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Belinda Bauer's Blacklands (Corgi) has won the CWA Gold Dagger 2010 at this year's Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards 2010.
At an event at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel on Friday, Bauer said: "It was a thrill just to be shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for my first novel, let alone to win. Blacklands is a small, simple book and I'm still stunned and delighted that it seems to have struck a chord with so many people."
Simon Conway's A Loyal Spy (Hodder) won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, which recognises the thriller of the year. Conway said: "To have won The Steel Dagger against such stiff competition is both unexpected and deeply satisfying. My book's reluctant hero Jonah would probably celebrate by getting roaring drunk, beaten up, abducted, thrown out a chopper and inadvertantly saving several thousand lives. I may try some of these at home."
Ryan David Jahn's Acts of Violence (Macmillan New Writing) won the CWA John Creasy (New Blood) Dagger. The award, in memory of the CWA founder, is for a first book by a previously unpublished writer. Jahn said: "Simply being listed alongside such talents as the other finalists was an honour. To win, and be brought into the company of writers such as Walter Mosley and Minette Walters, who have gone on to such fine careers, is unbelievable -- an indescribable thrill."
Frederick Forsyth and George Pelecanos both were inducted into the Specsavers Hall of Fame.
The awards are held in partnership with the Crime Writers’ Association, Cactus TV and ITV3. The ceremony will be broadcast on ITV3 tomorrow. Amanda Ross, Cactus TV m.d., said: "With pretty much the entire collective force of Britain’s fictional constabulary under one roof, the Crime Thrillers once again proved to be suspense filled right up to the climax. The breadth and calibre of nominees proved that crime thriller really is the genre of the moment!"