Conor Kerr, Ashley Tate and Thomas King among winners of 2025 Crime Writers of Canada Awards
Tanya Talaga's The Knowing tied for the best nonfiction crime book award
Conor Kerr, Ashley Tate and Thomas King are among the winners of the 2025 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing.
The annual awards, created by the Crime Writers of Canada in 1984, uplift the best in mystery, crime, suspense fiction and crime nonfiction by Canadian authors.
Kerr won the $1,000 best crime novel award for Prairie Edge, which was shortlisted for both the 2024 Giller Prize and the 2024 Atwood Gibson fiction prize.
In Prairie Edge, Isidore (Ezzy) Desjarlais and Grey Ginther live together in Grey's uncle's trailer, passing their time with cribbage and cheap beer. Grey is cynical of what she feels is a lazy and performative activist culture, while Ezzy is simply devoted to his distant cousin. So when Grey concocts a scheme to set a herd of bison loose in downtown Edmonton, Ezzy is along for the ride — one that has devastating, fatal consequences.
Kerr is a Métis/Ukrainian writer who has lived in a number of prairie towns and cities, including Saskatoon. He now lives in Edmonton. A 2022 CBC Books writer to watch, his previous works include the novels Old Gods and Avenue of Champions, which was longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the ReLit award the same year. Kerr currently teaches creative writing at the University of Alberta.
Tate won the $1,000 prize for best first crime novel for Twenty-Seven Minutes.
Twenty-Seven Minutes tells the story of a small town haunted by the death of its golden girl in a tragic accident 10 years earlier. For years, people have wondered why it took her brother 27 minutes to call for help after the car accident. Now, he's bursting with a secret to tell — but he's not the only one with something to hide.
Tate is a Toronto writer and editor. Twenty-Seven Minutes is her debut novel.
King won the $500 Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery for Black Ice.
In Black Ice, Thumps Dreadfulwater has been appointed deputy sheriff and is in over his head. The usual cases of Chinook would be enough to keep him busy, but when ninja assassin Cisco Cruz comes back to town, he finds himself deep in an elaborate web of lies and plots by the evil collective known as Black Ice. If he wants to keep Chinook safe, he'll have to untangle them.
King is a Canadian American writer of Cherokee and Greek ancestry. His books include Truth & Bright Water; Green Grass, Running Water, which was on Canada Reads in 2004; The Inconvenient Indian, which was on Canada Reads in 2015; and The Back of the Turtle, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 2014. He also writes the DreadfulWater mystery series.
Talaga's The Knowing tied for best nonfiction crime writing award with Out of Darkness by Denise Chong.
The complete list of winners is as follows:
- The Miller-Martin Award for best crime novel: Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr
- Best crime first novel: Twenty-Seven Minutes by Ashley Tate
- Best crime novel set in Canada: As We Forgive Others by Shane Peacock
- Whodunit Award for best traditional mystery: Black Ice by Thomas King
- Best crime short story: Hatcheck Bingo by Therese Greenwood
- Best crime novella: The Windmill Mystery by Pamela Jones
- Best French crime book (fiction and nonfiction): Une mémoire de lion by Guillaume Morrissette
- Best juvenile or YA crime book: Shock Wave by Sigmund Brouwer
- Brass Knuckles Award for best nonfiction crime book: Out of Darkness by Denise Chong and The Knowing by Tanya Talaga
- Best unpublished manuscript: Govern Yourself Accordingly by Luke Devlin
