On Jan 19 of this year, Flash Fiction Online noted Edgar Allan Poe's bicentenial. This event was no less observed during the 2009 Edgars Awards banquet held by the Mystery Writers of America (MWA). Here are the nominees and the winners (red, asterisks) for best novel and best first novel by an American author. See here for the other categories.

Best novel:

• Missing by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press)
• * Blue Heaven by C.J. Box (St. Martin’s Minotaur) *
  
• Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)
• The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
• The Night Following by Morag Joss (Random House – Delacorte Press)
• Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

Best first novel by an American author:

• The Kind One by Tom Epperson (Five Star, div of Cengage)
• Sweetsmoke by David Fuller (Hyperion)
• * The Foreigner by Francie Lin (Picador) *
  
• Calumet City by Charlie Newton (Simon & Schuster - Touchstone)
• A Cure for Night by Justin Peacock (Random House - Doubleday)