Best Novel Barry Award
THE ENEMY, Lee Child
New Year's Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. Soon America won't have any enemies left to fight. The army is under pressure to downsize. Jack Reacher is the duty Military Police officer on a base in North Carolina when he takes a call reporting a dead soldier. The body was found in a sleazy motel used by local hookers. Reacher tells the local cop to handle it - it sounds like the guy just had a heart attack. But the dead man turns out to have been a two-star general on a secret mission. And then, many miles away, when Reacher goes to the general's house to break the sad news, he finds a battered corpse: the general's wife. Lee Child's new stomach-churning, palm-sweating thriller turns back the clock to Jack Reacher's army days. For the first time we meet a younger Reacher, a Reacher not yet disillusioned with military life. A Reacher with family. A Reacher in dogtags and starched uniform who imposes army discipline, if only in his own pragmatic way. A Reacher as far from the no-credit card, no-last-known-address drifter of the previous eight novels as is possible to imagine.
Best First Novel Barry Award
THE SHADOW OF THE WIND, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.
Best British Crime Novel Barry Award
FLESH & BLOOD, John Harvey
Following his wife's betrayal and his own retirement from the force, Detective Inspector Elder has fled as far as it is possible to go in England without running out of land. But he is haunted by the past and in particular by the unsolved disappearance of 16-year-old Susan Blacklock.
Best Paperback Original Barry Award
TAGGED FOR MURDER, Elaine Flinn
Best Thriller Barry Award
RAIN STORM by Barry Eisler
Critics praised Barry Eisler's first two novels, Rain Fall and Hard Rain, calling Japanese-American John Rain, the cynical, romantic, conscientious assassin, "one of the most memorable characters in recent thrillers" (San Jose Mercury News) and "a remarkable creation, a multifaceted killer with the soul of a poet" (Mystery Ink).
In Rain Storm, Rain has fled to Brazil to escape the killing business and the enemies who have been encircling him. But his knack for making death seem to have been of "natural causes" and his ability to operate unnoticed in Asia continue to create unwelcome demand for his services. His old employer, the CIA, persuades him to take on a high-risk assignment: a ruthless arms dealer supplying criminal groups throughout Southeast Asia.
The upside? Financial, of course, along with the continued chimera of moral redemption. But first, Rain must survive the downside: a second assassin homing in on the target; the target's consort-an alluring woman named Delilah with an agenda of her own; and the possibility that the entire mission is nothing but an elaborate setup. From the gorgeous beaches of Rio to the glitzy casinos of Macao to the gritty back streets of Hong Kong and Kowloon, Rain becomes a reluctant player in an international game far deadlier and more insidious than he has ever encountered before.
Best Short Story Barry Award
Edward D. Hoch "The War in Wonderland" (GREEN FOR DANGER)
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