Malice Toward Many

Those Malice Domestic folks, they sure do love Canadian novelist Louise Penny. For the second year in a row, Penny has won the Agatha Award for Best Novel. That announcement came yesterday during the three-day Malice Domestic conference in Arlington, Virginia. Other Agatha Award recipients were as follows:

Best Novel: A Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Swan for the Money, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur); Bookplate Special, by Lorna Barrett (Berkley Prime Crime); Royal Flush, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley Prime Crime); and Air Time, by Hank
Phillippi Ryan (Mira)

Best First Novel: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan
Bradley (Delacorte Press)

Also nominated: For Better, for Murder, by Lisa Bork (Midnight Ink); Posed for Murder, by Meredith Cole (Minotaur); The Cold Light of Mourning, by Elizabeth Duncan (St. Martin’s Press); and In the Shadow of Gotham, by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur)

Best Non-fiction: Dame Agatha’s Shorts, by Elena Santangelo
(Bella Rosa Books)

Also nominated: Duchess of Death, by Richard Hack (Phoenix Books); Talking About Detective Fiction, by P.D. James (Knopf); Blood on the Stage, 1925-1950, by Amnon Kabatchnik (Scarecrow Press); and The Talented Miss Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s Press)

Best Short Story: “On the House,” by Hank Phillippi Ryan (from Quarry, edited by Kate Flora, Ruth McCarty, and Susan Oleksiw; Level Best Books)

Also nominated: “Femme Sole,” by Dana Cameron (from Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane; Akashic Books); “Handbaskets, Drawers, and Killer Cold,” by Kaye George(from Crooked); “The Worst Noel,” by Barb Goffman (from The Gift of Murder, edited by John M. Floyd; Wolfmont Press); and “Death Will Trim Your Tree,” by Elizabeth Zelvin (from The Gift of Murder)

Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel: The Hanging Hill, by Chris Grabenstein (Random House)

Also nominated: The Morgue and Me, by John C. Ford (Viking Juvenile); The Case of the Poisoned Pig, by Lewis B. Montgomery (Kane Press); The Other Side of Blue, by Valerie O. Patterson (Clarion Books); and The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, by Nancy Springer (Philomel)

In addition, a Lifetime Achievement Award was given to novelist Mary Higgins Clark, while noted TV scriptwriter and author William Link (The Columbo Collection) received the Poirot Award.

(Hat tip to Classic Mysteries.)