by Ed Gorman
The Mystery Writers of America’s annual anthology had a theme of the policeman’s lot: The Blue Religion (Little, Brown), edited by Michael Connelly. A star-studded line-up contributed forensic mysteries to At the Scene of the Crime (Running Brook), edited by Dana Stabenow. In Killer Year (St. Martin’s Minotaur), edited by Lee Child, established thriller writers introduced new stories by some younger colleagues. Another showcase for lesser — known writers was the Chicago Contingent’s Sin: A Deadly Anthology (Avendia). Notable Italian writers contributed to Crimini (Bitter Lemon), edited by Giancarlo DeCataldo. The six British writers known as the Medieval Murderers got together on The Lost Prophecies (Simon and Schuster UK/Trafalgar), which is either a group novel or a collection of linked short stories. Killers: An Anthology (Swimming Kangaroo), edited by Colin Harvey, was devoted to “speculative mystery,” crossing crime fiction with science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
As for the reprint anthologies, comparing selections of the best of 2007 reveals the usual disparity. The precursor to the present volume, A Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories (Pegasus), edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, and The Best American Mystery Stories 2008 (Houghton Mifflin), from guest editor George Pelecanos and series editor Otto Penzler, had only one story in common: Michael Connelly’s “Mulholland Drive.” Joyce Carol Oates contributed to both books but with different stories. Maxim Jakubowski’s The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries (Running) was comprised of stories from 2006.
The Akashic Noir series has also branched out into reprint collections, including Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Lawrence Block, and D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, edited by George Pelecanos.
Important volumes for serious genre scholars were Early German and Austrian Detective Fiction: An Anthology (McFarland), edited by Mary W. Tannert and Henry Kratz; Gang Pulp (Off-Trail), edited by John Locke, history and examples of a Depression-era magazine category of short duration; and LeRoy Lad Panek and Mary M. Bendel-Simso’s gathering mostly from 19th — century newspapers, Early American Detective Stories: An Anthology (McFarland). Recycling a familiar title while combining anthology standards with less familiar stories was The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (No Exit), edited by Nick Rennison. While the older stories in Murder Short & Sweet (Chicago Review Press), edited by Paul D. Staudohar, have been reprinted over and over again, they would be a treasure trove for the newer reader who has never encountered them before.
Reference Books and Secondary Sources
Books about mystery and detective fiction had an exceptionally strong year. Mystery critic and veteran stage director Amnon Kabatchnik produced two superb references on theatrical crime: Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection: An Annotated Repertoire, 1900-1925 and Sherlock Holmes on the Stage: A Chronological Encyclopedia of Plays Featuring the Great Detective (both Scarecrow). The creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, who died in early 2009, was the subject of a major biography, Valerie Grove’s A Voyage Round John Mortimer (Viking). Kathy Lynn Emerson’s How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries (Perseverance) was one of the best technical manuals for crime writers I’ve ever read. And yet, in a competitive year, none of these even managed an Edgar nomination.
By far the most prolific publisher of books about mystery and detective fiction, ranging from the lightly fannish to the heavily academic, is McFarland. Their 2008 highlights included two of the five Edgar nominees: Frankie Y. Bailey’s African American Mystery Writers and David Geherin’s Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction. Also on their extensive list were Jeffrey Marks’s Anthony Boucher: A Biobibliography; Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris, edited by Benjamin Szumskyj; Marcia Muller and the Female Private Eye, edited by Alexander N. Howe and Christine A. Jackson; the same Alexander N. Howe’s It Didn’t Mean Anything: A Psychoanalytic Reading of American Detective Fiction; Minette Walters and the Meaning of Justice: Essays on the Crime Novels, edited by Mary Hadley and Sarah D. Fogle; Nancy Drew and Her Sister Sleuths: Essays on the Fiction of Girl Detectives, edited by Michael G. Cornelius and Melanie E. Gregg; Mark Connelly’s The Hardy Boys Mysteries, 1927-1979: A Cultural and Literary History; Stephen Sugden’s A Dick Francis Companion: Characters, Horses, Plots, Settings and Themes; and James Zemboy’s The Detective Novels of Agatha Christie: A Reader’s Guide.
University press offerings included Leonard Cassuto’s Edgar — nominated Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories (Columbia); and Sari Kawana’s Murder Most Modern: Detective Fiction and Japanese Culture (Minnesota).
For those interested in the intersection of fiction and film, Kevin Johnson’s The Dark Page: Books That Inspired American Film Noir [1940-1949] (Oak Knoll), a beautiful coffee table book originally published in 2007 as a $450 limited edition, became available for a mere $95.
Among the always plentiful Sherlockian volumes were Leslie S. Klinger’s Baker Street Rambles: A Collection of Writings About Sherlock Holmes, John H. Watson, M.D., Arthur Conan Doyle and Their World (Gasogene); Gary Lovisi’s Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective in Paperback & Pastiche: A Survey, Index, & Value Guide (Gryphon) and Richard L. Kellogg’s Vignettes of Sherlock Holmes (Gryphon). A landmark volume had a 75th anniversary edition: Vincent Starrett’s classic 1933 study The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Gasogene).
A Sense of History
For all the high-quality new work being published, there is always plenty of past crime and mystery fiction that merits rediscovery. While the major publishers occasionally contribute something important to the process, most of the load is carried by proprietors of small and specialty presses.
Tom and Enid Schantz of Colorado’s Rue Morgue Press introduced important new names to their impressive list: John Dickson Carr with two classic locked-room mysteries, The Crooked Hinge and (as by Carter Dickson) The Judas Window; and Golden Age giant H.C. Bailey with a pair of books about Reggie Fortune, Shadow on the Wall and Black Land, White Land. They also added three early titles by contemporary traditionalist Catherine Aird, four 1940s spy novels by Manning Coles, two classical puzzles by American Golden-Ager Clyde B. Clason, two by quirky British novelist Gladys Mitchell, and single titles by Glyn Carr, Delano Ames, and Colin Watson.
Greg Shepard’s Eureka, California-based Stark House continued its two-to-a-volume reprinting program with titles by Gil Brewer (including the 1950s paperback writer’s previously-unpublished A Devil for O’Shaugnessy), Mercedes Lambert (Dog — down and Soultown), Wade Miller (The Killer and Devil on Two Sticks, with an introduction by surviving partner Bob Wade), Richard Powell, and Peter Rabe.
Then there’s Charles Ardai, whose Hard Case Crime alternates new material with important rediscoveries. In 2008, he revived Steve Fisher’s No House Limit, with an afterword by the author’s son; Lawrence Block’s A Diet of Treacle and Killing Castro, two of his many early novels originally published under pseudonyms; and Shepard Rifkin’s civil-rights-era novel The Murderer Vine.
A very specialized reprinter (limited to one author) is Hollywood’s Galaxy Press, devoted to reviving the pulp stories in various genres of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. A sampling of his mystery and thriller fiction, including the novellas Spy Killer, The Chee-Chalker, and The Iron Duke, makes a strong case for his versatility and talent. Another pulpster paid new attention was Norvell Page, author of the short novels in The Spider: City of Doom (Baen).
Vampire fiction giant Bram Stoker got new respect in a couple of scholarly volumes: The New Annotated Dracula (Norton), edited by Leslie S. Klinger, and The Jewel of the Seven Stars (Penguin), introduced by Kate Hebblethwaite. Michael Dirda’s introduction to a new edition of Vladimir Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (New Directions) highlighted that world-famous author’s connection to detective fiction.
At the Movies
In a weaker than average year for motion pictures generally, the crop of crime films was terrific. Th
e Edgar selectors came up with an excellent slate, and there was no shortage of other viable possibilities.
First the five nominees, a group that reflected variety as well as high quality. The Bank Job, directed by Roger Donaldson from a script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, was a British big caper in which the targeted bank was on Baker Street. The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading was an espionage spoof with an ex-CIA agent’s memoirs as the MacGuffin. Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges was a darkly comic hitman story. Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One (original French title Ne le dis à personne) was a Gallic adaptation of a Harlan Coben whodunit. Transsiberian, directed by Brad Anderson from a script by Anderson and Will Conroy, offered two sure-fire elements for a movie thriller: trains and snow.
But there were plenty of other films that might have been honored in a weaker year. Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla was a welcome return to noirish comedy by the former Mr. Madonna. Director Clint Eastwood had two good films during the year: Changeling, scripted by J. Michael Straczynski, was a strong fictionalization of a notorious Los Angeles kidnapping case of the late 1920s, while the less obviously criminous Gran Torino, written by Nick Schenk from a story by Schenk and Dave Johannson, starred the director himself in a sort of coda to his Dirty Harry persona. Phillipe Claudel’s I’ve Loved You So Long (original French title Il y a longtemps que je t’aime), about a woman released from prison and the gradually revealed nature of her crime, starred Kristin Scott Thomas, who these days seems to do as many French as English language films. The Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie, directed by Brian Singer from the script of Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander about wartime attempts on the life of Hitler, turned out much better than its negative advance buzz suggested. Body of Lies, directed by Ridley Scott from William Monahan’s screenplay of David Ignatius’s novel, and Jeffrey Nachmanoff’s Traitor, from his story with Steve Martin, were good and very serious contemporary espionage thrillers. On the other hand, André Hunebelle’s OSS 117, written with Raymond Borel and Pierre Foucaud, was a broad and funny spoof of Jean Bruce’s novels about Bondish special agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath.
Two of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture arguably fall in the crime genre: the biographical film Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant from Dustin Lance Black’s script, concerned in part the murder of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, brilliantly played by Sean Penn; while the mystery of a woman’s Nazi past is at the center of The Reader, directed by Stephen Daldry from David Hare’s adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s novel.
John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, adapted from his play, was overlooked by both the Edgar and Oscar Best-Picture selectors, but for me it was the best mystery film of the year. One could argue that the mystery isn’t really solved and indeed there may not have been a crime at all. But the author and the great performers give the viewer-detective plenty of clues, maybe more than the stage version did, as to whether Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffmann) was actually guilty of the child molestation he is suspected of and exactly what Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) means in her final anguished speech.
Award Winners
Awards tied to publishers’ contests, those limited to a geographical region smaller than a country, those awarded for works in languages other than English (with the exception of the Crime Writers of Canada’s nod to their French compatriots), and those confined to works from a single periodical have been omitted. All were awarded in 2008 for material published in 2007. Gratitude is extended to all the websites that keep track of these things, with a special nod to Jiro Kimura’s Gumshoe Site.
Edgar Allan Poe Awards (Mystery Writers of America)
Best novel: John Hart, Down River (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
Best first novel by an American author: Tana French, In the Woods (Viking)
Best original paperback: Megan Abbott, Queenpin (Simon and Schuster)
Best fact crime book: Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Norton)
Best critical/biographical work: Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley, eds., Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters (Penguin)
Best short story: Susan Straight, “The Golden Gopher” (Los Angeles Noir, Akashic)
Best young adult mystery: Tedd Arnold, Rat Life (Penguin-Dial)
Best juvenile mystery: Katherine Marsh, The Night Tourist (Hyperion)
Best play: Joseph Goodrich, Panic (International Mystery Writers Festival)
Best television episode teleplay: Matt Nix, “Pilot” (Burn Notice, USA/Fox)
Best motion picture screenplay: Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Grand Master: Bill Pronzini
Robert L. Fish award (best first story): Mark Ammons, “The Catch” (Still Waters, Level Best)
Raven: Center for the Book in the Library of Congress; Kate Mattes, Kate’s Mystery Books
Mary Higgins Clark Award: Sandi Ault, Wild Indigo (Berkley)
Agatha Awards (Malice Domestic Mystery Convention)
Best novel: Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
Best first novel: Hank Phillipi Ryan, Prime Time (Harlequin)
Best short story: Donna Andrews, “A Rat’s Tale” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, September/October)
Best non-fiction: Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley, eds., Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters (Penguin)
Best Children’s/Young Adult: Sarah Masters Buckey, A Light in the Cellar (American Girl)
Lifetime Achievement Award: Peter Lovesey
Poirot Award: Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
Dagger Awards (Crime Writers’ Association, Great Britain)
Duncan Lawrie Dagger: Frances Fyfield, Blood From Stone (Little, Brown)
International Dagger: Dominique Manotti, Lorraine Connection (Arcadia Books)
Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: Tom Rob Smith, Child 44 (Simon and Schuster)
Best short story: Martin Edwards, “The Bookbinder’s Apprentice” (The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries, Constable, Robinson)
Gold Dagger for Non-fiction: Kester Aspden, Nationality: Wog; The Hounding of David Oluwale (Jonathan Cape; Random House)
New Blood Dagger: Matt Rees, The Bethlehem Murders (Atlantic)
Diamond Dagger: Sue Grafton
Ellis Peters Award (formerly Historical Dagger): Laura Wilson,
Stratton’s War
(Orion)
Dagger in the Library (voted by librarians for a body of work): Craig Russell
Debut Dagger (for unpublished writers): Amer Anwar, Western Fringes
Anthony Awards (Bouchercon World Mystery Convention)
Best novel: Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know (Morrow)
Best first novel: Tana French, In the Woods (Viking)
Best paperback original: P.J. Parrish, A Thousand Bones (Pocket)
Best short story: Laura Lippman, “Hardly Knew Her” (Dead Man’s Hand, Harcourt)
Best critical/biographical: Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley, eds., Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters (Penguin)
Special Services Award: Jon and Ruth Jordan for Crimespree Magazine
Lifetime Achievement Award: Robert Rosenwald and Barbara Peters
Best website: Stan Ulrich and Lucinda Surber, Stop You’re Killing Me
Shamus Awards (Private Eye Writers of America)
Best hardcover novel: Reed Farrel Coleman, Soul Patch (Bleak House)
Best first novel: Sean Chercover, Big City, Bad Blood (Morrow)
Best original paperback novel: Richard Aleas, Songs of Innocence (Hard Case)
Best short story: Cornelia Read, “Hungry Enough” (A Hell of a Woman, Busted Flush)
The Eye (life achievement): Joe Gores
Hammer Award (for a memorable private eye character or series): The Nameless Detective (created by Bill Pronzini)
Macavity Awards (Mystery Readers International)
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Best novel: Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know (Morrow)
Best first novel: Tana French, In the Woods (Viking)
Best non-fiction: Roger M. Sobin, ed., The Essential Mystery Lists for Readers, Collectors, and Librarians (Poisoned Pen)
Best short story: Rhys Bowen, “Please Watch Your Step” (The Strand Magazine #21, February-May)
Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award: Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death (Putnam)
Barry Awards (Deadly Pleasures and Mystery News)
Best Novel: Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know (Morrow)
Best First Novel: Tana French, In the Woods (Viking)
Best British Novel: Edward Wright, Damnation Falls (Orion)
Best Paperback Original: Megan Abbott, Queenpin (Simon and Schuster)
Best Thriller: Robert Crais, The Watchman (Simon and Schuster)
Best Short Story: Edward D. Hoch, “The Problem of the Summer Snowman” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November)
Don Sandstrom Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom: George Easter; Bill and Toby Gottfried
ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards
Author of the Year: Ian Rankin, Exit Music (Orion)
Breakthrough Author of the Year: Stuart MacBride,Broken Skin (Harper)