Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind: Awards, Awards

Picks of the Week

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
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
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
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
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.

September 30, 2007

Awards, Awards

Weekend Update will be up later this afternoon, but first a quick look at more awards given out during Bouchercon.

First, the Shamus Awards:

BEST NOVEL: Ken Bruen, The Dramatist (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL: P.J. Parrish, An Unquiet Grave (Pinnacle)
BEST FIRST NOVEL: Declan Hughes, The Wrong Kind of Blood (William Morrow)
BEST SHORT STORY: O'Neil DeNoux, "The Heart Has Reasons" (AHMM, September 2006)
THE EYE FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Stuart Kaminsky
THE HAMMER FOR BEST PI SERIES CHARACTER: Shell Scott (created by Richard Prather)

And then the Anthony Awards:

BEST NOVEL: Laura Lippman, NO GOOD DEEDS (William Morrow)
BEST FIRST NOVEL: Louise Penny, STILL LIFE (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL: Dana Cameron, ASHES AND BONES (Avon)
BEST SHORT STORY: Simon Wood, "My Father's Secret" (Crimespree Magazine, B'con Special Issue 2006)
BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION: Jim Huang & Austin Lugar, ed. MYSTERY MUSES (Crum Creek Press)
SPECIAL SERVICES AWARD: Jim Huang

Congrats to all the winners!

Posted at 12:30 PM in World of Mystery | Permalink

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September 30, 2007

Awards, Awards

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