Annal:2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the year 2004. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Tijuana Straits: A Novel
- 2004 LATimes–Mystery winner
- Score: 10.54
From Kem Nunn, the National Book Award-nominated author of Tapping the Source and The Dogs of Winter, comes an exquisitely written tale of loss and redemption. Nunn renders the dangerous beaches and waters of California’s borderland as only the critically acclaimed poet laureate of surf noir can, and Tijuana Straits confirms his reputation as a master of suspense and a novelist of the first rank.
When Fahey, once a great surfer, now a reclusive ex-con, meets Magdalena, she is running from a pack of wild dogs along the ragged wasteland where California and Mexico meet the Pacific Ocean—a spot once known to the men who rode its giant waves as the Tijuana Straits. Magdalena has barely survived an attack that forced her to flee Tijuana, and Fahey takes her in. That he is willing to do so runs contrary to his every instinct, for Fahey is done with the world, seeking little more than solitude from this all-but-forgotten corner of the Golden State. Nor is Fahey a stranger to the lawless ways of the border. He worries that in sheltering this woman he may not only be inviting…
Dark Voyage: A Novel
- 2004 LATimes–Mystery finalist
- Score: 6.54
May, 1941. At four in the morning, a rust-streaked tramp freighter streams up the Tagus River to dock at the port of Lisbon. She is the Santa Rosa; she flies the flag of neutral Spain and is in Lisbon to load cork oak, tinned sardines, and drums of cooking oil bound for the Baltic port of Malmö.
But she is not the Santa Rosa. She is the Noordendam, a Dutch freighter. Under the command of Captain Eric DeHaan, she sails for the Intelligence Division of the British Royal Navy, and she will load detection equipment for a clandestine operation on the Swedish coast—a secret mission, a dark voyage.
One more battle in the spy wars that rage through the back alleys of the ports, from elegant hotels to abandoned piers, and in the souks and cafés of North Africa. A battle for survival as the merchant ships die at sea and Britain—the last opposition to Nazi Germany—slowly begins to starve.
From Alan Furst—whom The New York Times calls America’s preeminent spy novelist—here is an epic tale of war and espionage, of spies and fugitives, of love in secret hotel rooms, of courage in the face of impossible odds.
The Return of the Dancing Master
Henning Mankell, Laurie Thompson
- 2004 LATimes–Mystery finalist
- Score: 6.54
The new thriller from the internationally bestselling author of the Kurt Wallander mystery series.
It would be nearly two hours before he died. As if in a borderland of horror between the nagging pain and the hopeless will to live, he was taken back in time, to the occasion when he engaged the fate that had now caught up with him.
December 12, 1945. Nazi Germany lies in ruins as a British warplane lands in Buckeburg. A man carrying a small black bag quickly disembarks and travels to Hameln, where he disappears behind the prison gates. Early the next day, nine male and three female war criminals are hanged.
Fifty-four years later, retired policeman Herbert Molin is found brutally slaughtered on his remote farm in Härjedalen, Sweden. At the murder scene, the police discover strange tracks in the blood on the floor…as if someone had been practicing the tango.
Stefan Lindman, a young police officer on extended sick leave, hears about the murder of his former colleague and decides to investigate it himself. Lindman’s inquiry becomes increasingly complex and…
- 2004 LATimes–Mystery finalist
- Score: 6.54
Charles McCarry is considered by many to be the master of American spy fiction, brilliantly staking his claim with such international bestsellers as The Tears of Autumn and The Miernik Dossier. A spy writer’s spy writer, he has been lauded extravagantly by his peers. George V. Higgins wrote, “Charles McCarry is the Lord’s best combination of spellbinding storyteller and silken prose writer.” “Intelligent and enthralling,” said Eric Ambler, and Jeffrey Archer praised writing that “makes one put the book down and gasp.”
In his magnificent new novel, with rights sold in six countries before publication, McCarry returns to the world of his legendary character, Paul Christopher, the crack intelligence agent who is as skilled at choosing a fine wine as he is at tradecraft, at once elegant and dangerous, sophisticated and rough-and-ready. As the novel begins, Paul Christopher, aging but remarkably fit, is dining with his cousin Horace, also an ex-agent. Dinner is delicious and uneventful. A day later, Paul has vanished. The months pass; peculiarly, Paul’s ashes are…
A Question of Blood: An Inspector Rebus Novel
- 2004 LATimes–Mystery finalist
- Score: 6.54
There is no mystery. Lee Herdman stormed into a private school just north of Edinburgh and killed two boys. He was a loner, a creep, an army veteran who got kicks out of terrifying local teenagers on his speedboat—just the sort of shady character to commit a random and heinous crime. It’s a simple case of a man gone mad.
But how random were the killings at Port Edgar Academy? Why did Herdman open fire only in the student lounge, bypassing the swarm of students outside the school? What exactly was his relationship with the school’s misfits? Why are military detectives snooping around the murder scene? And why is the only survivor of the attack, recuperating in the hospital, reluctant to talk?
There is indeed a mystery—only this time, it’s why.
When Detective Inspector John Rebus is called out of his jurisdiction to investigate the killings, he is relieved to have the distraction. His entire precinct is abuzz with rumors of his involvement in the death of Martin Fairstone, an ex con who had been menacing Rebus’s partner, Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke.
For weeks Fairstone…
