at: jlvoss48@gmail.com.

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Fall: the time for cozy sweaters and great mysteries