The Hungry Detective

Nothing so over as the 2010 Edgar Awards.  The Hungry Detective extends their congratulations to all the winners and equally deserving nominees. My gratitude to Ms. Weinman's twitter reportage . Cheers! Best Novel THE LAST CHILD by John Hart - Minotaur Books Best First Novel by an American Author  IN THE SHADOW OF GOTHAM by Stefanie Pintoff - Minotaur Book Best Paperback Original BODY BLOWS by Marc Strange - Dundurn Press – Castle Street Mysteries Best Fact Crime COLUMBINE by Dave Cullen - Hachette Book Group - Twelve Best Critical/Biographical     THE LINEUP: THE WORLD'S GREATEST CRIME WRITERS TELL THE INSIDE STORY OF THEIR GREATEST DECTECTIVE edited by Otto Penzler - Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company Best Short Story "AMAPOLA" – Phoenix Noir by Luis Alberto Urrea - Akashic Books Best Juvenile CLOSED FOR THE SEASON by Mary Downing Hahn - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books Best Young Adult     REALITY...

What amounts to Crime Fiction Oscar's...although it plays more like the Tony's*.... occurs tomorrow night.  I had such high hopes to read more of the Edgar nominees, but this is a yearly lament. I guess in the way of full disclosure is that I don't read all the books nominated. Big surprise, I know. These picks are 80% gut reaction, 15% sense of history, and 5% percent based on some unpronounceable French philosophy. I do this post for two reasons. First, the analytics bounce is nice for my ego. Two, because it is fun to be right just as much as it is fun to be wrong about these picks. In any case The Hungry Detective extends their congratulations and best wishes to all of the nominees. I'll post the winners as soon as someone's twitter account tells me. BEST NOVEL THE MISSING by Tim Gautreaux - Random House - Alfred A. Knopf THE ODDS by Kathleen George - Minotaur Books THE LAST CHILD by John Hart - Minotaur Books MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DE...

WooHoo! Look who is 169 years old. Have a great day! (Standard Facebook post on Birthdays.) Edgar Allan Poe's THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE was published on this date, in 1841. (Hat tip to the Writers Almanac. ) I don't have much planned, but today helps clarify what I have been thinking about for the last year or so. And that is Crime Fiction is looking every one of its 169 years. Maybe I'm not reading the right books, maybe I'm being too hard on Crime Fiction? I am sure there are some who see this period as a new Golden Age. God Bless you if you do. But as someone who is entering their third decade as a Crime Fiction reader, I am beginning to be overwhelmed by the level of mediocrity. There have been a handful of books in the recent past that have been praised into the ground, that ultimately I have had the misfortune to read. Even my stable of proven authors has fallen on tough times in the eyes of this reader. Is my taste level this off? Am I too swayed by the hyper...

Wallace Stroby's unfortunately titled third novel is GONE 'TIL NOVEMBER . Unfortunate because of the Wyclef Jean song from a handful of years ago was a bit of a running joke amongst my friends. Indeed, when Mrs. Hungry Detective saw the dust jacket she separately remarked about the title choice. Now this should not matter if I am reviewing a book, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't. My inability to act professionally aside in its own small way GONE 'TIL NOVEMBER is quite good. I say 'small way' because like much of the Crime Fiction I have read over the last 18-24 month GONE 'TIL NOVEMBER suffers from a crippling lack of gravitas. Mr. Stroby is gifted with his characters. His twin protagonist, Sara the Deputy Sheriff and Morgan the aged Hitman make for a compelling dichotomy of conflict. Sara is a single mother with a very sick son and Morgan has cancer. Both are more than prepared to protect what is there's. Stroby never moralizes about Morgan...

It is the good fortune of The Hungry Detective to now and again receive books from publishers or their associated marketing agencies. These books were received in the month of March 2010. HAZARD - Gardiner Harris - Minotaur Books DOWN TO THE WIRE - David Rosenfelt - Minotaur Books WATER HAZARD - Dan Dahler - Minotaur Books FLIPPING OUT - Marshall Karp - Minotaur Books THE BURYING PLACE - Brian Freeman - Minotaur Books SHAM ROCK - Ralph McInerny - Minotaur Books