The CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award 2008

Judges’ comments: ‘Another outing for Ariana Franklin’s unique female protagonist, Adelia, an Italian doctor trained in the study of death; The Mistress of the Art of Death won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award last year. The Death Maze is a worth follow-up. It conjures up a tapestry of rivalry, passion and politics. Adelia’s charm never fails and the plot is as labyrinthine as the maze surrounding the tower where lives, and dies, Fair Rosamond, Henry II’s mistress, and the robust twelfth century atmosphere, where religion wields power as effectively as the political regime, is drawn with a masterly hand. ’

Synopsis: Since solving a particularly nasty case of child murder using her forensic skills, Adelia Aguilar is deemed too valuable to send back to the School of Medicine in Salerno. Instead, King Henry II has decided to keep her in England. This is bad news for Adelia – in twelfth-century England women doctors are regarded with great suspicion. So, with her illegitimate child, Adelia is forced to live and practise in the secrecy of Cambridgeshire’s fenland.

But at Henry’s court, terrible things are happening. Queen Eleanor is not only stirring up revolt against her husband, but rumour has it that she has also poisoned the King’s favourite mistress, Rosamund Clifford.

In a race against time to prove Eleanor’s innocence, Adelia is recruited to help. It isn’t easy. An assassin is at large and so is Queen Eleanor with an army of supporters. Adelia has never faced greater danger. The armies that might cause civil war lie behind her. The icy winds of a dreadful winter blow around her. And ahead she must brave the thorns of the impenetrable labyrinth that surrounds Fair Rosamund’s tower, and decipher the mystery of the dead woman who lies frozen within.

Ariana Franklin was born in Devon and, like her father, became a journalist. Having invaded Wales dressed in combat uniform with the Royal Marines for one of their military exercises, accompanied the Queen on a royal visit, missed her own twenty-first birthday party because she had to cover a murder, she married, almost inevitably, another journalist. At this point she decided that staying married was a good idea so she abandoned her career in national newspapers and has settled down in the country to bring up two daughters, study medieval history and write.

Website: www.arianafranklin.com

Judges’ comments: ‘Philip Kerr’s Berlin-based PI Bernie Gunther now arrives in 1950’s Argentina, together with a number of ex-Nazis, who believe him to be one of themselves. Revealing his actual persona, he is forced into investigating the disappearance of a young girl. The book switches between Argentina with its increasingly unpleasant echoes of Nazi Germany, and a cold case of a nasty murder Gunther failed to solve when a policeman in 1932’s Berlin, at the time of the rise of Hitler. It illuminates both periods in Kerr’s witty, ironic and laser-sharp style, with a memorable cast of Nazi war criminals, busy doing what they do best, the power-hungry Argentinians, including President Peron, and the cynical, worldly-wise Gunther with his more-than-passing resemblance to Chandler’s Philip Marlowe.’

Synopsis: Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal Bernie Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie’s final case as a homicide detective with the Berlin police. A case he had failed to solve.

Circumstances lead the chief of police in Buenos Aires to suppose that the murderer may be one of several thousand ex Nazis who have fetched up in Argentina since 1945. And, therefore, who better than Bernie Gunther to help him track that murderer down? Redolent with atmosphere, this novel ends up asking some highly provocative questions about the true extent of Argentina’s Nazi collaboration and anti-semitism under the Peróns.

Philip Kerr was born in Edinburgh and went on to study at the University of Birmingham. He has written three other Bernie Gunther books and a book for children, entitled Children of the Lamp. He lives in London and Cornwall.

Judges’ comments: ‘An exhilarating outing for Andrew Martin’s Steam Detective. Set in the sweltering summer of 1911, the book skilfully entwines political background, strike action and the threat of war, with the Steam Detective, accompanied by his strong-willed wife, investigating murder. The action swiftly moves from the main York railway station to a small, country branch line. The heat of the weather is matched with an increasingly convoluted plot that quickly gathers pace. Martin’s ability to capture the period atmosphere and the fascination of railway minutiae together with thoroughly believable characters, make this a compelling tale.’

Synopsis: Jim Stringer has 48 hours to uncover the truth in the fifth book in the widely celebrated 'Steam Detective' series.

It's the sweltering summer of 1911, and one Friday evening a special train rolls into York station. It carries a young aristocrat recently found guilty of murdering his father in the sleepy village of Adenwold. He is briefly entrusted into the custody of railway detective Jim Stringer, and he warns of another murder likely to happen in the same village, that of his brother, a reclusive intellectual. Jim and his wife Lydia take the train along the near deserted branch line to Adenwold. Here they encounter a host of likely suspects and the intended victim, as Jim has one weekend in which to stop a murder and unravel a conspiracy of international dimensions.

Andrew Martin, a former Spectator Young Writer of the Year, grew up in Yorkshire. After qualifying as a barrister he became a freelance journalist in which capacity he has tended to write about the north, class, trains, seaside towns and eccentric individuals rather than the doings of the famous, although he did once loop the loop in a biplane with Gary Numan. He has also learned to drive steam locomotives, albeit under very close supervision.

He has written for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday, The New Statesman and Granta.

Website: jimstringernovels.com

Judges’ comments: ‘Revelation is C J Sansom’s fourth book in his Matthew Shardlake series, all of which have appeared on the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award short list, which he won with Dark Fire. Revelation, with its dramatic examination of the effects of fanatical religious sects on Tudor society, a society in which politics and religion are inextricably intertwined and a man’s beliefs can amount to treason, has much to say to today’s society. Particularly as it presents the reader with a horrifying serial killer whose motives seem to be connected with the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation. Once again Sansom has produced a compelling murder mystery in which all the drama and complexities of the Tudor age are married with a fascinating cast of totally believable characters.’

Synopsis: Spring, 1543. King Henry VIII is wooing Lady Catherine Parr, whom he wants for his sixth wife. Archbishop Cranmer and the embattled Protestant faction at court are watching keenly, for Lady Catherine is known to have reformist sympathies.

Matthew Shardlake, meanwhile, is working on the case of a teenage boy who has been placed in the Bedlam insane asylum, before his terrifying religious mania leads to him being burned as a heretic. When an old friend is horrifically murdered Shardlake vows to bring the killer to justice. His search leads him to Cranmer and Catherine Parr and to the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation.

As London's Bishop Bonner prepares a purge of Protestants Shardlake, together with his assistant, Jack Barak, and his friend, Guy Malton, investigate a series of horrific murders which are already bringing frenzied talk of witchcraft and demonic possession for what else would the Tudor mind make of a serial killer . . .?

CJ Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a PhD in history. After working in a variety of jobs, he retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a full-time writer. He lives in Sussex. Sansom also won the 2005 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger for Dark Fire, and he was shortlisted for the 2007 Dagger in the Library. The Shardlake series is being adapated for TV by the BBC, with Kenneth Brannagh playing Shardlake.

Judges’ comments: ‘Andrew Taylor has twice won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award. Bleeding Heart Square is another gripping read and offers a decaying area of gentility in a city that is gripped by the depression of the thirties. The plot is set in motion by aristocratic Lydia Langstone deserting her abusive husband and seeking refuge in the Square. The book is a subtle exposition of the mysteries surrounding the Square together with Lydia’s personal development as she copes with both the mystery and her unfamiliar experience of poverty. The unsettled economic and political background of the times is skilfully evoked; the characters are memorable and the plot beautifully resolved.’

Synopsis: ‘If Philippa Penhow hadn’t gone to Bleeding Heart Square on that January day, you and perhaps everyone else might have lived happily ever after...’

It’s 1934, and the decaying London cul-de-sac of Bleeding Heart Square is an unlikely place of refuge for aristocratic Lydia Langstone. But as she flees her abusive marriage there is only one person she can turn to - the genteelly derelict Captain Ingleby-Lewis, currently lodging at no.7.

However, unknown to Lydia, a dark mystery haunts 7 Bleeding Heart Square. What happened to Miss Penhow, the middle-aged spinster who owns the house and who vanished four years earlier? Why is a seedy plain-clothes policeman obsessively watching the square? What is making struggling journalist Rory Wentwood so desperate to contact Miss Penhow?

And why are parcels of rotting hearts being sent to Joseph Serridge, the last person to see Miss Penhow alive...?

Legend has it the Devil once danced in Bleeding Heart Square - but is there now a new and sinister presence lurking in its shadows?

Andrew Taylor grew up in the Fen country of East Anglia and was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and University College London. He then worked as a boatbuilder, wages clerk, teacher, librarian, labourer and freelance publisher's editor. Since 1981, he has been a full-time writer.

He lives with his wife Caroline and children Sarah and Will in a small town in the Forest of Dean on the borders of England and Wales.

Websites: www.andrew-taylor.co.uk