Notables from the North

The Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) today announced its 10 shortlists of contenders for the 2023 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing. “This year’s Awards of Excellence is the biggest ever, with over 200 entries in ten categories,” observes Hyacinthe Miller, chair of the CWC board. “Our thanks to everyone who entered and our thirty volunteer judges, who reviewed the submissions.”

Winners are to be declared on Thursday, May 25.

Best Crime Novel:
• Take Your Breath Away, by Linwood Barclay (HarperCollins Canada)
• Going to Beautiful, by Anthony Bidulka (Stonehouse)
• An Unthinkable Thing, by Nicole Lundrigan (Viking Canada)
• Please Join Us, by Catherine McKenzie (Simon & Schuster Canada)
• Daughters of the Occupation, by Shelly Sanders (HarperCollins Canada)

Best Crime First Novel:
• The Pale Horse, by T. Lawrence Davis (Friesen Press)
• Killer Time, by Bill Edwards (Friesen Press)
• The Damned Lovely, by Adam Frost (Down & Out)
• Citizens of Light, by Sam Shelstad (TouchWood Editions)
• The Man from Mittlewerk, by M.Z. Urlocker (Inkshares)

The Howard Engel Award for Best Crime Novel Set in Canada:
• Five Moves of Doom, by A.J. Devlin (NeWest Press)
• Blood Atonement, by S.M. Freedman (Dundurn Press)
• A Snake in the Raspberry Patch, by Joanne Jackson (Stonehouse)
• Cold Snap, by Maureen Jennings (Cormorant)
• The Foulest Things, by Amy Tector (Keylight)

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery:
• Knight in the Museum, by Alice Bienia (Cairn Press)
• Fenian Street, by Anne Emery (ECW Press)
• Deep House, by Thomas King (HarperCollins Canada)
• Death Plans a Perfect Trip, by Mary Jane Maffini (Beyond the Page)
• Framed in Fire, by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Edition)

Best Crime Novella:
• “Amdur’s Ghost,” by M.H. Callway (from In the Spirit of 13; Carrick)
• Dangerous to Know: A Grifter’s Song, Vol. 28, by Hilary Davidson (Down & Out)
• Dead End Track, by Julie Hiner (Julie Hiner)
• The Emir’s Falcon, by Matt Hughes (Shadowpaw Press Premiere)
• “The Man Who Went Down Under,” by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July 2022)

Best Crime Short Story:
• “The Girl Who Was Only Three Quarters Dead,” by Craig H. Bowlsby (Mystery Magazine, April 2022)
• “Must Love Dogs—or You’re Gone, by M.H. Callway (from Gone, edited by Stephen J. Golds; Red Dog Press)
• “To Catch a Kumiho,” by Blair Keetch (from In the Spirit of 13; Carrick)
• “The Natural Order of Things, by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May/June 2022)
• “Swan Song,” by Donalee Moulton (from Cold Canadian Crime, edited by Talia Morgan; Crime Writers of Canada)

Best French Crime Book (Fiction and Non-fiction):
• Le Mouroir des anges, by Geneviève Blouin (Éditions Alire)
• Chaîne de glace, by Isabelle Lafortune (Éditions XYZ)
• Le dernier manège, by Guillaume Morrissette (Guy Saint-Jean)
• Modus operandi, by Suzan Payne (Éditions Perce-Neige)
• Monsieur Hämmerli, by Richard Ste-Marie (Éditions Alire)

Best Juvenile or YA Crime Book (Fiction and Non-fiction):
• Lark Steals the Show, by Natasha Deen (Orca)
• Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Seaside Corpse, by Marthe Jocelyn (Tundra)
• Wrong Side of the Court, by H.N. Khan (Penguin Teen)
• Butt Sandwich & Tree, by Wesley King (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
• Heartbreak Homes, by Jo Treggiari (Nimbus)

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Non-fiction Crime Book:
• How to Solve a Cold Case: And Everything Else You Wanted to Know About Catching Killers, by Michael Arntfield (HarperCollins Canada)
• The Castleton Massacre: Survivors’ Stories of the Killins Femicide, by Sharon Anne Cook and Margaret Carson (Dundurn Press)
• Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas, by Harley Rustad (Knopf Canada)
• The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, by Rosemary Sullivan (HarperCollins Canada)
• Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment and the Courts to Set Him Free, by Sarah Weinman (Knopf Canada)

The Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript:
• No Safe House, by Jan Garnett
• Snowed, by Mary Keenan
• Two Knots, by Joanne Kormylo
• The Broken Detective, by Joel Nedecky
• The Peaks, by Michael Pennock

In addition, Jack Batten, “an acclaimed freelancer and award-winning author of dozens of fiction and non-fiction books for adults and young people,” will receive this year’s Derrick Murdoch Award. A press release explains that the Murdoch “is issued every two years to recognize a member of Crime Writers of Canada who has made significant contributions to the crime/mystery/thriller genre.”

Previous winners of these literary commendations (formerly known as the Arthur Ellis Awards) can be found here.