CWA Dagger Awards

CWA (the British Crime Writers’ Association) announced the winners of the 2019 Dagger Awards last night in London. 

CWA Gold Dagger: 
The Puppet Show, by M.W. Craven: (Constable) 

Also nominated: All the Hidden Truths, by Claire Askew (Hodder & Stoughton); What We Did, by Christobel Kent (Sphere); Unto Us a Son Is Given, by Donna Leon (Heinemann); American by Day, by Derek B. Miller (Doubleday); A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better, by Benjamin Wood (Scribner)

CWA John Creasey (New Blood): 
Scrublands, by Chris Hammer (Wildfire) 

Also nominated: All the Hidden Truths, by Claire Askew (Hodder & Stoughton); The Boy at the Door, by Alex Dahl (Head of Zeus); Turn a Blind Eye, by Vicky Newham (HQ); Blood & Sugar, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle); Overkill, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

Gold Dagger for Non-fiction: 
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War, by Ben Macintyre (Viking) 

Also nominated: All That Remains: A Life in Death, by Sue Black (Doubleday); An Unexplained Death: The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere, by Mikita Brottman (Canongate); Murder by the Book: A Sensational Chapter in Victorian Crime, by Claire Harman (Viking); The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Hutchinson); The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold (Doubleday) 

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: 
To the Lions, by Holly Watt (Bloomsbury)

Also nominated: Give Me Your Hand, by Megan Abbott (Picador); Safe Houses, by Dan Fesperman (Head of Zeus); Killing Eve: No Tomorrow, by Luke Jennings (John Murray); Lives Laid Away, by Stephen Mack Jones (Soho Crime); Memo from Turner, by Tim Willocks (Jonathan Cape)

CWA International Dagger: 
A Long Night in Paris, by Dov Alfon; translated by Daniella Zamir (MacLehose Press)

Also nominated: Weeping Waters, by Karin Brynard, translated by Maya Fowler and Isobel Dixon (World Noir); The Cold Summer, by Gianrico Carofiglio, translated by Howard Curtis (Bitter Lemon Press); Newcomer, by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray (Little, Brown); The Root of Evil, by Håkan Nesser, translated by Sarah Death (Mantle); The Forger, by Cay Rademacher, translated by Peter Millar (Arcadia)

CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger: 
Destroying Angel, by S.G. MacLean: (Quercus) 

Also nominated: The Quaker, by Liam McIlvanney (Harper Fiction); Smoke and Ashes, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker); The House on Half Moon Street, by Alex Reeve (Raven); Tombland, by C.J. Sansom: (Mantle); Blood & Sugar, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle) 

CWA Short Story Dagger: 
“The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing,” by Danuta Reah (from The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing and Other Fantastic Female Fables, by Danuta Reah [aka Danuta Kot]; Fantastic).

Also Nominated: “I Detest Mozart,” by Teresa Solana (from The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories, by Teresa Solana; Bitter Lemon Press) Also nominated: “Strangers in a Pub,” by Martin Edwards (from Ten Year Stretch, edited by Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller; No Exit Press); “Death Becomes Her,” by Syd Moore (from The Strange Casebook, by Syd Moore; Point Blank Books); “Bag Man,” by Lavie Tidhar (from The Outcast Hours, edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin; Solaris) 

Dagger in the Library: 
Kate Ellis 

Also nominated: M.C. Beaton, Mark Billingham, John Connolly, C.J. Sansom, Cath Staincliffe 

Debut Dagger (for the opening of a crime novel by an uncontracted writer):
Wake, by Shelley Burr 

Also nominated: The Mourning Light, by Jerry Krause; Hardways, by Catherine Hendricks; The Firefly, by David Smith; A Thin Sharp Blade, by Fran Smith 

Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year: 
No Exit Press (Oldcastle Books) 

Also nominated: Faber and Faber, Harper Fiction (HarperCollins), HQ (HarperCollins), Orenda Books, Pushkin Vertigo (Pushkin), Raven (Bloomsbury) 

Diamond Dagger Recipient: 
Robert Goddard 

HT: The Rap Sheet