Your Anthony Award Nominees, With Added Commentary

Step out for a few hours and you end up missing out on some very welcome news, as the 2009 Anthony Award nominations were announced earlier today by the Indianapolis Bouchercon Awards Committee:

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  Congratulations to all the nominees! The winners will&#0160; be announced at a gala awards ceremony on Saturday, October 17, at the Hilbert Circle Theatre. And once again, it is truly an honor to be nominated and among some very fine company.
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  <strong>UPDATE</strong>: <a href="http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2009/05/and-now-for-anthonys.html">J. Kingston Pierce has a very interesting reaction</a> to the Anthony shortlists: "Hmm. Could I be growing more cynical in my old age? While there are<br /> some excellent candidates here, it’s my opinion that there are also a<br /> few dubious nominees. And I don’t remember having such doubts about<br /> previous years’ Anthony short lists." While I admit to being a bit surprised by the overall makeup of the shortlists &#8211; especially the big three candidates &#8211; there are a few things to take away that speak more about what authors are championed by the mystery community, or more accurately the mystery community in the midwest region.
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  Exhibit A: William Kent Krueger. He's been nominated every year for the last several and has taken home the Anthony several times during that time span. The Cork O'Connor series is clearly very much beloved by the Bouchercon faithful. And yet sales are decidedly midlist, he renews his contract with Atria for a decent but not great amount of money, there's hardly any promotion of the books outside of his midwest home base, and he gets nominated for an Anthony (and sometimes wins) and the cycle continues. Granted, in this economy having a good-sized fanbase and a publisher willing to renew one's contract should not be discounted, but the high-roller part of me is driven positively crazy by this seemingly unending cycle. I like Kent's books and his writing, but if ever there was a writer in desperate need of breakout material, he is it.
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  Exhibit B: Stieg Larsson. Already I've noted several raised eyebrows that THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGONN TATTOO was nominated in Best Novel *and* Best First Novel. I can't object since I agree that it was one of the best books I read in 2008, and it along with the other Millenium novels are global phenomena, but it does speak to the grassroots way Larsson's work has spread, one regional base at a time. Whatever one thinks, Larsson had an intangible quality that reaches out to both a mass audience that buys a couple of books a year and a community of readers who know every mystery trope backwards and forwards. That is a rare, rare thing.
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  Exhibit C: the critics, and I include myself in this category, tend to go for a certain type of mystery deemed to be "literate." But readers want to be entertained and comforted, especially right now, which is why cozy or "neo-traditionalist" or however these books are categorized these days sell. So why shouldn't they be recognized for their efforts? The Anthonys are a fan-based award, and while there are times their judgments align perfectly with the Edgars, Macavitys and the like, other times it really does reflect a certain subset of readers who vote with their buying power. Now, what would be great is if the demand for traditional mysteries spurred editors to look that much harder for higher quality work. Not everyone writes at the level of Louise Penny, but they really ought to.
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