The fifth nominee for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel continues the trend I noted in my most recent review – that is, the trend toward diversity in the genre. Lili Wright’s book Dancing With the Tiger straddles a variety of sub-genres. Think of it as the literary Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the plucky antiquities collector’s daughter Anna Ramsey in the Indiana Jones role. Here’s the set-up: Daniel and Anna Ramsey collaborated on a book about Mexican masks, only to find that the Ramsey collection featured several forgeries. There goes the plan to sell the collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art! Now Anna has the opportunity to go to Mexico and bring back the death mask of Montezuma, restoring their reputation and squashing the egos of their collector rivals, Mexican crime kingpin Reyes and American ex-patriat Thomas Malone.
Of course Anna’s quest is difficult. There is every possibility that she will spend her last dollar on another forgery. Or have her money stolen. Or have the mask be real, and the buy proceed smoothly, but then the mask is stolen. That last one is sort-of what actually happens, and Anna spends the rest of the book trying to recover it, with increasing desperation and a resultant willingness to confront danger. The “tiger” of the title is just one such hazard – a hit man who wears a tiger mask when fulfilling his assignments.
The book is told through a series of interweaving chapters with interweaving points of view, including the looter (the meth addict from Colorado who first digs up the mask), the collector (Anna’s pathetic father), the gardener (Thomas Malone’s employee who is more than a gardener and is in love with a young woman who sells stationery), the housekeeper (the gardener’s wife, who takes an unexpected heroic turn), and others. And Anna, of course.
The plot may meander a bit, but it gets there, and Wright has a beautiful way with language, lyrical and philosophical. There are multiple subplots that are interesting in themselves, and enrich the book. Anna’s story includes masquerading as a fact-checker and getting a job with Malone in order to get access to the mysterious shed where he keeps all his acquisitions – and then getting a huge surprise when she finds out that one of these acquisitions was the woman who preceded her as Malone’s assistant. I saw that one coming.
At the end of the book, many things have changed, and the mystery of Montezuma’s death mask is known only to the reader. I enjoyed Dancing With the Tiger and would recommend it. Wright’s approach to the story – with a myriad of characters, points of view and subplots – worked for me, but it does slow it down. In another writer’s hands, I could see this as a swashbuckling thriller, bloody and with more urgent pacing. This is a better book.
Again, tough to decide where to place Dancing with the Tiger in the Lunchbox ranking. It is extremely well-written and has a literary feel, like Dodgers. It’s got murder and mayhem… but then, they all do. At the end of the day, I just was not as engaged by this book as I was with the nominees. So while Tiger gets a thumbs up, it goes to the bottom of the list.
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iterary Lunchbox Rankings: Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, Best First Novel
- IQ by Joe Ide
- The Drifter by Nicholas Petrie
- Dodgers by Bill Beverly
- Under the Harrow by Flynn Berry
- Dancing with the Tiger by Lili Wright
“Lots of characters get compared to my own Jack Reacher, but Petrie’s Peter Ash is the real deal.” That’s the 
So, what are the odds? Like Dodgers, the third book nominated for the MWA Edgar for Best First Novel has an inner city, drug dealing-slash-thieving setting. It also is a coming-of-age story, as a young man grows into adulthood. But IQ, Joe Ide’s debut novel, is also funny and jam-packed with a cast of characters that is made for the big screen. It’s a trip in itself, but it also calls out for a sequel. Good news – E
Bill Beverly’s debut novel, 
Literary Lunchbox Rankings: Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, Best First Novel
At last week’s Academy Awards, several Oscar winners talked about how much it was an honor just to be nominated in their categories, and gave props to their fellow nominees. For the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards, it is truly an honor to make the final shortlist. I don’t know how many books are actually put forward for consideration, but it must be hundreds, and to have a book nominated in the Best First Author category is not only a fabulous acknowledgement of talent, but can be a career-maker.
Literary Lunchbox Rankings: Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, Best First Novel
This is the fourth in the series featuring Long Beach police detective Danny Beckett, and the books have been pretty popular, in large part due to the breezy good-natured personality of the main character. He likes his new girlfriend, spends a lot of nights at her place, but is a little shy about giving her the title. They watch Downton Abbey and agree that he’s a lot like Mr. Bates. He worries that his job makes him hard to live with, plus he snores. He says he’s really only good at two things: investigating homicides and denial. And maybe not really denial.
Lost Girls Last Up, Takes LL Edgar
When I reread a book for the Edgars, it’s a different kind of reading. It’s not just getting swept along by the story and connecting with the characters, I read for craft… how does the author put the story together, show the characters, manage the pace, reveal the secrets while maintaining the suspense? And the ending – is it satisfying, or does it just stop? (Or is it a set-up for the next book? Augh.) When it comes to these factors, Heather Young has done a fantastic job.
The Lost Girls is two stories, one in the past and one in the present, intertwined, and connected through a single family.
It all begins in 1935 at the summer house of a seemingly happy and well-to-do family. The father owns a pharmacy and is very religious. There are three girls. Lilith, the wild one, is 13. Lucy, the quiet middle sister, is two years younger. And the baby of the family, the cosseted Emily who rarely leaves her mother’s side, is six. And then one day, Emily vanishes. No trace of her is ever found, and the father kills himself just a few months later. Lilith, Lucy, and Eleanor, their mother, live together, year-round, in the house by the lake. There are lifelong secrets kept, not to be revealed until Lucy, nearing the end of her life, decides to recount the story of that summer and the years since then in a notebook she leaves for her grand-niece, Justine, whom she hasn’t seen in over 20 years.
Meanwhile, in the present. Justine is gobsmacked to hear from a lawyer that her great aunt Lucy has died and she is her heir. There is a house and money, but more than that – it’s the chance for a new beginning. Justine had a bad marriage and is making a worse mistake with her controlling, live-in boyfriend, Patrick. So she packs their bags, loads the girls in the car, and leaves her apartment key and a note that tells Patrick that there is spaghetti in the refrigerator, and takes her last bit of cash and drives cross-country. No credit cards, no cell phone – she simply does not want to be found.
A lot happens on the four-day trip and once gets there, she finds that the house is not in good shape, it’s scary cold, and Melanie, her older daughter, is sullen and resentful. And always there is the specter of Patrick. Justine works hard to make a life for herself and her girls, and slowly she is succeeding. She discovers the handwritten books that Lucy penned about her little sister Emily. Among them is Lucy’s story for Justine, although she doesn’t find it – Melanie does. They settle in and just when things seem to be going well, Patrick arrives, and with him, Justine’s crushing fear that she will give in and give up.
Rereading makes it clear that Heather Young is a skillful first-time author. Each story carries its own weight. Justine’s love for her daughters, her insight into her own weakness, her awakening courage and the strength to stand up to the manipulative Patrick – even when he goes so far as to set their house on fire so he can become, once again, Justine’s “savior,” is painfully true. Her small triumph is deeply personal and fulfilling.
And Lucy tells a story of her own awakening to the hidden depths and twisted relationships in her own family. Over that one summer, she comes to realize what all in her family know but don’t say – that her father is sexually obsessed with Lilith’s purity, and that once she is sullied, he will move on to Lucy. And then to Emily. And it is his obsession, and how it affects all three girls and their mother that summer, that results in Emily’s death, his death, and a drastically diminished life for the women. As she nears the end of her life, Lucy regrets her own part in the story and the choices she made. Young makes Lucy’s story – told in her own voice – compelling and real, and by recounting it chronologically, keeps us in suspense.
it’s clear that The Lost Girls deserves a spot at the top of the Literary Lunchbox Edgar rankings. Well-plotted, psychologically complex, optimistic and humane, it is a level above the other nominees, although they are all deserving of the nomination!
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Tagged Best First Novel, Heather Young, MWA, ranking, Review, The Lost Girls, winner