For those of you who like the crime genre...my friend, Michael Robotham, just won the CWA (Crime Writers Association)"Golden Dagger" award for 2015.

I am so pleased for him and I think he deserves it as he is a very good author. He won it for his book "Life or Death" (which I really enjoyed).

He beat Stephen King, Ruth Rendell and JK Rowling (writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) among others!

That is so great! I am proud to be the friend of a friend who can do that too!
Do you think he won for a specific reason, originality of plot, style etc, or just an overall better book!

Congratulations to your friend, Mother Goose. I'm not sure how Stephen King and J K Rowling rank in the traditional crime genre, but to outdo Ruth Rendell is certainly a magnificent achievement.

The submissions or nominations relate to specific works.

Stephen King's was for "Mr Mercedes" and JK Rowling's (under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) was for "The Silkworm". I assume they must have met the eligibility criteria (whatever they are) as I have not read either one of these books.

Ruth Rendell's book was "The Girl Next Door".

Other authors whose works were considered this year included well-known authors such as Kathy Reichs, Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen, Peter Lovesey, Patricia Cornwell, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Connelly, Dean Koontz, Val McDermid etc.

If anyone is interested in the list of authors and the specific works considered, here is the link to the Awards list.

http://thecwa.co.uk/the-daggers/categories/goldsboro-gold/

I really don't know. However, the plot has an interesting premise which provided the "tagline" for the book: "Why would a man escape from prison the day before he's due to be released?"

Michael said he saw a newspaper article about a man who escaped from prison a few days before he was due to be released anyway, and it made him wonder about the reasons why somebody might do that, and that was the inspiration for the book.

That's quite an honor - the winners are always good books.

Now I am intrigued! Don't be a Books forum mod, you'll end up broke!

That's amazing!