Detectives Beyond Borders is the luck of the Irish

Want to win an award (says John Connolly)? Then talk terrorism with me. Before this evening's 69th Annual Edgar Awards Dinner, I grilled Connolly about Gerry Adams' arrest. I had Northern Ireland in mind; Connolly talked a bit about the IRA (and its offshoots) in Ireland south of the border and north.

An hour and a half later, Connolly was called to the podium to accept the Edgar for best short story. (Read a complete list of the winners.)

My fellow diners included Bill Alder, up for an Edgar for his book Maigret, Simenon and France: Social Dimensions of the Novels and Stories. I learned as much from him about Simenon's early career as I did from Connolly about the afterlife of the Troubles in the Irish Republic, and that's not even counting some juicy tidbits about World War II and France.  This most stimulating of Edgar dinners may keep me posting for weeks.

Oh, and the food was good, too. Thanks, MWA.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014 

Thursday Night at the Edgars

By the time you read this, I should be on my way to New York for Thursday's Edgar Awards.

Nominees for best novel are:

Sandrine's Case by Thomas H. Cook (Grove Atlantic – The Mysterious Press)
The Humans by Matt Haig (Simon & Schuster)
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books)
How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books)
Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin (Hachette Book Group – Reagan Arthur Books)
Until She Comes Home by Lori Roy (Penguin Group USA – Dutton Books)

For best first novel, it's:

The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn (W.W. Norton)
Ghostman by Roger Hobbs (Alfred A. Knopf)
Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman (Minotaur Books)
Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight (HarperCollins Publishers)

And for best paperback original:

The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks)
Almost Criminal by E. R. Brown (Dundurn)
Joe Victim by Paul Cleave (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books)
Joyland by Stephen King (Hard Case Crime)
The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood (Penguin Group USA - Penguin Books)
Brilliance by Marcus Sakey (Amazon Publishing – Thomas and Mercer)

Nominees from beyond U.S. borders include Haig, Penny, Rankin, Cleave, Brown, Marwood, Ballantyne, and John Connolly (for best short story).

Robert Crais and Carolyn Hart will be named Grand Masters by the Mystery Writers of America, and Aunt Agatha's Bookstore, in Ann Arbor, Mich., gets the Raven award.. Read the complete list of nominees here, and I'll be back later, God and this crap computer willing.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014