Pulitzer Prize−winning author Elizabeth Strout has released a new novel titled The Burgess Boys.  A Booklist review describes this latest work as a story “in which the fabric of family, loyalty, and difficult choices is revealed in layer after artful layer.”

I must confess I am an avid serial reader. Once I find a good book that is part of a series, I continue reading one after another until I have finished the series or I wait, with much anticipation, until the next book is published. This is not something new as I began this addiction as a child when I fell in love with the “Little House on the Prairie” books. I am more in to the mystery/thriller genre right now and these are a few of my favorite authors and their series:

Author James Cain best known for The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce has a new novel published 35 years after his death. He began it in 1975 and died in 1977. James Cain is one of the “big three” of crime classics—with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. His work Mildred Pierce is a recent HBO award winning series. Before his death at the age of 87, he put elements of his life into one last novel-angina and nitroglycerine pills. He borrowed from his best known work of a young attractive woman getting out of a bad marriage, an older man, a handsome young man, economic challenges and implication in her husbands’ death. The Cocktail Waitress story is told in the main character’s own words and viewpoint. Cain worked on his novel up to his death and it was found in the files of a deceased Hollywood agent. There was a whole manuscript, several partial ones, fragments, lines on notebook paper and another draft labeled “original”. Its completion took nine more years. The reviewer compares the main character, Joan Medford, to Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce. In the editor’s afterword, the story of the publication of the “lost” manuscript describes the collection of its pieces like a mystery solved.

The 2012 Agatha Award nominees are in!  The award is named in honor of Agatha Christie and is awarded by Malice Domestic, an annual “fun fan” convention for lovers of traditional mysteries.   Nominated titles must have first been published in the United States by a living author during 2012 and typically contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence.  Winners will be announced in May 2013. 

The Mystery Writers of America  recently announced its nominees for the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards which honors the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television published or produced in 2012. If you love to read mysteries check out this list for favorite and debut authors alike. However, if you are new to reading mysteries and want to explore the genre Edgar Award nominated books are a great place to start.