Preise: Agatha Awards 2006

vom Krimiblogger

malice_domestic_logo.jpgFreundinnen und Freunde des traditionellen Krimis schauen mit Spannung auf die Preisverleihung der „Agatha Awards“, die während des Festivals „Malice Domestic®“, das zwischen dem 21. und 23. April 2006 in Arlington, Virginia, stattfindet, vergeben werden. Die Preise werden in fünf Kategorien verliehen, dazu gibt es den Lifetime Achievement Award, den in diesem Jahr Robert Barnard bekommt, sowie den Poirot Award, mit dem in diesem Jahr Doug Greene ausgezeichnet wird. Die weiteren Nominierungen in diesem Jahr folgen in der bebilderten Fassung.

Die Nominees nach Kategorien:

– Best First Novel –

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Laura Durham: Better Off Wed (Verlag: HarperCollins)

Verlagstext:
The murder of a particularly difficult mother-of-the-bride has cast a pall on wedding planner Annabelle Archer’s latest triumph — and suspicion falls heavily on her sometime-business partner and friend Richard Gerard. Annabelle knows that even her trusted wedding emergency kit won’t be able to salvage their careers if she and Richard can’t find the real culprit.

It’s no easy task since the slain matron was perhaps the most hated socialite in D.C., but Annabelle navigates through the city’s colorful wedding industry and powerful social scene on the deadly trail of a killer. Always the bridal consultant and never the bride, she’s seen her fair share of bouquet tosses. But there’s no telling what surprises a ruthless killer will throw her way if she gets too close.

Buch bestellen bei:

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Lisa Tillman: Blood Relations (Verlag: Hilliard & Harris)

Verlagstext:
Every reporter dreams of breaking the story of the century, but for one reporter becoming that story will be her greatest nightmare. When the heiress to an American political dynasty is murdered, television reporter Abigail Gardner must fight to save her troubled brother after he is accused of the brutal crime. Along the way Abby must make peace with her own family as she uncovers a deadly secret that the nation’s most powerful political clan has spent decades trying to hide.

Buch bestellen bei:

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Laura Bradford: Jury of One (Verlag: Hilliard & Harris)

Verlagstext:
A sandy beach, a sunny day, a fruity drink, and a nasty murder.

Jury of one is the debut of the new crime fighting team of feisty reporter, Elise Jenkins and Mitch Burns, Police Detective in the small town of Ocean Point, New Jersey.

When a series of murders begins to haunt the sunny lifestyle of Ocean Point, all clues lead to a boardwalk Fortune teller and her ominous predictions.

Buch bestellen bei:

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Maggie Sefton: Knit One, Kill Two (Verlag: Penguin)

Verlagstext:
Kelly Flynn never picked up a pair of knitting needles she liked—until she strolled into House of Lambspun. Now, in the first in a brand-new series, she learns how to knit one, purl two, and untangle the mystery behind her aunt’s murder.

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Shirley Damsgaard: Witch Way to Murder (Verlag: Avon/HarperCollins)

Verlagstext:
Ophelia Jensen wishes she was just your typical, thirty-something librarian. Unfortunately, she’s been burdened with psychic powers — an unwanted „gift“ she considers inconvenient at best and at worst downright dangerous. Her kindly old grandmother Abby, however, has no compunctions about the paranormal, being a practicing witch with unique abilities of her own.

And sometimes the otherworldly arts do come in handy — like when the arrival of a mysterious, good-looking stranger to their normally tranquil corner of Iowa seems to trigger an epidemic of catastrophes, from the theft of bomb-making materials to a murdered corpse dumped in Abby’s backyard.

Luckily Ophelia and Abby are on the case and determined to make things right. But it’ll take more than magick to get out of the boiling cauldron of lethal trouble they’re about to land themselves in.

Buch bestellen bei:

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– Best Novel –

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Donna Andrews: Owl’s Well That Ends Well (Verlag: St. Martin’s Minotaur)

Verlagstext:
In Owl#s Well That Ends Well, Meg and Michael have bought a very elderly house from the estate of the uncrowned Queen of the Packrats. She bought everything and kept it all. When the house became overcrowded, she moved the overflow into the barn. When the barn was crammed, she began filling the property’s sheds. When she died, her „holdings“ left the various grandnieces and grandnephews with decades of junk. They avoid the job of cleaning it up by selling the place „as is“ to Meg and Michael, sticking them with the lot. Their solution: a yard sale.

As always, Meg’s large family flocks in to offer their dubious help. Many even come with junk of their own to add to the sale. Meg’s mother, sure that Meg has taken care of all the „treasures,“ turns to drawing up elaborate redecorating plans. Meg’s dad, newly elected president of SPOOR (Stop Poisoning Our Owls and Raptors) shoulders the cause of the endangered baby owls and their mother that live in the barn. His further contribution is the announcement that anyone who arrives in costume earns a ten percent discount.

Meg is coping (barely) with all this until the body of a local antique dealer is discovered in an old trunk. She and her dad have a further shock: the trunk is in the barn, in reckless disregard of Dad’s beloved newborn owls.

The police temporarily close the sale down to investigate. When the professor who can swing the vote in favor of Michael’s tenure becomes a suspect, Meg decides that the only way to prove his innocence, and avoid being stuck with several tons of unsold junk, is to find the killer herself, and quickly.

Andrews’s amusing signature spin on mystery and a new assortment of feathery friends make this a priceless addition to the series.

Buch bestellen bei:

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Jacqueline Winspear: Pardonable Lies (Verlag: Henry Holt)

Verlagstext:

In the third novel of this bestselling series, London investigator Maisie Dobbs faces grave danger as she returns to the site of her most painful WWI memories to resolve the mystery of a pilot’s death

Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone. Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe. Every once in a while, a detective bursts on the scene who captures readers’ hearts—and imaginations—and doesn’t let go. And so it was with Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, who made her debut just two years ago in the eponymously titled first book of the series, and is already on her way to becoming a household name.

A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but to the doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit world.

In accepting the assignment, Maisie finds her spiritual strength tested, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The mission also brings her together once again with her college friend Priscilla Evernden, who served in France and who lost three brothers to the war—one of whom, it turns out, had an intriguing connection to the missing Ralph Lawton.

Following on the heels of the triumphant Birds of a Feather, Pardonable Lies is the most compelling installment yet in the chronicles of Maisie Dobbs, “a heroine to cherish” (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review).

Buch bestellen bei:

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Dieses Buch erscheint voraussichtlich im Juli 2006 in deutscher Übersetzung

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Margaret Maron: Rituals of the Season (Verlag: Mysterious Press & Warner Books)

Verlagstext:
Judge Deborah Knott has a severe case of anxiety in the final days before her late December nuptials to Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant. Her calendar is booked solid with receptions and parties, last-minute details, and family obligations. There is absolutely no way she can fit a homicide case into her schedule.

Nevertheless, when a friend and colleague is shot on the icy drive home and Dwight becomes the lead detective on the case, Deborah is immediately involved. Issues of ethics and confidentiality suddenly face her…right on the next pillow.

Renovations to the house where the newlyweds will live are shockingly behind schedule-and, as the clock ticks down, Deborah has serious doubts her rowdy brothers will finish the new construction in time. Meanwhile, her sisters-in-law are giving her etiquette advice, her maid of honor is so pregnant she may deliver during the ceremony, and somehow, Deborah must find a way to connect with her wary young stepson-to-be.

And as if things are not already hectic enough, two law students turn up and demand that she help them stop the execution of an innocent woman-one who is scheduled to die in less than a month.

Now Deborah is in danger of losing sight of what really matters-the big, brown-eyed man who’s about to say „I do.“ But just when she thinks she’s finally got order in the court and in her life, fate has one more pulse-pounding surprise in store…

Buch bestellen bei:

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Pari Noskin Taichert: The Belen Hitch (Verlag: University of New Mexico Press)

Verlagstext:
Public relations consultant Sasha Solomon travels to Belen, New Mexico, to help the small town increase tourism using a former Harvey House as the main attraction. Two factions think they’ve got the key to Belen’s economic success. The train enthusiasts hope to transform the building into a bed and breakfast complete with a restored Fred Harvey restaurant. The equally vocal artists want to create a world-class gallery with the „blasphemous“ art of Phillipa Petty–an internationally known painter and local denizen–at its center.

When Solomon finds Petty’s murdered body in the artist’s studio, the consultant’s life becomes much more difficult than mere press releases and returns-on-investment.

Buch bestellen bei:

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Katherine Hall Page: The Body in the Snowdrift (Verlag: WilliamMorrow)

Verlagstext:
Award-winning author Katherine Hall Page is one of the reigning queens of the traditional mystery. Now, in this fifteenth mystery in her much-beloved Faith Fairchild series, she takes us to the blustery slopes of a Vermont ski resort, where murder makes an unwelcome appearance at the Fairchild family reunion.

When caterer Faith Fairchild learns of her father-in-law’s plan to celebrate his seventieth birthday by treating his children, their spouses, and his grandchildren to a weeklong stay at the Pine Slopes resort, her reaction is mixed. Yes, she likes to ski and yes, she loves the kin of her husband, the Reverend Thomas Fairchild, but both in smaller and shorter doses.

The Fairchilds have been coming to the ski area since Tom and his siblings were toddlers and are old friends of the owners, the Staffords. All starts well as the family settles into neighboring condos, until Faith discovers a body on one of the cross-country trails — the apparent victim of a heart attack. Then Pine Slopes‘ star chef vanishes without a trace. One catastrophe follows another: a malicious prank at the sports center, a break-in at the Fairchild condo, and one of the chairlifts is sabotaged. Who is the mysterious woman living in the „gingerbread cottage“ deep in the woods? And what are adolescents Ophelia Stafford and Faith’s nephew Scott — filled with angst and anger — up to? Family secrets abound and family dynamics explode.

Then one morning skiers arrive and are horror-stricken to find the slopes covered with patches of red snow, the result of a body falling, or being pushed, into the water supply for the snow-making guns. Faith must get to the bottom of the crime spree if she wants to salvage the reunion, prevent the closing of Pine Slopes — and save her own life.

Buch bestellen bei:

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Heather Webber: Trouble in Spades (Verlag: Avon/HarperCollins)

Verlagstext:
Landscaping is Nina Quinn’s business, but trouble seems to be her middle name. Saddled with a recently expelled, faithless local-cop husband, a teenaged terror of a stepson, and the yappiest, most unhousebreakable Chihuahua in captivity, Nina needs a respite — and the backyard makeover she’s undertaking for her sister Maria and Nate, Maria’s fiancé, may do the trick.

But, of course, Nate vanishes mysteriously, and Nina’s gardening magic inadvertently turns up a corpse. And with a thief on the prowl who’s preying on the neighborhood elderly, a suspicious Pandora’s Box of a package arriving on her doorstep, and yet another body inconveniently turning up, Nina’s going to have to dig into her community’s dirtiest little secrets to regain her peace and sanity — if she can manage to stay alive long enough to enjoy it.

Buch bestellen bei:

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– Best Non-Fiction –

Behind the Mysteriesl

Stuart Kaminsky, Fotos von Laurie Roberts: Behind the Mystery: Top Mystery Writers Interviewed (Verlag: Hothouse Press)

Verlagstext:
What a treat for millions of mystery readers! Stuart Kaminsky personally visited and interviewed eighteen of his friends who are leading mystery writers.

Laurie Roberts captures them on film at home, working and relaxing. They traveled to New Mexico to see Tony Hillerman, stopped in South Carolina at Mickey Spillane’s, headed to Chicago to meet with Sara Paretsky.

Visits included Martin Cruz Smith at his cliff house, the Kellermans in Beverly Hills, and Sue Grafton at her Louisville mansion. Readers are also privy to the private lives and thoughts about writing of Evan Hunter, Ann Rule, Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, Joseph Wambaugh, John Jakes, Robert B. Parker, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Lisa Scottoline, and Lawrence Block.

Buch bestellen bei:
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Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her
Melanie Rehak: Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her (Verlag: Harcourt)

Verlagstext:
In 1930 a plucky girl detective stepped out of her shiny blue roadster, dressed in a smart tweed suit, ready to restore a stolen inheritance to its rightful owner. Tied up by the villains, she managed to free herself and bring them to justice – all while wearing a pencil skirt and high heels. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the sixties (when she was taken up with a vengeance by women’s libbers), and emerged as beloved by girls today as she was by their grandmothers. Now, in a narrative with all the fast-paced thrill of one of Nancy’s adventures, Melanie Rehak solves a page-turning literary mystery: Who created Nancy Drew? And how did she go from pulp heroine to American icon?

With ebullience, wit, and a wealth of little-known source material, Rehak weaves a behind-the-scenes history of Nancy and her groundbreaking creators. Taking us from The Secret of the Old Clock to The Secret of the Spa, Rehak tells all about our fearless sleuth – including the fact that both Nancy and her “author,” Carolyn Keene, were invented by Edward Stratemeyer, a dime-novel genius who also created the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy Boys. But Nancy Drew was actually brought to life by two remarkable women: original author Mildred Wirt Benson, a convention-flouting Midwestern journalist, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, a wife and mother who transformed herself into a CEO to run her father’s company after he died. Together, Benson and Adams created a character that has inspired generations of girls to be as strong-willed and as bold as they were.

Buch bestellen bei:
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Marvin Lachman: The Heirs of Anthony Boucher (Verlag: Poisoned Pen Press)

Verlagstext:
This history of mystery fandom is called The Heirs of Anthony Boucher because it was to Boucher’s mystery review column in the New York Times Book Review that fans turned, before what Lachman calls „The Fan Revolution“ was launched in 1967. In a literary domino effect, Boucher’s column led to the first fan magazine, The Armchair Detective, and Boucher encouraged and reviewed it. Boucher’s sudden death in 1968 was a shock to mystery fans, but everything they have done since is part of Anthony Boucher’s legacy.

Buch bestellen bei:
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Leslie S. Klinger (Ed.): The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (Verlag: W.W. Norton)

Verlagstext:
The publication of Leslie S. Klinger’s brilliant new annotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 56 short stories in 2004 created a Holmes sensation. Here, in this eagerly awaited third volume, Klinger reassembles Doyle’s four seminal novels in their original order, with over 1,000 new notes, 350 illustrations and period photographs, and tantalizing new Sherlockian theories. Inside, readers will find: A Study in Scarlet (1887)—a tale of murder and revenge that tells of Holmes and Dr. Watson’s first meeting; The Sign of Four (1889)—a cinematic tale of lost treasure; The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901)—hailed as the greatest mystery novel of all time; and The Valley of Fear (1914)—a fresh murder scene that leads Holmes to solve a long-forgotten mystery.

Whether as a stand-alone volume or as a companion to the boxed short stories, this classic work illuminates the timeless genius of Conan Doyle for an entirely new generation.

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– Best Short Story –

Driven to Distraction von Marcia Talley. In: Chesapeake Crime II, Quiet Storm Publishing,
House Rules von Libby Fischer Hellmann. In: Murder in Las Vegas, Tor
Mother Love von Harriet Sackler. In: Chesapeake Crime II, Quiet Storm Publishing
Murder at Sleuthfest von Barb Goffman. In: Chesapeake Crime II, Quiet Storm Publishing
Rear View Murder von Carla Coupe. In: Chesapeake Crime II, Quiet Storm Publishing

– Best Children/Young Adult Fiction –

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Kathleen Ernst: Danger at the Zoo (Verlag: American Girl-Pleasant Company Publications)

Verlagstext:
Kit Kittredge is back, in a mystery that takes place in the Cincinnati Zoo! Kit lands a summer job writing a children’s column for her local newspaper and looks for story ideas at the Cincinnati Zoo, where her friend Stirling works as a guide and her old friend Will, the hobo, has a job cleaning cages. As Kit noses around, she stumbles into some strange activities in the monkey house. Meanwhile, Kit begins to notice small things missing at home too. It’s not long before Will looks like the logical suspect in both places. Can Kit clear her friend—and get a good story in the bargain? Fireworks fly as Kit’s mystery is solved at the zoo’s grand Fourth of July spectacular. Includes a full-color “Looking Back” historical essay. Paperbacks also include a tear-off recipe card.

Buch bestellen bei:
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down the rabbit hole
Peter Abrahams: Down the Rabbit Hole (Verlag: HarperCollins)

Verlagstext:
Welcome to Echo Falls.Home of a thousand secrets, where Ingrid Levin-Hill, super sleuth, never knows what will happen next.

Ingrid is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or at least her shoes are. Getting them back means getting involved in a murder investigation rivaling those solved by her idol, Sherlock Holmes, and Ingrid has enough on her plate with club soccer, school, and the plum role of Alice in the Echo Falls production of Alice in Wonderland. But much as in Alice’s adventures down the rabbit hole, things in Ingrid’s small town keep getting curiouser and curiouser. Her favorite director has a serious accident onstage (but is it an accident?), and the police chief is on Ingrid’s tail, grilling her about everything from bike-helmet law to the color of her cleats. Echo Falls has turned into a nightmare, and Ingrid is determined to wake up. Edgar Award–nominated novelist Peter Abrahams builds suspense as a smart young girl finds that her small town isn’t nearly as safe as it seems.

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Flush
Carl Hiassen: Flush (Verlag: Alfred A. Knopf)

Verlagstext:
You know it’s going to be a rough summer when you spend Father’s Day visiting your dad in the local lockup.
Noah’s dad is sure that the owner of the Coral Queen casino boat is flushing raw sewage into the harbor–which has made taking a dip at the local beach like swimming in a toilet. He can’t prove it though, and so he decides that sinking the boat will make an effective statement. Right. The boat is pumped out and back in business within days and Noah’s dad is stuck in the clink.
Now Noah is determined to succeed where his dad failed. He will prove that the Coral Queen is dumping illegally . . . somehow. His allies may not add up to much–his sister Abbey, an unreformed childhood biter; Lice Peeking, a greedy sot with poor hygiene; Shelly, a bartender and a woman scorned; and a mysterious pirate–but Noah’s got a plan to flush this crook out into the open. A plan that should sink the crooked little casino, once and for all.

Buch bestellen bei:
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Elise Weston: The Coastwatcher (Verlag: Peachtree Publications)

Verlagstext:
It is August 1943 and America is at war. Eleven-year-old Hugh, his mother, sister Sally, and cousin Tom are spending the summer on the South Carolina coast. Day after day Hugh scans the Atlantic Ocean through his binoculars looking for signs of enemy activity. It seems like a harmless way to spend time…at least at first.

But one day Hugh sees something in the water that looks like a periscope. Later he plucks a black bag out of the surf. Inside is a crudely drawn map. Then one night he spots a light flashing from the cupola at the top of an abandoned beach house. Now Hugh is convinced that enemy soldiers have invaded the coastline!

Set against the backdrop of the home front during World War II, Elise Weston’s dramatic adventure will draw readers in with its exciting blend of mystery and history. Young people will also respond to the sympathetic protagonist who learns that war is not a distant and exciting game, but a grim actuality involving real people and real danger.

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Sarah Masters Buckey: The Curse of Ravenscourt (Verlag: American Girl-Pleasant Company Publications)

Verlagstext:
Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia’s New York City brownstone is being expanded to make more room for Samantha and the three O’Malley sisters. While the renovation is underway, the family moves to an apartment on the top floor of Ravenscourt, a fashionable new 13-story “apartment-hotel.” Samantha is excited about their luxurious new digs—until she learns there’s a terrible curse on the building’s owner, Horace Raven! Are strange things happening because of the curse—or is something else scaring the residents from Ravenscourt? It’s up to Samantha and Nellie to find out! Includes a full-color “Looking Back” historical essay. Paperbacks also include a tear-off bookmark.

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