Deserving of Edgars Attention

January had already brought us the lists of nominees for 2019’s Lefty Awards and Barry Awards. Now the Mystery Writers of America announces the rivals for this year’s coveted Edgar Awards.

Best Novel:
• The Liar’s Girl, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Blackstone)
• House Witness, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• A Gambler’s Jury, by Victor Methos (Thomas & Mercer)
• Down the River Unto the Sea, by Walter Mosley (Mulholland)
• Only to Sleep, by Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth)
• A Treacherous Curse, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

Best First Novel by an American Author:
• A Knife in the Fog, by Bradley Harper (Seventh Street)
• The Captives, by Debra Jo Immergut (Ecco)
• The Last Equation of Isaac Severy, by Nova Jacobs (Touchstone)
• Bearskin, by James A. McLaughlin (Ecco)
• Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (Putnam)

Best Paperback Original:
• If I Die Tonight, by Alison Gaylin (Morrow)
• Hiroshima Boy, by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park)
• Under a Dark Sky, by Lori Rader-Day (Morrow)
• The Perfect Nanny, by Leila Slimani (Penguin)
• Under My Skin, by Lisa Unger (Park Row)

Best Fact Crime:
• Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge First and the Rise of Gay Liberation, by Robert W. Fieseler (Liveright)
• Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal,
by Jonathan Green (Norton)
• The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure, by Carl Hoffman (Morrow)
• The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Viking)
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, by Michelle McNamara (Harper)
• The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s Most Powerful Mafia, by Alex Perry (Morrow)

Best Critical/Biographical:
• The Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories and Other Detective Fiction, by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland)
• Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession,
by Alice Bolin (Morrow)
• Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s, annotated by Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus Books)
• Mark X: Who Killed Huck Finn’s Father? by Yasuhiro
Takeuchi (Routledge)
• Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life, by Laura Thompson (Pegasus)

Best Short Story:
• “Rabid,“ by Paul Doiron (Minotaur e-book)
• “Paranoid Enough for Two,” by John Lutz (from The Havana
Game; Kensington)
• “Ancient and Modern,” by Val McDermid (from Bloody Scotland, edited by James Crawford; Pegasus)
• “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July/August 2018)
• “The Sleep Tight Motel,” by Lisa Unger (Amazon e-book)

Best Juvenile:
• Denis Ever After, by Tony Abbott (Katherine Tegen)
• Zap! by Martha Freeman (Paula Wiseman)
• Ra the Mighty: Cat Detective, by A.B. Greenfield (Holiday House)
• Winterhouse, by Ben Guterson (Henry Holt)
• Otherwood, by Pete Hautman (Candlewick Press)
• Charlie & Frog, by Karen Kane (Disney Hyperion)
• Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground, by T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press)

Best Young Adult:
• Contagion, by Erin Bowman (HarperCollins)
• Blink, by Sasha Dawn (Carolrhoda Lab)
• After the Fire, by Will Hill (Sourcebooks Fire)
• A Room Away from the Wolves, by Nova Ren Suma (Algonquin)
• Sadie, by Courtney Summers (Wednesday)

Best Television Episode Teleplay:
• “The Box,” Brooklyn Nine-Nine, teleplay by Luke Del Tredici (NBC/Universal TV)
• “Season 2, Episode 1,” Jack Irish, teleplay by Andrew Knight
(Acorn TV)
• “Episode 1,” Mystery Road, teleplay by Michaeley O’Brien (Acorn TV)
• “My Aim Is True,” Blue Bloods, teleplay by Kevin Wade
(CBS Eye Productions)
• “The One That Holds Everything,” The Romanoffs, teleplay by Matthew Weiner and Donald Joh (Amazon Prime Video)

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award:
“How Does He Die This Time?” by Nancy Novick (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2018)

The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award:
• A Death of No Importance, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
• Bone on Bone, by Julia Keller (Minotaur)
• The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
• A Borrowing of Bones, by Paula Munier (Minotaur)

Winners are set to be announced during a “gala banquet” on April 25, in New York City. Congratulations to all of this year’s contenders.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)