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Edgar Allan Poe Award Winners (mystery)
Description: The Edgar Allan Poe Awards are given annually by the Mystery Writers of America to honor the best in the mystery genre. Bookshare is pleased to offer the following titles awarded the Edgar Award for best novel. #award
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The Lock Artist
by Steve Hamilton"I was the Miracle Boy, once upon a time. Later on, the Milford Mute. The Golden Boy. The Young Ghost. The Kid. The Boxman. The Lock Artist. That was all me. But you can call me Mike." MARKED BY TRAGEDY, traumatized at the age of eight, Michael, now eighteen, is no ordinary young man. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can somehow do better than anyone else. Whether it's a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight hundred-pound safe . . . he can open them all. It's an unforgivable talent. A talent that will make young Michael a hot commodity with the wrong people and, whether he likes it or not, push him ever closer to a life of crime. Until he finally 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. Steve Hamilton steps away from his Edgar Award-winning Alex McKnight series to introduce a unique new character, unlike anyone you've ever seen in the world of crime fiction.
Room To Swing
by Ed LacyIf you're Toussaint Moore, a private investigator from New York City, and a Negro, framed in your own city for a white man's murder, you are going to find it tricky sledding in a small Ohio town, close to the Kentucky border. But the small town was where Moore felt he had to be, to try to find proof for the police that he was innocent of the killing. Moore's problems had started in New York, when the publicity woman from a television show called You-Detective came to ask him to shadow a man. The idea of the show was that the viewers were given information about a wanted man, and the first viewer to find the man and report him to the police won a reward. In short, it was a combination adventure and give-away show. Ed Lacy has written his most unusual story-a very exciting one, and one which handles with exceptional insight a Negro's experiences in a large northern city and a small, bordering-on-the-South town.
Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner
The Red Scream
by Mary Willis WalkerTexas-based crime reporter Molly Cates has just published her first book, describing the blood-curdling exploits of serial killer Louie Bronk. Now on death row, Louie's sentence is about to be carried out. Molly will be there as a witness, and she wants to write about it--the final coda to Louie's story. But suddenly, she's being strongly discouraged by her boss at the Lone Star Monthly and by Charlie McFarland, the millionaire real estate developer whose first wife, Tiny, was Bronk's most famous victim--and the only one whose murder is a capital offense. Then Molly starts to receive dark hints that Louie may not have killed Tiny after all. There is another murder following Louis's M.O.--one he could not have committed. The veracity of Molly's book is threatened--and then her very life. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Molly realizes that by attempting to save Louis she is putting her own life on the line, and discrediting her own work. Mary Willis Walker brings a lusty new voice to the mystery scene. Already recognized for her first novel, she has now created a character just cheeky and gusty enough to take her place among the top ranks of female protagonists such as Kinsey Millhone and Kay Scarpetta.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Mr. Mercedes
by Stephen KingIn a mega-stakes, high-suspense race against time, three of the most unlikely and winning heroes Stephen King has ever created try to stop a lone killer from blowing up thousands.In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes. In another part of town, months later, a retired cop named Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved crime. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the "perk" and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing another tragedy. Brady Hartsfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again. Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of highly unlikely allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands. Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil, from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.
Winter And Night
by S. J. RozanFrom the critically acclaimed, award-winning S. J. Rozan comes her finest novel to date - an explosive novel about the corrosive power of secrets and corruption in a small town. In the middle of the night, private investigator Bill Smith is awakened by a call from the NYPD. They're holding a 15-year-old kid named Gary -- a kid Bill knows. But before Bill can find out what is going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody into the dark night and unfamiliar streets. Bill, with the help of his partner Lydia Chin, tries to find the missing teen and uncover what it is that led him so far from home. Tracking Gary's family to a small town in New Jersey, Bill finds himself in a town where nothing matters but high school football, where the secrets of the past - both the town's and Bill's own - threaten to destroy the present. And if Bill is to have any chance of saving Gary and preventing a tragedy, he has to both unravel a long buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past.
Winter and Night is the winner of the 2003 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
Silent Joe (First Edition)
by T. Jefferson ParkerJoe Trona is scarred in more ways than one. Rescued from an orphanage by Will Trona, a charismatic politician who sensed his dark potential, Joe is swept into the maelstrom of influence and intimidation that surrounds his adoptive father's career.
Labrava
by Elmore LeonardJoe LaBrava first fell in love with femme fatale movie queen Jean Shaw in a darkened theater when he was twelve. Now he's finally meeting his dream woman in the flesh, albeit in a rundown Miami crisis center. Cleaned up and sober, though, she still makes LaBrava's heart race. And now that Jean's being terrorized by redneck thug Richard Nobles and his slimy Marielito partner Cundo Rey, Joe has a golden opportunity to play the hero. Or he could wind up the patsy--or dead--in the final reel.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Promised Land
by Robert B. ParkerThe Boston PI gets tangled in Cape Cod&’s criminal underworld in this Edgar Award–winning mystery from the New York Times–bestselling author. Cape Cod businessman Harvey Shepard is in over his head. He lost a quarter million on a shady real estate deal, the loan shark is circling, and now he needs a private investigator to find out where his wife, Pam, disappeared to. Spencer takes the case, but finding Pam isn&’t the hard part—the hard part is finding out she&’s suspected of a bank robbery that led to murder. Robert B. Parker&’s Spencer novels featuring the former boxer turned Boston PI are &“one of the great series in the history of the American detective story.&” Promised Land, the Edgar Award–winning fourth Spencer novel, was also adapted into the pilot episode of the classic tv series Spencer: For Hire (The New York Times).
The Last Child
by John HartFresh off the success of his Edgar Award-winning, "New York Times" bestseller "Down River," Hart returns with the story of a young boy's hunt for his missing sister, and the dark truths he uncovers in his North Carolina hometown.
Peregrine (Otto Penzler Presents--)
by William BayerNewscaster Pam Barrett witnesses a peregrine falcon, on a signal by her falconer, swoop down from the sky and kill a young woman. Her TV account of it excites the falconer and killing follows killing. Police and the media compete to find the killer.
The Chatham School Affair
by Thomas H. CookAttorney Henry Griswald has a secret: the truth behind the tragic events the world knew as the Chatham School Affair, the controversial tragedy that destroyed five lives, shattered a quiet community, and forever scarred the young boy.
Layer by layer, in The Chatham School Affair, Cook paints a stunning portrait of a woman, a school, and a town in which passionate violence seems impossible...and inevitable.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Let Me Die in His Footsteps
by Lori RoyIn the spellbinding and suspenseful Let Me Die in His Footsteps, Edgar Award winner for Best Novel, author Lori Roy wrests from a Southern town the secrets of two families touched by an evil that has passed between generations.
On a dark Kentucky night in 1952, exactly halfway between her fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays, Annie Holleran crosses into forbidden territory. Everyone knows Hollerans don't go near Baines, not since Joseph Carl was buried two decades before, but Annie runs through her family's lavender fields toward the well on the Baines’ place, hoping to see her future in the water. Instead, she finds a body, and Annie's future becomes inextricably tied with her family's dark past.
In 1936, the year Annie's aunt, Juna Crowley, came of age, there were seven Baine boys. Before Juna, Joseph Carl had been the best of all the Baine brothers. But then he looked into Juna's black eyes and they made him do things that cost innocent people their lives. With the pall of a young child’s death and the dark appetites of men working the sleepy town into a frenzy, Sheriff Irlene Fulkerson saw justice served—or did she?
As the investigation continues and she comes of age as Aunt Juna did in her own time, Annie's dread mounts. Juna will come home now, to finish what she started. If Annie is to save herself, her family, and this small Kentucky town, she must prepare for Juna's return, and the revelation of what really happened all those years ago.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Hopscotch
by Brian GarfieldBored with retirement, an ex-spy embarks on a dangerous game, in this Edgar Award winner from a crime writer who is &“one of the best&” (The New York Times). Miles Kendig is one of the CIA&’s top deep-cover agents, until an injury ruins him for active duty. Rather than take a desk job, he retires. But the tawdry thrills of civilian life—gambling, drinking, sex—offer none of the pleasures of the intelligence game. Even a Russian agent&’s offer to go to work against his old employers seems dull. Without the thrill of unpredictable conflict, Kendig skulks through Paris like the walking dead. To revive himself, he begins writing a tell-all memoir, divulging every secret he accumulated in his long career. Neither CIA nor KGB can afford to have it in print, and so he challenges them both: Until they catch him, a chapter will go to the publisher every week. Kendig&’s life is fun again, with survival on the line.
Old Bones
by Aaron ElkinsAn Edgar Award–winning mystery featuring the forensic anthropologist hailed as &“a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth&”—from the author of Switcheroo (Chicago Tribune).&“With the roar of thunder and the speed of a galloping horse comes the tide to Mont St. Michel,&” goes the old nursery song. So when the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family falls victim to the perilous tide, even the old man&’s family accepts the verdict of accidental drowning.But too quickly, this &“accident&” is followed by a bizarre discovery in the ancient du Rocher chateau: a human skeleton, wrapped in butcher paper, beneath the old stone flooring. Professor Gideon Oliver, lecturing on forensic anthropology at nearby St. Malo, is asked to examine the bones. He quickly demonstrates why he is known as the &“Skeleton Detective,&” providing the police with forensic details that lead them to conclude that these are the remains of a Nazi officer believed to have been murdered in the area during the Occupation. Or are they? Gideon himself has his doubts. Then, when another of the current du Rochers dies—this time via cyanide poisoning—his doubts solidify into a single certainty: Someone wants old secrets to stay buried . . . and is perfectly willing to eradicate the meddlesome American to make that happen. Voted one of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association&’s 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century, and featuring &“a thrilling final scene,&” Old Bones will captivate fans of Kathy Reichs and Tess Gerritsen as well as readers of Aaron Elkins&’s popular Alix London series (Publishers Weekly). Old Bones is the 4th book in the Gideon Oliver Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mr. White's Confession
by Robert B. ClarkeEdgar® Award Winner Novel. On a hillside, the dead body of a beautiful dime-a-dance girl is found. Police Lt. Wesley Horner narrows his sights on White, a man with no memory, who must record his life in detailed journal entries and scrapbooks.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
by John Le CarréIn the shadow of the newly erected Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas watches as his last agent is shot dead by East German sentries. For Leamas, the head of Berlin Station, the Cold War is over. As he faces the prospect of retirement or worse--a desk job--Control offers him a unique opportunity for revenge. Assuming the guise of an embittered and dissolute ex-agent, Leamas is set up to trap Mundt, the deputy director of the East German Intelligence Service--with himself as the bait. In the background is George Smiley, ready to make the game play out just as Control wants. Setting a standard that has never been surpassed, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a devastating tale of duplicity and espionage.
Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award.
Peter's Pence
by Jon ClearyThe IRA attempts to steal treasures from the Vatican but their plans go horribly wrong.
The Long Goodbye
by Raymond ChandlerONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • The renowned novel from crime fiction master Raymond Chandler, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe • Featuring the iconic character that inspired the film Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson.In noir master Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, Philip Marlowe befriends a down on his luck war veteran with the scars to prove it. Then he finds out that Terry Lennox has a very wealthy nymphomaniac wife, whom he divorced and remarried and who ends up dead. And now Lennox is on the lam and the cops and a crazy gangster are after Marlowe.
Dance Hall of the Dead
by Tony HillermanTwo Native-American boys have vanished into thin air, leaving a pool of blood behind them. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police has no choice but to suspect the very worst, since the blood that stains the parched New Mexican ground once flowed through the veins of one of the missing, a young Zuñi. But his investigation into a terrible crime is being complicated by an important archaeological dig... and a steel hypodermic needle. And the unique laws and sacred religious rites of the Zuñi people are throwing impassable roadblocks in Leaphorn's already twisted path, enabling a craven murderer to elude justice or, worse still, to kill again.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Resurrection Men
by Ian RankinInspector John Rebus has messed up badly this time, so badly that he's been sent to a kind of reform school for damaged cops. While there among the last-chancers known as "resurrection men," he joins a covert mission to gain evidence of a drug heist orchestrated by three of his classmates. But the group has been assigned an unsolved murder that may have resulted from Rebus's own mistake. Now Rebus can't determine if he's been set up for a fall or if his disgraced classmates are as ruthless as he suspects. When Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke discovers that her investigation of an art dealer's murder is tied to Rebus's inquiry, the two-protÈgÈ and mentor-join forces. Soon they find themselves in the midst of an even bigger scandal than they had imagined-a plot with conspirators in every corner of Scotland and deadly implications about their colleagues. With the brilliant eye for character and place that earned him the name "the Dickens of Edinburgh," Ian Rankin delivers a page-turning novel of intricate suspense.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
A Case of Need
by Michael Crichton and Jeffery HudsonWhen one doctor is accused of murder, it takes another to set him free In the tightly knit world of Boston medicine, the Randall family reigns supreme. When heart surgeon J. D. Randall's teenage daughter dies during a botched abortion, the medical community threatens to explode. Was it malpractice? A violation of the Hippocratic Oath? Or was Karen Randall murdered in cold blood?
The natural suspect is Arthur Lee, a brilliant surgeon and known abortionist, who has been carrying out the illegal procedure with the help of pathologist John Berry. After Karen dies, Lee is thrown in jail on a murder charge, and only Berry can prove his friend wasn't the one who wielded the scalpel. Behind this gruesome death, Berry will uncover a secret that would shock even the most hardened pathologist.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Michael Crichton including rare images from the author's estate.
Winner of the Edgar Award
Blue Heaven
by C. J. BoxA twelve-year-old girl and her younger brother go on the run in the woods of North Idaho, pursued by four men they have just watched commit murder---four men who know exactly who William and Annie are, and who know exactly where their desperate mother is waiting for news of her children's fate. Retired cops from Los Angeles, the killers easily persuade the inexperienced sheriff to let them lead the search for the missing children. William and Annie's unexpected savior comes in the form of an old-school rancher teetering on the brink of foreclosure. But as one man against four who will stop at nothing to silence their witnesses, Jess Rawlins needs allies, and he knows that one word to the wrong person could seal the fate of the children or their mother. In a town where most of the ranches like his have turned into acres of ranchettes populated by strangers, finding someone to trust won't be easy. With true-to-life, unforgettable characters and a ticking-clock plot that spans just over forty-eight hours, C. J. Box has created a thriller that delves into issues close to the heart: the ruthless power of greed over broken ideals, the healing power of community where unlikely heroes find themselves at the crossroads of duty and courage, and the truth about what constitutes a family. In a setting whose awesome beauty is threatened by those who want a piece of it, Blue Heaven delivers twists and turns until its last breathtaking page.
Blue Heaven is the winner of the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
The Suspect
by L. R. WrightA beautifully crafted story about murder, and evil that is perhaps worse than murder. You will not find a more sympathetic murderer in all of literature. The author expertly leads to a conclusion that is both satisfying and disturbing.
Black Cherry Blues
by James Lee BurkeDave Robicheaux was once a Louisiana homicide cop. Now he's trying to start a new life, opening up a fishing business and caring for his adopted girl, Alafair. Compared to Louisiana, Robicheaux thought Montana would be safe--until two Native American activists suddenly go missing. When Robicheaux begins investigating, he is led into the dark world of the Mafia and oil companies. At the same time, someone from his past comes back to haunt him. Someone who was responsible for Robicheaux's flight from New Orleans--someone who brutally murdered his wife--and now is after young Alafair ... Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, BLACK CHERRY BLUES spans from the mystical streets of New Orleans to the endless mountains of Montana, and ranks among James Lee Burke's finest work--an enduring classic , darkly beautiful and thrilling.