2020 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Longlist

Posted on by

The longlist for the 2020 Theakston old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year has been announced.

The prize was created to celebrate the very best in crime fiction and is open to UK and Irish crime authors whose novels were published in paperback during the eligibility period.

The administrators received a record number of submissions, and the longlist of 18 titles includes 10 by women, four former winners (Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, Tony Hill, and Lee Child), and a Booker Prize contender (Oyinkan Braithwaite).

The public are now invited to vote for a shortlist of six titles on www.harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com, which will be announced on June 8.

The Longlist in Full:

  • My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic Books)
  • Fallen Angel by Chris Brookmyre (Little, Brown Book Group, Abacus)
  • Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver (Orenda Books)
  • Cruel Acts by Jane Casey (HarperCollins, Harper Fiction)
  • Blue Moon by Lee Child (Transworld, Bantam)
  • The Long Call by Ann Cleeves (Pan Macmillan, Macmillan/Pan)
  • Red Snow by Will Dean (Oneworld, Point Blank)
  • Platform Seven by Louise Doughty (Faber & Faber)
  • Worst Case Scenario by Helen Fitzgerald (Orenda Books)
  • The Lost Man by Jane Harper (Little, Brown Book Group, Little, Brown)
  • Joe Country by Mick Herron (John Murray Press)
  • How the Dead Speak by Val McDermid (Little, Brown Book Group, Little, Brown)
  • The Chain by Adrian McKinty (Orion Publishing Group, Orion Fiction)
  • Conviction by Denise Mina (VINTAGE, Harvill Secker)
  • Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee (VINTAGE, Harvill Secker)
  • The Whisper Man by Alex North (Penguin Random House, Michael Joseph)
  • Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Headline Publishing Group, Wildfire)
  • Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce (Pan Macmillan, Mantle/Pan)

The winner is ordinarily announced at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, hosted in Harrogate each July, however, the 2020 event has been cancelled because of he COVID-19 epidemic. This year, the winner will be revealed at a virtual awards ceremony on July 31, and receive £3,000, and a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by Theakston Old Peculier.

Discover more from File 770

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

One thought on “2020 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Longlist”

  1. That’s an interesting press release; a beer is going to provide a custom beer barrel? (AFAICT, the firm’s name is still just Theakston, even if the award is named after the famous beer.) I’ll be watching for this; the only recent-past winner I found in the library (Brookmyre’s Black Widow) was very good.

Comments are closed.