Macavity Awards Announced at Bouchercon 2009

November 6, 4:28 AMMystery Series ExaminerCarol Thomas

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Attendees at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention who vote to select the winners of the Anthony Awards also have the opportunity to attend several ceremonies in which other groups chose the winners of awards they issue. Mystery Readers International, an organization described on its website as "the largest mystery fan/reader organization in the world," used Bouchercon 2009 as the venue for the presentation of its 2009 Macavity Awards, which are listed below.

Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel:  Deborah Crombie: Where Memories Lie

Crombie, a Texas native, has garnered high praise for her skill in creating a very British series featuring Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. In Where Memories Lie, the 12th title in that series, Detective Inspector Gemma James' friendship with Holocaust survivor Erika Rosenthal leads her into an investigation of missing family heirlooms and murder.

Macavity Award for Best First Mystery:  Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first volume in a trilogy Larsson completed shortly before his 2004 death. The "Girl" is Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old with a mysterious past and a talent for investigatory research. Salander joins forces with journalist Mikael Blomkvist to learn why, forty years previously, the wealthy heiress Harriet Vanger disappeared. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo also received the 2009 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.

Macavity Award for Best Nonfiction/Critical:  Frankie Y. Bailey:  African American Mystery Writers: A Historical & Thematic Study

Bailey's critical survey provides an analysis of the works of modern African American mystery writers by  establishing their relationship to African American literature on crime and justice. Bailey combines a historical overview of the subject with an analysis of contemporary authors.


Macavity Award for Best Mystery Short Story:  Dana Cameron: "The Night Things Changed"

Published in the anthology Wolfsbane & Mistletoe, Cameron's short story "The Night Things Changed" features private eye Gerry Steuben, a werewolf, and his sister Claudia, a vampire. They work together to find a serial killer among the members of the Fangborn, a secret society dedicated to protecting humankind.

Macavity Award for the Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery:  Rhys Bowen: A Royal Pain

Bowen, who has also authored the Constable Evan Evans series and the Molly Murphy series, began her newer Her Royal Spyness series in 2007. In this second volume of the series set in 1930s London, impoverished Lady Georgie must keep her cleaning business a secret from her aristocratic family while she endeavors, at the Queen's request, to entertain a visiting princess.

About Mystery Readers International (MRI)

Anyone with an interest in mystery fiction may join Mystery Readers International. The organization, founded by Janet A. Rudolph, issues a quarterly publication, Mystery Readers Journal. All MRI members may vote each year to select the winners of the organization's Macavity Awards.