It’s such a thrill to learn that my story “Parallel Play” has been named a finalist for this year’s Macavity Award for Best Short Story—yikes!—and alongside such terrific writers as Lawrence Block, Craig Faustus Buck, Greg Herren, Paul D. Marks, and Joyce Carol Oates—double and triple and, well, quintuple yikes!
Thanks to Janet Rudolph and to the members of Mystery Readers International, the subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal and the friends of MRI for helping to nominate this story for this award. And congrats to all my fellow finalists—both in the short story category and throughout this fine list here. Looking forward to toasting all of you in Toronto! (Not individually, I mean—that’s a lot of drinks….)
Best Novel
• You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown)
• Dark Fissures, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview)
• Before the Fall, by Noah Hawley (UK, Hodder & Stoughton; US, Grand Central Publishing)
• Real Tigers, by Mick Herron (UK, John Murray; US, Soho)
• Wilde Lake, by Laura Lippman (Wm. Morrow)
• A Great Reckoning, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
Best First Novel
• The Widow, by Fiona Barton (UK, Bantam; US, NAL)
• Under the Harrow, by Flynn Berry (Penguin)
• Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (No Exit Press)
• IQ, by Joe Ide (Mulholland Books)
• Design for Dying, by Renee Patrick (Forge)
Best Short Story
• “Autumn at the Automat,” by Lawrence Block (In Sunlight or in Shadow, Pegasus Books)
• “Blank Shot,” by Craig Faustus Buck (Black Coffee, Darkhouse Books)
• “Survivor’s Guilt,” by Greg Herren (Blood on the Bayou: Bouchercon Anthology 2016, Down & Out Books)
• “Ghosts of Bunker Hill,” by Paul D. Marks (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Dec. 2016)
• “The Crawl Space,” by Joyce Carol Oates (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Sep.–Oct. 2016)
• “Parallel Play,” by Art Taylor (Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning, Wildside Press)
Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Novel
• A Death Along the River Fleet, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)
• Jane Steele, by Lyndsay Faye (UK: Headline Review; US, G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
• Delivering The Truth, by Edith Maxwell (Midnight Ink)
• The Reek of Red Herrings, by Catriona McPherson (US: Minotaur; UK: Houghton Stodder)
• What Gold Buys, by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Heart of Stone, by James W. Ziskin (Seventh Street Books)
Best Nonfiction
• Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot: How to Write Gripping Stories that Keep Readers on the Edge of Their Seats, by Jane K. Cleland (Writer’s Digest Books)
• Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, by Ruth Franklin (Liveright Publishing)
• Sara Paretsky: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, Margaret Kinsman (McFarland)
• Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula, by David J. Skal (Liveright Publishing)
• The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer, by Kate Summerscale (Penguin)