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  • Diana Spechler: Who by Fire: A Novel (P.S.)

    Diana Spechler: Who by Fire: A Novel (P.S.)
    Spechler's unfliching, beautifully written debut strikes at the heart of how one catastrophic event creates a fissure so deep it breaks a small family into fragmented pieces. A little girl is kidnapped, presumed dead, and over a decade later her mother is still searching for answers, her older sister seeks solace in meaningless sex and her brother - who blames himself for the crime's commission - finds his life's solution among ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Spechler uses the inciting event to show the ways in which family members cling to and turn away from each other, do terrible things with the best intentions and show the comforts and prejudices of religiosity with a compassionate eye and voice.

  • Iain Levison: Dog Eats Dog

    Iain Levison: Dog Eats Dog
    First published in France a few years ago, Bitter Lemon press finally makes this darkly comic gem available in English. When a bank robber, bleeding profusely from his last and very botched job, lands in a sleepy New Hampshire college town, disaster is pretty much inevitable. Never is that more true than for Elias White, roped into being the robber's accomplice as a result of an ill-fated dalliance glimpsed through an open window, and for FBI agent Denise Lupo, whose ability is less dogged and more fragmented. Levison nails the academic atmosphere and its jarring juxtaposition with the criminal underworld, but most of all he's clearly having fun with his given premise.

  • Matthew Hall: The Art of Breaking Glass

    Matthew Hall: The Art of Breaking Glass
    If this debut were published in 2008 instead of 1997, I suspect it would have been greeted with the same acclaim and the same sense that this is a major talent with a great deal in store for his career. Because holy hell, this has tremendous pacing, wonderful characters and an offbeat and very unique voice. But since its original publication, the book is all but out of print and there's no new novel from Hall in sight, as he's concentrated on TV and screenwriting duties. So read this book and hope that a) some publisher decides to reissue it b) Hall follows it up someday.

  • Victor Gischler: Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel

    Victor Gischler: Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel
    After four crime novels, Gischler turns to something a little different - and a lot more unclassifiable - with this incredibly funny, violent, panoramic and pulpy apocalyptic novel. The world Mortimer Tate left behind was about to go into ruins but what he returns to nine years later is littered with machine guns, strip clubs and people looking out for their best interests (both literally and carnivorously.) With the help of an eclectic crew of sidekicks and gun-toting babes, Mortimer prepares to save the world at the lost city of Atlanta - whether he likes it or not.

  • Zoe Sharp: Third Strike: A Thriller

    Zoe Sharp: Third Strike: A Thriller
    Once again, Zoe Sharp finds a way to make the thriller genre her own by focusing on the psychological toll that violence takes upon a person. By the end of THIRD STRIKE, Charlie Fox is at a very dark place, fully cognizant of the consequences her actions have taken upon those she's been asked to guard and those she loves, and I was profoundly disturbed in a way I haven't been after reading a thriller in quite some time. This is a long, long way from mindless fluff, and if you're prepared to travel some very dark and thoughtful corners, this is the book (and series) to read.

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December 07, 2006

The Nero Award Goes to Tess Gerritsen

Better late on this than never, but a hearty congratulations to Tess Gerritsen for scooping up the Nero Wolfe Society's annual award for her 2005 novel VANISH. Gerritsen was in New York Saturday night to receive her award and had a great time at the Black Orchid banquet:

These are my kind of people.  They eat, they drink, they party, they sing bad songs, and they love mystery novels – specifically, Rex Stout’s mystery novels starring the immortal Nero Wolfe. I’ve never met a more convivial bunch.

And I don’t say that just because they happened to honor my novel VANISH with the 2006 Nero Award.  I say this because these are the kind of people I could hang out with year after year, if only they lived closer to me.  Their idea of a good time is to drink a lot, talk mysteries, and enjoy meals from The Cookbook, based on the spectacular repasts described in the Nero Wolfe mystery novels, by Rex Stout.

Hey works for me, too....

Posted at 12:00 AM in World of Mystery |

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Comments

There were no other nominations? It seems that this year Nero Award just gave the prize to just only nominee. And I think there is no any traits of Nero Wolfe mystery tradition in Gerritsen's work. Hmm....

Posted by:Jun. | December 07, 2006 at 12:42 AM

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