Annal:2002 Hammett Prize for Crime-Writing
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Hammett Prize in the year 2002. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 2002 Hammett winner
- Score: 10.52
As casualty lists grimly mount in America’s Civil War, the death of a lowly man of the cloth in London attracts an unaccountable degree of attention. Confederate agents seek warships for their struggling navy at any cost. The Union’s representative to Britain—the son and grandson of U.S. presidents—maneuvers desperately to block them. And a federal officer with a limp and a Welsh lilt returns to the land he once left in hope of a better life.
In a stunning re-creation of 1860s London and Glasgow that reaches from the worst slums in Europe to the lobbies of…
The Eighth Day: A Thriller
- 2002 Hammett nominee
- Score: 6.52
For Danny Cray, a struggling artist and part-time private investigator, the offer is too good to be true. A wealthy, enigmatic lawyer, Jude Belzer, would like to retain Danny for a little damage control. His client, an elusive billionaire named Zerevan Zebet, is the target of a vicious campaign in the Italian press that threatens to destroy his reputation. Belzer wants Danny to find out who is responsible—and he will pay handsomely.
Danny’s only lead is the meager estate of a recently deceased professor of religious studies, a man so deeply terrified that he…
- 2003 Edgar–Novel nominee
- 2003 Macavity-Novel nominee
- 2002 Dagger shortlist
- 2002 Hammett nominee
- Score: 24.53
When a beautiful teenage girl is killed, the victim of a particularly savage rape, New Iberia, Louisiana, police detective Dave Robicheaux senses from the very start of the investigation that the most likely suspect, Tee Bobby Hulin, is not the actual killer. Though a drug addict and general ne’er-do-well, Hulin just doesn’t fit the profile for this kind of brutal crime.
But when another murder occurs—this victim a drugged-out prostitute who happens to be the daughter of one of the local mafia bigwigs—all clues once again point to Tee Bobby Hulin, and the…
Flykiller: A St-Cyr & Kohler Mystery
- 2002 Hammett nominee
- Score: 6.52
It’s February 1943 and the famous old spa town of Vichy, France, has been closed for the duration of the German occupation. All the grand hotels are taken up by the Government of Marechal Petain, but corruption and murder reach into its highest levels. Detectives Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler are summoned from Paris by Premier Pierre Laval who is desperate for outside assistance: Flykiller slays mistress of high-ranking Government employee. Murder follows murder, but is The Flykiller guilty or has he or she used the murders to focus on the corruption? Is…
Bad Boy Brawly Brown: An Easy Rawlins Mystery
- 2002 Hammett nominee
- Score: 6.52
Easy Rawlins is out of the investigation business and as far away from crime as a black man can be in 1960s Los Angeles. But living around desperate men means life gets complicated sometimes. When an old friend gets in enough trouble to ask for Easy’s help, he finds he can’t refuse.
Young Brawly Brown has traded in his family for The Clan of the First Men, a group rejecting white leadership and laws. Brown’s mom asks Easy to make sure her baby’s okay, and Easy promises to find him. His first day on the case, Easy comes face-to-face with a corpse, and before…
