Daggers Find Their Destinations

Hyattsville, Maryland, author Bill Beverly must be an extremely happy man this evening. During a well-attended presentation, held in London and organized by the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), he won not just one, but two different 2016 Dagger Awards for his novel Dodgers. Below, you will find the full run of tonight’s winners, thanks to reporting by peripatetic Rap Sheet contributor Ali Karim, who attended the shindig in full tuxedo-mode.

CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger (for the best crime novel of the year): Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (No Exit Press)

Also nominated: Black Widow, by Christopher Brookmyre (Little, Brown); Blood Salt Water, by Denise Mina (Orion); and Real Tigers, by Mick Herron (John Murray)

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger (for the best crime thriller of the year): The Cartel, by Don Winslow (William Heinemann)

Also nominated: The English Spy, by Daniel Silva (HarperCollins); Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail); Real Tigers, by Mick Herron (John Murray); and Make Me, by Lee Child (Bantam Press)

CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger (for the best debut crime novel): Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (No Exit Press)

Also nominated: Fever City, by Tim Baker (Faber and Faber); Freedom’s Child, by Jax Miller (HarperCollins); Eileen, by Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape); and The Good Liar, by Nicholas Searle (Viking)

CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger (for the best historical crime novel): Stasi Child, by David Young (Twenty7Books)

Also nominated: The House at Baker Street, by Michelle Birkby (Pan); 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); and Striking Murder, by A.J. Wright (Allison & Busby)

CWA Non-fiction Dagger: You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life (You Are Raoul Moat), by Andrew Hankinson (Scribe)

Also nominated: 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); 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); and John le Carré: The Biography, by Adam Sisman (Bloomsbury)

CWA Short Story Dagger (for a short crime story published in the UK): “On the Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier,” by John Connolly (from Nocturnes 2: Night Music, by John Connolly; Hodder & Stoughton)

Also nominated: “As Alice Did,” by Andrea Camilleri (from Montalbano’s First Cases, by Andrea Camilleri; Pan Macmillan); “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); and “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 International Dagger (for crime fiction translated into English and published in the UK): The Great Swindle, by Pierre Lemaître; translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose Press)

Also nominated: The Truth and Other Lies, by Sascha Arango; translated by Imogen Taylor (Simon & Schuster); Icarus, by Deon Meyer; translated by K.L. Seegers (Hodder & Stoughton); The Murderer in Ruins, by Cay Rademacher; translated by Peter Millar (Arcadia); and Six Four, by Hideo Yokoyama; translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davis (Quercus)

CWA Dagger in the Library (for the author of the most enjoyed collection of work in libraries): Elly Griffiths, published by Quercus

Also nominated: Tony Black, published by Black & White; Alison Bruce, published by Constable & Robinson; and Quintin Jardine, published by Headline

Debut Dagger (for the opening of a crime novel by an author with no publishing contract): Wimmera, by Mark Brandi

Also nominated: Dark Valley, by John Kennedy; The Devil’s Dice, by Roz Watkins; A Reconstructed Man, by Graham Brack; and A State of Grace, by Rita Catching

Also during tonight’s formal affair, best-selling author Peter James was presented with this year’s Diamond Dagger.

If you’d like brief descriptions of each book in the competition, refer to the CWA Web site.

READ MORE: “U.S. Debut Writer Wins Gold Dagger at UK’s Top Crime Writing Awards,” by Alison Flood (The Guardian).