Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: ITW Thriller Awards Nominees Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

Click here to see the 2024 nominees 

Apparently, this is turning into an awards list week on the blog. But The International Thriller Writers just announced their nominees and this is a not to miss award as resource for all public libraries.

Why?

Precisely because the award is so broad in the titles it considers. From the ITW's about page:

ITW represents professional thriller authors from around the world. 

The International Thriller Writers is an honorary society of authors, both fiction and nonfiction, who write books broadly classified as “thrillers.” This would include (but isn’t limited to) such subjects as murder mystery, detective, suspense, horror, supernatural, action, espionage, true crime, war, adventure, and myriad similar subject areas.

ITW’s mission is “To bestow recognition and promote the thriller genre at an innovative and superior level for and through our Active members; to provide opportunities for mentoring, education and collegiality among thriller authors and industry professionals; and to grant awards for excellence in the thriller genre.”

I highly recommend the ITW as a resource because as you can see in the section I bolded, this writers association represents a huge swath of popular authors and genres.

As a result, their awards lists are very helpful to identify books and authors that are perfect for a general public library audience.  Here is the current crop of nominees in 7 categories.

There also have a nice archive page linking to past nominees and winners here.

Below I have included the full nominee list to help you see how immediately useful these awards are as a way to understand a wide swath of books that are popular with a wide range of readers across many genre preferences. Also, I love the e-original and paperback original categories to find a little bit more off the radar titles that are still "sure bets."

Here is the full list:

BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL

S.A. Cosby – ALL THE SINNERS BLEED (Flatiron Books)
Robert Dugoni – HER DEADLY GAME (Thomas & Mercer)
J.T. Ellison – IT’S ONE OF US (Harlequin – MIRA Books)
Mick Herron – THE SECRET HOURS (Soho Crime)
Joe Ide – FIXIT (Mulholland Books)
C.J. Tudor – THE DRIFT (Ballantine Books)

BEST AUDIOBOOK

I.S. Berry – THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW (Atria)
Narrated by Pete Simonelli
Gregg Hurwitz – THE LAST ORPHAN (Macmillan)
Narrated by Scott Brick
Freida McFadden – THE HOUSEMAID’S SECRET (Bookouture)
Narrated by Lauryn Allman
James Patterson, Mike Lupica – THE HOUSE OF WOLVES (Hachette Audio)
Narrated by Ellen Archer
Emma Rosenblum – BAD SUMMER PEOPLE (Macmillan)
Narrated by January LaVoy

BEST FIRST NOVEL

I.S. Berry – THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW (Atria)
Amy Chua – THE GOLDEN GATE (Minotaur)
Margot Douaihy – SCORCHED GRACE (Zando)
Kerryn Mayne – LENNY MARKS GETS AWAY WITH MURDER (Bantam Books)
Steve Urszenyi – PERFECT SHOT: A THRILLER (Minotaur)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL

Tracy Clark – HIDE (Thomas & Mercer)
Luke Dumas – THE PALEONTOLOGIST (Atria)
Tess Gerritsen – THE SPY COAST (Thomas & Mercer)
Lisa Gray – TO DIE FOR (Thomas & Mercer)
Jonathan Maberry – CAVE 13: A JOE LEDGER AND ROGUE TEAM INTERNATIONAL NOVEL (St. Martin’s Griffin)
J. Todd Scott – CALL THE DARK (Thomas & Mercer)

BEST SHORT STORY

Chris Bohjalian – SLOT MACHINE FEVER DREAMS (Amazon Original Stories)
J.T. Ellison – THESE COLD STRANGERS (Amazon Original Stories)
Smita Harish Jain – AN HONORABLE CHOICE (Wildside Press)
Richard Santos – RUSH HOUR (Akashic Books)
Lisa Unger – UNKNOWN CALLER (Amazon Original Stories)
Stacy Woodson – ONE NIGHT IN 1965 (Down & Out Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

Sorboni Banerjee, Dominique Richardson – RED AS BLOOD (Wolfpack Publishing LLC)
Darcy Coates – WHERE HE CAN’T FIND YOU (Sourcebooks Fire)
Courtney Gould – WHERE ECHOES DIE (Wednesday Books)
Andrea Hannah – WHERE DARKNESS BLOOMS (Wednesday Books)
Elizabeth Wein – STATELESS (Little, Brown & Co.)

BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL

Jeff Buick – THE VULTURE FUND (Self-published)
Rona Halsall – THE BIGAMIST (Bookouture)
Matt Phillips – A GOOD RUSH OF BLOOD (RunAmok Books)
Lisa Regan – CLOSE HER EYES (Bookouture)
Robert Swartwood – THE KILLING ROOM (Blackstone Publishing)
Laura Wolfe – THE IN-LAWS (Bookouture)