Fingerprint Awards Finalists Announced
2 September 2022
Voted for by crime and thriller fans, the nominees for Capital Crime’s Fingerprint Awards have been announced with Ulverscroft titles across four categories.
Crime Book Of The Year
1979 by Val McDermid
Published in large print in April 2021.
It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom and she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously.
Soon Allie and fellow journalist Danny Sullivan are exposing the criminal underbelly of respectable Scotland. They risk making powerful enemies - and Allie won't stop there.
When she discovers a home-grown terrorist threat, Allie comes up with a plan to infiltrate the group and make her name. But she's a woman in a man's world...and putting a foot wrong could be fatal.
The Appeal by Janice Hallett
Published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in November 2021.
Dear Reader - enclosed are all the documents you need to solve a case. It starts with the arrival of two mysterious newcomers to the small town of Lockwood, and ends with a tragic death. Someone has already been convicted of this brutal murder and is currently in prison, but we suspect they are innocent. What's more, we believe far darker secrets have yet to be revealed. Throughout the Fairway Players' staging of All My Sons and the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick's life-saving medical treatment, the murderer hid in plain sight. Yet we believe they gave themselves away. In writing. The evidence is all here, between the lines, waiting to be discovered. Can you uncover the truth?
Girls Who Lie by Eva Björg Ægisdottir
Published in large print in August 2021 and published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in July 2021.
When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she's taken her own life...until her body is found in the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected 15-year-old daughter Hekla has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister? Fifteen years earlier, a desperate new mother lies in a maternity ward, unable to look at her own child, the start of an odd and broken relationship that leads to a shocking tragedy. Police officer Elma and her colleagues take on the case, which becomes increasingly complex, as the number of suspects grows and new light is shed on Maríanna's past - and the childhood of a girl who never was like the others...
Slough House by Mick Herron
Published in large print in August 2021 and published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in March 2021.
A year after the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from Novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath. Meanwhile, Slough House has been wiped from Service records, and fatal accidents keep happening. No wonder Jackson Lamb's crew are feeling paranoid. With a new populist movement taking a grip on London's streets, and the old order ensuring that everything's for sale to the highest bidder, the world's an uncomfortable place for those deemed surplus to requirements. The wise move would be to find a safe place and wait for the troubles to pass. But the slow horses aren't famed for making wise decisions.
Thriller Book Of The Year
A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins
Published in large print in September 2021.
Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She's seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous.
Miriam knows that, just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, it doesn't mean she's a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace?
Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill.
Dead Ground by M. W. Craven
Published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in July 2021.
Detective Sergeant Washington Poe is in court, fighting eviction from his beloved croft, when he is summoned to a backstreet brothel in Carlisle where a man has been beaten to death with a baseball bat. As Poe and the socially awkward programmer Tilly Bradshaw delve deeper into the case, they are faced with seemingly unanswerable questions: why does nothing in the victim's background check out? Why was a small ornament left at the murder scene - and why did someone on the investigation team steal it? And what is the connection to a flawlessly executed bank heist three years earlier?
The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
Published in large print in September 2021.
Midsummer 2017: Teenage mum Tallulah heads out on a date, leaving her baby son at home with her mother, Kim. At 11 p.m. she sends her mum a text message. At 4.20 a.m. Kim awakens to discover that Tallulah has not come home. Friends tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a pool party at a house in the woods nearby called Dark Place.
Tallulah never returns.
2018: Walking in the woods behind the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started as head teacher, Sophie sees a sign nailed to a fence.
A sign that says: Dig here...
Last Thing To Burn by Will Dean
Published in large print in August 2021 and published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in February 2021.
He is her husband. She is his captive. Her husband calls her Jane. That is not her name.
She lives in a small farm cottage, surrounded by vast, open fields. Everywhere she looks, there is space. But she is trapped. No one knows how she got to the UK: no one knows she is there. Visitors rarely come to the farm; if they do, she is never seen.
Her husband records her every movement during the day. If he doesn't like what he sees, she is punished.
For a long time, escape seemed impossible. But now, something has changed. She has a reason to live and a reason to fight. Now, she is watching him, and waiting...
Debut Book Of The Year
Girl A by Abigail Dean
Published in large print in June 2021.
Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped. When her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her six siblings - and with the childhood they shared.
Genre-Busting Book Of The Year
The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor
Published in large print in April 2021 and published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in February 2021.
Reverend Jack Brooks and daughter Flo are looking for a fresh start and Chapel Croft appears the perfect place. But this village has a dark and dangerous history. Five hundred years ago, eight Protestant martyrs were burnt at the stake. Thirty years ago, two girls disappeared without a trace. And two months ago, the last vicar committed suicide - but not before leaving a message for Jack. Jack must uncover the truth, or risk sacrificing the village to the evils that lie within. But the truth is hard to find, when everyone has something to hide. And as long-buried secrets of Jack's own resurface, faith alone will not save them...