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Crime Fiction | Zoho DB

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Crime Fiction Award Nominees & Winners Novels published in 1998

 

Page Modified: April 2, 2008

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Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Mary Higgins Clark, Dilys, Edgars, Arthur Ellis Awards, Hammett, Lambda, Macavity Awards, Nero Wolfe & Shamus Nominees - and assorted others when possible.

The Anthony Awards are determined at Bouchercon each year. Malice Domestic Agatha Awards are for the best cozy books per category. The Chester Himes Award is given to a black mystery writer for a body of work. The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association presents the Dilys Winn Awards for the books most fun to sell. The Mystery Writers of America presents the Edgar Awards for achievement for the best work in the mystery field. The Arthur Ellis Awards are presented at the Canadian Crime Writers meeting. The International Association of Crime Writers' presents the Hammett Award to works of excellence by and American or Canadian writer. The Lamda Mystery awards are part of literary awards given in a a variety of areas to recognize gay/lesbian writers. The Mystery Readers International Award for Excellence is the Macavity, named in honor of T.S. Eliot's "Curious Cat". The Shamus Awards are presented by the Private Eye Writers of America to honor writers of P.I. novels.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine unless otherwise noted.

Listings are arranged alphabetically by author.

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• No Badge, No Gun
  Author: Adams, Harold
  Publisher: Walker PubDate: 1998-10 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0802733212
  Shamus Nominee Best Novel
  Carl Wilcox travels around South Dakota, during the Depression, painting signs, doing odd jobs, and helping those who've run out of places to turn. When Bjorn Bjornson asks Carl to listen to his story--the tale of his murdered niece--Carl investigates, and discovers something alarming surrounding the murder of the girl.
• Like a Hole in the Head
  Author: Banbury, Jen
  Publisher: Little & Brown PubDate: 1998-02 $ 21.95 ISBN: 0316171107
  Shamus Nominee Best First Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best Novel
  
• Blind Descent
  Author: Barr, Nevada
  Publisher: Putnam PubDate: 1998-03 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0399143718
  Kirkus PW
  Dilys Nominee
  Anthony Nominee Best Novel
  Macavity Nominee Best Novel
  In Barr's gripping novel, park ranger Ann Pigeon faces personal demons as well as life- threatening dangers in an untamed underground wilderness. When a fellow park ranger is injured in a caving accident, Anna swallows her paralyzing fear of small places and descends into Lechuguillla Cavern to help a friend in need.
• Ghosts of Morning
  Author: Barre, Richard
  Publisher: Prime Crime PubDate: 1998-06 $ 21.95 ISBN: 0425163008
  Dilys Nominee
  In his Shamus Award-winning first novel, The Innocents, Barre introduced audiences to Wil Hardesty, a private eye with a deep, dark past - and an uncertain future. Here, he plunges further into Wil's history, to a far off place where murder and friendship collide.
• Atlanta Graves
  Author: Birmingham, Ruth
  Publisher: Prime Crime PubDate: 1998-04 $ 5.99 ISBN: 0425162672
  Edgar Nominee Best Paperback Original
  Meet Sunny Childs - the hard-nosed, sharp-tongued P.I. who is the lead detective at Peachtree Investigations. In Atlanta Graves, Sunny sets out to reclaim a stolen painting. But instead of the painting, she ends up with a dead body, unanswered questions - and a full-fledged killer on her hands. With Peachtree Investigations facing bankruptcy, Sunny must work fast - not only to catch the murderer, but to save her job.
• Verdict in Blood: A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery
  Author: Bowen, Gail
  Publisher: McClelland and Stewart PubDate: 1998-09 $ ISBN: 0771014872
  PW
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best Novel
  Verdict in Blood is the sixth Joanne Kilbourn mystery in Gail owen's popular series. While Joanne's good friend Hilda McCourt is visiting her in Regina, Saskatchewan, the dead body of Judge Justine Blackwell is found sprawled across of the limestone slabs of the Boy Scouts' memorial in Wascana Park. Blackwell, known widely for the harsh sentences she's handed down over the years, had lately been acting quite out of character, seeking out people she'd once incarcerated and trying to help them. Had she been getting senile, or had she had a change of heart? Even the fearsome judge herself had wondered, asking Hilda McCourt, just the night before her death, to make an assessment of her mental condition. Now the matter is urgent: Which of her two wills should prevail -- the one leaving everything to her daughters, including the famous sixties singer, Lucy Blackwell; or the one leaving it all to Culhane House, a halfway house for excons? For, whoever stood to lose could be her murderer. Joanne's life is already complicated by the disappearance of Eli, the nephew of her lover Inspector Alex Keequahtooway of the Regina police, and continuing tensions in her relationship with Alex. Then Keith Harris, her former lover (The Wandering Soul Murders) arrives back, eager to renew their relationship. But Joanne is not in the mood for romance. First, she has to help her old friend, Hilda, and before too long finds herself drawn into conflicting worlds of jealousy, fear, and danger. -- McClelland and Stewart marketing.
• Uprising
  Author: Boyd, Randy
  Publisher: West Beach Books PubDate: 1998-10 $ 11.95 ISBN:0966533372
  Lambda Nominee Best Gay Man's Mystery
  
• Sudden Blow
  Author: Brady, Liz
  Publisher: Second Story PubDate: 1998-07 $ 12.95 ISBN:1896764053
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best First Novel
  Real estate baron Charles Durand is found murdered in his corporate tower, his skull shattered by one of his own collectibles. Durand's gay son William quickly becomes the prime suspect in what looks to the police like an open-and-shut case--until William's skeptical aunt hires irreverent business writer Jane Yeats to discover who really killed the much-hated tycoon.
• Sunset Limited
  Author: Burke, James Lee
  Publisher: Doubleday PubDate: 1998-07 $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385488424
  Booklist PW
  Dilys Nominee
  Burke is at the top of his form in this story of racial violence, class warfare, and the cruelty that privilege often brings. The 40-year old crucifixion of prominent labor leader Jack Flynn remains and unsolved atrocity. When Flynn's daughter, a photojournalist drawn to controversial subjects, comes to New Iberia, it becomes clear that her family's bloodstained past is not going to stay buried.
• Liar
  Author: Burke, Jan
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pubdate: 1998-05 $23 ISBN: 0684803453
  Agatha Nominee Best Novel
  Intrepid sleuth/reporter Irene Kelly barely has time to recover from the shock of learning that her estranged aunt has been killed before being blindsided by an even bigger surprise - she's the number one suspect! Irene searches for her aunt's son, Travis - a young man who wants nothing to do with Irene of any of the Kelly clan. The seeds of contention sown by family members no longer living are now being reaped by the next generation in ways no one would ever have suspected. As deeply buried family secrets are unearthed, the line between stalker and stalked becomes increasingly blurred, with dangerous consequences for Irene. She casts her lot with Travis, who she believes is the killer's next target, but her efforts to protect him place her squarely in harm's way. Now Irene must dodge not only the arm of the law, but also the reach of a killer who appears to want to settle the score of an age-old family grudge.
• Mr. White's Confession
  Author: Clark, Robert
  Publisher: Picador USA PubDate: 1998-09 $ 24.00 ISBN: 0312192177
  Kirkus LJ
  Edgar Winner Best Novel
  Heading a police investigation into the brutal murder of a showgirl, Lt. Wesley Horner zeroes in on Herbert White, an eccentric recluse who spends his days writing gushing fan letters to Hollywood starlets.
• Lethal Practice
  Author: Clement, Peter
  Publisher: Fawcett Gold Medal PubDate: 1998-04 $ 6.99 ISBN:0449002810
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best First First Novel
  St. Paul's Hospital. Buffalo, New York. Scandal rocks the medical community when someone murders the chief administrator, plunging a long thin cardiac needle into his heart with deadly precision. Top ER physician Earl Garnet is one of the few doctors who knows how to insert a cardiac needle. Now a suspect, Garnet races to uncover the truth, even as he becomes embroiled in a conspiracy far bigger and more sinister than he could ever imagine -- a secret that could blow apart the very medical establishment Garnet has sworn to serve.
• Flying Blind
  Author: Collins, Max Allan
  Publisher: Dutton PubDate: 1998-08 $ 24.95 ISBN: 0525943110
  Shamus Nominee Best Novel
  Max Allan Collins's intrepid fictional private eye Nathan Heller has solved some of America's most notorious crimes, including the Lindbergh kidnapping and the assassination of Huey Long. Now Heller is faced with something quite different--not a crime but a disappearance, of a person he'd been hired to protect years ago--famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart.
• Blood Work
  Author: Connelly, Michael
  Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T) PubDate: 1998-03 List Price: 23.95 ISBN: 0316153990
  Publishers Weekly
  Edgar Nominee Best Novel
  Anthony Winner Best Novel
  Macavity Nominee Best Novel
  Blood Work - that's what Terrell McCaleb used to call his job at the FBI. Until a heart condition forced him to take early retirement, he headed all investigations of serial murders in the Los Angeles area. Now he is recovering form a heart transplant operation and leads a quiet life. But McCaleb's calm seas turn rough when a story in the L.A. Times brings him face-to-face with Graciela Rivers, a darkly intriguing woman who hooks him with the story of her sister's unsolved murder. Against doctor's orders and his own better judgement, McCaleb agrees to take up the case. Soon Terry is on the trail of a killer whose crimes are more baffling and horrifying than anything he's ever encountered. It's a mind-bending, breakneck case that leads McCaleb into the darkest place he's ever known, unsure whether he even wants to survive his own investigation.
• Zen and the Art of Murder
  Author: Cosin, Elizabeth
  Publisher: St. Martins PubDate: 1998-10 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312193769
  Shamus Nominee Best First Novel
  Sue Grafton meets Raymond Chandler in this highly acclaimed debut mystery starring Zen Moses--a tough female P.I. working the streets of Los Angeles. Nothing is easy for Zen -- not even getting a pint of beer her favorite bar, Father's Office. It's there she trips over her long lost cousin, murdered and wrapped around a keg of beer.
• Shaman's Moon: A Stoner McTavish Mystery
  Author: Dreher, Sarah
  Publisher: New Victoria PubDate: 1998-10 $ 12.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 093467891x
  Lambda Winner Best Lesbian Novel (tie)
  In her 7th adventure, Stoner McTavish must deal with hungry ghosts in a sleepy little New Age town.
• Too Easy
  Author: Depoy, Phillip
  Publisher: Dell PubDate: 1998-08 $5.99 ISBN: 0440224950
  Shamus Nominee Best Paperback
  A missing person's case turns sinister when Flap Tucker, the man with all the answers, finds himself standing in a killer's way in the second captivating mystery featuring an Atlanta private eye who meditates his way to the truth.
• Hoot to Kill
  Author: Dudley, Karen
  Publisher: Ravenstone
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best First First Novel
  
• Sympathy for the Devil
  Author: Farmer, Jerrilyn
  Publisher: Avon PubDate: 1998-05 $5.99 ISBN: 0380795965
  Agatha Nominee Best First Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best First Novel
  Macavity Winner Best First Novel
  Madeline Bean, caterer to the stars, is in the middle of the biggest job of her new career: in a Halloween party for notorious producer Bruno Huntley, complete with an eerie fortuneteller who is astonishingly accurate, and exotic food that's to die for. But before long, Bruno has been poisoned to death. Madeline's partner is accused of the crime, and she has to sort things out before she meets her own fadeout.
• Tiger's Palette
  Author: Fiedler, Jacqueline
  Publisher: Pocket PubDate: 1998-04 $5.99 ISBN: 0671015591
  Agatha Nominee Best First Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best First Novel
  Macavity Nominee Best First Novel
  Accidents have a way of following wildlife artist Caroline Cranfield around. So after her free-spirited former mentor, Anthony Chirico, plunges to his suspicious death from a scaffold, Caroline turns down the chance to finish his jungle mural at the Fox Valley Zoo. But aware of Tony's penchant for leaving hidden messages in his work, Caroline starts to wonder if the fall is now accident - and when she finds Tony's assistant dead, she gets the idea that someone wants to keep the zoo's newest exhibit from opening.
• Dying to Get Published
  Author: Fitzwater, Judy
  Publisher: Fawcett $5.99 1998-09 ISBN: 0449002942
  Agatha Nominee Best First Novel
  The launch of a brilliant new mystery series. Set in the world of authors, agents, and book publishers, this series stars Jennifer Marsh. An aspiring mystery writer who solves crimes with her writers' support group.
• Dove in the Window
  Author: Fowler, Earlene
  Publisher: Prime Crime PubDate: 1998-05 $21.95 ISBN: 0425162990
  Agatha Nominee Best Novel
  Earlene Fowler introduced Benni Harper, the ex-cowgirl of San Celina, whose talent for piecing togther quilts is rivaled only by her talent for piecing together clues. Now Benni is sorting out a complicated patchwork of motives that marks someone very close to her as the possible murder suspect of a talented photographer. Once again, Earlene Fowler succeeds in presenting a mystery filled with puzzling twists, delightful atmosphere, and the wit that has made her a favorite among fans.
• Reckless Homicide
  Author: Genberg, Ira
  Publisher: St Martins Pr (T) PubDate: 1998-01 $ 23.95 ISBN: 031217974X
  Booklist
  Edgar Nominee Best First Novel by an American Author
  Michael Ashmore, senior partner at a top law firm, has a reputation he cherishes. In a world of liars, he's an honest man. As a major airline's counsel, he shouldn't hide his brother Charlie's failed drug test. But Charlie swears he'll never touch another pill. Then the plane he's flying crashes, killing everyone on board, and he's loaded with barbituates. Michael has been chosen as the perfect patsy in a chilling conspiracy. And he has until the verdict comes in to find out who set him up and why.
• Beyond Recall : A Mystery
  Author: Goddard, Robert
  Publisher: Henry Holt & Co PubDate: 1998-06 $ 25.00 ISBN: 0805051104
  Booklist
  Edgar Nominee Best Novel
  At a wedding party in Cornwell, Chris Napier, the bride's uncle, is shocked to recognize a drunken, disheveled, and evidently distraught intruder. Chris hasn't seen his childhood friend Nicky Lanyon for more than thirty years, not since Nicky's father was hanged for the murder of Joshua Carnoweth - Chris's great-uncle and the man behind the Napier family's inherited affluence. Nicky's plea for his father's innocence is underscored by the method by which he chooses to commit suicide at the conclusion of the day's celebrations. Chris is now compelled to test the truth of his friend's conviction and soon realizes that his own understanding of the events surrounding the murder amounts to none at all. The conduct of more than one member of his own family begins to dog his hesitant footsteps into a past slowing darkening with the shadows of corruption, greed, lies, child abuse, and good old-fashioned revenge.
• Blue Place
  Author: Griffith, Nicola
  Publisher: Avon PubDate: 1998-07 $ 23 ISBN: 0380974460
  Publishers Weekly
  Lambda Winner Best Lesbian Mystery (tie)
  A police lieutenant with the elite "Red Dogs" until she retired at twenty-nine, Aud Torvingen is a rangy six-footer with eyes the color of cement and a tendency to hurt people who get in her way. . . . a deadly international game of forgery, drugs, money, and murder.
• A Cold Day in Paradise
  Author: Hamilton, Steve
  Publisher: Dunne Books PubDate: 1998-09 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312192487
  Kirkus
  Edgar Winner Best First Novel by an American Author
  Shamus Winner Best First Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best First Novel
  On a bitter cold night in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, ex-Detroit cop Alex McKnight answers a cry for help from wealthy Edwin Fulton - only to find the man - a compulsive gambler who had gone to meet with a bookmaker - in his motel room with the bookmaker's throat cut.
• Eleven Days
  Author: Harstad, Donald
  Publisher: Doubleday PubDate: 1998-07 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385488947
  LJ
  Anothony Nominee Best First Novel
  This Fargo set in Iowa is a small-town shocker inspired by actual events. Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman is in for the time of this life after a 911 call from a terrified woman sets him on the path to unearthing the dirty little secrets hidden in his small Iowa community.
• Wicked Games
  Author: Hart, Ellen
  Publisher: St Martins PubDate: 1998-08 $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312186800
  Booklist
  Lambda Nominee Best Lesbian Mystery
  Lambda winner Hart delivers a deliciously eerie new novel - featuring Minneapolis restauranteur Jane Lawless. The new tenant in the apartment in Jane's rambling house is a writer who seems nice but who's just graced the newspapers with an account of a murder he witnessed - but didn't see.
• The Doctor Digs a Grave
  Author: Hathaway, Robin
  Publisher: Thomas Dunne PubDate: 1998-05 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312185685
  Agatha Winner Best First Novel
  Macavity Nominee Best First Novel
  Hathaway's book was the winner of the 1997 St Martin's Malice Domestic Prize for the best first traditional mystery. Set in modern-day Philadelphia and featuring a doctor whose practice is reminiscent of the old-time family physician, the story stirs together murder, upper crust Philadelphia society, the Native American Lenape people. There is the doctor's tart but fiercely loyal secretary, a grudgingly friendly police detective, a very bright and streetwise teenager, and of course, the office cat. The resulting mix is a surefire winner in more ways than one. (annotation from Murder at the Flatiron Building).
• The Only Good Lawyer
  Author: Healy, Jeremiah F.
  Publisher: Pocket PubDate: 1998-03 $ 23 ISBN: 0671009532
  Shamus Nominee Best Novel
  P.I. John Francis Cuddy is doing a favor for a friend when he agrees to look into the case of Alan Spaeth, a racist misogynist accused of killing his wife's African-American divorce attorney. While Cuddy is repulsed by the accused, he is intrigued by the victim -- a man of strange desires, deep secrets and many enemies.
• On Beulah Height
  Author: Hill, Reginald
  Publisher: Delacorte PubDate: 1998-08 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385332785
  PW BL Kirkus
  Anothony Nominee Best Novel
  Inspector Andy Dalziel finds himself reliving an event that happened 15 years before, when a little girl goes missing and Dalziel and Peter Pascoe must delve into the past in search of answers that threaten to bring more pain.
• Tidewater Blood
  Author: Hoffman, William
  Publisher: Algonquin PubDate: 1998-04 $ 19.95 ISBN: 1565121872
  PW
  Hammett Prize Winner
  Set in Virginia is the 1980s, Tidewater Blood opens at the annual LaBlanc family celebration. But this year's celebration goes off with more of a bang than the rich and pretentious LeBlancs had counted on. Just as the party is set to begin, the front of the mansion house explodes. Now Charley, the LeBlanc family black sheep, finds himself looking for a killer.
• Federal Fag
  Author: Hunter, Fred
  Publisher: St Martins PubDate: 1998-06 $ 22.95 ISBN:0312185804
  Lambda Nominee Best Gay Man's Mystery
  Alex Reynolds finds his porn actor/ex-lover in a most unusual position . . . dead.
• Fax Me a Bagel
  Author: Kahn, Sharon
  Publisher: Scribner PubDate: 1998-08 $22 ISBN: 068484737x
  Agatha Nominee Best First Novel
  Follow the bagel crumbs as the savvy, heartwarming new series welcomes an enchanting sleuth: Ruby, the rabbi's wife - a 46-year-old widow who dodges a cunning killer, from her favorite bakery in Eternal, Texas, to the Lower East Side of New York City.
• Dead Low Tide
  Author: Katz, Jamie
  Publisher: HarperCollins PubDate: 1998-12 $ 5.99 ISBN: 006109711x
  Shamus Nominee Best First Novel
  In the tradition of Robert B. Parker, here is a gritty debut mystery featuring a Boston attorney who uncovers corruption and murder in a deceptively quiet, working-class community near Cape Cod.
• Old Wounds
  Author: Kelly, Nora
  Publisher: Harper Collins Canada PubDate:
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best Novel
  
• Iron Lake: A Cork O'Connor Mystery
  Author: Krueger, William Kent
  Publisher: Pocket PubDate: 1998-09 $ 23 ISBN: 0671016962
  Booklist PW
  Dilys Nominee
  Anthony Winner Best First Novel
  Once a Chicago cop, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor, part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, now lives in a small Minnesota town. When the town's judge is brutally murdered, Cork finds himself in the middle of a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.
• Blind Bloodhound Justice
  Author: Lanier, Virginia
  Publisher: HarperCollins PubDate: 1998-07 $24 ISBN: 0060175478
  Agatha Nominee Best Novel
  Supersleuth Jo Beth Sidden and her crime-fighting canine companion dig up the dirt on a long- buried crime for the fourth book in this award-winning mystery series.
• Gone, Baby, Gone
  Author: Lehane, Dennis
  Publisher: William Morrow PubDate: 1998-08 $ 24 ISBN: 06884153321
  Kirkus PW
  Dilys Winner
  Shamus Nominee Best Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best Novel
  Hired to find a six-year-old girl who vanished from her home without a trace a full year before, Boston private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro find themselves caught up in a frenzy of media sensationalism after a second child disappears.
• Butchers Hill : A Tess Monaghan Mystery
  Author: Lippman, Laura
  Publisher: Avon Books (Mm) PubDate: 1998-07 $ 5.99 ISBN: 0380798468
  Edgar Nominee Best Paperback Original
  Agatha Winner Best Novel
  Shamus Nominee Best Paperback Novel
  Anthony Winner Best Paperback Original
  Macavity Nominee Best Novel
  Tess Monaghan has finally made the move and hung out the shingle as a P.I. for hire, complete with an office in Butchers Hill. Her first client is Luther Beale, the notorious vigilante who five years ago shot a boy for vandalizing his car, just sprung from jail. He wants to make repartions to the kids who witnessed his crime for his own peace of mind, so he needs Tess to find them. But once she starts snooping, the witnesses she locates start dying. Is the Butcher of Butchers Hill at it again? Or is there another, even more sinister force at work?
• Mother May I
  Author: Lordon, Randye
  Publisher: Avon PubDate: 1998-04 $ 5.99 ISBN: 0380791668
  Lambda Nominee Best Lesbian Mystery
  A bewildered 92-year-old nursing home patient must know why someone would murder her beloved granddaughter - a rising cartoonist - and why police believe the killer is the victim's husband, prominent pediatrician Dr. Michael Callahan. As Sydney sets out to prove the good doctor's innocence, Callahan vanishes. Confronting an assortment of unlikely suspects, all of whom fiercely guard a wealth of secrets, Sydney learns that the strength of family ties cannot be broken - not even by murder.
• Cold Comfort
  Author: MacKay, Scott
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf PubDate: 1998-08 $ 23 ISBN: 0786705078
  Kirkus
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best Novel
  In Cold Comfort Scott Mackay fashions a classy cop story from three distinct yet intertwined narrative lines: a senseless and probably unsolveable murder, a harsh political decision to reorganize the police force, and the private lives of people worth caring about. Carrol & Graf marketing.
• Down in the Dumps
  Author: Malton, Mel
  Publisher: Rendezvous
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best First First Novel
  
• Home Fires
  Author: Maron, Margaret
  Publisher: Mysterious PubDate: 1998-12 $22 ISBN: 0892966556
  PW
  Agatha Nominee Best Novel
  Macavity Nominee Best Novel
  North Carolina Judge Deborah Knott engages in her own investigation of an arsonist in the midst of campaigning for reelection in the sixth installment of this award-winning series.
• A Likeness in Stone
  Author: Martin, J. Wallis
  Publisher: St Martins Pr (T) PubDate: 1998-05 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312186266
  Kirkus
  Edgar Nominee Best Novel
  A grisly discovery in the darkened waters of a reservoir unlocks the secret to a decades-old murder, in this chilling first novel by an author who combines psychological insight with an intricate plot that will keep readers guessing to the end.
• Zen Attitude
  Author: Massey, Sujata
  Publisher: Harper Mass Market Paperbacks PubDate: 1998-06 $ 5.99 ISBN: 006104444X
  Edgar Nominee Best Paperback Original
  Anthony Nominee Best Paperback Original
  In this smart and snappy sequel to the acclaimed The Salaryman's Wife, rising mystery master Sujata Massey brings back Tokyo-based treasure hunter Rei Shimura in another tale of secrets, lies and murder.
• Praying to a Laughing God
  Author: McColley, Kevin
  Publisher: Simon and Schuster PubDate: 1998-04 $ 24 ISBN: 0684837617
  Hammett Prize Nominee
  A dark and serious Fargo-esque tale of murder in a small Midwest town. A visiting true-crime writer threatens to unmask the perpetrator of a murder--a scandal that has been buried in the town's lore for 40 years--and the denizens of Credibull, Minnesota, find themselves put to the ultimate test.
• Past Due
  Author: McNab, Claire
  Publisher: Naiad PubDate: 1998-10 $ 11.95 ISBN: 1562802178
  Lambda Nominee Best Lesbian Mystery
  Detective Inspector Carol Ashton is back, in the tenth installment of this riveting lesbian mystery series. When a reproductive specialist is found murdered, Ashton must follow the bloody trail down a slippery slope of greed, corruption, and murder.
• Dead As a Doornail
  Author: Michaels, Grant
  Publisher: St Martins PubDate: 1998-03 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312180772
  Lambda Nominee Best Gay Man's Mystery
  Stan Kraychik - psychologist by training, hairdresser by experience - is newly wealthy owing to an unforseen windfall, but the indolence of wealth is beginning to pale . . . Stan discovers the body of a young, attractive contractor inside his structurally unsound brownstone.
• Walter Mosley
  Chester Himes Award Winner
  
• The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa
  Author: Noah, Robert
  Publisher: St Martins PubDate: 1998-01 $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312169167
  Hammett Prize Nominee
  On August 21, 1911, the world's most celebrated painting, the Mona Lisa, was stolen from the Louvre in a plot that was not revealed until the 1930s. Weaving from the threads of this fantastic batch of truth, Robert Noah's novel pits a crackerjack team of thieves against the largest museum in the world.
• Blue
  Author: Padgett, Abigail
  Publisher: Mysterious PubDate: 1998-09 $ 22.00 ISBN: 0892966718
  Kirkus
  Macavity Nominee Best Novel
  An exciting new series starring Blue McCarron, a gay, independent, social psychologist/P.I. living outside San Diego. Hired by the brother of a 72-year-old woman who has confessed to a brutal murder, Blue uncovers the roots of an international conspiracy.
• The Ape Who Guards the Balance
  Author: Peters, Elizabeth
  Publisher: Avon PubDate: 1998-09 $24 ISBN: 0380976579
  Kirkus
  Agatha Nominee Best Novel
  In 1907 Egypt, Egyptologist Amelia Peabody, along with her sexy yet irascible husband, Radcliffe Emerson, and their handsome son Rames, investigates the mystery of an extraordinary papyrus Book of the Dead that may be connected to some recent murders.
• Boobytrap
  Author: Pronzini, Bill
  Publisher: Carroll 7 Graf PubDate: 1998-08 $ 23 ISBN: 0786705051
  Shamus Winner Best Novel
  A quiet vacation turns deadly and pits the "Nameless Detective" against a vengeful mad bomber in a nightmarish battle of wits in this 25th case for this "classic private-eye hero" (Chicago Sun-Times).
• Numbered Account
  Author: Reich, Christopher
  Publisher: Delacorte PubDate: 1998-01 $ 24.95 ISBN:0385320175
  Edgar Nominee Best First Novel by an American Author
  Nicholas Neumann is looking for his father's killer. Working inside a powerful Swiss bank - a world where everything, even life and death, is bought and sold - Nick learns too much about the deals he shouldn't have made, the money he shouldn't have touched, and the woman he shouldn't have loved. As a circle of treachery tightens around him, Nick sees the truth: to catch the criminals who killed his father, he must become one of them himself.
• The Widower's Two-Step
  Author: Riordan, Rick
  Publisher: Bantam Books (Mm) PubDate: 1998-06 $ 5.99 ISBN: 0553576453
  Publishers Weekly
  Edgar Winner Best Paperback Original
  Shamus Nominee Best Paperback Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best Paperback Original
  Tres Navarre has just hours of apprenticeship time to serve before he can go for his P.I. license. Staking out a musician suspected of stealing a demo tape should be a nice piece of "pan dulce". But his attention wanders just long enough for fiddle player Julie Kearnes to be gunned down before his eyes. He should just back away and let the cops investigate, but backing away has never been Tres's strong point.
• Remedy for Treason
  Author: Roe, Caroline
  Publisher: Berkely Prime Crime PubDate: 1998-05 $ 5.99 ISBN: 0425162958
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best Paperback Original
  In medieval Spain, the blind Jewish physician Isaac of Girona is revered for his skill as a healer. But it's Isaac's uncanny sense for what is fair and what is foul that proves to be the cure in this, the first book in the Chronicles of Isaac of Girona.
• Next Week Will Be Better
  Author: Ruryk, Jean
  Publisher: McClelland and Stewart/St Martins (US) PubDate: 1998-04 $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312181442
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best Novel
  When sixty-something furniture restorer Cat Wilde runs into her old frend Rena, she finds she will finally have a chance to repay the elderly woman, who stood by Cat when her daughter was killed in a car accident years ago. Rena, a professional flea marketer, is afraid that an extended stay in the hospital will rob her of her only source of income, since her absence means she'll lose her much coverted space at the weekend markets. To help her friend, Cat volunteers to fillin until Rena recovers. St. Martins marketing.
• Nice
  Author: Sacks, Jen
  Publisher: St Martins Pr (T) PubDate: 1998-10 $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312193068
  Edgar Nominee Best First Novel by an American Author
  Sexy, funny, and dark - this is one story of a nice girl who discovers that murder is the only way out of a dead-end relationship. But one man knows exactly what she's up to because he is exactly like Grace. He's a killer himself.
• The Electrical Field
  Author: Sakamoto, Kerri
  Publisher: Knopf/Norton (U.S.) PubDate: 1999-01 $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393046923
  PW
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best First First Novel
  A rare and haunting debut about memory and murder, the unusual friendship between an aging Japanese-Canadian woman and a young girl desperate to uncover the truth.
• A Criminal Appeal
  Author: Schanker, D. R.
  Publisher: St Martins Pr (T) PubDate: 1998-09 $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312192533
  Kirkus
  Edgar Nominee Best First Novel by an American Author
  Nora Lumsey, a recent law school graduate and self-described "big-boned woman", is an idealistic clerk at the Indiana Court of Appeals. But her ideals are challenged when she discovers she must affirm the murder conviction of a thirteen-year-old deaf black child. Nora is drawn into his world, and discovers harsh injustices stacked against an innocent boy. Risking her career and her life, Nora hunts for the real killer - whose connections may lead straight to her own boss.
• Framework for Death
  Author: Schumacher, Aileen
  Publisher: Writeway PubDate: 1998-08 $ 23.95 ISBN:2985173555
  Anothony Nominee Best Novel
  The Underground Railroad is active again, but this time it's been set up by terrified mothers and fathers to spirit their endangered children away from the other threatening parent. When one mother's flight goes haywire, David Alvarez is called in to investigate - putting him in touch with a past love, engineer Tory Travers.
• Standing in the Shadows
  Author: Spring, Michelle
  Publisher: Ballantine PubDate: 1998-05 $ ISBN: 0345424913
  Arthur Ellis Nominee Best Novel
  A stunning British thriller by the author of Every Breath You Take. A sweet, elderly lady is viciously killed by her 11-year-old foster child. But the whole matter had been settled two years ago when the child admitted, indeed insisted, that he was guilty. So why reopen the case? That's what P.I. Laura Principal has to find out.
• The Last Days of Il Duce
  Author: Stansbury, Domenic
  Publisher: Permanent Pr/Second Chance Pr PubDate: 1998-02 $ 22.00 ISBN: 1579620043
  Edgar Nominee Best Novel
  Hammett Prize Nominee
  The Last Days of Il Duce is a dark, elegantly written thriller set in North Beach, the old Italian neighborhood of San Francisco. It tells the story of Niccolo Jones, an ex-lawyer obsessed with his brother's wife, and obsession he won't give up even though it implicates him in murder - and leads him into the intricate and tangled history of the neighborhood.
• Strachey's Folly
  Author: Stevenson, Richard
  Publisher: St Martins PubDate: 1998-07 $ 22.95 ISBN: 031218669x
  Lambda Nominee Best Gay Man's Mystery
  In Washington, D.C. to view the AIDS quilt, gay P.I. Donald Strachey and his lover, Timmy, and a friend discover a panel for an ex-lover of their friend. The trouble is that the ex-lover isn't dead. When their friend barely survives a vicious attack, Strachey concludes that someone has a deadly secret - one that he or she will kill to protect.
• Death in a City of Mystics
  Author: Steinberg, Janice
  Publisher: Berkley PubDate: 1998-11 $ 5.99 ISBN: 0425166155
  Shamus Nominee Best Paperback
  Reporter Margo Simon's mother had a bad fall. But when it's tied to poisonous herbs mixed into her tea, Margo must ponder who would want to hurt her mother--for what happened was no accident.
• Wings of Fire
  Author: Todd, Charles
  Publisher: St Martins PubDate: 1998-03 $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312170645
  PW
  Dilys Nominee
  Inspector Ian Rutledge, the World War I hero of A Test of Wills, makes his second appearance, investigating the mysterious deaths of three members of the same family in Cornwall. Accompanying Rutledge is his constant "companion" Hamish, the young Scot whom he had to execute on the battlefield and whose tormenting voice in Rutledge's head forces him to face unpleasant truths.
• Tomato Red
  Author: Woodrell, Daniel
  Publisher: Holt PubDate: 1998-08 $ 20 ISBN: 0805055770
  Booklist
  Hammett Prize Nominee
  "Fast action, a great deal of mayhem and a soupon of sex. A good read, with salty dialogue, tough-guy prose, quick-sketched characters and sharp, terse imagery". -- Robert Houston, The New York Times Book Review.
• Murder Manual
  Author: Womack, Steven
  Publisher: Ballantine Books (Mm) PubDate: 1998-06 List Price: 5.99 ISBN: 0345414470
  Edgar Nominee Best Paperback Original
  Shamus Winner Best Paperback Novel
  Anthony Nominee Best Paperback Original
  The bestselling toast of Tennessee, author Robert Jefferson Reed has made big bucks with his little book of folksy homilies. He should have included "Don't commit murder". For when Reed's wife hires P.I. Harry James Denton to catch her hubby in a tryst with a sexy secretary, Harry finds the author of Life's Little Maintenance Manual strangled and drowned in his own hot tub.
• Outburst
  Author: Zimmerman, R.D.
  Publisher: 0385323751 PubDate: 1998-11 $ 21.95 ISBN: 0385323751
  Lambda Winner Best Gay Man's Mystery
  An Anthony and Edgar Nominee, and the winner of the Lamda Literary Award, R.D. Zimmerman has made a name for himself writing mysteries wherein the tension runs high and the pages practically turn themselves. With Outburst, his fourth book featuring television reporter Todd Mills, and Todd's lover, city homicide investigator Steve Rawlins, Zimmerman continues his winning streak.

Overbooked is a volunteer project undertaken by Ann Chambers Theis: Collection Management Administrator, Chesterfield County (VA) Public Library. 9501 Lori Rd. or P.O. Box 297, Chesterfield, VA, 23832. Phone: 804.748.1760.

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I really appreciate all the e-mail I receive from avid readers and writers and regret that I am not able to respond to all correspondents. Special thanks to those folks who regularly help keep me on track - you know who you are....

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"She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain" - Louisa May Alcott

"Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind" - Richard Powers