Crowing About Edgars

During a high-toned and well-attended event held last evening at New York City’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) announced the winners of its 2014 Edgar Allan Poe Awards.

Best Novel:
Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)

Also nominated: Sandrine’s Case, by Thomas H. Cook (The Mysterious Press); The Humans, by Matt Haig (Simon & Schuster); How the Light Gets In, by Louise Penny (Minotaur); Standing in Another Man’s Grave, by Ian Rankin (Reagan Arthur); and Until She Comes Home, by Lori Roy (Dutton)

Best First Novel by an American Author: Red Sparrow, by Jason Matthews (Scribner)

Also nominated: The Resurrectionist, by Matthew Guinn (Norton); Ghostman, by Roger Hobbs (Knopf); Rage Against the Dying, by Becky Masterman (Minotaur); and Reconstructing Amelia, by Kimberly McCreight (HarperCollins)

Best Paperback Original:
The Wicked Girls, by Alex Marwood (Penguin)

Also nominated: 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); and Brilliance, by Marcus Sakey (Thomas & Mercer)

Best Fact Crime:
The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur)

Also nominated: 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); and The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and the Medics Behind Nazi Lines, by Cate Lineberry (Little, Brown)

Best Critical/Biographical:
America Is Elsewhere: The Noir Tradition in the Age of Consumer Culture, by Erik Dussere (Oxford University Press)

Also nominated: Maigret, Simenon, and France: Social Dimensions of the Novels and Stories, by Bill Alder (McFarland & Company); 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); and Middlebrow Feminism in Classic British Detective Fiction, by Melissa Schaub (Palgrave Macmillan)

Best Short Story:
“The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository,” by John Connolly (The Mysterious Press)

Also nominated: “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); “There Are Roads in the Water,” by Trina Corey (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], January 2013); and “Where That Morning Sun Goes Down,” by Tim L. Williams (EQMM, August 2013)

Best Juvenile:
One Came Home, by Amy Timberlake (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Also nominated: 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); and Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud (Disney-Hyperion)

Best Young Adult:
Ketchup Clouds, by Amanda Pitcher (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Also nominated: 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); and How to Lead a Life of Crime, by Kirsten Miller (Razorbill)

Best Television Episode Teleplay:
“Episode 1”--The Fall, teleplay by Allan Cubitt (Netflix)

Also nominated: “Episode 3”--Luther, teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC); “Legitimate Rape”--Law & Order: SVU, teleplay by Kevin Fox and Peter Blauner (NBC); “Variations Under Domestication”--Orphan Black, teleplay by Will Pascoe (BBC); and “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: Cover of Snow, by Jenny Milchman (Ballantine)

Also nominated: There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie Ephron (Morrow); Fear of Beauty, by Susan Froetschel (Seventh Street); The Money Kill, by Katia Lief (Harper); and The Sixth Station, by Linda Stasi (Forge)

Congratulations to all of this year’s nominees.

READ MORE: “2014’s Edgar Awards: A Grand Night for Books,” by Leslie Gilbert Elman (Criminal Element).