Juri,
Re your question in response to my comment below:
>> That might also be a good MYSTERY FILE article.
1st
>> novel Edgar winners who were never heard
from
again.
> What others are there?
There aren't all that many, considering that the Edgars are
over 60 years old, and the "1st Novel" category is the only
category for which there has been an Edgar awarded every
single year that there've been Edgars. I've narrowed it down
to four.
KNOCK AND WAIT A WHILE by William Rawles Weeks (1957).
This is a very good Cold War spy novel. The dust jacket
bio says Weeks was at work on his second, but, AFAIK, it
never appeared. KNOCK AND WAIT A WHILE was pretty successful.
It went through several printings, and was available in
paperback for many years. In the mid-60's, during the spy
boom in mystery fiction, it was reprinted in PB. I don't know
why Weeks never followed it up.
The aforementioned FLORENTINE FINISH by Cornelius Hirschberg
(1963). Hirschberg apparently wrote one non-fiction book
about the diamond business prior to this novel, but nothing
else in the mystery field. I suspect, steeped as this novel
is in diamond lore, that he just wasn't able to come up with
another mystery plot involving diamonds as easily as, say,
Dick Francis continually came up with new plots about horse
racing. Plus, I think Hirschberg was already pretty up in
years when this book came out. He may have been satisfied
with getting a novel in print in his lifetime and left it at
that.
FINDING MAUBEE by A.H.Z. Carr (1971). No big mystery about
why this was Carr's only novel. He died before it was
published. He'd been fairly successful as a short story
writer for many years before writing this book. If he was
already sick at the time he started it, he may have figured
he only had one chance for book-length fiction. This was
later adapted into the film THE MIGHTY QUINN.
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN by Don Lee (2004). Not really fair listing
him. He's the most recent winner, so he really hasn't had
time to get his next one out. He had short story collection,
YELLOW, published prior to this novel, so there's every
chance we'll hear more from him, which will again reduce the
number to three.
The other side of the coin, 1st novel winners who've gone on
to have phenomenally successful careers, with spots on the NY
TIMES best-seller list, movie sales, etc., is actually much
longer. It includes, but is not limited to, Dorothy Uhnak,
Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson,
Lawrence Sanders, Paul Erdman, Harry Kemelman, et al.
JIM DOHERTY
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