Friday, May 22, 2015

Recognizing Consistent Talent

Sheesh! I know I’ve been feeling rather out of sorts lately, and have been busy with an editorial project that is taking more time to complete than I’d hoped it would (which explains why there’s recently been a paucity of new postings on this page), but I still don’t understand how I could have missed seeing the announcement of this year’s longlisted nominees for the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger in the Library Award. It was made last week, following an online voting process that began early in the spring, and it seems to have received scant publicity on this side of “the pond.”

Rather than dwell upon my previous blindness to this news, let’s get down to the results. As you probably know already, the Dagger in the Library is presented to authors in appreciation of their body of work, not any individual novel. This year’s 11 nominees (listed in alphabetical order, together with their current UK publishers) are:

Mark Billingham (Little, Brown)
Ann Cleeves (Macmillan)
Christopher Fowler (Transworld)
Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
Elizabeth Haynes (Sphere)
Susan Hill (Vintage)
Peter James (Macmillan)
Simon Kernick (Cornerstone)
Peter May (Quercus)
Phil Rickman (Atlantic)
Tim Weaver (Michael Joseph)

According to the CWA’s news release, finalists for this prize “will be decided by a panel of judges including previous winner Sharon Bolton, CWA Director Lucy Santos, and a group of UK librarians and will be revealed on Monday 8th June, with the winner being announced at the CWA Annual Awards dinner on 30th June.”

I’ll try to keep my eyes open for that news, at least.

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