Taylor’s Touch Brings Success

Although he produces his “Getting Away with Murder” column for Shots only once per month, critic-author Mike Ripley still manages to surprise us every now and then with a modicum of news not spotted elsewhere. His January column, for instance, includes this brief item:

At last, at the fag-end of the plague year, there was some good news. The award-winning crime writer Andrew Taylor, the most popular panelist (because he knows things) in CrimeFest’s iconic quiz, “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Cluedo,” has need of a bigger trophy cabinet, having received the Historical Writers’ Association [annual Gold Crown Award] for best novel of 2020 for The King’s Evil.

The Gold Crown Award is meant to honor “the best historical novel first published in the UK in English.” You’d think there would be some announcement of Taylor’s win on the Historical Writers’ Association’s own Web site. But at last check, there is not. What can be found there, however, is a brief interview with Taylor—conducted last fall—in which he talks about The King’s Evil, the third volume in his 17th-century mystery series starring James Marwood and Cat Lovett.

Taylor’s fifth Marwood/Lovett yarn, The Royal Secret, is scheduled for release in Great Britain this coming April 29.