Young offenders, criminal histories: 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award longlist revealed

Young offenders, criminal histories: 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award longlist revealed

An extraordinary literary tag-team is among several tales inspired by historic events to be named today on an eclectic longlist for the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.

“It’s surreal and strangely fitting that in our tenth season of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, and almost forty years after Dame Ngaio’s passing, our judges are considering a story that she began writing herself during the Second World War,” says founder Craig Sisterson.

The Dame faces plenty of stiff competition for this year’s prize, with several award-winning authors on the longlist for the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.

“Our international judging panel faces quite a challenge this year, that’s for sure,” says Sisterson. “Along with Stella Duffy’s brilliant resumption of Inspector Alleyn, we have superb fictional explorations of real-life crimes from another local Dame and a past Ngaios winner, exciting new tales from past finalists, and several hard-hitting stories about young people.”

The Ngaio Marsh Awards have celebrated the best New Zealand crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing since 2010, and this year’s longlist runs the gamut of settings from rural New Zealand to New York City, time periods from the 1940s to modern day, and themes ranging from teen bullying to societal discrimination and the verisimilitude of memory.

The longlist for the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel is:

• NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU by Nikki Crutchley (Oak House Press)
• CASSIE CLARK: OUTLAW by Brian Falkner (OneTree House)
• THIS MORTAL BOY by Fiona Kidman (Penguin)
• MONEY IN THE MORGUE by Ngaio Marsh & Stella Duffy (HarperCollins)
• THE QUAKER by Liam McIlvanney (HarperCollins)
• CALL ME EVIE by JP Pomare (Hachette)
• THE STAKES by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin)
• MAKE A HARD FIST by Tina Shaw (OneTree House)
• THE VANISHING ACT by Jen Shieff (Mary Egan Publishing)
• RAIN FALL by Ella West (Allen & Unwin)

The longlist is currently being considered by a judging panel of crime, thriller, and suspense writing experts from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The finalists will be announced on 2 August, along with the finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel and Best Non-Fiction. All the finalists will be celebrated, and the winners announced, as part of a special WORD Christchurch event on 14 September.

For more information on this year’s longlist, or the Ngaio Marsh Awards in general, please contact founder and judging convenor Craig Sisterson, craigsisterson.hotmail.com