No Apostrophe? Now That Is Peculier

I’ve been more than a bit baffled over the last few years about the fact that John Connolly never seems to be nominated for the plethora of crime fiction awards. I wouldn’t mind so much if Connolly had, like so many successful authors before him, hit a plateau in terms of ability and ambition and was simply churning out the same book year after year. Anyone who has read his last two novels in particular, however, will testify that this is not the case; indeed, I’d argue that John Connolly is now writing the best fiction of his career. THE BURNING SOUL, especially, struck me as a very special novel, so I’m delighted to see that it has been recognised as such, and long-listed for the ‘Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (a much-coveted title, despite (cue pedantic harrumph) the criminal absence of an apostrophe in the title of a writing competition. If you tolerate this, then your children will be unpunctuated, etc.
 

I’m equally delighted to see that Stuart Neville has also been nominated for said prize, for COLLUSION, which is to my mind the finest of his three novels to date, notwithstanding the fact that everyone else seems to prefer his debut, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (aka THE TWELVE). COLLUSION has previously been nominated for the LA Times Crime / Mystery Novel of the Year, an award Neville won with THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, so the book has pedigree in this kind of thing.
  Either book has a very strong claim to actually winning the prize, although they’ll have to survive the shortlist cull first, which takes place on July 5th, I think; but they’re up against some very strong opposition, including novels from Val McDermid, Robert Harris, Denise Mina and Ian Rankin, not to mention last year’s most wildly overrated crime novel, BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by SJ Watson.
  For the full long-list line-up, clickety-click on the venerable It’s A Crime (or a Mystery) …