Agatha Award
Best Nonfiction
1993 The Doctor, the Murder, the Mystery by Barbara D'Amato
Chronicles the experiences of Dr. Branion, who in 1968 was accused and convicted of killing his wife and who, despite the prosecution's knowledge of his innocence, endured more than twenty years of appeals and jail time before he was vindicated. Reprint.
1995 Mystery Reader's Walking Guide by Alzina Stone Dale1998 Detecting Men Pocket Guide by Willetta L. Heising
2000 The American Regional Mystery by Marvin Lachman
Best Novel
1989 Something Wicked by Carolyn G. Hart
Mystery bookstore owner, Annie, turns sleuth to protect her beloved from an accusation of murder on the set of the local production of "Arsenic and Old Lace."
1990 Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters
"Naked in the Ice" is the book that propelled author Kathleen Darcy to fame. Now her estate is looking for a writer to pen the sequel. Jacqueline Kirby inherits Kathleen's pen, and with it, portions of Kathleen's life, including her ex-lover, her papers...and maybe the method of Kathleen's untimely death.
1991 Bum Steer by Nancy Pickard
Jenny Carr, director of the Port Frederick Civic Foundation, travels west to accept a bequest of a four-million-dollar Kansas cattle ranch from a generous benefactor. When she arrives, Jenny discover a dead philanthropist, and a murder to be solved.
1992 I.O.U. by Nancy Pickard
Following her mother's funeral, Jenny Cain investigates her family's past. Refused a leave of absence from her foundation, she resigns and is almost killed in what appears to be a suicide attempt.
1993 Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron
Although in the midst of a hotly contested judiciary election, candidate Deborah Knott investigates a murder case that has gone unsolved for 18 years.
1994 Dead Man's Island by Carolyn G. Hart
Retired journalist, Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, travels to her former lover's private island off the South Carolina Coast to find out who has been trying to kill him.
1995 She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb
In the Appalachian community of Dark Hollow, Tennessee some believe the hills are still haunted by a woman kidnapped 200 years ago by the Shawnee. When a convicted murderer escapes from prison and heads home to the wife who divorced him, policewoman Martha Ayres must put superstitions to rest and stop the real flesh-and-blood predator before he kills again. An entry in McCrumb's acclaimed Ballad series, which also includes "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter", and "The Rosewood Casket".
1996 If I'd Killed Him When I'd Met Him... by Sharyn McCrumb
Elizabeth MacPherson, forensic anthropologist, must help her brother Bill with some of his law cases.
1997 Up Jumps the Devil by Margaret Maron
Now a judge, Deborah Knott is back and dealing with the murder of a old farmer. It's a small, small world, particularly in the South, and as luck would have it, Deborah has personal connections to most of the participants in the case.
1998 The Devil in Music by Kate Ross
Murder among the Italian aristocracy brings dandy English sleuth Julian Kestral running. It seems that Marchese Lodovico Malvezzi's suicide four years earlier was actually a homicide, and the culprit may have been his wife.
1999 Butchers Hill by Laura Lippman
Tess Monaghan has finally made the move and hung out the shingle as a P.I.-for-hire, complete with an office in Butchers Hill. Her first client is Luther Beale, the notorious vigilante who five years ago shot a boy for vandalizing his car, just sprung from jail. He wants to make reparations to the kids who witnessed his crime for his own peace of mind, so he needs Tess to find them. But once she starts snooping, the witnesses she locates start dying. Is the "Butcher of Butchers Hill" as it again? Or is there another, even more sinister force at work?
First Mystery Novel
1989 A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
The quiet life of the Yorkshire countryside is shattered by a brutal murder and the shocking revelations unearthed by Scotland Yard investigators Barbara Havers and Thomas Lynsley.
1990 Grime and Punishment by Jill Churchill
Life in the suburbs, contrary to rumor, is not exactly a bed of roses. When Jane Jeffrey's best friend's cleaning lady is found dead, Jane begins to ponder just how many secrets a cleaning lady could know--which leads her to a ring of domestic blackmailers and breath-taking suspense.
1991 Body in the Belfry by Katherine Hall Page
Ex-Manhattanite Faith Fairchild copes not only with the culture shock of the Massachusetts village in which she, her minister husband, and their baby have settled, but with the shock of finding a woman's body in the church's belfry.
1992 Zero at the Bone by Mary Willis Walker
A mysterious and miraculous correspondence from her long-lost zookeeper father may be the last hope for Katherine Driscoll to save her dog kennel and her pet golden retriever from being auctioned by the bank.
1993 Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr
A stunning mystery set against the high-country trails of the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas, where the age-old battle of man against nature is fought with a frightening twist. Anna Pigeon has fled New York and her memories to find work as a ranger in the country's national parks. In the remote backcountry of West Texas, however, she discovers murder and violence. Fellow park ranger Sheila Drury is mysteriously killed, presumably by a mountain lion. But the deep claw marks Anna finds across Drury's throat and the paw prints surrounding the body are too perfect to be real. Suspicious from the start and eager to prevent the needless slaughter of her beloved cougars, Anna can't let the matter rest. The disappearance of another ranger and the frightening reality of a hiking "accident" of her own convince Anna that something is very wrong. Following a trail with few leads, Anna must confront the dark side of the desert. As she comes closer to the truth, she realizes that whatever is stalking the land she loves is now stalking her as well. Atmospheric, evocative, and rich in the mysterious secrets of the Southwestern wilderness, Track of the Cat marks the mystery debut of a superior writer.
1994 Do Unto Others by Jeff Abbott
Jordan Poteet has left the big city to work as a librarian in his hometown of Mirabeau, Texas. But his dream of the quiet life is shattered when he locks horns with Miss Beta Harcher, the town's prize religious fanatic, in a battle over censorship. When Jordan finds her murdered body in the library, he becomes the prime suspect. And when the police find a cryptic list stashed next to her fanatical heart, it seems as if Beta Harcher has the whole town in a death grip . . .
1997 Murder on a Girls' Night Out by Anne George
Sisters Mary Alice and Patricia Anne could hardly be more different. Oversized, over impulsive, multiple widow Mary Alice is about to buy a country western pub since she and her boyfriend hang out there anyway. Serious, respectable, ex-schoolteacher Patricia Anne thinks her sister is out of her cotton-pickin' mind. When the body of the owner is found strangled just before the final papers are to be signed, the sisters decide to cooperate on a murder investigation.
1998 The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey
Japanese-American Rei Shimura is an underpaid English-language teacher who lives in a particularly sleazy part of Tokyo. Understandably, she jumps at the chance to get out of town for a while, and embarks on a trip to a resort in the mountains. Upon her arrival, however, she finds that the resort is nowhere near as nice as advertised--and that's before she stumbles upon the corpse in the sauna.
1999 The Doctor Digs a Grave by Robin Hathaway
When Dr. Fenimore helps bury a young teenager's cat in an old Native American grave site, he finds more than either of them expected--a fresh grave with the body of a woman buried in a ritualistic manner. Their journey through New Jersey takes them on a winding trail filled with an unusual cast of characters, and ends with a resolution that only Dr. Fenimore's expertise could provide.
2000 Death Dances to a Reggae Beat by Kate Grilley
The general manager of a top-rated radio station on the Caribbean island of St. Chris, Kelly Ryan is delighted by her new life in a tropical island paradise, until she stumbles upon the corpse of a tourist, a loud-mouthed woman found impaled by a spear. Original.