Winners of the 2025 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America and honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, and television, were announced last night:
Best Novel: The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell (Doubleday)
Best First Novel by an American Author: Holy City by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Best Paperback Original: The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle (Park Row Books/Harlequin)
Best Fact Crime: The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson (Crown)
Best Critical/Biographical: James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Nathan Ashman (McFarland Publishing)
Best Short Story: "Eat My Moose," Conjunctions: 82, Works & Days by Erika Krouse (Bard College)
Best Juvenile: Mysteries of Trash and Treasure: The Stolen Key by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins)
Best Young Adult: 49 Miles Alone by Natalie D. Richards (Sourcebooks Fire)
Best Television Episode Teleplay: "Episode One"--Monsieur Spade, written by Tom Fontana & Scott Frank (AMC)
Robert L. Fish Memorial Award: "The Jews on Elm Street," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2024 by Anna Stolley Persky (Dell Magazines)
The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award: The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks)
The G.P. Putnam's Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award: The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear (Soho Crime)
The Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award: The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald (Poisoned Pen Press/ Sourcebooks)
Grand Masters: Laura Lippman, John Sandford
Raven Award: Face in a Book Bookstore & Gifts, El Dorado Hills, Calif
Ellery Queen Award: Peter Wolverton, St. Martin's Press
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Shortlists in eight categories have been selected for the 35th Annual Reading the West Book Awards, sponsored by the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association and honoring the best fiction, nonfiction, and illustrated books for adults and children set in one of the MPIBA states, or created by an author or artist living or working in the region. Member stores and readers will now vote, and winners will be announced on June 12. To see the shortlists in eight categories, click here.
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Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin (Soft Skull Press) has won the $150,000 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the largest English-language literary prize in the world for women and non-binary authors. The four finalists each receive $12,500.
The jury said, "Code Noir contains multitudes. Its characters inhabit multi-layered landscapes of the past, present and future, confronting suffering, communion and metamorphosis. Canisia Lubrin's prose is polyphonic; the stories invite you to immerse yourself in both the real and the speculative, in the intimate and in sweeping moments of history. Riffing on the Napoleonic decree, Lubrin retunes the legacies of slavery, colonialism and violence. This is a virtuoso collection that breaks new ground in short fiction."