Edgar Nominees and More

The Edgars have been announced. A partial list is below and the full list is here. This means much more reading for me -- I've not read any of the Best Novel or Best First Novel nominees. But also exciting for me is that favorite author Andrew Taylor (see post below) has won the 2009 Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association for sustained excellence in crime writing. Taylor is not as well known here in the U.S., and that's a great pity.

Best Novel
• Missing, by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press)
• Blue Heaven, by C.J. Box (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• Sins of the Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno (Scribner)
• The Price of Blood, by Declan Hughes (Morrow)
• The Night Following, by Morag Joss (Delacorte Press)
• Curse of the Spellmans, by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

Best First Novel by an American Author
• The Kind One, by Tom Epperson (Five Star)
• Sweetsmoke, by David Fuller (Hyperion)
• The Foreigner, by Francie Lin (Picador)
• Calumet City, by Charlie Newton (Touchstone)
• A Cure for Night, by Justin Peacock (Doubleday)

Best Paperback Original
• The Prince of Bagram Prison, by Alex Carr (Random House Trade)
• Money Shot, by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime)
• Enemy Combatant, by Ed Gaffney (Dell)
• China Lake, by Meg Gardiner (Obsidian Mysteries)
• The Cold Spot, by Tom Piccirilli (Bantam)

Best Fact Crime
• For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago, by Simon Baatz (HarperCollins)
• American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century, by Howard Blum (Crown)--one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2008
• Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution, by T.J. English (Morrow)
• The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Hans van Meegeren, by Jonathan Lopez (Harcourt)
• The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, by Kate Summerscale (Walker & Company)

Best Critical/Biographical
• African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study, by Frankie Y. Bailey (McFarland & Company)
• Hard-boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories, by Leonard Cassuto (Columbia University Press)
• Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction, by David Geherin (McFarland & Company)
• The Rise of True Crime, by Jean Murley (Praeger)
• Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories, by Dr. Harry Lee Poe (Metro Books)

Best Short Story
• “A Sleep Not Unlike Death,” by Sean Chercover (from Hardcore Hardboiled, edited by Todd Robinson; Kensington Publishing)
• “Skin and Bones,” by David Edgerley Gate (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, October 2008)
• “Scratch of a Woman,” by Laura Lippman (from Hardly Knew Her; Morrow)
• “La Vie en Rose,” by Dominique Mainard (from Paris Noir; edited by Aurelien Masson; Akashic Books)
• “Skinhead Central,” by T. Jefferson Parker (from The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly; Little, Brown)

Best Juvenile
• The Postcard, by Tony Abbott (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Enigma: A Magical Mystery, by Graeme Base (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
• Eleven, by Patricia Reilly Giff (Random House/Wendy Lamb Books)
• The Witches of Dredmoore Hollow, by Riford McKenzie (Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books)
• Cemetery Street, by Brenda Seabrooke (Holiday House)

Best Young Adult
• Bog Child, by Siobhan Dowd (Random House/David Fickling Books)
• The Big Splash, by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Amulet Books)
• Paper Towns, by John Green (Dutton Children’s Books)
• Getting the Girl, by Susan Juby (HarperTeen)
• Torn to Pieces, by Margo McDonnell (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)