THE SILENCE OF THE SEA by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir tr. Victoria Cribb (Hodder & Stoughton; Iceland)
The winner was announced tonight at the annual international crime fiction event CrimeFest, held in Bristol. The award was presented by the Godmother of modern Scandinavian crime fiction, Maj Sjöwall, co-author with Per Wahlöö of the Martin Beck series.
I haven’t read this one yet, but it must be a very good novel to beat out the four novels that I did read from a strong shortlist.
CRIME SCRAPS REVIEW 
I’d like to read an explanation of why this book was chosen. I say this as a fan of Yrsa’s series.
But you gave a compelling argument for The Hummingbird and another blogger preferred Huntng Dogs. So I’d like to see why this book was chosen, in particular, i.e. atmosphere, plot, characters, etc.
Kathy I have finished reading the book and am composing a short post on the subject in the next few days.
Kathy, me too. I am reading Camille at the moment, but then I will start Yrsa’s Petrona winner and see if I think it is a better book than Hummingbird or The Human Flies, which was also brilliant.
Thanks. I bought The Human Flies which I’ll read after I finish a book by Honey Brown and Long Way Home by Eva Dolan, my kind of book — interesting plot, social issues about mistreatment of immigrants and very well-developed detectives. Her publisher is the same one that publishes works by Mankell, Indridason and Vargas.
I think I’ll read The Hummingbird as you recommend as I like women detectives, as did Maxine Clarke. And I may read The Hunting Dogs.