The annual Edgar awards, named for Edgar Allen Poe and bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America, may be the most prestigious honors for mystery writers. This week, at the 78th annual banquet, MWA President Chris Grabenstein described them as “the Oscars of mystery awards.” All the more unfortunate then that female sleuths were thin on the ground among this year’s nominees. Still, the winners are always worth a look.
Award winners featuring female sleuths included:
Best Paperback Original: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Wong, 60, the owner of a failing tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown, is widowed and lonely. Her only son seldom responds to her many daily texts filled with her advice for living his best life. So when she comes downstairs to open the shop one morning and finds a dead body, she figures her connections in Chinatown — and that stockpile of advice — position her far better than the police for finding the murderer.
The book has already received a number of accolades and author Sutanto also writes the popular “Aunties” cozy mystery series.
Best Young Adult: Girl Forgotten by April Henry
Piper Gray, 17, copes with the recent death of her mother and feeling like an outsider in her new home with her dad’s young family by listening to true-crime podcasts. Then she stumbles upon a real-life mystery involving the unsolved 17-year-old murder of a girl who attended her high school. When she decides to start her own podcast about the death of Layla Trello, she gets the attention of a killer who wants nothing more than to shut her up.
The author, Henry, is a prolific Young Adult author who has won a number of awards for her work.
The G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award: An Evil Heart by Linda Castillo
It’s the 15th outing for Kate Burkholder, police chief of Painter’s Mill, Ohio, a rural Amish community. In this case, she’s tracking the killer of a well-liked young Amish man from a good family. Who would want to violently murder Aden Karn with a crossbow to the throat? Burkholder, who grew up Amish but left the community, knows all too well that secrets are plentiful in the seemingly peaceful society.
Castillo‘s stories about Burkholder have won numerous awards and her first novel, Sworn to Silence, was adapted into a Lifetime original movie starring Neve Campbell.
The Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award: Glory Be by Danielle Arceneaux
Glory Broussard is a cranky bookie of a certain age — not yet old enough for Social Security is all she’ll allow —and former beauty queen, Miss Lafayette, Louisiana, “colored division” winner. She’s collecting bets in her usual coffee shop spot after church when a call comes in that her best friend has been found dead. Police see a simple suicide but Glory isn’t convinced, and she sets out to uncover the truth.
This debut mystery by Arceneaux has won various accolades for the originality of its protagonist and her smart commentary on aging, race and relationships. I lauded the book in my review.
See the full list of this year’s nominees here and read about the winners here. I also wrote about the nominees (and the criteria for the Sue Grafton and Lilian Jackson Braun awards) when they were announced in this post.
FemaleSleuths.com 