"You know what? The bastard blows me out of the water. This guy writes Maine like Ardai writes New York. If you're not reading him, you don't know what you're missing." --Chris F. Holm, author of "The Collector" series, The Killing Kind, and Red Right Hand.

"A refreshingly new voice in noir." --Ed Kurtz, author of Nothing You Can Do and The Rib From Which I Remake the World.

"A glorious boilermaker of noir and East Coast gothic. The action is taut as a sprung snare and Bagley tightens the screws with every page." -- Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase and Blood Standard.




Friday, January 18, 2008

2008 Edgar Awards

The Mystery Writers of America’s 2008 Edgar Award nominees have been announced. A complete listing is available on their website, but here are the categories and nominees that interest me:

Best Novel
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
Priest by Ken Bruen
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman
Down River by John Hart
My pick: Priest by Ken Bruen

Best First Novel By An American Author
Missing Witness by Gordon Campbell
In the Woods by Tana French
Snitch Jacket by Christopher Goffard
Head Games by Craig McDonald
Pyres by Derek Nikitas
My pick: no opinion

Best Paperback Original
Queenpin by Megan Abbott
Blood of Paradise by David Corbett
Cruel Poetry by Vicki Hendricks
Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill
Who is Conrad Hirst? by Kevin Wignall
My pick: Cruel Poetry by Vicki Hendricks

Best Short Story
"The Catch" - Still Waters by Mark Ammons (Level Best Books)
"Blue Note" - Chicago Blues by Stuart M. Kaminsky (Bleak House Books)
"Hardly Knew Her" - Dead Man's Hand by Laura Lippman (Harcourt Trade Publishers)
"The Golden Gopher" - Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books)
"Uncle" - A Hell of a Woman by Daniel Woodrell (Busted Flush Press)
My pick: "Uncle" by Daniel Woodrell

Discuss (vermin and riff-raff, too).

2 comments:

Stephen Blackmoore said...

There's so much good stuff on this list I honestly don't know what to think. Most of it I've missed, but I've caught enough of it to know that this isn't going to be a shoo-in for anybody.

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

The more I think about it, the happier I am that I have no say in any of this...especially when it comes to the Best Paperback Original category. I loved QUEENPIN every bit as much as CRUEL POETRY, and the Russell Hill and Kevin Wignall books are pretty damn good, too.