In our final installment of Agatha Nominees interviews. Judy L. Murray who is nominated for Best First novel and Jan Brogan nominated for Best non-fiction.

Judy L. Murray - Murder in the Master(Level Best Books). It isn't the first time real estate agent Helen Morrisey has found someone naked in bed while showing a house. But this one is different. One glance at the bluish cast around his lips and the vacant, staring eyes, and Helen knows developer Al Capelli is never going to sign another sales agreement.

His death is big news for a small Chesapeake water town where a family empire is built around secrets and their brash money style is resented by locals. Within days, his lover, her old friend, begs Helen to find the killer before she's arrested for murder. Helen quickly realizes that solving a murder mystery in real life is a lot more dangerous than reading one. She decides to create her own Detection Club of expert sleuths-Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher, Nora Charles, Agatha Raisin, and, yes, Nancy Drew to help unearth the truth.

Detective Joe McAlister recognizes Helen's insight into back office real estate deals and local players. And for the first time since her husband's death, Helen meets a man who might return zingers as quick as she tosses them out. Mystery lovers hungry for a smart gutsy woman, a fast-moving plot, and an insider's look into a business everyone talks about, but few understand, will devour this first in a series.


Jan Brogan - The Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston's Struggle for Justice (Bright Leaf Press). At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston's Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city's adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city's North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. His murder made national news and led to the eventual demise of the city's red-light district.

Starting with this brutal murder, The Combat Zone tells the story of the Puopolo family's struggle with both a devastating loss and a criminal justice system that produced two trials with opposing verdicts, all within the context of a racially divided Boston. Brogan traces the contentious relationship between Boston’s segregated neighborhoods during the busing crisis; shines a light on a court system that allowed lawyers to strike potential jurors based purely on their racial or ethnic identity; and lays bare the deep-seated corruption within the police department and throughout the Combat Zone. What emerges is a fascinating snapshot of the city at a transitional moment in its recent past.
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