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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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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.
New Orleans Mourning
by Julie SmithSkip Langdon, policewoman daughter of a social climbing doctor, solves the murder of a socially prominent New Orleans man. Rich with local color and history.
Notes on an Execution
by Danya KukafkaIn the tradition of Long Bright River and The Mars Room, a gripping and atmospheric work of literary suspense that deconstructs the story of a serial killer on death row, told primarily through the eyes of the women in his life—from the bestselling author of Girl in Snow.
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.
Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.
Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.
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.
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.
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.
Peter's Pence
by Jon ClearyThe IRA attempts to steal treasures from the Vatican but their plans go horribly wrong.
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
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 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 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
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
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
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.
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.
The Stranger Diaries
by Elly Griffiths"This lively whodunit keeps you guessing until the end." —People“Utterly bewitching…As unforgettable as it is original.” —A.J. Finn“Goose-bump spooky, smart, and haunting…I loved this book!” —Louise PennyDeath lies between the lines when the events of a dark story start coming true in this haunting modern gothic mystery, perfect for fans of Magpie Murders and The Lake House. Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger,” left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines of her favorite literature. To make matters worse, the police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her closest confidant, her diary, the only outlet she has for her darkest suspicions and fears about the case. Then one day she notices something odd. Writing that isn't hers, left on the page of an old diary:Hallo Clare. You don’t know me.Clare becomes more certain than ever: “The Stranger” has come to terrifying life. But can the ending be rewritten in time?
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.
Whip Hand
by Dick FrancisEx-jockey and private investigator Sid Halley is approached by the wife of an elite racehorse trainer, who begs his help in figuring out why her husband's most promising horses have been performing so poorly. At first Halley thinks she's overreacting and the losing streak is just dumb luck. But now he's beginning to think it's something far more dangerous.
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.