A Cornucopia of Crime

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The New York Sun

Stephen King has been announced as the recipient of the most prestigious honor the Mystery Writers of America bestow: The Grand Master Award, given for lifetime achievement.

Although mainly famous as the author of the most terrifying horror fiction published during the past half-century or more, the multitalented Mr. King has also produced a strong body of work in the mystery/crime/suspense genre, including “Misery,” “Cujo,” “The Colorado Kid,” “Different Seasons” (which included “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” filmed as “The Shawshank Redemption,” and “The Body,” filmed as “Stand By Me”) and much else, including some superb short stories.

A long-time aficionado of mystery fiction, there can be little doubt of Mr. King’s sincerity in stating: “I’m delighted to be getting the Grand Master Award and to be joining the likes of some of my greatest idols and teachers — people like John D. MacDonald, Ed McBain and Donald E. Westlake. The award means a great deal to me personally because it’s an award from people who understand two things: the importance of good writing and the importance of telling stories.”

Mr. King will formally accept the award at the annual Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Awards banquet on April 26 in New York City.

***

Speaking of literary awards, the National Book Awards were handed out a few weeks ago and the judges almost made a dreadful mistake in honoring a book that, with generous borders, could be said to have fallen into mystery/suspense territory. Several of the judges would probably have jumped out a window to think they might have honored a book as low-brow as all that.

Jess Walters, who was the surprise winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel of 2005, received a nomination for “The Zero” (Regan, 336 pages, $25.95). It is a suspense thriller set against the events of September 11, 2001, although it fictionalizes all names, occurrences, dates, and places. The title refers, of course, to ground zero.

A policeman who was at the scene when the attacks took place shoots himself in the head a week later, but survives with the only damage apparently being a loss of memory. He is brought in by a mysterious commission to locate a missing woman believed to have made it out alive from one of the collapsed towers. He doesn’t know who has given him the mission, or why she is wanted — not even why he is hunting her.

The novel is weighed down with satire, often ladled on so heavily that there are readers who might feel it’s a little tasteless to use this horrific event as the leaping-off point for a noir comedy, but it’s a page-turner by an enormously talented writer, which might just make it unique among National Book Award nominees of the past several years.

The winner, by the way, was Richard Powers for “The Echo-Maker,” which has been much praised but is definitely not in the mystery/suspense genre.

***

Finland is not a country noted for its mystery fiction, but one of its biggest stars in the genre is Tuula Sariola, who has not been translated into English. That’s probably okay. She has just acknowledged that, in fact, she was not the actual author of any of her 16 published crime novels.

***

If you like pulp fiction but find it a bit dated (wait — you mean men don’t still call handguns “gats” or women “skirts”?) you might like to check out www.blazingadventuresmagazine.com. It features all new fiction by young writers — not reprints of old-fashioned classics. Don’t let the fact that it’s run by someone named Dash Courageous (you gotta believe me) put you off.

***

This next item is not crime fiction, I’m sorry to say, because no one could make it up. That monument to political integrity, Marion Barry, the former Mayor of Washington, D.C., was looking at the bright side of his public service when he declared back in 1989, “Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”

***

You might like to check out a new paperback edition of “Grave Descend” (Hard Case Crime, 202 pages, $6.99) by John Lange. It was nominated for an Edgar in 1970, a well-deserved honor for this fast-moving mystery/adventure story set largely in the waters off Jamaica.

There is no mention on the cover or inside that this is a pseudonymous work, one of many by an author who went on to even greater successes under his own name — the estimable Michael Crichton.

***

One of America’s most outstanding espionage writers, Robert Littell, has often been mentioned with admiration in this column, but this time he is a mere adjunct.

His son, Jonathan, has written a 900-page epic (in French, although he is an American who lives in Barcelona) that may turn out to be the biggest book of 2007 (not just in pounds, but in sales). It is titled “Les Bienveillantes” (which translates, as we all know, as “The Kindly Ones”) and (how to say this exactly?) appears to be, more or less, “the intimate memoirs of an ex-Nazi mass-murderer,” as his agent described it while offering it to major publishing houses in America.

In France, it sold 280,000 copies in the first six weeks after it was released — a pace that makes “The Da Vinci Code” seem like a privately printed edition of belles letters — and won the Goncourt Prize. It is largely a story (and history) of World War II and the Eastern front, rivaling his father’s superb “The Company” (2002) in terms of heft and scope.

No news yet on publication date, as one can’t translate a tome of this size over the weekend, but if the young Mr. Littell (he’s only 37) is as talented as his dad, it’s certainly an event to be anticipated with a degree of excitement.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.


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