Anticipating Agatha Ovations

Organizers of the Malice Domestic Conference have announced their nominees for the 2020 Agatha Awards. These prizes—meant to celebrate the best in the cozy mystery field—will be given out during this year’s slightly retitlted More Than Malice festival, scheduled to take place online only from July 14 to 17. Click here to register.

Best Contemporary Novel:
• Gift of the Magpie, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur)
• Murder in the Bayou Boneyard, by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane)
• From Beer to Eternity, by Sherry Harris (Kensington)
• All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Lucky One, by Lori Rader-Day (Morrow)

Best Historical Novel:
• The Last Mrs. Summers, by Rhys Bowen (Berkeley)
• Fate of a Flapper, by Susanna Calkins (Griffin)
• A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Murder, by Dianne
Freeman (Kensington)
• Taken Too Soon, by Edith Maxwell (Beyond the Page)
• The Turning Tide, by Catriona McPherson (Quercus)

Best First Novel:
• A Spell for Trouble, by Esme Addison (Crooked Lane)
• Winter Witness, by Tina deBellegarde (Level Best)
• Derailed, by Mary Keliikoa (Epicenter Press)
• Murder at the Mena House, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington)
• Murder Most Sweet, by Laura Jensen Walker (Kensington)

Best Short Story:
• “Dear Emily Etiquette,” by Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2020)
• “The Red Herrings at Killington Inn,” by Shawn Reilly Simmons (from Masthead: Best New England Crime Stories, edited by Verena Rose, Harriette Sackler, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Best)
• “The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74,” by Art Taylor (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, January/February 2020)
• “Elysian Fields,” by Gabriel Valjan (from California Schemin’: The 2020 Bouchercon Anthology, edited by Art Taylor; Wildside Press)
• “The 25 Year Engagement,” by James Ziskin (from In League with Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger; Pegasus Crime)

Best Non-fiction:
• Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy, by Leslie Brody (Seal Press)
• American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI, by Kate Winkler Dawson (Putnam)
• Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)
• Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock, by Christina Lane (Chicago Review Press)
• H.R.F. Keating: A Life of Crime, by Sheila Mitchell (Level Best)

Best Children’s/YA Mystery:
• Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, by Fleur Bradley
(Viking Books for Young Readers)
• Premeditated Myrtle, by Elizabeth C. Bunce
(Algonquin Young Readers)
• Saltwater Secrets, by Cindy Callaghan (Aladdin)
• From the Desk of Zoe Washington, by Janae Marks
(Katherine Teagen)
• Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, by Richard Narvaez (Piñata)

Congratulations to all of this year’s contenders!