John Harvey gets his Dagger

Yesterday I received the following press release:

JOHN HARVEY AWARDED 2007 CWA CARTIER DIAMOND DAGGER

Veteran British crime writer John Harvey has been awarded the 2007 Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. The award was presented by M. Arnaud Bamberger, Managing Director of Cartier UK, at a ceremony which took place at the Savoy Hotel on May 9th.

The CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger is awarded for sustained excellence in the genre of crime writing, with the recipient being selected by crime writers on the CWA Committee. John joins an illustrious list of previous winners, including PD James, Ruth Rendell, John Le Carré, Ed McBain, Elmore Leonard, Dick Francis, Colin Dexter and Ian Rankin.

Robert Richardson, former Chair of the CWA, said ‘John Harvey continues a line that began in 1985 with the great Eric Ambler, and is another glittering name among winners of the Cartier Diamond Dagger, representing the very best of crime writing both in Britain and America. The Crime Writers’ Association, in whose gift the Dagger is, has again recognised an outstanding talent.’

John Harvey said ‘It is obviously a great honour to accept this award, particularly as it comes from my fellow writers. I had been dreaming of retirement, and a small holding in Cornwall, but I fear this award might serve to delay that move for that much longer.’

JOHN HARVEY has been described as ‘one of the masters of British crime fiction’ by the Sunday Telegraph, and ‘one of the leading writers of crime fiction alive today’ by Le Monde. He was born in 1938 in north London, where, after several lengthy sojourns in Nottingham, he continues to live. Like many successful writers, he learned his trade writing pulp fiction – including many westerns. He has close to one hundred published titles to his credit and his latest, Gone to Ground was published by William Heinemann in February 2007.

Ash and Bone by John Harvey has been long-listed for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel Of The Year 2007. Short-listed titles will be decided by a public vote, via voting forms available in stores and online at www.waterstones.com

The last paragraph is of particular interest as I haven't seen any mention before to this year's Crime Novel of the Year and wasn't sure it was actually going ahead given it was driven by Ottakars. Looks like it is though.