Written in Bone
Sue Black
Doubleday, Penguin
ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction
This award is for any non-fiction work on a crime related theme by an author of any nationality as long as the book was first published in the UK in English during the Judging Period. This award encompasses, though is not limited to, non-fiction works relating to true crime, historical crime, crime-related biography, crime-fiction literature and critical studies
Shortlist
We Keep the Dead Close
Becky Cooper
William Heinemann, Penguin
These Are Not Gentle People
Andrew Harding
MacLehose, Quercus
Dancing with the Octopus
Debora Harding
Profile Books Limited
The Book of Trespass
Nick Hayes
Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing
Agent Sonya
Ben MacIntyre
Viking, Penguin
The Judges 2021
Philip Gooden (Chair)
Philip writes both fiction and non-fiction. His historical novels include the Nick Revill series, set in Elizabethan London, and a Victorian sequence, the most recent title for which is The Durham Deception. Philip Gooden also writes books on language, including Who’s Whose? and Faux Pas?, which won the English Speaking Union award for the best English Language book of 2006. He was Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association 2007-8.
Jasmine Simeone
Jasmine has been first, Bulletin Editor, and then also Secretary of the Dorothy L Sayers Society, starting in 1995. I also answer as many as possible of the questions which come in to the info@sayers.org.uk address, which has taught me a pretty good knowledge of Sayers and her works. I am also a member of the Margery Allingham Society, and a devotee of Golden Age detective fiction, but with fairly wide-ranging literary tastes.
Duncan Campbell
Duncan Campbell was the crime correspondent of The Guardian and the chairman of the Crime Reporters’ Association. He previously worked for LBC Radio, Time Out and City Limits. His books include The Underworld, We’ll All Be Murdered in Our Beds, a history of crime reporting; That Was Business, This Is Personal; and two novels, If It Bleeds and The Paradise Trail.
Kate Godsmark
After a false start in academic publishing, Kate moved to Piatkus, initially as a subsidiary and international rights manager; she was then fortunate enough to enable to indulge her lifelong passion for crime writing on a daily basis when she became Commissioning Editor for crime. In recent years she has worked as a freelance editor.
Longlist 2021
| Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Sue Black | Written in Bone | Doubleday, Penguin |
| Amanda Brown | The Prison Doctor; Women Inside | HQ, HarperCollins |
| Becky Cooper | We Keep the Dead Close | William Heinemann, Penguin |
| Martin Edwards | Howdunit | Collins Crime Club, HarperCollins |
| Andrew Harding | These Are Not Gentle People | MacLehose, Quercus |
| Debora Harding | Dancing with the Octopus | Profile Books Limited |
| Nick Hayes | The Book of Trespass | Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Ben MacIntyre | Agent Sonya | Viking, Penguin |
| Jax Miller | Hell in the Heartland | HarperCollins |
| Daniel Smith | The Peer and the Gangster | The History Press |
| Ravi Somaiya | Operation Morthor | Viking, Penguin |
| Kate Summerscale | The Haunting of Alma Fielding | Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Mark Townsend | No Return | Guardian, Faber & Faber |
Winner 2020
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
Casey Cep
William Heinemann
Two intertwined tales: of a strange preacher in Alabama who apparently killed no fewer than five relatives for the insurance money, and of Mockingbird author Harper Lee’s attempts to make a Cold Blood-style non-fiction book out of it. Poignant, beautifully written and impeccably researched.
