Now for the Edgar Award Winners

Thanks to critic-blogger Sarah Weinman’s Twitter alerts, sent from tonight’s Mystery Writers of America banquet at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, we can report the winners of the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Awards. They are as follows:

Best Novel: The Last Child, by John Hart (Minotaur)

Also nominated: The Missing, by Tim Gautreaux (Knopf); The Odds, by Kathleen George (Minotaur); Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine); Nemesis, by Jo Nesbø (HarperCollins); and A Beautiful Place to Die, by Malla Nunn (Atria)

Best First Novel by an American Author: In the Shadow of Gotham, by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur)

Also nominated: The Girl She Used to Be, by David Cristofano (Grand Central); Starvation Lake, by Bryan Gruley (Touchstone); The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf (Mira); A Bad Day for Sorry, by Sophie Littlefield (Minotaur); and Black Water Rising, by Attica Locke (HarperCollins)

Best Paperback Original: Body Blows, by Marc Strange (Dundurn Press)

Also nominated: Bury Me Deep, by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster); Havana Lunar, by Robert Arellano (Akashic); The Lord God Bird, by Russell Hill (Caravel Books); and The Herring-Seller’s Apprentice, by L.C. Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press)

Best Fact Crime: Columbine, by Dave Cullen (Twelve)

Also nominated: Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, by Jeff Guinn (Simon & Schuster); The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston’s Racial Divide, by Dick Lehr (HarperCollins); Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art, by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo (Penguin Press); and Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa, by R.A. Scotti (Knopf)

Best Critical/Biographical: The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler (Little, Brown)

Also nominated: Talking About Detective Fiction, by P.D. James (Knopf); Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King, by Lisa Rogak (Thomas Dunne); The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s); and The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, by Bev Vincent (Fall River Press)

Best Short Story: “Amapola,” by Luis Alberto Urrea (from
Phoenix Noir; Akashic)

Also nominated: “Last Fair Deal Gone Down,” by Ace Atkins (from Crossroads Blues; Busted Flush Press); “Femme Sole,” by Dana Cameron (from Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane; Akashic); “Digby, Attorney at Law,” by Jim Fusilli (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine); and “Animal Rescue,” by Dennis Lehane (Boston Noir)

Best Juvenile: Closed for the Season, by Mary Downing Hahn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books)

Also nominated: The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity, by Mac Barnett (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers); The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour, by Michael D. Beil (Knopf); Creepy Crawly Crime, by Aaron Reynolds (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers); and The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, by Nancy Springer (Philomel)

Best Young Adult: Reality Check, by Peter Abrahams (HarperTeen)

Also nominated: If the Witness Lied, by Caroline B. Cooney (Delacorte); The Morgue and Me, by John C. Ford (Viking Children’s Books); Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone, by Dene Low (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books); and Shadowed Summer, by Saundra Mitchell (Delacorte)

Best Television Episode Teleplay: Place of Execution, teleplay by Patrick Harbinson (PBS/WGBH Boston)

Also nominated: “Strike Three,” The Closer, teleplay by Steven Kane (Warner Bros TV for TNT); “Look What He Dug Up This Time,” Damages, teleplay by Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler, and Daniel Zelman (FX Networks); “Grilled,” Breaking Bad, teleplay by George Mastras (AMC/Sony); and “Living the Dream,” Dexter, teleplay by Clyde Phillips (Showtime)

The Simon & Schuster/Mary Higgins Clark Award: Awakening, by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur)--This award was presented at MWA’s Agents and Editors Party on Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Also nominated: Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof, by Blaize Clement (Minotaur); Never Tell a Lie, by Hallie Ephron (Morrow); Lethal Vintage, by Nadia Gordon (Chronicle); and Dial H for Hitchcock, by Susan Kandel (HarperCollins)

In addition, Dorothy Gilman--author of the Mrs. Polifax mysteries--was entered into the MWA’s pantheon of Grand Masters; Dan Warthman received the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for his story “A Dreadful Day” (published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine); Raven Awards were presented to both the Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, and to Zev Buffman of the International Mystery Writers’ Festival; and Barbara Peters and Robert Rosenwald of Poisoned Pen Press received the Ellery Queen Award.

Congratulations to all the winners!