Giles Blunt, Steve Lillebuen take home Arthur Ellis Awards for crime writing

TORONTO – Giles Blunt’s thriller “Until the Night” has claimed the best novel prize at the Arthur Ellis Awards for excellence in Canadian crime writing.

Blunt, born in Windsor, Ont., previously won the same prize for his 2002 book “The Delicate Storm.”

Edmonton-based Steve Lillebuen won the best non-fiction book prize for “The Devil’s Cinema: The Untold Story Behind Mark Twitchell’s Kill Room.”

The book followed a man nicknamed the “Dexter killer” due to his fandom of the popular TV series about a serial killer dispatching bad guys.

Otherwise, Simone St. James won best first novel for “The Haunting of Maddy Clare,” Lou Allin’s “Contingency Plan” took best novella and the prize for best short story went to Yasuko Thanh’s “Switch-blade Knife” (contained within “Floating Like the Dead”).

Meanwhile, Mario Bolduc’s “La Nuit des albinos: Sur les traces de Max O’Brien” won for best French book, Shane Peacock’s “Becoming Holmes” took the award for best juvenile/young adult book and Coleen Steele’s “Sins Revisited” was named best unpublished first novel.

The Arthur Ellis Awards, presented by the Crime Writers of Canada, have been handed out since 1984.