Between the Dark and the Daylight
Page 59
Gyles Brandreth, Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile (Touchstone). The third novel casting the 1890s celebrity playwright as sleuth is a throwback to Golden Age puzzle-spinning with a downright Queenian finale.
Michael Connelly, Nine Dragons (Little, Brown). L.A cop Harry Bosch travels to Hong Kong in one of his best cases. Connelly’s other 2009 book, The Scarecrow (Little, Brown) is notable for a grim picture of the declining newspaper business.
Mat Coward, Acts of Destruction (Alia Mondo). While it’s unusual to cover a self-published British novel here, Coward’s nearfuture police procedural, offering stimulating ideas, good modular plotting, and trademark humor, deserves to be read, and American fans of his work need to know about it.
Martin Edwards, Dancing for the Hangman (Five Star). Hawley Harvey Crippen’s first person account is one of the best fictionalizations of a classic criminal case in memory.
Hallie Ephron, Never Tell a Lie (William Morrow). Constructed as well as a top-notch Mary Higgins Clark, this prime contribution to the am-I-married-to-a-murderer subgenre is also distinguished for its style.
Lyndsay Faye, Dust and Shadow (Simon & Schuster). Of all the attempts to put Sherlock Holmes on the trail of Jack the Ripper, this may well be the best.
Joe Gores, Spade & Archer (Knopf). The prequel to The Maltese Falcon perfectly recaptures Hammett’s objective narrative style.
Ed Gorman, The Midnight Room (Leisure). The small-town Midwestern milieu is brilliantly depicted in a deliberate throwback to the great days of paperback originals.
John Hart, The Last Child (Minotaur). The tale of a rural North Carolina teenager obsessed with the murder of his sister was a deserving Edgar nominee.
Margaret Lawrence, Roanoke (Delacorte). One of the best historical mystery writers offers a possible solution to a mystery of colonial America in the Elizabethan era.
Leonardo Padura, Havana Fever, translated from the Spanish by Peter Bush (Bitter Lemon). Havana cop turned book scout Mario Conde is featured in one of the most consistently excellent series in the current market.
Anne Perry, Execution Dock (Ballantine). Set in 1860 London, this was the best book in some time about amnesiac cop William Monk and wife Hester.
Andrew Taylor, Bleeding Heart Square (Hyperion). Politics and everyday life of 1934 London come to life in a beautifully structured historical mystery.
Joseph Teller, Bronx Justice (MIRA). New life for the courtroom drama from one of the best lawyer-writers to enter the legal mystery subgenre.
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Compilation copyright © 2009 Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg
Stories copyright © 2009 individual authors
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction.
Any similarities to people or places, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
eISBN 10: 1-4405-3076-9
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3076-0
This work has been previously published in print format under the following ISBNs:
978-0-9825209-5-6 (hardcover)
978-0-9825209-4-9 (paperback)