Macavitys Honor Excellence

This is what happens when I don’t attend Bouchercon. Last night—Halloween night—during the convention’s opening ceremonies in Dallas, Texas, three different categories of prizes were to be presented: the Barry Awards, the Macavity Awards, and the David Thompson Memorial Special Service Award. I already knew that Ontario bookstore owners Jenn and Don Longmuir were slated to receive the David Thompson. However, I still haven’t found the list of Barry winners anywhere online. If anyone reading this article can please tell me who collected those prizes, I’d be grateful, and will post the news later.

Meanwhile, here are the books and authors that captured the 2019 Macavity Awards, sponsored by Mystery Readers International.

Best Novel: November Road, by Lou Berney (Morrow)

Also nominated: If I Die Tonight, by Alison Gaylin (Morrow); The Lost Man, by Jane Harper (Flatiron); Jar of Hearts, by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur); Hiroshima Boy, by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park); and Under My Skin, by Lisa Unger (Park Row)

Best First Novel: Dodging and Burning, by John Copenhaver (Pegasus)

Also nominated: My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Doubleday); Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (Putnam); Something in the Water, by Catherine Steadman (Ballantine); and The Chalk Man, by C.J. Tudor (Crown)

Best Non-fiction: The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World, by Sarah Weinman (HarperCollins)

Also nominated: The Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories and Other Detective Fiction, by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland); Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World’s Most Famous Detective Writer, by Margalit Fox (Random House); Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s, annotated by Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus); I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, by Michelle McNamara (HarperCollins); and Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life, by Laura Thompson (Pegasus)

Best Short Story: “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], July/August 2018)

Also nominated: “Race to Judgment,” by Craig Faustus Buck (EQMM, November/December 2018); “All God’s Sparrows,” by Leslie Budewitz (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, May/June 2018); “Bug Appétit,” by Barb Goffman (EQMM, November/December 2018); “Three-Star Sushi,” by Barry Lancet (Down & Out: The Magazine, Vol.1, No. 3); and “The Cambodian Curse,” by Gigi Pandian (from The Cambodian Curse & Other Stories, by Gigi Pandian; Henery Press)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery: The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

Also nominated: A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington); City of Ink, by Elsa Hart (Minotaur); Island of the Mad, by Laurie R. King (Bantam); A Dying Note, by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press); and A Forgotten Place, by Charles Todd (Morrow)

The Macavitys take their name from the “mystery cat” in T.S. Eliot’s 1939 poetry collection, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Members of Mystery Readers International and its periodical, Mystery Readers Journal, were eligible to vote in this competition.

UPDATE: The Barry Award winners can now be found here.