You Be the Judge

All day long, Spinetingler Magazine has been rolling out its lists of finalists for the 2012 Spinetingler Awards. Beginning tomorrow, readers will be invited to make their preferences known in 12 categories.

Below are the nominees. Asterisks denote works that, as far as I can tell, are currently available in the United States only as e-books.

Best Novel — New Voice (authors with 1-3 books published):
• Beautiful, Naked and Dead, by Josh Stallings (Heist Publishing)
• Mule, by Tony D’Souza (Mariner)
• The Dead Women of Juárez, by Sam Hawken (Serpent’s Tail)*
• The Devil All the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock (Doubleday)
• Dove Season, by Johnny Shaw (AmazonEncore)
• The Drop, by Howard Linskey (No Exit Press)
• Dust Devils, by Roger Smith (Tin Town)*
• Good Neighbors, by Ryan David Jahn (Penguin)
• Raise a Holler, by Jason Stuart (Double Action Press)
• Wire to Wire, by Scott Sparling (Double Action Press)

Best Novel — Rising Star (authors with 4-8 books published):
• All the Young Warriors, by Anthony Neil Smith (Blasted Heath)*
• Already Gone, by John Rector (Thomas & Mercer)
• Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, by Sara Gran (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Cold Shot to the Heart, by Wallace Stroby (Minotaur)
• El Gavilan, by Craig McDonald (Tyrus)
• The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown)

Best Novel — Legend (from authors with 9+ books published):
• A Drop of the Hard Stuff, by Lawrence Block (Mulholland)
• The Bitch, by Les Edgerton (Bare Knuckles Press)*
• Falling Glass, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail)
• Hard Cold Whisper, by Michael Hemmingson (Black Mask)
• Seven Spanish Angels, by Stephen Graham Jones (Dzanc)*
• The Wrong Thing, by Barry Graham (PM Press)

Best Short-Story Collection:
• Crime, by Ferdinand von Schirach (Knopf)
• Crimes in Southern Indiana, by Frank Bill (FSG Originals)
• From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet, by Patrick Michael Finn (Black Lawrence Press)
• Gone Bad, by Julie Morrigan (Morrigan Publishing)
• Nowhere to Go, by Iain Rowan (Infinity Plus)
• The Outlaw Album, by Daniel Woodrell (Little, Brown)
• Volt, by Alan Heathcock (Graywolf Press)

Best Anthology:
• Beat to a Pulp: Hard-boiled, edited by David Cranmer and Scott D. Parker (Beat to a Pulp)*
• L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories (Mulholland)*
• Off the Record, edited by Luca Veste (Lulu.com)
• Pulp Ink, edited by Chris Rhatigan and Nigel Bird (Needle Publishing)*
• Warmed & Bound, edited by Pela Via (Velvet Press)
• West Coast Crime Wave, edited by Brian Thornton (Bstsllr.com)*

Best Crime Comic or Graphic Novel:
• 99 Days, by Matteo Casali and Kristian Donaldson (Vertigo Crime)
• Blue Estate (Vol. 1), by Viktor Kalvachev, Andrew Osborne, et al. (Image Comics)
• Cowboys, by Gary Phillips and Brian Hurt (Vertigo Crime)
• Liar’s Kiss, by Eric Skillman and Jhomar Soriano (Top Shelf)
• Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot, by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jacques Tardi (Fantagraphics)
• Loose Ends, by Jason Latour, Rico Renzi, and Chris Brunner (12-Gauge Comics)
• Noche Roja, by Simon Oliver (Vertigo Crime)
• Rat Catcher, by Andy Diggle (Vertigo Crime)
• Criminal: Last of the Innocent, by Ed Brubaker and
Sean Phillips (Marvel)
• Scalped: You Gotta Sin to Get Saved, by Jason Aaron (Vertigo)

Best Short Story on the Web:
• “Abriani’s Six,” by Atul Sabharwal (from Tehelka)
• “The Cloud Factory,” by Court Merrigan (from PANK Magazine)
• “Disney Noir,” by Peter Farris (from Shotgun Honey)
• “Either Way It Ends with a Shovel,” by David James Keaton
(from Crime Factory)
• “Hoodwinked” by Nigel Bird (from All Due Respect)
• “The Other Man” by Hilary Davidson (from Beat to a Pulp)
• “Road Kill” by William Dylan Powell (from Flash Fiction Offensive)
• “Silas’ Good Run” by Matthew C. Funk (from Beat to a Pulp)
• “Silent Game” by Stephen Graham Jones (from Plots with Guns)
• “Vorovsky Mir” by M James Blood (from Plots with Guns)

Best ’Zine:
• Beat to a Pulp
• Crime Factory
• Needle
• Noir Nation
• Pulp Modern
• Shotgun Honey

Best Crime Fiction Publisher:
• Blasted Heath
• Mulholland Books
• New Pulp Press
• Serpent’s Tail

David Thompson Community Leader Award:
• My Friends Call Me Kate (Sabrina Ogden)
• My Little Corner (Sandra Seamans)
• Musings of an All Purpose Monkey (Elizabeth White)
• Pattinase (Patti Abbott)
• Psycho-Noir (Heath Lowrance)
• The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Adrian McKinty)
• Dead End Follies (Benoit Lelievre)

There are two additional Spinetingler Award categories, but because their contenders can’t be described in a few simple words, I’ll refer you to the Spinetingler site to see the lists: The Fireball Award for Best Opening Line and Best Cover.

Polls open here tomorrow, Saturday, at 6 a.m. EDT. Voting will continue through the end of April, with winners to be announced hourly on Tuesday, May 1.