2009 Pen Faulkner Award Announced

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill has won the $15,000 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The four finalists, who each receive $5,000 are: Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, A Person of Interest by Susan Choi, Lush Life by Richard Price and Serena by Ron Rash.

2009 Agatha Nominees Announed

Best Novel:
Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews
A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
Buckingham Palace Gardens by Anne Perry
I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Best First Novel:
Through a Glass, Deadly by Sarah Atwell
The Diva Runs Out of Thyme by Krista Davis
Pushing Up Daisies by Rosemary Harris
Death of a Cozy Writer by G.M. Malliet )
Paper, Scissors, Death by Joanna Campbell Slan
Nonfiction:
African American Mystery Writers: A Historical & Thematic Study
by Frankie Y. Bailey
How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries by Kathy Lynn Emerson
Anthony Boucher, A Bibliography by Jeff Marks
Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories
by Dr. Harry Lee Poe
The Suspicions of Mr. Whitcher by Kate Summerscale
Best Short Story:
"The Night Things Changed" by Dana Cameron, Wolfsbane & Mistletoe
"Killing Time" by Jane Cleland, Alfred Hitchock Mystery Magazine
November 2008
"Dangerous Crossing" by Carla Coupe, Chesapeake Crimes 3
"Skull & Cross Examination"by Toni Kelner, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine February2008
"A Nice Old Guy" by Nancy Pickard, Ellery Queen Mystery MagazineAugust 2008
The Agatha Awards honor the "traditional mystery." The award is named after Agatha Christie to honor books like hers. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries that: contain no explicit sex,contain no excessive gore or gratuitous violence,usually feature an amateur detective,take place in a confined setting and contain characters who know one another. Novels and stories featuring police officers and private detectives may qualify for the awards, but materials generally classified as "hard-boiled" are not appropriate.The 2008 Agatha Awards will be given for materials first published in the United States by a living author during the calendar year 2008 (January 1-December 31), either in hardcover, as a paperback original, or e-published by an e-publishing firm.

2009 Lincoln Prize

Two books are sharing the 2009 Lincoln Prize, awarded by the Lincoln and Soldiers Institute at Gettysburg College for "the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln or the American Civil War soldier or a subject relating to their era."
The winners are Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson and Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy and the Civil War by Craig L. Symonds. McPherson won the Lincoln Prize in 1998 for For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, and Symonds was a finalist in 1993. Each author wins $25,000 and a bronze cast of Lincoln.

Edgar Allan Poe 200th

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth. New books celebrating his mastery of storytelling are: Poe: A Life Cut Short by Peter Ackroyd, On a Raven's Wing ed. by Stuart M. Kaminsky, and In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe and essays by Jeffrey Deaver, Nelson DeMille and others, ed. by Michael Connelly. In a recent interview, Michael Connelly discusses the book and his own work. Connelly talks about his novel The Poet, which he says "is completely influenced by Poe. As I explain in my In the Shadow of the Master essay, the novel was a means of literary homage and theft. Several lines of Poe’s poetry were used as clues in the book. They were beautiful and eerie: “I dwelt alone in the world of moan.” Until these lines are revealed late in the book as coming from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe, I got the credit for them! It was wonderful." Connelly's next novel, The Scarecrow, is coming out in May 2009. Reporter Jack McEvoy and FBI Agent Rachel Walling are reunited for the first time since The Poet.

2009 Edgar Award Nominations Announced

The Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominations for its annual Edgar Awards. The winners will be announced during the 63rd Annual Edgar® Awards Banquet to be held on Thursday April 30, 2009.
BEST NOVEL:
Missing by Karin Alvtegen; Blue Heaven by C.J. Box ; Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno; The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes;The Night Following by Morag Joss; Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz .
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR:
The Kind One by Tom Epperson; Sweetsmoke by David Fuller; The Foreigner by Francie Lin; Calumet City by Charlie Newton; A Cure for Night by Justin Peacock.
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL:
The Prince of Bagram Prison by Alex Carr; Money Shot by Christa Faust; Enemy Combatant by Ed Gaffney; China Lake by Meg Gardiner; The Cold Spot by Tom Piccirilli.
BEST FACT CRIME:
For The Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder that Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz; American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum; Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It To The Revolution by T.J. English; The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Hans van Meegeren by Jonathan Lopez; The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL:
African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey; Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories by Leonard Cassuto; Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction by David Geherin; The Rise of True Crime by Jean Murley; Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe.