The CWA Dagger Awards 2017

The CWA Dagger Awards Gala Dinner is one of the major occasions, perhaps the major occasion, in the crime writing world, in Britain at least. I've attended quite a number of Dagger award ceremonies (for a while they were lunches rather than dinners) over the past twenty years, but last Thursday's Gala Dinner at the Grange City Hotel in London was a very different experience, because in my capacity of Chair of the CWA, I was hosting the event. To say that this took me way outside my comfort zone would be an under-statement, but as things turned out, it was a marvellous evening, and Hayley and the organising team deserve huge credit for making sure that everything went so well. Thanks also to Gary Stratmann, our photographer for the evening.

Huge credit also goes to our Master of Ceremonies, the inimitable Barry Forshaw, whom I presented with a CWA Red Herring award. Barry, the consummate professional,  made sure that the ceremony went with a swing. And our guest speaker was absolutely excellent. He was Robert Thorogood, creator and writer of Death in Paradise, who proved to be both witty and charming. We had a very enjoyable chat about Golden Age fiction, of which (as those who have watched the show can guess) he is a huge fan. Robert had a tough act to follow, because last year James Runcie was a splendid guest speaker, but we were lucky to have someone equally impressive this time around.

I've attended quite a lot of awards ceremonies over the years, in the legal world as well as in the writing world, and the one thing I've learned is that, if you aren't careful, they can drag on, and the audience becomes bored. I vividly remember legal dinners where sweepstakes were run to guess the length of the seemingly interminable speeches. We were determined to make sure this didn't happen on Thursday.. Whilst it's obviously essential not to rush through awards in such a way that they make no real impression, the pace of the evening's events was an important element in creating the feelgood factor that prevailed from start to finish. An added bonus for me was that a story from a book I'd edited, Motives for Murder, won the CWA Short Story Dagger., though I hasten to emphasise that the judging process is completely independent!

It was a glittering occasion, and the audience of 250 people included such stars as Peter Capaldi and Brenda Blethyn. I talked briefly about the progress the CWA has made this year, and had the great pleasure of presenting Ann Cleeves with the CWA Diamond Dagger. All in all, a memorable occasion, a career highlight, and one that (now it's over!) I shall look back on with enormous and lasting pleasure. 

The CWA Diamond Dagger and Ann Cleeves

Today the Crime Writers' Association has announced that the winner of this year's CWA Diamond Dagger is Ann Cleeves. This news gives me special pleasure for two reasons. First, now that I'm the Chair of the CWA, I shall be the person to present Ann with the Dagger at the CWA Daggers awards dinner in London in late October. Second, she just happens to be (and it is a coincidence, I can assure you) one of my oldest friends in the crime writing world.

I first came across Ann's work before I met her. It was when I was battling away with my own first novel. I was interested to read her first book, not only because I'm a lifelong fan of detective stories, but also because it seemed to me to be a good idea to study the market, and what new writers of a roughly similar age to me were up to. In the same spirit, I was reading the first Peter Robinson novel at around that time. I enjoyed their books, and reviewed them. I even wrote an article discussing their evocation of rural landscape, with the title "Up the Garden Path". But the magazine I sent it to turned it down...

Later I met Ann in person - via the CWA - and we became friends. We both joined up with Murder Squad when Margaret Murphy founded it, and this led to many shared events. The first photo below, taken by Zoe Sharp, shows the original Squad line-up, including the late Stuart Pawson. The second, taken in her back garden at Whitley Bay, shows her with her husband Tim and CWA Northern Chapter doyens Peter and Margaret Lewis. I read and reviewed The Crow Trap, then apparently a stand-alone novel, and I like to think I was one of the very first to spot the potential of Vera Stanhope as a character.

After many years of working quietly away, in recent times, Ann has found fame and fortune thanks to the televising of her series about Vera and about Shetland's Jimmy Perez. Her story is a happy one. Her career (because she was writing good books many years before she became widely-read; I vividly recall us discussing how modest an income one could manage to live on as a writer) is a good example of why one should never lose faith. Yet she's always remained a good friend to readers, writers and libraries. Part of the point of the CWA Diamond Dagger, in the view of the CWA committee, is that it recognises not only the sustained excellence of a person's body of work but also their overall contribution to the genre. Nobody can be in any doubt that Ann is a very worth winner indeed.

Catherine Aird - CWA Diamond Dagger winner

I could  not be more pleased that the CWA has announced the award of the CWA Diamond Dagger to Catherine Aird in recognition of the sustained excellence of her work. I've known Catherine for a long time, and I've enjoyed her books for even longer. She is a truly delightful person, and while the award is of course for her writing, it is all the more pleasing to see someone so popular in the crime fiction community receive such recognition. She is beyond doubt a worthy winner.

Because of my own membership of the CWA committee, I've been aware that this announcement was to be made for some time, and I did notice that, as soon as the news came out, many of Catherine's fans took to social media to express their delight. I'm not a bit surprised. Her plots are clever, her characters and situations are entertaining,, and her humour a real bonus..

I've written about Catherine previously on this blog, and I've had the pleasure of including her stories in CWA anthologies over the years. Recently, she contributed to a CWA anthology with a difference. Truly Criminal, which will be published in the spring, is a collection of essays about true crime by CWA members, and Catherine writes about a case that is interesting, but little known.

One item of trivia that may be unfamiliar to many fans of traditional detective fiction is that Catherine has a family connection with Josephine Tey, one of the great figures of Golden Age mystery writing. I share Catherine's enthusiasm for Tey, and I continue to hope that one of these she will write more about her. Tey and Catherine belong to different generations, but in both cases, their books will be read for many years to come.

Dick Francis R.I.P.

I was very sorry to learn today of the death of Dick Francis. Among his many accomplishments was the ability to make novels with a horse racing background appealing to people who, like me, had no interest whatsoever in that particular sport. He managed it with a combination of pacy, no-nonsense writing and careful attention to the detail of his backgrounds. There was always an authentic tang about a Dick Francis novel, and this attracted the approval of reviewers and commentators on crime fiction, as well as the devotion of the countless readers who turned his books into best-sellers. Because, as a jockey, he knew what it was to experience pain, when his heroes got hurt, they felt it. But in the end they triumphed nonetheless.

After previously sampling one or two of his early novels in a casual way, I finally became hooked on Dick Francis in the1980s. Titles such as Banker (a special favourite of mine), Reflex, Proof, Twice Shy and Hot Money were first class examples of the action thriller. His stories often benefited from providing an interesting insight into a world other than horse racing (the title of Banker speaks for itself; Reflex was about photography, and so on.) Of his later books, I particularly enjoyed Come to Grief, which marked the return of his occasional protagonist Sid Halley, and which was rather darker in tone than the typical Francis novel.

His wife Mary, who died some years ago, evidently contributed to the books’ merits; in recent years his son Felix has been acknowledged as a co-author. The Francis brand was impressive; many other sportsmen and women have written thrillers, trying to emulate his success. But none of them, I think it’s safe to say, have quite equalled his achievements.

Quite apart from his novels, Dick Francis also wrote a number of twisty short stories, and when I was putting together an anthology to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Crime Writers’ Association, Mysterious Pleasures, he was generous enough to contribute to the book. His story, ‘The Gift’, is a very good one.

The sustained excellence of his writing career was marked by various honours, notably the CWA Diamond Dagger. There was a lack of pretension about Francis’s writing that, I gather from those who knew him well, was matched by a very likeable personality. Some time ago, I had the chance to meet him in person at long last, but reluctantly had to forego it because of other commitments. I did entertain the hope that, as a member of the Detection Club, one day I might have the chance to chat with him over dinner. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, but like so many others, I appreciated his ability to intrigue and entertain and mourn his passing.

Val McDermid

Val McDermid has been awarded the Crime Writers’ Association’s Cartier Diamond Dagger – the most prestigious crime fiction award in the UK – and it’s an honour which recognises the consistently high quality of her writing over a good many years. Her first novel appeared in 1987, and she is best known for her books about Tony Hill, which were adapted into a highly successful TV series starring Robson Green, The Wire in the Blood.

Although Val and I are almost precisely the same age, and were student contemporaries, we did not meet until about 1992, by which time we were both members of the Northern Chapter of the CWA, founded by Peter Walker a few years earlier, and a group which has introduced me to many wonderful writers who have become friends. At that stage, Val was branching out with a new series featuring the Manchester private eye Kate Brannigan, and this was the point at which her career really began to take off in a big way.

I’ve followed her career pretty closely ever since, and I well remember being present at the Awards Dinner when Val received the CWA Gold Dagger for the first Tony Hill book, The Mermaids Singing. She’d had the extraordinarily galling experience of having her publishers omit the final few pages of the book from the first edition – what could be worse for a crime writer? But it would take much more than that to stop Val from achieving success.

It’s often said that Val’s books ‘are known for their graphic depictions of violence and torture’ (this is a phrase from the Wikipedia article about her) but my view is that more emphasis should be placed on two features which I think go a long way towards explaining her success. First, her books are very intelligently composed – not in a knowingly learned way, but in a way that helps to enhance reader satisfaction. Second, she has a genuine respect for classic crime fiction, and her understanding of the appeal of complex whodunit plots helps to inform her own carefully constructed mysteries. To respect good traditions, whilst updating them, is a gift for a crime writer, and she definitely possesses that gift.

Perhaps I should mention that I have an involvement with the Diamond Dagger, to the extent that I chair a small sub-committee which sifts through nominations for the award. Once we have agreed upon a shortlist of up to seven names of great candidates, those names go forward to the CWA committee, who make the actual decision. Needless to say, I’m very much in agreement with their choice!

The photo shows Val and I, with Martyn Waites, on the stage at Bouchercon in Baltimore about fifteen months ago, when we were involved with presenting awards to various guests of honour.

Andrew Taylor's Diamond Dagger

The public announcement that Andrew Taylor has been awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger came after I'd written my post yesterday about the televised version of his extraordinary Roth Trilogy, but it was the happiest of coincidences.

The Diamond Dagger is awarded for a crime writing career of 'sustained excellence', and nobody can doubt that Andrew's track record demonstrates just that. I've followed his career since its beginnings, with the fascinating and quirky series about William Dougal, and when I became editor of the CWA's anthology, I was delighted when Andrew came up with the first short story featuring Dougal. 'The Cost of Living' appeared in Perfectly Criminal in 1996, and I said in introducing it that the story 'has all the strengths of the Dougal novels: a neat yet unusual story-line, convincing characterisation and that poignancy which is so characteristic of Taylor's writing'.

The same features were evident in his excellent Lydmouth series, and again Andrew honoured me with the first Lydmouth short story, 'The Woman who Loved Elizabeth David', which appeared in Past Crimes in 1998. Several of Andrew's stand-alone novels are quite outstanding. The American Boy won massive sales after it became a Richard and Judy selection, but one of my favourites is the less well-known, but brilliant The Barred Window. And I've mentioned before in this blog that I'm a huge fan of Bleeding Heart Square.

I read Andrew Taylor for pleasure, but in reading the books, I also learn more about the craft of crime fiction from a writer who is not only a consummate professional (a bit of trivia is that, years ago, he wrote a number of tv novelisations under a pseudonym), but whose literary gifts are subtle and original. A star of the genre, who will be a very popular Diamond Dagger winner indeed.