2025 Macavity Awards Nominees Announced

By: Brandon Williams, July 1st, 2025 6:07 pm.

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.

Home » Book News » 2025 Macavity Awards Nominees Announced

0 Comments

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Book Notification is an Amazon Associate. Book links to Amazon, eBay and other book stores are affiliate links, and we earn money from any qualifying purchases.

Welcome to Book Notification!

Are we missing any books or looking for an author that isn't on the site? Have any feedback or ideas that will enhance your experience? Contact us below.

To see what we are currently working on as well as some of our future plans, see our roadmap.

Quick Follow

Quickly follow any authors by searching their name in this box then clicking the +Follow button.

Monthly Contest

We are giving away 10 $25 USD gift cards. To enter - send us an email via the contact form above, or by e-mailing hello@booknotification and let us know what features we currently don't have on Book Notification, that you'd love to see! Winners announced in the next newsletter.