The Mystery Writers of America have announced the winners of the 2018 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, with Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke taking the top prize as Best Novel. The critically acclaimed novel is the first in a trilogy of books that will feature the lead character, Texas Ranger Darren Matthews. The book series has already been snatched up by FX to be adapted into a dramatic series which Locke will executive produce.
The Bluebird, Bluebird synopsis: “When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules – a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home. But when his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders—a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman—have stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes – and save himself in the process – before Lark’s long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird, is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.”
The Guardian calls Bluebird, Bluebird “a true original in the way it twists these conventions into a narrative of exhilarating immediacy.” USA Today says Locke’s novel is “an emotionally dense and intricately detailed thriller, roiling with conflicting emotions steeped in this nation’s troubled past and present.”
The annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards (also known as Edgar Awards) honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television.
Edgar Allan Poe Awards Winners:
- BEST NOVEL
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown & Co./Mulholland Books) - BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper (HarperCollins – Ecco) - BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola (Sourcebooks – Sourcebooks Landmark) - BEST FACT CRIME
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (Penguin Random House – Doubleday) - BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Chester B. Himes: A Biography by Lawrence P. Jackson (W.W. Norton & Company) - BEST SHORT STORY
“Spring Break” – New Haven Noir by John Crowley (Akashic Books) - BEST JUVENILE
Vanished! By James Ponti (Simon & Schuster – Aladdin) - BEST YOUNG ADULT
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (Simon & Schuster – Atheneum Books for Young Readers) - BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
“Somebody to Love” – Fargo, Teleplay by Noah Hawley (FX Networks/MGM) - ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
“The Queen of Secrets” – New Haven Noir by Lisa D. Gray (Akashic Books) - GRAND MASTER
Jane Langton
William Link
Peter Lovesey - RAVEN AWARD
Kristopher Zgorski, BOLO Books
The Raven Bookstore, Lawrence Kansas - ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
Robert Pépin - THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman (HarperCollins – William Morrow Paperbacks)
