Harper, Herron and Mukherjee scoop CWA Daggers

Jane Harper, Mick Herron and Abir Mukherjee are among the authors honoured at the Crime Writers Association's 2017 Daggers awards, with Ann Cleeves recognised for her "outstanding contribution to crime fiction".

The annual gala award ceremony, “the crème de la crème of crime-writing awards”, took place at the Grange City Hotel, Cooper’s Row, London,  last night (26th October).

Harper scooped the Gold Dagger, for the best crime novel of the year, for The Dry (Little, Brown) about a small town teeming with secrets, pipping a number of authors including Herron who had been nominated for Spook Street (John Murray). However Herron claimed the Ian Fleming Steel for the best crime thriller instead, beating stiff competition including US author Meg Abbott who had been nominated for You Will Know Me (Picador).

Chris Whitaker’s Tall Oaks (Twenty 7), about a missing child, won the CWA John Creasey Dagger (New Blood) for best debut crime novel, in a category described as “exceptionally strong” by master of ceremonies, crime journalist Barry Forshaw, while Mukherjee received the Endeavour Historical Dagger for A Rising Man (Harvill Secker), set in early 20th Century Calcutta, also nominated for the Gold Dagger.

Stephen Purvis’s Close But No Cigar: A True Story of Prison Life in Castro’s Cuba (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) won the Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction while L C Taylor won the Short Story Dagger for 'The Trials of Margaret', from Motives for Murder (Sphere) edited by Martin Edwards.

Swedish criminologist and novelist Leif G W Persson won the International Dagger for The Dying Detective (Doubleday), translated by Neil Smith, and Texas-based Sherry Rankin won the Orion-sponsored Debut Dagger for the opening of a crime novel by a writer with no publishing contract at time of submission with her entry, Strange Fire.

Cleeves collected the Cartier Diamond Dagger for her "outstanding contribution to crime fiction" as nominated by CWA members, as announced earlier in the year. Also previously announced as the Dagger in the Library which went to Mari Hannah, as the author of the most enjoyed collection of work in libraries.

The gala dinner was sponsored by Pan Macmillan with crime author Robert Thorogood appearing as an after-dinner speaker.

Nominations from publishers are now open for the 2018 awards and the longlist will be announced at CrimeFest on 18th May next year.

The CWA is also launching a public competition for the best review of a title which has been shortlisted or won an award a Dagger. For more information, visit daggerreads.co.uk.