The nominees (shortlist) for the Fall 2014 CWA Dagger Awards have been announced by the Crime Writers' Assocation.
The winners will be announced on October 24th, 2014 at the Crime Thriller Awards.
And the nominees are …
Gold Dagger (for Best Crime Novel):
• This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash (Doubleday)
• Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly (Bantam)
• The First Rule of Survival by Paul Mendelson (Constable)
• How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (Sphere)
Ian Fleming Steel Dagger (for Best Thriller):
• Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty (Faber and Faber)
• An Officer and A Spy by Robert Harris (Random House)
• I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (Transworld)
• Natchez Burning by Greg Iles (Harper Collins)
John Creasey New Blood Dagger (for Best First Crime Novel):
• The Strangler Vine by M. J. Carter (Penguin)
• The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin (Mantle)
• The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison (Headline)
• The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson (Hodder & Stoughton)
Wednesday, September 03, 2014
Nominees for the Fall 2014 CWA Dagger Awards Announced
The Wolfe Widow by Victoria Abbott, New on the Mystery Bookshelf during September 2014
New on the Mystery Bookshelf during September 2014 …
To see more new paperback titles scheduled to be published this month, visit The Mystery Bookshelf for September 2014. For new hardcover mysteries, visit New Mysteries where for a list of September 2014 mysteries, novels of suspense, and thrillers is provided.
More about our featured title, below …
As Thanksgiving approaches, Jordan Bingham is grateful for her job researching rare books for Vera Van Alst, the infamous curmudgeon of Harrison Falls, New York. But when an uninvited guest makes an appearance, much more than dinner is disrupted — and Jordan is thankful just to be alive …
Vera Van Alst doesn't normally receive visitors without appointment, but she agrees to see the imperious Muriel Delgado upon arrival. Shortly thereafter, Jordan is told that her position is being terminated. Evicted from the Van Alst House, Jordan is determined to find out what hold Muriel has over her erstwhile employer.
It seems Muriel has designs on Vera's money and property — not to mention a particular interest in her collection of Nero Wolfe first editions. When Jordan discovers a deadly connection between Muriel and the Van Alst family, it's up to her to put the house in order and stop a killer from going back to press.
— The Wolfe Widow by Victoria Abbott
Organized for Murder, An Organized Mysteries Novel by Ritter Ames, Now Available at a Special Price
Omnimystery News is always searching for newly discounted mystery, suspense, thriller and crime novels for our readers to enjoy. Today, we're pleased to present the following title, now available at a special price courtesy of the publisher, Gemma Halliday …
Organized for Murder by Ritter Ames
An Organized Mysteries Novel (1st in series)
Publisher: Gemma Halliday
Price: $0.99 (as of 09/03/2014 at 1:00 PM ET).
Important Note: Price(s) verified as of the date and time shown. Price(s) are subject to change at any time. Please confirm the price of the book before purchasing it.
Organization expert Kate McKenzie is on track to make her new business, Stacked in Your Favor, a hit in small-town Vermont. But when her first client, the wealthy Amelia Nethercutt, is found dead, the job takes a decidedly sinister turn.
Kate thought she and her family were making a fresh start in her husband's hometown, but she quickly learns that small towns can hold big secrets.
When her first client is poisoned just after Kate leaves her mansion, she knows she's gotten off to a bad start. But things only get worse when the police find Kate's fingerprints on the murder weapon, suddenly putting her in the position of suspect number one. The stopwatch is ticking for Kate to prove she had nothing to do with the murder, and the odds are further stacked against her when items stolen from the Nethercutt mansion start showing up in the McKenzie home.
Now, Kate must trust her methodical skills and expert eye to sort out who is trying to frame her and to find the real killer before she's organized right into a jail cell.
— Organized for Murder by Ritter Ames
A Real Shot in the Arm, A Crime Thriller by Annette Roome, New This Week from Endeavour Press
Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher, promoting and selling ebook editions of works by new authors as well as bringing out ebook editions of out of print books.
We've selected one of their recently published mystery, suspense, thriller or crime titles to feature here today …
A Real Shot in the Arm by Annette Roome
A Crime Thriller
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Price: $3.99 (as of 09/03/2014 at 12:30 PM ET).
Winner of the 1989 CWA New Blood Dagger for a debut crime novel.
Important Note: Price(s) verified as of the date and time shown. Price(s) are subject to change at any time. Please confirm the price of the book before purchasing it.
Chris Martin — housewife and mother-of-two — seizes the chance to re-gain her independence by putting her endless housework to one side and fulfilling her adolescent dream of becoming a journalist — much to the dismay of disapproving husband, Keith. Shortly after taking up a Junior Reporter role at the local newspaper the Tipping Herald, Chris is given an assignment to cover a conference at a local hotel.
But when the hotel becomes a crime scene Chris begins to uncover a very different story to what she had had in mind. The corpse that was discovered hanging from a fire escape doesn't look to her like a suicide — heroin addicts don't OD and then string themselves up. But who would have been driven to murder within this tight-knit community?
The further Chris gets into the investigation, the more questions arise and the more personal sacrifices she is willing to make. But is it love of the job or love of a colleague that is keeping Chris away from her husband? And will she be strong enough to face the truth when it reveals itself?
— A Real Shot in the Arm by Annette Roome
An Excerpt from A Far Gone Night, a Thomas O'Shea Mystery by John Carenen
A Far Gone Night
by John Carenen
We are delighted to welcome mystery author John Carenen to Omnimystery News today.
John's second mystery to feature his enigmatic protagonist Thomas O'Shea and the quirky characters of Rockbluff, Iowa is A Far Gone Night (Neverland Publishing; September 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce you to it with an excerpt, the first chapter.
— ♦ —
"To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that leads to bitterness." — Flannery O'Connor
I KNEW IMMEDIATELY SHE WAS DEAD, half-spinning and languidly bobbing in the dark water. One arm appeared to be twisted behind her, but the other floated free, back and forth, back and forth, as if beckoning me to herself, like an Iowa Ahab, bidding me come see.
At first, I thought the drugs and alcohol were playing tricks on my eyes. Beset by insomnia, I had downed three Melatonin and three Three Philosophers Belgian ale and remained wide-eyed. So I had driven into town, walked out onto the double-arched limestone bridge spanning the Whitetail River seeking solace and looking for calm in the black water dropping down the small spillway, a smooth, uniform curtain, churning into brief curls of white water before calming and turning black again and heading on south.
I stared, thinking that maybe in doing so she might change into a mattress or a bunch of plastic wrapping or a cheap, abandoned Styrofoam cooler — anything else that would make me laugh at my first perception. But it was a body and the body was naked and it looked like a woman and I suddenly wished to God I had not seen it.
I looked away. I looked back. It was a body, alright.
My impulse was to flee, to just go back to my truck and go home and hope someone else would find her and be drawn into whatever drama awaited. But Sheriff Payne would hear and investigate and someone would mention they saw my truck parked by the bridge in the middle of the night and then I'd have to answer questions.
The only thing for me to do now, I realized, was to buck up whatever ethical and moral mettle I have in me and go to the woman in the water. How could I leave her?
I took off, slipped went to one knee, then arose and scrambled full bore back across the bridge and down the grassy slope to the river's edge, my right hamstring nipping at me to slow down as I rushed to her, splashing into frigid, waist-deep water and reaching out to the body, not caring about crime scene forensics or damaging evidence. I just wanted to get her out of that damn water, and when I saw that she was just a girl, not even a woman yet, I charged to her side, slipped my hands under her cold arms from behind, pulled her free from whatever had snagged her, and lugged her out of the water. I placed her softly on the thick dead grass alongside the river.
The body was very cold, no longer supple, no longer anything but dead.
As soon as I set her down, I pulled off my sweatshirt and covered her above the waist, and then my t-shirt and covered her below the waist. The air was cold on my bare skin, and my jeans were wet and cold, too. I squatted down next to the dead girl and my shoes squished.
I said a quick prayer and rubbed my eyes hard with my palms. Her head was at an odd angle, so I slipped my right hand behind her head to move it a little, to make it more comfortable. I know, I know, but what difference did it make if she were dead? The point is, it made a difference to me.
It was then that my fingers found the two depressions in the back of her skull. Her long, matted hair nearly obscured them, but a little exploration was called for. Stunned, I let my fingers linger under her hair to be sure. I was sure, and then, for just an instant, I was holding another dead person's head, my friend's, in the streets of Sarajevo after we thought we had cleaned up that neighborhood, the sweet smell of cordite drifting in the air like a woman's fragrance on a breeze.
My attention rushed back to the girl. Wanting to disbelieve her wounds, I laid her head back down, slow and easy. Then I just placed my right hand on her dear, lovely forehead, and moved a tangle of drenched hair to the side, away from her face. For her. For me, mostly. That's when I noticed a slash of whiteness alongside her skull. There in the dark, at first I thought it was exposed bone, but when I touched it I realized it was just a blaze of white hair slightly forward of her left ear, an anomaly in her otherwise raven hair. It looked like a fat comma or that Nike swoosh sign.
It takes about ninety-seven seconds to patrol all of Rockbluff village, so I hoped a Deputy Sheriff would come by and investigate my abandoned truck up by the bridge. The law enforcement and EMS people know my truck, a mixed blessing. So I sat there on my haunches, keeping the girl company, waiting for someone to come along.
— ♦ —
Photo provided courtesy of
John Carenen
John Carenen, a native of Clinton, Iowa, graduated with an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop and has been writing ever since. His work has appeared in numerous popular and literary magazines, and he has been a featured columnist in newspapers in North and South Carolina.
John is currently an English professor at Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina. He and his wife live in their cozy cottage down a quiet lane in northern Greenville, South Carolina. He is a big fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boston Red Sox.
To learn more about the author, you can find him on Facebook.
— ♦ —
A Far Gone Night
John Carenen
A Thomas O'Shea Mystery
Suffering from insomnia, Thomas O'Shea goes for a late-night stroll through the peaceful streets of Rockbluff, Iowa, and finds himself pausing downtown on the bridge that spans the Whitetail River. When he glances downstream, something catches his eye … something that looks like a body. He scrambles down to the riverbank, pulling the body of a young girl from the water. The girl is naked, with two bullet holes in the back of her head. Ever suspicious of law enforcement, O'Shea chooses not mention the bullet holes when Deputy Stephen Doltch, on routine patrol, discovers him at the river's edge.
When the coroner's report lists the cause of death as "drowning," Thomas goes into action. Confronting the coroner, he is met with hostility. But then the coroner and his wife disappear, along with the body of the dead girl. Once again, Thomas gears up to find answers that will reveal who put the bullets in the girl's head, why she was killed, and her identity, which may hit a little too close to home.
Teaming up with his friend Lunatic Mooning and Clancy Dominguez, an old buddy from his Navy SEAL days, Thomas and the other two men join together to bring justice to the dead girl, a quest that takes them to the Chalaka Reservation in Minnesota, seedy businesses adjacent to the Chalaka Casino, and straight into the world of organized crime.
