Local and international crime featured in the New Zealand Listener's 100 Best Books of 2011

Last year, you might recall, I was very pleased to see several crime novels make the annual 100 Best Books list put out by the New Zealand Listener magazine (especially as the list the year before had had a distinct lack of crime, mystery or thriller fiction titles, New Zealand or international). The New Zealand Listener has long been considered one of our premier magazines. It is a weekly current affairs and entertainment magazine, renowned for having one of the best books sections around.

Near the end of each year the Listener has a “100 Best Books of the Year” issue, where its reviewers, with help from nominations from booksellers and others, compile their list of best novels, short stories, poetry, biography, memoir, and other non-fiction (eg history, science, journalism and essays, art, and food and drink) books of the year.

The 100 Best Books issue (see cover image above right) for 2011 has now hit newstands etc, and I am very pleased to share that it too includes several crime, mystery or thriller titles on the latest list:

• BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by SJ Watson
• BOUND by Vanda Symon
• DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY by PD James
• FEAST DAY OF FOOLS by James Lee Burke
• LUTHER: THE CALLING by Neil Cross
• AN UNCERTAIN PLACE by Fred Vargas
• THE WRECKAGE by Michael Robotham

So a nice mix of UK, US, New Zealand, Australian, and continental European authors, and a variety of different 'types' of crime or thriller fiction there, which is cool to see. Some cracking books there, and hopefully more Kiwi readers might give some of them a go, after reading about them in this week's issue of the Listener. Congratulations to the Kiwi crime writers who made the list.

Have you read any of the crime novels mentioned? If so, what did you think? If not, which ones catch your eye? Thoughts and comments welcome.

Galaxy Book Awards honour crime fiction and more

The 2011 Galaxy National Book Awards nominees have been released, with a few crime writers featuring. One of the Awards' eleven categories is for the Thriller & Crime Novel of the Year, but crime writers also feature in some of the other more general categories too.

The Galaxy National Book Awards tout themselves at 'the Oscars of the book industry', and they certainly highlight and celebrate a variety of books, with categories ranging from crime, to children's books, to cookery/food books, to biography/autobiography, to audiobooks, and more. It's good to see that crime/thriller writing has its own category (not every genre does, as there are catch-all categories like 'popular fiction' and 'paperback of the year', etc). The nominees for the Thriller & Crime Novel of the Year in association with iBookstore are:

• Before I Go To Sleep S.J. Watson (Doubleday)
• The Fear Index Robert Harris (Hutchinson)
• Heartstone C J Sansom (Pan)
• The Family Martina Cole (Headline)
• The Impossible Dead Ian Rankin (Orion)
• Trick Of The Dark Val McDermid (Sphere)

Acclaimed new crime writer SJ Watson, who recently won the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for his debut Before I Go To Sleep, features strongly in the Galaxy line-ups; also receiving nominations for New Writer of the Year, and AudioBook of the Year.

American thriller writer Gregg Hurwitz is nominated in the Paperback of the Year category for his excellent thriller You're Next (read my review here, and my feature article on Hurwitz discussing that novel here). Norwegian star Jo Nesbo (The Leopard) has been nominated for International Writer of the Year, finding himself up against the likes of Haruki Murakami, and Booker nominee AD Miller (Snowdrops) has also been nominated in the New Writer of the Year category. It is nice to see crime getting something of a look-in, especially in awards which are made across genres. Though like any awards nominee lists, there's bound to be plenty to discuss in terms of people left off the list, and whether people think the nominated books are better than others that seem overlooked.

The winners will be revealed on 4th November at a ceremony at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in west London, which will be hosted by comedian Dara O'Briain. The event will be staged and filmed by Cactus TV, with a series of six programmes about the awards to be screened between 13th November and 17th December on More4. Cactus TV Managing DirectorAmanda Ross said, "It will be far more interesting for the viewers to experience the event in bite-size chunks spread across six shows, as we will be able to properly focus on the category winners."

You can read more about the 2011 Galaxy Book Awards at the website here. Graham Beattie has a full list of the categories and nominees here.