UK Specsavers National Book Awards

UK’s Specsavers National Book Award Winners

Crime & Thriller of the Year: For a novel in this genre from a UK author which has made an outstanding impact in bookselling outlets in terms of acclaim and sales

Winner: 
A Wanted Man by Lee Child (Bantam Press)

Shortlisted:
Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton)
A Question of Identity by Susan Hill (Chatto & Windus)
The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz (Orion)
Perfect People by Peter James (Macmillan)
Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina (Orion)

Scottish novelist Ian Rankin won this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award.

Hat Tip: Eurocrime

Random House Reissues John D. MacDonald Novels

This press release just in from Random House:

RANDOM HOUSE PLANS TO REISSUE JOHN D. MACDONALD’S CLASSIC TRAVIS MCGEE SERIES AND OTHER ACCLAIMED WORKS FOR THE FIRST TIME AS BOTH TRADE PAPERBACKS AND E-BOOKS

On January 8, 2013, Random House Trade Paperbacks will launch their new publishing program to release, for the first time ever, eBook editions of 70 of John D. MacDonald’s novels, including all of the Travis McGee novels which will kick off the program. At the same time, Random House will publish the McGee novels in trade paperback, starting with the classic THE DEEP BLUE GOOD-BY on January 8, with trade paperback reissues of the rest of the McGee novels below coming throughout the year.

In addition, Random House will publish some of MacDonald’s long-out-of-print classics as eBook-only editions, starting in June 2013, and will continue the trade paperback and eBook releases of MacDonald’s most notable stand-alone novels, including the iconic Cape Fear, throughout the year and into 2014.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short-story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1962, MacDonald was named a grandmaster of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980, he won a National Book Award. In print, he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life, he was a truly empathic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business, he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son, and died in 1986.

Peter Robinson's DCI Banks on PBS!

Thanks to The Rap Sheet for alerting me to this great news!

Peter Robinson reports on his Web site that DCI Banks, the UK TV production based on his long-running series of Inspector Alan Banks books, starring Stephen Tompkinson, “is coming to PBS all across the United States.” The series according to Robinson is set to debut here sometime in January.  Can't wait!!!

The other good news is that the DCI Banks is set to film a third series of six one hour episodes based on three books still to be determined. Filming will take place between August and November 2013, for broadcast early in 2014.  That, of course, is in the UK, as we have yet to see the first season.

Peter Robinson talks about the DCI TV series HERE:

2013 MWA Grand Masters, Raven, & Ellery Queen Awards

Ken Follett and Margaret Maron have been chosen as 2013 Grand Masters by Mystery Writers of America (MWA).

MWA's Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality. The award will be presented at the Edgar Awards Banquet, which will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Thursday, May 2, 2013. 

Ken Follett is the best-selling author of twenty novels, and has sold more than 100 million books since he began writing in the 1970’s. His career has been wide reaching and after mastering the mystery genre, he expanded into literary epic fiction, TV, movies and children’s books. Following Eye of the Needle Follett’s string of suspenseful and original thrillers included Triple, The Key to Rebecca, The Man from St. Petersburg and Lie Down with Lions. His sweeping historical drama Pillars of the Earth has been on bestseller lists for years, followed by World Without End, Fall of Giants, and Winter of the World. Follett lives in the U.K. with his wife Barbara Follett.

Margaret Maron is the author of twenty-six novels and two short story collections. Her first mystery, One Coffee With, was published in 1981, and was the beginning of her Sigrid Harald series featuring a New York City police officer. But it wasn’t until 1992, and a fictional return to her North Carolina roots, with Bootlegger’s Daughter (the first of the Deborah Knott series), that Maron was awarded an Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Macavity award. Maron’s works are on the reading lists of courses in contemporary Southern literature and have been translated into 16 languages. She has served as president of Sisters in Crime, the American Crime Writers League, and Mystery Writers of America. She and her husband live on her family's century-old farm a few miles southeast of Raleigh, which inspired the setting for Bootlegger's Daughter.

One mystery bookstore and one outstanding individual supporting the mystery book genre will be honored with the 2013 Raven Award. Established in 1953, the award recognizes outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing. The Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego and Redondo Beach, California, and veteran newspaper journalist Oline Cogdill will receive the 2013 Raven Awards.

The Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego was opened by Terry Gillman, Maryelizabeth Hart and Jeff Mariotte in 1993. The bookshop has not only served their customers, but has contributed to their community with several successful literacy programs benefiting local schools, libraries and businesses. In 2011, they opened the Redondo Beach store, in the greater LA area. This store has a state-of-the-art media room and adjoining café, and stocks some 15,000 to 20,000 books in a renovated 4,000 square-foot facility.

Oline Cogdill has been a journalist for more than twenty-five years, and is the mystery columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. She was awarded the 1999 Sun-Sentinel's Pettijohn Award and the 1999 Ellen Nehr Award for Excellence in Mystery Reviewing by the American Crime Writers League. Her reviews are syndicated nationwide.

The 2013 Ellery Queen Award will be given to Johnny Temple, founder and editor of Akashic Books. The Ellery Queen award is given to editors or publishers who have distinguished themselves by their generous and wide- ranging support of the genre.

In 2004, Akashic Books launched their Noir Series of short stories about a particular city. Brooklyn Noir was the first to be followed by fifty-five more. Pete Hamill, Laura Lippman, Dennis Lehane, S. J. Rozan, George Pelecanos, Ken Bruen, and Joyce Carol Oates are among the many contributors. Two stories published in the Series have won the Edgar for Best Short Story, and the Series has been recognized with nominations and awards throughout the mystery and literary world, from the Shamus, Derringer, Macavity, and Anthony Awards to the Pushcart Prize. Under the guidance of Johnny Temple, the Noir Series has become an important presence in the mystery community.

2012 WOLFE PACK AWARDS

The Nero Award is presented each year to an author for the best American Mystery written in the tradition of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories. It is presented at the Black Orchid Banquet, traditionally held on the first Saturday in December in New York City. That was last night.

And the winner is: Dana Stabenow for Though Not Dead (Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group). Her award was presented by Jane K. Cleland, chair of the Wolfe Pack's literary awards.

The Black Orchid Novella Award is presented jointly by The Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine to celebrate the Novella format popularized by Rex Stout. This year's winner is Robert Lopresti for "The Red Envelope."

***
The Wolfe Pack, founded in 1977, is a forum to discuss, explore, and enjoy the 72 Nero Wolfe books and novellas written by Rex Stout. The organization promotes fellowship and extends friendship to those who enjoy these great literary works of mystery through a series of events, book discussions, and a journal devoted to the study of the genius detective, Nero Wolfe, and his intrepid assistant, Archie Goodwin. The organization has more than 500 members worldwide.

Lawrence Block: Hit Me

Today I welcome back Lawrence Block, one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. Larry has been a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.

Lawrence Block: HIT ME 

It all started with a short story…

 “Answers to Soldier,” I called it. Keller, a hit man, flies from New York to Oregon, where the Witness Protection Plan has someone tucked away, running a Quick-Print shop. He makes the mistake of getting to know the guy, sympathizes with him, and has fantasies about giving up his trade and living a similar life, perhaps in that very town. He spends a few days bonding with the man, and even gets a realtor to show him houses.

Then one morning he comes to his senses, strangles the guy, and goes home.

The story worked nicely, but it was the character who lodged firmly in my imagination. I found more stories to tell about him, until I had ten of them; together, they amounted to an episodic novel, published by William Morrow as Hit Man.

The last chapter finds Keller ready to retire, and prepared to enliven his retirement by returning to stamp collecting, his boyhood pastime. But by the time the book ends, his hobby has made serious inroads upon his retirement fund, so it looks as though he may not be retiring after all.

 (“Retiring?” says Dot. “I can’t see it, Keller. Shy, maybe. But not retiring.”)

A second book, Hit List, has more of an ongoing arc to it, as Keller finds himself the unwitting target of another assassin. But it’s essentially episodic, because when you kill people for a living, well, you’re apt to be leading an episodic life. Hit List, too, was well received, and Keller was beginning to emerge as a guilty pleasure for a number of readers. “I found myself looking off into the middle distance,” a woman in Marin County told me at a reading, “and I actually said out loud, ‘Well, so he kills people. What’s so bad about that?’”

He killed some more people in Hit Parade. And then, in Hit and Run, he’s set up as the fall guy in a political assassination. His whole world falls apart, and the life he’s enjoyed for all these years is over. He winds up in New Orleans, with a new name (Nicholas Edwards), a new wife (the former Julia Roussard), a new profession (rehabbing houses in the wake of Katrina), and a baby on the way.

So he’s retired, right?

You’d think so. But stamps can be expensive, and Keller’s collection is quite advanced. (He collects worldwide issues from 1840 to 1940. So, as it happens, do I. How’s that for coincidence?)

And the economic meltdown has stomped the rehab trade flat as a fritter, and one day the phone rings, and it’s Dot.

Well.

Thus Hit Me. In it, Keller begins in Dallas, taking care of business between sessions at a stamp auction. Another assignment involving a felonious monk leads him to risk a return to New York, where someone recognizes him within hours of his arrival. Julia joins him on a Caribbean cruise, but he’s on his own when he flies to Cheyenne to look at a stamp collection—with side trips to Denver, where there’s a bit of business to sort out. And by the time he gets back home, he’s ready to retire for good.

Until one more call from Dot sends him shuffling off to Buffalo…

The advance reviews have been uniformly enthusiastic, and only false modesty prevents me from quoting them at length. Playboy, where most of Hit Man appeared initially as short stories, will run an excerpt of Hit Me in their January issue. Advance orders are strong, and we’ve had brisk sales for Mysterious Bookshop’s 500-copy limited Philatelic Edition http://tinyurl.com/d4nwt44.

All of this is gratifying, but while preparing this piece I’ve been struck by a theme that’s been a constant ever since that first story.

The poor bastard. All he’s ever wanted to do is retire, and he can’t stick with it.

Damn. I wonder what that’s like…

Lawrence Block with Ann Bannon, legendary author of 50s-era lesbian fiction