Awards News: CWA Dagger Shortlists (2018)

The Longlists for the CWA's Daggers: Gold, Ian Fleming, John Creasey, International, Historical, Short Story and the Dagger in the Library were announced back in May and last night the Shortlists were announced. From the press release:

CWA Announce Shortlists for Prestigious Crime Writing Daggers

The Crime Writers’ Association announced the shortlists for the prestigious annual Dagger awards for crime writing at an evening reception at Daunt Books, Cheapside, London, on Wednesday 25 July.

The shortlists provide some interesting duplications. Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic appears on the shortlist for the CWA Gold Dagger and the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, while A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee is on the Gold and the CWA Historical shortlists. Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke is on both the Gold and the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger shortlists. London Rules by Mick Herron also appears on the Gold and the Ian Fleming Steel longlists – he won the Ian Fleming last year with Spook Street, just as Mukherjee won the Historical with A Rising Man. Also listed for the Historical Dagger is LC Tyler’s Fire and Stella Duffy’s completion of Ngaio Marsh’s Money in the Morgue.

For the CWA International Dagger, familiar names of Fred Vargas, Pierre Lemaître and Dolores Redondo appear alongside Henning Mankell.

Lee Child makes an appearance on the CWA Short Story Dagger shortlist, as does Christine Poulson with her story ‘Accounting for Murder’ from the CWA’s own anthology, Mystery Tour. Martin Edwards, Chair of the CWA and president of the Detection Club, features on the Dagger in the Library shortlist. The CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction represents as an eclectic shortlist as ever, with Piu Marie Eatwell’s Black Dahlia Red Rose a notable title with its new take on an infamous murder case.

The CWA Daggers, which are the probably the awards crime authors and publishers alike most wish to win, are awarded every year in 10 categories. The Diamond Dagger, for a career’s outstanding contribution to crime fiction as nominated by CWA members, was announced earlier in the year and will be awarded to best-selling author Michael Connelly at the Dagger Awards event on October.

Here are the CWA Dagger shortlists for 2018.

The CWA Gold Dagger

Steve Cavanagh The Liar (Orion)

Mick Herron London Rules (John Murray)

Dennis Lehane Since We Fell (Little, Brown)

Attica Locke Bluebird, Bluebird (Serpent's Tail)

Abir Mukherjee A Necessary Evil (Harvill Secker)

Emma Viskic Resurrection Bay (Pushkin Vertigo)

T he CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger

Mick Herron London Rules (John Murray Publishers)

Emily Koch If I Die Before I Wake (Harvill Secker)

Attica Locke Bluebird, Bluebird (Serpent's Tail)

Colette McBeth An Act of Silence (Wildfire)

C J Tudor The Chalk Man (Michael Joseph)

Don Winslow The Force (HarperFiction)

The CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger

William Boyle Gravesend (No Exit Press)

Joe Ide I.Q. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

Danya Kukafka Girl in Snow (Picador)

.

Melissa Scrivner Love Lola (Point Blank)

Khurrum Rahman East of Hounslow (HQ)

Emma Viskic Resurrection Bay (Pushkin Vertigo)

T he CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction

Piu Eatwell Black Dahlia Red Rose (Coronet)

David Grann Killers of the Flower Moon (Simon & Schuster)

Thomas Harding Blood on the Page (Heinemann)

Alexandria Mariano-Lesnevich The Fact of a Body (Macmillan)

T. Christian Miller & Ken Armstrong A False Report (Hutchinson)

Laura Thompson  Rex V Edith Thompson (Head of Zeus)

The CWA Historical Dagger

Abir Mukherjee A Necessary Evil (Harvill Secker)

L. C. Tyler  Fire (Constable)

Thomas Mullen Lightning Men (Little, Brown)

Ngaio Marsh & Stella Duffy Money in the Morgue (HarperCollins)

Nicola Upson Nine Lessons (Faber & Faber)

Rory Clements Nucleus (Zaffre Publishing)

The CWA International Dagger

Oliver Bottini, tr Jamie Bulloch Zen and the Art of Murder (MacLehose)

Pierre Lemaître tr Frank Wynne Three Days and a Life (MacLehose)

Henning Mankell, tr Marlaine Delargy After the Fire (Harvill Secker)

Jon Michelet, tr Don Bartlett The Frozen Woman (No Exit Press)

Dolores Redondo, tr Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garzía

Offering to the Storm (HarperCollins)

Fred Vargas, tr Sian Reynolds The Accordionist (Harvill Secker)

The CWA Short Story Dagger

‘The Last Siege of Bothwell Castle’ by Chris Brookmyre

Bloody Scotland (Historic Environment Scotland)

‘Second Son’ by Lee Child

No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Stories (Bantam Press)

‘Smoking Kills’ by Erin Kelly

“The Body” Killer Women Crime Club Anthology 2, Edited by Susan Opie (Killer Women Ltd)

‘Nemo Me Impune Lacessit’ by Denise Mina

Bloody Scotland (Historic Environment Scotland)

‘Accounting for Murder’ by Christine Poulson

Mystery Tour: CWA Anthology of Short Stories, Edited by Martin Edwards

(Orenda Books)

The CWA Dagger in the Library

Nominated by libraries.

Martin Edwards

Nicci French

Edward Marston

Peter May

Rebecca Tope

Simon Kernick

The winners of the CWA Daggers will be announced at the Dagger Awards dinner in London on 25 October, for which tickets are now available. Visit www.thecwa.co.uk for more information or email admin@thecwa.co.uk .