© Dana Rossini Photography
Newcomer Gillian Flynn has won the 2007 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, for the best thriller. She was presented with her Dagger and a cheque for £2000 prize money by Corinne Turner, Managing Director of sponsor Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. Gillian Flynn also won the New Blood Dagger and was shortlisted for the Duncan Lawrie Dagger.
This year, the CWA and Duncan Lawrie Dagger Awards were presented at a black tie dinner at the elegant Four Seasons Hotel on Park Lane in London, in the presence of the guest of honour Bob Marshall-Andrews, QC, MP. The event began with a drinks reception at 6:30pm, followed by dinner in the ballroom at 7:45pm, before the winners were announced.
Out of the many exciting submissions received this year, from established names and newcomers alike, the judges were particularly pleased to see some powerful fresh explorations of the genre. Themes ran from present day spies and terrorism to a focus on psychological edge, and we read explosive storylines alongside those with harrowing personal repercussions for the protagonists. The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger judges are looking for the best in any of these fields.
Gillian Flynn comes from Kansas City, the daughter of a Film Professor and a reading teacher. Given this background, it’s perhaps not surprising that she has ended up as chief TV critic for Entertainment Weekly, and that she covered films for the same magazine prior to that. This has led to her meeting a variety of stars, and visiting film sets. However, she has also had some less glamorous journalistic jobs, such as working for the trade journal Workforce. She’s a graduate of the University of Kansas, and has a Master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. She first acquired a love of mystery novels by reading Agatha Christie. Gillian Flynn lives in Chicago, where she is writing her second novel.
When two girls, aged nine and ten are abducted and killed in Wind Gap, Missouri, Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to investigate and report on the crimes. Camille is the daughter of one of the richest families in town. Haunted by a childhood tragedy and long estranged from her mother, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's Victorian mansion, reacquainting herself with her mother and the half-sister she barely knows, a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town and surrounds herself with a group of vampish teenage girls.
As Camille struggles to remain detached from the evidence, her relationship with her neurotic, hypochondriac mother threatens to topple her hard-won mental stability. Working alongside the police chief and a special agent from out of town, Camille tries to uncover the mystery of who killed these little girls and why. But there are deeper psychological puzzles: Why does Camille identify so strongly with the dead girls? And how is this connected to the death of another sister years earlier?
Judges’ comments:
‘A very good debut, atmospheric and creepy, with a complex and convincingly drawn female protagonist. The claustrophobia of small-town America in the south is portrayed exceptionally well in this dark psychological thriller.’
The other shortlisted authors are listed below. See the shortlists page for more information about them.
Alex Berenson - The Faithful Spy - Random House
Harlan Coben - The Woods - Orion
RJ Ellory - City of Lies - Orion
Michael Marshall - The Intruders - HarperCollins
Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry - Little, Brown
Karin Slaughter - Triptych - Random House
Corinne Turner (Non-Judging Chair) - Managing Director, Ian Fleming Publications
Seraphina Granelli - head of retail with Millivres Prowler, Europe’s biggest gay and lesbian publisher and retailer, and former manager of Waterstone’s, Piccadilly
Michael Jecks - founder member of Medieval Murderers, author of the Templar series, former Chair of the CWA.
Mike Stotter - editor of Shots e-zine, award-winning children’s author
Zoë Watkins - Publishing Manager of Ian Fleming Publications
Gordon Wise - former bookseller and publisher with Pan Macmillan and John Murray, now a literary agent