For those of you who do Readers' Advisory work or  who just want to keep up
on what is going on in the world of books, I thought I would pass this
information along to you.  We all know we can't read everything, but it sure
help to know what is in the news.  Generally when a book appears in the
news, on television, or talk radio you know that patrons are going to be
asking for these titles.  Just in case you aren't familiar with the Dily
Award, here is the latest.

The Dilys Award has been given annually since 1993 by the Independent
Mystery Booksellers Association to the mystery titles of the year which the
member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. The Dilys Award is named in
honor of Dilys Winn, the founder of the first specialty bookseller of
mystery books in the United States. Previous winners of the Dilys Award
include Louise Penny, Val McDermid, Robert Crais, Carl Hiassen, Dennis
Lehane, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Jasper Fforde and Colin Cotterill.

The nominees for 2009  Dilys award are:
      Trigger City, Sean Chercover
      Unable to believe police reports that blame a mentally ill coworker
for his daughter's murder, a retired army intelligence colonel hires Ray
Dudgeon to discern the truth, triggering a confrontation between the FBI and
the Department of Homeland Security.
      The Victoria Vanishes, Christopher Fowler
      Returning to the Victoria Cross pub hours after witnessing the murder
of a woman, Detective Arthur Bryant discovers that the pub itself has
vanished, and calls in the Peculiar Crimes Unit to track down a killer who
is stalking London's oldest watering holes.
      Silent in the Sanctuary, Deanna Raybourn
      Returning home to Sussex after a jaunt in Italy, Lady Julia is soon
immersed in mystery when one of the guests at her father's estate is
murdered and a member of her family confesses to the crime.
      Child 44, Tom Rob Smith
      Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, this stellar debut from British
author Smith offers appealing characters, a strong plot and authentic period
detail. When war hero Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a rising star in the MGB, the
State Security force, is assigned to look into the death of a child, Leo is
annoyed, first because this takes him away from a more important case, but,
more importantly, because the parents insist the child was murdered. In
Stalinist Russia, there's no such thing as murder; the only criminals are
those who are enemies of the state. After attempting to curb the violent
excesses of his second-in-command, Leo is forced to investigate his own
wife, the beautiful Raisa, who's suspected of being an Anglo-American
sympathizer. Demoted and exiled from Moscow, Leo stumbles onto more evidence
of the child killer. The evocation of the deadly cloud-cuckoo-land of Russia
during Stalin's final days will remind many of Gorky Park and Darkness at
Noon , but the novel remains Smith's alone, completely original and
absolutely satisfying. (Publishers Weekly, vol 255, issue 9, p29)
      Dawn Patrol, Don Winslow
      Boone Daniels lives to surf. Every morning he's out in the break off
Pacific Beach with the other members of The Dawn Patrol: four men and one
woman as single-minded about surfing as he is. But Boone is also obsessed
with the unsolved case of a young girl named Rain who was abducted back when
he was on the San Diego police force. He blames himself--just as almost
everyone in the department does--for not being able to save her. Now he's
unexpectedly staring at a chance to make some amends.
      The winner will be announced in March at the Left Coast Crime
convention in Hawaii.