I just can't stay away from mysteries. Even though I am deeply involved with the characters of Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings, when I do come up for air it is to regret that I missed last year's Bouchercon in Long Beach, California and this year's event in Raleigh, North Carolina.
It is at Bouchercon that a trio of awards are announced, which leads to a lot of winners and I'm sure, a happy convention.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to native daughter, Margaret Maron, author of the Deborah Knott mysteries. The biography on her website lists some of the many awards and honors she has received during her career, and includes my personal favorite, her service as a Judge of the 32nd Annual National Hollering Contest in 2000.
Other honorees at Bouchercon were:
Chair: Al Abramson
Lifetime Achievement: Margaret Maron
American Guests of Honor: Dr. Kathy Reichs & Tom Franklin
International Guests of Honor: Zoë Sharp & Allan Guthrie
Toastmasters: Lori Armstrong & Sean Doolittle
Local Guest of Honor: Sarah Shaber
Fan Guests of Honor: Lucinda Surber & Stan Ulrich
Below the fold are the nominees and winners of the Anthony, the Barry, the Macavity and the Shamus Awards.
The Anthony Awards
"The
Anthony Awards are given at each annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention with the winners selected by the attendees. The award is named for the late Anthony Boucher (William Anthony Parker White), well-known writer and critic from the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times who helped found the Mystery Writers of America."
Best Mystery Novel
*After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman
Monday Murder Mystery Review (MMMR)
When Felix Brewer meets Bernadette “Bambi” Gottschalk at a Valentine’s Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative—if not all legal—businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi’s comfortable world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes.
Though Bambi has no idea where her husband—or his money—might be, she suspects one woman does: his mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day that Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she’s left to join her old lover—until her remains are eventually found.
Best First Mystery
*The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day
For Chicago sociology professor Amelia Emmet, violence was a research topic--until a student she'd never met shot her. He also shot himself. Now he's dead and she's back on campus, trying to keep up with her class schedule, a growing problem with painkillers, and a question she can't let go: Why?
All she wants is for life to get back to normal, but normal is looking hard to come by. She's thirty-eight and hobbles with a cane. Her first student interaction ends in tears (hers). Her fellow faculty members seem uncomfortable with her, and her ex--whom she may or may not still love--has moved on.
...
Best Paperback Original
*The Day She Died by Catriona McPherson
Jessie Constable has learned the hard way to always keep herself safe. But meeting Gus King changes everything. Before she knows it, Jessie is sleeping at Gus's house, babysitting his kids, becoming a part of his family. And yet, she can't ignore the unsettling questions. Who does she keep seeing from the corner of her eye? Why are strange men threatening her? Most importantly, what really happened to Gus's wife?
...
Best Critical or Non-Fiction Work
*Writes of Passage: Adventures on the Writer's Journey edited by Hank Phillippi Ryan
The path of a writing career can be rocky and twisty and full of dead ends. But it’s also well traveled--and in WRITES OF PASSAGE, 59 mystery authors offer the secrets that helped them navigate their success. When you’re in need of an author’s roadmap, “pick up this book,” as Hank Phillippi Ryan says in the introduction. “Open it to any page. The sisters of SinC have shared their personal journeys—and they have many tales to tell.” These tales reveal the “Writes of Passage” every author encounters, and Sisters in Crime hopes these beautifully told experiences will guide you along your way.
Best Anthology or Collection
*In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon edited by Laurie R. King & Leslie S. Klinger
The Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were recently voted as the top mystery series of all time, and they have enthralled generations of readers and writers! Now, Laurie R. King, author of the New York Times-bestselling Mary Russell series (in which Holmes plays a co-starring role), and Leslie S. Klinger, editor of the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, have assembled a stellar group of contemporary authors from a variety of genres and asked them to create new stories inspired by that canon. Inside you ll find Holmes in times and places previously unimagined, as well as characters who have themselves been affected by the tales of Sherlock Holmes. The game is afoot again!
The Barry Awards
The
Barry Awards are decided upon by the editorial staff of Deadly Pleasures and presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention and named to honor Barry Gardner, a fan reviewer.
Best Novel
*Natchez Burning by Greg Iles
Growing up in the rural Southern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned everything he knows about honor and duty from his father, Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor is accused of murdering Viola Turner, the beautiful nurse with whom he worked in the early 1960s. A fighter who has always stood for justice, Penn is determined to save his father.
The quest for answers sends Penn deep into the past—into the heart of a conspiracy of greed and murder involving the Double Eagles, a vicious KKK crew headed by one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the state. Now Penn must follow a bloody trail that stretches back forty years, to one undeniable fact: no one—black or white, young or old, brave or not—is ever truly safe.
Best First Novel
*Invisible City by Julia Dahl
Just months after Rebekah Roberts was born, her mother, an Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend and newborn baby to return to her religion. Neither Rebekah nor her father have heard from her since. Now a recent college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter. But she’s also drawn to the idea of being closer to her mother, who might still be living in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn.
Then Rebekah is called to cover the story of a murdered Hasidic woman. Rebekah’s shocked to learn that, because of the NYPD’s habit of kowtowing to the powerful ultra-Orthodox community, not only will the woman be buried without an autopsy, her killer may get away with murder.
...
Best Paperback Original
*The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same.
Best Thriller
*Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta
When 13-year-old Jace Wilson witnesses a brutal murder, he's plunged into a new life, issued a false identity and hidden in a wilderness skills program for troubled teens. The plan is to get Jace off the grid while police find the two killers. The result is the start of a nightmare.
The killers, known as the Blackwell Brothers, are slaughtering anyone who gets in their way in a methodical quest to reach him. Now all that remains between them and the boy are Ethan and Allison Serbin, who run the wilderness survival program; Hannah Faber, who occupies a lonely fire lookout tower; and endless miles of desolate Montana mountains.
The clock is ticking, the mountains are burning, and those who wish Jace Wilson dead are no longer far behind.
The Macavity Awards
The Macavity Award, named for T.S. Eliot's Macavity: The Mystery Cat, are nominated and voted on by members of Mystery Readers International.
"MRI is the largest mystery fan/reader organization in the world, is open to all readers, fans, critics, editors, publishers, and writers. Started by Janet A Rudolph in Berkeley, California, it now has members in all 50 of the United States and 18 foreign countries."
Best Mystery Novel
*The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood
Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn't, they wouldn't be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash--no credit check, no lease. It's the kind of place you end up when you you've run out of other options.
The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don't know is that one of them is a killer. He's already chosen his next victim, and he'll do anything to protect his secret.
Best First Mystery Novel
*Invisible City by Julia Dahl
Just months after Rebekah Roberts was born, her mother, an Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend and newborn baby to return to her religion. Neither Rebekah nor her father have heard from her since. Now a recent college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter. But she’s also drawn to the idea of being closer to her mother, who might still be living in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn.
Then Rebekah is called to cover the story of a murdered Hasidic woman. Rebekah’s shocked to learn that, because of the NYPD’s habit of kowtowing to the powerful ultra-Orthodox community, not only will the woman be buried without an autopsy, her killer may get away with murder.
...
Best Mystery-Related Nonfiction
*Writes of Passage: Adventures on the Writer's Journey edited by Hank Phillippi Ryan
The path of a writing career can be rocky and twisty and full of dead ends. But it’s also well traveled--and in WRITES OF PASSAGE, 59 mystery authors offer the secrets that helped them navigate their success. When you’re in need of an author’s roadmap, “pick up this book,” as Hank Phillippi Ryan says in the introduction. “Open it to any page. The sisters of SinC have shared their personal journeys—and they have many tales to tell.” These tales reveal the “Writes of Passage” every author encounters, and Sisters in Crime hopes these beautifully told experiences will guide you along your way.
Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award
*Dandy Gilver & A Deadly Measure of Brimstone by Catriona McPherson
Perthshire 1929 and the menfolk of the Gilver family have come down, between them, with influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy. Dandy the devoted wife and mother decides it is time to decamp; Dandy the intrepid detective, however, decides to decamp to the scene of a murder she would dearly love to solve.
The family repairs to the Borders town of Moffat, there to drink the sulphurous waters straight from the well and to submit to the galvanic wraps and cold salt rubs of the splendid Laidlaw Hydropathic Hotel.
But all is not well at the Hydro. The Laidlaw family is at war, the guests are an uneasy mix of old faithfuls and giddy upstarts, and the secret of the lady who arrived but never left cannot be kept for long. And what of those drifting shapes in the Turkish bath? Just steam shifting in the air? Probably. But the Hydro was built in the lee of a Gallow Hill, and in this town the dead can be as much trouble as the living . . .
The Shamus Awards
The Shamus Awards are awarded by the Private Eye Writers of America. Membership is open to fans, writers, and publishing professionals.
A private eye is defined as “as any mystery protagonist who is a professional investigator, but not a police officer or government agent.” So, “private investigators (licensed and unlicensed), lawyers and reporters who do their own legwork, and other hired agents are eligible; works centering on law enforcement officers or amateur sleuths are not.”
Judging is done by "committee members of PWA [who] select nominees and winners, much in the same way as the Edgars are chosen."
The Eye Award for Lifetime Achievement: Parnell Hall
Best P.I. Novel
*Hounded by David Rosenfelt
Andy Carpenter isn't sure what to think when he gets a mysterious phone call from a good friend, policeman Pete Stanton, asking him to drop everything, drive to an unfamiliar address, and bring his girlfriend, Laurie Collins. He certainly isn't expecting to show up at a crime scene. But that's exactly where he arrives--at the house where Pete has just discovered the body of ex-convict Danny Diza. Upstairs are Danny's now orphaned eight-year-old son and basset hound. And that, Andy discovers, is why he and Laurie were called to the scene--Pete wants them to take care of the boy and the dog so they won't get thrown into the "system." This is already asking a lot, but soon Pete needs another big favor from Andy. Pete himself has come under suspicion for Danny's murder, and he needs defense attorney Andy to represent him…and to find out what really happened in Danny's house that day.
Best P.I. Paperback Original
*Moonlight Weeps by Vincent Sandri
Dick Moonlight can't help himself. Moonlight, the private detective known as the head case with a bullet lodged in his brain, should be grateful for his current job. But when it becomes clear the cash-starved brain surgeon he's been hired to drive around is protecting his son from a rape conviction, Moonlight is disgusted. Worse, when the charges turn into a case of "reckless murder," Moonlight's the only one trying to keep the kid from the electric chair though the girl-a state senator's daughter-clearly committed suicide. Then Moonlight and his unwilling assistant, a fat Elvis impersonator owing him money, stumble into a much bigger plot and are soon dodging Hollywood obsessed drug-running Russian thugs, corrupt government officials, and the specter of Moonlight's recently diseased girlfriend. New York Times bestselling author Vincent Zandri delivers another fast-paced, grizzly thriller in the Dick Moonlight series, offering readers plenty of wry humor, bullets, car chases, and Scarface references.
Best First P.I. Novel
*Invisible City by Julia Dahl
Just months after Rebekah Roberts was born, her mother, an Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend and newborn baby to return to her religion. Neither Rebekah nor her father have heard from her since. Now a recent college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter. But she’s also drawn to the idea of being closer to her mother, who might still be living in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn.
Then Rebekah is called to cover the story of a murdered Hasidic woman. Rebekah’s shocked to learn that, because of the NYPD’s habit of kowtowing to the powerful ultra-Orthodox community, not only will the woman be buried without an autopsy, her killer may get away with murder.
...
Best Indie P.I. Novel
*The Shadow Broker by Trace Conger
Finn Harding (Mr. Finn to his clients) specializes in finding people who don't want to be found. Stripped of his PI license, Finn begins working for the type of clientele who operate in the shadows, pay in cash, and don't care if he's licensed or not. As Finn becomes ensnared in a plot to take over a black market information brokerage, he finds himself and his family straddling the thin line between life and death.
With his own clients gunning for him, Finn must evade a psychopathic killer, special agents from the FBI's cybercrime unit, and a Detroit mob boss. Finn is about to find out that working with criminals has its advantages. Staying alive isn't one of them.
The winners are indicated with an asterisk. If you can't find an addition for your to-be-read stack in this list, you really aren't trying very hard!