Mystery Readers International announced the finalists for the 2024 Macavity Awards on May 29.

The Macavity Award is named for the “mystery cat” of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats).

Each year the members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and “friends of MRI” nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in five categories.

MACAVITY NOMINEES 2024

BEST MYSTERY

• Dark Ride by Lou Berney (William Morrow)
• Hide by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron Books)
• Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (Hogarth)
• Murder Book by Thomas Perry (Mysterious)
• Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (Penguin Random House – Doubleday)

BEST FIRST MYSTERY

• The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry (Atria)
• The Golden Gate by Amy Chua (Macmillan Publishing – Minotaur)
• Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy (Zando/Gillian Flynn Books)
• Murder by Degrees by Ritu Mukerji (Simon & Schuster)
• Dutch Threat by Josh Pachter (Genius Book Publishing)
• Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon (William Morrow)

BEST MYSTERY SHORT STORY

• “Real Courage” by Barb Goffman (Black Cat Mystery Magazine #14, Oct. 2023)
• “Green and California Bound” by Curtis Ippolito (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2023)
• “Ticket to Ride” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, (Happiness is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, ed. Josh Pachter, Down & Out Books)
• “Pigeon Tony’s Last Stand” by Lisa Scottoline (Amazon Original Stories)
• “One Night in 1965” by Stacy Woodson (More Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, ed. Michael Bracken, Down & Out Books)

SUE FEDER MEMORIAL AWARD FOR BEST HISTORICAL MYSTERY

• Time’s Undoing by Cheryl Head (Dutton)
• Evergreen by Naomi Hirahara (Soho Crime)
• The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger (Simon & Schuster-Atria Books)
• Our Lying Kin by Claudia Hagadus Long (Kasva Press)
• The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
• The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (Riverhead Books)

BEST MYSTERY-RELATED NONFICTION/CRITICAL 

• Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction by Anjili Babbar (Syracuse University Press)
• Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins & James L. Traylor (Mysterious Press/Penzler Publishers)
• A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak (St. Martin’s Press)
• Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall by Zeke Faux (Crown Currency)
• Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Robert Morgan (LSU Press)