Friday, September 16, 2011

"Expiration Date" by Duane Swierczynski Nominated for 2011 Best Paperback Original Anthony Award


Duane Swierczynski's Expiration Date has been nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. The Anthony Awards are given at each annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention with the winners selected by attendees. The award is named for the late Anthony Boucher (William Anthony Parker White), well-known writer and critic from the New York Times, who helped found the Mystery Writers of America. This year's Bouchercon will be held September 15-18 right here in St. Louis.

From a review from Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine:
About the only thing you can expect from a Swierczynski novel is that you never know what to expect. This one might (notice I said might) be described as a time-travel/serial-killer novel. When Mickey Wade takes what he believes is a Tylenol in his grandfather's apartment, a funny thing happens. He wakes up in 1972. He can see and hear people, but they can't see and hear him. Well, most of them can't. It's complicated.

And it gets even more complicated than that when Mickey starts trying to change the past. If you know about time-travel paradoxes, you know that making those changes might not get you what you want.

As usual with Swiercznyski, the book moves like a bullet. It's also short, which is fine by me, and Swierczynski manages to tie all the plot elements together in the end. There's some great local color for fans of Philadelphia. There are even illustrations. Check it out.

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