Strand Stars

Laura Lippman and Marcus Sakey have won the first pair of Strand Magazine Critics Awards, bestowed last evening during a cocktail party in New York City.

Lippman reigned victorious in the Best Novel category for her 2007 work, What the Dead Know (Morrow). Also in the running for that prize: Down River, by John Hart (St. Martin’s Minotaur); The Shotgun Rule, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine); The Strangler, by William Landay (Delacorte Press); and The Watchman, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster).

Sakey picked up his commendation in the Best First Novel category for The Blade Itself (St. Martin’s Minotaur). His competition for that award: In the Woods, by Tana French (Viking); The Mark, by Jason Pinter (Mira Books); Missing Witness, by Gordon Campbell (Morrow); and When One Man Dies, by Dave White (Crown Publishing).

These Critics Awards are, of course, sponsored by the Michigan-based The Strand Magazine.