Monday, February 16, 2015

How many Edgar best novel winners have you read?

If it didn't become clear in my ode to Goodwill I am an avid thrift store book buyer. Two recent purchases got me thinking. I picked up a copy of Dangerous Ways by Jack Vance and California Girl by T Jefferson Parker. Dangerous Ways is a collection of three of Vance's mysteries and includes the novel The Man in the Cage which won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel by an American Author (ain't that a mouthful) in 1961. California Girl won the Edgar for Best Novel in 2005. I started to wonder how many Edgar winning books I've read, even if I just looked at one category, Best Novel.

Here is the list of Edgar Best Novel winners:



2014
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

2013
Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

2012
Gone by Mo Hayder

2011
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

2010
The Last Child by John Hart

2009
Blue Heaven by C. J. Box

2008
Down River by John Hart

2007
The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

2006
Citizen Vince by Jess Walter

2005
California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

2004
Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin

2003
Winter and Night by S. J. Rozan

2002

Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker

2001
The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale

2000
Bones by Jan Burke

1999
Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark

1998
Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke

1997
The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook

1996
Come to Grief by Dick Francis

1995
The Red Scream by Mary Willis Walker

1994
The Sculptress by Minette Walters

1993
Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron

1992
A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block

1991
New Orleans Mourning by Julie Smith

1990
Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

1989
A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart M. Kaminsky

1988
Old Bones by Aaron Elkins

1987
A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine

1986
The Suspect by L.R. Wright

1985
Briar Patch by Ross Thomas

1984
La Brava by Elmore Leonard

1983
Billingsgate Shoal by Rick Boyer

1982
Peregrine by William Bayer

1981
Whip Hand by Dick Francis

1980
The Rheingold Route by Arthur Maling

1979
The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

1978
Catch Me: Kill Me by William H. Hallahan

1977
Promised Land by Robert B. Parker

1976
Hopscotch by Brian Garfield

1975
Peter's Pence by Jon Cleary

1974
Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman

1973
The Lingala Code by Warren Kiefer

1972
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

1971
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo (Pantheon)

1970
Forfeit by Dick Francis

1969
A Case of Need by Jeffery Hudson

1968
God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake

1967
The King of the Rainy Country

1966
The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall

1965
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre

1964
The Light of Day by Eric Ambler

1963
Death and the Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters

1962
Gideon's Fire by J. J. Marric

1961
The Progress of a Crime by Julian Symons

1960
The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin

1959
The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin

1958
Room to Swing by Ed Lacy

1957
A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong

1956
Beast in View by Margaret Millar

1955
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

1954
Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay
How many of these have you read? Is it a good representation of the genre for the last few decades?


4 comments:

Al Tucher said...

I've read twelve of them, going back to 1965. I'm surprised it's that many.

Ray Garraty said...

Only three, I liked all of them.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

29

pattinase (abbott) said...

17