Friday, January 27, 2023

Aiming for Agatha Admiration

We’re still three months away from the start of this year’s Malice Domestic conference in Maryland (April 28-30), but organizers of that event have already announced their nominees for the 2023 Agatha Awards, in six categories.

Best Contemporary Novel:
Bayou Book Thief, by Ellen Byron (Berkley Prime Crime)
Death by Bubble Tea, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley)
Fatal Reunion, by Annette Dashofy (Level Best)
Dead Man’s Leap, by Tina de Bellegarde (Level Best)
A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Best Historical Novel:
The Counterfeit Wife, by Mally Becker (Level Best)
Because I Could Not Stop for Death, by Amanda Flower (Berkley)
The Lindbergh Nanny, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
In Place of Fear, by Catriona McPherson (Mobius)
Under a Veiled Moon, by Karen Odden (Crooked Lane)

Best First Novel:
Cheddar Off Dead, by Korina Moss (St. Martin’s Press)
Death in the Aegean, by M.A. Monnin (Level Best)
The Bangalore Detectives Club, by Harini Nagendra (Constable)
Devil’s Chew Toy, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane)
The Finalist, by Joan Long (Level Best)
The Gallery of Beauties, by Nina Wachsman (Level Best)

Best Short Story:
“Beauty and the Beyotch,” by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Magazine, February 2022)
“There Comes a Time,” by Cynthia Kuhn (from Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Diabolical, edited by Verena Rose, Rita Owen,
and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Wildside Press)
“Fly Me to the Morgue,” by Lisa Q Mathews (from Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Diabolical)
“The Minnesota Twins Meet Bigfoot,” by Richie Narvaez (from Land of 10,000 Thrills, Bouchercon Anthology 2022, edited by Greg
Herren; Down & Out)
“The Invisible Band,” by Art Taylor (from Edgar & Shamus Go Golden, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer; Down & Out)

Best Non-fiction:
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators, by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins)
The Handbook to Agatha Christie: The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie, by Mary Anna Evans and J.C. Bernthal
(Bloomsbury Academic)
The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie,
by Carla Valentine (Sourcebooks)
Promophobia: Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Crime Fiction, edited by Diane Vallere (Sisters in Crime)
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Crime)

Best Children’s/YA Mystery:
Daybreak on Raven Island, by Fleur Bradley (Viking Books for
Young People)
In Myrtle Peril, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers)
#shedeservedit, by Greg Herren (Bold Strokes)
Sid Johnson and the Phantom Slave Stealer, by Frances
Schoonmaker (Auctus)
Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade, by Nancy Springer (Wednesday)

These prizes will be presented during a special Malice Domestic event on Saturday, April 29. Congratulations to all of the contenders!

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