I don’t tend to handicap the Edgar awards because I’m usually woefully ill-equipped to hold forth on the merits of the books nominated or the stories. I’m not a member of MWA, don’t nominate, don’t vote and though I read a helluva lot of mysteries every year, I seldom can look at the nomination lists and give my opinions on more than one or two. Some categories leave me completely flummoxed because I not only haven’t read the nominees, I’ve sometimes never heard of the damn things. Given how much time I spend immersed in this world, it surprises me.

This year? Pretty typical. Of the books nominated for “best first” there were two titles I knew. I had not gotten past page 20 in either of those – and the other three were unknown to me.

Best Paperback original? Surprised myself there as I had read and liked two of the nominees, including the obscure HOMICIDE MY OWN.

A shocker truly is that I read the winner in the Fact Crime category this year. A book about the theft of Munch’s “The Scream”.

But really, really truly what amazed me and knocked me over with the feather to which I refer in the header (dear gods, I’ve been infected with verbosity) is that I read and LOVED Jess Walter’s CITIZEN VINCE which won the Edgar for BEST NOVEL. LOVED it. This isn’t so unheard of; I loved SJ’s WINTER AND NIGHT which won in 2003. I thought Jeff Parker’s SILENT JOE was a helluva book and it won in 2002. I was thrilled some years back when Margaret Maron swept the four major awards with BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER.

But it’s still pretty rare. I nurse a huge grudge that ABSENT FRIENDS was completely overlooked; I now it was a difficult book but I don’t really care. I so despised Minette Walters SCOLD’S BRIDLE – well ok, I can’t really judge it, since I threw it down after about 10 pages, so creeped out by it that it almost got thrown across the room. That year, WOLF IN THE SHADOWS by Muller won the Anthony (at the Seattle Bouchercon, mind you – boy were we happy, as Marcia was our guest of honor, and no, that was NOT manipulated). Crais’ FREE FALL was up that year, as was SMILLA’S SENSE OF SNOW, and to be honest, I can’t remember what I thought of those. Probably liked FREE FALL – I like almost all of the Elvis Cole books. Except The Last Detective, which I found hugely disappointing.)

THE BOTTOMS, which won Joe Lansdale the Edgar in 2001 was extremely well written and yet, I felt, SO derivative, SO reminiscent of another major work that I couldn’t support any award that it won. I would have been lots happier seeing Pickard’s THE WHOLE TRUTH or Kris Nelscott’s DANGEROUS ROAD picked. And I thought CALIFORNIA GIRL, which TJ Parker got the award for last year was really lacking in a number of ways.

In other categories I’m way worse off since I don’t see that many paperback originals, and while I read a slew of first novels reviewing the nominees on the MWA website (which I tool ALL this info from and my many thanks to Michael Milligan who developed their wonderful searchable database)

I loved CITIZEN VINCE, and yet sounds weird but I couldn’t review it. Does it surprise you that some rave reviews are hard to write? It does ME. I would have thought it would be a cinch to write a review about a book I loved. But I tried reviewing the book and got stumped several times – I was hoping to write it up for David Montgomery who generously invited me to review on his site. And I just could not do it.

I’ve not been able to review Stephen White’s KILL ME, nor ABSENT FRIENDS and frankly, didn’t try too hard. I was/am afraid of my affection for the authors making it harder. It’s not that I don’t or can’t praise a book by a friend, of course. While that gave me concern 6 years ago when I started reviewing, I learned it was not a big deal. I review Lippman and Muller and Stabenow and Pronzini all the time. And those authors are friends. I’m not going to be able to review A FIELD OF DARKNESS either. I’m TOO enthusiastic about it. And somehow, when it comes down to being articulate about why
I think a book is a huge huge good thing, I have trouble explaining.

I managed to review EVERY SECRET THING – another book I raved about – but only because it was part of George Easter’s “Reviewed to Death” and I could focus, could concentrate. Don’t write a whole review, he advised – since it would be 9 or so people reviewing the same book, it would get redundant for us all to do plot summaries; just say what you want to specifically. I thought TO THE POWER OF THREE equally good and did manage for once to write a coherent review.

But back to 2006 and the Edgars. I knew that I wanted CITIZEN VINCE to win but it seemed, well, if you haven’t read the competition, it just seems, what, “unprofessional” to speak out. I didn’t CARE what else was nominated. It didn’t matter. It should have been nominated. It should have won. That’s the sort of thing I can say here, and will always believe. I did not read one other nominee this year for the Edgar best novel; I can’t explain it but I cannot read Michael Connelly or George Pelecanos, two giants in the mystery field. They just don’t work for me, and believe me, I know how highly they are held by people I respect. I read one Tess Gerritsen and it didn’t do much for me, and I can’t recall reading Thomas Cook.

None of the books I listed as the best of 2005 made the Edgar nomination ballot, not for best novel or best first. Except for CITIZEN VINCE, the book I could not review. (I managed reviews of, let’s see, almost every other book on my list. Hmmmmm.)

Given my “luck” with the Edgars, I really was stunned tonight to see that Jess Walter had won. I’m delighted; since it was pretty much a given in my head that since I liked that book it wouldn’t win, well ya could knocked me ….okay you get the rest.