The 2018 Agatha Award Nominees

Malice Domestic have announced the 2018 Agatha Award nominees.

Best Contemporary Novel

Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)

 Beyond the Truth by Bruce Robert Coffin (Witness Impulse)

 Cry Wolf by Annette Dashofy (Henery Press)

 Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

 Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)

Best Historical Novel  

Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding by Rhys Bowen (Berkley)

 The Gold Pawn by LA Chandlar (Kensington)

 The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

 Turning the Tide by Edith Maxwell (Midnight Ink)

 Murder on Union Square by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)

Best First Novel

A Ladies Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)

 Little Comfort by Edwin Hill (Kensington)

 What Doesn't Kill You by Aimee Hix (Midnight Ink)

 Deadly Solution by Keenan Powell (Level Best Books)

 Curses Boiled Again by Shari Randall (St. Martin's)

Best Short Story

"All God's Sparrows" by Leslie Budewitz (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

 "A Postcard for the Dead" by Susanna Calkins in Florida Happens (Three Rooms Press)

 "Bug Appetit" by Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)
"The Case of the Vanishing Professor" by Tara Laskowski (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

 "English 398: Fiction Workshop" by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Best Young Adult Mystery

Potion Problems(Just Add Magic) by Cindy Callaghan (Aladdin) Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (Henry Holt)

 A Side of Sabotage by C.M. Surrisi (Carolrhoda Books)

Best Non-fiction

Mastering Plot Twists by Jane Cleland (Writer's Digest Books)

Writing the Cozy Mystery by Nancy J Cohen (Orange Grove Press)

 Conan Doyle for the Defense by Margalit Fox (Random House)

 Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)

 Wicked Women of Ohio by Jane Ann Turzillo (History Press)

The Agatha Awards will be presented on 4 May 2019 during Malice Domestic 31.    Congratulations to all of the nominees!

Miss Marple and the Folio Society

The Folio Society are well known for producing lovely illustrated and limited edition copies of books. The most recent collection that they have produced is a special four volume edition of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories with an introduction by Christie biographer Laura Thompson. This is a collection that no self-respecting Agatha Christie fan should be without.  Laura Thompson is the author of Agatha Christie: An English Mystery. 

Yesterday 11 June they hosted at the Folio Society an evening for bloggers.  In attendance was Laura Thompson who gave a brief talk about Agatha Christie and her life.  Amongst some of the things that she spoke about was the fact that Agatha Christie had no interest in murder.  She did not like violence nor was she interested in grief or loss. She was however interested in the workings of the genre and had a conceptual attitude to the whole notion of murder. She set the template for murder but was also radical. Christie did not feel the need to create a perfect detective. She was aware of other detectives such as Campion, Wimsey, Wexford etc.  but did not want to expound on character.  She was also interested in real life murders such as the Charles Bravo case and the Croydon Poisonings.

Laura Thompson also thought that despite the fact some think that she was not particularly good at characterisation, she felt that she would not have lasted so long if she were not good. She also felt that her best book was Five Little Pigs and that her worse one was The Clocks. According to Laura Thompson, P D James said that there was a lot more to Agatha Christie  than was apparent.  She was very worldly, tough and realistic.  The character of Miss Marple took a lot from her two grandmothers.  Agatha Christie herself was a very complex and contradictory woman.  She was also very cosmopolitan.  In real life she would have hated St Mary Mead.

Laura was asked why she decided to write about Christie and she explained that her reason

for doing so was because she felt that Christie was undervalued and that she decided that it could not and cannot be the case. She also stated that it was in her writing as Mary Westmacott that she was the most revealing about her life. They also got better reviews than her crime novels.  They were extremely sprawling and she was unhappy when the Sunday Times revealed that she was the author. She only wrote one further book under the name Westmacott after being revealed.  Her only daughter took second place to Max Mallowan when she married him. She was to a certain extent sidelined by her mother. 

Laura Thompson was asked which of Christie's novels were her favourite and she stated that it was Five Little Pigs.  Miss Marple is her favourite character.   The first Agatha Christie novel that she read was Murder on the Links.  

The novel N or M was considered to be too anti-German in the United States and there was also a furore over The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.  It was thought that it was based on a true life case.

According to Laura Thompson she had a good sense of her own worth and whilst she was greatful for the number of fans that she had, she did not want to have too much engagement with them. It was her novel Witness for the Prosecution that turned her into a major author.

After the talk there was further opportunity to talk to Laura Thompson and the people at the Folio Society.  The Folio Society is certainly well worth visiting.  The bookshop is full of wonderfully illustrated books and they have a pretty good crime and mystery fiction section as well.  I have my eye on an illustrated copy of The Maltese Falcon!

My previous blog post on the Miss Marple Collection can be found here.

Miss Marple Collection

Miss Marple Novels Collection

By Agatha Christie

Introduced by Laura Thompson and illustrated by Andrew Davidson

23 May 2013, £100, 4-volume set

The Folio Society is publishing a special four-volume edition of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels, featuring The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the Library, A Pocket Full of Rye and Sleeping Murder. Born in 1890, Agatha Christie wrote 80 crime novels and short-story collections, 2 autobiographies and 8 novels under the pen name Mary Westmacott. Sales of Christie’s books exceed 2 billion worldwide – only Shakespeare and the Bible outsell her – confirming that, over 120 years since her birth, she retains her position as the grand dame of crime fiction.

In a newly commissioned introduction, award-winning author and Christie biographer Laura Thompson explores the life experiences that inspired Christie to create Miss Marple, the ‘deceptive simplicity’ of the novels and their shrewd grasp of human nature. Andrew Davidson’s beautiful, nostalgic images use unusual angles and perspectives to add suspense. The illustrations he has created for this new 4-volume set follow on from the evocative artwork in The Folio Society’s single-volume edition of the Miss Marple Short Stories.

Classic crime, presented for a new generation

Murder at the Vicarage

‘When she really hits her stride, as she does here, Agatha Christie is hard to surpass.’ Saturday Review of Literature

To say that Colonel Protheroe is not popular in the village of St Mary Mead would be an understatement. Even the mild-mannered vicar has been heard to remark that anyone who murdered him ‘would be doing the world at large a service’. Shortly afterwards, Protheroe is found shot dead in the vicarage study. From the Colonel’s faithless wife to the vicar himself, everyone in the village seems to have had a motive to kill the Colonel, but who actually fired the gun? The unlikeliest of sleuths comes forward in the shape of Miss Jane Marple. Murder at the Vicarage is the first ever mystery to feature Miss Marple.

 

 The Body in the Library

‘It is hard not to be impressed.’ Times Literary Supplement

Agatha Christie spent years devising this novel with its ingenious variation on the now-familiar theme of the body in the library. She laid down certain conditions for herself: the library must be a highly orthodox and conventional library, while the body must be a ‘wildly improbable and highly sensational body’. When Mrs Bantry tells her husband that the maid has discovered the body of a beautiful, blonde young woman in their library, his reply is, ‘Nonsense, old girl; you’ve been dreaming.’ But it is no dream, and Mrs Bantry has no choice but to call upon her friend Miss Marple to discover who committed the murder, before they strike again.

A Pocket Full of Rye

‘This is the best of the novels starring Christie’s Miss Marple’ New York Times

Mr Rex Fortescue appears to have everything: a booming financial empire, a glamorous secretary and an even more glamorous wife – until one day, he drops dead over his morning tea. Inspector Neele, called to investigate, is puzzled to find that the dead man’s pockets contained cereal grains – in other words, he died with a pocket full of rye. When one of Fortescue’s servants is found dead with a clothes-peg on her nose, Miss Marple is compelled to point out to the Inspector that they may be dealing with a case of murder by rhyme. Filled with twists and turns, A Pocket Full of Rye is a virtuous display by Christie.

Sleeping Murder

‘A puzzle that is tortuous, surprising and finally satisfying’ Sunday Express

Gwenda and Giles Reed, a young married couple, have emigrated from New Zealand to England. Gwenda is delighted with her new house in a seaside Devon resort – until a sequence of sinister events begins. Gwenda knows details about the house that she could not possibly know – and she feels a mysterious terror every time she climbs the stairs. In her attempt to discover the truth, she calls in Miss Marple, who helps her uncover a ‘perfect’ crime committed years before. Agatha Christie wrote Sleeping Murder, the final Miss Marple novel, while living in London during the Blitz, but held it back for publication until after her death in 1976. Miss Marple’s last case is the ideal end to a brilliant career.

Illustrations from L-R: The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the Library, A Pocket Full of Rye, Sleeping Murder

For over 65 years The Folio Society has been publishing beautiful illustrated editions of the world's greatest books. We believe that the literary content of a book should be matched by its physical form. With specially commissioned illustrations, many of our editions are further enhanced with introductions written by leading figures in their fields: novelists, journalists, academics, scientists and artists.

There are hundreds of Folio Society editions currently in print covering fiction, biography, history, science, philosophy, children's literature, humour, myths and legends and more. Exceptional in content and craftsmanship and maintaining the very highest standards of fine book production, Folio Society editions are created to last for generations.

Folio Society titles can now be bought as a single book purchase from www.foliosociety.com, by telephone on 0207 400 4200 or by visiting The Folio Society Bookshop, 44 Eagle Street, London, WC1R 4FS.

For media enquiries please contact Annabel Robinson or Kate Cooper at FMcM Associates on 020 7405 7422 or email annabelr@fmcm.co.uk ; katec@fmcm.co.uk