Mystery Writers of America Announces 2011 Edgar Winners

29 Apr 2011 13:30 Africa/Lagos

Mystery Writers of America Announces 2011 Edgar Winners

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, April 29, 2011

NEW YORK, April 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce the winners of the 2011 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2010. The Edgar® Awards were presented to the winners at our 65th Gala Banquet, April 28, 2011 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

BEST NOVEL
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (Tom Doherty Associates – Forge Books)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard (Random House - Bantam)

BEST FACT CRIME
Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (University of Nebraska Press – Bison Original)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendezvouz with American History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton)

BEST SHORT STORY
"The Scent of Lilacs" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Doug Allyn (Dell Magazines)

BEST JUVENILE
The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler (Albert Whitman & Co.)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
Interrogation of Gabriel James by Charlie Price (Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers)

BEST PLAY
The Psychic by Sam Bobrick (Falcon Theatre – Burbank, CA)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
"Episode 1" - Luther , Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
"Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Evan Lewis (Dell Magazines)

GRAND MASTER
Sara Paretsky

RAVEN AWARDS
Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, Forest Park, Illinois
Once Upon A Crime Bookstore, Minneapolis, Minnesota

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA's Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 27, 2011)
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

The EDGAR (and logo) are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

SOURCE Mystery Writers of America

CONTACT: Margery Flax of MWA, +1-212-888-8171; or Meryl Zegarek Public Relations, +1-917-493-3601

Web Site: http://www.mysterywriters.org

About the Best Novel The Lock Artist



Amazon Best Books of the Month, January 2010: Mike Smith is a "boxman." He can open any safe, padlock, or locked door without a combination or a key--a talent that lands him in prison at the age of eighteen. He spends his time writing down the story of his life because that's the only way he can share it. He hasn't spoken in ten years. Not a single word since the tragic day he became known as the "Miracle Boy." Mike is one of those unreliable narrators you can't help rooting for--a traumatized soul fighting his way back from the brink--and the mystery of his silence will have you blazing through pages. A smart, inventive thriller, The Lock Artist is packed with a standout cast of characters, plus enough safe-cracking trade secrets to tempt you to dig up that old combination lock and test your newfound knowledge. --Daphne Durham --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

How to celebrate World Book Day on Saturday

The World Book Day is on Saturday April 23. Do you have special plans to celebrate it? It is good that it comes with the Easter  Weekend of 2011.  You can have book shows even right there inside your living room by inviting your friends and neighbours to join you to talk about favourite books and share books with reading sessions. If there is no space indoors, then make it an outdoor event. You should give gifts of books instead of cookies and dresses, except gadgets like Kindle from Amazon.com. For the romantic lovers or couples, have a romantic date visiting the library, The Media Hub at The Palms in Lekki, Lagos or have a romantic evening indoors reading prose, drama or poetry.  Visit book sites, bookshops online and offline and read that BOOK you have not had the quality time to read. Have a beautiful and wonderful World Book Day on Saturday and share your experience on Nairaland or send it  to me on www.bookalleria.com for publication. 

Barbara Kingsolver wins Orange Prize for Fiction

Kingsolver crowned Orange winner


Barbara Kingsolver wins Orange Prize for Fiction

Barbara Kingsolver has won this year's Orange Prize for Fiction with her sixth novel The Lacuna.



The US author beat favourite, Booker prize-winner Hilary Mantel, and four other writers, to take the £30,000 prize at a central London ceremony.

The award, which recognizes the work of fiction written by women from around the world, is now in its 15th year.

Author and TV producer Daisy Goodwin, chair of the judges, praised the winning book's "breathtaking scale".

Kingsolver was presented with her award by Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall, at an awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday.

Click here for more details.

Click here to buy The Lacuna.

Fake Prophet, Madam Boy’s Quarters, Iyobosa and other Nigerians

Fake Prophet, Madam Boy’s Quarters, Iyobosa and other Nigerians

In his gripping play, The Anger of Unfulfillment, Jekwu Ozoemene has captured the heart and soul of the disenchantment and discontentment of majority of Nigerians in his contemporary analysis of the Nigerian crisis.
The title of his captivating book of three plays is deduced from the indignation of the victims of the lingering anomie plaguing Nigeria as desperate times call for desperate measures in the struggle for survival and a sense of belonging. The author gives us a naturalistic montage of glaring realities of the challenges of living and working in Nigeria under a corrupt government of kleptomaniacs.

He takes us into the human trafficking ring of the fake Prophet, a tall bald and bearded middle-aged man with an imposing stature and his bootylicious assistant Madam Boy’s Quarters who must have been a Nigerian prostitute in Italy and their willing clients posing as the congregation of the fake duo posturing as ministers of a Christian fellowship. The well educated non-compromising and hopeful Adesuwa who uses her blog to expose the ills in the Nigerian society and her hopeless squatter Iyobosa, the flirtatious drama queen who has lost faith in the Nigerian Dream and exploits her sexuality to comfort herself show us the contrasts of two young Nigerian women who respond to the Nigerian crisis with positive and negative resolutions. Nari, aka “General Tinker-Tailor” the Niger Delta militant with his comrades Zino and Marshall tell us the raison d'être of their revolutionary mission for resource control for which they were ready to die. The Narrator who is also Greg the repentant 419 fraudster with the hilarious Ben and Orji binging at the local bar give us informed commentary on the social, political and economic malaise in the country.

Through these principal characters Ozoemene has succeeded to use the picture of each one to capture the psyche of the unfortunate victims of the corrupt ruling class.

The other plays address other unavoidable issues such as the fears and ignorance of the scourge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in “Hell’s Invitation” where I could see another Adesuwa in the intelligent Stella who is the only female among four young men and they are all unemployed graduates from different tribes sharing a room with only one bed and discussing the nightmares haunting their Nigerian Dream. The exciting prospects of a dream job for one of them are soon threatened by the fears of having a compulsory HIV test. In the last play “This Time Tomorrow” Ozoemene takes us into the theatre world and probably reminiscent of his days with Theatre 15 at the University of Lagos where he studied English. The principal characters address the ethics and economics of the Nigerian family, social and political sensibilities of the old and young people in Nigeria.

Ozoemene’s characters are real people one can actually recognize among us in the Nigerian society and most of them like Madam Boys’s Quarters, Nari, Iyobosa, Orji, Bimbo, Aliyu, Papa Ruka, the eccentric Professor and his wife Folake,his brilliant and smart son Jide and daughter Keji with her sexy swagger are going to end up among the most memorable characters in Nigerian drama.

If you really want to know what life is like in Nigeria in the last decade of the 20th century and in the first decade of the 21st century and how her citizens have been reacting to the challenges of surviving and succeeding in spite of the embarrassment and harassment of a corrupt government, then you should read Jekwu Ozoemene’s The Anger of Unfulfillment: Three Plays Out of Nigeria. It is a good recommendation in every collection of must read books.


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima
Thursday April 7, 2011.

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