Galbraith, McDermid and Child make Dead Good Reader shortlists

The Dead Good Reader Awards shortlists have been announced, featuring Val McDermid, Lee Child and Peter James along with Robert Galbraith, C L Taylor and Stuart MacBride.

The six awards, created in collaboration with the Dead Good community to celebrate "unique elements" in crime writing, are nominated and voted for by readers that will be presented at the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate in July.

Up for The Dead Good Recommends Award for Most Recommended Book is Career of Evil (Little, Brown), the third novel by J K Rowling's pseudonym "Robert Galbraith"; Die of Shame (Little, Brown) by Mark Billingham, also a recent finalist for the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library; psychological thriller In Her Wake (Orenda) by Amanda Jennings; The Missing (Avon) by C L Taylor, described by Fiona Barton to have "an agonising twist"; Tastes Like Fear (Headline) by former bookseller Sarah Hilary who won Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2015; and debut Untouchable Things (Legend Press) by Tara Guha, which was authored on the 2014 Luke Bitmead Bursary.      

The Tess Gerritsen Award for Best Series shortlists the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child, who recently confirmed he would be continuing the series under a new contract with Transworld to fans' delight, and the Roy Grace series by Peter James, who is on his 11th novel in the series Want You Dead (Macmillan). Also shortlisted are Sarah Hilary's Marnie Rome (Headline), Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae (HarperCollins), Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway (Quercus) and Marnie Riches' George Mackenzie (Maze) series.

Transworld dominated the shortlist for The Linwood Barclay Award for Most Surprising Twist, claiming 50% of it, with Disclaimer by Renee Knight, Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton and When She Was Bad by Tammy Cohen. Also vying for the prize is  S K Tremayne's The Ice Twins (HarperCollins), Clare Mackintosh's much talked-about debut I Let You Go (Sphere), and The Kind Worth Killing (Faber & Faber) by Peter Swanson.

Ruth Ware is up for The Papercut Award for Best Page Turner for her debut psychological thriller In a Dark, Dark Wood (Vintage) - due to be turned into a film starring Reese Witherspoon. Joining her on the shortlist is 'Queen of Crime' Val McDermid for Splinter the Silence (Little, Brown), whose contribution to the genre is to honoured at the Theakston’s Harrogate Crime Festival, and, again, Robert Galbraith for Career of Evil (Little, Brown), as well as Broken Promise by Linwood Barclay (Orion), Follow Me (Avon) by Angela Clarke, The Girl in the Ice (Bookouture) by Robert Bryndza.                

Battling it out for The Hotel Chocolat Award for Darkest Moment, the shortlist comprises: Behind Closed Doors by B A Paris (MIRA); The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood (Sphere); In the Cold Dark Ground by Stuart MacBride; In the Cold Dark Ground by Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins); Little Boy Blue by M J Arlidge (Michael Jospeh); The Teacher by Katerina Diamond (Avon); and Viral by Helen Fitzgerald (Faber & Faber).               

The Mörda Award for Captivating Crime in Translation features The Crow Girl by Swedish duo Erik Axl Sund (Vintage), two Orenda Books shortlistings, The Defenceless by Kati Hiekkapelto and Nightblind by Ragnar Jonasson, and Camille by Pierre Lemaitre (MacLehose Press), I’m Travelling Alone by Samuel Bjork (Doubleday) and The Undesired by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Hodder & Stoughton).

The awards will now be open to a public vote and will culminate at a special festival event on Friday 17th July. Crime authors including Tess Gerritsen and Linwood Barclay will present the awards.