THE SPOTTED OWL AWARD: Friends of Mystery

The Friends of Mystery 2025 Spotted Owl Award: 

Bad River by Marc Cameron

The Spotted Owl Award prize is bestowed by Friends of Mystery (Portland, OR) to celebrate crime fiction produced by authors living in the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, British Columbia, Canada, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington).

Runners-up:

2. Baron Birtcher for Knife River
3 (tie). Rene Denfeld for Sleeping Giants and Warren Easley for Deadly Redemption
4. J.A. Jance for Den of Iniquity
5. Phillip Margolin for An Insignificant Case
6. Katrina Carrasco for Rough Trade
7. Frank Zafiro and Colin Conway for The Silence of the Dead
8. Kerri Hakado for Cold to the Touch
9. Eric Redman for Death in Hilo

Congratulations to All!

SPOTTED OWL AWARD WINNER

Friends of Mystery announced the Spotted Owl Winner. The Spotted Owl is chosen by a volunteer committee of Friends of Mystery members. For a book to be considered for the Spotted Owl Award: The author must have primary residence in the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho or the Province of British Columbia.

Spotted Owl Winner
Robert Dugoni: The Eighth Sister

Also Nominated:

• Mike Lawson – House Arrest
• Martin Limon – G.I. Confidential
• Dana Haynes – St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking
• Daniel Kalla – We All Fall Down
• Warren Easley – No Way to Die
• W.H. Cameron – Crossroad
• Marc Cameron – Active Measures
• Michael Niemann – No Right Way
• Frank Zafiro – Charlie 316

More Mystery Awards and Nominees

MORE MYSTERY AWARDS

St. Paul novelist Christopher Valen has been awarded The Garcia Prize for his debut mystery, White Tombs. An annual award presented in conjunction with the national Reader Views Book Awards, The Garcia Prize is awarded to the best fiction book of the year. White Tombs also won Best Mystery of the Year honors. White Tombs (Conquil Press, ISBN: 978-0980001723, $14.95, Mystery) introduces protagonist Detective John Santana.

Friends of Mystery, a non-profit literary/educational organization based in Portland, Oregon, has announced that this year's winner of the Spotted Owl Award for the best mystery by a Pacific Northwest author is Executive Privilege by Phillip Margolin (HarperCollins), a legal thriller partly set in Oregon and involving the possibility that the President might be a serial killer.

Margolin, a Portland attorney and author, is an original member and longtime supporter of Friends of Mystery.

NOMINEES

SHORT MYSTERY FICTION SOCIETY Announces the finalists for the 2009 Derringer Awards
BEST FLASH STORY (Up to 1,000 Words)
Black Pearls by James C. Clar
Incident in Itawamba by Gary Hoffman
No Flowers for Stacy by Ruth McCarty
No Place Like Home by Dee Stuart
This Bird has Flown by BV Lawson

BEST SHORT STORY (1,001-4,000 Words)
Independence Day by Allan Leverone
Regrets, I’ve Had a Few by Allan Leverone
Stalkers* by Lew Stowe
Taste for It by Sophie Littlefield
The Cost of Doing Business by Mike Penncavage
Wishing on Whores* by John Weagly
*tie score in the judging

BEST LONG STORY (4,001-8,000 Words)
Bonnie and Clyde Caper by O’Neil De Noux
Dead Even by Frank Zafiro
The Art of Avarice by Darrell James
The Big Score by Chris Holm
The Quick Brown Fox by Robert S. Levinson

BEST NOVELETTE (8,000-17,500 Words)
Haven’t Seen You Since the Funeral by Ernest B. Brown
Jack Best and the Line in the Sand by Steve Olley
Panic on Portage Path by Dick Stodghill
Too Wise by O’Neil De Noux
Vegetable Matters by Terry W. Ervin II