Mystery Writers Of America

Celebrates 2024 Edgar Award Winners

The Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of its 2024 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, presented annually to authors of distinguished works of mystery fiction and nonfiction, at a New York ceremony last Wednesday. Some of the winners included:

• Best Novel: Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• Best First Novel by an American Author: The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry (Atria)

• Best Paperback Original: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Berkley)

• Best Short Story: “Hallowed Ground” by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)

• Best Juvenile: The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto by Adrianna Cuevas (Farrar, Straus and Giroux BFYR)

• Best Young Adult: Girl Forgotten by April Henry (Christy Ottaviano)

• Best Television Episode Teleplay: "Escape from Shit Mountain"–Poker Face by Nora Zuckerman & Lilla Zuckerman (Peacock)

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards were established in 1946 to honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produced in the previous year. Read the full list of winners here.

Heroes And Villains Of American Pulp

Were Popularized In Cheap Magazines

     "The Shadow," a proto-Batman anti-hero who, unlike the Caped Crusader, was more than willing to gun down the bad guys, began as a character on a 1930 radio show and then backtracked into his own pulp magazine the following year. As Keith Roysdon wrote last week for Crime Reads, “The shadowy crimefighter is probably the best-known pulp hero, but those cheap magazines delivered hundreds of heroes and villains into the hands of eager readers for much of the first half of the 20th century. Such characters as the Shadow and Doc Savage and the Avenger are remembered today—if they’re remembered at all—for their reincarnations in paperbacks, comic books, and magazines.”

     But other mainstays of pulp fiction – to coin a phrase – included cowboys, detectives, secret agents, scientists, barbarians, and even private investigators, many of them among the most-beloved characters in genre literature. “Pulp magazines, also known as ‘the pulps,’ were born out of publishers’ determination to make as much money as possible, so they were printed on the cheapest pulpwood paper,” Roysdon says. “Characters were introduced to readers by the covers of the pulps. They were a riot of color, with cowboys and detectives wielding weapons and damsels threatened by murderous creeps. The covers of the earliest issues are a parade of women reacting with open-mouthed terror to knives being thrown at them or thrust at them or guns pointed at them.”

George Lucas’ Darth Vader Was

Based On Japanese Samurai Warriors

     George Lucas drew a great deal of inspiration from Japanese culture when creating the Star Wars films, which is perhaps most apparent in the character of Darth Vader. The most feared man in a galaxy far, far away was based on the skilled and disciplined samurai warriors of Japan’s feudal era, roughly the 12th century to 19th century. As History Facts noted last week, one look at the samurai’s awe-inspiring black armor is enough to make the connection clear, as Lucas was greatly influenced by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, transposing several aspects of the 1958 samurai drama onto his 1977 space opera. Everything from the Imperial crest to the fact that a princess leads a rebellion can be traced back to Kurosawa’s film.

     “The one thing that really struck me about The Hidden Fortress was the fact that the story was told from the [perspective of] the two lowest characters,” Lucas acknowledged in a BBC interview in 2001, “I decided that would be a nice way to tell the Star Wars story… which in the Star Wars case is the two droids.” Over the years, many have speculated that Darth Vader was even based on a specific samurai warrior, the famed Date Masamune, a feudal warlord born in 1567 and known as the “One-Eyed Dragon.” Masamune lost an eye, grew up in a time of political instability, and was disliked by his mother before becoming a ruthless leader who struck fear in the hearts of his enemies and underlings alike — all of which parallel the story of a certain Sith lord born Anakin Skywalker.

DNA COLD CASE

“Midtown Jane Doe” Finally ID’d After

Her DNA Was Connected To 9/11 Victim

     A 9/11 victim's DNA helped police identify remains—found more than 20 years ago under a famed New York City address—as those of a teen last seen in 1969, authorities said last week. Construction workers made the gruesome discovery in February 2003, in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, where the famed night club Steve Paul's The Scene once played host to some of music's biggest acts. “They were knocking through the concrete floor [and] a skull rolled out," New York Police Detective Ryan Glas told NBC New York.

     The young girl was found tied in the fetal position with an electrical cord, and also was wearing a ring with "PMcG" on it. Police also found a dime from 1969, a 1960s-era Bulova watch, and a green plastic toy soldier. It took until March 2023 for detectives to finally create a DNA profile for the girl that was large enough to upload to public databases so they could use investigative genetic genealogy. That profile eventually matched that of a family member who uploaded their DNA to an ancestry database, and the surname of the individual was "McGlone."

     Last month the victim’s DNA was connected to the mother of a 9/11 victim, and she was determined to be Patricia Kathleen McGlone, who was born in 1953 and would have been 16 at the time of her death.

From Laura To Notorious, The Ten

Best Film Noirs Of All Time, Ranked

     Film noir is among the most instantly recognizable genres in cinematic history, and I mention it often here in BunzelGram. [Clearly I’m a big fan.] As David Caballero recently wrote in Digital Trends, “The genre is defined as a heavily stylized take on a classic crime story, characterized by its striking black-and-white cinematography and complex, morally ambiguous stories about troubled men, whether they be detectives, investigators, boxers, or everyday citizens. At its core, film noir is about how easy it is to fall victim to tragic circumstances.

     “The genre enjoyed its height during the 1940s and ’50s,” he says. “Since then, film noir has fallen out of fashion, and while modern neo-noir movies exploring similar themes are common, they aren’t anywhere near as influential as they once were. Still, at its height, film noir produced some of the all-time best classics ever seen in American cinema.” From suspenseful tales of revenge and power to tragic melodramas about fallen heroes, here’s a list of some of the best film noir ever produced.

Now Available!

Beyond All Doubt

[Reed Bunzel writing as Hilton Reed]

“Beyond All Doubt is an edge-of-your-seat fast-moving thrill-ride, kicked off by the reappearance of a dead man and propelling the reader along to the final bullet—and beyond.”— S.J. Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors of New York

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“Beyond All Doubt is a taut, smart, and emotionally rich thriller. Reed has a sharp eye for character and a screenwriter's feel for action. This tale is sleek as a mink and fast as a bullet.”— T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Rescue

“Beyond All Doubt is not a 'who done it,' but a twisty, compelling 'who did what.' Cameron Kane is a sympathetic, yet unrelenting bulldog in his pursuit of the truth about his wife's death. Intriguing and intense, Beyond All Doubt is a winner!”—Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill crime novels

“In this action-packed and engrossing thriller, Reed masterfully balances between a husband’s drive to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and a father’s instinct to protect his family at all costs. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down!”— Matthew Farrell, bestselling author of The Woman at Number 6

“Beyond All Doubt has plenty of thrills—deadly snipers, false identities, shocking deaths—but at its heart, this book is about a grieving single father whose desperation propels the plot like a speeding car with its brake lines cut.”— Cayce Osborne, author of I Know What You Did