Edgars Out of the Box

Today being poet-author Edgar Allan Poe’s 203rd birthday (though he is no longer around to blow out any candles), it’s only appropriate that the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) should have chosen this morning to announce its nominees for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, “honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2011.” Here are the contenders:

Best Novel:
• The Ranger, by Ace Atkins (Putnam)
• Gone, by Mo Hayder (Grove/Atlantic)
• The Devotion of Suspect X, by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur)
• 1222, by Anne Holt (Scribner)
• Field Gray, by Philip Kerr (Putnam/Marion Wood)

Best First Novel by an American Author:
• Red on Red, by Edward Conlon (Spiegel & Grau)
• Last to Fold, by David Duffy (Thomas Dunne)
• All Cry Chaos, by Leonard Rosen (The Permanent Press)
• Bent Road, by Lori Roy (Dutton)
• Purgatory Chasm, by Steve Ulfelder (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne)

Best Paperback Original:
• The Company Man, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• The Faces of Angels, by Lucretia Grindle (Felony & Mayhem Press)
• The Dog Sox, by Russell Hill (Caravel Mystery Books)
• Death of the Mantis, by Michael Stanley (Harper)
• Vienna Twilight, by Frank Tallis (Random House)

Best Fact Crime:
• The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars, by Paul Collins (Crown)
• The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge,
by T.J. English (Morrow)
• Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard (Doubleday)
• Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender, by Steve Miller (Berkley)
• The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter, by Mark Seal (Viking)

Best Critical/Biographical:
• The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of Our Time, by Dan Burstein, Arne de Keijzer and John-Henri Holmberg (St. Martin’s Griffin)
• Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making, by John Curran (HarperCollins)
• On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling, by Michael Dirda (Princeton University Press)
• Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film, by Philippa Gates (SUNY Press)
• Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie, by Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick (University of Illinois Press)

Best Short Story:
• “Marley’s Revolution,” by John C. Boland (Alfred Hitchcock
Mystery Magazine)
• “Tomorrow’s Dead,” by David Dean (Ellery Queen Mystery
Magazine [EQMM])
• “The Adakian Eagle,” by Bradley Denton (from Down These Strange Streets, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois; Ace Books)
• “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies,” by Diana Gabaldon (from Down These Strange Streets)
• “The Case of Death and Honey,” by Neil Gaiman (from A Study in Sherlock, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger; Bantam)
• “The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train,”
by Peter Turnbull (EQMM)

Best Juvenile:
• Horton Halfpott, by Tom Angleberger (Amulet)
• It Happened on a Train, by Mac Barnett (Simon & Schuster Books
for Young Readers)
• Vanished, by Sheela Chari (Disney Hyperion)
• Icefall, by Matthew J. Kirby (Scholastic Press)
• The Wizard of Dark Street, by Shawn Thomas Odyssey (Egmont USA)

Best Young Adult:
• Shelter, by Harlan Coben (Putnam Juvenile)
• The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson (Putnam Juvenile)
• The Silence of Murder, by Dandi Daley Mackall (Knopf Young Readers)
• The Girl Is Murder, by Kathryn Miller Haines (Roaring Creek Press)
• Kill You Last, by Todd Strasser (Egmont USA)

Best Play:
• Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club, by Jeffrey Hatcher (Arizona Theatre Company, Phoenix, Arizona)
• The Game’s Afoot, by Ken Ludwig (Cleveland Playhouse,
Cleveland, Ohio)

Best Television Episode Teleplay:
• “Innocence,” Blue Bloods, teleplay by Siobhan Byrne O’Connor
(CBS Productions)
• “The Life Inside,” Justified, teleplay by Benjamin Cavell
(FX Productions and Sony Pictures Television)
• “Part 1,” Whitechapel, teleplay by Ben Court and Caroline Ip
(BBC America)
• “Pilot,” Homeland, teleplay by Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon and Gideon Raff (Showtime)
• “Mask,” Law & Order: SVU, teleplay by Speed Weed
(Wolf Films/Universal Media Studios)

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award:
“A Good Man of Business,” by David Ingram (EQMM)

Grand Master: Martha Grimes

Raven Awards:
M is for Mystery Bookstore, San Mateo, California
Molly Weston, Meritorious Mysteries

Ellery Queen Award:
Joe Meyers of the Connecticut Post/Hearst Media News Group

The Simon & Schuster-Mary Higgins Clark Award
(to be presented during the MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 25, 2012):
• Now You See Me, by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur)
• Come and Find Me, by Hallie Ephron (Morrow)
• Death on Tour, by Janice Hamrick (Minotaur)
• Learning to Swim, by Sara J. Henry (Crown)
• Murder Most Persuasive, by Tracy Kiely (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne)

Winners will be declared during the MWA’s 66th Gala Banquet, to be held on April 26 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.

ADDENDUM: Rap Sheet/January Magazine contributor Anthony Rainone offers an interesting question: Why aren’t there any nominees for Best Motion Picture Screenplay this year?