Who Will Win the Dilys?

It looks as if Lesa Holstine of Lesa’s Book Critiques might have been the first blogger to release this year’s rundown of Dilys Award nominees. Named in honor of Dilys Winn, author and the “founder of the first specialty bookseller of mystery books in the United States” (Murder Ink, which closed in 2006), the Dilys Award is given out by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association to “the mystery title of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling.” The contenders this time around:

• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (Delacorte)--one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2009
• A Quiet Belief in Angels, by R.J. Ellory (Overlook)
• The Dark Horse, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Steig Larsson (Knopf)--
another January favorite
• The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville (Soho)--also a January pick
• The Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Shanghai Moon, by S.J. Rozan (Minotaur)

The winner will be announced during this year’s Left Coast Crime convention in Los Angeles, March 11-14.