The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
A deeply uncomfortable read which lingers long in the memory, this tautly plotted and timely thriller shines a light on the role of the journalist as witness or protagonist and asks devastating questions about the value of human life before culminating in a life-or-death chase through the desert to Libya. This is a highly accomplished debut that marks Watt out as a fresh and important voice.
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.
To see the titles that have been nominated for the Dagger so far in 2019/2020, please scroll down.
Corinne TurnerCorinne 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 HeadleyDavid 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 Allfreyis 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.
Karen BlewettKaren worked in the publishing industry for over 20 years, in a variety of senior financial and commercial roles for Dorling Kindersley, and Little Brown. Whilst her day job involved numbers and systems her first love has always been reading.
Zoe AquilinaZoe 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 PruszewiczMarek 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.
| Author | Title | Publisher |
| Emma Viskic | Darkness For Light | Pushkin Vertigo |
| Jo Jakeman | Safe House | Harvill Secker |
| Haylen Beck | Lost You | Harvill Secker |
| Abir Mukherjee | Death in the East | Harvill Secker |
| C. C. MACDONALD | Happy Ever After | Harvill Secker |
| Emily Koch | Keep Him Close | Harvill Secker |
| Jo Nesbo | Knife | Harvill Secker |
| Tanen Jones | The Better Liar | Harvill Secker |
| A. D. Miller | Independence Square | Harvill Secker |
| Ruth Ware | The Turn of the Key | Harvill Secker |
| Tony Parsons | #taken | Century |
| Heidi Perks | Come Back For Me | Century |
| Christine Poulson | An Air That Kills | Lion Fiction |
| Mick Herron | Joe Country | John Murray Publishing |
| Aravind Adiga | Amnesty | Picador |
| Chris Pavone | The Paris Diversion | Faber & Faber |
| Alafair Burke | The Better Sister | Faber & Faber |
| Lisa Regan | Cold Heart Creek | Bookouture |
| Patricia Gibney | Final Betrayal | Bookouture |
| K.L. Slater | The Silent Ones | Bookouture |
| S.E. Lynes | The Women | Bookouture |
| Shalini Boland | The Marriage Betrayal | Bookouture |
| Miranda Smith | Some Days Are Dark | Bookouture | Abda Khan | Razia | Unbound | Helen Sedgwick | When the Dead Come Calling | Point Blank |
| Peter Hanington | A Single Source | Two Roads |
| Will Dean | Black River | Point Blank |
| C.J. Tudor | The Other People | Michael Joseph |
| Raymond Khoury | The Ottoman Secret | Michael Joseph |
| Claire Douglas | Then She Vanishes | Michael Joseph |
| Karen Perry | Come a Little Closer | Michael Joseph |
| Gillian McAllister | The Evidence Against You | Michael Joseph |
| Alex North | The Whisper Man | Michael Joseph |
| Rafael Bernal | The Other People | Pushkin Vertigo |
| Eva Dolan | Between Two Evils | Raven Books |
| Julie Mayhew | Impossible Causes | Raven Books |
| Gary Bell | Beyond Reasonable Doubt | Raven Books |
| Joshilyn Jackson | Never Have I Ever | Raven Books |
| Alex Gerlis | Prince of Spies | Canelo |
| Karin Slaughter | The Last Widow | Harper Fiction |
| Camilla Way | Who Killed Ruby? | Harper Fiction |
| Claire Kendal | I Spy | Harper Fiction |
| Lou Berney | November Road | Harper Fiction |
| Alex Lake | Seven Days | Harper Fiction |
| S.K. Tremayne | The Assistant | Harper Fiction |
| Stuart MacBride | All That’s Dead | Harper Fiction |
| Michael Crichton and Daniel H. Wilson | The Andromeda | Harper Fiction |
| Abbie Frost | The Guesthouse | Harper Fiction |
| Rachel Sargeant | The Roommates | Harper Fiction |
| Andrew Taylor | The King’s Evil | Harper Fiction |
| Cass Green | The Killer Inside | Harper Fiction |
| Daniel Silva | The New Girl | Harper Fiction |
| Liv Constantine | The Last Time I Saw You | Harper Fiction |
| Jeffrey Deaver | The Never Game | Harper Fiction |
| Greg Iles | Cemetery Road | Harper Fiction |
| J.S. Monroe | The Other You | Head of Zeus |
| Adam Lebor | Kossuth Square | Head of Zeus |
| Joshua Hood | Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Resurrection |
Head of Zeus |
| Vanda Symon | The Ringmaster | Orenda Books |
| Isabel Ashdown | Lake Child | Trapeze |
| Daniel Cole | Endgame | Trapeze |
| Sarah Stovell | The Home | Orenda Books |
| Michael J Malone | In the Absence of Malice | Orenda Books |
| Louise Beech | Call Me Star Girl | Orenda Books |
| Doug Johnstone | Breakers | Orenda Books |
| Will Carver | Nothing Important Happened Today | Orenda Books |
| Helen Fitzgerald | Worst Case Scenario | Orenda Books |
| Louise Voss | The Last Stage | Orenda Books |
| SJI Holliday | Violet | Orenda Books |
| Matt Wesolowski | Beast | Orenda Books |
| Paul Burston | The Closer I Get | Orenda Books |
| Andrew Williams | Witchfinder | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Sophie Hannah | Haven’t They Grown | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Humphrey Hawksley | Man on Edge | Severn House |
| Erin Kinsley | Found | Headline |
| Tom Chatfield | This is Gomorrah | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Martyn Waites | The Sinner | Zaffre |
| James Swallow | Shadow | Zaffre |
| James Carol | 17 Church Row | Zaffre |
| Jenny Quintana | Our Dark Secret | Mantle |
| JoAnn Chaney | As Long As We Both Shall Live | Mantle |
| Adrian Magson | Terminal Black | Severn House |
| Fifty-Fifty | Steve Cavanagh | Orion Fiction |
| Adrian McKinty | The Chain | Orion Fiction |
| Michael Connelly | The Night Fire | Orion Fiction |
| Graham Moore | The Holdout | Orion Fiction |
| Heleen Kist | Stay Mad, Sweetheart | Red Dog Press |
| Alan Furst | Under Occupation | Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
| Peter Heller | The River | Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
| Joanna Schaffhausen | All the Best Lies | Titan Books |
| Lisa Lutz | The Swallows | Titan Books |
| Sherri Smith | The Retreat | Titan Books |
| George Alagiah | The Burning Land | Canongate Books |
| Lesley Kara | Who Did You Tell? | Bantam Press |
| Tammy Cohen | Stop At Nothing | Bantam Press |
| Lee Child | Blue Moon | Bantam Press |
| Andy McNab | Whatever It Takes | Bantam Press |
| Tess Gerritsen | The Shape of Night | Bantam Press |
| Rob Hart | The Warehouse | Bantam Press |
| Paula Daly | Clear My Name | Bantam Press |
| Shari Lapena | Someone We Know | Bantam Press |
| A.A. Dhand | One Way Out | Bantam Press |
| Karen Cleveland | Keep You Close | Bantam Press |
| Tom Brady | Secret Service | Bantam Press |
| Henry Porter | White Hot Silence | Quercus |
| JP Delaney | The Perfect Wife | Quercus |
| Sam Bourne | To Kill A Man | Quercus |
| Sam Lloyd | The Memory Wood | Bantam Press |
| Rebecca Fleet | The Second Wide | Bantam Press |
| Lauren Wilkinson | American Spy | Dialogue Books |
| Oliver Harris | A Shadow Intelligence | Little, Brown |
| Nelson DeMille | The Deserter | Sphere |
| Trevor Eve | Lomita For Ever | Unbound |
| Mary Kubica | The Other Mrs | HQ |
| C.J. Kuse | The Alibi Girl | HQ |
| Michelle Campbell | A Stranger on the Beach | HQ |
| Louise Jensen | The Family | HQ |
| Amanda Jennings | The Cliff House Mrs | HQ |
| David Koepp | Cold Storage | HQ |
| Linwood Barclay | Elevator Pitch | HQ |
| Lisa Hall | Have You Seen Her | HQ |
| Alice Feeney | I Know who You Arre | HQ |
| Peter Hanington | A Single Source | Two Roads |
| A.S. Hatch | This Little Dark Place | Serpent’s Tail |
| Ren Richards | The Broken Ones | Viper / Profile Books |
| 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 |