Jeremiah Healy Mystery Writing Award: The Jerry

The Winner of the first Jeremiah Healy Mystery Writing Award:
Dark End of the Rainbow by J.E. Irvin 

Finalists: 
All Hocked Up by Jack Bates (Rochester, MI)
Portside Screw by Gregory S. Dew (Ponce Inlet, FL)
Dark End of the Rainbow by J.E. Irvin (Springboro, OH)
Square Grouper by Crichton Lewis (Key West, FL)

Sponsored by Absolutely Amazing eBooks, the award salutes the late author’s legacy as a beloved and influential mentor credited with helping and advising many aspiring writers. Writers from all over the country answered the call that invited award candidates to submit the first three pages of a finished, unpublished mystery manuscript.

“Jerry often said a book either captures a reader in the first three pages … or it doesn’t,” commented Shirrel Rhoades, who co-produces the MWKWF along with Mad Mick Murphy Key West Mysteries author Michael Haskins. “We agree with that assessment and decided to use it as a yardstick for a writing competition in his honor. He helped us get the first Fest off the ground, and this way we will keep him as a part of it in future years.”
The winner claimed a book-publishing contract with Absolutely Amazing eBooks, free Mystery Writers Key West Fest registration, hotel accommodations for two nights, and a bobble-headed Jerry trophy.

Submissions were judged by a committee headed by the late author’s fiancé, mystery author Sandra Balzo, along with film critic and publisher of Absolutely Amazing eBooks, Shirrel Rhoades; immediate past executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America, Ted Hertel; and Gary Warren Niebuhr, library director and author of numerous nonfiction works on crime fiction.

HT: Sandra Balzo