Private Eye Writers of America: 2018 Shamus Award Nominees

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For works published in 2017. Winners will be announced at the PWA Banquet at Bouchercon. (Nominees listed below in alphabetical order by author.)

Best Original Private Eye Paperback 

Play a Cold Hand by Terence Faherty

The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star by Vaseem Khan

Dames Fight Harder by M. Ruth Myers

The Painted Gun by Bradley Spinelli

Lights Out Summer by Rich Zahradnik

Best First Private Eye Novel

Under Water by Casey Barrett

A Negro and an Ofay by Danny Gardner

Gone to Dust by Matt Goldman

August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones

The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka

Best P.I. Short Story

“Out of Business,”by Eric Beetner in Down & Out, The Magazine Vol 1/ Issue 1, edited by Rick Ollerman

 “Breakage,” by Reed Farrel Coleman in Down & Out, The Magazine Vol 1/ Issue 1, edited by Rick Ollerman

“Random,” by Brendan Dubois in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Jan/Feb

“Rosalie Marx is Missing,” by Robert S. Levinson in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, May/June

“Windward,” by Paul D. Marks in Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea, edited by Andrew McAleer and Paul D. Marks

Best Private Eye Novel 

Dark Water by Parker Bilal

Blood Truth by Matt Coyle

Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton

The Room of White Fire by T. Jefferson Parker

Monument Road by Michael Wiley

Congratulations to all the nominated authors.

Hat Tip Judith Bobalik

Character-ology – how I created Roxane Weary By Kristen Lepionka

Ask any writer about their process for creating a character and you’ll surely get very different answers. For me, it’s not so much about creating as it is uncovering, as if the character already exists out there and it’s only a matter of getting to know them. Less architecture, and more archaeology. The idea for Roxane Weary, the troubled private investigator at the centre of my novel The Last Place You Look, first came to me with only a name. A first name. Roxane, with one N, like Roxane Gay or Cyrano de Bergerac’s wife. I loved the name because it sounds both hard and feminine to me--you’ve got rocks, plus the ladylike sound of “Ann,” plus that sexy, bold X in the middle. I knew that was the kind of character I wanted to write about.

Other than a first name, the only thing I had to go on was an image in my head: my Roxane answering her phone from the floor under her desk. How did she get there? What was she going to next? I had many questions.

But Roxane wasn’t saying much yet.

While waiting for her to talk to me, I started to examine the tropes of the mystery world to see what I did and didn’t want her to be. The hard-drinking, bad-at-relationships loner type of private investigator is classic in the genre--when it comes to male characters. I wanted to explore that identity but from the point of view of a woman. I also wanted to explore the genre from a bisexual identity, which isn’t often represented in mystery fiction. And lastly, I wanted to write someone with a messy interior and personal life, for whom solving mysteries is not just a job but a necessity for her well-being.

She finally started talking when I figured out her last name while watching television--I saw the actor Jake Weary in the credits of whatever I was watching, and something immediately clicked.

Roxane Weary.

That was it.

From there, I started getting a clearer picture of her I learned that she likes whiskey--specifically, Crown Royal, a preference she inherited from her father. I learned that she lived in the same city as me. She told me she was thirty-four years old, the baby of the family. One of her brothers was a construction worker, and the other was a bartender and small-time drug dealer. The family was still reeling from the recent death of Frank Weary, Roxane’s father.

To further complicate her personal life, she told me she has two on-again-off-again sexual entanglements. One with homicide detective Tom, her father’s former partner, and one with Catherine, an art teacher who Roxane has known since high school.

It wasn’t until I had a good sense of her as a person that I was able to figure out the type of case she should investigate--because I wanted it to challenge her, to overlap on her past, and build to a climax that she alone could resolve.

The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka is published by Faber & Faber in July (£7.99).

Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton―black and from the wrong side of the tracks―was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he’s maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station. Willing to try anything, she hires PI Roxane Weary to look at the case and see if she can locate Sarah.  Brad might be in a bad way, but private investigator Roxane Weary isn’t doing so hot herself. Still reeling from the recent death of her cop father in the line of duty, her main way of dealing with her grief has been working as little and drinking as much as possible. But Roxane finds herself drawn in to the story of Sarah's vanishing act, especially when she links the disappearance to one of her father’s unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl.  The stakes get higher as Roxane discovers that the two girls may not be the only beautiful blonde teenagers who’ve turned up missing or dead. As her investigation gets darker and darker, Roxane will have to risk everything to find the truth. Lives depend on her cracking this case―hers included.

Buy this book at SHOTS A-Store.

You can find more information about this author on her website.  You can also follow her on Twitter @KMLWrites. You can also find her on Facebook.

Shamus Award Nominees: Private Eye Writers of America

PRIVATE EYE WRITERS OF AMERICA SHAMUS AWARD NOMINEES 2016
for works published in 2015.

The winners will be announced at the PWA Banquet at Bouchercon in New Orleans.

Best Original Private Eye Paperback  
Circling the Runway by J.L. Abramo. Down & Out Books
The Long Cold by O'Neil De Noux. Big Kiss Productions
Split  to Splinters by Max Everhart. Camel Press
The Man in the Window by Dana King. Independent
Red Desert by Clive Rosengren Moonshine Cove Publishing

Best First Private Eye Novel:
The Red Storm by Grant Bywaters. St. Martins/Minotaur
Night Tremors by Matt Coyle. Oceanview Publishing
Trouble in Rooster Paradise by T.W. Emory. Coffeetown Press
Depth by Lev Ac Rosen. Regan Arts
The Do-Right by Lisa Sandlin. Cinco Puntos Press

Best Private Eye Short Story
“The Runaway Girl from Portland, Oregon” by C.B. Forrest in  Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 2015
 “The Sleep of Death” by David Edgerley Gates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, December 2015
“The Dead Client” by Parnell Hall in  Dark City Lights: New York Stories (edited by Lawrence Block)
“The Dead Detective” by Robert S. Levinson in Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea (edited by Andrew McAleer & Paul D. Marks)
“The Continental Opposite” by Evan Lewis in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May 2015

Best Private Eye Novel
The Promise by Robert Crais. G.P. Putnam's Sons
Dance of the Bones by J.A. Jance.  William Morris
Gumshoe by Robert Leininger. Oceanview Publishing
Brush Back by Sara Paretsky. G.P. Putnam's Sons
Brutality by Ingrid Thoft. G.P. Putnam's Sons

Congratulations to all the nominees.

Hat Tip Mystery Fanfare!

Where ‘Crime & Mystery’ meets ‘Horror & the Weird’

Over at The Rap Sheet, there is an interesting interview feature with the award-winning cult horror writer Conrad Williams, discussing his crime-fiction debut novel Dust and Desire.

And then earlier this year, before I had to turn so much attention to my programming duties for 

Bouchercon 2015, I attended the latest Crimefest convention in Bristol, England. While there, I was drawn to one event that I eventually mentioned in my report for The Rap Sheet: 

There was also a very interesting Spotlight Session featuring horror writer-turned-crime fictionist Conrad Williams (Dust and Desire), who talked about the line that separates--or binds--those two literary genres. Not surprisingly, Nic Pizzolatto’s TV series, True Detective, merited a mention, as many of us are awaiting the start of its Season 2 with impatience and expectation.

I was already then planning a panel discussion for Bouchercon in Raleigh titled “Where Crime & Mystery Meet Horror & the Weird,” to be moderated by my dear friend Nanci Kalanta, so I had a professional interest in hearing what Williams had to say. Well, this bloke knew his mustard, as the saying goes. He was erudite and well-read, and his analysis of the subject flowed down the same pathways as my own. After the event, I went up to thank Williams for his part in the presentation and said that I would pick up one of his novels in the convention book room. (I was embarrassed to admit to a complete unfamiliarity with his work, which I later learned has a distinct cult following). He smiled at my enthusiasm, and then said, “You’re Ali, aren’t you?” In response to my nod he continued, “You probably don’t remember, but I e-mailed you several months ago--via a mutual friend--that I was wondering if you’d be interested in reading my first crime novel.” And then the penny dropped.

Read More Here

Shotsmag have discounted copies of Dust and Desire available Titan Books – Click Here to Order

Hush, Hush.... The return of Tess Monaghan

Laura Lippman is the multiple award-winning best-selling author of (currently) twelve books in the acclaimed private investigator Tess Monaghan series and eight New York Times bestselling standalone novels. Her most recent book published in the UK and the US is Hush Hush. She has won numerous awards for her writing including the Anthony, Edgar®, Shamus, Macavity, Nero, Barry and Agatha Awards to name a few! Her books are published all over the world to great acclaim. With the return of Tess Monaghan in her latest novel Hush Hush, Laura Lippman writes about her return and how she dealt with writing about her now that she is a mother.

Tess Monaghan has had a permanent place in my brain since 1992, maybe earlier. The novel that would become my first novel lodged into my head on a sleety November night. A year later, caught in a five-hour delay on a cross-country trip from Baltimore to San Francisco, I began scribbling in a black-and-white composition book about a young woman who — scribbled in a black-and-white composition book. Tess Monaghan, who believed that the autumn was the true beginning of the year, recorded her annual resolutions in early September.

1. Bench press 120 pounds.
2. Run a 7-minute mile. 
3. Read Don Quixtote
4. Find a job, etc. 

More than twenty years and 12 books later, Tess has done all of those things. She has not only found a job, but also opened her own business. She has had a baby, entered into a stable relationship. Her business is solid enough that she can afford to have a partner on her payroll and can generally pick-and-choose among potential jobs. She does divorce work only when financially pressed. She continues to have a nonstop supply of idiosyncratic opinions. (Driving manual transmission is superior, for example.) She is, in short, the most satisfactory imaginary friend that a grown-up could ever have. 

And yet we were apart for most of six years because I didn’t have a clue how to write about her once she had a child. 

There is no formula for the crime novel — how I wish there were! — but there are reasonable expectations. One of those expectations is that there will be suspense, presumably involving the main character. It has been challenging enough, over the years, to respect Tess’s intelligence and the reader’s desire for thrills. I have tried hard to avoid the plot device that my friend Lauren Milne Henderson has described as: “What’s that terrible noise? Let me put on my filmy negligee and marabou-trimmed mules and investigate!”

But it seemed to me, who became a mother two years after Tess did, that a mother would be particularly vigilant about her safety. And if she were not, neither the reader nor I could forgive her. I had read so many reader reviews in which betrayed fans of longtime series proclaimed that they “threw a book against a wall.” I hated the image of my book bouncing off walls. 

Every January, I teach in an 8-day writers workshop. Over a decade, I have found myself

telling my students that no one can write around a problem. There is no amount of style or technique or language that can paper over plot hotels. Characters must be consistent to their characters. And I tell them that when they find themselves trying to write around problems, maybe they should run straight at them. 

So I took my own advice. The problem was that Tess was a mother? Then run right at that subject. Write about motherhood across a broad spectrum, from the most quotidian problems (a tantrum in a grocery store) to the true worst-case scenario (“I killed my child.”) 

Of course, the problem remains. Tess is still a mother. I still have to find ways to provide suspense without making Tess stupid or foolhardy. Where does she go from here? I have no idea. The only thing I know for sure is that we are not done, Tess and I. Yet — Tess deserves a proper ending, a planned ending. She also deserves a break. Because when I am around, life is not so good for Tess. That’s the final irony. I make life absolute hell for my imaginary BFF. Eventually, it has to end. Doesn’t it? 

More information about Laura Lippman and her books can be found on her website.  You can also find her on Facebook.

Hush Hush by Laura Lippman is out now (Faber & Faber, £12.99)

The Next Big Thing Interview with Nick Quantrill

Following his interview with Peter Guttridge at www.crimetime.co.uk, Howard Linskey talks to Nick Quantrill for the ‘Next Big Thing’ series:

 

What is the working title of your next book?

It’s called “The Crooked Beat” and will be the third Joe Geraghty novel. Geraghty is a small-time Private Investigator working from my home city of Hull.

Where did the idea come from the book?

Like with the two previous Geraghty novels, I was looking for something interesting happening in in and around the city and it had to be the Docks. With big investment in green technology hopefully imminent, the area will change massively, both physically and in character. Either way, as a writer, I can’t really lose. Once I had the location, the idea of someone smuggling some cigarettes into the country and then promptly losing them seemed like fun…

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s a crime novel.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

If your brother’s life was put in danger, would you take his place?

Will you will be self-published or represented by an agency?

Like my first two Joe Geraghty novels, it’ll be published by Caffeine Nights, a small press who specialise in publishing crime fiction.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I started background reading for it during the summer 2009, so two years, but it was very much a stop-start process, as I worked on other projects during that time.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Fear. I combine writing with looking after my young daughter, so if I don’t look busy, I would probably have to get a real job again. And I’d rather not.

And your commissioning editor?

Darren Laws is the man behind Caffeine Nights, so he makes the decisions directly.

What else about your book might pique the readers' interest?

I think it’s the location. Hull and the East Riding is still a largely unmapped part of the country, its relative isolation giving it a feel of ‘otherness.’ I hope the Joe Geraghty novels capture something of what it’s like living in a battered and possibly unfairly maligned northern city.

For more information – www.hullcrimefiction.co.uk

For the next in the series of interviews, I'm passing the baton on to three excellent writers of crime fiction:

Neil White : www.neilwhite.net

Eric Beetner : www.ericbeetner.blogspot.com

Martin Stanley : www.thegamblesnovel.com

Books to look forward to from Mulholland Books

Gun Machine is by Warren Ellis and is due to be published in January 2013.  This morning Detective John Tallow was bored with his job.  Then there was this naked guy with a shotgun, and his partner getting killed, and now Tallow has a real problem: an apartment full of guns.  Old guns.  Modified guns.  Arranged in rows and spirals on the floor and walls.  Hundreds of them.  Each weapon is tied to a single unsolved murder.  Which means Tallow has uncovered two decades' worth of homicides that no one knew to connect and a killer unlike anything that came before.  Tallow's bosses don't want him to solve the case.  The murderer just wants him to die.  But there's a pattern hiding behind the deaths, and if Tallow can figure it out he might even make it out alive.

 

 To escape her awful life, Luz plans carefully. She quits the drugs. She pretends everything is normal. She takes only the clothes on her back, a gun and the money in her husband's safe. The corpses in the hallway weren't part of the plan. Luz needs to find the daughter she left behind years ago, but she knows she may die trying. Her husband, El Principe, is a key player in a drug cartel, and betrayal will not go unpunished. In this powerful story of revenge and redemption, one woman's desperate break for freedom will change the lives of criminals and cops on both sides of the border.  Angel Baby is by Richard Lange and is due to be published in May 2013

Lexicon is by Max Barry and is due to be published in June 2013. Two years ago, something terrible was unleashed in an Australian mining town called Broken Hill. Thousands died. Few people know what really happened. Emily Rikkard is one of them. She belongs to an elite organisation of 'poets': masters of manipulation who use language to warp others to their will. She was one of their most promising recruits until she made a catastrophic mistake: she fell in love. Wil Jamieson knows the truth too, only he doesn't remember it. And he doesn't know why he's immune to the poets' powers. But he knows he needs to run. As their stories converge, the past is revealed, and the race is on for a deadly weapon: a word. Because the poets know that words can kill...

A series of attacks all over the globe are linked by a single, deadly intent: someone is gathering everything they need to make a dirty bomb.  The terrorists behind it are shadows; their targets unknown.  Navy SEAL Commander Thomas Crocker and his elite team need answers.  They need to go to the source: to track down the material the terrorists are searching for, and stop it falling into the wrong hands.  The hunt takes them through the Yemen, to a hijacked boat off the Somali coast, and into the chaos of post-revolutionary Libya...where their mission becomes terrifyingly personal.  Hunt the Scorpion is by Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo and is due to be published in February 2013.  It combines his real-life insight with pulse-pounding action and non-stop thrills.

 

At Black Arts, everyone lives and breathes video games.  Including Douglas, who doesn't have much else to talk about.  Then he gets promoted to creative lead on Black Arts's flagship franchise, Realms of Gold, a convoluted fantasy game, and things start going wrong.  Is it corporate espionage?  Internal sabotage?  Can there really be a ghost in the machine?  Douglas has only ever had to worry about on screen danger before, but that is about to change.  You is by Austin Grossman and is due to be published in March 2013.

 This morning, I found a body.  Soon the police will arrest me for murder.  And after that, my life will fall apart.  Who can I trust? Who can I believe? How can I make them see I’m innocent?   Gaby Mortimer is the woman who has it all. But everything changes when she finds a body on the common near her home. Because the evidence keeps leading back to her. And the police seem sure she's guilty...Under Your Skin is an unpredictable, exquisitely twisty story, which proves that there are only three rules in life that mean anything: Assume nothing Believe no one Check everything. Under Your Skin is by Sabine Durrant and is due to be published in April 2013.

Murder As A Fine Art is by David Morrell and is due to be published in May 2013.  43 years after the Ratcliffe Highway murders brought London to a panic in 1811, Thomas De Quincey, the infamous author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, wrote a notorious essay about the murders.  That much is historical record.  In the brilliantly suspenseful Murder As A Fine Art De Quincey's essay becomes the blueprint for a new killer's "masterpiece.”  Newly arrived in London, the author becomes the prime suspect.  Soon, however, it becomes clear that De Quincey himself is the murderer's ultimate target.  Aided by his daughter and a young Scotland Yard detective, De Quincey must learn the killer's identity to save them all from a horrible fate.

Killer Ambition is by Marcia Clark and is due to be published in June 2013.  Would you kill to protect your career? Los Angeles DA Rachel Knight is about to find out just how far - and how deadly - Hollywood ambition will go in her latest harrowing case. When the daughter of big-time producer Russell Antonovich is kidnapped and later killed, Rachel is pitted against Hollywood's biggest power players as well as her own boss, who is desperate to stay on the industry's good side. Killer Ambition takes us on a thrilling ride through the darker side of Hollywood and into a court case that could make or break Rachel's career.

The Saint is back! Between January and August 2013 Mulholland Books will be republishing all thirty-five books starring the debonair outlaw.  Simon Templar is the Saint – daring, dazzling, and just a little bit disreputable.  On the side of the law, buts standing just outside it, he dispenses his own brand of justice one criminal at a time, standing up against crooks, swindlers, arms dealers and anyone he considers a worthy opponent…… The Saint books will come with new introductions and extra content.