Killer Nashville Distinction

The 2026 Killer Nashville Conference announced the finalists for the annual Silver Falchion Award for works published in the previous year. The finalists for the Claymore Award for unpublished manuscripts can be found via this link. Winners will be revealed at an awards dinner during the conference on Saturday, August 22.

Best Action Adventure

• The Terror of Roan by Jodi Bowersox
• Boiling Point by Ley Esses
• No Easy Way Back by Josh Jensen
• Unstoppable by Michael Maloof
• The Fatal Saving Grace: An Ed Earl Burch Novel by Jim Nesbitt
• Eight Minutes by Gregory N Whitis

Best Comedy (includes comedic P.I. and crime caper)

• Blame It On Paris by Helen Aitken
• Love At First Spark by Helen Aitken
• Bye Bye Blackbird by Elizabeth Crowens
• All’s Faire In Love and Murder by Cindy Sample
• In$Urance Blues (A John Smith Mystery) by Charlotte Stuart
• Seams Like The Perfect Crime by Lois Winston

Best Cozy

• Killer Cache by Michelle Bennington
• Tough Fluff - Fluff and Flowers Mystery 1 by Sheryl C.D. Ickes
• Death By  Mistake: A Josiah Reynolds Mystery by Abigail Keam
• Murder On The Green by Christine Knapp
• Airplane, Atlanta & An Assassin by Mary Seifert
• Seven For A Secret Never To Be Told by Derek Wheeless

Best Historical

• Traitor In The Lake by Carol Amorosi
• Time Agents: Alterations by Jodi Bowersox
• No Mercy For The Innocent by Nancy Herriman
• Shroud of Ice by Sharon Krasny
• Needle and Bone by Tonya Mitchell
• Treasures In Time by Susan Reiss

Best Investigator (includes procedural, serious P.I., detective, and noir)

• Chase Harlem by Elise Burke Brown
• Proof by Jon Cowan
• After Pearl by Stephen Eoannou
• Those Who Chose Evil by Kate Flora
• Blood On The Wire by Candace Irving
• Justice For The Forgotten by R. Weir

Best Juvenile / Y.A.

• Knights In Manhattan by Kay DiBianca
• Doppelgänger Jumper by Judy Lyn Gregg
• The Nascent Bloom by Evie Kelley
• Missing Mom by Lynn Slaughter
• Honeysuckle and Bone by Trisha Tobias
• Risky Pursuit by Nancy G. West

Best Literary

• Well-Behaved Children Seldom Make History by Chris Chan
• The Warbler by Sarah Beth Durst
• Eye of The Storm by Charles Gomez
• The Fact Checker by Austin Kelley
• Women Like Us by Katia Lief

Best Mainstream / Commercial

• The Miner's Myth by Russell Johnson
• The Cold Winter: Battle of Niagara Falls by Chris Underwood
• The Butcher and The Liar by SL Woeppel

Best Mystery

• The Demonologists' Legacy by K. Scott Culpepper
• A Dead Draw by Robert Dugoni
• Rule One by Michael Lucker
• Hard Town by Adam Plantinga
• Damage Control by Kirsten Shuford
• Broke Road by Matthew Spencer

Best Nonfiction

• The Villain's Journey-How To Create Villains Readers Love To Hate by Debbie Burke
• Nether Land: High School Temptation, Insurance Haze, Stolen Resolution, and Murder by Kem Hinton
• Beach Blanket Bedlam by John Lamb
• Earthbound: The Obstacles To Human Space Exploration and The Promise of Artificial Intelligence by Dennis Meredith
• Boss Brooks: A True Story of Fraud, Family and Forgiveness From Tennessee To Texas by Kathy Turner

Best Sci-Fi / Fantasy

• Touch of The Elegrian by Cheryl Arko
• Broken Alliance by David E Graham
• Wizard of Most Wicked Ways by Charlie N. Holmberg
• The Moorwitch by Jessica Khoury
• The Violence of Sound by Jeff Wheeler

Best Short Story Collection / Anthology (awarded to individual author or collection editor)

• Shadows of Trust by Traci Abramson
• The Not So Frail Detective Agency by Sandra J Cady
• With Our Bellies Full and The Fire Dying by Debra H. Goldstein
• Gone Fishin': Crime Takes A Holiday by James M. Jackson 
• The Conjurer's Wife by Sarah Penner
• For Every Evil Under The Sun by Zoe Fay-Stindt

Best Southern Gothic

• Ghosts In The Glades by Staci andrea
• The Pilgrim: A Tale of The 3M Detective Agency by Thomas Burns
• Unbroken Circle by C. S. Devereaux
• The Education of Asa Paxton: Coming of Age In The Heart of Dixie by Gary Minder
• The Battle of The Smokehouse by Ashley Thomas Sheikh
• The Wretched and Undone by J. E. Weiner

Best Supernatural

• Haunted By  A Broken Oath by Dee Armstrong
• A Walking Shadow by Teel James Glenn
• Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher
• A Love This Grim by Elora Morgan
• Dead Weight by Richard Rybicki
• Too Cursed To Kiss by J. Morgyn White

Best Suspense

• The Peeper by John Bukowski
• Last Seen by JT Ellison
• The Forbidden Heiress by Gledé Browne Kabongo
• Wyoming Double Jeopardy by Juno Rushdan
• Big Sky Slayer by Juno Rushdan
• Tourist Season by Brynne Weaver

Best Thriller

• Welcome To Cottonmouth by Jay S. Bell
• Line of Succession by David Bruns
• Seraph by Cheryl Fallin
• The Forbidden Strain by Brian Montross
• The Butcher and The Liar by S.L. Woeppel
• All That Lies Beneath by D.L. Wood

Best True Crime

• Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover's Travel Guide To New England by Dawn Barclay
• Junior: A Son of The Gulf Cartel by Mike Chavarria
• The Killing Fields of East New York by Stacy Horn
• Speak Her Name: Stories From A Life In True Crime by Mary Jumbelic
• Down To The Bone by Caitlin Rother

Best Western

• Cut Them Down by T.G. Brown
• The Thunder Head by Dwight Holing