Every year, mystery readers, writers and others in the industry select their top picks for best contemporary novel, best historical novel, and best debuts, among others. And while awards don’t always denote greatness, they can help point readers in the direction of good reads.

Here are the latest winners of the three biggest awards contests and how they’re chosen:

The Agatha Awards

Named for Agatha Christie, these awards celebrate the best in the kinds of mysteries typified by the British author. This means no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence. Among this year’s winners:

1. Best Contemporary Novel: A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny. The 18th entry in Penny’s beloved Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries, set in the Canadian village of Three Pines.
2. Best Historical Novel: Because I Could Not Stop for Death, by Amanda Flower. The first in a new series featuring Emily Dickinson and her new maid, Willa Noble, set in 1855.
3. Best First Novel: Cheddar Off Dead, by Korina Moss. A cozy debut starring cheesemonger Willa Bauer, who’s starting over by opening a cheese shop in a small Sonoma Valley town.

Agatha winners are determined by attendees of Malice Domestic, an annual mystery fan convention that’s been meeting since 1989. Five nominees are selected for each category so you can check out all the books nominated this year, and the other three categories, here.

Want even more? To see a downloadable list of nominees and winners for all categories since the awards began in 1988, click here.

The Anthony Awards

This annual contest honors Anthony Boucher, an American author, critic and editor of mystery stories. This year’s winners:

1. Best Novel: Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett. Grad student Lena Scott isn’t satisfied when police label the death of her half sister, a Black reality TV star, a suicide. NPR called the book “noir for the media-struck generation.”
2. Best First Novel: The Maid by Nita Prose. Just the latest award for Prose’s story of a neurodivergent maid who discovers a hotel guest dead in his bed and finds herself the prime suspect.
3. Best Paperback/Audiobook/E-Book Original: The Quarry Girls by Jess Lourey. It’s 1977 and two friends in small-town Minnesota stumble on a secret one night that may held the key to the disappearance of two girls.
4. Best Humorous Book: Scot in a Trap by Catriona McPherson. The fifth mystery starring Scottish family therapist Lexy Campbell and other residents of the Last Ditch Motel in Cuento, Calif.
5. Best Historical Mystery: Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris. Two Black sisters flee the Jim Crow segregation of Jackson, Miss., in 1964 for different reasons and in different directions. But there’s someone in pursuit.

Winners of the Anthony Awards are nominated and chosen by attendees of Bouchercon, the annual mystery convention for mystery readers, writers, publishers, editors, agents, booksellers and other lovers of crime fiction. You can see the nominees and winners of the awards, given since 1986, here.

The Edgar Awards

The Edgars are named after the “patron saint” of the Mystery Writers of America, Edgar Allen Poe. The group includes mystery writers and those who aspire to be, along with publishers, editors and literary agents. This year’s winners:

1. Best Novel: Notes on an Execution by Danya Kufafka. While a serial killer on death row ticks down his last 12 hours, we learn the story of his life through the women in it, including his victims.
2. Best First Novel by an American Author: Don’t Know Tough by Eli Cranor. Described as “Friday Night Lights gone dark with Southern Gothic,” this tale mixes child abuse, football and religion in small-town Arkansas.
3. Best Paperback Original: Or Else by Joe Hart. A writer returns to his New York hometown to care for his ailing father, begins an affair with a friend — and becomes a suspect when her husband is killed.

Perhaps the most respected of the mystery awards, the Edgars are selected by volunteer committees of professional writers and announced at the group’s annual convention.

Two more awards selected by the Mystery Writers of America deserve mention:

The Sue Grafton Memorial Award honors the best novel in a series featuring a female protagonist. The award winner should reflect the qualities of Grafton’s writing and her popular sleuth, Kinsey Milhone: “a woman with quirks but also with a sense of herself, with empathy but also with savvy, intelligence, and wit.” This year’s winner: Hideout by Louisa Luna.

The Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award honors the bestselling author of the “Cat Who” series and is given to the best contemporary cozy mystery book in a modern day setting. This year’s winner: Buried in a Good Book by Tamara Berry.