Mystery Writers of America livestreamed the Edgar Awards Ceremony on Thursday night. Here are all the 2019 winners, in the order as they were presented. Congratulations to all of the winners.

Sue Grafton Memorial Award – Shell Game by Sara Paretsky

The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award –The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award (short story) – “How Does He Die This Time” by Nancy Novick

Ellery Queen Award – Linda Landrigan, Editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

The Raven Award – Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times

Best Television Episode – Matthew Seiner & Donald Joh for “The One that Holds Everything”, The Romanoffs

Best Juvenile –Otherwood by Pete Hautman

Best Young Adult –Sadie by Courtney Summers

Best Critical Biographical –Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s by Leslie S. Klinger

Best Fact Crime –Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. Fieseler

Grand Master – Martin Cruz Smith

Best Short Story – “English 398: Fiction Workshop” by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Best Paperback Original – If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin

Best First Novel – Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin

Best Mystery Novel – Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley

Congratulations to the winners. Check the Web Store for copies of the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com

And, you can watch Walter Mosley discuss Down the River Unto the Sea on the Poisoned Pen’s YouTube channel.

Christina Estes recently interviewed Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen. The interview, which aired on KJZZ, the local NPR affiliate, discussed the store’s numerous author events, and the programs with new authors. There’s a lengthy section about Clive Cussler, and his relationship with the Pen. Barbara Peters acknowledges the importance of Diana Gabaldon’s books in the days after 9/11. It’s an important article about the cultural influence of a bookstore, its owner, the staff, and the customers who treasure the books and authors connected to the store. You can listen to the broadcast, or read it. https://bit.ly/2PpNadR

On Saturday, June 1 at 6:30 PM, Douglas Preston will be back at The Poisoned Pen to discuss his book, Talking to the Ground. Preston’s latest newsletter urges interested readers to order the book now from The Poisoned Pen because there will only be 600 copies available. You can pre-order your signed copy here. https://bit.ly/2XERvwG

No one can summarize Talking to the Ground better than Preston himself. Here’s his latest newsletter.

To my excellent readers, One of the most personal and favorite of my books, Talking to the Ground, will be published in a new edition on June 4—with an Afterword I wrote,entitled “The Great Terror.” The book tells the incredible story of a four-hundred-mile journey I took on horseback through the Navajo Nation with my fiancée and daughter, retracing the journey of the gods during the creation of the world. This is an actual route that can still be mapped through Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The new Afterword brings the story up to date with extremely disturbing discoveries about what happened to the ancient Puebloan Indians who left their great ruins scattered across the Southwest, in places like Chaco Canyon and Canyon de Chelly. I have personally autographed copies of this new, high-quality softcover edition for my readers, available from the Poisoned Pen Bookstore—for $17 only, with free shipping!  You can purchase through this link.  But please order right away, as the supply of signed books is limited to 600 and will go quickly.  As you know, we always try to entertain our newsletter subscribers instead of just trying to sell them something. So to that end, I’ve included some amazing photos of our journey at the bottom of this email, some of which do not appear in the book. Rather than tell you more about the book myself, I’d like to quote from an eloquent Amazon review by a Native American reader named Marty DeLand: There have come and gone many writers who promised us a journey through Navajoland: some in the form of mystery yarn-spinners, others as locally homegrown contributors to Arizona Highways. In and of itself, going forth into such a dangerous and beautiful place is a damned difficult thing to do. Then to return from out of that American Holyland with even the smallest comprehension of what abides there is a feat so extraordinary that only two have accomplished it: LaFarge with his “The Enemy Gods” and Abbey’s distant runner-up, “Desert Solitaire”.  Finally, we can add a third name to that short list: Douglas Preston. “Talking to the Ground” begins as a family adventure by horseback, tracing the footsteps of the Navajo Hero Twins. Preston, his fiancée Christine and her young daughter Selene, pass through some of the emptiest country in our entire nation. However, their three-month ride is little more than a device (albeit a fascinating and ballsy one) to reveal stunning truths about an alternate world inhabited by the Navajo. No author has ever conveyed the living, beating heart of Navajo legends with such powerful intimacy. An encounter with an old sheepherder in search of his lost flock is nothing short of breathtaking in its implications. Preston relates a host of frightening moments as well, not all of which are horse, cliff or weather related. He leaves us with a profound sense of kinship to the Navajo people, and a clear and chilling vision of what awaits us if we fail to note the societal shipwrecks scattered throughout Navajoland: skeletons left behind by those ancients who would not read the writing on their own canyon walls.

To purchase the autographed book, click here.

In the past, we’ve shared Jacqueline Winspear’s newsletters here. It’s often fun to share the newsletter before the author appears at The Poisoned Pen, Sujata Massey, author of the forthcoming mystery, The Satapur Moonstone, will be at the bookstore on Saturday, May 25 at 2 PM, appearing at a tea with Jayne Ann Krentz and Meg Tilley. Massey is the bestselling author of the first Perveen Mistry mystery, The Widows of Malabar Hill. Both books are available through the Web Store, and you can pre-order a signed copy of The Satapur Moonstore. https://bit.ly/2Vo7Ub4

Here’s the description of The Satapur Moonstone.

The highly anticipated follow-up to the critically acclaimed novel The Widows of Malabar Hill.

India, 1922: It is rainy season in the lush, remote Sahyadri mountains, where the princely state of Satapur is tucked away. A curse seems to have fallen upon Satapur’s royal family, whose maharaja died of a sudden illness shortly before his teenage son was struck down in a tragic hunting accident. The state is now ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur’s two maharanis, the dowager queen and her daughter-in-law.

The royal ladies are in a dispute over the education of the young crown prince, and a lawyer’s counsel is required. However, the maharanis live in purdah and do not speak to men. Just one person can help them: Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female lawyer. Perveen is determined to bring peace to the royal house and make a sound recommendation for the young prince’s future, but she arrives to find that the Satapur palace is full of cold-blooded power plays and ancient vendettas. Too late, she realizes she has walked into a trap. But whose? And how can she protect the royal children from the palace’s deadly curse?

*****

By now, I hope you’re curious. Here’s Sujata Massey’s Newsletter.

How’s your spring going? I’m enjoying the sun, tulip and daffodil sightings, and a relatively quiet month to write before May and June, when I will be traveling the country to read from The Satapur Moonstone. The tour schedule so far includes Arizona, Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Texas and Wisconsin. Check in to my website next month to see dates that might include California and Washington State.

This book will be published May 14 in two editions, one from Soho Press, and the other from Penguin Random House India. There’s also an audiobook coming out from Recorded Books.

More international sales in the year ahead: The Widows of Malabar Hill will be published in Korean, Japanese, French and Finnish. And The Satapur Moonstone is coming out in Finland and Italy. Tell your pen pals.

But back to The Satapur Moonstone. Perveen Mistry’s assignment arrives after Sir David, Alice Hobson-Jones’s father, hires her to make contact with a young maharaja and his family living in an isolated palace in the Sahyadri mountains. From the start of journey, Perveen senses something corrupt is occurring at the palace. Check out the first two chapters.

Publishers Weekly said: “Edgar finalist Massey’s second whodunit featuring Bombay attorney Perveen Mistry is even better than the series’ impressive debut.”

And here’s the review from Library Journal: “Massey does a superb job of combining a fascinating snapshot into 1920s British-ruled India with a top-notch mystery. She has created a strong, appealing heroine who is forging her own path in a rapidly changing world… Highly recommended for fans of other intrepid women sleuths such as Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody and Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily.”

It would be so much fun to meet in person when I’m on tour. And if I’m not scheduled for your area, would you please pre-order my book? That helps me and my publishers by leaps and bounds.

You can pre-order the US and World English Soho Press edition of The Satapur Moonstone at your local bookshop or with an online retailer.

South Asia residents, please preorder the Penguin Random House India edition!

And remember, library readers have star power. Please request the hardcover, large print edition, or audiobook now: this encourages librarians to order enough for everyone.

Even if I’m not coming to your town, here’s another way we can talk. The Satapur Moonstone Book Club on Facebook Live is gathering at my author page on Facebook thirteen lucky days after publication. We will discuss  everything—research, characters, ending—of The Satapur Moonstone at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT on Monday, May 27 (Memorial Day evening) in a video conference. This means you can see me relaxing my living room with my dogs—and use the sidebar feature on your computer screen to send me questions which I’ll read aloud and answer. You will not be seen, but your questions will be heard loud and clear. If you are outside the US or Canada, please check if the time difference might allow you to join us, because you will be a VIP participant! The best way to remember this event is to sign up as “GOING” on the event page, and Facebook will remind you.

The whole show will be Q&A format and there will be prizes. Please join me!

Warmly,
Sujata
sujatamassey.com

P.S. If someone sent you this free email newsletter—and you’d like more recipes, free fiction, and information about India, Japan and writing several times each year—please subscribe by signing up here. Your name will never be sold, shared or distributed, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Thanks, and I can’t wait to hear from you!

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Audience members paid attention when Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, suggested they would want to show up for a debut novelist David R. Dow. Dow’s Confessions of an Innocent Man is his first novel, but not his first book. You can find copies, including signed copies of Confessions of an Innocent Man, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2ILkH0L

Here’s the summary of Confessions of an Innocent Man.

“Every person wrongfully convicted of a crime at some point dreams of getting revenge against the system.  In Confessions of an Innocent Man, the dream comes true and in a spectacular way.”—John Grisham, New York Times bestselling author of The Reckoning 

A thrillingly suspenseful debut novel, and a fierce howl of rage that questions the true meaning of justice.

Rafael Zhettah relishes the simplicity and freedom of his life. He is the owner and head chef of a promising Houston restaurant. A pilot with open access to the boundless Texas horizon. A bachelor, content with having few personal or material attachments that ground him. Then, lightning strikes. When he finds Tieresse—billionaire, philanthropist, sophisticate, bombshell—sitting at one of his tables, he also finds his soul mate and his life starts again. And just as fast, when she is brutally murdered in their home, when he is convicted of the crime, when he is sentenced to die, it is all ripped away. But for Rafael Zhettah, death row is not the end. It is only the beginning. Now, with his recaptured freedom, he will stop at nothing to deliver justice to those who stole everything from him. 

This is a heart-stoppingly suspenseful, devastating, page-turning debut novel. A thriller with a relentless grip that wants you to read it in one sitting. David R. Dow has dedicated his life to the fight against capital punishment—to righting the horrific injustices of the death penalty regime in Texas. He delivers the perfect modern parable for exploring our complex, uneasy relationships with punishment and reparation in a terribly unjust world.

*****

Barbara Peters and Patrick Millikin tag-teamed for the conversation with author David R. Dow. I think you’ll want to check it out.

John Sandford is back at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, April 23 at 7 PM, and he’s returning with a new Lucas Davenport book, Neon Prey. In fact, it’s the featured book in Marilyn Stasio’s latest crime column in The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2ZmZMqE

Of course, Sandford’s books, along with signed copies of Neon Prey, are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Dncbl0

Here’s the description of Neon Prey.

Lucas Davenport tracks a prolific serial killer in the newest nail-biter by #1New York Times-bestselling author John Sandford.

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don’t much care about a low-level guy–it’s his boss they want–but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation.

Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese’s rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves.

Now Lucas Davenport is on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and–as Davenport will come to find–full of surprises . . .

Congratulations to Vicki Delany, recipient of the Derrick Murdoch Award for 2019. Delany is the author of the Constable Molly Smith mysteries and standalones from Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press. She is also the author of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mysteries, the Year-Round Christmas Mysteries and other titles. Check the Web Store for copies of her books. https://bit.ly/2KJCKa6

Here is the news release for Vicki Delany’s prestigious award.

DERRICK MURDOCH AWARD 2019

The Derrick Murdoch Award is a special achievement award for contributions to the crime genre. It is awarded at the discretion of the Board Chair of Crime Writers of Canada. Known as the President’s Award when first presented in 1984, it was later renamed in honour of its first recipient, Derrick Murdoch.

The Crime Writers of Canada is pleased to announce its 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award recipient: Vicki Delany.

Ms. Delany is a successful and prolific Canadian writer, author of (so far) 34 published books, both standalones and series. She has been a strong supporter and advocate for Canadian crime writers through her work with the Crime Writers of Canada, including serving two terms as Chair of the organization. In that role she built bridges with publishers and producers and forged a strong relationship between CBC and the Crime Writers of Canada.

Vicki has also been a strong advocate for literacy with her books for the Rapid Reads hi/low books for adults. Her work with libraries across Ontario, including with the Ontario Library Association, strengthened ties between writers and the libraries in their communities. She has spoken before the town council of her own community successfully asking them not to proceed with plans to close village libraries.

She has been an inspiration and mentor to a number of Canadian crime writers, especially female writers, and helped them to launch and craft their own writing careers. Finally, she is one of the founders of the Women Killing It literary festival which has become a much sought after and sold-out event in Prince Edward County every year.

For these reasons and many more, Vicki Delany has lived up to the ideals that inspired this award and continues to contribute greatly to the development and success of crime writing in Canada. We are pleased to offer her the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award.

The finalists for the Arthur Ellis Awards for 2019 were announced yesterday. The Arthur Ellis Awards are Canadian literary awards, presented annually by the Crime Writers of Canada for the best Canadian crime and mystery writing published in the previous year. Check the Web Store for availability of the titles. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Congratulations to all of the nominees.

Crime Writers of Canada presents the 2019 Arthur Ellis Awards Shortlists for,Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing

The winners will be announced across Canada on Thursday 23 May, 2019

BEST CRIME NOVEL

Ron Corbett, Cape Diamond, ECW Press

Anne Emery, Though the Heavens Fall, ECW Press

Lisa Gabriele, The Winters, Doubleday Canada

Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind, Minotaur Books

Loreth Anne White, The Girl in the Moss, Montlake Romance

BEST FIRST CRIME NOVEL
Sponsored by Rakuten Kobo

A.J. Devlin, Cobra Clutch, NeWest Press

Helen C. Escott, Operation Wormwood, Flanker Press

Beverley McLachlin, Full Disclosure, Simon & Schuster Canada

Bill Prentice, Why Was Rachel Murdered?, Echo Road

Nathan Ripley, Find You in the Dark, Simon & Schuster Canada

BEST CRIME NOVELLA
The Lou Allin Memorial Award

Melodie Campbell, The B-Team: The Case of the Angry First Wife, Orca Book Publishers

Vicki Delany, Blue Water Hues, Orca Book Publishers

John Lawrence Reynolds, Murder Among the Pines, Orca Book Publishers

BEST CRIME SHORT STORY
Sponsored by Mystery Weekly Magazine

Melodie Campbell, A Ship Called Pandora, Mystery Weekly Magazine

Therese Greenwood, The Power Man, Baby It’s Cold Outside, Coffin Hop Press

Twist Phelan, Game, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Linda L. Richards, Terminal City, Vancouver Noir, Akashic Books

Sam Wiebe, Wonderful Life, Vancouver Noir, Akashic Books

BEST CRIME BOOK IN FRENCH

Jean-Philippe Bernié, Un dernier baiser avant de te tuer, Libre Expression

Hervé Gagnon, Adolphus – Une enquête de Joseph Laflamme, Libre Expression

André Jacques, Ces femmes aux yeux cernés, Éditions Druide

Guillaume Morissette, Deux coups de pied de trop, Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur

Johanne Seymour, Rinzen la beauté intérieure, Expression noir

BEST JUVENILE/YOUNG ADULT CRIME BOOK

Linwood Barclay, Escape, Puffin Canada

Michelle Barker, The House of One Thousand Eyes, Annick Press

Kevin Sands, Call of the Wraith, Aladdin

Tim Wynne-Jones, The Ruinous Sweep, Candlewick Press

E.R. Yatscoff, The Rumrunner’s Boy, TG & R Books

BEST NONFICTION CRIME BOOK

Patrick Brode, Dying for a Drink: How a Prohibition Preacher Got Away With Murder, Biblioasis

Thomas Giacomaro and Natasha Stoynoff, The King of Con: How a Smooth-Talking Jersey Boy Made and Lost Billions, 
Baffled the FBI, Eluded the Mob, and Lived to Tell the Crooked Tale, BenBella Books, Inc

Nate Hendley, The Boy on the Bicycle: A Forgotten Case of Wrongful Conviction in Toronto, Five Rivers Publishing

Eve Lazarus, Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer, Arsenal Pulp Press

Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World, Alfred A. Knopf Canada

BEST UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT (aka The Unhanged Arthur)
Sponsored by Dundurn Press

Jim Bottomley, Hypnotizing Lions

Don Macdonald, Omand’s Creek

Liv McFarlane, The Scarlet Cross

Heather McLeod, One for the Raven

Darrow Woods, The Book of Answers

Lisa Scottoline, author of Someone Knows, and Robert Dugoni, author of The Eighth Sister, were at The Poisoned Pen recently, in conversation with Barbara Peters, owner of the store. It was a rambling discussion about their latest books, film options, Bradley Cooper. Most of all, though, it was about justice. You’ll want to hear this conversation, but you’ll also want to know you can order copies of all the books discussed, including signed copies of Scottoline and Dugoni’s latest books. Check the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

When Barbara Peters hosts an event, the authors don’t talk much about their books. Here are the latest books, and the summaries.

Bestselling and award-winning author Lisa Scottoline reaches new heights with this riveting novel about how a single decision can undo a family, how our past can derail our present, and how not guilty doesn’t always mean innocent.

Allie Garvey is heading home to the funeral of a childhood friend. Allie is not only grief-stricken, she’s full of dread. Because going home means seeing the other two people with whom she shares an unbearable secret.

Twenty years earlier, a horrific incident shattered the lives of five teenagers, including Allie. Drinking and partying in the woods, they played a dangerous prank that went tragically wrong, turning deadly. The teenagers kept what happened a secret, believing that getting caught would be the worst thing that could happen. But time has taught Allie otherwise. Not getting caught was far worse.

Allie has been haunted for two decades by what she and the others did, and by the fact that she never told a soul. The dark secret has eaten away at her, distancing her from everyone she loves, including her husband. Because she wasn’t punished by the law, Allie has punished herself, and it’s a life sentence.

Now, Allie stands on the precipice of losing everything. She’s ready for a reckoning, determined to learn how the prank went so horribly wrong. She digs to unearth the truth, but reaches a shocking conclusion that she never saw coming–and neither will the reader.

A deeply emotional examination of family, marriage, and the true nature of justice, Someone Knows is Lisa Scottoline’s most powerful novel to date. Startling, page-turning, and with an ending that’s impossible to forget, this is a tour de force by a beloved author at the top of her game.

*****

A pulse-pounding thriller of espionage, spy games, and treachery by theNew York Times bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite Series.

Former CIA case officer Charles Jenkins is a man at a crossroads: in his early sixties, he has a family, a new baby on the way, and a security consulting business on the brink of bankruptcy. Then his former bureau chief shows up at his house with a risky new assignment: travel undercover to Moscow and locate a Russian agent believed to be killing members of a clandestine US spy cell known as the seven sisters.

Desperate for money, Jenkins agrees to the mission and heads to the Russian capital. But when he finds the mastermind agent behind the assassinations—the so-called eighth sister—she is not who or what he was led to believe. Then again, neither is anyone else in this deadly game of cat and mouse.

Pursued by a dogged Russian intelligence officer, Jenkins executes a daring escape across the Black Sea, only to find himself abandoned by the agency he serves. With his family and freedom at risk, Jenkins is in the fight of his life—against his own country.

*****

You’re going to want to watch the whole event. You have to listen to Robert Dugoni’s story about his trip to Russia. And, of course, Lisa Scottoline is always funny. But, there are serious discussions of justice and bullying. Take a look.

Alafair Burke’s latest novel, The Better Sister, is the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. Burke will be at the bookstore on Wednesday, April 17 at 7 PM, along with Lori Rader-Day, author of Under a Dark Sky. Both authors will discuss and sign their books. The books are carried in the Web Store, including signed copies of the current Hot Book of the Week, The Better Sister. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the summary of The Better Sister.

Recommended by Barnes & Noble, Entertainment Weekly, Popsugar, Goodreads, CrimeReads, BookBub

Keep your enemies close and your sister closer.

Though Chloe was the younger of the two Taylor sisters, she always seemed to be the one in charge. She was the honor roll student with big dreams and an even bigger work ethic. Nicky—always restless and more than a little reckless—was the opposite of her ambitious little sister. She floated from job to job and man to man, and stayed close to home in Cleveland.

For a while, it seemed that both sisters had found happiness. Chloe earned a scholarship to an Ivy League school and moved to New York City, where she landed a coveted publishing job. Nicky married promising young attorney Adam Macintosh and gave birth to a baby boy they named Ethan. The Taylor sisters became virtual strangers.

Now, more than fifteen years later, their lives are drastically different—and Chloe is married to Adam. When he’s murdered by an intruder at the couple’s East Hampton beach house, Chloe reluctantly allows her teenage stepson’s biological mother—her estranged sister, Nicky—back into her life. But when the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect in his father’s death, the two sisters are forced to unite . . . and to confront the truth behind family secrets they have tried to bury in the past.