The Agatha Awards honor traditional mysteries like those written by the great Agatha Christie.  So these mysteries contain no explicit sex and no excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Some of you are saying, "That doesn't sound exciting!" but some of us like a quieter mystery. The 2012 awards were announced on May 4th and the winners are below.

The Mystery Writers of America will be awarding the Edgar Award on April 26th. Here are the nominees for Best Novel. Check them out and see what you think!

The Ranger by Ace Atkins
Gone by Mo Hayder
The Devotion of Suspect X by keigo Higashino
1222 by Anne Holt
Field Grey by Philip Kerr

From time to time I like to let you know about new titles that you might find interesting. These are ones that Library Journal featured in their mystery section. See what you think!

I have family ties to Galveston. As a matter of fact, my uncle takes pride in being a BOI (Born on the Island).  Crider, an Anthony Award winning author, certainly knows Galveston well. Prominent landmarks and local attractions are part of the story as Tru Smith, a BOI himself, works to find Sharon Matthews, a local teen gone missing.

A Norwegian train derails during a monster blizzard, 1222 meters above sea level. Luckily, there’s a wonderful hotel nearby that takes in the stranded passengers. But then with 200 people snowed in, isolated from the outside world, a murder happens. A disabled, middle aged female police inspector, Hanne Wilhelmsen, is asked to investigate. A true misanthrope, she resists, until she has to take action.

In the Hollows, a small town outside New York City, Maggie and Jones Cooper are having problems with their teenager, Rick. When Rick’s girlfriend, Charlene, goes missing, it brings back memories of another girl who disappeared twenty years ago. Her  mutilated body was found, but some questions were never answered and some of the townspeople wrestle with the memories of that incident. Rick becomes a suspect and Maggie tries to deal with it all. I enjoyed Fragile because the characters were so well written and realistic.

I haven’t read any of Sara Paretsky’s mysteries in a while. I like them, it’s just that there’s so much to read! Sometimes I lose track of a series and I go back when I’m reminded of it. Seeing that her latest Breakdown just came out reminded me of Paretsky’s female Chicago PI, VI Warshawski.

In V is for Vengeance, Kinsey Millhone spots a woman shoplifting and she immediately informs store authorities. Later the woman commits suicide but her fiancé hires Kinsey because he refuses to accept her death as a suicide. Kinsey uncovers a shoplifting ring and deals with a major gangster. Kinsey is feisty and the writing is witty and clever.

Anthony Horowitz has been authorized by the Conan Doyle Estate to create some new stories and this created a lot of media buzz. Eager as I was to read some new Sherlock Holmes stories, I wasn’t sure that anyone could do justice to the original stories.

After reading T is for Trespass, I decided to stay with the Kinsey Millhone series and get caught up with <