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Cleave wins second Ngaio Marsh Award

Paul Cleave has won the 2015 Ngaio Marsh Award for his novel Five Minutes Alone (Penguin NZ).

This is the second time Cleave has won the award, named after Christchurch mystery writer and theatre director Dame Ngaio Marsh, for the best crime, mystery or thriller novel written by a New Zealand citizen or resident. His previous win was for Blood Men (Bantam) in 2011.

The judging panel said Five Minutes Alone was packed with ‘moral dilemmas, and great writing, pacing, and characters’. ‘Cleave’s prose crackles like a campfire, darkly hypnotic and dangerous,’ said one judge.

The NZ$1000 (A$913) award was presented in Christchurch on 4 October. Also shortlisted this year were The Petticoat Men (Barbara Ewing, Head of Zeus), Swimming in the Dark (Paddy Richardson, Upstart Press / Pan Macmillan Australia), The Children’s Pond (Tina Shaw, Pointer Press) and Fallout (Paul Thomas, Upstart Press / Bitter Lemon Press).

 

Category: Local news