Judges’ comments

Grieving and damaged detectives are hardly a rarity in crime fiction, but Elspeth Latimer’s impressive writing means that detective turned taxi-driver Dan Hennessy feels both more rounded and appealing than his many rivals. A shop-soiled knight errant in the Chandler traditional transported to contemporary rural East Anglia with an emotionally bruising solution to a decades-old tragedy in a satisfying well-crafted grown-up crime tale.