One Very Peculier Lineup

Some very familiar names--including those of John Harvey, Peter May, and Ian Rankin--appear on the longlist of 18 contenders for the 2015 Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. As Shotsmag Confidential’s Ayo Onatade reminds us, this prize “was created to celebrate the very best in British and Irish crime writing and is open to crime authors whose novels were published in paperback from 1 May 2014 to 30 April 2015.” Here are this year’s contenders:

• Eeny Meeny, by M.J. Arlidge (Michael Joseph)
• The Facts of Life and Death, by Belinda Bauer (Black Swan)
• The Ghost Runner, by Parker Bilal (Bloomsbury)
• The Strangler Vine, by M.J. Carter (Fig Tree)
• The Axeman’s Jazz, by Ray Celestin (Mantle)
• Personal, by Lee Child (Bantam)
• The Killing Season, by Mason Cross (Orion)
• Bryant & May: The Bleeding Heart, by Christopher Fowler (Bantam)
• The Outcast Dead, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• The Telling Error, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Darkness, Darkness, by John Harvey (Arrow)
• Someone Else’s Skin, by Sarah Hilary (Headline)
• The Devil in the Marshalsea, by Antonia Hodgson
(Hodder & Stoughton)
• Entry Island, by Peter May (Quercus)
• Disappeared, by Anthony Quinn (Head of Zeus)
• Saints of the Shadow Bible, by Ian Rankin (Orion)
• The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith (Simon & Schuster)
• A Lovely Way to Burn, by Louise Welsh (John Murray)

“From 21 May to 17 June,” writes Onatade, “longlisted titles will feature in a four-week campaign across all 600 W.H. Smith stores [in Britain] and 80 library services, representing a total of 1,645 library branches. The longlist will be whittled down to a shortlist of six titles which will be announced on 15 June.” A public vote to help determine which book deserves the award will open here on July 1 and remain open through July 13, with the winner to be announced on July 16--“the opening night of the 13th annual Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.”