Annal:2002 Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Macavity Award in the year 2002. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 2002 Macavity-Novel winner
- Score: 10.52
What Happens If Your Worst Fears Aren’t All In Your Mind?
Rae Newborn is a woman on the edge: on the edge of sanity, on the edge of tragedy, and now on the edge of the world. She has moved to an island at the far reaches of the continent to restore the house of an equally haunted figure, her mysterious great-uncle; but as her life begins to rebuild itself along with the house, his story starts to wrap around hers. Powerful forces are stirring, but Rae cannot see where her reality leaves off and his fate begins.
Fifty-two years old, Rae must battle the feelings that have long tormented her—panic, melancholy, and a skin-crawling sense of watchers behind the trees. Before she came here, she believed that most of the things she feared existed only in her mind. And who can say, as disturbing incidents multiply, if any of the watchers on Folly Island might be real? Is Rae paranoid, as her family and the police believe, or is the threat real? Is the island alive with promise—or with dangers?
With Folly, award-winning author Laurie R. King once again powerfully redefines psychological…
Mystic River: A Novel
- 2002 Anthony-Novel winner
- 2002 Barry-Novel winner
- 2002 Macavity-Novel nominee
- 2001 Hammett nominee
- Score: 32.52
When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car drove up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened—something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay-demons that urge him to do horrific things.
When Jimmy’s daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into serious conflict with Jimmy. And then there is Dave, who came home covered in someone else’s blood the night Jimmy’s daughter died. While Sean attempts to use the law to return peace and order to the neighborhood, Jimmy finds his need for vengeance pushing him ever closer to a moral abyss from which he won’t be able to return.
A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love, loyalty, faith, and family.
The Deadhouse: An Alexandra Cooper Mystery
- 2002 Macavity-Novel nominee
- Score: 6.52
It’s the holiday season but there’s little reason for cheer at one of New York’s most elite colleges. A respected professor is dead; strangled and dumped in an elevator shaft. Lola Dakota’s lifeless fingers clutch a few strands of hair, and a piece of paper in her pocket reads “The Deadhouse.”
What brought a distinguished academic to such a tragic end? Opportunistic murder seems unlikely as assistant DA Alexandra Cooper, working with detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, uncovers a distressing pattern of betrayal and terror.
There’s proof that Lola’s husband, Ivan, wanted her dead. He has an alibi, but could he have hired a killer? Or could one of Lola’s colleagues have erupted into unexpected violence? Some of their stories don’t quite ring true. And why did Lola have a photograph of twenty-year-old Charlotte Voight pinned to her office bulletin board? Charlotte left her dorm room eight months ago and vanished into the night. Is she dead? Could she and Lola have become victims of the same predator?
Perhaps most puzzling of all are the words “The Deadhouse.”…
- 2002 Anthony-Novel nominee
- 2002 Barry-Novel nominee
- 2002 Edgar–Novel nominee
- 2002 Macavity-Novel nominee
- Score: 24.52
For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive.
Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible—that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.
Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope.
But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret—and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.
- 2002 Edgar–Novel winner
- 2001 LATimes–Mystery winner
- 2002 Barry-Novel nominee
- 2002 Macavity-Novel nominee
- 2001 Hammett nominee
- Score: 38.52
With the horrible remnants of a childhood tragedy forever visible across his otherwise handsome face, Joe Trona is scarred in more ways than one. Rescued from an orphanage by Will Trona, a charismatic Orange County politician who sensed his dark potential, Joe is swept into the maelstrom of power and intimidation that surrounds his adoptive father’s illustrious career. Serving as Will’s right-hand man, Joe is trained to protect and defend his father’s territory—but he can’t save the powerful man from his enemies. Will Trona is murdered, and Joe will stop at nothing to find out who did it.
Looking for clues as he sifts through the remains of his father’s life—his girlfriends, acquaintances, deals, and enemies—Joe comes to realize how many secrets Will Trona possessed, and how many people he had the power to harm. But two leads keep rising to the surface: a little girl who was kidnapped by her mentally disturbed brother, and two rival gangs who seem to have joined forces. As Joe deepens his investigation—and as he is forced to confront the painful events of his troubled…
