The Edgar Winners are Announced at the MWA Banquet

Congratulations to the winners and to all who were nominated. 

BEST NOVEL

The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur Books)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (Tom Doherty Associates – Forge Books)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard (Random House - Bantam)


BEST FACT CRIME

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity
by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (University of Nebraska Press – Bison Original)


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his
Rendezvouz with American History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton)


BEST SHORT STORY

"The Scent of Lilacs" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Doug Allyn (Dell Magazines)


BEST JUVENILE

The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler (Albert Whitman & Co.)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

Interrogation of Gabriel James by Charlie Price (Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers)


BEST PLAY

The Psychic by Sam Bobrick (Falcon Theatre – Burbank, CA)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“Episode 1” - Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)


ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
by Evan Lewis (Dell Magazines)


GRAND MASTER

Sara Paretsky


RAVEN AWARDS

Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, Forest Park, Illinois
Once Upon A Crime Bookstore, Minneapolis, Minnesota


THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 27, 2011)

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

News from All Over

My source reports the baby foxes are growing like crazy and play all over the lawn.  Mama fetched a plump squirrel for them today.  So far the food supply has been steady.  Hope for photos soon.

We did the first grilling of the season, some marinated flank steak from a Boston Globe recipe contest.  Very toothsome.  Here is the link.

Flanksteak on the Grill



There was also a recipe for Grilled Radicchio Salad.  Man, did we ever eat our veggies tonight.

Grilled Salad

I served a side of green beans along with all the other veggies, with fresh pineapple for dessert.  Sometimes, it's much nicer to dine chez Grapeshot with a beautiful sunset from the dining room window, the spring peepers and a cardinal vying for best song, and the plonk flowing.  Cats asleep here and there.  

I'm off to watch the Red Sox on TV on the West Coast.  Much burning of midnight oil. 

The Shadow Warriors Now Available on Amazon Germany

 Cross-post with The Shadow Warriors blog. . .

The best news yesterday.  The Shadow Warriors, set in Germany, is now available on the Amazon Kindle in Germany.  See link to the right of this post.  I am nearly beside myself, because logic would dictate that a book set in Germany (Goettingen) should be available there.  And a book set at a university might tempt university students and faculty who read English. 

Other good news this week:  The literary journal Kansas City Lights is publishing  memoir piece about my grandmother.  My grandma was proudly from Kansas.  So is my heroine, Emma.  She always stops to notice flowers and gardens.  

Sometimes the stars do seem aligned.  The lilac has flower buds.  Last year, not one, and the year before only one.  This year, it looks loaded.  A pair of cardinals in the yard, and the cute little swamp (?) sparrow has a mate.  Ducks in the slough.  My cup runneth over.  Spring in New England.  Glorious.  The cats sleep upstairs in the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window.   They sniff spring at the open window.

Now I'm thinking of putting my Ruegen book onto the Kindle, too.  Set mostly on the island of Ruegen in the Baltic in midsummer,  with different characters, and also a computer crime novel (loosely), the story  hasn't found a home in the U.S.  By now it is an historical novel of technology.  Remember CD-ROMS?  That generation.  Before skysat phones. Before lots of technology.  

Here's a scrap of a Shadow Warrior's scene from a somewhat drunken university party on the occasion of Verna's graduation.

Raucous-voiced onlookers toasted Verena as she frugged wildly next to a man with bleached blond parted-in-the-middle-hair and a dark, bored face. Earlier, they had swept across the floor in an inhibition-shedding Lambada. Interesting that Verena celebrated her intellectual achievement with such a blow out. Vivacious and happy, she looked good tonight, with clear skin and legs slimmed by dark stockings. 

Every novel has a crazy party, some skinny dipping and a little weed.  Popular culture reigns.  

A street scene in Göttingen, scene of The Shadow Warriors

Pulitzer Prize Winners

Ah, spring and the literary awards!  Congratulations to Jennifer Egan especially who wrote a novel that didn't fit into any genre.  Why are those usually the best?  And inspired by Proust!  My admiration is boundless.  Can't wait to read. Here is the Pulitzer list.

Fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf)
      
Nonfiction
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)

History
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner (Norton)

Biography
Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)

Poetry
The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, by Kay Ryan (Grove Press)

Drama
Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris

Penzey's Butter Chicken Recipe

Usually the web will produce the right recipe, but in this case I couldn't find the original Penzey's recipe.  We made this for two dinners and one lunch (mine, all mine!!!) and it was easy and delicious.  I had some garam masala that I had made for a previous recipe.  A well-stocked spice drawer is a cook's BFF.  I did use fresh garlic and fresh ginger and made my own tomato puree with grape tomatoes and a spoonful of water.  We ate Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice.  Yesterday I made a salad with red leaf lettuce, cara cara orange and avocado with a little lemon/oil dressing gussied up with sugar and poppyseeds.  Yum!  Here, clipped straight from the catalog, is Penzey's Butter Chicken recipe.  Enjoy!!!  I used chicken, but the vegetarian version sounds good, too.

Penzey's Butter Chicken with cook's comments.  Reads good! Spicy

Seven Sentence Suspenseful Sunday Revisted: Dead Man Walking

Here is the beginning of a scene which is set in the Frankfurt train station.  Emma, the point of view character, is freaked out when she sees "Luby" who drowned in Singapore Harbor. 

The Frankfurt Train Station,  a city unto itself

Looking like a charter member of “Anarchists Anonymous,” he sported a beard, glasses and longish dark hair. I don't even know why I recognized him, but it might have been the uneasy shifting back and forth of his glance. He didn’t notice me as I marched right past him, close enough to touch. I stopped and did a double take, and as I stared after him, with each step he took my disbelief grew with my certainty.  I watched him pass the engine and move away from the tracks into the station. His appearance had changed but that didn't matter, because no physical disguise could hide that rolling slightly knock-kneed walk, springy and muscle-bound.  I was watching a dead man striding through the Frankfurt train station on a Sunday morning in June. 

Forget not to visit the other 7 Suspenseful Sunday writers.

7 Suspenseful Sentence Sunday  

           

International Thriller Writer Nominations

Looks like a bunch of good reads here!

Best Hard Cover Novel:

Michael Connelly - THE REVERSAL (Little Brown)

Jeffery Deaver - EDGE: A NOVEL (Simon & Schuster)

Brian Freeman - THE BURYING PLACE (Minotaur)

Mo Hayder - SKIN (Grove)

John Sanford - BAD BLOOD (Putnam)

Best Paperback Original:

Robert Gregory Browne - DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN (St. Martin's)

Max Allan Collins and Matthew Clemens - YOU CAN'T STOP ME (Pinnacle)

J.T. Ellison - THE COLD ROOM (Mira)

Shane Gericke - TORN APART (Pinnacle)

John Trace - THE VENICE CONSPIRACY (Hachette Digital)

Best First Novel:

Carla Buckley - THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE (Random House)

Paul Doiron - THE POACHER'S SON (Minotaur)

Reece Hirsch - THE INSIDER (Berkley)

Thomas Kaufman - DRINK THE TEA (Minotaur)

Chevy Stevens - STILL MISSING (St. Martin's)

Best Short Story:

Mike Carey - "Second Wind" (THE NEW DEAD, St. Martin's)

Michael Connelly - "Blue on Black" (Strand Magazine)

Richard Helms - "The God for Vengeance Cry" (Dell
Magazine)

Harley Jane Kozak - "Madeeda" (Crimes By Midnight)

Nicolas Kaufman - "Chasing the Dragon" (ChiZine Magazine)

Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins - Long Time Dead (Strand
Magazine)

The Vixen Speaks

Two Kits at Play

Mama staring at the people staring out the window 

I see you looking at me from high and also from low.  Being stared at by humans is displeasing to me.  Even more displeasing is your staring at my kits while they play.  I am staring back at you.  My demands are simple.  Do not come into my territory while the kits are out of the den.  Never approach them or me or the den.  Make no loud noises and create no strange odors.  Remain in your own den while my kits become used to their territory.  My kits must be allowed to grow strong and healthy. 

I have observed you and have seen no disrespect, but I am always waiting, always wary and always on guard.  Make sure that no members of the dog species disturb us.  I can deal with dogs but would rather not.                                             

If you follow my simple rules, we will live in peace and mutual respect.  

This is what the fox "said" to me while I watched her.  She seemed very focused on my understanding her wants.  The five little kits play and jump and frolic and seem intent on conveying the phrase "glad animal spirits."  Around midnight one evening, there was an awful noise below my window and I believe the fox caught a rabbit.  Foxes are omnivorous and eat everything, but we have been careful not to feed them.   Otherwise, one may end of with a "nuisance."  Now they just fascinate and enchant.