Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?

Thanks to the wonders of technology (i.e., Rap Sheet contributor Ali Karim at the London presentation ceremony with a cell phone in his hand), we’ve just received this year’s list of Dagger Award winners. These prestigious commendations are, of course, given out by the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA).

And now to the winners, with a couple of commendations worth mentioning as well:

Duncan Lawrie Dagger: The Broken Shore, by Peter Temple (Quercus)

Also nominated: 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); and Sovereign, by C.J. Sansom (Macmillan)

Duncan Lawrie International Dagger: Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand, by Fred Vargas (Harvill Secker)

Also nominated: 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); and The Redbreast, by Jo Nesbø (Harvill Secker)

The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson)

Also nominated: The Faithful Spy, by Alex Berenson (Random House); The Woods, by Harlan Coben (Orion); City of Lies, by Roger Jon Ellory (Orion); The Intruders, by Michael Marshall (HarperCollins); The Night Ferry, by Michael Robotham (Little, Brown); and Triptych, by Karin Slaughter (Century)

CWA New Blood Dagger: Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson)

Also nominated: Objects of Desire, by C.J. Emerson (Allison & Busby); 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); and Dead of Summer, by Camilla Way (HarperCollins)

CWA Debut Dagger (for unpublished novels by unpublished authors): The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (Canada). Highly commended by the judges: Pariah, by David Jackson (UK)

Also nominated: Malestki’s Motive, by Martin Brackstone (UK); 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); 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); and Solitaire, by Martie de Villiers (UK)

Dagger in the Library: Stuart MacBride. Highly commended by UK libraries: C.J. Sansom

Also nominated: Kate Atkinson, Susan Hill, Barbara Nadel, and Courttia Newland

Still to be announced later in the year: the winner of the CWA Short Story Award, and the list of nominees for this year’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger.