The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, presented each year by the Mystery Writers of America, are the most prestigious honours in crime and mystery fiction, and Best Novel is their flagship category. Named for the writer often credited with inventing the detective story, the award has recognised the finest crime novel of the year since 1954. Its winners run from Raymond Chandler and John le Carré to Elmore Leonard, Dennis Lehane and Stephen King, and take in the whole range of the genre, from hard-boiled detection and espionage to the modern literary thriller. This list collects the winning novels by year.
The Big Empty
Robert Crais
The In Crowd
Charlotte Vassell
Flags on the Bayou
James Lee Burke
Notes on an Execution
Danya Kukafka
Five Decembers
James Kestrel
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
Deepa Anappara
The Stranger Diaries
Elly Griffiths
Down the River Unto the Sea
Walter Mosley
Bluebird, Bluebird
Attica Locke
Before the Fall
Noah Hawley
Let Me Die in His Footsteps
Lori Roy
Mr. Mercedes
Stephen King
Ordinary Grace
William Kent Krueger
Live by Night
Dennis Lehane
Gone
Mo Hayder
The Lock Artist
Steve Hamilton
The Last Child
John Hart
Blue Heaven
C. J. Box
Down River
John Hart
The Janissary Tree
Jason Goodwin
Citizen Vince
Jess Walter
California Girl
T. Jefferson Parker
Resurrection Men
Ian Rankin
Winter and Night
S. J. Rozan
Silent Joe
T. Jefferson Parker
The Bottoms
Joe R. Lansdale
Bones
Jan Burke
Mr. White's Confession
Robert Clark
Cimarron Rose
James Lee Burke
The Chatham School Affair
Thomas H. Cook
Come to Grief
Dick Francis
The Red Scream
Mary Willis Walker
The Sculptress
Minette Walters
Bootlegger's Daughter
Margaret Maron
A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
Lawrence Block
New Orleans Mourning
Julie Smith
Black Cherry Blues
James Lee Burke
A Cold Red Sunrise
Stuart M. Kaminsky
Old Bones
Aaron Elkins
A Dark-Adapted Eye
Barbara Vine
The Suspect
L. R. Wright
Briarpatch
Ross Thomas
LaBrava
Elmore Leonard
Billingsgate Shoal
Rick Boyer
Peregrine
William Bayer
Whip Hand
Dick Francis
The Rheingold Route
Arthur Maling
Eye of the Needle
Ken Follett
Catch Me: Kill Me
William H. Hallahan
Promised Land
Robert B. Parker
Hopscotch
Brian Garfield
Peter's Pence
Jon Cleary
Dance Hall of the Dead
Tony Hillerman
The Lingala Code
Warren Kiefer
The Day of the Jackal
Frederick Forsyth
The Laughing Policeman
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Forfeit
Dick Francis
A Case of Need
Michael Crichton
God Save the Mark
Donald E. Westlake
King of the Rainy Country
Nicolas Freeling
The Quiller Memorandum
Adam Hall
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
John le Carré
The Light of Day
Eric Ambler
Death and the Joyful Woman
Ellis Peters
Gideon's Fire
J. J. Marric
The Progress of a Crime
Julian Symons
The Hours Before Dawn
Celia Fremlin
The Eighth Circle
Stanley Ellin
Room to Swing
Ed Lacy
A Dram of Poison
Charlotte Armstrong
Beast in View
Margaret Millar
The Long Goodbye
Raymond Chandler
Beat Not the Bones
Charlotte Jay
