Otto Penzler, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, announced that Mike Cooper was the first ever recipient of The Mysterious Press Award. Cooper will receive $25,000 (an advance against royalties) and have MP publish THE DOWNSIDE, the manuscript that won him the award, in E-book format.

In an age of cyber-crime, Finn is the last hardhat: He’s never stolen anything weighing less than five tons. Now fresh out of prison and flat broke, he’s got a line on his biggest job ever.

Cracking the most heavily guarded private vault in North America? No problem. Hauling $50 million of precious metal out past guards, dozens of policemen, and an armored SWAT battalion? Even easier. But navigating the betrayals of double-crossing partners, the machinations of a hedge-fund billionaire gone bad, and the ambiguous proposals of a woman with her own agenda?

Finn has only begun to figure out the downside.

“We got some incredible manuscripts but in the end, Mike’s story was everything we were looking for: Fast, exciting, and well-written,” said Penzler, President and CEO of MysteriousPress.com.

The final determination on the winner was made by votes from MysteriousPress.com’s publishing partners: Open Road Integrated Media, in North America and numerous countries around the world; Head of Zeus in the British Commonwealth; Hayakawa Publishing (Japan, Singapore, and South Korea); Bonnier (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland); Dutch Media Books (Holland and Belgium), and Bastei Lubbe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Greece, and selected Eastern European countries).