Edgar Allan Poe Award
Best Critical Biographical
1996 Savage Art by Robert Polito
The first comprehensive biography of the author of "The Grifters" and "The Killer Inside Me" includes 40 photographs. This book traces Thompson's involvement in the Wobblies and the Communist party; the "true crime" magazines and pulp fiction houses where Thompson's work was initially published; and his experience in Hollywood with Stanley Kubrick and others. In 1977, Thompson died a poverty-stricken alcoholic. Most of his books are now back in print, and four of them have recently been filmed.
2000 Teller of Tales by Daniel Stashower
A new biography looks beyond Sherlock Holmes to examine the fascinating, complex man who became an outspoken crusader for spiritualism. of photos.
2001 Conundrums for the Long Week-End by Ethan Lewis, Robert Kuhn McGregorBest Fact Crime Novel
1996 Come to Grief by Dick Francis
Sid Halley finally came to believe that his friend Ellis Quint, a paragon of the horse racing world, committed a horrible crime. But the rest of the racing community refuses to accept Halley's charges, turning on Halley instead.
2000 Blind Eye by James B. Stewart
In this account of crime, investigative journalist James B. Stewart recounts the 1985 conviction of Michael Swango, a doctor who allegedly murdered five of his colleagues. Assuming that Swango was guilty, Stewart examines reputable, yet secretive medical establishments that he believes helped Swango evade arrest. A New York Times Notable Book of 1999.
2001 Black Mass by Dick Lehr, Gerard O'Neill
This expose of the FBI's undercover program shows the great lengths it will go to maintain its network of informants--even to denying crititical information sought by other agencies. It reveals much about how both organized crime and the FBI operate.
2009 American Lightning by Howard Blum
The 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building sent shock waves through the nation, instigating a high-profile investigation and trial that would shape the dynamics of labor relations for the rest of the century. Journalist and author Howard Blum weaves this fascinating saga and that of early Hollywood together into a page-turning historical narrative with a bigger-than-life cast of characters. You've got filmmaker D.W. Griffith, defense attorney Clarence Darrow, radical labor activists, and bourgeois capitalists--not to mention a celebrity private eye named William J. Burns, formerly a Secret Service agent, who would become director of the organization that prefigured the FBI. Blum's prose reads like your favorite detective story and brings this chapter in American history to life. AMERICAN LIGHTNING won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime.
Best First Novel
1979 The Hog Murders by William L. Deandrea
Professor and criminologist Niccolo Benedetti sets out to find the infamous HOG, a psycopath responsible for a rash of hideous murders in the snowbound upstate New York town of Sparta.
1995 Penance by David Housewright
Holland Taylor is an ex-cop, a private investigator, and, after a tragic accident, a bachelor. Holland's wife and child were killed in a drunk driving accident by John Brown, who had recently been released from jail. When Brown's lifeless body is discovered in a parking lot, a victim of gunshot wounds, the police suspect Holland. Although he has an alibi, Holland decides to exorcise demons by investigating Brown's death. It seems that Brown's roommate at his halfway house, Joseph Sherman, was also a convicted drunk driver, and when Brown died, Sherman disappeared. Sherman's victim was Terrance Friedlander, a veteran of the Minnesota congress who was running for his eighth term. After Friedlander's death, Carol Monroe was elected to the office. When Taylor pays a visit to her campaign headquarters to look for evidence, he instead gets hired for a job: Deliver $10,000 to Monroe's former lover, Dennis Thoreau, for the x-rated videotape of he and Monroe. But when Holland arrives, Thoreau is dead. Who is behind the seemingly connected murders? Nominated for the 1996 Edgar Award for best first novel by an American author.
1999 Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark
Author Robert Clark never intended this book to be classified as a mystery novel. Yet it received the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel in 1999. The writer uses the genre form to launch a nuanced story that contends with the hazy, liminal space between right and wrong, good and evil. Set in a richly textured 1939 St. Paul, the story unfolds around an the murder of two exotic dancers, the subsequent investigation by Wesley Horner, and a strange suspect who's an obsessive photographer and documentarian.
2000 The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison
Former inspector general of the Ministry of Economy in Beijing, Shan Tao Yun is now a road laborer in what is now Chinese-occupied Tibet. With the help of the Buddhist monks who work and share living space with him in the Tibetan gulag, Shan's spiritual strength helps him survive his physical and emotional hardships. When Shan discovers the headless body of a local official, a shrewd, conniving colonel orders him to find the killer or else risk the brutal deaths of the monks. While the colonel has already pegged an innocent monk as the prime suspect, Shan smells conspiracy. As this unlikely investigator conducts his search for the killer through a twisting political labyrinth, readers may get a concise look at Tibet under siege.
2001 A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss
This historical murder mystery recounts the exciting and dangerous adventures of boxer/thief-turned-private investigator Benjamin Weaver. Weaver is a Jew of Portuguese descent who must fight against the prejudice and greed that permeate 18th-century London as he investigates events surrounding the "South Seas Bubble," the famous economic crash of 1720. A New York Times Notable Book for the year 2000.
2009 The Foreigner by Francie Lin
In Francie Lin's delightfully quirky crime novel debut, Emerson Chang, a nebbish middle-aged San Francisco financial analyst travels to Taiwan to scatter his mother's ashes, and finds himself embroiled in the criminal doings of his unscrupulous cousins. THE FOREIGNER won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author.
Best Juvenile Novel
1996 Looking for Jamie Bridger by Nancy Springer
When Jamie Bridgers, who is adopted, tries to find out who her real parents are she alienates her grandparents and unknowingly puts herself in danger.
2009 The Postcard by Tony Abbott
Stumbling onto a decades-old mystery is not what Jason had in mind when he's forced to go down to St. Petersburg, Florida, to help his father clear out his recently deceased grandmother's belongings. But in her home, Jason uncovers links to a pulp-fiction novelist, uncovers some deeply troubled family relationships, and has an unexpected transformation himself. A 2008 Edgar Award Nominee in the Best Juvenile category.
Best Novel
2006 Citizen Vince by Jess Walter
It is 1980, and Vince Camden, a New York thief previously known as Marty Hagen, now resides in Spokane, Washington--courtesy of the Witness Protection Program--where he flourishes as a doughnut-maker, a dealer in marijuana, and trafficker in stolen credit cards. Mere days remain before the Carter/Reagan Presidential election, and Vince Camden, having resolved to go straight, wishes to exemplify this new choice by voting for the very first time. But Vince's attempt to become an upright, politically active citizen is unfortunately complicated by the arrival of a mob hit man in Spokane. CITIZEN VINCE won the 2006 Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel.
Best Original Paperback
2000 Fulton County Blues
"Sunny Childs is...a wham-bam thank you ma'am great read." --J.A. Jance, author of Name Withheld Sunny investigates the death of her late father's friend, another Vietnam vet--and finds clues suggesting her dad isn't the war hero she grew up believing in. And when survivors slam doors in her face, Sunny is determined to find the answers. But those answers may be more painful than Sunny ever dreamed...
2001 The Black Maria by Mark Graham
Civil War veteran and Philadelphia police investigator Wilton McCleary knows that the murder of a girl in "Shantyville"the city's seamy red light districtis connected to a wealthy industrialist family, but now he has to prove it. Original.
2009 The Blue Religion by Inc Mystery Writers of America
An anthology of nineteen tales features pieces set in various regions and historical periods and includes T. Jefferson Parker's "Skinhead Central," Alafair Burke's "Winning," Michael Connelly's "Father's Day," and other works by Edward D. Hoch, Laurie R. King, Peter Robinson, and other notable authors. Simultaneous.
Best Paperback Original
2009 China Lake by Meg Gardiner
CHINA LAKE is expat author Meg Gardiner's second book to get stateside printing, on the heels of her successful THE DIRTY SECRETS CLUB. The story surrounds Santa Barbara lawyer Evan Delaney, who is left in charge of her young nephew when her brother is deployed overseas. Then the boy's estranged mother pops up, spewing rhetoric from a fundamentalist cult that is stockpiling for the approaching end-of-days, and things start to get weird. When the cult leader's dead body turns up, things get even weirder--and that's where the thrills begin! CHINA LAKE won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.
Best Short Story
2009 The Blue Religion by Michael Connelly
An anthology of nineteen tales from the Mystery Writers Guild of America features pieces set in various regions and historical periods and includes T. Jefferson Parker's "Skinhead Central," Alafair Burke's "Winning," Michael Connelly's "Father's Day," and other works by Edward D. Hoch, Laurie R. King, Peter Robinson, and other notable authors. Simultaneous.
Best Young Adult Novel
1996 Prophecy Rock by Rob MacGregor
Raised in Aspen by his Caucasian mother, Will Lansa is spending the summer on a Hopi reservation with his father, the tribal police chief. When a man is found murdered on the reservation, Will begins his own investigation, an investigation that puts his life in jeopardy.
2001 Counterfeit Son by Elaine Marie Alphin
The son of a pedophile serial killer, 14-year-old Cameron Miller has survived only by being totally subservient to his evil father, Pop. Cameron has been sexually abused by Pop and has seen him kill many other boys. When Pop is killed by the police, Cameron assumes the identity of one of his victims. Now passing himself off as Neil Lacey, the son of a wealthy family, Cameron/Neil is welcomed by the Lacey family as their long-missing child but viewed with suspicion by others. When one of Pop's former accomplices begins to blackmail Cameron/Neil, the boy must decide if he should reveal his true identity in order to protect his "new family" although he also realizes that if he tells them who he is, he will destroy them with the knowledge that the real Cameron has been murdered.
2009 Paper Towns by John Green
For as long as he can remember, Quentin (known to all as "Q") has admired--and perhaps even loved--his glamorous and popular neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman. "Q" is devastated when, a month before their high school graduation, Margo takes him out for a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears. Working from a series of clues that the enigmatic Margo might have left behind for him, "Q" enlists the help of his two "band geek" pals, Ben and Radar, as well as Margo's friend Lacey, to discover what has become of their missing classmate. However, as they start to work out Margo's physical location, they all come to realize that the real Margo--and the depth of her unhappiness--is a mystery to them all. A 2008 Edgar Award Nominee in the Best Young Adult category.