Once a year, mystery authors and fans converge on a city to stage the World Mystery Convention, also known as the Bouchercon (rhymes with “voucher.”) This year’s event was held in Indianapolis from October 15-18. It’s hard to sum up how much fun this event is, but we’ll try to hit the highlights in just a few sentences: Awards: Bouchercon attendees vote on the Anthony awards in several mystery categories. Michael Connelly won the Best Novel award for The Brass Verdict, a terrific bookl that pairs his long-running hero Harry Bosch with his newest anti-hero Mickey Haller. Stieg Larsson was posthumously awarded the Anthony for Best First Novel for his blockbuster The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Supernatural Stuff: Add a vampire to your mystery, and presto, you’re a genius. Heather Graham, Charlaine Harris, and Carolyn Hart shared a common experience: the large number of readers who come up to them, claiming to be vampires. Genial and unassuming Harris (Club Dead, Dead Until Dark, etc.) was the star of this show; her Sookie Stackhouse vampire series is the basis for HBO’s “True Blood.”
Discovering New Authors: Meeting new authors is always great fun. Everyone was abuzz over noir revival writers such as Sean Chercover (Big City, Bad Blood and Trigger City) and Megan Abbott (Bury Me Deep and Queenpin). Queenpin is not for the queasy, but, wow, what a book.
~ Contributed by John Graham, Adult Services Coordinator at the Mary Ann Mongan Branch
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