Historical crime fiction award shortlist announced

The Crime Writers’ Association will next month announce the winner of this year’s prestigious Ellis Peters Historical Award.

Established for the best historical crime novel (set in any period up to 35 years prior to the year in which the award will be made) by an author of any nationality, the award commemorates the life and work of Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) (1913-1995), a prolific author perhaps best known as the creator of Brother Cadfael.

The winners will be announced on November 4 during an event at Little, Brown Book Group, 100 Victoria Embankment, London
The Ellis Peters Historical Award Prize £3,000
Sponsors: The Estate of Ellis Peters, Headline Book Publishing Company and Little, Brown Book Group

Shortlist

Revenger – Rory Clements
Publisher: John Murray

This second novel to feature the Elizabethan ‘intelligencer’ John Shakespeare captures all the danger but also all the excitement of living in capricious times when a wrong word can get you sent to the Tower. An exuberant novel that revels in the sights and smells of Tudor England.

Washington Shadow – Aly Monroe
Publisher: John Murray

This novel shows that your allies can do you as much harm as your enemies as MI6 agent Peter Cotton gets caught up in diplomatic intrigue in Washington. Monroe conjures up a world of murder and double dealing in beautifully lyrical prose.

Heresy – S J Parris
Publisher: HarperCollins

An astonishingly accomplished first outing for Giordano Bruno, monk, poet and sleuth, investigating skulduggery in Elizabethan Oxford. Parris has resurrected an undeservedly forgotten figure and her depiction of a society riven by religious intolerance is timely.

Heartstone – C J Sansom
Publisher: Mantle

Massive, colourful and ambitious, this is a double mystery for Sansom’s wily lawyer Mathew Shardlake. The background of Tudor England - with Henry’s ill-advised foreign wars having modern resonances - is a stunning backdrop.

The Anatomy of Ghosts – Andrew Taylor
Publisher: Michael Joseph, Penguin Books

This is Andrew Taylor at his considerable best; a wonderfully atmospheric - and labyrinthine -- mystery set in a period Cambridge evoked with all the skill that Taylor is famous for.

To Kill A Tsar – Andrew Williams
Publisher: John Murray

Compromised characters with difficult moral choices are at the centre of To Kill a Tsar. Set in a strongly realised nineteenth-century St Petersburg and dealing with the first significant terrorist cell of the modern era, this is bravura storytelling.