Dilys Winn Award
The “Dilys” is given each year at Left Coast Crime by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) to the book we most enjoyed selling during the past year.
When Elves Attack, Tim Dorsey
Wicked Autumn, G.M. Malliet
Tag Man, Archer Mayor
A Trick of the Light, Louise Penny
Ghost Hero, S.J. Rozan – Winner!
Edgar Awards
The Edgars are presented annually by the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and are the most prestigious awards within the genre. The Edgars are presented in New York in April.
Best Novel
The Ranger, Ace Atkins
Gone, Mo Hayder
The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino
1222, Anne Holt
Field Gray, Philip Kerr
Best First Novel
Red on Red, Edward Conlon
Last to Fold, David Duffy
All Cry Chaos, Leonard Rosen
Bent Road, Lori Roy
Purgatory Chasm, Steve Ulfelder
Best Paperback Original
The Company Man, Robert Jackson Bennett
The Faces of Angels, Lucretia Grindle
The Dog Sox, Russell Hill
Death of the Mantis, Michael Stanley
Vienna Twilight, Frank Tallis
A bit of additional commentary on the Edgars. Here’s an anonymous account of the Edgar voting from an MWA member who headed up one of this year’s committees:
I can assure everyone that all of the books are sent to us and we read all or at least part of all books. I also think the committees are evenly balanced between men and women (on our committee–3 women and two men)–and geographically diverse as well. Speaking for myself–I just read the book and put the author out of mind. I tried not to pay attention to publisher or blurbs or anything else but the story that unfolded. We also discussed and discussed. I had a great committee I’m proud to say–and we took it really seriously. I will say that if we listed the top ten? You’d see more females on the list, but in the voting– the top five are the top five. I can highly recommend all of these books.
Well, that’s pretty scrupulous, isn’t it? And I’m sure everyone else on committees is just as scrupulous. What I do feel is that perhaps the MWA should consider adding a “traditional” mystery category, so that authors like Louise Penny, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Margaret Maron, Debororah Crombie, Erin Hart and Ellen Hart (I could go on, but you get the idea) would have a chance of being nominated and even winning. As it is now, the award seems very focused on the dark and noir, which is of course one of the strongest elements in our genre. But it’s not all of the genre, and for that reason, I think a lot of women writers get edited out of the process. It’s not honoring the whole genre, which I feel is a shame.
I do see that some women are slotted into the Mary Higgins Clark category – in fact two of the most gifted and original writers I’ve read recently, Elly Griffiths and S.J. Bolton, have surfaced there and won, but the parameters for that award are quite narrow. And it dismisses these wonderful writers, in a way. I do feel in the future the oversight of writers like Louise Penny (never nominated), Elizabeth George (who lost), Julia Spencer-Fleming (nominated but lost), and William Kent Krueger (never nominated) will be a bit glaring.
Most of the above authors (except Elizabeth George) have won the Dilys, I might add, an award based on sales and the fun of sharing the books. As you may also note, the lists this year do NOT overlap. And to push the point further, the Agatha Awards, which are given at Malice Domestic, are often almost exclusively female and do honor the traditional mystery. One author I mentioned this to said creating a new Edgar category would be like being on the sidelines of the main attraction. But I feel if the slant is so narrow, it should somehow be expanded. Just my two cents!