Let's take a look at some of the Award Winners for 2019

We are starting to "reopen" here in Central Texas, but it doesn't feel much different. 
I hear the grocery store is getting easier to manage. (Will see tomorrow.) Restaurants can now allow 25% capacity. (I am not standing in that line. I will wait for awhile, thank you.) Hair salons can open. (Mine has not opened yet but has been in touch.) Libraries can open. (Mine has not yet. Can you imagine how to manage that? A place where people take books off the shelf to look at them, then put them back? The children's area? The community computers?) Health clubs can open at 25%. (I can wait. The weather is good here so I have been bike riding and walking. My yoga teacher from our work class is going to do a virtual class on Saturday via Zoom and I am excited for that.) Although my place of work could open in some capacity, they have chosen to wait another month since we are mostly working from home, successfully. I never thought I was that much of a social person, until I couldn't be. :/

Even the annual book conferences have been affected by the virus. Several conferences that were scheduled recently had to be cancelled. It looks like others scheduled well into the summer and fall are also cancelled. Those that were held, were held virtually this year. For our Mystery Book Club June meeting, we always read Award Winning Books. We will push that meeting to July, but I wanted to take a look at the winners, so thought I would share some here. 

I am only going to feature the few that have been completed so far this year. Many of them have not happened yet but you can see the nominated books and authors. Some have not been done for a couple of years. I will share four categories within an award because some have several categories. I will give you the link at the end to look at all of the awards.

Agatha Awards: The Agatha Awards honor the traditional mystery—books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries which contain no explicit sex or excessive gore or violence; and usually (but not limited to) featuring an amateur detective, a confined setting, and characters who know one another.

Best Contemporary Novel

The Long Call by Ann Cleeves Best First  Novel  One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski Best Historical Novel Charity's Burden by Edith Maxwell Best Short Story The Last Word by Shawn Reilly Simmons Edgar Awards: The Mystery Writers of America give these awards to honor the best in mystery fiction and nonfiction produced the previous year. The awards began in 1946 and are named in honor of Edgar Allan Poe. Best Mystery Novel The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths Best First Novel by an American Author Miracle Creek by Angie Kim  Mary Higgins Clark Award The Night Visitors by Carol Goodman Sue Grafton Memorial Award Borrowed Time by Tracy Clark Left Coast Crime "Lefty" Awards: The Lefty Awards are presented annually by Left Coast Crime. Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel Scot and Soda by Catriona McPherson Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey Lefty for Best Mystery Novel Lost Tomorrow by Matt Coyle Lefty for Best Debut Novel Murderabilia by Carl Vanderau I can't say that I have read any of the books above, but have read others by some of the authors. I have read some that were nominated this year too. Here is the link to peruse the full list. The go to Book Awards in the left column. www.stopyourekillingme.com/ Take a look!