Daggers Uncloaked

Living way out here on America’s West Coast, I seem to be the last person in line to note the shortlist of nominees for this year’s prestigious Dagger Awards, given out by the British Crime Writers’ Association. Nonetheless, here they are:

Duncan Lawrie Dagger
(sponsored by Duncan Lawrie Private Bank):

• The Fields of Grief, by Giles Blunt (HarperCollins)
• Pegasus Descending, by James Lee Burke (Orion)
• Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson)
• Brother Grimm, by Craig Russell (Hutchinson)
• Sovereign, by C.J. Sansom (Macmillan)
• The Broken Shore, by Peter Temple (Quercus)

Duncan Lawrie International Dagger
(for crime, thriller, suspense novels, or spy fiction which have been translated into English from their original language, for UK publication):

• Shame, by Karin Alvtegen (Canongate)
• The Exception, by Christian Jungersen (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson)
• The Attack, by Yasmina Khadra (Heinemann)
• The Savage Altar, by Åsa Larsson (Viking)
• The Redbreast, by Jo Nesbø (Harvill Secker)
• Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand, by Fred Vargas (Harvill Secker)

The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
(sponsored by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.):

• The Faithful Spy, by Alex Berenson (Random House)
• The Woods, by Harlan Coben (Orion)
• City of Lies, by Roger Jon Ellory (Orion)
• Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson)
• The Intruders, by Michael Marshall (HarperCollins)
• The Night Ferry, by Michael Robotham (Little, Brown)
• Triptych, by Karin Slaughter (Century)

CWA New Blood Dagger
(for first books by previously unpublished writers, sponsored by BBC Audio Books; formerly the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger):

• Objects of Desire, by C.J. Emerson (Allison & Busby)
• Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson)
• The Wrong Kind of Blood, by Declan Hughes (John Murray)
• Borderlands, by Brian McGilloway (Macmillan New Writing)
• The Last Days of Newgate, by Andrew Pepper (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson)
• Dead of Summer, by Camilla Way (HarperCollins)

CWA Debut Dagger
(for unpublished novels by unpublished authors):

• Malestki’s Motive, by Martin Brackstone (UK)
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (Canada)
• With a View to Death, by Nesta Brzozowski (UK)
• Cry Baby, by Fay Cunningham (UK)
• Rome Was Never Like This, by Gordon W. Dale (USA)
• The Shadow of the Dead, by C. J. Harper (USA)
• Pariah, by David Jackson (UK)
• The Witch of Babylon, by D.J. McIntosh (Canada)
• White Lion, by Gerard O’Donovan (UK)
• Natural Causes, by James Oswald (UK)
• Towers of London, by Peter James Peacock (UK)
• Solitaire, by Martie de Villiers (UK)

Dagger in the Library
(nominated and judged by librarians and awarded to an author for a body of work, not one single title):

• Kate Atkinson
• Susan Hill
• Stuart MacBride
• Barbara Nadel
• Courttia Newland
• C.J. Sansom

CWA Short Story Award
(formerly the CWA Short Story Dagger):

• “Epitaph,” by J.A. Konrath (from Thriller, edited by James Patterson; Mira Books)
• “Needlematch,” by Peter Lovesey (from Best British Mysteries, edited by Maxim Jakubowski; Allison & Busby)
• “Empathy,” by James Siegel (from Thriller)
• “Retrospective,” by Kevin Wignall (from Best British Mysteries)

(A rundown of judges and their remarks about the individual nominees can be found here.)

The CWA and Duncan Lawrie Dagger Awards will be handed out during a black-tie dinner to be held on Thursday, July 5, at the Four Seasons Hotel on Park Lane in London.

The Short Story Award will be presented at a later date. And a shortlist of books nominated to receive the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, now known simply as the Ellis Peters Award, will also be announced later in the year.