Harrogate International Festivals has announced the 18 titles longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2026, now in its twenty second year.
The longlist, voted for by an academy of journalists, reviewers, booksellers, bloggers, podcasters and industry representatives, showcases stories that transport readers from gangland Yorkshire to a haunted Dartmoor country house, from wartime Glasgow to a remote Scottish island, and features a host of remarkable sleuths – from the world’s first AI detective, to a time-travelling cold case investigator.
The full Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2026 longlist (in alphabetical order by surname) is:
- What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah (HarperCollins, HQ Fiction)
- The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani (Profile Books, Viper)
- The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer (Penguin Random House, Bantam)
- What The Night Brings by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown Book Group, Sphere)
- Human Remains by Jo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster)
- The Death of Us by Abigail Dean (HarperCollins, Hemlock Press)
- The Chemist by A.A. Dhand (HarperCollins, HQ Fiction)
- Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney (Pan Macmillan, Pan Fiction)
- The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths (Quercus Books)
- The Examiner by Janice Hallett (Profile Books, Viper)
- The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins (Penguin Random House, Doubleday)
- Clown Town by Mick Herron (John Murray Books, Baskerville)
- Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan (Bonnier Books, Zaffre)
- Paperboy by Callum McSorley (Puskin Press, Vertigo)
- The Good Liar by Denise Mina (Penguin Random House, Harvill)
- Gunner by Alan Parks (John Murray Books, Baskerville)
- We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough (Orion Publishing Group, Orion Fiction)
- A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins, Hemlock Press)
Five former winners are vying for top honours at this year’s Awards, including 2024 champion Jo Callaghan, who is longlisted for Human Remains, the third in her highly original series featuring detective duo DCS Kat Frank and her AI colleague Lock, alongside Belinda Bauer for The Impossible Thing, a historical mystery set in the world of rare egg trafficking. Both Jo Callaghan and Belinda Bauer are alumni of the Festival’s acclaimed ‘New Blood’ initiative supporting outstanding new voices. Also nominated are Denise Mina’s The Good Liar, a taut conspiracy thriller where a blood spatter expert is caught in a deadly dilemma about whether to reveal a miscarriage of justice, and Mark Billingham’s What the Night Brings, a pulsating Tom Thorne thriller where a series of targeted murders against police officers lead to an investigation into betrayal and vengeance. They are joined by Mick Herron who is longlisted for Clown Town, the latest instalment in the bestselling Slough House series, which sees a gang of washed-up spooks entangled in a dangerous game of blackmail with its roots in the Irish Troubles. Highly commended in 2023, Elly Griffiths receives an impressive eleventh longlisting for The Frozen People, the first in a new series with a time-travelling spin, as an unsolved mystery takes a cold cases investigator back to the freezing London of 1850.
Among the six hugely talented writers longlisted for the first time are Tariq Ashkanani, nominated for The Midnight King¸ a breathtaking thriller exploring the dark legacy of a serial killing author after his death, and Kia Abdullah for What Happens in the Dark, a courtroom drama about nightmare neighbours and how far ordinary people will go to defend loved ones. Also longlisted are We Live here Now by Sarah Pinborough, a twisty, genre-bending take on the haunted house mystery, set on Dartmoor, and Paperboy by Callum McSorley, an inventive, fast-paced and blackly comic slice of Glasgow Noir. They are up against A.A. Dhand’s gangland thriller, The Chemist where a community pharmacist finds himself in the middle of a turf war between two powerful Yorkshire drug cartels, and Alice Feeney’s Beautiful Ugly, a magnetic thriller about marriage and revenge set on a remote Scottish island.
This year’s longlist showcases an extraordinary range of crime fiction subgenres. Vaseem Khan’s Quantum of Menace, a witty James Bond spin-off where a reimagined Q investigates the suspicious death of a scientist friend after losing his job at MI6, is nominated alongside Paula Hawkins’ atmospheric ‘locked room’ style mystery set on a tidal Scottish island, The Blue Hour. Joining them on the longlist are Abigail Dean’s psychological thriller The Death of Us, exploring trauma, grief and survival though the impact of a horrendous crime on one couple’s relationship, and Janice Hallet’s The Examiner, an intricate mystery set in an art college, where a student is killed and suspicion falls on their dysfunctional classmates.
Completing the 2026 line-up are two historical thrillers set in the Second World War. Gunner by Alan Parks sees a wounded former detective drawn into the case of a mutilated German found in Glasgow’s bomb wreckage, and A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor, set in a boarding school haunted by the ghost of a dead teacher whose replacement attempts to unmask the killer.
The Award is presented by Harrogate International Festivals and sponsored by T&R Theakston Ltd, in partnership with Waterstones and Daily Express, and is open to full-length crime novels published in paperback between 1 May 2025 to 30 April 2026.
Crime fiction fans are now invited to help whittle 18 down to 6 by voting for their favourite novels to reach the shortlist, with the winner of the coveted Award announced on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on July 23. Readers can vote now at www.harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com. Voting closes on 28 May, with the shortlist announced on 18 June.
Once the shortlist is announced, readers will have the chance to vote again to help determine the winner. The winner will be revealed on the opening night of Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Thursday 23 July, at a special awards ceremony hosted by Steph McGovern. They will receive £3,000 and a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by T&R Theakston Ltd.
