2026 International Thriller Writer Award Nominees Announced

 

Best Standalone Novel

Cross My Heart by Megan Collins (Atria)

Zigzag Girl by Ruth Knafo Setton (Black Spring Press)

The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillan (William Morrow)

The Locked Ward by Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s Press)

So Happy Together by Olivia Worley (Minotaur)

Best Series Novel

Chain Reaction by James Byrne (Minotaur)

The Big Empty by Robert Crais (Penguin/Putnam)

Head Cases: A Novel by John McMahon (Minotaur)

The Tourists by Christopher Reich (Thomas & Mercer)

Terminal Moonlight by Vincent Zandri (Down & Out Books)

Best First Novel

Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall (Pamela Dorman Books)

Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox (Minotaur)

Count My Lies by Sophie Stava (Gallery/Scout Press)

History Lessons by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Crime)

Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang (Atria)

 

Best Audiobook

King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Macmillan) Narrated by Adam Lazarre-White

The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards (Simon & Schuster) Narrated by John Hopkins and Anna Burnett

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino (Macmillan) Narrated by Cia Court

When Devils Sing by Xan Kaur (Macmillan) Narrated by Michael Crouch, Anjali Kunapaneni, Jennifer Pickens and Landon Woodson

The Cheaters Wife by C N Mabry and N’Dia Rae (Simon Maverick) Narrated by Ruffin Prentiss and Machelle Williams

The White Crow by Michael Robotham (Simon & Schuster) Narrated by Katy Sobey

Best Young Adult Novel

Murder Between Friends by Liz Lawson (Delacorte Press)

This Stays Between Us by Margot McGovern (Penguin Young Readers)

Shiny Happy People by Clay McLeod Chapman (Delacorte Press)

The Silenced by Diana Rodriguez Wallach (Delacorte Press)

The Thrashers by Julie Soto (Wednesday Books)

Best Short Story

Level Up by Katrina Carrasco (Bywater Books)

The Seduction of Dr Dimension by Scott William Carter (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Eleven Numbers by Lee child (Amazon Original Stories)

False Note by David Lagercrantz (Amazon Original Stories)

The Violent Season by Jessica Van Dessel (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

ITW will announce the winners at Thrillerfest XXI on Saturday, May 9, 2026 at the New York Hilton Midtown, New York City.

Congratulations to all the nominated finalists!

Cover Reveal of Dark Music by David Lagercrantz

 

Dark Music by David Lagercrantz (Published by Quercus Publishing) Out 18 August 2022

The launch of a new series inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A murder investigation brings together two unlikely allies in a race to uncover a shadowy international conspiracy

Professor Hans Rekke: born into a wealthy Stockholm family, world authority on interrogation techniques, capable of vertiginous feats of logic and observation . . . But he might just fall apart when the going gets tough, leading to substance abuse and despair.

Micaela Vargas: community police officer, born to Chilean political refugees in a tough suburb, with two brothers on the shady side of the law

Vargas feels she has something to prove. She's tenacious and uncompromising, but she needs Rekke's unique mind to help her solve the case. Rekke has it all - wealth, reputation - but also a tendency to throw it all away. He needs Vargas to help him get back on an even keel so he can focus his mind on finding the killer before they're both silenced for good.

Books to Look Forward to From Quercus and MacLehose Press

July 2019

The Boy Who Fell is by Jo Spain. Kids can be so cruel. They'll call you names. Hurt your feelings. Push you to your death. In the garden of an abandoned house, Luke Connolly lies broken, dead. The night before, he and his friends partied inside. Nobody fought, everybody else went home safely. And yet, Luke was raped and pushed to his death. His alleged attacker is now in custody. DCI Tom Reynolds is receiving the biggest promotion of his career when a colleague asks him to look at the Connolly case, believing it's not as cut and dried as local investigators have made out. And as Tom begins to examine the world Connolly and his upper class friends inhabited, the privilege and protection afforded to them, he too realises something. In this place, people cover up for each other. Even when it comes to murder.

London, 1656: Captain Seeker is back in the city, on the trail of an assassin preparing to strike at the heart of Oliver Cromwell's Republic.  The Commonwealth is balanced on a knife edge. Royalists and disillusioned former Parliamentarians have united against Oliver Cromwell, now a king in all but name. Three conspirators, representing these factions, plan to assassinate the Lord Protector, paving the way back to the throne for Charles Stuart once and for all.  Captain Damian Seeker, meanwhile, is preoccupied by the horrifying discovery in an illegal gambling den of the body of a man ravaged by what is unmistakably a bear. Yet the bears used for baiting were all shot when the sport was banned by Cromwell. So where did this fearsome creature come from, and why would someone use it for murder?  With Royalist-turned-Commonwealth-spy Thomas Faithly tracking the bear, Seeker investigates its victim. The trail leads from Kent's coffee house on Cornhill, to a German clockmaker in Clerkenwell, to the stews of Southwark, to the desolate Lambeth Marshes where no one should venture at night.  When the two threads of the investigation begin to join, Seeker realises just what - and who - he is up against. The Royalists in exile have sent to London their finest mind and greatest fighter, a man who will stop at nothing to ensure the Restoration. Has Seeker finally met his match?  The Bear Pit is by S G MacLean.

Sanctuary is by Luca D’Andrea.  Marlene Wegener is on the run. She has stolen something from her husband, something priceless, irreplaceable.  But she doesn't get very far. When her car veers off a bleak midwinter road she takes refuge in the remote home of Simon Keller, a tough mountain man who lives alone with his demons. Here in her high mountain sanctuary, she begins to rekindle a sense of herself: tough, capable, no longer the trophy on a gangster's arm.  But Herr Wegener does not know how to forgive, and in his rage he makes a pact with the devil. The Trusted Man. He cannot be called off, he cannot be reasoned with and one way or another he will get the job done.  Unless, of course, he's beaten to it . . .

 

One wet and misty weekend in October, the Niemann family find a stranger in their garden. He is armed and tries to force his way into the house, but disappears as soon as the police are alerted. That night he's back with an impossible ultimatum . . .  Freiburg detective Louise Boni and her colleagues are put under enormous pressure. Traces of evidence lead her to a no-man's-land, and to a ruthless criminal who brings with him the trauma of conflict in the Balkans.  The Dance of Death is the third book in the Black Forest Investigation series by Oliver Bottini

August 2019

"There's something I have to explain, my love," he says, taking your hand in his. "That wasn't a dream. It was an upload."  Abbie wakes in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. The man by her side explains that he's her husband. He's a titan of the tech world, the founder of one of Silicon Valley's most innovative startups. He tells Abbie she's a gifted artist, a doting mother to their young son, and the perfect wife. Five years ago, she suffered a terrible accident. Her return from the abyss is a miracle of science, a breakthrough in artificial intelligence that has taken him half a decade to achieve.  But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins questioning her husband's motives - and his version of events. Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together forever? And what really happened to her, half a decade ago?.  The Perfect Wife is by J P Delaney 

The Washington Decree is by Jussi Adler-Olsen.  "The president has gone way too far. . . . These are practically dictatorial methods we're talking about." When Democratic Senator Bruce Jansen is elected president of the United States, it is a personal victory for Dorothy "Dottie" Rogers. She has secured a job in the White House, has proved to her Republican father that she was right to support Jansen, and is proud to see the rise of an intelligent, inspiring leader who shares her ideals. But the triumph is short-lived: Jansen's pregnant wife is assassinated on election night, and the alleged mastermind behind the shooting is none other than Dottie's own father. When Jansen ascends to the White House, he is a changed man, determined to end gun violence by any means necessary. Rights are taken away as quickly as weapons. Checkpoints and roadblocks destroy infrastructure. The media is censored. Militias declare civil war on the government. The country is in chaos, and Dottie's finds herself fighting for the life of her father, who just may be innocent.

3 Hoursis by Roslund & Hellström. The explosive third novel in the Ewert Grens-Piet Hoffmann trilogy, which began with Three Seconds.  Stockholm, Sweden. Seventy-three refugees have been found dead, suffocated in a container at Varta harbour.  Niamey, Niger. Ewert Grens arrives in a city he's never heard of, in search of a man he never thought he would see again.  Piet Hoffmann has again got himself in too deep, infiltrating a West African trafficking ring. He thinks he has two weeks to extricate himself, but will learn that his life, and that of countless defenceless people, now hangs on his actions during three desperate hours.

What will you do now?" "I shall be the hunter and not the hunted"  The girl with the dragon tattoo is finally ready to confront her nemesis, the only woman who is evidently and in many ways her match. Salander will not wait to be hunted. When she strikes it will be a double blow: vengeance for recent atrocities, and the settling of lifelong scores.  It begins with the discovery of Mikael Blomkvist’s number at Millennium magazine in the pocket of an unidentified homeless man who died with the name of a government minister on his lips.  Blomkvist, at extreme risk to himself, tracks down his old friend and will protect her as far as he can. But he is powerless to crush her enemies on his own.  And for Lisbeth Salander, the personal is always political - and deadly.  For months now Salander has been closing in on her target. She has moved from Stockholm, her hair is newly styled, her piercings are gone. She could pass for any other businesswoman. But not all businesswomen have a Beretta Cheetah beneath their jacket. They do not wield the lethal power of a hacker’s genius. They do not carry scars and tattoos to remind them that they have survived the unsurvivable.  The Girl Who Lived Twice is by David Lagercrantz.

September 2019

As the head of Swedish Intelligence in Brussels Bente Jensen has many enemies, even among those who ought to be her allies, like Jonathan Green of MI6. In a city heaving with competing espionage agencies he is the person she fears and distrusts most. She has good reason. They share a past.  Green has been part of an MI6 conspiracy to hold, interrogate, torture and kill its political prisoners in a safe house in Syria. This explosive information has been leaked to Bente by a conscience-stricken British operative. When it is clear she can expose this operation MI6 uses its full arsenal of dirty tricks to shame her, disgrace her, destroy her relationships and remove her from active service.  But Green's private life has more in common with Bente's than he acknowledges. He is far from fireproof himself. Both spies will find themselves targets of the UK establishment's precisely calculated revenge.  The Silent War is by Andreas Norman.

October 2019

Ten years have passed since the events described in The Vanishing Box. Edgar Stephens is now a Superintendent and married to former DS Emma Holmes. Edgar's wartime partner in arms, magician Max Mephisto, is a movie star in Hollywood, while his daughter Ruby has her own TV show, Ruby Magic.  The funeral of Stan Parks, aka Diablo, actor and wartime comrade to Edgar and Max, throws the gang back together. The reunion sparks all sorts of feelings. Bob Willis, now a DI, is dealing with the disappearance of local schoolgirl Rhonda Miles. Emma, frustrated by living the life of a housewife and mother, keeps thinking how much better she would run the case. She is helped by Sam Collins, a woman reporter also hampered by sexism at work. Sam notices a pattern with other missing girls. Edgar listens to the theory but doesn't give it much credence. He is preoccupied with the threatened invasion of Brighton by Mods and Rockers on the May Bank Holiday.  The case takes a more sinister turn when one of the missing girls is found dead. Then Ruby fails to turn up for a rendezvous and it becomes clear that she too has disappeared. Emma takes risks to track down the killer herself while Edgar is working flat out dealing with violent clashes between rival gangs on Brighton's seafront. With tension and anger hitting him on all sides, Edgar must keep the coolest of heads to track down the killer.  Now You See Them is by Elly Griffiths.

A Body in the Bookshop is by Helen Cox. Librarian Kitt Hartley thought her life had gone back to normal after the shocking events of Murder by the Minster. Then her friend Evie Bowesbreaks some bad news: DS Charlotte Banks has been suspended from duty, on suspicion of assaulting a suspect in a string of antique bookshop robberies.   Evie wants justice for Charlotte who she is sure was not the attacker, and how could any self-respecting librarian turn down the chance to find missing rare books? The two friends team up once again to investigate the rarefied world of York's bookshops and antiques dealers and find out just who has framed their friend. But Kitt and Evie will soon learn that there are some books people will kill for - will this story have a happy ending?

Goodfellas meets White Fang. A gripping coming of age thriller of vengeance and destiny set between Mexico City's murderous 1960s underworld and the bleak tundras of Canada's most remote province.  Yukon, Canada's far north. A young man tracks a wolf through the wilderness.  The one his grandfather warned him about:  "Of all the wolves you will see in your life, one alone will be your master."  In Mexico City, Juan Guillermo has pledged vengeance. For his murdered brother, Carlos.  For his parents, sentenced to death by their grief.  But in 1960s Mexico justice is sold to the highest bidder, and the Catholic fanatics who killed Carlos are allied to Zunita, a corrupt and influential police commander.  If he is to quench his thirst for revenge  Juan Guillermo will have to answer his inner call of the wild and discover what links his destiny to a hunter on the other side of America.  The Untameable is by Guillermo Arriaga.

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz - Final Millennium Novel

"What will you do now?"

"I shall be the hunter and not the hunted"

The girl with the dragon tattoo is finally ready to confront her nemesis, the only woman who is evidently and in many ways her match. Salander will not wait to be hunted. When she strikes it will be a double blow: vengeance for recent atrocities, and the settling of lifelong scores.

For months now Salander has been closing in on her target. She has moved from Stockholm, her hair is newly styled, her piercings are gone. She could pass for any other businesswoman. But not all businesswomen have a Beretta Cheetah beneath their jacket. They do not wield the lethal power of a hacker’s genius. They do not carry scars and tattoos to remind them that they have survived the unsurvivable.

The new episode in David Lagercrantz’s acclaimed, internationally bestselling continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo series is a thrilling ride that scales the heights of Everest and plunges the depths of Russian troll factories. It begins with the discovery of Mikael Blomkvist’s number at Millennium magazine in the pocket of an unidentified homeless man who died with the name of a government minister on his lips.

Blomkvist, at extreme risk to himself, tracks down his old friend and will protect her as far as he can. But he is powerless to crush her enemies on his own.

And for Lisbeth Salander, the personal is always political - and deadly.

The Girl Who Lived Twice will be published on 22 August 2019

Millennium VI Cover reveal - The Girl Who Lived Twice

Shots are pleased to take part in the cover reveal for the new Millennium VI novel.   The Girl Who Lived Twice is the third book in the series to be written by David Lagercrantz following The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2015) and The Girl Who Takes and Eye for and Eye (2017)

I will not be hunted, I will be the hunter!

The Girl Who Lived Twice

The eagerly awaited cover from Quercus Books imprint MacLehose Press is due to be published in 2019. 

Millennium V - Title and Cover revealed

MacLehose Press today revealed the title and the cover for the fifth book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, which is written by the Swedish author David Lagercrantz.

The novel will be called The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye and is translated from the Swedish by George Goulding.  The text of the novel, now complete, is embargoed until its worldwide and simultaneous publication on September 7, 2017.

David Lagercrantz will be in the U.K. from September 12-15 during which time he will be available for press interviews. He will also be available in advance from Stockholm for selected media. Please get in touch for further details.

The film of David Lagercrantz’ The Girl in the Spider’s Web (Sony Columbia), directed by Fede Alvarez, the director of 2016’s breakout thriller Don’t Breathe, is due for release on October 5, 2018. It will feature an entirely new cast, with the search for the new Lisbeth Salander currently underway, and filming is due to begin in the autumn,

David Lagercrantz is an acclaimed author and journalist. In his years on the Stockholm daily Expressen he covered many major crime stories. In 2015 The Girl in the Spider's Web, his continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, became a worldwide bestseller, and it was announced that Lagercrantz would write two further novels in the series. He is also the author of the prize-winning and bestselling I am Zlatan Ibramhimovic, and Fall of Man in Wilmslow, a novel about the death of Alan Turing.

The Fifth Millennium

We were delighted to hear from Quercus Publishing’s imprint MacLehose Press with news of Book five in the Stieg Larsson series; having been avid readers and film viewers of these remarkable thrillers.

This Feature from Jeff Pierce’s The Rap Sheet has embedded links indicating our enthusiasm for the adventures of Mikael Blomkvist, and the enigmatic and deeply troubled computer hacker Lisbeth Salander

So via Quercus Publishing -

On September 7, 2017, the fifth installment of the Millennium series will be published in more than 20 countries. Once again it is David Lagercrantz who’s writing the book.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the fourth novel in the series, and the sequel to Stieg Larsson’s groundbreaking crime trilogy, has been published in more than 40 countries and has sold 5 million copies to date.

 Eva Gedin, Publisher at Norstedts, says:

“I have just read a first draft. It is wonderful to once again work with David Lagercrantz and a new story set in the Millennium universe. I am so impressed by David’s ability to find unexpected themes and how he can create unpredictable plots. Just like in 2015 when we published The Girl in the Spider’s Web, this new novel will be launched simultaneously around the world. And I promise, this will be just as thrilling!”

David Lagercrantz, how did the attention around The Girl in the Spider’s Web affect you?

“I couldn’t have imagined what effect the news about an upcoming fourth novel in the Millennium series would have. I thought people would shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives, instead Swedish and international media went half-crazy and the whole thing just escalated. Sure, I fantasized that the novel would become a success; I am after all a hopeless dreamer. When I struggle the most, I dream of triumphs, and most often I am disappointed. This time however I was amazed by the response.”

 How do you find the motivation to write yet another book in the series?

“Stieg Larsson created a fantastic universe that I feel continuously inspired by. During a holiday trip with my family an idea struck me and arose the same fever that I lived with when I wrote The Girl in the Spider’s Web. It is not so good for my sleep and my neurosis, but it is definitively good for my writing.”

You are donating moneys from your royalties to Läsrörelsen, the Reading Movement. Why specifically to them?

“This work to make young people read cannot be praised enough. Today more than ever, with a growing right wing populist movement and extremism. Reading and learning critical thinking are cornerstones in building our democratic future.”

About the author

David Lagercrantz was born in 1962, and is an acclaimed author and journalist. As well as numerous biographies (including the internationally bestselling I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović, for which he was the ghostwriter) he has written five novels including The Girl in the Spider’s Web.

Norstedts Reveal Swedish Title of Millennium Book V by David Lagercrantz

Swedish publishers Norstedts today revealed their title and cover for the fifth instalment in the Millennium series created by Stieg Larsson. Mannen Som Sökte Sin Sugga or The Man Who Hunted/Chased His Shadow is written by David Lagercrantz who also penned book four, The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Norstedts revealed the information on David Lagercrantz’s new Instagram account @davidlagercrantz.

Previous Swedish titles for the series translate as:

Men who Hate Women

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Castles in the Sky

What Doesn’t Kill You

MacLehose Press will reveal the English language title for the novel, which will be published worldwide on 7 September 2017, shortly.

 A short Q&A with David Lagercrantz:

David Lagercrantz, how did the attention around The Girl in the Spider’s Web affect you?

“I couldn’t have imagined what effect the news about an upcoming fourth novel in the Millennium series would have. I thought people would shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives. Instead, Swedish and international media went half crazy and the whole thing just escalated. Sure, I fantasized that the novel would become a success; I am after all a hopeless dreamer. When I find things most difficult, I dream of triumphs, and most often I am disappointed. But this time I was amazed by the response.”

How did you find the motivation to write another book in the series?

“Stieg Larsson created a fantastic universe that I feel continuously inspired by. On holiday with my family an idea struck me, and gave me the same fever that I lived with when I wrote The Girl in the Spider’s Web. It is not so great for my sleep and my neurosis, but it is definitely good for my writing.”

For interview requests and other information, please contact:

Hannah Robinson on hannah.robinson@quercusbooks.co.uk or 0203 122 7073

Corinna Zifko on Corinna.zifko@quercusbooks.co.uk or 0203 122 7066

www.maclehosepress.com