Go Ask Malice

During tonight’s banquet at its convention in Arlington, Virginia, the traditional mysteries fan organization Malice Domestic announced the winners of its 2009 Agatha Awards. They are as follows:

Best Novel: The Cruelest Month, by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books)

Also nominated: Six Geese A-Slaying, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur Books); A Royal Pain, by Rhys Bowen (Penguin Group); Buckingham Palace Gardens, by Anne Perry (Random House); and I Shall Not Want, by Julia Spencer-Fleming (Minotaur Books)

Best First Novel: Death of a Cozy Writer, by G.M. Malliet
(Midnight Ink)

Also nominated: Through a Glass, Deadly, by Sarah Atwell (Berkley Trade); The Diva Runs Out of Thyme, by Krista Davis (Penguin Group); Pushing Up Daisies, by Rosemary Harris (Minotaur Books); and Paper, Scissors, Death, by Joanna Campbell Slan (Midnight Ink)

Best Non-fiction: How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries, by Kathy Lynn Emerson (Perseverance Press)

Also nominated: African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study, by Frankie Y. Bailey (McFarland & Company); Anthony Boucher, A Bibliography, by Jeff Marks (McFarland & Company); Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories, by Dr. Harry Lee Poe (Metro Books); and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, by Kate Summerscale (Walker)

Best Short Story: “The Night Things Changed,” by Dana Cameron (from Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, edited by Charlaine Harris
and Toni L.P. Kelner; Ace)

Also nominated: “Killing Time,” by Jane Cleland (Alfred Hitchock Mystery Magazine, November 2008); “Dangerous Crossing,” by Carla Coupe (from Chesapeake Crimes 3, edited by Donna Andrews and Marcia Talley; Wildside Press); “Skull and Cross Examination,” by Toni L.P. Kelner (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], February 2008); and “A Nice Old Guy,” by Nancy Pickard (EQMM, August 2008)

Best Children’s/Young Adult: The Crossroads, by Chris Grabenstein (Random HouseChildren’s Books)

Also nominated: Into the Dark, by Peter Abrahams (HarperCollins); A Thief in the Theater, by Sarah Masters Buckey (American Girl); and The Great Circus Train Robbery, by Nancy Means Wright
(Hilliard and Harris)

Quebec novelist Penny ought to be dancing a jig about now. This marks the second year in a row that she’s walked away with the Agatha Award for Best Novel.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)