And the awards just keep on comin’

First, a nod to my home country, as the Great Literary Prizes were handed out in Toronto last night. Alice Munro took it for fiction and Peter C. Newman won for non-fiction, but a special hat tip to Howard Engel, author of the Benny Cooperman series, for his receipt of the Matt Cohen Award for body of work. As a new convert to the series, it’s certainly deserved, and congratulations to him for the honor.

The LA Times Book Nominations were announced last night as well, and on the Mystery/Thriller front, the finalists are:

Alan Furst, Dark Voyage: A Novel (Random House)
Henning Mankell, The Return of the Dancing Master [translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson] (The New Press)
Charles McCarry, Old Boys (Overlook Press)
Kem Nunn, Tijuana Straits: A Novel (Scribner)
Ian Rankin, A Question of Blood: An Inspector Rebus Novel (Little, Brown)

Gosh, what a very international, espionage-ish, thriller-y list. Certainly the polar opposite of the Edgar list, that’s for sure. But again, congrats to all the nominees, and nice to see Kem Nunn appear on an awards list after many years of hiatus.

The nominees for the Pen/Faulkner Award are up as well, and they are:

Jerome Charyn, THE GREEN LANTERN

Edwidge Danticat, THE DEW BREAKER

Ha Jin, WAR TRASH

Marilynne Robinson, GILEAD

Steve Yarbrough, PRISONERS OF WAR

And finally, Jiro Kimura reports on a couple of additional awards as well. Kris Nelscott (also known as Kristine Kathryn Rusch) won the Spotted Owl Award for the Best novel written by a writer based in the Pacific Northwest.

First Place: “The Gin Mill,” by Doug Allyn (Sep-Oct, 2004)

Second Place: “Deep Lock,” by Clark Howard (December 2004)

Third Place: “Tequila Memories,” by Clark Howard (June, 2004) I’ll let Jiro have the last word: “Okay, okay, Allyn and Howard have won the EQMM Readers Award several times, but don’t think EQMM readers-voters are prejudiced or male-oriented. The stories by Allyn and Howard are very good. You read them and decide yourselves.”

ral times, but don’t think EQMM readers-voters are prejudiced or male-oriented. The stories by Allyn and Howard are very good. You read them and decide yourselves.”