02.09.14 | Caroline Carpenter - The Bookseller
Two novels from Transworld imprints and a further two from Little, Brown have been shortlisted for the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year at the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards.Paula Daly’s Keep Your Friends Close (Bantam), which reveals what happens when a marriage falls apart with fatal consequences, is up against Wiley Cash’s This Dark Road to Mercy (Doubleday), a tale of blood and vengeance in a little town in North Carolina.
Also in the running are The First Rule of Survival (Constable) by Paul Mendelson, a thriller set in modern Cape Town where the discovery of two missing children reveals unwelcome truths, and Louise Penny’s story of rampant police corruption in an isolated Canadian hamlet with no links to the outside world, How the Light Gets In (Sphere).
Meanwhile the shortlist for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for Best First Novel sees Antonia Hodgson’s The Devil In The Marshalsea (Hodder & Stoughton), which depicts the savage world of an 18th century gaol, facing M J Carter’s tale of murder, gambling, opium wars and crime, The Strangler Vine (Penguin Fig Tree). Two other debut novels are shortlisted: The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin (Mantle), which follows an unknown axe-man who gives his address as "Hell", and The Silent Wife by A S A Harrison (Headline), in which Chicago is the backdrop for the slow, murderous disintegration of a marriage.
Robert Harris and Louise Doughty are both shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year, for An Officer and a Spy (Random House) and Apple Tree Yard (Faber and Faber) respectively. Harris’ novel is a fictional telling of The Dreyfus Affair, while Doughty’s is a psychological thriller about a respected female scientist and the single reckless decision that leads to her standing trial for murder.
Also in the running for that award is I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (Transworld), a race against time for a retired US intelligence expert who is drawn back into the world of forensic criminal investigation, and Greg Iles’ Natchez Burning (HarperCollins), where a son’s attempts to defend his father from charges of murder puts him in contact with a hardened, violent gang.
Lucy Santos, director CWA, called them “powerful and fantastic shortlists which we know will provide hours of reading pleasure for all", thanking sponsors Goldsboro Books and Ian Fleming Publications.
The winners will be announced at the awards on Friday 24th October at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, along with winners in categories for film and television.
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