Congratulations to the winners of the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award winners. They were announced at the annual banquet of the Crime Writers of Canada in Toronto last night.Best Novel
Donna Morrissey, The Fortunate Brother, Viking Canada
Best First Novel sponsored by Kobo
Elle Wild, Strange Things Done, Dundurn Press
Best Novella: The Lou Allin Memorial Award
Rick Blechta, Rundown, Orca Book Publishers
Best Short Story
Susan Daly, A Death at the Parsonage, The Whole She-Bang 3, Toronto Sisters in Crime
Best Book in French
Marie-Eve Bourassa, Red Light: Adieu, Mignonne, Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature, vlb éditions Chrystine Brouillet, Vrai ou faux, Éditions Druide
Best Juvenile/YA Book
Gordon Korman, Masterminds: Criminal Destiny, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd.
Best Nonfiction Book
Jeremy Grimaldi, A Daughter's Deadly Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story, Dundurn Press
Unhanged Arthur for Best Unpublished First Crime Novel sponsored by Dundurn Press
S.J. Jennings, The Golkonda Project
Continuing my personal tradition I am reading and reviewing the shortlist for Best Novel. By coincidence, I read The Fortunate Brother first and my review was my last post.
It is a bit of a surprise that Morrissey was the winner as The Fortunate Brother is her first mystery novel. It was an excellent book and I am looking forward to reading the other four books on the shortlist.
An unusual aspect to The Fortunate Brother is that it is the third book in a trilogy involving the Now family. It reads well as a stand-alone. I did not realize it was part of a trilogy until I was doing some research on the author after I finished reading the book.
Congratulations, indeed, Bill. From your review, The Fortunate Brother was a worthy winner. I look forward to the rest of your reviews of the short-listed novels.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. I have mixed feelings about reading the winner first. It is inevitable I will go through the remaining four thinking whether any are as good as The Fortunate Brother. On the other hand if I was reading it last there might be unreasonable expectations.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bill, for the congrats (I won the short story award).
ReplyDeleteWhen The Fortunate Brother was published I was surprised to see it called a mystery (I had already read What They Wanted) and picked it up expecting the mystery aspect to be fairly secondary. Instead I was pleased to discover it was both an excellent Morrissey novel AND a well crafted mystery.
Susan: Thanks for the comment and congratulations again on winning the short story award. I hope you will drop by again.
DeleteThe Fortunate Brother is a fine way for me to start reading Ms. Morrissey.
I consider it a major challenge to have a work of fiction that works both as a non-mystery and a mystery.