LibGuides: Macavity Awards: Sue Feder Historical Mystery

Macavity Awards

Sue Feder Memorial Award for
Best Historical Mystery

2020s

WINNER

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
Call Number: FIC PRESC LAR SE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780525656159
Publication Date: 2019-09-03
At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world -- using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, but under Sally's tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops, and invisibly ferry classified documents. Their story is intertwined with that of the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago's heroine, Lara.
The Secrets We Kept [E-Book] by Lara Prescott
Call Number: Fiction P9315s Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780525656166
Publication Date: 2019

FINALISTS

Murder Knocks Twice by Susanna Calkins
The Pearl Dagger by L. A. Chandlar
A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder by Dianne Freeman
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
Charity's Burden by Edith Maxwell

Murder Knocks Twice (Speakeasy murders #1) by Calkins, Susanna
Call Number: FIC CALKI SUS S1 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781250190833
Publication Date: 2019-04-30
Gina Ricci takes on a job as a cigarette girl to earn money for her ailing father, and to prove to herself that she can hold her own at Chicago's most notorious speakeasy, the Third Door. It's a glamorous world of sleek socialites sipping bootlegged cocktails, rowdy ex-servicemen playing poker in a curtained back room, a flirtatious jazz pianist and a brooding photographer-- all overseen by the club's imposing owner, Signora Castallazzo. But Gina's predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, and the photographer, Marty, warns her to be careful. When Marty is brutally murdered, with Gina as the only witness, she's determined to track down his killer.

The Pearl Dagger (Art Deco Mystery #3) by L. A. Chandlar
Call Number: OverDrive EBook
ISBN: 9781496713469
Publication Date: 2019
Lane Sanders and her fiery boss, Mayor Fiorello “Fio” La Guardia have managed to contain the explosive underground conspiracies of New York’s most sinister schemers. But after a seemingly harmless pinball racket claims the life of a trusted ally, a new ringleader signals the rebirth of an all-too-familiar crime network at home and across the pond. Spurred on by the possibility of a violent syndicate spreading like wildfire through Europe, Lane sets sail for London—the city where her parents began the undercover work that led to their tragic undoing. And this time, she won’t chase down childhood nightmares without Finn Brodie, who vows to dispel his own difficult secrets abroad. While Finn confronts a devious sibling’s plot that echoes Orson Welles’s Voodoo Macbeth, Lane discovers that a dazzling pearl dagger may wield the ultimate clue to guide their hunt for justice on two sides of the ocean. With terrors from the past and present converging, Lane can’t save herself unless she starts believing that, like her weapon of choice, she also has the power to be both beautiful and dangerous.

Charity's Burden by Edith Maxwell
Call Number: FIC MAXWE EDI Q4 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781432862725
Publication Date: 2019-06-26
Quaker midwife Rose Carroll seeks the true cause of a young mother's death in turn-of-the-century Massachusetts. The winter of 1889 is harsh in Amesbury, Massachusetts, but it doesn't stop Quaker midwife Rose Carroll from making the rounds to her pregnant and postpartum mothers. When Charity Skells dies from an apparent early miscarriage, Rose wonders about the symptoms that don't match the stated cause of death. She learns that Charity's husband may be up to no good with a young woman whose mother appears to offer prohibited medical procedures.

WINNER

Turn to Stone by James Ziskin

FINALISTS

The Last Mrs. Summers by Rhys Bowen
The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart
The Turning Tide by Catriona McPherson
Mortal Music by Ann Parker
The Mimosa Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

WINNER

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara
Call Number: FIC HIRAH NAO CL (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781641292498
Publication Date: 2021-08-03
Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki's older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family's reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train. Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose's death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth. Inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime fiction plot with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history.

FINALISTS

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen
The Hollywood Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal
The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey
Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen
Call Number: FIC BOWEN RHY VE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781542027120
Publication Date: 2021-04-13
Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper ... Venice. Caroline's quest: to scatter Juliet "Lettie" Browning's ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years. It's 1938 when art teacher Juliet Browning arrives in romantic Venice. For her students, it's a wealth of history, art, and beauty. For Juliet, it's poignant memories and a chance to reconnect with Leonardo Da Rossi, the man she loves whose future is already determined by his noble family. However star-crossed, nothing can come between them. Until the threat of war closes in on Venice and they're forced to fight, survive, and protect a secret that will bind them forever. Key by key, Lettie's life of impossible love, loss, and courage unfolds. It's one that Caroline can now make right again as her own journey of self-discovery begins.

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The Hollywood Spy (Maggie Hope #10) by Susan Elia MacNeal
Call Number: FIC MNEAL SUSE H10 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593156926
Publication Date: 2021-07-06
Maggie Hope is off to Hollywood to solve a crime that hits too close to home--and confront the very evil she thought she had left behind in Europe--as the acclaimed World War II mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal continues. Los Angeles, 1943. As the Allies beat back the Nazis in the Mediterranean and the United States military slowly closes in on Tokyo, Walt Disney cranks out wartime propaganda and the Cocoanut Grove is alive with jazz and swing each night. But behind this sunny faðcade lies a darker reality. Somewhere in the lush foothills of Hollywood, a woman floats, lifeless, in the pool of one of California's trendiest hotels. When American-born secret agent and British spy Maggie Hope learns that this woman was engaged to her old flame, John Sterling, and that he suspects her death was no accident, intuition tells her he's right. Leaving London under siege--not to mention flying thousands of miles--is a lot to ask. But John was once the love of Maggie's life and she won't say no. Maggie is shocked to find Los Angeles as divided as Europe itself--the Zoot Suit Riots loom large and the Ku Klux Klan casts a long shadow. As she marvels at the hatred in her home country, she can't help but wonder what it will be like to see her lost love once again. But there is little time to dwell on memories once she starts digging into the case. As she traces a web of deception from the infamous Garden of Allah Hotel to the iconic Carthay Theater, she discovers things aren't always the way things appear in the movies--and the political situation in America is more complicated, and dangerous, than the newsreels would have them all believe.
The Hollywood Spy [E-Book] (Maggie Hope E10) by Susan Elia MacNeal
Call Number: FIC MNEAL SUSE H10 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780593156933
Publication Date: 2021

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The Bombay Prince (Perveen Mistry #3) by Sujata Massey
Call Number: FIC MASSE SUJ M3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781641291057
Publication Date: 2021-06-01
November, 1921. Edward VIII, Prince of Wales and future ruler of India, is arriving in Bombay to begin a four-month tour. The Indian subcontinent is chafing under British rule, and Bombay solicitor Perveen Mistry isn't surprised when local unrest over the royal arrival spirals into riots. But she's horrified by the death of Freny Cuttingmaster, an eighteen-year-old female Parsi student, who falls from a second-floor gallery just as the prince's grand procession is passing by her college. Freny had come for a legal consultation just days before her death, and what she confided makes Perveen suspicious that her death was not an accident. Perveen, who strongly identified with Freny--another young Parsi woman fighting hard against the confines of society's rules and expectations--feels terribly guilty for failing to help her. Perveen steps forward to assist Freny's family in the fraught dealings of the coroner's inquest, and when Freny's death is ruled a murder, Perveen knows she can't rest until she sees justice done. But Bombay is erupting: as armed British secret service march the streets, rioters attack anyone with perceived British connections and desperate shopkeepers destroy their own wares so they will not be targets of racial violence. Can Perveen help a suffering family when her own is in danger?

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Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Call Number: FIC MOREN SIL VE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593356821
Publication Date: 2021-08-17
1970s Mexico City. Maite is a secretary who lives for one thing: the latest issue of Secret Romance. While student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes into stories of passion and danger. Her next-door neighbor, Leonora, a beautiful art student, seems to live a life of intrigue and romance that Maite envies. When Leonora disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman--and journeying deeper into Leonora's secret life of student radicals and dissidents. Meanwhile, someone else is also looking for Leonora at the behest of his boss, a shadowy figure who commands goon squads dedicated to squashing political activists. Elvis is an eccentric thug who longs to escape his own life: He loathes violence and loves old movies and rock 'n' roll. But as Elvis searches for the missing woman, he comes to observe Maite from a distance--and grows more and more obsessed with this woman who shares his love of music, and the unspoken loneliness of his heart. Now as Maite and Elvis come closer to discovering the secrets behind Leonora's disappearance, they can no longer escape the danger that threatens to consume their lives, with hitmen, government agents, and Russian spies aiming to protect Leonora's secrets--at gunpoint.

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Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day
Call Number: FIC RADER LOR DE
ISBN: 9780062938046
Publication Date: 2021-10-12
Bridey Kelly has come to Greenway House--the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie--in disgrace. A terrible mistake at St. Prisca's Hospital in London has led to her dismissal as a nurse trainee, and her only chance for redemption is a position in the countryside caring for children evacuated to safety from the Blitz. Greenway is a beautiful home full of riddles: wondrous curios not to be touched, restrictions on rooms not to be entered, and a generous library, filled with books about murder. The biggest mystery might be the other nurse, Gigi, who is like no one Bridey has ever met. Chasing ten young children through the winding paths of the estate grounds might have soothed Bridey's anxieties and grief if Greenway were not situated so near the English Channel and the rising aggressions of the war. When a body washes ashore near the estate, Bridey is horrified to realize this is not a victim of war, but of a brutal killing. As the local villagers look among themselves, Bridey and Gigi discover they each harbor dangerous secrets about what has led them to Greenway. With a mystery writer's home as their unsettling backdrop, the young women must unravel the truth before their haven becomes a place of death.

NOMINEES

The Lindbergh Nanny by Mariah Fredericks
In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson
Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris
The Secret in the Wall by Ann Parker
One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips
Lavender House by Lev A. C. Rosen

The Lindbergh Nanny by Mariah Fredericks
Call Number: FIC FREDE MAR LI
ISBN: 9781250827401
Publication Date: 2022-11-15
When the most famous toddler in America, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped from his family home in New Jersey in 1932, the case makes international headlines. Already celebrated for his flight across the Atlantic, his father, Charles, Sr., is the country's golden boy, with his wealthy, lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by his side. But there's someone else in their household - Betty Gow, a formerly obscure young woman, now known around the world by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny. A Scottish immigrant deciphering the rules of her new homeland and its East Coast elite, Betty finds Colonel Lindbergh eccentric and often odd, Mrs. Lindbergh kind yet nervous, and Charlie simply a darling. Far from home and bruised from a love affair gone horribly wrong, Betty finds comfort in caring for the child, and warms to the attentions of handsome sailor Henrik, sometimes known as Red. Then, Charlie disappears. Suddenly a suspect in the eyes of both the media and the public, Betty must find the truth about what really happened that night, in order to clear her own name - and to find justice for the child she loves.

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In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson
Call Number: FIC MPHER CAT IN
ISBN: 9781529337969
Publication Date: 2022-06-28

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Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris
Call Number: FIC MORRI WANM AN
ISBN: 9780063271821
Publication Date: 2022-10-25
Two sisters on the run from Jim Crow justice in 1964 Jackson, Mississippi, flee to separate parts of the country, unaware that they are both being pursued by someone with dark secrets and a disturbing motive for finding them that is unknown to anyone but himself.

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The Secret in the Wall (Silver rush mysteries #8) by Ann Parker
Call Number: FIC PARKE ANN S8 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781464214943
Publication Date: 2022-02-15
San Francisco music store owner Inez Stannert agrees to provide financial assistance to boardinghouse proprietor Moira Krause. When the common wall of the abandoned house adjoining Moira's is breached to expand her business, the corpse of a murdered man tumbles out, along with a worn canvas bag holding a fortune in gold coins. Then the locksmith who made the house's unbreakable locks is brutally slain, and the keys vanish. Inez and private detective Wolter Roeland de Bruijn set out to uncover the truth behind the killings.

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One-Shot Harry (Harry Ingram #1) by Gary Phillips
Call Number: FIC PHILL GAR I1
ISBN: 9781641292917
Publication Date: 2022-04-12
Los Angeles, 1963: African American Korean War veteran Harry Ingram earns a living as a news photographer and occasional process server: chasing police radio calls and dodging baseball bats. With racial tensions running high on the eve of Martin Luther King's Freedom Rally, Ingram risks ending up one of the victims at every crime scene he photographs. When Ingram hears a call over the police scanner to the scene of a deadly automobile accident, he recognizes the vehicle described as belonging to his good friend and old army buddy, the white jazz trumpeter Ben Kingslow, with whom he'd only just reconnected. The LAPD declares the car crash an accident, but when Ingram develops his photos there are signs of foul play. Ingram feels no choice but to play detective, even if it means putting his own life on the line. Armed with his wits, his camera, and occasionally his Colt .45, Harry Ingram plunges head-first into the seamier underbelly of LA society, tangling with racists, leftists, blackmailers, gangsters, zealots, and lovers, all in the hope of finding something resembling justice for a friend.

2000s-2010s

The Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award of the Macavity Awards fhas been awarded since 2006.

2006

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

Pardonable Lies (Maisie Dobbs #3) by Jacqueline Winspear
Call Number: Fiction W776L v.3 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780805078978
Publication Date: 2005-08-10
A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but to the doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit world. In accepting the assignment, Maisie finds her spiritual strength tested, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The mission also brings her together once again with her college friend Priscilla Evernden, who served in France and who lost three brothers to the war—one of whom, it turns out, had an intriguing connection to the missing Ralph Lawton.

2007

Oh Danny Boy by Rhys Bowen

2008

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
Call Number: Fiction F831m (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780399154140
Publication Date: 2007-02-06
In medieval Cambridge, England, Adelia, a female forensics expert, is summoned by King Henry II to investigate a series of gruesome murders that has wrongly implicated the Jewish population, yielding even more tragic results. As Adelia's investigation takes her behind the closed doors of the country's churches, the killer prepares to strike again.

2009

A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen

A Royal Pain (Royal spyness mystery #2) by Rhys Bowen
Call Number: Fiction B786r v.2 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780425221631
Publication Date: 2008-07-01
London, 1932. Poor Lady Georgiana--thirty-fourth in line to the throne--has nothing to serve her Bavarian princess houseguest, even though the Queen of England has requested that she entertain her. Then there's the matter of the body in the bookshop and the princess's unwitting involvement with the Communist party. It's enough to drive a girl mad...
A Royal Pain [E-Book] (Royal spyness mystery #2) by Rhys Bowen
Call Number: Fiction B786r v.2 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781440629525
Publication Date: 2008

2010

A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

2011

City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley

2012

Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains by Catriona McPherson

2013

An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd

An Unmarked Grave : a Bess Crawford Mystery by Charles Todd
Call Number: Fiction T633c v.4 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 97800620015723
Publication Date: 2012
The critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of the Ian Rutledge mystery series, Charles Todd once again spotlights World War I nurse Bess Crawford in An Unmarked Grave. Gripping, powerful, and evocative, this superb mystery masterwork unfolds during the deadly Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, as Bess discovers the body of a murdered British officer among the many dead and sets out to unmask a craven killer.

2014

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

2015

A Deadly Measure of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins

2016

The Masque of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins

2017

Heart of Stone by James W. Ziskin

2018

In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen

In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen
Call Number: Fiction B786f (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781477818299
Publication Date: 2017-03-01
World War II comes to Farleigh Place, the ancestral home of Lord Westerham and his five daughters, when a soldier with a failed parachute falls to his death on the estate. After his uniform and possessions raise suspicions, MI5 operative and family friend Ben Cresswell is covertly tasked with determining if the man is a German spy. The assignment also offers Ben the chance to be near Lord Westerham's middle daughter, Pamela, whom he furtively loves. But Pamela has her own secret: she has taken a job at Bletchley Park, the British code-breaking facility. As Ben follows a trail of spies and traitors, which may include another member of Pamela's family, he discovers that some within the realm have an appalling, history-altering agenda. Can he, with Pamela's help, stop them before England falls?
In Farleigh Field [Large Print] by Rhys Bowen
Call Number: Ficton B786f LargeType (Large Type Books)
ISBN: 9781683247692
Publication Date: 2018-05-01

2019

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
Call Number: Fiction M4167w (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781616957797
Publication Date: 2018
Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forfeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious, especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X--meaning she probably couldn't even read the document. The Farid widows live in full purdah--in strict seclusion, never leaving the women's quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder. Now it is her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that no innocent women or children are in further danger.
The Widows of Malabar Hill [E-Book] by Sujata Massey
Call Number: OverDrive E-Book
ISBN: 9781616957797
Publication Date: 2018

Macavity Awards

2020s

WINNER

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

FINALISTS

Murder Knocks Twice by Susanna Calkins

The Pearl Dagger by L. A. Chandlar

A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder by Dianne Freeman

The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey

Charity's Burden by Edith Maxwell

WINNER

Turn to Stone by James Ziskin

FINALISTS

The Last Mrs. Summers by Rhys Bowen

The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart

The Turning Tide by Catriona McPherson

Mortal Music by Ann Parker

The Mimosa Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

WINNER

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

FINALISTS

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen

The Hollywood Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal

The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey

Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day

NOMINEES

The Lindbergh Nanny by Mariah Fredericks

In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson

Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris

The Secret in the Wall by Ann Parker

One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips

Lavender House by Lev A. C. Rosen

2000s-2010s

2006

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

2007

Oh Danny Boy by Rhys Bowen

2008

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

2009

A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen

2010

A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

2011

City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley

2012

Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains by Catriona McPherson

2013

An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd

2014

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

2015

A Deadly Measure of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins

2016

The Masque of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins

2017

Heart of Stone by James W. Ziskin

2018

In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen

2019

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey