Nominierungen für die Arthur Ellis Awards 2007

vom Krimiblogger

Mit etwas Verspätung hier die Nominierungen für die Arthur Ellis Awards. Zum 24. Mal vergeben die Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) in diesem Jahr ihre Arthur Ellis Awards. Eigentlich sollte es in diesem Jahr sieben Kategorien geben, allerdings gab es für die Kategorie „Best Crime Writing in French“ so wenig Einsendungen, dass auf die Vergabe in dieser Rubrik verzichtet wird. Die Preisträger in den anderen Kategorien werden am 7. Juni 2007 in Toronto bekannt gegeben.

Die Nominees nach Kategorien:

– Best Short Story –

– Best Non Fiction –

the desperate ones
Edward Butts: The Desperate Ones: Forgotten Canadian Outlaws

Verlagstext:
They were among Canada’s most desperate criminals, yet their names have been all but forgotten in the annals of history – until now! In their day these lawless men made headline news. Author Ed Butts has rescued their stories from dusty newspaper pages and polished them up for today’s readers in this fascinating volume.

The Markham Gang introduced Canada West to organized crime long before anyone had heard of the Mafia. Lew Bevis took on the whole Halifax Police Department in a blazing gun battle. The wild Macdonald cousins went to Michigan, where they ended their violent careers as victims of a savage lynching. Reid and Davis, the notorious Border Bandits of the Roaring Twenties, were the nightmare of every banker from Manitoba to the state of Washington. This rogues‘ gallery of killers, robbers, and men of mystery shocked the nation, challenged the forces of law and order, and sometimes even got away with it.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

the brotherhoods
Guy Lawson & William Oldham: The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia

Verlagstext:
The Brotherhoods is the chilling chronicle of the shocking crimes of NYPD de-tectives Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, notorious rogue cops found guilty in April 2006 of the ultimate form of police corruption — shielding their criminal deeds behind their badges while they worked for the mafia. Their crimes include participation in the murders of at least eight men, kidnapping, and the betrayal of an entire generation of New York City detectives, federal agents, and prosecutors. „One of the most spectacular police corruption scandals in the city’s history,“ proclaimed the New York Times in its front-page coverage of the jury’s verdict.

This gripping, true-life detective story is remarkable for its psychological intrigue, criminal audacity, and paranoid, blood-soaked fury. Written by prize-winning journalist Guy Lawson and William Oldham, the brilliant detective who quietly and relentlessly investigated the rogue cops for seven years, The Brotherhoods provides unparalleled access to the secretive workings of both the NYPD and organized crime — their hierarchies, rituals, and codes of conduct.

Sprawling from Manhattan to Las Vegas to Hollywood, this incredible story features wiseguys, hit men on the lam, snitches, cops on the take, girlfriends who should know better, a crooked accountant, corrupt jewelers, streetwise detectives, flamboyant defense attorneys, ice-cool prosecutors, a distinguished federal judge, and a gallery of other unforgettable characters, many hiding secrets they are afraid to reveal.

In yet another turn of events, in June 2006 a federal judge vacated the convictions on statute of limitations grounds, even as he cited overwhelming evidence that Caracappa and Eppolito had committed „heinous and violent crimes.“ The U.S. Attorney’s Office, which had won the convictions, has appealed the ruling. The conviction of the two men by a jury and the judge’s reiteration of their guilt underscore the amazing story of The Brotherhoods.

Destined to rank with such modern crime classics as Serpico, Donnie Brasco, and Wiseguy, this quintessential American mob tale goes to the hearts of two brotherhoods — the police and the mafia — and the two cops who belonged to both.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

to the grave
Mike McIntyre: To the Grave: A Spectacular RCMP Sting

Verlagstext:
It was a mystery destined for the Cold Case Files.

A pretty teenager from Brandon, Manitoba, named Erin Chorney steps out for coffee, tells her mom she’ll be back in an hour – and never returns.

Almost immediately, the rumours about Erin’s fate begin to fly. Psychics with bizarre theories and suggestions. Shocking accusations and denials. Cryptic diary entries. Disturbing anonymous letters. Search warrants and surveillance.

Has Erin, whose life has already been filled with several struggles, simply run away from those who love her? Or has someone stolen her from them?

Nearly two years later, when all hope seems lost – a last-ditch plan straight out of Hollywood.
The RCMP take aim at the prime suspect in Erin’s disappearance through a unique undercover sting operation, and the result is a wild, four-month ride into a dark criminal underworld filled with cunning mind games, shadowy figures, daring twists and Academy-award winning acting performances.

And an explosive ending that nobody saw coming…

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

High
Brian O’Dea: High: Confessions of a Pot Smuggler

Verlagstext:
How a privileged son of Newfoundland became one of the world’s most efficient marijuana traffickers – and then gave it all up.

An intriguing ad ran in the Employment Wanted section of a Toronto newspaper in February 2001:
FORMER MARIJUANA SMUGGLER
Having successfully completed a ten-year sentence, incident free, for importing 75 tons of marijuana into the United States, I am now seeking a legal and legitimate means to support myself and my family.

Business experience: Owned and operated a successful fishing business — multi-vessel, one airplane, one island and processing facility. Simultaneously owned and operated a fleet of tractor-trailer trucks conducting business in the western United States. During this time I also participated in the executive level management of 120 people worldwide in a successful pot-smuggling venture with revenues in excess of $100-million US annually…

Among the advertiser’s references was the US district attorney who was responsible for his arrest in 1990 and who had reminded the trial judge that the offence could carry the death penalty. The ad made news around the world and also captured the resilient spirit of Brian O’Dea, a remarkable man who, even in his darkest hours of addiction and criminality, never lost the love of family and friends.

The O’Dea family is well known in government and legal circles in Newfoundland. But the family’s prominence could not protect their middle son from sexual abuse at the hands of priests. Brian became the black sheep, and turned to drugs in his late teens for the money, for the excitement, and for an escape from himself. Twenty-five years later, when the cops finally knocked on his door at the end of a massive DEA investigation, he had given up the trade and was a recovered cocaine addict working as a drug addiction counsellor in Santa Barbara. He had finally begun to understand how he had ended up in the drug world. He was tried and sentenced to ten years to be served at Terminal Island federal prison in Los Angeles Harbor.

High interweaves extracts of his prison diary – perceptive, funny and alarming all at once – with the vivid recounting of his outlaw years and the dawning recognition of those things in his life that were worth living for.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

who_named_the_knife.jpg
Linda Spalding: Who Named the Knife

Verlagstext:
Like Ruskin for a new age, Spalding brilliantly interweaves her own life and her subject’s in this story of a sensational murder case.

In 1982, as Linda Spalding was about to leave Hawaii and embark on a new life in Canada, she was called to jury duty, sitting for the trial of a young woman charged with murder. Maryann Acker was Mormon, eighteen years old, and married to a petty crook and hustler who had hauled her into a life that led eventually to murder on a hillside above one of Hawaii’s most beautiful beaches.

Twenty years later, Spalding stumbles across the journal she kept through the trial, tracks down Maryann, who is still in jail, and begins a journey into memory, into the twists of fate that spin two lives down such different trajectories. The story is Maryann’s but it is also Spalding’s, as subject and writer overlap. Like the work of John Ruskin, Linda Spalding’s writing brilliantly combines autobiography with the examination of an external subject and, in doing so, offers us profound insights into the vagaries of the human heart.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

– Best Juvenile –

the mystery of the graffit ghoul
Marty Chan: The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul

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Marty Chan is back with a sequel to his award-winning juvenile romp The Mystery Of the Frozen Brains.
Nine-year-old Marty and his francophone buddy, Remi Boudreau, stumble upon graffiti on the school�s equipment shack and begin the adventure of tracking down the culprit. Marty spies on his classmates, wears his mom�s dress to go undercover, and risks losing his best friend as the mystery of the graffiti ghoul leads him to the graveyard. With continued insight into a Chinese boy’s life in a Francophone town in Alberta, Chan’s humour balances the serious themes of bullying and racism that are revealed in the attitudes and actions of elementary school kids.

Recognized as contemporary versions of the Hardy Boys detective novels, the books in Chan’s Mystery Series are first-rate entertainment and highly recommended for kids.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

hamish x and the cheese pirates
Seán Cullen: Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates

Verlagstext:
The mysterious Hamish X is the scourge of the Orphan Disposal Agency—Agents Candy and Sweet can’t seem to find a facility that can hold him. After arriving at the Windcity Orphanage, where the children are forced to earn their keep making stinky blue cheese, Hamish X is soon planning his escape along with new friends Parveen and Mimi. But his plans are put on hold when the factory is suddenly attacked by a fierce gang of pirates, led by the dreaded Cheesebeard of Snow Monkey Island. In order to save the other orphans, Hamish X, Mimi, and Parveen must embark upon an epic adventure across the Arctic and take on the cheese-obsessed pirates by themselves.

The inimitable Seán Cullen’s first book in his new series for children is dramatic, action-packed, and, of course, completely hilarious.

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

the devil the banshee and me
L.M. Falcone: The Devil, The Banshee and Me

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Somebody has moved into the creepy, abandoned cottage in the cemetery across the road from Will Trenom’s house in small, sleepy Port Elgin. Will is on a perfectly normal errand on a perfectly normal day when he knocks on the cottage door.

Suddenly, a crazy sumo wrestler with gold hoop earrings is chasing him through the cemetery while a strange man with long blonde hair — who calls himself the devil’s nephew — laughs. Then late that night, Will hears crying in the cemetery and sees a ghostly old woman hovering above the gates. What kind of neighbours are these? What the devil is going on?

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

tell
Norah McClintock: Tell

Verlagstext:
When his step-father Phil is shot dead in an apparent robbery, David becomes the prime suspect. Where was David that night, and what does he know about Phil?
David has figured out the truth about his step-father, and the day his kid-brother died. What will it take for him to tell? And how did he know?

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

All in
Monique Polak: All in

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Todd Lerner’s never been much of a student, but he’s got plenty of street smarts and he’s a mean poker player. Todd’s always had a thing for Claire, the most beautiful girl in grade eleven — but Claire likes nice things. If Todd wants to date her, he’ll need cash and plenty of it. Soon, a weekly poker game turns into a costly and dangerous obsession, and Todd’s luck begins to change. Inspired by true events, All In journeys into the high-stakes worlds of gambling, addiction, and fraud.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

– Best First Novel –

The Elvis Interviews
Glen Bonham: The Elvis Interviews

Verlagstext:
A handsome, sixty-something Kansas sheriff, Jesse Smith, pulls over a 1955 pink Cadillac for speeding. No sooner has the sheriff sent the driver on his way with a speeding ticket and a warning—when something about the caddie begins to bother him.

He has an eerie feeling that the car he stopped might be none other than Elvis Presley’s pink Cadillac—one of the most famous 50s icons in the world! As luck and timing would have it: because his computer was down that day, Sheriff Jesse was unable to run a search on the vehicle. Not that it would have mattered: the Caddie’s driver, J.J. Fitzgerald, one of the slickest automobile ’specialists’ on the planet, had covered all of the bases.

What do this southern sheriff, the car thief disguised as an Elvis impersonator, the Japanese Yakuza, the Mafia, a locked metal briefcase, a couple of beefy goons and a washed-up investigative journalist on the brink of a major breakthrough…all have in common?

A Pink Cadillac!

But not just any pink Cadillac. We’re talking about what might well be the most valuable car in the world. After all, the gleaming pink showpiece was a young man’s gift to the most important woman in his life. It didn’t matter that Gladys Presley had never learned to drive. The pink Cadillac symbolized the fulfillment of a loving son’s earnest promise to his mother in the midst of their direst poverty: “One day I’m gonna buy you a new Cadillac!”

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

Sign of The Cross
Anne Emery: Sign of the Cross

Verlagstext:
Be careful what you wish for, his mother used to say. Yet how many times, in his 20 years defending the underclass, has Monty Collins wished for a client who is intelligent, articulate, and tattoo-free? Now he has one, but it’s not long before his mother’s warning comes back to haunt him. Father Brennan Burke was born in Ireland, raised in New York, educated in Rome — he’s equally fluent in Latin and the language of the street. And he is the prime suspect in the killing of a foxy young girl whose body was found carved with a religious sign, a sign that points straight to the priest.

From their first meeting, Monty finds Burke acerbic, arrogant, and evasive about his relationship with the victim. Conflict between lawyer and client simmers all through the ordeal that lies ahead, as evidence piles up and murder charges seem inevitable. With Burke remaining tight-lipped about his past, Monty has no choice but to go behind his back and conduct a probe into the life of his own client. Never in his career has Monty been so lost for answers, until a long-forgotten incident takes on new and ominous meaning…

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Reparations
Stephen Kimber: Reparations

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Ray and Ward grew up best friends—one black, one white—in Halifax’s Africville district. Now they face each other again, this time in a courtroom as lawyer and judge in an explosive trial revolving around the three-decades-old expropriation and demolition of Africville. The trial will force both men to confront the demons of their pasts and reveal secrets they’ve kept hidden, even from themselves. Canada’s answer to Scott Turow pens a blockbuster courtroom thriller of power, politics, sex and race.

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

Dead Money
Grant McCrea: Dead Money

Verlagstext:
With dialogue reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett and Elmore Leonard’s works, a ripping pace and a cast of characters you won’t soon forget, Dead Money is a first-rate mystery like no other.

When Rick Redman’s infuriating boss puts him on the Jules Fitzgibbon case, Rick suspects he’s being set up to lose. After all, the murder victim was found dead in a nearby alleyway after a very vocal argument with the accused, a young man with an unhealthy fondness for sharp implements. But Jules’s father is an important client of the firm, and Rick is told to keep the young man out of jail. Could it be, though, that Jules’s father also wants Rick to fail? Rick turns to the one person he knows he can trust – in life and on the case – Dorita, a leggy dame with a platinum cigarette lighter and a wit as sharp as her stilettos.

Meanwhile, at home, Rick’s wife is slowly killing herself with drink, and their spirited teenaged daughter, Kelly, is forced to watch helplessly. Rick seeks consolation at his local watering hole, The Wolf’s Lair, where he meets a young and charming actor, Jake, who asks him to join a high-stakes poker game. But like everything else in Rick’s complicated life, there’s more to Jake than meets the eye.

Dead Money is the first in a series featuring Rick Redman: lawyer, drinker, rookie investigator, father, poker hound.

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

Deadley Lessons
David Russell: Deadly Lessons

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Winston Patrick, a successful lawyer but dissatisfied with his career defending the downtrodden of Vancouver’s criminal world, trades in the courtroom for the high school classroom. Soon Winston’s past life meets his present when a student accuses a fellow colleague of a teacher-student love affair.

Reluctantly, Winston agrees to provide legal defence, but the case takes an even uglier turn: the student is murdered, making her alleged lover the prime suspect. And this is no ordinary student. With her family connections reaching as high as the Prime Minister’s office, Winston and his friend Detective Andrea Pearson find themselves immersed in a murder investigation that could cause an international incident, if it doesn’t cost Winston his own life first.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

– Best Novel –

Lone Wolf
Linwood Barclay: Lone Wolf

Verlagstext:
Newspaper writer, family man, and reluctant hero Zack Walker has stumbled onto some dicey stories before, but nothing like what he’s about to uncover when a mutilated corpse is found at his father’s lakeside fishing camp. As always, Zack fears the worst. And this time, his paranoid worldview is dead-on.

While the locals attribute the death to a bear attack, Zack suspects something far more ominous—a predator whose weapons include arson, assault, and enough wacko beliefs to fuel a dozen hate groups. Then another body is discovered and a large supply of fertilizer goes missing, evoking memories of the Oklahoma City bombing. But it’s when he learns that his neighbor is a classic Lone Wolf—FBI parlance for a solo fanatic hell-bent on using high body counts to make political statements—that Zack realizes the idyllic town of his childhood is under siege. The fuse is lit to a catastrophe of unimaginable terror. And with time running out, Zack must face off with a madman.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Every secret thing
Emma Cole: Every Secret Thing

Verlagstext:
Moving between fast-paced modern-day London and Canada to the dangerous, double-crossing streets of war-time Lisbon, comes this thrilling mystery and intriguing love story from a brilliant new voice.

When an old man strikes up a conversation with her on the steps of St Paul’s and makes a mystifying mention of murder and an oddly familiar comment about her grandmother, Kate Murray is intrigued. But she never gets to hear the rest of Andrew Deacon’s tale. Shocked by his unexpected death, she wonders who this strange, old man is, and what the odd reference to her grandmother could mean. Interest piqued by the story never told, Kate becomes drawn into an investigation, uncovering secrets about the grandmother she thought she knew and a man she never did. Soon she is caught up in a dangerous whirlwind of events that takes her back into her grandmother’s mysterious war-time past and across the Atlantic as she tries to retrace Deacon’s footsteps.

Finding out the truth is not so simple, however, as only a few people are still alive who know the story…and Kate soon realises that her questions are putting their lives in danger. Stalked by an unknown and sinister enemy, and facing death every step of the way, Kate must use her tough journalistic instinct to find the answers from the past in order to have a future.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Honor among men
Barbara Fradkin: Honour Among Men

Verlagstext:
Inspector Green is coping with an office job, still eager to get back into the day-to-day fray of policing. His chance comes when an unidentified woman is drowned in the Ottawa River. In her possession is a Medal for Bravery from a peacekeeping mission.
As Green and his team dig deeper into the military past, Green finds himself sucked not only into the murky past of a peacekeeping unit but into the high-stakes present of a federal election race. What crime was committed in Yugoslavia more than a decade ago? Is someone still killing to prevent that secret from coming to light? And does the diary of a dead soldier hold the key?

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

break no bones
Kathy Reichs: Break No Bones

Verlagstext:
Following the tremendous success of Cross Bones, Kathy Reichs explores another high-profile topic in Break No Bones — a case that lands forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan in the middle of a gruesome international scheme.

Summoned to South Carolina to fill in for a negligent colleague, Tempe is stuck teaching a lackluster archaeology field school in the ruins of a Native American burial ground on the Charleston shore. But when Tempe stumbles upon a fresh skeleton among the ancient bones, her old friend Emma Rousseau, the local coroner, persuades her to stay on and help with the investigation. When Emma reveals a disturbing secret, it becomes more important than ever for Tempe to help her friend close the case.

The body count begins to climb. An unidentified man is found hanging from a tree deep in the woods. Another corpse shows up in a barrel. There are mysterious nicks on bones in several bodies, and signs of strangulation. Tempe follows the trail to a free street clinic with a belligerent staff, a suspicious doctor, and a donor who is a charismatic televangelist. Clues abound in the most unlikely places as Tempe uses her unique knowledge and skills to build her case, even as the local sheriff remains dubious and her own life is threatened.

Tempe’s love life is also complicated. Ryan, her current flame, has come down to visit her from Montreal, and Pete, her former husband, is investigating the disappearance of a local woman — and he and Tempe are staying in the same borrowed beach house. Ryan and Pete compete for her attentions, and Tempe finds herself more distracted by her feelings for both men than she expected.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Piece of my heart
Peter Robinson: Piece of My Heart

Verlagstext:
Piece of My Heart is Peter Robinson’s outstanding sixteenth novel in the acclaimed Inspector Banks series. Richly textured with the music and conflicting mores of 1960s Britain, the story weaves between two eras as it explores just how dangerously things can go awry when one generation is estranged from the next, when fathers no longer understand their daughters.

The novel opens in 1969. Yorkshire’s first outdoor rock festival has just finished, and the psychedelic pastoral band the Mad Hatters and other top British groups have departed. Even the last of their fans has gone, leaving behind only a muddy field, littered with rubbish. Volunteers are cleaning up when one of them finds the body of a young woman inside a sleeping bag.

Stanley Chadwick, the straitlaced detective called in to find her killer, could not have less in common with — or less regard for — the people he now has to question: young, disrespectful, long-haired hippies who smoke marijuana and live by the pulsing beats of rock and roll. And he has almost just as little in common with his own daughter, who lied to him about her whereabouts and slipped off to the festival.

More than thirty-five years later, Inspector Alan Banks is investigating the murder of a freelance music journalist who was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for Mojo magazine. This is not the first time that the Mad Hatters, now aging rock superstars, have been brushed by tragedy, and Banks has to delve into the past to find out exactly what hornet’s nest the journalist inadvertently stirred up.

This eagerly awaited novel showcases the many reasons why Peter Robinson is among the small elite of authors internationally whose mysteries are nothing less than works of art.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

– Best Unpublished First Crime Novel (the Unhanged Arthur) –

  • Jennifer Hemstock: Murder in a Cold Climate
  • Meika Erinn McClurg: Ego Tenderloin
  • Rosemary McCracken: Last Date
  • Phyllis Smallman: Margarita Nights
  • Kevin Thornton: Condemned

Folgende acht unveröffentlichten Romane sind zwar nicht veröffentlicht, laut der Jury verdienen sie aber eine lobende Erwähnung:

  • Pam Barnsley: This Cage of Bones
  • Tim Cramp: Dead Witness List
  • Trish Dyer: Home Away
  • Tania Finch: Cold Cuts
  • Matthew Fries: Betrayal
  • Meg Howald: Expatriate Bones
  • Josephine Leonard-Bezeau: The Bogeyman in the Closet
  • Coleen Steele: Angel’s Share

Eine kleine Anmerkung: Die Idee, unveröffentlichte Manuskripte zu nominieren und davon einen Roman schließlich auszuzeichnen, finde ich sympathisch, zum Beispiel im Hinblick auf den Autorennachwuchs.