In the Theakston Winner’s Circle

Abir Mukherjee’s sixth novel, Hunted (Harvill Secker), a standalone modern conspiracy thriller, has been named as the 2025 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. That announcement was made earlier this evening in Harrogate, England, on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.

Hunted already won top honors in the Crime and Thriller category of this year’s British Book Awards. It has also has been nominated for the 2025 Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, the Barry Award for Best Thriller, and the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award.

Shortlisted as well for the Old Peculier prize were The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre (Sphere); The Mercy Chair, by M.W. Craven (Constable); The Last Word, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus); Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Zaffre); and All the Colours of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker (Orion).

Tonight’s Theakston festival opening ceremonies brought the further news that David Goodman’s A Reluctant Spy (Headline) has captured the 2025 McDermid Debut Award, named for renowned Scottish crime writer Val McDermid. The five other novels competing for that accolade were Sick to Death, by Chris Bridges (Avon); I Died at Fallow Hall, by Bonnie Burke-Patel (Bedford Square); Her Two Lives, by Nilesha Chauvet (Faber & Faber); Isolation Island, by Louise Minchin (Headline); and Black Water Rising, by Sean Watkin (Canelo).

Finally, Elly Griffiths, author of the Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries and other series, was given the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her best-selling career in crime fiction and her “unwavering commitment to the genre.”