Beyond whodunnit: 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards Finalists Announced.

Beyond whodunnit: 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists offer page-turning tales and social critiques across time and place.

From stem cell research to sexual assault juries, the dangers of a surveillance society to mental health and animal abuse, the finalists for the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards offer readers a diverse array of page-turning mysteries and thrills entwined with societal issues, set against a variety of locales and eras from Renaissance Florence and Nazi Germany to contemporary Aotearoa.  

“While crime and thriller fiction is often talked about in terms of its page-turning plotlines, or puzzling twists and surprising reveals, nowadays it’s also a fantastic vehicle for exploring character and society,” says Ngaio Marsh Awards founder Craig Sisterson. “Our 2024 Ngaios finalists beautifully showcase that, with a kaleidoscopic range of tales full of engaging and memorable characters, exploring a wide variety of social issues in many different places.”

Now in their fifteenth season, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate excellence in mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense writing from Aotearoa New Zealand storytellers. The 2024 finalists were announced today in Best First Novel, Best Novel, and Best Kids/YA categories.

“I’m absolutely delighted that we’re celebrating some of our terrific kids’ mystery and thriller writers as a separate category this year,” says Sisterson. “Many of us develop our love of reading, and all the benefits that brings us throughout our lives, thanks to children’s authors. In Aotearoa we have amazing kids’ authors, across various forms and genres.”

The finalists for the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Kids/YA are:

Caged by Susan Brocker (Scholastic)

Katipo Joe: Wolf's Lair by Brian Falkner (Scholastic)

Miracle by Jennifer Lane (Cloud Ink Press)

 Nikolai's Quest by Diane Robinson (Rose & Fern Publishing)

 Nor'east Swell by Aaron Topp (One Tree House)

Falkner, an Auckland storyteller now living in Queensland, won the first-ever special award for Best Kids/YA in 2021. Wellington author Jennifer Lane has previously won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, while Bay of Plenty writer Susan Brocker, Auckland author Diane Robinson, and Hawke’s Bay author Aaron Topp are all first-time Ngaios finalists.

“Moving forward, we hope to award a Best Kids/YA prize biennially,” says Sisterson, “alternating it with our Best Non-Fiction category that has been running since 2017.”

This year’s finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, a prize that in recent years has gone to authors including Jacqueline Bublitz and Michael Bennett, are:

Dice by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)

El Flamingo by Nick Davies (YBK Publishers)

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

A Better Class of Criminal by Cristian Kelly

Mama Suzuki: Private Eye by Simon Rowe (Penguin SEA)

“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. “Our 2024 finalists are Kiwi storytellers based on four continents, each offering something new and exciting, from madcap capers in Latin America to an unusual Japanese sleuth or a neurodivergent professor of toxic botanicals, to former police detective Cristian Kelly and legal researcher Claire Baylis harnessing real-life expertise in captivating fictional tales.”

Lastly, the finalists for this year’s Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel are:

Dice by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin)

The Caretaker by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins)

Ritual of Fire by DV Bishop (Macmillan)

Pet by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

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

Going Zero by Anthony McCarten (Macmillan)

Expectant by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books)

“It’s a strong group of finalists to emerge from a dazzlingly varied field,” says Sisterson. “This year’s Ngaio Marsh Awards 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.”  

Crime writing is a broad church nowadays, notes Sisterson, including but going beyond traditional murder mysteries and whodunnits in the style of Dames Ngaio and Agatha Christie, to deliver insights about society and humanity alongside rollicking reads.

“As the likes of Val McDermid have said, if you want to better understand a place, read its crime fiction,” says Sisterson. “Many of our finalists hold up a mirror to society, taking readers into varied lives through their stories, alongside page-turning entertainment.”

The 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists will be celebrated and this year’s winners announced at a special event held at the WORD Christchurch Festival on Wednesday, 28 August.

For more information on any or all of our 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists, or the Ngaios in general, please contact ngaiomarshaward@gmail.com, or founder Craig Sisterson craigsisterson@hotmail.com.

 

Then and Now: Tales of Troubled Youth win Ngaio Marsh Awards

A trio of fresh crime voices were the culprits in Christchurch on Saturday evening as Dame Fiona Kidman, JP Pomare, and Kelly Dennett were unmasked as winners of the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Awards. 

While being very different kinds of crime stories, all three winning books explored young lives that had gone tragically astray. Dame Fiona, a doyenne of New Zealand literature, scooped the Best Novel prize for This Mortal Boy (Penguin), a haunting recreation of the circumstances surrounding young Belfast immigrant Albert “Paddy” _Black becoming the penultimate person hanged in New Zealand. 

“Despite the historical nature of the novel, the spirit still resonates in our time with regards to bigotry and discrimination,” said the judges. “The quality of the writing is extraordinary: a richly textured sense of 1950s New Zealand and an elegant structure and flow creating a harrowing tale full of humanity.” 

This Mortal Boy becomes the first novel to win both the Ngaio Marsh Award and the Acorn Prize for Fiction. The book has also won Dame Fiona the NZ Booklovers Award and NZSA Heritage Book Award. 

JP Pomare grew up on a horse farm outside of Rotorua, surfed the Bay of Plenty coastline, and now lives in Melbourne. He won the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel for Call Me Evie (Hachette), a mind-bending psychological thriller about Melbourne teenager Kate who is recovering from a traumatic incident in a remote cabin in Maketu. But is the man with her a carer or a captor?  “An interesting take on unreliable narrators” said the Judges.  “Evocative and elegant writing. An intricate story packed with suspense and a fascinating exploration of the concept of false memory.” 

Journalist Kelly Dennett won the Best Non-Fiction prize for her superb exploration of one of New Zealand’s most infamous unsolved cases in The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Jane Furlong (Awa Press). Dennett’s first book takes readers behind the lurid headlines as it explores Jane’s broader life, the impact of her disappearance on those who loved her, and the on-going mystery. 

“A tragic story approached with sincerely and compassion” said the judges. “There was a sense of understated rage at the injustice of it all. Dennett has, with compassion and respect, shown us the young woman who was so much more than a ‘teen prostitute’ who went missing from K Road”.  “It’s a little surreal to realise this is now the tenth season of the Ngaio Marsh Awards,” said founder Craig Sisterson. “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.” 

Dame Fiona received a trophy, special edition of a Dame Ngaio book, and $1,000 courtesy of WORD Christchurch. Pomare and Dennett won a trophy, book, and cash prize from the Ngaio Marsh Awards. 

“Decades ago, a remarkable woman from Christchurch was renowned globally as one of the biggest names throughout the storytelling world” said Sisterson.  “So it is only fitting that awards in Dam Ngaio’s name are now showcasing just how world-class many of our modern day Kiwi writers are too.”

You can also now listen to a radio interview with the three winners, who are all absolutely chuffed, here: 

For more information about the Ngaio Marsh Awards, contact the Judging Convenor: craigsisterson@hotmail.com or ngaiomarshaward@gmail.com.

THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2018

So with Denise Mina’s The Long Drop winning the award last year, Shots received the final call for entries for 2018, as the panel of judges is announced.

As the finishing touches are put to the 2018 programme Bloody Scotland are putting out a final call for entries to the 2018 McIlvanney Prize, for Scottish Crime Book of the Year - in memory of William McIlvanney.

Eligible books must have been first published in the UK between 1 August 2017 and 31 July 2018 and written by a writer who is born in Scotland or domiciled in Scotland or set in Scotland. Books previously published in other countries will not be eligible. Novels, collections of short stories and non-fiction crime titles are eligible for submission.

Entries (PDFs of the book sent by email to Director, Bob McDevitt bob@bloodyscotland.com with McIlvanney Prize Entry 2018 plus the book title in the header) should be submitted by 5pm on Friday 27 April 2018.

The longlist is expected to comprise up to 12 books which will be announced after the organisers meeting in June 2018 at which point finished copies will be sent to each of the three judges.

This year the judges are confirmed as Susan Calman, comedian and self-confessed crime fiction fan, just back from her success in Strictly Come Dancing who first appeared on the judging panel last year; Alison Flood, the Guardian’s books reporter and former news editor of The Bookseller and Craig Sisterson, a journalist and book reviewer from New Zealand ‘with a particular penchant for a well-told crime tale’ who has been promoted to Chair.

It is particularly apt that a Kiwi is chairing the panel as the winner of last year’s McIlvanney Prize, Denise Mina, has been invited to Christchurch Book Festival and as part of the same initiative New Zealand crime writers are being invited back to Bloody Scotland in 2018, including Fiona Sussman, the winner of the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Prize.

More info www.bloodyscotland.com

Top Photo © 2017 Bloody Scotland

Bottom Photo © 2017 A Karim [L – R : writers Chris, Alex, Craig & Steve]
 

2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists

 We were delighted to hear from Craig Sisterson with news of the “best of the best” in crime, mystery & thriller fiction from “down-under” 2017

There’s fresh blood aplenty in the local crime writing ranks and the usual suspects were nowhere to be found as the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists were named on Monday.

Now in their eighth year, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate the best New Zealand crime, mystery, and thriller writing; fiction and non-fiction. “It’s been a remarkable year, and a tough one for our international judging panels,” said awards founder Craig Sisterson. “After record entries last year, we really weren't sure what to expect in 2017. None of our previous winners were in the running, nor some other great Kiwi crime writers who'd been multiple-times finalists. In fact, eighteen of the nineteen authors who'd been finalists in the first few years of the awards were MIA.”

But instead of a lull, this year’s Ngaios hit a new high-tide mark, powered by a flood of fresh voices joining the genre – both debutant authors and established writers turning to crime.

“Entries in our fiction categories were up fifty percent, and the quality and variety has been really outstanding,” said Sisterson. “New Zealand readers love crime, and our local authors are offering plenty of world-class writing, both traditional detective tales and books stretching the borders.”

The international judging panels (thirteen authors, critics, and editors from five countries) praised the inventiveness and freshness of the stories our Kiwi writers were producing. “Talk about judging apples and pears,” said Paddy Richardson, a two-time finalist and now one of seven judges for the Best Crime Novel category. “It was more like apples, asparagus, avocados, and melons!”

This year’s finalists will be celebrated, and winners announced, at a special WORD Christchurch event to be held on 28 October. “We’re stoked to be working with Rachael King and her team,” said Sisterson. “We’re really grateful that WORD Christchurch have been supporters right from our very first year, and it’s lovely to celebrate our very best crime writers in Dame Ngaio’s hometown.”

The finalists for the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards are as follows.

BEST CRIME NOVEL

·       Pancake Money by Finn Bell

·       Spare Me The Truth by CJ Carver (Zaffre)

·       Red Herring by Jonothan Cullinane (HarperCollins)

·       Marshall's Law by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin)

·       The Last Time We Spoke by Fiona Sussman (Allison & Busby)

BEST FIRST NOVEL

·       Dead Lemons by Finn Bell

·       Red Herring by Jonothan Cullinane (HarperCollins)

·       The Ice Shroud by Gordon Ell (Bush Press)

·       The Student Body by Simon Wyatt (Mary Egan Publishing)

·       Days are Like Grass by Sue Younger (Eunoia Publishing)

BEST NON FICTION

·       In Dark Places by Michael Bennett (Paul Little Books)

·       The Scene of the Crime by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins)

·       Double-Edged Sword by Simonne Butler with Andra Jenkin (Mary Egan Publishing)

·       The Many Deaths of Mary Dobie by David Hastings (AUP)

·       Blockbuster! by Lucy Sussex (Text Publishing)

Each category winner will receive a Ngaio Marsh Awards trophy and a cash prize.

For more information on the Ngaio Marsh Awards, this year’s finalists or comments from the judges, please contact Craig Sisterson at craigsisterson@hotmail.com