Daggers Drawn

Maxim Jakubowski is a noted anthology editor based in London, just a mile or so away from where he was born. With over seventy volumes to his credit, including Invisible Blood, thirteen annual volumes of The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries, and titles on Professor Moriarty, Jack the Ripper, Future Crime, and Vintage whodunits. A publisher for over twenty years, he was also the co-owner of London’s Murder One bookstore and the crime columnist for Time Out and then The Guardian for twenty-two years. Stories from his anthologies have won most of the awards in the field on numerous occasions. He is currently the Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and a Sunday Times bestselling novelist in another genre.

Ian Rankin, a New York Times bestselling author, is the recipient of an Edgar Award, a Gold Dagger for fiction, and a Chandler-Fulbright Fellowship.

Jeffery Deaver is the New York Times bestselling author of nineteen suspense novels, including The Blue Nowhere and The Bone Collector, which was made into a feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He has been nominated for three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and is a two-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year. A lawyer who quit practicing to write full-time, he lives in California and Virginia.

John Connolly is a New York Times bestselling author known for his detective Charlie Parker mysteries and supernatural and fantasy novels. His twenty-five novels, nonfiction, and short stories have won the Agatha, Barry, Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, as well as being finalists for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, H. R. F. Keating Award, and Bram Stoker Award.

John Harvey, best known as a writer of crime fiction, his work translated into more than twenty languages, is also a dramatist, poet, publisher, and occasional broadcaster. The first of his Charlie Resnick novels, Lonely Hearts, was named by the Times as one of the “100 Best Crime Novels of the Century.” The recipient of honorary doctorates from the Universities of Nottingham and Hertfordshire, Harvey was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement in 2007.

Denise Mina is the author of twenty novels, including the Reese's Book Club pick Conviction and its sequel Confidence, as well as The Second Murderer, The Less Dead, The Long Drop—winner of the 2017 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year—and the Garnethill trilogy, the first installment of which won the John Creasey Memorial Award for best first crime novel, among others. Mina has twice received the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. She lives in Glasgow.

Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime author and novelist. His nonfiction book, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators, won the Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Book of 2022. He has received the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honor in British crime writing, given for the sustained excellence of his contribution to the genre. His Lake District mystery series have been optioned by ITV. Renowned as the leading expert on the history of Golden Age detective fiction, he won the Crimefest Mastermind Quiz three times and possesses one of Britain’s finest collections of Golden Age novels. Elected to the Detection Club in 2008, he became the first archivist of the club and is also archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association.

Peter Lovesey (1936–2025) wrote more than thirty highly praised mystery novels, including the Peter Diamond mysteries, the Sergeant Cribb historical mysteries, and the Bertie Prince of Wales novels. His book have won the British Crime Writers’ Association Silver and Gold Dagger awards, the Cartier Diamond Dagger, the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, and the Strand Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award. In the United States, his books won an Anthony Award, a Macavity Award, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, among others. He was named a Grand Master of the Swedish Academy of Detection and a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master.

Stella Duffy was born in London, grew up in New Zealand, and now lives in London. She is the author of seven literary novels, including The Room of Lost Things and State of Happiness, both of which were Longlisted for the Orange Prize. The Room of Lost Things won the Stonewall Writer of the Year 2008, and she won the Stonewall Writer of the Year 2010 for Theodora. She is also the author of the Saz Martin detective series. She has written over 45 short stories, including several for BBC Radio 4, and won the 2002 CWA Short Story Dagger for Martha Grace. Her ten plays include an adaptation of Medea for Steam Industry, and Prime Resident and Immaculate Conceit for the National Youth Theatre (UK). In addition to her writing work she is an actor and theatre director.

Cath Staincliffe is an established novelist, radio playwright, and the creator of ITV’s hit series, Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin as Detective Inspector Janine Lewis. Cath’s books have been shortlisted for the British Crime Writers Association best first novel award and for the Dagger in the Library and selected as Le Masque de l’Année. Cath is one of the founding members of Murder Squad—a group of Northern crime writers who give readings, talks, and signings around the country. Cath was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK and now lives in Manchester, Lancashire with her partner and children.

Margaret Murphy writes internationally acclaimed psychological thrillers. A past Chair of the Crime Writers Association (CWA), the founder of Murder Squad, and a former RLF Writing Fellow and Reading Round Lector, she’s been a country park ranger, a biology teacher, a dyslexia specialist, and a visiting professor in creative writing. A Short Story Dagger and CWA Red Herring award winner, she has also been shortlisted for the “First Blood” Critics Award and the CWA Dagger in the Library.

Larry Beinhart is the award-winning author of Wag the Dog, which inspired the film starring Robert DeNiro, as well as several other novels, including Salvation Boulevard and No One Rides for Free.

Richard Lange is the author of the story collections Dead Boys and Sweet Nothing and the novels This Wicked World and Angel Baby. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the International Association of Crime Writers' Hammett Prize, and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Los Angeles.

Maxwell Caulfield is a film, stage, and television actor best known for his roles as Michael Carrington in the 1982 film Grease 2 and Miles Colby in the television shows The Colbys and Dynasty. His other acting credits include the films Gettysburg, The Real Blonde, and Emmerdale. He has won six AudioFile Earphones Awards.

Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.

Justine Eyre has turned her passion for reading and remarkable facility with accents into her dream career. This classically trained, multilingual actress has narrated well over 400 audiobooks and has been honored to receive a coveted Audie Award and multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards. Appearing in leading roles onstage in King Lear and The Crucible, she has also graced the screen in Two and Half Men and Mad Men amongst her many television credits.

Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.

John Lee, is a stage actor, writer, and a coproducer of feature films. An AudioFile Golden Voice narrator, he is the winner of numerous Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards.

Juliet Mills is a highly acclaimed actress. She won an Emmy Award for QB VII and a Tony nomination for her role in Five Finger Exercise, and was one of the stars of the daytime drama show Passions.

Kate Orsini is a native of Talladega, Alabama. She earned a double major in Theatre and French Literature from Vassar College. She’s performed on stage, in film, and on TV. She currently recurs on NCIS: LA, and stars in the Zoom episodic, “The Corona Dialogues,” produced by Bonnie Hunt, for which she won Best Actress at the London Independent Film Festival.

John Rubinstein is an actor, composer, and director who won a Tony Award for his starring role in Broadway’s Children of a Lesser God. He has narrated dozens of audiobooks, earning several AudioFile Earphones Awards and being named a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2013.

Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and a multiaward-winning narrator, named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices.