Vienna Secrets by Frank Tallis 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 Frank Tallis' web site:

Vienna 1903. Outside one of the cities most splendid baroque churches the decapitated body of a monk is found. Shortly after, the remains of a municipal councillor are discovered in the grounds of another church -- his head also ripped from his body. Both men were rabid anti-semites and suspicions fall on Vienna's close-knit community of Hassidic Jews. In a city riven by racial tensions and extremism, the situation is potentially explosive.

Detective Inspector Rheinhardt turns to his trusted friend, the young psychoanalyst Doctor Max Liebermann for assistance. As the investigation progresses, Liebermann is drawn into the world of Jewish mysticism, a world dominated by the rites and secret lore of the Kabbalah. Although he rejects all forms of superstition, he is forced to embrace his own cultural origins - in the old ghetto district of Prague -- to understand the meaning and significance of the murders.

At the same time, Liebermann's life is in crisis. Political forces conspire against him, resulting in his suspension from the General Hospital, and the object of his romantic desires, the enigmatic Miss Lydgate, is becoming an unhealthy obsession.