Macavity Award 2008 Nominees announced

for 2008

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 nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in four categories.

The year listed is the year of the award, for books published in the previous year.

Best Mystery Novel:

• Reed Farrel Coleman: Soul Patch (Bleak House)
• John Connolly: The Unquiet (Hodder & Stoughton*/Atria)
• David Corbett: Blood of Paradise (Ballantine Mortalis)
• Deborah Crombie: Water Like a Stone (Morrow)
• Laura Lippman: What the Dead Know (Morrow)

Best First Mystery:

• Tana French: In the Woods (Hodder & Stoughton*/Viking)
• Joe Hill: Heart-Shaped Box (William Morrow)
• Lisa Lutz: The Spellman Files (Simon & Schuster)
• Tim Maleeny: Stealing the Dragon (Midnight Ink)
• Matt Beynon Rees: The Collaborator of Bethlehem (Soho)
  

Best Mystery Short Story:

• Donna Andrews: "A Rat's Tale" (EQMM, Sep-Oct 2007)
• Rhys Bowen: "Please Watch Your Step" (The Strand Magazine, Spring 2007)
• Jon L. Breen: "The Missing Elevator Puzzle" (EQMM, Feb 2007)
• Beverle Graves Myers: "Brimstone P.I." (AHMM, May 2007)
• Gillian Roberts: "The Old Wife's Tale" (EQMM, Mar-Apr 2007)
  

Best Mystery Non-Fiction:

• Barry Forshaw: Rough Guide to Crime Fiction (Penguin Rough Guides)
• Jean Gould O'Connell: Chester Gould: A Daughter's Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy (McFarland & Company)
• Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower & Charles Foley, editors: Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters (HarperPress*/Penguin)
• Lee Lofland: Police Procedure and Investigation: A Guide for Writers (Howdunit Series, Writers Digest Books)
• Roger Sobin, editor/compiler: The Essential Mystery Lists: For Readers, Collectors, and Librarians (Poisoned Pen Press)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery:

• Rhys Bowen: Her Royal Spyness (Penguin)
• Ariana Franklin: Mistress of the Art of Death (Putnam)
• Jason Goodwin: The Snake Stone (Faber & Faber*/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Clare Langley-Hawthorne: Consequences of Sin (Viking*/Penguin)
• Joyce Carol Oates: The Gravedigger's Daughter (HarperCollins Ecco)

The awards will be presented during opening ceremonies at Bouchercon, which is the largest mystery writers conference.

This year's Bouchercon, Charmed to Death, will be Oct. 9-13 in Baltimore.

Guests of Honor

Lawrence Block, Distinguished Contribution to the Genre
Laura Lippman, American Guest of Honor
John Harvey, International Guest of Honor
Mark Billingham, Toastmaster
Robert Rosenwald & Barbara Peters, Lifetime Achievement Award
Thalia Proctor, Fan Guest of Honor