The Agatha Awards are bestowed upon crime fiction and nonfiction works centered on the mystery to be solved, rather than the violence that surrounds the deeds. This year’s awards were handed out in person in late April, 2023, and are indicated in red.
Best Contemporary Novel “Bayou Book Thief” by Ellen Byron “Death By Bubble Tea” by Jennifer J. Chow “Fatal Reunion” by Annette Dashofy “Dead Man’s Leap” by Tina de Bellegarde “A World of Curiosities” by Louise Penny
Best Historical Novel “The Counterfeit Wife” by Mally Becker “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Amanda Flower “The Lindbergh Nanny” by Mariah Fredericks “In Place of Fear” by Catriona McPherson “Under a Veiled Moon” by Karen Odden
Best First Novel “Cheddar Off Dead” by Korina Moss “Death in the Aegean” by M. A. Monnin “The Bangalore Detectives Club” by Harini Nagendra “Devil’s Chew Toy” by Rob Osler “The Finalist” by Joan Long “The Gallery of Beauties” by Nina Wachsman
Best Short Story(Click on the blue titles to read the stories or find where to buy them) “Beauty and the Beyotch” by Barb Goffman (Sherlock Holmes Magazine, Feb. 2022) “There Comes a Time” by Cynthia Kuhn, Malice Domestic Murder Most Diabolical “Fly Me to the Morgue” by Lisa Q Mathews, Malice Domestic Mystery Most Diabolical “The Minnesota Twins Meet Bigfoot” by Richie Narvaez, Land of 10,000 Thrills “The Invisible Band” by Art Taylor, Edgar & Shamus Go Golden Best Children’s/YA Mystery “Daybreak on Raven Island” by Fleur Bradley “In Myrtle Peril” by Elizabeth C. Bunce “#shedeservedit” by Greg Herren “Sid Johnson and the Phantom Slave Stealer” by Frances Schoonmaker “Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade” by Nancy Springer
The winners of the Agatha Awardsfor 2021 Books (named for Agatha Christie) have been announced. The nominated books were first published in the United States by a living author between January 1 and December 31, 2021. The awards were given to mystery and crime writers during the live MaliceDomestic conference on April 23, 2022.
The Agatha Awards recognize the “traditional mystery,” meaning that there is no graphic sex and no excessive violence in the writing. Thrillers or hard-boiled detectives cannot be found here, but instead, picture Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot at work.
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners (winners indicated in red)!
Best Contemporary Novel Cajun Kiss of Death by Ellen Byron Watch Her by Edwin Hill The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny Her Perfect Life by Hank Phillippi Ryan Symphony Road by Gabriel Valjan
Best Historical Novel Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day The Devil’s Music by Gabriel Valjan
Best First Novel The Turncoat’s Widow by Mally Becker A Dead Man’s Eyes by Lori Duffy Foster Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala Murder in the Master by Judy L. Murray Mango, Mambo, and Murder by Raquel V. Reyes
Best Short Story “A Family Matter” by Barb Goffman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine Jan/Feb 2021) “A Tale of Two Sisters” by Barb Goffman in Murder on the Beach (Destination Murders) “Doc’s at Midnight” by Richie Narvaez in Midnight Hour (Crooked Lane Books) “The Locked Room Library” by Gigi Pandian (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine July/Aug 2021) “Bay of Reckoning” by Shawn Reilly Simmons in Murder on the Beach (Destination Murders)
Best Non-Fiction The Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice by Jan Brogan Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter by Chris Chan The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge, and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England by Julie Kavanaugh How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America by MWA with editors Lee Child and Laurie R. King
Best Children’s/YA Mystery Cold-Blooded Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur I Play One on TV by Alan Orloff Leisha’s Song by Lynn Slaughter Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer
Edith Maxwell writes award-winning short stories, has several series of full-length mysteries out and has been nominated for Agatha Awards in both the Short Story and Historical Fiction categories for 2017’s Malice Domestic mystery conference. At this writing, she has eleven published novels since 2012 under the names Tace Baker, Maddie Day, and Edith Maxwell, with #12 due out next month. She is working on three more to be published in the near future. She is the one of the most prolific traditionally published authors I know and she is loving all of it!
I first met Edith at a Writers Police Academy conference in the Fall of 2012. At the time, she had just published her first Lauren Rousseau title, “Speaking of Murder,” as Tace Baker. I was hooked by the intelligent, worldly, complex female lead character. She attended WPA in order to research police procedure, and also gathered tons of information about firefighters and EMS personnel that she might use in future novels.
Edith Maxwell, Liz Mugavero – WPA 2012
While following her career the last few years, it’s become apparent that solid research underpins all her books. Happily, combined with her own personal experiences, the result is richly developed backgrounds and storylines.
For the Country Store series, Maxwell took a trip to Indiana in order to investigate the setting, special southern Indiana phrasing (“I can’t eat another bite ’cause I’m as full as a tick”), and foods specific to the region. As it happens, she was also returning to the area of her grad school days and the site of a university packed with her own Maxwell family history. Friends of hers in the grad program had restored an old country store and turned it into a restaurant and bed & breakfast, the basis for Robbie Jordan’s ‘Pans ‘N Pancakes’ establishment in the series. In addition, Maxwell loves to cook and there are virtual cooking lessons woven throughout the stories as well as yummy recipes to be found.
Fun fact: my mom had an amazing collection of antique cookware, so when Robbie chats about the vintage pieces in her store, I can see the tools in my mind’s eye. Maxwell/Day’s details? Wonderful!
The Local Foods series features an organic farmer as the lead character, and guess what? Edith ran her own small certified organic farm for a few years and that expertise infuses the series with effortless realism. Readers can pick up tips about what it takes to grow produce organically, both the pitfalls and the plusses, while enjoying the cleverly crafted mysteries.
The Quaker Midwife series is a project close to Edith’s heart. She is a Quaker herself and some of the history and the daily practices of the Society of Friends have found their way into this series. Maxwell now lives in Amesbury, Massachusetts where the books are set, and the local history influenced her short story writing. One of the short stories became the impetus for a 19th c. midwife character. Rose Carroll, the Quaker midwife, is perfectly placed to be a sleuth, since she gets to go where men (and the police) can’t in 1888, and hears all kinds of secrets that help solve the crimes. Beautifully written, “Delivering the Truth” is well-deserving of the Agatha historical mystery nomination this year.
Click on the link to check out Maxwell’s YouTube video of a walking tour of Amesbury, Massachusetts. Maxwell is wearing an authentic self-made 1888 dress and bonnet while she conducts the tour and chats about the sites mentioned in “Delivering the Truth.” What a fun and terrific way to launch a series!
Plus, as Maddie Day, Edith has a new cozy foodie mystery series, Cozy Capers Book Group, set on Cape Cod. “Murder on Cape Cod” will be the first title launched in 2018. The lead character runs a bicycle repair and rental shop and hosts a weekly cozy mystery book group. My dad’s family came from the Cape, and I’m looking forward to reading Maxwell/Day’s take on the region.
So, how does she keep up this writing pace and still maintain the quality in her books? First, she is doing what she loves. She has a writing schedule for each day – mornings are the best for her – but when a deadline looms, she sometimes goes away for a few days on retreat. She turns off the internet so that there are no distractions at all and she can write from dawn ‘til midnight if she needs to. When slipping away to a retreat, Maxwell likes to take along comfy clothes, walking shoes, a laptop, a favorite pen, and an actual paper notebook. Oh, and of course, wine and dark chocolate. 🙂
Maxwell writes traditional mysteries with absorbing puzzles to solve, and appealing characters that engage us on every page. With strong female leads, fascinating details, and multi-layered plots, this is an author we want to follow, wherever (or whenever) she leads us.
Read the review of “A Tine to Live, A Tine to Die,” (Local Foods series) here.
Read the review of “Grilled for Murder,” (Country Store series) here (written as Maddie Day)
Read review of “Delivering the Truth” (Quaker Midwife series) here. 🙂
“Delivering the Truth” has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Historical Mystery. And “The Mayor and the Midwife” has been nominated for an Agatha for Best Short Story. Read the short story here.
Edith Maxwell is a member of the Wicked Cozy Authors, the New England gals that share writing advice and their own experiences every week at www.wickedcozyauthors.com. She also writes with Killer Characters, and with the Midnight Inkauthors.
For more information about Ms. Maxwell and her many projects, please visit www.edithmaxwell.com
*2020 Great News Department: Edith Maxwell won an Agatha Award for “Charity’s Burden,” a Quaker Midwife mystery. Congratulations!!!!
‘Stan’ (short for Kristan) Connor leaves Hartford, Connecticut after being unfairly downsized from her high paying, high pressure PR job. It’s time to take a breather from the fast lane and move her life in a different direction. When she arrives at her newly purchased Victorian in Frog Ledge, a town so small that everybody knows your business before you say hello for the first time, she knows she is home.
Her boyfriend doesn’t agree, and pressures her to get another job ASAP before she regrets her decision. Plus, he’s not happy about the commute to see her. He keeps trying to arrange job interviews for her, despite her protests. Not needed, not wanted. She has two years severance pay, after all. This pair is definitely not on the same page.
Stan soon finds herself in a fix when she visits the obnoxious town vet with her Maine coon, Nutty. The vet is dead; kibble sprinkled over her body, and hardly anybody misses her. Stan is a suspect in the murder, just because she found the body. Well, small town people do have to blame the outsiders, don’t they? 😉
As Kristan seeks to clear herself in “Kneading to Die,” she finds it hard to know whom to trust. Even her childhood friend, an animal rescuer and now the owner of Pet’s Last Chance, Nikki Manning, comes under suspicion as the case unfolds. But, then Nikki delivers some inside info about the deceased and a possible motive for the vet’s death.
Colorful characters (and suspects) abound, including alpaca farmers/bed & breakfast owners, a sweetshop owner, dairy farmers, gossipy townspeople, long-lost relatives, a homeopathic vet, and more.
Kristan bakes healthy treats for pets, made from scratch like people cookies, but without the additives usually found in commercial cat and dog food. One of my mother’s cats suffered with clumps of hair falling out, traced back to his completely canned diet. As soon as mom put him on a diet of home cooked fish and other fresh goodies, the condition cleared up. Mugavero is definitely onto something with this aspect of “Kneading to Die,” and has generously included recipes for dog and kitty treats at end of the book.
The hunky potential love interest, Jake McGee, owns a seemingly untrainable, sloppy, big dog that loves Stan’s treats and shows up on her doorstep at odd hours, waiting to get fed. The dog keeps throwing Kristan and Jake together, at times embarrassing them both.
The underlying theme of this dog-and-cat-filled cozy is advocacy for animals. Mugavero weaves the nasty side of pet sales, abandoned animals, questionable veterinarian policies, badly prepared pet food, etc. into the murder plotline and raises awareness of the real-life issues involved. Fortunately, the unpleasant side of the pet industry is balanced with the warm, caring behavior of the assorted animal lovers in “Kneading to Die.”
P.S. If you’ve ever owned a cat or a dog, you’ll find the descriptions of the animals in “Kneading to Die” hilarious and spot-on. I was checking a detail at the beginning of the book and reread about Nutty’s tail delivering opinions – still sooo funny. Mugavero clearly knows her animals.
“Kneading to Die” is the first book in Pawsitively Organic series, and happily, Kristan Connor will be back in the next.
