Last week, I got some wonderful news from Mary Frisque, Executive Director of the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers. Turns out that The Nearest Exit has been nominated for the Hammett Prize! Here are all of us nominees:
Jonathan Eig, Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster (Simon & Schuster)
Tom Franklin, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: A Novel (William Morrow)
T. Jefferson Parker, Iron River (Dutton)
Olen Steinhauer, The Nearest Exit (St. Martin’s/Minotaur)
Fantastic news. We won’t know the winner until September, so that gives us most of a year to, you know, sweat it out.
Not only that, but The Nearest Exit actually won a prize! It topped the RUSA (ALA’s Reference and User Services Association) “Adrenaline” reading list! Terrific, indeed.
And the New York Times Book Review was kind enough to make it one of the 100 Notable Books of 2010! Good news all around for that little book.
Coincidentally, it was only last week released in paperback. So…