Bill Crider reports the results of the 2010 Edgar Awards: John Hart wins the Best Novel award for The Last Child (I agree) and Stefanie Pintoff wins the Best First Novel by an American Author award for In the Shadow of Gotham (I disagree, but it’s not completely unexpected).
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.
Pheonix Noir! Didn’t see that one coming, especially with two entries from Boston (and one of those being a story from Lehane). I guess putting out more noir-themed series in a year than most people will read in a lifetime really helps your odds (three out of five entries for Akashic Books).