Anthony Has Spoken

The 2006 Anthony Awards, voted on by the registrants of Bouchercon, were announced last evening during a ceremony in Madison, Wisconsin. The winners were:

Best Mystery Novel: Mercy Falls, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)

Also nominated: Bloodlines, by Jan Burke (Simon & Schuster); The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown); Red Leaves, by Thomas H. Cook (Harcourt); and To the Power of Three, by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins)

Best Paperback Original: The James Deans, by Reed Farrel Coleman (Plume)

Also nominated: The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, by Susan McBride (Avon); A Killing Rain, by P.J. Parrish (Pinnacle); Kiss Her Goodbye, by Allan Guthrie (Hard Case Crime); and Six Bad Things, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine)

Best First Mystery: Tilt-a-Whirl, by Chris Grabenstein (Carroll & Graf)

Also nominated: The Baby Game, by Randall Hicks (Wordslinger Press); Die a Little, by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster); Immoral, by Brian Freeman (St. Martin’s Minotaur); and Officer Down, by Theresa Schwegel (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

Best Critical/Non-Fiction: The Heirs of Anthony Boucher: A History of Mystery Fandom, edited by Marv Lachman (Poisoned Pen Press)

Also nominated: Behind the Mystery: Top Mystery Writers Interviewed, by Stuart M. Kaminsky, photography by Laurie Roberts (Hothouse Press); Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, by Melanie Rehak (Harcourt); The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels, Leslie S. Klinger (Norton); and Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel, by Hallie Ephron (Writer’s Digest)

Best Short Story: “Misdirection,” by Barbara Seranella (in Greatest Hits, edited by Robert J. Randisi; Carroll & Graf)

Also nominated: “Driven to Distraction,” by Marcia Talley (in Chesapeake Crimes II, edited by Donna Andrews and Maria Y. Lima; Quiet Storm); “House Rules,” by Libby Fischer Hellmann (in Murder in Vegas, edited by Michael Connelly; Forge); “Killer Blonde,” by Elaine Viets (in Drop-Dead Blond; Signet); and “There Is No Crime on Easter Island,” by Nancy Pickard (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2005)

Best Fan Publication: Crimespree Magazine, edited by Jon and Ruth Jordan

Also nominated: Deadly Pleasures, edited by George Easter; Mystery News, edited by Lynn Kaczmarek and Chris Aldrich; Mystery Scene Magazine, edited by Brian Skupin and Kate Stine; and Mystery Readers Journal, edited by Janet Rudolph

Special Service to the Field: Janet Rudolph, Mystery Readers International

Also nominated: George Easter, Deadly Pleasures; Maddy Van Hertbruggen, 4 Mystery Addicts; Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

And another Bouchercon goes into the history books. Meanwhile, hundreds of fans are busy trying to stuff pounds of freebie books, advance readers copies, trinkets, and other souvenirs into luggage already filled up with books and clothes. Until next year …