Let the Edgars Anticipation Begin

If you haven’t already heard the news elsewhere, the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) today announced its nominees for the 2014 Edgar Allan Poe Awards. There are some excellent book choices here, including a few works for adults that I haven’t yet had a chance to read, but should probably get my hands on post haste.

Best Novel:
• Sandrine’s Case, by Thomas H. Cook (The Mysterious Press)
• The Humans, by Matt Haig (Simon & Schuster)
• Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
• How the Light Gets In, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• Standing in Another Man’s Grave, by Ian Rankin (Reagan Arthur)
• Until She Comes Home, by Lori Roy (Dutton)

Best First Novel by an American Author:
• The Resurrectionist, by Matthew Guinn (Norton)
• Ghostman, by Roger Hobbs (Knopf)
• Rage Against the Dying, by Becky Masterman (Minotaur)
• Red Sparrow, by Jason Matthews (Scribner)
• Reconstructing Amelia, by Kimberly McCreight (HarperCollins)

Best Paperback Original:
• The Guilty One, by Lisa Ballantyne (Morrow)
• Almost Criminal, by E.R. Brown (Dundurn)
• Joe Victim, by Paul Cleave (Atria)
• Joyland, by Stephen King (Hard Case Crime)
• The Wicked Girls, by Alex Marwood (Penguin)
• Brilliance, by Marcus Sakey (Thomas & Mercer)

Best Fact Crime:
• Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton
and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America’s First Sensational Murder Mystery, by Paul Collins (Crown)
• Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal,
by Michael D’Antonio (Thomas Dunne)
• The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder,
by Charles Graeber (Twelve)
• The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and the Medics Behind Nazi Lines, by Cate Lineberry (Little, Brown)
• The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur)

Best Critical/Biographical:
• Maigret, Simenon, and France: Social Dimensions of the Novels
and Stories, by Bill Alder (McFarland & Company)
• America Is Elsewhere: The Noir Tradition in the Age of Consumer Culture, by Erik Dussere (Oxford University Press)
• Pimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and
the Untold Story of Black Pulp Publishing, by Justin Gifford (Temple University Press)
• Ian Fleming, by Andrew Lycett (St. Martin’s Press)
• Middlebrow Feminism in Classic British Detective Fiction, by Melissa Schaub (Palgrave Macmillan)

Best Short Story:
• “The Terminal,” by Reed Farrel Coleman (from Kwik Krimes,
edited by Otto Penzler; Thomas & Mercer)
• “So Long, Chief,” by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane
(The Strand Magazine, February-May 2013)
• “The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository,”
by John Connolly (The Mysterious Press)
• “There Are Roads in the Water,” by Trina Corey (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], January 2013)
• “Where That Morning Sun Goes Down,” by Tim L. Williams (EQMM, August 2013)

Best Juvenile:
• Strike Three, You’re Dead, by Josh Berk (Knopf Books for
Young Readers)
• Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking, by Erin Dionne (Dial)
• P.K. Pinkerton and the Petrified Man, by Caroline Lawrence
(Putnam Juvenile)
• Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud (Disney-Hyperion)
• One Came Home, by Amy Timberlake (Knopf Books for
Young Readers)

Best Young Adult:
• All the Truth That’s in Me, by Julie Berry (Viking Juvenile)
• Far Far Away, by Tom McNeal (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• Criminal, by Terra Elan McVoy (Simon Pulse)
• How to Lead a Life of Crime, by Kirsten Miller (Razorbill)
• Ketchup Clouds, by Amanda Pitcher (Little, Brown Books for
Young Readers)

Best Television Episode Teleplay:
• “Episode 3”--Luther, teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC)
• “Episode 1”--The Fall, teleplay by Allan Cubitt (Netflix)
• “Legitimate Rape”--Law & Order: SVU, teleplay by Kevin Fox
and Peter Blauner (NBC)
• “Variations Under Domestication”--Orphan Black, teleplay by
Will Pascoe (BBC)
• “Pilot”--The Following, teleplay by Kevin Williamson (Fox/Warner Bros. Television)

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award:
“That Wentworth Letter,” by Jeff Soloway (from The Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble, edited by Clare Toohey; St. Martin’s Press)

Grand Master: Robert Crais and Carolyn Hart

Raven Award: Aunt Agatha’s Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The Simon & Schuster/Mary Higgins Clark Award:
(To be presented during the MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 30)

• There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie Ephron (Morrow)
• Fear of Beauty, by Susan Froetschel (Seventh Street)
• The Money Kill, by Katia Lief (Harper)
• Cover of Snow, by Jenny Milchman (Ballantine)
• The Sixth Station, by Linda Stasi (Forge)

This year’s Edgars will be given out during a banquet ceremony to be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Thursday, May 1.

Congratulations to all of this year’s contenders.