A few tasty tidbits as we (finally) make it to the weekend.

1. Spotted on It’s a Crime! (Or a Mystery): the BAFTA TV nominations are out, and the International category includes two series with strong elements of crime – The Bridge and Homeland. They make up half of the nominations (listed below).

The one I want to win…

• The Bridge – Hans Rosenfeldt, Charlotte Sieling, Anders Landstrom, Bo Ehrhardt (Filmlance, Nimbus, ZDF Enterprises/BBC Four)
• Game of Thrones – David Benioff, D.B Weiss, Carolyn Strauss, Frank Doelger (HBO/Sky Atlantic)
• Girls – Lena Dunham, Jennie Konner, Judd Apatow (HBO/Sky Atlantic)
• Homeland – Production Team – (20th Century Fox/Channel 4)

The full list with all categories is available here (thank you, Rhian!).

2. The Independent foreign fiction prize 2013 shortlist has been announced, and contains one of the crime narratives I highlighted in an earlier post – Gerbrand Bakker’s The Detour (translated from the Dutch by David Colmer / Harvill Secker).

Publisher description: A Dutch woman rents a remote farm in rural Wales after confessing to an affair with one of her students. In Amsterdam, her stunned husband forms a strange partnership with a detective who agrees to help him trace her. They board the ferry to Hull on Christmas Eve. Back on the farm, a young man out walking with his dog injures himself and stays the night, then ends up staying longer. Yet something is deeply wrong. Does he know what he is getting himself into? And what will happen when her husband and the policeman arrive? The Detour is a deeply moving new novel, shot through with longing and the quiet tragedy of everyday lives.

It all sounds rather existential. I’m intrigued! Here’s the full shortlist, which might need further exploration as well.

3. Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year

I’m getting very excited as crime novels for the 2014 Petrona begin to arrive. Having been away from the university for a while over Easter, I returned to a veritable mountain of packages, and felt like proverbial kid in a sweet shop as I opened them all up.

Petronas on the right; other goodies to the left

The winner of the first Petrona Award will be announced at CrimeFest in Bristol (30. May to 2. June). I’ve just booked my ticket and hotel and am looking forward to it all greatly, not least because this will be my first ever visit to the convention. The programme looks very inviting. Perhaps see you there?