If you’re in the mood for a page-turning mystery, take a look at these recent winners of the Edgar Awards and Agatha Awards.

Edgar Awards

Named after Edgar Allan Poe, the annual Edgar Awards honor excellence in mystery, crime, suspense, and intrigue writing.

Best Novel
Blue Heaven by C.J. Box
A 12-year-old girl and her younger brother are on the run in the Idaho woods, pursued by four men they have just watched commit murder – four men who know exactly who the children are.

Best First Novel by an American Author
The Foreigner by Francie Lin
A noirish work about family, fraternity, conscience, and the curious gulf between a man's culture and his deepest self, The Foreigner is a darkly comic tale of crime and contrition, and a riveting story about what it means to be a foreigner – even in one's own family.

The Simon & Schuster - Mary Higgins Clark Award
The Killer’s Wife by Bill Floyd
This debut novel of suspense is told from the point of view of a serial killer's wife, who finds herself caught in the net of her husband's past.

Best Fact Crime
American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum
A masterpiece of narrative history that vividly brings to life the original crime of the century, American Lightning shows the lasting impact the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times offices had on three remarkable individuals and, through them, the country itself. Howard Blum spoke at the Library in January 2009.

Best Young Adult
Paper Towns by John Green
From the Printz Medal-winning author of Looking for Alaska comes a novel about a teenage girl who has mysteriously vanished, and the boy who has loved her from afar who is looking for her by following the clues left behind just for him.

Best Juvenile
The Postcard by Tony Abbott
A creepy phone call. An old, yellowed postcard. A bizarre magazine story. And a strange group of funeral-goers who seem to follow their every move. All of these clues send Jason and Dia on an adventure to uncover extraordinary family secrets.

Agatha Awards

The Agatha Awards honor the “traditional mystery” which typically feature an amateur detective and contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence – a style similar to that of Agatha Christie’s.

Best Novel
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
The cozy, seemingly idyllic town of Three Pines is thrown into chaos when an impromptu séance turns deadly. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache must confront a myriad of baffling questions surrounding the case.

Best First Novel
Death of a Cozy Writer by G.M. Malliet
From deep in the heart of his English manor house, millionaire Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk writes mystery novels and torments his four spoiled children with threats of disinheritance. Tiring of this device, the portly patriarch decides to weave a malicious twist into his well-worn plot. Gathering them all together for a family dinner, he announces his latest blow – a secret elopement with the beautiful Violet... who was once suspected of murdering her husband.

Best Children's/Young Adult
The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein
A crazed killer causes a deadly accident at a crossroads and is killed when his car hits a tree. For 50 years, his malevolent spirit has inhabited the tree. Now, lightning releases the spirit, and it decides its evil spree isn't over.

Book descriptions provided by BookLetters.