AMARILLO, Texas — Rick Treon’s thriller Let the Guilty Pay has been named a finalist for the 2021 Silver Falchion Award for Best Suspense Novel by literary organization Killer Nashville.

“I am blown away by this nomination,” Treon said. “A Silver Falchion is one of the top awards for authors in the mystery, suspense, and thriller genres. I know it’s cliché to say, but it truly is an honor just to be nominated.”

The awards are given annually at the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference at the Embassy Suites in nearby Franklin, Tennessee. This year, the organization will name winners in 13 fiction and nonfiction categories for books released in 2020.

Treon is one of 10 finalists in the Best Suspense category and one of 90 finalists overall.

Winners in each category, plus an award for best overall work, will be announced at the conference’s awards dinner on Aug. 21. All finalists will be recognized there.

“Win or lose, it’ll be a special night for me.” Treon said. “A career highlight.”

The announcement came just as the thriller’s sequel, The Price of Silence, his fourth novel overall, was released Aug. 3 by Fawkes Press in e-book and paperback. Signed copies of both titles in Treon’s Bartholomew Beck series are available for purchase at Burrowing Owl Books in Amarillo and Canyon.

This is the second time Let the Guilty Pay, Treon’s second novel, has been named a finalist for an award.

Prior to being sold to Fawkes Press as part of a two-book deal in the fall of 2019, Let the Guilty Pay was named a finalist for the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest in the thriller/action-adventure category with the working title Helpers.

Treon’s debut novel, the standalone thriller Deep Background, won the 2019 PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence in Suspense.