When You Want the Barry Best

In addition to the announcement of this year’s Macavity Award recipients, last night’s opening ceremonies at Bouchercon Toronto brought us the winners of the 2017 Barry Awards, sponsored by Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. They are as follows:

Best Novel:
A Great Reckoning, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Where It Hurts, by Reed Farrel Coleman (Putnam); The Wrong Side of Goodbye, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown); The Second Life of Nick Mason, by Steve Hamilton (Putnam); Wilde Lake, by Laura Lippman (Morrow); and The Second Girl, by David
Swinson (Mulholland)

Best First Novel:
The Drifter, by Nicholas Petrie (Putnam)

Also nominated: Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (Crown); I’m Traveling Alone, by Samuel Bjork (Viking); IQ, by Joe Ide (Mulholland); I’m Thinking of Ending Things, by Iain Reid (Gallery/Scout Press); and Missing, Presumed, by Susie Steiner (Random House)

Best Paperback Original:
Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty (Seventh Street)

Also nominated: Under the Harrow, by Flynn Berry (Penguin); The Heavens May Fall, by Allen Eskens (Seventh Street); The Queen’s Accomplice, by Susan Elia MacNeal (Bantam); The Darkest Secret, by Alex Marwood (Penguin); and The Girl in the Window, by Jake Needham (Half Penny)

Best Thriller:
Guilty Minds, by Joseph Finder (Dutton)

Also nominated: Overwatch, by Matthew Betley (Atria); First Strike, by Ben Coes (Minotaur); Back Blast, by Mark Greaney (Berkley); The One Man, by Andrew Gross (Minotaur); and Collecting the Dead, by
Spencer Kope (Minotaur)

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)