LORI G. ARMSTRONG – Hallowed Ground.  Nominated for Best Private Eye Paperback Original of the Year, 2007.

Medallion Press, paperback, November 2006.

   Book Description:

Grisly murders are rocking the small county of Bear Butte where Julie Collins has spent the last few months learning the PI biz without the guidance of her best friend and business partner, Kevin Wells. Enter dangerous, charismatic entrepreneur Tony Martinez, who convinces Julie to take a case involving a missing five-year-old Native American girl, the innocent pawn in her parents child custody dispute.

Although skeptical about Martinez’s motives in hiring her, and confused by her strange attraction to him, Julie nevertheless sees the opportunity to hone her investigative skills outside her office. But something about the case doesn’t ring true. The girl’s father is foreman on the controversial new Indian casino under construction at the base of the sacred Mato Paha, and the girl’s mother is secretly working for a rival casino rumored to have ties to an east coast crime family.

Local ranchers, including her father, a Lakota Holy group, and casino owners from nearby Deadwood are determined to stop the gaming facility from opening. With the body count rising, the odds are stacked against Julie to discover the truth behind these hidden agendas before the murderer buries it forever. And when Julie unwittingly attracts the attention of the killer, she realizes no place is safe – not even hallowed ground.

   About the Author:

Lori G. Armstrong left the firearms industry in 2000 to pursue her dream of writing crime fiction. She lives in Rapid City, South Dakota.

   Review Excerpt:

Stephanie Padilla, New Mystery Reader:   “Rapid City P.I. Julie Collins is still rather new at the business when she’s hired by bad boy motorcycle leader Tony Martinez to help find his friend’s five year old missing niece. […] If you’re looking for one of those heroines who refrains from any and all vices and who shrieks at the sound of gunfire, you may want to pass on this one. But if you prefer your heroine to be a little on the dark side, especially one who likes to smoke, drink, engage in the occasional sexcapade, and knows how to kick some ass with little fear, this highly engaging and fearless PI fits the bill.”

   The first Julie Collins novel:

Blood Ties, Medallion Press, May 2005.

   [Coming soon:]

Shallow Grave, Medallion Press, November 2007.

KRIS NELSCOTT – Days of Rage. Nominated for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year, 2007.

St. Martin’s, hardcover, March 2006.

   Book Description:

As racial tensions mount during the 1969 celebrity trial of the Chicago Eight, African American PI Smokey Dalton is keeping a low profile with his son, Jimmy, who knows a dark secret about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. When Smokey finds a group of skeletons hidden in the wall of a building hes inspecting for investor Lara Hathaway, his investigation leads him into Chicago’s racist past and implicates some of the nation’s most powerful people in a deadly 1919 riot.

   About the Author:

Kris Nelscott [pseudonym of Kristine Kathryn Rusch] lives on the Oregon coast. The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was shortlisted for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award Finalist; the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year; the fourth, Stone Cribs, was honored by the Wisconsin Library Association as one of the best books of 2005, and it and the fifth, War at Home, were both shortlisted for the Oregon Book Award. Visit her Web site at www.kristinekathrynrusch.com.

   Review Excerpts:

Publishers Weekly: “Set in 1969 during the trial of the Chicago Eight, Edgar-finalist Nelscott’s sixth Smoky Dalton novel (after 2005’s War at Home) deftly interweaves the issue of race with politics, societal questions and personal relationships, like Smokey’s on-again, off-again romance with Laura Hathaway, a white businesswoman. […] Laura and Smokey bring in Wayne LeDoux, a persnickety criminologist, to do forensic work at the house, and Tim Minton, an expert from a local funeral home, joins him. The two men form a special bond, and like the bond between Smokey and his adopted son, make a suspenseful mystery into something much richer.”

Booklist: “In her compelling Smokey Dalton series, Nelscott continues to probe the human drama and complex emotion beneath the headlines of the racially tense 1960s. […] Nelscott builds suspense effectively while making the reader feel the historical burden of racial hatred. After five novels all set between spring 1968 and fall 1969, this series was beginning to seem almost frozen in its historical moment, but this time, Nelscott, by widening the time frame, allows us to see the events of the ’60s – and their devastating effects on individual human lives – from a wider (if hardly comforting) perspective.”

   Previous Smoky Dalton novels:

A Dangerous Road. St. Martin’s, hardcover, July 2000. Paperback: June 2001.

Smoke-Filled Rooms. St. Martin’s, hardcover, August 2001. Paperback: June 2002.

Thin Walls. St. Martin’s, hardcover, September 2002. Trade paperback: February 2004.

Stone Cribs. St. Martin’s, hardcover, February 2004. Trade paperback: January 2005.

War at Home. St. Martin’s, hardcover, February 2005. Trade paperback: December 2005.

MARCIA MULLER – Vanishing Point. Nominated for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year, 2007.

Mysterious Press, hardcover, July 2006. Paperback reprint: July 2007.

   Book description:

In the latest installment in this critically acclaimed series, McCone is hired to investigate one of San Luis Obispo County’s most puzzling cold cases. A generation ago, Laurel Greenwood, a housewife and artist, inexplicably vanished, leaving her young daughter alone. Now, new evidence suggests that the missing woman may have led a strange double life. But before McCone can penetrate the tangled mystery, she must first solve a second disappearance: that of her client, the now grown daughter of Laurel Greenwood. The case, which forces Sharon to explore the darker sides of two marriages, comes uncomfortably close on the heels of her own marriage to Hy Ripinsky, and she begins to doubt the wisdom of her impulsive trip to the Reno wedding chapel.

   About the Author:

Marcia Muller, a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, is the critically-acclaimed author of more than twenty novels. She has been awarded the Private Eye Writers of America Life Achievement Award, her books have been nominated for Best Crime Novel at the Edgar Awards, and she has won the Anthony Boucher Award. She lives in California with Bill Pronzini.

   Review Excerpts:

Publishers Weekly: “MWA Grand Master Muller’s richly layered 24th mystery to feature San Francisco PI Sharon McCone (after 2004’s The Dangerous Hour) reminds us how much McCone has grown since she started as the lone investigator at a poverty law center in her first outing, Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977). […] The story takes readers on a charming tour through the fishing villages of the California coast, while the tight, crisp plot surges relentlessly forward. The tension between light and dark, between surface happiness and hidden truths, raises this novel well above the common run of whodunits.”

   Booklist: “As usual in Muller’s mysteries, dialogue-driven narrative makes the story a quick read, and this time there’s some underlying commentary about marriage, which dovetails nicely with Sharon’s continuing anxieties about her future with new husband Hy.”

   Previous Sharon McCone novels: (hardcover editions only)

Edwin of the Iron Shoes. McKay, 1977.

Ask the Cards a Question. St. Martin’s, 1982.

The Cheshire Cat’s Eye. St. Martin’s, 1983.

Games to Keep the Dark Away. St. Martin’s, 1984.

Leave a Message for Willie. St. Martin’s, 1984.

Double. St. Martin’s, 1984. [with Bill Pronzini’s Nameless PI]

There’s Nothing to Be Afraid Of. St. Martin’s, 1985.

Eye of the Storm. Mysterious Press, 1988.

There’s Something in a Sunday. Mysterious Press, 1989.

The Shape of Dread. Mysterious Press, 1989.

Trophies and Dead Things. Mysterious Press, 1990.

Where Echoes Live. Mysterious Press, 1991.

Pennies on a Dead Woman’s Eyes. Mysterious Press, 1992.

Wolf in the Shadows. Mysterious Press, 1993.

Till the Butchers Cut Him Down. Mysterious Press, 1994.

The McCone Files. Crippen & Landru, 1995 [short story collection]

A Wild and Lonely Place. Mysterious Press, 1995.

The Broken Promise Land. Mysterious Press, 1996.

Both Ends of the Night. Mysterious Press, 1997.

While Other People Sleep. Mysterious Press, 1998.

A Walk Through Fire. Mysterious Press, 1999.

Listen to the Silence. Mysterious Press, 2000.

McCone and Friends. Crippen & Landru, 2000. [short story collection]

Dead Midnight. Mysterious Press, 2002.

The Dangerous Hour. Mysterious Press, 2004.

   [Newly Published:]

The Ever-Running Man. Grand Central Publishing, July 2007.

KEN KUHLKEN – The Do-Re-Mi. Nominated for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year, 2007.

Poisoned Pen Press, hardcover, November 2006.

   Book Description:

It’s late summer, 1972, up in California’s redwood forests. They seem a “safe and wondrous place,” but some of Evergreen’s population is growing pot up in the trees and others are bent on stealing it. Then there’s the coming folk festival, a jamboree bringing in musicians, fans, war protestors – a ferment of flower power (the local hippies), raw power (the local biker gangs, notably the Cossacks), and the power of the law (local and federal). Skirting the edges are shades of the Manson Family and the Mexican Mafia.

Clifford Hickey, scheduled to perform a guitar gig at the festival before trucking off to law school, arrives at his brother Alvaro’s peaceful woodland campsite. And within moments Alvaro, combat trained, is faced with six armed men in badges crashing the camp, and runs. Clifford, surprised, is arrested and brutally cuffed, so brutally he fears for his hands. He then learns that a young man, one of the sheriffs’ nephews, has just been murdered. Alvaro is the posse’s quarry.

So here’s Clifford, on the brink of adult life, pitched into not just a murder but what develops into a duel between the Hickeys – for his father [PI Tom Hickey] and mother soon drive up – and the law, between the Hickeys and the Cossacks – who seemingly have their own agenda for Alvaro and, between the Hickeys and the locals, and finally between the Hickeys and their own past.

   About the Author:

Ken Kuhlken is a compulsive storyteller who drifted from his home in the southwest to the University of Iowa to study in its Writers’ Workshop. After publishing a story in Esquire, he believed he was golden. But the world proved to be a rougher arena than he’d foreseen, and he drifted through eight colleges teaching writing. Meantime, he fathered three amazing children and did three years as a newspaper columnist.

   Review Excerpts:

Publishers Weekly: “Clifford [Hickey] must try to prove his brother’s innocence in a town filled with vengeful bikers, suspicious locals, crooked cops, rogue federal agents and pot-growing hippies. Kuhlken brings the social and cultural scene of the period vividly to life.”

Booklist: “Trapped in a battle between the law, rival biker gangs, the locals, and his own family, Clifford has an intricate puzzle to solve. Readers will enjoy this tale, which captures the history and atmosphere of 1970s California as well as the complex dynamics of a fascinating family.”

Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune: “…thoughtful and exciting…. Among its other virtues, it captures summer 1972 and its motley crew – outlaw bikers, war protestors, marijuana growers and users – to understated perfection.”

   Previous Tom Hickey novels:

The Loud Adios. St. Martin’s, hardcover, August 1991. Trade paperback: Poisoned Pen Press, November 2006.

The Venus Deal. St. Martin’s, hardcover, April 1993. Trade paperback: Poisoned Pen Press, May 2007.

The Angel Gang. St. Martin’s, hardcover, August 1994.

DANIEL JUDSON – The Darkest Place. Nominated for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year, 2007.

St. Martin’s, hardcover, May 2006. Paperback reprint: May 2007.

   Book Description:

The cold of winter has come to the far reaches of Long Island, New York. The summer people are gone. So is the sunshine. And in the dark, a man carries a body to the water’s edge. It’s not his first – and he’s not done yet…

The police are talking about suicides. But a handful of people suspect something darker is going on. One is a college teacher drowning himself in booze and dangerous sex. One is a former high school football star who wants a second chance. And between them is a mysterious private investigator [Reggie Clay] who believes that a beautiful, amoral young woman is connected to the killings.

Soon, things will spin out of control. Clues will point in all the wrong directions. Then, it will be up to a few lost souls – men and women who know all about monsters – to bring a killer into the light….

   About the Author:

Daniel Judson is the Shamus Award–winning author of two previous novels, The Bone Orchard and The Poisoned Rose. He lives in Connecticut, where he writes full-time. He is a graduate of Southhampton College, and his time spent living in the Hamptons (particularly the parts you don’t find in the society pages) was the inspiration for the setting and characters in The Darkest Place.

   Review Excerpts:

Publishers Weekly: “Judson does a terrific job of setting up a complex plot that’s full of surprises, even if the pieces fit together a bit too conveniently in spots.”

Booklist: “Told from multiple points of view, populated with well-drawn moral and amoral characters, and permeated with violence, this riveting albeit bleak crime novel offers a strong sense of place along with thoughtful rumination about doing the right thing and finding redemption for past actions.”

   This is the first Reggie Clay novel. Judson’s previous two books featured PI Declan “Mac” MacManus:

The Bone Orchard, as by D. Daniel Judson. Bantam, paperback, March 2002.

The Poisoned Rose, as by D. Daniel Judson. Bantam, paperback, October 2002.

KEN BRUEN – The Dramatist. Nominated for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year, 2007.

St. Martin’s, hardcover, March 2006. Trade paperback: March 2007.

   Book Description:

Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober – off booze, pills, powder, and nearly off cigarettes, too. One reason he’s been able to keep clean: his dealer’s in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the soiled, sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn’t, can’t, because the man’s sister is dead and the guards have called it “death by misadventure.” But he says that can’t be true and begs Jack to have a look, check around, see what he can find. “Finding” is exactly what Jack does, with varying levels of success, to make a living. But he’s reluctant, maybe because of who’s asking or maybe because of the bad feeling growing in his gut. Never one to give in to bad feelings, or to common sense, Jack agrees to the favor, though he can’t possibly know the shocking, deadly consequences to which this simple request will lead. There’s no question that Jack will understand soon, sooner than he knows, in this dark, lethal, fast and furious novel from the new master of crime fiction.

   About the Author:

Ken Bruen spent 25 years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, Southeast Asia, and South America. He has been a finalist for the Edgar, Anthony, and Barry Awards, and has won a Shamus and a Macavity. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

   Review Excerpts:

Publishers Weekly: “By now, readers know the Bruen formula of the downward spiral, but there’s no denying the effectiveness of the tough dialogue, the crisp scenes and Taylor’s weary, crumpled-jacket appeal. Nor can many writers in any genre evoke a seedy urban Ireland as well as Bruen. Few, too, can continue to deliver interesting stories and even more interesting character studies. With a riveting mystery and a deftly rendered protagonist, Bruen recaptures the immediacy and the impact of the first two novels in the series.”

AudioFile: “… while the story is fascinating and perfectly delivered, it sometimes seems like a story told by a long-winded guy at an Irish pub with a pint of Guinness and a love of his own voice.”

Booklist: “Readers who worry that Taylor’s tenuous sobriety will water down either his cranky personality or the generally offbeat appeal of Bruen’s books needn’t be concerned. This one sports the same great mix of curmudgeonly observations and unpredictable cultural references that has won Bruen a devoted cadre of fans. But while no one reads him for the detection, the plot here exceeds his own standards for casualness, and the double-noir ending feels tacked on. The prolific Bruen, still good, needs to catch a gear if he wants to avoid spinning his wheels.”

   Previous Jack Taylor novels:

The Guards. St. Martin’s, hardcover, January 2003. Trade paperback: January 2004.

The Killing of the Tinkers. St. Martin’s, hardcover, January 2004. Trade paperback: February 2005.

The Magdalene Martyrs. St. Martin’s, hardcover, February 2005. Trade paperback: February 2006.

Private Eye Writers of America

      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 13, 2007

      CONTACT: Ted Fitzgerald – Shamus Awards Chair tedfitz [at] msn.com

PRIVATE EYE WRITERS OF AMERICA ANNOUNCES 2007 SHAMUS AWARDS NOMINEES

The Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) is proud to announce the nominees for the 26th annual Shamus Awards, given annually to recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. The 2007 awards cover works published in the U.S. in 2006. The awards will be presented on September 28, 2007, at the PWA banquet in Anchorage, Alaska, during the weekend of the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.

2007 Shamus Awards Nominees (for works published in 2006)

Best Hardcover

The Dramatist by Ken Bruen (St. Martins Minotaur), featuring Jack Taylor

The Darkest Place by Daniel Judson (St. Martins Minotaur), featuring Reggie Clay

The Do-Re-Mi by Ken Kuhlken (Poisoned Pen Press), featuring Clifford and Tom Hickey

Vanishing Point by Marcia Muller (Mysterious Press), featuring Sharon McCone

Days of Rage by Kris Nelscott (St. Martins Minotaur), featuring Smokey Dalton

Best Paperback Original

Hallowed Ground by Lori G. Armstrong (Medallion Press), featuring Julie Collins

The Prop by Pete Hautman (Simon and Schuster), featuring Peeky Kane

An Unquiet Grave by P.J. Parrish (Pinnacle), featuring Louis Kincaid

The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos, translated by Carlos Lopez (Akashic Books), featuring Hector Belascoaran Shayne

Crooked by Brian M. Wiprud (Dell), featuring Nicholas Palihnic

Best First Novel

Lost Angel by Mike Doogan (Putnam), featuring Nik Kane

A Safe Place for Dying by Jack Fredrickson. (St. Martin’s Minotaur), featuring Dek Elstrom,

Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith (St. Martin’s Minotaur), featuring Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer

The Wrong Kind of Blood by Declan Hughes. (Wm. Morrow), featuring Ed Loy

18 Seconds by George D. Shuman. (Simon & Schuster), featuring Sherry Moore.

Best Short Story

“Sudden Stop” by Mitch Alderman. Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, November 2006, featuring Bubba Simms

“The Heart Has Reasons” by O’Neil De Noux. Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, September 2006, featuring Lucien Kaye

“Square One” by Loren D. Estleman. Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, November 2006, featuring Amos Walker

“Devil’s Brew” by Bill Pronzini. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. December 2006, featuring John Quincannon.

“Smoke Got In My Eyes” by Bruce Rubenstein. TWIN CITIES NOIR (Akashic), featuring Martin McDonough

PWA was founded in 1981 by Robert J. Randisi to recognize the private eye genre and its writers. Previous Shamus winners include Lawrence Block, Ken Bruen, Harlan Coben, Max Allan Collins, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Brendan DuBois, Loren D. Estleman, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Sue Grafton, James W. Hall, Steve Hamilton, Jeremiah Healy, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, John Lutz, Bill Pronzini, S.J. Rozan, Sandra Scoppettone and Don Winslow

         Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

         2006 Results: Overall Winner

   Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

               Jim Guigli
                  Carmichael, CA

         —

   A retired mechanical designer for the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory is the winner of the 24th running of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. A resident of the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, Guigli displayed appalling powers of invention by submitting sixty entries to the 2006 Contest, including one that has been “honored” in the Historical Fiction Category. “My motivation for entering the contest,” he confesses, “was to find a constructive outlet for my dementia.”

   An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is the essence of simplicity: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for “The Last Days of Pompeii” (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression “the pen is mightier than the sword,” and phrases like “the great unwashed” and “pursuit of the almighty dollar,” Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the “Peanuts” beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

The following was taken verbatim this morning from the MWA website.

As usual — should I reveal this? — I have read or watched very few of the books, stories, plays or movies honored below, but if I may insert a personal aside, I somehow have the feeling that one of the nominees is especially pleased. I don’t blame him. Congratulations to all!

2007 Edgar® Nominees

Best Novel • First Novel • Paperback Original • Critical/Biographical
Fact Crime • Short Story • Young Adult • Juvenile • Play
TV Episode Teleplay • Motion Picture Screenplay
Robert L. Fish Memorial • Grand Master • Raven • Mary Higgins Clark

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce on the 198th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2007 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film published or produced in 2006. The Edgar Awards will be presented to the winners at our 61st Gala Banquet, April 26, 2007 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

Best Novel Nominees

* The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard (HarperCollins)
* The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* Gentleman and Players by Joanne Harris (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
* The Dead Hour by Denise Mina (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)
* The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard (Random House – Ballantine Books)
* The Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

Best First Novel By An American Author

* The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (Random House)
* Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (Crown – Shaye Areheart Books)
* King of Lies by John Hart (St. Martin’s Minotaur – Thomas Dunne Books)
* Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
* A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read (Warner Books – Mysterious Press)

Best Paperback Original

* The Goodbye Kiss by Massimo Carlotto (Europa Editions)
* The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
* Snakeskin Shamisen by Naomi Hirahara (Bantam Dell Publishing – Delta Books)
* The Deep Blue Alibi by Paul Levine (Bantam Dell Publishing – Bantam Books)
* City of Tiny Lights by Patrick Neate (Penguin Group – Riverhead Books)

Best Critical/Biographical

* Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them: Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir by John T. Irwin (Johns Hopkins University Press)
* The Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear by E.J. Wagner (John Wiley & Sons)

Best Fact Crime

* Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
* A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger (W.W. Norton and Co.)
* Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine by Capt. Joseph K. Loughlin & Kate Clark Flora (University Press of New England)
* Ripperology: A Study of the World’s First Serial Killer by Robin Odell (The Kent State University Press)
* The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower (Dutton)
* Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

Best Short Story

* “The Home Front” – Death Do Us Part by Charles Ardai (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)
* “Rain” – Manhattan Noir by Thomas H. Cook (Akashic Books)
* “Cranked” – Damn Near Dead by Bill Crider (Busted Flush Press)
* “White Trash Noir” – Murder at the Foul Line by Michael Malone (Hachette Book Group – Mysterious Press)
* “Building” – Manhattan Noir by S.J. Rozan (Akashic Books)

Best Young Adult

* The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks (Scholastic – The Chicken House)
* The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson (Penguin YR – Sleuth/Viking)
* Crunch Time by Mariah Fredericks (Simon & Schuster – Richard Jackson Books/Atheneum)
* Buried by Robin Merrow MacCready (Penguin YR – Dutton Children’s Books)
* The Night My Sister Went Missing by Carol Plum-Ucci (Harcourt Children’s Books)

Best Juvenile

* Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake by Jennifer Allison (Penguin Young Readers – Sleuth/Dutton)
* The Stolen Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery by Sarah Masters Buckey (American Girl Publishing)
* Room One: A Mystery or Two by Andrew Clements (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
* The Bloodwater Mysteries: Snatched by Pete Hautman & Mary Logue (Penguin Young Readers – Sleuth/Putnam)
* The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer (Penguin Young Readers – Philomel/Sleuth)

Best Play

* Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure by Steven Dietz (Arizona Theatre Company)
* Curtains by Rupert Holmes (Ahmanson Theatre)
* Ghosts of Ocean House by Michael Kimball (The Players’ Ring)

Best Television Episode Teleplay

* The Closer – “Blue Blood”, Teleplay by James Duff & Mike Berchem (Turner Network Television)
* Dexter – “Crocodile”, Teleplay by Clyde Phillips (Showtime)
* House – “Clueless”, Teleplay by Thomas L. Moran (Fox/NBC Universal)
* Life on Mars – Episode 1, Teleplay by Matthew Graham (BBC America)
* Monk – “Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink”, Teleplay by Hy Conrad (USA Network/NBC Universal)

Best Motion Picture Screen Play

* Casino Royale, Screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Paul Haggis, based on novel by Ian Fleming (MGM)
* Children of Men, Screenplay by Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, based on a novel by P.D. James (Universal Pictures
* The Departed, Screenplay by William Monahan (Warner Bros. Pictures)
* The Good Shepherd, Teleplay by Eric Roth, based on a novel by Joseph Kanon (Universal Pictures)
* Notes on a Scandal, Screenplay by Patrick Marber (Scott Rudin Productions)

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award

* William Dylan Powell “Evening Gold” – EQMM November 2006 (Dell Magazines)

Grand Master

Stephen King

Raven

* Books & Books (Mitchell Kaplan, owner)
* Mystery Loves Company Bookstore (Kathy & Tom Harig, owners)

The Simon & Schuster – Mary Higgins Clark Award

* Bloodline by Fiona Mountain (St. Martin’s Minotaur)