New Award for British Crime Fiction – Fingerprint Awards
What’s a good crime fiction convention without a good series of awards to give out? Well, apparently the giving out of awards is something that goes hand in hand with a well-run convention. It rewards authors who are nominated and win with praise for their work and it rewards the fans with the self-satisfaction of seeing some of their favorites win awards and points them to as-yet-unread good books and authors. Here in the U.S. we have the Anthony Awards (Bouchercon), Thrillerf Awards (ThrillerFest), Agatha Awards (Malice Domestic) and the Lefty Awards (Left Coast Crime). In the U.K there are the Crimefest Awards(Crimefestt), The Theakston Old Peculier Awards (Harrowgate) and now the Fingerprint Awards sponsored by the Capital Crime Convention.
The nice thing about this award is that we, the fans, can vote for the winners whether or not we are attending the convention. I just cast my vote.
Here are the short lists for each category of award in this year of its inception.
Crime Book of the Year 2021
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse (Transworld)
1979 by Val McDermid (Little, Brown)
The Appeal by Janice Hallett (Viper)
Girls Who Lie by Eva Björg Ægisdottir (Orenda Books)
Slough House by Mick Herron (John Murray Press)
Thriller Book of the Year 2021
A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins (Transworld)
Dead Ground by M W Craven (Little, Brown)
The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell (Cornerstone)
Knife Edge by Simon Mayo (Transworld)
Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean (Hodder & Stoughton)
Historical Crime Book of the Year 2021
A Net for Small Fishes by Lucy Jago (Bloomsbury)
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell (Bloomsbury)
Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd Robinson (Pan Macmillan)
The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage)
A Comedy of Terrors by Lindsay Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)
Debut Book of the Year 2021
Girl A by Abigail Dean (HarperCollins)
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner (Bloomsbury)
Welcome to Cooper by Tariq Ashkanani (Amazon Publishing)
How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina (Little, Brown
Edge of the Grave by Robbie Morrison (Pan Macmillan)
Genre-Busting Book of the Year 2021
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (Bloomsbury)
How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie (HarperCollins)
The Burning Girls by C J Tudor Penguin Books)
Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi (Penguin Books)
What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch (Orion)
Audiobook of the Year 2021
People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd (Pan Macmillan)
The Girl Who Die by Ragnar Jónasson (Orenda Books
True Crime Story by Joseph Knox (Transworld)
A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz (Cornerstone)
I know what I Saw by Imran Mahmood (Bloomsbury)