# CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction

The CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction also called the ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction is a British literary award established in 1978 by the Crime Writers' Association, who have awarded the CWA Gold Dagger for fiction since 1955. It is sponsored by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society, and is open to "any non-fiction work on a crime-related theme by an author of any nationality as long as the book was first published in the UK in English during the judging period." The prize is a cheque for £1,000 (reduced in 2009 from £2,000) and a decorative dagger.
In 1978 and 1979 only there was also a silver award. From 1995 to 2002 it was sponsored by The Macallan (Scotch whisky brand) and known as The Macallan Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. In 2008 the award was sponsored by Owatonna Media (a London-based literary brand investor and owner). Between 2006 and 2010 it was awarded every other year, in even-numbered years, but in 2011 it returned as an annual award.

## Winners and shortlists

Award winners and shortlists :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher | Result |
| 1978 | Harry Hawkes | The Capture of the Black Panther | | Winner (joint) |
| 1978 | Audrey Williamson | The Mystery of the Princes | | Winner (joint) |
| 1979 | Jon Connell and Douglas Sutherland | Fraud | | Winner (joint) |
| 1979 | Shirley Green | Rachman | | Winner (joint) |
| 1980 | Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan | Conspiracy | | Winner |
| 1981 | Jacobo Timerman | Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number | | Winner |
| 1982 | John Cornwell | Earth to Earth | | Winner |
| 1983 | Peter Watson | Double Dealer: How Five Art Dealers, Four Policemen, Three Picture Restorers, Two Auction Houses and a Journalist Plotted to Recover Some of the World's Most Beautiful Stolen Paintings | | Winner |
| 1984 | David Yallop | In God's Name | | Winner |
| 1985 | Brian Masters | Killing for Company | | Winner |
| 1986 | John Bryson | Evil Angels | | Winner |
| 1987 | Bernard Taylor and Stephen Knight | Perfect Murder | | Winner |
| 1988 | Bernard Wasserstein | The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln | | Winner |
| 1989 | Robert Lindsey | A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Money, Murder and Deceit | | Winner |
| 1990 | Jonathan Goodman | The Passing of Starr Faithfull | | Winner |
| 1991 | John Bossy | Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair | | Winner |
| 1992 | Charles Nicholl | The Reckoning | | Winner |
| 1993 | Alexandra Artley | Murder in the Heart | | Winner |
| 1994 | David Canter | Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer | | Winner |
| 1995 | Martin Beales | Dead Not Buried | | Winner |
| 1996 | Antonia Fraser | The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605 | | Winner |
| 1997 | Paul Britton | The Jigsaw Man (The Remarkable Career of Britain's Foremost Criminal Psychologist) | | Winner |
| 1998 | Gitta Sereny | Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill - The Story of Mary Bell | | Winner |
| 1999 | Brian Cathcart | The Case of Stephen Lawrence | Viking | Winner |
| 1999 | Martin Booth | The Dragon Syndicates | Doubleday | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Stuart S. Kind | The Sceptical Witness | Hodology Ltd. | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Edward Bunker | Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade | No Exit Press | Winner |
| 2000 | Andrew Motion | Wainewright the Poisoner | Faber and Faber | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Errol Trzebinski | The Life and Death of Lord Errol | Fourth Estate | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Tony Barnes | Richard Elias and Peter Walsh, Cocky | Milo Books | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Tony Thompson | Bloggs 19 | Warner Books | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Philip Etienne and Martin Maynard, with Tony Thompson | The Infiltrators: the First Inside Account of Life Deep Undercover with Scotland Yard's Most Secret Unit | Penguin | Winner |
| 2001 | Adrian Weale | Patriot Traitors: Roger Casement, John Amery and the Real Meaning of Treason | Viking Press | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Zacaria Erzinçlioglu | Maggots, Murder and Men: Memories and Reflections of a Forensic Entomologist | Harley Books | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Lillian Pizzichini | Dead Man's Wages: The Secrets of a London Conman and His Family | Picador | Winner |
| 2002 | Julian Earwaker and Kathleen Becker | Scene of the Crime: a Guide to the Landscapes of British Detective FictionJudged to be outside the scope of the award but worthy of commendation | Aurum | Special mention |
| 2002 | Don Hale, with Marika Huns and Hamish McGregor | Town Without Pity: the Fight to Clear Stephen Downing of the Bakewell Murder | Century | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Miranda Carter | Anthony Blunt, His Lives | Macmillan | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Samantha Weinberg | Pointing from the Grave: a True Story of Murder and DNA | Hamish Hamilton | Winner |
| 2003 | Chandak Sengoopta | Imprint of the Raj: the Colonial Origin of Fingerprinting and its Voyage to Britain | Macmillan | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Donald Thomas | An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War | John Murray | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Erik Larson | The Devil In The White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America | Doubleday | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Michael Bilton | Wicked Beyond Belief: the Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Peter Walsh | Gang War: the Inside Story of the Manchester Gangs | Milo Books | Shortlist |
| 2004 | John Dickie | Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia | Hodder & Stoughton | Winner |
| 2004 | Sarah Wise | The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London | Jonathan Cape | Winner |
| 2004 | Mende Nazer and Damian Lewis | Slave: The True Story of a Girl's Lost Childhood and her Fight for Survival | Time Warner | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Rebecca Gowers | The Swamp of Death: A True Tale of Victorian Lies and Murder | Hamish Hamilton | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Steve Holland | The Trials of Hank Janson | Telos Publishing | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Gregg and Gina Hill | On The Run: a Mafia childhood | Hutchinson | Winner |
| 2005 | Bella Bathurst | The Wreckers: A Story of Killing Seas, False Lights, and Plundered Shipwrecks. | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Eric Jager | The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France | Century | Shortlist |
| 2005 | James Owen | A Serpent in Eden: The Greatest Murder Mystery of All Time | Little, Brown | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Sadakat Kadri | The Trial: a history from Socrates to O. J. Simpson | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Linda Rhodes, Lee Sheldon, and Kathryn Abnet | The Dagenham Murder: The Brutal Killing of PC George Clark, 1846 (The Borough of Barking and Dagenham) | | Winner |
| 2006 | Nuala O'Faolain | The Story of Chicago May | Michael Joseph | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Sebastian Junger | A Death in Belmont | Fourth Estate | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Sister Helen Prejean | The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions | Canterbury Press | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Sue Williams | And Then the Darkness: The Fascinating Story of the Disappearance of Peter Falconio and the Trials of Joanne Lees | John Blake | Shortlist |
| 2006 | William Queen | Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America's Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang | Mainstream | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Not awarded. It was decided that the award was to become a biennial award. | Not awarded. It was decided that the award was to become a biennial award. | Not awarded. It was decided that the award was to become a biennial award. | Not awarded. It was decided that the award was to become a biennial award. |
| 2008 | Kester Aspden | Nationality: Wog - The Hounding of David Oluwale | Random House | Winner |
| 2008 | David Rose | Violation: Justice, Race and Serial Murder in the Deep South | HarperPress | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Duncan Staff | The Lost Boy | Bantam Press | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Francisco Goldman | The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed Bishop Gerardi | Atlantic Books | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Kate Summerscale | The Suspicions of Mr Whicher The Murder at Road Hill House | Bloomsbury | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Peter Zimonjic | Into the Darkness: 7/7 | Vintage Books | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Not awarded as award had become biennial. | Not awarded as award had become biennial. | Not awarded as award had become biennial. | Not awarded as award had become biennial. |
| 2010 | Ruth Dudley Edwards | Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing & the Families' Pursuit of Justice | Harvill Secker | Winner |
| 2010 | Alex McBride | Defending the Guilty | Penguin / Viking | Shortlist |
| 2010 | David R. Dow | Killing Time | Heinemann | Shortlist |
| 2010 | David Cesarani | Major Farran's Hat | Heinemann | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Douglas Preston, with Mario Spezi | The Monster of Florence: A True Story | Virgin / Random House | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Jeff Guinn | The True, Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde | Simon & Schuster | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Douglas Starr | The Killer of Little Shepherds | Simon & Schuster | Winner |
| 2011 | Colin Evans | Slaughter on a Snowy Morn | Icon Books | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Judith Flanders | The Invention of Murder | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Kate Colquhoun | Mr Briggs' Hat | Little, Brown | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Michael Capuzzo | The Murder Room | Michael Joseph | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan | The Eleventh Day | Transworld | Winner |
| 2012 | Ben Lopez | The Negotiator | Little, Brown | Highly commended |
| 2012 | David Smith with Carol Ann Lee | Witness | Mainstream | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Gavin Knight | Hood Rat | Pan Macmillan | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Leaf Fielding | To Live Outside the Law | Serpent’s Tail | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Misha Glenny | Dark Market | Vintage | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Paul French | Midnight in Peking | Penguin / Viking | Winner |
| 2013 | Richard Hoskins | The Boy in the River | Pan Macmillan | Highly commended |
| 2013 | Carol Ann Lee | A Fine Day for a Hanging | Mainstream | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Clive Stafford Smith | Injustice: Life and Death in the Courtrooms of America | Random House | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Diana Souhami | Murder at Wrotham Hill | Quercus | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Mukesh Kapila with Damien Lewis | Against a Tide of Evil | Mainstream | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark | The Siege | Viking | Winner |
| 2014 | Damien Echols | Life After Death: Eighteen Years on Death Row | Atlantic Books | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Jeff Guinn | Manson | Simon & Schuster | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Kate Colqhoun | Did She Kill Him? | Little, Brown Book Group | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Paul Lewis and Rob Evans | Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police | Faber and Faber | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Samantha Geimer | The Girl | Simon & Schuster | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Dan Davies | In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile | Quercus | Winner |
| 2015 | Ǻsne Seierstad | One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway | Virago | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Bryan Stevenson | Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption | Scribe | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Iain Overton | Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of the Gun | Canongate | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Jill Leovy | Ghettoside: Investigating a Homicide Epidemic | Bodley Head | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Paul Fischer | A Kim Jong il Production | Penguin | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Andrew Hankinson | You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat] | Scribe | Winner |
| 2016 | Adam Sisman | John le Carré: The Biography | Bloomsbury | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Luke Harding | A Very Expensive Poison | Faber and Faber | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Martin Edwards | The Golden Age of Murder | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Thomas Grant | Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories | John Murray | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Wensley Clarkson | Sexy Beasts: The Hatton Garden Mob | Quercus | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Stephen Purvis | Close but No Cigar: A True Story of Prison Life in Castro's Cuba | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | Winner |
| 2017 | A. T. Williams | A Passing Fury: Searching for Justice at the End of World War II | Jonathan Cape | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Anja Reich-Osang | The Scholl Case: The Deadly End of a Marriage | Text Publishing | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Gary Younge | Another Day in the Death of America | Guardian / Faber and Faber | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Kate Summerscale | The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer | Bloomsbury | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Simon Farquhar | A Dangerous Place | The History Press | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Thomas Harding | Blood on the Page | William Heinemann | Winner |
| 2018 | Alexandria Mariano-Lesnevich | The Fact of a Body | Macmillan | Shortlist |
| 2018 | David Grann | Killers of the Flower Moon | Simon & Schuster | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Laura Thompson | Rex v Edith Thompson | Head of Zeus | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Piu Eatwell | Black Dahlia Red Rose | Coronet | Shortlist |
| 2018 | T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong | A False Report | Hutchinson | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Ben MacIntyre | The Spy and the Traitor | Viking | Winner |
| 2019 | Claire Harman | Murder by the Book | Viking | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Hallie Rubenhold | The Five | Doubleday | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Kirk Wallace Johnson | The Feather Thief | Hutchinson | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Mikita Brottman | An Unexplained Death | Canongate | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Sue Black | All That Remains | Doubleday | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Casey Cep | Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee | William Heinemann | Winner |
| 2020 | Adam Sisman | The Professor and the Parson | Profile Books | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Caroline Goode | Honour: Achieving Justice for Banaz Mahmod | Oneworld Publications | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Peter Everett | Corrupt Bodies | Icon Books | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Sean O'Connor | The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury | Simon & Schuster | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Susannah Stapleton | The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective | Picador | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Sue Black | Written in Bone | Doubleday, Penguin | Winner |
| 2021 | Andrew Harding | These Are Not Gentle People | MacLehose | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Becky Cooper | We Keep the Dead Close | William Heinemann, Penguin | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Ben MacIntyre | Agent Sonya | Viking, Penguin | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Debora Harding | Dancing with the Octopus | Profile Books | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Nick Hayes | The Book of Trespass | Bloomsbury | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Julia Laite | The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A True Story of Sex, Crime and the Meaning of Justice | Profile Books | Winner |
| 2022 | Ben Machell | The Unusual Suspect | Canongate | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Gwen Adshead | The Devil You Know | Faber and Faber | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Julie Kavanagh | The Irish Assassins | Atlantic Books; Grove Press UK | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Patrick Radden Keefe | Empire of Pain | Pan Macmillan; Picador | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Thomas Morris | The Dublin Railway Murder | Penguin Random House; Harvill Secker | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Wendy Joseph | Unlawful Killings: Life, Love and Murder: Trials at the Old Bailey | Transworld | Winner |
| 2023 | Amit Katwala | Tremors in the Blood | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2023 | David Whitehouse | About a Son | Orion Publishing Group | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Julie Mackay | To Hunt a Killer | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Martin Edwards | The Life of Crime | HarperCollins | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Stephen Bates | The Poisonous Solicitor | Icon Books | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Nicholas Shakespeare | Ian Fleming: The Complete Man | Vintage | Winner |
| 2024 | Michael Finkel | The Art Thief | Simon & Schuster | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Matt Johnson with John Murray | No Ordinary Day | Ad Lib Publishers | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Jennifer McAdam with Douglas Thompson | Devil’s Coin | Ad Lib Publishers | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Alex Mar | Seventy Times Seven | Bedford Square Publishers | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Jennifer Robinson and Keina Yoshida | How Many More Women? | Endeavor | Shortlist |