CWA Historical Dagger

This award is for the best historical crime novel (in the opinion of the judges), first published in the UK in English during the judging period. The novel can be set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made. For novels that involve passages set later than this time period, at least three quarters of the book should be set in an earlier period.

WINNER 2023

The darkest sin

Bishop, D. V. ISBN: 9781529038842
Paperback / softback

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Florence. Spring, 1537. When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the Renaissance city's northern quarter, he enters a community divided by bitter rivalries and harbouring dark secrets. When a man's body is found deep inside the convent, stabbed more than two dozen times, the case becomes even more complicated. Unthinkable as it seems, all the evidence suggests one of the nuns must be the killer. Meanwhile, Constable Carlo Strocchi finds human remains pulled from the River Arno that belong to an officer of the law missing since winter. The dead man had many enemies, but who would dare kill an official of the city's most feared criminal court?As Aldo and Strocchi close in on the truth, identifying the killers will prove more treacherous than either of them could ever have imagined . . . 

- Browns Books Synopsis

The CWA is a thriving, growing community and a broad church. Its membership encompasses writers of all kinds of ‘crime’ – embracing procedural, psychological, all types of thriller, cosy, noir and even supernatural and fantasy cross-over. Writers of all crime-related non-fiction, including true crime, are welcomed too. Authors are of all ages and at all stages of their careers,from young debuts to established veterans, and while the CWA is UK-based, it attracts many members from overseas.