When Edgar Met Johnny

It’s (a slightly belated) three cheers, two stools and a resounding ‘Huzzah!’ for John Connolly (right), who took home a prestigious Edgar Award last weekend for his short story, ‘The Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository’. Not too shabby, as they say, not by a long chalk, and CAP Towers was en fete for the weekend after the news filtered through. And while we’re on the subject, John’s current offering, the latest Charlie Parker novel THE WOLF IN WINTER, is a rather fine piece of work too …

  Elsewhere, and staying with the topic of awards, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville (along with Gene Kerrigan) have been nominated for Barry Awards. Well, it’s a hearty congratulations to both, again, on the news that they’ve been longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, which will be awarded at the Harrogate Festival in July. Stuart has been nominated for RATLINES, while Adrian’s nomination is for I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET. Both are terrific novels, in my opinion, but the competition is fierce: the longlist also includes Lee Child, Denise Mina, Ian Rankin, Cathi Unsworth and Belinda Bauer, among others. The shortlist will be announced on July 1st, by the way, and there’s a public voting system for narrowing down the longlist: if you’re so inclined, you’ll find all the details here.

Stuart Neville And The Case Of The Peculier Shortlist

Hearty congrats to Stuart Neville, who was yesterday shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, the winner of which will be announced at the Harrogate Festival later this month. The Old Peculier is a beat or two off the pace, so Stuart was shortlisted for 2011’s STOLEN SOULS rather than last year’s RATLINES, and he faces some stiff competition, including Mark Billingham and last year’s winner, Denise Mina. The full line-up runs like this:

Rush Of Blood – Mark Billingham (Little Brown)
Safe House - Chris Ewan (Faber and Faber)
The Lewis Man – Peter May (Quercus)
Gods And Beasts – Denise Mina (Orion)
Stolen Souls – Stuart Neville (Vintage)
A Dark Redemption – Stav Sherez (Faber and Faber)

  For all the details of how you – yes, YOU! – can vote for this award, clickety-click here …

A Peculier State Of Affairs

It’s turning into a week of awards and short- and longlists here at Crime Always Pays. Today it’s the turn of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, which issued a 13-strong longlist yesterday. It’s a very strong field, but I reckon the two Irish writers, Gene Kerrigan and Stuart Neville, have a pretty decent shot at making the shortlist, and maybe even winning the award outright (Gene Kerrigan’s THE RAGE, of course, has already won the CWA Gold Dagger). To wit:

The Guilty One – Lisa Ballantyne (Piatkus)
Finders Keepers – Belinda Bauer (Transworld)
Rush Of Blood – Mark Billingham (Little Brown)
Dead Scared – S J Bolton (Corgi, Transworld)
The Affair – Lee Child (Transworld)
A Foreign Country – Charles Cumming (Harpercollins)
Safe House - Chris Ewan (Faber and Faber)
Not Dead Yet - Peter James (Macmillan)
Siege – Simon Kernick (Bantam Press)
Prague Fatale – Philip Kerr (Quercus)
The Rage – Gene Kerrigan (Vintage)
Birthdays for the Dead – Stuart MacBride (Harper)
The Dark Winter – David Mark (Quercus)
The Lewis Man – Peter May (Quercus)
Gods And Beasts – Denise Mina (Orion)
Stolen Souls – Stuart Neville (Vintage)
Sacrilege – S. J. Parris (Harper)
A Dark Redemption – Stav Sherez (Faber and Faber)

  The heartiest of congrats to all nominees. The shortlist will be announced on July 1st, by the way; for all the details, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, and on the subject of awards and the winning of, a big shout-out to Adrian McKinty, who has won the 2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Novel with THE COLD COLD GROUND. Quoth Adrian:

“I’m really very touched. I put a lot of my heart and soul into that book. It was both harrowing and strangely fun journeying back to the 1981 of my imagination and reliving those childhood days in Victoria Estate in Carrickfergus. I don’t find writing particularly easy and I’m not one of those 1000 words before breakfast types but occasionally during the writing process of this book I did feel that I was firing on all cylinders the way a top notch writer presumably feels all the time ...”

  For more on Adrian and THE COLD COLD GROUND, clickety-click here …

No Apostrophe? Now That Is Peculier

I’ve been more than a bit baffled over the last few years about the fact that John Connolly never seems to be nominated for the plethora of crime fiction awards. I wouldn’t mind so much if Connolly had, like so many successful authors before him, hit a plateau in terms of ability and ambition and was simply churning out the same book year after year. Anyone who has read his last two novels in particular, however, will testify that this is not the case; indeed, I’d argue that John Connolly is now writing the best fiction of his career. THE BURNING SOUL, especially, struck me as a very special novel, so I’m delighted to see that it has been recognised as such, and long-listed for the ‘Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (a much-coveted title, despite (cue pedantic harrumph) the criminal absence of an apostrophe in the title of a writing competition. If you tolerate this, then your children will be unpunctuated, etc.
 

I’m equally delighted to see that Stuart Neville has also been nominated for said prize, for COLLUSION, which is to my mind the finest of his three novels to date, notwithstanding the fact that everyone else seems to prefer his debut, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (aka THE TWELVE). COLLUSION has previously been nominated for the LA Times Crime / Mystery Novel of the Year, an award Neville won with THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, so the book has pedigree in this kind of thing.
  Either book has a very strong claim to actually winning the prize, although they’ll have to survive the shortlist cull first, which takes place on July 5th, I think; but they’re up against some very strong opposition, including novels from Val McDermid, Robert Harris, Denise Mina and Ian Rankin, not to mention last year’s most wildly overrated crime novel, BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by SJ Watson.
  For the full long-list line-up, clickety-click on the venerable It’s A Crime (or a Mystery) …

GALLOWS LANE: Vote Early, Vote Often

Good news for mild-mannered, Derry-based English teachers everywhere: Brian McGilloway’s GALLOWS LANE has made the cut for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and belated congratulations to him. The full short-list runneth thusly:

IN THE DARK – Mark Billingham
THE SURROGATE – Tania Carver
A SIMPLE ACT OF VIOLENCE – RJ Ellory
THE CROSSING PLACES – Elly Griffiths
DEAD TOMORROW – Peter James
GALLOWS LANE – Brian McGilloway
DOORS OPEN – Ian Rankin
CHILD 44 – Tom Rob Smith

  It’s a strong list, so whoever wins it will have their work cut out, and good luck to all contenders. If you’re Irish, however, and given that the government is waffling on about how an exports-led ‘creative economy’ will lead us out of recession, it’s your patriotic duty to vote Brian. The voting form can be found here, people, and the closing date for voting is July 21st: you know what to do …