The nominations for the Edgar Allan Poe Awards have just been announced and the top category, Best Mystery Novel, is about as strong a list as I’ve ever seen. There are five nominees, with the winner to be announced on April 27, at the Mystery Writers of America awards banquet.

When I listed the top five books of the year back in December, I named the poignant and suspenseful “Red Leaves” (Harcourt, 289 pages, $23) by Thomas H. Cook as my no. 1 novel, and it was nominated (his sixth nomination). My close runner-up was Michael Connelly’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” (Little, Brown, 404 pages, $26.95), and the nominating committee was sage enough to short-list this excellent book as well.The other books in the running for the Edgar are “Drama City” (Little, Brown, 291 pages, $24.95) by one of my favorite writers, George Pelecanos; Tess Gerritsen’s “Vanish” (Ballantine, 336 pages, $24.95); and “Citizen Vince” (ReganBooks, 293 pages, $24.95) by Jess Walter.

Watch this column for the results in this category and others. Forget all those blase writers and critics who claim that awards are ridiculous because all works of art are so different it’s impossible to claim one or the other is the best. While that to some extent may be true, bad books don’t win Edgars, good books do, and even if we don’t totally agree with the final selection, the process is fun.

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Rodney Whitaker died a few weeks ago. The name doesn’t mean much to most readers because he was better known under his pseudonym, Trevanian, under which he wrote such successful books as “The Eiger Sanction,” which was made into a successful movie in 1975 starring Clint Eastwood, “The Loo Sanction,” “The Main,” and “Shibumi.”

Well, maybe he did. I saw obituaries in various publications, including Time magazine, and none mentioned the likelihood that he didn’t actually write all those books. One need only read the first two, and then “The Main” and “Shibumi,” to raise the question whether it is possible for one writer to have such disparate styles.

For a long time there was speculation that the true author of some of these international thrillers was James T. Hashian, but secrecy prevailed and there is no hard evidence known to me that confirms it. But I can read, and I’d bet a steak dinner at the incomparable Post House that there was more than one hand at the typewriter during the three decades in which Trevanian’s books were published.

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In case you haven’t heard, there will be a new James Bond film this summer. It’s a remake, really, of “Casino Royale,” the first Bond novel by Ian Fleming, which was made into a truly dreadful spoof in 1967, though one directed by the great John Huston.

When Pierce Brosnan stepped aside, some 200 actors were considered for the role, which finally went to Daniel Craig (that’s okay; I had never heard of him either), who will be the sixth actor to portray the iconic spy – and the first blond. Advance word is that the film will be a little darker than previous entities in the canon, which seems fitting considering Mr. Craig’s Mary Poppins-like philosophy: “I go through life,” he has said,”thinking it’s all going to end tomorrow.”

Production finally started on the much-delayed film on January 27, and the top brass took off for the Czech Republic, where producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, director Martin Campbell, and the rest of the crew will work until February 16, when they cancel the Czech and head to the Bahamas, then Italy, back to Prague, and finally to Pinewood Studios to wrap it up.

There is no new Bond girl yet, at least not one they’re willing to admit to, since Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron apparently nixed the opportunity. Among those linked to the film, possibly by their publicists, are African Thandie Newton, Russian Lana Antonova, and, in the wouldn’tthat-be-cool category, Rachael Stirling, whose mother, Diana Rigg, played a Bond girl in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

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This part isn’t fiction, but it sounds like something we saw on some television show or other during the past six months. It is also going into my file of stupid criminal stories, which I’ve been saving for a couple of years and is already bulging.

A couple of Rhodes Scholarship candidates evidently stole a copy of a video of Jennifer Lopez’s wedding. They said if she wanted to get it back, she’d have to pay them $150,000, which sounds more like the price for the video of the wedding night, and the hell with the wedding. In cahoots with the NYPD, the actress agreed to the deal. The Albert Einstein clones met her in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight, where a coterie of New York’s finest were waiting for them.

Here’s the best part. They hadn’t asked for a suitcase full of used, untraceable $20 bills. No, these aspiring Nobel laureates, in what can only be regarded as a surprising negotiating ploy, wanted a check.

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As I very much like to include the occasional quotable line by mystery writers in these columns, there is no discernable reason why this small pleasure should be denied to me today, so here is one from the distinguished author of espionage fiction, Eric Ambler: “The thriller,” he is quoted as saying, “is an extension of the fairy tale. It is melodrama so embellished as to create the illusion that the story being told, however unlikely, could be true.”

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 openzler@nysun.com.