The Prize Is Wright’s

U.S. author Edward Wright scores big for a second time with British crime-fiction judges, winning the 2006 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award for his third novel, Red Sky Lament (Orion). A former newspaper journalist, Wright previously picked up the 2001 Debut Dagger Award for his first novel, Clea’s Moon. Both distinguished commendations were given to him by the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). And both of Wright’s CWA award-winning works happen to feature his series sleuth, John Ray Horn, a former 1940s B-movie cowboy who served two years behind bars for beating the holy crap out of the arrogant offspring of a Hollywood movie studio chief, and now does debt collections for his casino-owning best friend and former “Indian sidekick”--at least when he isn’t trouble-shooting for the people he knows and loves.

As the historical award winner, Wright will receive £3,000, sponsored by the Estate of Ellis Peters and her publishers, the Headline Book Publishing Group and the Little, Brown Book Group.

Also shortlisted for this year’s Ellis Peters Award: The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard (John Murray); Nefertiti & the Book of the Dead, by Nick Drake (Bantam); The Janissary Tree, by Jason Goodwin (Faber & Faber); Sovereign, by C.J. Sansom (Macmillan); and The Sultan’s Seal, by Jenny White (Weidenfeld & Nicholson).