Mike Gerrard — Behind BarsAward-winning travel and drinks writer Mike Gerrard takes readers on a centuries-long journey highlighting the most bizarre – and expensive – alcohol-related crimes all while revealing the inside worl...
Peter Lovesey — Against the GrainA brand new Peter Diamond mystery! When his former deputy, Julie, invites Detective Peter Diamond and his partner Paloma to spend a week at her home in the depths of rural Somerset, Diamond is horrifi...
IS Berry — The Peacock and the SparrowBEST FIRST NOVEL WINNER: Edgar Awards – International Thriller Writers Awards – Barry Awards A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker – NPR – The Diplomatic Courier During the A...
Chris Lloyd — Banquet of BeggarsThe city’s first winter under Nazi Occupation. A time of rations, breadlines, and desperate hunger. When Detective Eddie Giral investigates the murder of a black marketeer he knows two things: firstly...
Nev Fountain — The Fan Who Knew Too MuchLaunching a new series, a podcaster and cult science fiction superfan stages a documentary to solve her friend’s murder, and a 40-year-old disappearance, in this riotous and fiendishly twisty mystery....
Anne Penketh – Murder at the ChateauReformed banker Pippa is living her best life in the idyllic town of Louennec in Brittany. Business at her new bakery is booming and she even has a new man. But life in France still has its perils . ....
Clare Grant – Winter of ShadowsIn the midwinter of 1862, a young woman is found dead by the river, her body marked by a sinister act of mutilation. The mysterious death spreads fear, for this is not the first corpse to be discovere...
Amy Myers — Murder at Tanton TowersEveryone told Cara Shelly that she was crazy to set up a cafe in the shadow of eccentric Kentish stately home Tanton Towers. But now, three years later, the forty-something single mother can’t b...
Alis Hawkins – The Skeleton ArmyWhy should the devil have all the best tunes? The Salvation Army has come prancing and singing from the slums of London to the poorest quarters of Oxford, but along with its red hot gospel preaching a...
Joy Ellis – The Colour of MysteryThree nice people. Three terrible crimes. What made them do these awful things? It’s the night shift worker who finds them. Huddled in a hospital store cupboard is elderly Edith Higgins. Knifed to dea...
Submitting for CWA Competitions: In at the KillThe deadline’s getting close! So here’s some last-minute advice for you on the practicalities of submitting. Please remember the rule: if you have any problems with your Debut Dagger submission, you m...
Notes on Word Count for CWA Writing CompetitionsDifferent competitions have different rules – and different levels of rigour in the way they apply them. For the Debut Dagger we are super-strict. We ask for entries not to exceed 3,000 words (1,500 w...
Debut Dagger Writing TipsHere are tips from recent newsletters compiled for you by Dea Parkin, the CWA’s Competitions Coordinator (and professional editor). If you’re at the stage where your entry is finished and you’re into...
Katherine Black — A Most Malicious MessengerMenacing texts lead to murder in an English village, in this unmissable, witty mystery by the Dagger Award–nominated author of A Most Unusual Demise. May Morrigan is in her bookshop one morning when s...
Faith Martin – Murder by CandlelightOne suspicious death. Two amateur sleuths. And an utterly impossible crime. The Cotswolds, 1924. At the Old Forge in the quiet village of Maybury-in-the-Marsh a cry of anguish rings out: lady of the h...
EC Bateman — Murder Most AntiqueWho knew a harmless town fair could be so polarising – or so deadly? When auctioneer Felicia Grant’s best friend, Stamford Mayor Cassandra Lane, talked her into helping with the town’s annual G...
Margery Allingham Short Story CompetitionA lot of readers are writers, too. Whether you’re a bestselling author or an aspiring wordsmith, if you have a short mystery in the works, the Margery Allingham Short Story Competition wants to...
Nicola Upson – Shot With CrimsonSeptember, 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Then a shocking act of violence reawakens...
February, 1918. In the small hours of a cold morning, a burglary in Limehouse has escalated into a sinister siege between a band of thieves and the authorities, and a police constable lies dead. Detec...
Jim Eldridge – Murder at the Tower of LondonLondon 1899. The dead body of a Yeoman Warder is discovered at the Tower of London inside a suit of armour belonging to Henry VIII. He had been run through with a sword. The Prince of Wales, fearing...
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