They say April showers bring May flowers. Let’s see what April haiku bring: …
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The first moral of this story is: if you like mysteries, read The Last Child. Additionally, the story “Amapola,” by Luis Alberto Urrea, published in Phoenix Noir, won the Edgar for Best Short Story. The City Noir series seems solid, Mike Beeman liked Boston Noir very much. I missed one and hit one, I’m pretty happy with that first average. I’ll try to improve/expand in year two. And there’s one other takeaway: David Cristofano’s The Girl She Used to Be didn’t win and hence the world did not end. Girl was one of the worst books I’ve read in years, and its loss is right up there with Avatar not winning an Oscar. Character is not dead. You can relive the entire C4 Edgar series at this link. And you can see the full list of winners here. [Since 1954, the Mystery Writers of America have given Edgar Awards to the best work done each year in the mystery genre. I've spent the past two months reading 12 novels nominated for 2010 Edgars in two top categories. In two posts today, I'll recap each novel, and handicap the two categories before the awards are presented tonight. This post will focus on the Best Novel category; click here for Best First Novel by an American Author).]
That said, a quick word on how I ordered my own rankings: suspense. Quality matters, but I gave my #1 to the most suspenseful book in the category (and in the whole of the Edgars). As for this post itself, it will do a few different jobs (if you read the Best First Novel post already, skip right to the jump). First of all, it’ll provide quick summaries and capsule reviews of all six novels nominated for Best Novel. Secondly, this post reflects my own rankings of these six novels. #1 is my favorite, #6 my least favorite. Thirdly, I’ll estimate the odds of each book actually being picked by the judges. So the odds don’t necessarily match up with my rankings (especially my top three). Now then: get out there and gamble! (Unless I’m somehow liable for your gambling using these odds, in which case: get out there and non-monetarily enjoy the knowledge of which books I think have the best chances of winning!) Hit the jump to see my pick for Best Novel. Click the links to read the full reviews of these books. … [Since 1954, the Mystery Writers of America have given Edgar Awards to the best work done each year in the mystery genre. I've spent the past two months reading 12 novels nominated for 2010 Edgars in two top categories. In two posts today, I'll recap each novel, and handicap the two categories before the awards are presented tonight. This post will focus on the Best First Novel by an American Author category; click here for Best Novel. ]
To make a mystery novel good, it helps to have good characters, an original premise, a cool or unique idea, and richly detailed scenes and settings. But without suspense, that cake don’t rise. Suspense keeps the pages turning, it keeps you up late, and it makes you miss your stop on the subway. That’s my one-step litmus test for good mystery (if you’ve got other ideas, by all means, please leave them in the comments). This post will serve a few different purposes. First of all, it’ll provide quick summaries and capsule reviews of all six novels nominated for Best First Novel. Secondly, this post reflects my own rankings of these six novels. The first one listed is my favorite, the one I would give the Edgar to, based on my suspense-is-king philosophy. From there it goes in order of preference down to Cristofano. Thirdly, I’ll estimate the odds of each book actually winning. When the odds don’t match the rankings, that’s where I think me and the judges will differ. This should give you an idea of how closely matched the novels are, and it should also give you something to gamble on today. Those odds are also subjective and made up, so take that into account. Without further ado, let’s get to it. Hit the jump to see my pick for Best First Novel by an American Author. Click the links to read the full reviews of these books. … [2010 Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel---see reviews of other 2010 Edgar noms here.]
Washington Square Press, 2009 Filed under: Mystery
In A Beautiful Place to Die, a Johannesburg detective, Emmanuel Cooper, travels into the “deep country” of South Africa to investigate a hoax in a small town called Jacob’s Rest. It turns out to be a real case, the murder of a white police captain, possibly by a black or “coloured” (meaning, roughly, mixed-race) worker. Beautiful takes place in the early 1950s, when race relations in SA were strictly governed by the Immorality Act, which explicitly bans interracial sex, and implicitly bans most other kinds of interracial contact. The themes of race, racism and morality not only serve as emotional undercurrents, they also actively influence the case and Emmanuel’s attempt to solve it. The investigation is further complicated by small-town politics, national politics, laws, secrets, vendettas, bigotry, and more. It’s a case that could cost Emmanuel his career or even his life, and a very solid premise for a novel. Additionally, Malla Nunn is the best prose stylist among the Edgar nominees…. when she wants to be. The first half of this novel is enjoyable and engrossing, thanks in no small part to her style and the lush, brutal setting. The second half is solid, but bows more to plot and the mechanics of the case, and forgets the fractured soul of the country Emmanuel finds himself in. …
2010, Spiegel & Grau Filed Under Literary
I feel conflicted about about panning this book. I really didn’t want to. I wanted to love Beatrice and Virgil (although when I heard Martel describe his next project as “a conversation taking place between two animals on a shirt,” I cringed). I did not let the many acerbic reviews it received everywhere stop me from buying the book because I felt that, as a fan of his other work, I owed it to the author and myself to find out first-hand. I loved Life of Pi. I loved Martel’s short story collection,The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, which I bought immediately after reading his Booker Prize winning novel. If you haven’t read either, do yourself a favor and grab them. And if you enjoy them, too, do yourself another favor and stop right there. … Drop everything and read Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre, now. See other entries in this series here.
Pierre’s debut novel, Vernon God Little, won the Booker when he was 42. In it, our hero and narrator is Vernon Little, an awkward teenager in the small town of Martirio, Texas. Vernon’s voice is a mix of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye and Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. In other words, funny, quirky, cutting, perceptive, and with a realistic hillbilly twang. Before the novel begins, Vernon’s best friend, Jesus Navarro, opened fire in the middle of the high school and killed many people before turning the gun on himself. Since Jesus is gone, the town wants someone else to blame, and they settle on Vernon. Those previous two paragraphs don’t seem to work too well together. But Pierre somehow pulls it off and Vernon God Little is the funniest book about a school shooting that you’ll ever read. … [2010 Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel---see reviews of other 2010 Edgar noms here.]
Minotaur, 2009 Filed under: Literary
I was surprised by how much I liked The Odds. It’s not a mystery, for one thing, despite what its cover says. It also starts slowly, with a large cast of characters and perspectives connected in a languidly moving series of interactions. The plot never really thickens or twists, it just ambles along the track it initially lays out. Mostly, that track centers around a quartet of orphaned kids—the Philips children—trying to live on their own, without being split up by the foster care system. There are complications, but most of the drama comes from these honest, unselfish children carving out a place for themselves and watching out for each other. It’s not the kind of thing I usually like, but Kathleen George never lets it get cloying or cliched, in the way that kind of thing usually gets. Basically, we’ve got a bit of a magic trick: The Odds is a simple story that’s much more enjoyable than any of its individual elements would lead you to believe. … This book has been chosen as a Great Read
Ballantine, 2009 Filed under: Literary
The ruin lifestyle is what a dude named Breez calls it in Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply. We’re at the brink of destruction: melting polar caps, ocean dead zones, a looming food shortage. “Before long,” Breez says, “the question will have to be asked: how quickly can you eliminate three or four of the world’s six billion people?” If you’re someone like Breez, the first step is to eliminate yourself. Leave home and slough off your original name and persona. Steal a new identity, or several. Live off of stolen credit cards procured with stolen birth certificates, and save your scammed cash in offshore accounts. Be Mark in Nevada, Vladimir in the Ivory Coast, Henry in Kiev. Never let anyone know who you really are. Forget everything about who you once were. The identity of the 21st century—fluid, malleable, subject to change without notice or warning. … |
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