Macavity Kudos

Nominations for the 2025 Macavity Awards were announced this morning, in five categories. The winners will be chosen by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI, and declared in September.

Best Mystery Novel:
• Hall of Mirrors, by John Copenhaver (Pegasus Crime)
• Served Cold, by James L’Etoile (Level Best)
• The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
• California Bear, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)
• The In Crowd, by Charlotte Vassell (Doubleday)
• All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Crown)

Best First Mystery:
• Outraged, by Brian Copeland (Dutton)
• A Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman (Headline)
• Ghosts of Waikiki, by Jennifer K. Morita (Crooked Lane)
• You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton)
• The Expat, by Hansen Shi (Pegasus Crime)
• Holy City, by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Best Mystery Short Story:
• “Home Game,” by Craig Faustus Buck (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024)
• “The Postman Always Flirts Twice,” by Barb Goffman (from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer; Down & Out)
• “Curse of the Super Taster” by Leslie Karst (Black Cat Weekly, February 23, 2024)
• “Two for One,” by Art Taylor (from Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman; Level Short)
• “Satan’s Spit,” by Gabriel Valjan (from Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham; Down & Out)
• “Reynisfjara,” by Kristopher Zgorski (from Mystery Most International, edited by Rita Owen, Verena Rose, and Shawn Reilly Simmons; Level Short)

Best Historical Mystery:
• The Wharton Plot, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
• Fog City, by Claire Johnson (Level Best)
• The Murder of Mr. Ma, by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan
(Soho Crime)
• The Bootlegger’s Daughter, by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union)
• A Grave Robbery, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

Best Non-fiction/Critical:
• Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft, edited by Phyllis M. Betz (McFarland)
• Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers, by Chris Chan (Level Best)
• Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice, by Alex Hortis (Pegasus Crime)
• The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective, by Steven Johnson (Crown)
• On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett, by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State
University Press)
• Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, by Greg Lilly (History Press)

I am especially pleased to see Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark among these contenders, as that was unquestionably my favorite crime/mystery novel published last year.