Author! Arthur!

Last night Crime Writers of Canada announced the nominees for its 2011 Arthur Ellis Awards. These prizes take their name from Arthur Ellis, which was the pseudonym used by Canada’s official hangmen. Broken down by category, this year’s contenders are:

Best Novel:

• Slow Recoil, by C.B. Forrest (RendezVous Crime)

• In Plain Sight, by Mike Knowles (ECW Press)

• The Extinction Club, by Jeffrey Moore (Penguin Group)

• Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny (Little, Brown UK)

• A Criminal to Remember, by Michael Van Rooy (Turnstone Press)

Best Short Story:

• “So Much in Common,” by Mary Jane Maffini (Ellery Queen
Mystery Magazine)

• “In It Up to My Neck,” by Jas R. Petrin (Alfred Hitchcock
Mystery Magazine)

• “The Big Touch,” by Jordan McPeek (ThugLit)

• “The Piper's Door,” by James Powell (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

• “The Bust,” by William Deverall (from Whodunnit: Sun Media’s Canadian Crime Fiction Showcase)

Best Non-Fiction:

• On the Farm, by Stevie Cameron (Knopf Canada)

• Our Man in Tehran, by Robert Wright (HarperCollins)

• Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him, by Roy MacGregor (Random House)

Best Juvenile/Young Adult:

• Borderline, by Allan Stratton (HarperCollins)

• The Worst Thing She Ever Did, by Alice Kuipers (HarperCollins)

• Pluto’s Ghost, by Sharee Fitch (Doubleday Canada)

• Victim Rights, by Norah McClintock (Red Deer Press)

• The Vinyl Princess, by Yvonne Prinz (HarperCollins)

Best Crime Writing in French:

• Cinq secondes, by Jacques Savoie (Libre Expression)

• Dans le quartier des agités, by Jacques Côté (Alire)

• Vanités, by Johanne Seymour (Libre Expression)

• La société des pères meurtriers, by Michel Châteauneuf (Vents D’ouest)

• Quand la mort s’invite à la première, by Bernard Gilbert
(Québec Amérique)

Best First Novel:

• The Damage Done, by Hilary Davidson (Tom Doherty Associates)

• The Debba, by Avner Mandleman (Other Press)

• The Penalty Killing, by Michael McKinley (McClelland & Stewart)

• The Parabolist, by Nicholas Ruddock (Doubleday)

• Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s Press)

Unhanged Arthur (Best Unpublished First Crime Novel):

• Better Off Dead, by John Jeneroux

• Uncoiled, by Kevin Thornton

• When the Bow Breaks, by Jayne Barnard

Winners will be declared during a banquet to be held on June 2 in Victoria, British Columbia, on the eve of this year’s Bloody Words convention. To buy tickets for that event, click here.

Complete lists of entries in all categories of the 2001 Arthur Ellis Awards competition can be found here.