Annal:1994 Edgar Allan Poe Award® for Best First Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Edgar Allan Poe Award® in the year 1994. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1995 New Blood Dagger winner
- 1994 Edgar-1st Novel winner
- Score: 20.45
As A Grave Talent begins, the unthinkable has happened in a small community outside of San Francisco. A string of shocking murders has occurred, each victim an innocent child. For Detective Kate Martinelli, just promoted to Homicide and paired with a seasoned cop who’s less than thrilled to be handed a green partner, it’s going to be a difficult case. Then the detectives receive what appears to be a case-breaking lead: it seems that one of the residents of this odd, close-knit colony is Vaun Adams, arguably the century’s greatest painter of women, a man,…
- 1994 Edgar-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 6.44
A man and woman who never should have met…a brutal murder that defies comprehension…an eccentric life veiled in layer upon layer of secrets…a maze of mystery and passion that unfolds with terrifying speed…all ignite in this stunning novel.
The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz: A Luis Montez Mystery
- 1994 Edgar-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 6.44
This debut novel in the acclaimed Luis Montez series introduced a hero unique in detective fiction: a world-weary middle-aged lawyer steeped in the politics, history, and culture of the golden age of Chicano activism.
Twenty years ago, a gang attacked four Chicano student activists and shot down their leader, Rocky Ruiz. Now the survivors, Montez’s former compatriots in the movement, are in danger. One is killed, another beaten, and a third driven into hiding. Enter Teresa Fuentes, a beautiful young lawyer determined to solve the mystery and just as…
- 1994 Edgar-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 6.44
On Christmas Day 1884, a desperate plea from a mysterious woman leads Arthur Conan Doyle—struggling physician, aspiring writer, and part-time demystifier of the occult—to a seance in London’s East End and into a fiendish and deadly trap. Stunned by a shocking display of black magic, Doyle witnesses a murder, nearly falling victim himself before being rescued by a secretive stranger: Jack Sparks, a man who claims to be special agent to Queen Victoria. He tells Doyle that he has been targeted by a diabolical coven of Satanists—the Dark Brotherhood.
As they…
- 1994 Edgar-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 6.44
Recently divorced, spiritually adrift, and recovering from alcoholism, Dov Taylor, an ex-cop from the NYPD, is called upon to recover one of the world’s greatest treasures: the Seer’s Stone, a magnificent 72-carat diamond. The gem was to be used as dowry in a historic wedding meant to unite two powerful, bitterly antagonistic Hasidic sects, but has been removed from the sanctum of New York City’s diamond center and placed in the hands of the Magician, a Nazi collaborator and notorious war criminal. In a difficult quest of recovery, Taylor forges a link through…
