And the Results Are In!

The British Web site Crime Fiction Lover this morning announced the lineup of winners in its second annual Crime Fiction Lover Awards competition. There were six original categories, but in the end, CFL editors doubled that number by selecting their own favorites.

Best Crime Novel:
The Locked Room, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)

Also nominated: The Accomplice, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion); The Twist of a Knife, by Anthony Horowitz (Penguin); City on Fire, by Don Winslow (HarperCollins); The Shadows of Men, by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage); and The Twyford Code, by Janice Hallett (Viper)

Best Novel, Editor’s Choice:
The Shadows of Men, by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage)

Best Debut Crime Novel:
A Christmas Murder of Crows, by D.M. Austin (Whitefox)

Also nominated: Breaking, by Amanda Cassidy (Canelo); The Redeemer, by Victoria Goldman (Three Crowns); Bad for Good, by Graham Bartlett (Allison & Busby); Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Press); and More Than You’ll Ever Know, by Katie Gutierrez (Michael Joseph)

Best Debut, Editor’s Choice:
Bad for Good, by Graham Bartlett (Allison & Busby)

Best Crime Novel in Translation:
The Dark Flood, by Deon Meyer, translated by K.L. Seegers
(Hodder & Stoughton)

Also nominated: Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight, by Riku Onada, translated by Alison Watts (Bitter Lemon Press); Turf Wars, by Olivier Norek, translated by Nick Caistor (MacLehose Press); Even the Darkest Night, by Javier Cercas, translated by Anne McLean (MacLehose Press); The Old Woman with the Knife, by Gu Byeong-Mo, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Canongate); and The Reptile Memoirs, by Silje Ulstein, translated by Alison McCullough (Grove Press)

Best Crime Novel in Translation, Editor’s Choice:
The Old Woman with the Knife, by Gu Byeong-Mo, translated by
Chi-Young Kim (Canongate)

Best Indie Crime Novel:
The Woman in the Library, by Sulari Gentill (Ultimo Press)

Also nominated: How to Murder a Marriage, by Gabrielle St. George (Level Best); Unjust Bias, by Liz Mistry (Liz Mistry); The Corpse with the Turquoise Toes, by Cathy Ace (Four Tails); Five Moves of Doom, by A.J. Devlin (Newest Press); and A Mourning Song, by Mark Westmoreland (Shotgun Honey)

Best Indie Crime Novel, Editor’s Choice:
Five Moves of Doom, by A.J. Devlin (Newest Press)

Best Crime Show: Shetland (BBC One)

Also nominated: Dahmer – Monster (Netflix); Bosch: Legacy (Freevee); Slow Horses (Apple TV+); Black Bird (Apple TV+); and Reacher (Amazon Prime)

Best Crime Show, Editor’s Choice: Bosch: Legacy (Freevee)

Best Crime Author: Elly Griffiths

Also nominated: Steve Cavanagh; Ann Cleeves; S.A. Cosby; Michael Connelly; and Val McDermid

Best Crime Author, Editor’s Choice: Steve Cavanagh

There are no great upsets here. Yes, it’s a bit odd that Mukherjee’s The Shadows of Men—as excellent as it is—should have triumphed in the “Best Crime Novel” category, since it premiered (on both sides of the Atlantic) in 2021, not this year. But that book’s UK paperback release did come this last June, so I guess that qualifies it. And the odds were certainly in Shetland’s favor to win “Best Crime Show,” if only for sentimental reasons: the recent seventh season was star Douglas Henshall’s last one playing Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez.