And the Dagger Award Winners are….(UPDATED)

As phoned in by one of my faithful spies:

Macallan Gold Dagger: Sara Paretsky, BLACKLIST (Hamish Hamilton)

Silver Dagger: John Harvey, FLESH AND BLOOD (Heinemann)

Dagger in the Library: Alexander McCall Smith

Debut Dagger: Ellen Grubb, THE DOLL-MAKERS

Short Story Dagger: Jeffery Deaver, “The Weekender” (from TWISTED, Hodder & Stoughton)

John Creasey Memorial Dagger: Mark Mills, AMAGANSETT (HarperCollins)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: Jeffery Deaver, GARDEN OF BEASTS (Hodder & Stoughton)

Non-Fiction Dagger: John Dickie, COSA NOSTRA (Hodder & Stoughton)  and Sarah Wise, THE ITALIAN BOY (Jonathan Cape)

People’s Choice: Reginald Hill, GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT (HarperCollins)

I’m tempted to put on a phoney accent and say “what an interesting list of winners” but never mind. I’ll stick to facts and speculation instead. Commentary after the jump.

First, the Gold/Silver winners. If you’re Laura Wilson and Mo Hayder, you might well be shaking your collective heads at this point. Two nominations, no wins? Curious, indeed. Having said that, as I looked through the nomination lists earlier this morning to do my “Who Wins and Why” post, I had a weird premonition that the winner would not be a Brit. And since the only non-Brits included were James Nichol (Canadian) and Paretsky, the new prediction was bloody easy to make. I do wonder how it’s going over at the moment and how people will react to this over the next little while.

John Harvey winning the Silver isn’t very surprising at all. Here’s a man barely rewarded during his career as one of the UK’s best crime writers going, and now he has to some degree. Good on him. Maybe I should actually read the book and see if I’ll like it…

As for the Creasey: considering this was essentially signed, sealed and delivered months ago, there shouldn’t be any surprise about Mark Mills actually winning. Would have been funny to see someone get cold feet, but it wasn’t about to happen. And besides, it’s an excellent book: why shouldn’t it be rewarded?

And speaking of unsurprising rewards, considering Alexander McCall Smith’s astounding success, he would–and should–be the one recognized by libraries and their customers.

The two big winners of the night were Jeffery Deaver and his publisher, Hodder & Stoughton. They are probably going on a serious binge at the moment to celebrate their triumphs. Seriously, I can’t really argue with either of Deaver’s wins. He’s really what the Steel Dagger should have been last year and the year before, and he’s an excellent short story writer as well (though I’d had some hopes for Val’s story, mostly because of how different she tackled a subject that I myself had done in story format.)

I wonder when was the last time an award had two winners? I certainly can’t recall, so it’s a bit of a shock that the Non-Fiction Dagger jury was so deadlocked. OTOH, good for them to let there be two winners and be done with it.

As for the Debut Dagger, I’ve little to say at this point–there were a couple of folks I was rooting for, but in any case, best wishes to Ms. Grubb on what looks to be a forthcoming publishing deal.

And finally, the People’s Choice Award was a very nice one indeed. Though I’d just been crossing my fingers James Patterson wouldn’t get it, because somehow, I doubt that would have gone over too well in the rarefied circles of the CWA. And also, because there need really not be any more monkey jokes.

So thoughts, speculation, comments? All for the backblogs….