Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Steph McGovern, Lisa Jewell and Abir Mukherjee announced as winners of the 2026 Fingerprint Awards on Capital Crime’s opening night
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Lisa Jewell, Steph McGovern, Abir Mukherjee, Will Carver and MW Craven announced as winners across seven categories, with Jewell winning both Audiobook of the Year and Thriller of the Year
Jeffrey Archer awarded Lifetime Achievement Award, after a 50-year publishing career
Industry awards recognise Pan Macmillan for The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson for Crime Campaign Publisher of the Year Award and Publishing Director Trisha Jackson for Thalia Proctor Lifetime Achievement Award.
Early bird tickets announced for 2027 festival, with an exciting new venue
Hosted by acclaimed radio and TV broadcaster, and host of The Bookshelf Podcast Ryan Tubridy, the fifth annual Fingerprint Award winners were announced last night (Thursday 18th June), in a ceremony that marked the beginning of Capital Crime 2026.
The Fingerprint Awards reflect Goldsboro Books and Capital Crime’s enduring mission to connect with passionate reading communities, bringing together fans and storytellers through unique events and experiences that celebrate their mutual love of great crime writing. Chosen by readers, the winners are across seven categories: Crime, Thriller, Historical Crime, Debut, True Crime, Genre-Busting and Audiobook of the Year.
The late Virginia Roberts Giuffre received the True Crime award posthumously for Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, a powerful and harrowing account of the abuse she said she suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and others.
Lisa Jewell’s #1 bestseller Don’t Let Him In has won for two categories: Thriller of the Year and Audiobook of the Year. M.W. Craven wins Crime Book of the Year for a second year in row, having won last year for The Mercy Chair, and retains the crown this year with The Final Vow.
Will Carver, whose website describes him as ‘an award-losing writer of 'wildly original' fiction’ has won the Genre-Busting Book of the Year for Kill Them With Kindness.
Broadcaster Steph McGovern won the Debut Book of the Year for Deadline,and CWA Gold Dagger-winning author Abir Mukherjee won the Historical Crime Book of the Year for The Burning Grounds, the latest in his award-winning Wyndham and Bannerjee series set during the Raj.
In addition, global bestseller Jeffrey Archer, who earlier this year announced that his next book Adam and Eve would be his last, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s The Art of a Lie, which was shortlisted for Historical Crime Book of the Year, took Publishing Campaign of the Year. The award was given to Pan Macmillan for their unmissable campaign, marking ‘a step up for a hugely talented author’ by the Capital Crime Advisory Board, which is made up of leading publishers, editors, booksellers, authors, bloggers and journalists from the crime writing community.
David Headley, co-founder of Capital Crime, presented the Thalia Proctor Lifetime Achievement Award to Trisha Jackson, Publishing Director for Pan Macmillan, commending her passion and ability to nurture and support careers, saying: ‘She believed in David Baldacci before he became a global phenomenon. She championed Kristin Hannah years before her extraordinary success. She has spent a decade supporting Fiona Cummins and countless other writers. She’s amazing.’
The awards launched the first evening of Capital Crime, which sees a star-studded and thought-provoking weekend for lovers of crime-fiction. Welcoming debut authors and crime-writing royalty alike, panels include: The Rebels Behind The Hero with Lee Child & Andrew Child in conversation with Stig Abell; Closed Communities and Secrets That Fester: Jane Casey, Liz Nugent & Ardal O’Hanlon join Brian McGilloway to discuss why Ireland is such fertile ground for crime fiction; and Christie Coded,marking the 50th anniversary of Dame Agatha Christie’s death, with Hazell Ward, Sophie Hannah, Lucy Foley and Kelly Mullen.
Headley and Festival Director Lizzie Curle also revealed that the 2027 event will take place from Friday 28 May to Sunday 30 May 2027 at an impressive new home, The Brewery, near the Barbican. Marking a major milestone in the festival’s growth, the move reflects Capital Crime’s expanding popularity as it outgrows its current venue, with the new space offering an outdoor covered bar area, larger exhibition spaces, discounted hotel rooms and what is set to become the biggest bookshop at any crime fiction festival in the UK. Early Bird weekend tickets are now on sale.
The Fingerprint Award Winners
Crime Book of the Year
The Final Vow by M.W. Craven (Little, Brown)
Thriller Book of the Year
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell (Penguin)
Historical Crime Book of the Year
The Burning Grounds by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage)
Debut Book of the Year
Deadline by Steph McGovern (Macmillan)
Genre-Busting Book of the Year
Kill Them With Kindness by Will Carver (Orenda Books)
True Crime Book of the Year
Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre (Penguin)
Audiobook of the Year
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell (Penguin), narrated by Richard Armitage, Joanne Froggatt, Louise Brealey, Gemma Whelan, Tamaryn Payne
Publishing Campaign of the Year
Pan Macmillan for The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Lifetime Achievement Award
Jeffrey Archer
Thalia Proctor Lifetime Achievement
Trisha Jackson, former Publishing Director at Pan Macmillan
Capital Crime today announced the
shortlists for its annual Fingerprint Awards, which champion the very best in
crime writing from across the globe, as voted for by readers.
Authors both new and established
are represented across the categories, which are Crime Novel of the Year, True
Crime Book of the Year, Thriller of the Year, Historical Crime Novel of the
Year, Debut Novel of the Year, Audiobook of the Year and Genre-Busting Book of
the Year.
The shortlists of five have been
selected by the festival’s board members, from a longlist carefully curated by
the Tastemakers Committee - a panel of leading independent bloggers and
reviewers - who have championed their standout titles across each category. Each
selected book had to be first published in English between 1 January and 31
December 2025 to qualify. No fees were charged for selection.
Readers can vote for their
preferred winners in each category on the
Capital Crime website by Saturday 30th May. The winners will be
revealed at the Fingerprint Awards on the evening of Thursday 18th June as part
of the Capital Crime festival in London at the Royal Leonardo Hotel, in the
shadow of St Paul’s. This year’s Fingerprint Awards ceremony, attended by
Capital Crime ticket holders, authors, nominees and leading figures from the
publishing industry will be hosted by acclaimed radio and TV broadcaster, and
host of The Bookshelf Podcast, Ryan Tubridy.
Leading the overall Crime Book of
the Year shortlist are two 2025 Fingerprint winners, M.W. Craven, for The
Final Vow, and Vaseem Khan, for Quantum of Menace,
featuring the famous Quartermaster from the Bond series. Sunday
Times bestseller Sarah Pinborough is shortlisted for We
Live Here Now; and they are joined by Liam McIlvanney and Tariq
Ashkanani, authors of The Good Father and The Midnight King respectively.
For the Thriller Book of the
Year, Lisa Jewell’s Sunday Times bestselling Don’t Let Him
In and Virdee creator A.A. Dhand’s The Chemist are
up against Human Remains by Jo Callaghan, The Man Made of
Smoke by Alex North and Some of Us Are Liars by Fiona
Cummins.
Tackling topics as diverse as
Lord Byron, the final days of the British Raj, and the Canadian Gold Rush, the
shortlist for Historical Crime Book of the Year sees Anthony Horowitz’s Marble
Hall Murders, the latest in his bestselling, BBC adapted Magpie Murders series,
up against CWA Dagger-winner Abir Mukherjee, for his latest Wyndham and
Banerjee mystery The Burning Grounds. Also shortlisted is The Art of
a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson; The Rush by Beth
Lewis and Dangerous by Essie Fox.
Broadcasters Chris Chibnall and Steph
McGovern are both shortlisted for the Debut Crime Novel of the Year,
for Death at the White Hart and Deadline, respectively; and are
up against Oscar nominated Icelandic screenwriter Jón Atli Jónasson for Broken; Nina
Bhadreshwar for The Day of the Roaring and Kelly Mullen for This
is Not a Game.
The Genre-Busting Book of the
Year shortlist, set up to recognise a book that defies traditional boundaries
of crime fiction, and may feature elements of sci-fi, romance or other genres
of fiction, sees Kill Them With Kindness by Will Carver and Little
Red Death by A.K. Benedict up against Blood Like Ours by Stuart
Neville, Small Fires by Ronnie Turner and Manhattan
Down by Michael Cordy.
The True Crime Book of the Year
shortlist features several books exploring the states of nations through crime,
as well as writing intended to recentre the focus on the victims rather than
the killers, including Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse
and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a memoir by
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s most outspoken victim; and A
Flower Travelled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland, chronicling
the harrowing events of Argentina’s Dirty War, which saw hundreds of pregnant
women kidnapped and disappeared. They are up against Story of a
Murder by prize-winning social historian Hallie Rubenhold, focusing
on Cora Crippen, the murdered wife of the infamous Doctor Crippen, and the
women who brought him to justice; Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the
Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser, which explores whether
lead exposure was connected to the explosion of serial killers in the Pacific
Northwest in the 1970s and 1980s; and A History of Modern Britain in
Twenty Murders by Professor David Wilson, the UK’s leading
criminologist.
The Audiobook of the Year sees
second nominations for both Lisa Jewell and Sarah Pinborough for,
respectively, Don’t Let Him In, narrated by Richard Armitage and Joanne
Frogatt, and We Live Here Now, narrated by Helen Baxendale and Jamie
Glover. They are up against S. A. Cosby’s King of Ashes, narrated by
Adam Lazarre-White; Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, narrated by
Richard Armitage and Tuppence Middleton; and Artificial Wisdom by Thomas
R. Weaver, narrated by Steven Pacey.
In addition, two further
categories will be selected solely by the Capital Crime Advisory Board;
the Industry Award of the Year – recognising the best marketing
campaign, editorial work, or publishing strategy; and the Thalia Proctor
Lifetime Achievement Award – marking an outstanding contribution to the
crime writing industry.
The shortlist is as follows -
Audiobook of the Year
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
King of Ashes by S A
Cosby
We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver
True Crime Book of
the Year
Story of a Murder by Hallie Rubenhold
Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts-Guiffre
Murderland: Crime and
Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser
A History of Modern
Britain in Twenty Murders by Prof. David Wilson
A Flower Travelled in
My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland
Debut Crime Book
Broken by Jón Atli
Jónasson
Deadline by Steph
McGovern
Death at the White
Hart by Chris Chibnall
The Day of the
Roaring by Nina Bhadreshwar
This is Not A Game by Kelly Mullen
Genre-Busting Book
Kill Them with
Kindness by Will Carver
Little Red Death by A.
K. Benedict Book
Blood Like Ours by Stuart Neville
Small Fires by Ronnie
Turner
Manhattan Down by Michael Cordy
Historical Crime Book
of the Year
The Art of A Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
The Rush by Beth
Lewis
Dangerous by Essie Fox
Burning Grounds by Abir Mukherjee
Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Thriller Book of the
Year
The Chemist by A A Dhand
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
Human Remains by Jo
Callaghan
The Man Made of Smoke by Alex North
Some of Us Are Liars by Fiona Cummins
Overall Crime Book of
the Year
The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani
The Final Vow by M W
Craven
Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan
The Good Father by Liam McIlveney
We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough
Congratulations
to all the nominate authors. The winner
will be announced on Thursday 18th June 2026 during the Capital Crime
Festival.
CAPITAL CRIME ANNOUNCES FULL PROGRAMME, WITH JEFFREY ARCHER, AA
DHAND, JANICE HALLETT, LISA JEWELL AND SABINE DURRANT TO JOIN PREVIOUSLY
ANNOUNCED HEADLINERS JANE HARPER, ARDAL O’HANLON AND ANDREA MARA
AA Dhand Andrea Mara Ardal O'Hanlon, Elly Griffiths, Jane Harper
Janice Hallett Jeffrey Archer Lisa Jewell, Liz Nugent Sabine Durrant
The 2026 festival to return to
the Leonardo Royal Hotel 18th-20th June, with the Fingerprint Awards on 18th June,
hosted by Ryan Tubridy
Newly confirmed authors also
include Elly Griffiths, Abir Mukherjee, T.M. Logan, Vaseem Khan, MJ Arlidge,
Chris Brookmyre, Catriona Ward and Lucy Foley
The National Year of Reading and
‘Quick Reads’ to be commemorated by AA Dhand, Leye Adenle, Fiona Cummins and
Debbie Hicks MBE
Jeffrey Archer to celebrate 50
years of writing
Jeffrey Archer, Abir Mukherjee,
AA Dhand, Lucy Foley, Lisa Jewell, Sabine Durrant and Janice Hallett are
amongst the authors today (27th March) announced to take part in Capital
Crime, London’s largest celebration of crime and thriller writing, which
returns 18th-20th June. They will be joining the previously announced
headliners Jane Harper, Lee and Andrew Child, Claire Douglas, Andrea Mara,
Ardal O’Hanlon and Andi Osho for discussions around closed communities, Agatha
Christie and courtroom dramas.
Capital Crime co-founder and
Goldsboro Book managing director David Headley said:
‘Our vision for Capital Crime was
to provide a community that celebrates the love of storytelling, and a
welcoming space for all readers and authors. A cornerstone of the festival
since it launched in 2019 has been our social outreach initiative which has
seen schoolchildren from all around London invited to meet, hear and engage
with publishing representatives and authors. Our partnership with The Reading
Agency will only strengthen this work in a time when we need stories and
connection more than ever. Our programme this year features discussions about
courtroom dramas, comic capers and the legacy of Agatha Christie, but also
holes in the justice system and societal issues in crime fiction, with some of
the best names in the genre – from global superstars like Jane Harper and Lee
Child, but also some extremely exciting emerging voices.’
The festival kicks off on
Thursday 18th June with a panel of industry professionals navigating the
road to publication; followed by experts Professor Anja Shortland, an
expert in the field of exhortative crime and ransomware, former probation
officer Ruth Dugdall and noted criminologist Christopher
Berry-Dee speaking about different approaches to criminality with Doctor
Emma Kavanagh, a psychology consultant specialising in human performance in
extreme situations; and real-world private investigators Mike and
Chris Jennings exploring the realities of their job, and how crime fiction
compares. Thursday’s final panel will see bestselling authors Elly
Griffiths and Claire Douglas speaking to Joe Haddow about
using the past and memory in their novels, before DHH Literary Agency’s open
pitching afternoon and networking event. The day will conclude with the
Fingerprint Award Ceremony, hosted by broadcaster and podcaster Ryan
Tubridy.
Friday opens with a panel on
modern espionage, with James Wolff, Paul Warner, David Goodman and Chris
Humphreys in conversation with Jane Thynne; and Leodora
Darlington, LM Chilton, Yemi Dipeolu and Tanya Sweeney discussing
how messy relationships can take a deadly turn in crime. The day will also
feature Abir Mukherjee, Sarah Vaughan, Foluso Agbaje and Elly
Vine discussing elites behaving badly; Ajay Chowdhury, Jo
Callaghan and Vaseem Khan will explore concerns around AI; and
former lawyers Imran Mahmood, Harriet Tyce and Anna Mazzola will
speak about the art of the courtroom drama. Lucy Rose, Essie Fox, Laura
Purcell and Callie Kazumi will explore what could be behind
readers’ appetite for dark gothic fiction; Clare Leslie Hall, Hattie
Williams and Jennie Godfrey will speak about stories that will
stay with you long after reading; and Jo Spain, Olivier Norek, Madeleine
Pelling and Edel Coffey will discuss about how true stories can
inspire fiction.
Friday will also see Capital
Crime’s National Year of Reading panel, in partnership with The Reading Agency,
and chaired by one of its founding members Debbie Hicks MBE, with former
Quick Reads authors AA Dhand, Fiona Cummins and Leye Adenle exploring
how crime fiction can be the perfect gateway genre into a lifelong love of
reading.
The day will close with Lisa
Jewell and Sabine Durrant in conversation with Katherine
Faulkner about their incredible chart-topping careers writing suspense in
the domestic sphere; and global bestsellers Jane Harper and Andrea
Mara in conversation with DJ Fee Mak about writing horrible
things happening to ordinary people; and the suffering of parenthood in their
novels. The final event of the day is the festival’s regular highlight Crime
Quiz.
On Saturday 20th June, crime
fiction fans will see former police officer turned bestselling novelist Clare
Mackintosh reflecting on how her past has influenced her writing; Jeffrey
Archer celebrating his 50 year career and Lee and Andrew Child speaking
to Stig Abell about building and breaking the rules of crime over 31
Jack Reacher novels. In addition, legendary Irish writers Ardal O’Hanlon,
Jane Casey and Liz Nugent will explore with Brian
McGilloway what make Irish communities the perfect setting for crime
fiction.
In addition, to mark the 50th anniversary
of the death of Dame Agatha Christie, Sophie Hannah, Hazell Ward, Lucy
Foley and Kelly Mullen will explore the enduring appeal and
influence of her work.
Other panels on Saturday
include Sarah Hilary, Chris Brookmyre, Doug Johnstone and Chris
Merritt discussing career longevity; a discussion about justice and
revenge with Julie Mae Cohen, D.B. Stephens, Emma Styles and Maz
Evans; the illusion of safety with Catriona Ward, Andi Osho, J.P.
Delaney and Rosa Silverman; and Rob Parker, Nadine
Matheson and T.M. Payne speaking to Lisa Howells about
the versatility of the procedural.
There will also be exciting
public events throughout the festival: Orenda Books will be hosting a showcase
and proofs party; and renowned wine expert Olly Smith will be
launching his debut Death by Noir, in conversation with his brother and
Emmy-winning Slow Horses screenwriter Will Smith.
Now in its sixth year, Capital
Crime is proud to be a part of and contributor to the vibrant culture scene
with the city, and has quickly established itself as one of the biggest
festivals in the UK, with a reputation for originality, innovation, and a focus
on creating an incredible reader experience with creatively curated and
inclusive panels. Co-founded by Goldsboro Books MD David Headley, it has
welcomed readers from around the country to see British authors such as Robert
Harris, Anthony Horowitz and Paula Hawkins, appearing alongside international
talent including Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir and US
bestsellers Jeffrey Deaver, Karin Slaughter, Linwood Barclay and Michael
Connolly.
Headley and his team at Goldsboro
Books have helped launch the careers of so many authors since it opened almost
25 years ago, by uniting incredible writing with their loyal, ever-growing
community of passionate readers. Renowned for their thoughtful and impactful
new initiatives to engage communities of readers, Capital Crime is a brilliant
extension of this vision with an outstanding programme of over 40 entertaining,
accessible events that explore all corners of the genre, and the opportunity to
meet your literary heroes.
One
irretrievably damaged and the other an outcast.
Dóra
struggles to cope with life after taking a bullet to the head. Rado is the
child of refugees, his career shunted off the tracks due to his family
connections to an organised crime gang. But they’re the only ones available
when a troubled teenager vanishes from a school trip, and the trail gets darker
the further they pursue it.
Broken
takes place in a side of Reykjavík no visitor would ever want to see, as the
mismatched pair tread on all the wrong toes in the search for the missing
youngster. This takes place against the backdrop of a vicious vendetta and
price on Dóra’s head. A brutal turf war embroils Rado’s family as he and Dóra
follow the threads of corruption higher and higher, to the top of the exclusive
apartment block on the outskirts of the city.
The
first novel by award-winning screenwriter Jón Atli Jónasson to appear in
English, Broken is the first of a razor-edged crime trilogy shot through with
black humour and characters who leap off the page.
We reviewed Broken on its Hardcover release earlier this
month, writing at the time -
This
extraordinary crime novel debuted 2022 in the authors’ native Iceland, but is
now finally available in an English Language translation.Broken is a deeply thought-provoking
narrative, written in an urgent present-tense style making the reader pause to
collate and evaluate the proceedings as well as to take a breath. Written from
multiple viewpoints, terse dialogue with deftly placed social commentary - its
narrative pace is measured, but zings along with the velocity of the bullet
that impacts Dora’s head in Broken’s opening chapter.
Dora
works for the police in Reykjavík, shielded from ‘real’ police work by her boss
Ellioi, instead she’s left to manage administration / office work, though she
longs to return to working on the street. Ellioi hides his guilt [from the
assignment they shared and which left fragments of a bullet lodged in Dora’s
skull], by keeping her in the office, deskbound on minor cases - and away from
further danger. The cranial injury still causes Dora physical pain, constant
operations, and strict regime of medication - affecting her cognition and
distorting her personality.
So on the eve of Broken’s Paperback release in August, we
decided to have a chat with Quentin for our readers.
A
Karim: Could
you tell us a little about yourself and where the fascination for Iceland and
Icelandic culture / literature stemmed [and stems] from?
Q
Bates: It’s a long story… I had the opportunity for a gap year,
and a friend of my Dad’s said I could come and work in his net loft in Iceland
for a few months. The 17-year-old me couldn’t shake off English suburbia fast
enough. It didn’t quite work out as planned, as my A level results were pretty
poor. So I just stayed in Iceland and the gap year became a gap decade. During
that time I did several different jobs, went to college and started a family,
so some very deep roots were put down there. We relocated to England after a
while, for a variety of reasons. These days my wife and I try to split our time
between the south of England and the north of Iceland, as we have children and
grandchildren on each side of the ocean.
It was while I was at college that I started reading
Icelandic properly, and the book scene was very different back then. There was
practically no crime fiction other than translated mostly from English, and
Icelandic literature was mostly very literary, plus there were loads of worthy
biographies of captains of industry, political figures and whatnot, as well as
nautical stuff – I’ll come back to that further on.
AK: And reading, did you come from a bookish
family or was it your schooling?
QB: There
were always books at home and my parents didn’t push us in particular
directions, at least, we were never discouraged from reading anything. We were
just encouraged to read whatever we wanted. Dad gave me two Asterix books for
my (I think) eighth birthday, and that was probably a pivotal moment. I just
fell in love with the village of Indomitable Gauls. One of those two books was
Asterix in Britain, and I still think it’s the best one, gently and
affectionately skewering the foibles of the Rosbifs across the Channel with
their warm beer and terrible weather. It was much, much later that I figured
out that the translator was the brilliant Anthea Bell.
Of course I pillaged the parental book shelves. Dad liked
weighty 19th century literature (heavy going!) but that left me with an
appreciation of Hardy and others. He also loved Norse mythology, the ancient
sagas and Tolkien, and I inherited that. Although I read the Lord of the Rings
pretty much every year for a long time, it must be 20 years since I last read
it and I’m not sure I dare pick it up now. No, I haven’t seen the movies and
don’t want to… Mum’s tastes were broader, and ranged from Ruth Rendell and Ed
McBain at one end to Trollope and Maugham at the other. My first brush with
Nordic crime fiction was picking Sjöwall & Wahlöö from Mum’s
shelf, intrigued by the weird name, and I must have been 13 or 14 then. But
there was no more! There was no other Nordic crime fiction in English for
another couple of decades! By late teens I was reading George Orwell, Jack
Kerouac, Douglas Adams (loved HHGTTG!), Solzhenitsyn, Anthony Burgess, Evelyn
Waugh, Robert Graves. After S&W came Maigret, and fortunately there was no
shortage of Simenon in English.
I’ve always been the oddball who scours the shelves of a
library or bookshop for odd foreign names. So as a teen I was reading writers
such as Jerome Weidman and Hans Helmut Kirst, who seem to be pretty much
forgotten today. I still have this habit, and given the choice of a safe pair
of familiar hands, or the first in a series featuring a crime-busting retired
Olympic lady hammer-thrower by an unknown Bulgarian author, I know which way
I’ll jump.
AK: And pivotal books that influenced your
desire to write your own work?
QB:
Maybe it’s more about the breadth than any particular author…? But, while I was
living in Iceland, English books weren’t always easy to get hold of. I think I
was at sea one time and had a few books with me, including a major bestseller
by an author whose name I’ll keep to myself. It was terrible, a truly dreadful
book. That brought home to me then than if that’s the kind of stuff that could
get published, then I might be in with a chance after all.
Much later on… it was the books of the brilliant French
author Dominique Manotti that showed me just how sharp, incisive, smart and
politically aware crime fiction can be at its best. I don’t think she’s writing
now, as she must be quite elderly. I got to meet her and shared a panel with
her at a festival, and I was like a star-struck schoolboy.
AK: I read your first published book was a
nonfiction work about fishing in the North Sea?
QB: That
was fun! I was working as a journalist, writing about maritime stuff, and
mainly to do with fishing – as that’s my professional background. I did trips
on five different boats and that book contains those accounts. One was supposed
to be four days on a Scottish mackerel boat that turned into twelve, another
was a four-day trip from Newlyn and the others were easier, just one-day trips
to sea. It was great fun, but the small publisher went out of business about
half an hour after the book appeared. So it was never going to be a bestseller!
I also wrote a book with the skipper of the Gaul – a trawler that disappeared
off the Norwegian coast in 1974. He had been on a trip off when the ship sank –
and I got to know him well. There had been all kinds of rumours of the Gaul
having been a spy ship, none of which held water. That was a labour of love…
The book took ten years, during which the wreck of the Gaul was located,
surveyed and an inquiry was held, so all that had to be built into the
narrative. That was quite an adventure. That book is now virtually impossible
to find and second-hand copies go for 100+ quid!
AK: And what made you write fiction? And why
Crime thrillers?
QB: It had always been at the back of my mind, along with
the thought that fiction was a mug’s game, the chances of being published so
slim that it was hardly worth trying. So I had to give it a go. That first book
came out of a creative writing course I took as a way of getting a weekly
afternoon off work… I later on found out that the deputy editor and the
advertising manager were also working on novels of their own, but that’s
another story. I expected to come out of the course working on non-fiction. But
one of the tutors was a serious Noir aficionado, and so Sam North was very
encouraging, and bears much responsibility for the decision to give crime
fiction a try – and it was obvious that it would be nuts to not make use of all
that knowledge of Iceland. Gunnhildur grew out of that – seven novels and two
novellas.
AK: And how did you start working in
translating Icelandic work into English?
QB: I
had translated a book while I was at college in Iceland – one of the set texts.
That was a seafaring tale, and the author (Guðlaugur Arason) became a very dear
friend. Working on a nautical trade magazine, I worked a lot with material from
other languages in one way or another, so I found myself translating a lot of
technical and news material. It was at one of the first Iceland Noir festivals
that Karen Sullivan of the then-brand-new Orenda Books was considering the
unknown Ragnar Jónasson and asked if I
could translate Snowblind. So I did… And then others came along looking for
translation, so I’ve been pretty busy with that over the last few years.
AK: Please tell us about how you discovered
Jon Atli Jonasson and deciding to not only translate his debut novel BROKEN,
but also to venture into publishing?
QB:
Corylus is me, translator Marina Sofia and Romanian publisher and author Bogdan
Hrib. We wanted to publish some new voices, authors we could see who weren’t
getting translation and publishing deals. It has been quite a learning curve!
Some of our authors – Sólveig Pálsdóttir, Óskar Guðmundsson and Stella
Blómkvist – have done well, while others have unfortunately done less well. We
have published a couple of absolute crackers, fantastic books that have sold
just a few dozen copies… All the same, I’m intensely proud of publishing Jérôme
Leroy and Elsa Drucaroff in English. Their books are amazing, even if we may
have caught a bit of a financial cold there!
I knew about Jón Atli’s book, and had translated an excerpt
for the Icelandic publisher, and I think that was even before it had appeared
in Icelandic. It was a real surprise when Jón Atli’s agent David Headley
offered us the book – as Corylus is a publishing midget. So I got to work. I
have to say, David is very shrewd and his faith in Corylus to do well for his author
feels like a seal of approval that we’re doing the right things.
AK: Did Jon Atli Jonasson’s screenplay for THE
DEEP and
your own background in North Sea fishing resonate?
QB: I haven’t seen The Deep. I was working as a fisherman
in 1984 in Iceland when Hellisey was lost and Guðlaugur Friðthórsson performed
that astonishing feat of endurance to swim to land. When a boat is lost,
especially when there’s a loss of life, the whole fleet (and the whole country)
feels it, takes it personally, as it could have been any one of us in the
water. I think every fisherman has a brown-trouser moment or two – I know I
do…At that time we all hung on the
radio. It was the first question when you came on watch – ‘any news?’ So I’ve
never been able to bring myself to watch it.
I’ll tell you something that does resonate – Among the
books I picked up when I was starting to read Icelandic were seafaring tales by
Ásgeir Jakobsson and by Jónas Guðmundsson. Today Ásgeir Jak’s son Jakob
publishes my books in Icelandic – and Jónas Guðmundsson’s son is Jón Atli. So I
had read practically everything by Jón Atli’s Dad, and didn’t realise the
connection until we first met, by which time I had finished the first draft of
the Broken translation. His father’s books were so pivotal for me 40 or so
years ago that it genuinely made me shiver when I realised who he was.
AK: And what’s next for [a] Quentin Bates and
[b] Jon Atli Jonasson [c] Corylus Books
QB: Well
to answer sequentially -
[a]
Translation has tailed off a bit. There are a few more translators at work now,
and it seems that larger publishers are becoming more reluctant to commission
translations, especially for new authors. Then there’s the whole AI thing, but
let’s not go into that here… The upshot is that I’ve had some much-needed elbow
room to get back to my own stuff, and I have a new lead character and a cast of
supporting characters in something new that’s now coming to completion, plus
draft outlines for what could become a series. I don’t want to jinx it by
saying too much, except that the setting is Nordic and the lead character was
once a cop...
[b]
There’s a sequel to Broken, Venom, which I’m reading at the moment, and it’s
every bit as meaty as Broken. From what Jón Atli has told me, this is a trilogy
and he’s at work on the third novel now – although I’ve a feeling this could
turn into a trilogy in four, five or more parts. This is powerful stuff with
such strong characters, so I hope it does. We have UK & Commonwealth
(excluding Canada) rights to Broken, so it’s sadly not available to readers in
North America. We’ve tried to find a partner publisher on the other side of the
Atlantic, but none of the ones we’ve approached has bitten. So if there’s an
interested publisher in the US or Canada, please step this way…!
[c] We
have a third novel (Murder Tide) by the mysterious Stella Blómkvist coming out
this summer, and the translation of the fourth (title not yet finalised) is
complete, so that’ll be out next year. And we need to have a chat with David
Headley about Venom for next year! Sólveig Pálsdóttir is hard at work, so her
next one could be for next year. We also have a second novel by Catalan author Teresa Solana for next year.
We’re weighing up options for authors from other countries… We see so many
proposals for what look to be fabulous books from around the world and it
genuinely hurts to have to turn them away. But Corylus is a tiny, tiny
publisher and there’s only so much we can do.
BTW, Corylus believes very firmly in artisanal translation
by human translators with passion for language, nuance and idiom. We’ll shut
the shop before we resort to AI translation.
AK Good for you - let’s keep literature
human not AI Technology - and thank you for your time.
More information about Quentin’s publishing venture – Click
HERE and
about his writing Click HERE
We’ve been energised by the recent debut in English of the
work of Icelandic writer, screenwriter, playwright and poet Jon Atli Jonasson; reviewing BROKEN last
month when it was released in Hardcover by Corylus Books and now
on the eve of its debut in Paperback on August 1st
2025 – the author agreed to give Shots Magazine’s readers a
little insight -
My
first foray into crime writing came in the form of a serialized radio drama
centered on Iceland’s most notorious criminal case: the Guðmundur and
Geirfinnur case. The case involves the disappearance of Guðmundur Einarsson and
Geirfinnur Einarsson in 1974. Although they had the same last name, they were
not related. Six individuals were convicted of their suspected murders, based
primarily on confessions — often referred to as the Reykjavik
confessions—obtained by police during prolonged and intense interrogations.
Notably, the convictions were secured without the discovery of the victims’
bodies, eyewitnesses, or any forensic evidence.
In
the years that followed, public opinion in Iceland shifted, with many believing
the six were wrongfully convicted. On 27 September 2018, 44 years after the
disappearances, the Supreme Court of Iceland acquitted five of the original six
suspects. In 2013, an official police investigation report was submitted to the
Office of the State Prosecutor. On 24 February 2017, the Interior Ministry's Rehearing
Committee recommended that the case be reheard by the Supreme Court of Iceland.
As part of its evaluation, the commission's review of the 1974 Geirfinnur case
incorporated the work of Gísli Guðjónsson, a former Icelandic detective and
internationally renowned expert on suggestibility and false confession, whose
research introduced the concept of "Memory
Distrust Syndrome.” This theory suggests that under severe psychological
stress — including conditions like solitary confinement and sleep deprivation —
a person may lose confidence in their own memory and instead place undue trust
in external sources, such as interrogators. This can ultimately result in false
confessions made in an effort to end the psychological pressure.
My
serialized radio play uses the premise of the hardships the defendants were
subjected to under the solitary confinement. This case didn’t just devastate
the lives of the accused — it cast a long shadow over many others as well. For
decades, it stood as one of the most profound and lasting scars on Icelandic
society. In March 2013, following an 18-month investigation, the Icelandic government
released a report exposing serious flaws in the original police inquiry. It
highlighted systemic incompetence and instances of abuse, including the use of
solitary confinement, improper administration of medication, inhumane treatment
such as water torture and sleep deprivation, denial of legal representation,
and a presumption of guilt. The report also noted the absence of key elements typically
required for a credible case: forensic evidence, the victims' bodies, and any
clear motive. The case contains too many complexities to be adequately
addressed in a single blog post. However, it is evident that the accused were
perceived not merely as criminals but as a significant challenge to the
established order. They were young individuals introducing new ideas. This was fundamentally
a generational conflict, in which the older generation employed the full force
of the legal system and the media to suppress societal change.
The
government’s report on the case reveals only a small part of the full story. My
main concern with the report is that it was authored by representatives of the
very system responsible for this miscarriage of justice. It managed to erase
the human experience behind the text in the way bureaucracy does so
efficiently. When I wrote my version of events as a serialized radio play, I
went directly to the source. I spoke with the accused who were still alive,
retired police officers, and others connected to the case. I had access to
their secret prison diaries and personal letters. I also talked with their
children — many of whom grew up largely without them—as well as other family
members, retired journalists, and prison guards.
The
purpose of this blog post isn’t to portray myself as a hero. I was simply
searching for compelling drama. However, during the research and scriptwriting
process, I began to recognize the deeper potential of the crime genre. How it
can tell big stories. I’m a big fan of Richard Price and
his masterpiece novel Clockers which is set in a fictional New Jersey city
called Dempsy. His brilliant depiction of everyone involved in the drug trade —
criminals and law enforcement alike—stands as a great example of how crime
fiction can vividly explore systemic urban decay and the social forces that
trap individuals within it. Richard Price continues the tradition established
by Swedish authors Sjöwall and Wahlöö,
who pioneered crime fiction as a sharp critique of social and political institutions.
Like them, Price uses the genre not just to tell a story, but to expose deeper
societal issues.
This
approach strongly influenced the framing of my first crime novel, Broken, set
in contemporary Iceland. I also felt it had been a while since anyone in
Iceland had written a crime thriller that explores the state of the nation from
both the perspectives of law enforcement and the criminal world. Crime is
constantly changing and evolving. During my research I came across a new type
of criminal with a mind-set that contrasts sharply with the traditional
gangster. They don’t get their hands dirty in the same way; instead, they
follow a morning routine, read biographies of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, and
view themselves more as entrepreneurs than drug dealers; violence is delegated
to experts: The Icelandic underworld has also grown more intricate because of
the arrival of foreign gangs in Iceland and the type of crimes being committed.
As the divide between the wealthy and the impoverished grows wider, social
tensions escalate, leading to increased desperation among those left behind.
This fuels a rise in violent crime, including more frequent murders. Xenophobia
also plays a significant role, further destabilizing already fragile social
structures.
But
at the core of my novel, I still hope you find a story of two flawed but
compassionate cops determined to make a difference.
(c)
2025 Jon Atli Jonasson
Shots
Magazine would like to thank Quentin Bates of Corylus Books for his help in getting this article from the author of
Broken.
