Macavity Magic

The 2026 Macavity Award finalists were announced today. The award is named after "Macavity: The Mystery Cat," in T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, and is nominated and voted on by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI. Winners will be announced in the Fall. Congratulations to all!

Best Mystery Novel

• Crooks by Lou Berney (William Morrow)
• King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron Books)
• Clown Town by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
• River of Lies by James L'Etoile (Oceanview Publishing)
• The White Crow by Michael Robotham (Scribner)
• All This Could Be Yours by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Minotaur Books)

Best First Mystery

• Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Minotaur Books)
• Dead Money by Jakob Kerr (Bantam Books)
• Voices of the Elysian Fields by Michael Rigg (Level Best Books)
• Stillwater by Tanya Scott (Grove Atlantic)
• History Lessons by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Press)

Best Mystery Nonfiction

• Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover's Travel Guide to New England by Dawn M. Barclay (Level Best Books)
• Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation by Michael Cannell (Minotaur Books)
• Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser (Penguin Press)
• V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie's Chemicals of Death by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury Sigma)
• Edgar Allan Poe: A Life by Richard Kopley (University of Virginia Press)
• Cooler than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard by C.M. Kushins (Mariner Books)

Best Mystery Short Story

•  “Six-Armed Robbery” by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier (in Donna Andrews Presents Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Carla Coupe, and Michael Bracken, Wildside Press)
• “Hollywood Prometheus” by Christa Faust (in Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West, Bywater Books)
• “Finding Jimmy Baldwin” by Cheryl Head (in Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West, Bywater Books)
• “The Devil Himself” by Vaseem Khan (in Double Crossing Van Dine, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor, Crippen & Landru Publishers)
• “The Skies Are Red” by Richie Narvaez (in On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology, edited by Curtis Ippolito, Rock and a Hard Place Press)
• “Julius Katz Draws a Straight Flush” by Dave Zeltserman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2025)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery

• Bye Bye Blackbird by Elizabeth Crowens (Level Best Books)
• A Daughter's Guide to Mothers and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Books)
• City Lights by Claire M. Johnson (Level Best Books)
• The Case of the Christie Conspiracy by Kelly Oliver (Boldwood Books)
• The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler (Kensington Books)
• No. 10 Doyers Street by Radha Vatsal (Level Best Books)