The Macavitys Are Here!

Janet Rudolph, the editor of Mystery Readers Journal and the blog Mystery Fanfare, brought the announcement this morning of this year’s Macavity Award winners, in five categories.

Best Mystery Novel:
California Bear, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

Also nominated: Hall of Mirrors, by John Copenhaver (Pegasus Crime); Served Cold, by James L’Etoile (Level Best); The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead); The In Crowd, by Charlotte Vassell (Doubleday); and All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Crown)

Best First Mystery:
Ghosts of Waikiki, by Jennifer K. Morita (Crooked Lane)

Also nominated: Outraged, by Brian Copeland (Dutton); A Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman (Headline); You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton); The Expat, by Hansen Shi (Pegasus Crime); and Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best Mystery Short Story: “Home Game,” by Craig Faustus Buck (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024)

Also nominated: “The Postman Always Flirts Twice,” by Barb Goffman (from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer; Down & Out); “Curse of the Super Taster” by Leslie Karst (Black Cat Weekly, February 23, 2024); “Two for One,” by Art Taylor (from Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman; Level Short); “Satan’s Spit,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham; Down & Out);
and “Reynisfjara,” by Kristopher Zgorski (from Mystery Most International, edited by Rita Owen, Verena Rose, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Short)

Best Historical Mystery: Fog City, by Claire Johnson (Level Best)

Also nominated: The Wharton Plot, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur); An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington); The Murder of Mr. Ma, by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan (Soho Crime); The Bootlegger’s Daughter, by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union); and A Grave Robbery, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

Best Non-fiction/Critical:
Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, by Greg Lilly (History Press)

Also nominated: Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft, edited by Phyllis M. Betz (McFarland); Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers, by Chris Chan (Level Best); Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice, by Alex Hortis (Pegasus Crime); The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective, by Steven Johnson (Crown); and On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett, by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State University Press)

Nominees and winners of the annual Macavity Awards are chosen by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and “friends of MRI.” The prizes take their name from Macavity the Mystery Cat, the main protagonist in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939).