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Abigail Dean has won the prestigious KWA Gold Dagger for her novel, The Death of Us. at this year’s Crime Writers Association Awards.
The coveted KAA Gold Dagger, sponsored by Kevin Anderson & Associates is awarded for the best crime novel of the year.
The winners of the prestigious 2026 Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger Awards, which honour the very best in the crime-writing genre, were announced at the CWA gala dinner at De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms, London.
Created in 1955, the world-famous CWA Daggers are the oldest awards in the genre and have been synonymous with quality crime writing for over half a century.
Its aim is to support, promote and celebrate this most durable, adaptable, and successful of genres, both fiction and non-fiction, and the authors who write within it. The CWA runs the prestigious Dagger awards, which celebrate the best in crime writing.
A thriving, growing community with a membership encompassing authors of all ages and at all stages of their careers, the CWA is UK-based, yet attracts many members from overseas.
It supports author members, plus literary agents, publishers, bloggers, and editors with a monthly magazine; a digital monthly newsletter from sister organisation the Crime Readers’Association, showcasing CWA authors’ books and events that goes to circa 12,000 subscribers; and Case Files, a bimonthly ezine highlighting new books by CWA
The winners in full:
CWA KAA Gold Dagger
Abigail Dean The Death of Us (HarperCollins/Hemlock Press)
Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
S. A. Cosby King of Ashes (Headline)
ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction
Susannah Stapleton That Dark Spring (Pan Macmillan/Picador)
Historical Dagger
Nina Allan A Granite Silence (Quercus/riverrun)
Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger
Antti Tuomainen The Winter Job (Orenda Books) translated by David Hackston
Whodunnit Dagger
Mel Pennant A Murder for Miss Hortense (John Murray Press/Baskerville)
Twisted Dagger
Sarah Pinborough We Live Here Now (Orion Fiction)
ILP John Creasey (First Novel) Dagger
Laura McCluskey The Wolf Tree (HarperCollins/Hemlock Press)
Short Story Dagger
Ambrose Perry ‘The Apple Falls Not Far’ (Canongate)
Emerging Author
Michael Nikitin, Blind Side of the Sun
Dagger in the Library
Tim Sullivan
Best Crime & Mystery Publisher
Bitter Lemon Press
Diamond Dagger
Mark Billingham
To view past winners, or find out more, please visit https://thecwa.co.uk/the-daggers
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