Snow
John Banville
Faber
Sapere Books Historical Dagger
Winner 2021
Midnight at Malabar House
Vaseem Khan
Hodder & Stoughton
Inspector Persis Wadia, India’s first female police inspector, finally lands a big case: investigating the murder of a prominent English diplomat in the midst of hosting his own New Year’s Eve Ball, in Bombay 1949. His murderer hopes that she is going to fail—and so do her superiors.
This award is for the best historical crime novel (in the opinion of the judges), first published in the UK in English during the judging period. The novel can be 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.
Shortlist
Midnight at Malabar House
Vaseem Khan
Hodder & Stoughton
The Unwanted Dead
Chris Lloyd
The Orion Publishing Group
The City Under Siege
Michael Russell
Little, Brown Book Group
Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons
David Stafford
Allison & Busby
The Mimosa Tree Mystery
Ovidia Yu
Little, Brown Book Group
The Judges 2021
Professor Edward James (Chair)
Edward James is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin. He has published numerous papers on the archaeology, art and history of early medieval Europe. He is also an enthusiastic reader of science fiction and fantasy. In 2017 the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts presented him with their Distinguished Scholarship Award.
Janet Laurence
Janet Laurence has written four cookery books and has contributed articles to a number of publications, including a series on historical cooking for Country Life. Under a pseudonym she also writes contemporary women’s fiction and was recently chair of the judging panel for the CWA International Dagger (now Crime in Translation).
Angela Rippon
Angela May Rippon CBE is an English television journalist, newsreader, writer and presenter. Angela presented radio and television news programmes in South West England before moving to BBC One’s Nine O’Clock News, becoming a regular presenter in 1975.
Longlist 2021
| Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| J M Alvey | Justice for Athena | Canelo Digital Publishing Limited |
| John Banville | Snow | Faber |
| Vaseem Khan | Midnight at Malabar House | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Laurie R King | Riviera Gold | Allison & Busby |
| Chris Lloyd | The Unwanted Dead | Orion Fiction, The Orion Publishing Group |
| S J Parris | Execution | HarperFiction, HarperCollins |
| Ben Pastor | The Night of Shooting Stars | Bitter Lemon Press |
| Michael Russell | The City Under Siege | Constable, Little, Brown Book Group |
| David S. Stafford | Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons | Allison & Busby |
| A D Swanston | Chaos | Bantam Press, Transworld |
| Nicola Upson | The Dead of Winter | Faber |
| Ovidia Yu | The Mimosa Tree Mystery | Constable, Little, Brown Book Group |