Edgar Nominees Announced. Let the Readfest Begin.

The MWA Edgar nominees have been announced, and as usual, up for awards are Books. That. I. Never. Heard. Of.  Given how many hours I devote to reading, what a high percentage of that time is mystery-and-crime-novel-specific, and the wide range of books I plow through in a year,  this is amazing.  Of the ten books , I have only read two (Gone and Bent Road).  You can read my gushing review of Gone here.

I am eager to begin my reading, rating and ranking.  This year, I have it on good authority that my reading and writing buddy Addy is going to do so, also.  You can find her here.

Here are the books I’ll be reading:

For Best Novel:

1. The Ranger by Ace Atkins (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
2. Gone by Mo Hayder (Grove/Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)
3. The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur Books)
4. 1222 by Anne Holt (Simon & Schuster – Scribner)
5. Field Gray by Philip Kerr (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons – Marion Wood Books)

And for Best First Novel by an American Author:

1. Red on Red by Edward Conlon (Random House Publishing Group – Spiegel & Grau)
2. Last to Fold by David Duffy (Thomas Dunne Books)
3. All Cry Chaos by Leonard Rosen (The Permanent Press)
4. Bent Road by Lori Roy (Penguin Group USA – Dutton)
5. Purgatory Chasm by Steve Ulfelder (Minotaur Books – Thomas Dunne Books)

I am also giving serious thought to trying to dig up all the nominees for best short story.  I love short stories, love to read them, love to write them, am only mildly annoyed by the formulaic ones and am rarely struck speechless by the truly awesome.  You will note that half were published in either Hitchcock or Queen – I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I let my subscription lapse, but I got annoyed by the number of clever, tricky, historical, or otherwise uninspiring stories published.  Perhaps I’ll resubscribe.

1. “Marley’s Revolution” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by John C. Boland (Dell Magazines)
2. “Tomorrow’s Dead” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by David Dean (Dell Magazines)
3. “The Adakian Eagle” – Down These Strange Streets by Bradley Denton (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books)
4. “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” – Down These Strange Streets by Diana Gabaldon (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books)
5. “The Case of Death and Honey” – A Study in Sherlock by Neil Gaiman (Random House Publishing Group – Bantam Books)
6. “The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Peter Turnbull (Dell Magazines)

This will be my third year blogging about the Edgars – you can see how I did in 2010 here and in 2011 here.  Superstitiously, I am determined to read them all in hard copy, not Kindle or iPad2 or iPhone or Nook… since I can only blame my Kindle for my performance in 2011.