Friday, May 30, 2008

A Dagger to the Art

Jumping the gun somewhat on next week’s official announcement of the nominees for the 2008 Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award (formerly the Gold Dagger Award), presented by the British Crime Writers’ Association, novelist Natasha Cooper reveals in the London Times the names on the shortlist. They are:

The Tin Roof Blowdown, by James Lee Burke (Orion)--one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2007
The Coroner’s Lunch, by Colin Cotterill (Quercus)
Blood from Stone, by Frances Fyfield (Little, Brown)
Night Work, by Steve Hamilton (Orion)
What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman (Orion)--which also made the January Magazine list
A Vengeful Longing, by R.N. Morris (Faber & Faber)

The winner of this award is set to be announced on July 10.

Regrettably, I’ve only read three of the half-dozen novels on this list. That includes A Vengeful Longing, by Rap Sheet contributor Roger Morris. Even picking from those three, though, would be awfully damn tough. It’s hard to imagine how the Duncan Lawrie judges are to tap just one of these six books for this year’s £20,000 prize--“the richest crime-writing prize in the world,” as Cooper observes.

(Hat tip to Sarah Weinman.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a curious way to announce the short-list BEFORE the event tonight. Like you, I hope that JLB does win, but I think I'll put my money on Roger Morris.