Acclaim All Around

The Mystery Writers of America today announced the nominees for its 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards. This year marks the 75th annual presentation of these prestigious prizes. Winners are scheduled to be declared on April 29, 2021.

Best Novel:
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, by Deepa Anappara (Random House)
• Before She Was Helen, by Caroline B. Cooney (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• These Women, by Ivy Pochoda (Ecco)
• The Missing American, by Kwei Quartey (Soho Crime)
• The Distant Dead, by Heather Young (Morrow)

Best First Novel by an American Author:
• Murder in Old Bombay, by Nev March (Minotaur)
• Please See Us, by Caitlin Mullen (Gallery)
• Catherine House, by Elisabeth Thomas (Morrow)
• Winter Counts, by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Ecco)
• Darling Rose Gold, by Stephanie Wrobel (Berkley)

Best Paperback Original:
• When No One Is Watching, by Alyssa Cole (Morrow)
• The Deep, Deep Snow, by Brian Freeman (Blackstone)
• Unspeakable Things, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Keeper, by Jessica Moor (Penguin)
• East of Hounslow, by Khurrum Rahman (Harper 360)

Best Fact Crime:
• Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America, by Mark A. Bradley (Norton)
• The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, by Emma Copley Eisenberg (Hachette)
• Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic, by Eric Eyre (Scribner)
• Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country, by Sierra Crane Murdoch (Random House)
• Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, by Ariel Sabar (Doubleday)

Best Critical/Biographical:
• Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards (Harper360/
Collins Crime Club)
• Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock, by Christina Lane (Chicago Review Press)
• Ian Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, by Erin E. MacDonald (McFarland)
• Guilt Rules All: Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction, by Elizabeth Mannion and Brian Cliff (Syracuse University Press)
• This Time Next Year We’ll be Laughing, by Jacqueline Winspear (Soho Press)

Best Short Story:
• “The Summer Uncle Cat Came to Stay,” by Leslie Elman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January/February 2020)
• “Dust, Ash, Flight,” by Maaza Mengiste (from Addis Ababa Noir, edited by Maaza Mengiste; Akashic)
• “Etta at the End of the World,” by Joseph S. Walker (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, May/June 2020)
• “The Twenty-Five Year Engagement,” by James W. Ziskin (from In League with Sherlock Holmes, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger; Pegasus Crime)

Best Juvenile:
• Premeditated Myrtle, by Elizabeth C. Bunce
(Algonquin Young Readers)
• Me and Banksy, by Tanya Lloyd Kyi (Puffin Canada)
• From the Desk of Zoe Washington, by Janae Marks (Katherine Tegen)
• Ikenga, by Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Books for Young Readers)
• Nessie Quest, by Melissa Savage (Crown Books for Young Readers)
• Coop Knows the Scoop, by Taryn Souders (Sourcebooks
Young Readers)

Best Young Adult:
• The Companion, by Katie Alender (Putnam Books for Young Readers)
• The Inheritance Games, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Little, Brown
Books for Young Readers)
• They Went Left, by Monica Hesse (Little, Brown Books for
Young Readers)
• The Silence of Bones, by June Hur (Feiwel & Friends)
• The Cousins, by Karen M. McManus (Delacorte Press)

Best Television Episode Teleplay:
• “Episode 1, The Stranger,” Harlan Coben’s The Stranger,
teleplay by Danny Brocklehurst (Netflix)
• “Episode 1, Open Water,” The Sounds,
teleplay by Sarah-Kate Lynch (Acorn TV)
• “Episode 1, Photochemistry,” Dead Still,
teleplay by John Morton (Acorn TV)
• “Episode 1,” Des, teleplay by Luke Neal (Sundance Now)
• “What I Know,” The Boys, teleplay by Rebecca Sonnenshine; based on the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (Amazon)

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award:
“The Bite,” by Colette Bancroft (from Tampa Bay Noir, edited by Colette Bancroft; Akashic)

The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award:
• Death of an American Beauty, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne, by Elsa Hart (Minotaur)
• The Lucky One, by Lori Rader-Day (Morrow)
• The First to Lie, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)
• Cold Wind, by Paige Shelton (Minotaur)

The G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award:
• The Burn, by Kathleen Kent (Mulholland)
• Riviera Gold, by Laurie R. King (Ballantine)
• Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery, by Rosalie Knecht (Tin House)
• Dead Land, by Sara Paretsky (Morrow)
• The Sleeping Nymph, by Ilaria Tuti (Soho Crime)
• Turn to Stone, by James W. Ziskin (Seventh Street)

Grand Masters: Jeffery Deaver and Charlaine Harris

Raven Award: Malice Domestic

Ellery Queen Award: Reagan Arthur, Alfred A. Knopf

Congratulations to all of the nominees!

UPDATE: “Fearless,” by Walter Mosley (from California Schemin,’ edited by Art Taylor; Wildside Press), was originally included among the contenders in this year’s Best Short Story category. However, notes The Gumshoe Site’s Jiro Kimura, “Mosley himself notified the MWA that his story was ineligible, and the story was removed from the list.”