Maxine (in a comment to my earlier post today) challenged me to give my list of 6 most deserving books for the CWA International Dagger (the real winners to be announced at CrimeFest on Friday).
OK, here’s my list, drawn from the eligible titles as given on the Eurocrime blog yesterday:
Dominique Manotti, Affairs of State
Deon Meyer, Thirteen Hours
Zygmunt Miloszewski, Entanglement
Jo Nesbo, The Snowman
Johan Theorin, The Darkest Room
Arnaldur Indridason, Hypothermia
There were several other candidates that I mulled over (Karin Fossum's The Water's Edge in particular, and that one might have gotten in my list if I hadn't just finished Entanglement, but also K.O. Dahl, Petros Markaris, Gunnar Staalesen, Stieg Larsson, and others), there were a number that I haven't been able to read yet, and there were a few that I didn't think earned a place even on the short list (Michele Guittari, Selcuk Altun, neither of which I much appreciated), and there are a number of deserving books that either just aren't to my taste or aren't fresh in my memory. So my list isn't very much good in terms of predictions, I'm sure.
Thanks for the challenge, Maxine. Anybody else have short lists to offer?
International Noir Fiction includes reviews and ideas on crime novels (mostly from outside the U.S.)
I have not read most of them but yesterday in a comment to Karen I mentioned:
ReplyDeleteLeif Davidsen - The Woman from Bratislava
Karin Fossum - The Water's Edge
Arnaldur Indridason - Hypothermia
Henning Mankell - The Man from Beijing
Dominique Manotti - Affairs of State
Petros Markaris - Che Committed Suicide
Patricia Melo - Lost World
Deon Meyer - Thirteen Hours
Jo Nesbo - The Snowman
Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room
Which are more or less on your list, except for Entanglement but at that moment I was not yet aware of your review.
It will be tough to judge.
Thanks, Glenn. I've read all but one on your list and I loved them all. My own choice boiled down to The Darkest Room and Hypothermia. But in the main a fantastic list and so hard to choose six. Karen (Meek) says she will put up a list of next year's eligible titles via her Euro Crime database soon, so we can get cracking on next year's well ahead of time!
ReplyDeleteAgreed on Staalesen and Dahl, S. Larsson et al......
(Did you read Poisonville by Carlotto and Videtta? I really liked that.)
Thanks Maxine--and I did read Poisonville. It definitely made my list of, maybe, top 10 but not quite the top 6. It seemed as much a social satire as a crime novel (not a bad thing) and I thought the collaboration better than Carlotto's solo fiction in at least some ways.
ReplyDeleteGlenn