The 2017 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger

We are delighted to announce that the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2017 has been awarded to Mick Herron for his thriller Spook Street, published by John Murray.  Chosen from a very strong shortlist of titles that provided fabulously varied and entertaining reading, Spook Street has been crowned the best thriller published in the UK this year.  Herron has previously been longlisted for the prize with Slow Horses in 2010, and was shortlisted in 2015 for Nobody Walks and in 2016 for Real Tigers.   Spook Street is the fourth in the series featuring the disenchanted spy Jackson Lamb, which began with Slow Horses in 2010.

Described by the judges as ‘The most vividly written spy fiction since Le Carré, Spook Street has a distinctive and idiosyncratic style blending bitter comedy with moments of chilling unease. Pleasingly unique, with intelligently drawn characters plunged into a world where the mythical past of spy craft meets bleak, blunt reality’, Jackson Lamb’s latest adventure is clever, thrilling, funny and beautifully written.

Herron was delighted to win the award, saying: ‘Winning the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger is such a thrill – all spy writers are forever in Fleming’s debt, and any such association with him is to be treasured.  The spies of Spook Street may seem far removed from James Bond, but his is the world they aspire to, just as Fleming’s matchless thrillers provide us lesser writers with something to aim for.  It’s an honour I’ll try to live up to.’

Congratulations to Mick Herron and the John Murray team.