Aiming for Agatha Admiration

We’re still three months away from the start of this year’s Malice Domestic conference in Maryland (April 28-30), but organizers of that event have already announced their nominees for the 2023 Agatha Awards, in six categories.

Best Contemporary Novel:
• Bayou Book Thief, by Ellen Byron (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Death by Bubble Tea, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley)
• Fatal Reunion, by Annette Dashofy (Level Best)
• Dead Man’s Leap, by Tina de Bellegarde (Level Best)
• A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Best Historical Novel:
• The Counterfeit Wife, by Mally Becker (Level Best)
• Because I Could Not Stop for Death, by Amanda Flower (Berkley)
• The Lindbergh Nanny, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• In Place of Fear, by Catriona McPherson (Mobius)
• Under a Veiled Moon, by Karen Odden (Crooked Lane)

Best First Novel:
• Cheddar Off Dead, by Korina Moss (St. Martin’s Press)
• Death in the Aegean, by M.A. Monnin (Level Best)
• The Bangalore Detectives Club, by Harini Nagendra (Constable)
• Devil’s Chew Toy, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane)
• The Finalist, by Joan Long (Level Best)
• The Gallery of Beauties, by Nina Wachsman (Level Best)

Best Short Story:
• “Beauty and the Beyotch,” by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Magazine, February 2022)
• “There Comes a Time,” by Cynthia Kuhn (from Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Diabolical, edited by Verena Rose, Rita Owen,
and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Wildside Press)
• “Fly Me to the Morgue,” by Lisa Q Mathews (from Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Diabolical)
• “The Minnesota Twins Meet Bigfoot,” by Richie Narvaez (from Land of 10,000 Thrills, Bouchercon Anthology 2022, edited by Greg
Herren; Down & Out)
• “The Invisible Band,” by Art Taylor (from Edgar & Shamus Go Golden, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer; Down & Out)

Best Non-fiction:
• The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators, by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins)
• The Handbook to Agatha Christie: The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie, by Mary Anna Evans and J.C. Bernthal
(Bloomsbury Academic)
• The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie,
by Carla Valentine (Sourcebooks)
• Promophobia: Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Crime Fiction, edited by Diane Vallere (Sisters in Crime)
• Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley (Pegasus Crime)

Best Children’s/YA Mystery:
• Daybreak on Raven Island, by Fleur Bradley (Viking Books for
Young People)
• In Myrtle Peril, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers)
• #shedeservedit, by Greg Herren (Bold Strokes)
• Sid Johnson and the Phantom Slave Stealer, by Frances
Schoonmaker (Auctus)
• Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade, by Nancy Springer (Wednesday)

These prizes will be presented during a special Malice Domestic event on Saturday, April 29. Congratulations to all of the contenders!