Mystery Melange

The typewriter of celebrated murder mystery author Dame Agatha Christie will be featured in a new exhibition celebrating her life later this year at the British Library. Marking 50 years since her death, "Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery," will showcase personal items, many of which have never been publicly displayed. The exhibition aims to explore how the author’s life, travels, and interests inspired her work and the creation of iconic characters, including detective Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. In addition to the typewriter, exhibits will include personal and professional correspondence with other writers, family photographs, and original notebooks and scripts for her novels. The London exhibition opens on October 30 and will run until June 20 next year.


The National Crime Reading Month annual campaign, taking place each June in the UK, will launch on May 30 at Criminally Good Books, an independent crime-only bookshop in York. Sponsored by the Crime Writers' Association, the event will include a Noir at the Bar and the announcement of the Margery Allingham Winner. There will also be a free virtual launch on June 7, with the theme of "Reading and Writing Crime in Difficult Times." Scottish thriller author, Emma Christie, will lead a conversation with fellow leading crime authors Victoria Dowd, Penny Batchelor, Heather Critchlow, and top forensic scientist Professor Jim Fraser about why people love to read crime in a dangerous world. You can learn more and check out all the other various events throughout the month via the official link.


CrimeReads profiled Elaine’s Restaurant and Literary Salon in Alexandria, Virginia, owned by Jeffrey James Higgins and his wife, Cynthia Higgins. The venue hosts book launches, author events, and signings, and conducts author interviews before a live audience for a future podcast. Several crime fiction authors have been hosted there, including Mark Greaney, Hank Philippi Ryan, John Gilstrap, S. A. Cosby, Tom Straw, and I.S. Berry. The Mid-Atlantic Chapter of Mystery Writers of America has held numerous events at Elaine’s including an F. Scott Fitzgerald festival in 2025 on the 100th anniversary on the publication of The Great Gatsby. Coming up on June 5 there will be a Noir at the Bar the night before ShortCon. Authors scheduled to participate include Art Taylor, Chris Dreith, Debra H. Goldstein, Jeffrey James Higgins, Avram Lavinsky,  Liza Parfomak, Gary Phillips, Ed Ridgley, Brayden Whisler.



The 2026 Maine Crime Wave will happen on Saturday, May 30 at Mechanics’ Hall in Portland, and on Friday night beforehand, there will be a Noir at the Bar hosted by Matt Cost and Jule Selbo. The criminally phenomenal line up of writers will include Tess Gerritsen, Allison Keeton, Travis Kennedy, Robert Kelley, Joanna Schaffhausen, James Ziskin, Zakariah Johnson, Gabriela Stiteler, Mo Drammeh, and Rebecca Turkewitz.


Newcastle Noir International Crime Writing Festival, one of the North East UK’s longest-running crime fiction events, announced a "time out" for 2026, with a return planned for May 2027. Festival organizers noted this pause will "allow time to develop a renewed future vision, while maintaining the continued appeal of the festival." Established in 2014 by academic and crime fiction aficionado Dr Jacky Collins (aka Dr. Noir), Newcastle Noir has brought together writers, readers, publishers and volunteers for a vibrant program celebrating all things crime fiction. Authors who had agreed to appear at the 2026 event will be given first refusal for 2027.


Good Housekeeping magazine listed twenty-one cozy crime novels, or "heirs to Agatha Christie," a round-up of the best comforting mystery novels to read right now.


Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog featured Susan Alice Bickford discussing another of her stories from The Saturday Evening Post, entitled "Trust."


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Donald Trumpsky" by Charles Rammelkamp.


In the Q&A roundup, CrimeReads spoke with Howard A. Rodman about his historical adventure-thriller,  The Great Eastern, which pits Melville’s Captain Ahab and Verne’s Captain pitted together on a collision course across the Atlantic; Author Interviews chatted with K.M. Colley about hew debut mystery novel, The Roaring Ridleys, set in Jazz Age New York where a shocking murder shatters the privileged life of the city’s most elite family; Scottish crime fiction author Andrew Raymond spoke with Crime Fiction Lover about his new novel, The Long Isle; John Connolly was interviewed by John Parker for Shots Magazine about his writing and his latest novel, A River Red With Blood; Deborah Kalb spoke with Paul A. Barra, author of the new novel Quo Vadis, Deputy?; John Katzenbachm, reporter and author of such novels as the Edgar Award-nominated In the Heat of the Summer, adapted for the screen as The Mean Season, applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Architect; and E. B. Davis interviewed Krista Davis for Writers Who Kill, to talk about her Domestic Diva mystery series.

Delectable Daggers

The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) revealed the shortlists for the prestigious 2026 Dagger Awards, celebrating the very best in crime writing. This year’s longlists showcase the breadth of talent from internationally bestselling authors to emerging debuts.The winners will be announced at the CWA gala dinner awards night on July 2.

Hear are the shortlists in full: 

CWA KAA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year

• King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Headline)        
• The Death of Us by Abigail Dean (HarperCollins/Hemlock Press)
• Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson (Penguin Random House/Michael Joseph)
• The Girl in Cell A by Vaseem Khan (Hodder Fiction).
• The Frozen by Ariel Lawhon (River Swift Press)          
• The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Pan Macmillan/Mantle)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year

• The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani (Profile Books/Viper)
• King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Headline)
• The Big Empty by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster UK)
• A Sting in her Tale by Mark Ezra (Bedford Square Publishers/ No Exit Press)
• Such Quiet Girls by Noelle W Ihli (Pan Macmillan/ Pan)
• The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney (Bonnier Books UK/Zaffre)
• We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins Publishers)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction

• Shadow of The Bridge: The Delphi Murders and The Dark Side of The American Heartland by Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee (Pegasus Books/Pegasus Crime)          
• The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB by Gordon Corera (HarperCollins/ William Collins)
• The Murder Game by John Curran (HarperCollins/Collins Crime Club)
• Murderland by Caroline Fraser (Little, Brown Book Group/Fleet)
• That Dark Spring by Susannah Stapleton (Pan Macmillan/Picador)
• The Illegals by Shaun Walker (Profile Books)

Historical Dagger

• A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (Quercus/riverrun)
• Barvick Falls by Rob McInroy (Tippermuir Books)
• The Devil's Draper by Donna Moore (Fly on the Wall Press)
• Gunner by Alan Parks (John Murray Press/Baskerville)
• The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Pan Macmillan/Mangle)
• A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith (Bloomsbury Publishing/Raven Books)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger

• Murder Mindfully by Karsten Dusse (Faber) translated by Florian Duijsens
• The Lake by Jørn Lier Horst  (Penguin Random House) translated by Anne Bruce
• Red Water by Jurica Pavicic (Bitter Lemon Press) translated by Matt Robinson
• Big Bad Wool by Leonie Swann (Allison & Busby) translated by Amy Bojang
• The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen (Orenda Books) translated by David Hackston
• Strange Pictures by Uketsu (Pushkin Press) translated by Jim Rion

Whodunnit Dagger for Best Traditional Mystery

• The Christmas Cracker Killer by Alexandra Benedict (Simon & Schuster UK)
• Little Secrets by Victoria Goldman (Three Crowns Publishing UK/self-published)
• Etiquette for Lovers & Killers by Anna Fitzgerald Healy (Little, Brown Book Group/Fleet)
• A Queer Case by Robert Holtom (Titan Books)
• A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant (John Murray Press/Baskerville)
• Bad Influence by CJ Wray (Orion Fiction)

Twisted Dagger for Best Psychological Suspense

• What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah  (HarperCollins/HQ Ficiton)
• Her Many Faces by Nicci Cloke (Penguin Random House UK/Harvill)
• Some of Us are Liars by Fiona Cummins (Pan Macmillan/Macmillan)
• Scenes From A Tragedy by Carole Hailey (Atlantic Books/Corvus)
• The Bodies by Sam Lloyd (Transworld/Bantam)
• We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough (Orion Fiction)       

ILP John Creasey (First Novel) Dagger

• The Peak by Sam Guthrie (HarperCollins Publishers)
• The Lost Detective by Elspeth Latimer (Story Machine)
• The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey (HarperCollins/Hemlock Press)
• The Vanishing Place by Zoë Rankin (Profile Books/Viper)
• Coram House by Bailey Seybolt (Bloomsbury Publishing/Raven Books)
• Holy City by Henry Wise (Bedford Square Publishers/No Exit Press)

Short Story Dagger

• "Split Your Silver Tongue" by SA Cosby in Birds, Strangers and Psychos (No Exit Press)
• "The Karpman Drama Triangle" by Denise Mina in Birds, Strangers and Psychos (No Exit Press)
• "Full Circle" by Abir Mukherjee in Playing Dead: Short Stories by Members of the Detection Club (Severn House)
•  "The Apple Falls Not Far" by Ambrose Perry (Canongate)
•  "Strangers on a School Bus" by Peter Swanson in Birds, Strangers and Psychos (No Exit Press)
• ‘Waiting" by Michael Wood in Criminal Pursuits: This Is Me (Telos Publishing)
  

Emerging Author

• Ill Met By Murder by Rod Cookson,
• The Man Who Fit the Case by Sophia Georghiou
• Just a Simple Wedding by Kate Koester
• The Fixer by Lorna Mathew,
• The Madam of Morningside by Rebecca McFarland
• Blind Side of the Sun by Michael Nikitin
• The Pattern of Absence by Melisssa Smith

Dagger in the Library for Body of Work

• Paula Hawkins
• JD Kirk  
• Clare Mackintosh             
• Freida McFadden             
• Abir Mukherjee
• Tim Sullivan  

 Best Crime & Mystery Publisher

• Bitter Lemon Press
• Faber & Faber
• No Exit Press (Bedford Square)
• Pan Macmillan
• Simon & Schuster
• Viper (Profile Books)

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Digital creator and filmmaker Christian Del Grosso has wrapped on Boot Lake, an indie thriller marking his feature directorial debut. The cast includes Willow Shields (Hunger Games franchise), Nikki Roumel (Ginny & Georgia), Sebastian Amoruso (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull), James Patrick Stuart (General Hospital), D.B. Sweeney (Megalopolis), Martin Kove (Karate Kid franchise) and Alexa PenaVega (Spy Kids franchise). Set in a shadowy Tennessee lake town, Boot Lake follows a young woman who returns to her childhood home after uncovering a diary that reveals buried memories tied to her family’s past. As she begins to piece together the truth surrounding her mother’s death and a newly discovered inheritance, she finds herself pulled into a web of manipulation, shifting loyalties and mounting paranoia, where those closest to her may not be who they seem.


Lili Reinhart (Riverdale and Forbidden Fruits), has joined Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter) in the thriller, The Mannequin, the next film from Dangerous Animals director, Sean Byrne. Heralding from Studiocanal’s genre label Sixth Dimension and due to start production this summer, plot details have largely been kept under wraps. However, reports indicate the movie is largely a "two-hander" [a play, film, or television program with only two main characters] and Byrne has described it as a “twisted, intense, and propulsive serial killer procedural."


Mekhi Phifer will star alongside Bren Foster in the action thriller, Marx, which follows two brothers navigating a violent criminal world. The official synopsis reads: “Axel Marx is a fearless fighter forged by violence, a relentless force inside the ring who refuses to answer to anyone. His brother Ian operates differently, calculating and strategic, working behind the scenes to navigate the dangerous criminal networks surrounding them. But when a violent conflict erupts between powerful factions in the Vegas underworld, the brothers are pulled into a deadly power struggle that threatens to consume everything around them.”


The first trailer for Her Private Hell from director Nicolas Winding Refn (who won Best Director at Cannes for his 2011 crime thriller, Drive, starring Ryan Gosling), was released just hours before the film’s premiere in this year's Cannes. The cast includes Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) and Charles Melton (Riverdale) and is set in a future metropolis where a group of actresses is gathering at a posh hotel, the backdrop for a Barberella-like movie—as a heinous killer known as Leather Man is going around the city taking the lives of women.  


Speaking of Nicolas Winding Refn, he's apparently lined up his next directing gig, his long-in-the-works Maniac Cop. Originally, the project was announced at Cannes 2016 as a feature, partly based on William Lustig’s 1988 cult classic film. By October 2019, the project had morphed into a TV series, although that project also did not move forward. The blurb at the time for the Maniac Cop series was that it was set in Los Angeles, told through a kaleidoscope of characters from cop to common criminal. A killer in uniform has uncaged mayhem upon the streets leading to paranoia and social disorder, as a city wrestles with the mystery of the exterminator in blue – is he mere mortal, or a supernatural force? But it's unclear if Refn is sticking with that exact plotline for the big screen version.  


TELEVISION/STREAMING

The BBC announced a new "reimagining" of Agatha Christie's beloved Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. The BBC is understood to have made a significant commitment to the project, meaning it could run for up to three seasons over the coming years, with Season 1 expected to premiere in the second half of 2027. The project comes via Mammoth Screen, which has a long track record of adapting Christie's work, with Mammoth founder, Damien Timmer, executive-producer of many episodes of Poirot, the David Suchet series that ran for nearly 25 years on ITV. Benji Walters, a relatively unknown writer who has credits on BBC series Noughts + Crosses, will adapt the novels and is said to have "breathed new life into the fictional Belgian detective," although script details have yet to be revealed. The search for an actor to portray Poirot, Christie’s most famous and longest-running character, is underway.

Sylvester Stallone‘s Balboa Productions is teaming with Channing Powell (Tales of the Walking Dead) to develop a series adaptation of the 4MK books by J.D. Barker. Set in Chicago, Barker’s novels follow Detective Sam Porter as he hunts the elusive Four Monkey Killer, a murderer who has terrorized the city for years with a chilling and highly personal code of judgment. Guided by the maxim “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,” the killer removes the ears, eyes, and tongues of his victims, turning every  crime scene into a ritualized message. But the true horror lies in the unspoken fourth commandment, “do no evil,” which reveals the killer’s deeper agenda: exposing hidden corruption by punishing the guilty through the people they love most.


Deadline reported that a Season 3 writers room is already underway on MobLand ahead of the Paramount+ drama’s Season 2 premiere, which would seem to indicate an impending renewal. However, it was also reported that Tom Hardy will not be returning as Harry Da Souza. Hardy starred opposite Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren and is said to have had conflicts with the series writer/showrunner, Jez Butterworth, as well as his co-stars.


The 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short – otherwise known as the Black Dahlia – has remained one of the highest-profile unsolved crimes in LA history and has been the subject of numerous books, documentaries, movies, and films including Brian De Palma’s 2006 feature starring Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett, and the Chris Pine-led series, I Am The Night. The team behind a new docuseries in the works has claimed they've uncovered “startling” new leads, including a primary suspect and evidence proving the location of the murder, and they are currently pushing the LA Police Department to release key pieces of evidence that have been withheld for nearly eight decades. The team behind the series, Deconstructing Dahlia, said they have discovered a “major bloodshed event and a concealed, walled-up room at a location tied to the investigation," evidence suggesting the original crime scene was “altered,” new witnesses that never came forward, as well as other new information. This comes days after forensic examiner Alex Baber claimed that he found evidence that links Short’s ex-boyfriend Marvin Margolis to the brutal crime as well as to the Zodiac killer.


Laura Linney has joined the cast of Lanterns, the new DC series premiering August 16 on HBO and HBO Max, which stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre. The series also stars Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Jason Ritter, Ulrich Thomsen, Nathan Fillion, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones. Lanterns follows new recruit John Stewart (Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland. In a recent interview, showrunner Chris Mundy said the series is “as much of a buddy cop show as a superhero show.”


Jennifer Beals (The L Word; Book of Boba Fett) has joined the cast of Bishop, Prime Video's upcoming thriller drama series, playing Maggie Loftin, a psychologist with the San Francisco Police Department.  In Bishop, homicide detective Bishop Graves (Joel Kinnaman) – brilliant, battle-scarred – will put all of his skills to the test in the hunt for an elusive killer targeting San Francisco’s moneyed class. As this increasingly audacious killer develops a devoted following among the city’s powerless, Bishop becomes convinced these murders connect back to SF’s most powerful man, his own father, Lincoln Graves (John Malkovich).


Kelli Berglund (Heels, Now Apocalypse) has been cast in a series regular role in Hulu’s upcoming Prison Break series. Berglund will play Cheyenne, a female inmate at one of the deadliest prisons in America. In Prison Break, a soldier-turned-corrections officer takes a job at the prison to prove just how far she’ll go for someone she loves. Previously announced cast includes Emily Browning as Cassidy, Drake Rodger as Tommy, Lukas Gage as Jackson, Clayton Cardenas as Michael “Ghost,” JR Bourne as Junior, Georgie Flores as Andrea, and Myles Bullock as Darius “Red.”


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's Book of the Day discussed two new murder mysteries that cleverly explore the meta in two very different ways:  Ilona Bannister’s Five and Anthony Horowitz’s A Deadly Episode. Bannister spoke with NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about writing a novel with a five-minute timespan and Horowitz chatted with NPR’s Scott Simon about poking fun at true crime — with a novel about true crime.


On CrimeTime FM, Garry Disher (The Paul Hirsch series) and Dom Nolan (White City) discussed location as character.


Barbara Peters was in conversation with Alex Finlay on the Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, discussing his latest thriller, The Anniversary, about a serial killer who stalks a small town every May 1st..


Killer Women featured Heather Webb, the bestselling author of eleven novels, including her upcoming The Hope Keeper and her other recently published Queens of London, The Next Ship Home, and Christmas with the Queen.


Meet the Thriller Author welcomed H.Y. Hanna to talk about The Taverna at the Edge of Night and writing atmospheric destination thrillers.


Murder Junction hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee discussed the true life case of Bollywood actress Jiah Khan who died of apparent suicide in 2013 - but was there more to the story?


THEATRE

A stage adaptation of Lionsgate's psychological thriller, The Housemaid, is in development, with playwright Bekah Brunstetter (The Notebook) attached. Based on Freida McFadden’s bestselling novel, The Housemaid was most recently adapted for the 2025 film, which has grossed nearly $400 million at the worldwide box office. Specific stage plans – Broadway, the West End or otherwise – have yet to be determined.


VIDEO GAMES

Peacock is doubling down on mobile games with a Law & Order crime game. The streamer is launching Law & Order: Clue Hunter, which will give fans the opportunity to step into the role of investigator. Players search crime scenes for hidden objects, identify suspects, and solve cases inspired by the Law & Order universe. New cases will drop weekly.

Sunday Music Treat

Sergei Rachmaninoff is one of the most celebrated composers of the Romantic period, with many of his works still popular even today. They aren't always easy to play, thanks to the composer's legendary hand-span, his fingers able to stretch across a full 13th on the keyboard (a lot of folks are lucky if they can do that with two hands). Scott Drayco, the crime consultant protagonist of my books (himself a former concert pianist), enjoys playing Rachmaninoff whenever his partially-mangled arm will allow. This piece, Rachmaninoff's Elegie in E-flat minor, makes an appearance in the latest Drayco installment, Elegy in Scarlet (played here by the composer himself, taken from a piano roll): 

 

 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's Forgotten Books - Emily Dickinson is Dead

Author Jane Langton (1922-2018) didn't come to mystery novels in any traditional sort of way. She studied astronomy at Wellesley College and the University of Michigan and received graduate degrees in art history at the University of Michigan and Radcliffe College. But turn to writing, she did, in 1962, penning YA novels (her book The Fledgling is a Newbery Honor book) and 18 adult mysteries which won her Bouchercon's 2000 Lifetime Achievement Award.

All of her mysteries focus on the same two protagonists, Homer Kelly, a distinguished Thoreau scholar and ex-lieutenant detective for Middlesex County, and his wife Mary. As the author herself said, "Mary is the sensible one, but I confess I like Homer's rhapsodic flights of fancy." Most of the settings are in the author's own state of Massachusetts, although she's also sent them to more exotic places like Florence, Oxford and Venice.

Langton also illustrates many of her novels with her own drawings, explaining it this way:

One of the greatest pleasures has been illustrating my adult books with drawings of the real places where my fictional events happen. I've loved setting up my folding stool in Harvard Square, or standing on my own back porch trying to get down on paper the look of the pants and shirts on the laundry line, or leaning against cars in Florence with sketchbook in hand to draw some architectural wonder. Conditions have not always been salubrious, as when my feet were submerged while I sketched the house of Tintoretto in Venice during the season of high water.

Her 1984 Homer Kelly novel, Emily Dickinson is Dead was nominated for an Edgar Award and received a Nero Award that year. It was inspired, no doubt, by the author's own interest in Dickinson, having written a text about the poet for the collection Acts of Light. The action in Langton's novel takes place at a symposium celebrating the 100th anniversary of the death of poet Emily Dickinson, where one attendee disappears and another is found murdered in the poet's former bedroom.

Langton's trademarks are all here in the novel, her memorable and descriptive settings, eccentric characters, a sly humor that pokes fun at the pompous academics and Amherst townsfolk alike. As the New York Times Book Review added, "Miss Langton is a sensitive and even elegant writer, one who deals with literate, intelligent people..." 

Homer Kelly is more of a peripheral figure in this particular novel, but he sums up the essence of his philosophy—and probably that of the author—and the book quite nicely:

Homer Kelly, too, was enchanted with the afternoon. It wasn't the justice of the women's cause that had diverted him; it was the everlasting melodrama of human souls in conflict. It was the handfuls of gritty sand that were forever being sprinkled into the machinery of daily life, grinding the ill-fitting cogs against each other, warping the sprockets, jamming the mismatched teeth. It was always so fascinating, the way people went right on being so outrageously themselves, and therefore so eternally interesting.

Although not so much a mystery as a wry study of human hubris and self-delusion, the book's character studies, snippets of poetry, Langton's illustrations, and even some details about the workings of dams and reservoirs, make Emily Dickinson is Dead is an entertaining read.

Shortlist for 2026 McDermid Debut Award

 

Harrogate International Festivals has announced the shortlist for the McDermid Debut Award for new UK and Irish writers. The winner will be revealed on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Thursday 23 July. 

The shortlist for this year’s McDermid Debut Award showcases "original and assured" new voices writing across a broad range of subgenres - including serial killer thrillers, detective fiction, cosy crime and dystopian chillers - and introducing a range of unforgettable protagonists, including a 12-year-old Glaswegian dog walker and a Windrush generation retiree who is Birmingham’s answer to Miss Marple. Now in its third year, the award has established a successful track record for discovering emerging talent, with the two previous winning books, Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney (2024), and A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman (2025), going on to become bestsellers.

The full McDermid Debut Award 2026 shortlist (in alphabetical order by surname) is:

• A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford (Transworld, Penguin Random House)
• The Exes by Leodora Darlington (Penguin Michael Joseph)
• Innocent Guilt by Remi Kone (Quercus)
• The Quiet by Barnaby Martin (Pan Macmillan)
• A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant (Baskerville, John Murray)
• How to Get Away With Murder by Rebecca Philipson (Transworld, Penguin Random House)

Honoring internationally bestselling crime writer, Val McDermid, who co-founded the Theakston
Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2003 and whose dedication to fostering new voices in crime
fiction is legendary, this Award seeks to continue her legacy, celebrating and platforming the best
debut crime writers in the UK. The shortlist was selected by a panel of established crime and thriller
writers, and the winner will be decided by a panel of expert judges, chaired by McDermid. All
shortlisted authors receive a full weekend pass to the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival
and the Winner will receive a £600 cash prize and an engraved, handcrafted beer barrel from T&R
Theakston.