ITW Announces Thriller Award Winners

The International Thriller Writers announced the winners of the 2023 Thriller Awards at a gala banquet in New York this past weekend. The winners (drumroll please) are:

Best Hardcover Novel: Catriona Ward, Sundial (Macmillan)

Best First Novel: Lauren Nossett, The Resemblance (Flatiron Books)

Best Audiobook: Jennifer Hillier, Things We Do In The Dark (Macmillan Audio), narrated by Carla Vega

Best Paperback Original: Freida McFadden, The Housemaid (Grand Central Publishing)

Best Short Story: Catherine Steadman, "Stockholm" (Amazon Original Stories)

Best eBook Original: Diane Jeffrey, The Couple At Causeway Cottage (HarperCollins)

Best Young Adult: Kate McLaughlin, Daughter (Wednesday Books)

Also receiving special recognition during the ThrillerFest XVIII Awards Banquet were 2023 ThrillerMasters Charlane Harris and Walter Mosley; 2023 Spotlight Guest Oyinkan Braithwaite; 2023 Spotlight Guest Jack Carr; 2023 Silver Bullet Award Michael Connelly; 2023 Thriller Legend Minotaur Books; and 2023 ThrillerFan John Berylson.

STRANGER THAN FICTION

Meet The (Alleged) Money-Laundering

Lebanese Art Collector And Terrorist

Little is known about Nazem Said Ahmad, the Lebanese businessman and high-profile art collector, but one thing that’s certain is that he has liberal tastes in art, bought a lot of it, and wasn’t quiet about it. Before it was shut down, his Instagram account, where he posted regularly about his acquisitions, had 172,000 followers. Today, Ahmad stands accused of using his vast hoard to launder money for Hezbollah, the Islamic militant group that was officially classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 2019, as well as for evading sanctions placed on him by the U.K. and the U.S. As Air Mail reported in late May, the Department of Justice insists that Ahmad is not a “typical” terrorist, since he never bombed anything or killed anyone himself, but in December of 2019 the U.S. Treasury Department designated him a “specially designated global terrorist” for “providing material support” to a terrorist group. This past April, a nine-count indictment from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District was unsealed, revealing recent diamond- and art-market transactions that continued well after the “terrorist” label was issued, suggesting all of Ahmad’s investments were made for the sake of laundering money and, indirectly, for the Hezbollah cause. Government officials insist no one buys that much art unless they have a soft spot for it...so, is Ahmad a cunning criminal or a passionate collector?

DNA COLD CASE

Ancestry Test Exposes Australia Man As Escaped Nebraska Killer

In the 1950s, a 16-year-old boy fatally shot his parents and buried them in the backyard of their home in Omaha, Nebraska. Over half a century later, a family in Australia was shocked to learn that the father and husband they loved was the same convicted murderer who escaped prison over half a century ago. In 1958, William Leslie Arnold wanted to see the movie The Undead at the drive-in with his girlfriend but, when his parents refused to let him borrow their car, he fatally shot them. He then used the car to go watch the film anyway, and later told family and friends that his parents had gone away on a trip. For weeks, the teen went on with his life, but he eventually admitted to the crime and was sentenced to life behind bars. On July 14, 1967, eight years into his sentence, Arnold and another inmate, 32-year-old James Edward Harding, escaped from the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln and avoided capture despite a massive manhunt. Harding was eventually apprehended, but Arnold seemed to vanish into thin air. Fast forward to 2020, and deputy U.S. Marshal Matthew Westover was assigned the cold case. As part of the reinvigorated investigation, he contacted Arnold’s younger brother and obtained a DNA sample that he subsequently uploaded to an ancestry site. Two years later, in 2022, Westover got a break when the DNA sample matched a close relative. Westover eventually determined the man who submitted that DNA sample was Arnold’s son, who said he’d known his father not as William Leslie Arnold but as John Vincent Damon, who died Aug. 6, 2010, at age 69.

The Origin Of The Red Herring,

And Its Place In Literature

What is a thriller or mystery without a sprinkling of red herrings? While there is no naturally occurring species known as a “red herring,” the term supposedly comes from the use of heavily smoked or brine-cured fish that were used to train hunting dogs not to get distracted by other smells. As Liv Constantine wrote in Crime Reads last week, the term was popularized by William Cobbet, a journalist who, in 1807, criticized newspapers for prematurely reporting Napoleon’s defeat, comparing their false reporting to the practice of using red herrings as a distraction. He called this “political red herring” a deliberate attempt to distract the public from other important domestic issues. In literature, a red herring is something that seems like a clue but isn’t, usually used to baffle both the reader and the protagonist. It could be a juicy piece of gossip that is untrue or ultimately has no significance, or possibly a diary that in the end winds up being irrelevant. The reader believes it to be an important story element, but it doesn’t lead where the reader expects. In mysteries, this is probably the most common plot twist, as a smattering of clues seem to point to one character as the guilty party, when in fact they’re innocent – or at least innocent of the crime being investigated. The twist comes when the truth is revealed, and the red herring (the character who appeared to be guilty) is shown to be innocent.

Ten Of The Grittiest, Hard-Nosed

Detectives In Crime Thrillers

While a great thriller film depends on a tightly woven plot with unexpected twists and turns, the best crime stories are driven by great, tightly drawn characters. Some are hard-boiled police detectives, while others might be flawed private investigators with deep personality issues that cause them to brood and make bad decisions. As Movie Web’s Rudransh Bundela observed in an article last week, “The right combination of plot and character often serve as the spinal cord of the story’s narrative, and provide much-needed depth to the character and setting. Another hallmark of a good crime thriller is that it not only focuses on the mysterious aspect of the story, but also offers a glimpse into the life of the detective, thereby making the viewer more invested in the story and the man tasked with solving it." From Clint Eastwood’s iconic Dirty Harry Callahan, to Jack Nicholson’s cynical and sometimes crass Jake Gittes (Chinatown), to author Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander (played beautifully by both Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara), here’s a list of some of the grittiest, hard-nosed detectives in crime thrillers.

Greenwich Mean Time

“A globe-spanning, mind-spinning thriller that will delight fans of Jason Bourne. Rōnin Phythian, an assassin with extraordinary powers and a code of his own, deserves a sequel. Make that sequels.” —Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire

“Greenwich Mean Time is a rollicking good time of thrills and skills.” —New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry

"Over-the-top action..." —Publishers Weekly

"Original, riveting, and with more unexpected plot twists and turns than a Disneyland roller coaster, Greenwich Mean Time is a fun read for anyone with an interest in assassination and conspiracy psychic thriller novels."

—Midwest Book Review

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