Edgar Award Winners Announced

2012 Edgar Award Winners were announced Thursday, April 26 by the Mystery Writers of America.  Below are the nominees and the winner for the Best Mystery Novel for 2012.  You may find other category nominees and winners by clicking here.  

Be sure to place your requests for these award winning mystery titles today by clicking on the titles.

Gone by Mo Hayder  2012 WINNER

Investigating a serial carjacker whose actual targets are young children in back seats, Jack Caffery teams up once again with police diver Sergeant Flea Marley, whose life is endangered by a discovery in an abandoned, half-submerged tunnel.

1222 by Jane Holt

From Norway's bestselling crime writer comes a suspenseful locked-room mystery set in an isolated hotel where guests who are stranded during a monumental snowstorm begin turning up dead.

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

Yasuko Hanaoka thought she had escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day, the situation quickly escalates and Togashi ends up dead. Yasuko's next-door-neighbor Ishigami offers his help, not only disposing of the body, but plotting the cover-up as well. 

Field Gray by Philip Kerr

While working for a crime boss in Cuba, Bernie Gunther is swept away to Germany as bait to catch Eric Mielke, the East German head of the dangerous Stasi (state security agency).  Part mystery, part war novel, this title is the latest in the Bernie Gunther series.

The Ranger by Ace Atkins
Army Ranger Quinn Colson of Alabama returns from Afghanistan to a place overrun by corruption. He finds his uncle, the county sheriff, dead by suicide, but others whisper murder. In the days that follow, it will be up to Quinn to discover the truth, not only about his uncle, but about his family, his friends, his town, and not least about himself. And once the truth is discovered, there is no turning back.

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2012 Edgar Allen Poe Award Nominees

Mystery Writers have announced the 2012 Edgar Award Nominees. Start reading (or listening or watching) now so you can weigh in on your choice before the winners are announce on April 26. Perhaps you will find some new authors and even tv shows to follow.

Nominees include:

Adult Novel
The Ranger by Ace Atkins
Gone by Mo Hayder
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Hegashino
1222 by Anne Holt
Field Gray by Philip Kerr

YA Novel
Shelter by Harlan Coben
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall
The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines
Kill You Last by Todd Strasser

TV Episode
"Innocence" - Blue Bloods"The Life Inside" - Justified"Part 1" - Whitechapel"Pilot" - Homeland"Mask" - Law & Order: SVU

When you find one of the nominees you really enjoyed, share your thoughts here so others may be enticed as well. If you recommend one of the tv shows, let us know.

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Mystery Lovers Rejoice! 2011 Edgar Awards Announced

Make your list now to enjoy the 2011 Edgar Award Winners and Nominees. The Mystery Writers of America made the announcement to honor the best mystery fiction, non-fiction and television shows from 2010 on April 28, 2011

The winners by category are:

Best Novel
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton. Traumatized at the age of eight and pushed into a life of crime by reason of his unforgiveable talent--lock picking--Michael sees his chance to escape, and with one desperate gamble risks everything to come back home to the only person he ever loved, and to unlock the secret that has kept him silent for so long.


Best First Novel by and American Author
Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva
Someone is systematically burning down the neighborhood Mulligan, an old school newspaper man grew up in, people he knows and loves are perishing in the flames, and the public is on the verge of panic. With the whole city of Providence on his back, Mulligan must weed through a wildly colorful array of characters to find the truth.

Best Paperback Original
Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard
An intricate plot involving a man thought to be killed in WWII, his nephew, and the quest of a family trying to retrieve paintings and diamonds that belonged to a fleeing Jewish diamond trader in 1939. Lots of twists and turns in this suspenseful incorporation of mystery, intrigue, and history.

Best Fact Crime
Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry
The adjectives associated with the University of Washington's 2000 football season-mystical, magical, miraculous-changed when Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry's four-part expos of the 2000 Huskies hit the newspaper stand: explosive chilling (Sports Illustrated), blistering (Baltimore Sun), shocking appalling(Tacoma News Tribune), astounding(ESPN), jaw-dropping (Orlando Sentinel).

Best Critical/Biographical
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the honorable Detective and his Rendezvouz with American History by Ynute Huang
The author uses the Charlie Chan character and the man who was the model for the character, Honolulu Detective Chang Apana, to examine the treatment of Asians in U.S. history and culture, including Hollywood and the government.

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Edgar Awards Nominees

All mystery lovers know and respect the Edgar Awards sponsored by The Mystery Writers of America. This year the winners will be announced on April 28 in New York.

Who do you think will win the award this year in the following categories? Post a comment and let us and other know. If you would like to request one of the following titles, click on the title link and place the request right now.

The 2011 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominees were announced on the 202nd anniversary of his birth.

Best Fiction Nominees include:

• Caught by Harlan Coben

• Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin Faithful Place by Tana French

• The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan

• The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

• I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Best Fact Crime Nominees:

• Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry

• The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in Jim Crow South by Alex Heard

• Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz

• Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr and the International Hunt for his Assassin by Hampton Sides

• The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr

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Best Mystery for 2010--Edgar Award Winner Announced

The Mystery Writers of America announced the 2010 Edgar Award Winner on Thursday evening, April 29, 2010. The novel to read for 2010 is:

The Last Child by John Hart
After his twin sister Alyssa disappears, thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon is determined to find her. When a second girl disappears from his rural North Carolina town, Johnny makes a discovery that sends shock waves through the community in this multi-layered tale of broken families and deadly

Other nominees included:

The Missing by Tim Gautreaux
The author of "The Clearing" returns with the story of a man fighting to redeem himself after World War I, of parents coping with horrific loss, and of others for whom kidnapping is only a job, in this novel that brings to vivid life the exotic world of steamboats and shifting currents and rough crowds.


The Odds by Kathleen George.
A police procedural focusing on four children recently abandoned who try to help a wounded man they find in a warehouse with a dead man who is being hunted by a drug dealer and the police.


Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston
Based in Los Angeles, a man suffering from post traumatic stress takes a job cleaning up crime scenes. As he is finishing a suicide scene, he receives a call from the dead man's daughter wanting him to clean up another scene for her and her thug brother. He is drawn in by her womanly wiles and finds that he is in way over his head with this family.


Nemesis by Jo Nesbo
Oslo Police Detective Harry Hole is assigned to investigate a series of bank robberies of unparalleled savagery while at the same time absolving himself of the murder of his former girlfriend in a criminal investigation led by his longtime adversary Tom Waaler and Waaler's vigilante police force.


A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique, 1952. An Afrikaner police officer is found dead. Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman, begins investigating the murder following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover a shocking forbidden love and the imperfect life of one Captain Pretorius. SH

Tony Hillerman Gone But Never Forgotten

Tony Hillerman was known not only for his 18 popular Southwest mysteries with Detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee but also his books celebrating the natural wonders of the Southwest. His desire through his writing was to share his respect of Native American culture. He will be missed by his fans but will be remembered through his award winning prose. (See titles below.) He was the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1974 and the Grandmaster Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1991. Mr. Hillerman died in Albuquerque, New Mexico on October 26, 2008.

Photo fromHarperCollins.com

Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman.
Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high lonely place -- a corpse with a mouth full of sand, abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer. There is palpable evil in the air, and Leaphorn's pursuit of a Wolf-Witch is leading him where even the bravest men fear ... on a chilling trail that winds perilously between mysticism and murder.

Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman. [Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award]
Two young boys suddenly disappear. One of them, a Zuni, leaves a pool of blood behind. Lt. Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police tracks the brutal killer. Three things complicate the search: an archeological dig, a steel hypodermic needle, and the strange laws of the Zuni. Compelling, terrifying, and highly suspenseful, "Dance Hall of the Dead" never relents from first page til last.


Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman.
A noted anthropologist vanishes at a moonlit Indian ruin where "thieves of time" ravage sacred ground for profit. When two corpses appear amid stolen goods and bones at an ancient burial site, Navajo Tribal Policemen Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee must plunge into the past to unearth the astonishing truth behind a mystifying series of horrific murders.


Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman.
Since his retirement from the Navajo Tribal Police, Joe Leaphorn has been called on occasionally by his former colleagues to help them solve a puzzling crime. And Leaphorn, aided by Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito, always delivers. But this time, the problem is with an old case of Joe's ndash;ndash; his "last case," unsolved and haunting him. And with Chee and Bernie on their honeymoon, Leaphorn is on his own. The case involved a priceless Navajo rug gone missing. Now, years later, Leaphorn is picking up the threads of a crime he'd thought impossible to solve. Hillerman is at the top of his form in this atmospheric and stunning novel.

Hillerman Country: A Journey through the Southwest with Tony Hillerman by Tony Hillerman.
This... is a collaborative effort between the author and his brother, a professional photographer for 40 years. The text mixes popularized history and anthropology with personal observations and anecdotes. A thoughtful selection of excerpts from Hillerman's novels serve as captions to many of the 200 color photos. Barney Hillerman's camerawork exhibits an understated and straightforward honesty by avoiding over-studioization. (from Library Journal)