Crime pays for UK writers

The great and the good gathered in central London this week for the Crime Writers' Association awards and you couldn't move without rubbing shoulders with TV and film cops, robbers and rapists, their creators and publishers.

The key award, the CWA Gold Dagger, went to former Franciscan monk and barrister (honest!) William Brodrick, whose Whispered Name was hailed as a moving novel that stretches the parameters of the genre, intertwining past and present to throw new light on a previously neglected aspect of World War One and Brodrick paid tribute in his acceptance speech to the late Harry Patch, who was, until his death, earlier this year, the last surviving combatant from Paschedaele.

The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award went to John Hart for his southern gothic thriller The Lost Child, while the Newblood award was recieved by Johan Theorin, yet another Swedish crimemaster, for Echoes From The Dead, a finely written piece of intrigue. Theorin graciously accepted the award from what he said was the crime captial of the world (...we think he meant in terms of writing...but you never know...), laughingly adding, that the next thing you know they'll choose a Swede to manage the English national football team (as if!)

Writers inducted into the lengendary CWA Hall of Fame quite rightly included the fabulous Val Mcdermid, whose most recent oeuvre is The Fever Of The Bone, Ian Rankin (Doors Open), Lynda La Plante (Silent Scream), who valiantly used the occasion to beseech the industry to support creative writing rather than the current glut of celeb biogs, and finally Colin Dexter (The Remorseful Day), who picked up his gong to a genuinely rapturous standing ovation, and who, if there was any justice in the world, would be on the National Treasure registry! Someone give this hero a knighthood for creating one of the most memorable and saleable literary characters of the last 50 years.

You can find all these heroes and villains--and more--in our superlative crime and thriller section.