Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Nominations 2026

Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Nominations 2026: Macavity Award Nominations 2026 (for works published in 2025) The Macavity Award is named after Macavity: The Mystery Cat , in ...

Mystery Fanfare: THE MACAVITY AWARDS 2024

Mystery Fanfare: THE MACAVITY AWARDS 2024: The Macavity Awards 2024 (for works published in 2023) The Macavity Award is named after Macavity: The Mystery Cat , in T.S. E...

SleuthSayers: What is Real Courage?

SleuthSayers: What is Real Courage?: Earlier this week, Melodie Campbell ran a column here at SleuthSayers about courage — how it takes guts to be a writer. She mentioned Harper...

Mystery Fanfare: MACAVITY AWARD WINNERS 2023

Mystery Fanfare: MACAVITY AWARD WINNERS 2023: The Macavity Award Winners 2023  (for works published in 2022) The Macavity Awards  are nominated and voted on by members of  Mystery Reader...

In Reference To Murder Blog: Mystery Melange for 10/18/17

In Reference To Murder Blog: Mystery Melange for 10/18/17

SleuthSayers: 2017 Macavity Award Short Story Nominees Dish on T...

SleuthSayers: 2017 Macavity Award Short Story Nominees Dish on T...: by Paul D. Marks Today I’m giving over my post to the 2017 Macavity Award Short Story Nominees. There’s six of us and I’m both lucky and h...

Criminal Minds: The Good Life, The Bad Life and the Writing Life

Criminal Minds: The Good Life, The Bad Life and the Writing Life: (Besides getting rich) how has the writing life changed you as a person? by Paul D. Marks Rich is the only way I’ve changed from the wri...

Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Winners 2016

Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Winners 2016: The Macavity Award Winners 2016 The Macavity Awards are nominated by members of Mystery Readers International , subscribers to ...

Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Nominees 2016

Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Nominees 2016: The Macavity Award Nominees 2016 The Macavity Awards are nominated by members of Mystery Readers International , subscribers to...

Criminal Minds: Editing Panel with This Year's Anthony Finalists f...

Criminal Minds: Editing Panel with This Year's Anthony Finalists f...: By Art Taylor A few weeks back, Paul D. Marks hosted a chat about themes with this year's Macavity Award finalists for Best Short Stor...

Via The Rap Sheet-- Plethora of Prizes in Long Beach

Plethora of Prizes in Long Beach

Via Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Nominations 2014

Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Award Nominations 2014: MACAVITY AWARD NOMINATIONS The Macavity Awards are nominated and voted on by members and friends of Mystery Readers International and...

Review: "CLIFF WALK: A MULLIGAN NOVEL" by Bruce Desilva

Reporter Liam Mulligan from the start knows this is going to be a very unpleasant story. Cosmo Scalici raises hogs and hogs will eat just about anything that ends up in their pens. That includes a child’s arm. While local law enforcement now has killed the hog so they can hopefully retrieve whatever is left of some little girl’s arm and hand, finding out to whom it belonged to and where it came from is going to be very hard. When Cosmo Scalici isn’t dealing with the hogs, he runs company, Scalici Recycling. They collect garbage from schools, jails, and restaurants all over Rhode Island. That means the arm could have come from just about anywhere.

That isn’t the only story Mulligan is working on though it is the most gruesome one right now. Mulligan is also working on figuring out who is doing some waste dumping, who is trying to buy the governor this time through campaign funds, and how long his paper, Providence Dispatch, is going to survive.

It is because he is sent out to Newport to attend an event during the weeklong Newport Jumping Derby that he witnesses Salvatore Maniella in deep conversation with the governor. The same Salvatore Maniella who is found hours later splattered across the rocks below Newport’s world famous Cliff Walk. The same Salvatore Maniella who is linked to various forms of pornography, prostitution, and others things.

In chasing the various stories, Mulligan finds himself a target as well as a confident to a number of people. He might make headway on his stories if the newspaper he works for wasn’t in such a state of collapse. The newspaper is crumbling around him with more and more layoffs, circulation cutbacks, financial cuts and other problems. Like any other business these days, it means that those that are left, Mulligan and others must increasingly share the workload to keep the paper afloat. His personal problems in terms of his health as well as an ex that just won’t leave him alone add to his burdens. Mulligan is at a crossroads, both personally and professionally, in a tale where faith and politics play increasing roles in cases that get darker as the weeks pass into the fall months.

Bruce DeSilva won both the 2011 Edgar and Macavity Awards for his debut novel, Rogue Island. Rightfully so, as that was a powerful book that firmly established the Liam Mulligan character as well as several others. Simply put, CLIFF WALK just might be a better book. Featuring the same occasionally sarcastic tone and laugh out loud moments (the obits are a must read on their own), several complex storylines where nothing is as it seems, and a sense that you right there with Mulligan every step of the way, he book is a good one from the start to the moving finish.

While it can be read as a stand-alone, those who have read Rogue Island will get far more out of CLIFF WALK as the characters and relationships continue to evolve.

CLIFF WALK: A MULLIGAN NOVEL

Bruce DeSilva

http://www.brucedesilva.com

A Forge Book (Tom Doherty Associates)

http://www.tor-forge.com

May 2012

ISBN# 978-0-7653-3237-0

Hardback  (also available in e-book and audio book)

318 Pages

$24.99

Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2012

Award Winners

It is award season again so here are the latest award winners.

*****************


Shamus Award Winners -

Best Hardcover P.I. Novel: *Locked In*, by Marcia Muller
Grand Central)

Best First P.I. Novel: *Faces of the Gone*, by Brad Parks
Minotaur)

Best Paperback Original P.I. Novel: *Sinner’s Ball*, by Ira Berkowitz
Three Rivers Press)

Best P.I. Short Story: “Julius Katz,” by Dave Zeltserman
*Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,* September/October 2009)

Lifetime Achievement Award: Robert Crais.

Personal note---read “Locked In” and was not impressed though from a writer
standpoint it is an interesting technique. I very much liked “Faces of the Gone”
and would highly recommend it along with the short story “Julius Katz”by Dave
Zelsterman.)


Macavity Award Winners -

Best Mystery Novel: Ken Bruen & Reed Farrel Coleman: *Tower*
(Busted Flush Press)

Best First Mystery Novel: Alan Bradley: *The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie*
(Delacorte)

Best Mystery Nonfiction: P.D. James: *Talking about Detective Fiction*
(Alfred A. Knopf)

Best Mystery Short Story: Hank Phillippi Ryan: "On the House"
(*Quarry: Crime Stories* by New England Writers, Level Best Books)

Sue Feder Historical Mystery: Rebecca Cantrell: *A Trace of Smoke*
(Forge)


(Personal note----I have to confess I have not read any of these so I have no
advice on these books.)


Barry Award Winners-

Best Novel:  John Hart:  *The Last Child* (Minotaur)

Best First Novel: Alan Bradley: *The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie*
(Delacorte)

Best British Novel:  Philip Kerr:  *If the Dead Not Rise*
(Quercus)

Best Paperback Original:  Bryan Gruley:  *Starvation Lake*
(Touchstone)

Best Thriller:  Jamie Freveletti:  *Running From the Devil*
(Morrow)

Best Mystery/Crime Novel of the Decade:  Stieg Larsson: *The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo* (Knopf)

Best Short Story:  Brendan DuBois, "The High House Writer" (*AHMM*July-August 2009)

(Personal Note---of these I have read “Starvation Lake” and highly recommend
it along with the sequel “The Hanging Tree”.)

So there you have it. Looks like lots of good reading from a lot of talented folks.

Kevin