Picking Barrys

George Easter, the editor of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, has announced the nominees for the 2023 Barry Awards.

Best Mystery or Crime Novel:
• The Accomplice, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion)
• Desert Star, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• The Dark Flood, by Deon Meyer (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Shifty’s Boys, by Chris Offutt (Grove Press)
• Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)
• City on Fire, by Don Winslow (Morrow)

Best Debut Mystery or Crime Novel:
• Before You Knew My Name, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Atria/EmilyBestler)
• Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
• Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
• The Maid, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)
• Blood Sugar, by Sascha Rothchild (Putnam)
• Dirt Creek, by Hayley Scrivenor (Flatiron)

Best Thriller:
• In the Blood, by Jack Carr (Atria/Emily Bester)
• Winter Work, by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)
• Sierra Six, by Mark Greaney (Berkley)
• Bad Actors, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
• Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
• Goering’s Gold, by Richard O’Rawe (Melville House)

In an e-mail message, Easter goes on to explain that there are “No nominations for Paperback Original this year. [It’s] more and more difficult to come up with a good list that the nominating committee members have read, so at least this year, we included the good ones in the longlists for the other categories.”

All readers of Deadly Pleasures are encouraged to vote in this contest. You need only submit your choices to george@deadlypleasures.com by Monday, July 24. The winners will declared on August 31 during the opening ceremonies of this year’s Bouchercon, which is to take place in San Diego, California, from August 30 to September 3.

The Barry Awards are named in honor of Barry W. Gardner, a longtime crime-fiction fan and book reviewer, who passed away in 1996.