Annal:2003 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award for Historical Crime Novel

From AwardAnnals

Jump to: navigation, search

Results of the Dagger Award in the year 2003. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:

The American Boy

Andrew Taylor

Edgar Allan Poe is the American boy, a child standing on the edge of mysteries.

In 1819, two Americans arrive in London, and soon afterwards a bank collapses. A man is found dead and horribly mutilated on a building site. An heiress flirts with her inferiors. A poor schoolmaster struggles to understand what is happening before it destroys him and those he loves.

But the truth, like the youthful Poe himself, has its origins in the new world as well as the old. Buried deep in the novel’s core is a bitter episode of corruption and divided loyalties during…

 

The White Russian: A Novel

Tom Bradby

St. Petersburg, 1917—the glittering capital of the Tsarist empire and a city on the brink of revolution– where the jackals of the secret police maneuver for their own survival and their aristocratic masters indulge in one final moment of hedonism.

For Sandro Ruzsky, chief investigator of the St. Petersburg police department, this decaying world provides the opportunity for a new beginning. Recently returned from a three-year banishment to Siberia (for pursuing a case his superiors would have like buried), Ruzsky is welcomed back to the city of his birth by a…

 

The Advocate

Marcello Fois, Patrick Creagh

The incident occurred in Nuoro, Sardinia, about a hundred years ago. A prosperous farmer was shot dead in his olive grove, and his hired hand, a young man called Zenobi, was found guilty In absentia—he had gone to ground already after being accused of theft and was now a bandit with a price on his head. An open-and-shut case. Only the lawyer was willing to see whether the evidence for either charge stood up against the facts. Neither the courts nor the police wanted to reopen the case; the boy had effectively admitted his guilt by absconding. The lawyer’s only…

 

London Dust

Lee Jackson

A brilliant debut mystery novel set in Victorian London. Natalie Meadows jumps from Blackfriars Bridge to escape the horror she has just witnessed. But she is rescued and feels duty-bound to find the murderer of her best friend, the music hall star Nellie Warwick.

 

Dissolution

C.J. Sansom

It is the winter of 1537 and England is divided into those faithful to the Catholic Church and those loyal to the King and the newly established Church of England. Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s feared vicar-general, crusades against the old Church with savage new laws, rigged trials, and a vast network of informers. Queen Anne Boleyn has been beheaded and monasteries are being dissolved-their treasures pillaged and their lands eyed greedily by courtiers and country gentry. But having put down one people’s rebellion, Cromwell fears another might topple the realm.…

 

Blood on the Wood: A Nell Bray Mystery

Gillian Linscott

When the suffragette movement is bequeathed a valuable painting by campaigner Philomena Venn, suffragette and amateur sleuth Nell Bray agrees to retrieve it. The plan is simple: Collect the picture from Philomena’s widower, Oliver, take it to Christie’s, and sell it to raise much-needed funds. But Nell is in for a surprise when she returns from the Vennes’ home in the Cotswolds: The painting he has given her is a fake!

When Oliver refuses to hand over the real painting, his son, political activist Daniel Venn, suggests an alternative plan to Nell: Why doesn’t…

 

The Bridge of Sighs: A Novel

Olen Steinhauer

It’s August, 1948, three years after the Russians “liberated” the nation from German Occupation. But the Red Army still patrols the capital’s rubble-strewn streets, and the ideals of the Revolution are but memories. Twenty-two-year-old Detective Emil Brod finally gets his chance to serve his country, investigating murder for the People’s Militia.

The first victim is a state songwriter, but the facts point to a political motive. Emil would like to investigate further, but his colleagues in Homicide are suspicious or silent: He is on his own in this new,…

 
Retrieved from "http://www.awardannals.com/wiki/Annal:2003_Ellis_Peters_Historical_Dagger_Award_for_Historical_Crime_Novel"
Personal tools