Our Final Day at the Edgars

In just a few short hours, the Mystery Writers of America will be awarding the 2014 Best Novel award to one of the six nominated books this year. I've spend this past week looking at four of those novels (two were a part of a series and as you know, my book OCD simply won't allow me to read a book out of order). While I don't expect the MWA to follow my recommendation (although they should....I know what I'm talking about here), I won't let that stop me from revealing the novel I would bestow the 2014 Best Novel Edgar Award upon.....

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson's Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and in many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

Ordinary Grace caught me unaware. I was expecting a perhaps above average murder mystery. What I read transported me to a different time and place with characters who became my family, in a town that became my town. Frank Drum, our narrator, tells us the story of that tragic summer of his thirteenth year looking back forty years later. He does so with stark honesty and not a little nostalgia.

From the death of a young friend on the railroad tracks to the disappearance of his beloved older sister, Frank, his younger brother, his Methodist minister father, and strong-willed mother each - in their own way - come to understand how lives intertwine and the long-lasting repercussions of relationships.

Strongly reminscent of classic coming-of-age stories such as Stand by Me or To Kill a Mockingbird, Ordinary Grace retains strong mystery elements - necessary for an Edgar Award - with larger themes of family, betrayal, forgiveness, and most of all, grace. I didn't want this book to end. I'm thankful that the story still resonates with me all these months after I turned the last page. William Kent Krueger wrote not just a mystery, but a work of literature full of grief, anger, hope, and redemption. It is a winning novel in every sense of the word.

Are you listening, Mystery Writers of America?

Day 3 at the Edgars

Well, well, well. We're up to Day 3 of my very own personal Edgar Award for Best Novel and now we're getting to the good stuff. This is where things heat up. Because today is a look at one of the best novels published in 2013, Thomas H. Cook's Sandrine's Case.

Taking place over the course of college professor Samuel Madison's trial for the murder of his wife, Sandrine's Case is evidence of what a truly talented author can do with even the most basic plot premise. Sam comes home one evening to find his terminally-ill wife dead. He calls the police. The police become suspicious. An autopsy reveals a painkiller overdose. Enough circumstantial evidence is collected to arrest Sam for the murder of his wife, Sandrine. A simply plot. A very, very riveting novel. Our narrator is the good professor himself and he is neither entirely reliable nor always likable. But does this make him a murderer? 

As Sam ruminates over his memories of his long marriage with Sandrine, layer upon layer is pulled back to reveal new information. Like any marriage, theirs had stumbling blocks. Infidelity. Emotional withdrawal. Different goals. It becomes very difficult - yet crucial - for the reader to discern whether Sam's memories would have the same as Sandrine's. 

The momentum builds quickly in this novel and the need to reach the end becomes just as frantic for the reader as it does for Sam as he awaits his verdict. It becomes nearly impossible to put the book down -- set aside a block of time for this one.

Cook (who is a previous Edgar winner for his 1996 novel The Chatham School Affair) is nearly pitch-perfect here. No loose ends, nothing left unexplained, and complex themes that you don't even realize are there until the last page is turned. If you enjoy a very well-plotted suspense novel written by an author at the top of his game, this is your book. I would have chosen Sandrine's Case as my own Personal Edgar Award winner this year had it not had the misfortune of being published the same year as the last and final entry I'll feature tomorrow - Ordinary Grace. Stay tuned....

Day 2 at the Edgars

Welcome back to the second day of my own personal little Edgar Awards. Yesterday I ruled out Matt Haig's nominated novel The Humans, which I found to be an excellent novel but questioned it's inclusion as an Edgar nominee because the plot lacked any kind of mystery or suspense that the awards are known for.

The next nominee in the Best Novel line up is previous Edgar Award recipient Lori Roy's novel, Until She Comes Home. Set in 1958 Detroit, Until She Comes Home is the tale of a tight-knit, traditional community of housewives who find themselves in an unstable, changing world. When a local developmentally disabled woman disappears and a black woman is found murdered, the changes of the outside world threaten to destabilize their own traditional community...is the murderer one of their own? One woman knows the truth. But fear and social pressure prevents her from coming forward. Will more women die?

As a period piece, Until She Comes Home does a marvelous job of recreating the shaky ground of the late 1950s Detroit in the shadow of the Civil Rights Era. Middle class white America was tenuously hanging on to traditional ideals that were already in the past, but many didn't realize this yet. The result was a perpetually confused state for millions of "Main Street" Americans. They simply didn't understand the social constructs that were on the cusp of crumbling around them. Roy admirably evokes this America. 

Unfortunately, it ends there. Her characters are simply a part of lush background, never quite achieving a life of their own. Without the characters coming to life, it is difficult to become invested in the suspense of the story. Further complicating matters were numerous (!) abrupt transitions in character points of view, making it challenging to follow the narrative at times. 

In the end, the novel is worth reading for cultural and historical evocations it richly brings to the page, but it doesn't have every element necessary to be deserving of the Best Novel Award.

Tomorrow, I'll be taking a look at one of the best books of 2013 and Edgar Award nominee, Sandrine's Case.

Day 1 at the Edgars

If you haven't already guessed, my favorite annual literature awards are the Edgar Allen Poe Awards. affectionately known as the Edgars. Presented annually by the Mystery Writers of America in New York City, the Edgars seek to acknowledge the very best in mystery fiction and non-fiction writing. They have been doing so since the 1940s and when a book wins an Edgar, you can be sure it is some damned fine reading. There are at least a dozen different Edgar categories, from best novel to young adult to best first novel. Reading every Edgar nominee in any given year would require a dedication beyond this blogger's capabilities. But I do try to read the books nominated for Best Novel. 

The 2014 Edgar Awards Ceremony is slated for May 1, and since no one invited me to the real thing this year (what the hell? I'm sure my tickets just got lost in the mail, right?) I'm holding my own Personal Edgar Awards for Best Novel right here this week. 

This year, there were six nominees in the Best Novel category. Two of the nominees, Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin and  How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny were books in a series and - for my purposes - off the table. Because you know how I feel about reading a series of books out of order. It simply is not done. That left four books for me to read.

The Humans explores a premise most of us have probably day-dreamed about at some point or another: if alien races really do exist, what would humans seem like to them? In Haig's novel, we find out. And it isn't flattering. When an alien arrives on Earth, taking over the body of mathematician Professor Andrew Martin, his mission is to prevent the good professor from completing a mathematical proof that would change the course of our world and provide mankind with technology that we clearly are not ready or capable of using responsibly. Our alien visitor recounts his mission here, in Haig's novel, and the reader is treated to a glimpse of mankind from an extraterrestrial viewpoint. 

Often amusing, but just as often heartbreaking and poignant, The Humans brutally exposes humanity's worst weaknesses but also our greatest strengths. And as "Professor Martin" discovers that being human fundamentally means having a capacity for love, his mission on Earth is compromised and the choices he must make could be fatal - even for an immortal extraterrestrial.

What the "Professor" learns during his time on Earth is, of course, what makes this novel worth reading.....

“Human life, I realized, got progressively worse as you got older, by the sound of things. You arrived, with baby feet and hands and infinite happiness, and then the happiness slowly evaporated as your feet and hands grew bigger. And then, from the teenage years onward, happiness was something you could lose your grip of, and once it started to slip, it gained mass. It was as if the knowledge that it could slip was the thing that made it more difficult to hold, no matter how big your feet and hands were.” 

So while I very much enjoyed the book, ultimately my question was this: what in the hell was it doing here in the Edgar nominee list? There was no mystery here. Not really much of a thriller element either. I'm still scratching my head.

The Humans is a great novel and I'd recommend it, but for my own Personal Edgar Awards going on here, it's coming in dead last place in the Best Novel Category.  (Who nominated this book anyway?)

Tune in tomorrow for a closer look at another Edgar nominee. Hopefully the next one will actually be a mystery novel.

The Accident

If you read Chris Pavone's 2012 debut novel The Expats, you already know he is an author who specializes in seat-of-your-pants espionage thrillers. And that effort was good enough to garner him an Edgar Award right out of the gate for Best First Novel as well as an Anthony Award. It's worth while to pause for a moment and think about that. When your very first novel garners multiple awards, lands on best-seller lists everywhere, and is praised by the New York Times Book Review as "Thoroughly captivating" it can't be easy to write the next novel. No pressure, right? After all, if the second novel flops the worst that could happen is some very public negative reviews, the quick loss of a fan base, and a publisher dropping you like a hot potato. No big deal.

Thankfully, none of this worries Pavone because The Accident is a delicious international espionage thrill ride that is absolutely headed to the bestseller lists. With a mysterious anonymous book manuscript that turns out to be deadly to those who come in contact with it, Pavone's plot drops the reader smack dab in the middle of the New York publishing world (agents and editors everywhere are lapping this book up). For bibliophiles like yours truly, what's not to love? Little snippets dropped here and there about the oh-so-familiar world of books kept me smiling even as the actual plot kept me on the edge of my seat....

The first character we meet in this novel is Isabel Reed, a down-on-her-luck literary agent who has received an anonymous manuscript out of the blue entitled - appropriately enough - "The Accident." This is the book, Isabel is certain, that will put her back on top in the literary world. The manuscript, as it turns out, is not without problems. A tell-all account of the world's most powerful media mogul, it quickly becomes apparent why "The Accident" is anonymous: it's also very, very dangerous. Isabel passes the manuscript off to the one editor she believes could see it through to publication, but along the way too many people - assistants, publishers, rights directors, even Hollywood producers - unknowingly put their lives in danger just by coming in contact with the manuscript. Throw a few CIA operatives into the mix and we're in business.

The narrative is told from multiple points of view which keeps the plot racing along, as does the time frame: the entire novel takes place over just 24 hours. For those who read The Expats, a familiar character will make a reappearance as well. And as much as I loved the setting of the publishing world, it needs to be noted that The Accident encompasses so much more than just that segment of the business world. There an overriding theme of the evolution of news and media ethics over the past few decades and what it represents in today's world. The ethical price we have paid for advances in technology are just some of the food for thought Pavone puts forth.

Overall, I see Pavone coming into his own here. His writing is more confident and the results are a sheer pleasure. He's not out to win a Pulitzer here. But I see another Edgar Award in his future.

Title: The Accident

Author: Chris Pavone

Publisher: Crown

Date: March 11, 2014

Pages: 400

Source: Advance Copy provided by Crown