Latecoming Laurels

There was a time when the Macavity Awards, sponsored by Mystery Readers International and Mystery Readers Journal, were handed out each year at the Left Coast Crime convention. But that gathering took place this last spring, and the 2026 Macavity winners (see below) were not announced until today, seven months later.

Best Mystery Novel: Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)

Also nominated: King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron); Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime); River of Lies, by James L’Etoile (Oceanview); The White Crow, by Michael Robotham (Scribner); and All This Could Be Yours, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Minotaur)

Best First Mystery: History Lessons, by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Press)

Also nominated: Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes, by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Minotaur); Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam); Voices of the Elysian Fields, by Michael Rigg (Level Best); and Stillwater, by Tanya Scott (Grove Atlantic)

Best Mystery Non-fiction: Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover’s Travel Guide to New England, by Dawn M. Barclay (Level Best)

Also nominated: Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer
Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation, by Michael Cannell (Minotaur); Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, by Caroline Fraser (Penguin Press); V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death, by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury Sigma); Edgar Allan Poe: A Life, by Richard Kopley (University of Virginia Press); Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard, by C.M. Kushins (Mariner)

Best Mystery Short Story: “Six-Armed Robbery,” by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier (from Donna Andrews Presents Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Carla Coupe, and Michael Bracken; Wildside Press)

Also noiminated: “Hollywood Prometheus,” by Christa Faust (from Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West; Bywater); “Finding Jimmy Baldwin,” by Cheryl Head (from Crime Ink: Iconic); “The Devil Himself,” by Vaseem Khan (from Double Crossing Van Dine, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor; Crippen & Landru); and “Julius Katz Draws a Straight Flush,” by Dave Zeltserman (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September/October 2025)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery: Bye Bye Blackbird, by Elizabeth Crowens (Level Best)

Also nominated: A Daughter’s Guide to Mothers and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington); City Lights, by Claire M. Johnson (Level Best); The Case of the Christie Conspiracy, by Kelly Oliver (Boldwood); The Case of the Missing Maid, by Rob Osler (Kensington); and No. 10 Doyers Street, by Radha Vatsal (Level Best)

The Macavity Awards take their name from Macavity the Mystery Cat, a character in T.S. Eliot’s 1939 poetry book, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Ballots for this year’s prize were cast by a members of MRI, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and “friends of MRI.”

Congratulations to all of this year’s contenders!