Irish Author wins Crime Novel of the Year Award!

Irish novelist and newspaper columnist Gene Kerrigan was last night announced as the winner of the Crime Writers' Association's (CWA) Gold Dagger for crime novel of the year in the UK for his fourth novel, 'The Rage'. 'The Rage' is set in the backstreets of Dublin, and intertwines the stories of professional thief Vincent Naylor, just out of jail and planning a new robbery, and detective Bob Tidey, investigating the murder of a banker.

According to a report in the Guardian newpaper, judges described 'The Rage' as 'a complex noir thriller that's multi-layered and solidly written, with great style and pace'.

The shortlist was as follows:

Vengeance in Mind by N.J. Cooper (Simon & Schuster)
The Flight by M.R. Hall (Mantle)
The Rage by Gene Kerrigan (Vintage)
Bereft by Chris Womersley (Quercus)
 

The longlist had included 'A Land More Kind than Home' by Wiley Cash, 'Grandad, There’s a Head on the Beach' by Colin Cotterill, 'Turn of Mind' by Alice LaPlante, and 'The Child Who' by Simon Lelic. As of yet I have only read the book by Cotterill, which I enjoyed thoroughly and wrote about previously here on the blog.

Winners in other categories were Charles Cumming, who won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller for his novel 'A Foreign Country', and American author Wiley Cash who won The CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger Award for 'A Land More Kind Than Home'.