The Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award is a crime-fiction award, sponsored by Theakston's Old Peculier. It is awarded annually at Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in the UK, held every July. The winner receives £3000 and a small hand-carved oak beer cask carved by one of Britain's last coopers. Novels eligible are those crime novels published in paperback any time during the previous year, thus making the shortlists seem more out-of-date than for most prizes. It is also the only such crime-fiction award in the UK to be voted for partly by the public. Decisions of a jury-panel are also taken into account, a fact not-much publicised by the award organisers, who are keen to emphasize the public-voting aspect of the award.
Famous quotes containing the words crime, year and/or award:
“The penalty may be removed, the crime is eternal.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“One of the sadder things, I think,
Is how our birthdays slowly sink:
Presents and parties disappear,
The cards grow fewer year by year,
Till, when one reaches sixty-five,
How many care we’re still alive?”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)