Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of the 2025 Edgar Allan Poe Awards on May 1. The awards honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2024.

Publishers Weekly reports the ceremony was marred by the use of AI images, and this is being compared with the Worldcon’s own LLM kerfuffle.

An opening video, surveying treatments of the genre on the big and small screen, was narrated by a creepy AI version of Humphrey Bogart, complete with imperfect lip-syncing, later followed by one featuring an even creepier, black cat-holding, artificially-generated Edgar Allan Poe.

The Poe image was also on their program cover.

This year’s Edgar Award winners are:

BEST NOVEL

• The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell (Penguin Random House – Doubleday)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

• Holy City by Henry Wise (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

• The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle (Harlequin Trade Publishing – Park Row Books)

BEST FACT CRIME

• The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson (Penguin Random House – Crown)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

• James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Nathan Ashman (McFarland Publishing)

BEST SHORT STORY

•  “Eat My Moose,” Conjunctions: 82, Works & Days by Erika Krouse (Bard College)

BEST JUVENILE

• Mysteries of Trash and Treasure: The Stolen Key by Margaret Peterson Haddix (HarperCollins – Quill Tree Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

• 49 Miles Alone by Natalie D. Richards (Sourcebooks Fire)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

•  “Episode One” – Monsieur Spade, Written by Tom Fontana & Scott Frank (AMC)

OTHER AWARDS

 ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD 

•  “The Jews on Elm Street,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2024 by Anna Stolley Persky (Dell Magazines)

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD 

• The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)

THE G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD 

• The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear (Soho Press – Soho Crime)

THE LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN MEMORIAL AWARD 

• The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald (Sourcebooks – Poisoned Pen Press)

SPECIAL AWARDS – PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED

GRAND MASTER

• Laura Lippman
• John Sandford

RAVEN AWARD

• Face in a Book Bookstore & Gifts, El Dorado Hills, CA

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD

• Peter Wolverton, Vice President, Executive Editor, St. Martin’s Press