Dagger Awards

The Crime Writers’ Association Daggers have been synonymous with quality crime writing for over fifty years. These prestigious awards started in 1955, less than two years after the Association was founded, with the award of a Crossed Red Herring Award to Winston Graham for The Little Walls.

Listed below are just a few of this year's winning titles to tempt you. The synopsis are as provided by the CWA site. Checkout their website for the full list of awards and many more details on the winning authors and titles.

CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year

The Rage (M)
by Gene Kerrigan

Synopsis: Vincent Naylor is a professional thief, as confident as he is reckless. Just ten days out of jail, and he’s preparing his next robbery. Already, his plan is unravelling. While investigating the murder of a crooked banker, Detective Sergeant Bob Tidey gets a call from an old acquaintance, Maura Coady. The retired nun believes there’s something suspicious happening in the Dublin backstreet where she lives alone. Maura’s call inadvertently unleashes a storm of violence that will engulf Vincent Naylor and force Tidey to make a deadly choice. The Rage is a masterpiece of suspense, told against the background of a country’s shameful past and its troubled present.

CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger

A Land More Kind Than Home (M)
by Wiley Cash

Synopsis: Religion is supposed to shield children from the evil of the world … One Sunday nine-year-old Jess Hall watches in horror as his autistic brother is smothered during a healing service in the mountains of North Carolina. Wiley Cash uses this haunting image - inspired by a horrific true event - to spin us into a spellbinding, heartbreaking story about cruelty and innocence, and the failure of faith and family to protect a child. This is a novel thick with stories and characters connected by faith, infidelity, and a sense of hope that is both tragic and unforgettable.

CWA International Dagger

The Potter's Field (M)
by Andrea Camilleri

Synopsis: While Vigàta is wracked by storms, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is called to attend the discovery of a dismembered body in a field of clay. Bearing all the marks of an execution style killing, it seems clear that this is, once again, the work of the notorious local mafia. But who is the victim? Why was the body divided into 30 pieces? And what is the significance of the Potter’s Field? Working to decipher these clues, Montalbano must also confront the strange and difficult behaviour exhibited by his old colleague Mimi, and avoid the distraction of the enchanting Dolores Alfano – who seeks the inspector’s help in locating her missing husband. But like the Potter’s Field itself, Montalbano is on treacherous ground and only one thing is certain – nothing is quite as it seems …

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year

A Foreign Country (M)
by Charles Cumming

Synopsis: Six weeks before she is due to take up her position as the first female head of MI6, Amelia Levene vanishes without a trace. Her disappearance is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced for more than a decade. There has been no ransom demand, no word from foreign intelligence services, no hint of a defection. Should news of Levene’s disappearance leak out, the consequences would be catastrophic. But for disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell, the crisis offers a chance for redemption. He is approached by his former employers and ordered to find her. Kell’s search takes him first to France, then North Africa, where he discovers an extraordinary secret hidden deep in Levene's past. It is a secret that could fatally compromise Britain’s national security – and for which Kell himself could pay with his life.