Sheena Kamal, Justin Ling, Will Ferguson and Thomas King among finalists for Canadian crime writing awards
Sheena Kamal, Justin Ling, Will Ferguson and Thomas King are among the finalists for the 2021 Arthur Ellis Awards.
The annual awards, created by the Crime Writers of Canada, celebrate works in mystery, crime and suspense fiction and crime nonfiction by Canadian authors.
Kamal is a finalist for best juvenile or YA book for her YA novel Fight Like a Girl.
In Fight Like a Girl, Trisha grew up with an abusive father who would come and go as he pleased. In an effort to break the chain of violence in her family, Trisha chooses to channel her violent impulses into Muay Thai kickboxing.
Kamal is a Vancouver-based writer of crime novels including The Lost Ones, which won the 2018 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and It All Falls Down. She Fights Like a Girl is her first YA novel.
Ling is a finalist for the best nonfiction crime book for Missing from the Village.
Missing from the Village is the story of serial killer Bruce MacArthur, and the eight men he killed over nearly a decade in Toronto's gay village. When the cases of three men who went missing in 2013 — Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Majeed Kayhan — were left unsolved, journalist Justin Ling decided to investigate, believing the cases could be linked. What unfolded was a tragic story about a serial killer going undetected, a police investigation that failed, and a community on edge and left to grieve when MacArthur was finally arrested in 2018, and his horrendous crimes became public.
Ling is an investigative journalist from Toronto. He hosted the CBC podcast Uncover: The Village, which is also about his work on the Bruce MacArthur case. Missing from the Village is his first book.
Both King and Ferguson are finalists for the best crime novel.
King is nominated for Obsidian.
Obsidian is the latest mystery featuring sly investigator Thumps DreadfulWater. After the famed producer of a true-crime documentary turns up dead, Thumps is forced to look into an old cold case he had tried to forget: the Obsidian murders. When someone starts leaving reminders of the case around Chinook, Thumps is compelled to confront the incident that left his girlfriend and her daughter dead.
King is a Canadian-American writer of Cherokee and Greek ancestry. He delivered the 2003 Massey Lectures, The Truth about Stories. His books include Truth & Bright Water, The Inconvenient Indian and The Back of the Turtle. The Back of the Turtle won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 2014.
Ferguson is nominated for The Finder.
The Finder is an adventure novel about finding things that are lost in the world. The story takes readers to Japan, Australia and New Zealand as Interpol agent Gaddy Rhodes, photographer Tamsin Greene and travel writer Thomas Rafferty unexpectedly cross paths as they track "The Finder" — a mysterious figure who believes they can find history's lost objects, such as the missing Romanov Fabergé eggs and Muhammad Ali's Olympic gold medal.
Ferguson has written humour, travel books and fiction. He won the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his thriller 419. He has won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour three times: for his novel Generica (now titled Happiness), his Canadian travel book Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw and his travel memoir Beyond Belfast. He currently lives in Calgary.
The recipient of the Derrick Murdoch Award, which recognizes contributions to Canadian crime writing, is Marian Misters. Misters is the co-owner of the Toronto bookstore Sleuth of Baker Street and has been active in the Crime Writers of Canada throughout her career.
The winners will be announced on May 27, 2021.
Past winners include Gail Bowen, Stevie Cameron, Howard Engel, Louise Penny, Peter Robinson and Margaret Atwood.
You can see the complete 2021 shortlists below.
The finalists for the $1,000 prize for best crime novel are:
- How a Woman Becomes a Lake by Marjorie Celona
- The Historians by Cecilia Ekbäck
- The Finder by Will Ferguson
- Obsidian by Thomas King
- Hurry Home by Roz Nay
The finalists for the $500 prize for best crime first novel are:
- And We Shall Have Snow by Raye Anderson
- The Nightshade Cabal by Chris Patrick Carolan
- The Transaction by Guglielmo D'Izza
- True Patriots by Russell Fralich
- The Woman in the Attic by Emily Hepditch
The finalists for the $500 Howard Engel Award for the best crime novel set in Canada are:
- Payback by Randall Denley
- Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys
- The Dogs of Winter by Ann Lambert
- Two for the Tablelands by Kevin Major
- Stay Where I Can See You by Katrina Onstad
The finalists for the $200 prize for best crime novella are:
- The Unpleasantness at the Battle of Thornford by C.C. Benison
- Coral Reef Views by Vicki Delany
- Salty Dog Blues by Winona Kent
- Never Going Back by Sam Wiebe
The finalists for the $300 prize for best crime short story are:
- Cold Wave by Marcelle Dubé
- Used to Be by Twist Phelan
- Killer Biznez by Zandra Renwick
- Days Without Name by Sylvia Maultash Warsh
- Limited Liability by Sarah Weinman
The finalists for best French crime book are:
- La mariée de corail by Roxanne Bouchard
- Inacceptable by Stéphanie Gauthier
- Le printemps des traîtres by Christian Giguère
- Les cachettes by Guy Lalancette
- Les Demoiselles du Havre-Aubert by Jean Lemieux
The finalists for the $500 prize for best juvenile or YA crime book are:
- Red Fox Road by Frances Greenslade
- Lucy Crisp and the Vanishing House by Janet Hill
- Fight Like a Girl by Sheena Kamal
- Magic Dark and Strange by Kelly Powell
- I Hope You're Listening by Tom Ryan
The finalists for the $300 Brass Knuckles Award for best nonfiction crime book are:
- Murder in the Family by Jeff Blackstock
- Horseplay by Norm Boucher
- Blood in the Water by Silver Donald Cameron
- Missing from the Village by Justin Ling
- Cold Case North by Michael Nest with Deanna Reder and Eric Bell
The finalists for the $500 prize for best unpublished manuscript are:
- The Future by Raymond Bazowski
- Predator and Prey by Dianne Scott
- Notes on Killing your Wife by Mark Thomas
- A Nice Place to Die by Joyce Woollcott
- Cat with a Bone by Susan Jane Wright
