How many of these Gold Dagger Award winners have you read?

On Friday night, Britain’s Crime Writers Association announced the finalists in five of eight categories for this year’s Gold Dagger Awards, which are given annually to recognize the best in crime and thriller writing.

The shortlists announced on Friday included the finalists in the following categories – International, Nonfiction, Short Story, Debut Daggers and the Dagger in the Library. The other three categories – the Gold Dagger Award for Best Novel, the Ian Fleming Steel Award and the John Creasey Award for Best First Novel – will be announced on July 22.

The International Dagger Award is given to “crime, thriller, suspense or spy fiction novels which have been translated into English from their original language, for UK publication.”

This year’s finalists in that category include:
- The Wings of the Sphinx by Andrea Camilleri
- Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo
- The Saint-Florentin Murders by Jean-Francois
- Three Seconds by Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom
- Rivers of Shadows by Valerio Varesi
- An Uncertain Place by Fred Vargas
- Death on a Galician Shore by Domingo Villar

The Gold Dagger Award for Nonfiction is open to “any nonfiction work on a real-life crime theme or closely-related subject by an author of any nationality, as long as the book was first published in the UK in English between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011.”

This year’s finalists in that category include:
- The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders
- Slaughter on a Snowy Morn by Colin Evans
- The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr
- In the Place of Justice by Wilbert Rideau
- The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo
- Mr. Briggs by Kate Colquhoun

For read about the other finalists that were announced on Friday, visit http://thecwa.co.uk/daggers/2011/index.html.

Back on Feb. 22, I posted a complete list of all the books that have received a Gold Dagger Award for Best Novel. After Friday’s finalists were announced, I looked more closely at the books that have won over the years in the Best Nonfiction category. The name for this award has changed over the years and what follows is a complete list of the all-time nonfiction winners. Here they are:

The CWA Gold Dagger for Nonfiction:
2010 – Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing & the Families’ Pursuit of Justice by Ruth Dudley Edward
2009 – No Award
2008 – Nationality: Wog – The Hounding of David Oluwale by Kester Aspden
2007 – No Award
2006 – The Dagenham Murder by Linda Rhodes, Lee Shelden and Kathryn Abnett
2005 – On the Run by Gregg and Gina Hill
2004 (tie) – Cosa Nostra by John Dickie and The Italian Boy by Sarah Wise
2003 – Pointing from the Grave by Samantha Weinberg

The Macallan Gold Dagger for Nonfiction:
2002 – Dead Man’s Wages by Lillian Pizzichini
2001 – The Infiltrators by Philip Etienne and Martin Maynard with Tony Thompson
2000 – Mr. Blue by Edward Bunker
1999 – The Case of Stephen Lawrence by Brian Cathcart
1998 – Cries Unheard by Gitta Sereny
1997 – The Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton
1996 – The Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Fraser
1995 – Dead Not Buried by Martin Beales

The CWA Gold Dagger for Nonfiction:
1994 – Criminal Shadows by David Canter
1993 – Murder in the Heart by Alexandra Artley
1992 – The Reckoning by Charles Nicholl
1991 – Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair by John Bossy
1990 – The Passing of Starr Faithfull by Jonathan Goodman
1989 – A Gathering of Saints by Robert Lindsay
1988 – The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln by Bernard Wasserstein
1987 – Perfect Murder by Bernard Taylor and Stephen Knight
1986 – Evil Angels by John Bryson
1985 – Killing for Company by Brian Masters
1984 – In God’s Name by David Yallop
1983 – Double Dealer by Peter Watson
1982 – Earth to Earth by John Cornwell
1981 – Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number by Jacobo Timerman
1980 – Conspiracy by Anthony Summers
1979 – Rachman by Shirley Green
1978 – The Mystery of the Princes by Audrey Williamson

The CWA Silver Dagger for Nonfiction:
1979 – Fraud by Jon Connell and Douglas Sutherland
1978 – The Capture of the Black Panther by Harry Hawkes

In the end, how many of these books have you had a chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend and why? Let us know in the comments section below.