2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards Finalists Announced

 

Character first: 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists 

offer page-turning tales that explore people and place.

From a young Māori chef to a grieving family torn asunder by internet disinformation, wartime spies to comical Northland drug runners, the finalists for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards offer readers a kaleidoscopic array of unforgettable characters, fictional and real, among compelling tales full of mystery and thrills, touching on vital issues of modern times and eras past.

“In our fifteenth anniversary season of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, we’ve been blessed with a fascinating range of entries across our three categories, from a diverse array of Kiwi voices and stories, styles, and settings, making our international judging panels’ jobs both very enjoyable and at times very tricky,” says Ngaio Marsh Awards founder Craig Sisterson.

Now in their sixteenth season, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate excellence in mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense writing from Aotearoa storytellers. The 2025 finalists were announced today in Best Non-Fiction, Best First Novel, and Best Novel categories.

“As the likes of Val McDermid and Dennis Lehane have said, if you want to better understand a place, read its crime fiction,” says Sisterson. “Crime writing in its wider sense can deliver interesting insights alongside rollicking entertainment, and is an ideal form for delving into people and place, as well as broader societal issues. And in our case with the Ngaios, we certainly see that across both our fiction and non-fiction entries and finalists.”

The Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Non-Fiction is a biennial prize first presented in 2017, and previously won by Michael Bennett, Kelly Dennett, Martin van Beynen, and Steve Braunias. From a fascinating array of 2025 entrants, this year’s six finalists explore some truly remarkable real-life tales, ranging from a fresh look at New Zealand’s most infamous cold case to the little-discussed deadly legacy of a 1930s Devonport nurse. 

The finalists are:

The Trials of Nurse Kerr by Scott Bainbridge (Bateman Books)

The Survivors by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins)

The Crewe Murders by Kirsty Johnstone & James Hollings (Massey Uni Press)

The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin)

Gangster's Paradise by Jared Savage (HarperCollins)

Far North by David White & Angus Gillies (Upstart Press)

This year’s finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, an annual award first presented in 2016, and won last year by Rotorua author Claire Baylis for DICE, her extraordinary novel providing a jury-eyed-view of a sexual assault case, are:

Dark Sky by Marie Connolly (Quentin Wilson Publishing)

Lie Down With Dogs by Syd Knight (Rusty Hills)

A Fly Under The Radar by William McCartney

The Defiance of Frances Dickinson by Wendy Parkins (Affirm Press)

The Call by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)

Kiss of Death by Stephen Tester (Heritage Press)

“It’s really heartening each year to see the range of new voices infusing fresh perspectives into the crime and thriller backstreets of our local literary landscape,” says Sisterson. This year that ranges from a mystery set at Tekapo's Mt John Observatory to a legal thriller set against the Spanish flu epidemic, from a blackly comic crime caper from a Devonport lawyer to the gritty first novel from one of our most acclaimed screen storytellers.

Lastly, the finalists for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel, selected by an international panel of crime and thriller experts from a remarkable 15-book longlist, are:

Return to Blood by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)

A Divine Fury by DV Bishop (Macmillan)

Woman, Missing by Sherryl Clark (HarperCollins)

Home Truths by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)

17 Years Later by JP Pomare (Hachette)

The Call by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)

Prey by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books)

“It’s a dazzling group of finalists to emerge from a terrific longlist, and a fascinating broader group of entries that seems to get deeper and stronger every year,” says Sisterson. “Our international judges were full of praise for the entire longlist, and remarked on the world-class writing as well as compelling storytelling in many books that didn’t become finalists, as well as the overall variety within #yeahnoir, our Kiwi take on a globally popular genre.”

The 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists will be celebrated and this year’s winners announced at a special event, “The Ngaio Marsh Awards and The Murderous Mystery”, to be held in association with WORD Christchurch at Tūranga on Thursday, 25 September. The thrilling evening includes an improv murder mystery performance by the famed Court Theatre

Ngaio Marsh Awards

 

It's official! After months of judging and some tough decisions to parse some amazing books, the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards winners were announced last night following a special Ngaios-WORD Christchurch (New Zealand) event and pub quiz MCed by Kiwi crime queen Vanda Symon, the winners are:

Best Non-Fiction: 

Missing Persons by Steve Braunias

Best First Novel: 

Better the Blood by Michael Bennett

Best Novel: 

Remember Me by Charity Norman

***

From Craig Sisterson, organizer of this amazing Award: 

Whakamihi to our winners, and all the terrific 2023 Ngaios finalists, longlistees, and entrants. 

Kia ora rawa atu to our international judging panels, readers, WORD Christchurch, and all the libraries involved in our Mystery in the Library series. Another fabulous year.

2018 Ngaio Marsh Finalists

The Shortlists for the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards. The Ngaio Marsh Award represents the very best in Kiwi Crime have been announced.

Decades after Ngaio Marsh ruled as a ‘Queen of Crime’ on the global stage, her literary heirs are laying siege to the local throne with the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists named.

Now in their ninth year, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate the best New Zealand crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing. “It’s been a year of record-breaking numbers of entries, and our judges were faced with tough decisions among a really diverse array of tales spread across varying styles, settings, and sub-genres,” says awards founder Craig Sisterson. “Some books our judges loved missed out, which underlines the growing strength and depth of our local writing. Kiwi readers devour tales of crime, thrills, and mystery. They’ve got lots of great choices here to encourage them to give our own storytellers more of a try.”

The finalists are as follows - 

Best Crime Novel
Marlborough Man by Alan Carter (Fremantle Press)
See You In September by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
Tess by Kirsten McDougall (Victoria University Press)
The Sound of Her Voice by Nathan Blackell (Mary Egan Publishing)
A Killer Harvest by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)
The Hidden Room by Stella Duffy (Virago)

Best First Novel 
The Floating Basin by Carolyn Hawes
Broken Silence by Helen Vivienne Fletcher (HVF Publishing)
All Our Secrets by Jennifer Lane (Rosa Mira Books)
The Sound of Her Voice by Nathan Blackwell (Mary Egan Publishing)
Nothing Bad Happens Here by Nikki Crutchley (Oak House Press) 

The finalists will be celebrated and winners announced at special events on 1 September as part of the 2018 WORD Christchurch Festival. The awards will be presented by top international crime writers.

The WORD programme launches on 17 July at 7pm. “We’re really looking forward to this year’s festival, and are grateful to Rachael King, Marianne Hargreaves and their team for their ongoing support,” says Sisterson. “It’s lovely to celebrate our best crime, mystery, and thriller writers in Dame Ngaio’s hometown.”

Recent Ngaios winners Fiona Sussman, Paul Cleave, and Liam McIlvanney will be appearing at the Bloody Scotland festival later in September, thanks in part to an exchange established with WORD Christchurch. 

An online video revealing the finalists can be seen below.

Craig Sisterson, organizer of the Ngaio Marsh Award, is a former Lawyer, and major Crime Fiction Fan and Writer who writes for magazines and newspapers in several countries. He also blogs at Crime Watch.

Returning to the scene of the crime: Ngaio Marsh Award longlist revealed

Two authors who returned to crime writing after more than a decade away have today been named among an eclectic longlist for the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.

“We shattered our record for entries in the Ngaio Marsh Awards this year, with 69 different books entered across our two fiction categories” says founder Craig Sisterson. “Along with a surge in first-time Kiwi authors choosing to write tales of crime, mystery and suspense – more than fifty new voices in the past three years - it’s been great to see more experienced local authors veering to the darker side as well as past crime writers returning to the fold.”

This year’s longlist for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel includes a mix of new and experienced voices, several authors who’ve won and been shortlisted for a variety of awards in several countries, and writers ranging in age from early 20s to early 80s.

“It’s a really eclectic mix of tales on this year’s longlist,” says Sisterson. “Exhibits A-E: we have the return of Edmund Bohan’s nineteenth century detective Inspector O’Rorke after a fifteen-year absence, Stella Duffy’s first crime novel in more than a decade, a stunning debut from an ex-undercover cop, and two tales that impressed the Ockhams judges.”

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 full gamut, from detective fiction to gothic suspense to psychological thrillers to historical mysteries and magic realism.

The longlist for the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel is:

MARLBOROUGH MAN by Alan Carter (Fremantle Press)

BABY by Annaleese Jochems (VUP)

SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)

THE LOST TAONGA by Edmund Bohan (Lucano)

THE EASTER MAKE BELIEVERS by Finn Bell

THE ONLY SECRET LEFT TO KEEP by Katherine Hayton

TESS by Kirsten McDougall (VUP)

THE SOUND OF HER VOICE by Nathan Blackell (Mary Egan Publishing)

A KILLER HARVEST by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)

THE HIDDEN ROOM by Stella Duffy (Virago)

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 in July, along with the finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel. The finalists will be celebrated, and the winners announced as part of a special event at the WORD Christchurch Festival, held from 29 August to 2 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