Annal:1990 Edgar Allan Poe Award® for Best Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Edgar Allan Poe Award® in the year 1990. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Black Cherry Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Novel
- 1990 Edgar–Novel winner
- Score: 10.4
At the center of Burning Angel is Sonny Boy Marsallus, a fixer, a gambler, a lender of money to prostitutes who are trying to leave the life. But since Prohibition, the Giacano family has locked up the action in New Orleans and its surrounding parishes. When things get hot for Sonny Boy, he hightails it south of the border for parts unknown in El Salvador and Guatemala. When Sonny resurfaces in New Orleans, Detective Dave Robicheaux of the Iberia Parish sheriff’s office couldn’t be more surprised—that is, not until Sonny passes him a mysterious notebook for safekeeping that seems to contain dark secrets about his activities in Latin America. Robicheaux must wrestle with secrets closer to home as well when his help is enlisted by the Fontenot family, descendants of sharecroppers, whose claim to land they’ve lived on for almost one hundred years is jeopardized. Who wants the land so badly? And what of the longtime, clandestine affair between Moleen Bertrand, lord of the manor, and Ruthie Jean Fontenot, now reputed to be a local madam? As Dave determines to find out who’s honing…
The Death of a Joyce Scholar: A Peter McGarr Mystery
- 1990 Edgar–Novel nominee
- Score: 6.4
Trinity professor and Joycean scholar Kevin Coyle was one of Dublin’s most colorful—and controversial—characters, until someone stabbed him through the heart on Bloomsday, the annual citywide celebration honoring Ireland’s most beloved literary light. The poetic irony is not lost on Chief Superintendent Peter McGarr: one of the foremost experts on the works of James Joyce was slain on the so-called “Murderers’ Ground” made famous in the author’s magnum opus Ulysses. But the connection does not end there. And the deeper the intrepid McGarr digs, the more startling truths he uncovers about a victim’s dark, licentious history, a list of suspects as vast and varied as the characters in a great novel … and a motive for murder that can hide as easily in the pages of a classic book as in the twisted passions of a human heart.
- 1990 Edgar–Novel nominee
- Score: 6.4
A crime thriller by the author of “Sweetheart”, “The Babysitter”, and “Lovenest”. It centres around two main characters, a beautiful widow who controls the crime world, and “Goldilocks”, a new boy in town.
