2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards Winners announced

 

History-makers and historical crimes: 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award winners revealed in Dame Ngaios’ hometown.

A quartet of talented Kiwi writers were honoured at a special WORD Christchurch event on Thursday night as they scooped the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards for books meshing compelling narratives with important issues

In the sixteenth instalment of Aotearoa’s annual awards celebrating excellence in crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing, journalist Kirsty Johnston and academic James Hollings won Best Non-Fiction for their in-depth re-examination of our nation’s most notorious cold case in The Crewe Murders (Massey University Press), while Otago-based academic turned author Wendy Parkins scooped Best First Novel for her historical tale of gaslighting, abuse, and one woman's fight in the 19th century in The Defiance of Francis Dickinson (Affirm Press), and Auckland filmmaker and author Michael Bennett made Ngaios history by winning Best Novel for his second Hana Westerman tale Return to Blood (Simon & Schuster).

“It was a great night to cap an outstanding season for the Ngaio Marsh Awards, thanks to a terrifically strong and varied group of finalists,” says awards founder Craig Sisterson. “We were particularly stoked to have the marvellous Court Jesters involved, delivering a wonderful improv murder mystery we’re sure would have tickled theatre-loving Dame Ngaio; a full circle moment back to our original plans in 2010.”

Last night, following the interactive improv murder mystery, the 2025 Ngaios winners were revealed in among readings from the attending finalists. Parkins was stunned to find herself onstage accepting the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, joining a roll of honour for that debut prize that includes past winners like JP Pomare (Call Me Evie), RWR McDonald (The Nancys), Jacqueline Bublitz (Before You Knew My Name), Michael Bennett (Better the Blood) and last year’s winner Claire Baylis (Dice).

The judges praised Parkins’ novel, which was inspired by a sensational Edwardian trial, as a “skilfully written historical tale that soaks readers in an era and attitudes which have some scary echoes today”.

Hollings, an Associate Professor at Massey University in Wellington, was thrilled to receive the trophy for Best Non-Fiction for The Crewe Murders, on behalf of himself and Kirsty Johnston, one of Aotearoa’s leading investigative journalists. The non-fiction judging panel praised the duo for centring the Crewes in their scrupulously researched book, layered with forensic and legal detail, and went on to say: “Among a small library of writing about the Crewes and Arthur Allan Thomas, this should be regarded as the definitive record of one of New Zealand’s most infamous and troubling crimes”.

The Ngaios evening closed with more history, as acclaimed filmmaker and author Bennett

(Ngati Pikiao, Ngati Whakaue) became the first-ever Best First Novel winner to then go on to win the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel with a later book. He also joined Paul Cleave, the modern King of Kiwi Crime, as the only three-time Ngaios winner, having previously won the Best Non-Fiction category in 2017 for In Dark Places, his stunning account of Teina Pora’s wrongful conviction and long fight to clear his name.

The Best Novel international judging panel, which included several leading critics from Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, praised Return to Blood for its "Excellent characters that populate a nuanced and telling plot that tackles a juxtaposition of ideas of what constitutes justice”, noting Bennett’s second novel featuring Māori sleuth Hana Westerman heralds “what’s already looking like superb crime series”.

Bennett’s Hana Westerman novels have been into several languages, become the only detective series shortlisted for the Ockham NZ Book Awards, won or been shortlisted for several other prestigious awards in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, United States, and Japan, and are in development for a screen series.

For more information on any of our 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards winners or finalists, or the Ngaios in general, please contact ngaiomarshaward@gmail.com, or founder Craig Sisterson, craigsisterson@hotmail.com

Poisons, pandemic, and a pregnant detective: 2024 Ngaio Marsh Award longlist revealed

 

A neurodivergent expert on toxic botanicals, a harrowing exploration of jury deliberations, a high-tech thriller from an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, a desperate mother searching for her son as lockdown kicks in, a gay sleuth in Renaissance Florence, and the return of a beloved fictional detective are among the diverse books named today on the longlist for the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel

“Fifteen years ago we launched the Ngaio Marsh Awards, in association with our friends at what’s now WORD Christchurch, to celebrate Kiwi excellence in one of the world’s most popular storytelling forms,” says Ngaio Marsh Awards founder Craig Sisterson. “Over the years we’ve celebrated some world-class storytelling, and seen our local take on crime writing, aka #yeahnoir, really flourish. There were many books our judges really loved this year, beyond those that have made the longlist, and the strength and variety of this year’s longlist is going to make it another tough decision for our international panel.”

The Ngaios are named for Dame Ngaio Marsh, a contemporary of Agatha Christie and one of the Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, who penned bestselling mysteries that entertained millions of global readers from her home in the Cashmere Hills. The 2024 longlist includes a mix of past winners and finalists, some first-time entrants and new voices, and several authors who’ve won a variety of other major awards including CWA Daggers, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, NZ Booklovers Award for Adult Fiction, Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award, and the Booker Prize.

 The longlist for this year’s Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel prize is:

Dice by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)

The Caretaker by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins)

Ritual of Fire by DV Bishop (Macmillan)

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Pet by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

El Flamingo by Nick Davies (YBK Publishers)

Double Jeopardy by Stef Harris (Quentin Wilson Publishing)

The Quarry by Kim Hunt (Spiral Collectives)

Devil’s Breath by Jill Johnson (Black & White/Bonnier)

Going Zero by Anthony McCarten (Macmillan)

Home Before Night by JP Pomare (Hachette)

 Expectant by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books)

The longlist is currently being considered by an international panel of crime and thriller writing experts from the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Finalists for Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Kids/YA will be announced in early August, with the finalists celebrated and winners announced as part of a special event held in association with WORD Christchurch in late August.

For more information on this year’s Best Novel longlist, or the Ngaio Marsh Awards in general, please contact ngaiomarshaward@gmail.com, or founder and judging convenor Craig

Tom Baragwanath on small-town claustrophobia

Some years ago, I moved from a place where it felt like everyone knew me – and I, in turn, felt I knew everyone – to a place where nobody knows me. From small-town New Zealand to Paris, I exchanged bumping into mates on the walk to the supermarket for bread for a thousand incredible boulangeries where not a single soul knew my name. This sudden anonymity was bracing, and a little thrilling. But soon, I found myself craving a little small-town claustrophobia. When nobody in the street knew a thing about me, I wondered what it would be like if everybody knew everything about me.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but this germ of homesickness was ready to sprout into a book: my debut novel Paper Cage. Naturally, I gave my heroine Lorraine Henry an encyclopaedic knowledge of my rural hometown of Masterton. As a file clerk in the police station, Lorraine would know better than anyone the way stories, facts, and gossip all intertwine and coalesce to form a sense of a person: what they’re like, what they do, how far they can be trusted. As far as it’s possible to know a person, Lorraine would know them – or she would think she did. 

Lorraine would have an unerring compass when it came to navigating threats both within the community and outside of it. As the embodiment of small-town collective surveillance, Lorraine would have a sense of the unspoken things lurking between the police reports she’d been writing. Because she’d been watching; because she’d been listening. So when children from marginalised families started going missing, she’d know exactly where to look. 

But because this is small-town New Zealand, Lorraine would quickly run into the emotional miasma that builds up inside so many insular communities. Getting useful information would mean contending with decades-old grievances, obsessions, and spats. It would mean navigating the invisible web of judgement and suspicion, and pulling apart some of the secrets binding people so tight they can barely breathe. 

Working on this novel was more than just a chance to treat my own homesickness – cheaper than a plane trip home, and with a lot less paperwork given the New Zealand government’s near penitential COVID lockdown policy at the time. It was a chance to explore small-town claustrophobia from all sides, and to understand what it is about marginal or forgotten places that writers – especially writers of crime or thriller stories – just can’t seem to escape. 

From Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen to Shelley Burr’s Wake, from True Detective to Fargo, there’s something about tiny communities that lends itself to great stories. For me, it’s the sense of people being so deep in each other’s business: of living, as Lorraine puts it, “cheek-to-jowl”. In a city of millions, it’s easy to disappear into the crowd. In a town of thousands, hundreds, or even dozens, one feels constantly exposed, and constantly judged. And while it’s true that small communities can pull together in miraculous ways to face external threats, it’s just as common for these threats to pit neighbour against neighbour. 

In the vein of the Coen Brothers, I also wanted to showcase the straight-up weirdness of small-town New Zealand. Or rather, I wanted to showcase how our local flavour of weirdness can better illuminate a more universal strangeness. Is it really that odd that the Gull service station in Masterton sells its fried chicken at half-price after midnight, for example? Should it surprise anyone that fights often break out at Featherston’s Underhill Road swimming hole on the hottest days of summer? And isn’t it only natural that gangs of bored kids might spear eels in the gutters with garden forks during a once-in-a-century flood?

I never imagined that by indulging my homesickness and sharing these kinds of hyper-local details I would end up connecting with a global audience of readers. But now that Paper Cage has made its way onto bookshelves around the world, I’ve come to understand that we make sense of ourselves not through sweeping universal stories, but through small ones. 

As I walk the streets of Paris, I find myself still enjoying my mask of relative anonymity. And yet, there’s something about small-town claustrophobia that keeps drawing me back to Masterton, and back into Lorraine’s story. Or maybe it’s only by going back to those streets where my characters feel like they can’t breathe that I’m able to breathe easy.

Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath (John Murray Press)

Masterton, New Zealand may be a small town, but its residents are certainly not united. Old resentments and the simmering tensions of race and culture divide the Maori and white inhabitants, with everyone keeping to their own patch of turf. But when local children start to go missing, vanishing between the cracks, accusations are hurled, and community relations reach boiling point. Caught in the middle is Lorraine Henry. She works as a lowly records clerk at the police station amongst towering piles of paperwork, quietly making connections and remembering things that the cops would rather not. Solving cases is not part of her job, but when her great-nephew is the next to disappear, she must put her skills to the test as she is called in to help, all before time runs out for the children.

 

 

 

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.

2023 Ngaio Marsh Award Longlist Revealed

 

Poker, poverty, and the power of storytelling: 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award Longlist Revealed

A poker-playing sleuth, a poet’s gritty take on life on Aotearoa’s poverty line, a rural mystery entwined with heart-wrenching exploration of dementia, and the long-awaited return of a master of neo-noir are among the diverse tales named today on the longlist for the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.

Now in their fourteenth season, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate excellence in New Zealand crime, mystery, and thriller writing. They are named for Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, who penned bestselling mysteries that entertained millions of global readers from her home in the Cashmere Hills. “I’d like to think Dame Ngaio would be proud of how our modern Kiwi storytellers are continuing her literary legacy, bringing fresh perspectives and a cool mix of fascinating tales to one of the world’s most popular storytelling forms,” says awards founder Craig Sisterson. “In recent years we seem to be going through our own golden age, with our local writers offering a treasure trove of terrific stories for readers at home and all over the world.”

The longlist for the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel includes a mix of past winners and finalists, several first-time entrants and new voices, and the long-awaited return of one of the leading lights of the early 2000s New Zealand literary scene. “In crime and thriller writing it’s natural for authors to make it really tough on their characters,” says Sisterson, “but our entrants made it tough on our judges too. This year’s longlist is a wonderful showcase of Kiwi creativity, with a great range of stories that explore some deep and very important issues in among the page-turning intrigue and thrills.”

The Ngaio Marsh Awards have celebrated the best New Zealand crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing since 2010. The longlist for this year’s Best Novel prize is: 

Too Far From Antibes by Bede Scott (Penguin SEA)

Exit .45 by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin)

Remember Me by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)

Blue Hotel by Chad Taylor (Brio Books)

Poor People With Money by Dominic Hoey (Penguin)

The Darkest Sin by DV Bishop (Macmillan)

The Doctor's Wife by Fiona Sussman (Bateman Books)

Miracle by Jennifer Lane

Better The Blood by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)

In Her Blood by Nikki Crutchley (HarperCollins)

The Pain Tourist by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)

Blood Matters by Renée (The Cuba Press)

The Slow Roll by Simon Lendrum (Upstart Press)

Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath (Text Publishing)

The longlist is currently being considered by an international judging panel of crime and thriller writing experts from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Finalists for Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Non-Fiction will be announced in August, with the finalists celebrated and the winners announced as part of a special event held in association with WORD Christchurch later in the year.

 A video of the Longlist can be found below.

For more information on this year’s Best Novel longlist, or the Ngaio Marsh Awards in general, please contactngaiomarshaward@gmail.com, or founder and judging convenor Craig Sisterson, craigsisterson@hotmail.com  

2022 Ngaio Marsh Awards Winner Announced

 Giving victims a voice: debut novel sweeps 

2022 Ngaio Marsh Awards

History was made at a special WORD Christchurch event on Thursday night as Taranaki author Jacqueline Bublitz’s first novel was revealed as the winner of both categories of the 2022 Ngaio Marsh Awards

In the thirteenth instalment of Aotearoa’s annual awards celebrating excellence in crime, mystery, and thriller writing, Bublitz scooped both the Best First Novel and Best Novel prizes for Before You Knew My Name (Allen & Unwin). It is the first time any Kiwi storyteller has won both fiction categories.

“Beautifully heart-breaking, stylishly written, and boldly pushing the envelope of crime fiction,” said the international judging panels. “Bublitz delivers a beguiling tale with great characterisation: Alice and Ruby are wonderful. This is a tragic but warm-hearted crime novel that gives victims agency and voice.”

Ngaio Marsh Awards founder Craig Sisterson noted that while a few excellent debuts have been shortlisted for both categories over the past several years, Before You Knew My Name is the first book to ever win two Ngaio Marsh Awards. Bublitz also joins Christchurch author and international bestseller Paul Cleave, a three-time Best Novel winner, as the only Kiwi storytellers with multiple Ngaios. So far.

“It’s a remarkable achievement by Jacqueline,” added Sisterson, “especially given the strength of the Best Novel category this year, which included past Ngaios winners in Cleave and RWR McDonald, a four-time finalist in Ben Sanders, a two-time Ockhams longlistee in Kirsten McDougall, and a many-times New York Times bestseller in Nalini Singh. Our judges really loved many different books, it was a tough decision.”

The international judging panels for this year’s Ngaio Marsh Awards comprised leading crime fiction critics, editors, and authors from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Scotland, and the United States.

While Before You knew My Name shares an inciting incident familiar to any viewer of US cop shows – a jogger in New York City finds the body of a young woman – in her debut Bublitz flips the script by taking readers deep into the lives of Alice and Ruby, the victim and the jogger, rather than the detectives.

On Thursday night, Bublitz was presented with the Best First Novel prize by bestselling Australian author Michael Robotham, then the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel by Scottish queen of crime Val McDermid. Before the audience found out whowunnit, Robotham and McDermid had entertained attendees in a thrilling panel with past Ngaios winner JP Pomare, as part of the trio’s Crime After Crime tour of New Zealand.

The two Ngaio Marsh Awards add to a list of accolades for Bublitz’s debut that include winning General Fiction Book of the Year at the ABIA Awards, being shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger in the UK, and winning the Debut Crime and Readers’ Choice prizes at the Davitt Awards of Sisters in Crime Australia.

Before it was published, Bublitz worked on Before You Knew My Name for several years, including living in New York City, “ostensibly for research” in 2015, and persisting through dozens of rejections. She finally completed the novel in the aftermath of her beloved father’s death in 2019, after returning to New Zealand from two decades in Melbourne. “I realised what I was trying to say, which is look at what we lose when this kind of crime happens,” she said. “I was going through my own experience of loss and thinking about mortality, and I changed some of the narrative and became a lot more clear on Alice’s journey.”

Bublitz’s prizes include two trophies, $1,000 courtesy of WORD Christchurch, long-time partner of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, and a cash prize from the Ngaios. Her book is released in US hardcover in November.

2021 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists announced

 Beyond whodunnit: 2021 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists offer thrills 

and varied perspectives on violence and justice

From journalists hunting justice to communities upturned by sudden violence, the authors of the 2021 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists explore the motives and impacts of some of the starkest criminal justice issues facing Aotearoa. 

“In a tough year for so many, including our entrants and international judges who’ve been living through a variety of rāhui and lockdowns, I’m grateful we can take this moment to celebrate some of our talented Kiwi authors whose compelling books give us insight into other lives and explore some big issues,” says Ngaio Marsh Awards founder Craig Sisterson. 

Now in their twelfth season, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate excellence in mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense writing from New Zealand storytellers. 

“As people smarter than me have said, including Val McDermid and Dennis Lehane, if you want to better understand a place, read its crime fiction,” says Sisterson. “Crime writing in its wider sense can deliver plenty of deep insights alongside rollicking entertainment, and is an ideal form for delving into character and the whydunnit, as well as broader societal issues.”

From corporate crime to sexual violence, gangs to mental health, a variety of such issues are explored through the fiction and non-fiction books honoured as finalists in the 2021 Ngaios. 

This year, a special award honouring outstanding YA and children’s books has also been introduced. The finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best YA/Kids Book are: 

• KATIPO JOE by Brian Falkner (Scholastic)

• RED EDGE by Des Hunt (Scholastic)

• A TRIO OF SOPHIES by Eileen Merriman (Penguin)

• DEADHEAD by Glenn Wood (One Tree House)

 “Many of us develop our love for reading, and all the benefits that brings throughout our lives, thanks to children’s authors,” says Sisterson. “We’re delighted to now celebrate some of our best local exponents of kids’ mysteries and thrillers with a special award.” 

The finalists for this year’s Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Non-Fiction, a biennial prize previously won by Michael Bennett in 2017 for IN DARK PLACES, a book about the wrongful conviction of Teina Pora, and by Kelly Dennett in 2019 for THE SHORT LIFE AND MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF JANE FURLONG, are: 

• WEED: A NEW ZEALAND STORY by James Borrowdale (Penguin)

• ROCK COLLEGE: AN UNOFFICIAL HISTORY OF MOUNT EDEN PRISON by Mark Derby (Massey University Press)

• FROM DOG COLLAR TO DOG COLLAR by Bruce Howat (Rangitawa Publishing)

• GANGLAND: NEW ZEALAND’S UNDERWORLD OF ORGANISED CRIME by Jared Savage (HarperCollins) 

• BLACK HANDS: INSIDE THE BAIN FAMILY MURDERS by Martin van Beynen (Penguin)

Each of this year’s non-fiction finalists delivered compelling stories that immersed readers in the subject matter of their books, from our most notorious prison to one of our most notorious cases, along with insights into life during and after a police career, New Zealand’s potted history with marijuana, and the rising underworld of organised crime and violent gangs. 

The finalists for the 2021 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, an annual award for crime and thriller tales from debut authors that was first won by Raymond Berard in 2016 for INSIDE THE BLACK HORSE, recently adapted into the screen drama Vegas, are: 

• THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR by Rose Carlyle (Allen & Unwin)

• THE BEAUTIFUL DEAD by Kim Hunt (Bloodhound Books)

• WHERE THE TRUTH LIES by Karina Kilmore (Simon & Schuster)

• FOR REASONS OF THEIR OWN by Chris Stuart (Original Sin Press)

• WHILE THE FANTAIL LIVES by Alan Titchall (Devon Media)

“It’s really heartening each year to see a range of new voices infusing fresh perspectives into the crime and thriller backstreets of our local literary landscape,” says Sisterson. “Hopefully we’ll see many of this year’s debut entrants keep on publishing exciting tales in future.” 

Two past Best First Novel finalists who have done just that, Nikki Crutchley and JP Pomare (who won in 2019), are among this year’s Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel finalists: 

• THE MURDER CLUB by Nikki Crutchley (Oak House Press) 

• SPRIGS by Brannavan Gnanalingam (Lawrence & Gibson)

• THE TALLY STICK by Carl Nixon (Penguin)

• THE SECRETS OF STRANGERS by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin) 

• TELL ME LIES by JP Pomare (Hachette)

“It’s a strong group of finalists to emerge from a dazzlingly varied field,” says Sisterson. “This year’s entrants gave our international judging panels lots to chew over, and plenty of books judges enjoyed and admired didn’t become finalists. ‘Yeahnoir’, our local spin on some of the world’s most popular storytelling forms, is certainly in fine health.”

The winners of the 2021 Ngaio Marsh Awards will be announced at a special streaming event on Saturday 30 October, held in association with WORD Christchurch.

A video. of the finalists can also be seen below.

Criminal Minds - Auckland Crime Writers

 

Criminal Minds - 10 crime writers in 100 thrilling minutes. Covering a criminally large range of small town crime to international espionage and finishing with a sliver of paranormal tension, these ten authors represent some of New Zealand’s best crime writers, together under one roof. Join them as we stalk serial killers through the Coromandel bush, and follow undercover cops on their fictional beats through Auckland’s streets. We’ll track international terrorists through Malaysia and investigate deadly financiers and dark family secrets. Listen to ten exceptional Kiwi authors, including USA Today bestselling author John Ling, Ngaio Marsh Award finalists Nathan Blackwell and Nikki Crutchley, ex Brits Linda Cole and Ian Austen, Amazon bestseller Kirsten McKenzie, emerging author Madeleine Eskedahl, comic horror author Andrene Low, serving police officer Angus McLean, and others for this one off event halfway down Dominion Road.  More information can be found here.

This event is taking place on 19 February 2021 and is free to attend.

2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards Announced

 Through the eyes of children: debut tales win Ngaio Marsh Awards

Fresh voices came to the fore at WORD Christchurch Spring Festival on Saturday afternoon as Becky Manawatu and RWR McDonald were named the winners of the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards.

Both winners were first-time novelists, and while their winning books were different in many ways, each was told in large part from the perspective of young children dealing with loss and violence in small-town New Zealand, each included a rich cast of diverse characters, and each expertly blended lighter moments with dark events in tense tales that could make readers gasp and laugh.

Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) scooped the Best Novel prize for AUĒ (Makaro Press), a novel infused with domestic violence and gang life, told from the perspectives of eight-year-old Arama, his teenage brother Tauriki, and young woman Jade. She’s the first debut author to win Best Novel since 2010.

"A breath-taking expose of lives lived on the margins, and the fight for redemption and absolution,” said the judges. “Manawatu doesn’t use crime as a plot device but shows it woven into the fabric of her characters’ lives, defining them, sometimes destroying them, and serving as a perverse unifier.”

AUĒ joins THIS MORTAL BOY by Fiona Kidman as the only novels to have won both the Ngaio Marsh Award and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

RWR McDonald grew up on a sheep and deer farm in South Otago, and now lives in Melbourne with his two daughters and extended rainbow family. He won the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel for THE NANCYS (Allen & Unwin), an exuberant small-town murder mystery where eleven-year-old Tippy Chan teams with her visiting uncle and his boyfriend to solve the murder of her teacher.

“Hilarious and inventive; the dynamic between the young protagonist and the adult characters is unusual and special,” said the judges. “A clever hat-tip to one of the most indelible female characters in the genre, and a story that blends crime and humour in unexpected ways.”

It’s a little surreal to realise this is the tenth anniversary of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, said founder Craig Sisterson. The awards were established in 2010 to celebrate excellence in local crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing. Sisterson noted that the Ngaios were modelled somewhat on the Hammett Prize in North America, which has been won by the likes of Margaret Atwood and focuses on ‘literary excellence’ in novels entwined with crime, so isn’t restricted to detective novels or whodunnits.

“We’ve been blessed to have some extraordinary books to consider and celebrate over the past decade, and this year has further added to the growing depth and diversity of local crime writing.”

Becky Manawatu received a trophy and $1,000 courtesy of WORD Christchurch. McDonald won a trophy and cash prize from the Ngaio Marsh Awards. “We feel very fortunate to have been able to hold a real life event before a live audience to celebrate our finalists and winners this year,” said Sisterson. “Huge thanks to Rachael King and WORD Christchurch for all their hard work in such a challenging year, as well as for their ongoing support every year since we launched in 2010.”

2020 Ngaio Marsh Finalists

A diverse array of fresh contenders have amassed to challenge New Zealand’s king of crime fiction as the finalists for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards were revealed today.

“Ten years after we launched the Ngaio Marsh Awards to help celebrate excellence in local crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing it’s heartening to see so many new voices infusing and stretching our #yeahnoir community,” says founder Craig Sisterson. 

“While we’ve had around 80 debut authors enter the Ngaios in recent years, it’s also been fantastic to see many experienced Kiwi storytellers become first-time Ngaios entrants as they’ve entertained readers and explored society through these types of stories.”

Along with the finalists in the Best First Novel category, for the first time two debut authors – Becky Manawatu and RWR McDonald – have been named finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel. Two of the other finalists – Gudrun Frerichs and Renée – are also first-time crime and thriller writers (having previously published in other genres). They’re joined by 2019 Best First Novel winner JP Pomare and three-time Best Novel winner Paul Cleave. 

The finalists for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards are: 

BEST NOVEL

Whatever it Takes by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)

Girl from the Tree House by Gudrun Frerichs

Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press)

The Nancys by RWR McDonald (Allen & Unwin)

In the Clearing by JP Pomare (Hachette NZ)

The Wild Card by Renée (The Cuba Press)

BEST FIRST NOVEL

Tugga’s Mob by Stephen Johnson (Clan Destine Press)

Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press)

The Nancys by RWR McDonald Allen & Unwin)

Into the Void by Christina O’Reilly

This year’s finalists are a fascinating group of Kiwi storytellers who’ve collectively won or been shortlisted for accolades in New Zealand and overseas including the Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the Australian Book Industry Awards, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the Saint-Maur Crime Novel of the Year in France, and the Edgar Awards and Barry Awards in the United States. 

“Our international judging panels have been dealing with a range of rāhui and lockdown situations this year but have thoroughly enjoyed reading the range and quality of stories offered by our Kiwi authors,” says Sisterson. “There were differing favourites, tough decisions, and some great reads our judges loved that didn’t become finalists. A decade on from our inaugural Ngaio Marsh Awards, our local genre is certainly in great health.”

Each category of the Ngaio Marsh Awards is judged by a separate international panel, consisting of book critics for print and online publications, bestselling authors, university academics, and festival directors from the USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealan.

The finalists for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards will be celebrated, and winners announced, at the WORD Christchurch Spring Festival, being held from 29 October to 1 November. 

“It’s been a tough year for so many people,” says Sisterson. “We’re glad to be able to highlight some great Kiwi storytelling. All over the world, people turned to the fruits of the creative industries while in lockdown – reading books and watching films and shows for entertainment, learning, comfort, and escape. While we were saddened to have to cancel a dozen or more library events in April and May, to help keep everyone safe, we’re stoked we now have a chance to once again celebrate some of our local authors. We’re grateful for the support of Rachael King and WORD Christchurch, and the efforts of all New Zealanders.”

A video of the finalists can be seen below:-

For more information on this year’s finalist authors and books, or the Ngaio Marsh Awards in general, please contact founder and judging convenor Craig Sisterson - craigsisterson@hotmail.com

Doin’ It For Themselves: 2020 Ngaio Marsh Award longlist revealed

A widow on the run while living with mental illness, a teenager growing up in a rural cult, and a pre-teen girl in small-town Otago inspired by Nancy Drew to investigate the murder of her schoolteacher are among a diverse array of heroines whose stories and escapades have today been named on the longlist for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.

“In what has been a really unusual year for so many people around the world, we’re really glad to be able to once again highlight some great Kiwi storytelling,” says founder Craig Sisterson. “So many people turned to the creative sector while in lockdown – reading books and watching films and shows for entertainment, comfort, and escape. While we were saddened to have to cancel a dozen or more library events in April and May, to help keep everyone safe, we are stoked we can now celebrate some of our local authors.”

The Ngaio Marsh Awards judges, spread throughout the world and in a variety of rāhui and lockdown situations, were impressed by the variety of this year’s entrants and the many new voices who had joined the ‘yeahnoir’ scene, says Sisterson. “Along with some wonderful debut authors, we’ve had a number of experienced writers from other genres – ranging from kids’ books to literary fiction to playwrighting and paranormal romance – bring their storytelling talents to the crime, thriller, and suspense realm for the first time.”

The Ngaio Marsh Awards have celebrated the best New Zealand crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing since 2010. The longlist for this year’s Best Novel prize is:

SHADOW OF A DOUBT by SL Beaumont (Paperback Writers Publishing)

TRUST ME, I'M DEAD by Sherryl Clark (Verve Books)

WHATEVER IT TAKES by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)

ONE SINGLE THING by Tina Clough (Lightpool Publishing)

GIRL FROM THE TREE HOUSE by Gudrun Frerichs

AUE by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press)

THE NANCYS by RWR McDonald (Allen & Unwin)

HIDE by SJ Morgan (MidnightSun Publishing)

THE GREAT DIVIDE by LJM Owen

IN THE CLEARING by JP Pomare (Hachette)

THE WILD CARD by Renee (Cuba Press)

A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE by Nalini Singh (Hachette)

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 for both this Best Novel category and Best First Novel will be announced later this year. The finalists will be celebrated, and the winners announced, as part of a special event at this year’s WORD Christchurch Festival, held from 29 October to 1 November.

An online video highlighting the  twelve longlisted books can be seen below.

Congratulations to all the nominated authors.

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