Yrsa Sigurðardóttir on the Gold Dagger shortlist for 2024

The novel The Prey by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir is on the UK’s Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger shortlist as the best translated crime novel of 2024. The award, which has been granted since 1955, is considered the most prestigious in the crime fiction world.

On 22 April, twelve books were nominated for the prize, which was then reduced to six this weekend. This was announced at the CrimeFest crime fiction festival in Bristol. Another Icelandic writer was on the longlist, Arnaldur Indriðason, with his book The Girl on the Bridge .

Huge hit in the UK

The Prey was chosen as the best Icelandic crime novel in 2020, and was translated into English by Victoria Cribb.

The book was published in the UK last year and has been a huge hit. The Times chose it as one of the best crime novels of the year, one of three translated novels. The Times, Guardian and Sunday Times all chose the novel as one of the best crime novels published in November.

In The Prey, rescue teams are sent into Lónsöræfi highlands in search of a group of people who are missing.

“Why did they venture to the wilderness during high winter? Why left they the little shelter they had, ill-equipped and vulnerable? At the same time, strange things happen at the radar station in Stokksnes. And there is a hole in the seawater rock that sucks in people,” says on the book’s back-page.

6 books nominated on the shortlist

Apart from The Prey, these books are nominated:

Red Queen by Juan Gó­mez-Jura­do from Spain.

The Sins of our Fathers by Åsa Lars­son from Sweden.

Nothing is Lost by Cloé Mehdi from France.

The Consultant by Im Seong-Sun from South Korea.

My Husband by Maud Ventura from France.