Arthur Ellis Awards 2009

The 2009 Arthur Ellis Award Nominees

As announced today by the Crime Writers of Canada:

Nominees in the best novel category are:

• Linwood Barclay, Too Close to Home (Bantam)
• Maureen Jennings, The K Handshape (Dundurn)
• James W. Nichol, Transgression (MacArthur & Company)
• Louise Penny, The Murder Stone (MacArthur & Company)
• Michael E. Rose, The Tsunami File (MacArthur & Company)

Nominees in the best first novel category are:

• Nadine Doolittle, Iced Under (Bayeux Arts/Gondolier).
• John C. Goodman, Talking to Wendigo (Turnstone).
• April Lindgren, Headline: Murder (Second Story Press).
• Howard Shrier, Buffalo Jump (Vintage Canada).
• Phyllis Smallman, Margarita Nights (McArthur & Company).

Nominees in the best juvenile novel category are:

• Vicki Grant, Res Judicata (Orca).
• Susan Juby, Getting the Girl (HarperCollins).
• Elizabeth MacLeod, Royal Murder (Annick Press).
• Norah McClintock, Dead Silence (Scholastic Canada).
• Sharon E. McKay, War Brothers (Penguin Canada).

Nominees for best crime writing in French are:

• Jacques Côté, Le Chemin des brumes (Alire).
• Maxime Houde, Le Poids des illusions (Alire).
• Andre Jacques, La Tendresse du serpent (Québec Amerique).
• Sylvain Meunier, L'Homme qui détestait le golf (La courte échelle).
• Antoine Yaccarini, Meurtre au Soleil (VLB éditeur).

Nominees in the best short-story category are:

• Pasha Malla, "Filmsong" in Toronto Noir (Akashic Books).
• James Powell, "Clay Pillows" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (June 2008).
• Peter Robinson, "Walking the Dog" in Toronto Noir (Akashic Books).
• Amelia Symington, "An Ill Wind" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (Sept./Oct. 2008).
• Kris Wood, "Thinking Inside the Box" in Going Out with a Bang (RendezVous Crime).

Nominees in the best non-fiction category are:

• Daphne Bramham, The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada's Polygamous Mormon Sect (Vintage Canada/RHC).
• Sharon Butala, The Girl in Saskatoon: A Meditation on Friendship, Memory and Murder (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins).
• Alex Caine, Befriend and Betray: Infiltrating the Hells Angels, Bandidos and Other Criminal Brotherhoods (Vintage Canada/RHC).
• Michael Calce & Craig Silverman, Mafiaboy: How I Cracked the Internet and Why It's Still Broken (Penguin Canada).
• Kerry Pither, Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror (Penguin Canada).

Nominees in the best unpublished novel category are:

• Pam Barnsley, This Cage of Bones.
• Gloria Ferris, Cheat the Hangman.
• Stephen Maher, Salvage.
• Douglas A. Moles, Louder.
• Kevin Thornton, Condemned.

Winners in all categories will be announced at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on June 4. Congratulations to all the nominees.

Bodies in the Bookshop

This year's annual Bodies in the Bookshop event is due to take place on Tuesday 21 July 2009 from 6:00pm.

Bodies in the Bookshop is to be held at Heffers in Cambridge as usual. The line-up so far: Alison Bruce, Judith Cutler, Ariana Franklin, Meg Gardiner, Edward Marston, Rose Melikan, Malcolm Pryce, L C Tyler, Nicola Upson, Paul Waters and many more. Tickets, costing £5.00, will be available from May 1st and can be obtained from the Ground Floor Cash Desk (01223-568568) or by contacting Richard Reynolds on 01223-568532 or by email at literature at heffers.co.uk.

Birthday congratulations to Crimespree and Mystery Readers Journal

Those of you like me who are avid readers or contributors to Crimespree Magazine will be aware that this august magazine turns five this year. If you have any special Crimespree moment that you would like to share whether it relates to the magazine itself or those two indomitable figures in the crime fiction world Jon and Ruth Jordan then please post here.

Another of my favourite journals to which I have contributed at least one essay (and will hopefully in due course contribute some more) is 25 years old this year as well. The journal in question is of course Mystery Readers Journal. More information can be found on the excellent blog of the editor Janet Rudolph.

Congratulations to both Crimespree Magazine and Mystery Readers Journal on their 5 and 25 anniversaries respectively.

Newsy Stuff

According to Variety the entertainment newspaper, Matthew McConaughey is set to star in the movie version of Michael Connelly’s best selling and award wining novel The Lincoln Lawyer. More information can be found here. The rights to the film were sold six months before the book was actually published by Little Brown in 2005.

Those of you that also enjoyed Lisa Lutz’s novel The Spellman File will also be pleased to learn that Barry Sonnefeld has been attached to direct the movie version of the novel on behalf of Paramount Pictures. The article in Variety can be found here. Barry Sonnefeld has been involved in a number of films including Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Men in Black, Men in Black II, The Addams Family and Addams Family Values along with the remake of The Lady Killers.

Further to my earlier blog about London Boulevard which can be found here, according to Variety a number of well-known actors and actresses have signed on to take part in the film. Further information from Variety can be found here.

Ruth Rendell goes back in time

Ruth Rendell's latest Wexford book Monster in the Box is not due for release until October 2009. However, long standing fans of her Wexford series will be pleased to hear that in this twenty-second novel to feature Chief Inspector Wexford the author has gone back in time. The readers will be pleased to see Wexford as a young police office and a case that ultimately is not resolved until years later, how he meets his wife and what makes him the dedicated and methodical police officer he subsequently becomes. Further information can be found here