The Dilys Award is named after Dilys Winn, the founder of New York's Murder Ink, the first mystery specialty bookseller. This award is presented each year to recognize the new book published in the previous year that booksellers "most enjoyed selling". The booksellers are members of The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA).
The nominees were:
- The Sibyl in Her Grave by Sarah Caudwell (Hilary Tamar series) - Julia Larwood's aunt Regina needs help. It seems that she and two friends pooled their modest resources and, on the advice of another friend, invested in equities. A short-term investment in small companies. Big risk. Big return. Now the tax man demands his due. Aunt Regina is flummoxed. They've already spent the money. How can they dig themselves out of the tax hole? But the real question is how on earth did three amateurs make a thousand-percent profit in record time, triggering a capital gains tax twice the amount of their original investment? Even more to the point: Can the sin of capital gains trigger corporeal loss? That's one for the sibyl, psychic counselor Isabella del Comino, who has offended Aunt Regina and her friends by moving into the local rectory, plowing under a cherished garden, and establishing an aviary of ravens. When Isabella is found dead, all clues seem to lead to death by fiscal misadventure. Was the sibyl compromising someone's bottom line? Or was it one for the birds? Julia calls in old friend and Oxford fellow, Professor Hilary Tamar, to follow a money trail that connects Aunt Regina and her friends to what appears to be capital fraud--and capital crime. The two women couldn't have a better champion than the erudite Hilary, as once again Sarah Caudwell sweeps us into the scene of the crime, leaving us to ponder the greatest mystery of all. Hilary, him--or her--self.
- The Hearse You Came In On by Tim Cockey - Introducing a clever and gripping first mystery novel featuring an unconventional undertaker-- who also happens to be one of Baltimore's most eligible and charming bachelors. "I was going along just fine, solemnly chaperoning the dead into their graves and pretty much otherwise minding my own business when the woman calling herself Carolyn James stuck her halfway pretty face into my life and scattered all hell to the wind." What self-respecting undertaker would allow himself to get involved in a murder investigation, a series of dirty videos, a case of political blackmail, and police corruption, as well as one of the worst amateur theater productions in recent memory? None, unless your name happens to be Hitchcock Sewell, the most charming suspense hero to come along in years. And who knew an undertaker could look so good? In this fast-paced and enormously entertaining mystery, Hitch has gotten himself into more trouble than any self-respecting undertaker should.
