Tonight, Gregg Olsen and Bill Cameron had the pleasure of a very warm reception from the folks at Murder by the Book, a Portland, Ore. book store that always knows whodunit. MBTB (yup, everyone loves an acronym) was helping the duo launch the Lee Child-edited Killer Year anthology. Many thanks to the Friends of Mystery group who came out in force! Part II of the Gregg and Bill Show will take place in Portland at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The venue will be Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton. Stop by, they’d love to see you.

Earlier this a.m., the Mystery Writers of America announced its nominees for
the 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film published or produced in 2007.

Here are the nominees in the Best Fact Crime category:

The Birthday Party by Stanley Alpert (Penguin Group – G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi (W.W. Norton and Company)

Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn’t Commit by Kerry Max Cook (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

Relentless Pursuit: A True Story of Family, Murder, and the Prosecutor
Who Wouldn’t Quit by Kevin Flynn (Penguin Group – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson (Penguin Group – Viking)

A quick shout out to Killer Year friend, Derek Nikitas for his nomination for Best First Novel for Pyres. Congrats, Derek!

The awards will be presented to the winners on May 1 in New York.

Question for the CR Nation, have you read any of these nominees for best true crime? What book SHOULD have made the list here?

I know some of our CR readers have enjoyed a number of the books written by the Killer Year crew. We’re kicking off the release of the anthology with a blog over at St. Martins Press. It would be great if some of you could come by and say hello.

The last of my Killer Year group’s debut thrillers has found its way to your local bookstore. It’s the debut by JT Ellison, a thriller writer based in Nashville. ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS follows Nashville Homicide LT Taylor Jackson and FBI profiler John Baldwin as they track a vicious killer terrorizing the Southeast.

If you’re a longtime CR reader, you’ll remember JT as one of our first guest bloggers.

Here’s what Allison Brennan — one of Crime Rant’s favorite thriller authors — had to say about ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS:

“J.T. Ellison’s debut novel rocks! Darkly compelling and thoroughly chilling, with rich characterization and a well-layered plot, ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS is everything a great crime thriller should be.”

We agree.