Strand Stars

Laura Lippman and Marcus Sakey have won the first pair of Strand Magazine Critics Awards, bestowed last evening during a cocktail party in New York City.

Lippman reigned victorious in the Best Novel category for her 2007 work, What the Dead Know (Morrow). Also in the running for that prize: Down River, by John Hart (St. Martin’s Minotaur); The Shotgun Rule, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine); The Strangler, by William Landay (Delacorte Press); and The Watchman, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster).

Sakey picked up his commendation in the Best First Novel category for The Blade Itself (St. Martin’s Minotaur). His competition for that award: In the Woods, by Tana French (Viking); The Mark, by Jason Pinter (Mira Books); Missing Witness, by Gordon Campbell (Morrow); and When One Man Dies, by Dave White (Crown Publishing).

These Critics Awards are, of course, sponsored by the Michigan-based The Strand Magazine.

Criminal Minds of Another Time

This is shaping up to be a week of prize-associated events, the highlight being the presentation on Thursday night of the 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Awards. Meanwhile, St. Martin’s Minotaur and the Mystery Writers of America have just announced the winner of their debut First Crime Novel Competition. She’s Stefanie Pintoff of Westchester, New York, who will be formally introduced during the Edgar Awards Banquet on May 1 in New York City. Here’s the nut of the press release:

The competition winner is Stefanie Pintoff, an attorney who has completed extensive academic research in detective fiction and the history of criminology. Her winning novel, tentatively titled In the Shadow of Gotham, is set in turn-of-the-century New York City and will be published in 2009. The novel tells the story of a detective who teams up with one of the criminal profiler[s] of the time; it makes full use of Pintoff’s knowledge of theories of crime over one hundred years ago.

The release goes on to explain that “St. Martin’s Minotaur and the Mystery Writers of America selected Pintoff’s manuscript after reviewing over 700 entries.” As the champ, she receives a one-book, $10,000 contract.

St. Martin’s is already accepting submissions for next year’s competition. The rules are apparently the same as last year’s, which can be found here.

Here Comes the “Bride”

Courtesy of The Gumshoe Site comes word that Norwegian author Karin Fossum has snagged this year’s Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the highly competitive Mystery/Thriller category for her 2007 novel, The Indian Bride (Harcourt; translated by Charlotte Barslund). Winners in nine awards categories were announced yesterday, during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Also nominated in the Mystery/Thriller category this year: Christine Falls, by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt); Frozen Tracks, by Åke Edwardson (Viking); In the Woods, by Tana French (Viking); and Ice Moon, by Jan Costin Wagner (Harcourt).

For a listing of the winners in all categories, click here.

READ MORE: “Greetings from the UCLA Lawn,” by Sarah Weinman (Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind); “Festival of Books 2008--Saturday,” by Jeri Westerson (Getting Medieval); “L.A. Times Festival of Books--Sunday,” by Jeri Westerson (Getting Medieval); “... And That’s a Wrap,” by Sarah Weinman (Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind); “Festival Report: Hot Books and Free Squid,” by Christa Faust (Deadlier Than the Male).