Dashiell Hammett Award

 

The Dashiell Hammett Award is presented by the International Association of Crime Writers North American Branch

The Nominees are -

Night Letter  by Sterling Watson (Akashic)

Stealing by Margaret Verble (Mariner)

The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon, (Alfred A. Knopf)

The Almost Widow by Gail Anderson-Dargatz,  (Harper Avenue)

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead, (Doubleday)

The winner

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead 

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (Little Brown Publishers)

1971 - Trash is piled on the streets, crime is at a record high, and the city is careening towards bankruptcy. A shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Ray Carney, furniture-store owner and ex fence, is trying to keep his head down, his business up, and his life on the straight and narrow. His only immediate need is Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May, so what harm could it do to hit up Munson, his old police contact and fixer extraordinaire? And suddenly, staying out of the game becomes more complicated - and deadly. When one of Ray's tenants is badly injured in a fire, he enlists the enduringly violent Pepper to look into how it started, leading the duo to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent and the utterly corrupt.