In Edgar Allan Poe’s bicentennial year, the Mystery Writers of America paid more than usual tribute to the mystery genre’s founder at their annual dinner, held the night of April 30 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. Two special Raven awards went to the Edgar Allan Poe Society and to the Poe House, both in Baltimore, Md. Dr. Harry Lee Poe’s Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories (Metro Books) won in the best critical/biographical category.
Other winners included C.J. Box for best novel (Blue Heaven, St. Martin’s Minotaur), Francie Lin for best first novel by an American author (The Foreigner, Picador) and Meg Gardiner for best paperback original (China Lake, NAL/Obsidian). Sue Grafton (A Is for Al-ibi, etc.) and James Lee Burke, creator of Lousiana sheriff deputy Dave Robicheaux, were in-ducted as Grand Masters. Burke’s daughter Alafair Burker, herself an author (Angel’s Tip), introduced her father.
Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher thriller series and the current MWA president, served as a suave and witty master of ceremonies, explaining why neither President Obama nor Queen Elizabeth II was available to m.c. instead.
