Thursday, May 22, 2014

Congrats to the Agatha Awards Winners Announced on May 3, 2014!

The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the cozy mystery subgenre. They honor the "traditional mystery" - books similar to the works of Agatha Christie. So, think of mysteries that contain no explicit sex or excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Mysteries deemed "hard-boiled" are also not appropriate. At an annual convention in Washington, D. C., they are handed out by Malice Domestic Ltd, in the following six categories:

Best Contemporary Novel -
The Wrong Girl by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Investigating allegations against an adoption agency that is suspected of reuniting adopted children with the wrong birth parents, Jane Ryland finds her efforts suspiciously tied to Jake Brogan's case involving a young woman's brutal murder and the disappearance of a baby.

Best Historical Novel -A Question of Honor by Charles Todd
While tending to the wounded on the battlefields of France during World War I, Bess Crawford discovers that an officer from her father's regiment who had killed five people in India and England is still alive, and sets out to clear her father's name.

Best First Novel -Death Al Dente by Leslie Budewitz
The town of Jewel Bay, Montana—known as a Food Lovers' Village—is obsessed with homegrown and homemade Montana fare. So when Erin Murphy takes over her family’s century-old general store, she turns it into a boutique market filled with local delicacies. But Erin’s freshly booming business might go rotten when a former employee turns up dead.

Best Short Story -"The Care and Feeding of House Plants" by Art Taylor, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2013
A tale about a deadly case of adultery.

Best Nonfiction -
The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower
Presents the true story of the "Baltimore Plot" conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War, tracing the efforts of detective Allan Pinkerton and private eye Kate Warne to identify and stop the would-be killers.

Best Children's/Young Adult Novel -
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Christ Grabenstein
"Twelve-year-old Kyle gets to stay overnight in the new town library, designed by his hero (the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello), with other students but finds that come morning he must work with friends to solve puzzles in order to escape.

Congratulations to all! 

Hope you choose and solve one of these "best" mysteries!

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