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)

What do Mary Higgins Clark and Gore Vidal have in common?

Ha ha!  Fooled you.  They're both mystery writers.  Vidal wrote his slim volumes (recently reissued) in the early 1950's when he hit a publishing bump, and the result was Death in the Fifth Position (ballet mystery) Death Before Bedtime and Death Likes It Hot. Pretty good titles you must admit.  Slim volumes, nothing big and meaty like his historical works.   His short oeuvres have been reissued by Vintage Crime/Black Lizzard and Vidal's pen name is Edgar Box.  Hmmmm.  Edgar? 

The Wall Street Journal, (WSJ) which has a real kickass section on Fridays with lots of book "stuff," did a huge article on Mary Higgins Clark today.  She is a true legend and sponsors the Mary Higgins Clark Award to a writer who writes in her style, which is to say "Fem Jep" without bad language, sex, and on-page violence.  About Sex and on page violence:  sometimes hints and small gestures are far, far better than being blatant.  How do you like them apples?  Love apples?  Oh well.  Mary Higgins Clark was the grand master of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, a huge event, in NYC.   Her award is always given out at the cocktail party after the MWA Symposium, the Agents and Editors cocktail party, where all the crime writers needing agents come to schmooze and pitch.  I've attended for years. . . what does THAT tell you.  Thinking about going again this year, because I have a new book to pitch and where better?  Remember the title of this blog is Suck It Up.  What does that tell you?  

I need to get crackin' on the edits my friend sent me.  And an alert reader caught something that no one else did.  Never can have two many eyes.  And now, upstairs for a nip of sherry.  So refined, don't cha know.

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