Special Collections
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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God Save the Mark
by Donald E. WestlakeThis Edgar Award winner is a &“raucously funny&” novel of crime, con artists, and a poor sucker caught in the middle, by the author of the Dortmunder series (Kirkus Reviews). If there is a scam operating anywhere, sooner or later it will find Fred Fitch. The pure-hearted, gullible man seems to get taken every time he turns around. At this point, he&’s been ripped off so many times he&’s got a regular contact at New York&’s bunco squad. Now Fred&’s late Uncle Matt, who he never even heard of before, has willed him $317,000. Along with the inheritance comes the devoted Gertie Divine, Uncle Matt&’s old friend who is all too willing to become Fred&’s new friend—and a host of other mysterious characters who are willing to get chummy with Fred in hopes of getting their hands on that fortune. But soon it&’s not just Fred&’s money that&’s in danger but his life, in this &“high-spirited farce&” (The Washington Post) by the master of comic crime fiction—starring a character the New York Times called &“unforgettable . . . Everybody&’s favorite loser.&” &“Masterful.&” —Publishers Weekly
Ordinary Grace
by William Kent KruegerNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2014 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL WINNER OF THE 2014 DILYS AWARD A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2013 From New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger, a brilliant new novel about a young man, a small town, and murder in the summer of 1961.“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.” New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder. Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family—which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother—he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years. Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.
Live by Night
by Dennis LehaneA New York Times best-selling author with multiple awards to his name, Lehane sets his latest in Roaring Twenties Boston, Florida, and Cuba; its no surprise that the promotion brings up HBOs Boardwalk Empire. Youngest son of an upright Boston police sergeant, Joe Coughlin opts for the dark side, working his way to the top of organized crime but also setting himself up, inevitably, for betrayal and revenge.
Billingsgate Shoal (Doc Adams Mysteries)
by Rick BoyerWinner of the Edgar Award. Doc Adams becomes a self-styled investigator in this mystery, which leads him from a murder on Billingsgate Shoal to an arms-smuggling ring.
The Day of the Jackal
by Frederick ForsythThe Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man.
One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. And as the minutes count down to the final act of execution, it seems that there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Bootlegger's Daughter
by Margaret MaronUnconventional, still unwed (at the ripe old age of 34) North Carolina attorney Deborah Knott has done the unthinkable: tossed her hat into the heated race for district judge of old boy-ruled Colleton County. The only female candidate, she's busy defending indigent clients and reeling in voters. Then suddenly, the young daughter of Janie Whitehead begs her to help solve Janie's senseless, never-solved, eighteen-year-old murder. Deborah takes on the case: following twisted, typically Southern bloodlines, turning up dangerous, decades-old secrets, and inspiring someone to go on an all-out campaign to derail her future--political and otherwise. But it will take more than sleazy smear tactics to scare this determined steel magnolia off the scent of down-home deceit...even in a town where a cool slug of moonshine made by Deborah's father can go down just as smoothly as a cold case of triple murder.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner.
A Dark-Adapted Eye
by Ruth RendellA woman investigates the shocking secrets that brought down her once proud family in this suspenseful Edgar Award winner from a New York Times–bestselling author. Faith Severn has never understood why the willful matriarch of her high-society family, aunt Vera Hillyard, snapped and murdered her own beloved sister. But long after Vera is condemned to hang, a journalist&’s startling discoveries allow Faith to perceive her family&’s story in a new light. Set in post–World War II Britain, A Dark-Adapted Eye is both a gripping mystery and a harrowing psychological portrait of a complex woman at the head of a troubled family. Called &“a rich, beautifully crafted novel&” by P. D. James, Time magazine has described its author as &“the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world.&”
Gone
by Mo HayderGone is Mo Hayder at her terrifying best. Each dark and captivating twist reveals a new dimension to this tight-knight plot, burrowing deeper into the chilling and clever world Mo Hayder creates.
The Quiller Memorandum
by Adam HallYou are a secret agent working for the British in Berlin. You are due to go home on leave, but you are being followed-by your own people, or by the enemy. A man meets you in the theater and briefs you on a plot to revive the power of Nazi Germany. You do not believe him, but you remember that one of the suspects mentioned was a senior SS officer you met with in the days when you were working as a spy in Nazi Germany. The next day you make contact with a beautiful girl who may know something. Someone tries to kill both of you... Your name is Quiller. You are the hero of an extraordinary novel which shows how a spy works, how messages are coded and decoded, how contacts are made, how a man reacts under the influence of truth drugs-and which traces the story of a vastly complex, entertaining, convincing, and sinister plot.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner.
The Progress Of A Crime
by Julian SymonsHugh Bennett, young reporter on a local paper, witnessed a terrible crime - a group of boys stabbed a man to death on Guy Fawkes' night, right in front of the fire on the village green. But as Bennett attempts to write the story for his paper, doubts begin to creep in about what he had actually seen, and he finds himself facing an immense moral dilemma. On first publication, The 'Progress of a Crime' was seen as setting new standards in crime fiction.
Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner
Forfeit
by Dick FrancisWinner of the Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Prize for best crime story of 1969, this is another classic Dick Francis mystery set at the racetrack.
Catch Me Kill Me
by William H. HallahanThe kidnapping by Soviet U.N. officials of defected Russian poet Boris Kotiikoff sets off a flurry of searches by defensive U.S. government officials, CIA hatchet man Gus Geller, and dogged immigration and naturalization agent Ben Leary
Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner
Beat Not The Bones
by Charlotte JayA young Australian woman comes alone to Marapai on the island of New Guinea to find out why her husband committed suicide. It is hard to believe that drink and debt could have affected David Warwick, a distinguished anthropologist in charge of protecting the natives from exploitation. Stella must penetrate deep into the heart of the jungle to solve the mystery of her husband's death.
Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner
The Bottoms
by Joe R. LansdaleThe Great Depression, East Texas. The woods are thick, the rivers wild, the weather ripe with tornadoes, and the Crane family, like most families in that neck of the woods, are eking out a thin living. When young Harry Crane discovers a mutilated body bound to a tree with barbed wire in the river bottoms, the underbelly of East Texas is exposed. Whites fear a renegade Negro. Blacks fear a vengeful massacre, or, if the killer is white, that the law will let him slip through its fingers. Harry believes the murderer is the Goat Man, an East Texas monster of legend who lurks beneath the swing bridge on the Sabine River, like the Billy Goat Gruff. Harry and his sister have actually seen the Goat Man, or something much like him, in his nocturnal haunts. As the bodies mount up, an elderly black man is lynched, both blacks and whites are terrorised, and Harry's father - the local law - and grandmother investigate, searching for a killer who may be a lot closer than they think.
A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
by Lawrence BlockA successful socialite's beautiful wife was raped and murdered in her own home -- and Matt Scudder believes the victim's "grieving" husband was responsible for the outrage. But to prove it, the haunted p.i. must descend into the depths of New York's sex-for-sale underworld, where young lives are commodities to be bought, perverted...and destroyed.
Bones
by Jan BurkeIn this Edgar Allen Poe Award–winning novel, Irene Kelly is on the hunt for the body of a murder victim…with the killer as her guide: “a journey into the heart of darkness” (Los Angeles Times).Only one person knows where Julia Sayre is: her killer. Four years ago, the young mother of two disappeared, a story that soon became a personal mission for Irene Kelly. But the search for Julia proved fruitless. Now on death row for unimaginable acts of torture and murder, inmate Nick Parrish is plea-bargaining for a life sentence, promising to lead investigators—and Irene—into the dark isolation of the Sierra Nevadas, where they will discover what really happened to Julia Sayre. But Parrish has other terrifying secrets and plans, and now his deadly focus is on a new potential victim—Irene Kelly.
A Cold Red Sunrise
by Stuart KaminskyOne Dead Commissar. At an icebound naval weather station in far Siberia, the young daughter of an exiled dies under suspicious circumstances. The high-ranking Commissar sent to investigate the mystery suffers a similar fate: he is murdered by an icicle thrust into his skull. One Live Cop. Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is dispatched to solve the Commissar's murder, with one caveat: he is not to investigate the girl's death. Even if all the clues tell him that the two cases are linked. One Cold Killer. In a single, fateful day, Rostnikov will hear two confessions, watch someone die, conspire against the government, and nearly meet his own death. All under the watchful eye of the KGB -- and someone much closer and infinitely more terrifying.
A Dram of Poison
by Charlotte ArmstrongA longtime bachelor finally marries--only to learn the corrosive power of jealousy
For fifty-five years, Kenneth Gibson has lived in backwaters. A former army clerk, he makes a quiet living teaching poetry to indifferent undergrads. His life is happily dull until the day he meets Rosemary, a damaged girl whose frailty compels Kenneth to try to make her well. They wed, and as Rosemary recovers from her depression, Gibson falls in love, transforming his world. But his wife will never love him. She is smitten with their landlord, a dashing young chemical engineer named Paul. Gibson wants to let her go, but he cannot bear to be parted with the first love he has ever known. In Paul's house is a case of poison, and this love triangle can only end in death.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
The Light of Day
by Eric AmblerThe Light of Day was the basis for Jules Dassin's classic film, Topkapi.When Arthur Abdel Simpson first spots Harper in the Athens airport, he recognizes him as a tourist unfamiliar with city and in need of a private driver. In other words, the perfect mark for Simpson's brand of entrepreneurship. But Harper proves to be more the spider than the fly when he catches Simpson riffling his wallet for traveler's checks. Soon Simpson finds himself blackmailed into driving a suspicious car across the Turkish border. Then, when he is caught again, this time by the police, he faces a choice: cooperate with the Turks and spy on his erstwhile colleagues or end up in one of Turkey's notorious prisons. The authorities suspect an attempted coup, but Harper and his gang of international jewel thieves have planned something both less sinister and much, much more audacious.From the Trade Paperback edition.