Annal:2000 Anthony Award for Best First Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Anthony Award in the year 2000. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Murder, With Peacocks: A Meg Langslow Mystery
- 2000 Anthony-1st Novel winner
- 2000 Barry-1st Novel winner
- 1999 Agatha–1st Novel winner
- 2000 Macavity-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 36.5
Donna Andrews introduces a cast of quirky characters who will pull her heroine in different directions as she plans three successive summer weddings.
When Meg Langslow is roped into being a bridesmaid for the nuptials of her mother, her brother’s fiancee, and her own best friend, she is apprehensive. Getting the brides to chose their outfits and those of their bridesmaids (and not change their minds three days later), trying to capture the principals long enough to work out details, and even finding peacocks to strut around the garden during the ceremony—these…
Murder in the Marais: An Aimée Leduc Investigation
- 2000 Anthony-1st Novel nominee
- 2000 Macavity-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 12.5
A new mystery series set in Paris introduces intrepid detective Aimée Leduc.
It is November 1993 and the French prime ministerial candidate is about to sign a treaty with Germany that will severely restrict immigration, reminiscent of the Vichy laws. Aimée Leduc is approached by a rabbi to decipher a fifty-year-old encrypted photograph and place it in the hands of Lili Stein. When she arrives at Lili’s apartment in the Marais, the old Jewish quarter of Paris, she finds a corpse in whose forehead is carved a swastika. With the help of her partner, a dwarf with…
Circles of Confusion: A Claire Montrose Mystery
- 2000 Anthony-1st Novel nominee
- 1999 Agatha–1st Novel nominee
- Score: 12.5
Why did dear departed Aunt Cady have an exquisite old painting buried beneath World War II paraphernalia? And how can a painting so dramatically shift Claire’s perspective on everything from her uninspired love life to her ho-hum job in the Oregon state custom license plate division?
MSTBF8
(must be fate)
A sophisticated art expert tells Claire the painting isn’t valuable. Why, then, is she being followed, her hotel room getting ransacked, and her life being thrown in a state of havoc that reaches back to her quiet home in Portland? The closer…
- 2000 Anthony-1st Novel nominee
- 2000 Macavity-1st Novel nominee
- 1999 Agatha–1st Novel nominee
- Score: 18.5
Families: Can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em…
The beleaguered daughter of eccentric Hollywood stars, mystery writer Tracy Eaton is no stranger to wacky people, especially within her family. So when her sister-in-law’s wedding becomes a three-ring circus, Tracy is nonplussed, even when the bride is kidnapped.
Her snoot, bickering in-laws refuse to call the police and insist on paying the ransom, but Tracy knows that if justice is gong to prevail, it will definitely need her help. Because…the groom is riding around in a bulletproof limo; sweet, lovable…
Inner City Blues: A Charlotte Justice Novel
- 2000 Macavity-1st Novel winner
- 2000 Anthony-1st Novel nominee
- 2000 Edgar-1st Novel nominee
- Score: 22.5
As an African-American woman in the predominantly white-male LAPD, homicide detective Charlotte Justice knows about heat. But now, thanks to twelve decent, pro-police jurors in Simi Valley, Los Angeles is a city rife with fires and riots. Forty-eight hours into the maelstrom, a prominent black doctor is mistaken for a car thief. Justice quickly defuses the violent confrontation, saving Dr. Lance Mitchell from a potentially savage beating by L.A.’s finest. But that’s just the corner of a more ominous picture.
For the body of “Cinque” Lewis is found nearby with…

