This Time, It’s the Arthurs

Speaking of crime-fiction commendations, the Crime Writers of Canada has selected its shortlists of nominees for the 2007 Arthur Ellis Awards (which take their name from the pseudonym of Canada’s official--and now unemployed--hangman):

Best Novel
• Lone Wolf, by Linwood Barclay (Bantam/RHC)
• Every Secret Thing, by Emma Cole (Allison & Busby)
• Honour Among Men, by Barbara Fradkin (RendezVous Press)
• Break No Bones, by Kathy Reichs (Scribner/Simon & Schuster)
• Piece of My Heart, by Peter Robinson (McClelland & Stewart)

Best First Novel
• The Elvis Interviews, Glen Bonham (Battlefield Publishing)
• Sign of the Cross, by Anne Emery (ECW Press)
• Reparations, by Stephen Kimber (HarperCollins Canada)
• Dead Money, by Grant McCrea (Random House Canada)
• Deadly Lessons, by David Russell (RendezVous Press)

Best Non-fiction
• The Desperate Ones: Forgotten Canadian Outlaws, by Edward Butts (Dundurn Press)
• The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia, by Guy Lawson and William Oldham, (Scribner/Simon & Schuster)
• To the Grave: A Spectacular RCMP Sting, by Mike McIntyre (Great PlainsPublications)
• High: Confessions of a Pot Smuggler, by Brian O’Dea (Random House Canada)
• Who Named the Knife? by Linda Spalding (McClelland & Stewart)

Best Juvenile
• The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul, by Marty Chan (Thistledown Press)
• Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates, by Sean Cullen (Penguin Canada)
• The Devil, The Banshee and Me, by L.M. Falcone (Kidscan Press)
• Tell, by Norah McClintock (Orca)
• All In, by Monique Polak (James Lorimer)

Best Short Story
• “Lady in Violet Satin,” by Vicki Cameron (Storyteller, Fall 2006)
• “The Curious Case of the Book Baron,” by Karl El-Koura (Storyteller, Spring 2006)
• “Voices from the Deep,” by Barbara Fradkin (in Dead in the Water, edited by Violette Malan and Therese Greenwood; RendezVous)
• “Canadian Diamonds,” by Jennifer Geens (Storyteller, Summer 2006)
• “Fuzzy Wuzzy,” by Dennis Richard Murphy (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, August 2006)

Best Unpublished First Crime Novel (the Unhanged Arthur)
• Murder in a Cold Climate, by Jennifer Hemstock
• Ego Tenderloin, by Meika Erinn McClurg
• Last Date, by Rosemary McCracken
• Margarita Nights, by Phyllis Smallman
• Condemned, by Kevin Thornton

Honorable Mentions for Best Unpublished Crime Novel: This Cage of Bones, by Pam Barnsley; Dead Witness List, by Tim Cramp; Home Away, by Trish Dyer; Cold Cuts, by Tania Finch; Betrayal, by Matthew Fries; Expatriate Bones, by Meg Howald; The Bogeyman in the Closet, by Josephine Leonard-Bezeau; and Angel’s Share, by Coleen Steele

Breaking from tradition, no award for Best Crime Writing in French will be handed out this year. According to Cheryl Freedman, Crime Writers of Canada’s executive director, that’s because “there weren’t enough entries to be able to create a proper shortlist, so we’re holding over this year’s submissions till next year. We’re not happy to have to do this, but we want to retain the integrity of the award.” A list of the existing French submissions can be found here.

The “Arthurs,” as these prizes are known, will be presented to winners on June 7, 2007, at Mysteriously Yours ... Dinner Theatre in Toronto during the 24th annual Arthur Ellis Awards dinner.

Lists of past winners can be found here.

(Hat tip to Lyn Hamilton for bird-dogging these lists on our behalf.)