The Crime Writers’ Association

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Historical Dagger

This award is for the best historical crime novel, first published in the UK in English during the judging period, set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made. For novels that involve passages set later than this time period, at least three quarters of the book should be set in an earlier period.

The Historical Dagger is sponsored by Morgen Witzel in honour of Dr. Marilyn Livingstone.

Historical Dagger 2026 Winner

Nina Allan

A Granite Silence

Quercus – riverrun

Judges’ comments

A Granite Silence is both True Crime and Fiction. It’s a novel about how we write crime, and how we write history, and how we write fiction. Set in Abderdeen in both 1934 and shortly after the Covid Pandemic, it… More

2026 shortlist

2026 longlist

Author Title Publisher
Nina Allan A Granite Silence Quercus
Robin Blake Spoiler’s Prey Severn House
Graeme Macrae Burnet Benbecula Birlinn Ltd
Kate Foster The Mourning Necklace Pan Macmillan
Ariel Lawhon The Frozen River Swift Press
Beth Lewis The Rush Profile Books
Rob McInroy Barvick Falls Tippermuir Books
Donna Moore The Devil’s Draper Fly on the Wall Press
Alan Parks Gunner John Murray Press
SW Perry Cairo Gambit Atlantic Books
Laura Shepherd-Robinson The Art of a Lie Pan Macmillan
Sally Smith A Case of Life and Limb Bloomsbury Publishing

The 2026 Judges

Farah Mendlesohn (Chair)

Farah Mendlesohn is an academic with the title Emerita Professor from Anglia Ruskin University, where she was Head of English. She has always enjoyed reading crime fiction, but is also particularly interested in historical fiction. She is working on a major study of the children’s historical writer Geoffrey Trease.

Catherine Johnson
Catherine is an award-winning author of 25 books for young readers. Her books have been nominated for the Carnegie Prize, and the Bookseller YA Prize, among others, and her books have won the Young Quills Award for Historical Fiction, and the Little Rebels Prize. She has taught Creative Writing at several Universities and at Arvon centres as well as leading the Curtis Brown Creative Writing for Children course since 2015. She also writes for film and television including the feature film Bullet Boy and is a graduate of the BBC Writers Academy. She is a Royal Literature Society Fellow.

Rob McInroy

Rob McInroy has published four historical crime novels set in Perthshire in the 1930s and 1940s, historical non-fiction, and award-winning short stories.  He comes from a rural, working-class background in Crieff and his writing is set in Perthshire from the 1920s to 1980s. He has an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in American literature and teaches creative writing. 

Dea Parkin

Dea Parkin is an editor with her consultancy Fiction Feedback and is also Competitions Coordinator for the Crime Writers’ Association. A history graduate, she writes short stories, poetry and occasionally re-engages with The Novel, but confesses to spending far more time reading than writing. She always has several books on the go and enjoys above all crime fiction, especially historical crime fiction, or fiction with a mystical edge. On account of having to weave her way through piles of books to get to her desk, sofa or indeed bathroom, she has banned herself from buying any more – but steadfastly takes no notice. A second home could be the answer.

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