BRITISH CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION (CWA) 2026 DAGGER AWARD WINNERS

The British Crime Writers' Association. (CWA) announced the winners of the 2026 Dagger Awards. Congratulations to All.

KAA Gold Dagger:

• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:

• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction:

• That Dark Spring, by Susannah Stapleton (Picador)

Historical Dagger:

• A Granite Silence, by Nina Allan (Riverrun)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger:

• The Winter Job, by Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston (Orenda)

Whodunnit Dagger (for “cosy crime, traditional mysteries, and Golden Age crime” stories):

• A Murder for Miss Hortense, by Mel Pennant (Baskerville)

Twisted Dagger (for “psychological and suspense thrillers”):

• We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Orion)

ILP John Creasey (First Novel) Dagger:
• The Peak, by Sam Guthrie (HarperCollins)

Short Story Dagger:

• “The Apple Falls Not Far,” by Ambrose Perry (Canongate)

Emerging Author (for unpublished novels):

• Blind Side of the Sun, by Michael Nikitin

Dagger in the Library (“for a body of work by an established crime writer that has long been popular with borrowers from libraries”):

• Tim Sullivan

Publishers’ Dagger (“awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year”):

• Bitter Lemon Press

Diamond Dagger:

Mark Billingham