Macavitys Prowling for Purr-fect Homes

Blogger and editor Janet Rudolph today announced the contenders for the 2015 Macavity Awards. Nominees are selected and voted on “by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends and supporters of MRI.”

Best Mystery Novel:
• The Lewis Man, by Peter May (Quercus)
• The Last Death of Jack Harbin, by Terry Shames (Seventh Street)
• The Killer Next Door, by Alex Marwood (Penguin)
• The Day She Died, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)
• The Missing Place,
by Sophie Littlefield (Gallery)
• The Long Way Home,
by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Best First Mystery Novel:
• Invisible City,
by Julia Dahl (Minotaur)
• The Black Hour,
by Lori Rader-Day (Seventh Street)
• Someone Else’s Skin,
by Sarah Hilary (Penguin)
• Dear Daughter, by Elizabeth Little (Viking)
• Blessed Are the Dead, by Kristi Belcamino (Witness Impulse)
• Dry Bones in the Valley, by Tom Bouman (Norton)

Best Mystery-Related Non-fiction:
• Writes of Passage: Adventures on the Writer’s Journey, edited by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Henery Press)
• The Figure of the Detective: A Literary History and Analysis, by Charles Brownson (McFarland)
• Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe, by J.W. Ocker (Countryman)
• 400 Things Cops Know: Street Smart Lessons from a Veteran Patrolman, by Adam Plantinga (Quill Driver)

Best Mystery Short Story:
• “Honeymoon Sweet,” by Craig Faustus Buck (from Murder at the Beach: The Bouchercon Anthology 2014, edited by Dana Cameron; Down & Out)
• “The Shadow Knows,” by Barb Goffman (from Chesapeake Crimes: Homicidal Holidays, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley; Wildside)
• “Howling at the Moon,” by Paul D. Marks (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], November 2014)
• “The Proxy,” by Travis Richardson (ThugLit #13,
September/October 2014)
• “The Odds Are Against Us,” by Art Taylor (EQMM, November 2014)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery:
• Queen of Hearts, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Present Darkness, by Malla Nunn (Atria)
• A Deadly Measure of Brimstone, by Catriona McPherson (Minotaur)
• An Officer and a Spy, by Robert Harris (Knopf)
• Hunting Shadows, by Charles Todd (Morrow)
• Things Half in Shadow, by Alan Finn (Gallery)

Winners will be declared during Bouchercon 46, to be held in Raleigh, North Carolina, from October 8 to 11.

(By the way, the Macavity Awards take their name from the “mystery cat” in the 1939 collection of whimsical poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The author of that collection was, of course, T.S. Eliot--about whom I wrote earlier today in regard to his five rules of “detective conduct” in fiction. How’s that for an odd coincidence?)