Crime Fiction Awards 2022 News

2022 ITW THRILLER AWARDS NOMINEES

The International Thriller Writers have announced the finalists for the 2022 Thriller Awards.

The winners will be revealed at ThrillerFest XVII on Saturday, June 4 in New York City.

BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL

  • Megan Abbott – THE TURNOUT (Penguin/Putnam)
  • S. A. Cosby – RAZORBLADE TEARS (Flatiron Books)
  • Alice Feeney – ROCK PAPER SCISSORS (Flatiron Books)
  • Rachel Howzell Hall – THESE TOXIC THINGS (Thomas & Mercer)
  • Alma Katsu – RED WIDOW (Penguin/Putnam)
  • Eric Rickstad – I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM (Blackstone Publishing)

BEST AUDIOBOOK

  • S. A. Cosby – RAZORBLADE TEARS (Macmillan) — Narrated by Adam Lazarre-White
  • Samantha Downing – SLEEPING DOG LIE (Audible Originals) — Narrated by Melanie Nicholls-King and Lindsey Dorcus
  • Rachel Howzell Hall – HOW IT ENDS (Audible Originals) — Narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt
  • Gregg Hurwitz – PRODIGAL SON (Macmillan) — Narrated by Scott Brick
  • Nadine Matheson – THE JIGSAW MAN (HarperCollins) — Narrated by Davine Henry

BEST FIRST NOVEL

  • Abigail Dean – GIRL A (HarperCollins)
  • Eloísa Díaz – REPENTANCE (Agora Books)
  • Amanda Jayatissa – MY SWEET GIRL (Berkley)
  • David McCloskey – DAMASCUS STATION (W.W. Norton & Company)
  • Eric Redman – BONES OF HILO (Crooked Lane Books)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL

  • Joy Castro – FLIGHT RISK (Lake Union)
  • Aaron Philip Clark – UNDER COLOR OF LAW (Thomas & Mercer)
  • C. J. Cooke – THE LIGHTHOUSE WITCHES (Berkley)
  • Jess Lourey – BLOODLINE (Thomas & Mercer)
  • Terry Roberts – MY MISTRESS’ EYES ARE RAVEN BLACK (Turner Publishing Company)

BEST SHORT STORY

  • S.A. Cosby – “Not My Cross to Bear” (Down & Out Books)
  • William Burton McCormick – “Demon in the Depths” (Ellery Queen’s
  • Mystery Magazine)
  • Scott Loring Sanders – “The Lemonade Stand” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine)
  • Jeff Soloway – “The Interpreter and the Killer” (Ellery Queen’s
  • Mystery Magazine)
  • John Wimer – “Bad Chemistry” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine)

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

  • Maureen Johnson – THE BOX IN THE WOODS (HarperCollins)
  • Nova McBee – CALCULATED (Wolfpack Publishing LLC)
  • Ginny Myers Sain – DARK AND SHALLOW LIES (Penguin Young Readers)
  • Courtney Summers – THE PROJECT (Wednesday Books)
  • Krystal Sutherland – HOUSE OF HOLLOW (Penguin Young Readers)

BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL

  • Greig Beck – THE DARK SIDE: ALEX HUNTER 9 (Pan Macmillan)
  • John Connell – WHERE THE WICKED TREAD (John Connell)
  • Wendy Dranfield – LITTLE GIRL TAKEN (Bookouture)
  • E.J. Findorff – BLOOD PARISH (E.J. Findorff)
  • S. E. Green – MOTHER MAY I (S. E. Green)
  • Andrew Kaplan – BLUE MADAGASCAR (Andrew Kaplan)
  • Karin Nordin – LAST ONE ALIVE (HarperCollins)

WOLFE PACK

The winners of the 2021 Nero Award and Black Orchid Novella Award were announced December 5. These crime fiction awards are given out by a Nero Wolfe fan group called The Wolfe Pack.

2021 NERO AWARD

The Nero Award is presented each year to an author for the best American Mystery written in the tradition of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories.

  • Stephen Spotswood for Fortune Favors the Dead (Doubleday).

2021 BLACK ORCHID NOVELLA AWARD

The Black Orchid Novella Award is presented jointly by The Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine to celebrate the novella format popularized by Rex Stout.

  • Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson for “The Man Who Went Down Under.” The novella will be published in the July 2022 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

Honorable mentions for the Black Orchid Novella Award went to:

  • “Bad Apples” by Kathleen Marple Kalb (writing as Nikki Knight)
  • “The Inside Shake” by Jason Koontz
  • “House of Tigers” by William Burton McCormick
  • “The Mystery of the Missing Woman” by Regina M. Sestak 
  • “Lovely As” by Jacqueline Vick

CWA DIAMOND DAGGER

The Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger Award for 2022 goes to CJ Sansom.

Sansom is the creator of the bestselling Shardlake series, set in the reign of Henry VIII and following the sixteenth-century lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak.

[Thanks to Cora Buhlert and Todd Mason for these stories.]

Crime Fiction Awards Updates

Here is another trio of crime fiction awards whose winners were revealed during December 2020.

WOLFE PACK

The winners of the  2020 Nero and Black Orchid Novella Awards were announced December 5. This is a crime fiction award given out by a Nero Wolfe fan group called The Wolfe Pack.

2020 NERO AWARD

The Nero Award is presented each year to an author for the best American Mystery written in the tradition of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories.

  • David Baldacci for One Good Deed (Hatchette Book Group, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing).

2020 BLACK ORCHID NOVELLA AWARD

The Black Orchid Novella Award is presented jointly by The Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine to celebrate the novella format popularized by Rex Stout.

  • Tom Larsen for El Cuerpo en el Barril (The Body in the Barrel) to be published in the July 2021 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

THE REPRINT OF THE YEAR AWARD

A group of crime fiction bloggers picked the 2020 winner of the Reprint of the Year Award:

  • The Red Right Hand by Joel Townsley Rodgers (Otto Penzler Presents American Mystery Classics)

DEUTSCHER KRIMIPREIS 2020

The German crime fiction award Deutscher Krimipreis 2020 winners and runners up have been announced. Thanks to Cora Buhlert for the title translations.

National (i.e. for German books):

Winner: Paradise City by Zoe Beck, a thriller set in a dystopian future and therefore also SF

2nd place: Morduntersuchungskommission. Der Fall Melchior Nikoleit (Homicide Department: The Melchior Nikoleit Case) by Max Annas

3rd place: Verdammte Liebe Amsterdam (Damned Love Amsterdam) by Frank Göhre

International

Winner: Götter und Tiere (Gods and Beasts) by Denise Mina

2nd place: Hope Hill Drive by Garry Disher

3rd Place: Aufzeichnungen eines Serienmörders (Memoir of a Murderer) by Young-ha Kim

[Thanks to Cora Buhlert for the stories.]