award winning mysteries

 

Last week, the Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of the 2021 Edgar Awards, one of the mystery world’s premier honors. This year marks the 75th annual presentation of the awards.

BEST NOVEL

Nominees:

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara WINNER
Before She Was Helen by Caroline B. Cooney
Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
These Women by Ivy Pochoda
The Missing American by Kwei Quartey
The Distant Dead by Heather Young

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Nominees:

Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March
Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen WINNER
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Nominees:

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole WINNER
The Deep, Deep Snow by Brian Freeman
Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey
The Keeper by Jessica Moor
East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman

BEST TRUE CRIME

Nominees:

Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America by Mark A. Bradley

The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg

 Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic by Eric Eyre WINNER

Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch

Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife by Ariel Sabar

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Nominees:

Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club edited by Martin Edwards

Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock by Christina Lane WINNER

Ian Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery & Fiction by Erin E. MacDonald

Guilt Rules All:  Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction by Elizabeth Mannion & Brian Cliff

This Time Next Year We’ll be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear

BEST JUVENILE

Nominees:

Premeditated Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce WINNER
Me and Banksy by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
Ikenga by Nnedi Okorafor
Nessie Quest by Melissa Savage
Coop Knows the Scoop by Taryn Souders

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Nominees:

The Companion by Katie Alender WINNER
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
They Went Left by Monica Hesse
Silence of Bones by June Hur
The Cousins by Karen M. McManus

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

Nominees:

“Episode 1, The Stranger” – Harlan Coben’s The Stranger, Written by Danny Brocklehurst (Netflix)
“Episode 1, Open Water” – The Sounds, Written by Sarah-Kate Lynch (Acorn TV)
“Episode 1, Photochemistry” – Dead Still, Written by John Morton (Acorn TV) WINNER
“Episode 1” – Des, Written by Luke Neal (Sundance Now)
“What I Know” – The Boys, Written by Rebecca Sonnenshine, based on the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (Amazon)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

“The Bite,” Tampa Bay Noir by Colette Bancroft

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

Nominees:

Death of an American Beauty by Mariah Fredericks
The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart WINNER
The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day
The First to Lie by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Cold Wind by Paige Shelton

THE G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD

Nominees:

The Burn by Kathleen Kent
Riviera Gold by Laurie R. King
Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery by Rosalie Knecht WINNER
Dead Land by Sara Paretsky
The Sleeping Nymph by Ilaria Tuti
Turn to Stone by James W. Ziskin

GRAND MASTER

Jeffery Deaver

Charlaine Harris

 

Compton Cowboys

When you think of Compton, California, a few things may spring to mind:

• Gang violence between the Crips and the Bloods overtook the populace in the 1970’s with death and crime rates remaining high until after the Rodney King Riots in the early 1990s.
• The rap group N.W.A. took the nation by storm and put Compton on the map in 1988.
• A laundry list of ground-breaking musicians including Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Eazy-E, Suge Knight, and Coolio
• But did you know about the cowboys?

Poverty and crime in the area remains, but this former farming community still boasts a culture that harkens back to the roots of its settlement in 1867. Working ranches still dot the area and in the early 2000s one ranch owner, Mayisha Akbar, started the Compton Jr Posse, a riding program aimed at luring inner-city youth away from drugs and street crime through horses and riding.  

For more than 20 years, her ceaseless struggle to secure funding and prestige for the program worked. She retired recently, turning control of the ranch over to her nephew, Randall Hook. He and several other former CJP members renamed it the Compton Junior Equestrians and took full control of the organization on January 1, 2019.  The job of running such an organization is a particularly tough one and the struggle is ongoing but these passionate young men and women who call themselves the Compton Cowboys, one of only two riding clubs left, have never met a fight they weren’t willing to have.

Enter New York Times writer Walter Thompson-Hernández, a native of Compton who has fond memories of the black cowboys in Compton parades of his youth. Thompson-Hernández began his career with the New York Times in 2018 and writes for Surfacing, the NYT’s multimedia reporting team covering subcultures and marginalized and offbeat communities around the world. He's written about an albinism community in Ghana hunted for their body parts by witch doctors and rural villages, the lowrider community in Tokyo and Nagoya in Japan, women rappers in Oaxaca, Mexico speaking out against violence on women in the region, and more.

His new book, The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America’s Urban Heartland, teams with life. Thompson-Hernández lives and works with the Compton Cowboys for over a year to give readers an in-depth look at daily life in a community and a culture that in many ways still struggles to survive.  He does not stray away from the harsh details of daily life and behavior, including mental illness and struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, but allows the dreams and ambitions of these modern pioneers to shine through those struggles.  This is definitely a story that deserves to be told.

For more of Walter Thompson-Hernández’s reporting, click here.

Find the Compton Cowboys online:

Thompson-Hernández's book is scheduled for publication later this month. In the meantime, the author recommends the following in his Acknowledgments:

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

Pulitzer Prize winner, General Nonfiction, 2017

National Book Critics Circle Award winner, General Nonfiction, 2016

From Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond, a landmark work of scholarship and reportage that will forever change the way we look at poverty in America. 

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

2018 Audible Audiobook of the Year

Winner of the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and Kirkus Prize Finalist

Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed, The Undefeated, Library Journal, The Washington Post, Southern Living, Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Critics

In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse. 

World cultures:

Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team that Changed a Town by Warren St. John

The extraordinary tale of a refugee youth soccer team and the transformation of a small American town. Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement center in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world's war zones, from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

Isolated by Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury. In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets.

SOURCES

www.comptoncowboys.com/

www.comptoncity.org/visitors/history.asp

www.laist.com/2015/08/14/city_of_compton.php

www.allmusic.com/birthplace/compton-ca-mz0000070164

www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/us/compton-cowboys-horseback-riding-african-americans.html

www.theplaidhorse.com/2017/06/01/compton-jr-posse-changing-the-course-of-kids-lives/

www.comptonjrequestrians.org/about

www.amazon.com