The 2020 Edgars Award Winners

Every spring the Mystery Writers of America present the Edgars Awards, which are considered to be the most distinguished awards in the mystery genre. You can view the complete list of this year's Edgars Nominees and Winners on their website. Below are winners from five of the Edgars categories, all available for download through OverDrive. Make sure you're logged in with your card before clicking the links to borrow, and then enjoy some of this year's best mysteries!

Best Novel: The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

Clare is no stranger to murder. A high school teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she even teaches a course on him. But when one of Clare's colleagues is found dead, with a line from Holland's story "The Stranger" left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with literature. The police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her diary. Then one day she notices writing that isn't hers, left on the page of an old diary: "Hallo Clare. You don't know me." Clare becomes certain: "The Stranger" has come to life.



Best First Novel: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

How far will you go to protect your family? Keep secrets? Ignore lies? In Virginia, a group of people know each other because they use a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and the explosion wasn't an accident. The story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets. Chapter by chapter, we shift alliances and gather evidence: Was it the mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on an insurance payment? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn't safe? Recommended by Scott Turow, Laura Lippman, and more— Miracle Creek is a brave debut from an unforgettable new voice.

Best Paperback Original: The Hotel Neversink by Adam O'Fallon Price

Thirty-one years after workers broke ground, the Hotel Neversink finally opens. Then a young boy disappears. This mysterious vanishing—and those that follow—will brand three generations. At the root of it is Asher, the ruthless patriarch whose purchase of the hotel in 1931 set a legacy into motion. His daughter Jeanie sees the hotel into its most lucrative era, but also its darkest. Decades later, Asher's grandchildren grapple with their heritage: Len fights to keep the hotel alive, and Alice sets out to uncover the murderer's identity. Told by an unforgettable chorus of family members—a matriarch, a maid, a comedian, a detective, and others—The Hotel Neversink is the gripping portrait of a family over the course of a century.

Best Fact Crime: The Less People Know About Us: A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity by Axton Betz-Hamilton

Axton grew up in Indiana in the '90s. When she was 11, her parents had their identities stolen and their credit ratings ruined. This was before identity theft was common, so authorities were reluctant to help. Axton's family changed all of their personal information and moved to different addresses, but the identity thief followed. Convinced that the thief was someone they knew, Axton and her parents isolated themselves. Years later, Axton discovered she, too, had fallen prey to the identity thief, but by the time she realized, she was already in debt and her credit was ruined. The Less People Know About Us is Axton's attempt to untangle an intricate web of lies, and to understand why and how a loved one could have inflicted such pain.

Best Short Story: "One of These Nights" from Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers by Livia Llewellyn

Joyce Carol Oates, a queenpin of the noir genre, has brought her discerning eye to the curation of an outstanding anthology of brand-new top-shelf short stories (and poems by Margaret Atwood!). While bad men are not always the victims in these tales, they get their due often enough to satisfy readers who are tired of the gendered status quo, or who just want to have a little bit of fun at the expense of a crumbling patriarchal society. This stylistically diverse collection will make you squirm in your seat, stay up at night, laugh out loud, and inevitably wish for more.