We’re thrilled to announce the finalists for the 2023 ITW Thriller Awards:
BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL
Delilah S. Dawson – THE VIOLENCE (Del Rey) Jennifer Hillier – THINGS WE DO IN THE DARK (Minotaur) Alma Katsu – THE FERVOR (Penguin/Putnam) Jennifer McMahon – THE CHILDREN ON THE HILL (Simon & Schuster) Chris Pavone – TWO NIGHTS IN LISBON (MCD) Catriona Ward – SUNDIAL (Macmillan)
BEST AUDIOBOOK
Kimberly Belle, Fargo Layne, Cate Holahan, Vanessa Lillie – YOUNG RICH WIDOWS (Audible) Narrated by Dina Pearlman, Karissa Vacker, Helen Laser, Ariel Blake Julie Clark – THE LIES I TELL (Audible) Narrated by Anna Caputo, Amanda Dolan J. L. Delozier – THE PHOTO THIEF (CamCat Publishing) Narrated by Rachel L. Jacobs, Jeffrey Kafer Jennifer Hillier – THINGS WE DO IN THE DARK (Macmillan Audio) Narrated by Carla Vega Minka Kent – THE SILENT WOMAN (Blackstone Publishing) Narrated by Christine Lakin, Kate Rudd
BEST FIRST NOVEL
Lauren Nossett – THE RESEMBLANCE (Flatiron Books) Sascha Rothchild – BLOOD SUGAR (Penguin/Putnam) Hayley Scrivenor – DIRT TOWN (Pan Macmillan) Stacy Willingham – A FLICKER IN THE DARK (Minotaur) Erin Young – THE FIELDS (Flatiron Books)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL
Mary Burton – THE LIES I TOLD (Montlake Romance) Mark Edwards – NO PLACE TO RUN (Thomas & Mercer) Minka Kent – UNMISSING (Thomas & Mercer) Freida McFadden – THE HOUSEMAID (Grand Central Publishing) Wanda Morris – ANYWHERE YOU RUN (William Morrow) Holly Wainwright – THE COUPLE UPSTAIRS (Pan Macmillan) Loreth Anne White – THE PATIENT’S SECRET (Montlake Romance)
BEST SHORT STORY
Dominique Bibeau – RUSSIAN FOR BEGINNERS (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) Barb Goffman – THE GIFT (Down & Out Books) Smita Harish Jain – PUBLISH OR PERISH (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) Joyce Carol Oates – 33 CLUES INTO THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY SISTER (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) Anna Scotti – SCHRÖDINGER, CAT (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) Catherine Steadman – STOCKHOLM (Amazon Original Stories)
BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
Melissa Albert – OUR CROOKED HEARTS (Flatiron Books) Gillian French – SUGARING OFF (Algonquin Young Readers) Kate McLaughlin – DAUGHTER (Wednesday Books) Francesca Padilla – WHAT’S COMING TO ME (Soho Teen) Courtney Summers – I’M THE GIRL (Wednesday Books)
BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL
Bill Byrnes – EVASIVE SPECIES (Self-published) Diane Jeffrey – THE COUPLE AT CAUSEWAY COTTAGE (HarperCollins) Grant McKenzie – THE SEVEN TRUTHS OF HANNAH BAXTER (Self-published) Rick Mofina – THE HOLLOW PLACE (Self-published) Carrie Rubin – FATAL ROUNDS (Self-published)
ITW will announce the winners at ThrillerFest XVIII on Saturday, June 3, 2023 at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, New York City.
It’s funny, but the word umbrella is now forever linked to Tom Holland in my brain because of his brilliant lip sync of it.
I overslept this morning; I hit snooze when the alarm went off and the second time, I usually turn it off and get up. This morning I turned it off and fell asleep again. Fortunately, I woke up ten minutes later so no harm to my day, other than the off-balance feeling that comes from it not being the usual get up before dawn morning. (I easily could have slept another two hours, at least.) Tomorrow my work-at-home day will be built entirely around the delivery of the new dryer; they’re supposed to call me tonight to give me my “two-hour window” period for planning purposes. On the one hand, I kind of hope it’s early so I can get it out of the way and start catching up on laundry; on the other I kind of want it to be later so I don’t have to get up early yet again tomorrow. My coffee seems to be working, though; my brain is alert even if most of my body is still relaxed into sleep mode.
I made groceries yesterday on the way home from the office, and I broke down and bought some frozen Lean Cuisines to bring for lunch, as back-ups for when I don’t want to cook anything or things get out of whack the way they have been lately. Yesterday I brought a salad and by the time I got off work was so hungry I almost felt sick; naturally, by the time I shopped and got home and put everything away the hunger had gone away. I did empty the dishwasher and refill it to run another load; I still have some dishes in the sink and so hopefully tonight I will get the dishes caught up. I’m sure deliverymen have seen apartments in much worse shape than ours, but I still don’t want it to be disgusting when they bring the dryer tomorrow (really glad I cleaned out from behind the dryer when I had it moved; I should do that more than every seven to ten years, probably). Scooter of course wanted a warm lap and didn’t really give me much chance to get things done before the howling commenced, and he pretty much spent the entire evening in my lap. I know he’s missing Paul, who is hardly ever home in these weeks leading up to the Festivals, which is yet another reason I always commute between the hotel and the Lost Apartment over that weekend.
I turned in a story yesterday for an anthology that I am not entirely sure it’s right for, but I like the story and would love to see it finished and in print at some point. I also started pulling together another short story collection yesterday–just to see how much material I had and how much new material would be needed, and lo and behold, the collection currently sits at 72, 143 words without an introduction or conclusion; the sweet spot is always between 80 and 100k words. So, apparently not much more is needed; as little as two or as many as five to six stories, or one single novella. It’s going to be called This Town and Other Stories, and I also realized yesterday that, like Daphne du Maurier, the category of fiction where my short stories fall is macabre–a combination or cross between horror, suspense, and crime. (Maybe the title should be This Town and Other Macabre Tales?) It felt good to turn the story in–even if it’s wrong for the anthology–because I also had to edit and polish it before turning it in, and it felt good to be doing that kind of work again. I want to get a lot done this weekend–going to make lists for every day to keep me on track like I did last weekend–and will probably try to get any and all errands finished on Saturday so I can relax, sleep in, and just hang out around the house working and doing stuff on Sunday. I’m beginning to enjoy my weekends again, because while yes, I have a lot to do and a lot to get done, it’s nice to not feel stressed on my weekends with the sense of impending doom just out of sight–but visible out the corner of my eye. It’s nice to get relaxing sleep and rest for a change.
The toe is still painful but now I can walk without limping or wincing. I’m aware of it, and of course the longer the days goes and the more I walk on it the more it starts hurting–I made it till almost bedtime last night without limping–but I am seeing my doctor next week. If it is either psoriatic arthritis or gout, at least there’s treatment and medication options. I already take enough medication that I am hesitant to add more to the mix…but then again, I am over sixty and have never taken care of myself so I should be grateful that there are still treatment options.
Tonight after work I am going straight home. The mail can wait until tomorrow, and I don’t have any other errands that are necessary before Saturday, anyway. I hope to put away the dishes, do another load, and possibly even start doing some laundry. I know there are at least two loads of clothes that need doing (always a joy) and I can still use the dryer in the carriage house–and since the toe isn’t so bad, walking over there and climbing the steps to the second floor isn’t as bad as it was. I want to read more of Cheryl’s book so I can write about it here (as well as start preparing for the panel I am moderating), and I need to get back to writing and editing and all of that fun stuff.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
It’s literally amazing how much stuff fell by the wayside over the last couple of weeks, really. I realized yesterday that it was already the 26th and thought how can that be? Mom just died on Valentine’s Day–twlve days ago? But I went to the office the rest of that week and drove over for the funeral last weekend, and then I was on bereavement leave and worked at home–the Fat Tuesday holiday fell in the midst of my leave–and today I am going back into the office, which feels like a step in the right direction towards normalcy, of a sort. Life does goes on, and as I’ve moped around this last week, it also kind of feels like I’ve been in a fog of sorts for quite some time. I should be used to this sort of thing, as it always happens with a paradigm shift–like how the weekend before Katrina we’d gone to Hammond to celebrate my birthday and had a great time…and while we were evacuated, that seemed like was a different life, a different world, and even happened to different people. Murder in the Magic City/Murder on the Menu seems like it was months ago. And hadn’t I just turned in the manuscript that week before I left, with plans to get back on it as soon as I recovered from that trip? Then Mom had her stroke and everything went up into the air, and now I’m trying to find all the balls I dropped somewhere that I had been somehow managing to keep up in the air.
Yesterday was a gorgeous day; it was eighty degrees when I made groceries and gassed up the car. I kept the toe elevated and iced for most of the rest of the day while I read more of Abby Collette’s marvelous Body and Soul Food–which I am really enjoying–and then around five gave up on everything for the rest of the day. I printed out a short story I need to read to see if I can revise it into something that I can turn in for this anthology I’ve committed a story to, and of course I have to dive back into the manuscripts. I have to write something for Paul for Saints and Sinners; and I think I may have agreed to write something else? I need to do thank you cards and I need to mail the books to the winners of the Facebook page takeover giveaway that I did. I need to check in on my dad and sister, and of course at some point this week the fuse for the dryer is going to arrive so I can see if I can get that working again (prayers are appreciated and welcomed; not having a dryer has really sucked). I also ordered some other things I need. I just feel like I don’t have a grasp yet on my own life, and I don’t really like the way it feels. It’s almost like I am swimming through a fog, and things I used to easily remember and keep track of now just go right out of my mind like they were never there in my head in the first place. I don’t like this feeling; I don’t like not being able to trust my memory anymore–but even now as I write this I am wondering hasn’t this been the case for a while? Isn’t that why you started making lists in the first place–because if you didn’t write it down you’d forget?
I can’t even trust my memory about my memory. There’s a Kafka novel in there somewhere.
I’m also more aware of how quickly I tire now, too. I know that’s been going on for a while–since last summer’s horrific bout with Long COVID–but I am hoping that once I get back into the gym I will start building up my endurance again, and I also have to accept that it won’t be quick and my body won’t change at the speed that it used to. For one example, I was overweight when I moved back to New Orleans in August of 2001; I’d lost twenty pounds and tightened up everything by Halloween so I could wear a slutty costume. I’m not going to be able to return to the gym and be able to dress slutty again within eight weeks. (Not that I would dress slutty now–I’m in my sixties, for God’s sake, and I don’t care whether people think I look good or not anymore. It was never the priority of the gym for me in the first place. Yes, I liked looking good and yes, I liked getting flirted with and hit on, but for me that was a nice side effect to having the endurance to dance for hours, or feeling good physically.
God, I used to be so vain! I don’t really miss vanity, though.
One of the things I was working on before Mom had the final stroke was building a website–just something to play around with when I have time (ha ha ha ha ha, sure, Greg, that’s going to happen) and of course, that was the same fucking day I got the text from my sister, so I’ve not done a whole hell of a lot there, you know? I did get the domain registered, and I loaded a picture as well as info on A Streetcar Named Murder, but it’s going to take me some more time to learn how to do all the things I want it to do.
Because I am just swimming in free time.
I’m a bit groggy this morning, mainly because I am out of the habit of waking up to the alarm now–it actually jolted me awake, as opposed to me already being awake when it goes off, which means a retraining of myself yet again as this does not feel natural to me. It feels weird having to go back to the office this morning, as well. My toe’s not quite as painful this morning, either–it still hurts, mind you, but I can walk without limping and it’s not as bad as it has been, which is progress. I am still going to message my doctor today, though. We’ll see how it feels at the end of the day, won’t we? I suppose I can always ice it again once I am home tonight.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have the best Monday you can, Constant Reader.
Wednesday and only two–count ’em, two–days left before the parades start rolling down St. Charles, so tonight after work I am taking the highway and swinging by Costco on my way home. Yesterday was an okay day in that I never really felt tired or drained, which is always a plus. I did manage to start working on the first stage of the revisions of the manuscript–and I started working on something cool and exciting and new, but must remain a secret for now until I get it all figured out and worked out–and that’s terrific. I am sure going to Costco after work today is going to be a draining experience–but it’s never as bad as just going to a regular grocery store or Walmart, frankly. I also have to clean up around the kitchen this morning because I am doing a ZOOM thing for the MWA-Midwest chapter tomorrow night. I also have to go in Friday morning for a staff meeting (yay) but that’s fine; I can run to the grocery store for last minute things and pick up the mail afterwards so we’re good through Monday.
Because the grocery store won’t be a zoo the first Friday morning of parades, either.
I’m a bit groggy this morning. I slept pretty much through the entire night, other than when Scooter began howling for food early in the morning. He’s such a sweetheart, though. I went to bed last night before Paul got home and fell asleep almost immediately. I woke up when Paul got home and Scooter was curled up, nestled inside my right arm with his head right next to mine. You have to love a cat that’s just a big ole cuddlebug.
While I waited for Paul last night–I am still in the final stages of the malaise, alas; my creativity at a very low ebb at the moment–I started going through the manuscript, this time getting character names and seeing which characters actually had their names changed from one thing to another over the course of the manuscript (which happens when you don’t have a character key, which I know and don’t know why I didn’t keep up with mine as the manuscript progressed…especially when you have a fashion show with how many drag queens walking the runway? But the manuscript, even with the slight glances I was giving to it as I went through pulling out character names, didn’t seem nearly as messy and sloppy as I remember it being while I was writing it–which can be either my faulty memory or my usual self-loathing of any and every thing I write. The latter is always possible, but so is the former. At some point I should probably address my failing memory on here…but not today; I shall save that for some morning when I am not awake before sunrise and can focus properly on writing about my aging mind.
I was too tired to read as well last night; I am hoping to break that tonight when I get home. I am in the midst of two really fun and well written crime novels–Abby Collette’s Body and Soul Food and Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game–and so maybe every night when Paul’s not home I should take a book to bed with me? I don’t know how that might work, to be honest; usually I am so groggy by the time I climb the stairs I’m not sure how much reading I could do–let alone retain–late in the evening. I was pretty worn out by the time I finished watching Airplane! on HBO MAX (I got tired of scrolling through Youtube videos to watch so decided to rewatch one of my favorite comedies of all time–which has some eyebrow raising moments, but still holds up for the most part) and maybe that’s what I should start doing on the evenings when Paul works late–watch an old movie, maybe even a rewatch of a particular favorite, like Rogue One or something I’ve not seen in years, like Double Indemnity.
But today’s goal is to finish the character list and start the outline, so I can see what corrections needs to be made, what sections might need moving, and where I need to add more. I am feeling more awake now–coffee always helps, but my legs feel like they’re still not completely awake yet, which is a weird feeling that I am not describing properly to get across. It’s not like they’re asleep and tingling, or even exhausted or fatigued or anything like that–they just feel like they’re not awake, which isn’t getting the way it feels across, is it? Ah, well, it doesn’t matter because they don’t feel like they’re still sleeping in the bed, anyway.
And I still haven’t gotten an Arthur Hardy’s Mardi Gras Guide 2023 yet, either.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.
I drove all afternoon, first east on I-10 out of New Orleans and then north on I-59 to Birmingham. It was a lovely day for a drive, really, and I was listening to Carol Goodman’s The Night Visitors, which is gripping. She is truly a master at suspense, the modern day equivalent to Mary Stewart, I think. Part of the reason I am enjoying it so much is because one of the point of view characters is a trained counselor/social worker, who primarily works with domestic violence victims–and as someone who is a trained counselor who works with a LOT of social workers, the character of Maddie (or Mattie, it’s an audiobook so I am not sure how it’s spelled) thinks a lot the way I do sometimes about the techniques we are trained to use, when I’m taught a new method counseling…which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I could write about a counselor. (Obviously, I wouldn’t be able to use actual situations I’ve handled with actual clients, but I know I could get that world-weary does any of this really work cynicism burned out voice down perfectly.)
I got into the hotel around six last night, met up and socialized downstairs with some of the other folks here for the event–as well as the event organizers–and that was nice. I love writers and I love readers, so it’s always nice to be around people who are into books. (Oh, how I used to dream about being around other people who loved books, too…) I am up insanely early this morning because we have to be at the library for nine, but I slept decently for a hotel night (thank you, sleeping medication–you always deserve a shout out when you work) and am thinking I might actually be coherent on my panel today. I know it’s rude, but I am going to bring the latest manuscript with me today; I doubt I’ll even look at it–I always enjoy listen to writers talk about writing, and often I take notes as ideas come to me while and after listening to smart people talk about creating. I’m lucky this year, too–I have this event this month; TWFest/S&S next month; and then Malice the month after–so three consecutive months where I get to be around other writers, have fun and be inspired. It’s also good timing, since I’ll be in the weeds with edits and writing something new and hopefully also discovering great new writers to read. I’m getting kind of excited about this year, to be completely honest. I’m really happy with the writing I’ve been doing these last few years, and I ak m kind of excited about the writing I am going to be doing. It’s kind of feel excited about writing again, you know? The pandemic years (and yes, well aware they are not past, no matter how much we pretend that they are) and even the few years prior to that, I don’t remember ever being really excited about the writing I was doing? I was so caught up in the “this is such drudgery oh hurray another deadline is looming” that I forgot how much I actually like doing it, how much I enjoy creating, and that as much as I hate to admit it, ever, I’m actually kind of good at it.
I hear myself talking sometimes, or I come back here to reread something I’ve posted for some reason or another, and I think oh you’ve become one of those old people who brings up the past to make a point about the present and I roll my eyes at myself. Part of it is because I refused to look backwards for so long–and even now, after all this time, that can still be painful and hard–that now that I am sort of doing it, reacquainting myself with my own past by submerging myself into the news and the culture of this time or that period because I want to write about it, so I have to remember now…and now that I’m older, it’s harder to remember and then I’ll read something or hear something or watch something that will contradict something I remember (like, “no, I’m pretty sure I remember that song coming out when I was in eighth grade because we sang it in choir and we couldn’t have sang it if it came out later than that”–and sometimes those things I come across are actually incorrect, so it almost feels like gaslighting…I am beginning to understand now in this later stage in life that I have been essentially gaslit my entire life), which always gives me pause. But I want to write a book set in the early to mid 1970s, and yes, the character will be the same age I was in that time, so I am reacquainting myself with the period. I am writing a novella set in New Orleans in 1994, so I have to remember what that summer was like for a gay man in that America, and also what New Orleans was like in 1994; the music played in clubs, the drugs everyone was doing, were short shorts out yet or just on the way out, where we stood with HIV./AIDS (not a good place, frankly), and how the gay nightlife scene in New Orleans has so dramatically changed from back then. We used to have two bath houses and two backroom bars (which always used to get raided right before Southern Decadence as a reminder to the club owners to tip their local police union well), and the city itself was simply crumbling in the bright sun and high heat.
That’s certainly not New Orleans today.
It’s also weird the kinship I feel for Alabama. I only lived here the first two years of my life, so I have no memory of ever actually living here, but I spent so much time down here as a child it always kind of feels like home here, even though it’s not and has never really been. I feel connected to Alabama in a way I never have to anywhere I’ve ever lived other than New Orleans (which is why New Orleans is my home now), and just being in the state–hearing the Google Maps lady interrupting Carol Goodman’s book to say welcome to Alabama always brings a smile to my face (just as the Bienvenue en Louisiane sign does)–makes me feel more creative, more connected to my creativity, and leaves me feeling inspired. The minute she finished saying it and the narrator of the book came back on I immediately started thinking about Bury Me in Shadows, and two Alabama novellas I have started but yet to finish, and about another book set in my fictional Alabama county, and my mind just kept spinning and weaving tales until I pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car.
Sigh.
And on that note, I am going to go forage for coffee. Because else it will not be pretty.
Mystery Writers of America Announces 2023 Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominations
January 19, 2023, New York, NY – Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce, as we celebrate the 214th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, the nominees for the 2023 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2022. The 77th Annual Edgar® Awards will be celebrated on April 27, 2023, at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square.
BEST NOVEL
Devil House by John Darnielle (Farrar, Straus and Giroux – MCD) Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown & Co./Mulholland Books) Gangland by Chuck Hogan (Hachette Book Group – Grand Central Publishing) The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown & Co./Mulholland Books) Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Maid by Nita Prose (Penguin Random House – Ballantine Books)
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
Jackal by Erin E. Adams (Penguin Random House – Bantam) Don’t Know Tough by Eli Cranor (Soho Press – Soho Crime) Shutter by Ramona Emerson (Soho Press – Soho Crime) More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez (HarperCollins – William Morrow) Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li (Penguin Random House – Tiny Reparations Books)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Quarry’s Blood by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)
On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass (Harlequin Trade Publishing – Graydon House
Or Else by Joe Hart (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
Cleopatra’s Dagger by Carole Lawrence (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
A Familiar Stranger by A.R. Torre (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
BEST FACT CRIME
Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls by Kathleen Hale (Grove Atlantic – Grove Press)
Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation by Erika Krouse (Flatiron Books)
Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles (Hachette Book Group – Workman Publishing – Algonquin Books)
American Caliph: The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, D.C. by Shahan Mufti (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur Books)
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins – Collins Crime Club)
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie by Mary Anna Evans & J.C. Bernthal (Bloomsbury – Bloomsbury Academic)
The Crime World of Michael Connelly: A Study of His Works and Their Adaptations by David Geherin (McFarland)
The Woman Beyond the Attic: The V.C. Andrews Story by Andrew Neiderman (Simon & Schuster – Gallery Books)
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Books – Pegasus Crime)
BEST SHORT STORY
“Red Flag,” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Gregory Fallis (Dell Magazines) “Backstory,” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Charles John Harper (Dell Magazines) “Locked-In,” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by William Burton McCormick (Dell Magazines) “The Amnesty Box,” Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms by Tim McLoughlin (Akashic Books)
“First You Dream, Then You Die,” Black is the Night by Donna Moore (Titan Books)
BEST JUVENILE
The Swallowtail Legacy: Wreck at Ada’s Reef by Michael D. Beil (Holiday House – Pixel+Ink) The Area 51 Files by Julie Buxbaum (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press) Aggie Morton Mystery Queen: The Seaside Corpse by Marthe Jocelyn (Penguin Random House Canada – Tundra Books)
Adventures on Trains: Murder on the Safari Star by M.G. Leonard & Sam Sedgman (Macmillan Children’s Publishing – Feiwel & Friends) Chester Keene Cracks the Code by Kekla Magoon (Random House Children’s Books – Wendy Lamb Books)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne (Random House Children’s Books – Crown BFYR) Frightmares by Eva V. Gibson (Random House Children’s Books – Underlined) The Black Girls Left Standing by Juliana Goodman (Macmillan Children’s Books – Feiwel & Friends) The Red Palace by June Hur (Macmillan Children’s Books – Feiwel & Friends) Lock the Doors by Vincent Ralph (Sourcebooks – Fire)
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
“One Mighty and Strong” – Under the Banner of Heaven, Written by Brandon Boyce (Hulu/FX) “Episode 1” – Magpie Murders, Written by Anthony Horowitz (Masterpiece/PBS) “Episode 1″ – Karen Pirie, Written by Emer Kenny (BritBox) “When Harry Met Fergus” – Harry Wild, Written by David Logan (Acorn TV) “The Reagan Way” – Blue Bloods, Written by Siobhan Byrne O’Connor (CBS)
“Eighteen Wheels A Predator” – Law & Order: SVU, Written by Brianna Yellen & Monet Hurst-Mendoza (NBC Universal)
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
“Dogs in the Canyon,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Mark Harrison (Dell Magazines)
* * * * * *
THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Amanda Flower (Penguin Random House – Berkley)
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press) The Disinvited Guest by Carol Goodman (HarperCollins – William Morrow) A Dreadful Splendor by B.R. Myers (HarperCollins – William Morrow) Never Name the Dead by D.M. Rowell (Crooked Lane Books)
THE G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD
Secret Lives by Mark de Castrique (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)
An Unforgiving Place by Claire Kells (Crooked Lane Books)
Hideout by Louisa Luna (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – Doubleday)
Behind the Lie by Emilya Naymark (Crooked Lane Books)
Secrets Typed in Blood by Stephen Spotswood (Knopf Doubleday Publishing – Doubleday)
THE LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN MEMORIAL AWARD
The Shadow of Memory by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane Books)
Buried in a Good Book by Tamara Berry (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)
Smile Beach Murder by Alicia Bessette (Penguin Random House – Berkley)
Desert Getaway by Michael Craft (Brash Books)
The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)
SPECIAL AWARDS
GRAND MASTER
Michael Connelly
Joanne Fluke
RAVEN AWARD
Crime Writers of Color
Eddie Muller for Noir Alley and The Noir Foundation
I have decided, at long last, to throw away my ratty old LSU sweatshirt.
This sweatshirt, for the record, predates Paul, that’s how old it is. It’s either thirty or twenty-nine; I cannot really remember one way or the other. It was, however, my very first LSU sweatshirt–the first of many–and I bought it at the bookstore on the LSU campus. I don’t remember which drive from Houston to Tampa it was when I stopped on campus and bought it–it was either a time when I was driving my new car from Houston back to Tampa, or when I was riding with a friend who was driving from Phoenix to Tampa–I flew into Houston, he met me at the airport and we drove on to Tampa from there, but for a very long time it was my only LSU sweatshirt, and I’ve always had a deep fondness for it. It’s been worn and washed so many times that it’s incredibly thin and threadbare; the neckline is fraying and so are the sleeves at the wrist. It’s stained and ratty and messy, so much so that I won’t even wear it to run errands. I only wear it around the house and usually only when all the other sweatshirts are dirty (I live in sweats when I am at home), and the other day as I was putting it on I realized not only how old it was but how bad of shape it was in. Why are you holding on to this sweatshirt? I asked myself, and then Saturday morning as I was folding it out of the dryer I thought throw it away, why are you keeping this? Sentiment? You pride yourself on your lack of that emotion, so I decided to take a photo of it, write a farewell blog entry to it, and put it in the trash–which I should have done years ago, really.
I don’t even remember why I decided to stop on campus and buy it, to be honest. I have no memory of that at all. Even now, when we are on campus for games and go by the store, it doesn’t look familiar at all from back then. Maybe they’ve built or redesigned the campus store, I don’t know; it’s certainly possible. But I don’t remember it being right by the stadium, either; it’s possible there are two stores on campus. I couldn’t say for sure.
Despite growing up as an Auburn and Alabama fan (in that order; the rule was you always rooted for Alabama unless they were playing Auburn), I’ve always kind of been partial to LSU, even though I had no connection to either the school or the state until much later in life. I’ve tried to remember why I always liked LSU, even as a kid–I think it was two things: purple has always been a favorite color of mine, especially when paired with gold, and the live tiger on campus (which I am now on the fence about–I see the arguments both for and against keeping a live tiger on campus as a mascot, but I love that tiger). My cousin actually was on the Auburn team that lost the Earthquake Game back in 1988–my family is still bitter about that 7-6 last minute loss–and when we moved to Louisiana, I got Paul into college football and he became an LSU fan because we lived here. I still rooted for Auburn and Alabama and LSU, in that order. I was still rooting for Auburn and Alabama when they played LSU, though; even in 2003 when LSU won its first national championship since 1958. It was 2005 when everything shifted for me on the college football landscape; that horrible 2005 season after Katrina, when LSU’s football team was about the only positive thing Louisiana had going for it that season, that was when I went full-on bleed purple-and-gold LSU fan, and have never looked back since. Paul of course had already gone full tilt LSU fan, and his enthusiasm was catching. I used to only care about college football; now I pay attention to almost every sport, from basketball to gymnastics to baseball to track so I can root for the Tigers.
Even before LSU moved to the front of the list, I was writing about LSU. Chanse played scholarship football for LSU, and would have possibly played pro had he not suffered a career-ending knee injury in the Sugar Bowl his last season of eligibility. Chanse was a tight end; and I had always intended for Chanse to go back to LSU and solve a murder on the campus, at his fraternity house. That story, “Once a Tiger,” is about four thousand words in; I’ve debated turning it into both a novel or a novella rather than a short story. Scotty is an LSU fan–I wrote about Mike the Tiger in Baton Rouge Bingo–and of course, in A Streetcar Named Murder Valerie’s twin sons are in their first semester up there.
Looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? It served me well for nearly three four decades!
Paul and I went to our first LSU game in Tiger Stadium in November of 2010. It was the Mississippi game, the Magnolia Bowl; there’s not much love lost between LSU and Mississippi–their fans still can’t get over Billy Cannon’s Run back in 1959. LSU has ruined many a season for the Rebels, and vice versa, but I do think they hate us more than we hate them. The game was amazing, and we had a great time. We went to several games in 2011, and it wasn’t until the COVID year of 2020 that we went the entire season without going to a game; the only game we went to in 2021 was the first time the Tigers ever lost when we were at the game (Auburn, ironically; it was also Auburn’s first win in Baton Rouge this century). We didn’t go to any games this year, either; not sure if we will be going to any more in the future, either; but one never knows, and I would like to go to at least one more Saturday night game in Death Valley. We’ve been to some great games over the years, and I am very happy to say that we got to see that great 2019 team play twice–and we were at the Florida game, which was amazing and exciting and I couldn’t talk for at least three days afterwards.
And of course, this season was all over the place, but the team did something never done before in LSU football history: won at both Florida and Auburn…so obviously, the team has never won in Gainesville and Auburn and beat Alabama in Baton Rouge. Not even Joe Burrow could do that; in his first year as a Tiger he was 1-2 in those three games. So, if nothing else, Jayden Daniels has won a place in LSU history for that, and Brian Kelly did something in his first year in Baton Rouge that no LSU coach had ever done before–including Nick Saban (even the year Saban led LSU to a national title, that team lost to Florida in Tiger Stadium).
And so it’s goodbye to my old sweatshirt at long last. I don’t know why I didn’t throw it away sooner–it’s been ratty and stained and threadbare for years–unless it was an unconscious kind of sentimentality. I haven’t preserved much of my pre-Paul life–I’ve always viewed those years as a prologue to the rest of my life–but this was one of the few things left from that time.
But its time has passed, so farewell to you, old LSU sweatshirt. You served me well…and now I get to buy a new one to replace it. YES!
Thursday morning and the last day I have to get up this early this week. Huzzah! I slept well again last night–after the weird sleep of the previous night–and feel rested this morning. Not sure how that will play out through the rest of the day, but we’ll see, I guess. I know I have a full schedule at work today, so I am hoping to have the energy this evening after work to get home and do some writing. I started doing the dishes last night but didn’t finish; Paul was home early last night so I spent the evening hanging with him and Scooter and watching television. We started watching this new high school show on Netflix–Heartbreak High–but it was just okay (no Elite or Sex Education, that’s for sure); we’ll probably give it another episode or so before abandoning it, since shows sometimes need an episode or two to hit their grove and become more fun to watch.
Ugh.
I really don’t want to look at the news about the hurricane; as someone with some firsthand experience to hurricane aftermaths, I also know that no matter how bad it looks on television or on the newspaper, the reality is about a thousand times worse because pictures and video–no matter how well done–can never quite capture the scope of disaster in a way your brain can process the same way bearing eyewitness can. I saw a lot of awful posts on social media–people seeking help for family and/or friends trapped; trapped people looking for help–and I had to put my phone down because at some point it feels like it almost becomes a kind of macabre fascination, like you’re not doing out of empathy but out of some far darker, almost primordial need to see destruction you can enjoy because it doesn’t affect you. Human misery always bothers me on a very deep level, at the core of my being; there are very few people whose misery I can actually revel in (looking at you, Putin!).
But a hurricane threatening the Tampa Bay area has sent me down a rabbit hole into my own history, and memories of living in that area–which is when I worked for Continental Airlines–and my word, how my life has changed since I lived there. I was still pretty immature and under-developed socially and emotionally; I was originally transferred there from Houston in 1991, after I’d been with the company for about a year or so; I think my hire date was April 1990? (You can tell it’s been a long time; your hire date/seniority is everything when you work at an airline.) I’d originally moved to Houston after blowing up my life in California–lost my job, drug problem, drinking too much–but that was also probably the self-destruction brought on by the horror that was my life in the 1980’s, and after living there for two years was ready to start over again somewhere new; Houston was a nice way station but I’d never intended to stay there for very long–I do like Houston but I really don’t want to live in a place where you literally have to get on at least one highway every day and it seemed kind of exciting to start over in Florida.
Tampa turned out to be another transitional location for me; it was where I was able to come into myself, work on myself, and figure out who I am, what I wanted from life–and how to make a plan to get what I wanted from life. I was hardly perfect (still am quite a distance from being the ideal Greg I would like to be), but I was on well on my way to becoming the Greg I wanted to be when I loaded up my car with everything that could fit and left for Minneapolis shortly before Christmas of 1995. When I moved to Tampa I didn’t really have any idea of what I wanted or who I was or the life I wanted to lead; when I left I had those answers figured out and was well on my way to becoming who I wanted to be as a person. Obviously, I am still a work in progress, and while my memories of Tampa may not all be terrific ones, I am very happy I made the decision to transfer there–because I probably would have never become an active participant in my life rather than a passive one to whom things happened; I wanted to make things happen.
Obviously, you only can ever have so much control over your life; a lot depends on other people, of course, and things that are beyond your control (hello, natural disasters!), but it really feels good to have a purpose; I had always wanted to be a writer but it was while I was living in Tampa that I finally realized I needed to get past my fears of failure and really put the effort into making it happen, and it eventually did…who knows how my life would have turned out had I never made the decision to transfer to Tampa and reboot my life once more?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Thursday, Constant Reader, and will check in with you again tomorrow morning.
Ah, Tuesday morning and back to the office. I slept decently last night–woke up a couple of times, always able to go back to sleep–so I feel somewhat better this morning than I usually do on Tuesday mornings, but then again, we’ll just have to see how the rest of the day/week goes. I did my work at home duties yesterday, some chores and errands, and last night we started watching the new season of Stranger Things, which I think is the final season. The first episode was a bit off to me, but it certainly started picking up speed in the second and now we are all in after the third. I didn’t write or read much last night after work, but I do have some things i need to get finished today–quite a few things, actually–but I feel rested and maybe when I feel more awake than I do now, it might not be a problem getting everything done today that needs to get done. Stranger things, indeed.
I do have things I need to get ordered on-line today, too–and we need to go to Costco again at some point, perhaps this weekend. It’s always something.
I’m still, to be honest, coasting a little on the high from this past weekend in Florida, if I am being completely honest. I’m still feeling connected to my writing, which is lovely, even if I have to figure out a few things and get a few things pulled together. I also can’t believe it’s July already–and we’re almost halfway through the month, at that. Crazy, you know. But this year is already have over as well–what the hell? And then the next thing you know it’s football season. The twitter accounts for both LSU and the Saints are counting down the days until the season starts. It’s a new era for both–new coaches, essentially new teams, for that matter–so it will be interesting to see how the season goes for both. I also have a book to write during football season (as ever yet again), which will be challenging of course, as it is always is, and then it’s Christmas and New Year’s and BOOM. Carnival time again! #madness
Oh, and I have a book coming out in December right around the time my next Scotty manuscript is due, so as always, the promotion of a new book will have to occur (or start occurring) around the same time as I have to finish another. Now, there’s the workshop I would like to attend: how do you stay focused when you are finishing a book at the same time you are promoting a new release without going completely insane? That’s the part they never tell you about in creative writing classes and workshops–although I suppose those who have agents probably have the agent to walk them through that part (although sometimes I do wonder if I over-romanticize what it’s like to have an agent, since I’ve never had one? Oh if I had an agent they’d take care of this for me–I suspect that’s all too often not accurate. I also suppose that if and when I do ever land one, I will inevitably be disappointed with what they don’t do for me). Someday, I suppose, I’ll find out one way or the other.
And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.
I can’t remember where or when I had this conversation, but I do remember once asking Megan Abbott that “is there anything more noir than the suburbs?” I know it had to do with her brilliant novel The End of Everything, but I don’t remember if it was a bar conversation or if we were on a panel or what. I spent four and a half years living in an actual suburb when I was growing up–grades six through sophomore in high school–and while my family has always been loners (not getting involved in neighborhood groups, barely knowing the neighbors, keeping mostly to ourselves), so we didn’t get the full experience of the cattiness, the bitchiness, or the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality that are such a rich mine for crime fiction.
On the other hand, we really couldn’t keep up with the Joneses. In our suburb, we were on the lower end of the economic scale than most of the kids my sister and I went to school with, and the longer we lived there, the higher that economic scale continued to go. And there was a lot of strangeness in our suburb–I really do need to write Where the Boys Die and You’re No Good, the two books based on the suburb in which we lived–murders and drugs and undoubtedly affairs and so forth. A famous wife-killer was from our suburb, Drew Peterson. When I was a freshman in high school a junior boy and his girlfriend–a senior–murdered someone over drugs.
And that doesn’t take into consideration all the crimes that were probably going on at the time that no one thought anything about–date rapes and sexual assaults, child abuse, etc.–because nobody talked about them (I found out, for example, that one of my classmates–someone I knew and liked an awful lot–was being sexually and emotionally abused by her father; I never knew until about twenty years later).
Yikes.
Tara Laskowski’s second novel (and Anthony Award finalist!) The Mother Next Door is more evidence that I was right about suburbs being a dark place.
The moms were having a party. I watched from across the street, through my living room window, as aI ate my dinner of chicken piccata on the couch, sipping a hefty glass of merlot.
At dusk, they arrived one by one from the houses around the cul-de-sac, the glow of their phones like fireflies in the dying light. Dressed stylish but casual, ponytails and makeup, jeans and heels.
Viciously, effortlessly powerful.
The blonde mom was hosting. The one I’d noticed walking an oversize dog around the cul-de-sac, cell phone to her ear. She seemed to know everyone, always paused by one porch or another while her dog sniffed in the grass. Yes, my new neighbors were social butterflies. I observed theirfluttering hugs as they converged in front of the house. My view inside was limited–a hallway beyond the screen door, painted red, like the inside of a mouth, and at the end, the corner of a giant island in the center of the kitchen where I imagined they set their Tupperware trays and booze.
The Mother Next Door is set in a toney, elite suburb of the Washington DC metro area known as Ivy Woods. Our primary point-of-view character, Theresa, has just moved into a lovely cul-de-sac with her daughter and her husband of a year, who has been hired as principal at Woodard High School–a very top level school, which makes Theresa an appealing target for friendship by the highly competitive moms at the school. Theresa went to college locally, and is now returning, using her connection to one of her professors–they had an affair when she was a student–whose father is school superintendent, to land her husband his job. Theresa has a secret–as do the other four moms who live around the same cul-de-sac–known as the Ivy Five (although there were only four until Theresa moved in and became one of them). Theresa trying to negotiate this strange new world for herself–as well as keeping her secrets, always afraid someone else in the group is going to stumble over one of them.
But the other moms also are hiding a terrible secret–one alluded to in emails and private messages from a mysterious account called “Ivy Woods”–making threats to expose them all and “what they did.” Halloween is approaching, and the Ivy Five are very well known for their massive Halloween block party…so as they try to figure out costumes and decorations, they are also trying to figure out who they can trust, who they can’t, and who could possibly know all their secrets. Our other point of view character is Kendra, the alpha of the group (think Madeline from Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, which this reminded me of a lot), with her great job, her ruthless efficiency, and her mad organizing skills.
There’s also an urban legend about the woods behind their houses–Ghost Girl, who fell to her death from a bridge over a railroad track and who now haunts the woods at Halloween, the night she died.
It’s quite the concoction Laskowski has pulled off here, and the way she manages to humanize all of her characters–despite their weaknesses and their really (in some cases) deep flaws–makes the reader engage with and care about them, and the deeper you get into the book, the harder it is to put it down for even just a moment to get something to drink or to go to the bathroom.
ITW will announce the winners at ThrillerFest XVIII on Saturday, June 3, 2023 at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, New York City.
Queer and Loathing in America 