The CWA Dagger nominees: comments and Sundry

The longwinded version got lost, so the bulletpoint version follows of the four main categories:

Gold/Silver Dagger: An interesting list. Especially because it skews more towards women than men. There are also a lot of veterans, like McDermid, Harvey, and Wilson, who have been around the CWA in some capacity or another and have been nominated before. Nichol’s the unknown, though I’ve heard of him for some time as he’s Canadian (a CBC radio journalist, and MIDNIGHT CAB got its start as a radio serial) and the book’s been out there since late 2002/early 2003. Paretsky as the token American nominee? Wouldn’t have been my immediate choice, but still, an interesting pick. That leaves Mo Hayder, who with TOKYO finally controlled her more gory, sensationalistic impulses and produced the book everyone thought she was capable of. Hence, she’s the favorite.

Creasey: well, there are four nominees, which is one better than last year. Surprised more New Blood types (John Connor’s PHOENIX, Richard Burke’s FROZEN, David Corbett’s THE DEVIL’S REDHEAD) didn’t make it on. Denise Hamilton wrote a good book, but it’s kind of stale-dated, being 3 years old. Not her fault, but even so. Catherine Shaw’s the longshot, being with a small publisher and having seriously low name recognition. I’ve heard good things about Sherez’s book (though admittedly the only reason I’d heard of him at all was because of his drinking habits) but in the end, just hand over that damned Dagger to Mark Mills, who with AMAGANSETT, pretty much wrote the prototype for a Creasey winner.

Steel: I’ll say this once and no more: stop putting Dan Fesperman in this category. It’s just not fair to try to compare his books to, say, Jeff Deaver’s. Totally different kettle of fish. Fesperman’s published by Knopf in the US. Edited by Sonny Mehta. Why this isn’t among the Gold Dagger nominees I’ll never know. Not that he’s going to come close to winning this year, being the defending champ. McKinty’s probably too “noir” for the category, and Hayder’s a better bet in the Gold Dagger. It’s probably a tossup between Deaver, who they’ll like for broadening his usual scope by going historical, and Finder, for producing the early-year bestseller. I’ll go with Deaver by a slight whisker.

Short Story: though the overall nominee list is good (be cool to see Mark Billingham take it for a very good story indeed) in the interest of full disclosure, I feel the list is somewhat incomplete. The PWG Brit Issue, after much negotiation and teeth-gnashing, was deemed ineligible for the small reason that the stories were published online. I’d really, really hoped this would not be the case, considering that the five original stories were of seriously good quality and would, I suspect, have produced a potential nominee. Obviously, I’ll never know, but I only wish the stories could have had the chance to be considered. Especially when Plots with Guns produced an Anthony nominee and one of the 20 stories included in the 2004 Best American Mystery Story anthology (along with 2 notable mentions.) So if this issue has to be the public sacrificial lamb, so be it. I have no doubt that excellent stories by even more excellent writers will be published online over the course of the next 12 months, and that as the public profile of online magazines increases, so too will the respect accorded them.

Having ranted, I must also state that my bone-picking is not with the actual committee members. All, especially Peter Lovesey (who chaired the committee) were extremely kind and supportive and were receptive to the idea of inclusion, but the final decision was made by the CWA Executive.