The Crime Writing Association Daggers 2021 Winners

The premier prizes for crime writing and thrillers, the coveted Crime Writing Association Daggers Awards celebrate the very best talent in the field.

This year’s winners represent a breadth of talent, taking in a generous range of the very finest fiction and non-fiction; from former Waterstones Thriller of the Month We Begin at the End - which scoops the coveted Gold Award - to a chilling novel of a lighthouse murder and the first in a brilliant new series set in 1950’s Bombay.

The CWA Gold Dagger Winner 2021

Awarded to the author of the best crime novel of the year, with previous recipients including John le Carré, Reginald Hill and Ruth Rendell, the CWA Gold Dagger for 2021 goes to Chris Whitaker for his edge-of-the-seat thriller We Begin at the End.

The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Winner

The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger is awarded to the best thriller of the year. Praised by the CWA judges as ‘an urgent, poignant and terrifying thriller’, 2021’s winner is Michael Robotham’s When She Was Good.

The CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Winner

Written while the author juggled her career as a flight attendant with caring for a young family, the winner of the award for a debut crime novel is Eva Björg Ægisdóttir for The Creak on the Stairs, an unforgettable novel set in an isolated lighthouse.

The CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Winner

Lauded by the CWA judges as a ‘wildly entertaining eco-thriller’, The Disaster Tourist, written by South Korean author Yun Ko-eun and translated by Lizzie Buehler, wins the award for translated fiction.

The CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger Winner

Vaseem Khan wins the award for historical fiction with Midnight at Malabar House, the first in a vividly imagined new series, set in Bombay on the cusp of the 1950s.

The CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction Winner

A huge hit with our booksellers, forensic pathologist Sue Black’s Written in Bone - celebrated as a ‘humane, wise book’ by the CWA judges - wins the award for non-fiction.