Northern (Leading) Lights

During a ceremony held tonight at the Arts & Letters Club in Toronto, Ontario, the Crime Writers of Canada organization announced the winners of its 2013 Arthur Ellis Awards. They are as follows:

Best First Novel:
The Haunting of Maddy Clare, by Simone St. James (NAL)

Also nominated: The Beggar’s Opera, by Peggy Blair (Penguin Canada); Confined Space, by Deryn Collier (Simon & Schuster); The Dead of Winter, by Peter Kirby (Linda Leith); and A Private Man, by Chris Laing (Seraphim)

Best Novel: Until the Night, by Giles Blunt (Random House Canada)

Also nominated: Trust Your Eyes, by Linwood Barclay (Doubleday Canada); The Trinity Game, by Sean Chercover (Thomas & Mercer); The Messenger, by Stephen Miller (Delacorte Press); and Niceville, by Carsten Stroud (Knopf)

Best Novella: Contingency Plan, by Lou Allin (Orca Rapid Reads)

Also nominated: A Winter Kill, by Vicki Delany (Orca Rapid Reads); Evil Behind that Door, by Barbara Fradkin (Orca Rapid Reads); and Reunion, by Christopher G. Moore (from Phnom Penh Noir, edited by Christopher G. Moore; Heaven Lake Press)

Best Short Story: “Spring-blade Knife,” by Yasuko Thanh
(from Floating Like the Dead, McClelland & Stewart)

Also nominated: “Life without George,” by Melodie Campbell (Over My Dead Body!, August 2012); “Sins of the Fathers,” by Sandy Conrad (from Daughters and Other Strangers, The Brucedale Press); “Cruel Coast,” by Scott MacKay (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July 2012); and “Mad Dog,” Jas R. Petrin (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, October 2012)

Best Non-fiction: The Devil’s Cinema: The Untold Story behind Mark Twitchell’s Kill Room, by Steve Lillebuen (McClelland & Stewart)

Also nominated: Bloody Justice: The Truth behind the Bandidos Massacre at Shedden, by Anita Arvast (John Wiley); Octopus: Sam Israel, the Secret Market, and Wall Street’s Wildest Con, by Guy Lawson (Crown/Random House); and Thieves of Bay Street: How Banks, Brokerages and the Wealthy Steal Billions from Canadians, by Bruce Livesey (Random House Canada)

Best Juvenile/Young Adult:
Becoming Holmes, by Shane Peacock (Tundra)

Also nominated: Live to Tell, by Lisa Harrington (Cormorant Books); The Agency: The Traitor in the Tunnel, by Y.S. Lee (Candlewick Press); Crush Candy Corpse, by Sylvia McNicoll (James Lorimer); and The Lynching of Louie Sam, by Elizabeth Stewart (Annick Press)

Best Crime Book in French: La Nuit des albinos: Sur les traces de Max O’Brien, by Mario Bolduc (Libre Expression)

Also nominated: De pierres et de sang, by André Jacques (Druide); L’homme du jeudi, by Jean Lemieux (La courte échelle); Je me souviens, by Martin Michaud (Goélette); and L’inaveu, by Richard Ste Marie (Alire)

Best Unpublished First Crime Novel (“The Unhanged Arthur”):
Sins Revisited, by Coleen Steele

Also nominated: Cold Black Tide, by William Hall; and The Raffle Baby, by Ilonka Halsband

Derrick Murdoch Award: Lyn Hamilton

Congratulations to the winners as well as the other nominees!

(Hat tip to Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan.)