Macavity Check

For readers who wondered what had become of me over these past three weeks, the simple answer is, I was off vacationing in Paris and elsewhere in France, eating my body weight in pain au chocolates and duck confit, and imbibing rather liberally of the local vinos. (More about that later, perhaps.) I’d reasoned that the first part of October would be a relatively safe time to travel, work-wise, as little book-related news was expected. What I had not forseen was that prolific author Robert J. Randisi, a dedicated advocate of detective fiction who founded the Private Eye Writers of America in 1981, would die during my absence (more about that later, almost certainly); or that the winners of the 2024 Macavity Awards would be announced in the very week I departed. Historically, those prizes have been handed out at Bouchercon, but they were not this year.

For the record, and despite my being so tardy in posting this information, you will find the latest winners of the Macavitys below.

Best Mystery:
All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)

Also nominated: Dark Ride, by Lou Berney (Morrow); Hide, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer); Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim (Hogarth); Murder Book, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press); and Crook Manifesto, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Best First Mystery:
The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (Atria)

Also nominated: The Golden Gate, by Amy Chua (Minotaur); Scorched Grace, by Margot Douaihy (Zando/Gillian Flynn); Murder by Degrees, by Ritu Mukerji (Simon & Schuster); Dutch Threat, by Josh Pachter (Genius); and Mother-Daughter Murder Night, by Nina Simon (Morrow)

Best Mystery Short Story:
“Ticket to Ride,” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, (from Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter; Down & Out)

Also nominated: “Real Courage,” by Barb Goffman (Black Cat Mystery Magazine #14, October 2023); “Green and California Bound,” by Curtis Ippolito (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023); “Pigeon Tony’s Last Stand,” by Lisa Scottoline (Amazon Originals); and “One Night in 1965,” by Stacy Woodson (from More Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, edited by Michael Bracken; Down & Out)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery:
The Mistress of Bhatia House, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

Also nominated: Time's Undoing, by Cheryl Head (Dutton); Evergreen, by Naomi Hirahara (Soho Crime); The River We Remember, by William Kent Krueger (Atria); Our Lying Kin, by Claudia Hagadus Long (Kasva Press); and The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride (Riverhead)

Best Mystery-related Non-fiction/Critical:
Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction, by Anjili Babbar (Syracuse University Press)

Also nominated: Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction, by Max Allan Collins & James L. Traylor (Mysterious Press); A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Mark Dawidziak (St. Martin’s Press); Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, by Zeke Faux (Crown Currency); and Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Robert Morgan (LSU Press)

The Macavity Awards are named for T.S. Eliot’s “mystery cat” (in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats). Winners are selected by members of Mystery Readers International and subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal. Lists of previous recipients can be found here.