2025 Macavity Awards Nominees Announced

The 2025 Macavity Awards nominees have been announced by Mystery Readers International!

The Macavity Awards celebrate the best in crime fiction and non-fiction for the prior year. They are voted on by the members of MRI (and their friends) as well as subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal.

There are five categories – Best Mystery, Best First Mystery, Best Short Story, Best Historical, and Best Nonfiction/Critical.

And here are the nominees:

Best Mystery Novel

• Hall of Mirrors by John Copenhaver
• Served Cold by James L’Etoile
• The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
• California Bear by Duane Swierczynski
• The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell
• All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

Best First Mystery

• Outraged by Brian Copeland
• A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman
• Ghosts of Waikiki by Jennifer Morita
• You Know What You Did by K.T. Nguyen
• The Expat by Hansen Shi
• Holy City by Henry Wise

Best Short Story

• Home Game by Craig Buck
• The Postman Always Flirts Twice by Barb Goffman
• Curse of the Super Taster by Leslie Karst
• Two for One by Art Taylor
• Satan’s Spit by Gabriel Valjan
• Reynisfjara by Kristopher Zgorski

Best Historical Mystery Award

• The Wharton Plot by Mariah Fredericks
• An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder by Dianne Freeman
• Fog City by Claire Johnson
• The Bootlegger’s Daughter by Nadine Nettmann
• A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn
• The Murder of Mr. Ma by S.J. Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee

Best Mystery Critical/Biographical

• Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft by Phyllis Betz
• Some of My Best Friends are Murderers by Chris Chan
• The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice by Alex Hortis
• The Infernal Machine by Steven Johnson
• On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett by Ashley Lawson
• Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder by Greg Lilly

Congratulations to the nominees!

Winners will be announced in September. For more information, please visit their website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Based near Toronto, Brandon is a news writer and Book Specialist for Book Notification who covers the world of books, maintains author pages, writes a variety of content, and is an avid reader of non-fiction and biographies.

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