Whowunnit? 2024 Ngaio Marsh crime writing award winners announced
NZ's top crime and thriller novels have been named at the annual Ngaio Marsh Awards. Photo / Getty Images
The harrowing realities of jury trials, fiery revenge in Renaissance Florence and a miraculous smalltown girl scooped 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards from a dazzling array of finalists in Christchurch.
Crime and thriller novels, one of the world’s most-popular genres, are often discussed in terms of their puzzling mysteries, high-stakes action, or twisting finales. But at the WORD Christchurch Festival, it was a trio featuring memorable characters under extreme pressure that were celebrated as winners of the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards.
“Cesare Aldo is a gay man at a time and place in history where that sexuality is punishable, potentially by death, depending on the circumstances,” said former Herald journalist DV Bishop, speaking by video about his third mystery Ritual of Fire, set in Renaissance Florence.
“Though he enforces the law, he’s also on the wrong side of the law as far as the law is concerned… So Aldo believes in justice much more than he believes in the rule of law, which makes him a really interesting, multi-faceted character to work with and to write.”
Bishop was one of several 2024 finalists to be “interrogated” during the Ngaio Marsh Awards evening, either in person or by video, by “Bookshop Detectives” Louise and Gareth Ward. With the audience and several finalists (prime suspects) across three categories – Best Kids/YA Book, Best First Novel, Best Novel – in the library setting of Tūranga, it was the sort of classic mystery denouement that may have appealed to Dame Ngaio herself.
But despite Bishop’s lengthy storytelling resume, ranging across many years from comics and graphic novels to radio plays and TV dramas for the BBC, to licensed tie-in novels for Doctor Who and Judge Dredd, he didn’t see last night’s twist coming. Bishop was flabbergasted to learn Ritual of Fire had won the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.
The international judging panel praised Bishop for vividly evoking the glorious but menacing Medici-era Florence, with “convincing historical detail seamlessly woven into a terrific story that captures attention throughout” and crafting great characters.
“Oh gosh, that’s completely unexpected,” he said from his home near a medieval market town in Scotland. “Wow, I’m delighted, and amazed, frankly, because the standard of the books on the longlist this year, let alone among the finalists, was incredible.”
A historical mystery in which court officer Cesare Aldo is banished to the Tuscan countryside, leaving his protégé Strocchi to investigate the murders of rich merchants burned to death in disturbing echoes of a religious sect, Ritual of Fire emerged from a group of Best Novel finalists the international judging panel described as “dazzling” in their quality and diversity.
Fellow finalists included Brighton-based Māori storyteller Jill Johnson’s Devil’s Breath, a first mystery starring neurodivergent professor of botanical toxicology Eustacia Rose, and the long-awaited return of Detective Sam Shephard in Dunedin author and Traitors NZ star Vanda Symon’s Expectant.