CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2025 – Interview with M.W. Craven
In the run up to the announcement of the winner of the 2025 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, we’ve been talking to the shortlisted authors to find out more about their novels. Read on to learn about M.W. Craven and Nobody’s Hero.
How does it feel to be on the shortlist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger?
As always, it feels astonishing to have even been considered for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. And as the longlist this year was one of the strongest I’ve seen for a long time, just making it onto the shortlist feels like a real achievement. Roll on awards night.
How would you summarise Nobody’s Hero and what inspired you to tell this story?
Nobody’s Hero is the second book in my US-set Ben Koenig series. The first, Fearless, was written ten years earlier, although it wasn’t published until 2023. When I finished writing Fearless, I spent time thinking about what a sequel might look like should it ever see the light of day. I knew I’d want to go bigger and badder, in both scope and action (and humour); and a plot revolving around a well-resourced, highly motivated group hoping to irrevocably destroy the United States fit the bill perfectly. Impossible odds, bone-crunching action and a spattering of inappropriate humour. I think Ian Fleming would have approved . . .
What do you hope readers will take away from your book?
My job as a thriller author is simple – I am supposed to entertain the reader. If I’ve done that, I’ve achieved my goal. If I haven’t, I’ve failed. I like to throw in interesting, but mostly useless facts, I like to offer some light social commentary, and I like to make readers laugh when they’re not really supposed to. But mostly when they reach the end of one of my books, I want them to have enjoyed it.
What is your writing process?
I write Monday-to-Friday (weekends if I’m on a roll or nearing a deadline) and I pretty much stick to the same routine. I get up, have coffee and think about what I’ll be writing that day. At ten a.m. (ish) I start and I don’t finish until around five or six p.m.
I don’t use any writing tools other than my trusty MacBook Air, and my notes, which include research, lines of dialogue, prose, plot points etc, are kept in rough chronological order in a lever arch file. I have an idea of where the story is going, but it often deviates as more interesting directions occur to me. With Nobody’s Hero, the major deviation from the original plan occurred right at the end (a twist that kind of worked perfectly and set up interesting scenarios for future books), pretty much the last page. I then had to retrofit the changes I wanted in the next draft.
What advice would you give to aspiring thriller writers?
Don’t be daunted by what has come before you. Don’t try to copy what has come before you. And most importantly, don’t be limited by what has come before you. It’s fiction – you can write whatever the hell you want. There are no rules when it comes to thrillers and if someone tells you otherwise throw onions at them until they go away.
What is your favourite thriller and why?
It’s either Dr. No by Ian Fleming or The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsythe.
Dr. No because it was Fleming going all in with the sadistic nature of his villain. I don’t think there’s a thriller writer, past or present, who writes villains like Fleming – Julius No, Auric Goldfinger, Blofeld, Hugo Drax (who cheats at cards, you know), all iconic, all eternally memorable.
And The Day of the Jackal because it’s technically flawless and a stunning example of what can be achieved using real world events.
Our thanks to M.W. Craven for answering our questions! The 2025 Daggers winners will be announced on 3 July. Find out more about past winners of the Steel Dagger on the CWA site here, and learn more about the rest of the Daggers and shortlists here.