Last night, the Mystery Writers of America threw their annual banquet to celebrate the presentation of the Edgars at the Grand Hyatt, with an hour or so of cocktails and mingling outside the grand ballroom beforehand. That's where four of the five nominees in the best novel category—Ken Bruen, John Hart, Michael Chabon, and Reed Farrel Coleman—got together for a friendly group shot. (The fifth nominee, Benjamin Black, was not in attendance.) I ran into Lee Goldberg, the chair of the MWA awards committee, just before snapping this pic, and he told me he knew who all the winners were, and that there'd be plenty to get people talking as the results were announced. Did that mean, I wondered, that Chabon was going to snag an Edgar to go along with last week's Nebula? "I can't tell you that," he said, laughing as he made his way back into the crowd.

Ultimately, the prize went to Hart's Down River; see the full list of winners. (I was glad Hart and I got to meet in person before the banquet, two years after I interviewed him over the phone for Publisher's Weekly. )

While best novel nominee Reed Farrel Coleman scans the crowd, his wife, Roseanne, chats with the eventual winner in the best paperback original category, Megan Abbott.

Best novel nominee Ken Bruen chats with novelists Laura Caldwell and Lee Child.

JT Ellison watches as Tasha Alexander does a 360° twirl to show up her cocktail dress; earlier in the day, I was excited to see Alexander's latest novel, A Fatal Waltz, in my mailbox. (Full disclosure: She and I were college classmates.)