CLAYMORE AWARD FINALISTS 2026

2026 Claymore Finalists

Clay Stafford of the Killer Nashville International Writers' Conference announced this year's Silver Falchion and Claymore Award Finalists. The Silver Falchion Award is given for the Best Book in each category for the previous year (2025). The Claymore Award is given to a diverse collection of the top unpublished manuscripts submitted in 2026. The winners in each category will be announced at the annual Killer Nashville Awards Dinner taking place on August 22nd at the Embassy Suites Nashville South/Cool Springs Hotel in Franklin, TN.
 
Best Action/Adventure
 
The Veiled Mosaic / Christopher Boswell 
Cleopatra's Tomb / Mark Bruce 
Free Economic Zone / J Reid Graham
Dynamite / James Hamilton
The Peacock Throne / Shaun Singh
The Lost Patrol of Black Virgin Mountain / Rick St John
 
Best Children's
 
Leo and the Chess Game of Ashoka / Jaya Agrawl
The Locker of Legends / Nate Searle
 
Best Comedy (includes comedic P.I. and crime caper)
 
The Yellow Willie Incident / Kathleen Kaska
How to Keep a Secret in Alabama / Beth Hamer Miles
Stuck in Stowe / Matthew Minson
 
 
Best Cozy
 
A Truth Most Inconvenient / Elizabeth Abram
Reel Danger in the Dunes / Maggie Cleland
The Doll's House / Lucinda Gerlitz 
Steeped in Gossip / Cathey Rhamy
Alaskan Falls / Lori Sandrock
A Venetian Moonlight Murder / Jacquie Wilvers
 
Best Historical 
 
A Proof Against Ghosts / SR Chamberlain
Hollow Whispers of the Wind / Florence Chien
Hero Traitor Spy / Mark Clemens
The Hidebehind: A Folk Hymnal / John Essex 
Winterburn / DJ           Mattos
The White Diamond / Howard Sewell
 
Best Investigator (includes procedural, serious P.I., detective, and noir)
 
In Plain Sight / Jacquelyn Dohoney
Hunting the Archer / John Foley
Victim’s Voice / Henry James Kaye
Reflections in the Mist / Avram Lavinsky
Centaur Standing / Clare Monteschio
Return to Newstead Hills / CJ Prince
 
Best Juvenile / Y.A.
 
The Ravenspur Mystery / Judy Broad
Cinch / Mary Lynn Cloghesy
Mr. Larson's Tooth / Stephanie Duquette
Three Against Time / Alan Elliot
An Evil on Stanton Street / Janelle Gabay 
Early Decision / A.L. Phillips
  
Best Literary
 
Ghost of Bosnia / Micheal Blankenship
It's Always the Boyfriend / CJ Howell
The Unbroken Trail / Robert Jones
Boys of Autumn / Robert Jones
This Land Remembers / B Michael Whitis
Sacred Ghosts / Carol Potenza
 
Best Mainstream / Commercial
 
Checkpoint / GK Daffu 
The Yeoman of Humboldt County / Brian Heit
Collinwood / Phil Kushner
Hope House/ M Leigh
The Colony / Maria Lynn Barrs 
The Lights of Kirrie / Jennifer Rewick 
 
Best Mystery
 
Exit, Wound / Mark Dillman
The Mystery of the Wolf / David Goodlett
Answers Will Come / Henry James Kaye
All the Buried Secrets / Kim Nuesse
The Holiday Slayer / Janet Shawgo
The End of Us / Elissa Thompson
  
Best Nonfiction
 
Rebelle / Wendy Cooper
Count Time / Emmett Tatter
 
Best Sci-Fi / Fantasy
 
Origins of the Zodiac: Year of the Dragon / Rebecca Camillo-Amisano
What We Awaken / Peregrine Finn
When the Clock Strikes / Lydia Gullicksen
The Consciousness of Life and Death / WB Henley
The Watcher / Lynn Jerdal
The Castello Della Mente / John Morrison
 
Best Short Story Collection / Anthology (awarded to individual author or collection editor)
 
Ten Terrific, Terrifying, and Tantalizing Tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Action / John Bias
Invincible Summer / Andrew Dunn
A Feel for Other People / S Foster Jones
Ain’t Nothin’ Finer- Tales of Appalachia / Venita Lynn Bonds
Between Breath and Bone / Patricia Thorpe
 
Best Southern Gothic
 
The Silence We Inherit / Leigh Bravo
Mississippi Gothic / Elise Burke Brown
A Miracle Past Midnight / Aimee Hardy
The Book Conservator / Shelley Marsh
God Don't Live Here Anymore / Patricia Thorpe
 
Best Supernatural
 
Blood on the Ground / Stephanie Duquette
Hearts and Minds / Kat Horowitz
Moon Child / Sable Pena
Dark Noise / Christopher Allan Poe
Daughters of the Last Breath / Patricia Thorpe
The Wayfarer / Whitney Weldon
 
Best Suspense
 
Fuck, Marry, Kill / LB Blackburne
Colossus Descending / Steven Brody
Needle of Deception / Denise Jendusa
Queenwood / Meredith Pate
The Eleventh Child / Chas Shutt
Aftermath / Deana Willis
 
Best Thriller
 
Fifteen Hours to Redondo / Michael Collins
Blood Cache / Jim Doramus
Blood Cache / Kevin Kuhans
Richmond Rising / Stephen Nathanson
The Whisper Book / Jack Sharman
Ties that Bind / Charles A. Stewart
 
Best True Crime
 
The Gravity of Millions / NR Gibson
Down at the Balinese / Matthew Minson
Erased: The Sinister Plot behind the Disappearance of Charles Wilding / Mark O'Donnell
 
Best Western
 
A Cowboy in Black and Gold / Matthew Gallagher
Windfall / Rebecca Jarnes

My Writing Life (such as it is): Guest Post by Naomi Rand

Why do I write? Because I can't not. Simply put, that's it. I get up every day, put on a pot of espresso, (which, currently features three scoops of Haagen Daz ice cream, a habit that I began during the pandemic, and I haven't seen any reason to break). Then, I go to my writing area, which used to be your standard desk, then became a standing one, and is currently, a bed. Not the one I sleep in, the other one, (insomnia rules). I make myself comfortable, and prop up my laptop on my lap, and I sit there, hoping for inspiration, but while I do I write seventeen versions of the same sentence. Eventually, something kicks in, and then the next few pages of my new mystery take shape.

Hours pass. That's the best part. Hours where I'm not me, worrying about whatever I'm worrying about at the moment. Though, crucially, if I'm eating at home, it's important to break after an hour or so, and check in with my better half, who's the cook, so we can discuss the most crucial decision of the day. What's for dinner. Once that's settled, it's back to work. 

After that, it's back to my current quandary, what happens next, and what do these people say to each other that will be maybe witty, or pithy, or at least entertaining and move the plot forward. The mystery I'm writing currently is about a mother and daughter who've kept secrets from each other. Then, all hell breaks loose on the film set where the daughter's working, and they need to team up. What happens next? That's the quandary. 

I wish I outlined. I've tried and failed. Instead, I exercise. First, I take a walk, (currently in Greenwood Cemetery, which is the location I'm using for my new mystery, and blocks from my house). It's got great birding, and insane looking mausoleums, and Boss Tweed and Basquiat's graves. It's very quiet, lots of dead people, but very few living ones. So, my whirring mind eventually comes up with the germs of the next idea. Then, I jot it down, and head to the pool where I swim a mile and hammer out the details.

After which, there's a drink, and dinner.

Then, it's time to watch something, (Riot Women was a favorite recently, so now I'm exploring everything Sally Wainwright's written), and then, I read whatever it is I'm currently reading. I just finished Whistler, Ann Padgett's latest, (highly recommended), and am now reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke for my book group. Then, to sleep. And being a woman of a certain age, I'm up again at three, to worry some more, but eventually I get back to sleep, and wake at six or so, and then, there's coffee to look forward to, which is, in my humble opinion, the ambrosia of the gods.

It's a life, folks. And it's what makes me happy. Or, at least, keeps me sane.

We all write about ourselves in one way or another, so everything I write has me in it. My current mystery, out now, Goodbye to Me, is no exception. It takes place in 1968 in a gritty, very different New York City. The main character, Freddie, who works as a bike messenger, comes home to find her foster mother, dying, and a strange man, dead in their apartment. She needs to stay one step ahead of her pursuers and solve the mystery of why her foster mother was targeted. She and her best friend/crush, Celia, race through the city I grew up in. They go from the old Times Square, where I skipped school, to haunt the arcades, to the boat basin which used to have actual houseboats that people lived on, bobbing in the, then toxic Hudson, the Museum of Modern Art where my best friend and I would go, religiously to see whatever movie was screening that Saturday, to Bloomingdales where I spotted Faye Dunaway getting into a cab, looking so beautiful it took your breath away.

Writing is life.

And, in my case, life is writing.

***

Naomi Rand is the author of the Emma Price mysteries, The One That Got Away, Stealing For A Living, and It’s Raining Men (Harper Collins) and the novel, Surviving Amelia (Bink Books). Her forthcoming novel Goodbye to Me will be published in June by Bink Books. She has stories in three great collections, Brutal and Strange: Stories Inspired by the Songs of Elvis Costello (Down and Out Press), Crime Plus Music (Three Rooms Press) and Hard Boiled Brooklyn (Bleak House Books). Her fiction and literary criticism have appeared in numerous publications including The Flexible Persona, Other Voices, Melus, Cutbank, The Florida Review, The Spirit That Moves Us Press, Invisible City, and The North Dakota Quarterly. Her personal essays have appeared in The Huffington Post and Ravishly, and she's written a book review column, numerous articles for national publications and, once, long ago, a pregnancy guide. Now she lives in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn with her husband, David. When she's not writing, swimming, or walking, she's planning her next great meal. www.naomirand.com

MAIGRET, Season 2, news

MASTERPIECE PBS has announced that Season 2 of Maigret will premiere on Sunday, October 18 at 9/8c on PBS. It will also be available to stream via the PBS app and PBS MASTERPIECE on Prime Video. 

Based on Georges Simenon’s novels about the iconic French detective, this groundbreaking, contemporary version of Maigret is written by Patrick Harbinson.

 

In the second installment of the MASTERPIECE Mystery! series, Chief Inspector Maigret (Benjamin Wainwright) and his team of detectives investigate a series of haunting and complex crimes. Based on adaptations of three of Simenon’s most famous Maigret novels – The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, The Yellow Dog, and Maigret’s Revolver – Season 2 raises the stakes for Maigret and his wife Louise (Stephanie Martin).

 

Maigret’s unique brand of justice exposes him to the critical eye of his mentor, Police Director Xavier Guichard (Nathaniel Parker). He decides that Maigret needs to be taught a lesson and deliberately weakens his team. With the pressure mounting inexorably, Maigret will be forced to make a choice between his personal life and his career.

Cartoon of the Day: Dogs

MYSTERIES SET IN FRANCE: La Fête Nationale aka Bastille Day

Celebrate La Fête Nationale aka Bastille Day with the hot off the presses issue of Mystery Readers Journal: Mysteries Set in France (Volume 42:2)! Buy this issue.

If you're a subscriber you will receive your issue shortly. Contributors will receive their issues later this week. Thanks to everyone for supporting Mystery Readers Journal for over 42 years.

 

MYSTERIES SET IN FRANCE: MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL (42:2)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ARTICLES

• Joseph Rouletabille: Reporter-Detective by Ashley Bowden

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

• Vive la différence! by Cathy Ace
• From Marseille to Edisto Island by Paul A. Barra
• We’ll Always Have Paris by Janet Dawson
• From Somewhere in France by Michele Drier
• A Historian and Novelist in France by Ann Elwood
• Delicious Chapters by Yves Fey
  
• What Foolish Dreams May Come by Alan Gordon
• The Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Research Tour: Setting a Book in France by Wendy Hornsby
• It’s Never Too Late to Be a Midlife Badass by Lauren Johnson
• I’d Kill to Live in Paris by Eva Jurczyk
• The Mystery of the Misplaced Mona Lisa by Ron Katz
• Victor & Me in Paris by Janice MacDonald
• It’s All About the Setting by Adrian Magson
• Magdalene Duchateau: A Frenchwoman Abroad in the English Mystery by G.M. Malliet
• Murder at Villa Légère: A Pho of Murder, Diamonds, and a Secret Worth Killing For by C. L. Malone
• Why France? by Peter May
• France Is a Drug—The Bennett Sisters Can’t Be Wrong by Lise McClendon
• Liberty and Death in the French Maritime Alps by Larry Mild
• My France by Sharan Newman
• The Reality Behind the Fantasy of “French Country Murders” by Katie Penryn
• Corsica: Where Landscape Creates Secrets by Neil S. Plakcy
• Mysterious (and Delicious) Paris by Danielle Postel-Vinay
• Paris Didn’t Let Me Leave, So I Wrote a Murder Instead by Ileana Muñoz Renfroe
• Why Not France? by Susan C. Shea
• Mysterious Paris by Rob Swigart
• So Softly Threads the Night by Bob Van Laerhoven
• The Mystery of Paris by Charles Todd
• I Was a Free Man in Paris by C.J. Verburg
• We’ll Always Have Paris by Nancy Warren
• Dreaming of Paris by Victoria Zackheim
• Saint-Paul-de-Vence: Toujours Cool, Just Add Murder by Elizabeth Zelvin
• On Monaco and Mystery by Ally Zetterberg

COLUMNS

• Mystery in Retrospect: Reviews 
• Children’s Hour: Mysteries Set in France by Gay Toltl Kinman
• Meurtres en … France by Kate Derie
• Spiral (Engrenages): France’s Compulsive Masterpiece of Crime, Corruption, and Character by Pattie Tierney
• Jean Gabin—the Greatest Maigret by Jim Doherty
• True Crime France by Cathy Pickens
• From the Editor’s Desk by Janet Rudolph

THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB: Season 3 News

Mark your calendars! The Marlow Murder Club returns to MASTERPIECE Mystery! for Season 3 on Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, on MASTERPIECE on PBS. In Season 3, Judith Potts (Samantha Bond), Suzie Harris (Jo Martin), Becks Starling (Cara Horgan), and DI Tanika Malik (Natalie Dew) all return to solve a string of high-profile murders including that of the mayor and a popular chef. Seasons 1 & 2 of the series are available to stream via PBS and PBS MASTERPIECE on Prime Video.

I've watched the first two episodes, and they're terrific. I love this series, and the first two episodes (one story) involve a poison garden. Well, that's right up my alley. As many of you know I have a great garden, divided into individual patches. Although I used to have a designated poison garden, I now have only some poisonous plants incorporated into my other garden plots.  Still, I loved seeing a dedicated poison garden, replete with signage. So beautiful--and deadly. And, not a secret, but fun was the guest appearance of Peter Davidson. Such fun! Everything about The Marlow Murder Club appeals to me--the acting, the setting, the house, the river, the gardens. Mark your calendar for September 6!

Season 3: Returning to solve more complex and intriguing murders in Marlow are meticulous crossword-setter Judith Potts (Samantha Bond), pillar of the community and vicar’s wife Becks Starling (Cara Horgan), and no-nonsense dog walker Suzie Harris (Jo Martin). Working tirelessly alongside DI Tanika Malik (Natalie Dew) and her police team, our crime-solving trio put their unconventional methods into practice to catch the killers in six new episodes. There will be three two-part stories.