The awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, honor the best mystery fiction, nonfiction and television writing produced each year
Credit: Square Fish; Penguin Press; Scholastic Press
NEED TO KNOW
- The Mystery Writers of America have announced the winners of the 2026 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
- The annual honor recognized the best mystery fiction, nonfiction and television writing produced in 2025
- See the full list of winners here
The winners of the 2026 Edgar Allan Poe Awards have been announced!
At the 80th annual Edgar Awards Banquet held in New York City on April 29, the Mystery Writers of America bestowed the annual literary prize, which honored the best mystery fiction, nonfiction and television produced in 2025.
The MWA presented additional honors to follow the category awards. Billie Kay Fern's short story “How it Happened,” published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award, while Hank Phillippi Ryan's novel All This Could Be Yours took home the Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award.
Joanna Schaffhausen's novel Gone in the Night won the G.P. Putnam's Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award, while Gwen Florio's A Senior Citizen's Guide to Life on the Run won the Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award.
The MWA also announced a series of special awards in January 2026, to honor individual achievement and contributions within the mystery genre. Authors Donna Andrews and Lee Child were announced as the 2026 Grand Masters. California's Book Passage bookstore took home the Raven Award, and Kensington Publishing editor-in-chief John Scognamiglio won the Ellery Queen Award.
See the full list of category winners below:
Best Novel
The Big Empty by Robert Crais
Best First Novel by an American Author
Dead Money by Jakob Kerr
Credit: Poisoned Pen Press
Best Paperback Original
The Backwater by Vikki Wakefield
Best Fact Crime
Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser
Best Critical/Biographical
Edgar Allan Poe: A Life by Richard Kopley
Best Short Story
“Julius Katz Draws a Straight Flush” by Dave Zeltserman
Credit: University of Virginia Press
Best Juvenile
Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. Jackson
Best Young Adult
Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray
Best Television Episode Teleplay
“Pilot” — Paradise, written by Dan Fogelman
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Read the full article here
