Annal:1997 Hammett Prize for Crime-Writing
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Hammett Prize in the year 1997. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1997 Hammett winner
- Score: 10.47
Arthur Beauchamp, a heralded criminal lawyer, has moved to a quiet island off the British Columbia coast. While trying to recover from a marriage gone sour, his retirement is interrupted by his former law partners-they want Arthur to take charge of the defense trial of Jonathan O’Donnell, the acting dean of a law school. O’Donnell has been accused of rape by one of the students, Kimberley Martin, a smart but arrogant woman who is engaged to a rich businessman. After much pleading, Beauchamp agrees to handle the case. He is drawn into complex legal situations…
- 1998 Edgar–Novel winner
- 1998 Barry-Novel nominee
- 1997 Hammett nominee
- Score: 22.48
Texas attorney and former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland has many secrets. Among them is Vernon Smother’s son, Lucas, a now-teenaged boy about whom few know the truth—Lucas is really Billy Bob’s illegitimate son. When Lucas is arrested for murder, Billy Bob must confront the past and serve as the boy’s criminal attorney.
Billy Bob knows the propensity of the town, Deaf Smith, Texas, to make scapegoats out of the innocent and to exploit and sexually use the powerless. During Lucas’s trial, Billy Bob realizes that he will have to bring injury upon Lucas as well…
Trunk Music: A Harry Bosch Novel
- 1998 Barry-Novel winner
- 1998 Macavity-Novel nominee
- 1997 Hammett nominee
- Score: 22.48
Back on the job after an involuntary leave of absence, LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch lands his first case: a Hollywood producer found in the trunk of his Rolls-Royce, shot twice in the head. It looks like “trunk music,” a Mafia hit. The LAPD’s organized crime unit is oddly uninterested, but Harry thinks they’re wrong. He follows the money trail from the producer’s office to Las Vegas, where he quickly finds evidence of Mafia involvement. But something about the case doesn’t add up, and Harry follows a string of odd clues—glitter in the producer’s cuffs, an…
- 1998 Barry-Novel nominee
- 1998 Edgar–Novel nominee
- 1997 Hammett nominee
- Score: 18.48
Set in an isolated town in Northern California, A Wasteland of Strangers begins with the arrival of John Faith in Pomo. Who is he? Why has he come here now, during the off-season when there is nothing to do but get into trouble? What is it he wants? Everyone has an opinion of him, and only a few of them are favorable. For everyone he helps, there are two who question his motives, who see danger to themselves and their way of life in his continual presence in their town. And then, when a beautiful, lonely woman is brutally slaughtered after spending time…
Acts of Murder: A Karl Alberg Mystery with Cassandra Mitchell
- 1997 Hammett nominee
- Score: 6.47
Karl Alberg has good reason to remember February 14: it was his wedding day, the day he married his longtime love, Cassandra Mitchell. It was also the day sixteen-year-old Rebecca Granger disappeared. Young Rebecca left home at 8:30 in the morning on the one-hour walk to her part-time job in the town of Sechelt. She never arrived. Is Rebecca just another runaway teenager, angry at her parents’ attempts at discipline? Or is there a more ominous reason for her sudden departure.
Soon, evidence of a cunning killer begins to emerge in and around the beautiful…
