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