Annal:1998 Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Shamus Award in the year 1998. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1998 Anthony-Paperback winner
- 1998 Shamus-1st Novel winner
- 1998 Barry-Paperback nominee
- Score: 26.48
Everything in Texas is bigger…even murder.
Meet Tres Navarre…tequila drinker, Tai Chi master, unlicensed P.I., with a penchant for Texas-size trouble.
Jackson “Tres” Navarre and his enchilada-eating cat, Robert Johnson, pull into San Antonio and find nothing waiting but trouble. Ten years ago Navarre left town and the memory of his father’s murder behind him. Now he’s back, looking for answers. Yet the more Tres digs, trying to put his suspicions to rest, the fresher the decade-old crime looks: Mafia connections, construction site payoffs, and slick…
Baltimore Blues: A Tess Monaghan Mystery
- 1998 Shamus-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 6.48
Until her paper, the Baltimore Star, crashed and burned, Tess Monaghan was a damn good reporter who knew her hometown intimately—from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill. Now gainfully unemployed at twenty-nine, she’s willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl “Rock” Paxton.
In a city where someone is murdered almost everyday, attorney Michael Abramowitz’s death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer’s notoriety—and his noontime trysts…
Legwork: A Casey Jones Mystery
- 1998 Shamus-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 6.48
She’s smart, talented and durable, but Casey Jones has had more than her share of bad luck in her life—including a short stretch in a Florida pen that haunts her still. In Raleigh, N.C., where Casey now lives, a prison record means no private investigator’s license. So she’s doing legwork for legit p.i. Bobby D—a blimp-sized eating machine with a bad toupee, who exercises few muscles below the jawline.
Casey’s latest assignment is to guard Senatorial hopeful Mary Lee Masters—a tough-as-nails politico with a reputation for perfection and a long list of…
