Cartoon of the Day: Happiness

 

CRIME WRITERS OF CANADA AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE 2026

Crime Writers of Canada announced the winners of the 2026 Awards of Excellence

The Peter Robinson Award for Best Crime Novel (With a $1000 prize)

Louise Penny, The Black Wolf, Minotaur Books

Best Crime First Novel (Sponsored by Melodie Campbell with a $1000 prize)

Ray Critch, The Beltane Massacre, Breakwater Books

Best Crime Novel Set in Canada  (Sponsored by Shaftesbury with a $500 prize)

C.S. Porter, Salt on Her Tongue, Vagrant Press

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery (Sponsored by Jane Doe with a $500 prize)

Iona Whishaw, The Cost of a Hostage, TouchWood Editions

Best Crime Short Story (Sponsored by Crime Writers of Canada with a $200 prize)

Sylvia Maultash Warsh, “Polly Wants a Freaking Cracker”, Malice Domestic: Murder Most Humorous, Wildside Press

Best French Language Crime Book (Sponsored by Carrick Publishing with a $500 prize)

Maureen Martineau, Une nuit d’été à Littlebrook, Héliotrope

Best Juvenile / YA Crime Book (Sponsored by Superior Shores Press with a $250 prize)

Charis Cotter, The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall, Tundra Books

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book  (Sponsored by David Reid Simpson Law Firm (Hamilton) with a $300 prize)

Julian Sher & Lisa Fitterman, Hitman: The Untold Story of Canada’s Deadliest Assassin, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Best Unpublished Crime Novel manuscript written by an unpublished author  (Sponsored by ECW Press with a $500 prize)

Anne Burlakoff, Val's Story

CWA Dagger Shortlists

2026 Dagger Shortlists: British Crime Writers' Association. Congratulations to All.

KAA Gold Dagger:

• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Michael Joseph)
• The Girl in Cell A, by Vaseem Khan (Hodder Fiction)
• The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon (River Swift Press)
• The Art of a Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:
• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• The Big Empty, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster UK)
• A Sting in Her Tale, by Mark Ezra (No Exit Press)
• Such Quiet Girls, by Noelle Ihli (Pan)
• The Good Father, by Liam McIlvanney (Zaffre)
• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction:
• Shadow of the Bridge: The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland, by Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee (Pegasus Crime)
• The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB, by Gordon Corera (William Collins)
• The Murder Game, by John Curran (HarperCollins/Collins Crime Club)
• Murderland, by Caroline Fraser (Fleet)
• That Dark Spring, by Susannah Stapleton (Picador)
• The Illegals, by Shaun Walker (Profile)

Historical Dagger:
• A Granite Silence, by Nina Allan (Riverrun)
• Barvick Falls, by Rob McInroy (Tippermuir)
• The Devil’s Draper, by Donna Moor (Fly on the Wall Press)
• Gunner, by Alan Parks (Baskerville)
• The Art of a Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle)
• A Case of Life and Limb, by Sally Smith (Raven)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger:
• Murder Mindfully, by Karsten Dusse,
translated by Florian Duijsens (Faber & Faber)
• The Lake, by Jørn Lier Horst,
translated by Anne Bruce (Penguin Random House)
• Red Water, by Jurica Pavičić,
translated by Matt Robinson (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Big Bad Wool, by Leonie Swann,
translated by Amy Bojang (Allison & Busby)
• The Winter Job, by Antti Tuomainen,
translated by David Hackston (Orenda)
• Strange Pictures, by Uketsu,
translated by Jim Rion (Pushkin Press)

Whodunnit Dagger (for “cosy crime, traditional mysteries, and Golden Age crime” stories):
• The Christmas Cracker Killer, by Alexandra Benedict (Simon & Schuster UK)
• Little Secrets, by Victoria Goldman (Three Crowns Publishing UK)
• Etiquette for Lovers and Killers, by Anna Fitzgerald Healy (Fleet)
• A Queer Case, by Robert Holtom (Titan)
• A Murder for Miss Hortense, by Mel Pennant (Baskerville)
• Bad Influence, by C.J. Wray (Orion)

Twisted Dagger (for “psychological and suspense thrillers”):
• What Happens in the Dark, by Kia Abdullah (HQ Fiction)
• Her Many Faces, by Nicci Cloke (Harvill Secker)
• Some of Us Are Liars, by Fiona Cummins (Macmillan)
• Scenes from a Tragedy, by Carole Hailey (Corvus)
• The Bodies, by Sam Lloyd (Bantam)
• We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Orion)

ILP John Creasey (First Novel) Dagger:
• The Peak, by Sam Guthrie (HarperCollins)
• The Lost Detective, by Elspeth Latimer (Story Machine)
• The Wolf Tree, by Laura McCluskey (Hemlock Press)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Viper)
• Coram House, by Bailey Seybolt (Raven)
• Holy City, by Henry Wise (No Exit Press)

Short Story Dagger:
• “Split Your Silver Tongue,” by S.A. Cosby (from Birds, Strangers and Psychos: New Stories Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, edited by Maxim Jakubowski; No Exit Press)
• “The Karpman Drama Triangle,” by Denise Mina (from Birds, Strangers and Psychos)
• “Full Circle,” by Abir Mukherjee (from Playing Dead: Short Stories in Honour of Simon Brett by Members of the Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards; Severn House)
• “The Apple Falls Not Far,” by Ambrose Perry (Canongate)
• “Strangers on a School Bus,” by Peter Swanson (from Birds, Strangers and Psychos)
• “Waiting,” by Michael Wood (from Criminal Pursuits: This Is Me, edited by Samantha Lee Howe; Telos)

Emerging Author (for unpublished novels):
• Ill Met by Murder, by Rod Cookson
• The Man Who Fit the Case, by Sophia Georghiou
• Just a Simple Wedding, by Kate Koester
• The Fixer, by Lorna Mathew
• The Madam of Morningside, by Rebecca McFarland
• Blind Side of the Sun, by Michael Nikitin
• The Pattern of Absence, by Melisssa Tonkin

Dagger in the Library (“for a body of work by an established crime writer that has long been popular with borrowers from libraries”):
• Paula Hawkins
• J.D. Kirk
• Clare Mackintosh
• Freida McFadden
• Abir Mukherjee
• Tim Sullivan

Publishers’ Dagger (“awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year”):
• Bitter Lemon Press
• Faber & Faber
• No Exit Press (Bedford Square)
• Pan Macmillan
• Simon & Schuster
• Viper (Profile)

Winners will be announced at the CWA gala in July.

HT: The Rap Sheet

Cartoon of the Day: Behind my Garden Gate

This comic from Rhymes with Orange definitely reflects my garden and my photography. I post a 'flower model'  (especially the roses) every day on Facebook with the caption: Behind my Garden Gate. 

  

The White Wolf: Novel and Origins - Guest Post by E.M. Westbrook

The Novel – Origins:  

My new wilderness adventure novel features a young wolf. This interest is in some ways not new since before I could even walk I’ve loved canines. I still have a photo with our family’s first dog, Jocko, a rag tag bundle of fun border collie. In those days we lived in the country and our parents knew that when my sister, cousin and me played outdoors we’d always be safe with Jocko by our side.  After I learned to read I was especially fond of animal novels – stories by Albert Payson Terhune about Lad, A Dog, Jack London’s White Fang, Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf. Then, by a stroke of great good fortune, internationally celebrated wildlife artist, Robert Bateman was my high school home room teacher. One Thanksgiving he took some of his students with a special interest in nature up to Algonquin Park. Visiting the Algonquin wolf research unit was the highlight of the weekend. Imagine how thrilled we were to be allowed into one of the pens with a litter of wolf pups! For me, that experience ushered in a life-long love not just for domestic pets but for all wild animals. 

There is another way the past has influenced my new book. My parents divorced when I was thirteen years old. And as if losing my father was not enough, we also had to move away from a home I treasured. Now I realize that one of the major themes in this novel – the yearning for home – has echoed those early feelings. Niko, is a rare white eastern wolf snatched from his den by a hunter when he was barely a week old. He’s raised by Jade, a young woman. When the pup reaches four months of age, the hunter returns, promising he’ll take Niko to a sanctuary, instead, he sells Niko to a hunting preserve and Jade risks everything to rescue the wolf as trophy hunters track Niko through the shimmering beauty of the Adirondack mountains. The deep attachment we all feel to home entwines the fates of three principal individuals:  Jade, grieving the loss of her family farm, Conrad Lang, a hunting guide who could lose his ranch as it teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, and Niko raised in captivity, who finds the early trust he placed in humans threatens to become a curse. The young wolf too, longs for home - his birthplace high up on Mount Seymour. But to survive, he must learn how to be wild again. The White Wolf story is a testimony to the passion and courage of all three.

“Much of the novel is from the wolf’s point of view, but he is not anthropomorphized in any way, and Westbrook has done a sterling job of representing him as he grows, determined to set his own fate. The human characters he encounters are fully realized, both the good and the bad, those wanting to help the wolf, those wanting to make money off him, and those fixated on hunting him. A thriller like no other, with a deep heart, compelling message, brilliant writing, and a deep seated love of nature in all its complications.”
--Vicki Delany, National Bestselling Mystery Author

The Story Behind the Story: 

Another strong influence came through my research: In the late 19^th century, after winning a novel competition held by the American Humane Society, Margaret Marshall Saunders changed the world with her novel Beautiful Joe, a book that by the late 1930’s had sold more than seven million copies - an unheard of number for those times. Her novel helped shift public attitudes toward animal harm. Inspired by this legacy, The White Wolf continues the tradition of storytelling that sparks awareness and change by confronting a modern threat – trophy hunting. Eleven years after the shooting of Cecil the Lion, public concern over that issue has only grown. 

***

E.M. Westbrook is the pen name of Dorothy McIntosh, author of four thrillers published by Penguin Random House. Her debut, The Witch of Babylon, was named one of Amazon’s ‘best mysteries and thrillers of the year.’ CNN recognized it among “six enduring historical thrillers” alongside works by Agatha Christie, Umberto Ecco, Dan Brown, Wilbur Smith and Kate Mosse. The White Wolf brings her trademark suspense to the untamed wilderness. 
  

Cartoon of the Day: Memorial Day