Wednesday, April 25, 2012

MYSTERY QUIZ

I was going through my very battered copy of The Armchair Detective Book of Lists and realized many award winning and nominated books would now qualify for Patti Abbott's Forgotten Books series.  So let's play a little game.

The first Edgar award for a mystery novel was given out in 1946, specifically for the best first novel by an American author.  The award for best novel was instituted in 1954.  In the first ten years of the awards, therefore, twelve novels won -- ten for best first novel and two for best novel.  For some of those years,  the Mystery Writers of America did not announce a short list.  So for that ten year period only 27 novels were announced for consideration of the award, either as runners-up or winners.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to pick out all twelve Edgar winners from the list below.  Simple, huh?

  • The Inward Eye by Peggy Bacon
  • Wilders Walk Away by Herbert Brean
  • The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown
  • The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
  • Shoot the Works by Richard Ellington
  • The Room Upstairs by Mildred Davis
  • The Horizontal Man by Helen Eustis
  • Watchful at Night by Julius Fast
  • Don't Cry for Me by William Campbell Gault
  • What a Body! by Alan Green
  • The End Is Known by Geoffrey Holiday Hall
  • Carry My Coffin Slowly by Lee Herrington
  • Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
  • Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay
  • Walk the Dark Streets by William Krasner
  • A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin
  • The Shadow and the Blot by N. D. Lobell and G. G. Lobell
  • Strangle Hold by Mary McMullen
  • The Christmas Card Murders by David William Meredith
  • Happy Holiday by Thaddeus O'Finn
  • The Innocent by Evelyn Piper
  • Go, Lovely Rose by Jean Potts
  • Cure It With Honey by Thurston Scott
  • The Eleventh House by Robert B. Sinclair
  • The Dark Light by Bart Spicer
  • The House Without a Door by Thomas Sterling
  • Nightmare in Manhattan by Thomas Walsh
How many have your read?  How many do you even recognize?

Answers on Saturday.

1 comment:

  1. I know I've read/heard the titles of ten of them. I've probably let my eye run down lists of Edgar winners over the years...I've definitely read only the Gault, Brown, Chandler, Highsmith and Levin. I might've started the Sterling and been interrupted somehow.

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