Arthur Ellis Award
Best Critical Nonfiction Work
2001 No Claim to Mercy by Derek FinkleBest First Novel
1995 What's a Girl Gotta Do?
In this comic mystery, All News Network reporter Robin Hudson finds herself enmeshed in a television industry conspiracy.
1996 The Last Castrato by John Spencer Hill
"The corpse hung from the cross above the altar, its head slumped forward, its arms hooked crudely over the crosspiece like a pinioned fowl. The body was that of a man in his early fifties, slight and balding, with haughty chiselled features: a grotesque icon, a parody of sanctity. In place of thorns he wore the silk skullcap of a cardinal in the Roman Church, twisted askew as if he had dressed hastily, and the scarlet cassock of his office fell in folds to the polished toes of a pair of hand-tooled shoes". Cordelia Sinclair, a thirty-five-year-old American, who has arrived in Florence to write a thesis on the origins of Italian opera, knows nothing of this extraordinary event, nor does she have any inkling of the central role she is supposed to play in the series of bizarre murders that are rocking the ancient city. Robbery? A Mafia hit? An act of murderous revenge? To Detective Carlo Arbati, a published poet, the fact of the cardinal's severed vocal cords means he must confront the horrific rituals of a secret group of idealists who had tried, years earlier, to revive the glories of the Renaissance opera, where castrati had sung the soprano parts.
2001 Old Wounds by Nora KellyBest Genre Criticism & Reference Book
1991 Sherlock Holmes Among the Pirates by Donald A. Redmond
This study focuses on the publishing history of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, tracing the story of the first two Holmes novels, which were widely pirated in the U.S. from 1890-1930. The book details the background that enabled piracy to occur and provides extensive descriptive lists of the various issues of A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four. The American issues are described in detail, with defects and inconsistencies clearly documented. Also included is a genealogical tree that traces the editions of these novels and thorough examples of their textual variations.
1992 Spy Fiction, Spy Films, and Real Intelligence This collection of essays is an attempt to explore the history of spy fiction and spy films and investigate the significance of the ideas they contain. The volume offers insights into the development and symbolism of spy fiction. Collectively, the essays show how spy fiction and films have provided their own commentary on the history, politics and psychology of international relations. Spy fiction does not merely imitate espionage, it creates its own substitute for reality.
Best Juvenile Book
1994 Abalone Summer by John Dowd
Twelve-year-old Jim, depressed after his father's death, finds adventure and challenge when he spends the summer with a Department of Fisheries diver off the rugged coast of British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands.