Special Collections
Edgar Allan Poe Award Winners (mystery)
Description: The Edgar Allan Poe Awards are given annually by the Mystery Writers of America to honor the best in the mystery genre. Bookshare is pleased to offer the following titles awarded the Edgar Award for best novel. #award
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Cimarron Rose
by James Lee BurkeTexas attorney Billy Bob Holland must confront the past in order to save his illegitimate son from a murder conviction in this brilliant, fast-paced thriller from beloved New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke.Lucas Smothers, nineteen and from the wrong end of town, has been arrested for the rape and murder of a local girl. His lawyer, former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland, is convinced of Lucas’s innocence—but proving it means unearthing the truth from the seething mass of deceit and corruption that spreads like wildfire in a gossipy small town where everybody knows everybody else’s business. Billy Bob’s relationship with Lucas’s family is not an easy one. Years back he was a close friend of Mrs. Smothers—too close, according to her husband. But when Lucas overhears gruesome tales of serial murder from a neighboring cell in the local lock-up, he himself looks like a candidate for an untimely death, and Billy Bob incurs enemies far more dangerous than any he faced as a Ranger. With the same electric language and hard-edged style that brought James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels to the forefront of American crime fiction, Cimarron Rose explodes with a harsh, evocative setting and unforgettable characters.
The Chatham School Affair
by Thomas H. CookAttorney Henry Griswald has a secret: the truth behind the tragic events the world knew as the Chatham School Affair, the controversial tragedy that destroyed five lives, shattered a quiet community, and forever scarred the young boy.
Layer by layer, in The Chatham School Affair, Cook paints a stunning portrait of a woman, a school, and a town in which passionate violence seems impossible...and inevitable.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Come to Grief
by Dick FrancisWhen ex-jockey Sid Halley becomes convinced that one of his closest friends--and one of the racing world's most beloved figures--is behind a series of shockingly violent acts, he faces the most troubling case of his career.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
The Red Scream
by Mary Willis WalkerTexas-based crime reporter Molly Cates has just published her first book, describing the blood-curdling exploits of serial killer Louie Bronk. Now on death row, Louie's sentence is about to be carried out. Molly will be there as a witness, and she wants to write about it--the final coda to Louie's story. But suddenly, she's being strongly discouraged by her boss at the Lone Star Monthly and by Charlie McFarland, the millionaire real estate developer whose first wife, Tiny, was Bronk's most famous victim--and the only one whose murder is a capital offense. Then Molly starts to receive dark hints that Louie may not have killed Tiny after all. There is another murder following Louis's M.O.--one he could not have committed. The veracity of Molly's book is threatened--and then her very life. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Molly realizes that by attempting to save Louis she is putting her own life on the line, and discrediting her own work. Mary Willis Walker brings a lusty new voice to the mystery scene. Already recognized for her first novel, she has now created a character just cheeky and gusty enough to take her place among the top ranks of female protagonists such as Kinsey Millhone and Kay Scarpetta.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Bootlegger's Daughter
by Margaret MaronUnconventional, still unwed (at the ripe old age of 34) North Carolina attorney Deborah Knott has done the unthinkable: tossed her hat into the heated race for district judge of old boy-ruled Colleton County. The only female candidate, she's busy defending indigent clients and reeling in voters. Then suddenly, the young daughter of Janie Whitehead begs her to help solve Janie's senseless, never-solved, eighteen-year-old murder. Deborah takes on the case: following twisted, typically Southern bloodlines, turning up dangerous, decades-old secrets, and inspiring someone to go on an all-out campaign to derail her future--political and otherwise. But it will take more than sleazy smear tactics to scare this determined steel magnolia off the scent of down-home deceit...even in a town where a cool slug of moonshine made by Deborah's father can go down just as smoothly as a cold case of triple murder.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner.
A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
by Lawrence BlockA successful socialite's beautiful wife was raped and murdered in her own home -- and Matt Scudder believes the victim's "grieving" husband was responsible for the outrage. But to prove it, the haunted p.i. must descend into the depths of New York's sex-for-sale underworld, where young lives are commodities to be bought, perverted...and destroyed.
New Orleans Mourning
by Julie SmithSkip Langdon, policewoman daughter of a social climbing doctor, solves the murder of a socially prominent New Orleans man. Rich with local color and history.
Black Cherry Blues
by James Lee BurkeDave Robicheaux was once a Louisiana homicide cop. Now he's trying to start a new life, opening up a fishing business and caring for his adopted girl, Alafair. Compared to Louisiana, Robicheaux thought Montana would be safe--until two Native American activists suddenly go missing. When Robicheaux begins investigating, he is led into the dark world of the Mafia and oil companies. At the same time, someone from his past comes back to haunt him. Someone who was responsible for Robicheaux's flight from New Orleans--someone who brutally murdered his wife--and now is after young Alafair ... Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, BLACK CHERRY BLUES spans from the mystical streets of New Orleans to the endless mountains of Montana, and ranks among James Lee Burke's finest work--an enduring classic , darkly beautiful and thrilling.
A Cold Red Sunrise
by Stuart KaminskyOne Dead Commissar. At an icebound naval weather station in far Siberia, the young daughter of an exiled dies under suspicious circumstances. The high-ranking Commissar sent to investigate the mystery suffers a similar fate: he is murdered by an icicle thrust into his skull. One Live Cop. Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is dispatched to solve the Commissar's murder, with one caveat: he is not to investigate the girl's death. Even if all the clues tell him that the two cases are linked. One Cold Killer. In a single, fateful day, Rostnikov will hear two confessions, watch someone die, conspire against the government, and nearly meet his own death. All under the watchful eye of the KGB -- and someone much closer and infinitely more terrifying.
Old Bones
by Aaron ElkinsAn Edgar Award–winning mystery featuring the forensic anthropologist hailed as &“a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth&”—from the author of Switcheroo (Chicago Tribune).&“With the roar of thunder and the speed of a galloping horse comes the tide to Mont St. Michel,&” goes the old nursery song. So when the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family falls victim to the perilous tide, even the old man&’s family accepts the verdict of accidental drowning.But too quickly, this &“accident&” is followed by a bizarre discovery in the ancient du Rocher chateau: a human skeleton, wrapped in butcher paper, beneath the old stone flooring. Professor Gideon Oliver, lecturing on forensic anthropology at nearby St. Malo, is asked to examine the bones. He quickly demonstrates why he is known as the &“Skeleton Detective,&” providing the police with forensic details that lead them to conclude that these are the remains of a Nazi officer believed to have been murdered in the area during the Occupation. Or are they? Gideon himself has his doubts. Then, when another of the current du Rochers dies—this time via cyanide poisoning—his doubts solidify into a single certainty: Someone wants old secrets to stay buried . . . and is perfectly willing to eradicate the meddlesome American to make that happen. Voted one of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association&’s 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century, and featuring &“a thrilling final scene,&” Old Bones will captivate fans of Kathy Reichs and Tess Gerritsen as well as readers of Aaron Elkins&’s popular Alix London series (Publishers Weekly). Old Bones is the 4th book in the Gideon Oliver Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
A Dark-Adapted Eye
by Ruth RendellA woman investigates the shocking secrets that brought down her once proud family in this suspenseful Edgar Award winner from a New York Times–bestselling author. Faith Severn has never understood why the willful matriarch of her high-society family, aunt Vera Hillyard, snapped and murdered her own beloved sister. But long after Vera is condemned to hang, a journalist&’s startling discoveries allow Faith to perceive her family&’s story in a new light. Set in post–World War II Britain, A Dark-Adapted Eye is both a gripping mystery and a harrowing psychological portrait of a complex woman at the head of a troubled family. Called &“a rich, beautifully crafted novel&” by P. D. James, Time magazine has described its author as &“the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world.&”
The Suspect
by L. R. WrightA beautifully crafted story about murder, and evil that is perhaps worse than murder. You will not find a more sympathetic murderer in all of literature. The author expertly leads to a conclusion that is both satisfying and disturbing.
Briarpatch
by Ross ThomasWhen Ben Dill, an investigator for a Senate Subcommittee, gets a call from his home town telling him that his sister, a homicide detective, died in a car bomb explosion, he puts his investigator skills to work to find who killed her and why.
Labrava
by Elmore LeonardJoe LaBrava first fell in love with femme fatale movie queen Jean Shaw in a darkened theater when he was twelve. Now he's finally meeting his dream woman in the flesh, albeit in a rundown Miami crisis center. Cleaned up and sober, though, she still makes LaBrava's heart race. And now that Jean's being terrorized by redneck thug Richard Nobles and his slimy Marielito partner Cundo Rey, Joe has a golden opportunity to play the hero. Or he could wind up the patsy--or dead--in the final reel.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner
Billingsgate Shoal (Doc Adams Mysteries)
by Rick BoyerWinner of the Edgar Award. Doc Adams becomes a self-styled investigator in this mystery, which leads him from a murder on Billingsgate Shoal to an arms-smuggling ring.
Peregrine (Otto Penzler Presents--)
by William BayerNewscaster Pam Barrett witnesses a peregrine falcon, on a signal by her falconer, swoop down from the sky and kill a young woman. Her TV account of it excites the falconer and killing follows killing. Police and the media compete to find the killer.
Whip Hand
by Dick FrancisEx-jockey and private investigator Sid Halley is approached by the wife of an elite racehorse trainer, who begs his help in figuring out why her husband's most promising horses have been performing so poorly. At first Halley thinks she's overreacting and the losing streak is just dumb luck. But now he's beginning to think it's something far more dangerous.
Maigret in Exile, The Rheingold Route, and The Murder of Miranda
by Georges Simenon and Margaret Millar and Arthur MalingMaigret in Exile by Georges Simenon
Inspector Jules Maigret has fallen into disfavor with his Paris superiors and has been shunted to a district supervisor's job on the northern French coast. Depressed and bored, Maigret regains a sense of purpose when a corpse is discovered in the house of a retired judge.
The Rheingold Route by Arthur Maling
An ex-U.S. Treasury agent is hired to smuggle money from England to Switzerland by a double crossing lawyer.
The Rheingold Route won the Edgar Allan Poe Award.
Murder of Miranda by Margaret Millar
Where is Miranda Shaw? She had just been widowed and her lawyer needs her signature for probate, but her mansion is empty and two addled teenagers, Cordelia and Juliet, are wearing her jewellery. Has she eloped? With Grady, the lifeguard at her club, who is also missing? Is she dodging her lawyer? Or has she been murdered ... ?
Eye Of The Needle
by Ken FollettOne enemy spy knows the secret to the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin -- code name: "The Needle" -- who holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory.
Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is beginning to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life.
All will come to a terrifying conclusion in Ken Follett's unsurpassed and unforgettable masterwork of suspense, intrigue, and the dangerous machinations of the human heart.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
A New York Times Bestseller
Catch Me Kill Me
by William H. HallahanThe kidnapping by Soviet U.N. officials of defected Russian poet Boris Kotiikoff sets off a flurry of searches by defensive U.S. government officials, CIA hatchet man Gus Geller, and dogged immigration and naturalization agent Ben Leary
Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner
Promised Land
by Robert B. ParkerThe Boston PI gets tangled in Cape Cod&’s criminal underworld in this Edgar Award–winning mystery from the New York Times–bestselling author. Cape Cod businessman Harvey Shepard is in over his head. He lost a quarter million on a shady real estate deal, the loan shark is circling, and now he needs a private investigator to find out where his wife, Pam, disappeared to. Spencer takes the case, but finding Pam isn&’t the hard part—the hard part is finding out she&’s suspected of a bank robbery that led to murder. Robert B. Parker&’s Spencer novels featuring the former boxer turned Boston PI are &“one of the great series in the history of the American detective story.&” Promised Land, the Edgar Award–winning fourth Spencer novel, was also adapted into the pilot episode of the classic tv series Spencer: For Hire (The New York Times).
Hopscotch
by Brian GarfieldBored with retirement, an ex-spy embarks on a dangerous game, in this Edgar Award winner from a crime writer who is &“one of the best&” (The New York Times). Miles Kendig is one of the CIA&’s top deep-cover agents, until an injury ruins him for active duty. Rather than take a desk job, he retires. But the tawdry thrills of civilian life—gambling, drinking, sex—offer none of the pleasures of the intelligence game. Even a Russian agent&’s offer to go to work against his old employers seems dull. Without the thrill of unpredictable conflict, Kendig skulks through Paris like the walking dead. To revive himself, he begins writing a tell-all memoir, divulging every secret he accumulated in his long career. Neither CIA nor KGB can afford to have it in print, and so he challenges them both: Until they catch him, a chapter will go to the publisher every week. Kendig&’s life is fun again, with survival on the line.
Peter's Pence
by Jon ClearyThe IRA attempts to steal treasures from the Vatican but their plans go horribly wrong.
Dance Hall of the Dead
by Tony HillermanDon’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+! The Edgar-Award winning second novel in New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman’s bestselling and highly acclaimed Leaphorn and Chee series“Hillerman is a wonderful storyteller.”—New York Times Book ReviewTwo Native American boys have vanished into thin air, leaving a pool of blood behind them. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police has no choice but to suspect the very worst, since the blood that stains the parched New Mexico ground once flowed through the veins of one of the missing, a young Zuñi. But his investigation into a terrible crime is being complicated by an important archaeological dig . . . and a steel hypodermic needle. And the unique laws and sacred religious rites of the Zuñi people are throwing impassable roadblocks in Leaphorn’s already twisted path, enabling a craven murderer to elude justice or, worse still, kill again.
