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Final CrimeFest Awards shortlist features Bella Mackie, Lynda La Plante and DG Coutinho
The final CrimeFest Awards shortlist has been revealed and features authors including Bella Mackie, Lynda La Plante and DG Coutinho, among others.
CrimeFest, one of Europe’s leading crime-writing conventions, began 17 years ago alongside the awards, which honour the best crime fiction and non-fiction books released in the UK in the past year.
This year will be the final awards as organisers, as CrimeFest comes to an end this year. The awards also feature the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award, which offers a £1,000 cash prize.
Adrian Muller, co-host of CrimeFest, said: "The Specsavers Debut Novel Award has become one of the most highly anticipated awards of the genre over the years, and we’d like to thank Specsavers for their ongoing support in celebrating new talent."
Other awards are the eDunnit Award, HRF Keating Award, Last Laugh Award, Best Crime Fiction Award for Children (8-12), Best Crime Novel for Young Adults (aged 12-16), and the Thalia Proctor Memorial Award for Best Adapted TV Crime Drama, the final of which celebrates dramas based on a book screened in 2024.
Eligible titles were collated from the Radio Times and CrimeFest readers established the shortlist and the winning title. The award is named in honour of Thalia, who worked with many crime writers in publishing and was a "much-loved and valued member" of the CrimeFest team.
Among the nominated authors are Bella Mackie, who is nominated twice for her book What a Way to Go, and DG Coutinho, who received the 2025 bursary for a crime-fiction writer of colour to attend and feature on a panel at the final CrimeFest for their first novel, a darkly comic thriller set in a toxic office culture.
Leading British crime-fiction reviewers and reviewers of fiction for children and young adults, alongside the members of the School Library Association (SLA), form the CrimeFest judging panels.
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The 2025 CrimeFest Award shortlists in full:
Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award
- Tom Baragwanath for Paper Cage (Baskerville)
- Tasha Coryell for Love Letters to a Serial Killer (Orion Fiction)
- CL Miller for The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder (Pan Macmillan)
- Akira Otani (and translator Sam Bett) for The Night of Baba Yaga (Faber)
- Tracy Sierra for Nightwatching (Viking)
- Claire Wilson for Five by Five (Michael Joseph)
eDunnit Award
- Martin Edwards for Hemlock Bay (Head of Zeus)
- Laurie R King for The Lantern’s Dance (Allison & Busby)
- Jean Hanff Korelitz for The Sequel (Faber)
- Bella Mackie for What a Way to Go (The Borough Press)
- Liz Moore for The God of the Woods (The Borough Press)
- Peter Swanson for A Talent for Murder (Faber)
HRF Keating Award
- Mark Aldridge for Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness (HarperCollins)
- Jem Bloomfield for Allusion in Detective Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan)
- Ashley Bowden for Female Detectives in Early Crime Fiction 1841-1920 (Independently published)
- Dan Coxon, Richard V Hirst for Writing the Murder: Essays on Crafting Crime Fiction (Dead Ink)
- Sara Lodge for The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Detective (Yale University Press)
- Lynda La Plante for Getting Away With Murder: My Unexpected Life on Page, Stage and Screen (Zaffre)
Last Laugh Award
- Cathy Ace for The Case of the Secretive Secretary (Four Tails Publishing Ltd)
- DG Coutinho for The Light and Shade of Ellen Swithin (Harvill Secker)
- Bella Mackie for What a Way to Go (The Borough Press)
- Orlando Murrin for Knife Skills for Beginners (Transworld)
- Mike Ripley for Mr Campion’s Christmas (Severn House)
- Antti Tuomainen (David Hackston, trans) for The Burning Stones (Orenda Books)
Best Crime Fiction Award for Children (8-12)
- Sufiya Ahmed for Rosie Raja: Undercover Codebreaker (Bloomsbury Education)
- Natasha Farrant for The Secret of Golden Island (Faber)
- AM Howell for Mysteries at Sea: The Hollywood Kidnap Case (Usborne Publishing)
- MG Leonard for Feather: The Twitchers (Walker Books)
- Beth Lincoln for The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues (Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
- Nicki Thornton for The Floating Witch Mystery (Faber)
Best Crime Novel for Young Adults (aged 12-16)
- HF Askwith for A Cruel Twist of Fate (Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
- Denise Brown for It All Started with a Lie (Hashtag Press)
- AJ Clack for Lie or Die (Firefly Press)
- Amie Jordan for All the Hidden Monsters (Chicken House)
- Kayvion Lewis for Heist Royale (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)
- Karen M McManus for Such Charming Liars (Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
Thalia Proctor Memorial for Best Adapted TV Crime Drama
- Bad Monkey based on the book by Carl Hiaasen (Apple TV+)
- Dalgliesh (Series 3) based on the Inspector Dalgliesh books by PD James (Channel 5)
- Lady in the Lake based on the book by Laura Lippman (Apple TV+)
- Moonflower Murders based on the book by Anthony Horowitz (BBC)
- Slow Horses (Series 4) based on the Slough House books by Mick Herron (Apple TV+)
- The Turkish Detective based on the Inspector Ikmen books by Barbara Nadel (BBC)
Muller added: “We are proud to be one of the few genre awards that recognise and celebrate children, and YA crime fiction. This category has really boomed in recent years. It’s a fitting legacy that over the years we’ve gifted thousands of free children’s and young adult books to inner city schools in Bristol as part of our outreach and charitable work. The genre is a fantastic gateway into reading, so the hope these books have inspired new generations of readers and writers.”
