Bonus Barrys

In addition to announcements regarding the latest winners of the Shamus Awards and Anthony Awards, last week’s Bouchercon in Nashville brought news of the 2024 Barry Award recipients.

Best Mystery or Crime Novel:
Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane (Harper)

Also nominated: Dark Ride, by Lou Berney (Morrow); All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron); Ozark Dogs, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime); Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland); and The Detective Up Late, by Adrian McKinty (Blackstone)

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

Also nominated: Better the Blood, by Michael Bennett (Atlantic Monthly Press); The Bitter Past, by Bruce Borgos (Minotaur); The Golden Gate, by Amy Chua (Minotaur); Age of Vice, by Deepti Kapoor (Riverhead); Mother-Daughter Murder Night, by Nina Simon (Morrow); and City Under One Roof, by Iris Yamashita (Berkley)

Best Paperback Original Mystery or Crime Novel:
Who the Hell Is Harry Black? by Jake Needham (Half Penny)

Also nominated: Murder and Mamon, by Mia P. Manansala
(Berkley); Everything She Feared, by Rick Mofina (Mira); Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Sutanto (Berkley); Expectant, by Vanda Symon (Orenda); and Lowdown Road, by Scott Von Doviak (Hard Case Crime)

Best Thriller: The Secret Hours, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)

Also nominated: Burner, by Mark Greaney (Berkley); Moscow Exile, by John Lawton (Atlantic Monthly); Going Zero, by Anthony McCarten (Harper); Drowning, by T.J. Newman (Avid Reader Press); and Zero Days, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press)

The Barrys are sponsored annually by Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. They take their name from the late Barry Gardner, described by that publication’s editor, George Easter, as “arguably the best fan reviewer on the planet.”

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Touted in Tennessee

Last evening, during Bouchercon in Nashville, the winners of this year’s Anthony Awards were announced.

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

Also nominated: Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland); Time’s Undoing, by Cheryl A. Head (Dutton); Face of Greed, by James L'Etoile (Oceanview); and The Last Devil to Die, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)

Best Paperback:
Hide, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)

Also nominated: No Home for Killers, by E.A. Aymar (Thomas & Mercer); Because the Night, by James D.F. Hannah (Down & Out); The Taken Ones, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer); Magic City Blues, by Bobby Matthews (Shotgun Honey); and Lowdown Road, by Scott Von Doviak (Hard Case Crime)

Best First Novel:
Mother-Daughter Murder Night, by Nina Simon (Morrow)

Also nominated: The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (Atria); Play the Fool, by Lina Chern (Bantam); Scorched Grace, by Margot Douaihy (Zando/Gillian Flynn); and City Under One Roof, by Iris Yamashita (Berkley)

Best Children’s/Young Adult: Enola Holmes and the Mark of the Mongoose, by Nancy Springer (Wednesday)

Also nominated: Finney and the Secret Tunnel, by Jamie Lane Barber (Level Elevate); Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers); The Sasquatch of Hawthorne Elementary, by K.B. Jackson (Reycraft); and The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle, by Taryn Sounders (Sourcebooks Young Readers)

Best Critical/Non-fiction: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy Egan (Viking)

Also nominated: Finders: Justice, Faith and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction, by Anjili Babbar (Syracuse University Press); Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction, by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor (Mysterious Press); A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Mark Dawidziak (St. Martin’s Press); Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Robert Morgan (LSU Press); Agatha Christie, She Watched: One Woman's Plot to Watch 201 Christie Adaptations Without Murdering the Director, Screenwriter, Cast, or Her Husband, by Teresa Peschel (Peschel Press); and Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy, by Steven Powell (Bloomsbury)

Best Anthology/Collection: Killin’ Time in San Diego: Bouchercon Anthology 2023, edited by Holly West (Down & Out)

Also nominated: School of Hard Knox, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor (Crippen & Landru); Here in the Dark, by Meagan Lucas (Shotgun Honey); Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter (Down & Out); and The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions, by Art Taylor (Crippen & Landru)

Best 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, October 2023); “Knock,” by James D.F. Hannah (from Playing Games, edited by Lawrence Block; Subterranean Press); “Green and California Bound,” by Curtis Ippolito (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023); and “Tell Me No Lies,” by Holly West (from Shotgun Honey Presents: Thicker Than Water, edited by Ron Earl Phillips; Shotgun Honey)

Bouchercon and the Anthony Awards are named in honor of Anthony Boucher (aka William Anthony Parker White), a critic, novelist, and one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America.

Congratulations to all of the 2024 Anthony nominees!

Face to Face with Lehane

Author, photographer, and sometime Rap Sheet contributor Mark Coggins has spent the last few days in Nashville, Tennessee, at this year’s Bouchercon mystery convention. As usual, he packed along his camera. And though he laments, “I didn't do very well at Nashville in terms of pictures,” he did shoot this terrific image of 59-year-old Dennis Lehane (Small Mercies)—who, Coggins says, “I haven’t seen ... at a conference since the early 2000s.”

Shamus Successes

Bouchercon 2024 kicked off earlier this week in Nashville, Tennessee, and is set to conclude tomorrow. Concurrent with those festivities, the Private Eye Writers of America presented this year’s set of Shamus Awards, in three categories.

Best Hardcover P.I. Novel:
Heart of the Nile, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Hard Rain, by Samantha Jayne Allen (‎Minotaur); Go Find Daddy, by Steve Goble (Oceanview); The Mistress of Bhatia House, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime); and The Bell in the Fog, by Lev AC Rosen (Forge)

Best Original Paperback P.I. Novel:
Liar’s Dice, by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best)

Also nominated: Drums, Guns ’n’ Money, by Jonathan J. Brown (Down & Out); Gillespie Field Groove, by Corey Lynn Fayman (Konstellation Press); The Truth We Hide, by Liz Milliron (Level Best); and Bring the Night, by J.R. Sanders (Level Best)

Best P.I. Short Story:
“Errand for a Neighbor” by Bill Bassman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], January/February 2023)

Also nominated: “Beyond Belief” by Libby Cudmore (Tough, May 2023); “The Soiled Dove of Shallow Hollow” by Sean McCluskey (EQMM, January/February 2023); “Imperfect Data” by Bob Tippee (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January/February 2023); and “Making the Bad Guys Nervous” by Joseph S. Walker (Black Cat Weekly, #102)

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Bouchercon Discord Hits Social Media

Organizers of this year’s Bouchercon conference in Nashville, Tennessee (August 28-September 1), seem to have courted controversy by inviting longtime New York City bookseller, critic, and publisher Otto Penzler to interview Lifetime Achievement guest of honor Anthony Horowitz on stage. Author Lee Goldberg opines on Facebook:

I do not understand why Otto Penzler is still treated like some kind of royalty. He is the Rudy Guiliani of crime fiction. He did some admirable things a long, long time ago … and is a disgrace now. Why would the conference want to align itself with Otto and his *decades* of well-documented misogyny (with a dollop of racism on top).

Yes, I understand that Horowitz supposedly asked for Otto to be his interviewer because they edited [2024’s] edition of Best Mystery Stories [of the Year] together … but Bouchercon should have had the sensitivity and the spine to say, sorry, Tony, he’s not welcome on our stage so, with all due respect, please pick someone else or we will pick someone for you. Someone who hasn’t shit on women writers for years (and yet championed giving the MWA Grandmaster award to a woman who sent five innocent men to prison for a rape). Someone who didn’t create a women’s fiction imprint … and then hire men to write the books under women’s names.

Surely there is someone out there in the mystery community capable of interviewing Horowitz who doesn't have that kind of loathsome baggage. How about Steph Cha, if she’s attending? That would be poetic justice.

This dispute has generated plenty of social media posts, but still no official response from Bouchercon—at least none I’ve spotted.