“Martyr” Turns Winner

Joyce Carol Oates has captured the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, in the Mystery/Thriller category, with her novel A Book of American Martyrs (Ecco). According to The Gumshoe Site, she was one of 11 book-category award recipients announced last evening in advance of the opening of this year’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is taking place over the next two days on the University of Southern California campus in L.A. You’ll find a list of all the 2017 prize winners by clicking here.

To secure this victory, Oates’ convictions-driven novel had to triumph over four other well-reviewed Mystery/Thriller nominees: The Late Show, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown); The Night Ocean, by Paul LaFarge (Penguin Press); Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke (Mulholland), and Wonder Valley, by Ivy Pochoda (Ecco).