Using Awards Lists as a RA Tool: 2019 Edgar Award Winners

I feel like a skipping record sometimes, but people are always forgetting that awards lists are a great resource on their own, m beyond just celebrating the winners.  They are a chance to get up to speed in what is going on in a particular genre AND a tool for making great suggestions and displays

Since mystery is one of the most popular genres at the library, the Edgar Awards announcements are among the most useful of all of the awards, and they happened last night!

Why?

Well for the normal reasons, like:

• You can use the list of nominees and winners to see the current state of the genre
• The list gives you some sure bet suggestions in many categories
• It covers all age ranges of reading, nonfiction and stories-- all of which are very popular at the library.

But there are also other reasons why the Edgar Awards in general are among my favorite resources:

• They make accessing every year's list of past nominees and winners super easy with a database that can be sorted in multiple ways. I use this whenever I am looking for a "new to them" mystery suggestion for a patron. It has never failed me, even when I have been presented with a stubborn reader who has already claimed to have "read everything you have here." Nope, no you haven't. 
• They have a readalike award-- the Mary Higgins Clark Award-- for books that are like the way she writes. I LOVE THIS AWARD. Here is the link to only those winners and nominees from that aforementioned easy to use database. And this year's winner, The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Press – Soho Crime), is one of my favorite sure bet mysteries to suggest already [second book coming this year].
• I also like the paperback original category. This is a second way [along with best first novel] to identify up and coming authors.

Again, don't forget the vast resource that awards lists are. Here is a link to every time iu have blogged about this topic in reverse chronological order. Yes it is fun to celebrate the winners, but it is the list of all of the contenders AND the backlist of winners and contenders that taken together are a great resource-- for teaching you what's up in a given genre, collection development, displays, suggestions.... everything!!! And this is true for all awards.

Click here or see below for this year's winners and nominees. But again, use the database for great backlist titles.

The 2019 Edgar^® Winners and Nominees    
Winners are listed in red.
See the list of winners as a press release (PDF).

  Novel  •  First Novel  •  Paperback Original  •  Fact Crime  •  Critical/Biographical  •  Short Story  •  Juvenile  •  Young Adult  •  TV Episode  •  Robert L. Fish Memorial •  Mary Higgins Clark  • Sue Grafton Memorial
 • Grand Master  •  Raven Awards •  Ellery Queen Award 

Best Novel

               

The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard (Blackstone Publishing)
House Witness by Mike Lawson (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)
A Gambler’s Jury by Victor Methos (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley (Hachette Book Group – Mulholland)
Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne (Penguin Random House – Hogarth)
A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn (Penguin Random House – Berkley)

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Best First Novel

        

A Knife in the Fog by Bradley Harper (Seventh Street Books)
The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut (HarperCollins Publishers – Ecco)
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs (Simon & Schuster – Touchstone)
Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (HarperCollins Publishers – Ecco)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin Random House – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

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Best Paperback Original

            

If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
Hiroshima Boy by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park Books)
Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani (Penguin Random House – Penguin Books)

Under My Skin by Lisa Unger (Harlequin – Park Row Books

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Best Fact Crime

          

Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation 
by Robert W. Fieseler (W.W. Norton & Company – Liveright)
Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayalby Jonathan Green (W.W. Norton & Company)
The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure
by Carl Hoffman (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Penguin Random House – Viking)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killerby Michelle McNamara (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper)

The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia
by Alex Perry (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)

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Best Critical/Biographical

        

The Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories and Other Detective Fiction
by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland Publishing)
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
by Alice Bolin (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks)
Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s  
by Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus Books)
Mark X: Who Killed Huck Finn's Father? by Yasuhiro Takeuchi (Taylor & Francis – Routledge)
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)

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Best Short Story

“Rabid – A Mike Bowditch Short Story” by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books)
“Paranoid Enough for Two” – The Honorable Traitors by John Lutz (Kensington Publishing)
“Ancient and Modern” – Bloody Scotland by Val McDermid (Pegasus Books)
“English 398: Fiction Workshop” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Art Taylor (Dell Magazines)“The Sleep Tight Motel” – Dark Corners Collection by Lisa Unger (Amazon Publishing)

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Best Juvenile

      

    

Denis Ever After by Tony Abbott (HarperCollins Children’s Books – Katherine Tegen Books)
Zap! by Martha Freeman (Simon & Schuster – Paula Wiseman Books)
Ra the Mighty: Cat Detective by A.B. Greenfield (Holiday House)
Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (Christy Ottaviano Books – Henry Holt BFYR)
Otherwood by Pete Hautman (Candlewick Press)
Charlie & Frog: A Mystery by Karen Kane (Disney Publishing Worldwide – Disney Hyperion)
Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground by T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press

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Young Adult

    

Contagion by Erin Bowman (HarperCollins Children’s Books – HarperCollins)
Blink by Sasha Dawn (Lerner Publishing Group – Carolrhoda Lab)
After the Fire by Will Hill (Sourcebooks – Sourcebooks Fire)
A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma (Algonquin Young Readers)

Sadie by Courtney Summers (Wednesday Books)

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TV Episode Teleplay

“The Box” - Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Teleplay by Luke Del Tredici (NBC/Universal TV)
“Season 2, Episode 1” – Jack Irish, Teleplay by Andrew Knight (Acorn TV)
“Episode 1” – Mystery Road, Teleplay by Michaeley O’Brien (Acorn TV)
“My Aim is True” – Blue Bloods, Teleplay by Kevin Wade (CBS Eye Productions)

“The One That Holds Everything” – The Romanoffs, Teleplay by Matthew Weiner & Donald Joh (Amazon Prime Video)

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Robert L. Fish Memorial

“How Does He Die This Time?” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Nancy Novick (Dell Magazines)

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Mary Higgins Clark

        

A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur Books)
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Publishing)
Bone on Bone by Julia Keller (Minotaur Books)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Press – Soho Crime)A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier (Minotaur Books)

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The G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Awards

Lisa Black, Perish – Kensington
Sara Paretsky, Shell Game, HarperCollins – William Morrow
Victoria Thompson, City of Secrets, Penguin Random House – Berkley
Charles Todd, A Forgotten Place, HarperCollins – William Morrow
Jacqueline Winspear, To Die But Once, HarperCollins – Harper

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Grand Master

Martin Cruz Smith

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Raven Award

Marilyn Stasio, Mystery Book Reviewer - New York Times 

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Ellery Queen Award

Linda Landrigan, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine