Here Come the Barrys

Deadly Pleasures has announced its 2006 Barry Award nominees. “As happens each year,” writes editor George Easter, “some of my favorites that I hoped would get on the final short list didn’t make it (Deon Meyer’s Dead at Daybreak, P.J. Tracy’s Dead Run, Chris Knopf’s The Last Refuge, to mention a few)--but that happened to each nominating committee member also. That is what consensus is all about--and the list we came up with is pretty darned good.”

But you decide that for yourself. This year’s nominees are ...

Best Novel: Bloodlines, by Jan Burke (Simon & Schuster); Red Leaves, by Thomas H. Cook (Harcourt); Mercy Falls, by William Kent Krueger (Atria); Sudden Death, by David Rosenfelt (Mysterious); Mr. Lucky, by James Swain (Ballantine); and The Power of the Dog, by Don Winslow (Knopf)

Best First Novel Published in the U.S. in 2005: Die a Little, by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster); Immoral, by Brian Freeman (St. Martin’s Minotaur); Baby Game, by Randall Hicks (Wordslinger Press); Dark Harbor, by David Hosp (Warner); Cold Granite, by Stuart MacBride (St. Martin’s Minotaur); and The Firemaker, by Peter May (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

Best British Novel Published in the UK in 2005: The Blood-Dimmed Tide, by Rennie Airth (Macmillan); Lifeless, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown UK); Silence of the Grave, by Arnaldur Indridason (Harvill); A Good Day to Die, by Simon Kernick (Bantam Press); The Field of Blood, by Denise Mina (Bantam Press); and Lost, by Michael Robotham (Time Warner)

Best Thriller: Company Man, by Joseph Finder (St. Martin’s Minotaur); Consent to Kill, by Vince Flynn (Atria); The Inside Ring, by Michael Lawson (Doubleday); Seven Deadly Wonders, by Matthew Reilly (Simon & Schuster); Map of Bones, by James Rollins (Morrow); and Private Wars, by Greg Rucka (Bantam)

Best Paperback Novel: The James Deans, by Reed Farrell Coleman (Plume); Six Bad Things, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine); Night’s Child, by Maureen Jennings (McClelland & Stewart); Now You See Me, by Rochelle Krich (Ballantine); The Dead Don’t Get Out Much, by Mary Jane Maffini (Napoleon Publishing); and Inside Out, by John Ramsey Miller (Dell)

Best Short Story: “The Big Road,” by Steve Hockensmith (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May 2005); “Needle Match,” by Peter Lovesey (from Murder Is My Racket; Mysterious Press, edited by Otto Penzler); “There Is No Crime on Easter Island,” by Nancy Pickard (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2005); “Love and Death in Africa,” by Joan Richter (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January 2005); and “The Method in Her Madness,” by Tom Savage (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 2005)

The winners in all of these categories will be announced during Bouchercon, to be held in Madison, Wisconsin, from September 28 through October 1.