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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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.
Beast in View
by Margaret MillarHailed as one of the greatest psychological mysteries ever written and winner of the 1956 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Novel, Beast in View remains as freshly sinister today as the day it was first published. Thirty-year-old Helen Clarvoe is scared and all alone. The heiress of a small fortune, she is resented by her mother and, to a lesser degree, her brother. The only person who seemingly cares for her is the family's attorney, Paul Blackshear. A shut-in, Helen maintains her residence in upscale hotel downtown. But passive-aggressive resentment isn't the only thing hounding Helen Clarvoe. A string of bizarre and sometimes threatening prank phone calls has upended her spinster's routine. Increasingly threatened, she turns to a reluctant Mr. Blackshear to get to the bottom of these strange calls. Originally doubtful of their seriousness, Blackshear quickly realizes that he is in the midst of something far more nightmarish than he thought possible. As he unravels the mystery behind the calls the identity behind them slowly emerges, predatory and treacherous.
The Eighth Circle
by Stanley EllinEdgar Award winner: Investigating a crooked cop, a private detective gets too close to the case. The investigators of the Conmy-Kirk detective agency don&’t work in trench coats, drink on the job, or carry pistols. They are researchers who comb newspapers and government records in search of the tiny details that could make or break their clients&’ fortunes. It is painstaking and unromantic, but as co-owner Murray Kirk is about to learn, those details can mean the difference between life and death. The district attorney is cracking down on corruption in the NYPD, and the search is spreading like wildfire, forcing hundreds of policemen to resign in disgrace. When Conmy-Kirk is hired to clear the name of one of the accused, Kirk finds himself falling for his client&’s daughter, a moral infraction that draws him deeper into the city&’s underworld than he ever wanted to slip. This work isn&’t like it is in the movies—if Murray Kirk catches a bullet, he&’ll stay dead.
The Laughing Policeman
by Maj Sjöwall and Per WahlööThe incredible fourth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Martin Beck heading a major manhunt in pursuit of a mass-murderer.
On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus riders are gunned down by a mysterious assassin. The press portrays it as a freak attack and dubs the killer a madman. But Superintendent Martin Beck thinks otherwise--one of his most ambitious young detectives was among those killed--and he suspects it was more than coincidence. Working on a hunch, Beck seeks out the girlfriend of the murdered detective, and with her help Beck reconstructs the steps that led to his murder. The police comb the country for the killer, only to find that this attack may be connected to a case that has been unsolved for years.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
King of the Rainy Country
by Nicolas FreelingEdgar award-winning novel featuring Inspector Van der Valk. A handsome middle-aged millionaire has disappeared with a naked girl and it's up to Inspector Van der Valk to find them.
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.
Death and the Joyful Woman
by Ellis PetersWhen the woman he loves is accused of murder, Dominic Felse sets out to find the true culprit
Is a vulgarity ground for murder? Alfred Armiger had antagonized many with his greed and crass acquisitiveness. So when the ruthless beer baron is discovered dead, his head beaten in by a magnum of champagne, there is no shortage of suspects.
All of Comerford is shocked when Detective George Felse arrests Kitty Norris, the daughter of a rival beer baron, the last person to see Armiger alive, and the main beneficiary of his will. But Kitty, charming and popular, has an unexpected advocate in Felse’s young son, Dominic, who has fallen in love with her. Passionately convinced of Kitty’s innocence, Dominic sets out to find the true culprit, a hazardous undertaking that could cost him his life.
Death and the Joyful Woman is the 2nd book in the Felse Investigations, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Down River
by John HartLies, greed, revenge ... The river holds its secrets close. After being narrowly acquitted of a murder, Adam Chase disappears for 5 years: not a clue, not a trace. Now he's back and more bodies surface...
Maigret in Exile, The Rheingold Route, and The Murder of Miranda
by Georges Simenon and Arthur Maling and Margaret MillarMaigret in Exile by Georges Simenon
Inspector Jules Maigret has fallen into disfavor with his Paris superiors and has been shunted to a district supervisor's job on the northern French coast. Depressed and bored, Maigret regains a sense of purpose when a corpse is discovered in the house of a retired judge.
The Rheingold Route by Arthur Maling
An ex-U.S. Treasury agent is hired to smuggle money from England to Switzerland by a double crossing lawyer.
The Rheingold Route won the Edgar Allan Poe Award.
Murder of Miranda by Margaret Millar
Where is Miranda Shaw? She had just been widowed and her lawyer needs her signature for probate, but her mansion is empty and two addled teenagers, Cordelia and Juliet, are wearing her jewellery. Has she eloped? With Grady, the lifeguard at her club, who is also missing? Is she dodging her lawyer? Or has she been murdered ... ?
The Hours Before Dawn
by Celia FremlinLouise Henderson is trapped in a nightmare: the baby cries almost all night, every night, and the other children must be gotten off to school . . . Louise is so tired that she is afraid she is becoming psychotic; why does she have this feeling of apprehension, almost of terror? Is it connected with the lodger, a respectable school teacher? What is happening in the Henderson household? This novel, is also the basis for an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Citizen Vince
by Jess WalterAt 1:59 a.m. in Spokane, Washington-eight days before the 1980 presidential election-Vince Camden pockets his stash of stolen credit cards and drops by an all-night poker game before heading to his witness-protection job dusting crullers at Donut Make You Hungry. Along with a neurotic hooker girlfriend, this is the total sum of Vince's new life. But when a familiar face shows up in town, Vince realizes his sordid past is still too close behind him. During the next unforgettable week, he'll negotiate a coast-to-coast maze of obsessive cops, eager politicians, and assorted mobsters-only to find that redemption might exist, of all places, in the voting booth.
California Girl
by T. Jefferson Parker“Love, lust, murder, betrayal, suffering, and redemption all parade by as a brilliant tale-spinner once again has his way with us.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Edgar Award–Winner, Best Novel of the YearThe Orange County, California, that the Becker brothers knew as boys is no more—unrecognizably altered since the afternoon in 1954 when Nick, Clay, David, and Andy rumbled with the lowlife Vonns, while five-year-old Janelle Vonn watched from the sidelines. The new decade has ushered in the era of Johnson, hippies, John Birchers, and LSD. Clay becomes a casualty of a far-off jungle war. Nick becomes a cop, Andy a reporter, David a minister. And a terrible crime touches them all in ways they could never have anticipated when the mutilated corpse of teenage beauty queen Janelle Vonn is discovered in an abandoned warehouse.“Parker’s drum-tight prose and richly layered characters borrow a bit from Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled L.A. noirs as well as the more psychologically lurid novels of Dennis Lehane, but California Girl easily earns Parker his own spot on the shelf between these two masters.” —Entertainment Weekly, Editor’s Choice“A masterpiece filled with intriguing, multidimensional characters, an enthralling, sweeping plot, and some of the finest writing you’ll ever read.” —Chicago Sun-Times“Subtle—and effective . . . as much a family saga as it is a crime novel . . . an abundance of richly drawn characters.” —San Francisco Chronicle“An evocative trip back to the days of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, hippies, LSD, Charles Manson, peace protests, and the rising anger against the war in Vietnam. Parker perfectly captures the turbulence of the times.” —Orlando Sentinel
Eye Of The Needle
by Ken FollettOne enemy spy knows the secret to the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin -- code name: "The Needle" -- who holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory.
Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is beginning to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life.
All will come to a terrifying conclusion in Ken Follett's unsurpassed and unforgettable masterwork of suspense, intrigue, and the dangerous machinations of the human heart.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
A New York Times Bestseller
Gideon's Fire
by J. J. MarricGeorge Gideon, Commander of the C.I.D., is met at the office one morning with the news of a sex maniac, a mass murderer and a fire in an old tenement building out at Lambeth. "Whole family was wiped out mother, five kids, and the father. Several other people burned and suffering from shock, and whole building was gutted place went up like a match box . . . One of our chaps looks like being the eighth victim . . . But the worst of it is, George, it was arson. Started with petrol. No doubt about it." With all these urgent problems filling his day, Gideon has little time to spare for an ugly family crisis building up in his own home . . .
Cimarron Rose
by James Lee BurkeTexas attorney Billy Bob Holland must confront the past in order to save his illegitimate son from a murder conviction in this brilliant, fast-paced thriller from beloved New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke.Lucas Smothers, nineteen and from the wrong end of town, has been arrested for the rape and murder of a local girl. His lawyer, former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland, is convinced of Lucas’s innocence—but proving it means unearthing the truth from the seething mass of deceit and corruption that spreads like wildfire in a gossipy small town where everybody knows everybody else’s business. Billy Bob’s relationship with Lucas’s family is not an easy one. Years back he was a close friend of Mrs. Smothers—too close, according to her husband. But when Lucas overhears gruesome tales of serial murder from a neighboring cell in the local lock-up, he himself looks like a candidate for an untimely death, and Billy Bob incurs enemies far more dangerous than any he faced as a Ranger. With the same electric language and hard-edged style that brought James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels to the forefront of American crime fiction, Cimarron Rose explodes with a harsh, evocative setting and unforgettable characters.
Briarpatch
by Ross ThomasWhen Ben Dill, an investigator for a Senate Subcommittee, gets a call from his home town telling him that his sister, a homicide detective, died in a car bomb explosion, he puts his investigator skills to work to find who killed her and why.
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.
The Janissary Tree
by Jason GoodwinIstanbul, the year is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the sultan of the Ottoman Empire feels he has no choice but to follow suit. But just as he's poised to announce sweeping political change, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind the killings? Deep in the Abode of Felicity, the most forbidden district of Topkapi Palace, the sultan--ruler of the Black Sea and the White, ruler of Rumelia and Mingrelia, lord of Anatolia and Iona, Romania and Macedonia, Protector of the Holy Cities, steely rider through the realms of bliss--announces, "Send for Yashim." Leading us through the palace's luxurious seraglios and Istanbul's teeming streets, Yashim pieces together the clues. He is not alone. He depends on the wisdom of a dyspeptic Polish ambassador, a transsexual dancer, and the Creole-born queen mother. He manages to find sweet salvation in the arms of another man's wife (this is not your everyday eunuch!). And he introduces us to the Janissaries. For four hundred years, they were the empire's elite soldiers. But they grew too powerful, and ten years earlier the sultan had them crushed. Are the Janissaries staging a brutal comeback? And if they are, how can they be stopped without throwing Istanbal into political chaos? [from inside book flap]
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.