Don’t Forget Guttridge’s Prize

In my coverage late last week of England’s CrimeFest 2016, I neglected to mention that novelist-critic Peter Guttridge won this year’s Margery Allingham Short Story Competition for his unpublished tale, “The Box-Shaped Mystery.” Also shortlisted for the Allingham prize were: “The Blockage,” by Ian Cowmeadow; “Faceless Killer,” by Christine Poulson; and “Safe as Houses,” by Scott Hunter.

The announcement of Guttridge’s success was made on Friday, May 20, during an event at CrimeFest in Bristol.

According to a news release, this competition—named in honor of the author who created sleuth Albert Campion and established in 2013—seeks to choose a yarn that “fits into Margery’s definition of what makes a great story: ‘The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.’” Past winners were Lesley Mace and Martin Edwards.