Maple Leaf Marvels

The Crime Writers of Canada today announced its nominees for the 2009 Arthur Ellis Awards. They are as follows:

Best Novel:
• Too Close to Home, by Linwood Barclay (Bantam)
• The K Handshape, by Maureen Jennings (Dundurn)
• Transgression, by James W. Nichol (MacArthur & Company)
• The Murder Stone, by Louise Penny (MacArthur & Company)
• The Tsunami File, by Michael E. Rose (MacArthur & Company)

Best First Novel:
• Iced Under, by Nadine Doolittle (Bayeux Arts/Gondolier)
• Talking to Wendigo, by John C. Goodman (Turnstone)
• Headline: Murder, by April Lindgren (Second Story Press)
• Buffalo Jump, by Howard Shrier (Vintage Canada)
• Margarita Nights, by Phyllis Smallman (MacArthur & Company)

Best Juvenile Novel:
• Res Judicata, by Vicki Grant (Orca)
• Getting the Girl, by Susan Juby (HarperCollins)
• Royal Murder, by Elizabeth MacLeod (Annick Press)
• Dead Silence, by Norah McClintock (Scholastic Canada)
• War Brothers, by Sharon E. McKay (Penguin Canada)

Best Crime Writing in French:
• Le Chemin des brumes, by Jacques Côté (Alire)
• Le Poids des illusions, by Maxime Houde (Alire)
• La Tendresse du serpent, by Andre Jacques (Québec Amerique)
• L’Homme qui détestait le golf, by Sylvain Meunier (La courte échelle)
• Meurtre au Soleil, by Antoine Yaccarini (VLB éditeur)

Best Short Story:
• “Filmsong,” by Pasha Malla (from Toronto Noir, edited by Janine Armin and Nathaniel G. Moore; Akashic Books)
• “Clay Pillows,” by James Powell (from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], June 2008)
• “Walking the Dog,” by Peter Robinson (from Toronto Noir)
• “An Ill Wind,” by Amelia Symington (from EQMM, September/October 2008)
• “Thinking Inside the Box,” by Kris Wood (from Going Out with a Bang, edited by Linda Wiken; RendezVous Crime)

Best Non-fiction:
• The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada’s Polygamous Mormon Sect, by Daphne Bramham (Vintage Canada/RHC)
• The Girl in Saskatoon: A Meditation on Friendship, Memory, and Murder, by Sharon Butala (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins)
• Befriend and Betray: Infiltrating the Hells Angels, Bandidos, and Other Criminal Brotherhoods, by Alex Caine (Vintage Canada/RHC)
• Mafiaboy: How I Cracked the Internet and Why It’s Still Broken, by Michael Calce and Craig Silverman (Penguin Canada)
• Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, by Kerry Pither (Penguin Canada)

Best Unpublished Novel:
• This Cage of Bones, by Pam Barnsley
• Cheat the Hangman, by Gloria Ferris
• Salvage, by Stephen Maher
• Louder, by Douglas A. Moles
• Condemned, by Kevin Thornton

All of the winners should be announced on June 4 at a ceremony at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.