2005 Gumshoe Award Winners Announced

Mystery Ink, one of the internet's most popular destinations for readers of mysteries and thrillers, announced today the winners of the fourth annual Gumshoe Awards.

The Gumshoes are given by Mystery Ink each year to recognize the best achievements in the world of crime fiction. The nominees were chosen from books published for the first time in 2004.

According to Mystery Ink's editor, David J. Montgomery, the crime fiction genre is as strong as it has ever been, making the final selections difficult. "Narrowing down the shortlists was difficult enough, but singling out only one book in each category was especially hard.

"All the books nominated were so good that any of them could justifiably have won, but I think we've come up with some outstanding selections. The books that won all show uncommonly fine writing, plotting and characters that help set the standard for fiction of all types."

Mystery Ink is also especially proud this year to award Lawrence Block the Gumshoe Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is among the finest writers that literature has to offer, and there is no one that deserves it more.

The winners of the 2005 Gumshoe Awards are:

Best Mystery:
Jim Fusilli: Hard, Hard City (Putnam)

Best Thriller:
Barry Eisler: Rain Storm (Putnam)

Best European Crime Novel:
Henning Mankell: The Return of the Dancing Master (New Press)

Best First Novel:
Dylan Schaffer: Misdemeanor Man (Bloomsbury)

Best Crime Fiction Website:
January Magazine's Crime Fiction Section

Lifetime Achievement Award:
Lawrence Block

Last year's winners were:

Best Novel: Steve Hamilton - Blood Is the Sky (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Best First Novel: P.J. Tracy - Monkeewrench (Putnam)
Best Crime Fiction Website: Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind
Lifetime Achievement: Ruth Rendell

Online since the beginning of 2001, Mystery Ink features reviews of mysteries and thrillers, interviews with authors, reference information and more.