Annal:1999 Agatha Award for Best Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Agatha Award in the year 1999. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Mariner's Compass: A Benni Harper Mystery
- 1999 Agatha–Novel winner
- Score: 10.49
The ex-cowgirl, quilter, and resident sleuth of San Celina, California, is back—navigating her way through a stormy sea of puzzling clues to a home she never knew existed… Jacob Chandler knew everything about Benni Harper, and in his house were pieces of her life: a scrapbook of newspaper clippings that covered her life and work. When Jacob Chandler died, he left his home in Morro Bay and all its contents to Benni-the only stipulation being that she had to stay in the house for two weeks, alone, before the inheritance became hers. But Benni Harper has never even…
Immaculate Reception: A Madeline Bean Catering Mystery
- 1999 Agatha–Novel nominee
- Score: 6.49
The Pope is coming to breakfast, and Madeline Bean’s got frittatas on the skillet. What a coup for gourmet caterer Mad Bean and her company, the event-planning wizards, chosen to mastermind L.A.’s official welcoming extravaganza. Pulling off the early morning meal for His Holiness, and two thousand high profile bigwigs, sounds like great fun for the unflappable Ms. Bean.
But things quickly go from serene to sinister when a young priest turns up dead in the bed of an uninhibited Hollywood star, and a yellowed page of Latin scrawl, found tucked in an old book of…
Death on the River Walk: A Henrie O. Mystery
- 1999 Agatha–Novel nominee
- Score: 6.49
Carolyn Hart is one of America’s best-loved mystery writers-a multiple award-winning architect of ingenious puzzles set in atmospheric locales, featuring men and women both intriguingly complex and achingly human. And no character is more complex or human than sixty-something sleuth Henrie O, whose decades of newspapering have taught her that every fact is suspect, but goodness can still be celebrated.
A frantic phone call from an old and dear friend on the other side of the world sends Henrie O to the fabled city of San Antonio, Texas, in search of her…
In Big Trouble: A Tess Monaghan Mystery
- 2000 Anthony-Paperback winner
- 2000 Shamus-Paperback winner
- 2000 Edgar-Paperback nominee
- 1999 Agatha–Novel nominee
- Score: 32.5
First as a reporter and then as a p.i., Tess Monaghan has learned how to survive and thrive on the streets of Baltimore. But a new case will force her to confront her own past, and a man she loved and lost. It starts when she gets a newspaper photograph of her old boyfriend with a tantalizing shard of headline attached: In Big Trouble. The answers lie far from Baltimore, deep in a world of good-time music, old-fashioned ambiiton, and rich people’s games. For Tess must find out what happened to a man she thought she knew, to a woman who may have changed him forever, and to the victims of a killer who dances to a different—and deadly—drummer.
- 2000 Macavity-Novel winner
- 1999 Agatha–Novel nominee
- Score: 16.5
Rei Shimura, a twentysomething part-California girl, part-Japanese antiques dealer, can’t quite find her place in Tokyo society. Lately Rei’s love life has fallen off the radar screen, and despite all her efforts, her new business isn’t doing much better.
At her aunt’s insistence, Rei enrolls in a course in ikebana, the famous Japanese art of flower arranging. Little does she realize what a cutthroat class it will be; she’s hardly completed a lesson before her instructor is murdered.
Rei is ready to track down the killer, but suddenly the case hits close to…
