The Edgars

The Golden Age of Murder has been nominated for an Edgar, one of the long-established awards given by the Mystery Writers of America. It's one of five books in the "best critical/biographical" category. Of course, I am delighted. I've been shortlisted for a few awards previously, in my writing and legal careers, and actually managed to win one or two, but of course something as significant as an Edgar nomination comes along rarely if ever in a British writer's life. So the key thing is to savour the moment to the full, which is exactly what I'm doing right now....

I see that, at the Edgar Awards ceremony which is to be held in New York City, that fine writer Walter Mosley is to be acclaimed as a Grand Master. This reminds me that, way back in 1992, when my first novel, All the Lonely People, was one of seven initially shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger for best debut crime novel of the year, the award was won (and deservedly so) by Walter for that terrific book, later filmed, Devil in a Blue Dress.

But here's the thing. I didn't even find out that my book was one of the seven nominated books until months after the event. In those days, there was no Twitter, no Facebook, no social media alerting one to such news. The first I heard about it was one day when I was visiting London and I called in at Murder One, the splendid crime bookshop that Maxim Jakubowski used to run in Charing Cross Road. He congratulated me on being shortlisted (Maxim was, and remains, a very well-informed chap, and is nowadays a colleague on the CWA committee), and it came as a complete bolt from the blue. By that time,though, the award ceremony had come and gone. Just shows how things have changed....

End of an era

I was very sorry to read that Murder One, the legendary crime bookshop in Charing Cross Road, has fallen victim to the credit crunch, and is to close at the end of this month. I well remember my delight when the shop first opened, in Denmark Street. Over the years, naturally, I bought quite a number of books there. After a while, at the 1990 Bouchercon, I got to know the owner, Maxim Jakubowski, who is a man of many parts. Not least, he is a prolific and notable crime anthologist; I am in his debt, for if he hadn't included 'The Bookbinder's Apprentice' in his Best British Mysteries, it would never have won the CWA Short Story Award. I'm sure he will continue to feature prominently in the crime fiction world.

Roughly a decade ago, central London boasted no fewer than three specialist crime fiction bookshops, all of which have now gone (although Goldsborough Books has arrived, and continues to fly the flag in Cecil Court.) The Mysterious Bookshop, an offshoot of the American shop of the same name, did not last too long, although I one did a very enjoyable book launch event there with Andrew Taylor, at a time when we were both published by Hodder. There was also a very nice shop called Crime in Store, not far from The Strand, where on another occasion I did a launch with Judith Cutler and Julia Wallis Martin. I'd worry that hosting event involving me would spell doom for any shop, but I never had a launch at Murder One (though come to think of it, as the photo confirms, they did feature Waterloo Sunset in the window display a while back...)

Small businesses up and down the country are suffering through no fault of their own. Bookshop businesses are, by their nature, highly vulnerable to economic stresses and strains, and their disappearance from the scene is bad news for customers, and especially for the people who work in them. I’d hoped that Murder One would continue to survive, and I’m sad that it hasn’t. But it’s worth paying tribute to Maxim for his vision in setting it up,and for keeping it going for almost 21 years. Quite an achievement, quite a bookshop.