Tuesday, April 30, 2019

A March Win in April

Because I couldn’t attend last week’s Edgar Awards banquet, I apparently missed hearing the announcement that New Jersey writer Nev March has won the 2019 St. Martin’s Minotaur/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition.

A press release delivered to my e-mailbox this afternoon explains: “[March’s] winning novel, tentatively titled The Rajabai Tower Mystery, will be published in 2020. Set in the 1890s, The Rajabai Tower Mystery features a former soldier in the Indian army convalescing from wounds sustained in the fight against Pakistan, who becomes inspired by the Sherlock Holmes novels he’s been enjoying to investigate the supposed suicides of two well-to-do Parsee women in Bombay.”

Minotaur associate publisher Kelley Ragland is quoted as calling March’s book “a vibrant portrait of India just before the turn of the century, [with] an engaging lead character in Captain Jim Agnihotri …”

Previous winners of this Best First Crime Novel Contest include Stefanie Pintoff (in 2008, for In the Shadow of Gotham), Eleanor Kuhns (in 2011, for A Simple Murder), and John Keyse-Walker (in 2015, for The Drowned Land).

Minotaur is already accepting submissions for next year’s award. More information is available here.

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