Here Be Daggers

During an event held this evening as part of England’s annual CrimeFest, the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) announced its longlists of nominees for nine 2016 Dagger Awards. They are:

CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger:
• Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (No Exit Press)
• Black Widow, by Christopher Brookmyre (Little, Brown)
• After You Die, by Eve Dolan (Harvill Secker)
• Real Tigers, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• Finders Keepers, by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Dead Pretty, by David Mark (Mulholland)
• Blood, Salt, Water, by Denise Mina (Orion)
• She Died Young, by Elizabeth Wilson (Serpent’s Tail)

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:
• The Cartel, by Don Winslow (William Heinemann)
• The English Spy, by Daniel Silva (HarperCollins)
• Bone by Bone, by Sanjida Kay (Corvus)
• Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail)
• Real Tigers, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• The Hot Countries, by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime)
• Black-Eyed Susans, by Julia Hearberlin (Michael Joseph)
• Make Me, by Lee Child (Bantam Press)
• Spy Games, by Adam Brookes (Sphere)
• The American, by Nadia Dalbuono (Scribe UK)

CWA International Dagger:
• The Truth and Other Lies, by Sascha Arango;
translated by Imogen Taylor (Simon & Schuster)
• The Great Swindle, by Pierre Lemaître;
translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose Press)
• Icarus, by Deon Meyer;
translated by K.L. Seegers (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Sword of Justice, by Leif G.W. Persson;
translated by Neil Smith (Doubleday)
• The Murderer in Ruins, by Cay Rademacher;
translated by Peter Millar (Arcadia)
• The Father, by Anton Svensson;
translation not credited (Sphere)
• The Voices Beyond, by Johan Theorin;
translated by Marlaine Delargy (Transworld)
• Six Four, by Hideo Yokoyama;
translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davis (Quercus)

CWA Short Story Dagger:
• “As Alice Did,” by Andrea Camilleri (from Montalbano’s First Cases, by Andrea Camilleri; Pan Macmillan)
• “On the Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier,” by John Connolly (from Nocturnes 2: Night Music, by John Connolly; Hodder & Stoughton)
• “Holmes on the Range: A Tale of the Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository,” by John Connolly (from Nocturnes 2: Night Music)
• “Bryant & May and the Nameless Woman,” by Christopher Fowler (from London’s Glory, by Christopher Fowler; Bantam)
• “Stray Bullets,” by Alberto Barrera (from Crimes, by Alberto Barrera Tyszka; MacLehose Press)
• “Rosenlaui,” by Conrad Williams (from The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Moriarty: The Secret Life of Sherlock Holmes’s Nemesis, edited by Maxim Jakubowski; Constable & Robinson)

CWA Non-fiction Dagger:
• The Golden Age of Murder: The Mystery of the Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story, by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins)
• Sexy Beasts: The Hatton Garden Mob, by Wensley Clarkson (Quercus)
• You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life (You Are Raoul Moat), by Andrew Hankinson (Scribe)
• A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia’s War with the West, by Luke Harding
(Guardian Faber)
• Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories: From Lady Chatterley’s Lover to Howard Marks, by Thomas Grant (John Murray)
• John le Carré: The Biography, by Adam Sisman (Bloomsbury)

CWA Debut Dagger (for unpublished writers):
• Dark Valley, by John Kennedy
• Death by Dangerous, by Oliver Jarvis
• The Devil’s Dice, by Roz Watkins
• Hardways, by Catherine Hendricks
• Let’s Pretend, by Sue Williams
• Misconception, by Jack Burns
• A Reconstructed Man, by Graham Brack
• A State of Grace, by Rita Catching
• The Tattoo Killer, by Joe West
• Wimmera, by Mark Brandi

CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger:
• Fever City, by Tim Baker (Faber & Faber)
• Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (No Exit Press)
• Mr. Miller, by Charles Den Tex (World Editions)
• The Teacher, by Katerina Diamond (Avon)
• Wicked Game, by Matt Johnson (Orenda)
• Freedom’s Child, by Jax Miller (HarperCollins)
• Eileen, by Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape)
• The Dark Inside, by Rod Reynolds (Faber & Faber)
• The Good Liar, by Nicholas Searle (Viking)

CWA Endeavor Historical Dagger:
• The House at Baker Street, by Michelle Birkby (Pan)
• A Death in the Dales, by Frances Brody (Piatkus)
• A Man of Some Repute and A Question of Inheritance, by Elizabeth Edmondson (Thomas & Mercer)
• Smoke and Mirrors, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• The Last Confessions of Thomas Hawkins, by Antonia Hodgson (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Other Side of Silence, by Philip Kerr (Quercus)
• A Book of Scars, by William Shaw (Quercus)
• The Jazz Files, by Fiona Veitch Smith (Lion Fiction)
• Striking Murder, by A. J. Wright (Allison & Busby)
• Stasi Child, by David Young (Twenty7Books)

Dagger in the Library (awarded for an author’s entire
body of work):
• R.C. Bridgestock
• Tony Black
• Alison Bruce
• Angela Clarke
• Charlie Flowers
• Elly Griffiths
• Keith Houghton
• Quintin Jardine
• Louise Phillips
• Joe Stein

If past experience is any guide, the winners of these much-celebrated commendations should be broadcast sometime this coming fall.

(Hat tip to Ali Karim.)