Killer Nashville's Thrills

This weekend, the 2026 Killer Nashville Conference announced the winners of the annual Silver Falchion Award for works published in the previous year. The winners for the Claymore Award for unpublished manuscripts can be found via this link. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

Best Action Adventure:  Boiling Point by Ley Esses

Other finalists:

• The Terror of Roan by Jodi Bowersox
• 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):  Seams Like The Perfect Crime by Lois Winston

Other finalists: 

• 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

Best Cozy:  Seven For A Secret Never To Be Told by Derek Wheeless

Other finalists: 

• 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

Best Historical:  Traitor In The Lake by Carol Amorosi

Other finalists: 

• 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

Other finalists: 

• 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.:  The Nascent Bloom by Evie Kelley

Other finalists: 

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

Best Literary:  Women Like Us by Katia Lief

Other finalists: 

• 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

Best Mainstream / Commercial:  The Cold Winter: Battle of Niagara Falls by Chris Underwood

Other finalists: 

• The Miner's Myth by Russell Johnson
• The Butcher and The Liar by SL Woeppel

Best Mystery:  Damage Control by Kirsten Shuford

Other finalists: 

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

Best Nonfiction:  Boss Brooks: A True Story of Fraud, Family and Forgiveness From Tennessee To Texas by Kathy Turner

Other finalists: 

• 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

Best Sci-Fi / Fantasy:  The Moorwitch by Jessica Khoury

Other finalists: 

• Touch of The Elegrian by Cheryl Arko
• Broken Alliance by David E Graham
• Wizard of Most Wicked Ways by Charlie N. Holmberg
• 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

Other finalists: 

• 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:  The Education of Asa Paxton: Coming of Age In The Heart of Dixie by Gary Minder

Other finalists: 

• 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 Battle of The Smokehouse by Ashley Thomas Sheikh
• The Wretched and Undone by J. E. Weiner

Best Supernatural:  Dead Weight by Richard Rybicki

Other finalists: 

• 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
• Too Cursed To Kiss by J. Morgyn White

Best Suspense:  Last Seen by JT Ellison

Other finalists: 

• The Peeper by John Bukowski
• 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:  Line of Succession by David Bruns

Other finalists: 

• Welcome To Cottonmouth by Jay S. Bell
• 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:  Down To The Bone by Caitlin Rother

Other finalists: 

• 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

Best Western:  The Thunder Head by Dwight Holing

Other finalists: 

• Cut Them Down by T.G. Brown