The Edgar Awards were announced on April 30th, and the winner of the Best Novel award was Elly Griffith’s The Stranger Diaries. I had thoroughly enjoyed this book and have been recommending it for months. It was of course my book of the year for 2019. There is an interesting dynamic between the main character and one of the police officers, D.S. Harbinder Kaur. Kaur is East Indian and still lives in her parents’ house, this leads to an internal tension between the somewhat bossy policewoman, she is by day and the more submissive daughter she is at home. There is to be a second novel featuring Kaur, The Postscript Murders, due out in the late Fall.

Griffiths has not abandoned Ruth Galloway. The twelfth book in that series, The Lantern Men is due to be published in hardcover in July ($39). I cannot tell you anything about this title because if you have not read the eleventh book, The Stone Circle, due in trade paper later this month, I might spoil it for you.

Susie Steiner’s Missing, Presumed was my book of the year in 2016. In June 2020 Manon Bradshaw will be back in Remain Silent. Steiner has had some major health issues in the intervening years, including a 10cm tumor removed from her brain. I have not read this new book, but the British reviews have been very good.

Cormoran Strike is back again this autumn for the fifth time. Troubled Blood is due to be released in September and it will be interesting to see how Cormoran and Robin move forward in this one. We will be offering pre-orders on the new hardcover edition.