The Clue Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Thriller and Suspense Mysteries. The Grand Prize Winner, Kevin G Chapman’s book, The Other Murder will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Clue contest page year ’round!
The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year ‘round!
The 2023 Clue Winners were announced at the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference in April, and you can see the official winners post here!
Join us in celebrating the 2023 First Place Clue Winners!
Daniel V. Meier Jr. – Guidance To Death
Frederick Douglass Reynolds – Saint Bloodbath
Detectives McGuire and Cortes take on a gruesome homicide case in Long Beach, California, and navigate the complex role of being the murder police in an area marked by homelessness, drug abuse, and gang violence. With little but their combined decades of detective experience to go off of, they investigate personal and gang-related motives in an attempt to identify and arrest their suspect. When a severed hand is found in the desert nearly 100 miles away, their years-long investigation crosses jurisdictions, and they must connect the dots before the bloodbath continues. Saint Bloodbath explores the true story of multiple heinous crimes, but perhaps more importantly, highlights the lives and experiences of the victims, their peers, and the investigators who sought to bring a murderer to justice.
Jode Millman – The Empty Kayak
For Detective Ebony Jones, crime is always personal. But this time, it strikes too close to home.
A pop-up thunderstorm marched its way across the Hudson River, ambushing a young couple’s kayaking trip. The woman miraculously made it back to shore, but her fiancé remains missing. Ebony and her partner are the first responders who rush to the river to assist in rescuing the capsized boater.
The victim’s identity shocks Ebony to the core. Kyle Emory, the ex-boyfriend of her estranged best friend, attorney Jessie Martin, is the man who never made it out of the water. The accident ignites a firestorm between the two friends, pitting them against each other in a race to discover whether Kyle survived or whether he met his untimely demise. Under pressure from the chief and the DA, Ebony needs to solve the mystery, while Jessie seeks justice for the sake of the daughter she shares with Kyle.The investigation leads them through the dark worlds of social media, online sports betting, and extreme sports. Along the way, they uncover lies and betrayals and gather a list of dangerous suspects who are all linked to the accident survivor, Kyle’s mysterious fiancée. Even more, the discovery that Kyle possessed his own life-shattering secrets has trapped Ebony between her career and her lifelong friendship with Jessie. Yet neither Ebony nor Jessie will stop until they discover the truth about the drowning, even if it destroys their friendship and their lives.
But the evidence is as murky as the secretive Hudson River. Only the river knows whether Kyle’s tragic death was an accident, a suicide, or something more sinister.
Michelle Cox – A Haunting at Linley
In this seventh book of the series, Clive and Henrietta return to England to find Castle Linley in financial ruin. When Clive’s cousin, Wallace, invites an estate agent in to assess the home’s value, the agent is later found poisoned, throwing all of the Castle’s guests into suspicion. Clive and Henrietta are soon drawn into an investigation, which is slowed by an incompetent local inspector and several unexplained phenomena—the cause of which many, especially the frail Lady Linley, believe to be the workings of the ghost of a hanged maid.
Meanwhile, Gunther and Elsie have begun life on a farm in Omaha. Circumstances are difficult, but they are content—until Oldrich Exely appears, proposing an option Elsie finds difficult to ignore. Melody Merriweather, still masquerading as a nun to aid Elsie’s escape, likewise finds it difficult to ignore a letter with tragic news from home, while Julia, on the other hand, receives a very different sort of letter from Glenn Forbes.
Back in England, Clive is called away to London on suspicious business, leaving Henrietta to carry on with the investigation alone. When she is mysteriously locked in the study one night, however, things take on a more deadly, supernatural feel, leaving her to fear that Lady Linley’s “ghost” might just be real after all…
Margaret Mizushima – Standing Dead
Deputy Mattie Cobb and her sister, Julia, travel to Mexico to visit their mother, but when they arrive, they discover that she and her husband have vanished without a trace. Back in Timber Creek, Mattie finds a chilling note on her front door telling her to look for “him” among the standing dead up in the high country.
The sheriff’s department springs into action and sends a team to the mountains, where Mattie’s K-9 partner, Robo, makes a grisly discovery—a body tied to a dead pine tree. Mattie is shocked when she realizes she knows the dead man. And then another note arrives, warning that Mattie’s mother is in desperate straits. In a last-ditch gambit, Mattie must go deep undercover into a killer’s lair to save her mother—or die trying.
Raymond Paul Johnson – Conspiracy Ignited
“Drop the case!” Bashed over the head and tossed overboard into the cold, dark water of a Los Angeles marina, combat veteran turned litigator Eric Ridge struggles to stay alive—and discover who is trying to kill him. And why. No matter the answer, one thing is certain: Eric Ridge does not abandon his clients and will not drop the case. The question is, what case was his assailant yelling about? Working with his legal team—including his best friend and his computer-whiz wife—Ridge is ultimately drawn into the sinister world of the Raven Society, a secretive cabal that controls the courts by coercing or killing judges. And anyone else who gets in their way. In a race against the clock, will Ridge and his team survive to use the evidence they’ve developed? Or will they suffer the same fate as others who have dared to confront The Raven Society?
Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2023 Clue First Place Winners!
Your book can join the Tiers of Achievement, but only if you submit to the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards!
Got a great Fiction Book? The 2024 Clue Book Awards are open through the end of September!
Note: Late submissions are accepted until the dates change on the website!
The Global Thriller Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in High Stakes Thriller Fiction. The Global Thriller Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
