Recent necrology, August/September 2015

Some well-known people who have died recently

• Dorothy Butler, 1925-2015
  New Zealand children’s author, bookseller and reading advocate

• George Cole, 1925-2015
  English actor best known as the devious and conniving Arthur Daley in the TV series Minder

• Jackie Collins, 1936-2015
  Novelist who redefined the ‘blockbuster’ genre with her tales of bad behaviour in Hollywood

• Alexander Faris, 1921-2015
  Composer who wrote the theme tune for Upstairs, Downstairs and orchestrated music for Pavarotti

• Jack Gold, 1930-2015
  British film director

• John Guillermin, 1925-2015
  Film director who specialised in all-star disaster melodramas and was a hard taskmaster on set

• P. J. Kavanagh, 1931-2015
  English poet

• Stephen Lewis, 1926-2015
  British comedy actor

• David Nobbs, 1935-2015
  British novelist and comedy writer

• W. H. Oliver, 1925-2015
  Eminent New Zealand historian and poet who led the development of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

• Oliver Sacks, 1933-2015
  British neurologist and author

• John Scott, 1956-2015
  English organist and choirmaster

• Brian Sewell, 1931-2015
  Colourful critic who waged wittily acerbic war against the inanities of modern conceptual art

• Susan Sheridan, 1947-2015
  British actress and voice artist

• David Willcocks, 1919-2015
  Choirmaster who redefined the sound of British choral music and once played the piano under heavy shell fire in Normandy

• Phil Woods, 1931-2015
  Jazz saxophonist who, influenced by Charlie Parker, became a dedicated exponent of the complex bebop style

Paul Cleave wins the 2015 Ngaio Marsh Award

Congratulations to Paul Cleave who on Sunday 4 October was revealed as the winner of the 2015 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel for his book Five Minutes Alone.

Cleave beat a strong field of 4 other finalists – Barbara Ewing, Paddy Richardson, Tina Shaw, and Paul Thomas – and is a fitting winner in many ways:

• he is a Christchurch local; what could be more appropriate for a prize named after Christchurch’s own Queen of Crime?
• his books have sold over a million copies worldwide and have been translated in several languages;
• he is the first author to have won the gong twice. He first won in 2011 for his book Blood Men and has been shortlisted every year since;
• he has the perfect name for a crime writer. Proof? Check out the title of the post on the Kiwi Crime Watch blog: “Contenders get Cleave-d in historic Ngaio Marsh victory“.

Yet, interestingly, Cleave was apparently surprised to win and has been reported as having said in his acceptance speech that New Zealanders hold Kiwi writers to a higher standard than they do international authors.

As a lily-livered reader of only the coziest of mysteries (Mma Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is my Goldilocks measure), I have not been brave enough to sample any of Cleave’s nine novels. Therefore I would really love to hear your opinions. Do you think that Kiwi crime writing, and Cleave’s specifically, is on a par with the best in the field internationally? What attracts you or puts you off reading New Zealand crime novels?

Previous winners of the Ngaio Marsh Award:

• Search our catalogue for more books by Paul Cleave
• Read our 2008 interview with Paul Cleave
• Check out our Ngaio Marsh Award page to see previous winners and finalists
• Browse the Ngaio Marsh Award Facebook page and Twitter account for more details and photos of this year’s Award ceremony