Barrys Squeak Out Ahead

With the Mystery Writers of America set to make public its nominations for the 2019 Edgar Awards tomorrow, January 22, I’d assumed that all other prize-presenting organizations would avoid overlapping announcements. But I was wrong. As Mystery Fanfare notes, Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine today declared the contenders for its latest Barry Awards. They are:

Best Novel:
• November Road, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• Dark Sacred Night, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• The Shadows We Hide, by Allen Eskens (Mulholland)
• Depth of Winter, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
• Leave No Trace, by Mindy Mejia (Atria)
• A Necessary Evil, by Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus)

Best First Novel:
• My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Doubleday)
• Need to Know, by Karen Cleveland (Ballantine)
• Dodging and Burning, by John Copenhaver (Pegasus)
• Sweet Little Lies, by Caz Frear (Harper)
• Bearskin, by James A. McLaughlin (Ecco)
• The Chalk Man, by C.J. Tudor (Crown)

Best Paperback Original:
• A Sharp Solitude, by Christine Carbo (Atria)
• Dead Pretty, by David Mark (Blue Rider Press)
• The Ruin, by Dervla McTiernan (Penguin)
• The Hollow of Fear, by Sherry Thomas (Berkley)
• Resurrection Bay, by Emma Viskic (Pushkin Vertigo)

Best Thriller:
• The Terminal List, by Jack Carr (Atria)
• Safe Houses, by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)
• London Rules, by Mick Herron (Soho)
• Forever and a Day, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)
• Light It Up, by Nick Petrie (Putnam)
• The King Tides, by James Swain (Thomas & Mercer)

Winners will be proclaimed and awards handed ’round during the opening night ceremonies at this year’s Bouchercon in Dallas, on October 31. The Texas setting has some significance, for as the old Mystery News explained, the Barry Awards are named in honor of Barry Gardner, a longtime “friend of mystery fiction,” who died “while reading in his easy chair at his Dallas home on July 19, 1996.”