Character first: The 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists

From a young Māori chef to a grieving family torn asunder by internet disinformation, wartime spies to comical Northland drug runners, the finalists for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards offer readers a kaleidoscopic array of unforgettable characters, fictional and real, among compelling tales full of mystery and thrills, touching on vital issues of modern times and eras past.

'In our fifteenth anniversary season of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, we’ve been blessed with a fascinating range of entries across our three categories, from a diverse array of Kiwi voices and stories, styles, and settings, making our international judging panels’ jobs both very enjoyable and at times very tricky,' says Ngaio Marsh Awards founder Craig Sisterson. Now in their sixteenth season, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate excellence in mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense writing from Aotearoa storytellers. The 2025 finalists were announced today in Best Non-Fiction, Best First Novel, and Best Novel categories. 'As the likes of Val McDermid and Dennis Lehane have said, if you want to better understand a place, read its crime fiction,' says Sisterson. 'Crime writing in its wider sense can deliver interesting insights alongside rollicking entertainment, and is an ideal form for delving into people and place, as well as broader societal issues. And in our case with the Ngaios, we certainly see that across both our fiction and non-fiction entries and finalists.' The Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Non-Fiction is a biennial prize first presented in 2017, and previously won by Michael Bennett, Kelly Dennett, Martin van Beynen, and Steve Braunias.

From a fascinating array of 2025 entrants, this year’s six finalists explore some truly remarkable real-life tales, ranging from a fresh look at New Zealand’s most infamous cold case to the little-discussed deadly legacy of a 1930s Devonport nurse. The finalists are: THE TRIALS OF NURSE KERR by Scott Bainbridge (Bateman Books) THE SURVIVORS by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins) THE CREWE MURDERS by Kirsty Johnston & James Hollings (Massey Uni Press) THE LAST SECRET AGENT by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin) GANGSTER’S PARADISE by Jared Savage (HarperCollins) FAR NORTH by David White & Angus Gillies (Upstart Press) This year’s finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, an annual award first presented in 2016, and won last year by Rotorua author Claire Baylis for DICE, her extraordinary novel providing a jury-eyed-view of a sexual assault case, are: DARK SKY by Marie Connolly (Quentin Wilson Publishing) LIE DOWN WITH DOGS by Syd Knight (Rusty Hills) A FLY UNDER THE RADAR by William McCartney THE DEFIANCE OF FRANCES DICKINSON by Wendy Parkins (Affirm Press) THE CALL by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin) KISS OF DEATH by Stephen Tester (Heritage Press) 'It’s really heartening each year to see the range of new voices infusing fresh perspectives into the crime and thriller backstreets of our local literary landscape,' says Sisterson. This year that ranges from a mystery set at Tekapo's Mt John Observatory to a legal thriller set against the Spanish flu epidemic, from a blackly comic crime caper from a Devonport lawyer to the gritty first novel from one of our most acclaimed screen storytellers. Lastly, the finalists for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel, selected by an international panel of crime and thriller experts from a remarkable 15-book longlist, are: RETURN TO BLOOD by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster) A DIVINE FURY by DV Bishop (Macmillan) WOMAN, MISSING by Sherryl Clark (HarperCollins) HOME TRUTHS by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin) 17 YEARS LATER by JP Pomare (Hachette) THE CALL by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin) PREY by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books) 'It’s a dazzling group of finalists to emerge from a terrific longlist, and a fascinating broader group of entries that seems to get deeper and stronger every year,' says Sisterson. 'Our international judges were full of praise for the entire longlist, and remarked on the world-class writing as well as compelling storytelling in many books that didn’t become finalists, as well as the overall variety within #yeahnoir, our Kiwi take on a globally popular genre.' The 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists will be celebrated and this year’s winners announced at a special event, 'The Ngaio Marsh Awards and The Murderous Mystery', to be held in association with WORD Christchurch at Tūranga on Thursday, 25 September. The thrilling evening includes an improv murder mystery performance by the famed Court Theatre.