WThe Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the cozy mystery subgenre. At an annual convention in Washington, D.C., the Agatha Awards are handed out by Malice Domestic Ltd, in six categories: Best Novel; Best First Mystery; Best Historical Novel; Best Short Story; Best Non-Fiction; Best Children's/Young Adult Mystery. Additionally, in some years the Poirot Award is presented to honor individuals other than writers who have made outstanding contributions to the mystery genre, but it is not an annual award.
WJeff Abbott is a U.S. suspense novelist. He has degrees in History and English from Rice University. He lives in Austin, Texas. Before writing full-time, he was a creative director at an advertising agency. His early novels were traditional detective fiction, but in recent years he has turned to writing thriller fiction. A theme of his work is the idea of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary danger and fighting to return to their normal lives. His novels are published in several countries and have also been bestsellers in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Germany, France and Portugal.
WDonna Andrews is an American mystery fiction writer of two award-winning amateur sleuth series. Her first book, Murder with Peacocks (1999), introduced Meg Langslow, a blacksmith from Yorktown, Virginia. It won the St. Martin's Minotaur Best First Traditional Mystery contest, the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, and Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice awards for best first novel, and the Lefty award for funniest mystery of 1999. The first novel in the Turing Hopper series debuted a highly unusual sleuth—an Artificial Intelligence (AI) personality who becomes sentient—and won the Agatha Award for best mystery that year.
WBlue Balliett is an American author, best known for her award-winning novel for children, Chasing Vermeer. She was born Elizabeth Balliett, but her family started calling her Blue shortly after her birth.
WNevada Barr is an American author of mystery fiction. She is known for her Anna Pigeon series, which is primarily set in a series of national parks and other protected areas of the United States.
WMildred Augustine Wirt Benson was an American journalist and author of children's books. She wrote some of the earliest Nancy Drew mysteries and created the detective's adventurous personality. Benson wrote under the Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name, Carolyn Keene, from 1929 to 1947 and contributed to 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries, which were bestsellers.
WSusan M. Boyer is an American author. She lives in Greenville, in South Carolina, and has published seven mystery novels set in that state.
WJane K. Cleland is a contemporary American author of mystery fiction. She is the author of the Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries, a traditional mystery series set in New Hampshire and featuring antiques appraiser Josie Prescott, as well as books and articles about the craft of writing. In addition, Cleland runs seminars and workshops on various fiction writing and business communications topics. She also delivers keynote speeches. Cleland has been nominated for and has won numerous awards for her writing.
WJohn Connolly is an Irish writer who is best known for his series of novels starring private detective Charlie Parker.
WAaron Elkins is an American mystery writer. He is best known for his series of novels featuring forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver—the 'skeleton detective'.
WRichard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer, and former steeplechase jockey, whose novels centre on horse racing in England.
WChristopher "Chris" Grabenstein is an American author. He published his first novel in 2005. Since then he has written novels for both adults and children, the latter often with frequent collaborator James Patterson. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1977 with a degree from the College of Communication and Information.
WSue Taylor Grafton was an American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the "alphabet series" featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W. Grafton, she said the strongest influence on her crime novels was author Ross Macdonald. Before her success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies.
WCarl Hiaasen is an American journalist and novelist. A long-time columnist for the Miami Herald and Tribune Content Agency, he began his career as a news reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for young-adult readers. Two of his novels have been made into feature films.
WMary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark was an American author of suspense novels. Each of her 51 books was a bestseller in the United States and various European countries, and all of her novels remained in print as of 2015, with her debut suspense novel, Where Are the Children?, in its seventy-fifth printing.
WAnthony Grove Hillerman was an American author of detective novels and non-fiction works best known for his Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels. Several of his works have been adapted as theatrical and television movies.
WKathleen Karr was an American author of historical novels for children and young adults. She is the winner of the Golden Kite Award, for her work The Boxer.
WHarley Jane Kozak is an American actress and author. She made her film debut in the slasher film The House on Sorority Row (1982), and had a recurring role as Mary Duvall on the soap opera Santa Barbara between 1985 and 1989. She later had supporting parts in Clean and Sober (1988) and When Harry Met Sally... (1989), before starring in the major studio films Parenthood (1989) and Arachnophobia (1990).
WLaura Lippman is an American author of detective fiction.
WMargaret Maron is an American writer, the author of award-winning mystery novels.
WSujata Massey is a British-American mystery writer and historical fiction novelist best known for her Rei Shimura mystery series. Her debut novel, The Salaryman's Wife, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel in 1997. In 2000, her novel The Flower Master, won the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel. In 2019, her novel The Widows of Malabar Hill won the Mary Higgins Clark Award, the Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel, and the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel.
WSharyn McCrumb is an American writer whose books celebrate the history and folklore of Appalachia. McCrumb is the winner of numerous literary awards, and the author of the Elizabeth McPherson mystery series, the Ballad series, and the St. Dale series.
WLouise Penny is a Canadian author of mystery novels set in the Canadian province of Quebec centred on the work of francophone Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Penny's first career was as a radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). After she turned to writing, she won numerous awards for her work, including the Agatha Award for best mystery novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2007–2010), and the Anthony Award for best novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2010–2013). Her novels have been published in 23 languages.
WAnne Perry is an English author of historical detective fiction, best known for her Thomas Pitt and William Monk series. In 1954, at the age of fifteen, she was convicted in the murder of her friend's mother. She changed her name after serving a five-year sentence.
WNancy Pickard is a US crime novelist. She has won five Macavity Awards, four Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, and a Shamus Award. She is the only author to win all four awards. She also served on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America. She received a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and began writing when she was 35 years old.
WHank Phillippi Ryan is an American investigative reporter for Channel 7 News on WHDH-TV, a local television station in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also an author of mystery novels.
WJulia Spencer-Fleming is an American novelist of Mystery fiction. She has won the Agatha Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Awards, Dilys Award, Barry Award, the Nero Award, and Gumshoe Awards. She has also been a finalist for the Edgar Award. Her books feature Clare Fergusson, a retired helicopter pilot turned Episcopal priest and Russ Van Alstyne, a police chief. They are set in Millers Kill, a fictional town in upstate New York.
WSir David Courtney Suchet, is an English actor, known for his work on British stage and television. He played Edward Teller in the TV serial Oppenheimer (1980) and received the RTS and BPG awards for his performance as Augustus Melmotte in the British serial The Way We Live Now (2001). International acclaim and recognition followed his performance as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989–2013), for which he received a 1991 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nomination.