And This Year’s Edgars Go to ...

Thanks to the ... er, “wonders” of Twitter, blogger-critic Sarah Weinman was able to transmit the highlights of tonight’s Edgar Awards Banquet as they occurred. Those included the announcements of this year’s prize winners. According to her play-by-play, here’s the complete rundown of recipients:

Best Novel: Blue Heaven, by C.J. Box (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

Also nominated: Missing, by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press); Sins of the Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno (Scribner); The Price of Blood, by Declan Hughes (Morrow); The Night Following, by Morag Joss (Delacorte Press); and Curse of the Spellmans, by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

Best First Novel by an American Author: The Foreigner,
by Francie Lin (Picador)

Also nominated: The Kind One, by Tom Epperson (Five Star); Sweetsmoke, by David Fuller (Hyperion); Calumet City, by Charlie Newton (Touchstone); and A Cure for Night, by Justin Peacock (Doubleday)

Best Paperback Original: China Lake, by Meg Gardiner
(Obsidian Mysteries)

Also nominated: 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); and The Cold Spot, by Tom Piccirilli (Bantam)

Best Fact Crime: 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

Also nominated: For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago, by Simon Baatz (HarperCollins); 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); and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, by Kate Summerscale (Walker & Company)

Best Critical/Biographical: Edgar Allan Poe: An
Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories, by Dr. Harry Lee Poe (Metro Books)

Also nominated: 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); and The Rise of True Crime, by Jean Murley (Praeger)

Best Short Story: “Skinhead Central,” by T. Jefferson Parker (from The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly; Little, Brown)

Also nominated: “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); and “La Vie en Rose,” by Dominique Mainard (from Paris Noir; edited by Aurelien Masson; Akashic Books)

Best Juvenile: The Postcard, by Tony Abbott (Little, Brown
Books for Young Readers)

Also nominated: 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); and Cemetery Street, by Brenda Seabrooke (Holiday House)

Best Young Adult: Paper Towns, by John Green
(Dutton Children’s Books)

Also nominated: Bog Child, by Siobhan Dowd (Random House/David Fickling Books); The Big Splash, by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Amulet Books); Getting the Girl, by Susan Juby (HarperTeen); and Torn to Pieces, by Margo McDonnell (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)

Best Play: The Ballad of Emmett Till, by Ifa Bayeza (Goodman Theatre, Chicago)

Also nominated: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, based on the story by Robert Lewis Stevenson (Arizona Theatre Company); and Cell, by Judy Klass (International Mystery Writers’ Festival)

Best Television Episode Teleplay: “Prayer of the Bone,” Wire in the Blood, teleplay by Patrick Harbinson (BBC America)

Also nominated: “Streetwise,” Law & Order: SVU, teleplay by Paul Grellong (Wolf Films/NBC Universal); “Signature,” Law & Order: SVU, teleplay by Judith McCreary (Wolf Films/NBC Universal); “You May Now Kill the Bride,” CSI: Miami, teleplay by Barry O’Brien (CBS); and “Burn Card,” Law & Order, teleplay by David Wilcox (Wolf Films/NBC Universal)

Best Motion Picture Screenplay: In Bruges, screenplay by Martin McDonagh (Focus Features)

Also nominated: The Bank Job, screenplay by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (Lionsgate); Burn After Reading, screenplay by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (Focus Features); Tell No One, screenplay by Guillaume Canet, based on the book by Harlan Coben (Music Box Films); and Transsiberian, screenplay by Brad Anderson and Will Conroy (First Look International)

In addition to all of those commendations, Joseph Guglielmelli was given the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for his story “Buckner’s Error” (from Queens Noir, edited by Robert Knightly; Akashic Books); two Raven Awards went to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, Maryland, and the Poe House, also in Baltimore; and Douglas Corleone was declared the winner of the St. Martin’s Minotaur/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition for the unpublished One Man’s Paradise.

Finally, Sue Grafton and James Lee Burke were presented with their 2009 Grand Master Awards from the Mystery Writers of America.

READ MORE: “Edgars Recapped,” by Sarah Weinman (Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind).