The consensus finalist: THE SHANGHAI MOON by SJ Rozan

As I discussed yesterday, the 2010 Bouchercon festival is about to kick off in San Francisco - four days of fantastic author events and crime fiction festivities.

At Bouchercon by the Bay, the winners of three major crime fiction awards will be announced; the Thursday night Opening Ceremonies will include the presentation of the Barry (run by Deadly Pleasures magazine) and Macavity (run by Mystery Readers International) Awards, followed by a festive reception. And of course later in the weekend the winners of the festival's own long-running awards will also be announced; the Anthony Awards (I understand the winners are based on the votes of attendees at the convention itself).

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the finalists for the three different awards, and see what sort of repetition and crossover there was between the books on each of the three lists. As you'd expect, some crime novels appear on more than one list - but when it comes to the major Best Novel award, there is one novel that is on all three finalists lists; THE SHANGHAI MOON by SJ Rozan. So, win or lose, walking away from Bouchercon with three awards or none, you could say that SJ Rozan at least has the honour and distinction of being the 'consensus finalist' of each of the three judging panels. Quite an achievement in an awards world that often throws up some pretty interesting results.

Rozan is an author I had heard of, and I've read some of her short stories in a couple of crime fiction anthologies, but never any of her novels (yet). I might have to try to get my hands on THE SHANGHAI MOON however, and see what the fuss is about.

Here is the 'blurb' for THE SHANGHAI MOON:

Estranged for months from fellow P.I. Bill Smith, Chinese-American private investigator Lydia Chin is brought in by colleague and former mentor Joel Pilarsky to help with a case that crosses continents, cultures, and decades. In Shanghai, excavation has unearthed a cache of European jewelry dating back to World War II, when Shanghai was an open city providing safe haven for thousands of Jewish refugees. The jewelry, identifed as having belonged to one such refugee - Rosalie Gilder - was immediately stolen by a Chinese official who fled to New York City. Hired by a lawyer specializing in the recovery of Holocaust assets, Chin and Pilarsky are to find any and all leads to the missing jewels.However, Lydia soon learns that there is much more to the story than they've been told: The Shanghai Moon, one of the world's most sought after missing jewels, reputed to be worth millions, is believed to have been part of the same stash. Before Lydia can act on this new information, two men are murdered, Lydia is fired from the case, and Bill Smith finally reappears on the scene. Now Lydia and Bill must unravel the truth about the Shanghai Moon and the events that surrounded its disappearance sixty years ago during the chaos of war and revolution, if they are to stop more killings and uncover the truth of what is going on today.

You can read an excerpt here.

When the book was released in 2009, Maureen Corrigan in The Washington Post called it an "ambitious and absorbing riff on the classic Nancy Drew mystery", and said that THE SHANGHAI MOON demonstrated that "there's plenty of possibility lurking in the old missing-gems plot. It just takes a master like S.J. Rozan to restore the luster of a classic".

You can read the full review here.

It certainly sounds intriguing. I'm not sure if Rozan will win many or any of the three awards - THE SHANGHAI MOON would have to be a truly exceptional book to beat out John Hart's exquisite Edgar and Dagger Award-winning THE LAST CHILD for the Barry and Anthony Best Novel Awards - but you never know with these things, and regardless of eventual results, Rozan certainly deserves hearty congratulations as the 'consensus finalist', and someone who has a claim on having the most lauded book at Bouchercon.

You can see the full list of finalists for the Macavity Awards here, the Barry Awards here, and the Anthony Awards here.

Have you read THE SHANGHAI MOON? If so, what did you think? If not, do you like the sound of it? Which of the finalists do you think should win each award? Which have you read? Does winning an award matter, one way or the other? Thoughts and comments welcome.