Derek B Miller with Dagger (Faber)

Debut authors Derek B Miller and Roger Hobbs have tonight picked up coveted CWA Dagger awards at the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

The CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year went to Dead Lions by Mick Herron (Soho Crime). The second book in British author Herron’s Slough House trilogy, about the place where MI5 sends its disgraced or incompetent agents, was awarded five stars by CFL in June.

Derek B Miller’s Norwegian by Night (Faber and Faber) was named winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger for best new crime writer. The US author, who lived in Oslo, won for a sparkling debut novel about an 83-year-old former US marine on the run from the Kosovan militia with a six-year-old boy in Norway. Again, CFL gave it the five star treatment and tipped it to win.

The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year was presented to US author Roger Hobbs for Ghostman (Transworld). The author, who’s still in his mid-20s, completed the first draft of the book while still at college.

There were also awards for film and TV drama and several Daggers have already been presented to authors in international and historical categories. A recorded TV broadcast of the ceremony will air on ITV3 in the UK at 9pm on Sunday, 27 October.

The full list of nominees for the three Dagger awards presented at the ceremony is below:

The CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year
Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer (Bantam/Transworld)
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (HarperCollins)
Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman (Orion)
Dead Lions by Mick Herron (Soho Crime) – WINNER

The CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger for best new crime writer of the year
Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller (Faber and Faber) – WINNER
Something You Are by Hanna Jameson (Head of Zeus)
The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter by Malcolm Mackay (Mantle)
Shadow of the Rock by Thomas Mogford (Bloomsbury)

The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year
Ghostman by Roger Hobbs (Transworld) – WINNER
Ratlines by Stuart Neville (Random House)
The Sentinel by Mark Oldfield (Head of Zeus)
Capital Punishment by Robert Wilson (Orion)