(Source: Wikipedia)
RBA International Prize for Crime Writing (Spanish: Premio RBA de Novela Negra) is a Spanish sales promotion literary award said to be the world’s most lucrative crime fiction prize at €125,000. It is funded by Barcelona-based multimedia publishing company RBA.
The award this year goes to (drum roll)
Perros salvajes by Ian Rankin..
I wonder if the English title isn’t it, Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus # 21)
Previous winners:
2007 – Francisco González Ledesma, Una novela de barrio
2008 – Andrea Camilleri, La muerte de Amalia Sacerdote
2009 – Philip Kerr, If the Dead Rise Not
2010 – Harlan Coben, Live Wire
2011 – Patricia Cornwell, Red Mist
2012 – Michael Connelly, The Black Box
2013 – Arnaldur Indridason, Skuggasund
2014 – Lee Child, Personal
2015 – Don Winslow, The Cartel
You know, for such a richly endowed award, that’s a surprisingly unimpressive list of winners. I’m sure those are all perfectly good books, but I’m sure that with a little research most of us could produce a far stronger list — even if it retained a couple of the ones here.
The RBA Prize is just a marketing tool. With the expected increase in sales, the author receives a slice of the cake in the form of reward, and everybody is happy. As simple as that.Though RBA has an impressive catalog of crime fiction books available to the Spanish speaking audience, And, generally, there is little doubt about the quality of the authors.But this is not what prizes are for.