Here are the winners of the 2004 Edgar Awards, as announced last night in New York. I didn't read a single one...That either says something about me or the Edgar committee. At any rate, congrats to all!

BEST NOVEL
Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
Death of a Nationalist by Rebecca Pawel (Soho Press)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Find Me Again by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (Dundurn Group)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson (Bloomsbury)

BEST FACT CRIME
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Random House – Crown Books)

BEST SHORT STORY
"The Maids" from Blood on Their Hands by G. Miki Hayden (Berkeley Prime Crime) [Note: edited by Larry Block!]

BEST YOUNG ADULT
Acceleration by Graham McNamee (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House Childrens)

BEST JUVENILE
Bernie Magruder & the Bats in the Belfry by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
The Practice – "Goodbye," Teleplay by Peter Blake & David E. Kelley

BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY
Dirty Pretty Things by Steve Knight (BBC, Celador Productions, Jonescompany)

The latest New York Times' bestseller list contains a number of crime fiction titles (Published: April 18, 2004):

2. THE DA VINCI CODE, by Dan Brown. (Doubleday, $24.95.)
4. 3RD DEGREE, by James Patterson and Andrew Gross. (Little, Brown, $26.95.) (Mystery Ink's review)
5. THE LAST JUROR, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $27.95.) (Mystery Ink's review)
6. FIRESTORM, by Iris Johansen. (Bantam, $24.95.)
7. ANGELS & DEMONS, by Dan Brown. (Atria, $17.95.)
9. FLASHPOINT, by Suzanne Brockmann. (Ballantine, $21.95.)
10. GUARDIAN OF THE HORIZON, by Elizabeth Peters. (Morrow, $24.95.)
14. WHISKER OF EVIL, by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown. (Bantam, $24.95.)
15. BAD BUSINESS, by Robert B. Parker. (Putnam, $24.95.)
17. A DEATH IN VIENNA, by Daniel Silva. (Putnam, $25.95.) (Mystery Ink's review)
22. SLEEPING BEAUTY, by Phillip Margolin. (HarperCollins, $25.95.)
23. THE BOOKMAN'S PROMISE, by John Dunning. (Scribner, $25.) (Mystery Ink's review)
26. BLACK CREEK CROSSING, by John Saul. (Ballantine, $25.95.)
27. THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL, by Lawrence Block. (Morrow, $24.95.) (Mystery Ink's review)
28. THE BODY OF DAVID HAYES, by Ridley Pearson. (Hyperion, $23.95.)
32. THE PRIESTLY SINS, by Andrew M. Greeley. (Forge, $24.95.)
35. THE GAME, by Laurie R. King. (Bantam, $23.95.) (Mystery Ink's review)

The San Francisco Chronicle this morning carries Tom Nolan's review of Edward Conlon's Blue Blood, a memoir of his days with the NYPD. (This piece might have originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal, which is Nolan's usual newspaper, but I can't tell, since the WSJ site is subscription only. A pox on them!) Nolan has nothing but praise for the book, saying it "may be the most candid and bestwritten true account ever of the joys and frustrations, sorrows and rewards of a cop's life in Manhattan, or in any big city." He makes the book sound excellent; enough so that I think I'll have to pick it up myself.

To celebrate their five-year anniversary, the independent booksellers of the American Booksellers Association cast their ballots for the titles they most enjoyed hand-selling over the past five years. The result was the The Best of Book Sense From the First Five Years.

There are two crime fiction titles in the "Adult Fiction" category: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (which I hear is kinda, sorta a mystery).

Call me a plebian, but I haven't read either of those, or anything else on the list either. I have, however, read The Hobbit, which makes the "Children's" list. So there!

Penguin Publishing highlights Monkeewrench's win of the Gumshoe Award.

Meanwhile, over at January Magazine, you can see my full-length review of Gayle Lynds' excellent new thriller, The Coil. Galye and I recently had a discussion about female authors in the thriller world and we could come up, woefully, with only a few. Why aren't more women attracted to this genre? It appears that women love to read them; why aren't more writing them?

The winners of the 3rd Annual Gumshoe Awards, presented by Mystery Ink to honor excellence in crime fiction, were announced today!

The winners are:

Best Novel: Steve Hamilton, Blood is the Sky

Best First Novel: P.J. Tracy, Monkeewrench

Best Crime Fiction Website: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Lifetime Achievement: Ruth Rendell

Congratulations to everyone!

Pat Anderson has a review of Ace Atkins's new book, Dirty South, in today's Washington Post. He didn't like it as much as I did, but he still has some good things to say about it. I think Ace is one of the better writers to come along in the past few years -- and one of the few writers of Southern mysteries that I really enjoy. I especially recommend his Dark End of the Street, which was short-listed for a Gumshoe Award. (See Yvette Banek's review of Dark End on Mystery Ink. Her review of Dirty South is here.)

Nice write-up about January Magazine, a web publication that I occasionally contribute to. They do an excellent job of covering crime fiction, for which all of us are thankul. My long piece on Gayle Lynds' The Coil should be appearing there soon.

Interesting news about Matthew Reilly, whom his publicist tells me is "the #1 bestselling author in Australia." I haven't read his latest book Scarecrow, but it seems to be doing well (and it was the #1 book in Australia for the eight weeks leading to Christmas 2003) and is getting good reviews (Kirkus says it's the author's "best yet" and is "immensely entertaining").

Now Reilly is launching his latest project, an online serial novel called Hover Car Racer that will be available to readers free of charge. There are eight installments, available on the 4th and 20th of each month through July. This is the first time that a major bestselling author is offering a complete novel online --- for free.

Here's the plot: "Set in a time a few years from now, Hover Car Racer follows the high-octane adventures of 14-year-old Jason Chaser, a gifted young pilot as he takes on the supercharged world of hover car racing --- where races are run at 810 km/h. But Jason is exceedingly young to be a racer, a boy in a man's world. And so, in his trusty car, the Argonaut, he will race against all manner of villains and rivals in all kinds of races at the famed International Race School and (perhaps) in the larger world of pro racing. One thing is for sure, his high-speed escapes and nailbiting finishes will leave you literally clutching your armchair. You have never read anything faster than Hover Car Racer!"

Interesting idea... I think more authors will be trying stuff like this in the future. It can't help but attract more readers and help raise the author's profile.

Today's Chicago Sun-Times carries my latest column: "Freed from the shadow of Ludlum," which contains reviews of the latest from Gayle Lynds, Daniel Silva, Lawrence Block, Ace Atkins and Michael Black. Some nice stuff in there.

The paper also has a nice piece featuring Ace Atkins taking the writer on a tour to find "the blues in its birthplace."

USA Today has a list of the Top 100 bestselling books of the past decade. You could probably guess #1 (hint: think Hogwarts) -- as well as numbers 3, 4, 5 & 6. The only book to break the boy wizard's streak? Robert Fatkins's do-it-yourself heart attack guide Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution.

The top crime fiction title is Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, currently #13, but surely moving higher as we speak. Next highest is John Grisham's The Testament at #24. (Grisham also owns spots #27, 31, 32, 33, 40, 45, 52, 53, 60, 80 & 90.)

There are a few others... Thomas Harris's Hannibal at 57, Michael Crichton's The Lost World (his worst book) at 79 and Timeline (a much better book) at 81, Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor at 84 and Rainbow Six at 86, Dan Brown again, this time Angels & Demons at 88, and finally two more Clancys: The Bear and the Dragon (94) and Executive Orders (95).

Welcome to our new bloggers! A few of the contributors to Mystery Ink have now come onboard the Crime Fiction Dossier to contribute to the madness.

We can now look forward to the thoughts and musings of Yvette Banek, Janine Wilson and Fiona Walker, in addition to yours truly.

I think it will be fun!

NPR has a nice, if short piece on Denise Hamilton, one of my favorite writers. (For the real thing, you've gotta listen to the audio file of their interview.) Denise's new book, Last Lullaby, is out now and it's terrific, with more action than her first two novels.

Got my copy of Mike Connelly's new Harry Bosch novel (The Narrows -- preorder it and get a free DVD, directed by my buddy Lee Lankford, with your purchase) today. I guess I know what I'm reading next! I had actually thought to reread The Poet first, though, since this is a sequel to it. Hmmm...decisions, decisions.

Time Warner is doing something interesting with The Narrows -- rather than printing and sending out a ton of ARCs, like publishers usually do, they decided to forego distributing advanced galleys, thus saving that considerable cost. Their reasoning was that any outlet that was going to review Connelly would just wait until the hardcover is available in order to do so. It's hard to argue with that reasoning, although I did miss getting an ARC.