Without Malice

Sue Grafton was honored with Malice Domestic’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Mystery Readers Journal editor Janet Rudolph received the Poirot Award at the Hyatt Regency in Bethesda, Maryland, earlier this evening when the 2011 Agatha Awards were announced during Malice Domestic. “What a wonderful evening at Malice!” Rudolph enthused on Mystery Fanfare, where she also shared the results:

Best Novel: Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Stork Raving Mad, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur); The Scent of Rain and Lightning, by Nancy Pickard (Ballantine); Drive Time, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Mira); and Truly, Madly, by Heather Webber (St. Martin’s)

Best First Novel: The Long Quiche Goodbye, by Avery Aames (Berkley)

Also nominated: Murder at the PTA, by Laura Alden (Signet); Maid of Murder, by Amanda Flower (Five Star); Full Mortality, by Sasscer Hill (Wildside Press); and Diamonds for the Dead, by Alan Orloff (Midnight Ink)

Best Non-fiction: Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: 50 Years of Mysteries in the Making, by John Curran (Harper)

Also nominated: The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, by Deborah Blum (Penguin Press); Sherlock Holmes for Dummies, by Stephen Doyle and David A. Crowder (For Dummies); Have Faith in Your Kitchen, by Katherine Hall Page (Orchises Press); and Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang (Norton)

Best Short Story: “So Much in Common,” by Mary Jane Maffini (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2010)

Also nominated: “Swing Shift,” by Dana Cameron (from Crimes by Moonlight, edited by Charlaine Harris; Berkley); “Size Matters,” by Sheila Connolly (from Thin Ice, edited by Mark Ammons, Kat Fast, Barbara Ross, and Leslie Wheeler; Level Best Books); “Volunteer of the Year,” by Barb Goffman (from Chesapeake Crimes: They Had It Comin’, edited by Marcia Talley; Wildside Press); and “The Green Cross,” by Elizabeth Zelvin (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, August 2010)

Best Children’s/Young Adult: The Other Side of Dark, by Sarah Smith (Atheneum)

Also nominated: Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer, by John Grisham (Dutton); Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus, by R. L. LaFevers (Houghton Mifflin); The Agency: A Spy in the House, by Y. S. Lee (Candlewick); and Virals, by Kathy Reichs (Razorbill)