CWA Dagger Shortlist

Continuing with Zoe Sharp's press releases:

DUNCAN LAWRIE DAGGER
£20,000 prize money, sponsored by Duncan Lawrie Private Bank

Giles Blunt - FIELDS OF GRIEF - HarperCollins
Judges’ comments: ‘This is a novel with a great sense of place that intertwines what are apparently disparate plot lines into an unexpected resolution.’

James Lee Burke - PEGASUS DESCENDING - Orion
Judges’ comments: ‘Burke is a master of crackling dialogue and exploration into New Orleans lowlife and corrupt politics, and in the Police Department he creates a steamy world of violence and intrigue. His is unforgiving territory he knows so well in which alcoholic ex-cop, Dave Robinson, is drawn inexorably into another tangled story of broken families and revenge.’

Gillian Flynn - SHARP OBJECTS - Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Judges’ comments: ‘Flynn’s novel is a study of evil at the heart of the family set against a background of southern gothic American life. The reader is drawn into the macabre relationship of mother and daughter resulting in physical self harming.’

Craig Russell - BROTHER GRIMM - Hutchinson
Judges’ comments: ‘A compelling police procedural set in Hamburg, Russell’s novel is a horrific modern twist on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. A vividly drawn and believable set of characters.’

C.J. Sansom - SOVEREIGN - Macmillan
Judges’ comments: ‘An historical thriller that brings together and original and multi-layered plot with a rich story set against a royal progress by Henry VIII to York and his dissolution of his marriage to Catherine Howard. Sansom is a masterly story teller and natural plotter.’

Peter Temple - THE BROKEN SHORE - Quercus
Judges’ comments: ‘This is a well written crime novel with excellent characterisation mingled with a subtle exploration of contemporary Australian landscape and mores. This is a first class read with a sympathetic engrossing police protagonist.’

Judging Panel
Geoff Bradley (Chair) - editor of Crime And Detective Stories (CADS) magazine
Lyn Brown MP - committee member on the London Libraries service
Steve Craggs - crime reviewer for The Northern Echo
Heather O'Donoghue - academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction
Barry Forshaw - reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine
Elinor Goodman - former political editor for Channel Four
Frances Gray - academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction
Margaret Kinsman - senior lecturer in English Studies at London South Bank University
James Naughtie - BBC journalist and Radio Four Today programme resenter

Only two of these are Euro Crime and I'll be posting Sunnie Gill's review of 'Sovereign' at the weekend. My money's on The Broken Shore!