Colin Cotterill - recommended read

This year, I got the chance to be a judge again for the Crime Writers Association Dagger in the Library Award. This involved reading an awful lot of crime books throughout the Spring, then meeting my fellow judges for a long lunch in London, where we thrashed out our shortlist. Writers for this Dagger are nominated by libraries and book groups, and all the judges are librarians. It's a good category to read as it's for writers who have already produced a few books, but are still 'up and coming', and every year we discover some gems.

This year's winner was the wonderful Colin Cotterill, who has set a series of books in Laos, 1975. His hero is a 75-year old state coroner. Not the usual recipe for a crime book, but the setting is very interesting and the main character's sardonic wit really makes the books special. Me and some of the other judges went to the awards ceremony in London in July. We wern't expecting our winner to be there, as he lives in Thailand, so we were thrilled when he appeared from the back of the room to pick up his prize. And he turned out to we an all-round nice guy into the bargain - here's a picture of me and my fellow judges mobbing him. (He's the one at the back holding his award).

Just a bit of gentle name dropping....

I am doggedly ploughing through C.J. Sansom's Winter in Madrid, a tale set against the backdrop of WW2 and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. I thought I'd really like this but it's failing to set me alight. Historically interesting - and this author's a pretty serious historian - but it just seems to be plodding a bit too slowly and ponderously along. Or maybe it's just me, not in the right frame of mind for it.

C.J. Sansom (who really is a great writer notwithstanding my slight whinge) was our runner-up in the Dagger in the Library Award, which I need to name-drop here since I'm just back from the swanky awards dinner in London. Guest of honour was Gyles Brandreth, who gave a faintly insane but entertaining speech. I think he's writing something where Sherlock Holmes and Oscar Wilde form a crime-busting duo, if I understood right?! Our winner was Craig Russell, an author I'd never read before the Dagger. He's Scottish but sets his books in Hamburg. The setting is really interesting, the characters good and the stories gory, so I commend him to this blog! And he was a nice man, and let us hold his Dagger. This is him in the middle, with me and my fellow judges.