Edgar Awards announced May 1, 2008

The 62nd Annual Edgar® Awards banquet was held on Thursday May 1, 2008 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.

Click here for the official Mystery Writers of America blog from the awards ceremony.

Best Novel winner: DOWN RIVER by John Hart. Find this book in our catalog
Summary from our catalog: "Adam Chase has a violent streak, and not without reason. As a boy in Rowan County, he saw things that no child should see, suffered wounds that cut to the core and scarred him. The trauma left him passionate and misunderstood - a fighter. After being narrowly acquitted of a murder charge, Adam is hounded out of the only home he's ever known, exiled for a sin he did not commit. For five long years he disappears, fading into the faceless gray of New York City. Now he's back and nobody knows why - not his family or the cops, not the enemies he left behind. But Adam has his reasons." "Within hours of his return, he is accosted and beaten, confronted by his and the woman he still holds dear. No one knows what to make of Adam's return, but when bodies start turning up, the small town rises against him, and Adam again finds himself embroiled in the fight of his life - not just to prove his own innocence, but to reclaim the only life he's ever wanted."

Best First Novel winner: IN THE WOODS by Tana French. Find this book in our catalog
Summary from our catalog: "As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home from play. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent wood. When the police arrive, they find only one child, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours." "Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same wood, he and Detective Cassie Maddox - his partner and closest friend - find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past."

Best Paperback Original winner: winner: QUEENPIN by Megan Abbott. Find this book in our catalog
Summary from our catalog: "A young woman hired to keep the books at a down-at-the-heels nightclub is taken under the wing of the infamous Gloria Denton, a mob luminary who reigned during the Golden Era of Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano. Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protegee the ropes, ushering her into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet - as long as she doesn't take any chances, like falling for the wrong guy. As the roulette wheel turns, both mentor and protegee scramble to stay one step ahead of their bosses and each other."

The Grandmaster Award: Bill Pronzini

Best Fact Crime winner: RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY by Vincent Bugliosi. Find this book in our catalog

May 4-10 is Be Kind to Animals Week

Did you know the American Humane Association created Be Kind to Animals Week back in 1915 to acknowledge the unique bond between animals and humans?

Try these books about beloved pets and also animals in need:


Rescue Me! by Bardi McLennan Find this book in our catalog

Good Dog. Stay by Anna Quindlen Find this book in our catalog.
Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog by Ted Kerasote Find this book in our catalog.

The Other End of the Leash by Patricia B. McConnell Find this book in our catalog.

Babylon's ark : the incredible wartime rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence Find this book in our catalog

Care of the wild feathered & furred : treating and feeding injured birds and animals by Mae Hickman [and] Maxine Guy Find this book in our catalog

Reading for Cinco de Mayo

According to Wikipedia, "Cinco de Mayo... is primarily a regional and not an obligatory federal holiday in Mexico. The date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. A common misconception in the United States is that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day; Mexico's Independence Day is actually September 16, which is the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico.

The holiday commemorates an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin over invading French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Click here for an award-winning website which gives a fuller, but somewhat partisan history of the battle and the struggle of Mexico for self-governance.

Try these stories with Mexican or Mexican American protagonists:

Like water for chocolate : a novel in monthly installments, with recipes, romances, and home remedies by Laura Esquivel Find this book in our catalog

Names on a map : a novel by Benjamin Alire Sáenz Find this book in our catalog

Fantasmas : supernatural stories by Mexican American writers Find this book in our catalog

The Pearl by John Steinbeck Find this book in our catalog

The View from Mount Joy by Lorna Landvik

The Abingdon Branch group met in April to discuss The View from Mount Joy. I was not present for this meeting as I was in the Pacific North-West in Portland and Seattle, during a very cold & cloudy week where I managed not to see Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Rainier, so I certainly didn't get any views from any mountains. In general, however, the group enjoyed this book though some didn't like some episodes of bad language. This novel is set in the early seventies and mentions drug use and has language appropriate to the characters.

Publishers Weekly says:
Landvik's latest light drama opens as Joe Andreson transfers into a Minneapolis high school as a class of '72 senior. Like everyone else, Joe has a major thing for head cheerleader Kristi Casey—a version of Reese Witherspoon's character in Election. Joe gets some action, but is estranged from Kristi by graduation. As the years pass, and they stay in touch sporadically, Joe, who narrates, can't quite let go of his infatuation. He becomes an innovative grocer, still unmarried at mid-book, and Kristi transforms into a Bible-thumping radio/televangelist. Joe builds solid relationships with his mother and her new husband, and reconnects with high school friend Darva Pratt (who returns to town with her daughter, Flora), while Kristi sets her sights on the White House. Landvik (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons) deftly mixes humor and pathos in Kristi's ditzy On the Air with God radio show, starkly contrasted by her quietly powerful portrait of Joe, a man with real family values. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A list of discussion questions may be found at:
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_V/view_from_mount_joy1.asp

Lorna Landvik has written several novels including Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons, and The Tall Pine Polka. She lives with her family in Minneapolis.
Information on the author can be found on the Random House website at:
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_V/view_from_mount_joy1.asp

Read to celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month in May

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month was enacted by Public Law 102-450 on October 28, 1992. The purpose of the law was to honor the achievements of Asian/Pacific Americans and to recognize their contributions to the United States. May was selected for the recognition because two significant events in history took place in that month: Japanese immigrants first arrived in the United States on May 7, 1843, and the transcontinental railroad was completed on May 10, 1869 (Golden Spike Day).

Try these stories with Asian American and Pacific Islander protagonists:
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri Find this book in our catalog
The Love Wife: a Novel by Gish Jen Find this book in our catalog
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan Find this book in our catalog
Shimura Trouble by Sujata Massey Find this book in our catalog
The Descendants: a Novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings Find this book in our catalog.

The US Census Bureau lists over twenty-five Asian and Pacific Islander groups. The larger groups include: Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipinos, Indian, Pakistani, Korean, Japanese, Cambodian, Laotian, Indonesian, Thai, Burmese, Malaysian, Taiwanese, Sri Lanka, Bangladeshi, and a variety of Pacific Islanders from the Hawaiian Islands, Polynesian Islands, and New Zealand. Click here for details of The Asian/Pacific Heritage Association.

ThrillerFest 2008

I was reading Suzanne Beecher's Dear Reader column this morning and she mentioned this year's International Thriller Writers' ThrillerFest coming up in July in NYC.

Click on the ITW website for more info on ThrillerFest, the largest event of its kind, a meeting place for authors, readers, budding writers, and publishing industry professionals. This year features two special add-on events, CraftFest and AgentFest, where authors of all levels can meet the professionals.

Thriller fans can also go to the ITW website to sign up for the BIG THRILL email each month. Get news and information on the latest thrillers being published that month along with in-depth stories and interviews.

By the way, Suzanne's column appears in the Harford County Public Library Fiction Book Club. Interested in having this online book club delivered to your e-mail? Go to Readers Place Online Book Clubs, sign up and every day, Monday through Friday, you will receive in your email a five-minute selection from a chapter of a book. By the end of the week, you’ll have read 2-3 chapters. Every Monday we start a new book. Sign up and start reading.

Water for Elephants on NY Times List for One Year

According to Judith Rosen in Publishers Weekly, 4/17/2008, the paperback edition of Sara Gruen's novel Water for Elephants has been on the New York Times bestsellers list for 52 consecutive weeks and has 1.8 million copies in print. The hardcover edition was on the Times list for 13 weeks and has 285,000 copies in print.

Water for Elephants, a title extremely popular with book clubs, is available at our library in hardback, paperback, audio book, and in large print. Find the hardback.

This is the summary available in our catalog: "Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell." "Jacob was there because his luck had run out - orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act - in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival."

Click here for Sara Gruen's website

Click here for sample discussion questions at ReadingGroupGuides.com