The Short List

The winners of the 2008 Thriller awards were announced last week at the annual ThrillerFest gala. The 2008 Thriller Award Winners include:

For Best Novel:
THE GHOST by Robert Harris

For Best First Novel:
HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill

The 2008 Thriller Award Nominees include:

For Best Novel
NO TIME FOR GOODBYE by Linwood Barclay
THE WATCHMAN by Robert Crais
THE CRIME WRITER by Gregg Hurwitz
TROUBLE by Jesse Kellerman

For Best First Novel
INTERRED WITH THEIR BONES by Jennifer Lee Carrell
BIG CITY, BAD BLOOD by Sean Chercover
FROM THE DEPTHS by Gerry Doyle
VOLK’S GAME by Brent Ghelfi

Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, “a detailed account of the famous murder, in 1860, of a three-year-old child of a respectable middle-class family,” won of the £30,000 (US$60,064) Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction. Patrick French’s biography of V.S. Naipaul had been the favorite.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Samuel Johnson Prize. Sponsored by BBC Four, it celebrates diverse and thought-provoking writing in non-fiction. The prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English.

“The judges were unanimous: this is one of those great non-fiction books that uses the techniques of fiction to magnificent effect,” said judging panel chair Rosie Boycott. “On first reading, it is an absolute page-turner. Then, when you reread it, you realise how many levels it has, how much it tells you.”

The shortlist included:

The World Is What It Is: the authorized biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French - available in the US in November, 2008

Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart by Tim Butcher -available in the US in October, 2008

Crow Country by Mark Cocker - currently unavailable in the US

The Whisperers by Orlando Figes

The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross.

The what? “The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award is an annual award of 35,000 euros, ( almost $55,000) as such it is currently the world’s richest prize for the short story form. The award is in memory of the late Frank O’Connor, one of the world’s most renowned short story writers. The award is presented in O’Connor’s hometown of Cork, Ireland. It is organised by the Munster Literature Centre and funded by Cork City Council in association with the Irish Times.. The award goes to the author of the book judged to be the best collection of stories published in English for the first time anywhere in the world in the twelve months between September of one year and August of the next. If a translated book wins, the purse is shared equally between the author and translator.”

This year, the jury, in an unprecedented move, dispensed with a short list for the award and announced the winner outright: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth. Patrick Cotter, Director of the Award said: “With a unanimous winner at this early stage we decided it would be a sham to compose a shortlist and put five other writers through unnecessary stress and suspense. Not only were the jury unanimous in their choice of Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth as the winner, they were unanimous in their belief that so outstanding was Lahiri’s achievement in this book that no other title was a serious contender.”

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in England, in 1967, to Bengali parents who moved to America when she was three. Her first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize – and sold 600,000 copies. Her 2003 novel, The Namesake, was made into a successful film of the same name. Ms Lahiri lives in New York with her husband and two children.

A recent spate of quality espionage fiction has come to our attention bringing with it a return to Cold War-style spy stories of old. John le Carré created the yardstick by which most other spy novels are measured against along with a number of other contemporaries who propelled the genre forward with protagonists who were as morally ambiguous as their enemies. Le Carré returns this fall with A Most Wanted Man. Set in Germany, it chronicles the fate of a Muslim man who relocates to Hamburg to begin medical school but has a shadowy past that attracts the attention of intelligence agencies from Germany and beyond.

Robert Littell also produced well-crafted spy fiction in the 70’s and still continues publishing. His 2002 fictionalized account of the CIA, The Company, a bestseller, was made into a multi-part series by both the BBC and TNT. He has followed that up with Legends, a darkly humorous story about an aging spy’s identity crisis and Vicious Circle, an account of a kidnapping plot gone bad sending Israel and Palestine to the brink of collapse.

Charles McCarry had a small but devoted following in the 70’s for his books featuring CIA agent Paul Christopher. McCarry too, has seen a recent renaissance in his popularity beginning with Old Boys which brought back Paul Christopher and an aging group of fellow co-workers. Last year’s Christopher’s Ghosts continues the popular series.

We are lucky to have a cadre of newer writers to continue presenting espionage in the Cold War tradition. Olen Steinhauer has a first-rate series of books featuring Inspector Emil Brod set in a fictional Eastern European country. The first, The Bridge Of Sighs, nominated for multiple awards, begins at the end of WWII. The series closes at the fall of the Berlin Wall with Victory Square, portraying the corruption that has etched itself on Brod over the preceding 40 years.

Jenny Siler also writes as Alex Carr. Her books depict events still resonating in our society: Easy Money, portrays drug running with its origins in the killing fields of Vietnam, and An Accidental American covers the 1983 Beirut bombings. Carr’s newest novel brings us up to date, exposing the underbelly of Morocco in The Prince of Bagram Prison.

Alan Furst uses WWII and the days immediately following as glamorous backdrops for his espionage tales beginning with The Night Soldiers and continuing with the just-published The Spies of Warsaw.

Daniel Silva’s bestselling series starring Mossad agent Gabriel Allon carries on the tradition with his take-no-prisoners scenarios and plenty of action just begging to be bought up by Hollywood. His latest installment, Moscow Rules, is due out in July.

In a similar vein, but already cashing in on the Hollywood interest, is Robert Ludlum with Eric Lustbader and the Bourne series. The latest Bourne book, The Bourne Sanction, is due out the end of July.

Although William F Buckley is gone, he’s certainly not forgotten, and his bestselling Blackford Oakes series will continue to find new fans. Oakes, a CIA agent described by Buckley as being “distinctly American”, acquits himself with style and charm. The series begins with Saving The Queen and concludes with Last Call For Blackford Oakes.

Science fiction stylist William Gibson brings his expertise with cyberspace to the genre with two espionage novels that won critical acclaim: Pattern Recognition and Spook Country.

Last but not least, Ted Bell has produced an enjoyable spy series with Alex Hawke as the lead character who works for both the American and British governments. The series includes Hawke, Spy, Assassin and TSAR due out this September.

The long-awaited announcement of this year’s Dublin Prize is finally here. The winner is De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage. Hage beat out 136 other authors to win the 100,000 euro prize. See the longlist titles here and the shortlist titles here.

“De Niro’s Game is told through the eyes of Bassam, as he grows up with his childhood friend George, in war-ravaged Beirut. As the young men reach adulthood they must choose their futures: to stay in the city and embrace a life of crime or go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have known.”

Previous winners of the prestigious award include:
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (2007) and The Master by Colm Tóibín (2006)

Rose Tremain, one of Britain’s most celebrated authors, is £30,000 (about $59,000) richer after winning the Orange Broadband Prize last Wednesday-June 4th, with her book: The Road Home.

As descrbed by The Guardian, “The Road Home follows the story of Lev, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, as he tries to make his way in Britain. He sleeps rough on the streets of London; works in the kitchen of a Gordon Ramsay-style restaurant; and picks asparagus in East Anglia, falling in and out of love on the way.”

Other shortlisted books include:

• The Outcast by Sadie Jones
• Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill
• Lottery by Patricia Wood
• When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson
• Fault Lines by Nancy Huston

This is a popular time of year for book awards and the Agathas, presented by Malice Domestic, announced their winners recently. The Agatha Awards honor the traditional mystery–books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie.The genre is generally characterized by mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence; usually featuring an amateur detective, they have a confined setting and characters who know one another. Agatha Awards will be given for materials first published in the United States by a living author during the calendar year in hardcover, as paperback originals, or e-published by an e-publishing firm.

Nominees & Winners of Agatha Awards-Malice Domestic XX

BEST NOVEL

(Winner) A FATAL GRACE by Louise Penny

THE PENGUIN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH by Donna Andrews
HER ROYAL SPYNESS by Rhys Bowen
HARD ROW by Margaret Maron
MURDER WITH RESERVATIONS by Elaine Viets

BEST FIRST NOVEL

(Winner) PRIME TIME by Hank Phillippi Ryan

A BEAUTIFUL BLUE DEATH by Charles Finch
A REAL BASKET CASE by Beth Groundwater
SILENT IN THE GRAVE by Deanna Raybourn

BEST NON-FICTION

(Winner) ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE: A LIFE IN LETTERS by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley

BEST CHILDREN’S/YOUNG ADULT

(Winner) A LIGHT IN THE CELLAR by Sarah Masters Buckey

BRAVO ZULU, SAMANTHA! by Kathleen Benner Duble
COVER-UP: MYSTERY AT THE SUPER BOWL by John Feinstein
THE FALCONER’S KNOT by Mary Hoffman
THEODOSIA AND THE SERPENTS OF CHAOS by R.L. LaFevers

Richard Morgan’s novel Black Man, “a science fiction thriller, which follows a black, genetically-modified assassin, or Variant Thirteen, in pursuit of a serial killer,” has won the 2008 Arthur C. Clarke award for science fiction. The annual award is presented for best science fiction novel of the year and selected from a list of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year.

“There has been a lot of controversy about this year’s shortlist,” Morgan said. “It’s nice to have won against the mainstream contenders because it shows the genre has tremendous self-confidence.”

The shortlist included The Red Men by Matthew de Albuitia, The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter, The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall, The Raw Shark Texts by Stephen Hall and The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod.

This year’s Nebula Awards, sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, were announced this past weekend at the Nebula Awards banquet in Austin, Tex.:

• Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
• Scripts: Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro

The Edgar Awards have been presented each year since 1954 by the Mystery Writers of America and are named in honor of Edgar Alan Poe. This year’s winners were announced on May 1st. Please visit our earlier postings with the list of the award nominees. This year’s winners include:
• Best Novel: Down River by John Hart
• Best First Novel by an American Author: In the Woods by Tana French
• Best Juvenile: The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh
• Best Young Adult: Rat Life by Tedd Arnold

Fans of Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Mysterious Benedict Society, winner of the 2008 E.B. White Read-Aloud Award, will enjoy spending a rainy afternoon browsing The Curiosity Chronicle. Similar to other newspapers, there are articles about the characters and plenty of interesting things to learn. Readers will also enjoy the challenging puzzles and games. Perhaps this might be a good time to learn Morse Code.