2020 Anthony Award winners

Last night the 2020 Anthony Award winners were announced at the virtual Bouchercon mystery convention.

Winners were selected from nominations by people who registered for Bouchercon 2020 or who attended Bouchercon 2019, or both.

The winners are:

• Best Novel:  THE MURDER LIST by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge). Reviewers on Amazon.com describe this as part legal thriller, part murder mystery with lots of twists and turns and a chilling ending.

• Best First Novel: ONE NIGHT GONE by Tara Laskowski (Graydon House). One sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in Opal Beach ready for a fresh start. Before the end of the summer, she has vanished. Thirty years later, Allison Simpson comes to Opal Beach to house sit and pick up the pieces of her life after a messy divorce.  She learns about Maureen’s disappearance and soon discover that behind the picturesque facades of Opal Beach’s home are dark secrets.
• Best Paperback Original: THE ALCHEMIST’S ILLUSION by Gigi Pandian. Centuries-old alchemist Zoe Faust has settled peacefully in Portland, OR, transforming a fixer up house and a garden while her best friend Dorian the gargoyle chef transforms organic vegetables into mouth-watering meals. then she learns that her former mentor, Nicolas Flamel, has been imprisoned. An artist with a secret that might help is murdered and the painting that holds a clue is stolen. Zoe and Dorian must study art forgery, another transforming process much like alchemy itself. this book has vegan recipes in it. It is the fourth book of the Accidental Alchemist mystery series.
• Best Critical Non-Fiction Work: THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY: HOW DOROTHY L. SAYERS AND HER OXFORD CIRCLE REMADE THE WORLD FOR WOMEN by Mo Moulton. Author Dorothy Sayers, creator of the Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, was among the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Even with an Oxford degree, they faced many personal and professional barriers in society. Calling themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends, collaborators and supporters as they fought for equal standing with their male colleagues in the world.
• Best Short Story: “The Red Zone” by Alex Segura (appearing in ¡PA’QUE TU LO SEPAS!: STORIES TO BENEFIT THE PEOPLE OF PUERTO RICO)
• Best Anthology or Collection: MALICE DOMESTIC 14: MYSTERY MOST EDIBLE, edited by Verena Rose, Rita Owen, and Shawn Reilly Simmons (Wildside Press). This is an anthology of mysteries in the style of Agatha Christie — with a culinary theme.
• Best Young Adult: SEVEN WAYS TO GET RID OF HARRY by Jen Conley (Down & Out Books). Despite his reputation as a kid always finding trouble, Danny Zelko is an enterprising, hard-working kid with one problem: his mother’s hard-drinking, mean boyfriend Harry.  When Danny’s sister Lisa learns their mother is marrying Harry, Danny decides it’s time for action. this story is set in New Jersey in 1983.