LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER: Mystery/Thriller Category

 

The winner of the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in several categories was announced. All books are of interest, of course, but for this blog, here is the finalist in the Mystery/Thriller category. Congratulations to all. 

EL DORADO DRIVE by Megan Abbott

Nominees:

LA TIMES BOOK PRIZES: Finalists -- Mystery/Thriller and more!

 

The finalists for the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes in several categories have been announced. Prizes will be awarded on Friday, April 17, 2026.

All books are of interest, of course, but for this blog, here are the finalists in the Mystery/Thriller category. Congratulations to all. 

Also of interest is the Fiction category:

L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZES: Mystery/Thriller Category Finalists

The 45th annual L.A. Times Book Prizes Honorees. Congratulations to all!

2024 Finalists in the Mystery/Thriller Category

LA TIMES BOOK PRIZES 2024

The Los Angeles Times announced the winners of the 44th annual Book Prizes in a ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The Times’ Book Prizes recognize outstanding literary achievements and celebrate the highest quality of writing from authors at all stages of their careers.

Winners were announced in 13 categories for works published last year, including the new prize for achievement in audiobook production, presented by Audible. Additionally, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley was honored with the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement and Access Books received the Innovator’s Award for its work renovating school libraries and ensuring that underserved students and communities have access to quality literacy resources. 

MYSTERY/THRILLER CATEGORY

Winner: Ivy Pochoda, Sing Her Down: A Novel

Nominees:

Lou Berney, Dark Ride
S. A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed
Jordan Harper, Everybody Knows
Cheryl A. Head, Time’s Undoing

LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZES 2023

The finalists for the 43rd Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced yesterday. 

Winners in three special categories were also announced. James Ellroy will receive the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement; the American Library Assn.’s Freedom to Read Foundation will receive the Innovator’s Award; and Javier Zamora will be presented with the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose. 

The rest of the Book Prize winners will be announced in a ceremony on Friday, April 21, at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, the evening before the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, taking place the weekend of April 22-23. 

Ellroy, who will accept the Robert Kirsch Award for bodies of work focused on the American West, is best known for his L.A.-based crime novels such as “L.A. Confidential” and “The Black Dahlia” — both part of his bestselling L.A. Quartet. Ellroy also has written an investigative memoir, “My Dark Places,” as well as dozens of novels, many of them adapted into films, graphic novels and podcasts. “We are pleased to recognize L.A. noir iconoclast James Ellroy with this year’s Kirsch Award,” said Times Books Editor Boris Kachka. “James’ writing life was shaped by the tragic, unsolved murder of his mother when he was 10, fostering an obsession with crime and the underworld that has animated his fiction and nonfiction across the decades.” 

Of particular interest to readers of this blog: The Mystery/Thriller category. Congratulations to all. 

Mystery/Thriller Finalists

 

Rachel Howzell Hall, We Lie Here: A Thriller 

Laurie R. King, Back to the Garden 

Tracey Lien, All That’s Left Unsaid 

Alex Segura, Secret Identity 

Peng Shepherd, “The Cartographers” 

See Finalists in all Categories here

LA Times Book Prize Winner in the Mystery/Thriller Category

The winners of the 41st Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced today. Winners were announced in a live-streamed virtual ceremony on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter today, the day before the 26th Los Angeles Times Festival of Books kicks off its second virtual event during the ongoing pandemic. 

The winner in the Mystery/Thriller Category

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby 

L.A.Times Book Prizes Finalists

The finalists for the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced today. See all the finalists here.  The following is of note to mystery/thriller readers. Winners will be announced at a ceremony at USC on April 12, the day before the start of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Congrats to all.

MYSTERY/THRILLER

Megan Abbott, "Give Me Your Hand"

Kent Anderson, "Green Sun"

Lou Berney, "November Road"

Oyinkan Braithwaite, "My Sister, the Serial Killer"

Leila Slimani, "The Perfect Nanny"

Los Angeles Times Book Prize: Best Mystery/Thriller

The Los Angeles Time Book Prizes were announced on Friday night, kicking off the LA Times Festival of Books. 

Bill Beverly won for Dodgers (Crown) in the Best MysteryThriller category.

Also nominated in the Best Mystery/Thriller category: 
His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Skyhorse)
The Girls by Emma Cline (Random House)
The North Water by Ian McGuire (Henry Holt
Darktown by Thomas Mullen (37 Ink/Atria Books).

Hat Tip: TheRapSheet