Mary Higgins Clark Award

The Mary Higgins Clark Award was formed in 2001 in honor of Clark's 25 year partnership with publisher Simon & Schuster.  The award is part of the Edgar Awards and will be given for 10 years and honors books in the tradition of Clark, namely they should feature a female protagonist who isn't looking for trouble but finds it and solves it herself.

   

2009

Bill Floyd. The Killer's Wife
Six years after her courageous testimony helped put her husband on death row for a string of gruesome murders, Leigh Wren has almost succeeded in putting her past to rest. She has moved from the West Coast to North Carolina with her young son, adopting a new name and a new life. But the world that she has created for herself is shattered when the father of one of her ex-husband's victims begins stalking her, then confronts her late one night. In the days that follow, he exposes Leigh, in newspapers and on television, to a startled North Carolina community. And just as her marriage to Randall Mosley, a man who became known to the world as a deviant serial killer, is brought back to light, a more deadly game of cat and mouse ensues.
 

2008

Sandi Ault. Wild Indigo
"Jamaica Wild, a resource-protection agent for the Bureau of Land Management, fails to save Jerome Santana from being trampled by a herd of buffalo. In fact, the leadership of the Tanoah Pueblo in New Mexico blames her for starting the stampede, not to mention the fact that she was on Pueblo land during Quiet Time, when visitors aren't allowed. Jamaica's investigation to prove Santana's death was murder--freeing her from culpability--leads to an exciting mountain rescue." - Booklist

2007

Fiona Mountain. Bloodline
"Cinderella is in the bluebell woods at Poacher's Dell...." The anonymous note means nothing to ancestor detective Natasha Blake. Then one of her clients, an enigmatic old man who had commissioned a family tree of his granddaughter's boyfriend, is shot dead at his isolated farm in the Cotswolds, just as shocking facts about the past are brought to light. Is there a link? Seemingly unconnected yet haunting stories begin to emerge, like slowly developing photographs: two soldiers - one German, one British - playing football; two young women - inseparable friends until a fatal mistake tears them apart; and the eerie echo of a child in an English country house. It is these individual lives that become the clues in Natasha's investigation, ghostly fingerprints that she must use to solve a cold-blooded, blue-blooded crime, hidden for generations in the bluebell woods at Poacher's Dell.

2006

Karen Harper. Dark Angel
One morning, Leah Kurtz wakes her adopted infant daughter and instantly knows something is terribly wrong. She is convinced that her baby has been switched with another child, but no one believes her. Leah turns to Dr. Mark Morelli, who has come to study the genetic disease that plague Leah's Amish community.

2005

Rochelle Krich. Grave Endings
Volume 3 of the Molly Blume Series finds the true crime writer still dealing with the murder of her friend, Aggie Lasher. The blame is pinned on a handyman, who is later found killed. As Molly investigates further, her search for the truth places her in increasing jeopardy.

2004

M.K. Preston. Song of the Bones
Thelma Patterson had long since given up on seeing Billy Ray Patterson again, the man she married thirty years ago who disappeared not long after the nuptials. Legal land dealings with an oil company have brought up her long-gone husband's whereabouts, so Thelma retains Chantalene Morrell and Drew Sander's legal services to track down Billy Ray. They presume he's dead. That is, until a handsome cowboy claiming to be the man himself strides into their small town of Tetumka, Oklahoma - and soon moves back in with his deserted wife.
 

2003

Rose Conners. Absolute Certainty

2002

Judith Kelman. Summer of Storms
Anna Jameson has been haunted since the summer of the hurricane when she was three years old--the same summer her five-year-old sister Julie was murdered. Even 30 years later, Anna, now a photojournalist, sees crude composites of that night. She returns to New York City, the scene of this horrendous, unsolved crime--and comes closer to a killer.

2001

Barbara D'Amato. Authorized Personnel Only
While Chicago cop Suze Figueroa spends her work day tracking down an elusive serial killer, she has no idea that a much more personal danger lives under her own roof, eating her food, handling her gun, and watching her loved ones. Strips of yellow tape may keep curious bystanders away from crime scenes, but nothing so simple can protect Suze and her family from the menace that has invaded the safety of their home.