Annal:2006 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Best Thriller
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Dagger Award in the year 2006. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Mr Clarinet: A Max Mingus Thriller
- 2007 Macavity-1st Novel winner
- 2006 Steel Dagger winner
- 2007 Barry-British nominee
- Score: 26.57
It was a job Miami private investigator Max Mingus found hard to refuse: $10 million to locate billionaire’s son Charlie Carver—missing now for over three years.
Young Charlie disappeared on the island of Haiti, where over the decades scores of children have vanished. In a country dominated by voodoo, rumours abound of black magic and a mythical figure called “Mr Clarinet”, who for years has been tempting children away from their families.
But could the truth be even more shocking than the legend?
To find out, Max will have to succeed where previous detectives have not only failed—but where some have died. And suddenly, this job isn’t all about finding Charlie or his killers for the money—it’s just about staying alive…
The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel
- 2006 Macavity-Novel winner
- 2006 Shamus-Novel winner
- 2006 Anthony-Novel nominee
- 2006 Edgar–Novel nominee
- 2006 Steel Dagger shortlist
- 2005 LATimes–Mystery finalist
- Score: 44.56
Mickey Haller has spent all his professional life afraid that he wouldn’t recognize innocence if it stood right in front of him. But what he should have been on the watch for was evil. Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense pro who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, to defend the clients at the bottom of the legal food chain. It’s no wonder that he is despised by cops, prosecutors, and even some of his own clients. From bikers to con artists to drunk drivers and drug dealers, they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. But when a…
- 2006 Steel Dagger shortlist
- Score: 6.56
Eugene Burnside joined The Firm before he left school, running drugs. Clever and ambitious, Eugene’s now 28 and definitely going places because he’s come to the attention of the Faron Brothers, and the Brothers are The Firm. And promotion couldn’t come a moment to soon for Eugene if it means he no longer has to deal with middleman Mal Shifter and his two old aunts. Or those dogs. The lot of them give him the creeps. If Eugene’s gangland career is going well, his personal life is not so sweet. The Burnside family moved to Wentworth Road when Eugene was a toddler.…
- 2008 Barry-British nominee
- 2006 Steel Dagger shortlist
- Score: 12.58
Journalist Joe Oakes makes a living exposing supernatural hoaxes. A born sceptic, he believes everything has a rational explanation.But when he visits a secretive religious community on a remote Scottish island, everything he thought he knew is overturned.
Questions mount: Why has the community been accused of Satanism? What has happened to their leader, Pastor Malachi Dove? And perhaps most important, why will no one discuss the strange apparition seen wandering the lonely beaches of Pig Island?
Their confrontation, and its violent and bloody aftermath,…
- 2006 Steel Dagger shortlist
- Score: 6.56
Gabriel Allon had done much in his lifetime. A sometime Israeli spy by trade, an art restorer by preference, he knew more than he wanted to know about death and betrayal and secrets, but that didn’t keep him from being surprised by the scene before him now.
An assignment to clean an Old Master at the home of a millionaire banker had led him to a house in Zurich, and standing in the room now, he smelled the odor of salt and rust, felt the dampness of the carpet beneath his feet. He touched his fingers to the carpet and brought them to his face. He was standing…
The Mercy Seat: A Joe Donovan Thriller
- 2006 Steel Dagger shortlist
- Score: 6.56
A research scientist has gone missing. An ace newspaper reporter has disappeared; so has a minidisc, along with its incriminating evidence. And a teenage hustler is on the run. In his pursuer, the Hammer, a skin-headed professional killer with a blue sapphire tooth and a taste for death metal, “the principle of evil” has indeed been “made flesh.”
From its staggering opening to an electrifying finish, its prose pumping adrenaline all the way, Martyn Waites’ new novel wrests former investigative journalist Joe Donovan out of his reclusion in Newcastle. His…
Contact Zero: A Novel
- 2006 Steel Dagger shortlist
- Score: 6.56
Ben Locke is a recent graduate of Spy School and anxious to succeed on his first assignment. Like everyone in the Agency, he’s heard the stories about Contact Zero. When you have nowhere left to turn, when all is lost, only Contact Zero can save you. Some say it’s an isolated hideout run by ex-members of the Agency. Others say he’s a father figure, ready to protect and care for the dispossessed. To most, it’s an old spies’ tale, a myth to be whispered about behind closed doors and quickly dismissed as fantasy.
But during Ben’s operation in South America, he…
