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.)