Revue of Reviewers, 7-31-17

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.

Could “Grantchester” Be at an End?

Oh no, I hadn’t heard this before! From Leslie Gilbert Elman’s recap of last night’s final Season 3 episode of Grantchester:

At the time of this writing, Grantchester’s future is a question mark, and no plans for a Season 4 have been announced. (These decisions usually have been made well before the season concludes in the U.S.) Robson Green even made some comments about the possibility of the series continuing with different actors. We’ll see what happens, but for now, the future of Grantchester is a mystery.

Say it ain’t so! Grantchester is a superior offering from PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery!, even if it does tend to downplay the whodunit aspects of its stories in favor of character building.

I’ll let you know when I hear more about this show’s future.

Bullet Points: Brimming Over Edition

• With so much news about crime-fiction prizes coming out of late, it’s been difficult to keep up with it all. For instance, organizers of the annual Killer Nashville conference (set to take place this year from August 24 to 27 in Tennessee’s capital city) just announced the finalists for their 2017 Silver Falchion Awards. There are 14 categories of contenders for those reader’s choice commendations (10 of which have already been publicized, with more to come), but two of particular interest to Rap Sheet followers are these:

Best Fiction Adult Mystery:
— Amaretto Amber, by Traci Andrighetti
— The Heavens May Fall, by Allen Eskens
— Fighting for Anna, by Pamela Fagan Hutchins
— Love You Dead, by Peter James
— Coyote, by Kelly Oliver
— Grace, by Howard Owen
— Exit, by Twist Phelan
— Dead Secrets, by L.A. Toth
— A Brilliant Death, by Robin Yocum

Best Fiction Adult Thriller:
— Blonde Ice, by R.G. Belsky
— Blood Trails, by Diane Capri
— Ash and Cinders, by Rodd Clark
— The 7th Canon, by Robert Dugoni
— Clawback, by J.A. Jance
— Assassin’s Silence, by Ward Larsen
— Child of the State, by Catherine Lea
— Blood Wedding, by Pierre LeMaitre
— The Last Second Chance, by Jim Nesbitt
— Brain Trust, by Lynn Sholes

A full list of 2017 Silver Falchion nominees can be found here.

• Meanwhile, the recipients of this year’s Scribe Awards—sponsored by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers—were declared on July 21, during the Comic-Con International gathering in San Diego, California. According to a post on the IAMTW’s Facebook page, Assassin’s Creed, by Christie Golden, won in the Best Adapted—General and Speculative category, while Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn, by Ace Atkins, took home honors in the General Original category. The full list of contenders in both of those groups can be found here.

• And Madrid-born Prague writer David Llorente has been given the Dashiell Hammett Black Novel Award for Madrid: Frontera (2016). Sponsored by the International Association of Black Novel Writers and the Asociación Internacional de Escritores Policíaco, this prize was presented earlier in July, during the annual Semana Negra literary festival in Gijón, Spain. (Hat tip to Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare.)

• I mentioned way back in March that I had been invited to become a regular columnist for Down & Out: The Magazine, a new crime-fiction digest being planned by Eric Campbell of Down & Out Books, with Rick Ollerman acting as editor. The original idea was to premiere this potential quarterly in June, in both print and e-book formats. However, June came and went, and then July did likewise, and there was still no sign of the thing. As Campbell explained in an e-note sent to contributors this weekend, “due to life events beyond control we are a little behind.” Fortunately, those problems appear to have been resolved at last. The cover of Issue No. 1, touting a new Moe Prager yarn by Reed Farrel Coleman, has been finalized and is shown on the right. Other writers featured this time around include Eric Beetner, Michael A. Black, Jen Conley, Terrence McCauley, and Thomas Pluck. The contents mix will also include a short story from “forgotten master” Frederick Nebel, and the debut of my book review column “Placed in Evidence”—which earns me a welcome cover credit. Campbell’s note suggests Down & Out: The Magazine will be soon become widely available; check its Facebook page and Web page for updates and subscription information. UPDATE: The e-book version of Down & Out: The Magazine can now be purchased from retailers Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

• With a few facts now known about the as-yet-untitled 25th James Bond film, and Daniel Craig having finally been confirmed to star, The Spy Command asks: Might it be appropriate to dedicate that 2019 big-screener to the memory of Roger Moore, who played Agent 007 in seven Bond pictures and died earlier this year at age 89? Were the producers to ask me, I’d say yes, without a doubt.

• There’s lots of speculation about the plot of that next Bond flick. Britain’s Daily Mirror suggests the working title is Shatterhead, and that its story will be based on Raymond Benson’s 2001 Bond continuation novel, Never Dream of Dying. (If so, this would make it the first 007 movie adapted from a continuation novel.) However, in a Facebook post, Benson throws cold water on that rumor: “I know nothing of this, but as I have not spoken with any Mirror journalists at all, I can only assume that the article is a piece of fabrication. It would of course be wonderful if it were true.”

• In association with the release earlier this month of the Library of America omnibus Ross Macdonald: Four Later Novels: Black Money/The Instant Enemy/The Goodbye Look/The Underground Man, editor Tom Nolan has composed an excellent essay about the origins and creation of Black Money, Macdonald’s 1966 Lew Archer private-eye novel. Nolan tells me he’s put together similar pieces about the other three novels contained in this new volume. Those will be posted individually on the Library of America site between now and September, when the three-volume set of LoA’s classic Macdonald tales goes on sale.

• Nancie Clare’s two most recent guests on her Speaking of Mysteries podcast are Glen Erik Hamilton, author of the Van Shaw thriller Every Day Above Ground (Morrow), released just last week; and Karen Dionne, who penned the much-acclaimed psychological suspense yarn The Marsh King’s Daughter (Putnam).

• British “Queen of Crime” P.D. James passed away in 2014, but only now is publisher Faber and Faber getting around to releasing Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales, a collection of her short stories that The Bookseller says all build around the “dark motive of revenge.” It goes on to explain that James’ yarns “feature bullying schoolmasters, unhappy marriages, a murder in the small hours of Christmas Day, and an octogenarian exerting ‘exquisite’ retribution from the safety of his nursing home.” Sleep No More, something of a companion to last year’s The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, should see print in the UK in early October, with an American edition due out from Knopf in mid-November—just in time for holiday gift-giving.

• Direct from In Reference to Murder:

Toni Collette’s Vocab Films and RadicalMedia are adapting Julia Dahl’s novel Invisible City

into a [TV] series, with Collette already writing the pilot script. The actress optioned the book and will serve as executive producer along with Jen Turner. Dahl’s novel centers on Rebekah Roberts, whose mother, an Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend and newborn baby to return to her religion. Now a recent college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter, but her coverage of a story involving a murdered Hasidic woman takes her into some uneasy truths and dangerous territory. Click here to revisit my 2017 interview with author Dahl.

• FirstShowing.net has posted an English-translated trailer for Swedish filmmaker Tarik Saleh’s The Nile Hilton Incident, described as “an intense political thriller set against the backdrop of the Egyptian Revolution. … The story is about a police officer investigating the murder of a woman at [Cairo’s Nile] Hilton hotel, who discovers there’s much more going on than it seems.” The picture, which stars Fares Fares, Mari Malek, and Yasser Ali Maher, is scheduled to premiere at select U.S. theaters on August 11.

• Ohio resident Kristen Lepionka, author of The Last Place You Look, delivers a list to The Guardian of what she contends are the “Top 10 Female Detectives in Fiction.” Among her picks: Tana French’s Antoinette Conway, Rachel Howzell Hall’s Elouise “Lou” Norton, Linda Barnes’ Carlotta Carlyle, and Peter Høeg’s Smilla Jaspersen.

• Another character who might have found a spot among Lepionka’s choices, but did not, is Lynda La Plante’s Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, whom we saw portrayed most recently by fetching Stefanie Martini in the prequel series Prime Suspect: Tennison. I had my doubts going into that three-part mini-series, broadcast last month as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! lineup. I was quite thoroughly convinced beforehand that only Helen Mirren could possibly play the role … only to slowly but surely be swept away by the drama’s characters, plot, and 1970s background music. And I was evidently not the only one to be so struck. In a retrospective piece for Criminal Element, Leslie Gilbert Elman writes, “I was hooked from the first moment with Jane on the double-decker bus and Blind Faith on the soundtrack. If Jane had compiled the soundtrack to her life, it would sound like this one (okay, it would sound like my iPod), and Series 2 would kick off with ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again.’” Unfortunately, there will not be any additional installments; the show was cancelled even before its PBS run. Maybe if it hadn’t sought to resurrect LaPlane’s protagonist, but had instead employed different character names but the same story, it would’ve fared better. We’ll never know.

• Speaking of Masterpiece Mystery!, look to that umbrella series tonight for the seventh and concluding episode of Grantchester, Season 3. Its begins at 9 p.m. ET/PT. If you have missed any of the preceding installments, you can catch yourself up with Leslie Gilbert Elman’s recaps, available here.

• And don’t forget that Season 4 of Endeavour, starring Shaun Evans and Roger Allam (and inspired by the last Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse novels), will commence its four-episode roll-out on Masterpiece Mystery! come Sunday, August 20.

• For several years now, I’ve been pondering whether to give up my subscription to Esquire magazine, a publication I have been reading ever since the early 1980s (and have the boxes of back issues in my basement to prove it). Do I still fit Esquire’s demographic target, since I no longer aspire to be a snappy dresser, am mostly bored by celebrities, and have no need to keep up with the very latest films, musical groups, or vacation destinations? Probably not. But it seems every time I’m prepared to cancel, Esquire publishes something I would have been sorry to miss, and I put off pulling the plug for another month. The August issue, for example, showcases this profile of English actor Idris Elba, former co-star of The Wire and ex-headliner on Luther. And though it fails to answer the question posed on the cover, “Is Idris Elba the Next James Bond,” it does contain this anecdote about Elba scoring his part on HBO’s The Wire:

The role that changed his life, as Elba puts it, came as a consolation prize. He badly wanted to play drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. David Simon, the show’s creator, was on the casting team; he tells me he had no idea Elba was from London because the actor never broke his American accent throughout the audition process. After several callbacks, the Wire team informed Elba that they wanted him not for Barksdale but for [narcotics trafficker] Stringer Bell.

“I was like, ‘Great, great!’” Elba says. “But really, I was like, Who?” As initially sketched out in the pilot, Bell came off as a shrewd Baltimore dealer, but Elba set out to make the character more his own, as though asking himself, How the fuck do I approach this to get anything that no one else has done before? “Where I grew up, gangsters had to be smart,” he says. “That whole flashy thing—no, mate. It was suits and smiles. I said, ‘That's how I’m going to make Stringer.'’”

Elsewhere in the August Esquire—though not available online without charge—is Alex Belth’s mini-preview of Lawrence P. Jackson’s new biography, Chester B. Himes (Norton). It includes the suggestion that anyone embarking on a cruise through Himes’ series of Harlem Detectives novels starring Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson would do well to start with All Shot Up (1959). Good advice.

• Variety reports on a new original-for-TV series, Safe, being concocted by best-selling author Harlan Coben and starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter). In the show, says Variety, Hall “will play a British pediatric surgeon raising two teenage daughters, Jenny and Carrie, alone after the death of his wife. The family is seemingly safe inside a gated community when the elder daughter sneaks out to a party and a murder and disappearance follow, changing all of their lives.” Safe is a joint venture between Netflix and France’s Canal+ Group.

• T. Jefferson Parker (The Room of White Fire) writes in Criminal Element about his favorite crime movies and novels. No great surprises here, but I am pleased to see him include in the latter category Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance, a 1984 murder mystery that doesn’t always receive the respect it deserves.

• The latest issue of Mystery Readers Journal focuses on wartime mysteries. You’ll find a complete list of contents, plus links to several stories available online, by clicking here.

• A few author interviews worth checking out, from Mystery People: Rob Hart talks about The Woman from Prague; Bill Loehfelm remarks on The Devil’s Muse; and Jordan Harper has a few things to say about She Rides Shotgun. Finally, one discussion from a different source—K.J. Howe chats with Crimespree Magazine about The Freedom Broker.

• Good news for Amazon streaming customers. According to The Hollywood Reporter, that service is “adding a series of adaptations to its originals lineup from Agatha Christie Limited, the company that manages the literary and media rights to the late English crime novelist’s works. The first show to come from the deal is an adaptation of Ordeal by Innocence, which began production earlier this month in the UK.” No word yet on when these adaptations be broadcast.

• In Shotsmag Confidential, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip—who write the Botswana-set Detective Kubu series (Dying to Live) as “Michael Stanley”—offer a rather brief, but useful overview of Africa’s underappreciated mystery fiction.

• Jon Jordan on the “10 Best Cop Shows Ever.”

• Late last month we brought you the 2017 Macavity Award nominees, including the half-dozen Best Short Story rivals. The winner is set to be identified on Thursday, October 12, during the opening ceremonies at Bouchercon in Toronto, Ontario. If you’d like to read and judge all of those stories before then, however, just click on over to Mystery Fanfare to find the necessary online links.

• By the way, I have to deliver some bad news regarding this year’s Bouchercon. Although I insisted in March that I was going to take part in those festivities, I have subsequently changed my mind. A variety of factors went into this decision, but what ultimately swayed me was my good friend and colleague Ali Karim’s choice not to make the journey either, due to racism and over-the-top airport searches he’s had to endure as an Anglo-Indian male flying from Britain to North America during the time of Trump. (Ali explains some of his experiences here.) If Ali isn’t traveling to Toronto, then a significant part of the enjoyment I usually find at Bouchercon will be missing, so I’m also bowing out. This doesn’t mean I am swearing off Bouchercons; goodness knows, I have had tremendous fun at such convocations over the years, and would like to have more. But this time around, Bouchercon-goers will just have to get along without me.

The Book You Have to Read: “Dog Soldiers,” by Robert Stone

(Editor’s note: This is the 149th installment in The Rap Sheet’s continuing series about great but forgotten books.)

By Steven Nester
Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers is not your basic wham-bam-thanks-Uncle Sam adventure novel of dope smuggling during the Vietnam War era. It was Stone’s second book (following 1966’s A Hall of Mirrors), and at the time of its debut in 1974, his name was not familiar to many mainstream readers; so, at first glance, those looking for a thrill might have mistaken it for beach fare. But that impression is immediately dispelled: This novel is the finest sort of literature of the most accessible kind. At front and center in Dog Soldiers is the pervasive corruption and nihilism bred by the lengthy Vietnam War, which led men to lose both their better judgment and their humanity.

John Converse, a once-promising playwright, is now “a journalist of sorts,” who writes for his old-school lefty father-in-law’s sensational crime tabloids. His wife, Marge, is the boss’ daughter. She works in the box office of a San Francisco porn theater. With that seemingly innocuous detail, Stone’s brilliant and ubiquitous, so-in-your-face-you-might-not-see-it aplomb transforms the 1960s mantra of “make love, not war” into a sleazy commodity. As for Converse—recently credentialed as a press correspondent in Vietnam—coping with life in that increasingly unprincipled and war-torn country teaches him to override his “moral objections” to the manifest brutality with crude sophistry. Once this simple survival trick has been mastered, Converse finds that anything is possible, such as attempting to seduce an elderly missionary in Saigon—or smuggling heroin back to the States. In the crucible of Southeast Asia, “where everybody finds out who they are,” very few people like what they see in the mirror. However, none of them have a plan better than to keep on truckin’.

The long, strange trip John Converse makes from mediocre reporter to drug trafficker is born of a “desperate emptiness” and the guilt he feels at having nothing much to show for his 18 months covering a war. He recruits his ex-Marine Corps pal, Ray Hicks (“Self-defense is an art I cultivate”), as the courier. A Nietzsche enthusiast, Hicks fancies himself as a kind of Zen warrior. Needing “a little adrenaline to clean the blood,” he agrees to help ship Converse’s three kilos of pure heroin off to America’s West Coast and put them into Marge’s hands.

As might have been expected, though, this scheme was fixed from the beginning, and before the drugs can be delivered, a botched rip-off occurs, perpetrated by a couple of sociopaths posing as cops in the employ of a corrupt federal agent named Antheil. With no strategy in mind for the dope’s disposal, but wanting to keep it safe from thieves, Hicks strains for divine clarity and guidance as he stands on feet of clay. “In the end,” he muses, “there were not many things worth wanting—for the serious man, the samurai. But there were still some. In the end, if the serious man is still bound to illusion, he selects the worthiest illusion and takes a stand.”

Sounds like a plan. Except that when criminals with badges and waning patience zero in, Hicks—now on the run, with Marge taken along for the ride—has nowhere to go except to the New Mexico mountaintop retreat of his buddy Dieter Bechstein. Back when Hicks was a “natural man of Zen,” he and others spent time with Dieter in search of an elevated consciousness, only to have their ideals polluted by drugs. Such a turn was not so uncommon during the ’60s. Like any good bargain hunter, people such as English writer Aldous Huxley, American psychologist Timothy Leary, and novelist Ken Kesey—on whom the character of Dieter is based—sought a shortcut to spiritual enlightenment through LSD and other hallucinogens. Unfortunately, they soon realized the folly of their ways, and it was all downhill from there. Waiting at the bottom for some of the crestfallen believers was the Frankenstein’s monster of heroin.

Robert Stone’s bona fides as player/qualified observer at the birth of the 1960s’ psychedelic scene is well-documented. Together with Kesey, he was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University’s creative-writing program, and his involvement with the scene was memorialized by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In fact, Stone’s counterculture street cred is so solid, that when Kesey and his Merry Pranksters took their legendary bus trip to the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, New York, the group swung by Stone’s upper Manhattan apartment just to say “hi!” (Anyone interested in learning more about Robert Stone, or reading about the ’60s as remembered by one of America’s leading novelists, should read his 2007 book, Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties.)

But back to Dog Soldiers …

When Converse himself returns stateside, he is kidnapped by the two pursuing sociopaths, who use him as bait in hopes of convincing Marge to hand over the drugs. But Hicks will have none it, and by this point in the journey, Marge has become a heroin addict, so she’s not giving up the goods either. The clock is ticking on the dope, and the crooked fed, Antheil, has little time to storm the partners’ stronghold before this all becomes an official police operation. Stone makes clear that Antheil has found a very worthy opponent in Ray Hicks. As Dieter says of the former Marine: “Whatever he believed in he had to embody absolutely.” Take that to mean anyone attempting to come up against Hicks will have their work cut out for them, as the crooked cops and federal agents soon realize. At this book’s finale, it’s unclear who won. The line between the good guys and the bad guys no longer exists.

As an adventure writer, Stone—who died in 2015—is a modern master, not even comparable to Ernest Hemingway (who was primarily a short-story writer, and thus most concerned with climactic moments). The back-stories of his characters are interwoven into the evolving narrative so invisibly, that they support rather than ornament. This is particularly clear in the case of Danskin, a guy who holds Converse hostage and pursues Hicks, and who relates his criminal and psychological history with a Stonesque spin on “the inmates are running the asylum.” Danskin, we’re told, is just as at home in a mental institution as in the outside world, because it “was dope and politics in that place, just like outside.” Differences between the two are equally hard to find in Stone’s yarn.

A movie adaptation of Dog Soldiers, retitled Who'll Stop the Rain and starring Nick Nolte, was released in 1978. As a thriller it cuts the mustard, yet it leaves the heavy messages on the cutting-room floor, instead emphasizing this story’s chase elements. By all means, go see the film. But first read Stone’s novel, in which dope—and the money it brings—is a more potent defoliant to “flower power” hopes than Agent Orange ever was. Dog Soldiers is no bum-trip; it’s a tour de force. Stone’s prose carries freight with ease and wit; and without a doubt, this tale represents the most fitting Viking funeral of the 1960s ever written. No one makes this clearer than the skag-addicted Marge, who at one point disparages Dieter’s spirit and goodness thusly: “Please don’t give me hippie sermons, Mr. Natural. I’m not part of your parish.” The sad fact of the matter is that in Dog Soldiers, out of the ashes of good intentions come decadence and evil.

And the Lucky Number Is ...

Yowza! Sometime over the last several days, The Rap Sheet registered its five-millionth pageview! We’ve certainly come a long way since this blog’s start more than 11 years ago, and also since we counted our one-millionth pageview during the spring of 2011. As we rapidly approach the publication of our 6,800th post, it’s time again to thank everyone who follows and trusts in the value of this humble site.

Going Short on the Daggers

This seems to happen all too often. I go out of town for a couple of days, just to relax a bit and escape the persistent siren’s call of my computer, and in my absence all sorts of things happen in the world of crime fiction. Yesterday, for instance, the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) announced its shortlists of nominees for the 2017 Dagger awards. (The longlists were released in May.) The results are below.

CWA Gold Dagger:
• The Beautiful Dead, by Belinda Bauer (Bantam Press)
• Dead Man’s Blues, by Ray Celestin (Mantle)
• The Dry, by Jane Harper (Little, Brown)
• Spook Street, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• The Girl in Green, by Derek B. Miller (Faber and Faber)
• A Rising Man, by Abir Muckerjee (Harvil Secker)

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:
• You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott (Picador)
• The Killing Game, by J.S. Carol (Bookouture)
• We Go Around in the Night Consumed by Fire, by Jules Grant
(Myriad Editions)
• Redemption Road, by John Hart (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Spook Street, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• The Constant Soldier, by William Ryan (Mantle)

CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger:
• The Pictures, by Guy Bolton (Point Blank)
• Ragdoll, by Daniel Cole (Trapeze)
• Distress Signals, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Corvus)
• Sirens, by Joseph Knox (Doubleday)
• Good Me, Bad Me, by Ali Land (Michael Joseph)
• Tall Oaks, by Chris Whitaker (Twenty 7)

CWA Non-fiction Dagger:
• A Dangerous Place, by Simon Farquhar (History Press)
• Close But No Cigar: A True Story of Prison Life in Castro’s Cuba,
by Stephen Purvis (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• The Scholl Case: The Deadly End of a Marriage, by Anja
Reich-Osang (Text)
• The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer,
by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury)
• A Passing Fury: Searching for Justice at the End of World War II,
by A.T. Williams (Jonathan Cape)
• Another Day in the Death of America, by Gary Younge
(Guardian Faber)

CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger:
• The Devil’s Feast, by M.J. Carter (Fig Tree)
• The Ashes of Berlin, by Luke McCallin (No Exit Press)
• The Long Drop, by Denise Mina (Harvil Secker)
• A Rising Man, by Abir Muckerjee (Harvil Secker)
• By Gaslight, by Steven Price (Point Blank)
• The City in Darkness, by Michael Russell (Constable)

CWA International Dagger:
• A Cold Death, by Antonio Manzini;
translated by Anthony Shugaar (4th Estate)
• A Fine Line, by Gianrico Carofiglio;
translated by Howard Curtis (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Blood Wedding, by Pierre Lemaitre;
translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose Press)
• Climate of Fear, by Fred Vargas;
translated by Sian Reynolds (Harvill Secker)
• The Dying Detective, by Leif G.W. Persson;
translated by Neil Smith (Doubleday)
• The Legacy of the Bones, by Dolores Redondo;
translated by Nick Caister and Lorenza Garcia (Harper)

CWA Short Story Dagger:
• “The Assassination,” by Leye Adenle (from Sunshine Noir, edited by Anna Maria Alfieri and Michael Stanley; White Sun)
• “Murder and Its Motives,” by Martin Edwards (from Motives for Murder, edited by Martin Edwards; Sphere)
• “The Super Recogniser of Vik,” by Michael Ridpath (from Motives
for Murder)
• “What You Were Fighting For,” by James Sallis (from The Highway Kind, edited by Patrick Millikin; Mulholland)
• “The Trials of Margaret,” by L.C. Tyler (from Motives for Murder)
• “Snakeskin,” by Ovidia Yu (from Sunshine Noir)

CWA Debut Dagger (for unpublished writers):
• Strange Fire, by Sherry Larkin
• The Reincarnation of Himmat Gupte, by Neeraj Shah
• Lost Boys, by Spike Dawkins
• Red Haven, by Mette McLeod
• Broken, by Victoria Slotover

The winners of these commendations are to be declared during a “gala dinner” at London’s Grange City Hotel on Thursday, October 26. During that same event, UK novelist Ann Cleeves will be presented with the Diamond Dagger, and Mari Hannah will receive the Dagger in the Library award. Master of ceremonies for the evening will be author-critic Barry Forshaw (American Noir). For more information or to claim a seat, click here or send an e-mail note to admin@thecwa.co.uk.

I am sorry to see that Andrew Gross’ The One Man (Macmillan) and Linwood Barclay’s The Twenty-Three (Orion) have both failed to make the leap from the longlist to the shortlist of rivals for this year’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, and am equally disappointed that Thomas Mullen’s Darktown (Little, Brown) has been eliminated from the running for both the Gold Dagger and Endeavour Historical Dagger. On the other hand, I’m thrilled to see that Steven Price’s By Gaslight—one of my favorite novels of 2017—remains in contention for the Historical Dagger. My fingers are crossed that it will capture the prize!

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

READ MORE: “The CWA 2017 Dagger Shortlists,” by Ali Karim (Shotsmag Confidential).

Many Bond Questions, Few Answers

It looks as if James Bond fans will be waiting for some time before the release of the 25th Bond motion picture. Deadline Hollywood reports:

The next installment of the James Bond film franchise now has a release date. The untitled Bond 25 movie has been slotted for November 8, 2019, the producers said today, with a traditional earlier release in the UK and rest of the world.

There’s not much more information available about this project. The Spy Command notes that “the movie is being written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and will be produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. … However, there was no word about a distributor, whether actor Daniel Craig will return for a fifth outing as James Bond, or a director.” We’ll just have to sit tight, waiting for further details, hoping all the while that this latest installment in the prosperous film series will be better than the last one, Spectre.

(Hat tip to January Magazine.)

READ MORE: “Caveat Emptor: 007 Sale Rumor Surfaces,” by Bill
Koenig (The Spy Command).

Best in Class at Harrogate

Following on yesterday’s pronouncement—also from Britain’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival—that Chris Brookmyre’s Black Widow has been honored with the 2017 Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award comes word of this year’s half-dozen Dead Good Reader Award recipients. It seems there’s often better early publicity surrounding the multi-stage process involved in selecting the conferees of these commendations sponsored by the UK-based crime-fiction Web site Dead Good. But this time around the results seemed to come pretty much out of the blue. The announcement of winners was made earlier today in Harrogate, England.

The Kathy Reichs Award for Fearless Female Character:
Helen Grace, created by M.J. Arlidge

Also nominated: Lori Anderson, created by Steph Broadribb; Erika Foster, created by Robert Bryndza; Ruth Galloway, created by Elly Griffiths; Isabella Rose, created by Mark Dawson; and Jane Rizzoli, created by Tess Gerritsen

The Case Closed Award for Best Police Procedural:
The Wrong Side of Goodbye, by Michael Connelly (Orion)

Also nominated: Let the Dead Speak, by Jane Casey (Minotaur); Love You Dead, by Peter James (Macmillan); Rather Be the Devil, by Ian Rankin (Orion); The Taken, by Alice Clark-Platts (Penguin); and Written in Bones, by James Oswald (Michael Joseph)

The Hidden Depths Award for Most Unreliable Narrator:
The Escape, by C.L. Taylor (Avon)

Also nominated: Behind Her Eyes, by Sarah Pinborough (HarperCollins); Good Me Bad Me, by Ali Land (Michael Joseph); My Husband’s Wife, by Jane Corry (Penguin); My Sister’s Bones, by Nuala Ellwood (Penguin); and Sometimes I Lie, by Alice Feeney (HQ)

The Page to Screen Award for Best Adapted Book:
Never Go Back, by Lee Child (Bantam Press)

Also nominated: Apple Tree Yard, by Louise Doughty (Sarah Crichton); Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty (Amy Einhorn); The Black Echo, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown); The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins (Black Swan); and The Night Manager, by John
le Carré (Knopf)

The Cat Amongst the Pigeons Award for Most Exceptional Debut:
Baby Doll, by Hollie Overton (Century)

Also nominated: A Rising Man, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker); Deep Down Dead, by Steph Broadribb (Orenda); The Dry, by Jane Harper (Little, Brown); Rattle, by Fiona Cummins (Macmillan); and Sirens, by Joseph Knox (Doubleday)

Congratulations to all of this year’s contenders!

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Revue of Reviewers, 7-21-17

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.

Grippando Scores Lee Accolade

This is a busy period of crime- and mystery-fiction awards pronouncements. Earlier today, we brought you the winner of the 2017 Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year competition. Now comes The Gumshoe Site with news that James Grippando’s Gone Again (Harper) has been honored with this year’s Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

As The Rap Sheet reported back in May, Grippando’s 12th novel starring Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck was pitted in the Harper Lee contest against both The Last Days of Night, by Graham Moore (Random House), and Small Great Things, by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine). The Harper Lee Prize is given out annually by the University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal.

Gumshoe Site editor Jiro Kimura explains that Grippando “will receive his award on September 14 at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.”

READ MORE: “My Choice for the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction,” by Bill Selnes (Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan).

“Black Widow” Nabs Its Prey

Thanks to the indefatigable Ali Karim, our man on the ground in Harrogate, England, we can now report that Scotsman Chris Brookmyre’s Black Widow (Little, Brown) has won the 2017 Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award, given out this evening during the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.

The other finalists for Crime Novel of the Year were: Lie With Me, by Sabine Durrant (Mulholland); Out of Bounds, by Val McDermid (Little, Brown); After You Die, by Eva Dolan (Harvill Secker); Real Tigers, by Mick Herron (John Murray); and Missing, Presumed, by Susie Steiner (Borough Press). A preliminary longlist of 18 contenders for that commendation was announced this last April.

In addition to Brookmyre’s triumph, British author Lee Child was presented with the festival’s Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, and literary agent Jane Gregory—one of this annual event’s founders—received a prize for Special Services to the Festival.

Congratulations to all of tonight’s victors!

READ MORE: “Brookmyre Nabs a Theakston Barrel to Go with His McIlvanney Prize,” by Craig Sisterson (Crime Watch).

Night of Thrillers

I have been more or less off the time clock for the last several days, visiting with my best friend from college here in Seattle. As a consequence, I am a bit late to the party when it comes to announcing the winners of the 2017 Thriller Awards. Those commendations were handed out this last Saturday evening during ThrillerFest XII in New York City. Mystery Fanfare brings us the results.

Best Hardcover Novel: Before the Fall, by Noah Hawley
(Grand Central)

Also nominated: You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown); Where It Hurts, by Reed Farrel Coleman (Putnam); Arrowood, by Laura McHugh (Spiegel & Grau); and Underground Airlines, by Ben H.
Winters (Mulholland)

Best First Novel: The Drifter, by Nicholas Petrie (Putnam)

Also nominated: Deadly Kiss, by Bob Bickford (Black Opal); Type and Cross, by J.L. Delozier (WiDo); Recall, by David McCaleb (Lyrical Underground); and Palindrome, by E.Z. Rinsky (Witness Impulse)

Best Paperback Original Novel: The Body Reader, by Anne Frasier (Thomas & Mercer)

Also nominated: In the Clearing, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer); The Minoan Cipher, by Paul Kemprecos (Suspense); Kill Switch, by Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin’s Griffin); and Salvage, by Stephen Maher (Dundurn)

Best Short Story: “Big Momma,” by Joyce Carol Oates (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], March/April 2016)

Also nominated: “The Business of Death,” by Eric Beetner (from Unloaded: Crime Writers Writing Without Guns, edited by Eric Beetner; Down & Out); “The Peter Rabbit Killers,” by Laura Benedict (EQMM, July 2016); “The Man from Away,” by Brendan DuBois (EQMM, July 2016); and “Parallel Play,” by Art Taylor (from Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley; Wildside Press)

Best Young Adult Novel: Steeplejack, by A.J. Hartley (Tor Teen)

Also nominated: Morning Star, by Pierce Brown (Del Rey); Holding Smoke, by Elle Cosimano (Disney-Hyperion); Thieving Weasels, by Billy Taylor (Dial); and The Darkest Corners, by Kara Thomas
(Delacorte Press)

Best E-Book Original Novel: Romeo’s Way, by James Scott Bell (Compendium Press)

Also nominated: The Edge of Alone, by Sean Black (Sean Black); Untouchable, by Sibel Hodge (Wonder Women); Destroyer of Worlds, by J.F. Penn (J.F. Penn); and Breaker, by Richard Thomas (Alibi)

2017 ThrillerMaster: Lee Child

The Thriller Legend Award: Tom Doherty

Silver Bullet Literary Award (for charitable work): Lisa Gardner

Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees!

Women Prevail in Strand Contests

Authors Tana French and Heather Young were celebrated last evening during the presentations, in New York City, of the 2017 Strand Critics Awards. Those commendations—“recognizing excellence in the field of mystery fiction”—were given out by The Strand Magazine.

French’s twisty cop yarn, The Trespasser (Viking), won the Critics Award for Best Novel, a category in which it was pitted against five other well-regarded works first published in 2016: You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown); The Wrong Side of Goodbye, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown); What Remains of Me, by Alison Gaylin (Morrow); Out of Bounds, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press); and The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware (Gallery).

Meanwhile, Young’s The Lost Girls (Morrow) had to fight off competition, in the Best Debut Novel category, from these books: The Widow, by Fiona Barton (NAL); IQ, by Joe Ide (Mulholland); The Madwoman Upstairs, by Catherine Lowell (Touchstone); A Deadly Affection, by Cuyler Overholt (Sourcebooks Landmark); and The Homeplace, by Kevin Wolf (Minotaur).

In addition, prolific thriller novelist Clive Cussler was presented with The Strand’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

(Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site.)

Shamus Festivities Nixed

One of my favorite events taking place during each year’s Bouchercon is the Shamus Awards Banquet. Organized by the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA), which created the Shamus in 1982, this generally unpretentious affair takes place away from the convention hotel, draws a star-studded mix of writers with a taste for fiction featuring private investigators (or gumshoe-like protagonists), and always offers considerable camaraderie and humor.

Unfortunately, no such banquet will take place in association with Bouchercon 2017, which is to be held in Toronto, Ontario, from October 12 through 15. I was first alerted to this development by The Gumshoe Site. Yesterday it updated an item about the latest Shamus Awards nominees with a sentence saying that winners would be “announced in September,” but that the dinner had been called off. I subsequently e-mailed PWA co-founder Robert J. Randisi, who usually serves as the master of ceremonies at these events, to ask what had gone wrong. He wrote back that “The banquet has been cancelled due to unforeseen difficulties in setting it up in Canada.”

So when, then, might 2017 Shamus Award nominees learn whether they’ve won or not? Randisi says “an exact date” for that announcement “has not yet been decided on. We’ll keep you informed.” I shall let Rap Sheet readers know when I hear more.

Thriller Masters Score TV Deals

This item comes from In Reference to Murder:

BBC Studios is lining up TV adaptations of author Ken Follett’s World War II novel Jackdaws and Frederick Forsyth’s terrorist thriller The Kill List. Jackdaws will be pitched to partners as a returning series rather than as a one-off, with the action moved back several years from the book, with Follett’s approval, to provide room for the story to develop over multiple seasons. A film version of The Kill List was in the works, but BBC Studios is prepping a TV series based on the 2013 novel, which may be Forsyth’s last as he switches his focus to non-fiction.

Still Savoring CrimeFest Memories

Barry Forshaw (far left) and Mike Ripley (far right) discuss the relative virtues of American noir fiction and vintage British crime thrillers during a presentation refereed by Peter Guttridge.

By Ali Karim
Yes, I know: It has taken me more than a little while to deliver a full assessment of CrimeFest 2017. In the meanwhile, Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce featured an array of photographs from that May 18-21 event, and reported both on the winners of seven different prizes handed out during CrimeFest and the announcement of longlisted rivals for a number of 2017 Dagger awards (sponsored by the UK Crime Writers’ Association, aka CWA). But after weathering both a computer crash and scheduling difficulties, I’ve finally found free time enough to deliver a recap of this year’s convention.

CrimeFest, born in the wake of the popular 2016 Left Coast Crime convention, has always been held in one of England’s most invigorating cities—Bristol—and at the same four-star venue (the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel). This allows returning attendees to feel at home immediately upon arrival, for the hotel is centrally located, on College Green, with bars and restaurants all within easy walking distance, and an attentive, helpful staff.

Yet each year’s conference feels a wee bit different, if only because of the programming. This year’s wonderfully eclectic schedule was credited to author Donna Moore, who gave us an assortment of panel discussions (three tracks of them on Friday and Saturday!), covering the field of crime and mystery fiction from edge to edge—from Golden Age works to English-translated yarns and most everything in between. As always, organizers Adrian Muller and Myles Alfrey deserve particular applause, for their annual event creates great camaraderie among writers, and between authors and readers. More importantly, it encourages literacy—something that is essential to a functioning society.

* * *

I arrived in Bristol at high noon on Thursday, May 18, accompanied by Shots editor, Western fiction writer, and CWA Dagger liaison officer Mike Stotter. Immediately, I was reminded of what an international affair CrimeFest has become over the years, for greeting us were not only Detectives Beyond Borders blogger and man of mystery Peter Rozovsky, from Philadelphia, but also thriller novelist Karin Salvalaggio (Silent Rain), who hails from the U.S. state of Montana. This made me smile, as I resided in neighboring Wyoming for a time during the 1980s. Then I laughed when I was reminded that Karin has been living in London for a number of years, so her journey to Bristol was unlikely to have left her suffering with jet-lag.

One of Thursday’s opening panel presentations focused on debut authors, while that afternoon closed with a discourse on “forgotten writers,” during which CWA chair Martin Edwards and authors John Lawton, Jane Corry, Sarah Ward, and Andrew Wilson looked back at genre stylists such as Lionel Davidson and Elizabeth Daly. As a reviewer, I often like to refresh my palate with older works of fiction, so this was a most welcome interchange. I was delighted, too, with the opportunity to meet Wilson, who penned the definitive 2003 Patricia Highsmith biography, Beautiful Shadow, as well as a historical mystery novel titled A Talent for Murder (soon to be released in the States by Atria), which fictionalizes Agatha Christie’s 1926 disappearance.


(Left to right) CrimeFest 2017’s extremely able organizers, Donna Moore, Myles Alfrey, and Adrian Muller.


British crime-writing stars Andrew Taylor and Peter Lovesey find a quiet corner to catch up with each other.

Then it was time for some gin and the annual CrimeFest Quiz, which this year took place within the Marriott and found writer-critic Peter Guttridge holding forth once more as quizmaster. You can always count on this game to offer merriment (as when Felix Francis asked Guttridge, with a smirk, whether there was “any chance next year of having some equestrian questions”). It was no less expected to see the team made up of trivia authorities Martin Edwards, Cathy Ace, Kate Ellis, and Dea Parkin declared the winners. Fortunately, Adrian and Myles had many prizes to dispense to the runners-up, all of which were handed ’round by Mike Stotter.

We concluded the night with casual networking. After a few glasses of gin, my recollection of what exactly was said turned somewhat hazy. However, I do remember complimenting Andrew Taylor on the fact that his remarkable latest novel, set during the 17th century and titled The Ashes of London, has enjoyed a long-term stay on UK best-seller charts. Andrew is one of the most modest writers I know, and he simply smiled and put the success of his yarn down to a remarkable cover and the support of bookseller Waterstones—but we all understand the real reason is Ashes’ quality of writing.

* * *

As usual, Friday morning arrived way too soon for me and my fellow barflies. But thanks to an excellent breakfast at the hotel (which included copious quantities of industrial-strength coffee), and short visits to the swimming pool and steam room, Mike and I eventually composed ourselves for the long day ahead.

The three-track set-up of panel presentations held wide appeal for fans of debut novelists, serial-killer tales, legal thrillers, fictional police duos, and everyone interested in how journalists approach fiction writing and how to make a happy ending appear credible in this genre. Especially worthwhile was an early afternoon session called “Wunderbar! The Hidden Wonders of the German Krimi.” Sponsored by the Goethe-Institut London, it gathered together a variety of authors—Mario Giordano, Merle Kröger, Volker Kutscher, Melanie Raabe, and moderator Kat Hall—who enlightened readers as to the diversity and quality of modern crime fiction from Deutschland.

That evening’s events closed with the much-anticipated announcement of which books and authors had been longlisted for several 2017 Dagger awards (a process managed robustly by Mike Stotter and CWA secretary Dea Parkin). The CWA is currently narrowing the competition, with expectations that the shortlists of contenders will be broadcast on Wednesday, July 26, and the winners proclaimed during a festive dinner in the British capital on Thursday, October 26. (Look for both sets of results in The Rap Sheet.) For now, I can only prod you to investigate the books that have managed to get through the first stage of CWA evaluation, as they are all entertaining and enlightening reads.


During the dinner honoring Peter Lovesey, Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller share their taste for Burt Bacharach’s music.

With the Dagger pronouncements completed, and cheers having been offered to the honored challengers, some convention-goers headed off to a drinks reception sponsored by Orion Books and celebrating novelists Steve Cavanagh, Mason Cross, and Steve Mosby. Others departed the Bristol Marriott to sample menus at the abundance of surrounding restaurants. For our part, Mike Stotter and I were lucky to have been invited to an exclusive celebratory dinner for Peter Lovesey, CrimeFest 2017’s Featured Guest Author. This meal was organized by Thalia Proctor of Little, Brown UK and took place at a quaint little Italian restaurant. It was a pleasure to spend time in the company of Lovesey, who, despite his deserved success over the years remains—like Andrew Taylor—a grounded and fairly humble wordsmith. I also discovered, during our chatting at that feast, that both Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller are quite knowledgeable on the subject of American Burt Bacharach’s musical career. Who knew?

Then it was back to the CrimeFest bar for further conversation, which centered on the merits of works comprising this year’s CWA Dagger longlists. As there was some grumbling about the unusually large selection of Ian Fleming Steel Dagger contestants, and since I had been one of the judges responsible for choosing those 18 books, I found it advisable to maintain a low profile while sipping my drink.

* * *

Saturday kicked off with still more hot coffee (thank heavens!), followed by Telegraph critic Jake Kerridge’s 9 a.m. panel, “Debut Authors: An Infusion of Fresh Blood.” Among the featured experts was American teacher Bill Beverly, who last year received the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for his first novel, Dodgers. (Later that same day Beverly took part in another colloquy, about “noir” fiction.)

Once more, the three concurrent tracks of presentations made it difficult for attendees to choose where to plant themselves during any given hour. How could we know in advance whether we would be happier to attend a discussion of, say, “What Makes the Straitlaced Victorians a Criminal Goldmine?” than we would to sit through one titled “A Little Bit Creepy: Scaring Your Readers with Death”? And would we rather listen to the wisdom of Christopher Fowler and Barbara Nadel than that of Ragnar Jónasson or Gunnar Staalesen? Our dance cards were quickly booked … and overbooked.

Among the red-letter events on Saturday were Peter Lovesey’s onstage conversation with Martin Edwards (watch it here); Tom Adams and John Curran talking about the long shadow Agatha Christie continues to cast over the mystery-fiction genre; critic-author Barry Forshaw interrogating novelist-screenwriter Anthony Horowitz; and Kerridge interviewing this year’s CWA Diamond Dagger winner, Ann Cleeves.


Sophie Calder and Kate Mills from HarperCollins UK.

Later, Mike and I joined head publicist Sophie Calder and publisher Kate Mills at the HQ Harper Afternoon Tea. For me, one of the most pleasant characteristics of book conventions such as this is encountering old friends. I’ve known Sophie since her days at Titan Books, and Kate from her work with Orion. Over steaming cups of Earl Grey they offered us some background on HarperCollins’ new genre imprint, HQ, and introduced us to their editorial team as well as some of the authors with whom they’re working.

Thus fortified in mind and spirit, we returned to our hotel room, changed into lounge suits, and with daylight in serious retreat, located our tables for the CrimeFest Awards Dinner. As ever, the food and service provided by the Marriott were exemplary, and we found ourselves thoroughly entertained by the evening’s master of ceremonies, Barry Forshaw. Droll and knowledgeable, Forshaw also demonstrated a skill for organizing, as he coordinated this event’s schedule. Among the highlights were speeches by Ann Cleeves and Peter Lovesey, as well as the handing out of seven different CrimeFest awards (including the bestowal, by Forshaw and author-reviewer Sarah Ward, of the 2017 Petrona Award; and of the 2017 H.R.F. Keating Award by Forshaw alone). However, what I’ll probably remember best about that night was an impromptu oration by Anthony Horowitz (Magpie Murders) called “The Curious Murder of Felix Francis,” which cleverly used author Dick Francis’ younger son in an examination of British Golden Age mystery fiction. You can watch that here.

* * *

Normally, Sunday panel events are subdued, as the convention winds down. But this year there were half a dozen excellent exchanges, among them one showcasing “Iceland’s Queens of Crime” and another that looked at crime/mystery/thriller short stories, which seem to be very much in vogue again as readers’ free time and attention spans dwindle, and audiobooks increase in popularity. CWA stalwarts Janet Laurence, L.C. Tyler, Ann Cleeves, Peter Lovesey, and Martin Edwards all weighed in on the future of short-form crime fiction.

Finally, capping off this year’s CrimeFest, was a thoroughly witty public conversation having to do with distinctions between U.S. and British contributions to this genre, moderated by Peter Guttridge and featuring both Barry Forshaw, author of the new book American Noir, and Mike Ripley, who wrote Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, a study of classic British thrillers. (Video footage of their tête-à-tête can be enjoyed here.) One of CrimeFest’s most commendable aspects is how well it manages the melancholic feeling one is left with after late nights, lack of sleep, too many chilled libations, and days spent in near-constant conversation. Organizers always close with an amusing last presentation, so you’re left saying good-bye to friends old and new with a smile on your face.

If you haven’t attended CrimeFest before, I strongly encourage you to do so. Many regulars (myself included) have already registered for next year’s convention, which has booked Lee Child and Jeffery Deaver as Featured Guest Authors. For more information, click here.

(An abridged version of this piece is set to appear in the Crime Writers’ Association’s Red Herrings magazine later this month.)

Revue of Reviewers, 7-5-17

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.

Past Obsession

Several crime novels have found their way onto the longlist of nominees for the 2017 Endeavour Ink Gold Crown award, sponsored by Britain’s Historical Writers’ Association (HWA): Andrew Taylor’s The Ashes of London, Rachel Rhys’ A Dangerous Crossing, Ian McGuire’s The North Water, and M.J. Carter’s The Devil’s Feast. They are competing against seven other works in that same category. See the full list of Gold Crown competitors, as well as the rivals for two other HWA prizes by clicking here.

The shortlist of this year’s contenders is expected on July 13, with winners to be announced at the end of October.