Duffy and Dame Ngaio feature among the Daggers drawn at Crimefest

A New Zealand mystery that began more than seventy years ago has been longlisted for the prestigious CWA Dagger Awards, announced at Crimefest in Bristol last night. 

While the Second World War was raging, Ngaio Marsh brought her famed British detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn to her native New Zealand, exploring her own country and wartime issues.

Along with being an ambulance driver during the global conflict, Marsh continued to write and published novels like COLOUR SCHEME and DIED IN THE WOOL. She also began writing another wartime mystery set in New Zealand, MONEY IN THE MORGUE, but it was never completed or published. Decades later, its opening, a few chapters, and some notes scrawled on the back of a Shakespeare script were discovered at a research library in New Zealand.

From those seeds, New Zealand-raised novelist and theatremaker Stella Duffy resurrected the mystery and wrote the first Inspector Alleyn novel to be published in more than 30 years. Last night in Bristol, Marsh and Duffy's 'collaboration' was named on this year's longlist for the CWA Historical Dagger, which honours great crime novels set in a time period of at least 50 years ago.

The Marsh/Duffy book was just one of many interesting talking points among this year's Dagger longlists. Philip Kerr, who recently passed away, was also named on the Historical Dagger longlist for PRUSSIAN BLUE. Several books were longlisted for multiple Daggers, including debuts THE SEVEN DEATHS OF EVELYN HARDCASTLE by Stuart Turton (Gold Dagger and John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger), and RESURRECTION BAY by Australian author Emma Viskic (Gold and Creasey), along with A NECESSARY EVIL by Abir Mukherjee (Gold and Historical Daggers) and LONDON RULES by Mick Herron (Gold and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers).

Rotorua Noir Guest of Honour and Icelandic crime writer Lilja Sigurdardottir was among the translated authors named on the CWA International Dagger longlist, for SNARE, translated by Quentin Bates.

Here is the full list of Dagger categories and longlisted tales.

CWA Gold Dagger:

• Head Case, by Ross Armstrong (HQ)
• The Liar, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion)
• London Rules, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• Since We Fell, by Dennis Lehane (Little, Brown)
• Sunburn, by Laura Lippman (Faber and Faber)
• Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke (Serpent’s Tail)
• You Don’t Know Me, by Imran Mahmood (Michael Joseph)
• A Necessary Evil, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
• The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton (Raven)
• Resurrection Bay, by Emma Viskic (Pushkin Vertigo)

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:

• The Spy’s Daughter, by Adam Brookes (Sphere)
• The Switch, by Joseph Finder (Head of Zeus)
• London Rules, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• If I Die Before I Wake, by Emily Koch (Harvill Secker)
• Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke (Serpent’s Tail)
• An Act of Silence, by Colette McBeth (Wildfire)
• A Necessary Evil, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
• Fierce Kingdom, by Gin Phillips (Doubleday)
• The Chalk Man, by C.J. Tudor (Michael Joseph)
• The Force, by Don Winslow (HarperFiction)

CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger:

• Gravesend, by William Boyle (No Exit Press)
• IQ, by Joe Ide (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Soho Dead, by Greg Keen (Thomas & Mercer)
• Girl in Snow, by Danya Kukafka (Picador)
• Lola, by Melissa Scrivner Love (Point Blank)
• East of Hounslow, by Khurrum Rahman (HQ)
• Ravenhill, by John Steele (Silvertail)
• My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent (Fourth Estate)
• The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton (Raven)
• Resurrection Bay, by Emma Viskic (Pushkin Vertigo)

CWA International Dagger:

• Zen and the Art of Murder, by Oliver Bottini, tr Jamie Bulloch (MacLehose Press)
• The Shadow District, by Arnaldur Indridason, tr Victoria Cribb (Harvill Secker)
• Three Days and a Life, by Pierre Lemaitre, tr Frank Wynne (MacLehose Press)
• After the Fire, by Henning Mankell, tr Marlaine Delargy (Harvill Secker)
• The Frozen Woman, by Jon Michelet, tr by Don Bartlett (No Exit Press)
• Offering to the Storm, by Dolores Redondo, tr by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garzía (HarperCollins)
• Three Minutes, by Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström, tr by Elizabeth Clark Wessel (Quercus/Riverrun)
• Snare, by Lilja Sigurdardóttir, tr Quentin Bates (Orenda)
• The Accordionist, by Fred Vargas, tr Sian Reynolds (Harvill Secker)
• Can You Hear Me? by Elena Varvello, tr Alex Valente (Two Roads/John Murray)

CWA Historical Dagger:

• A Necessary Evil, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
• Death in the Stars, by Frances Brody (Piatkus)
• Fire, by L.C. Tyler (Constable)
• Lightning Men, by Thomas Mullen (Little, Brown)
• Merlin at War, by Mark Ellis (London Wall)
• Money in the Morgue, by Ngaio Marsh and Stella Duffy (HarperCollins)
• Nine Lessons, by Nicola Upson (Faber and Faber)
• Nucleus, by Rory Clements (Zaffre)
• Prussian Blue, by Philip Kerr (Quercus)
• The Mitford Murders, by Jessica Fellows (Sphere)

CWA Short Story Dagger:

• “The Corpse on the Copse,” by Sharon Bolton (from Killer Women: Crime Club Anthology #2: The Body, edited by Susan Opie; Killer Women)
• “The Last Siege of Bothwell Castle,” by Chris Brookmyre (from Bloody Scotland; Historic Environment Scotland)
• “Too Much Time,” by Lee Child (from No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Stories, by Lee Child; Bantam Press)
• “Second Son,” by Lee Child (from No Middle Name)
• “Authentic Carbon Steel Forged,” by Elizabeth Haynes (from Deadlier: 100 of the Best Crime Stories Written by Women, edited by Sophie Hannah; Head of Zeus)
• “Smoking Kills,” by Erin Kelly (from Killer Women: Crime Club Anthology #2)
• “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit,” by Denise Mina (from Bloody Scotland)
• “Accounting for Murder,” by Christine Poulson (from Mystery Tour: CWA Anthology of Short Stories, edited by Martin Edwards; Orenda)
• “Faking a Murder,” by Kathy Reichs and Lee Child (from Match Up, edited by Lee Child; Sphere)
• “Trouble Is a Lonesome Town,” by Cathi Unsworth (from Deadlier: 100 of the Best Crime Stories Written by Women)

CWA Dagger in the Library:
(Selected by nominations from libraries)

• Simon Beckett
• Martina Cole
• Martin Edwards
• Nicci French
• Sophie Hannah
• Simon Kernick
• Edward Marston
• Peter May
• Rebecca Tope

Shortlists in all of these categories are anticipated by July, with winners to be declared during a Dagger Awards dinner in London on Thursday, October 25.