2025 winners of CWC Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing

Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) has announced the  2025 winners of the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing.

This year,  the The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book was awarded as a tie between Denise Chong’Out of Darkness: Rumana Monzur’s Journey through Betrayal, Tyranny and Abuse and Tanya Talaga’s The Knowing. The 10 awards also include prizes for a best unpublished manuscript and best short story.

The Miller-Martin Award for Best Crime Novel

• Conor Kerr, Prairie Edge (Strange Light/Penguin Random House Canada)

Best Crime First Novel

• Ashley Tate, Twenty-Seven Minutes (Doubleday Canada)

Best Crime Novel Set in Canada

• Shane Peacock, As We Forgive Others: Northern Gothic Mysteries (Cormorant Books)

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery

• Thomas King, Black Ice: A DreadfulWater Mystery (HarperCollins Publishers)

Best French Language Crime Book

• Guillaume Morrissette, Une mémoire de lion (Saint-Jean)

Best Juvenile / YA Crime Book

• Sigmund Brouwer, Shock Wave (Orca Book Publishers)

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book

• Denise Chong, Out of Darkness: Rumana Monzur’s Journey through Betrayal, Tyranny and Abuse (Random House Canada)
• Tanya Talaga, The Knowing (HarperCollins Publishers)

Best Unpublished Crime Novel manuscript written by an unpublished author

• Luke Devlin, Govern Yourself Accordingly

Best Crime Novella

• Pamela Jones, The Windmill Mystery (Austin Macauley Publishers)

Best Crime Short Story

• Therese Greenwood, “Hatcheck Bingo”; The 13th Letter, Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem (Carrick Publishing)

The awards come with varying prize purses: the winners of the Miller-Martin Award for Best Crime Novel and Best Crime First Novel each receive $1,000; the winners of the Best Crime Novel Set in Canada, The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery, and the Best Unpublished Crime Novel are awarded $500 each; the winner of Best Crime Novella receives $200; and the winner of the Best Juvenile / YA Crime Book receives $250.

Sponsors of the prizes are Shaftesbury, ECW Press, David Reid Simpson Law Firm, Carrick Publishing, Melodie Campbell, the Boreal Benefactor and another anonymous donor.

Past winners of the awards include Amanda Peters, Joan Thomas, Nita Prose, and Cherie Dimaline in 2024, and such major Canadian crime writers as Mario Bolduc, Gail Bowen, Stevie Cameron, Howard Engel, Louise Penny, and Peter Robinson.

William H. Deverell was also announced as the recipient of the 2025 Derrick Murdoch Award at the time of the shortlist announcement in April.