Martina Cole Wins CWA Diamond Dagger Award!!

Martina Cole is the recipient of the highest honour in British crime writing, the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger.

The long-reigning Queen of Crime Drama is a publishing powerhouse. Martina has written 25 novels, all published by Headline, seventeen of which reached No.1 and her books have collectively spent over 4 years in the bestseller charts. Total sales stand at over 17 million copies, making her Britain’s bestselling female crime writer and with The Faithless she became the first British female adult audience novelist to break the £50 million sales mark since Nielsen Bookscan records began.  Her books have been translated into 31 languages and adapted for multiple stage plays and television series. 

Martina’s own story is as remarkable as any bestseller plot. Martina grew up on an Essex council estate and Ronnie and Reggie Kray once visited her family’s home when she was a child.

The youngest of five children in a large, poor, Irish Catholic family, she attended a convent school, where her struggle against authority started; this culminated in two expulsions. She finished school at 15 with no qualifications; was married at 16, divorced at 17 and pregnant at 18. A single mum, she struggled to bring up her son, Chris, taking on waitressing jobs.

Aged 21, she lost both her parents and started to write her iconic debut novel, Dangerous Lady, but it wasn’t until she was 30 that she gave up her job and decided to devote herself seriously to writing and finished the manuscript. Dangerous Lady caused a sensation when it was published in 1992 – and the rest is history.

Martina is a passionate advocate for prisoner rehabilitation and visits prisons to give writing classes. She often quips to her classes: ‘there’s one thing you’ve got that all writers want – time’. It’s therefore no surprise her books are the most requested in Her Majesty’s prison libraries, and the most stolen from bookshops.

The Diamond Dagger award recognises authors whose crime-writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to crime fiction writing.

The CWA Diamond Dagger is selected from nominations provided by CWA members. Martina Cole joins icons of the genre who have been recognised with the accolade, including Ruth Rendell, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Ian Rankin, PD James, Colin Dexter, Reginald Hill, Lindsey Davies, Peter Lovesey, and John Le Carré.

Martina said: “It means so much to me to be receiving this prestigious award from my peers at the CWA. I can’t believe it’s nearly thirty years since Dangerous Lady was published - some people dismissed me as an Essex girl and a one-book wonder – but as one of my favourite songs goes: ‘I’m still here’!”

Linda Stratmann, Chair of the CWA, said: “We are delighted to award the Diamond Dagger to a crime-writing legend.”

Maxim Jakubowski, Hon CWA Vice Chair, said: “A much-overdue reward for a major crime author who has often been badly overlooked by the critical establishment. Martina has single-handedly created a new crime genre and brought so many new readers on board, and has always been a vocal supporter of her fellow writers in word and deed.”

Restoring the glory of the short story!! CWA Anthology!

Flame Tree to publish Crime Writers’ Association anthology

Flame Tree Publishing have agreed a deal with the Crime Writers’ Association to publish the latest anthology of stories by CWA members, to be edited by Martin Edwards. Vintage Crimes will be a CWA anthology with a difference, celebrating members’ work over the years. The book will gather stories which members have contributed to CWA anthologies from the mid-1950s until the twenty-first century. Publication is scheduled for summer 2020.

Martin Edwards

“There are many gems of crime writing in the CWA archives,” Martin Edwards commented. “This book will contain stories by great names of the past, great names of the present together with a few hidden treasures by less familiar writers.”

Nick Wells, Publisher at Flame Tree Publishing said "We're absolutely thrilled to work with the CWA and Martin Edwards, setting out a path to bring back the best writing by the best writers in crime from the past 70 years at the CWA. We aim to restore the glory of the short story and inspire the next generation of mystery writers, readers, reviewers and bloggers."

The first CWA anthology, Butcher’s Dozen, appeared in 1956, and was co-edited by Julian Symons, Michael Gilbert, and Josephine Bell. The anthology has been edited by Martin Edwards since 1996, and has yielded many award-winning and nominated stories in the UK and overseas.

CWA's Margery Allingham Short Story Competition!

CWA’s Margery Allingham Short Story Competition to Continue....

The Margery Allingham Society has agreed with the Crime Writers’ Association that the popular short mystery competition will run for at least another five years, until 2024. The Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author whose well-known hero is Albert Campion, works with the CWA to operate and fund the writing competition that opens for entries in the autumn on the CWA’s website and closes every February.

Each year the competition attracts many entries, and the winners are announced at CrimeFest, the international crime writing convention, in May. The short story can be up to a generous 3,500 words long and must echo Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery.

This year the winner was Ray Bazowski, with ‘A Perfect Murderer’. Ray wins £500 and two passes to CrimeFest for 2020. Ray says: ‘Aspiring writers are routinely told to write what they know. Such advice is less plausible for writers of murder mysteries, especially those who take the point-of-view of murderers, or at least I hope so. In my case, what knowledge I have of the subject is speculative, and entirely incidental to my regular job of teaching politics at York University in Toronto.’ Ray is considering writing a novel next.

Runner-up with ‘Decluttering’ was Rosie de Vekey, a teacher who lives with her family in east London.  As she has a passion for acting, she came to writing through plays and has written a number of pieces for Network Theatre, Waterloo. As a teacher and mum, she often writes children's fiction too. Decluttering is one of a collection of stories Rosie has written, set in the near future, on aspects of mental health.

Next year’s competition will emphasise the definition of mystery by Margery Allingham with more points allocated to how well the story matches it, and, just to reinforce the point, it will be renamed the Margery Allingham Short Mystery competition.

Barry Pike, Chair of the Margery Allingham Society, says: ‘We’re very happy to be able to continue our co-sponsorship, along with the CWA, of our short mystery competition for another five years.’

Linda Stratmann, Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, says: ‘We are delighted that the CWA’s very rewarding association with the Margery Allingham Society is going to continue. 

We congratulate Ray and Rosie and look forward to helping other talented mystery writers with their careers in the years to come.’

Note to Editors

Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery is as follows:

‘The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.’

Margery’s best known crime novels include The Tiger in the Smoke and The Crime at Black Dudley, which first introduced Albert Campion (later winningly played by actor Peter Davison in the TV series) to readers.

The Margery Allingham Society was founded in 1988 to celebrate the life and works of Margery Allingham, one of the four great Queens of Crime from the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction, largely seen as the period in the twentieth century between the world wars. https://margeryallingham.org.uk/

The competition is read by authorities appointed by the Margery Allingham Society and the CWA, and is judged by an expert panel from the Society. Entry costs £12.