Nine Get the Nod

In times past, I have known in advance when to expect news regarding New Zealand’s annual Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. But since I am not participating as a judge of that competition this year, I was caught off-guard by this afternoon’s announcement of the nine-book longlist of rivals for the 2016 prize. They are:

• Inside the Black Horse, by Ray Berard (Mary Egan)
• Made to Kill, by Adam Christopher (Titan)
• Trust No One, by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)
• Starlight Peninsula, by Charlotte Grimshaw (Vintage)
• Cold Hard Murder, by Trish McCormack (Glacier Press)
• The Legend of Winstone Blackhat, by Tanya Moir (Vintage)
• The Mistake, by Grant Nicol (Number Thirteen Press)
• American Blood, by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin)
• Something Is Rotten, by Adam Sarafis (Echo Publishing)

The Ngaio Marsh Awards were established in 2010. Judging convenor/blogger Craig Sisterson observes that in previous years, “our judging panels have had some very close calls when it came to picking the winner, or tough choices for who’d be finalists, but this is the first time we’ve had such a log-jam of good books battling for the longlist. Even with nearly a dozen debutante authors entering our new Best First Novel category instead, and the majority of our past winners and finalists not being in the running this year, the pool has never been broader or deeper.”

A briefer list of finalists for the Best Crime Novel commendation will be broadcast in late July. And the winner of this prize, as well as the Best First Novel award, will be made known on August 27 during the 2016 WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival.