This Publisher’s Weekly article summing up Boucheron 2011, held in St. Louis, includes the list of winners of the mystery genre’s various awards and prizes:
As is the tradition at Bouchercon, a conference steeped in awards ceremonies, Thursday’s festivities included the presentation of both the Macavity and Barry Awards. Voted on by the members of Mystery Readers International, the Macavity Awards went to Louise Penny’s Bury Your Dead Best Mystery Novel, Bruce DeSilva’s Rogue Island Best First Mystery Novel, John Curran’s Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks Best Mystery Nonfiction, Dana Cameron’s “Swing Shift” Best Mystery Short Story, from Crimes By Moonlight, and Kelli Stanley’s City of Dragons Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award. Authors who would eventually take home two statues or plaques by the end of the weekend would have to wait until Sunday’s Anthony Awards Brunch to repeat their victories, since the none of the Barry winners coincided with the Macavity list. Steve Hamilton’s Edgar-winning The Lock Artist won Best Novel, while Paul Doiron’s The Poacher’s Son earned Best First Novel. Reginald Hill’s stand-alone tale of suspense, The Woodcutter, won Best British Crime Novel, and South African Deon Meyer picked up Best Thriller for his Thirteen Hours. International Guest of Honor McDermid’s latest Tony Hill installment, Fever of the Bone, won Best Paperback Original and Loren D. Estelman’s “The List,” published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, won Best Short Story. The David Thompson Special Services Award, created last year after Thompson’s unexpected death, was also presented to Ali Karim, one of the crime fiction community’s most dedicated and ardent contributors with his work as Assistant Editor at Shots eZine, as well as regular pieces in Crimespree, The Rap Sheet, and Deadly Pleasures.
The Shamus Awards, presented by the Private Eye Writers of America during an off-site ceremony, added to the celebratory atmosphere, especially when writers were spotted later with their awards at the hotel bar. Lifetime Achievement winner Paretsky also picked up the Hammer Award for Best P.I. Series Character for her Chicago-based attorney-turned-private eye V.I. Warshawski, while Ed Gorman picked up the Shamus version of the Lifetime Achievement Award, known as The Eye for his prolific work in the P.I. genre. Lori Armstrong’s No Mercy won Best P.I. Novel, with Christopher G. Moore’s Asia Hand winning Best Paperback Original P.I. Novel and Michael Ayoob’s In Search of Mercy winning Best First P.I. Novel. Gar Anthony Haywood’s “The Lamb Was Sure To Go,” from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine won Best P.I. Short Story.
The weekend wrapped up with the closing ceremonies and the Anthony Awards brunch. Named in honor of the convention’s founder Anthony Boucher, the awards are voted on by Bouchercon attendees. To shake things up, the order of the winners was drawn at random, making for a more entertaining show. Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich’s reference site “Stop, You’re Killing Me” won for Best Website/Blog for the second year in a row, while Louise Penny won her third straight Best Novel Anthony Award—and second award of the convention—for Bury Your Dead. Hilary Davidson took home Best First Novel for The Damage Done and Duane Swierczynski won Best Paperback Original for Expiration Date. Like Penny, Dana Cameron and John Curran also picked up their second awards of the convention with Cameron winning Best Short Story for “Swing Shift” and Curran winning Best Critical/Nonfiction for Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks. In the category’s inaugural year, Jason Starr collected Best Graphic Novel for The Chill, an honor he shared during his speech with illustrator Mick Bertilorenzi.
