The Edgar Awards

1996

Winner

Prophecy Rock by Rob MacGregor
Visiting his Hopi tribal police chief father, Will Lansa is drawn into an unusual murder investigation that may be linked to a powaqu, a powerful witch, and the mystery brings Will closer to his Hopi heritage.

Nominees

Spying on Miss Muller by Eve Bunting   YA Bunting, E.
Before World War II began, Jesse Drumm and her friends at Alveara boarding school in Belfast liked their German teacher, Miss Muller. After Jesse sees the teacher climbing to the roof at night, she and the others wonder if Miss Muller is a secret agent, signaling the enemy. Hoping to prove her favorite teacher's innocence, Jesse agrees to spy on her.

In the Middle of the Night by Robert Cormier   YA Cormier, R.
Years before Denny was born, his father was involved in a tragic accident that killed 22 children. Now Denny is 16 and all he wants is to be like other kids his age--he isn't allowed to answer the phone or have a driver's license. One afternoon Denny defies his parents and is drawn into a plot for revenge that may prove deadly. From the author of The Chocolate War.

Angel's Gate by Gary Crew
Kimmy encounters two wild children who have grown up in the hills of Australia and tries to protect them from the unknown person who murdered their father.

Spirit Seeker by Joan Lowery Nixon  YA MYSTERY Nixon, J.
A chilling, supernatural thriller from the bestselling author of The Name of the Game Was Murder. Holly Campbell's friend Cody Garnett's parents have just been found brutally murdered in their home--and Cody is the main suspect. Holly knows it's up to her to prove Cody's innocence. Will a mysterious psychic and a supposedly magical amber barrette help her solve the case?

1995

Winner

Toughing It by Nancy Springer
Dillon was the only person Tuff could rely on-no father in sight and a mother who just barely survives caring for her pack of children in their riverside trailer. Tuff's life is shattered when his older brother is senselessly murdered before his very eyes. When Tuff leaves home in search of Dillon's killer, his mother yells out a name, Penrose Leppo-Tuff's father. Tuff finds a haven at Pen Leppo's little shack of a store. As he desperately attempts to figure out who killed his brother, Tuff finds an ally in pen-and most importantly, a friend who makes him realize that solving the murder won't bring Dillon back.

Nominees

Poison by Alane Ferguson
While working in her wealthy father's office, Chelsea Smythe uncovers clues to a treasure hidden in a cave near Crystal Lake, but when she and her best friend, Amber, set out to find the money, they find themselves caught in a showdown with a would-be killer.

Shadowmaker by Joan Lowery Nixon   YA MYSTERY Nixon, J.
Soon after she and her mother come to the small Texas town of Kluney and experience a series of menacing events, Katie begins to suspect there is something sinister going on involving a secret gang of high school students and a company illegally storing toxic waste.

The Midnight Club by Christopher Pike   YA Pike, C.
Rotterdam Home, a hospice where teenagers with terminal illnesses went to die, was home to the Midnight Club--a group of five young men and women who met at midnight and told stories of intrigue and horror. One night they made a pact that the first of them to die would make every effort to contact the others . . . from beyond the grave.

Pale Phoenix by Kathryn Reiss
When her parents take in a strange orphan girl with a mysterious past, fifteen-year-old Miranda decides to find out why she seems to have come from nowhere and how she seems to be able to disappear at will.

1994

Winner

The Name of the Game Was Murder by Joan Lowery Nixon  YA MYSTERY Nixon, J.
Novelist Augustus Trevor has written a manuscript that reveals the darkestsecrets of his guests. Whoever can solve Trevor's clues can have his storyremoved from the book. But when Trevor is bludgeoned to death, the survivors (along with the reader) are challenged to find both the manuscript and the murderer.

Nominees

Strange Objects by Gary Crew
When 16-year-old Stephen Messenger finds an old iron pot containing a mummified hand and a 300-year-old journal on a school biology field trip, he sets off a chain of events that ends in the death of an old aborigine and in his own disappearance. The story unfolds through a series of documents released by anthropologists studying the artifacts, the serial publication of a journal (which tells the strange and hopeless story of two castaway murderers, one of whom is psychopathic--or possibly evil personified), newspaper accounts, and a notebook Stephen sends to an anthropologist in which he tells of finding the pot and the experiences that followed. The academic bickering of specialists interpreting the journal and artifacts provides a wonderful contrast to Stephen's matter-of-fact account of his visions and increasingly bizarre behavior.

Help Wanted by Richie Tankersley Cusick
When she gets a part-time job organizing a collection of antique books for the family of handsome Parker Swanson, Robin Bailey sees the ghost of Parker's stepmother, a medium who had committed suicide.

Class Trip by Bebe Faas Rice
A group takes a canoe trip to the isolated Shadow Island, and when a storm destroys their canoes, the group discovers they're helplessly trapped in the wilderness with a murderer in their midst.

Silent Witness by Patricia H. Rushford  YA Mystery, Rushford, P.
Book 2 in the Jennie McGrady Mystery series. Jennie's detective instincts help her to intervene when a new girl she meets desperately needs someone to solve a murder. A great young adult book.

1993

Winner

A Little Bit Dead by Chap Reaver
Raised by his father, a trapper in the 1870s, Reece was taught to do what was right. So when he comes across an Indian boy close to his own age about to be lynched by a couple of U.S. marshals, he doesn't hesitate. He rescues the boy, Shanti, leaving the marshals stranded but unharmed. He puts it all out of his mind when he meets Kathryn, a considerably experienced dance hall girl willing to share her knowledge. Then the lawmen arrive in town, claiming Reece murdered one of the marshals, and Reece sets off to find Shanti and prove his innocence.

Nominees

Breaking the Fall by Michael Cadnum
Stanley becomes addicted to a ritual during which he uses fear to make himself feel alive, but suddenly Stanley is faced with the difficult choice of how to break the pattern before the danger of his habit can swallow him up.  

The One Who Came Back by Joann Mazzio
When his best friend Eddie Chavez disappears after they have spent the day together in the mountains of New Mexico, fifteen-year-old Alex cannot get anyone to believe his story and is even suspected of murdering the missing boy.

 
The Weekend Was Murder by Joan Lowery Nixon YA MYSTERY Nixon, J.
Foul play is the game at this murder mystery weekend. Mystery and game buffs will love the murder within the murder mystery weekend twist from three-time Edgar Award-winning author Joan Lowery Nixon. "A masterfully constructed, engaging read that will delight mystery fans . . . ingeniously plotted, fast-paced and lighthearted . .”.

The Highest Form of Killing by Malcolm Rose
When three young people--Mark, Sylvia, and Derek--investigate a series of mysterious deaths linked to a chemical weapon called T42, they become entangled in a web of government intrigue, high-level conspiracy, and misunderstandings linked to the deadly weapon.