Lefty Winners Are Right Here

Because this year’s Left Coast Crime convention was “rescheduled for 2022,” due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Lefty Award winners for 2021 were announced instead during a short Zoom Webcast late this afternoon. Below are the victors and runners-up.

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel:
Murder in the Bayou Boneyard, by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane)

Also nominated: Mimi Lee Gets a Clue, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley Prime Crime); Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf); The Study of Secrets, by Cynthia Kuhn (Henery Press); The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing, by J. Michael Orenduff (Aakenbaaken & Kent); and Skin Deep, by Sung J. Woo (Agora)

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (books set before 1970):
The Turning Tide, by Catriona McPherson (Quercus)

Also nominated: The Fate of a Flapper, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur); A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington); Riviera Gold, by Laurie R. King (Bantam); Mortal Music, by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press); and Turn to Stone, by James W. Ziskin (Seventh Street)

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel:
Winter Counts, by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Ecco)

Also nominated: Murder Goes to Market, by Daisy Bateman (Seventh Street); Derailed, by Mary Keliikoa (Camel Press); Murder at the Mena House, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington); The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman (Viking); and The Lady Upstairs, by Halley Sutton (Putnam)

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories):
All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: What You Don’t See, by Tracy Clark (Kensington); Blacktop Wasteland, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron); Blind Vigil, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview); and And Now She’s Gone, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge)

Congratulations to all of this year’s prize recipients! A record of previous Lefty honorees can be found here.

(Hat tip to Les Blatt’s blog, Classic Mysteries.)