Here They Are: The Agatha Nominees

Malice Domestic has just announced the nominees for this year's Agatha Awards, which will be presented at the 24th Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, MD at the end of April. The nominees:

Best Novel:
The Real Macaw by Donna Andrews
The Diva Haunts the House by Krista Davis
Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet
Three Day Town by Margaret Maron
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

Best First Novel:
Dire Threads by Janet Bolin
Choke by Kaye George
Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry
Who Do, Voodoo? by Rochelle Staab
Tempest in the Tea Leaves by Kari Lee Townsend

Best Non-fiction:
Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure by Leslie Budewitz
Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets from Her Notebooks by John Curran
On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda
Wilkie Collins, Vera Caspary and the Evolution of the Casebook Novel by A. B. Emrys
The Sookie Stackhouse Companion by Charlaine Harris

Best Short Story:
"Disarming" by Dana Cameron, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - June 2011
"Dead Eye Gravy" by Krista Davis, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology
"Palace by the Lake" by Daryl Wood Gerber, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology
"Truth and Consequences" by Barb Goffman, Mystery Times Ten
"The Itinerary" by Roberta Isleib, WMA Presents the Rich and the Dead

Best Children's/Young Adult:
Shelter by Harlan Coben
The Black Heart Crypt by Chris Grabenstein
Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby
The Wizard of Dark Street by Shawn Thomas Odyssey
The Code Busters Club, Case #1: The Secret of the Skeleton Key by Penny Warner

Best Historical Novel:
Naughty in Nice by Rhys Bowen
Murder Your Darlings by J.J. Murphy
Mercury's Rise by Ann Parker
Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson
A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Quite a distinguished collection, to be sure. The Agatha Awards honor what we may broadly call "traditional" mysteries, typified by the works of Agatha Christie. Specifically, as the Malice news release puts it, these are mysteries with no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Comments

[Yvette]

WICKED AUTUMN by G.M. Malliet was one of the biggest disappointments of last year. Reading disappointments, that is. I was so looking forward to this book. Can't understand why it's been nominated for anything.

But that's just my own personal point of view.

[Les Blatt]

Yvette, I must admit I haven't read "Wicked Autumn" yet - it's on that steadily growing (to frightening proportions) TBR pile. I did read one of her earlier ones and enjoyed it, though there were flaws. But I do know others who have liked this one, and I'll probably give it a try - probably soon, as I'll undoubtedly see the author again at Malice Domestic in April!