CWA DAGGER SPECIALS - Paul Burke chats to Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger Winner MARK BILLINGHAM, Bread & Circuses - agitprop, Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, Stand Up, TV writing, Tom Thorne, Declan Miller, taking control with fiction.
Diamond Dagger sponsored by Karen Baugh Menuhin
The most prestigious Dagger of all, awarded for a lifetime contribution to English-language crime writing.
The Shadow Step: It's Detective Miller's deadliest dance...
The Shadow Step: One taken simultaneously by a pair of dancers facing the same direction, one of them behind and slightly shifted leftwards ('in the shadow')
Typically, such a step perfectly demonstrates synchronized elegance. It showcases a couple in near telepathic harmony with one another. It does not normally end with someone stone-dead in a lake.
DS Declan Miller is a magnet for strange cases, but how can he catch a killer when the man confessing to the crime is clearly innocent? Things rapidly escalate when the murder that isn't really a murder at all attracts the unwanted attention of a drugs Queenpin, a deranged ex-squaddie and a lovesick gangland enforcer. Then a student is kidnapped...
Throw in a wobbly dog, a pair of ceramic leopards and the distracting smell from a local biscuit factory, and - if he wants to save a young man's life - Miller has little choice but to waltz all the way into the shadows.
Mark Billingham is one of the UK's most acclaimed and popular crime writers. A former actor, television writer and stand-up comedian, his series of novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has twice won him the Crime Novel Of The Year Award as well as the Sherlock Award for Best British Detective and been nominated for seven CWA Daggers. His standalone thriller IN THE DARK was chosen as one of the twelve best books of the year by the Times and his debut novel, SLEEPYHEAD was chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 books that had shaped the decade. Each of his novels has been a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller. A television series based on the Thorne novels was screened in Autumn 2010, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne and a BBC series based on the standalone thrillers IN THE DARK and TIME OF DEATH was shown in 2017. Mark is also a member of Fun Lovin' Crime Writers. Performing alongside Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Stuart Neville, Doug Johnstone and Luca Veste, this band of frustrated rockers murders songs for fun at literary festivals worldwide.
Paul Burke is the editor of Crime Time FM. His first book Spies on Screen: From Silent to Streaming will be published in 2026.
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