Edgar Week Festivities & Awards

This week was Mystery Writers of America Edgar Week featuring cocktail parties, a grand master interview with Oline Cogdill interviewing Carolyn Hart and Robert Crais (pictured above) and the presentation of the 68th Annual Edgar Awards themselves on Thursday night at a special event in New York. Winners and nominees are below.

BEST NOVEL 

Winner: Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books) 

Nominees: 

• Sandrine’s Case by Thomas H. Cook (Grove Atlantic – The Mysterious Press) 
• The Humans by Matt Haig (Simon & Schuster) 
• How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books) 
• Standing in Another Man’s Grave by Ian Rankin (Hachette Book Group – Reagan Arthur Books) 
• Until She Comes Home by Lori Roy (Penguin Group USA – Dutton Books) 

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Winner: Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews (Simon & Schuster - Scribner) 

Nominees:

• The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn (W.W. Norton) 
• Ghostman by Roger Hobbs (Alfred A. Knopf) 
• Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman (Minotaur Books) 
• Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight (HarperCollins Publishers) 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL 

Winner: The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood (Penguin Group USA - Penguin Books) 

Nominees:

• The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks) 
• Almost Criminal by E. R. Brown (Dundurn) 
• Joe Victim by Paul Cleave (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books) 
• Joyland by Stephen King (Hard Case Crime) 
• Brilliance by Marcus Sakey (Amazon Publishing – Thomas and Mercer) 

BEST FACT CRIME 

Winner: The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur Books) 

Nominees:

• Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to 
• Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery by Paul Collins (Crown Trade Group) 
• Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal by Michael D’Antonio (Thomas Dunne Books) 
• The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder by Charles Graeber (Grand Central Publishing – Twelve) 
• The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and the Medics Behind Nazi Lines by Cate Lineberry (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company) 

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL 

Winner:

Nominees:

• Maigret, Simenon and France: Social Dimensions of the Novels and Stories by Bill Alder (McFarland & Company) 
• America is Elsewhere: The Noir Tradition in the Age of Consumer Culture by Erik Dussere (Oxford University Press) 
• Pimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold 
• Story of Black Pulp Publishing by Justin Gifford (Temple University Press) 
• Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett (St. Martin’s Press) 
• Middlebrow Feminism in Classic British Detective Fiction by Melissa Schaub (Palgrave Macmillan) 

BEST SHORT STORY 

Winner: "The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository” – Bibliomysteries by John Connolly (Mysterious Bookshop) 

Nominees:

• "The Terminal" – Kwik Krimes by Reed Farrel Coleman (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer) 
• "So Long, Chief" – Strand Magazine by Max Allan Collins & Mickey Spillane (The Strand) 
• "There are Roads in the Water" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Trina Corey (Dell Magazines) 
• "Where That Morning Sun Does Down" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Tim L. Williams (Dell Magazines) 

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY 

Winner: “Episode 1” – The Fall, Teleplay by Allan Cubitt (Netflix)

Nominees: 

• “Episode 3” – Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC Worldwide) 
• “Legitimate Rape” – Law & Order: SVU, Teleplay by Kevin Fox & Peter Blauner (NBC Universal) 
•  “Variations Under Domestication” – Orphan Black, Teleplay by Will Pascoe (BBC Worldwide) 
• “Pilot” – The Following Teleplay by Kevin Williamson (Fox/Warner Bros. Television) 

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD 

"The Wentworth Letter" – Criminal Element’s Malfeasance Occasional 

By Jeff Soloway (St. Martin’s Press) 

GRAND MASTERS

Carolyn Hart 
Robert Crais 

RAVEN AWARD

Aunt Agatha’s Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Michigan