And the Agathas Go To …

Winners of the 2020 Agatha Awards were announced last evening during this year’s virtual More Than Malice festival. Congratulations to the victors as well as the other nominees!

Best Contemporary Novel:
All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Gift of the Magpie, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur); Murder in the Bayou Boneyard, by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane); From Beer to Eternity, by Sherry Harris (Kensington); and The Lucky One, by Lori Rader-Day (Morrow)

Best Historical Novel:
The Last Mrs. Summers, by Rhys Bowen (Berkeley)

Also nominated: Fate of a Flapper, by Susanna Calkins (Griffin); A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington); Taken Too Soon, by Edith Maxwell (Beyond the Page); and The Turning Tide, by Catriona McPherson (Quercus)

Best First Novel:
Murder at the Mena House, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington)

Also nominated: A Spell for Trouble, by Esme Addison (Crooked Lane); Winter Witness, by Tina deBellegarde (Level Best); Derailed, by Mary Keliikoa (Epicenter Press); and Murder Most Sweet, by Laura Jensen Walker (Kensington)

Best Short Story:
“Dear Emily Etiquette,” by Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2020)

Also nominated: “The Red Herrings at Killington Inn,” by Shawn Reilly Simmons (from Masthead: Best New England Crime Stories, edited by Verena Rose, Harriette Sackler, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Best); “The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74,” by Art Taylor (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, January/February 2020); “Elysian Fields,” by Gabriel Valjan (from California Schemin’: The 2020 Bouchercon Anthology, edited by Art Taylor; Wildside Press); and “The 25 Year Engagement,” by James Ziskin (from In League with Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger; Pegasus Crime)

Best Non-fiction:
Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock, by Christina Lane (Chicago Review Press)

Also nominated: Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy, by Leslie Brody (Seal Press); American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI, by Kate Winkler Dawson (Putnam); Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club); and H.R.F. Keating: A Life of Crime, by Sheila Mitchell (Level Best)

Best Children’s/YA Mystery:
Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, by Richard Narvaez (Piñata)

Also nominated: Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, by Fleur Bradley (Viking Books for Young Readers); Premeditated Myrtle, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers); Saltwater Secrets, by Cindy Callaghan (Aladdin); and From the Desk of Zoe Washington, by Janae Marks (Katherine Teagen)

(Hat tip to Classic Mysteries.)