Chris Bissette

CWA Daggers Longlists 2025

The TBR simply never gets any shorter, does it? Earlier this week the Crime Writersā€™ Association announced the longlists for the Daggers. Last year I read a couple of the shortlists and thoroughly enjoyed them, and I plan to dig into these lists this year. Itā€™s unlikely Iā€™ll make a serious attempt to read the longlists, since Iā€™m still meant to be reading the International Booker Longlist and the Womenā€™s Prize Longlist and havenā€™t made a meaningful start on either of them, but Iā€™m writing this post just so that theyā€™re in my mind. I also figured I should pull out some of the books from these lists that Iā€™m most interested in. Some of the categories donā€™t particularly interest me all that much (Iā€™m looking at you, spy thrillers), so Iā€™m just going to write about the ones that I might actually want to read.

Since Iā€™m trying (and, currently, failing) to read more translated fiction this year, letā€™s start with the Dagger For Crime Fiction in Translation.

Dagger For Crime Fiction in Translation Longlist

The only one of these books Iā€™ve previously heard of is Asako Yuzikiā€™s Butter, which has been hugely popular on BookTok. I also havenā€™t really been particularly drawn to it, if Iā€™m being honest. Similarly I read Kotoro Isakaā€™s The Mantis when that was on the shortlists last year and wasnā€™t really a fan, so I likely wonā€™t bother reading Hotel Lucky Seven. Anne Mette Hancockā€™s Ruthless also appears to be the third in a series, and frankly Iā€™m just not going to prioritise reading a series just to read one book on a longlist, no matter how great they might be.

Of these books, the ones that appeal to me the most are Claire Berestā€™s Artifice, which promises to be the sort of literary thriller Iā€™m always looking for and rarely find; The Lover Of No Fixed Abode blends fast-burn romance with art heists, which definitely appeals; I canā€™t quite pin down what exactly appeals to me about The Silver Bone other than thinking that it sounds good; and The Simple Art of Killing A Woman appeals based on the strength of the title alone.

I also realised that I never read last yearā€™s Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger winner, Maud Venturaā€™s My Husband, so Iā€™m adding that to my TBR as well.

Short Story Dagger

I love short fiction so much, and I desperately want to read good crime shorts, but what I discovered last year is that unlike SF/F and horror, most of the good crime short fiction happens in anthologies rather than magazines. And thatā€™s clearly the case with this longlist, as all but one of the short stories listed are from either Midsummer Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards, or Murder In Harrogate edited by Vaseem Khan. The other one, Elly Griffithsā€™ ā€˜The Valley of the Queensā€™, comes from The Man In Black and Other Stories, which is Griffithsā€™ own collection.

Iā€™m going to start with that collection.

ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger

I immediately want to read A Curtain Twitcherā€™s Book of Murder based purely on the title. Iā€™m always drawn to books about grief and books that do interesting things with the idea of memory, so The Grief Doctor also goes straight to the top of my list. Knife River sounds like a classic ā€˜small town with big problemsā€™ novel, and I love that sort of thing. And An Honest Living sounds like a great slice of modern noir.

On the flipside, I have no desire to read Miss Austen Investigates. Thereā€™s something about books that use real people as their protagonists, or that take public domain works and revisit them, that feels a little too much like paying to read fanfic to me. Iā€™m sure this is good, since itā€™s been nominated for the Dagger, but itā€™s simply not for me.

Twisted Dagger

This is a new category this year, and one I was excited about when they announced it. This is where the dark, twisty thrillers live, including ā€œpsychological thrillers (set in any period), suspense thrillers, and domestic noirā€. I sincerely hope that I love a lot of the books on this list.

Itā€™s a bit of a tradition for me at this point to pick at least one book from a longlist that I read based on the title alone without knowing anything else about it, and in this case thatā€™s Nightwatching. On the other hand, the title Missing White Woman really puts me off, though the blurb actually makes me want to read it. And Look In The Mirror sounds like the sort of book Iā€™d pick up in the airport and read on the plane, either falling in love with it immediately or thinking it was the worst trash ever with no middle ground. And really, thatā€™s the fun of reading commercial thrillers - it could always go both ways.

Whodunnit Dagger

I find good whodunnits hard to come by, if only because the question they all need to answer is, ā€œwhy read this when you could read Agatha Christie?ā€ But I still go into them all hopefully, and every now and then I find one I love. Hereā€™s the longlist.

Iā€™m deeply disappointed that none of these titles grab hold of me and say READ ME. The closest one is A Good Place To Hide A Body, but even that is a little bitā€¦eh. Still, there are some books here I definitely want to read. Iā€™ll pick up The Spy Coast purely because Iā€™ve never read any Tess Gerritsen and I feel like I should, although I donā€™t often get on with spy thrillers (hence skipping the Fleming Dagger). The Case of the Singer and the Showgirl sounds interesting, with its time-slip angle, though from the blurb I canā€™t figure out if this is the second in a series or not, so Iā€™ll have to look into that before I pick it up. The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby sounds like a fun generational crime novel, which Iā€™m very interested in. And The Mystery Of The Crooked Man sounds like a fun cosy crime, albeit one with one of the most generic titles Iā€™ve ever encountered.

There are, unfortunately, a lot of sequels in this list, so the likelihood of me reading any of them is very slim.

Gold Dagger

In some ways this list is easier to get through, since it duplicates some nominees from other lists as a facet of its status as a de facto ā€œBest Crime Novelā€ category. Hereā€™s the list:

In addition to some of the books here being duplicates from the other lists, I have already sort of read one of them. I picked up Kristen Perrinā€™s How To Solve Your Own Murder last year and unfortunately disliked it enough to DNF it, so that wonā€™t be getting a second chance.

I already picked Nightwatching as my favourite title once, so if Iā€™m picking another one from this list it has to be I Died at Fallow Hall. Despite deliberately not bothering to look at the Historical Dagger list because historical thrillers often donā€™t do anything for me, A Divine Furt does sound really good. Guide Me Home also sounds great but is, alas, the third in a trilogy.

Which brings me to the end of the Daggers that Iā€™m interested in. Even if I just read the books that stand out to me the most here Iā€™m looking at trying to get through 22 novels, and I donā€™t know if my TBR - or my wallet - will withstand that, frankly. But theyā€™re there for me to dip into, especially if I manage to get a holiday this year (I read a ton of crime when I have a week in which Iā€™m expected to do nothing other than sit in the sun, for some reason).

So weā€™ll see how I get on. I will say that the lists seem less interesting than they were last year. Iā€™ve said before that Iā€™m not particularly clued-in to whatā€™s going on in contemporary crime - hence wanting to keep an eye on these awards and the Theakstonā€™s - so I donā€™t know if thatā€™s simply a result of a weaker publishing year for the genre in general, or that the voters picked books I donā€™t really care for this year. Iā€™m especially disappointed in the short fiction longlist, which draws from two books, one of which is made up exclusively of CWA members. But thatā€™s just the nature of industry awards, I suppose.

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