A Sad Loss

We are very sorry to report the sudden death of Miriam Owen who has been part of the Petrona Judging Team for several years. Miriam was well known, respected and loved, particularly in the Scandi-crime world, and we will miss her and her expertise very much.

Fellow judge and friend Ewa Sherman shared this photo from Iceland Noir 2014 and with her permission I've included it below.

As regards this year's Petrona, with the kind permission of the CWA, Petrona Award co-creator and former judge, and current judge for the Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger, Sarah Ward will be helping out with the first round of judging. We may recruit a guest judge at the long/shortlist stage if required. We hope to have a new full-time judge in place for Petrona 2025.

Miriam and Ewa, 2014.

Judging Panel Announced

The judging panel for this year's Petrona Award has been announced. The judges will be meeting shortly to determine the shortlist which will be taken from this list.

We are very grateful for the continuing sponsorship by David Hicks.

Judging Panel Announced for The 2019 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year

The Petrona Award team would like to extend a warm welcome to our new judge, crime fiction expert and well-known blogger Raven Crime Reads. Raven has been a bookseller for 17 years and brings a wealth of critical expertise to the judging panel and we are delighted to welcome her on board.

Raven joins Dr Kat Hall and Sarah Ward on the judging panel for the 2019 Petrona Award.

Barry Forshaw, one of our founding judges, has stepped down to work on his magnum opus, Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide – which, he tells us, will have a large Nordic Noir section. We would like to thank Barry for his enormous contribution to our judging panels over the past five years, and for his help in making the Petrona Award such a success since its creation in 2013.