Give Me Your Hand
Megan Abbott
Picador
The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
Ian Fleming said there was one essential criterion for a good thriller, ‘one simply has to turn the pages’.
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
The winner of the Steel Dagger will be announced at the glamorous CWA Dagger Awards Gala Dinner at the Leonardo Royal Hotel London City on 24 October 2019. To book your place at the premiere crime writing awards ceremony of the year, fill in the booking form here. Hurry! The tickets are selling like hot cakes.
Shortlist
Safe Houses
Dan Fesperman
Head of Zeus
No Tomorrow
Luke Jennings
John Murray
Lives Laid Away
Stephen Mack Jones
Soho Crime
To the Lions
Holly Watt
Bloomsbury
Memo from Turner
Tim Willocks
Jonathan Cape
The judges
Corinne Turner
Corinne has managed and helped develop authors’ literary estates for nearly 30 years. She is Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd and also owns and manages the literary estate of children’s author, Willard Price.
David Headley
David Headley is the Managing Director of Goldsboro Books, a much admired, leading independent bookseller, based in central London. He is also the managing director of the D H H Literary Agency.
Myles Allfrey
is a Kent-based podiatrist with a keen interest in crime fiction. Myles is sometime book reviewer and co-founder of CrimeFest, the crime writing convention held in Bristol.
Donna Moore
Donna is an avid reader, writer and occasional reviewer of crime fiction. She is co-host of Crimefest and also does the programming for Magna cum Murder in Indiana. In her day job, she is an adult literacy tutor and is also currently undertaking a PhD.
Zoe Aquilina
Zoe began her career in the book trade as a bookseller before working for many years in the field of intellectual property and literary estate management. More recently, she worked for a leading literary agency before taking on the varied challenges of parenthood! Zoe now works as a freelance intellectual property consultant and editor.
Marek Pruszewicz
Marek is on the board of Ian Fleming Publications. He was a senior editor in BBC News for nearly 20 years and a writer of history features for its website. He’s now director of communications for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, a global NGO.
2019 Longlist
| Author | Title | Publisher |
| Megan Abbott | Give Me Your Hand | Picador |
| Steve Cavanagh | Thirteen | Orion Fiction |
| Dan Fesperman | Safe Houses | Head of Zeus |
| Elly Griffiths | The Stranger Diaries | Quercus Fiction |
| Luke Jennings | No Tomorrow | John Murray |
| Stephen Mack Jones | Lives Laid Away | Soho Crime |
| Niklas Natt och Dag, tr. Ebba Segerberg | The Wolf and the Watchman | John Murray |
| Khurrum Rahman | Homegrown Hero | HQ |
| Holly Watt | To The Lions | Raven Books |
| Tim Willocks | Memo From Turner | Jonathan Cape |
SUBMISSIONS for April 01, 2019 – March 31, 2020
| Author | Title | Publisher |
| Paul Vidich | The Coldest Warrior | No Exit Press |
| Helen Fields | Perfect Kill | Avon / HarperCollins |
| Scott Mariani | House of War | Avon / HarperCollins |
| Iain Maitland | Mr Todd’s Reckoning | Contraband |
| R.J. Mitchell | The Blood Acre | Matthew James Publishing |
| Annaleese Jochems | Baby | Scribe UK |
| Nadia Dalbuono | The Devil | Scribe UK |
| G.D. Abson | Black Wolf | Mirror Books |
| Tim Sebastian | Fatal Ally | Severn House |
| C.S. Quinn | The Bastille Spy | Corvus |
| Sam Blake | Keep Your Eyes On Me | Corvus |
| Michael Ridpath | Launch Code | Corvus |
| Catherine Ryan Howard | Rewind | Corvus |
| Kitty Sewell | The Fault | Honno Press / Modern Fiction |
| Jane Corry | I Looked Away | Penguin |
| Nicholas Searle | A Fatal Game | Viking |
| Nuala Ellwood | The House on the Lake | Penguin |
| Cara Hunter | All the Rage | Penguin |
| John Steele | Dry River | Silvertail Books |
Current holder
Bluebird, Bluebird
Attica Locke
Serpent's Tail
This thrillingly written examination of racial tensions in the American South is evocative and provocative. The personal jeopardy of the protagonist – a black cop in a white world where it may be dangerous to find the killer – is subtly interwoven with America’s racial fault lines past and present. If the distinction between ‘crime’ and ‘literary’ fiction is ever killed off, Locke will be a prime suspect.
