This year's Edgars, awarded by the Mystery Writers of America for the best mysteries of the year, were announced Thursday night.

This year's winners are:

Best Novel - Live by Night by Dennis Lehane
Best First Novel - The Expats by Chris Pavone
Best Paperback Original - The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters
Best Fact Crime - Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French
Young Adult - Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

For a complete list of winners visit www.theedgars.com

 One of my New Year's resolutions was to expand my reading horizons. I've  been stuck in a rut reading mostly self-help titles and cookbooks.  While cleaning my book clutter, yet another resolution, I found a long forgotten gardening mystery.  I could work on a resolution and reading about sun and flowers would help me cope with Michigan's gray skies. A "twofer"!

A little research revealed that ELPL has several gardening mystery series.  Here's a small sample of first titles in a series to help you cope with the Michigan "blahs" and expand your reading selections!


Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert, a China Bayles herbal mystery The Blue Rose by Anthony Eglin, an English garden mystery Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie by Kathy Lynn Emerson, an Elizabethan herbalist mystery Roots of Murder by Janis Harrison, a Bretta Solomon florist shop mystery Green Trigger Fingers by John Sherwood, a Celia Grant botanical mystery

The 2013 Edgar nominees were announced and seven finalists have been selected for best novel. They are:

All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley
The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Live by Night by Dennis Lehane
The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins
Potboiler by Jesse Kellerman
Sunset by Al Lamanda

The Edgar Allan Poe Award honors the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television. A complete list of nominees, and other information about the award, can be found at www.theedgars.com. Winners will be announced May 2.

Love those Best Book lists that come out at the end of the year? Well here is a best of list of those lists!

The Best of the Book Lists 2012. Enjoy!

Check out some of the mysteries coming out this month!

The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell
Dick Francis's Bloodline by Felix Francis
Fox Tracks by Rita Mae Brown
Geneva Trap by Stella Rimington
Live By Night by Dennis Lehane
The Old Gray Wolf by James D. Doss
Paradise City by Archer Mayor
Phantom by Jo Nesbo
Postcards From The Dead by Laura Childs
A Question of Identity by Susan Hill
Rest For The Wicked by Ellen Hart
What The Cat Saw by Carolyn Hart

Banned Books Week  is September 30 through October 6.  ELPL is here to help you celebrate.

Videos of local celebrities and ELPL staff sharing their favorite banned or challenged books.

The conclusion to Larsson's wildly popular Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, will be available on DVD January 25th. 

The DVDs for  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire are already available for check out.  

If you are a fan of the books, you'll enjoy the movies.  All movies are in Swedish with English subtitles.

Take a look at some of the new books available in September.

Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund
And Thereby Hangs a Tale by Jeffrey Archer
Bad Blood by John Sandford

Attention Dog Lovers! National Dog Day is being celebrated August 26th, but you can enjoy great dog stories all month long. Check out the list of titles available at the library.

Books and DVDs:

Fiction located in the fiction section under author's last name.
Mystery located in the mystery section under author's last name.

Elizabeth Adler (Fiction)

Maeve Binchy (Fiction)

Sandra Brown (Fiction)

Catherine Coulter (Fiction)

Take a look at some of the new books available in June.

Almost Perfect by Susan Mallery
American Music by Jane Mendelsohn
An American Type : A Novel by Henry Roth & Willing Davidson

Each Spring the Mystery Writers of America present the Edgar Awards which honor the best in mysteries published in the past year. This year's winner for Best Novel is The Last Child by John Hart.

For a full list of nominees and winners in all categories visit TheEdgars.com

Prolific author Dick Francis passed away on Sunday at the age of 89. A champion jockey turned writer, Francis was best known for his horseracing thrillers. For a list of his books at the East Lansing Public Library click here.

New York Times Article.

This year's Edgar nominees for best novel are:

• The Missing by Tim Gautreaux 
• The Odds by Kathleen George 
• The Last Child by John Hart 
• Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston 
• Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett 
• A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn 

The Edgar Award honors the best in the mystery genre. For a full list of the nominees click here.