The Eye Lifetime Achievement Award:
Sara Paretsky
Best Novel:
WHILE I DISAPPEAR by Ed Wright (Putnam)
From Publishers Weekly
Former big-city newspaper editor Wright's stellar second John Ray Horn novel (after 2003's Clea's Moon, which won the C.W.A.'s Debut Dagger Award) legitimately merits comparison to the work of James Ellroy. A disgraced former movie cowboy and ex-con, Horn walks the mean streets of post-WWII Los Angeles in search of the brutal killer who snuffed out the life of Rose Galen, a faded leading lady who co-starred in one of Horn's films. A shameful secret from the victim's past forces Horn to challenge the official theory of the crime-that the killing was a random act. Aided by his current boss (and former faithful movie sidekick) Joseph Mad Crow, Horn pounds the pavement and reaches out to old friends to identify the source of Galen's guilty conscience. Wright does a superb job of integrating a fair-play whodunit plot into a hard-boiled setting rife with personal and official corruption. He also manages to invest bit players-such as a lonely old fellow boarder of Galen's at the down-and-out hotel where she died-with humanity and dignity that provide a striking and dramatic counterpoint to the warped inner lives of some Hollywood notables. Wright's narrative gifts mark the arrival of a significant new noir voice who hopefully has many more Horn stories in him.
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Book Description
The landscape and characters of post-World War II Los Angeles come brilliantly alive in Edward Wright's atmospheric new novel. Former actor John Ray Horn's ex- leading lady, Rose Galen, is now a faded beauty who wears her quiet desperation on her sleeve. But when Horn tracks Rose down to try to help her he only discovers that she's been viciously strangled to death. Horn's investigation into her death leads him back to the silent-film era and to a party at a Hollywood mansion where Rose's destiny changed forever.
This stunning crime novel takes you into Hollywood's un-derbelly during a time when the studio system was crumbling yet memories of the glory days were all too familiar.
Edward Wright brings back his "engaging cast of characters" (San Francisco Chronicle) into a more textured story and more complex mystery.
Best Paperback:
FADE TO BLONDE by Max Phillips (Hard Case Crime)
Best First:
THE DEAD by Ingrid Black (St. Martin's)
Five years ago Ed Fagan, the serial killer known as the Night Hunter, disappeared. Since then nothing has been heard from him. But now a Dublin newspaper has received a letter claiming to be from Fagan with a chilling message: he's going to kill again. The Dublin Metropolitan Police are inclined to dismiss the letter as a hoax, but when the body of prostitute Mary Lynch is found, they believe the murderer may well be Fagan. Saxon, a former FBI agent who was writing a book about Fagan when he disappeared, is certain that the killer is someone else. So while DCS Grace Fitzgerald and her team sniff at a cold trail, Saxon must somehow convince them to look beyond the obvious. But in a city of shadows and secrets, that's never going to be easy ?especially when the truth is so unexpected that even the most astute detective could be shocked into carelessness in the moment of discovery. And carelessness, in the presence of a killer, can be costly...
Best Short Story:
"Hasidic Noir" by Pearl Abraham (in BROOKLYN NOIR; Akashic Press)
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