Your Shot at the Magnificent Seven

Here’s a book giveaway that mystery-fiction fans won’t want to miss. With at least half a month still to go before the finalists in this year’s competition for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel are revealed, it’s been announced that readers from around the world will have the chance to win all seven of the longlisted works:

• Collecting Cooper, by Paul Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
• Luther: The Calling, by Neil Cross (Simon & Schuster)
• Furt Bent from Aldaheit, by Jack Eden (Pear Jam Books)
• Traces of Red, by Paddy Richardson (Penguin)
• By Any Means, by Ben Sanders (HarperCollins)
• Bound, by Vanda Symon (Penguin)
• The Catastrophe, by Ian Wedde (Victoria University Press)

Craig Sisterson, the contest’s judging convenor, explains that “Anyone can enter the prize draw simply by e-mailing a photo of themselves reading any New Zealand crime, mystery, or thriller title--contemporary or from days gone by--to ngaiomarshaward@gmail.com.

“The book in your picture doesn’t have to be set in New Zealand, as long as the author is associated with New Zealand (lives in New Zealand, was born or grew up in New Zealand, etc). So whether it's a well-loved copy of a Ngaio Marsh, Elizabeth Messenger, Laurie Mantell, Michael Wall, or Paul Thomas novel that’s been sitting on your bookshelf for years, or a brand-new New Zealand crime novel you’ve recently picked up from a bookstore or library, grab your camera, take a smiling photo of yourself with the book, and send it to ngaiomarshaward@gmail.com. If you need some inspiration when it comes to finding an eligible mystery or thriller novel to read and photograph, check out this list of more than 80 authors and more than 250 titles here.”

These photos, Sisterson says, will be displayed on the Ngaio Marsh Award Facebook page. One winner from among those numerous submissions will be “randomly drawn” and identified in the run-up to the presentation of the 2012 Ngaio Marsh Award at The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival on September 1.

Again, this drawing is open to readers anywhere on Earth!