Captivating Canadian Criminalities

Earlier today, the Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) announced the winners of its 2023 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing. (Yeah, I understand there’s a lot of repetition in that sentence.) There were 10 categories of contestants.

Best Crime Novel:
Going to Beautiful, by Anthony Bidulka (Stonehouse)

Also nominated: Take Your Breath Away, by Linwood Barclay (HarperCollins Canada); An Unthinkable Thing, by Nicole Lundrigan (Viking Canada); Please Join Us, by Catherine McKenzie (Simon & Schuster Canada); and Daughters of the Occupation, by Shelly Sanders (HarperCollins Canada)

Best Crime First Novel:
Citizens of Light, by Sam Shelstad (TouchWood Editions)

Also nominated: The Pale Horse, by T. Lawrence Davis (Friesen Press); Killer Time, by Bill Edwards (Friesen Press); The Damned Lovely, by Adam Frost (Down & Out); and The Man from Mittlewerk, by M.Z. Urlocker (Inkshares)

The Howard Engel Award for Best Crime Novel Set in Canada: A Snake in the Raspberry Patch, by Joanne Jackson (Stonehouse)

Also nominated: Five Moves of Doom, by A.J. Devlin (NeWest Press); Blood Atonement, by S.M. Freedman (Dundurn Press); Cold Snap, by Maureen Jennings (Cormorant); and The Foulest Things, by Amy Tector (Keylight)

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery: Deep House, by Thomas King (HarperCollins Canada)

Also nominated: Knight in the Museum, by Alice Bienia (Cairn Press); Fenian Street, by Anne Emery (ECW Press); Death Plans a Perfect Trip, by Mary Jane Maffini (Beyond the Page); and Framed in Fire, by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Edition)

Best Crime Novella: “The Man Who Went Down Under,” by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July 2022)

Also nominated: “Amdur’s Ghost,” by M.H. Callway (from In the Spirit of 13; Carrick); Dangerous to Know: A Grifter’s Song, Vol. 28, by Hilary Davidson (Down & Out); Dead End Track, by Julie Hiner (Julie Hiner); and The Emir’s Falcon, by Matt Hughes (Shadowpaw Press Premiere)

Best Crime Short Story: “The Girl Who Was Only Three Quarters Dead,” by Craig H. Bowlsby (Mystery Magazine, April 2022)

Also nominated: “Must Love Dogs—or You’re Gone, by M.H. Callway (from Gone, edited by Stephen J. Golds; Red Dog Press); “To Catch a Kumiho,” by Blair Keetch (from In the Spirit of 13; Carrick); “The Natural Order of Things, by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May/June 2022); and “Swan Song,” by Donalee Moulton (from Cold Canadian Crime, edited by Talia Morgan; Crime Writers of Canada)

Best French Crime Book (Fiction and Non-fiction): Monsieur Hämmerli, by Richard Ste-Marie (Éditions Alire)

Also nominated: Le Mouroir des anges, by Geneviève Blouin (Éditions Alire); Chaîne de glace, by Isabelle Lafortune (Éditions XYZ); Le dernier manège, by Guillaume Morrissette (Guy Saint-Jean); and Modus operandi, by Suzan Payne (Éditions Perce-Neige)

Best Juvenile or YA Crime Book (Fiction and Non-fiction): Heartbreak Homes, by Jo Treggiari (Nimbus)

Also nominated: Lark Steals the Show, by Natasha Deen (Orca); Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Seaside Corpse, by Marthe Jocelyn (Tundra); Wrong Side of the Court, by H.N. Khan (Penguin Teen); and Butt Sandwich & Tree, by Wesley King (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Non-fiction Crime Book: The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, by Rosemary Sullivan (HarperCollins Canada)

Also nominated: How to Solve a Cold Case: And Everything Else You Wanted to Know About Catching Killers, by Michael Arntfield (HarperCollins Canada); The Castleton Massacre: Survivors’ Stories of the Killins Femicide, by Sharon Anne Cook and Margaret Carson (Dundurn Press); Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas, by Harley Rustad (Knopf Canada); and Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment and the Courts to Set Him Free, by Sarah Weinman (Knopf Canada)

The Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript:
Snowed, by Mary Keenan

Also nominated: No Safe House, by Jan Garnett; Two Knots, by Joanne Kormylo; The Broken Detective, by Joel Nedecky; and The Peaks, by Michael Pennock

In addition, Jack Batten, “an acclaimed freelancer and award-winning author of dozens of fiction and non-fiction books for adults and young people,” received this year’s Derrick Murdoch Award. A press release explains that the Murdoch “is issued every two years to recognize a member of Crime Writers of Canada who has made significant contributions to the crime/mystery/thriller genre.”

Previous winners of these literary commendations (formerly known as the Arthur Ellis Awards) can be found here.