Prepping for Petrona and Jackson Prizes

Euro Crime’s Karen Meek reports today that “28 of the 29 titles that were eligible for the 2021 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year have been entered by the publishers.” Those include 10 books written by women, works by 17 different translators, and submissions from six countries. Among the entries:

• The Creak on the Stairs, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir,
translated by Victoria Cribb (Orenda)—Iceland
• Sister, by Kjell Ola Dahl,
translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda—Norway
• A Necessary Death, by Anne Holt,
translated by Anne Bruce (Corvus)—Norway
• Winterkill, by Ragnar Jónasson,
translated by David Warriner (Orenda)—Iceland
• The Gilded Cage, by Camilla Lackberg,
translated by Neil Smith (HarperCollins)—Sweden
• The Secret Life of Mr. Roos, by Håkan Nesser,
translated by Sarah Death (Mantle)—Sweden
• Gallows Rock, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir,
translated by Victoria Cribb (Hodder & Stoughton)—Iceland
• Fallen Angels, by Gunnar Staalesen,
translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda)—Norway

The winner is expected to be announced sometime later this year.

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Also this morning comes news of which books and authors have been nominated for the 2020 Shirley Jackson Awards, in half a dozen categories. As Literary Hub explains, these prizes “were established to celebrate the literary career of Shirley Jackson and recognize works that represent ‘outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.’”

Here are the candidates for Best Novel:

• Sisters, by Daisy Johnson (Jonathan Cape)
• Death in Her Hands, by Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press)
• Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
• Plain Bad Heroines, by Emily M. Danforth (Morrow)
• The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press)
• True Story, by Kate Reed Petty (Viking)

Click here to find the full rundown of 2020 contenders.