Edgar Awards 2026: Mystery's Best Honored

The 2026 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, marking the 80th annual ceremony, have been presented to honor outstanding mystery fiction, nonfiction, and television productions from 2025. The prestigious awards banquet took place in New York City on April 29, 2026, celebrating literary excellence within the mystery genre. Several authors received special awards beyond the main categories. Billie Kay Fern's short story, "How it Happened," earned the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award, while Hank Phillippi Ryan's novel, All This Could Be Yours, received the Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award. Joanna Schaffhausen's "Gone in the Night" won the G.P. Putnam's Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award, and Gwen Florio's "A Senior Citizen's Guide to Life on the Run" secured the Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award.

In January 2026, the Mystery Writers of America also announced special honors for individual achievements. Authors Donna Andrews and Lee Child were celebrated as the 2026 Grand Masters, acknowledging their profound contributions to the mystery genre. California's Book Passage bookstore was recognized with the Raven Award, and Kensington Publishing's editor-in-chief, John Scognamiglio, received the Ellery Queen Award for his dedicated work. The event highlighted the vibrant and diverse landscape of contemporary mystery writing and media.