This Dilys is a Dilly - Tomorrow is the big day!!

Things at Kingdom Books have been wildly busy this week, so I haven't posted as many recaps of Dilys winners as I'd hoped to this week -- here's the list:

DILYS AWARDS - Winners

1992, Carl Hiassen, Native Tongue

1993, John Dunning, Booked to Die

1994, Peter Hoeg, Smilla’s Sense of Snow

1995, Janet Evanovich, One for the Money

1996, Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote

1997, Michael Connelly, The Poet

1998, Janet Evanovich, Three to Get Deadly

1999, Dennis Lehane, Gone, Baby, Gone

2000, Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem

2001, Val McDermid, A Place of Execution

2002, Dennis Lehane, Mystic River

2003, Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter

2004, Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

2005, Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter

2006, Colin Cotterill, Thirty-Three Teeth

2007, Louise Penny, Still Life

2008, William Kent Krueger, Thunder Bay

2009, Sean Chercover, Trigger City

2010, Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Poe

2011, Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead

2012, S. J. Rozan, Ghost Hero

 I'll toss a few quick notes here: Although Mystic River is one of the finest Dennis Lehane books for reading, I'm just plain hooked on the film version of Gone, Baby, Gone -- Dave and I must have seen it three or four times already, and I'd watch it again. I love the Boston tough-tender of Lehane's books.

Dave's the Crais reader in the house -- honey, are you listening??

Whenever I've read a not-so-great-yet author and need to get the "awkward" out of my head, Val McDermid is one of the authors I return to. A Place of Execution is stunning, and worth re-reading.

I've collected Jasper Fforde's first five or six books -- the puns are wonderful fun, although it would help if I had more of a "literary" background (I gained my book sense mostly by reading and listening, not from college classes).  But a good familiarity with Alice in Wonderland made the first few of his books hit home for me. I think of them as "caper books for classic readers"!

Darkly Dreaming Dexter proved that Jeff Lindsay's writing could reach at least two generations at once -- I like the book, gruesome though it can be, and one of my sons is an ardent fan of the TV series ("Dexter"). How about you?

Colin Cotterill writes wonderful fiction set in Laos and Cambodia; he's also a great person who sent us signed and illustrated bookplates to use in his books here. I line up his newest as a pre-order, to give myself a treat. Always a book I'll feel good about, as well as intriguing plotting.

I've written so much about Louise Penny and her remarkable arc of narrative across multiple novels that I can't add more -- browse this blog using her name if you have a moment.

Back to Dave for Krueger and Chercover. I do mean to read Krueger; we're just suffering from a scarcity of his books, and the Kingdom Books law is, you can't take a signed copy to bed with you (somehow the bottom of the spine always gets soft that way), so I have to wait until our stock of these expands. Chercover is definitely in Dave's area more than mine.

How on earth did Allan Bradley's "young adult" fantasy-mystery get onto the list of mysteries booksellers enjoyed selling the most? Simple -- it's a really, really enjoyable book, so one can't help talking it up to other readers. Bend your own self discipline and dip into this series about Flavia De Luce. Worth every minute (and a reminder that Good Books come in all age ranges).

Last: S. J. Rozan, whose Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series is both entertaining and a classic mystery series. Read about GHOST HERO here -- http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2012/02/chinatown-mysteries-s-j-rozan-henry.html

Tomorrow we welcome Archer Mayor, to celebrate his 23rd Joe Gunther book, PARADISE CITY. We'll nominate his work, once again, for the Dilys (maybe enough others will join us this year, to push it to the top!). S. J. Rozan is a friend of his, and we'll honor DILYS week by giving away a signed Archer Mayor book at our event tomorrow, as well as two signed copies of the trade paperback of GHOST HERO.

Are you going to be here? If not, you can still order a signed copy of Archer Mayor's PARADISE CITY -- just drop us an e-mail at kingdombks@gmail.com before noon tomorrow!