Minnesotan Julie Kramer's debut novel, "Stalking Susan," has been nominated for the Simon & Schuster-Mary Higgins Clark award by the Mystery Writers of America.

The group today announced nominees for the annual coveted Edgar awards. At first glance, no other Minnesotans appear to be on the list of nominees in various categories.

Kramer, a TV journalist and producer, penned a crime-thriller about an investigative TV journalist on the trail of a serial killer in Minnesota.   

"Like most journalists, I thought I had a novel in me," she told MinnPost's Amy Goetzman last year. "But boy, they don't write themselves. You have to grab them and pull them kicking and screaming onto the page."

The coercion worked.

My book club read "Stalking Susan" last fall, and we marveled at the story-telling, the pace, the local color, and Kramer's ability to take us inside a TV journalist's head and a TV station's machinations. As a longtime print journalist, I gained new respect for what it takes to get a news story on the air. I'm looking forward to Kramer's next novel.

Other nominees for the award, which is given to the book most closely written in the Mary Higgins Clark tradition:

"Sacrifice" by S.J. Bolton
"The Killer’s Wife" by Bill Floyd
"A Song for You" by Betsy Thornton
"The Fault Tree" by Louise Ure