Now in its 13th year, the awards honour
the best crime books released in 2019 in the UK.
New for 2020, in association with its
headline sponsor Specsavers, is the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award. The
winner will receive a £1,000 prize.
Adrian Muller, Co-host of CRIMEFEST,
said: “Specsavers are passionate about the crime genre thanks to its founder
Dame Mary Perkins, and their support ensures new voices in the genre will be
recognised. We have really diverse awards reflecting the depth and breadth of
the crime genre. Categories recognise e-books and audiobooks, humour, children
and Young Adult crime fiction novels. We aim to be the most inclusive of awards
to reflect the values of our convention.”
A further £1,000 prize fund is also awarded to the Audible Sounds of Crime
Award, sponsored by Audible UK. Eligible titles are submitted by publishers,
and Audible UK listeners establish the shortlist and the winning title.
Laurence Howell, Vice President, Content
at Audible said: “We are delighted to continue as sponsor of the Audible Sounds
of Crime Award. This is a prize that is very close to our heart and important
for our members who are passionate fans of crime audiobooks. Crime and thriller
remains one of our bestselling genres because of the intimate, immersive nature
of audiobooks. Congratulations to all award nominees!”
All other category winners, which are
judged by panels of leading British crime fiction reviewers, receive a Bristol
Blue Glass commemorative award.
The 2020 CRIMEFEST Awards were due to be
presented at a Gala Dinner during the convention at the Bristol Grand Mercure
Hotel this June. In light of Covid-19, the winners will be announced online at www.crimefest.com and via
its social media pages on Tuesday 7 July.
CRIMEFEST was created following the
hugely successful one-off visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast
Crime convention. It was established over ten years ago in 2008. It follows the
egalitarian format of most US conventions, making it open to all authors and
readers alike.
The convention has grown to become not
only one of the biggest crime fiction events in Europe, but also one of the
most popular dates in the international crime fiction calendar, with circa 60
panel events and 150 authors over four days.
Specsavers Crime Fiction Debut Award
One of the most anticipated categories
showcases the next big names in the genre.
Shortlisted Holly Watt has already
picked up the 2019 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for her debut, To The
Lions. Another high-profile debut star is Alex Michaelides with The
Silent Patient, which sold over a million copies and was a Richard and Judy
book club pick.
Engineer Fiona Erskine’s debut Chemical
Detective is also in contention for the best debut, alongside Katja Ivar
for Evil Things. Katja who was born in Moscow, lives in Paris and has a
Masters in Contemporary History; her debut takes place in Finland at the height
of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Carolyn Kirby’s The Conviction of
Cora Burns was chosen by The Times as an historical fiction book of the
month and was longlisted for the HWA debut crown award. Laura Shepherd-Robinson
worked in politics for nearly twenty years before writing her thrilling debut
historical crime novel, Blood & Sugar, set in 1781 amidst the
British slavery industry also makes the shortlist.
Audible Sounds of Crime Award
The Audible shortlist features
bestselling novels including Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky, read by Jackson
Brodie actor Jason Isaacs, Lee Child’s Blue Moon narrated by Jeff
Harding and The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides featuring Sherlock
actress Louise Brealey and Jack Hawkins.
The British-Nigerian actress Weruche
Opia narrates Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Booker-longlisted My Sister, The Serial
Killer. Also, in contention are Alex Callister’s Winter Dark, The
Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell, T.M. Logan’s The Holiday, and Peter
May’s The Man with No Face.
H.R.F. Keating Award
Barry Forshaw, one of the UK’s leading
experts on the genre, is shortlisted for the H.R.F Keating Award for the best
biographical or critical book related to crime fiction for his guide to the
genre, Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide. He’s up against John Curran’s The
Hooded Gunman, a celebration of the 2000 books published by the iconic
imprint Collins’ Crime Club. Also on the shortlist is Ursula Buchan with Beyond
The Thirty-Nine Steps. Ursula, the granddaughter of John Buchan, who wrote
the classic thriller famously adapted to film by Alfred Hitchcock, draws on
recently discovered family documents in her illuminating biography.
Last Laugh Award
Previous winners of the Last Laugh Award
return on the 2020 shortlist as Christopher Fowler, the author of fifty novels
and short stories, is shortlisted for his Bryant & May mystery, The
Lonely Hour. Fowler won the Last Laugh Award in 2009. L.C. Tyler also won
the award in 2010. He returns with his novel, The Maltese Herring.
Also battling for the best humorous
crime novel is the king of Helsinki noir, Antti Tuomainen, William Boyle for A
Friend is a Gift you Give Yourself and Hannah Dennison with Tidings of
Death at Honeychurch Hall. Helen FitzGerald joins the shortlist for Worst
Case Scenario, a deliciously dark, unapologetically funny psychological
thriller by the international bestselling author The Cry.
eDunnit Award
Holly Watt (To The Lions), Helen
FitzGerald (Worst Case Scenario) and L.C. Tyler (The Maltese Herring)
are all shortlisted in their second category of the CRIMEFEST awards – the
eDunnit award for best electronic crime novel. They’re up against Sarah
Hilary’s Never Be Broken – her sixth book in the DI Marnie Rome series
and Andrew Taylor for The King’s Evil, the hugely successful series from
an author considered one of the best historical crime writers today. Also
shortlisted is the American giant of twenty-one acclaimed, award winning
international bestsellers, Don Winslow, for The Border, the concluding
part of his Cartel trilogy.
Best Crime Fiction Novel for Children
Dark deeds, piratical plots and
dastardly villains feature in the shortlist for the best children’s crime
novel.
Welsh author P.G. Bell is shortlisted
for The Great Brain Robbery, the second in his Train to Impossible
Places Series. Acclaimed children’s author Vivian French is in contention
for her adventures of a family theatre-troupe touring Victorian England by
train in The Steam Whistle Theatre Company.
Librarian and author Sophie Green makes
the list with her unusual investigative duo chasing ghostly goings-on in Potkin
and Stubbs. Also shortlisted is A.M. Howell whose The Garden of Lost
Secrets set in 1916 on a country estate was a Times Children’s Book of the
Week.
The Haven,
an adrenalin-fuelled adventure by top thriller writer Simon Lelic, also makes
the shortlist, along with Malamander by Thomas Taylor, a quirky fantasy
with a cast of characters in pursuit of a sea monster. An illustrator and
writer, Taylor’s first job was the cover for Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone.
Best Crime Fiction Novel for Young
Adults
An icon of the crime genre synonymous
with the modern legal thriller, John Grisham, makes the shortlist for his Young
Adult novel Theodore Boone: The Accomplice featuring a nosy
thirteen-year-old half-boy, half-lawyer.
Grisham is up against last year’s winner
for the best crime fiction novel for young adults, Nikesh Shukla. Shukla hopes
to hold onto the title with The Boxer, the story of seventeen-year-old
Sunny who takes up boxing to protect himself after a racist attack.
Simon Mason, who won the CRIMEFEST Best
Young Adult novel in 2017 for Kid Got Shot is also back with Hey
Sherlock! which stars teen slacker and crime-solving genius Gavin Smith.
Kathryn Evans is no stranger to awards
as her debut More of Me won the Edinburgh International Book Festival First
Book Award – the first Young Adult novel to do so. Her latest, Beauty Sleep,
a dark thriller that plunges a pre-tech girl into a futuristic world, makes the
shortlist. Also, in contention is the dark, twisty, fairy tale world of Samuel
J. Halpin’s The Peculiar Peggs of Riddling Woods and Heartstream,
a taut thriller about obsession, fame and betrayal by Tom Pollock.
The Shortlists (as a list in full)
SPECSAVERS DEBUT CRIME NOVEL AWARD
AUDIBLE SOUNDS OF CRIME AWARD
Big Sky by Kate Atkinson narrated by Jason
Isaacs (Penguin Random House Audio)
Winter Dark by Alex Callister
narrated by Ell Potter (Audible Studios)
Blue Moon by Lee Child narrated
by Jeff Harding (Penguin Random House Audio)
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell narrated
by Tamaryn Payne, Bea Holland, Dominic Thorburn (Penguin Random House Audio)
The Holiday by T.M. Logan narrated
by Laura Kirman (Zaffre)
H.R.F. KEATING AWARD
LAST LAUGH AWARD
e-DUNNIT AWARD
Worst Case Scenario by Helen FitzGerald (Orenda
Books)
BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR CHILDREN (ages
8-12)
The Haven by Simon Lelic (Hodder Children's Books)
BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR YOUNG
ADULTS (ages 12-16)
The Boxer by Nikesh Shukla (Hodder Children's Books)
