This year’s Best Novel Edgar went to John Hart for Down River. Quite an achievement, as this is only his second published work. His first book was The King of Lies which was nominated for a Best First Novel Edgar. Both books made the New York Times Bestseller list.
This year’s Best Novel Agatha went to Louise Penny for A Fatal Grace, which is the second title in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, preceded by Still Life and followed by the recently released The Cruelest Month.
The Agathas were awarded at the Malice Domestic conference banquet. I was happy to be seated with author Kathryn R. Wall, whose 8th Bay Tanner mystery, The Mercy Oak, has just hit the Library shelf this week.
I was impressed with all of the new names and faces at Fresh Blood, the New Authors Breakfast, which is hosted by Mystery Scene magazine and met up with Rosemary Harris, whose first offering, Pushing Up Daisies is set right here in Connecticut.
On one of Sunday’s author panels, Harris had a few words in defense of the traditional mystery (Malice’s theme) when she answered the point blank “Are cozy mysteries credible?” with remarks about the credibility of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, traveling around with only a toothbrush and the clothes on his back. So much of fiction requires that “suspension of disbelief,” doesn’t it?
The very last book I cataloged right before I left for the conference was Elizabeth Zelvin’s Death Will Get You Sober and Liz was also at the breakfast. She had a short story which was up for an Agatha this year, although veteran writer Donna Andrews was the winner in that category.
This year’s Malice Lifetime Achievement Award went to Peter Lovesey, who in an interview with the venerable Robert Barnard shared his life story and how he came to love (and write) mysteries. For a young boy in bombed-out London books were hard to come by, but Lovesey’s father managed to get his hands on two. Lovesey devoured the first, which was a biography of the judge who presided over the numerous poisoning trials of the late 19th century. He put off picking up the second book, fearing it was a religious biography, but desperate for something new finally took Alias, the Saint in hand – and the rest is history.
There are not enough superlatives to cover Lovesey’s body of work which includes several outstanding stand-alones as well as series featuring Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian Scotland Yard detective, “Bertie,” Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), Peter Diamond a modern-day Bath, England police detective, and his newest series to date which features Hen Mallin, a woman police detective.
Mallin is featured in Lovesey’s very recent release, The Headhunters.
The Cribb stories were adapted for television and the series proved so popular that Lovesey wrote some original screenplays after all of the published titles were exhausted. He also adapted his novel Dead Gorgeous for television – another critical success – and was the consultant for the delightful Rosemary and Thyme series.
The next major mystery conference will be Bouchercon, to be held October 9-12 in Baltimore. Laura Lippman, will be the Guest of Honor and Lawrence Block will receive a special award for Distinguished Contribution to the Genre. All mystery fans are welcome!
Make sure to mark your calendars for the evening of Tuesday, July 15, when Lawrence Block will be speaking right here at our Library.