Win a shelf of New Zealand crime fiction

Not everything from New Zealand is fuzzy on the outside; green, sweet, and delicious on the inside. Readers worldwide can win a set of seven New Zealand crime novels, the titles shortlisted for the titles shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award. The titles are:

COLLECTING COOPER by Paul Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
LUTHER: THE CALLING by Neil Cross (Simon & Schuster)
FURT BENT FROM ALDAHEIT by Jack Eden (Pear Jam Books)
TRACES OF RED by Paddy Richardson (Penguin)
BY ANY MEANS by Ben Sanders (HarperCollins)
BOUND by Vanda Symon (Penguin)
THE CATASTROPHE by Ian Wedde (Victoria University Press)

Quoth the king of Kiwi crime fiction, Craig Sisterson:

"Anyone can enter the prize draw simply by emailing a photo of themselves reading any New Zealand crime, mystery, or thriller title - contemporary or from days gone by - to ngaiomarshaward (at) gmail (dot) com. 

The book in your picture doesn't have to be set in New Zealand, as long as the author is associated with New Zealand (lives in New Zealand, was born or grew up in New Zealand, etc). So whether it's a well-loved copy of a Ngaio Marsh, Elizabeth Messenger, Laurie Mantell, Michael Wall, or Paul Thomas novel that's been sitting on your bookshelf for years, or a brand new New Zealand crime novel you've recently picked up from a bookstore or library, grab your camera, take a smiling photo of yourself with the book, and send it to ngaiomarshaward (at) gmail (dot) com. If you need some inspiration when it comes to finding an eligible, mystery, or thriller novel to read and photograph, check out this list of more than 80 authors and more than 250 titles here."

I like very much that the contest offers the chance to learn something and not just scarf up a prize. So get educated and enter today!

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

And then there were three ...

The finalists for the first Ngaio Marsh Award, for best crime novel by a New Zealand citizen or resident published in New Zealand in 2009, are:

• Cut & Run by Alix Bosco (Penguin);

• Burial by Neil Cross (Simon & Schuster); and

• Containment by Vanda Symon (Penguin)

Craig Sisterson, the driving force behind the awards and the man who kindly invited me to be one of the judges, sends along this note from Dame Ngaio's nephew:

I am delighted to hear of the progress of the Dame Ngaio Marsh Award, and congratulate the finalists for what sounds to be a very high standard of detective story writing. I know that Dame Ngaio would be so proud of all the entrants, and to know that her name is associated with the award. I hope you will extend my own congratulations to the writers, but also to those who have taken what will have been an enormous amount work, research and thought to create the awards very sincerely

John Dacres-Mannings

The winner will be announced Sept. 10 at The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival, and congratulations are in order for all the nominees and to Craig for his hard work in putting the awards together. Perhaps this enterprising promoter of New Zealand crime writing will have an award or a convention named for him one day. Hey, they did it for Anthony Boucher.

***

Here's a bit about Dame Ngaio, a pioneer in theater and an author whose novels and stories featuring Inspector Roderick Alleyn made her one of the pillars of crime fiction's Golden Age. Here's a personal reminiscence from author Roy Vaughan.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

All rise

The US has the Edgar Awards, the UK has the Daggers, and Canada has the Arthur Ellis Awards. The Nordic countries have the Glass Key, Australia the Ned Kellys and the German-speaking world the Friedrich Glauserpreis.

Now New Zealand has its own crime award, and your humble blog keeper is one of the judges. The award, named for Dame Ngaio Marsh and the brainchild of the enterprising Craig Sisterson of the Crime Watch blog, will go to one of the following novels:

Burial by Neil Cross

Cut and Run by Alix Bosco

Access Road by Maurice Gee

Bold Blood by Lindy Kelly

Containment by Vanda Symon

No details on my choices here. Suffice it to say that the shortlist contained some very pleasant surprises. More to come.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Books to read on an island: The campaign for Vanda

Ever wonder what books you'd want should you find yourself on an antipodean island? Vanda Symon has gone you one better: She lives on an antipodean island, and, while an existence amid all that lamb and kiwi fruit strikes me as tantalizingly close to paradise, Vanda has a complaint: Too few books.

Vanda, herself a crime novelist, has asked me to recommend crime books that might be hard for her to find otherwise. She's been a charming correspondent and the winner of a Detectives Beyond Borders contest, so how could I refuse? I'll begin with an offering from my own native country: three Canadian crime novelists whose work I've read and enjoyed recently. Then I'll ask you for some suggestions.

Giles Blunt portrays small-city humor and hopelessness as well as any American or Swede you’d care to name, though with sensitivity to local sounds and sights. Take him to a city, and he does just as well, keeping the action moving fast at all times. Even when his characters sit still, they are never really at rest. As a bonus, his novel The Delicate Storm offers an unusually detailed first-person look at a tumultuous period in recent Canadian history. (Read more about Giles Blunt here and here.)

Howard Engel's Memory Book recounts its protagonist's struggles both to solve a murder and to overcome a neurological condition that has robbed him of his ability to read. Think that's easy? Engel's Benny Cooperman can't read what he has written, and he can't follow street signs, read reports or make much sense of the visual world. Then reflect that Engel himself struggled with the affliction, alexia sine agraphia, while writing the book. The novel comes with an afterword by the neurologist Oliver Sacks. If possible, get the Canadian edition from Penguin for its ingenious cover, which brilliantly captures Cooperman's puzzling, frustrating predicament. (Read more about Howard Engel here.)

John McFetridge is a guy you'll have heard from and read about on this blog in recent days. His satirical edge and sympathetic view of his city and protagonists bring his novels to rich, vivid life. Read Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and Dirty Sweet, and see why people will one day talk about McFetridge's Toronto the way they talk about Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. (Read the Detectives Beyond Borders interview with John McFetridge here.)

Won't you help? What other crime books should Vanda Symon be reading?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008