Edgar Allan Poe Award Winners

The Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel was named for Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the modern detective story. This award is presented by the Mystery Writers Association and is considered the most prestigious in the realm of mystery and detective fiction. It is given in about a dozen different categories including Best Novel and Best First Novel, shown here. For more information, visit www.mysterywriters.org.

2008 – Best Novel: Down River by John Hart
Adam Chase has a violent streak, and not without reason. As a boy, he suffered wounds that cut to the core and scarred thin. The trauma left him passionate and misunderstood -- a fighter. After being narrowly acquitted of a murder charge, Adam is exiled for a sin he did not commit. For five long years he disappears, but now he’s back and nobody knows why. Within hours of his return, he is beaten and accosted, confronted by his family and the women he still holds dear. No one knows what to make of Adam’s return, but when bodies start turning up, the small town rises against him and Adam again finds himself embroiled in the fight of his life, not just to prove his own innocence, but to reclaim the only life he’s ever wanted.
Best First Novel: In the Woods by Tana French
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox-his partner and closest friend-find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery.

2007 – Best Novel: The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin
A tough new investigator is on the scene, and he happens to be a eunuch. Yashim Togula serves the sultan, who's troubled by a series of murders rocking the Ottoman Empire in the 1830s. Are the Janissaries, elite soldiers-turned-outcast troublemakers, about to return in force?
Best First Novel: The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson
John Wells, a CIA special operations agent, was the first Westerner to graduate from the al Qaeda camps near Kandahar. After years spent fighting undercover in Afghanistan and Chechnya, he has been sent home to execute an unknown mission. Now a Muslim and a harsh judge of America's decadence, he finds that his CIA handlers no longer trust him.

2006 – Best Novel: Citizen Vince by Jess Walter
It's 1980 and Vince Camdon is caught between the worlds of criminal New York and sleepy, law abiding Spokane, Washington. And he can't even decide who to vote for in the upcoming election. With characters that recall Richard Russo at his finest, Jess Walter lets you appraise both worlds with suspicion and curiosity while citizen Vince juggles his conflicting tendencies.
Best First Novel: Officer Down by Theresa Schwegel
Knocked unconscious during a police sting operation, police officer Samantha Mack awakens in the hospital to discover that her partner is dead, shot with her gun, but when she embarks on her own investigation, she is suspended.

2005 – Best Novel: California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker
Living in Orange County, California, in the late 1960s, three brothers pursue leads relevant to their respective careers as a homicide detective, a minister and a reporter when a woman from a childhood rival family is found murdered.
Best First Novel: Country of Origin by Don Lee
When a young American woman goes missing in 1980 Tokyo's sexual underworld, a young U.S. Embassy official considers his prospects for finding her and enlists the help of a neurotic and unpopular Japanese police officer.

2004 – Best Novel: Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
Sent to a rehabilitation school after a serious mistake, Inspector John Rebus discovers that his classmates are plotting a drug heist and joins forces with Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke to investigate ties to an art dealer's murder.
Best First Novel: Death of a Nationalist by Rebecca Pawel
Rising to the position of sergeant in the Guardia Civil, young law student Tejada works to impose order in the ruins of Madrid when his best friend is found murdered, and in the wake of unlikely suspects, he finds himself seeking justice.

2003 – Best Novel: Winter and Night by S.J. Rozan
When his nephew Greg is arrested in New York City and then escapes, Bill Smith, along with his partner Lydia Chin, sets out to find Greg and arrives in a small New Jersey town, where he is confronted by dark secrets, both the town's and his own.
Best First Novel: The Blue Edge Of Midnight by Jonathon King
Haunted by the past, ex-cop Max Freeman starts a new life in the Florida Everglades, only to find himself embroiled in a murder investigation when he discovers the corpse of a child, and, fueled by the need for redemption, Max races against time to catch a killer.

2002 – Best Novel: Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker
Rescued from an orphanage by Will Trona, a politician, Joe is swept into the maelstrom of power and intimidation that surrounds his adoptive father, but when Will is murdered and Joe hunts for the killer, he learns of his father's many secrets.
Best First Novel: Line Of Vision by David Ellis
A young man involved in a love affair with a married woman, Marty Kalish becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance and murder of her husband, despite his protestations of innocence, in a chilling novel of obsession, betrayal and revenge.

2001 – Best Novel: The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale
When young Harry Crane stumbles upon a mutilated body in the local river bottoms, the region becomes trapped in a nightmare of fear and racial tension, as a vicious serial killer stalks the town.
Best First Novel: A Conspiracy Of Paper by David Liss
An outsider in 18th-century London, Jewish pugilist and hired thug Benjamin Weaver prowls the city's mean streets in the service of England's gentry tracking down debtors and thieves.

2000 – Best Novel: Bones by Jan Burke
Best First Novel: The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison

1999 – Best Novel: Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark
Best First Novel: A Cold Day In Paradise by Steve Hamilton

1998 – Best Novel: Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke
Best First Novel: Los Alamos by Joseph Kanon

1997 – Best Novel: The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook
Best First Novel: Simple Justice by John Morgan Wilson

1996 – Best Novel: Come to Grief by Dick Francis
Best First Novel: Penance by David Housewright

1995 – Best Novel: The Red Scream by Mary Willis Walker
Best First Novel: The Caveman's Valentine by George Dawes Green

1994 – Best Novel: The Sculptress by Minette Walters
Best First Novel: A Grave Talent by Laurie King

1993 – Best Novel: Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron
Best First Novel: The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

1992 – Best Novel: A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block
Best First Novel: Slow Motion Riot by Peter Blauner

1991 – Best Novel: New Orleans Mourning by Julie Smith
Best First Novel: Post Mortem by Patricia Cornwell

1990 – Best Novel: Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke
Best First Novel: The Last Billable Hour by Susan Wolfe

1989 – Best Novel: A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Best First Novel: Carolina Skeletons by David Stout

1988 – Best Novel: Old Bones by Aaron Elkins
Best First Novel: Death Among Strangers by Deidre S. Laiken

1987 – Best Novel: A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
Best First Novel: No One Rides For Free by Larry Beinhart

1986 – Best Novel: The Suspect by L.R. Wright
Best First Novel: When The Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman

1985 – Best Novel: Briarpatch by Ross Thomas
Best First Novel: Strike Three, You're Dead by R. D. Rosen

1984 – Best Novel: LaBrava by Elmore Leonard
Best First Novel: The Bay Psalm Book Murder by Will Harriss

1983 – Best Novel: Billingsgate Shoal by Rick Boyer
Best First Novel: The Butcher's Boy by Thomas Perry

1982 – Best Novel: Peregrine by William Bayer
Best First Novel: Chiefs by Stuart Woods

1981 – Best Novel: Whip Hand by Dick Francis
Best First Novel: The Watcher by Kay Nolte Smith

1980 – Best Novel: The Rheingold Route by Arthur Maling
Best First Novel: The Lasko Tangent by Richard North Patterson

1979 – Best Novel: The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Best First Novel: Killed In The Ratings by William L. Deandrea

1978 – Best Novel: Catch Me, Kill Me by William Hallahan
Best First Novel: A French Finish by Robert Ross

1977 – Best Novel: Promised Land by Robert B. Parker
Best First Novel: The Thomas Berryman Number by James Patterson

1976 – Best Novel: Hopscotch by Brian Garfield
Best First Novel: The Alvarez Journal by Rex Burns

1975 – Best Novel: Peter's Pence by Jon Cleary
Best First Novel: Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald

1974 – Best Novel: Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman
Best First Novel: The Billion Dollar Sure Thing by Paul E. Erdman

1973 – Best Novel: The Lingala Code by Warren Kiefer
Best First Novel: Squaw Point by R.H. Shimer

1972 – Best Novel: The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Best First Novel: Finding Maubee by A.H.Z. Carr

1971 – Best Novel: The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Best First Novel: The Anderson Tapes by Lawrence Sanders

1970 – Best Novel: Forfeit by Dick Francis
Best First Novel: A Time For Predators by Joe Gores

1969 – Best Novel: A Case of Need by Jeffery Hudson (aka Michael Crichton)
Best First Novel: Silver Street by E. Richard Johnson and The Bait by Dorothy Uhnak (Tie)