AGATHA AWARDS
Named in Honor of Agatha Christie

The 2011 Agatha Awards will be given for materials first published in the United States by a living author during the calendar year 2011 (January 1-December 31), either in hardcover, as a paperback original, or e-published by an e-publishing firm.

The Agatha Awards honor the "traditional mystery." That is to say, books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie as well as others. For our purposes, the genre is loosely defined as mysteries that:

• contain no explicit sex
• contain no excessive gore or gratuitous violence

Materials generally classified as "hard-boiled" are not appropriate.

All attendees registered by December 31, 2011 for Malice Domestic 24 will receive a nomination form in January asking for their ranked choices for nominees in each Agatha Award category.  All nomination forms received by the stated deadline will be tallied by the Agatha Committee who will also ensure the nominated books meet the Malice requirements.  The top choices (typically five) in each category will become the proposed ballot submitted to the Malice Board of Directors for final review.  Once the proposed ballot is final, the nominees will be announced in February.

A ballot listing each category's nominees will be given to all attendees of Malice Domestic 24, which will be held April 27-29, 2012. Attendees will vote by secret ballot, the ballots will be tabulated and the winners will be announced at the 2011 Agatha Awards banquet to be held on Saturday, April 28, 2012.

For further inquiries and questions, please contact the Agatha Awards Committee Chair, Marian Lesko at Malice23Agathas@aol.com.

Agatha Award Nominees

* denotes winner. Congratulations to all the nominees!

2010

Best Novel:
Stork Raving Mad by Donna Andrews (Minotaur)
* Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard (Ballantine)
Drive Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Mira)
Truly, Madly by Heather Webber (St. Martin's Paperbacks)

Best First Novel:
* The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames (Berkley)
Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden (Obsidian)
Maid of Murder by Amanda Flower (Five Star/Gale)
Full Mortality by Sasscer Hill (Wildside Press)
Diamonds for the Dead by Alan Orloff (Midnight Ink)

Best Non-fiction:
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum (Penguin)
* Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: 50 Years of Mysteries in the Making by John Curran (Harper)
Sherlock Holmes for Dummies by Stephen Doyle & David A. Crowder (For Dummies)
Have Faith in Your Kitchen by Katherine Hall Page (Orchises Press)
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton & Co.)

Best Short Story:
"Swing Shift" by Dana Cameron, Crimes by Moonlight (Berkley)
"Size Matters" by Sheila Connolly, Thin Ice (Level Best Books)
"Volunteer of the Year" by Barb Goffman, Chesapeake Crimes: They Had it Comin' (Wildside Press)
* "So Much in Common" by Mary Jane Maffini, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - Sept./Oct. 2010
"The Green Cross" by Liz Zelvin, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - August 2010

Best Children's/Young Adult:
Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer by John Grisham (Dutton Children's)
Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus by R. L. LaFevers (Houghton Mifflin)
The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee (Candlewick)
Virals by Kathy Reichs (Razorbill)
* The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith (Atheneum)

Past Agatha Winners (1988-2009)
Winners of the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Poirot Award are listed on the About Malice page.

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