Annal:1991 Agatha Award for Best First Novel

Zero at the Bone

Mary Willis Walker

• 1992 Macavity-1st Novel winner
• 1991 Agatha–1st Novel winner
• 1992 Edgar-1st Novel nominee
• Score: 26.42

Katherine Driscoll is just three weeks away from disaster: foreclosure on her home and business, even the sale of her beloved dog. She has no hope of raising the $91,000 she so desperately needs—until the father she hasn’t seen for thirty years writes to her, offering her enough money to solve her problems…if she will do one thing in return.

But Katherine may never learn what that is. When she arrives in Austin, she is hours too late: her father has died in a bizarre accident. As she sifts through the cryptic notes he left behind, she finds herself caught up in terrible family secrets—and a deadly illicit trade. The more she learns, the more determined she becomes to prove her father’s death was no accident. In doing so, Katherine will make a bitter enemy—one desperate enough to kill…and perhaps, kill again.

Just Desserts: A Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery

Mary Daheim

• 1991 Agatha–1st Novel nominee
• Score: 6.41

When the garishly grotesque clan of wealthy carpet-sweeper magnate Otto Broadie sweeps down upon Judith McMonigle’s Hillside Manor Inn, it looks like there’ll be a wild night of drinking, dining, and fortune-telling in the offing. But when their soothsayer-for-hire Madame Gushenka drops dead after someone douses her tea leaves with bug killer, harried hostess Judith and her irrepressible cousin Renie are left to clean up the mess. One of the Brodie bunch would dearly love to sweep the Madame’s murder under the rug, however, and that might mean eliminating the nosy Ms. McMonigle as well. But with the help of her one-time beau, policeman Joe Flynn, Judith is determined to rattle the dust off some closeted family skeletons, in order to coax a killer out of hiding before coffee is served.

Carpool

Mary Cahill

• 1991 Agatha–1st Novel nominee
• Score: 6.41

Today she’s a hassled suburban Mom, but a few years ago, Jenny Meade worked as a pilot in a private delivery service she ran with her father. She’s been grounded on account of the dangers above, but the dangers below threaten her life when she discovers a dead body hanging from a tree in a park. Suicide seems to explain everything, but Jenny and part-time detective Tom Black Cloud are not convinced. And as she struggles to forget the fantasies of flying, Jenny accelerates headling toward domestic drama and an international incident with echoes from her past and a warning for her future….

The Bulrush Murders: A Botanical Mystery

Rebecca Rothenberg

• 1991 Agatha–1st Novel nominee
• Score: 6.41

 

Flowers for the Dead

Ann M. Williams

• 1991 Agatha–1st Novel nominee
• Score: 6.41